Monthly Archives: January 2014

Star Citizen – The Best Space Sim Game 2014 | Space flight simulator Space Combat Wing commander – Video

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Star Citizen - The Best Space Sim Game 2014 | Space flight simulator Space Combat Wing commander
Just can #39;t wait for this game to be playable! All ready want to get out there and blow things up and Raid pirates or be a pirate! Make my own Empire! Shit i ...

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Star Citizen - The Best Space Sim Game 2014 | Space flight simulator Space Combat Wing commander - Video

NASA’s Space Launch System Sound Suppression Testing Ramps Up

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January 29, 2014

Image Caption: A 5-percent scale model of the Space Launch System (SLS) is ignited for five seconds to measure the effect acoustic noise and pressure have on the vehicle at liftoff. Credit: NASA/MSFC/David Olive

NASA

The first round of acoustic tests on a scale model of NASAs Space Launch System (SLS) is underway. The tests will allow engineers to verify the design of the sound suppression system being developed for the agencys new deep space rocket.

The testing, which began Jan. 16 at NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., will focus on how low- and high-frequency sound waves affect the rocket on the launch pad. This testing will provide critical data about how the powerful noise generated by the engines and boosters may affect the rocket and crew, especially during liftoff.

We can verify the launch environments the SLS vehicle was designed around and determine the effectiveness of the sound suppression systems, said Doug Counter, technical lead for the acoustic testing. Scale model testing on the space shuttle was very comparable to what actually happened to the vehicle at liftoff. Thats why we do the scale test.

During the tests, a 5-percent scale model of the SLS is ignited for five seconds at a time while microphones, located on the vehicle and similarly scaled mobile launcher, tower and exhaust duct, collect acoustic data. A thrust plate, side restraints and cables keep the model secure.

Engineers are running many of the evaluations with a system known as rainbirds, huge water nozzles on the mobile launcher at NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida. During launch, a peak flow rate of 450,000 gallons of water per minute will be released from five rainbirds just seconds before booster ignition. Water is the main component of the sound suppression system because it helps protect the launch vehicle and its payload from damage caused by acoustical energy. SLS with NASAs new Orion spacecraft on top will be launched from Kennedy on deep space missions to destinations such as an asteroid and Mars.

A series of acoustics tests also is taking place at the University of Texas at Austin. Engineers are evaluating the strong sounds and vibrations that occur during the ignition process for the RS-25 engines that will power SLS.

[ Watch The Video: Space Launch System Acoustic Testing ]

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NASA's Space Launch System Sound Suppression Testing Ramps Up

Marshall Team Members to Celebrate Completion of Flight Hardware for Orion’s First Mission

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What/Who: On Jan. 30, team members at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., will celebrate the completion of the adapter that will connect NASA's new Orion spacecraft to a Delta IV rocket for Orion's first mission in September. News media are invited to attend.

David Beaman, NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) Spacecraft Payload Integration manager; John Casper, Orion Special Assistant for Program Integration and former astronaut; and Larry Gagliano, Marshall's deputy project manager for the Orion Launch Abort System, will be available for interviews.

During Orion's first mission, called Exploration Flight Test-1, the spacecraft will travel to an altitude of approximately 3,600 miles above Earth's surface before re-entering the atmosphere traveling approximately 20,000 mph at temperatures above 4,000 degree Fahrenheit. The uncrewed flight will provide engineers with important data about Orion's heat shield and other elements, including the adapter's performance before it is flown in 2017 as part of the first SLS mission.

The completed adapter flight hardware will be shipped in mid-March from Marshall to United Launch Alliance's (ULA) facility in Decatur, Ala. ULA is constructing the Delta IV rocket for EFT-1. From there, it will travel by ship to Cape Canaveral in Florida ahead of Orion's mission.

Marshall team members have also fabricated over 100 pieces of Orion flight hardware, conducted several tests in Marshall labs of Orion's primary structure and Launch Abort System thermal protection material.

When: 1 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 30

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Building 4708

To attend: News media interested in attending should contact Kimberly Henry in Marshall's Public & Employee Communications Office at 256-544-0034 no later than 4 p.m. CST Wednesday, Jan. 29. Media interested in attending the employee event must report to the Redstone Arsenal Joint Visitor Control Center at Gate 9, Interstate 565 interchange at Rideout Road/Research Park Boulevard at 12:30pm.

Vehicles are subject to a security search at the gate. News media will need two photo identifications and proof of car insurance.

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Marshall Team Members to Celebrate Completion of Flight Hardware for Orion's First Mission

Space, the final frontier? Not for Chinese on Virgin Galactic

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By CNN Travel staff

updated 12:49 PM EST, Wed January 29, 2014

Sorry, thumbs down to a space flight if you're from the PRC.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

(CNN) -- Virgin Galactic, the space tourism company founded by British billionaire Richard Branson, has barred Chinese nationals from applying for spots on its first commercial flights.

Cashed-up People's Republic of China passport holders have reportedly been willing to pay the $260,000 fare for a spot on the inaugural Virgin Galactic space flight scheduled for later this year, but have been turned down in order to comply with United States anti-espionage laws, the South China Morning Post reports.

Rocket engines on the Virgin Galactic craft -- named SpaceShip Two and WhiteKnight Two -- are reportedly considered military grade technology under Cold War U.S. arms trafficking laws.

The legislation was designed to prevent foreign powers, such as China, from getting hold of U.S. military tech secrets.

