Monthly Archives: April 2013

Contests and Games, Education, Rocketry

12th Annual NASA Student Launch Initiative competition in Alabama this week

NASA says that “more than 600 students, representing 56 middle schools, high schools, colleges and universities in 26 states, will” participate in the 12th annual Student Launch Initiative, this Saturday in Toney, Alabama:

Here is a list of the teams: NASA Student Launch Projects

The event will be webcast at NASA MSFC on USTREAM: Science.

Amateur/Student Satellite, Near Space, Rockets

15 teams compete in 2013 CanSat in Europe event

Below is a report from ESA on the latest CanSats in Europe competition. A  CanSat  is a soda-can sized payload that can be launched on a suborbital rocket or  high altitude balloon. The CanSat program started originally in the USA. (The US CanSat Competition for 2013 will take place June 7 – 9 in Burkett, Texas.)

2013 CanSat campaign successfully concluded

15 April 2013: High school students from 8 different ESA Member States have completed the third European Cansat Launch Campaign, which was held in The Netherlands for the first time. 15 student teams from across Europe participated in the four-day event.

Preparations for the flight campaign began soon after the teams arrived at the Delft University of Technology on 10 April, when technical inspections were made to ensure that each of the CanSats could be integrated in the rockets.

As anticipated, some last minute modifications were needed, but technical experts from T-Minus Engineering – ESA’s partners for the competition – were on hand to provide assistance.

The next day, each student team gave a 10 minute presentation about their project before returning to the lab and doing some more work on the CanSats.

Excitement was high as the teams arrived at the ASK ‘t Harde Artillery Shooting Range on 12 April. Four rockets, provided by T-Minus Engineering, were used to deliver the CanSats to an altitude of around 1 km. The miniature payloads then separated from their rocket, in order to conduct their scientific and technological missions, before parachuting back to the ground for recovery by the teams.

12 CanSats were released during the launches, successfully completing their autonomous flights, but three others did not separate due to a malfunction of the ejection mechanism on the rocket. However, the CanSats that did not deploy were still able to get some readings – mainly pressureand temperature readings, plus some GPS signals – and transmit them to ground stations.

All of the teams worked through the night to summarise the data obtained from their flights.

The last day began with a talk by Hugo Maree, Head of the ESA Education Office. This was followed by the teams’ final presentations to the jury of experts, after which the students were given a guided tour of the Space Expo museum. Meanwhile, the jury members came together for the difficult job of deciding the winning teams in both categories.

The first prize in the Advanced Category was awarded to the Air Sat One team from Portugal, who fitted a glider mechanism to their CanSat. In second place was the Obi-Wan Canobi team from Denmark, with the Vortex team from the UK in third place.

The first prize in the Beginners Category was awarded to the KrakSat team from Poland, who set out to compare measurements of cosmic gamma and beta radiation made simultaneously during the flight and on the ground. In second place was the Irish CapSat team, with the SaSa team from Germany in third place.

“The quality of the projects was very high and some of them exceeded expectations. The professionalism and the motivation of the high-school students was really appreciated,” said Natacha Callens from ESA’s Education Office, one of the jury members.

The programme ended with a celebratory dinner.

The 2013 European CanSat competition was organised by ESA’s Education Office in cooperation with the Delft University of Technology and T-Minus Engineering.

 

Solar Sci-Fi, Space films and videos, Space participation

Kickstarter: Making a movie of a Harry Harrison novel + Sending your face to space

A reader points me to a couple of space related Kickstarter campaigns.

In this project, the creator of movies Repo Man and Sid & Nancy will direct “a feature comedy based on Harry Harrison’s classic anti-war science fiction novel”: Alex Cox directs BILL THE GALACTIC HERO by Alex Cox — Kickstarter

===

And this project says that they “want to launch a picture of your face into space. On a satellite. To scare away the aliens.” : Your Face in Space – A Quest to Save Earth by Ridiculo.us — Kickstarter

Solar Sci-Fi, Space films and videos

Philip K. Dick Science Fiction Film Festival – accepting submissions

An announcement from the Philip K. Dick Film Festival:

The Philip K. Dick Science Fiction Film Festival Now Accepting
Submissions For Second Annual Event
New York City’s First Official Sci-Fi Film Festival Expands Film Slate For Upcoming Domestic and International Functions

Brooklyn, N.Y. April 15, 2013 – The Philip K. Dick Science Fiction Film Festival is gearing up for a second exciting year to honor of its namesake and one of the most celebrated novelists of the 20th century. Expanding its film and panel slate to various sub-genres, multiple venues in Brooklyn and Manhattan will hold screenings and gatherings from December 4-8, 2013 in what is expected to be yet another successful celebration of Philip K. Dick and his legions of fans who continue his legacy by recreating the magic he bestowed on the world of science fiction.

