Dr. Peter Beter Audio Letter 64: Space Shuttle; Columbia Flight; Columbia Disaster- April 27, 1981
Dr. Peter David Beter - Audio Letter 64 - April 27,1981 Text: http://www.peterdavidbeter.com/docs/all/dbal64.html MP3: http://archive.org/download/DrPeterBeter_AudioVideoLetters/drpeterbetter_audio.
By: Peter Beter
Read more from the original source:
Space Flight Through The Stars. Stock Footage
"This is a preview video. Download high quality footage at: http://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/21263926?ref=silverstepper More stock media here: http://www.p...
By: Joanna Eisele
Read the original post:
Land Rover reveals $1million space flight experience
Land Rover has released exclusive new detail on what budding astronauts can expect to experience on a Virgin Galactic space flight. The short film has been c...
By: Top Performance Magazine
Read the original:
Land Rover reveals $1million space flight experience - Video
Syma X5 limited space flight.
First flight of Syma X5 indoor with stock battery. Space constraints. Testing just after unboxing. Good but battery only about 7 minutes.
By: TheRoanald
Follow this link:
After 116 days of being subjected to extremely frigid temperatures like that in space, the heart of the James Webb Space Telescope, the Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM) and its sensitive instruments, emerged unscathed from the thermal vacuum chamber at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Teams of engineers and technicians have been on heart-monitoring duty around the clock since this complicated assembly was lowered into the chamber for its summer-long test.
Engineer Mike Drury, the ISIM Lead Integration and Test Engineer, is one of the test directors making sure that Webb will thrive in the frigid conditions at its final destination in space one million miles away from Earth. "The telescope is going to L2 or Lagrange Point 2, which is a very extreme environment," said Drury. "The heart of Webb called ISIM is a very important part of the observatory and will provide all of Webb's images."
These images will reveal the first galaxies forming 13.5 billion years ago. The telescope will also pierce through interstellar dust clouds to capture stars and planets forming in our own galaxy. Operating a telescope powerful enough to complete these tasks requires incredibly cold temperatures.
How cold? Try -387 degrees Fahrenheit, or 40 degrees Kelvin. This is 260 degrees Fahrenheit colder than any place on the Earths surface has ever been. To create temperatures that cold on Earth, the team uses the massive thermal vacuum chamber at Goddard called the Space Environment Simulator, or SES, that duplicates the vacuum and extreme temperatures of space. This 40-foot-tall, 27-foot-diameter cylindrical chamber eliminates the tiniest trace of air with vacuum pumps and uses liquid nitrogen and even colder liquid helium to drop the temperature simulating the space environment.
"We complete these tests to make sure that when this telescope cools down, the four parts of the heart are still positioned meticulously so that when light enters the telescope we capture it the right way," said Paul Geithner, Webb's deputy project manger. "The biggest stress for this telescope will be when it cools down. When the telescope structure goes from room temperature to its super cold operating temperature, it will see more stress from shrinkage than it will from violent vibration during launch, said Geithner.
NASA photographer Desiree Stover captured the photo of ISIM as it was lowered into the chamber for testing. The heart of the telescope weighs about as much as an elephant. Inside its black composite frame the four science instruments are tightly packed and are specially designed to capture specific information about distant light in the universe.
"When I first started here at Goddard, the ISIM structure was completely bare," said Stover who has been at Goddard for two years. "Leading up to this test all four science instruments were integrated onto it, along with heat straps, harnesses and blankets."
Tightening the bolts and putting everything together beforehand required very dedicated teams. "When ISIM was lowered into the chamber at the start of the test, that was a pretty emotional moment that represented an intense amount of work," said Marc Sansebastian, a mechanical assembly, integration and test technician. "After ISIM traveled overhead, we shifted back to technical mode because there are a million things that happen that you don't see."
More here:
Posted: Wednesday, October 22, 2014 9:17 am
Newburgh student finishes Space Academy Program
Liam Elsea of Newburgh recently attended Space Camp at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, home of Space Camp and NASAs official Visitor Information Center for Marshall Space Flight Center. The weeklong educational program promotes science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), while training students and adults with hands-on activities and missions based on team work, leadership and decision-making.
Elsea was part of the Space Academy Program, which is specifically designed for trainees who have a particular interest in science and aerospace. He spent the week training with a team that flew a simulated Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Once aboard the ISS, the crew participated in experiments and successfully completed an extra-vehicular activity (EVA), or space walk. Elsea and crew returned to earth in time to hear retired Space Shuttle astronaut Col. Bob Springer speak at their graduation!
