Simple Tricks and Nonsense

And now for something that has nothing to do with International Talk Like a Pirate Day but is still pretty dang cool:

I grabbed this awesome photo from Damaris, a woman who works at Kennedy Space Center and is in training to become an astronaut herself. It's not especially rare for two shuttles to be on their launch pads at the same time, but it is quite unusual for them to both be visible like this, because usually there's a massive gantry called the Rotating Service Structure surrounding them and blocking the view. (The RSS is the bulky-looking mess of girders to the left of the shuttle in the foreground... not that upright tower, but the other part with the white center.) This particular photo is actually 18 years old; that's the late, lamented Columbia and her sister ship Discovery back in September of 1990, the last time anyone saw this particular spectacle. But as Damaris explains, we'll get the chance again tomorrow when Endeavour and Atlantis take their places out there at Launch Complex 39 and, for a few hours at least, will be standing naked beneath the Florida skies.

There's nothing earth-shattering here, just a neat picture of something you don't see everyday, and some interesting trivia. Click the pic to enlarge it, and then head over to Damaris' blog for the whole story...

[Update: Damaris just updated her blog with pics of Endeavour and Atlantis on their pads, including a really gorgeous aerial shot that even includes a rainbow! Go check 'em out...]

Posted by at 3:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Via SF Signal, here's an interesting link to a PDF that lists the books, movies, TV shows, and music stocked on board the International Space Station for the crew's off-duty entertainment. It's quite a nice little library that covers a pretty wide range of topics, genres, and quality levels (i.e., "hammock reading" versus Literature-with-a-capital-L).

Titles that caught my eye among the books were The Brothers Karamazov, Darwin's Origin of Species, the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, The Da Vinci Code (of course -- is there anywhere you can't find a copy of that one?), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and, amusingly enough, several years-old issues of both Analog and Asimov's Science Fiction. (How weird would it be to read science fiction while floating weightlessly in a tin can that whips around the planet once every 90 minutes? But wait... it gets weirder...)

Continue reading "What Would You Take With You?" »

Posted by at 5:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Bad Astronomer reminds us that today is the 18th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope. It's hard to believe that Hubble has been sending back incredible photos of the universe around us for nearly two decades. Time flies.

To celebrate the anniversary, NASA has released 59 images of galaxies colliding with other galaxies, the largest collection of Hubble images ever released to the public in a single package. The image above contains some highlights. Click on it to see 'em large, or go here for the complete gallery.

Good stuff, Maynard!

Posted by at 2:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Do you remember Buran, the space shuttle the Russians built back in the '80s that looked so much like ours? Ever wonder what happened to it after the collapse of the USSR? Well, I have, and today I finally satisfied my curiosity.

Continue reading "Russian Space Shuttles and Wandering Moonbases" »

Posted by at 5:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Nothing to say, just thought this was an awesome pic. Click on it to get the full effect, and my thanks to Damaris for sharing...

Posted by at 3:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

At the Natural History Museum in New York City this morning, gazillionaire Richard Branson and aeronautical engineer Burt Rutan have just unveiled the design for SpaceShipTwo, the follow-up to Rutan's X-Prize-winning SpaceShipOne, which, you may remember, was the first privately built, manned, and reusable vehicle to reach outer space. That's a photo of the new spacecraft up there, slung between the twin fuselages of the White Knight 2 launch vehicle that will carry it aloft; click to embiggen and have a good, close look at the future. The White Knight 2 is said to have the same wingspan as a B-29 bomber, while SpaceShipTwo is large enough for passengers to get up and walk around during their suborbital tourist flights. The dual vehicle will fly for Branson's Virgin Galactic and there are reportedly already 100 wanna-be astronauts on the waiting list.

It's unlikely the fares for this thing will ever drop low enough for anyone other than venture capitalists and trust-fund babies to take a ride, but it's still pretty exciting. Even as we're reading that government-funded manned space missions may never happen, the private sector is forging ahead with its eyes on the stars. We may get there yet. If nothing else, this vehicle could open up the possibility of fast sub-orbital passenger flights around the world. Imagine flying from Los Angeles to Sydney in only a couple of hours (or less) instead of the better part of two days...

