nasa
The Robot of the Future That's About to Explore the Deep Past of Mars
www.theatlantic.com
Equipped with a marshmallow-shaped lump of plutonium for energy and rock-vaporizing lasers for eyes, NASA's Curiosity rover is en route to an ancient crater on the red planet....
SpaceX Dragon takes flight
arstechnica.com
NASA After fixing a check valve that caused an abort for the Falcon 9/Dragon launch on Saturday morning, SpaceX successfully launched the Falcon 9 today at 3:44 am Eastern Time, lighting up a large pressure cloud as it broke the sound barrier shortly afterward. Dragon's solar panels are now...
This joke isn't funny anymore, SpaceX delays ISS launch... again
www.engadget.com
Stop us (oh, oh, oh stop us) if you've heard this one before (you have): SpaceX has announced that it won't be able to make that May 7th launch date. The company hasn't disclosed the cause (the static fire tests seemed to go okay) but spokesperson Kirstin Grantham said...
NASA to use Virginia site to launch five rockets in experiment visible along Eastern Seaboard
arstechnica.com
Listening to the nightly news, you'll often hear the weather forecaster mention jet streams moving weather systems around. These are located above 10 km above sea level, where they also affect commercial aircraft. Much higher up, around 100 km above the surface of the Earth, there is a high-altitude...
Watch the transit of Venus from your desktop
gigaom.com
If you want to catch this year’s transit of Venus without damaging your retinas, several sites will bring the astronomical event to your screen of choice. For sky watchers, the transit is a big deal — it happens when the planet Venus passes directly between the earth and sun. And,...
SpaceX cargo ship takes off on commercial flight to station
news.cnet.com
Three days after a last-second launch abort, a commercially developed rocket and cargo ship blasted off on NASA's first commercial flight to the International Space Station. [Read more]...
NASA mission calculates global ice melt and rising sea levels
news.cnet.com
Over seven years, scientists used data from NASA satellites to measure global ice melt and the effect on sea level rise. Now, a new study shows that during that time, the world's water mass grew by half an inch....
There’s a new open source cloud in town. Meet Apache CloudStack
gigaom.com
It looks like OpenStack won’t have the open-source cloud spotlight to itself anymore. Citrix Systems has released its CloudStack software (which it obtained via its acquisition of Cloud.com last year) to the Apache Software Foundation, creating a competitive option to the OpenStack project of which Citrix was an early member....
VC turns office into Apollo museum
news.cnet.com
Another venture capitalist with a penchant for collecting old technology: Steve Jurvetson of Draper Fisher Jurvetson. His focus? Gear from NASA's Apollo era....
Visualized: 121-megapixel satellite photos show Earth in glorious, psychedelic detail (video)
www.engadget.com
We're starting to think the Russians have an inside track on high-resolution space photos. When Nokia's 41-megapixel photo of Earth's horizon was just a twinkle in the 808 PureView designers' eyes, the Russian Federal Space Agency had long since finished taking 121-megapixel photos of the whole planet that we're...
Boeing's SUGAR Freeze is a cool way to power a plane
www.engadget.com
No, not the sensation you get when you have gulped your ice cream too fast. SUGAR Freeze is the a new propulsion concept developed by Boeing that aims to revolutionize air travel. Standing for Subsonic Ultra Green Aircraft Research, the NASA-commissioned project (codenamed "N+4") looks at immature technologies in...
SpaceX successfully blasts off to the International Space Station
www.theverge.com
At 3:44AM ET this morning, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Florida, in what is the first privately-funded mission to the International Space Station. The Dragon capsule is currently in orbit with solar arrays deployed and, if all goes to plan following the launch,...
Visualized: Space Shuttle Discovery gets prepped for its final flight, gets Boeing piggyback
www.engadget.com
Strapped to the back of a repurposed Boeing 747, this is how NASA's Space Shuttle Discovery will make its final flight. Over the last few days, the shuttle has been readied and mounted onto the jet, technically called the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA). The duo will land at Dulles...
SpaceX Dragon is ready for launch (again) at 3:44AM ET, view the live stream now
www.engadget.com
After being scrubbed a few days ago, it appears we are just minutes from viewing the launch of SpaceX's Dragon capsule as it blasts it's way toward the ISS. Launch time is officially set for 3:44AM ET, and you can view it live via NASA's UStream embedded after the...
NASA unveils Orion spacecraft to hurl humans to Mars in 2021
venturebeat.com
It’s no Prometheus, but the spacecraft shown in the photo above is what NASA will use to put a man on the planet Mars. Yesterday, NASA unveiled the Orion passenger module at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Orion crew still has plenty of work to do on...