Space Camp crew trainers who lead each 16-member team must have at least a year of college, and the majority of staff are college graduates. Space Camp operates year-round in Huntsville, Ala., and uses astronaut training techniques to engage trainees in real-world applications of STEM subjects. Students sleep in quarters designed to resemble the ISS and train in simulators like those used by NASA. More than 600,000 trainees have graduated from Space Camp since its opening in Huntsville in 1982, including STS-131 astronaut Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger. Last year, children and teacher from all 50 states and 58 international locations attended Space Camp.
Interested in training like an astronaut? Visit http://www.spacecamp.com or call 1-800-63 SPACE.
Posted in Schools, Castle knights on Wednesday, October 22, 2014 9:17 am.
Read more from the original source:
Provided by Janet Anderson, Marshall Space Flight Center and Megan Watzke Chandra X-ray Center
Every year, NASAs Chandra X-ray Observatory looks at hundreds of objects throughout space to help expand our understanding of the Universe. Ultimately, these data are stored in the Chandra Data Archive, an electronic repository that provides access to these unique X-ray findings for anyone who would like to explore them. With the passing of Chandras 15th anniversary in operation on August 26, 1999, the archive continues to grow as each successive year adds to the enormous and invaluable dataset.
To celebrate Chandras decade and a half in space, and to honor October as American Archive Month, a variety of objects have been selected from Chandras archive. Each of the new images we have produced combines Chandra data with those from other telescopes. This technique of creating multiwavelength images allows scientists and the public to see how X-rays fit with data of other types of light, such as optical, radio, and infrared. As scientists continue to make new discoveries with the telescope, the burgeoning archive will allow us to see the high-energy Universe as only Chandra can.
PSR B1509-58 (upper left): Pareidolia is the psychological phenomenon where people see recognizable shapes in clouds, rock formations, or otherwise unrelated objects or data. When Chandras image of PSR B1509-58, a spinning neutron star surrounded by a cloud of energetic particles, was released in 2009, it quickly gained attention because many saw a hand-like structure in the X-ray emission. In this new image of the system, X-rays from Chandra in gold are seen along with infrared data from NASAs Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) telescope in red, green, and blue. Pareidolia may strike again in this image as some people report seeing a shape of a face in WISEs infrared data. (X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Infared: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
RCW 38 (upper right): A young star cluster about 5,500 light years from Earth, RCW 38 provides astronomers a chance to closely examine many young, rapidly evolving stars at once. In this composite image, X-rays from Chandra are blue, while infrared data from NASAs Spitzer Space Telescope are orange and additional infrared data from the 2MASS survey appears white. There are many massive stars in RCW 38 that will likely explode as supernovas. Astronomers studying RCW 38 are hoping to better understand this environment as our sun was likely born into a similar stellar nursery. (X-ray: NASA/CXC/ESA-ESTEC/E.Winston et al, Near-IR: 2MASS/UMass/IPAC-Caltech/NASA/NSF, Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Hercules A (middle left): Some galaxies have extremely bright cores, suggesting that they contain a supermassive black hole that is pulling in matter at a prodigious rate. Astronomers call these active galaxies, and Hercules A is one of them. In visible light (colored red, green and blue, with most objects appearing white), Hercules A looks like a typical elliptical galaxy. In X-ray light, however, Chandra detects a giant cloud of multimillion-degree gas (purple). This gas has been heated by energy generated by the infall of matter into a black hole at the center of Hercules A that is over 1,000 times as massive as the one in the middle of the Milky Way. Radio data (blue) show jets of particles streaming away from the black hole. The jets span a length of almost one million light years. (X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO, Optical: NASA/STScI, Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLA)
Kes 73 (middle right): The supernova remnant Kes 73, located about 28,000 light years away, contains a so-called anomalous X-ray pulsar, or AXP, at its center. Astronomers think that most AXPs are magnetars, which are neutron stars with ultra-high magnetic fields. Surrounding the point-like AXP in the middle, Kes 73 has an expanding shell of debris from the supernova explosion that occurred between about 750 and 2100 years ago, as seen from Earth. The Chandra data (blue) reveal clumpy structures along one side of the remnant, and appear to overlap with infrared data (orange). The X-rays partially fill the shell seen in radio emission (red) by the Very Large Array. Data from the Digitized Sky Survey optical telescope (white) show stars in the field-of-view. (X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Manitoba/H.Kumar et al, Optical: DSS, Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech, Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLA)
