Geoflow – "Mini-Earth" to Produce New Findings Concerning Earths Convection Currents on ISS

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Geoflow, the geophysical experimental system built by Airbus Defence and Space on behalf of the European Space Agency (ESA), is once again being used on board the International Space Station (ISS).

The photo shows German astronaut Alexander Gerst starting to reinstall the system. In the coming weeks, the laboratorys scientific instruments and the operational readiness of the systems ground segment will first be checked before a new series of experiments can be started.

The purpose of Geoflow research, led by the Brandenburg University of Technology (BTU) in Cottbus, Germany, is to learn more about convection currents beneath the Earths surface like magma movement. The Cottbus experiment recreates a kind of miniature Earth. Thanks to zero gravity conditions, its currents can be studied in the space laboratory under force fields that can be modified. This is achieved by using a viscous fluid to fill the space between two concentric spheres of varying temperature, which rotate when a high voltage is applied (to simulate an artificial gravity field). A laser-based camera system is inserted into the fluid to photograph the pattern of the magma currents.

Since 2012, the module built in Friedrichshafen, Germany, already has proven in two series of experiments that it can successfully simulate currents in the Earths mantle.

About Airbus Defence and Space Airbus Defence and Space is a division of Airbus Group formed by combining the business activities of Cassidian, Astrium and Airbus Military. The new division is Europes number one defence and space enterprise, the second largest space business worldwide and among the top ten global defence enterprises. It employs some 40,000 employees generating revenues of approximately 14 billion per year.

Press Contacts: Ralph Heinrich + 49 89 607 33971 ralph.heinrich@astrium.eads.net Astrid Emerit + 33 1 39 06 89 43 astrid.emerit@astrium.eads.net Mathias Pikelj + 49 7545 8 9123 mathias.pikelj@astrium.eads.net

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Geoflow - "Mini-Earth" to Produce New Findings Concerning Earths Convection Currents on ISS

Virgin Galactic to resume powered test flights

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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.

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Virgin Galactic to resume powered test flights

Media Invited to Participate in Interactive Space Station Technology Forum

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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.

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Media Invited to Participate in Interactive Space Station Technology Forum

Mystery space plane back on Earth

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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

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Mystery space plane back on Earth

Pipeline to replenish vanishing Dead Sea a bridge to Mid-East security, peace: Book

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

20-Oct-2014

Juliet Heller juliet@julietheller.co.uk 44-162-186-8083

Terry Collins 416-538-8712 tc@tca.tc

United Nations University and InterAction Council

A massive 180 km pipeline-canal megaproject to bring water from the Red Sea could prevent the Dead Sea from disappearing while improving the region's environmental, energy and peace prospects, according to a book of insights into major global topics launched today by an association of 40 former government leaders and heads of state and UN University's Institute for Water, Environment and Health.

Commissioned from leading experts on issues of universal concern, the authors include former Jordanian Prime Minister Abdel Salam Majali and Moneef R. Zou'bi, respectively the President and Director General of the Islamic World Academy of Sciences, who say the innovative Red-Dead Canal offers the potential to secure human well-being while promoting regional stability.

For years, Israel, Syria and Jordan have diverted more than 90 percent of the southward flow of the River Jordan to agricultural and industrial purposes, choking the Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth, causing "severe negative consequences on the ecosystem, industry, and wildlife in the area," says Dr. Zou'bi. "Due to gradual water loss, the sea has split into two separate lakes and its coastline has receded significantly. The River Jordan is a shadow of its former glorious self."

The Red-Dead Canal, as envisioned by Jordan, is a 180-kilometre, partially covered pipeline across Wadi Araba a dry plateau stretching from the Gulf of Aqaba in the south to the Dead Sea in the north. It would carry around 1.5 billion cubic meters of water per year, pumped first to an altitude of 150 metres above sea level before flowing down a 580-metre decline.

Not only would the three-party project (Jordan-Israel-the Palestinians) restore most of the Dead Sea water level over time, it would generate hydroelectricity to power large desalination plants, relieving chronic freshwater shortages and helping to meet energy needs.

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Pipeline to replenish vanishing Dead Sea a bridge to Mid-East security, peace: Book

Science & SciFi @ NASA Goddard – Part I "It’s the biggest cleanroom in the world" – Video

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Science SciFi @ NASA Goddard - Part I "It #39;s the biggest cleanroom in the world"
Next: MMS, Science SciFi @ NASA Goddard - Parts II III coming soon! Subscribe for more! NASA invited me to hang out with the heliophysicists at Goddard Space Flight Center today for scifi...

By: AAEMovie

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Science & SciFi @ NASA Goddard - Part I "It's the biggest cleanroom in the world" - Video

Actress Erin Gray Likes New NASA Spacecraft | Buck Rogers | Video – Video

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Actress Erin Gray Likes New NASA Spacecraft | Buck Rogers | Video
More space news and info at: http://www.coconutsciencelab.com - actress Erin Gray, from the television series, "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century," likes NASA #39;s new Orion spaceship. Please rate...

By: CoconutScienceLab

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Actress Erin Gray Likes New NASA Spacecraft | Buck Rogers | Video - Video