28 February 2005
+ 0 - 1 | § ¶Saturn Portrait
Using images sent back by Cassini, NASA's JPL has put together
"The Greatest Saturn Portrait ... Yet". Available in incredibly high-res versions, the assembled image shows the planet in an extremely-high-detail complete picture.
+ 1 - 0 | § ¶X Prize History
And the era of private spaceflight is now on pause, as
SpaceShipOne is being prepared for its permanent home in the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, where it will be displayed after making an appearance in Oshkosh, Wis. this summer. With SS1 mothballed, there are now no flightworthy private spacecraft for the time being, a situation which many organizations hope to rectify soon, though possibly not for a couple of years. Rutan had said that SS1 might fly again before becoming a museum piece, but obviously has changed his mind. Still, there's no question that the spacecraft has earned a place in the NASM.
+ 1 - 0 | § ¶JAXA Aims For Moon
No disrespect intended towards JAXA at all, but
I'll believe this when I see it:
TOKYO - Japan plans to start building a manned base on the moon and a manned space shuttle within the next 20 years, a newspaper report said Monday.
Japan's space agency, JAXA, is drawing up plans to develop a robot to conduct probes on the moon by 2015, then begin constructing a solar-powered manned research base on the planet and design a reusable manned space vessel like the U.S. space shuttle by 2025, the Mainichi Shimbun said.
24 February 2005
+ 1 - 0 | § ¶Now You Don't
Per Space.com:
Astronomers have discovered an invisible galaxy that could be the first of many that will help unravel one of the universe's greatest mysteries.
The object appears to be made mostly of "dark matter," material of an unknown nature that can't be seen.
+ 0 - 1 | § ¶Such A Timeless Flight
Joining the ranks of announced commercial spacelines is
Rocket Plane, which says it will begin carrying passengers into space in early 2007. The company plans to use a delta-wing spaceplane that crosses the space altitude limit for a suborbital flight.
Although I don't see it in the story, the design seems like it would be idea for place-to-place suborbital flights that could greatly reduce transcontinental travel times.
+ 1 - 0 | § ¶Now You Don't
Per Space.com:
Astronomers have discovered an invisible galaxy that could be the first of many that will help unravel one of the universe's greatest mysteries.
The object appears to be made mostly of "dark matter," material of an unknown nature that can't be seen.
+ 1 - 0 | § ¶Such A Timeless Flight
Joining the ranks of announced commercial spacelines is
Rocket Plane, which says it will begin carrying passengers into space in early 2007. The company plans to use a delta-wing spaceplane that crosses the space altitude limit for a suborbital flight.
Although I don't see it in the story, the design seems like it would be idea for place-to-place suborbital flights that could greatly reduce transcontinental travel times.
23 February 2005
+ 0 - 1 | § ¶Evidence Mounts Update
So now some European scientists have weighed in on the
pro-life (er, you know what I mean) side of the Mars debate, in light of the recent ice pack revelations.
+ 1 - 0 | § ¶Scotty On Mars
In partial answer to a question Jordan asked here a while back: Apparently,
NASA pulled a "Scotty" with the Mars rovers.
+ 1 - 1 | § ¶Evidence Mounts Update
So now some European scientists have weighed in on the
pro-life (er, you know what I mean) side of the Mars debate, in light of the recent ice pack revelations.
22 February 2005
+ 1 - 0 | § ¶Dust In The Wind
Self-portraits of the Mars rovers taken in December show the accumulation of dust on
Spirit's solar panels which is reducing the amount of power the rover can generate (and which has been posited as a leading contender for the rovers' eventual cause of death). The accumulation is particularly apparent in comparison to
Opportunity.
+ 0 - 1 | § ¶Evidence Mounts Update
The scientists involved in the Space.com story about evidence of life on Mars have said
the story was inaccurate and misrepresented their work.
On a related note, from
MarsDaily:
A frozen sea surviving as blocks of pack ice may lie just beneath the surface of Mars, the New Scientist magazine said Monday citing observations from Europe's Mars Express spacecraft.
+ 1 - 0 | § ¶RTF Update
As predicted last week,
May 15 has officially been set as the STS-114 launch date. The next major milestone: The ET and SRB will be stacked on Friday, to be joined about three weeks later by Discovery.
The sidebar launch countdown has been adjusted accordingly. T -82 days. And counting.
+ 1 - 0 | § ¶Dust In The Wind
Self-portraits of the Mars rovers taken in December show the accumulation of dust on
Spirit's solar panels which is reducing the amount of power the rover can generate (and which has been posited as a leading contender for the rovers' eventual cause of death). The accumulation is particularly apparent in comparison to
Opportunity.
