Sorry for the infrequent posts here guys, my last exam is tomorrow so hopefully the frequency of posts will start going up again then.
In the meantime, i just wanted to draw your attention to a press-release from NASA where they are announcing that they have given out a deal to a contractor to develop a new space-suit by 2015. This is set to coincide with the return to the moon, so the spacesuit is required to be able to function both for space-walks at the international space station, as well as being suited for multiple moonwalks without needing much maintenance. Now the really cool thing about this, is that i had no idea they were actually planning a 6 month trip to the moon! I knew they were set to return, but not for such an extended period of time. To quote the article:
The suit will need to cope with a large number of moonwalks with minimal maintenance during the planned six-month lunar outpost expeditions.
Well this probably isn’t mind-blowing to many of you, as I’m positive this is very old news (it’s after all been a while since they announced they’d return to the moon), but somehow it completely escaped me. I can highly recommend reading the press-release, it’s quite well written and informative.
With the news hitting that Sergei Brin, supreme overlord of Google, will be hitting space with the worlds first private spaceflight to ISS, we can’t help but say: It’s good to be rich.
With a down payment of 5million dollars, space is one of the most exclusive (and least luxurious, see the broken space toilet story) destinations available to us puny humans. The company, called Space Adventures, has made a deal with the Russian space agency to get two seats on a specifically manufactured Soyuz flight starting 2011, that will take the millionaires to the international space station.
Now this is obviously great news, being a staunch capitalist myself (unlike my hippie co-writer Brink), i am very happy to see more competitors in the field of private spaceflight. I’m sure we all remember the famous SpaceShipOne, the first commercial space endevour that won the coveted X-Prize (a prize given to the first privately funded team to reach space). What you may not know, is that Richard Branson actually invested in the idea and is planning to launch Virgin Galactic very soon. The production of their vehicle (SpaceShipTwo) is finished, and they expect to start test-flights (of which there will be 50-100) this month. Now, taking a flight with Virgin Galactic will obviously not be as fun as actually going to ISS and living in zero-G. SpaceShipTwo “only” flies up to 110km (slightly more then SpaceShipOne) and then goes back to earth, giving only a short period of weightlessness and outer-spacy-ness, BUT it will be MUCH cheaper. The first (100) customers put in a deposit of 200.000$, from there it will slowly decline in cost over the years, and will eventually cost 20.000$ per person. Now that’s still a lot of moolah, but at least it’s something within the reach of ordinary people, and if you look at this video, i think you’ll agree that the view is worth it.
Now if you’ve followed the posts here on ReducedMass, you might have noticed me missing for a few days, only to resurface and explain it away with beer-drinking, so surely, news about a space-beer could not be more fitting. Of course it is the Japanese, the makers of countless gadgets and weird TV-shows, that bring us the space-beer.
And it’s not just a name slapped on a product either, like the infamous space-pen that ruled the infomercials in the 90’s (although it is used in space), no this is actually a beer, made out of barley that was grown in space! Now obviously there are many other ingredients needed to make a beer, all of which will sadly be made under a boring gravity field on earth, but non-the-less, this is as close to space-beer as we’ll get for now.
Sadly this is not something you and I will be able to buy (unless you’re filthy rich) as they will only make around 100 bottles, because they only have enough barley for that. The ones that will be in charge of brewing those 100 space bottles, is the Japanese brewery Sapporo holdings, and i must say, i like the cut of their jib, just check out their reason for wanting to brew it.
Researchers said the project was part of efforts to prepare for a future in which humans spend extended periods of time in space — and might like a cold beer after a space walk.
Maybe it’s just me, but i sure as hell look forward to the day when i can take a casual spacewalk and have a space-brewed beer to wind down, who’s with me?
Found this little news-gem over at the Yahoo news (Via AP), claiming that the toilet over at the international space station is broken! The good news is, that the poop part of the toilet is working fine, but the pee one isn’t. Now that news article makes it sound rather tame, it’s only the pee one that isn’t working, they do have a temporary place to pee, and spare parts are being sent. I did however also find a news piece over at MSNBC on the same subject, which seems a lot more pessimistic, and is saying that there have been repeated attempts at repairs that have only been temporary, and the same problem always re-surfaces. They even go as far as saying it is a “fabrication flaw”, and that they expect the spare parts from NASA to fail quickly as well. Is MSNBC just spicing things up a bit to get more viewers? Quite possibly, but i wanted to show their side as well as they claim to have insider knowledge on the matter.
All is not lost however! As the astronauts DO have a backup system. The old way of going in space, adhesive bags to seal up fecal matter. It may not be glamorous but they may have to make do with that until further notice. According to MSNBC, there is a new module set to arrive late this year which would have additional toilets (I’m assuming they mean the Russian multipurpose lab module), lets hope for their sake that they can work something out until then and won’t have to use the bags for that many months.
Here’s a short video of Col. Chris Hadfield explaining how a space toilet works:
I know this is kind of last minute, but i wanted to let everyone know that if you want to (and i hope you do), you can watch the phoenix spacecraft land on Mars LIVE over at NASA TV.
