Jun 21

Lifechanger: Astronaut Leroy Chiao’s Coffee Maker [Lifechanger]

Posted in: NASA, space, Today's Chili, top

What was my Lifechanger? Hmmmm…iPhone? iPad? Macbook Pro? Let’s dig back a little deeper…Airplane? The1MB original-style Mac (with external 20 MB hard disk), on which I wrote my Ph.D. thesis? Radio Shack TRS-80? Nope, it was a coffee maker! More »

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Jun 05

Something Hits Jupiter Again; Shades of 1994?

Posted in: NASA, science, space, Space Tech, Today's Chili
NASA_Jupiter_Impact.jpg
An enterprising amateur astronomer in Australia picked up something interesting Thursday: a big bright flash on the surface of Jupiter.
It turns out that an asteroid struck the gas giant and burned up in the planet’s atmosphere, an observation later confirmed by other astronomers, according to the Associated Press.
“When I saw the flash, I couldn’t believe it,” said amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley in the article. “The fireball lasted about 2 seconds and was very bright.”
This guy is pretty good, it turns out; last year, he was the first to spot a scar “the size of the Pacific Ocean” on Jupiter’s surface. That’s actually the one pictured above; we’re still waiting for photos of the current impact.
Back in 1994, comet Shoemaker-Levy struck the surface of Jupiter, marking the first time the collision of two solar system bodies have ever been observed.
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Jun 04

SpaceX Falcon 9 Rockets Into Orbit

Posted in: NASA, science, space, Space Tech, Today's Chili
SpaceX_Rocket_CNN.jpg
And we have liftoff: the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida Friday in its first launch test, CNN reports, after an earlier aborted attempt just seconds before ignition.
SpaceX, the brainchild of Paypal and Tesla co-founder Elon Musk, is a commercial venture that could eventually ferry astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station. Those trips could end up much less expensive than NASA’s 30-year-old shuttle program.
“It’s time for NASA to hand that over to commercial industry who can then optimize the technology and make it more reliable, make it much lower cost and make it much more routine,” Musk said in the report.
SpaceX’s $1.6 billion contract calls for 12 missions.
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May 28

Pentagon Warns of Space Junk Collisions

Posted in: gps, military, NASA, politics, satellite, science, space, Space Tech, Today's Chili
NASA_Space_Junk.jpg
The Department of Defense has issued a warning in its Interim Space Posture Review that the amount of space junk orbiting the earth has “reached a critical tipping point,” one that could result in a series of chain-reaction collisions that “brings everyday life on Earth to a grinding halt,” according to Popular Science.
That may be overstating the case slightly, but it’s still an important issue. Here’s the situation: there are about 1,100 satellites orbiting the earth right now. Contrast that to about 370,000 pieces of space junk orbiting the earth, ranging from lost nuts and bolts from spacewalks, to entire decommissioned satellites–all speeding around at about 4.8 miles per second, the report said.
The Pentagon warned that a collision–numerically probable at some point–could generate thousands of pieces of additional junk, which could then cause additional crashes, and so on. This has actually happened a few times in the past, notably with a defunct Russian satellite in 2009 and an errant Chinese missile back in 2007.
A collision could cripple communications, along with civilian and military GPS systems, and the resulting debris clouds could seriously inhibit future satellite deployments, according to the article. (Image credit: NASA)
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May 27

Japan building a robot moon base in 2020, and you’re not invited

Posted in: Japan, robot, space, Today's Chili

Not content with the sheer badassery of sending a humanoid robot to the moon in 2015, Japan has just unveiled a mission for 2020 that will involve setting up a whole robotic moon base. It will be unmanned in the flesh-and-blood sense, but will be populated with a 660 pound rolling bot. The station will be self-powered, and will let its citizen roam over 60+ miles of terrain, gathering scientific samples that can be sent back to earth. While rocks are great, we’re even more excited about the HDTV the station will be beaming back as well. The whole project will run somewhere in the ballpark of $2.2, and will be developed simultaneously with Japan’s manned moon program. We’re going to get working on our “I’m 660 pound a scientific exploration robot” costume right away.

