The Space Show: Curiosity update, California Space Day, and Living in deep space

Dr. Samuel Kounaves joined David Livingston on the John Batchelor Show’s Hotel Mars segment to talke about the Curiosity rover’s drilling activities, Mars soil samples, and the search for organics molecules: The John Batchelor Show Hotel Mars, Wednesday, 2-27-13 – Thespaceshow’s Blog

Also, on the Space Show this week,  Duane Hyland and John Rose discussed the AIAA California Space Day and the California aerospace industry: AIAA California Space Day, Monday, 2-25-13 – Thespaceshow’s Blog

And Dr. George Robinson talked about “Human species survival via space habitation” beyond low earth orbit: Dr. George Robinson, Tuesday, 2-26-13 -Thespaceshow’s Blog

Video: Arizona students talk with ISS crew members

Astronauts on the ISS talk with students in Phoenix:

Engineers Tom Marshburn of NASA and Chris Hadfield of the Canadian Space Agency discussed life and research on the orbital laboratory February 26 during an in-flight educational event with 9th to 12th grade students gathered at the Metropolitan Arts Institute in Phoenix, Arizona. The event was a highlight activity as part of the ISS “Destination Station” exhibit trip touring the Grand Canyon State

Thirty Seconds to Mars sending new song to the ISS

The band Thirty Seconds to Mars has placed the first copy of their new song ‘Up In The Air’ on the SpaceX Dragon that is set to launch tomorrow atop a Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station:

SPHERES gain stereo vision

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The bowling-ball-sized free-flying satellites called SPHERES (Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites)

are being fitted with their own “goggles” — a computer and stereoscopic camera setup named the Visual Estimation and Relative Tracking for Inspection of Generic Objects, or VERTIGO — to demonstrate critical technologies for relative navigation based on a visual model.

Brent Tweddle, a member of the MIT Space Systems Laboratory SPHERES-VERTIGO experiment team, recently spoke with ISS Update commentator Pat Ryan to discuss the technology behind these tests taking place aboard the station and its applicability for future spaceflight.

Commenting on the appearance of the VERTIGO hardware, Tweddle remarked, “It’s sort of funny the way that fell out. I mean, we weren’t trying to make it look like anything, but a lot of people have commented it kind of looks like a WALL-E figure. But it really just fell out of the requirements.”