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Category Archives: NASA

NASA releases video of solar flares

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Twitter and Amazon team up for new app

Amazon has a new feature allowing Twitter users to access the online retail site, without leaving the forum.

IBM is defending business computers with a new service aimed at thwarting hackers, before they do damage.

Australians will be able to submit their next tax return from their smartphone from July 1 this year.

IPhone owners are the most likely to send a sexy text message or 'sext', according to a new poll in the UK.

A defence contractor is creating a pilotless Black Hawk helicopter to help the US Army reduce its numbers.

Digital 'fingerprints' could be used to help police find and remove child abuse images from the internet.

Jurors have ordered Samsung to pay just a fraction of the big-money damages sought by Apple over patents.

Snapchat is adding a chat feature to its ephemeral messaging service.

Scientists have for the first time measured the rotation of a planet in another solar system.

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NASA releases video of solar flares

Three Pathways Into the 1980s

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In the 1966-1967 period, NASA began serious planning for its post-Apollo future. Alas, Apollo was widely seen as a means of demonstrating U.S. technological might on the world stage, not as a first small step beyond Earth. Our societys rapid abandonment of the moon causes me to question whether we have every truly qualified as a spacefaring people.

Had it been otherwise, what pathway might NASA have followed into the future? There were many possibilities, but in my forthcoming book I will describe in detail only three. I call these moon base, space base, and flyby. All might have led to humans on Mars in the 1980s, though in none of them was this a requirement.

NASA planners expected that, after a few early Apollo missions, advanced lunar missions in the Apollo Applications Program (AAP) would commence. These would lead by the mid-1970s to two-week lunar-surface stays. Some of these expeditions would have taken astronauts to the lunar Farside, where relay satellites in Earth-moon L2 Halo Orbit would have linked them with Earth. Others would have surveyed potential outpost and base sites.

By 1980, a space tug a new upper stage for the Saturn V rocket would have transported crews directly from Earth to the moon. Some tugs might have established a lunar-orbital way station (image at top of post). Others would have carried surface base modules and supplies. By 1985, humankinds first permanent base on another world could have been established.

Space tugs might have gone on to serve as propulsion stages for piloted voyages to Mars. Perhaps lunar-produced liquid oxygen would have combined in the space tug engines with liquid hydrogen launched from Earth to propel astronauts beyond the moon.

That was the moon base pathway. The space base pathway would also have grown from AAP, though not from planned AAP lunar missions. NASA planners expected to launch increasingly sophisticated AAP space stations into Earth orbit beginning as early as late 1968. By 1975, a single-launch space station for from six to 12 astronauts was expected.

After that, modules based on the single-launch station design would have been joined together to form a nuclear-powered Space Base with a crew of from 50 to 100 people. The Space Base would have revolved to provide its inhabitants with artificial gravity. Fully reusable space shuttles would have rotated crews, delivered supplies, and returned experiment results and (possibly) space-made products to Earth.

An intensive Earth-orbital program might have yielded specialized Space Bases such as zero-gee hospitals and assembly bases for Solar Power Satellites. Or, just possibly, a space base might have been fitted out with nuclear-electric thrusters beefed-up versions of thrusters used to maintain the Space Bases in their orbits about the Earth and relocated to Mars orbit. Space Base components might also have been combined in new ways to build a large Mars ship.

The flyby pathway would also have grown from AAP space stations, but would have aimed directly for Mars at an early date. A flyby spacecraft with only enough modification to enable it to serve as an Earth-orbital station would have been launched into Earth orbit as early as 1972. There, astronauts would have simulated a two-year piloted Mars flyby mission.

If the Earth-orbital test was a success, then a second flyby spacecraft outfitted for interplanetary travel would have left Earth orbit on a free-return path in September 1975. As it passed Mars, its crew would have released robotic probes, including Mars sample collectors, which they would have operated on Mars by remote control. The flyby spacecraft would have entered the inner Asteroid Belt before falling back to Earth.

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Three Pathways Into the 1980s

Earth – NASA Science

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Earth

Earth is a complex, dynamic system we do not yet fully understand. The Earth system, like the human body, comprises diverse components that interact in complex ways. We need to understand the Earth's atmosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, and biosphere as a single connected system. Our planet is changing on all spatial and temporal scales. The purpose of NASA's Earth science program is to develop a scientific understanding of Earth's system and its response to natural or human-induced changes, and to improve prediction of climate, weather, and natural hazards.

