The Blog of Record » Space

Challenger Astronauts Were Alive Until the Crew Compartment Smashed Into the Ocean, Experts Believe

Al — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 03:39:58 +0000

Evidence hints that the Challenger 7 survived the explosion that destroyed the shuttle and were alive and conscious in their intact crew cabin during the fall. It was probably the smash into the sea that killed them.

Was there no way to fit an emergency parachute to the crew compartment such that it would still be functioning after such an explosion? I wonder if the doomed astronauts were thinking about this in the 2 minutes and 45 seconds it took them to plummet down to their deaths from 65,000 feet.

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Ten Ways to Travel in Deep Space

Al — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 04:11:57 +0000

Some of them, though, won’t get you very deep into space, and some others look impossible, while the possible ones require technologies we still don’t have. So what are we left with? For going out of the solar system, nothing, it seems.

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How Real Space Battles Will Be Fought

Al — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 02:29:03 +0000

The physics of future space battles. We need to be prepared when Martian colonists rise up against the United Earth Empire in, say, 2776. And probably a lot earlier. Related posts:Why Space Exploration Is Going Nowhere in the U.S. Because space exploration is incompatible with democracy. And because everything...You Could Spot NASA’s Lost Toolbag Flying in [...] Related posts:

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Possible Fossil Evidence of Ancient Life on Mars Found

Al — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 02:17:01 +0000

A NASA team believes it has found fossil evidence of ancient microbial life on Mars – right here on earth, in a meteorite from the red planet that fell in Antarctica 13,000 years ago. The critters that are believed to have left their traces inside the rock would have been surprisingly similar to some microorganisms that live on earth.

If life really has evolved on two close-by planets orbiting the same star, I wonder what it tells us about how common life must be in the universe.

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Why Space Exploration Is Going Nowhere in the U.S.

Al — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 04:26:48 +0000

Because space exploration is incompatible with democracy. And because everything that can be done with current technology and makes sense, has already been done. Related posts:How Do Female Astronauts Menstruate in Space? In case you were wondering. Plus, why an all-girl crew might...Another Threat from Space What a perfect space storm can do to Earth: The...Ten Ways to Travel [...] Related posts:

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International Space Station May Be Scuttled

Al — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 14:44:48 +0000

After 11 years of construction and $44 billion spent by the U.S. alone, the international space station is finally ready to do the groundbreaking research it was built to do. But it may be abandoned in just a few years.

They can always make it into a space hotel. Or something even more profitable, if you get my drift.

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Earthly Life to be Sent to Martian Moon

Al — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 03:57:47 +0000

Scientists want to check the idea that living things can travel through space between planets – say, on rocks ejected by cosmic collisions. If the little buggers return alive after three years in deep space, it will make those who say life could have come to Earth from other planets very happy indeed:

LIFE on Earth was all neatly packed up inside a pucklike container and ready to blast off on an unmanned Russian mission to a Martian moon this month.

After more than 10 months traveling through deep space, the Planetary Society’s Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment would land on the surface of the Martian moon Phobos with its cargo of voyagers from all three kingdoms of life, including tiny, extremely hardy animals called tardigrades.

Then, after a couple of weeks on the surface, the first Earthly life to have lived on another solar body would return to Earth. A tiny, robotic, interplanetary lander was going to spring off the base craft, fire off its rocket, and hurtle through space before crash landing in Kazakhstan.

They’ve run into technical problems, though, and will have to wait two years for the next launch window.

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Advertising on the Moon

Al — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 03:54:12 +0000

That’s one advance in lunar exploration that I am not looking forward to:

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There’s So Many Astronauts in Space, the Toilet Got Flooded

Al — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 04:59:45 +0000

The record number of 13 astronauts together in space has proven unlucky – or just too large – for one of the two toilets aboard the international space station. The unreliable toilet was built in Russia - but, with two Russians aboard, the honor of fixing it still got dumped on the Belgian and one of the Americans.

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Some Apollo 11 Photos

Al — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 21:00:28 +0000

Lots of great Apollo 11 photos here, reminding us of the time when America was a daring nation that knew it could achieve any goal it set for itself, no matter how impossible it might seem. The spirit of that time is gone forever, it seems.

(Click the photo to enlarge.)

"'The Eagle Has Landed' - Two Men Walk on the Moon." A girl reads Apollo 11 moon landing report in The Washington Post. July 21, 1969

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Northern and Southern Lights Photographed from Space

Al — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 02:38:47 +0000

Northern lights above the Manicouagan impact crater reservoir in Quebec (center)

(Click the photo to enlarge.)

More photos here.

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Ancient Lake Discovered on Mars

Al — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 03:47:40 +0000

The lake was formed some 300 million years after the end of the warm and wet period on Mars – at a time when the planet was thought to have been cold and dry.

