Isn’t she beautiful? The 25-year old Space Shuttle Atlantis is ready for her last mission. She has made the journey into space 31 times and this will hopefully be her last. After returning from delivering a mini research station to the Internation Space Station, she will be kept in a state of readiness in case there is an accident aboard the ISS. It’s a big day for NASA geeks. → Read More
Our Gadgets of Days Gone By series is over, and it focused pretty much on consumer goods that made our lives more entertaining or more bearable. But there’s an awful lot of technology from decades past still in use today. Take for example the Voyager spacecraft from NASA. Launched more than 30 years ago, Voyager 2 completed its primary mission in 1989 but has continued to provide invaluable… → Read More
Awesome. So this January, it seems that Cameron found time in between money-counting sessions to pitch NASA about putting a 3D camera on the Curiosity Mars rover, set for a 2011 launch. Incredibly, they went for it. I’m guessing it had something to do with budget — probably something along the lines of “my movie is making more per month than your department does in a year, I got… → Read More
The European Southern Observatory will construct the world’s largest telescope in Chile. They’re calling it the European Extremely Large Telescope, and it’s being constructed in Chile because the night sky there is totally clear some 320 days per year. → Read More
Japan loves robots, we know that much. Last year, the Japanese government announced it plans to to send a robot to the moon by 2020 (that was to be joined by a human astronaut 10 years later). Today, the Osaka-based “Space Oriented Higashiosaka Leading Association” (SOHLA) announced [JP, PDF] a quite similar undertaking: putting a robot on the moon by 2015. → Read More
While we have our own ideas about what should constitute a slow motion film, I guess this one from NASA is okay. I mean, if you like explosions and enormous hulks of metal rising into the air, and flames.
Okay, okay, it’s totally freaking awesome. → Read More
It was 20 years ago today that NASA (working in conjunction with the European Space Agency) launched the Hubble Space Telescope into the heavens—well, a low Earth orbit, at least. I recall some of the buzz back then along the lines of “What a giant waste of money!” Once they fixed that mirror, it was smooth sailing. → Read More
It’s all a bit like Mass Effect. The U.S. Air Force successfully launched the X-37B unmanned spacecraft yesterday, but the question that nobody knows the answer to: what’s it for? The Air Force refuses to say what the X-37B’s mission on beyond something along the lines “we wanted to see if it works.” OK, but do you plan on doing with it? “Sorry, classified.” Neat. → Read More
No clue what makes this list authoritative, but it’s Friday, and it’s the day before life as we know it changes with the release of… something. Anyhow, it’s a list purporting to show the most valuable autographs you can find. It’s almost relevant because of the person whose autograph has been deemed most valuable. Any guesses as to who’s number one before I give it away? Wait—I already… → Read More
The maze he’s been running around in for 30 years must be the size of the solar system! And the dots — Asteroids? Another connection! And the ghosts — Space Ghosts! My god, it all makes sense! [via 1up] → Read More
Hello, Earth! Can you believe that this photo was taken by a man who attached a digital camera to a balloon? Madness. → Read More
Microsoft revealed more information about Project Natal today, the motion sensing Xbox 360 camera. Previously, there were some concerns about exactly how much space would be required in a room in order for the device to work properly. Microsoft says don’t worry, Natal will know you live in a crappy studio apartment in New York. → Read More
Could cosmic rays be responsible for Toyota‘s recent woes? It sounds like the stuff of sci-fi, but it may well be all too real. Italics mean business. → Read More
The world’s first manned commercial spacecraft flight took place just a few hours ago, and it was a smashing success. Within a few years, we’ll all fly to Jupiter on our lunch breaks, drink a café com leite while doodling away on our iPad 5GXs, then come back to the office to pretend to do work for the remaining 2.5 hours of the day. → Read More
Russia might be getting back into the space tourism business in a big way. There’s a chance that construction will begin on a new Soyuz spaceship this year to carry just tourists up into the wide vasts of space and then to the stinky confines of the ISS. I’m jealous. Space tourism took a back seat to ISS missions earlier this year as the US slowed its Space Shuttle program and Russia… → Read More