Mrk 573 (lower left): Markarian 573 is an active galaxy that has two cones of emission streaming away from the supermassive black hole at its center. Several lines of evidence suggest that a torus, or doughnut of cool gas and dust may block some of the radiation produced by matter falling into supermassive black holes, depending on how the torus is oriented toward Earth. Chandra data of Markarian 573 suggest that its torus may not be completely solid, but rather may be clumpy. This composite image shows overlap between X-rays from Chandra (blue), radio emission from the VLA (purple), and optical data from Hubble (gold). (X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/A.Paggi et al; Optical: NASA/STScI; Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLA)
NGC 4736 (lower right): NGC 4736 (also known as Messier 94) is a spiral galaxy that is unusual because it has two ring structures. This galaxy is classified as containing a low ionization nuclear emission region, or LINER, in its center, which produces radiation from specific elements such as oxygen and nitrogen. Chandra observations (gold) of NGC 4736, seen in this composite image with infrared data from Spitzer (red) and optical data from Hubble and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (blue), suggest that the X-ray emission comes from a recent burst of star formation. Part of the evidence comes from the large number of point sources near the center of the galaxy, showing that strong star formation has occurred. In other galaxies, evidence points to supermassive black holes being responsible for LINER properties. Chandras result on NGC 4736 shows LINERs may represent more than one physical phenomenon. (X-ray: NASA/CXC/Universita di Bologna/S.Pellegrini et al, IR: NASA/JPL-Caltech; Optical: SDSS & NASA/STScI)
NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program for NASAs Science Mission Directorate in Washington, DC. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, controls Chandras science and flight operations.
Continue reading here:
An emerging super-black nanotechnology that is to betested for the first timethis fall on the International Space Station will be applied to a complex, 3-D component critical for suppressing stray light in a new, smaller, less-expensive solar coronagraph designed to ultimately fly on the orbiting outpost or as a hosted payload on a commercial satellite.
The super-black carbon-nanotube coating, whose development is six years in the making, is a thin, highly uniform coating of multi-walled nanotubes made of pure carbon about 10,000 times thinner than a strand of human hair. Recently delivered to the International Space Station for testing, the coating is considered especially promising as a technology to reduce stray light, which can overwhelm faint signals that sensitive detectors are supposed to retrieve.
While the coating undergoes testing to determine its robustness in space, a team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, will apply the carbon-nanotube coating to a complex, cylindrically shaped baffle a component that helps reduce stray light in telescopes.
Goddard optical engineer Qian Gong designed the baffle for a compact solar coronagraph that Principal Investigator Nat Gopalswamy is now developing. The goal is build a solar coronagraph that could deploy on the International Space Station or as a hosted payload on a commercial satellite a much-needed capability that could guarantee the continuation of important space weather-related measurements.
The effort will help determine whether the carbon nanotubes are as effective as black paint, the current state-of-the-art technology, for absorbing stray light in complex space instruments and components.
Preventing errant light is an especially tricky challenge for Gopalswamy's team. "We have to have the right optical system and the best baffles going," said Doug Rabin, a Goddard heliophysicist who studies diffraction and stray light in coronagraphs.
The new compact coronagraph designed to reduce the mass, volume, and cost of traditional coronagraphs by about 50 percent will use a single set of lenses, rather than a conventional three-stage system, to image the solar corona, and more particularly, coronal mass ejections (CMEs). These powerful bursts of solar material erupt and hurdle across the solar system, sometimes colliding with Earth's protective magnetosphere and posing significant hazards to spacecraft and astronauts.
"Compact coronagraphs make greater demands on controlling stray light and diffraction," Rabin explained, adding that the corona is a million times fainter than the sun's photosphere. Coating the baffle or occulter with the carbon-nanotube material should improve the component's overall performance by preventing stray light from reaching the focal plane and contaminating measurements.
The project is well timed and much needed, Rabin added.
Continued here:
NASA Ultra-Black Nano-Coating to Be Applied to 3-D New Solar Coronagraph
Expedition 41 Commander Max Suraev and Flight Engineer Alexander Samokutyaev of the Russian Federal Space Agency will perform a spacewalk outside in the International Space Station on Oct. 22, 2014. They planned to remove and jettison several unneeded pieces of equipment from the Russian segment of the space station, as well as photograph the exterior of the Russian modules in a detailed survey.
The spacewalk was scheduled to last six hours, but the speedy cosmonauts completed their work in just over half that time. The spacewalk was the seventh this year, and the 184th for the maintenance and assembly of the space station. See photos from the spacewalk here.
