Space Arts, Space books, Space Music

“Rocket Boys: the Musical” – on stage in West Virginia

I’ve posted here several times over the years about Rocket Boys the Musical, which is based on Homer Hickam‘s famous Rocket Boys book (later the movie October Skys) about his building and flying rockets as a youth in a small coal mining town in the post-Sputnik period. The musical still hasn’t made it to Broadway but it seems to be a regular production in West Virginia: ‘Rocket Boys’ set to begin run Thursday –  The Register-Herald, Beckley, West Virginia

It will play August 15-25 at the Theater West Virginia – Cliffside Amphitheatre.  More at Rocket Boys: The Musical – Cliffside Amphitheatre

Find portions of the music here.

 

 

Space Arts, Space Systems

Satellite going to space with pop-art whimsy

The Scottish based company Clyde Space will be launching their first Cubesat in the near future. To highlight this milestone, they asked LA based artists Jon Gibson and Amanda White to create some artwork decoration. They took up the challenge and decided to engraved the side of the spacecraft so that it looks like “an oversized electrical charging device” : World’s first pop-art satellite headed to space – AP/Yahoo!.

“If someone is going to invade our planet, presumably they’re going to come in some sort of electronic, electricity-powered ship,” Gibson notes whimsically. “Maybe this will make them stop for a moment and say, ‘These guys are nice. We’re not going to destroy their planet.'”

This short video shows off the satellite side panel created by Gibson/White:

This is definitely not the first artwork to go into space, however. See the HobbySpace Art in Space section for several examples of art sent to space and created in space.

Activism, Space Policy, SpaceCasts

The Space Show this week

The guests on The Space Show this week:

1. Monday, August 12, 2013, 2-3:30 PM PDT (5-6:30 PM EDT, 4-5:30 PM CDT): We welcome RICK BOOZER, astrophysics researcher, public speaker and author, to the program to discuss his new book, The Plundering of NASA: an Exposé, How pork barrel politics harm American spaceflight leadership.. His website is at http://astromaven.blogspot.com.

2. Tuesday, August 13, 2013, 7-8:30 PM PDT (10-11:30 PM EDT, 9-10:30 PM CDT): We welcome back DR. HAYM BENAROYA of Rutgers University to update us on more lunar engineering and habitat options, a discussion on the latest effort to promote Mars first as the Moon is only a digression, and much more.

3. Friday, August 16, 2013, 9:30-11 AM PDT (11:30- 1 PM CDT, 12:30PM-2:00 PM EDT): I will be uploading interviews from the Small Sat Conference. The interviews will be available today with listener access as soon as they appear on the website and our blog.

4. WEBINAR: SPECIAL TIME: Sunday, August 18, 2013, 1-3 PM PDT (4-6 PM EDT, 3-5 PM CDT). The topic of this webinar is “Near Earth Object (NEO) impacts and what’s being done to deal with the threat. ” Our panel of experts includes DR. RAY WILLIAMSON of the Secure World Foundation,DR. MARK BOSLOUGH who is a Caltech-trained experimental and computational physicist whose research interests range from nuclear explosions to climate change, and DR. TIMOTHY SPAHR, Director, Minor Planet Center Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. You can hear the audio as you would with any Space Show program. To view the live video stream, use our Space show UStream channel, www.ustream.tv/channel/the-space-show.

See also:
/– The Space Show on Vimeo – webinar videos
/– The Space Show’s Blog – summaries of interviews.
/– The Space Show Classroom Blog – tutorial programs

The Space Show is a project of the One Giant Leap Foundation.

Amateur/Student Satellite, Space Radio

AMSAT OSCAR-7 “Zombie” satellite continues on after battery death

The AMSAT-OSCAR 7 (AO-7) satellite was launched into orbit on November 15, 1974 on a Delta 2310 rocket from Cape Canaveral as a secondary payload. Like many AMSAT spacecraft, it demonstrated a number of firsts:

* Satellite-to-satellite relay communication via AO-6.
* Early demonstrations of low-budget medical data relay and Doppler location of ground transmitters for search-and-rescue operations were done using this satellite.
* The Mode-B transponder was the first using “HELAPS” (High Efficient Linear Amplification by Parametric Synthesis) technology was developed by Dr. Karl Meinzer as part of his Ph.D.
* First to fly a Battery Charge Regulator (BCR).

The spacecraft went silent in 1981, presumably when its batteries gave out. However, in 2002 it was discovered to be working again and remains semi-operational till today: Ham Radio in Space: AO-7 “Zombie” Satellite Again Enjoying Its Time in the Sun – ARRL Letter

The ham satellite organization theorizes that AO-7’s batteries shorted when they failed, but the short circuit subsequently opened, allowing the satellite to return to life. This means AO-7 only works when it’s receiving direct sunlight and shuts down when in eclipse. Since the satellite became undead, terrestrial users have enjoyed numerous contacts via AO-7.

“AO-7 is alive and doing okay,” satellite observer Frank Griffin, K4FEG, reported this week. “This season’s eclipse cycle has ended.” Griffin explained that the eclipse period, during which AO-7 falls silent, lasts about 9 weeks, from mid-spring to mid-summer. According to its operating plan, AO-7 switches to Mode B (70 centimeters up/2 meters down) at 0000 UTC.

 

Education, Space camps & hands on sims

The Virginia Space Flight Academy

The Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama is not the only space themed fun and education opportunity for kids. There may be others closer and lower cost to you, particularly as a summer camp option. The Virginia Space Flight Academy is an example of one such option: Space camp: Local kids learn robots and rockets at Virginia Space Flight Academy – dailypress.com

Everyone can participate in space