The ISS gets its Zero-G 3D printer

Posted on by

The International Space Station has received its 3D printer, installed in its Microgravity Science Glovebox to move towards self sufficiency.

Commander Barry Wilmore installing the 3D printer. NASA TV

Astronauts aboard the ISS will soon be experimenting with additive manufacturing in microgravity, with the installation of the very first 3D printer in space.

Commander Barry Wilmore unpacked and installed the printer, built by Made in Space and about the size of a small microwave oven, in the Microgravity Science Glovebox on board the space station's Destiny module, over the course of Monday, November 17.

This is the next step towards self-sufficiency for the ISS: a 3D printer capable of operating in microgravity would be able to help the astronauts manufacture their own components and tools, right there on the station.

The 3D printer installed in the MSG isn't quite that printer yet -- the astronauts will be using it to test how well 3D printing works in microgravity, and whether the objects printed will be as accurate as those printed on Earth. The printer will use a relatively low-temperature plastic feedstock, while the MSG will keep the astronauts safe from any potential malfunctions.

The first phase of printing will include a series of engineering test coupons. These will be sent back to Earth to be compared with control samples made by the same printer while it was at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, before being sent up to the ISS.

"This is a very exciting day for me and the rest of the team. We had to conquer many technical challenges to get the 3D printer to this stage," said Made in Space lead engineer Mike Snyder. "This experiment has been an advantageous first stepping stone to the future ability to manufacture a large portion of materials and equipment in space that has been traditionally launched from Earth surface, which will completely change our methods of exploration."

Commander Wilmore also performed the first critical system checks on the printer to make sure that it is operating as it should. Hardware and software are both in full operating condition.

The rest is here:

The ISS gets its Zero-G 3D printer

NASAs RapidScat Ocean Wind Watcher Starts Earth Science Operations at Space Station

Posted on by

ISS-RapidScat data on a North Atlantic extratropical cyclone, as seen by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System used by weather forecasters at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations Ocean Prediction Center. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/NOAA

Barely two months after being launched to the International Space Station (ISS), NASAs first science payload aimed at conducting Earth science from the stations exterior has started its ocean wind monitoring operations two months ahead of schedule.

Data from the ISS Rapid Scatterometer, or ISS-RapidScat, payload is now available to the worlds weather and marine forecasting agencies following the successful completion of check out and calibration activities by the mission team.

Indeed it was already producing high quality, usable data following its power-on and activation at the station in late September and has monitored recent tropical cyclones in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans prior to the end of the current hurricane season.

RapidScat is designed to monitor ocean winds for climate research, weather predictions, and hurricane monitoring for a minimum mission duration of two years.

RapidScat is a short mission by NASA standards, said RapidScat Project Scientist Ernesto Rodriguez of JPL.

Its data will be ready to help support U.S. weather forecasting needs during the tail end of the 2014 hurricane season. The dissemination of these data to the international operational weather and marine forecasting communities ensures that RapidScats benefits will be felt throughout the world.

ISS-RapidScat instrument, shown in this artists rendering, was launched to the International Space Station aboard the SpaceX CRS-4 mission on Sept. 21, 2014, and attached at ESAs Columbus module. It will measure ocean surface wind speed and direction and help improve weather forecasts, including hurricane monitoring. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Johnson Space Center.

The 1280 pound (580kilogram) experimental instrument was developed by NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Its a cost-effective replacement to NASAs former QuikScat satellite.

The $26 million remote sensing instrument uses radar pulses reflected from the oceans surface at different angles to calculate the speed and direction of winds over the ocean for the improvement of weather and marine forecasting and hurricane monitoring.

Read the original post:

NASAs RapidScat Ocean Wind Watcher Starts Earth Science Operations at Space Station

[Orbiter] Orbits – Part 1, Rendezvous and Docking with the ISS – Video

Posted on by


[Orbiter] Orbits - Part 1, Rendezvous and Docking with the ISS
In this video, I discuss the basics of space travel and orbital maneuvers with a transfer from the Mir space station to the International Space Station. Orbiter - Space Flight Simulator http://or...

By: Dan Quinlivan

Go here to read the rest:

[Orbiter] Orbits - Part 1, Rendezvous and Docking with the ISS - Video

Webb Space Telescope promises astronomers new scientific adventures

Posted on by

By Eric Niiler November 17

Inside a very big and very clean room at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., nearly 30 workers dressed in white protective suits, goggles and blue booties cluster around the parts of a time machine.