A major component of NASAs Earth Science Division is a coordinated series of satellite and airborne missions for long-term global observations of the land surface, biosphere, solid Earth, atmosphere, and oceans. This coordinated approach enables an improved understanding of the Earth as an integrated system. NASA is completing the development and launch of a set of Foundational missions, new Decadal Survey missions, and Climate Continuity missions.

The Foundational missions are those missions in development at the time the decadal survey was published and include CLARREO, Aquarius, Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (S-NPP), Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM), and Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM). The Decadal Survey missions are those guided by the decadal surveyproduced by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences and published in 2007. These missions include Soil Moisture Active-Passive (SMAP), Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat-II), Hyperspectral Infrared Imager (HyspIRI), Active Sensing of CO2Emissions Over Nights, Days, and Seasons (ASCENDS), Surface Water and Topography (SWOT), Geostationary Coastal and Air Pollution Events (GEO-CAPE), and Aerosol-Clouds-Ecosystems (ACE). Earth Venture, also a recommendation of the decadal survey, consists of low cost, competed suborbital and orbital missions as well as instruments for Missions of Opportunity. The Climate Continuity missions include Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2), Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment III (SAGE III), Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-on (GRACE-FO), and Pre-Aerosol, Clouds, and Ocean Ecosystem (PACE).

Over the coming decades, NASA and the Agency's research partners will continue to pioneer the use of both spaceborne and aircraft measurements to characterize, understand, and predict variability and trends in Earth's system for both research and applications. Earth is the only planet we know to be capable of sustaining life. It is our lifeboat in the vast expanse of space. Over the past 50 years, world population has doubled, grain yields have tripled and economic output has grown sevenfold. Earth science research can ascertain whether and how the Earth can sustain this growth in the future. Also, over a third of the US economy - $3 trillion annually - is influenced by climate, weather, and natural hazards, providing economic incentive to study the Earth.

NASA Earth System Science conducts and sponsors research, collects new observations, develops technologies and extends science and technology education to learners of all ages. We work closely with our global partners in government, industry, and the public to enhance economic security, and environmental stewardship, benefiting society in many tangible ways. We conduct and sponsor research to answer fundamental science questions about the changes we see in climate, weather, and natural hazards, and deliver sound science that helps decision-makers make informed decisions. We inspire the next generation of explorers by providing opportunities for learners of all ages to investigate the Earth system using unique NASA resources, and our Earth System research is strengthening science, technology, engineering and mathematics education nationwide.

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Earth - NASA Science

NASA approves massive Mars rocket: All systems are go for a 2018 launch

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NASA new mega-rocket, a towering booster designed for deep space missions, will be ready for its first test flight no later than November 2018, space agency officials announced Wednesday (Aug. 27).

It's possible that theSpace Launch Systemrocket test flight could launch as early as December 2017, but NASA officials have committed to having the rocket ready for flight be the end of 2018 to be safe. That extra wiggle room should let the space agency cope with scheduling and funding issues as they crop up in the future, NASA officials said in a teleconference with reporters.

The SLS will be the largest rocket ever constructed and it is designed to send humans deeper into space than ever before. The huge launcher which will stand at 400 feet tall (122 meters) in its final configuration could deliver NASA astronauts to an asteroid and even Mars sometime in the future. [See images of NASA's SLS rocket design]

"Our nation is embarked on an ambitious space exploration program, and we owe it to the American taxpayers to get it right," NASA associate administrator Robert Lightfoot, said in a statement. "After rigorous review, were committing today to a funding level and readiness date that will keep us on track to sendinghumans to Mars in the 2030s and were going to stand behind that commitment."

NASA expects that SLS will cost a total of $7 billion from February 2014 through November 2018. For its first test flight, SLS will fly out of low-Earth orbit with an unmannedOrion space capsule.

The SLS team just passed a major design review, which will allow the program to move forward with design plans.

The 2018 date is a reflection of modeling done by a review board, which suggested that the new date is likely more attainable, NASA officials said during a news conference today (Aug. 27). The review board looked at the SLS plan and brought up problems that could arise during the building of the rocket system, possibly causing a change in schedule.