The lake, which dates back some 3.4 billion years, appears to have covered as much as 80 square miles and was up to 1,500 feet deep, said the team from the University of Colorado.

“This is the first unambiguous evidence of shorelines on the surface of Mars,” said Boulder’s research associate, Gaetano Di Achille, in a study published in the latest edition of Geophysical Research Letters. . . .

Analysis of the images has shown the water carved out the canyon in which it was found, which then opened out into a valley depositing sediment which formed a delta.

It is this sediment that may contain evidence of past life on the red planet:

Scientists believe deltas next to the lake may well hold secrets about past life on Mars as such places on Earth have become the natural deposits of organic carbon and other markers of life.

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Ares – NASA’s Mars Airplane

Al — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 02:42:54 +0000

It’s not new but still cool:

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No Recession Yet for U.S. Space Industry

Al — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 20:32:55 +0000

The space industry grew in 2008 despite the economic downturn:

[T]he space industry boosted revenues by $6 billion to $257 billion in 2008, up from $187 billion three years ago.

“Generally the space business has been fairly resilient,” Marty Hauser, vice president of the nonprofit Space Foundation, told reporters.

“Space activity has integrated itself so thoroughly into broader business activity, with an array of services vital to communication, travel, broadcast and other industries, that the space industry is now part of the mainstream economy,” the group’s report concluded.

The full impact of the economic slowdown might not hit the space sector until later in 2009 or 2010, due to the existing pipeline of satellite and launch orders, the report said.

Expanding interest in space by a growing number of governments could boost spending on space programs and provide some counterbalance to the grim economy. Many aging satellites must be replaced in coming years to maintain satellite-linked services such as navigation, targeting and communications, the group said.

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Another Threat from Space

Al — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 21:36:24 +0000

What a perfect space storm can do to Earth:

The surface of the sun is a roiling mass of plasma – charged high-energy particles – some of which escape the surface and travel through space as the solar wind. From time to time, that wind carries a billion-tonne glob of plasma, a fireball known as a coronal mass ejection (see “When hell comes to Earth”). If one should hit the Earth’s magnetic shield, the result could be truly devastating.

The incursion of the plasma into our atmosphere causes rapid changes in the configuration of Earth’s magnetic field which, in turn, induce currents in the long wires of the power grids. The grids were not built to handle this sort of direct current electricity. The greatest danger is at the step-up and step-down transformers used to convert power from its transport voltage to domestically useful voltage. The increased DC current creates strong magnetic fields that saturate a transformer’s magnetic core. The result is runaway current in the transformer’s copper wiring, which rapidly heats up and melts. This is exactly what happened in the Canadian province of Quebec in March 1989, and six million people spent 9 hours without electricity. But things could get much, much worse than that.

When it can happen:

The “perfect storm” is most likely on a spring or autumn night in a year of heightened solar activity – something like 2012. Around the equinoxes, the orientation of the Earth’s field to the sun makes us particularly vulnerable to a plasma strike.

Please God, not autumn 2012.

(Via Grinding.)

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Sumo Wrestling in Zero Gravity

Al — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 17:12:55 +0000

That’s one of the sixteen experiments the Japanese public wants the country’s astronaut Koichi Wakata to perform in his free time aboard the International Space Station. I wonder if the ISS is roomy enough for a sumo match. If not, they can always do it outside.

My prediction is that body mass will matter even more than it does on earth.

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A Safe Bet

Al — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 21:22:53 +0000

Phil Bowermaster offers a bet that 100,000 years from now there will be somebody living on this planet. Double or nothing these beings will still believe that they are us. Any takers? Related posts:Ancient Lake Discovered on Mars The lake was formed some 300 million years after the...Possible Fossil Evidence of Ancient Life on Mars Found A NASA [...] Related posts:

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How to Get Out of a Space Shuttle on the Launch Pad When It’s About to Explode

Al — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 05:38:03 +0000

Everything has been thought through to the finest detail. Especially the wicker baskets.

It reminded me of an old Soviet joke: Cosmonauts are called to the Kremlin where they are told, “Get ready guys, you’re flying to the sun”.

“No way! We’re going to burn!”

“Don’t worry, the Party has thought everything through. You’ll fly at night.”

The level of thinking things through is about the same.

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Black Hole Devouring a Star

Al — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 03:06:05 +0000

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Terraforming Mars in Three Simple Steps

Al — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 05:33:54 +0000

“Amazingly, there are only three things we’d need to do to Mars to make it ready to populate, and they’re all related to one another.” Related posts:Ancient Lake Discovered on Mars The lake was formed some 300 million years after the...Methane Discovered on Mars This means that hopes for Martian life are still alive....Is This How [...] Related posts:

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