Further details here.

Posted by at 2:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Via Wil Wheaton, the very cool news that George Takei, a.k.a. Sulu in Classic Star Trek, has had an asteroid named in his honor:

An asteroid between Mars and Jupiter has been renamed 7307 Takei in honor of the actor, best known for his role as Hikaru Sulu in the original "Star Trek" series and movies.

The celestial rock, discovered by two Japanese astronomers in 1994, was formerly known as 1994 GT9. It joins the 4659 Roddenberry (named for the show's creator, Gene Roddenberry) and the 68410 Nichols (for co-star Nichelle Nichols, who played Lt. Uhura). Other main-belt asteroids have been named for science fiction luminaries Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov.

I've had the honor of meeting Mr. Takei on two occasions. The first time was at one of those "meet 'n' greet"-style conventions I've written about before, those impersonal things where you pay an outrageous admission fee for the privilege of standing in line for an hour or three so you can experience 20 seconds of face-time with your celebrity hero, snap a personal photo (if you're lucky, anyway; some stars -- Shatner, for example -- don't allow those), and walk out with an autographed 8x10 glossy.

The second occasion was much more interesting and satisfying. It was intended to be a big meet 'n' greet with a lengthy roster of genre talent, but it wasn't very well organized or advertised and, well, nobody showed up. To be honest, I wouldn't have gone myself if a friend of mine who knew the promoter hadn't gotten me some freebie tickets. My buddy seemed so pleased with himself for doing me this huge favor that I simply couldn't find a reason not to at least check it out.

At first glance, it was one of the most depressing events I've ever attended.

Continue reading "Sulu Gets His Own Asteroid!" »

Posted by at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thirty years ago today, the Voyager 2 space probe was launched on a groundbreaking mission to explore the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn, followed a couple of weeks later by its twin, Voyager 1. (I never have heard why number two went first...) Like those amazingly durable Mars rovers that appear to have survived even a planetary-scale dust storm, the Voyagers have far outlived their designed lifespan of five years and continue to send back useful data from beyond the orbit of Pluto as they coast toward interstellar space. Lots of interesting information can be had in this article, including the facts that Voyager 1 is currently the most distant human-made object, with a one-way radio message taking 14 hours to reach it, and both craft are getting by on a mere 300 watts of electricity -- equal to the output of just a couple of standard three-way lightbulbs -- which is provided by tiny nuclear powerplants because they're too far away for solar power.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which built and operates the Voyagers, has a website devoted to the ongoing mission, and from there you can download a retrospective about those famous "golden records" afixed to the sides of the two spacecraft -- you know, the "message in a bottle" that invites the alien to Earth so he can become Jeff Bridges and have sex with Karen Allen in Starman...

Posted by at 4:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hm, here's an interesting bit of trivia: today is the 45th anniversary of the launch of Telstar, the world's first communications satellite. We take instantaneous global connectivity pretty much for granted these days -- think about how routinely TV news programs like The Today Show interview people who are on the other side of the planet, or how easy it is to make a phone call to another continent -- but I imagine such stuff must've seemed dowright miraculous in 1962. That must've been such an exciting time to be alive, what with all the boundaries expanding and miracles happening right and left. They're still happening today, of course, but I don't think we notice so much. Today's miracles are far more subtle, and more integrated into our daily lives. Indeed, we've come to expect new miracles on a regular basis, and we get really impatient if they don't work quite the way we want them to.

Telstar Logistics blogs about his namesake here, and he includes some fascinating links and factoids. For instance, I did not know that Telstar is still up there, an orbitting piece of space junk that's been dead since its electronics failed in February of 1963. I thought it surely must've re-entered and burned up years ago. I don't know why, but I think it's really cool that it's still there...

