Snorkel-equipped spacewalkers start critical repair job on space station

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Cosmic Log

Alan Boyle, Science Editor NBC News

7 minutes ago

Two NASA astronauts began a high-stakes series of spacewalks to repair the International Space Station's cooling system on Saturday, outfitted for the first time with snorkels in their helmets to keep them from drowning.

"Beautiful day," astronaut Rick Mastracchio said after the spacewalk's start at 7:01 a.m. ET. He took a moment to look down at Earth as the station passed more than 250 miles (400 kilometers) over Africa. "Quite a view," he said.

Mastracchio and fellow spacewalker Mike Hopkins are taking on three spacewalks through Christmas Day to replace a coolant pump module with a faulty valve. Last week's valve malfunction cut the station's cooling capability in half, forcing mission managers to shut down non-critical systems on the $100 billion-plus orbital outpost.

Worries about waterGround controllers couldn't get the valve back in service by remote control, which led to the current plan for three spacewalks running through Christmas Day. Replacing the refrigerator-sized module is one of the station's expected maintenance tasks but the job has been complicated by the fact that an Italian spacewalker, Luca Parmitano, almost drowned in July when water pooled up in the helmet of his U.S.-made suit.

That incident led NASA to suspend U.S. spacewalks while the station's crew and controllers worked to track down the source of the problem. They think they've identified the cause: previously undetected contamination that clogged up the system designed to remove moisture from the suit. And they've given a clean bill of health to the spacesuits Mastracchio and Hopkins are using.

"I would be surprised if we have a problem with the suits," Mike Suffredini, NASA's space station program manager, told reporters this week.

But just in case, the astronauts are wearing absorbent pads on their necks that should pick up the first signs of excess moisture in the helmet and are primed to stop the spacewalk if those pads start feeling squishy. They also have jury-rigged snorkel tubes within easy reach of their mouths in the event that water starts covering their faces.

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Snorkel-equipped spacewalkers start critical repair job on space station

Watch this astronaut chat with a talking robot in space

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If life in space ever gets lonely, astronauts aboard the International Space Station have something new to talk to.

A new video shows the first humanoid robot in space making small talk with a Japanese astronaut. In footage released by the robot's developers Friday, the robot Kirobo performs its first mission on the station talking in Japanese with astronaut Koichi Wakata to test its conversation function.

Wakata says he's glad to meet Kirobo, and asks the robotic companion how it feels about being in a zero-gravity environment.

I'm used to it now, no problem at all, Kirobo quips.

Kirobo is programmed to process questions and select words from its vocabulary to form an answer, instead of giving pre-programmed responses to specific questions.

Kirobo took off from Japan's Tanegashima Space Center for the International Space Station this summer aboard a space cargo transporter. Experiments with Kirobo will continue until it returns to Earth at the end of 2014.

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Watch this astronaut chat with a talking robot in space

Orlando, NASA Cape Canaveral . Showing the end of the age mark of the beast. NWO. part 26 – Video

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Orlando, NASA Cape Canaveral . Showing the end of the age mark of the beast. NWO. part 26
An investigative Look into the Orlando Florida area showing the great Deception and the mark of the beast coming. Part 1 of Series here. http://www.youtube.c...

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Orlando, NASA Cape Canaveral . Showing the end of the age mark of the beast. NWO. part 26 - Video

Turning the Sun Into a Rainbow of Colors | NASA SDO Space Science HD Video – Video

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Turning the Sun Into a Rainbow of Colors | NASA SDO Space Science HD Video
Coconut Science Lab: http://www.coconutsciencelab.com NASA #39;s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) can see a wide range of wavelengths of light, some invisible to...

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Ask NICE December 2013 -"The Green Ninja – A Climate Action Super Hero" – Video

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Ask NICE December 2013 -"The Green Ninja - A Climate Action Super Hero"
Images of Change web based - http://climate.nasa.gov/state_of_flux#Andasol_930x462.jpg Images of Change iPad app - http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/news/earth-ipad-ap...

