Space Show: Mars rock drilling on Hotel Mars + Lunar building webinar

Dr. Dorothy Oehler of NASA’s Johnson Space Center spoke on “Hotel Mars” this week with David Livingston and John Batchelor about Curiosity rover’s recent drilling operation and about “the process, the significance, possible findings, and pending analysis, plus the uniqueness of this incredible first time ever drilling operation”: John Batchelor “Hotel Mars,” Wednesday, 2-13-13 – Thespaceshow’s Blog

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On Sunday Feb. 17, 2013, 1-3 PM PST (4-6 PM EST, 3-5 PM CST),  DR. Haym Benaroya of Rutgers University will lead a webinar on the building of lunar structures on the Space Show: Space Show Webinar with Dr. Haym Benaroya, Dr. John Jurist, Sunday, 2-17-13 – Thespaceshow’s Blog

You can follow along with the presentation using this slides file: Short – Space Show Webinar on Lunar Structures Engineering 17 Feb 2013 (pptx).

Large scale meteor shower over Russia causes injuries and ground damage

A dramatic meteor shower took place over the Urals area of Russia today with large fireballs  and smoke tails seen in the sky and loud explosions heard. (See video below.) Sightings were reported in the cities of Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg and Tyumen. Widespread meteorite debris hitting the ground caused injuries to several hundred people  and damage to buildings (see second video below.)

Update: It was  just a cosmic coincidence. The meteoroid that caused the shower came from a much different orbit than asteroid 2012 DA14 and so they are not related: Astronomers: Russia’s Meteorite Is Not Related To Today’s Near-Earth Asteroid Fly-By – Popular Science.

From reading the articles today, some definitions are in order. A meteoroid is the rock traveling in space, a meteor is the bright flashy trail as it streaks through the atmosphere. and a meteorite is a chunk of a meteoroid that made it to the ground without vaporizing.

Planetary Society Hangout: Earth-sized exoplanets in our neighborhood

In the latest Planetary Society Hangout (February 14, 2013), Emily Lakdawalla of the Society and Courtney Dressing of Harvard talked “about just how common Earth-sized exoplanets may be in our neighborhood”:  Planetary Society Weekly Hangout, Thu Feb 14 1200PT/2000UT: Courtney Dressing – The Planetary Society

Planetary Society to host live coverage of asteroid 2012 DA14 flyby

PlanetCast:  Live Coverage of the Encounter With Asteroid 2012 DA14

Join Planetary Society Director of Projects Bruce Betts for live webcast coverage of the encounter with Asteroid 2012 DA14. This 45-meter asteroid will pass within 27,000 kilometers of Earth.  Also on hand will be the host of Planetary Radio, Mat Kaplan.

Friday, February 15, 2013
11:15am to at least 12:00pm Pacific Standard Time / 1930 to 2000 UTC
Go to :  http://planetary.org/planetcast

You’ll see:

  • Live telescope feeds from around the world (*courtesy of JPL)
  • A video tour of La Sagra Observatory in Spain, where 2012 DA14 was discovered with a camera provided by the Planetary Society
  • A live conversation with co-discoverer Jaime Nomen at La Sagra (subject to his availability)
  • Just possibly a surprise guest!

Bruce will also answer your questions about this and other Near Earth Objects (NEO) as he explains how the Planetary Society backs efforts to detect, track and eventually deflect NEOs that threaten our planet.  It may be the biggest show in space this year.

Don’t miss it!

Regards,

The Planetary Society Staff

* Note: Telescope feeds provided by JPL will be dependent on weather conditions from the various observatories throughout the world.

Budget sequestration and NASA

The sequestration storm will soon hit NASA:

Update: If these comments to the Space Politics posting are correct, then commercial crew will be cut less than it initially seemed and SLS/Orion will be cut more. The numbers are complicated by questions over  reconciling the percentage cuts with the funding under the continuing resolution (CR) , with what the administration originally requested for 2013, and whether the cuts apply to the whole fiscal year or to what remains.

The cut will apparently be taken from the Presidents request of over $800M for commercial crew and no from the amount in the CR of about half that. So it will result in a cut of about a quarter, which is a lot but it doesn’t zero out the program.

Here is an AvWeek item about the cuts: Cuts Would Hit Commercial Crew Efforts Hard – Aviation Week.

Everyone can participate in space