Monthly Archives: May 2014

Solar Sci-Fi, Space films and videos

Videos: Trailers for for “Interstellar” and “Jupiter Ascending”

Here’s the latest trailer to director Christopher Nolan‘s new movie Interstellar:

And here is one for Jupiter Ascending:

Space Policy

Space policy roundup – May.15.14

Space policy/politics links:

 Webcasts:

* Special Planetary Radio Advocacy Report From Casey Dreier: A Good Week in Washington – The Planetary Society – Extended discussion of the proposed House budget for NASA

* The John Batchelor Show Hotel Mars, Wednesday, 5-14-14 –  Thespaceshow’s Blog – Bill Harwood of CBS News talks about US-Russia space relations:

* Senator Bill Nelson Comments on U.S.-Russian Space Relations, U.S. Senate, May 14, 2014 – YouTube

 

DIY space, Space participation, Space Systems

ISSE-3 Reboot Project raises $125k + SpaceIL crowd-funding campaign

I wrote a post  back in April about the private effort to reconnect with the 36 year old International Sun-Earth Explorers (ISSE) spacecraft and direct it back to its original solar science mission. The crowd-funding campaign to raise $125,000 to get the project underway has been a success:

Here’s an update from Dennis Wingo: ISEE-3 Reboot Project Status and Schedule for First Contact – Space College.

And here is a video report on the project:

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The Israeli based SpaceIL team in the GLXP has opened a crowdfunding campaign as well: Join SpaceIL’s Mission to Land the First Israeli Spacecraft on the Moon! – Indiegogo.

After just 2 days they have raised $41k towards their $240k goal.

In April the Las Vegas billionaire Sheldon Adelson gave the project $16.4M: Israel space project gets $16 million boost from casino mogul Adelson | Reuters

However, they still need to raise a considerable amount of money to cover the launch and the mission operations.

Here is a new video about the project:

Education, Simulators, Space participation

The Russell Space Team shuttle simulations for grade school astronauts

The Russell Space Team at Russell Elementary School in Smyrna, GA is an award winning program in which 4th & 5th graders carry out elaborate Space Shuttle mission simulations. They use their shuttle Intrepid Simulator and a Mission Control. They have been carrying out the day long simulations since the 1990s.

Their Russell Space Team YouTube channel shows reports from their missions, including a 27 hour sim from this month.

Chris Laster is the force behind the Russell Space Team and he was on the Space Show this week to describe the program and how it came about: Chris Laster, Tuesday, 5-13-14 – Thespaceshow’s Blog

A couple of Russell Space Team videos:

http://youtu.be/EQVZ2ScCSSU

Space Policy

Space policy update – May.14.14

2 Comments

Space policy/politics links:

* GOP Congressman Wants To Block Elon Musk From Competing In Space – Greg Autry/Forbes

“Paring down the number of competitors will help things along greatly because the funding won’t be split.”

Query: To which Party and State would might you attribute the above market-bashing quote? California Democrat? Independent from Vermont? Surprisingly, this socialist missive comes from the staff of a Conservative Texas Republican.

[…]

Of course, what Mr. La Branche and his Congressional boss would really like to eliminate is that most inconvenient of competitors, the entrepreneur. And the very worst manifestation of entrepreneurial pestilence is, of course, California’s notorious Elon Musk.

[…]

Frankly, DragonRider could fly to the ISS next month if it were subject to the same expectations of safety as NASA’s Space Shuttle. A truly conservative response to Mr. Rogozin would be to announce that the United States is ready to move a DragonRider launch forward without further testing, send eight Navy Seals to the ISS and “liberate” our space station from Russia’s state capitalist squatters.

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Webcasts:

* Tues 5/13/14 Hr 1 –  John Batchelor Show – Bob Zimmerman is the first guest. He discusses the Russian – US dispute over the RD-180 engines, ISS, etc.

* Dr. John Jurist, Friday, 5-9-14 – Thespaceshow’s Blog – Dr. Jurist discusses “space program related medical & biotechnical advances, spinoffs, human spaceflight”.