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Molecular nanotechnology – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Molecular nanotechnology (MNT) is a technology based on the ability to build structures to complex, atomic specifications by means of mechanosynthesis.[1] This is distinct from nanoscale materials. Based on Richard Feynman's vision of miniature factories using nanomachines to build complex products (including additional nanomachines), this advanced form of nanotechnology (or molecular manufacturing[2]) would make use of positionally-controlled mechanosynthesis guided by molecular machine systems. MNT would involve combining physical principles demonstrated by chemistry, other nanotechnologies, and the molecular machinery of life with the systems engineering principles found in modern macroscale factories.

While conventional chemistry uses inexact processes obtaining inexact results, and biology exploits inexact processes to obtain definitive results, molecular nanotechnology would employ original definitive processes to obtain definitive results. The desire in molecular nanotechnology would be to balance molecular reactions in positionally-controlled locations and orientations to obtain desired chemical reactions, and then to build systems by further assembling the products of these reactions.

A roadmap for the development of MNT is an objective of a broadly based technology project led by Battelle (the manager of several U.S. National Laboratories) and the Foresight Institute.[3] The roadmap was originally scheduled for completion by late 2006, but was released in January 2008.[4] The Nanofactory Collaboration[5] is a more focused ongoing effort involving 23 researchers from 10 organizations and 4 countries that is developing a practical research agenda[6] specifically aimed at positionally-controlled diamond mechanosynthesis and diamondoid nanofactory development. In August 2005, a task force consisting of 50+ international experts from various fields was organized by the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology to study the societal implications of molecular nanotechnology.[7]

One proposed application of MNT is so-called smart materials. This term refers to any sort of material designed and engineered at the nanometer scale for a specific task. It encompasses a wide variety of possible commercial applications. One example would be materials designed to respond differently to various molecules; such a capability could lead, for example, to artificial drugs which would recognize and render inert specific viruses. Another is the idea of self-healing structures, which would repair small tears in a surface naturally in the same way as self-sealing tires or human skin.

A MNT nanosensor would resemble a smart material, involving a small component within a larger machine that would react to its environment and change in some fundamental, intentional way. A very simple example: a photosensor might passively measure the incident light and discharge its absorbed energy as electricity when the light passes above or below a specified threshold, sending a signal to a larger machine. Such a sensor would supposedly cost less and use less power than a conventional sensor, and yet function usefully in all the same applications for example, turning on parking lot lights when it gets dark.

While smart materials and nanosensors both exemplify useful applications of MNT, they pale in comparison with the complexity of the technology most popularly associated with the term: the replicating nanorobot.

MNT nanofacturing is popularly linked with the idea of swarms of coordinated nanoscale robots working together, a popularization of an early proposal by Drexler in his 1986 discussions of MNT, but superseded in 1992. In this early proposal, sufficiently capable nanorobots would construct more nanorobots in an artificial environment containing special molecular building blocks.

Critics have doubted both the feasibility of self-replicating nanorobots and the feasibility of control if self-replicating nanorobots could be achieved: they cite the possibility of mutations removing any control and favoring reproduction of mutant pathogenic variations. Advocates address the first doubt by pointing out that the first macroscale autonomous machine replicator, made of Lego blocks, was built and operated experimentally in 2002.[8] While there are sensory advantages present at the macroscale compared to the limited sensorium available at the nanoscale, proposals for positionally controlled nanoscale mechanosynthetic fabrication systems employ dead reckoning of tooltips combined with reliable reaction sequence design to ensure reliable results, hence a limited sensorium is no handicap; similar considerations apply to the positional assembly of small nanoparts. Advocates address the second doubt by arguing that bacteria are (of necessity) evolved to evolve, while nanorobot mutation could be actively prevented by common error-correcting techniques. Similar ideas are advocated in the Foresight Guidelines on Molecular Nanotechnology,[9] and a map of the 137-dimensional replicator design space[10] recently published by Freitas and Merkle provides numerous proposed methods by which replicators could, in principle, be safely controlled by good design.

