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Monday, 18 August 2008
I don’t know if the designers of this concept car are capital punishment zealots, but the two occupants look as if they’re destined to be heading down a road crossed with razor-sharp wire – positioned, say, about head height. The helmets? All part of the ruse. They’re test drivers for this new concept car, see? Thursday, 31 July 2008
The USAF has a new weapon that could take care of those who speak ill of the United States. In partnership with Boeing, they have developed the world’s first unmanned military spaceplane which will launch before the end of this year. The spaceplane is designed to be reusable, being capable of numerous takeoffs and runway landings. The objective for its first mission reads like cryptic military parlance; risk reduction and experimentation. The launch is scheduled for November on the back of an Atlas V Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle, stealing the reserved launch slot of NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter which got bumped to early 2009. Is it really a stretch to see this spaceplane rigged with Boeing’s death-ray lasers and covertly targeting weapons factories, airborne missiles, political targets or even dissidents on the surface? Scary! Sources: Thursday, 24 July 2008
Dr Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 astronaut and record holder for the longest ever moon walk has claimed that aliens made numerous visits to Earth during his career with NASA, but that each one was carefully covered up. Mitchell (pictured below) described the creatures as ‘little people who look strange to us’ and that they look similar to the traditional image of aliens like E.T. with large eyes and a small frame. Such a highly accomplished man who is privy to sensitive information may give credence to the alien coverup conspiracy. He claims that information about the coverup has slowly leaked out and that he has been privileged to be briefed on some of it. Mitchell, who is now 77, has said that our technology is “not nearly as sophisticated” as theirs and that “had they been hostile”, we wouldn’t be around anymore. Dr Mitchell broke his silence on Kerrang! radio and said “This is really starting to open up. I think we’re headed for real disclosure and some serious organisations are moving in that direction.” A NASA spokesman played down the comments in a statement which said, “NASA does not track UFOs. NASA is not involved in any sort of cover up about alien life on this planet or anywhere in the universe. They added, “Dr Mitchell is a great American, but we do not share his opinions on this issue.” Is this man for real? Or was he on the moon too long? Have your say in the comments.
Tuesday, 8 July 2008
A patent application has been filed for a jet-engine silencer that could cut aircraft noise by half, making life a lot quieter for those of us who live near airports or under flight paths. The patent was filed by a Mr Dimitri Papamoschou from the University of California, who developed the invention with a grant from NASA. Apparently, most of a jet engine’s noise comes not from the engine itself, but rather from turbulence in the fast-flowing air that is is expelled. The invention aims to purge the air in two channels, one for high-speed air and one for low-speed air. The high-speed air will be directed upwards, away from the towns and cities below. In simulations, this technique has shown to reduce noise by over 6 decibels. The technology is still years away from commercial use, unfortunately, but if you need some peace and quiet a little sooner, Pratt & Whitney may have just the thing for you. Source: Friday, 20 June 2008
NASA scientists have announced that the Mars Phoenix Lander has discovered water ice just below the martian surface. They have captured photographic evidence of dice-sized white material exposed during digging which four days later had begun to disappear. “It must be ice,” said Peter Smith, the Phoenix Lander’s lead investigator. “These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days, that is perfect evidence that it’s ice.” The news has huge implications. If there’s life on Mars, or if there ever was, the best place to find evidence of it is in water. The lander may have also discovered an icy layer. It began digging a different trench when its robotic arm connected with a firm layer and after three attempts, found it could not dig any further. Source: Friday, 13 June 2008
NASA yesterday awarded US firm Oceaneering International with the contract for its new spacesuits for the 2015 Orion capsule launch. The contract is worth $745 million and involves production as well as design, evaluation and testing of a suit that can be customised to meet an astronaut’s requirements at various stages of a mission. An astronaut will be able to replace certain components with others that are more suited to the task at hand like strolling on the moon. The current suit is designed for floating in space and does not perform well when walking on the moon. The new suit will be of a lighter weight and will be more flexible. It will need to operate with minimal maintenance for a large number of moonwalks during planned lunar expeditions. The default version of the new suit (see below) will be used inside the Orion spacecraft during takeoff and landing. It is a less bulky version that will protect the astronauts against unforeseen problems like cabin leaks. Sources:
Tuesday, 3 June 2008