These parts gold-covered mirrors, tennis-court-size sun shields, delicate infrared cameras are slowly being put together to become the James Webb Space Telescope.

Astronomers are hoping that the Webb will be able to collect light that is very far away from us and is moving still farther away. The universe has been expanding ever since the big bang got it started, but scientists reckon that if the telescope is powerful enough, they just might be able to see the birth of the first galaxies, some 13.5 billion years ago.

This is similar to archaeology, says Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb, who helped plan Webbs science mission. We are digging deep into the universe. But as the sources of light become fainter and farther away, you need a big telescope like the James Webb.

Named for a former NASA director, the 21-foot-diameter Webb telescope will be 100 times as powerful as the Hubble Space Telescope, which was launched in 1990. Although Hubble wasnt the first space telescope, its images of far-off objects have dazzled the public and led to breakthroughs in astrophysics, such as determining how fast the universe is expanding.

The Webb will be both bigger and located in a darker part of space than Hubble, enabling it to capture images from the faintest galaxies. Four infrared cameras will capture light that is moving away from us very quickly and that has shifted from the visible to the infrared spectrum, described as red-shifted. The advantage of using infrared light is that it is not blocked by clouds of gas and dust that may lie between the telescope and the light. Webbs mirrors are covered in a thin layer of gold that absorbs blue light but reflects yellow and red visible light, and its cameras will detect infrared light and a small part of the visible spectrum. As objects move away from us, the wavelength of their light shifts from visible light to infrared light. Thats why the Webbs infrared cameras will be able to see things that are both far away and moving away from us.

The cameras will also probe the atmospheres of planets that revolve around nearby stars, known as exoplanets, for the chemical signatures of life: water, oxygen and maybe even pollution from alien civilizations.

But before any of that dazzling science happens, theres a lot of testing to do at Goddard, in the clean room and a nearby cryo-chamber.

Various tests will squeeze, shake, freeze and twist thousands of individual parts in an effort to make sure the spacecraft will survive blastoff from a spaceport in French Guyana and the cold environment of its orbiting position almost a million miles from Earth. By comparison, Hubble circles just 375 miles above our planet, depending on its orbit.

Read the original post:

Webb Space Telescope promises astronomers new scientific adventures

A window into space through NASA's online sensation

Posted on by

Astronaut Reid Wiseman is getting used to life back on Earth after recently returning from 166 days in orbit. In between space walks and research, Wiseman shared a remarkable view from the International Space Station. He picked up 330,000 followers on Twitter before landing in Kazakhstan last week.

"This was my first space flight, so I'd never looked down on the Earth from 260 miles up, and when you do that the first couple times, you're taken to a special place," Wiseman told "CBS This Morning" from the Johnson Space Center in Houston. "You're breathless, really, just looking out at the horizon is so beautiful."

It was that beauty that led him to begin his social media campaign.

"You have this extreme desire to share it," Wiseman said. "And I was lucky enough to have a conduit to share this journey with everyone, and it really caught fire and it was great. It was great for me, and I'm really happy it happened that way."

Among the scenes he captured were sunsets, typhoons and pyramids, but he shared his most memorable sight on nearly every platform, sending out multiple Vines, Instagram posts, and Tweets.

"Really I think the aurora and lightning storms, just watching how amazing that event is, just kind of flying through the swimming aurora," Wiseman said. "And we saw some really powerful aurora, much more than my fellow astronauts have been able to see, so we were just super lucky."

He said some of the most extraordinary things about being in space were watching changes on Earth from an entirely knew perspective.

"Doing all the science is amazing, and then any spare time you have, you get to go down to the greatest window humanity has ever known and look back at our planet," Wiseman said. "Just watching our planet over an entire six months, watching summer turn to winter, seeing the aurora thunderstorms, it's just, it's magnificent, it really is magnificent."

Even adjusting to life on the ISS was an experience for him.

"Being weightless, trying to learn, watching your body change while you're up there," he said.

Follow this link:

A window into space through NASA's online sensation

Red Bull's New York HQ Is Office Normcore

Posted on by

For a business that markets its energy drink by sponsoring death-taunting extreme sports, Red Bull keeps a surprisingly low profile. Its headquarters is in a low-slung, unmarked building in the small Austrian town of Fuschl am See, Austria. The company doesnt grant interviews, including for this post. Fortunately, weve been given a look at the companys recently opened New York office, which, unsurprisingly, doesnt brandish a single logo.

Photograph by Greg Irikura/Inaba Inc.

