Hasta La Gadget!

The weather isn’t cooperating at the moment, but NASA is poised to launch its highly-anticipated Ares I-X rocket this morning. As Space.com reports, the rocket is designed both to replace the aging space shuttle and–perhaps one day–transport humans to Mars.

To commemorate the event, NASA built the booster stage from parts previously flown on 30 shuttle missions, including the one that launched the Hubble Space Telescope, according to the report.

Currently, winds are a little heavy at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. But NASA has until noon today to launch the rocket before rescheduling. The rocket won’t actually enter space; instead, it will follow a 28-mile-high, five minute flight profile while over 700 sensors record its performance, according to the report. (Image credit: NASA)

Get ready to duck (again). The Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest particle accelerator, has now reached an operating temperature of 1.9K–colder than outer space itself, according to Ars Technica.

That means the LHC will soon be ready to begin crashing particles together, after a catastrophic failure and series of repairs over the past year took the accelerator out of commission.

The current prognosis is that the LHC will begin operations sometime in the next five weeks. It will accelerate particles at speeds very close to the speed of light. In effect, they’d run around the 16.7-mile length of the accelerator over 11,000 times per second, the report said. That necessitates the accelerator contain a vacuum that’s an order of magnitude less dense than the moon’s atmosphere. In other words, this is tough stuff, so let’s give those guys a break about that whole catastrophic failure thing. (Image credit: CERN)

Ready for some interplanetary exploration? We’ve had the force shields, currency, and refuel stations all sorted out for a while, and now here come the ion thrusters we’ve been missing to make manned trips to Mars really viable. Currently, a return journey to Mars can take up to two years, with crew members having to wait a full year for the planets to realign, but with ion propulsion — which uses electricity to accelerate ions and produce small but longevous thrust — ships can get there within a reasonably tight 39-day window. Ion propulsion rocket engines were first deployed successfully by NASA in the Deep Space 1 probe in 1998, and the latest iteration’s successful Earth-bound testing has led to plans for a flight to the moon and use on the International Space Station as test scenarios for the technology. It’s all still very much in the early stages, of course, but should all that testing, checking, and refinement bear fruit, we might finally have a whole new world to colonize and sell sneakers on.

[Thanks, Davis]

Filed under: Transportation, Science

Ion propulsion engine could take you to Mars in 39 days originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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At last! The new Arex I-X rocket—the first iteration of the rocket that will take humans back to the Moon and beyond—is out of NASA’s assembling facilities, and is now at Launch Pad 39B, getting ready for launch.

The assembled Ares I-X was mounted aboard NASA’s sandcrawler at Kennedy’s Vehicle Assembly Building at 1:39 a.m. It arrived at Launch Pad 39B around 7:45 a.m.

The Ares I-X will test the viability of the 100-meter high Ares I, NASA’s tallest, most powerful rocket since the Saturn V. The Saturn V was ten meters higher than Ares, and it remains the biggest, most powerful rocket ever launched.

If everything goes well, Ares I-X will blast into the sky on October 27, reaching 40 kilometers up in the air, and sending vital information about its performance. The first stage, a solid rocket engine, will return to Earth. The dummy upper stage will fall down to the ocean.

Arex I-X is the first major milestone for the Constellation program, which in theory would take over the shuttle, and also bring humans back to the Moon and Mars. If el Sr. Presidente gives the go ahead, that is. At this point, the Constellation program is being evaluated by the Augustine Commission. Their final report, that will seal its fate, will be handed in to the White House this week.

In other words, enjoy this one while it lasts. [NASA]

Like Mark said, the much-anticipated Moon bombing fireworks have been a major letdown. The good news is that it happened: NASA has released the actual money shot, showing the impact flash. Just don’t expect a Ron Jeremy G22-sized bang:

In the gallery you can also see the infrared sensor view of the tiny flash. According to NASA, the mission was a success, but I’m still a little big suspicious that nobody was able to catch the 50-mile plume of gas and debris on video. Was everyone looking in the wrong direction? We will see what results this brings in the coming days. [NASA]