+ 1 - 0 | § ¶Evidence Mounts Update
The scientists involved in the Space.com story about evidence of life on Mars have said
the story was inaccurate and misrepresented their work.
On a related note, from
MarsDaily:
A frozen sea surviving as blocks of pack ice may lie just beneath the surface of Mars, the New Scientist magazine said Monday citing observations from Europe's Mars Express spacecraft.
+ 1 - 0 | § ¶RTF Update
As predicted last week,
May 15 has officially been set as the STS-114 launch date. The next major milestone: The ET and SRB will be stacked on Friday, to be joined about three weeks later by Discovery.
The sidebar launch countdown has been adjusted accordingly. T -82 days. And counting.
18 February 2005
+ 1 - 0 | § ¶Today In History
Today marks the
75th Anniversary of the discovery of Pluto by Clyde Tombaugh (at the time the only planet discovered by an American, and still the only one in our solar system).
Today also marks the 28 anniversary of the first captive-carry flight of the Space Shuttle Enterprise atop a 747.
+ 0 - 1 | § ¶RTF Update
NASA is another step closer to Return to Flight as
another CAIB recommendation has been crossed off the to do list. The RTF Commission has determined that the agency has fully complied with the recommendation to develop better methods for inspecting the wing panels between missions.
17 February 2005
+ 0 - 1 | § ¶Today In History
On this date in 1959, the first weather satellite, Vanguard 2, was launched, and sent back the first images of Earth from orbit.
The launch marked the one year anniversary of the first appearance of the comic strip "B.C." (which, in turn, marked Dagwood and Blondie's 25th anniversary).
+ 2 - 0 | § ¶Titanic Craters
New data and images have been released from
Cassini's Titan flyby earlier this week, which revealed new features both familiar and alien.
+ 1 - 1 | § ¶Evidence Mounts
Per Space.com:
A pair of NASA scientists told a group of space officials at a private meeting here Sunday that they have found strong evidence that life may exist today on Mars, hidden away in caves and sustained by pockets of water.
The scientists, Carol Stoker and Larry Lemke of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, told the group that they have submitted their findings to the journal Nature for publication in May, and their paper currently is being peer reviewed.
Addendum: Here's
an opposing view from New Scientist.
16 February 2005
+ 0 - 1 | § ¶RTF Update
OK, so make that 88 days from
today:
Shuttle managers want launch pushed back a day.
(Though I'm not changing the sidebar until its official.)
15 February 2005
+ 1 - 0 | § ¶AERAspace?
collectSPACE just posted an announcement by the AERA Corporation, which claims it will be
the first commercial group to carry passengers into space. Make of it what you will.
Keywords: altspace,collectspace,hype,space
+ 1 - 0 | § ¶RTF Update
When I posted my Return to Flight update yesterday, I forgot to point out that it was only three months until the scheduled launch date.
As of today, we're at T -88 days.
And counting.
14 February 2005
+ 1 - 0 | § ¶Deux Machina
Per Red Nova:
DEEP in the basement of a dusty university library in Edinburgh lies a small black box, roughly the size of two cigarette packets side by side, that churns out random numbers in an endless stream.
At first glance it is an unremarkable piece of equipment. Encased in metal, it contains at its heart a microchip no more complex than the ones found in modern pocket calculators.
But, according to a growing band of top scientists, this box has quite extraordinary powers. It is, they claim, the 'eye' of a machine that appears capable of peering into the future and predicting major world events.
+ 1 - 0 | § ¶Today In History
On this date 15 years ago, Voyager 1 took the
first ever portrait of our solar system looking back from beyond it.
Also on this date, five years ago, the NEAR spacecraft became the first man-made object to orbit an asteroid. (Appropriately enough for Valentine's Day, the asteroid was
Eros.)
+ 1 - 0 | § ¶RTF Update
Amidst some public concerns that failure to have a workable TPS repair system ready for the STS-114 mission means that NASA has not met its RTF requirement, the agency recently received
a valuable endorsement, from CAIB chair Adm. Gehman: "As far as the CAIB is concerned, we think they have fulfilled their requirements and that they are diligently working on all the things we asked them to, to the degree that once it passes their internal return to flight certification, we think that they've done their job."
+ 0 - 1 | § ¶Martians?
From Space.com:
With each passing day, those peppy robots on Mars – Spirit and Opportunity – churn out extraordinary new views of the red planet. Each android is over a year in operation, relaying a steady stream of eye-catching photos.
And more than once, the Mars machinery has sent back an image that stirred up a promising eureka moment: Finding evidence for life on that remote world.
11 February 2005
+ 1 - 0 | § ¶Back On Solid Ground
For anyone who has ever wanted to see
tiny fuzzy video of astronauts singing about Superman, today is your lucky day. (Safari users and others may need to go the right-click "Save Linked File As..." route.)
