Category Archives: Transhuman News

Space Station 13 Episode 37: Danger Danger! High Voltage!
I #39;m a traitor CE and things get dangerous!

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Space Station 13 Episode 37: Danger Danger! High Voltage! - Video

When Astronaunts Play With Water and a GoPro in Space
Nov. 7 (Bloomberg) -- During Expedition 40 in the summer of 2014, NASA astronauts Steve Swanson and Reid Wiseman -- along with European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst -- explored ...

By: Bloomberg News

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When Astronaunts Play With Water and a GoPro in Space - Video

Weekly Space Hangout - November 7, 2014: Ship Updates Solar System Formation
Host: Fraser Cain (@fcain) Guests: Morgan Rehnberg (cosmicchatter.org / @cosmic_chatter) Brian Koberlein (@briankoberlein) Nicole Gugliucci (cosmoquest.org / @noisyastronomer) This Week #39;s...

By: Fraser Cain

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Weekly Space Hangout - November 7, 2014: Ship Updates & Solar System Formation - Video

Next year, one group of Eanes students will boldly go where no student in their school has gone before.

About 300 middle-schoolers in the school district are vying to send one groups science experiment to the International Space Station to assess the role gravity plays in a particular chemical or biological system. One small, contained experiment from Eanes is expected to have a spot on a U.S. commercial spacecraft trip in the spring.

By participating in the Student Spaceflight Experiment Program, the brainchild of a non-profit and a private company established in 2010 as privatized U.S. space exploration was gaining traction, the Eanes school district joins nine other Texas school districts and 99 districts in America and Canada that have participated in the program so far. The opportunity isnt free Eanes paid $21,500 for the program through district funds.

Eanes officials have launched a community fundraising campaign to participate in future flights. The Eanes fundraising campaign for the project will begin 5:30 p.m. Nov. 13, when students put their projects on display at Westlake High School. The event will also feature a mobile planetarium and a presentation from retired astronaut Marsha Ivins. Individuals or companies interested in supporting the Eanes program should contact Jerri LaMirand at jlamirand@eanesisd.net

While West Ridge Middle School eighth-grader Aubrey Ireland said she has done plenty of science experiments in school labs before, this project is the first time she really feels like a scientist.

In past science classes, theyve always told us about being scientists, but they never let us take charge ourselves, Ireland said. Its kind of like learning a language. You can never learn from a textbook like you can just doing it yourself.

She is part of a team of four girls designing an experiment that will test how fern spores grow when theyre weightless. Ireland, 13, said she loves that the work is hands-on when it comes to researching a project idea, designing the device that will go up, and writing the proposal. The students do all this work themselves.

Its a major undertaking that some found intimidating at first, Eanes students said. But as they researched the concept of weightlessness in space, brainstormed ideas, looked at the programs past experiments and reached out to professional scientists, their excitement grew.

Its a real opportunity to see the research side of science, said Hill Country Middle School teacher Elisabeth Flohr. Its one thing to do activities and labs and blow stuff up, and its another thing to do experiments.

When an unmanned spacecraft exploded in midair Oct. 29, some Eanes students took a personal interest in the news because other districts experiments with the Student Spaceflight Experiment Program were aboard, including students projects from San Antonio and outside Dallas. Hill Country teacher Woodroe Kisers students were asking a lot of questions in class about the rocket failure, Flohr said.

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Eanes experiment going to International Space Station

Cockeysville native Reid Wiseman has spent the past five months sharing awe-inspiring views of Earth from more than 200 miles above, but in a recent tweet, he said he's ready for the opposite view of the International Space Station, distant and zipping through the night sky.

He'll have the chance soon, as he's scheduled to return from the space station Sunday night. The NASA astronaut and two crew mates, a German astronaut and Russian cosmonaut, are expected to land in the steppe of central Kazakhstan about 11 p.m. Eastern Time.

But the station won't go long without a Marylander aboard Columbia native Terry Virts is scheduled to launch from Kazakhstan in two weeks, and he said he is looking forward to following in Wiseman's footsteps.

Wiseman's time in space included shoutouts to his alma mater, Dulaney High School, and to fellow Orioles fans. He gained more than 300,000 Twitter followers with frequent images of Earth from space he shared.

"I've got some big shoes to fill," Virts said in an interview from Russia. "I'll do my best to try and keep up with Reid. It'll be tough."

Wiseman launched to the space station May 28 after 21/2 years of preparation. Over the summer and fall, he and crew mates maintained the station and conducted science experiments.

He embarked on two space walks last month, spending more than 12 hours in a spacesuit tethered to the station while installing and repairing equipment on its exterior.

But the 41st expedition to the space station will come to an end when Wiseman, European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst and Russian cosmonaut Maksim Surayev depart aboard a Soyuz spacecraft about 7:30 p.m. Sunday, tumbling back to Earth less than four hours later. Wiseman tweeted Friday that the crew successfully test-fired the spacecraft's thrusters.

"Everything worked flawlessly ready for a Sunday departure," he wrote.

Wiseman's parents, Bill and Judy Wiseman of Cockeysville, are ready, too.

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Cockeysville native returning from space Sunday night

The International Space Station (ISS) isnt designed to move around on its own, which presents a problem when a bit ofspace debris is threatening to smack into the station. Thats exactly what happened a few days ago, but the ESAs Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) happened to be docked at the station with enough fuel to save the day.

Even small objects can be extremely dangerous in orbit. Even a paint chip can cause damage to a spacecraft when it impacts traveling at almost 30,000 km/h. Its enough of a problem that astronauts aboard the ISS have emergency protocols to follow when space junk threatens the station. These objects can be almost anything parts from rocket engines, screws from derelict satellites, or even tools lost by astronauts. Theyre all moving very fast and are very dangerous. Scary stuff.

Scientists have been musing on ways to clear some of this debris from orbit with everything from giant nets to lasers. In fact, objects of this size are one of the main targets of such research as they can go unnoticed by radar until shortly before impact. One Australian company says it will be able to blast junk of this size out of the sky with lasers in 10 to 20 years, but until then we need to be able to get out of the way.

Prior to 2012, they would huddle inside the stations Soyuz escape ship and hope the station wasnt hit. In the last few years it has been possible to sue Russias Progress supply ship to move the ISS out of harms way, but that craft wasnt docked when the most recent scare happened. Luckily, the ATV-5 was connected and flight engineers took a chance.

The threat turned out to be a piece of Russias Cosmos-2251 satellite, which broke up after colliding with a second satellite in 2009. The bit of debris was about the size of your hand, but that could easily blow a hole in the stations hull if it were to hit. The calculated path of the object was within 4 km of the station, which is close enough that action needed to be taken.

ATV Georges Lematre had docked several days previously to deliver 6.6 tons of supplies to the ISS. This is a non-reusable vehicle. After making the delivery, it is dropped into the atmosphere to burn up. However, it still had enough fuel in its tanks to change the stations trajectory to avoid the satellite debris. ATV mission control did the necessary calculations and managed to fire the ATVs thrusters for a boost of of 1.8 km/h. This increased the stations altitude by 1 km, which took it well outside of the danger zone.

The ESAs ATV spacecrafts have proven to be a robust and reliable way of moving cargo in low-Earth orbit, but thats just the beginning. NASAs next-generation Orion crew transport vehicle will use an ATV-based service module for power and propulsion (seen above), making it a critical part of future manned missions. Design work on this version of the ATV capsule is expected to be completed around 2017.

Now read:Antares rocket explodes on liftoff to resupply International Space Station

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ISS performs emergency maneuver to avoid space junk impact