The festival is now accepting submissions in science documentaries, science fiction shorts and features and films inspired or adapted from the works of Dick in themes including cyberpunk, dystopian realities, paranoia, altered states and singularity punk. Panels will include discussions on psychic children and superconscious, the singularity, trans-humanism, media influence, the science of tomorrow, cryonics, borderland sciences and anomalous aerial phenomena (AAP). Other activities include an extensive graphic novel and comic book section to accompany the film screenings and panels and a 48 hour challenge to pick the best Dick-inspired short adaption. The festival will also host a series of independent science fiction screenings at Anthology Filmmakers throughout the summer and fall.

As further details come available in the coming weeks the festival anticipates another successful event, further solidifying the city’s underlying appreciation for Philip K. Dick. Last year’s festival saw record crowds of over 1,000 participants for the exclusive screening of John Alan Simon’s Radio Free Albemuth which was based on Dick’s 1985 novel posthumously published three years after his death. The weekend-long festival also held numerous film screenings and panels with Simon, esteemed professors Ronald Mallet and Enrique Ricardo Miranda, distinguished writers Angela Posada-Swafford, Walter Mosley and Dennis Paoli and science fiction experts Richard Dolan and Peter Robbins. The team behind the annual festivities will also pioneer international events this fall in Lille, France and a spring 2014 cyberpunk festival in Tokyo.

The Second Philip K. Dick International Film Festival of Science, Science Fiction, Fantastic Film and the Supernatural will return bigger than ever. For film submissions please visit http://www.thephilipkdickfilmfestival.com and for more details go to the festival’s Facebook page at https:// www.facebook.com/ThePhilipKDickFilmFestival and follow all the happenings on Twitter at https://twitter.com/PhilipKDickFest.

About The Philip K. Dick Science Fiction Film Festival:
The Second Philip K. Dick International Film Festival of Science, Science Fiction, Fantastic Film and the Supernatural and the first of its kind to grace the screens of New York City is organized by filmmakers who understand the difficulties and challenges of telling a unique story in a corporate environment. The year 2013 marks the second year of the festival which will expand it’s genres of films, panels and venues throughout Brooklyn and Manhattan. Guest speakers and writers that best represent the goals of the festival will attend the opening ceremonies. We look for original voices and visions in works submitted. Lastly, this is a festival by filmmakers for filmmakers.

About Philip K. Dick:
“Reality is whatever refuses to go away when I stop believing in it.” – Philip K. Dick Philip K. Dick (1928-1982) was one of the 20th century’s most profound novelists and writers within the science fiction community. His exploration, analysis and beliefs led to the publishings of 44 novels and 121 short stories. Dick’s enormous library of works led to several film developments including Blade Runner (1982), Total Recall (1990), Minority Report (2002), Paycheck (2003) and most recently Radio Free Albemuth (2010), The Adjustment Bureau (2011) and the successful remake of Total Recall (2012). The film industry is also awaiting the release of King of the Elves in 2014, which will surely be yet another prosperous depiction of Dick’s literary contribution to science fiction. Dick’s enormously effective views comprised of fictional universes, virtual realities and human mutation foresaw an exaggerated version of the current state of government and contemporary life. Though he is gone in the physical form his philosophies live on in the techniques applied to modern stories and films and generate large displays of appreciation and understanding.

Astronomy, Education

Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures available on line

An announcement from Andrew Fraknoi, chairman of the Astronomy program at Foothill College:

Popular Astronomy Lectures Can Now Be Seen on YouTube

We are happy to announce that the Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures, featuring noted scientists giving nontechnical illustrated lectures on recent developments in astronomy, are now available on their own YouTube Channel, at:  http://www.youtube.com/SVAstronomyLectures/

The talks include:

  • Frank Drake discussing his modern view of the Drake Equation,
  • Michael Brown explaining how his discovery of Eris led to the demotion of Pluto,
  • Alex Filippenko talking about the latest ideas and observations of black holes,
  • Natalie Batalha sharing the latest planet discoveries from the Kepler mission,
  •   nthony Aguirre discussing how it is possible to have multiple universes, and
  • Chris McKay updating the Cassini discoveries about Saturn’s moon Titan.

The lectures are taped at Foothill College near San Francisco, and co-sponsored by NASA’s Ames Research Center, the SETI Institute, and the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.

Note that the top page of the channel shows the lectures in the order they happened to be uploaded to YouTube.  If you want to see them in chronological order, select the Playlist option.

Both new and older talks in the series will be added to the channel as time goes by.  Many noted astronomers have given talks in this series since its founding in 1999; recent lectures are being recorded so that people around the world can “tune in.”

We appreciate your sharing this information with colleagues, students, and interested astronomy enthusiasts.