The Space Shuttle Discovery’s astronauts prepared on Tuesday for the first spacewalk of their mission plus the installation of Japan’s huge Kibo lab to the International Space Station (ISS). The shuttle docked with the space station Monday and now spacewalkers Ronald Garan Jr and Michael Fossum are preparing the $1 billion lab for installation. Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide will then use the station’s robotic arm to attach the lab to the International Space Station. “Obviously its gonna be a really big day for Japan, they’ve been working very hard on this module and all of the systems in it,” said ISS flight director Emily Nelson. Kibo, which is Japanese for hope, is 37 feet long, making it bigger than the European and U.S. labs already in place. About an hour before they docked, Discovery was positioned so that its underside could be photographed by ISS astronauts. This has become a regular safety feature to ensure the shuttle is free of damage before re-entry. As well as preparing the installation of Kibo, the spacewalkers need to clean a jammed solar rotating joint and remove an inspection boom they will need next week to check for damage to the Discovery’s nose cap and wings. The boom was left behind by the last crew as Kibo took up all the room in the payload bay. Discovery brought with it badly-needed supplies including parts to fix a high-tech Russian space toilet. The astronauts had rigged-up a temporary bypass for liquid waste when the ISS commode broke down last week. There were about five pieces of insulating foam that broke free from Discovery’s fuel tank during liftoff but does not appear to have caused any damage. The focus lies on the flame trench which suffered the worst launch pad damage in 27 years. A large section measuring 75 feet by 20 feet broke away plus concrete mortar and pieces of the heat-resistant fire bricks were found over 1,800 feet away, beyond the chain-link barrier fence. The trench does not appear to have damaged the shuttle. The trench dates back to the Apollo era in the 1960s and is designed to deflect the exhaust of the booster rockets. Sources: Related Articles: Monday, 26 May 2008
NASA’s Mars Phoenix Lander successfully touched down on the Martian planet on Sunday and sent through its first images. “It’s surprisingly close to what we expected and that’s what surprises me most,” said the mission’s principal investigator, Peter Smith. “I expected a bigger surprise.” The landing ends the probe’s 296-day journey to the Red Planet’s arctic plains with a landing that was right on target. NASA’s Ed Weiler, compared the feat to landing a hole-in-one from 10,000 miles away with a golf ball. At mission control, (NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California) they celebrated the successful landing but the team is waiting anxiously for the next set of indicators to verify the health of the lander. NASA was nervous about the landing and justifiably so. Phoenix’s twin, named Polar, malfunctioned during its decent in 1999 and crashed. Another spacecraft, the Mars Climate Orbiter also failed the same year. Project manager for the Phoenix mission, Barry Goldstein told CNN. “It was better than we could have imagined,” referring to the landing. During its journey, the Phoenix depended on electricity from solar panels built into the craft’s cruise stage. This was jettisoned seven minutes before entering the Martian atmosphere. Batteries are providing the craft with electricity until its own pair of solar arrays are spread open. The Phoenix will remain on Mars for 90 days, analysing the permafrost and soil for signs of life – past or present. “We are not going to be able to answer the final question of is there life on Mars,” said Peter Smith, principal investigator and optical scientist with the University of Arizona. “We will take the next important step. We’ll find out if there’s organic material associated with this ice in the polar regions. Ice is a preserver, and if there ever were organics on Mars and they got into that ice, they will still be there today.” Photo credit: NASA Friday, 23 May 2008
NASA is preparing to land their Phoenix lander on Mars – a procedure they call the ‘7 minutes of terror’. With the successful rover missions, Spirit and Opportunity behind them, you would think they would be more optimistic about this upcoming landing. “I do not feel confident. But in my heart I’m an optimist, and I think this is going to be a very successful mission,” said Peter Smith, principal investigator and optical scientist with the University of Arizona. “The thrill of victory is so much more exciting than the agony of defeat.” Sunday night will be the big night, when the Phoenix lander will hit the Martian atmosphere traveling at nearly 13 thousand miles per hour. It’s on-board computers will be working at speed to deploy it’s parachute, jettison the heat shield, extend its three legs, release the parachute and finally fire its thrusters to slow its descent to hopefully make a soft landing. The Mars Phoenix Lander team will be biting their nails as they watch the event unfold from computer monitors at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory In Pasadena, California. “Everything has to go right,” said Ed Weiler, NASA Associate Administrator. “You can’t afford any failures.” One of the worries for the Phoenix team, is the landing system itself. Since the Viking missions in the late 1970’s, NASA has not successfully landed a probe on Mars using stabilising thrusters and landing legs. The successful Pathfinder, Spirit and Opportunity rovers used massive airbags to cushion the impact on landing. The Phoenix Lander was simply too big and heavy to use this method of landing and with plans to launch larger spacecraft in the future, NASA will need to learn to reliably land with thrusters and landing legs. “We landed on Mars with rockets and legs twice with Viking. It’s not impossible by definition, we have proof of it,” said Weiler. “Humans will have to land on landing legs. Eventually we want to send humans there, obviously.” The landing site for Phoenix is near the northern polar ice cap on the Northern plains of Mars. There it will dig and scoop with its robotic arm and look for organic chemical evidence of life past or present. The Phoenix Lander was launched towards Mars last August. Photo credit: NASA | Subscribe
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