Touchdown of the phoenix mars lander is expected to happen just before 8:00PM Eastern time (little more then two hours from writing this), but the live broadcast will actually start at 6:30PM (see the full schedule here). You will be getting all the images at the exact same time as everyone over at NASA, so you can follow it live as it goes through what they are calling 7 minutes of hell in it’s entry into the Marsian atmosphere.
Due to time difference and school early tomorrow i’m afraid i won’t be able to stay up and follow the events, but i can highly recommend heading over to Phil Plaits Bad Astronomy Blog, i’m sure he’ll be covering the entire event with style.
Well i guess that “working on” is a bit of an understatement, as they already have a working hand-held device capable of identifying various bacteria and fungi already in use at the international space station. They are however still working on getting it even better. You see, the current version can detect some bacteria, and a recent upgrade to it allows it to detect some fungus as well (which is good, as it can damage equipment). They are working on getting even more capabilities on it (detecting more types of bacteria), and hoping that the end-product will actually perform much like a medical tri-corder from Star Trek, capable of detecting what ails a crewman who has fallen ill and such. If you look at the picture to the left here, you can even see that it kind-of looks like a tri-corder (post-original series anyway).
Now don’t get me wrong, i don’t have anything against health/medicine or anything (in fact i rather enjoy my own), but if you’re trying to copy star trek you could’ve picked something cooler then a medical tri-corder. Be that as it may, more Star Trek inspired technology can never be bad, although I’m sure we’d all prefer the holo-suite for some depraved fun.
In his 50-years NASA anniversary lecture, Stephen Hawking called for the World to spend a lot more money on manned missions to the Moon, Mars and eventually to other stars. In a move to conserve humanity from catastrophes on Earth he would like to see an increase in the money spent for space exploration to about 0.25% of the world GDP, and a manned base on the Moon to pave the way for more adventurous missions to Mars.
While I guess it would be nice to save humanity, we should also think about the technological progress that would have to be made before pulling something like this off. A lot of the technology and research coming from this would eventually trickle down to us plebes, hopefully raising our standard of living, increasing the size of our TV’s and perhaps even help save us from one of the dooms-days people seem to be predicting. All in all, it is just a lot easier for the public to relate to space exploration when there are actually humans on board, and my guess is we’d see a boost of students in natural science studies as well as in the general interest in science/astronomy.
Hawking also mentions that, in the long run, we should aim outside our own solar system, and towards interstellar colonization. That is, colonization of habitable planets around other stars, and he suggests this should happen within the next 200 to 500 years. While it’s impossible to say how technology will evolve in this timespan, it seems reasonable to estimate that in that time period our technology could be good enough to start discussing that. As you may remember, we here at Reducedmass have already lined up some possible methods for reaching the stars.
Other than that, you should go read the Wikipedia article on space colonization if your more interested in this stuff. They cover both solar system as well as interstellar colonization.
So here on ReducedMass.com, we decided to look at 5 methods making it possible for humankind to go on light year journeys. Note that we’ll base this short list on what seems scientifically feasible today (but might not be), so don’t expect any warp-drives, worm-holes or other faster-than-light methods. That said, some kind of speculation, subjectivity and guess-work can’t be avoided, so please feel free to let us know what you think in the comments section below, and do tell us about all the brilliant methods that should’ve made it to the list.
This quite bold statement comes from the team of astronomers from the University of California, Santa Cruz, that performed simulations of planet formation around Alpha Centauri, the three-star system only 4.6 light years from Earth.
But the fun doesn’t stop here. Not only should there be planets, they should be small, made of rock like good ol’ mother Earth itself and they should be located in the habitable zone, meaning at a distance from their star where life as we know it could evolve.
Posted by Kari in category Spaceflight, March 10 2008 @ 01:07
Europe’s space agency (ESA) just launched a behemoth of a spaceship to link up with the international space station (ISS), carrying a staggering 20 tons of freight with them. The payload apparently includes food, water, equipment and “Personal items”. One can only imagine, now they are testing sex in space, what that entails, but I digress.
I could spend time trying to explain exactly what this work of European tax-euro’s does exactly, but luckily the ESA has also created a nice, albeit a bit dry, video to explain exactly how things work, including some nice footage from the actual thing.
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Now if you’ve followed the posts here on ReducedMass, you might have noticed me missing for a few days, only to resurface and explain it away with beer-drinking, so surely, news about a space-beer could not be more fitting. Of course it is the Japanese, the makers of countless gadgets and weird TV-shows, that bring us the space-beer.
I know this is kind of last minute, but i wanted to let everyone know that if you want to (and i hope you do), you can watch the 
Well i guess that “working on” is a bit of an understatement, as they already have a working hand-held device capable of identifying various bacteria and fungi already in use at the international space station. They are however still working on getting it even better. You see, the current version can detect some bacteria, and a recent upgrade to it allows it to detect some fungus as well (which is good, as it can damage equipment). They are working on getting even more capabilities on it (detecting more types of bacteria), and hoping that the end-product will actually perform much like a medical tri-corder from Star Trek, capable of detecting what ails a crewman who has fallen ill and such. If you look at the picture to the left here, you can even see that it kind-of looks like a tri-corder (post-original series anyway).
In his 50-years NASA anniversary lecture, Stephen Hawking 
Our closest stellar neighbour