Astronaut Chris Hadfield explains how the orientation of the International Space Station, where he is living at the moment, is controlled:
Monthly Archives: May 2013
Bandella – space band includes one player in space
Famous technology investor and rocket enthusiast Steve Jurvetson recently attended a “7 conference” and recorded the live performance of the astronaut band “Bandella”:
They describe Bandella as an unlikely band of NASA astronauts with Chris Hadfield currently in space (guitars, vocals, first Canadian Commander of the ISS), Micki Pettit (lead vocals, wife of Don Petit, the first to enter the SpaceX Dragon capsule in space), Cady Coleman (flute, 180 days in space so far) and other stars who drift into nearer-earth orbit.
Here are some pictures of the event: Earth Day Serenade from Space – Flickr.
A Space Technology course in MOOC competition
The MOOC Production Fellowship competition will provide 25000 Euro to each of the ten winning MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) programs out of the 200 that have entered. The winners will be determined by online voting. Anyone may vote for the contestants until May 23rd. The winning courses will be offered for free at the iversity online learning site.
I received a message from Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Berlin, Institute of Technology about their Space Technology entry in the competition. The course has no prerequisites “other than a basic understanding of maths”.
The course “Space Technology” covers the fundamentals of space engineering, as well as further related subjects like space law, space politics or management of a space project.
At first, a brief introduction of our solar system and the space environment will give an idea about the destination space. On a trip to space, one has to expect an extremely harsh environment with vacuum, zero-gravity, deadly radiation, micrometeoroids and extreme temperatures. Still, space engineering enables spacecraft and humans to survive under these conditions.
Most of today’s space applications are based on satellites. Therefore, a focus will be set on satellites and their subsystems. Here, subjects like mechanical structures, thermal control, electrical power systems, attitude determination and control, data management and communications will be introduced using a mixture of theory and real mission examples.
One of the most fascinating sectors of space technology is human space flight. A section will be devoted to human spaceflight. In this section several topics like life support systems, astronaut training and space stations will be addressed.
This video also describes the course:
Competing in the International Space Apps Challenge
I recently pointed here to the International Space Apps Challenge program, which aims to encourage “collaborative problem solving with a goal of producing relevant open-source solutions to address global needs applicable to both life on Earth and life in space”. Stephen Murphey interviewed one of the competitors, Pablo Carranza Vélez, about his project, which involved “using the Raspberry Pi to create a space worth redundant computer”: How the International Space Apps Challenges Creates Innovation – DIY Space Exploration.
Audio-visual recreation of Apollo 11 lunar landing event
The website The First Men on the Moon: The Apollo 11 Lunar Landing provides
an online interactive featuring the Eagle lunar landing. The presentation includes original Apollo 11 spaceflight video footage, communication audio, mission control room conversations, text transcripts, and telemetry data, all synchronized into an integrated audio-visual experience.
Until today, it has been impossible to comprehensively experience mankind’s shining exploratory accomplishment in a singular experience. We have compiled hours of content available from public domain sources and various NASA websites. Thamtech staff and volunteers generously devoted their time to transcribe hours of speech to text. By using simultaneous space and land based audio and video, transcripts, images, spacecraft telemetry, and biomedical data—this synchronized presentation reveals the Moon Shot as experienced by the astronauts and flight controllers.