Japan building a robot moon base in 2020, and you’re not invited originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 May 2010 21:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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May 27

Scientist: Europas Ice-Covered Oceans Full of Oxygen

Posted in: NASA, science, space, Space Tech, Today's Chili
NASA_Europa.jpg
Europa’s icy waters may contain enough oxygen to support various kinds of lifeforms–including more than just the microbial kind.
We already know that Europa, arguably Jupiter’s most interesting moon, contains a global ocean that runs about 100 miles deep, with an icy crust on top, as Space.com reports. For years, scientists have theorized that the moon could support extraterrestrial life, at least in microbial form.
Richard Greenberg, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at Tucson, and the author of Unmasking Europa: The Search for Life on Jupiter’s Ocean Moon, explained in the article that an oxygen-rich layer of ice at the top could actually extend down much further than thought, and could reach the oceans underneath.
Greenberg found that as the ice on the base of the oxygenated crust melts, even with the most conservative assumptions, “after only a half-million years oxidant levels in the ocean would reach the minimum oxygen concentration seen in Earth’s oceans”–enough to support small crustaceans, according to the article.
“I was surprised at how much oxygen could get down there,” Greenberg said in the report. He added that we wouldn’t necessarily have to land a probe on the planet to detect the oxygen more directly, as telescope-based spectroscopy from Earth could help shed further light on the subject. (Image credit: NASA/JPL)
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May 27

USAF Plane Breaks Hypersonic Flight Record

Posted in: military, science, space, Space Tech, Today's Chili
USAF_X51A_Waverider.jpg
The United States Air Force’s X-51A Waverider, an experimental aircraft, has set a new record for hypersonic flight: Mach 6.
The craft flew at six times the speed of sound for three minutes and 20 seconds, according to the Associated Press. A B-52 Stratofortress released the X-51A Waverider off the southern California coast on Wednesday, whereupon the craft’s scramjet engine accelerated it to Mach 6.
“We are ecstatic to have accomplished many of the X-51A test points during its first hypersonic mission,” said Charlie Brink, an X-51A program manager with the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, in the article. “We equate this leap in engine technology as equivalent to the post-World War II jump from propeller-driven aircraft to jet engines.”
The previous record for a hypersonic scramjet burn was just 12 seconds, according to the report. (Rendered image credit: USAF)
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May 19

How to Make Your Credit Card Obey Your Every Desire [Tricks]

Posted in: space, Today's Chili, top

Credit cards are great to pay for shiny things and get further in debt. But you can also make their concierge services to obey your every desire, from finding an out-of-stock gadget to a bathtub full of cheese. Here’s how. More »

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May 18

Got Plans for Doomsday? Reserve Your Bunker Here

Posted in: Miscellaneous Tech, security, space, Space Tech, Today's Chili
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Del Mar, Calif.-based Vivos has a plan for anyone fearing doomsday: buy space in a bunker underneath the Mojave Desert. Just in case, of course.
The company promises that for $50,000, buyers can get a four-person room in a nuke-proof bunker that features an atrium, a gym, and a jail, plus an on-site restaurant, as the Associated Press reports.
So far, Vivos claims that it has collected deposits on fully half of the 132 spaces available in the 13,000 square-foot bunker–presumably from folks worried about the world ending in 2012, terrorism, asteroid collisions, and other omnipresent bugaboos common to life in the 21st century.
“I’m careful not to promote fear. But sooner or later, I believe you’re going to need to seek shelter,” said company owner Robert Vicino in the report.
The bunker resides in an undisclosed location to prevent freeloaders from finding it. Reservations cost $5,000 for each adult and $2,500 for each kid, and pets are free, according to the article. The line forms here.
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May 14

Spacecraft to Conduct Massive Experiment–With Lasers

Posted in: NASA, science, space, Space Tech, Today's Chili
NASA_LISA_Lasers.jpg
NASA and ESA are planning to launch three spacecraft into orbit around the sun some three million miles apart, and then have them shoot lasers at each other, Popular Science reports.
You may want to stop for a moment and just bask in the coolness of that idea. Back yet? The purpose of this project will be to prove one last part of Einstein’s theory of relativity: the existence of gravitational waves, or “huge ripples in time and space that flow outwards from the collision of huge celestial bodies like black holes,” as the report said.
To do this, NASA and ESA will deploy LISA, the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna; it consists of three spacecraft that will fire lasers at each other and measure the relative positions of floating cubes of gold and platinum alloy–with a precision of 40 millionths of a millionth of a meter.
The project is set for launch in 2020.
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