That is by design. The space, located in Manhattans Chelsea neighborhood, doesnt celebrate the companys brand, nor is its layout inspired by a popular theory of workplace productivity. Instead, the company wanted a low-key, versatile office that could be transformed as needs and trends change. If the new [office design] standard is to create a physical experience that reinforces the brand attributes the company has successfully established in the digital environment, then Red Bull is the antithesis of this strategy, says the designer, Jeffrey Inaba. Its not exactly the architectural equivalent of normcore, but its a similar response. (Normcore, in Thomas Franks words, is the trend among the privileged toward anti-fashion clothes of the kind available at Wal-Mart.)

Photograph by Greg Irikura/Inaba Inc.

Nothing screams Red Bull. There are no billboards of previous marketing campaigns, playgrounds for grownups, or vending machines stocked with silver cans of caffeinated beverages. Instead, 16,800-square-foot duplex office has a gallery-esque feel, with concrete floors, whitewashed walls, and vibrantly upholstered pieces of midcentury modern furniture. The office currently holds 60 people but Inaba expects that it can accommodate twice that number without being renovated. Rather than making the space flexible using pricey partitions, he carved it into three types of fixed spaces: large for open-plan workstations, medium-sized for meetings, and small for meetings up to four people or solitary heads-down sessions. Although each room type has unique lighting and acoustic features, none is custom-tailored, so they can be easily adapted to new uses in the future.

The space, as Inaba sees it, should be immune to workplace fads, even if hes just recast normcore as just that.

Photograph by Greg Irikura/Inaba Inc.

See the original post:

Red Bull's New York HQ Is Office Normcore

Ebola flaring anew in Africa, Red Cross officials say

Posted on by

Published November 18, 2014

Health workers wearing protective clothing prepare to carry an abandoned dead body presenting with Ebola symptoms at Duwala market in Monrovia August 17, 2014. REUTERS/2Tango

Red Cross officials helping to lead the fight against Ebola in West Africa said Monday the virus is still spreading, and they're having trouble recruiting health care workers to combat it.

Antoine Petitbon of the French Red Cross said that it's easier for him to recruit people to go to Iraq, despite the security hazards there. He said the French Red Cross is facing an unprecedented problem: Sixty percent of people it signs up to work in the Ebola zone subsequently back out due to pressure from families and friends.

Birte Hald, head of emergency operations for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said that after a recent surge of optimism that the virus was coming under control, especially in Liberia, it "is flaring up in new villages, in new locations." On Monday, Hald said, a team of international experts was being set to Mali to assist that nation's health authorities in stemming an outbreak of Ebola there.

"Unfortunately, it doesn't look as if we have bent the curve yet," said Hald, who heads the Red Cross federation's anti-Ebola effort in Africa. "It is absolutely premature to start being optimistic."

Ebola has killed more than 5,000 people in West Africa, mostly in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leona. On Monday, a surgeon who contracted Ebola in his native Sierra Leone died in a Nebraska hospital while being treated in a biocontainment unit, the hospital announced.

Red Cross officials, speaking at a joint news conference in Brussels, called on the media to get out the message that Ebola is not highly contagious. The better the public understands that, said Alasan Senghore, the federation's Africa director, "the more we will get people to volunteer to come and work in those countries."

The rest is here:

Ebola flaring anew in Africa, Red Cross officials say

Does It Make Sense To Own A Piece Of Ferrari?

Posted on by

Their signature red, beautifully-designed bodies turn heads at red carpet events. Their engines are constructed to emit some of the most pleasing sounds on earth as you accelerate down the road. Their posters dot the walls of childrens bedrooms and man-caves alike, equally coveted but rarely attainable since they cost as much asif not more thanyour house. There may not be a more desirable sports car than a Ferrari and while most of us will only drive one in our dreams, soon you will be able to casually brag to your friends and family that you own a piece of Ferrari. Ferrari has announced plans for an initial public offering in 2015.

Enzo Ferrari founded the racecar manufacturer in 1929, and in 1947 the company started producing streetcars. Fiat, which is now Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (NYSE: FCAU), initially acquired 50% of Ferrari in 1969, and today owns 90% of Ferrari. Ferrari currently ranks as the most powerful brand in the world, according to a study of 500 companies by Brand Finance, a leading brand consultancy firm. In an effort to capitalize on the Ferrari brand and maximize shareholder value FCA recently announced that it will sell 10% of its Ferrari holding in an initial public offering. Another 80% will be spun off to shareholders and the remaining 10% is owned by Piero Lardi Ferrari, the son of Enzo Ferrari. Shares are expected to be listed in the U.S. and possibly on a European exchange as well, by mid-to-late 2015.