10 February 2005
+ 0 - 1 | § ¶Acting Administrator
No word yet on who the new NASA administrator will be (I've heard a couple of possibilities, but none worth passing on), but, for what it's worth,
astronaut Fred Gregory will serve as the acting administrator starting next week. Gregory has held NASA's number two spot as deputy administrator since 2002.
+ 1 - 0 | § ¶Rosaviakosmos Calling
So now Russia is apparently
going door-to-door selling its new spacecraft. A mock-up of the planned Klipper spacecraft will be on display in France in June. The Russian space agency is now saying that the Klipper could be used not only for ISS-type LEO missions, but also for lunar missions.
09 February 2005
+ 1 - 0 | § ¶Soyuz Wanna Buy A Bag?
I promised last week that I'd provide an update on buying the Soyuz iPod or Blackberry and cell phone cases, and here it is. With these links, not only can you buy the bags from a great source, but you can help support ATW in the process! I've already ordered my cell phone case, and can't wait 'til it arrives.
+ 0 - 1 | § ¶Magnificent Desolation
panoramas.dk has posted
beautiful full-screen wrap-around QuickTime VR panoramas from Apollo missions, letting you see what it would be like to stand on the surface of the moon and look around you.
+ 0 - 1 | § ¶Latest Hubble News
From The Spoof:
FORT SILL, OK (STARS & STRIPES) Within moments of the Bush Administration's failure to fund repairs to the NASA Hubble Space Telescope, an order was given to the US Army 30th Field Artillery Regiment to shoot down the aging telescope from its orbit around the earth.
+ 0 - 1 | § ¶United Federation
You know, it's just kind of cool to me that we live in a time in which a
Personal Spaceflight Federation has been established. The new group is a coalition of various commercial spaceflight interests which will be involved in the establishment of safety standards and will promote commercial spaceflight.
08 February 2005
+ 0 - 2 | § ¶Boldly Go
Well, I've registered to win a flight on Virgin Galactic, as advertised during the Super Bowl, and I would strongly discourage all of my readers from doing the same.
+ 1 - 1 | § ¶Other Earths
OK, remember all the big deal last year about how extrasolar planets around the size of Neptune had been discovered? About how that brought us closer to the possibility of discovering Earth-like planets in other solar systems?
Did you know that
worlds the size of Earth had already been discovered? Me neither.
Turns out astronomers recently discovered an object about one-fifth the size of Pluto 1,500 light years away. It's in a system in which three roughly Earth-size planets had been discovered well over a decade ago. Part of their relative anonymity stems from the fact that they orbit a pulsar that is closer to the size of a planet than the Sun, and thus are considered to be as much like moons as planets, and are known to be dead worlds.
But, even so, interesting stuff.
On a related note, astronomers for the first time have discovered a
star that has been flung from our galaxy, and is now traveling solo through space at a speed of over 1.5 million miles per hour.
+ 0 - 2 | § ¶Budget Battle Begins
The good news: Once again, President
Bush has requested a budget increase for NASA to support the Vision for Space Exploration. Although less than previously indicated, the 2.4 percent increase over last year's budget is better than many federal fundees fared.
The increase for CEV development is less than originally indicated, but the agency's comptoller reports that it should be adequate to keep the program moving towards a 2008 fly-off and 2014 completion.
The budget request, of course, formalizes the "cancellation" of the Hubble Space Telescope, as had been reported previously. More disappointing to me, and this had also been rumored, is that it cuts funding for the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter program. While funding for development of the Project Prometheus nuclear power initiative continues, a new program will be selected as the first use of that program. JIMO was one of the agency's program about which I was most excited, looking forward to the information it would send back from Europa and other moons, among the locations in our solar system most likely to harbor life.
+ 1 - 0 | § ¶Today In History
On this date 31 years ago, the manned Skylab program came to its conclusion with the landing of the SL-4 final crew of the station.
01 February 2005
+ 0 - 1 | § ¶Dark Side Of The Moon
I'm hugely belated posting this, but I just came across it again, and thought some here might be interested in it.
Earlier this year, the Columbia Journalism Review published a column on
some reporters' reactions to the UPI scoop on the Visions for Space Exploration.
+ 1 - 0 | § ¶iPod Case From SPACE!!!!
OK, I totally want one of these! Want to make your iPod even cooler? Put it in a bag that's
been in space! everQuest design is producing a series of cell phone or iPod/PDA/Blackberry cases made in part using flown material from the parachute used on the Soyuz TMA-3 capsule that brought Expedition 8 home from the International Space Station (upping the Dave coolness factor--that was the crew I talked to on orbit). The cases are only $25.
+ 1 - 1 | § ¶Hail Columbia!
In honor of our fallen heroes. We'll never forget.
