Category Archives: Space participation

Space Arts, Space films and videos, Space participation

Video: “Artist Depiction” to create documentary about space artists

The Artist Depiction Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign seeks support for a three part documentary series about the history of space art at NASA:

Artist Depiction is a documentary series about artists who have helped bring NASA projects to life. Their incredible artwork is ubiquitous, and yet these artists have been behind the scenes until now. We seek to give a voice to these artists: Don Davis, Charles Lindsay, and Rick Guidice. These oral histories will be lost to time without a series like this. 

Inside of a toroidal space colony as envisioned by artist Don Davis

Some background about the project is provided in this article: Upcoming Video Series Explores the Retro-Futuristic Space Colonies of NASA Artists – Gizmodeo

Why is the work of these NASA artists important in 2018? [Director Brett Ryan Bonowicz] explains that not only are these old space colony images still being used today to represent “the future,” they’ve also inspired so many of the designers that would come after them.

“Neill Blomkamp and Elysium. Christopher Nolan and Interstellar. Almost every day of our [crowdfunding] campaign someone mentions how ‘that artwork looks like Halo man.’” Bonowicz told me over email.

“It’s important to have these first-hand accounts from the artists that were depicting Gerard O’Neill’s original ideas about these colonies. Without these films those accounts are lost.”

And here is a brief video about the project: ADIndiegogo on Vimeo

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Rockets, Space participation, Spaceflight & Parabolic Flight

Videos: Blue Origin New Shepard reaches new max altitude on latest test flight

On Sunday, Blue Origin flew an un-crewed New Shepard fully reusable rocket vehicle to 107 kilometers (351,000 feet or 66.5 miles), well above the internationally recognized border to space. Before reaching apogee the system split into two parts – the booster and the crew capsule. The booster used its rocket engine to make a soft touchdown on a landing pad while the crew capsule floated safely to the ground with parachutes.

This was the 2nd test flight for this particular vehicle, the third version of the New Shepard design, and the eighth flight overall. The company, owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, plans to carry out several more test flights to prepare for flying employees by the end of the year. If all goes well, in 2019 they will begin making routine flights to space with six public ticket-owners on board at a time. (Sign up here to receive ticket info when it becomes available.)  In the meantime, they will be flying a diverse manifest of scientific and technology experiment payloads for paying customers.

Highlights of the New Shepard flight:

A replay of the complete live webcast:

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Contests and Games, Education, Space participation

Participate in “Train Like a Martian Challenge” sponsored by Mars Generation

The Mars Generation is sponsoring a competition and activities event for students and educators called Train Like A Martian Challenge:

Join Us For Our 3rd Annual #TrainLikeAMartian Challenge
May 14-18, 2018

Sign up now and join us for our third annual #TrainLikeAMartian event! We expect that the event will be a blast! Anyone can join including individuals, students, teachers, schools, sports teams, community organizations and anyone who wants to get involved. For educator resources to plan for the event please click here.

What is the #TrainLikeAMartian challenge? The #TrainLikeAMartian Challenge is a week of fun activities that brings awareness to the importance of science, technology, engineering, arts, and math (STEAM) education, space exploration, and physical fitness to students and adults around the world! This is a chance to have fun, spread an important message, and have a opportunity to win some cool space and STEM prizes May 14-18, 2018!

Daily prizes include: TMG magnets, TMG logo patches, TMG stickers, Astronaut Abby patches, TMG coloring books and more! We will hold multiple random drawings of all entries each day of the event May 14-May 18, 2018.

Grand prizes include: 

Arckit A180 The Architectural Model Design Tool (4 lucky winners) $170.00 Value: The Arckit 180 provides everything you need to design and build your own impressive model structures up to 180 sq.m (1,937 sq.ft) to scale, including adhesive sheets to add realistic building finishes. There are no set instructions – just follow your imagination!

Lottie Doll Supreme Play Package (1 lucky winner): 1 Star Gazer doll,1 Muddy Puddles doll, and 1 Wildlife Photography doll, 1 Doll Treehouse, and 1 Astro Adventure Suit.

1 Lottie Doll of Winner’s Choice plus 1 Astro Adventure Suit (3 lucky winners) 

Grand prize drawing will be after the event. Winners will be chosen by random drawing of all entries throughout the event.