Jared Gall 2014 Ferrari LaFerrari Photo. caranddriver.com Mar. 2014

Ferrari revenues for 2013 were 2.335 billion, a 5% increase over the previous year. This increase occurred even though the company cut production by 5% to preserve brand exclusiveness. 2013 operating profit was 364 million and net profit was 264 million. For the first nine months of 2014, revenues reached 2.011 billion, an increase of 300 million or 17.5% over the previous year. This was mainly attributable to the contribution from the LaFerrari supercar model. Operating profit was 274 million.

The company is currently seeing solid growth in North America, its largest market comprising 29% of revenue. Europe continues to be a challenging market due to economic conditions, and sales in China have been on the decline. Strength in Japan and the Middle East have somewhat offset the weakness in other parts of the world.

To further develop the brand, Ferrari also has over 50 Ferrari Stores worldwide and an online channel that sell clothing and accessories. Both have seen volumes continue to grow.The companys 2014-2018 plan calls for a full line of 8 and 12 cylinder high end performance street cars and a personalization program (where one can customize their own vehicle for an added cost) to add to profits. Ferrari also plans to continue major licensing agreements with video game companies Electronic Arts(NASDAQ:EA) and Codemasters, and Ferrari World in Abu Dabithe largest indoor park in the world. The plan also places emphasis on continued investment in sport activities. This is the one area that has hurt the brand, as Ferrari has failed to win a Formula 1 World Drivers Championship since 2007. Ferrari is also targeting margins in excess of 15%.

On the innovation front, development has continued on electric inverters and motors for application on hybrid electric and purely electric vehicles. The company has decided to create high end performance vehicles with socially conscious marketing and environmentally friendly features. Earlier this year Ferrari launched LaFerrari, their first hybrid. LaFerrari and the few other vehicles in the hybrid-sportscar class are nothing like your fathers Prius. The car has a 12-cylinder, 6-liter combustion engine and also boasts an electric engine that combine for 960 horsepower. The car does 0 to 60 mph in 2.9 seconds and has a top speed of 220 mph. It also set the record for the fastest lap time for a production Ferrari at the companys Fiorano test track. But dont run off to the dealership just yetLaFerrari is the most expensive car the company has produced, retailing for an eye watering $1.4 million.

Jared Gall 2014 Ferrari LaFerrari Photo. caranddriver.com Mar. 2014

There is a wide variation in valuation for Ferrari with analysts estimates ranging from 3.5billion to 8 billion. FCA CEO Sergio Marchionne has said the value could be as much as 10 billion. The picture will become clearer as the company nears its IPO. In a filing last week, FCA announced that Ferrari would have to transfer 2.25 billion to FCA prior to the separation of the two companies, although it is still unclear how much debt Ferrari might hold. Ferrari has purposefully capped vehicle production at 7,000 cars per year. The company has said that volume could increase to 10,000 cars per year as the high net worth population expands in emerging markets. This could result in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) in excess of 1 billion. Luxury brands have sold for 11-13 times EBITDA in the past, so Marchionnes valuation estimate might not be out of line. With the luxury goods industry in vogue right now and many cash rich emerging market companies on the prowl for European brands with strong pasts, Ferraris engine could be just getting revved up.

Andrew Goodman is the Chief InvestmentOfficer atCIC Wealthand theChairman of Play It Coy. Circle him onGoogle+

Continue reading here:

Does It Make Sense To Own A Piece Of Ferrari?

Philae Settles in Dust-Covered Ice

Posted on by

Before going into hibernation in the early hours of 15 November 2014, the Philae lander was able to conduct experiments and return its data to Earth. In this blog post we look at the preliminary analysis conducted by the landersMulti-Purpose Sensors for Surface and Subsurface Science instrument package, MUPUS.

MUPUS began observing the environment around Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko once Philae was released from the Rosetta orbiter at 08:35 GMT on 12 November (this is spacecraft time; the signal confirming separation arrived at Earth just over 28 minutes later, at 09:03 GMT).

The first touchdown recorded by Philae occurred at 15:34 GMT (with the signal arriving on Earth at 16:03 GMT), but it later transpired that the harpoons and ice screws did not deploy as planned and the lander subsequently rebounded, experiencing two further touchdowns, at 17:25 and 17:32 GMT (spacecraft time), respectively.

Because part of the MUPUS package was contained in the harpoons, some temperature and accelerometer data could not be gathered. However, the MUPUS thermal mapper, located on the body of the lander, worked throughout the descent and during all three touchdowns.