Posted by at 4:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's another of those cursedly busy, damnably hot days here at the New Proofreaders' Cave, deep within the bowels of one the glorious metropolitan skyscrapers in fabulous downtown Salt Lake City. (My Corporate Overlords recently decided that my proofreading team needed to move to a different part of the building, hence the "new" descriptor. The NPC isn't bad, but I've lost my window view, which is a major bummer, and we also have roomies now, which is proving to be somewhat, ahem, difficult. They like to play Guitar Hero. While I'm trying to proofread. This, as my friend Jack would say, is sub-optimal. But what're you going to do, short of having an over-the-top temper tantrum that ends with a desk phone being thrown through a television set, followed by a visit from an HR representative?)

Anyhow, since I'm probably not going to find the time to anything substantial here today, how's about a cool photo? Behold:

That's the space shuttle Atlantis moored to the International Space Station during its recent mission there. What's interesting about this photo -- beyond the fact that it's a nice expansive view of the entire structure -- is that it was taken from the ground as the ISS passed 190 nautical miles overhead. As usual, you can click the image for a larger view, or you can go here for details on how this was done.

Hope the AC's working, wherever you are...

Posted by at 1:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Scalzi points the way this morning to what he calls "the coolest picture you'll see today", and I've got to agree: it's amazing. It's a shot that was taken back in 2003 by the Mars Global Surveyor space probe, in orbit around the Red Planet. Click here, then click the photo for maximum bigness. You'll see the half-phase Earth and moon at the top of the photo; scroll all the way to the bottom and you'll see Jupiter and three of its moons. That's the third and fifth planets of our system seen in the same frame, photographed from the fourth planet. And the photo has a high-enough resolution that both planets are easily identifiable, even by a non-astronomer type. With a little digital massaging, you can even tell which hemisphere of our world was turned toward the camera. Beautiful...

If you're interested in the technical details, go here. But whatever you do, have a look at the photo...

Posted by at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Remember that photo of the International Space Station looking like a TIE fighter? Somebody's been playing...

Posted by at 3:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The crew of the space shuttle Atlantis had better angle the deflector shields and charge up the main guns! Oh, wait... that's just the International Space Station, looking rather TIE fighter-ish with its newly symmetical shape following Atlantis's successful construction mission. Just another one of those photos that amuse me...

(For a comparison of how the ISS has changed during this mission, click here for a 2006 photo, then here for a current one.)

Posted by at 3:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last night, just before 11 PM, I walked out of my parents' back door and looked off to the northwest. It was a clear night, but living as close to a good-sized city as my parents and I do, I couldn't see many stars because of all the light pollution. Orion and the Big Dipper always stand out, and a handful of other constellations whose names I don't remember, but the sky over Salt Lake generally looks pretty empty, so I was dubious that I'd be able to see the International Space Station, as the TV weather guy had been breathlessly promising for several days. And really, I wasn't sure why I was bothering.

Continue reading "Watching the Skies" »

Posted by at 5:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In the emerging field of private space tourism, Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne and Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic venture tend to get all the attention, but there are other entrepeneurs out there who've decided it's time to find a way to get human beings off this rock, if only for a few minutes.

One of those is Jim Benson, whose Benson Space Company has been working on a space ship modelled after NASA's HL-20 "lifting body" concept.

Today, however, I'm reading that BSC is abandoning its lifting-body work and will instead base its Dream Chaser sub-orbital spacecraft on a melding of several other vehicles with impressive track records -- the X-2 and X-15 experimental planes, and the venerable T-38 trainer. And it'll look something like this:

Continue reading "And It Even Looks Like a Rocket Ship!" »

Posted by at 5:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Here's a cool little item that I was planning to include in my recent round-up of space news, but somehow missed; it's a promotional trailer (ostensibly put out by NASA) hyping the planned return of human beings to the Moon:

Continue reading "NASA Trailer" »

Posted by at 4:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Hero" is a word that's lost much of its meaning in recent years due to overuse and misuse. All too often, in my not-so-humble opinion, it's a label that gets applied to people who don't deserve it. The general public tends to confuse heroism with mere celebrity, while those who would influence the public aren't above trying to create artificial heroes when it suits their purposes or advances a cause.