Constellation Community Challenge: Our event sponsors:  United Launch Services (ULA), Lottie Dolls, Arckit, Indulge Sweets, Aerojet Rocketdyne and  Classform.com have joined forces to offer a $10,000 matching challenge grant to our community. Please help us earn this $10,000 challenge grant by becoming part of our constellation community by donating today! Every donation up to $10,000 is matched 100%! Donate now here!

All donations through May 18, 2018 will be doubled up to $10,000! Click here for details.

This means we have the potential to raise $20,000 for The Mars Generation programs including sending students who lack financial resources to Space Camp! Donating is not required to participate in the challenge, but for every $25 donated you will receive on entry into the daily and grand prize drawings. Click here to donate.

Want to earn special rewards? Become a fundraiser for The Mars Generation Train Like A Martian challenge for a chance to earn exclusive rewards. Scroll to the bottom fo the page for all fundraising rewards. Fundraising is not required to participate in the challenge.

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Continue to the Train Like A Martian Challenge website for more details about the competition including how to enter…

See also Train Like A Martian Challenge For Classrooms and Schools.

Activism, General, Space participation

Videos: TMRO Orbit 11.15 – “Rod Pyle’s Amazing Stories of the Space Age”

The latest episode of TMRO.tv is now available in the archive: Rod Pyle’s Amazing Stories of the Space Age – Orbit 11.15 – TMRO

Author Rod Pyle joins us to talk about many topics including the Space 2.0 Revolution, International Space Development Conference and how to build a Death Star.

Launches and news topics covered:

Launches:
Long March 4C Launches Yaogan-31 Trio
PSLV-XL Launches IRNSS-1I

News:
Orion Span Announces Plan for Space Hotel
Elon Musk Posts Picture of BFR layup tool
New Lunar Tour from LRO (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nr5Pj…)
Tiangong 1 Burns Up on Re-entry over Pacific

TMRO is viewer supported:

TMRO shows are crowd funded. If you like this episode consider contributing to help us to continue to improve. Head over to http://www.patreon.com/tmro for per-episode contribution or http://www.makersupport.com/tmro or monthly contributions and reward information.

TMRO short reports:

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Events, Space participation

Yuri’s Night – World Space Party : Celebrate “humanity’s past, present, and future in space”

The annual Yuri’s Night – World Space Party happens this week in honor of the first human – Yuri Gagarin – to go into space on April 12, 1961.

Yuri’s Night is the World Space Party. We hope to see you dream, explore, and celebrate with us at the hundreds of YN events held around the world each April.

“Circling the Earth in my orbital spaceship I marveled at the beauty of our planet. People of the world, let us safeguard and enhance this beauty — not destroy it!”  — Yuri Gagarin, 1st human in space.

Find a party near you at yurisnight.net/events/

Here is a message from the National Space Society about the global event:

The National Space Society has teamed with Yuri’s Night!

The crew of Expedition 27 celebrates Yuri’s Night aboard the International Space Station in 2011

The National Space Society invites you to celebrate Yuri’s Night in your local area. Yuri’s Night is a global celebration of humanity’s past, present, and future in space. Yuri’s Night parties and events are held around the world every April in commemoration of Yuri Gagarin becoming the first human to venture into space on April 12, 1961, and the inaugural launch of the first Space Shuttle on April 12, 1981.

Yuri’s Night events combine space-themed partying with education and outreach. These events can range from an all-night mix of techno and technology at a NASA Center, to a movie showing and stargazing at your local college, to a gathering of friends at a bar or barbecue.

In 2011, the 50th anniversary of human spaceflight, over 100,000 people attended 567 officially-recognized events in 75 countries on all 7 continents, while tens of thousands more watched the 12-hour live Yuri’s Night Global Webcast and participated online in the virtual world of Second Life.

The list of North American events this year can be accessed at https://yurisnight.net/events/#north_america

Yuri’s Night would like to thank the National Space Society for helping make Yuri’s Night in Los Angeles on April 7 the best event ever in the long history of Los Angeles Yuri’s Nights. The massive dance under the space shuttle Endeavour was truly awesome. (For details see www.la.yurisnight.net.)

This is just the beginning! On April 13 the Yuri’s Night celebration will rock the Space Coast in Florida with a dance under the Space Shuttle Atlantis. Help the National Space Society make this party one for the history books.

For more information and to get tickets see www.la.yurisnight.net/spacecoast.

Chantelle Baier
Director, National Space Society
Event Coordinator, Yuri’s Night