Category Archives: Living in Space

Future space, GPS, Living in Space

Misc: Space elevator newsletter & conf. + Growing plants in low gravity + The 1st geocache

Some miscellaneous items I’ve had in my queue:

I recently got the  International Space Elevator Consortium‘s latest update in my email box  : ISEC Newsletter – April.2014

The ISEC Space Elevator Conference will be held August 22-24 at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington.

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The German space agency DLR is planning an interesting mission to test the growing of plants in gravity less than earth’s by using the rotation of a spacecraft to provide centrifugal force to provide artificial gravity. It will spin

The experiment involves use of bacteria and algae that will convert synthetic urine into fertilizer to promote the growth of tomato plants. Variations in rotational speed around its longitudinal axis will simulate lunar and Martian gravity.

[…]

The first of the two greenhouses will operate under lunar conditions over the first six months, while the second greenhouse will operate in a Martian environment for the following six.

This project will run for a year, after which the satellite will reenter the Earth’s atmosphere.

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Geocaching has become a popular worldwide GPS game and hobby. There is a special plaque to mark the very first geocache: Ow.ly – image uploaded by @GoGeocaching

Owly Images

Education, Living in Space, Space Music

Video: Music from ISS and NASA JSC

I  mentioned recently plans for a concert involving an ISS astronaut and Texas music students. The event took place on May 2nd and here is a video of it:

Students from Pearl Hall Elementary school joined Astronaut Cady Coleman, Houston Symphony violinist Sergei Galperin, and Bella Galia founder & violinist Kenji Williams in a live linkup between the Johnson Space Center and the International Space Station. Expedition 39 crew member Koichi Wakata joined Kenji Williams for a space-Earth duet of Gagaku music.

Living in Space, Mars, Space participation

Mars One round one selection leaves 705 Mars settler candidates

An announcement from Mars One:

705 potential Mars settlers remain in Mars One’s
astronaut selection process

Amersfoort, 5th of May 2014 – Mars One announced that 353 hopefuls from around the world have been eliminated from the selection program to become the first human Mars colonists. The number of people remaining in this once in many lifetimes opportunity is now just 705.

The remaining candidates will be interviewed by the Mars One selection committee. Mars One Chief Medical Officer Norbert Kraft, MD says, “we’re incredibly excited to start the next phase of Round 2, where we begin to better understand our candidates who aspire to take such a daring trip. They will have to show their knowledge, intelligence, adaptability and personality.” Mars One is in negotiations with media companies to report on those interviews. Once the television deal is finalized and the interviews begin, the stories of the 705 aspiring Martians will be shared with the world.

In December 2013, Mars One announced the selection of 1058 candidates from the original pool of over 200,000 applicants. Mars One asked them to complete two tasks by March 2014: to provide a medical statement of health from their physician and open their online Mars One applicant profile to the public. The 418 men and 287 women who successfully completed both tasks will be invited for a personal interview. 313 candidates originally come from the Americas, 187 from Europe, 136 from Asia, 41 from Africa, and 28 from Oceania.

The group of candidates that will not continue to the interview round dropped out due to personal reasons and medical reasons. The withdrawals due to personal reasons were mostly in the age group 40-50. Candidates who had to withdraw from their dream due to medical reasons were mostly in the age group of 20-35. Mars One Chief Medical Officer Norbert Kraft, MD says, “what really left an impression with us is the fact that the medical tests turned out to have a major impact on the candidate’s lives, as some of them found out that they needed to undergo an operation, were sick and needed medical attention, or even had a malignant form of cancer that otherwise would not have been detected in such an early stage.”

After the interview round, the group of candidates will be narrowed down to several international teams consisting of two women and two men. These teams of prospective Mars settlers will be prepared for the mission by participating full time in an extensive training program. Training to go to Mars will be their full time job. Whole teams and individuals might be selected out during training when they prove not to be suitable for the mission. Mars One will repeat the selection process regularly to train additional teams to replace eliminated teams and crews of settlers that have successfully left Earth to live on Mars.

About Mars One
Mars One is a not-for-profit foundation that will establish permanent human life on Mars. Human settlement on Mars is possible today with existing technologies. Mars One’s mission plan integrates components that are well tested and readily available from industry leaders worldwide. The first footprint on Mars and lives of the crew thereon will captivate and inspire generations. It is this public interest that will help finance this human mission to Mars.

In Space Infrastructure, Living in Space, Science and Technology

Microbial astronauts now and in the past

Life’s spread into the solar system may have gotten inadvertent transport via earth’s spacecraft:

Life probably spread already from earth via debris thrown into space from giant meteorite impacts in the distant past:  How Life-Bearing Rocks from the Chicxulub Asteroid Impact must have Spread through the Solar System: Earth rocks capable of carrying and protecting life have probably to travelled to Europa, Titan and beyond, say astrobiologists – The Physics arXiv Blog

Also, if life originated on Mars, it would have colonized earth in a similar manner:

Eyes in the Sky, Living in Space, Real-time space

Video: Streaming earth imagery from HDEV cameras on the ISS

One of the payloads recently delivered to the Int. Space Station recently by the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft is the High Definition Earth Viewing (HDEV) experiment. It consists of cameras attached to the exterior of the station that stream views of the earth. You can watch the feed at ISS HD Earth Viewing Experiment



Live streaming video by Ustream

Caption:

The High Definition Earth Viewing (HDEV) experiment aboard the International Space Station (ISS) was activated April 30, 2014. It is mounted on the External Payload Facility of the European Space Agency’s Columbus module. This experiment includes several commercial HD video cameras aimed at the earth which are enclosed in a pressurized and temperature controlled housing. Video from these cameras is transmitted back to earth and also streamed live on this channel.

While the experiment is operational, views will typically sequence though the different cameras. Between camera switches, a gray and then black color slate will briefly appear. Since the ISS is in darkness during part of each orbit, the images will be dark at those times. During periods of loss of signal with the ground or when HDEV is not operating, a gray color slate or previously recorded video may be seen. 

Analysis of this experiment will be conducted to assess the effects of the space environment on the equipment and video quality which may help decisions about cameras for future missions. High school students helped with the design of some of the HDEV components through the High Schools United with NASA to Create Hardware (HUNCH) program. Student teams will also help operate the experiment. For a display of the real time ISS location plus the HDEV imagery, visit here: eol.jsc.nasa.gov/HDEV/ To learn more about the HDEV experiment, visit here: www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/917.html

Emphasis mine. At the moment of this posting the display is gray.