End of an era: NASA shuts down its last mainframe
news.cnet.com
The space agency powered down its last System z machine, years after IBM stopped selling them for the mathematical calculation jobs NASA originally bought them for....
Google, NASA to be investigated over ‘benefits’ from using private airfield
thenextweb.com
A deal between Google and NASA is to be investigated by US Senator Charles Grassley over ‘benefits’ the search giant’s have enjoyed following its use of NASA’s Moffett Federal Airfield in California to store and operate its fleet of Google aircrafts. Grassley sent letters to both parties in April but...
Starlite: the miracle material that was almost lost
www.theverge.com
On a 1990 episode of the BBC TV show Tomorrow's World, presenter Peter McCann showed off a new plastic named "Starlite" in a rather unusual way: by pointing blowtorches at a pair of eggs. While one egg shattered in seconds, the other stolidly bore the heat, glowing red hot...
New wireless transmission tech hits 2.56Tbps, leaves WiFi feeling inadequate
www.engadget.com
Stoked about the gigabit speeds your new 802.11ac WiFi router is pumping out? One group of scientists hailing from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and universities in the US, Israel and China isn't so impressed, having generated a wireless signal clocking in at 2.56Tbps. Proof of the feat was published...
Space Shuttle Discovery salutes Washington on historic final flight
www.engadget.com
As historic flights go, this has to be right up there with the best of 'em. Space Shuttle Discovery performed a final fly-by over the capital, and created a trail of excited spotters as it did so. Perched atop a Boeing 747, the iconic craft was flying at a...
How to save the space program? Build the Starship 'Enterprise'
www.theverge.com
There's no shortage of ideas on how we can revitalize our flagging space endeavors. Neil deGrasse Tyson says we should invest in NASA. Planetary Resources plans to mine asteroids. And one systems and electrical engineer wants us to build the Starship Enterprise by 2032. BuildTheEnterprise, launched last week, is...
Amazon's Bezos finds Apollo 11 rockets in ocean, contemplates shipping options
www.engadget.com
Ya' know, there's nothing like a little rocket hunting to save oneself from the doldrums of generating billions of dollars in revenue in the private sector. At least that appears to be the case for Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, who spearheaded an ocean expedition to find the...
NASA, GM working on a 'Robo-Glove' to assist astronauts and autoworkers alike
www.engadget.com
We've seen power assist technology designed to help people walk, bike or just tote luggage around, and now we've for the Human Grasp Assist aka Robo-Glove. Under development from GM and NASA, the project takes inspiration from technology designed to give Robonaut 2 a hand capable of using tools...
Open source mini sub appeals to our inner Steve Zissou
www.engadget.com
Quadrocopters haven't exactly opened the skies for DIY exploration so much as they have for acrobatic feats, but the OpenROV project is hoping to make the briny depths friendlier for aspiring explorers and educators alike. The open source rover, spearheaded by NASA engineer and researcher Eric Stackpole, sinks to...
NASA gets two military 'Hubble-class' military telescopes, fist-pumps with joy
www.engadget.com
Imagine all you wanted for Christmas was a telescope. As you frantically peel off layer after layer of wrapping, there it is -- your brother's old one. Well, okay, if your brother was the National Reconnaissance Office (and you were NASA) this might not seem quite as unjust. Thankfully...
NASA five-rocket mission to launch tonight, with live webcast
arstechnica.com
Last week, we reported on NASA’s ATREX mission, which will launch five rockets in about five minutes to study the high-altitude jet stream along the East Coast. These suborbital sounding rockets will release chemical tracers to track the high-speed winds nearly 100 kilometers above the Earth’s surface. In addition, a...
NASA details looming Mars rover landing, '7 Minutes of Terror'
news.cnet.com
Curiosity, the Mars rover, is set to land on the planet in August; but to get there it must first pass a harrowing descent, which NASA details in new video. [Read more]...
NASA used 'LOL memory' in the Apollo missions
www.theverge.com
Here's something worth sharing: to resist the harsh rigors of space, NASA used something called core rope memory in the Apollo and Gemini missions of the 1960s and 70s. The memory consisted of ferrite cores connected together by wire. The cores were used as transformers, and acted as either...
NASA pulls the plug on the mainframe computer era
www.engadget.com
It's the end of another era at NASA, although this one was perhaps more inevitable than others. Chief Information Officer Linda Cureton announced in a blog post over the weekend that the agency's last mainframe computer was shut down this month, marking an end to decades of room-filling computers....
NASA eyes waypoint near moon, Orbital Drop Shock Troopers not in plans ... yet
www.engadget.com
Not content with its Foursquare badge from the International Space Station, NASA is now setting its sights closer to the moon, with plans for a deep space outpost near our celestial neighbor. NASA is looking at setting up an outpost near the recently filmed far side of the moon...
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