"They're [the review board] telling us that if we don't do anything, we basically have a 70 percent chance of getting to that date," William Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for the Human Explorations and Operations Mission Directorate, said during the news conference. "Our intent and the team's intent at Marshall [Space Flight Center] is to go look at those problems and see what we can do to mitigate those problems."

"There are probably some other problems that aren't even identified by the Standing Review Board that will come up," Gerstenmaier added. "Our job as a management team is to look at those problems, figure out ways to work those ahead of time, and proactively work those as they come about."

It's possible that the first SLS flight could occur before the 2018 target if the team works to head off any potential issues before they occur, according to Gerstenmaier.

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NASA approves massive Mars rocket: All systems are go for a 2018 launch

NASA commits to $7 billion mega rocket, 2018 debut

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The initial version of NASA's planned Space Launch System rocket, seen here, is expected to fly for the first time in November 2018, agency officials say. NASA

After a detailed engineering and cost analysis, NASA managers have formally approved development of the Space Launch System -- SLS -- heavy-lift rocket, the most powerful booster ever attempted and a key element in the agency's long-range plans to send astronauts to nearby asteroids and, eventually, Mars, officials announced Wednesday.

The SLS development program is projected to cost $7 billion from February 2014 through the rocket's maiden flight, a November 2018 test launch carrying an uncrewed Orion multi-purpose crew vehicle, or MPCV, on a three-week-long shakedown mission beyond the moon and back to an ocean-splashdown on Earth.

That target date is a year later than originally envisioned when NASA first laid out a tentative schedule for initial SLS flights. But senior agency managers say the projected cost and launch target are what came out of a detail analysis incorporating a wide variety of factors, including the possibility of unforeseen engineering challenges.

When all of those factors were included, along with input from an independent review panel, computer analysis indicated a 70 percent chance of meeting the November 2018 target date. That was the goal in a "best practices" approach to program management.

"If we don't do anything, we basically have a 70 percent chance of getting to that date," said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for space operations. "Our intent is to go look at those (expected) problems and see what we can do to mitigate (them)."

The Space Launch System rockets will come in at least two variants, one initially capable of lifting 70-metric-ton payloads and the other a gargantuan mega booster capable of lifting 130 metric tons and generating 9.2 million pounds of thrust.

NASA

In its most powerful version, one utilizing advanced strap-on boosters and a high-energy upper stage, the SLS will be able to lift 130 metric tons while generating a staggering 9.2 million pounds of thrust.

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NASA commits to $7 billion mega rocket, 2018 debut

NASA Begins Hurricane Mission with Global Hawk Flight To Cristobal

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Image Caption: The NASA Global Hawk 872 lands at 7:43 a.m. EDT, August 27, at the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia following a 22-hour transit flight from its home base at the Armstrong Flight Research Center in California. Credit: NASA/ Brea Reeves

Rob Gutro, NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center

The first of two unmanned Global Hawk aircraft landed at NASAs Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Virginia, on Aug. 27 after surveying Hurricane Cristobal for the first science flight of NASAs latest hurricane airborne mission.

NASAs airborne Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel, or HS3, mission returns to NASA Wallops for the third year to investigate the processes that underlie hurricane formation and intensity change in the Atlantic Ocean basin. HS3 is a collaborative effort that brings together several NASA centers with federal and university partners.

The two unmanned Global Hawks participating in HS3 are based at NASAs Armstrong Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Base, California, but will be temporarily housed at NASA Wallops for the duration of the HS3 mission which runs through Sept. 29. That window for the mission coincides with the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season that runs from June 1 to Nov. 30.

NASA Global Hawk 872 departed NASA Armstrong on the morning of Aug. 26 and arrived at NASA Wallops at 7:43 a.m. EDT on Aug. 27. Global Hawk number 871 is scheduled to fly to Wallops within a week.

Tropical Storm Cristobal became a hurricane late on August 25 as it was moving through the Bahamas. During the Global Hawks 22 hour mission it flew a lawnmower or back and forth pattern over Hurricane Cristobal while gathering data using dropsondes and two other instruments. There were 83 dropsondes loaded in the aircraft, with two of them were dropped over the Gulf of Mexico and the other 81 dropsondes dropped over Cristobal. A dropsonde is a device that measures winds, temperature, pressure and humidity as it falls from the aircraft to the surface.

The instruments are tested and then integrated onto each Global Hawk at Armstrong, said Marilyn Vasques, HS3 Project Manager of NASA Ames. Before the cross-country flights, the ground operations center at Wallops tested the various instruments aboard both aircraft while they were still at Armstrong. After integration and outdoor tests we conduct a Combined Systems Test on the ground as well as a test flight near Armstrong before the instruments and aircraft are ready to transit explained Vasques. Checking the performance of the instruments over that long distance while they were at a NASA center was critical to ensure they would operate correctly while in-flight over Atlantic hurricanes.

Now that the first Global Hawk is at Wallops, the mission will investigate any significant disturbances that might develop in the western Atlantic. The HS3 mission will investigate disturbances before they become depressions to examine how a storm forms. The mission is also looking for conditions that favor (or promote) rapid intensification of tropical cyclones.

Twice a day we hold weather briefings looking for storms or disturbances that could become storms, said Scott Braun, HS3 Principal Investigator from NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, working at Wallops during the mission. We evaluate the targets in terms of our science objectives and determine which one best addresses those objectives. We factor in stage of the life cycle of the storm, likelihood of formation or intensification, interaction with the Saharan Air Layer, among other things.

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NASA Begins Hurricane Mission with Global Hawk Flight To Cristobal

In 2018, world's biggest rocket to be tested by NASA

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By Shelley Hazen

Newser

This Aug. 26, 2003 image made available by NASA shows Mars photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope on the planet's closest approach to Earth in 60,000 years.AP Photo/NASA

NASA is moving ahead with plans to build a massive rocket designed to explore deep space and culminate in human trips to Mars, the agency announced yesterday.

The Space Launch System has passed from design phase to construction, reports the Houston Chronicle, and an unmanned test mission (not to Mars, just out of low-Earth orbit) is planned for 2018.

By the 2020s, the Orion capsule that will sit atop the rocket is expected to carry astronauts on another test flight. The SLS has so far cost $2.7 billion and taken three years to develop; it will need another $7 billion over the next four years, reports Space.com, which says it will be the biggest rocket ever built.

"We're building a system that's going to be around for multiple decades," says a NASA official. But the future of the SLS is under scrutiny. Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt has worried that NASA is "putting the cart before the horse" by building the SLS without formal missions scheduled, reports the Chronicle.

The program's financial future is also uncertain, with funds from Congress iffy despite strong support there. "Apollo was sustained because Congress and the country agreed that we ought to do it," says Schmitt.

"It's not quite so clear now." If all goes well, however, NASA hopes to launch a manned mission to Mars in the 2030s or 2040s. (In other recent Mars news, that "thigh bone" found there wasn't actually a thigh bone.)

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In 2018, world's biggest rocket to be tested by NASA

NASA Langley, NOAA study the birth of hurricanes | With Video

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Luke Ziemba, an aerosols scientist at NASA Langley, recently returned from a flight aboard a P-3 Hurricane Hunter aircraft with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to fly through Hurricane Cristobal to study how aerosols can affect storms.

At 2 a.m. on Aug. 23, Luke Ziemba strapped himself into a P-3 turboprop aircraft with 14 other scientists and flight crew in Tampa, Fla., and set off to rendezvous with a hurricane.

Technically, Cristobal wasn't a hurricane yet, but a tropical depression far off in the Atlantic. By the second night, it had accelerated to a tropical storm. And by the third night, Cristobal was a full-blown, if disorganized, Category 1 hurricane.

And each night the P-3 Hurricane Hunter aircraft in its eight-hour flight sliced right through the storm's howling outer wall and buffeting winds, arrowing to its relatively calm eye. There, Ziemba an aerosols scientist at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton collected and measured dust particles to better understand their role in storm formation and intensity.

"Aerosols can be ingested into the storm from different locations, and they can affect how storms intensify and deintensify, and weaken the storm," Ziemba explained Thursday.

And a better grasp of this process can one day help computer modelers better predict a storm's route or strength, he said.

Ziemba's third and final flight was Monday.

Early the next morning, a big Global Hawk unmanned aircraft took off from NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center in California, heading east.

It was packed with 83 dropsonde sensors to release as it went as the remotely piloted plane flew a "lawnmower" pattern back and forth atop Hurricane Cristobal. The devices would measure wind, temperature, pressure and humidity as they coursed through the belly of the beast.

Finally, after 22 hours in the air, the Global Hawk landed Wednesday morning at NASA Wallops Flight Facility on the Eastern Shore, ready to begin its third and final summer sojourn on Wallops Island to study how hurricanes are born, develop and die.

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NASA Langley, NOAA study the birth of hurricanes | With Video

NASA Opens Media Accreditation for Orion Move in Preparation for First Flight

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Media accreditation now is open to attend an event marking the move of NASA's Orion spacecraft at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The spacecraft will be transferred from the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building to the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility during the second week of September.

NASA managers will be available to discuss the progress being made on Orion during the move, the exact date and time of which will be announced as soon as possible.

The event will not be carried live on NASA Television, but highlights of the move will air on NASA TV's Video File segments and the agency's website. For NASA TV downlink information, schedules and links to streaming video, visit:

NASA TV Live

In the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility, the Orion spacecraft will be fueled with ammonia and hyper-propellants for its mission. It will later be moved again for the installation of its launch abort system.

Orion is undergoing preparations for its maiden flight in December, an uncrewed flight that will take it 3,600 miles above Earth on a 4.5-hour mission to test the systems critical for future human missions to deep space. After two orbits, Orion will reenter Earths atmosphere at almost 20,000 miles per hour before its parachute system deploys to slow the spacecraft for a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.

International media without U.S. citizenship must apply for credentials no later than 4:30 p.m. EDT Tuesday, Sept. 2, and are required to submit a scanned copy of their "I" visa and passport to access the event. Green card holders must submit a scanned copy of their card. All scanned documents must be emailed tojennifer.p.horner@nasa.govfor credential request processing. The deadline for U.S. media is noon Sept. 5.

All media representatives must present two forms of legal, government identification to access Kennedy. One form must be a photo ID, such as a passport or driver's license.

Media accreditation requests need to be submitted online at:

https://media.ksc.nasa.gov

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NASA Opens Media Accreditation for Orion Move in Preparation for First Flight

NASA: No Evidence Of Alien Visitation To Earth"’ Hypocritical NASA…? – Video

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NASA: No Evidence Of Alien Visitation To Earth" #39; Hypocritical NASA...?
No Evidence Of Alien Visitation To Earth" #39; Hypocritical NASA... B,.....S,.... NASA!! I MADE THIS VIDEO WITH A FEW SCREEN SHOTS FROM THE ORIGINAL VIDEO!! This video is for educational purposes...

By: liemee watcher

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NASA: No Evidence Of Alien Visitation To Earth"' Hypocritical NASA...? - Video

NEW!.may-2014…A dozen small white UFOs at the NASA site Morpheus Space Lander Test – (OVNI ON AIR) – Video

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NEW!.may-2014...A dozen small white UFOs at the NASA site Morpheus Space Lander Test - (OVNI ON AIR)
Ok, I find the original video, and I made a video in black and white to show you what is like UFOs that have made crop circles(http://youtu.be/6M6vP8-SbU0) they are a dozen that turns a round,...

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NEW!.may-2014...A dozen small white UFOs at the NASA site Morpheus Space Lander Test - (OVNI ON AIR) - Video

Episode 36 NASA Releases Free eBook For Alien Communication and Godzilla – Video

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Episode 36 NASA Releases Free eBook For Alien Communication and Godzilla
The Fortean Slip Episode 36 The Cookie Incident. In this episode Chris and the boys stumble all over the place as they try to discuss the new Godzilla movie and the possibility of a Godzilla...

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Episode 36 NASA Releases Free eBook For Alien Communication and Godzilla - Video

TAT’S 2 MIN NEWS Weather Modification, Bill Gates and NASA ARE THEY KILLING THE PLANET AND YOU – Video

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TAT'S 2 MIN NEWS Weather Modification, Bill Gates and NASA ARE THEY KILLING THE PLANET AND YOU - Video


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