Monthly Archives: November 2013

Asteroids & Comets, Space Science

Chelyabinsk fireball – bigger than thought and more common

Papers this week in Science and Nature journals describe studies of the Chelyabinsk meteor fireball last February. One paper estimates that the meteoroid was twice as massive as originally estimated. A Science paper combines Chelyabinsk with the Tunguska event in Siberia in 1908 to estimate that the rate of such impacts is as much as ten times higher than previously thought.

A Nature video report on the Chelyabinsk studies:

Space business, SpaceCasts

Space Show interview with NewSpace Global chief Richard David moved to Thursday morning

NewSpace Global (NSG) CEO Richard David will be on The Space Show on Thursday at 9:30 am PT (12:30 pm ET) instead of Friday as previously scheduled:

From The Space Show: No Space Show for Friday, Oct. 11, 2013!

Dear Listeners: Our Friday, Nov. 8, 2013 program with Richard David and New Space Global will be broadcast on Thursday, Nov. 7, 2013 at 9:30 AM PST. We look forwward to talking with Richard tomorrow morning. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Dr. David Livingston, Host

My main gig is as Managing Editor of NewSpace Watch, which is the daily news service for NSG. See the list of most recent NSW posts in the column to the right here.

Consider signing up for a trial NSG subscription to check out NSW as well as the monthly Thruster special report, the NSG 100 index of leading entrepreneurial space companies, and more.

Contests and Games, GPS, Space participation

“Travel bug’ going to the great geocache in the sky

Geocaching has become a popular “treasure hunt” activity around the world. Small stashes of miscellaneous items are hidden in containers in over 2.25 million spots around the globe and their locations archived at  www.Geocaching.com.  Participants use their GPS units to find a cache, which might be by a waterfall in a forest or behind a telephone pole along a city street. The geocacher can take an item from the cache but they should replace it with some new item.

Geocaching has now extended from earth into space: Geocaching in Space FAQ – The Geocaching Blog.

In 2008, Richard Garriott placed a small cache on the International Space Station during his visit there. This evening, a Soyuz with three new ISS crew members will blast off and arrive at the station in the morning. They include US astronaut Rick Mastracchio who will be carrying a Travel Bug Dog Tag. A travel bug is a Trackable item that simply has an ID that is registered at www.geocaching.com and as it is moved from cache to cache, the movers write about the tag’s travels on the website. Garriott left one on the station and Mastracchio will take a new one that is sponsored by the 5th grade class of Chase Elementary School in Waterbury, Connecticut and add it to the cached on the station. He will, however, return it to the class when he returns from space in six months.

For more details see:

 

Space Policy

Space policy roundup – Nov.6.13

A selection of recent space policy/politics items:

Education, Simulators, Software

Eyes on the Solar System – a NASA JPL interactive program

Here’s an updated intro video to NASA JPL’s Eyes on the Solar System interactive program:

Welcome to Eyes on the Solar System — a new way for you to explore our cosmic neighborhood.

Eyes on the Solar System lets you fly to the planets, ride aboard our spacecraft and discover the wonders of robotic space exploration from right inside your web-browser.

It requires following a download and installation procedure.