A piece of no-longer needed equipment (the white rectangle) floats away from the International Space Station after being jettisoned by a cosmonaut during a spacewalk on Oct. 22, 2014.
A cosmonaut floats outside the International Space Station during a spacewalk on Oct. 22, 2014.
A wider view of the spacewalk shows a Russian cosmonaut (center) working outside the International Space Station on Oct. 22, 2014.
The Earth shines below the International Space Station during the spacewalk by Russian cosmonauts on Oct. 22, 2014.
A cosmonaut's arm works in the foreground with the Earth's blue surface far below the International Space Station during a spacewalk by Russian cosmonauts on Oct. 22, 2014.
Follow us@Spacedotcom,FacebookorGoogle+.Originally published onSpace.com.
Go here to read the rest:
Spacewalk Photos: Cosmonauts Float Outside Space Station (Oct. 22, 2014)
BREAKING NEWS: M FLARES GALORE! - 20 OCTOBER 2014
BREAKING NEWS: M FLARES GALORE! - 20 OCTOBER 2014 (BEST VIEWED, FULL SCREEN!) LINK TO MY TALK AT NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on 6 December: ...
By: drkstrong
Originally posted here:
updated 10:20 AM EDT, Sun October 19, 2014
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Los Angeles (CNN) -- Whatever it was doing up in space, we may never know, but the U.S. Air Force's unmanned X-37B space plane returned to Earth this week, with still no details from the military on the nearly two-year mission.
"The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle mission 3 (OTV-3)," as the military calls it, touched down at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Friday morning after conducting experiments in orbit for 674 days, the military said.
Conspiracy theorists endlessly conjecture on what the Pentagon is doing with "the newest and most advanced re-entry spacecraft." The Air Force's two vehicles resemble small space shuttles, and have now logged a combined 1,367 days in space, the military said.
In the latest mission, the X-37B lifted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida on December 11, 2012. At the time, the Air Force said its mission would last about nine months.
The military has spoken only in generalities about the spacecraft and its mission.
Air Force X-37B space plane
Air Force X-37B space plane
Air Force X-37B space plane
Link:
Glowing Plants
Glowing plants: In which we discuss the amazing phenomenon of chlorophyll fluorescence. Attribution: Background music: On the Ground, Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Tree Silhouettes: (http://sil.
By: Soliloquy
See the original post:
Deep Space Flight. Stock Footage
"This is a preview video. Download high quality footage at: http://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/20460385?ref=silverstepper More stock media here: http://www.p...
By: Sandie Shiner
See the original post:
TWIS Minion / Science Island Hangout October 16, 2014
Amy Lynn Thompson, Ed Dyer, AJ Smith and Dale Liebrecht talking about Mars missions, the Milky Way being a bully, Black Holes, the mighty stem cells healing hearts and eyes and more. Show...
By: Edward Dyer
Read more from the original source:
TWIS Minion / Science Island Hangout October 16, 2014 - Video
BREAKING NEWS: X FLARE!: 19 OCTOBER 2014
BREAKING NEWS: X FLARE!: 19 OCTOBER 2014 (BEST VIEWED, FULL SCREEN!) LINK TO MY TALK AT NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on 6 December: ...
By: drkstrong
Link:
Virgin's commercial passenger space flight venture is soon to begin a new round of test flights for spaceliner SpaceShipTwo.
MarsScientific.com & Clay Center Observatory
Passengers who made a $250,000 reservation to fly into space aboard a Virgin Galactic flight may not have to wait much longer: the company has announced that it is to resume rocket-powered test flights after remaining fairly inactive for the majority of 2014.
The most recent powered test flight of the SpaceShipTwo craft took place on January 2 of this year (you can check it out in the video below). In May, the company announced that was changing the solid fuel used in the hybrid rocket motor from hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene, a form of rubber that caused engine instabilities, to a plastic called thermoplastic polyamide, which performs much better and should allow SpaceShipTwo to achieve higher altitude. This required qualification tests, which were finally completed two weeks ago.
"We've done a lot of development tests over the years, but what we've been doing recently are qualification tests where you're firing the same motor design multiple times to make sure you're seeing the same thing every time," Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides told Space.com. "So now we feel ready to put that motor on the spaceship."
SpaceShipTwo, designed to carry two pilots and six passengers, successfully completed an unpowered test "glide flight" in August, rotating its tail and wings as it would to increase stability during descent from a suborbital flight. The spacecraft has to date completed 54 tests flights -- but none with the new fuel, which has only been tested on the ground.