"Both SpaceShipTwo and WhiteKnight Two are U.S. technology and are therefore subject to U.S. regulations," said Winnie Chan, a spokesperson for a Virgin Galactic accredited partner in Asia.

Chinese nationals with multiple passports or U.S. residency might be considered for a place on the space trips, Virgin Galactic said.

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Space, the final frontier? Not for Chinese on Virgin Galactic

Red Sox Prospects Flying Under Radar Could Turn Heads In 2014 (Photos)

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One thing has become clear recently: The Boston Red Sox minor league system is stacked.

ESPNs Keith Law released his minor league system rankings this week, and the Red Sox ranked fifth among Major League Baseballs 30 teams trailing only the Houston Astros, Minnesota Twins, Pittsburgh Pirates and Chicago Cubs. According to Law, the Red Sox have an excellent top 10 prospects list and overall are very deep, particularly in the starting pitching department.

Law also released a top 100 prospects list this week, and the Red Sox were well-represented. Xander Bogaerts was ranked the No. 2 prospect in baseball behind Twins farmhand Byron Buxton, and Henry Owens (42), Jackie Bradley Jr. (51), Garin Cecchini (53), Blake Swihart (56), Mookie Betts (61) and Matt Barnes (89) also appeared on the list.

A lot of Red Sox fans probably are familiar with those names by now, but some other, lesser-known prospects certainly look primed for a big 2014 season. Perhaps those under-the-radar prospects someday will land on one of Laws lists.

Check out the link below for 10 under-the-radar Red Sox prospects who could break out in 2014.

Have a question for Ricky Doyle? Send it to him via Twitter at @TheRickyDoyle or send it here.

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Red Sox Prospects Flying Under Radar Could Turn Heads In 2014 (Photos)

University of Hawaii scientists make a big splash

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Researchers from the University of Hawaii - Manoa (UHM) School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and University of California - Berkeley discovered that interplanetary dust particles (IDPs) could deliver water and organics to the Earth and other terrestrial planets.

Interplanetary dust, dust that has come from comets, asteroids, and leftover debris from the birth of the solar system, continually rains down on the Earth and other Solar System bodies. These particles are bombarded by solar wind, predominately hydrogen ions. This ion bombardment knocks the atoms out of order in the silicate mineral crystal and leaves behind oxygen that is more available to react with hydrogen, for example, to create water molecules.

"It is a thrilling possibility that this influx of dust has acted as a continuous rainfall of little reaction vessels containing both the water and organics needed for the eventual origin of life on Earth and possibly Mars," said Hope Ishii, new Associate Researcher in the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology (HIGP) at UHM SOEST and co-author of the study.

This mechanism of delivering both water and organics simultaneously would also work for exoplanets, worlds that orbit other stars. These raw ingredients of dust and hydrogen ions from their parent star would allow the process to happen in almost any planetary system.

Implications of this work are potentially huge: Airless bodies in space such as asteroids and the Moon, with ubiquitous silicate minerals, are constantly being exposed to solar wind irradiation that can generate water. In fact, this mechanism of water formation would help explain remotely sensed data of the Moon, which discovered OH and preliminary water, and possibly explains the source of water ice in permanently shadowed regions of the Moon.

"Perhaps more exciting," said Ishii, "interplanetary dust, especially dust from primitive asteroids and comets, has long been known to carry organic carbon species that survive entering the Earth's atmosphere, and we have now demonstrated that it also carries solar-wind-generated water. So we have shown for the first time that water and organics can be delivered together."

It has been known since the Apollo-era, when astronauts brought back rocks and soil from the Moon, that solar wind causes the chemical makeup of the dust's surface layer to change.

Hence, the idea that solar wind irradiation might produce water-species has been around since then, but whether it actually does produce water has been debated. The reasons for the uncertainty are that the amount of water produced is small and it is localized in very thin rims on the surfaces of silicate minerals so that older analytical techniques were unable to confirm the presence of water.

Using a state-of-the-art transmission electron microscope, the scientists have now actually detected water produced by solar-wind irradiation in the space-weathered rims on silicate minerals in interplanetary dust particles. Futher, on the bases of laboratory-irradiated minerals that have similar amorphous rims, they were able to conclude that the water forms from the interaction of solar wind hydrogen ions (H+) with oxygen in the silicate mineral grains.

This recent work does not suggest how much water may have been delivered to Earth in this manner from IDPs.

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University of Hawaii scientists make a big splash

NASA Observes Day of Remembrance Jan. 31

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NASA will pay will tribute to the crews of Apollo 1 and space shuttles Challenger and Columbia, as well as other NASA colleagues, during the agency's Day of Remembrance on Friday, Jan. 31.

NASA's Day of Remembrance honors members of the NASA family who lost their lives while furthering the cause of exploration and discovery.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and other agency senior officials will hold an observance and wreath-laying at Arlington National Cemetery Friday morning.

Other tributes across the agency include a wreath-laying ceremony at the Space Mirror Memorial located in the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida and NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, California will hold a remembrance ceremony at its visitor center, the Exploration Center.

On Thursday, Jan. 30, NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston will hold a tree planting ceremony in honor of former astronaut C. Gordon "Gordo" Fullerton. All employees are encouraged to observe a moment of silence to remember their fallen friends and colleagues. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., will hold a wreath-laying ceremony for employees followed by a public ceremony at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center.

NASA also is paying tribute to the agency's fallen astronauts with special online content available at:

http://go.nasa.gov/1b5Oh9I

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NASA Observes Day of Remembrance Jan. 31