Bob Zimmerman talked about space during two episodes of the John Batchelor radio program this week.
- On Friday, an astronaut on ISS controlled and steered a rover on Earth. While zipping around Earth several hundred miles above the planet’s surface, the European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano drove a 220-pound (100 kilograms) rover across a moon-mimicking landscape here at NASA’s Ames Research Center, even ordering the robot to deploy a simulated film-based radio telescope antenna.
- A supernova has exploded in the galaxy M74, only 30 million light years away. This is one of the closest supernovae in recent years. Though it’s still brightening and has reached 12th magnitude, it’s not expected to brighten to naked-eye visibility (about 6th magnitude). Astronomers however have spotted the progenitor star in archival Hubble images, which they have identified as a M-type red supergiant that was also particularly bright in the infrared.
- The embarrassing unveiling at JSC this week of the StarTrek shuttle craft Galileo — instead of a real space shuttle.
- Battle between several Republican Congresspersons and NASA over NASA’s proposed mission to capture an asteroid, which Republicans are disinclined to support.
- Neither Democrats nor Republicans are willing to acknowledge that the space agency is being tasked with building a huge and powerful rocket it will not be able to afford to fly. A discussion of John Strickland’s analysis of costs of NASA’s Space Launch System and Orion.
- The real budget problems at NASA; the inability of Congress to deal with them intelligently.
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This week’s Hotel Mars segment on the John Batchelor show included Dr. Richard Obousy who talked about the Icarus Interstellar project, faster-than-light travel, and breakthrough propulsion : John Batchelor Hotel Mars, Wednesday, 7-31-13- Thespaceshow’s Blog