Whitesides did not say when the new powered test flights were to commence, but it should be soon -- Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson has stated that he expects to be on the first commercial flight by February or March of 2015 -- although it wouldn't be the first time he had been mistaken. Just two months ago, he told Fox Business Network that he would be "bitterly disappointed" if he wasn't in space by the end of this year.
When Sir Branson originally opened his commercial passenger space flight venture in 2004, he projected that the Virgin Galactic spaceliners would commence operation as early as 2007.
SpaceShipTwo is designed to launch from a high-altitude carrier, the WhiteKnightTwo. The company is also working on the construction of a yet-unnamed second craft for its fleet, which should be completed by the end of this year.
So far, over 700 people have booked a flight with Virgin Galactic, including celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher, Russell Brand, Angelina Jolie, Leonardo DiCaprio and Stephen Hawking.
Link:
Media are invited to interact with NASA experts who will answer questions about technologies being demonstrated on the International Space Station (ISS) during "Destination Station: ISS Technology Forum" from 10 to 11 a.m. EDT (9 to 10 a.m. CDT) Monday, Oct. 27, at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
The forum will be broadcast live on NASA Television and the agency's website.
The Destination Station forums are a series of live, interactive panel discussions about the space station. This is the second in the series, and it will feature a discussion on how technologies are tested aboard the orbiting laboratory. Thousands of investigations have been performed on the space station, and although they provide benefits to people on Earth, they also prepare NASA to send humans farther into the solar system than ever before.
Participants must be seated by 8:30 a.m. CDT in the Davidson Center for Space Exploration theater at the Space & Rocket Center the official visitor information center for NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.
Forum panelists and exhibits will focus on space station environmental and life support systems; 3-D printing; Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) systems; and Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites (SPHERES).
The forum's panelists are: - Jeffrey Sheehy, senior technologist in NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate - Robyn Gatens, manager for space station System and Technology Demonstration, and Environmental Control Life Support System expert - Jose Benavides, SPHERES chief engineer - Rich Reinhardt, principal investigator for the SCaN Testbed - Niki Werkeiser, project manager for the space station 3-D printer
During the forum, questions will be taken from the audience, including media, students and social media participants. Online followers may submit questions via social media using the hashtag, #asknasa. Panelists will be available for media interviews immediately following the forum.
The "Destination Station: ISS Technology Forum" coincides with the 7th Annual Von Braun Memorial Symposium at the University of Alabama in Huntsville Oct. 27-29. Media can attend the three-day symposium, which features NASA officials, including NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operation William Gerstenmaier and Assistant Deputy Associate Administrator for Exploration Systems Development Bill Hill. Jean-Jacques Dordain, director general of the European Space Agency, will be a special guest speaker. Representatives from industry and academia also will be participating.
Media who attend the forum will have the opportunity to sign up for Marshall's Oct. 27 media day, which includes extensive tours of the center's labs and facilities immediately following the forum. Interview opportunities with NASA managers, scientists and engineers also will be available. Media interested in visiting the center for media day should contact Jennifer Stanfield in the Marshall Public and Employee Communications Office at 256-544-0034 orjennifer.stanfield@nasa.govby 4 p.m. Oct. 21.
Read the rest here:
Media Invited to Participate in Interactive Space Station Technology Forum
updated 10:20 AM EDT, Sun October 19, 2014
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Los Angeles (CNN) -- Whatever it was doing up in space, we may never know, but the U.S. Air Force's unmanned X-37B space plane returned to Earth this week, with still no details from the military on the nearly two-year mission.
"The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle mission 3 (OTV-3)," as the military calls it, touched down at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Friday morning after conducting experiments in orbit for 674 days, the military said.
Conspiracy theorists endlessly conjecture on what the Pentagon is doing with "the newest and most advanced re-entry spacecraft." The Air Force's two vehicles resemble small space shuttles, and have now logged a combined 1,367 days in space, the military said.
In the latest mission, the X-37B lifted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida on December 11, 2012. At the time, the Air Force said its mission would last about nine months.
The military has spoken only in generalities about the spacecraft and its mission.
Air Force X-37B space plane
Air Force X-37B space plane
Air Force X-37B space plane
Read the original here:
Space Flight, 1960 #39;s - Film 4688
Astonaut John Glenn space flight.
By: HuntleyFilmArchives
Read this article:
ICESat-2 Beauty Pass
On October 19, 2014, Comet Siding Spring will make a remarkably close encounter with Mars, buzzing the Red Planet at just one third of the Earth-Moon distance. To witness this historic event,...
By: Cloud .Tube
Continued here: