Global Townhall posts the first installment of an interview with NASA astronaut Mike Massimino about his career, finding ones passion in life, and staying a child at heart: Michael Massimino Interview With Gabrielle Reilly – Global Townhall (Part 1)
Monthly Archives: March 2013
DIYROCKETS and the 3D Rocket Challenge
DIYROCKETS.com describes itself as
a global space company helping humanity establish a civilization in space by building an open space frontier.
Our mission is to lower the cost of space exploration as much as possible by generating extremely low-cost knowledge and technology through open sourcing and crowdsourcing. We believe in harnessing the talent and resources of all to build a democratized space industry
Their partners include Sunglass, Shapeways, the Silicon Valley Space Center, and Citizens in Space.
They are currently sponsoring a 3D ROCKET CHALLENGE
DIYROCKETS Challenges YOU to Collaboratively Design an Open Source 3D Printed Rocket Engine that Could Carry Nano-Satellites into Space
THE CHALLENGE
Over the last few years multiple companies, institutions and individuals have started building nano-satellites and other small satellites. These little satellites are packed with electronics and range from the size of a computer chip to a smart phone to a pumpkin. With their communication and research capabilities, they have multiple applications working individually or in coordination with one another. But, with the high cost of earth to space transport, how in the world are they going to get up into space?
We challenge YOU to design a 3D printed rocket engine that could become part of a propulsion system and vehicle to carry nano-satellites into space.
ESA Planck returns sharpest cosmic microwave background view yet
The European Planck orbiting observatory has produced the best map ever of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), which can reveal lots of interesting information about the Big Bang and the early universe;
- Planck probe’s cosmic ‘baby picture’ revises universe’s vital statistics – Cosmic Log
- Planck reveals an almost perfect Universe – Planck/ESA
This ESA animation nicely illustrates “how scientists work to extract the oldest light in our universe from maps of the whole sky taken by the Planck mission.”
Sci-Tech: HP demos a wide-angle, glasses-free 3D display
Hewlett Packard has demonstrated what looks like a practical and affordable way to generate no-special-glasses-required 3D images and video from an LCD type of display:
- HP Labs Shows off Glasses-Free 3-D for Phones and Tablets – MIT Technology Review – Mar.20.13
A multi-directional backlight for a wide-angle, glasses-free three-dimensional display – Nature
http://youtu.be/Y1m7xEzlhWA
The FrankenFalcon rocket + Navy railguns as lunar mass drivers
John Hare considers the capability of a monster (in more ways than one) rocket that combines a stretched SpaceX Falcon 9 with Shuttle solid rocket boosters to put about 140 tons into orbit: SFalconLS – Selenian Boondocks.
===
Chuck Lesher notes that Navy railgun development has reached a level of capability already sufficient to hurl small amounts of material from the Moon at escape velocities: Is the US Navy Preparing to Conquer Space? – Moonandback
Even at this early stage, the railgun is already capable of launching a 23 pound payload off the surface of the moon. We have our mass driver but getting it operational on the moon along with all the support needed to supply it with payloads… well, solving that problem must wait for another blog entry.