This video shows the final student presentation for the SETI Institute’s URSA (Undergraduate Research at the SETI Institute in Astrobiology) program with San Jose State University . See also Undergraduate Research at the SETI Institute in Astrobiology (USRA): a Partnership Between the SETI Institute and San Jose State University-SETI Institute
Robert Pearlman writes about a collaborative art project that intends to wrap a Saturn V rocket in quilts: Saturn V Switch: Art Project Picks Real Moon Rocket Over Replica for Quilt Covering -Space.com.
Find more about the project at its Kickstarter: Wrapping the REAL Saturn V Moon Rocket by International Fiber Collaborative, Inc. — Kickstarter
For some students this is their first introduction to space, science and art.
Wrapping the indoor real Saturn V Moon Rocket would have profound impact beyond our original intent to wrap the vertical Saturn V replica, we would like to pursue this option.
It would be awesome to walk under the entire length of the indoor rocket and look up to see all the art. We would have a hard time seeing all of the art on the outdoor vertical rocket which stands 363 feet tall.
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Your pledge will support design and team building aspects of the Dream Rocket project, a large scale art project based on creativity and teamwork made of thousands of artworks created by schools, groups, and individuals from around the U.S., and around the world.
Planetary Resources is a company planning to mine asteroids. Initially, though, they will place small observatories into earth orbit to search for candidate near earth orbit asteroids to which they will later send probes for closer inspection. On Wednesday they announced a program to dedicate one of their space observatories to public access and education.
The ARKYD project will launch in 2015 a space telescope into orbit specifically to allow students, schools and the members of the general public to direct its observations. They opened a Kickstarter campaign to raise $1M to fund the project.
One of the cool perks for a $25 pledge is a Space Selfie in which an image that you give them will be displayed on the “satellite’s external screen overlooking Earth. We will then take a picture from our camera arm and send the image back to you.”
The concept and the perks seem very popular as the 32 day campaign has already reached in the first two days nearly $565,000 from 5674 backers. [Update June.1.13: The totals are currently at $625,714 nd 6,234 backers.]
Here is a video for the Kickstarter:
And in the video below,
Jason Silva, the host of National Geographic’s Brain Games talks about what the ARKYD space telescope means to him and the world. You can follow Jason on Twitter @JasonSilva
Help fund citizen science and make space exploration a reality for everyone! Support the ARKYD Kickstarter http://kck.st/18DzUJ7
And here is a video with Planetary Resources co-founder Peter Diamandis and Planetary Society chief Bill Nye:
NASA is holding the Lunabotics Mining Competition at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex this week.
The Lunabotics Mining Competition is a university-level competition designed to engage and retain students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). There is particular relevance to NASA’s recently announced mission to find an asteroid by 2016 and then bring it to Cis-Lunar space, the technology concepts developed by the university teams for this competition conceivably could be used to mine resources on Asteroids as well as Mars. Robotic miners, just like these, will allow us to take samples at the returned Asteroid and give us valuable information to prepare for other deep space missions.
The challenge is for students to design and build a remote controlled or autonomous excavator that can collect and deposit a minimum of 10 kilograms of regolith simulant (aggregate) within 10 minutes. Regolith exists not only on Earth’s moon, but also on most planetary bodies such as Asteroids, Moons of Mars and Mars itself.
The complexities of the challenge include the abrasive characteristics of the simulant, the weight and size limitations of the robot, and the ability to control it from a remote control center. The scoring for the mining category will require teams to consider a number of design operation factors such as dust tolerance and projection, communications, vehicle mass, energy/power required, and full autonomy.
Here is a video in which the camera for the first half wanders around the event hall showing the student teams preparing their lunar mining robots for the contest. The second half shows the robots in the lunar simulant arena:
Here’s a message from The Society for International Space Cooperation :
The Society for International Space Cooperation (SISC) is an educational nonprofit organization whose board includes astronauts, cosmonauts, and luminaries like director James Cameron. We invite you to join the Space Explorers Club or Junior Space Explorers Club and be sent a different box every month with space goodies and space and science info from the past, present, and future of spaceflight.
The Junior Space Explorers Club is geared towards kids 6-12 years old and has many fun and educational activities. The Space Explorers Club is for Space Lovers aged 13-113.
The Society for International Space Cooperation is a 501(c)(3) so all donations are 100% tax deductible and all proceeds help support the educational programs of the society.
More info is available at http://www.spacesociety.org