However, the concept of suppressing mutation raises the question: How can design evolution occur at the nanoscale without a process of random mutation and deterministic selection? Critics argue that MNT advocates have not provided a substitute for such a process of evolution in this nanoscale arena where conventional sensory-based selection processes are lacking. The limits of the sensorium available at the nanoscale could make it difficult or impossible to winnow successes from failures. Advocates argue that design evolution should occur deterministically and strictly under human control, using the conventional engineering paradigm of modeling, design, prototyping, testing, analysis, and redesign.

In any event, since 1992 technical proposals for MNT do not include self-replicating nanorobots, and recent ethical guidelines put forth by MNT advocates prohibit unconstrained self-replication.[9][11]

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Molecular nanotechnology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nanoengineering – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Nanoengineering is the practice of engineering on the nanoscale. It derives its name from the nanometre, a unit of measurement equalling one billionth of a meter.

Nanoengineering is largely a synonym for nanotechnology, but emphasizes the engineering rather than the pure science aspects of the field.

The first nanoengineering program in the world was started at the University of Toronto within the Engineering Science program as one of the Options of study in the final years. In 2003, the Lund Institute of Technology started a program in Nanoengineering. In 2004, the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering(CNSE) was established on the campus of the University at Albany.In 2005, the University of Waterloo established a unique program which offers a full degree in Nanotechnology Engineering. [1]Louisiana Tech University started the first program in the U.S. in 2005. In 2006 the University of Duisburg-Essen started a Bachelor and a Master program NanoEngineering. [2] The University of California, San Diego followed shortly thereafter in 2007 with its own department of Nanoengineering. In 2009, the University of Toronto began offering all Options of study in Engineering Science as degrees, bringing the second nanoengineering degree to Canada. DTU Nanotech - the Department of Micro- and Nanotechnology - is a department at the Technical University of Denmark established in 1990.

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Nanoengineering - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nanotechnology Engineering | www.Nanotechnology.com

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Imagine working on a structure 100,000 times smaller in diameter than a human hair! This is the rapidly expanding world of nanotechnology engineering, a field where a human hair is incomprehensibly large and an ant is a behemoth at 500,000 nm; a field where a nano is a billionth of a metera meter being approximately 39 inches longand it takes more than 25 million nanos to comprise an inch.

The burgeoning field of nanotechnology engineering encompasses all fields of science: biology, physics, chemistry, health and medicine, among others. Subdivisions of nanotechnology engineering include instrument development, materials engineering and bio-systems. Nanotechnologies involve constructing equipment and tools that work at the molecular level; this requires researching both the technologies with which to do this and improvements that can be made to existing methods.

The applications from the field of nanotechnology engineering encompass daily life at every level, from food development to transportation technology to medicine; all benefit from the ability to change or enhance at the molecular level. Nanotechnology is currently being used to deliver anti-cancer drugs to specific areas of cancer as well as to inhibit the growth of metastatic breast cancer; additionally, carbon nanotubes are being used to kill cancer cells in minutes with virtually no side effects.

Scientists envision a day when cancer will be treated at the genetic level by using nanotechnology to develop a treatment regimen based on an individuals genetic code. Nanotechnology will also enable physicians to isolate substances in the body that have been identified as precursors to cancer, so that eventually the disease will become eradicated.

The career field of nanotechnology engineering is filled with possibilities limited only by the imagination of mankind. For those individuals who are passionate about making a difference, this fascinating new career field offers unlimited potential, both for humanitarian endeavors and for professional achievements.

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Nanotechnology Engineering | http://www.Nanotechnology.com

Regenerative Medicine: Mayo Clinic and Collaborators Develop New Tool for Transplanting Stem Cells – Video

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Regenerative Medicine: Mayo Clinic and Collaborators Develop New Tool for Transplanting Stem Cells
Mayo Clinic researchers and colleagues in Belgium have developed a specialized catheter for transplanting stem cells into the beating heart. The novel device...

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Regenerative Medicine: Mayo Clinic and Collaborators Develop New Tool for Transplanting Stem Cells - Video