But there are still genuine heroes in the world, even if we sometimes have to look backwards to see them. One of them died this week: Wally Schirra, age 84, of natural causes. Not a very heroic death, that, but everyone dies and most people do it in rather mundane fashions. What matters is what you do while you're alive. And he did some amazing things.

Continue reading "Wally Schirra" »

Posted by at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've come across lots of interesting space-related items in the past few weeks (er, months), but I've been too busy or too preoccupied with other matters to mention any of them here, so I think it's time for another exciting installment of... Drive-By Blogging!

(I'm thinking of turning this into a regular feature here at Simple Tricks, by the way. It seems like there are always many more items that I want to comment on than I ever manage to actually devote entire entries to. Sigh...)

Continue reading "Drive-By Blogging 2: Blogs in Space" »

Posted by at 6:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I don't know if anyone else is following this story or cares in the least, but I have a morbid fascination for it, so here's what's happening with former astronaut Lisa Nowak:

• Her attorneys formally entered a "not guilty" plea last Thursday. (The article notes that this is in addition to an earlier, written plea, which I'm assuming is the one I mentioned here; I'm still not certain how or why you would plead twice like this.)

• Lisa, a US Navy officer who was technically just on loan to NASA, has a new assignment developing flight-training lesson plans at an air base in Corpus Christi, Texas. A Navy spokesman indicated that she would be working in "more of a course developer role, rather than be[ing] a direct instructor." No doubt this is a tactful way of saying that she'll be safely confined to a cubicle somewhere and not allowed to interact with the impressionable trainees.

• And finally (and not surprisingly), NASA has announced the formation of a new committee to review the healthcare services the agency currently offers to astronauts, as well as how astronauts are screened for both mental and physical health. I imagine one of the goals of this review is to figure out how Nowak's, um, condition went unnoticed until she became dangerous.
  

Lisa Nowak's trial is expected to begin on July 30.

Posted by at 3:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

This is no surprise: NASA has fired Lisa Nowak. Or, as this somewhat more detailed article more politely phrases it, she has been "pulled... from her spaceflyer detail in a mutual agreement with Naval authorities." (Nowak is a captain in the U.S. Navy who has been on assignment to NASA as an astronaut.)

NASA's spokesperson was quick to point out that this action was "not a reflection of NASA's belief in Nowak's innocence or guilt," but was done simply "because the agency lacks the administrative means to deal appropriately with the criminal charges facing Nowak.”

I imagine the agency was also eager to distance itself from this whole situation, too, before the dirt starts flying in the courtroom. But maybe I'm just cynical...

Posted by at 5:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Astronaut Lisa Nowak was formally charged with attempted kidnapping today for that little cross-country drive and assault stunt she pulled on a romantic rival. (Florida prosecutors have "declined to file an attempted murder charge [as] recommended by police"; apparently, when she pled not guilty a couple weeks back, it was not "not guilty to attempted murder" as I wrote, but not guilty "on all counts that police recommended." I've never heard of that one before. Come to think of it, I've never heard of anyone entering any kind of plea before being actually charged. This case just keeps getting weirder...)

Also, in a related development, prosecutors have released e-mail exchanges made between astronaut Bill Oefelein, the object of Nowak's obsession, and her apparent rival in this triangle, Colleen Shipman. Copies of these messages were found in Nowak's possession, and there's speculation that reading them led to her breakdown. There's a news story on the e-mails here, and ABC News is publishing the text of some of them here, if you're feeling especially voyeuristic.

Continue reading "Update on The Jealous Astronaut" »

Posted by at 6:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The death of Anna Nicole Smith and Britney Spears' decision to emulate Sinead O'Connor's coiffure (or lack thereof) have pushed whacko astronaut Lisa Nowak out of the media spotlight, so I thought I'd pass along the word that she has entered a plea of "not guilty" to the charge of attempted murder.

Just doing my part to help out those poor, overworked tabloid writers...

[Update: In a related story, it seems that NASA has contigency plans for what to do if an astronaut wigs out while in space. It's pretty interesting... it involves duct tape, bungee cords, and forced administration of drugs. Just as I've always imagined. Oh, all right, I've always imagined that you'd just stun the nutbar with a phaser, but since NASA doesn't have phasers...]

Posted by at 3:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Why don't we take a break from all the doom and gloom of the Trolley Square thing and enjoy a little music video by The Phantom Surfers, inspired by the strange story of astronaut Lisa Nowak:

Continue reading "The Jealous Astronaut" »

Posted by at 3:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As long as we're thinking about astronauts today, Wired.com reminds us that the first extra-terrestrial round of golf was played on this date back in 1971 by Alan Shepard of Apollo 14. So-so quality YouTube video of the event below the fold:

Continue reading "Fore!" »

Posted by at 2:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

When you live in Utah, you get used to hearing weird news stories that have some kind of local connection. From Howard Hughes' "Mormon Mafia" and the tale of Melvin Dummar in the '70s to the White Salamander bombings and cold fusion kerfuffle in the '80s to anything related to the polygamist colonies of the Four Corners area in the last ten years, the more bizarre the story, the more likely it either happened here or has some kind of link to my home state.

Today's weirdest news story is no exception to the rule, but it is really a wild tale: astronaut Lisa Marie Nowak is being charged with attempted murder after she drove 900 miles from Houston to Orlando while wearing a diaper (so she wouldn't have to stop for potty breaks), intending to kidnap or otherwise harm a rival for a fellow astronaut's affections. Nowak, who is a married mother of three and who flew on shuttle Discovery last summer, accosted Colleen Shipman in an airport parking lot while disguised in a wig and trench coat and carrying pepper spray, a mallet, a BB gun, gloves, a folding knife, rubber tubing, and trash bags. She later told police she only wanted to "scare Ms. Shipman into talking with her." Um, yeah... you always go loaded for bear when you just want to talk.

According to the Orlando Sentinal, these are likely "the first-ever felony charges filed on an active-duty astronaut."

Weird indeed. But what's the Utah connection, you're wondering? Well, as it happens, Nowak is a cousin of Tony Caputo, the owner of one of Salt Lake's most popular eateries and a bit of a local celebrity in his own right. I imagine he's screening his phone calls today...

Posted by at 1:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

For any fellow space buffs who may be reading my humble ramblings, I've compiled some end-of-year retrospectives that you may find interesting:

Continue reading "The Best in Space, 2006 Edition" »

Posted by at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A quick scan of Joel Schlosberg's Carl Sagan meta-post would suggest that the Memorial Blog-a-Thon was a success -- by my count, Joel links to roughly 125 blog entries and online essays, many of them in languages other than English (I'm honored to be among them, not too far from Scalzi's listing), and I imagine there are others around the 'net that did not get listed by Joel for one reason or another. I've read a number of them, and they're all moving tributes. But the best thing I've read in conjunction with all of this is, not surprisingly, the remarks made by Carl's own son, Nick Sagan. He remembers Carl not as some inspiring idol-figure or media personality, but simply as Dad, a human being with hobbies and quirks, just like the rest of us. I was amused to learn, for instance, that the great astronomer and science advocate Carl Sagan liked to play pinball, that he loved basketball and grew to appreciate The Simpsons after a bad first impression, but never enjoyed Beavis and Butthead or Aliens, and that he "talked" with dolphins in their "native tongue." And then there was this touching father-son moment:

Continue reading "Nick Sagan on His Father" »

Posted by at 10:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today is the tenth anniversary of Carl Sagan's death and the Memorial Blog-a-Thon I mentioned the other day is now underway. (See Joel Schlosberg's big meta-post for links to participating blogs. Not surprisingly, John Scalzi has a tribute worthy of your time, as does Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy and Lou Friedman of The Planetary Society, which Sagan co-founded.)

Continue reading "The Wonder of Carl Sagan" »

Posted by at 12:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I love space exploration because it takes energy that could be spent destroying the planet or hurting people, and uses it to expand what we understand and what we can see in our lifetimes.