At Philaes final landing spot, the MUPUS probe recorded a temperature of 153C close to the floor of the landers balcony before it was deployed. Then, after deployment, the sensors near the tip cooled by about 10C over a period of roughly half an hour.

We think this is either due to radiative transfer of heat to the cold nearby wall seen in the CIVA images or because the probe had been pushed into a cold dust pile, says Jrg Knollenberg, instrument scientist for MUPUS at DLR.

The probe then started to hammer itself into the subsurface, but was unable to make more than a few millimetres of progress even at the highest power level of the hammer motor.

If we compare the data with laboratory measurements, we think that the probe encountered a hard surface with strength comparable to that of solid ice, says Tilman Spohn, principal investigator for MUPUS.

Looking at the results of the thermal mapper and the probe together, the team have made the preliminary assessment that the upper layers of the comets surface consist of dust of 1020 cm thickness, overlaying mechanically strong ice or ice and dust mixtures.

Read the original here:

Philae Settles in Dust-Covered Ice

Fossil Imaged Next To NASA’s Curiosity Rover Wheels With MAHLI Camera – Video

Posted on by


Fossil Imaged Next To NASA #39;s Curiosity Rover Wheels With MAHLI Camera
Another amazing image has been uncovered by Mars researchers. This certainly looks like a fossil that one would find of a living organism at some point. I am not sure why NASA just drove...

By: WhatsUpInTheSky37

Read the original:

Fossil Imaged Next To NASA's Curiosity Rover Wheels With MAHLI Camera - Video

NASA’s SCIENCE FICTION – Magnetic Atmospheric Holes (Glass Sky) – Video

Posted on by


NASA #39;s SCIENCE FICTION - Magnetic Atmospheric Holes (Glass Sky)
Step out of the matrix of pseudo-science. Enter inside the concave earth with a glass sky and see things from God #39;s point of view. The Concave Earth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0yBX68g3vk...

By: Lord Steven Christ

View post:

NASA's SCIENCE FICTION - Magnetic Atmospheric Holes (Glass Sky) - Video

NASA builds a time-machine telescope 100 times as powerful as the Hubble

Posted on by

Provided by Washington Post

Inside a very big and very clean room at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., nearly 30 workers dressed in white protective suits, goggles and blue booties cluster around the parts of a time machine.

These parts gold-covered mirrors, tennis-court-size sun shields, delicate infrared cameras are slowly being put together to become the James Webb Space Telescope.

Astronomers are hoping that the Webb will be able to collect light that is very far away from us and is moving still farther away. The universe has been expanding ever since the big bang got it started, but scientists reckon that if the telescope is powerful enough, they just might be able to see the birth of the first galaxies, some 13.5 billion years ago.

This is similar to archaeology, says Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb, who helped plan Webbs science mission. We are digging deep into the universe. But as the sources of light become fainter and farther away, you need a big telescope like the James Webb.

Named for a former NASA director, the 21-foot-diameter Webb telescope will be 100 times as powerful as the Hubble Space Telescope, which was launched in 1990. Although Hubble wasnt the first space telescope, its images of far-off objects have dazzled the public and led to breakthroughs in astrophysics, such as determining how fast the universe is expanding.

The Webb will be both bigger and located in a darker part of space than Hubble, enabling it to capture images from the faintest galaxies. Four infrared cameras will capture light that is moving away from us very quickly and that has shifted from the visible to the infrared spectrum, described as red-shifted. The advantage of using infrared light is that it is not blocked by clouds of gas and dust that may lie between the telescope and the light. Webbs mirrors are covered in a thin layer of gold that absorbs blue light but reflects yellow and red visible light, and its cameras will detect infrared light and a small part of the visible spectrum. As objects move away from us, the wavelength of their light shifts from visible light to infrared light. Thats why the Webbs infrared cameras will be able to see things that are both far away and moving away from us.

The cameras will also probe the atmospheres of planets that revolve around nearby stars, known as exoplanets, for the chemical signatures of life: water, oxygen and maybe even pollution from alien civilizations.

But before any of that dazzling science happens, theres a lot of testing to do at Goddard, in the clean room and a nearby cryo-chamber.

Various tests will squeeze, shake, freeze and twist thousands of individual parts in an effort to make sure the spacecraft will survive blastoff from a spaceport in French Guyana and the cold environment of its orbiting position almost a million miles from Earth. By comparison, Hubble circles just 375 miles above our planet, depending on its orbit.

Read more:

NASA builds a time-machine telescope 100 times as powerful as the Hubble