Someone call Pauly Shore, because there’s a new closed environment that’ll need his madcap hijinks to stave off boredom and no doubt save the day. The Mars500 project, located in Moscow, hopes to simulate the experience of a manned mission to Mars. It’s the mission to part that they’re testing, and not the actual Mars part. It takes a long time to get to Mars, and once you start there’s no… → Read More
Look at that pic. Take a real good look. Got an idea? Well, you’re probably wrong. → Read More
Where do you live? Columbus? Miami? Paris? Lisbon? Cool, good for you. And I bet you have a nice view of your city’s park or monument, too. That’s fine, but your view doesn’t even compare to this. It’s a photo from the shiny, new observation deck of the International Space Station. That’s the Sahara Desert down there. → Read More
Sit back, relax, and enjoy this extensive HD video tour of International Space Station. You better enjoy the ISS while you can. There’s a good chance it’s going to crash into Planet Earth within the next couple of years because of budget issues unless the ESA can save it. → Read More
When it was announced that this administration was redefining space-related goals (and, many seemed not to notice, increasing NASA funding by $6bn) there were mixed reactions.
We’d already spent a bundle on moon mission stuff, but it was over budget and behind schedule. Nobody wants to abandon the moon, but man, we’ve got people floating in space right now who need funding, fuel, upgrades, and… → Read More
This image is proof that opening up space travel to private industry will speed up colonization and tourism. Apparently there’s already flights on the moon. That or a plane just so happened to get in the frame of a 500mm telephoto lens. [via reddit] → Read More
Well, son, I know you wanted to go to the moon and all, but it looks like that’s just not going to happen. In the meantime, I guess you’ll just have to be satisfied with a sojourn on the International Space Station. It seems that Bush’s moon initiative kind of fell through, and Obama and his advisors have decided not to throw good money after bad. Instead, they’re putting $6bn into extending the… → Read More
It’s your daily space (Space?) update. The subject today: Iran, a country we in the United States are programmed to hate (I’ve never met an Iranian, but I’m sure they’re friendly people), may well launch three new satellites in the near future. Be afraid, I guess. → Read More
Telescopes at the ready! Tomorrow morning at 7:47 AM Eastern, an unknown object between 33 and 50 feet wide will come within 80,000 miles of Earth. NASA’s finest are saying that it might be space junk, it might be a little asteroid, or it might be something else. → Read More
Hurry up, sports fans, for today’s the last day you can submit a message to the KEO space capsule. The idea is to have a bunch of people write an epic message, then in 50,000 years it’ll return and give future people the messages. I have no idea how any of this works, so please direct your WTFs somewhere else. → Read More
Students at the University of Colorado at Boulder will soon be constructing a tiny spacecraft to observe space weather in the near-Earth orbit. The project is funded by a $840k grant from the National Science Foundation and is just the latest project in a long line of student-built spacecraft over the last 50 years for LASP, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. → Read More
It’s no secret that the D3s is an excellent camera. But I would have thought NASA would choose something a little more specialized for, you know, space. But it looks like the D3s is going to do just fine, since they just bought eleven.
Obviously there’s the vacuum and infinite cold of space to think of, so these cameras will have special enclosures and other equipment; it’s not like they’re just… → Read More
Ready to lose 20 minutes of your day? → Read More
Slooh, a service that offers unfettered access to two huge earth-based telescopes, is inviting folks to watch the LCROSS impact on Friday at 4:30am PDT or 7:30am EDT. The feed begins at 3:30am PDT.
The Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite will hit the moon to created a crater 14 meters in diameter and 2 meters deep. The resulting analysis will help assess how large bodies will damage… → Read More
It’s laptops in space, people! What is there not to like? → Read More
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