--Wil Wheaton

For various reasons that I won't get into right now, I've been trying lately to articulate exactly why I find "space stuff" so interesting and exciting. I'm not sure Wil's thinking on the matter exactly matches my own, but it's probably a big component. And it's nicely stated. The rest of his entry from which that line comes is worth a click, too...

Posted by at 4:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

[Update: If you've come here from Joel Schlosberg's big meta-post, please see my contribution to the Carl Sagan Memorial Blog-a-Thon here.]

This is kind of cool... Nick Sagan, the son of the late astronomer Carl Sagan, reports on a plan to commemorate the tenth anniversary of his father's passing:

Continue reading "The Carl Sagan Memorial Blog-a-Thon" »

Posted by at 3:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Without preamble, the items that have distracted me from work this afternoon:

• Darth Vader's advanced-design TIE Fighter from the original Star Wars film, rendered in gingerbread.

• Scrolling images of Earth's surface as photographed by the Landsat satellites. (Nod to Phil at Bad Astronomy for bringing this to my attention.)

• Good news: the Jones Soda Company (previously mentioned on this blog here, here, and here) has announced that it will discontinue using high-fructose corn syrup in its products in favor of cane sugar. I personally believe that the food industry's switch to cheap HFCS back in the '80s is a major component of why Americans are getting so damned fat -- if you read the nutritional labels, the crap is in frakkin' everything these days -- and real sugar tastes better anyway. Don't believe me? Then do a taste-test of this stuff versus the "mainstream" Dr. Pepper made with corn syrup.

  Now, if only we could get the original-formula, made-with-sugar Coke that I remember drinking as a kid. Preferably in a glass bottle. It always tasted better in the glass bottle...

  Posted by at 4:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Quickly, because of the advancing hour, here are a couple of items that caught my attention this afternoon:

Continue reading "Of Inflatable Space Hotels and Rocket Packs" »

Posted by at 12:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It doesn't look good. Scientists are still analyzing the images sent back by the Mars Reconaissance Orbiter as it tried to find its companion, the Mars Global Surveyor, but there doesn't seem to have been any "definitive sighting." Emily at The Planetary Society isn't willing to write off the MGS just yet -- there is still an effort underway to relay a signal from the MGS through the Opportunity rover down on the planet's surface. However, a number of space-related blogs and websites are already writing eulogies for the missing probe. This one includes a cool photo taken by the MGS in its salad days, as well as a good list of the mission's highlights.

Posted by at 4:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Opportunity rover up on Mars has now reached its 1000th "sol" (or Martian day) of operation. If you'll recall, Opportunity's brother Spirit reached the same milestone a few weeks ago.

To celebrate these twin achievements, a multi-media producer and rover enthusiast named Doug Ellison has created a pair of posters that he sent as gifts to the rover teams at Cornell University and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). The posters are mosaics composed of images taken by the rovers themselves, and they're pretty cool. Emily over at The Planetary Society has the details; you can see the Spirit poster here, and the Opportunity poster is here.

Not all of today's news from the Red Planet is happy, though: the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS), yet another of our intrepid robot proxies, has vanished. Mission controllers haven't heard from the spacecraft since November 5. They are hopeful that the MSG is still operational and has simply oriented itself at an angle that makes communication difficult (i.e., the antenna is turned away from Earth). Plans are afoot to try and spot the missing spacecraft with the cameras on board the Mars Reconaissance Orbiter (that's the one that photographed the Opportunity rover a while back) and then to use the rovers to relay a signal to the MGS. For more information, check out the Planetary Society's complete article.

Posted by at 12:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Space.com has just posted the latest on the search for those missing slow-scan television (SSTV) recordings of Neil Armstrong walking on the Moon. (I've blogged about this search previously here, here, and here.) To cut to the chase, they haven't found them yet.

The inquiry into the whereabouts of the SSTV tapes has not proven easy.

