Education, Simulators, Space Models

LittleBits SpaceKit: Assemble your own space program

The company littleBits has developed an open source collection of electronic modules that snap together with magnets to make all sorts of fun gadgets. They have collaborated with NASA to create a SpaceKit package:  Build Your Own Mini Mars Rover With These Brilliant, NASA-Approved Blocks – Design.WIRED

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The package includes “12 modules, 5 NASA lesson plans and 10 STEAM activities”.  With it you can assemble a Mars Rover:

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A space helmet:

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A space station:

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The Space Booklet (pdf) describes the SpaceKit and several projects based on it.

This video shows a sampling of space projects:

 

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In Space Infrastructure, Living in Space

Video: Astronauts on spacewalk replace balky relay box outside the ISS

On Wednesday at the International Space Station:

… Expedition 39 Flight Engineers Rick Mastracchio and Steve Swanson of NASA conducted a spacewalk April 23 to replace a backup computer relay box on the station’s S0 (s-zero) truss. The relay box, which failed April 11, is called a multiplexer-demultiplexer, and assists in providing insight and commanding for the station’s truss systems and associated hardware.

Here are some highlights of the EVA:

 

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Exoplanets

Kepler’s second and third acts + Sara Seager’s drive to find distant earths

The Kepler space telescope continues to look for exoplanets while its data continues to be mined for new worlds : Earth II? – PJ Media

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A profile of exoplanet finder Sara Seager of MIT : Sara Seager’s Tenacious Drive to Discover Another Earth – Smithsonian

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Update: And here is an item about not taking too seriously artists’ visions of how exoplanets might look close up : Envisioning Alien Worlds – Centauri Dreams

 

Science and Technology

Sci-Tech video: Michel Laberge explains General Fusion

Michel Laberge, the founder of the Canadian General Fusion project (see earlier post), describes in a TED talk their route to nuclear fusion power : Michel Laberge: How synchronized hammer strikes could generate nuclear fusion – YouTube (via Next Big Future)

Space Policy

Space policy roundup – April.23.14

Today’s selection of space policy/politics related links:

Webcasts:

* Tues 4/22/14 Hr 4 | John Batchelor Show – The first of Bob Zimmerman’s twice-weekly space news/policy report (he is the third guest).

* Ep. 342: Sunsetting Spacecraft | Astronomy Cast – Shutting down an operational science space probe

* Talking Space – 2014-Season 6 – Episode 609: Mars Madness – Interview with Chris Carberry of Explore Mars and the Humans to Mars Summit 2014.

Everyone can participate in space