Category Archives: Transhuman News

Bad Piggies International Space Station Launch - Pigineering
This is a massive vehicle built in Bad Piggies V1.3 to commemorate release of the PC update on 7 June 2013. It is a simulation of a Space Shuttle or Russian ...

By: PIGineering by AngryBirdsNest

Visit link:
Bad Piggies International Space Station Launch - Pigineering - Video

Three Chinese astronauts are set to visit an experimental orbiting space module this week for 15 days, in the latest step toward a Chinese space station.

If the weather is on their side, a trio Chinese astronauts will lift off on Tuesday, bound for an experimental space station.

Subscribe Today to the Monitor

Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition

Perched atop a Long March 2F rocket, the Shenzhou 10 spacecraft whose name means "sacred vessel" is set to transport the three astronauts from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi desert to the Tiangong 1, a prototype for a much larger space station scheduled to be launched in 2020.

During their 12-days aboard the Tiangong, which means "heavenly palace," the crew will test the module's systems, conduct medical and technical experiments, and, in anunprecedentedexercisein public outreach for China's space agency, deliver a weightless lecture to a group of elementary and middle-school students via a live video feed.

If all systems are go on Tuesday, the launch will mark China's fifth manned space mission. The country launched its first crewed spaceflight in October 2003. So far, eight Chinese astronauts have flown into space.

The Shenzhou 10 crew includes the country's second female astronaut. Wang Yaping is a former PLA Air Force pilot whose past missions include, according to China's People's Daily, seeding clouds in an attempt to prevent rain at the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

China's space program still lags behind those of the United States and Russia, the only two other crewed spacefaring nations. For instance, the first space station, Salyut 1, was launched by the Soviet Union in 1971, and it was twice the mass of Tiangong 1. But China has been advancing rapidly.

"They don't have to reinvent the basic technologies for spaceflight," Australian space analyst Morris Jones told the Associated Press.

Excerpt from:
With next manned mission, China edges closer to space station

Video: China launches manned Shenzhou-10 craft to experimental space station
China #39;s fifth-ever manned mission has successfully blasted off from a location in the Gobi desert and will now head to the country #39;s prototype orbital statio...

By: RussiaToday

Continue reading here:
Video: China launches manned Shenzhou-10 craft to experimental space station - Video

The six astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station are about to get some new orbital neighbors. Three Chinese astronauts have blasted off aboard a Chinese Long March rocket.

They won't be coming aboard the international outpost, a $100 billion complex that files about 250 miles above Earth, however. China is not a member of the 15-nation partnership.

Instead, Nie Haishengm, commander of the Shenzhou-10 mission, and his two rookie crewmates will head to a Chinese-owned module called Tiangong-1, which is serving as testbed for a future operational station.

PHOTOS: An Awe-Inspiring Space Station Odyssey

The Chinese astronauts or taikonauts are due to spend 15 days in orbit, primarily to practice rendezvous and docking techniques, test technologies needed for long-term human habitation in space and conduct science experiments, Wu Ping, spokeswoman for China's human space program said through a translator at a webcast press conference on Monday.

The mission will be the countrys fifth with people aboard. Another three-member crew visited the 8.5-ton Tiangong-1 module last June. The prototype station, whose name means Heavenly Palace, has been orbiting since September 2011.

The capsule is expected to rendezvous and dock with Tiangong-1 twice, once manually and once automated. The technology is needed to prepare for on-orbit construction of Chinas follow-on station.

PHOTOS: Space Station Astronauts Log One Million Photos

Up to now, we have only conducted three automated rendezvous and dockings and one piloted rendezvous and docking. We need more flight tests for verification, Wu Ping told reporters.

Tiangong-1 was designed to last for two years and part of the upcoming mission will be to check its condition for a possible extension, Gregory Kulacki, China program manager at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told Discovery News.

Read more:
China Launches to Prototype Space Station

NASA

The International Space Station's first treadmill, referred to as the Treadmill Vibration Isolation System, or TVIS, floats inside the orbiting outpost in May as it was being prepared for Tuesday's disposal.

Robert Z. Pearlman Space.com A space apparatus that for more than a dozen years enabled both astronauts and cosmonauts to literally run around the Earth bid farewell to its home on orbit Tuesday. The International Space Station's original treadmill is now on its way to its fiery destruction aboard a spent Russian cargo freighter.

The now-discarded exercise device, called the "Treadmill Vibration Isolation System," or TVIS (pronounced "tee-viss"), was used by the orbiting outpost's first 34 resident crews from November 2000 until March of this year, when it was replaced by a new Russian-built unit. The 12-year-old running machine (and sometimes marathon track) was previously succeeded by a more advanced U.S. treadmill that was famously renamed after the television comedian Stephen Colbert.

"There has been a history of treadmills, trying to get them to work pretty well in space, and it is no easy feat," said NASA astronaut Sunita "Suni" Williams, who ran on the TVIS, and later the C.O.L.B.E.R.T. (Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill), to stay in shape during her two long-duration missions onboard the space station in 2006 and 2012. [ Photos: Comedian Stephen Colbert Visits NASA ]

Astronauts and cosmonauts use treadmills and other types of exercise devices as a countermeasure to the debilitating effects that extended exposure to microgravity has on the human body, including the loss of muscle mass and bone density.

Williams made history on the TVIS by becoming the first person to run a full marathon in space. On April 16, 2007, as thousands on the ground ran in the Boston Marathon, Williams completed the same distance on the stationary-but-still-circling-the-Earth treadmill.

"It made it through the (marathon's) 26.2 miles without a fault," Williams recalled in an interview with collectSpace about the TVIS's legacy.

Last month, Russian cosmonauts who had been using the TVIS since it was replaced in the U.S. segment of the space station by the COLBERT (or "T2") uninstalled the treadmill and packed it inside the Progress M-19M (51P) unmanned resupply craft to discard with other no-longer-needed hardware and trash. The cosmonauts now use the BD-2 treadmill, Russia's first new space exercise machine since the space station Mir.

NASA TV

Excerpt from:
It had a good run, but space station's first treadmill jettisoned