Budget cuts at NASA in the post-Apollo years meant that many day-to-day records were discarded. Jobs and entire divisions that dealt with data records were eliminated.

Since there was no official requirement to archive data like this, [Bill] Wood added, the SSTV tape could have gone the same way that many old television programs did: TV stations degaussed the tapes and reused them.

That's a perfectly horrifying thought...

Posted by at 4:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

NASA made a bittersweet announcment yesterday: they plan to send the space shuttle Discovery to service the Hubble Telescope one last time before the three remaining shuttles are retired. There has been some debate over whether this mission is worth the risk -- in the new, ultra-cautious, post-Columbia era, safety protocols demand that the shuttle be able to reach the International Space Station in the event of a damaged heat shield or any other problems; however, orbital mechanics make it impossible for a Hubble-bound shuttle to meet up with the ISS if it had to.

Continue reading "The Last Shuttle Flight to Hubble" »

Posted by at 5:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Another major milestone for the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit: today is its 1000th "sol" (i.e., Martian day) of operation. The Martian day is slightly longer than a 24-hour Earth day, so that plucky little skateboard of science has actually been running for about 1028 of our days. Recall if you will that it was originally intended to function for only 90 sols. I think the taxpayers have gotten their money's worth on this project.

The image above (which looks like a postcard from Southern Utah to me) is a 360-degree panoramic view of the hilltop where Spirit has been perched with its solar panels tilted toward the sun as it waits out the long Martian winter. As always, click the picture for a larger view. Details on the image as well as what Spirit has been up can be found in this press release, and a hi-rez version of the photo is here.

Posted by at 1:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Check out this photo that's been making the rounds of the blogosphere this week:

Continue reading "Lord of the Rings" »

Posted by at 11:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Among our various robotic minions currently exploring the solar system is a vehicle called the Mars Reconaissance Orbiter (MRO). As its name would suggest, the MRO is circling the red planet, mapping the martian surface in greater detail than ever before. It's also taking some spectacular photographs with its on-board high-rez camera, including the one below, which Phil Plait of the Bad Astronomy Blog calls "the best Mars picture EVAH" (i.e., ever, for those who don't speak Hipster):

Continue reading "Seeing Our Own Handiwork" »

Posted by at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

How's about we start the day with a little jolt of wonder:

That's the space shuttle Atlantis pulling away from the International Space Station. Cool enough on its own, but what makes this so wondrous is that the photo was taken from the ground and that it's a shot of the two spacecraft transiting in front of the sun. Here's the complete image:

Continue reading "Awesome Photos of the Shuttle and Station" »

Posted by at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Have a look at this amazing photo, and don't forget to click it for a larger view:

Continue reading "I Think I Can See My House" »

Posted by at 10:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The search for the missing Apollo 11 tapes continues, with NASA's Goddard Flight Center now conducting a formal, "full-scale look" (previously, the search was pretty much the province of one man, Richard Nafzger, working in his spare time). Details for those who are interested are here. There's a PDF of a nifty flyer about the search here, and here is an official report from May that lays out in the most detail I've yet encountered exactly what this is all about. Especially interesting are the side-by-side photo comparisons on page 9, which demonstrate the difference between the original transmissions recorded on those missing tapes and what the public actually saw on their televisions. Also, the report brings up a critical time issue:

• The Data Evaluation Lab (DEL) at the Goddard Space Flight Center is the only known place that has the equipment and expertise to playback the tapes and to recover the data.
• The DEL is slated for closure in October 2006. ...
• It is vital that the DEL (or some elements of it) remain open and functional, otherwise none of the Apollo data tapes can ever be played back and the historic information recovered.

I hope they find those tapes in time. Meanwhile, in other news, we're back down to eight planets in this system, and we didn't even have to build a Death Star to do it. I know a lot of bloggers are expressing strong feelings on both sides of this whole Pluto "demotion" issue; me, I don't care so much. My biggest complaint is that this decision has rendered obsolete all those episodes of classic Battlestar where characters make reverent mention of a semi-mythical system with nine planets...

Posted by at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)