A Connecticut family had a celestial visitor drop in on them: Meteorite Crashes Through Roof of a House in Connecticut – Universe Today
===
In Argentina a fireball gave an added flare to a rock concert: A suspected meteor flash briefly transforms night to day in Argentina – Cosmic Log
Congressional hearings on proposed NASA 2014 budget start this week:
A number of technical, financial and political hurdles must be overcome before NASA sends a probe to nudge an asteroid into lunar orbit. To catch a planetoid – The Space Review.
Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA’s Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations, has been talking at various events about the asteroid capture concept: Gerstenmaier Elucidates Asteroid Return Strategy – SpacePolicyOnline.com
Res Communis post the latest collection of space and aviation law, regulation and policy links: Library: A Round-up of Reading.
Update: Marcia Smith reviews today’s Senate hearing: Stafford Argues for Moon as Next Human Spaceflight Destination – SpacePolicyOnline.com.
And Jon Goff of Altius Space gives his views on some of the testimony given: Hobgoblins – Selenian Boondocks.
NASA Marshall Spaceflight Center this week will host the 20th Annual Great Moonbuggy Race ®, April 25 – 27, 2013: NASA’s Great Moonbuggy Race draws international field of 600 competitors to Huntsville – al.com
Updates will be posted at NASA Marshall Center (MOONBUGGYRACE) on Twitter.
Here is a video from last year’s event:
On Wednesday of last week’s 2013 IAA Planetary Defense Conference held at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff., the Planetary Society organized a public event. It was hosted by Bill Nye the Science Guy and Planetary Society CEO and included Geoff Notkin and Steve Arnold, the Science Channel’s Meteorite Men. Below are videos of the event
Part 1:
What a night! More than 900 people gathered at Northern Arizona University on April 17, 2013 to celebrate science and people who have dedicated themselves to saving humanity from a killer asteroid. Master of Ceremonies Bruce Betts, the Planetary Society’s Director of Projects, gets the evening started, and is then joined by Planetary Radio host Mat Kaplan for a raucous What’s Up! recording session.
Part 2:
The 2013 PDC public event welcomes the co-star of the Science Channel’s popular reality show to the Northern Arizona University stage. Notkin describes his worldwide search for space rocks, and why they fascinate him.
Part 3:
The Planetary Society’s Director of Projects served as MC for the exciting public event at this year’s PDC. It was the perfect venue for Bruce to announce the winners in the latest round of Shoemaker Near Earth Object grants from the Society. These awards enable dedicated amateur astronomers and smaller professional observatories to vastly improve their ability to discover and track asteroids and comets that pose a threat to Earth.
Part 4:
The Planetary Society’s CEO was a wildly popular speaker at the PDC public event on April 17, 2013. Here’s his presentation to over 900 fans on the campus of Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff
Part 5:
Moderator Mat Kaplan of Planetary Radio leads a lively and inspiring conversation in the grand finale of the PDC public event. Four outstanding young leaders in the planetary defense community join Bill and Mat on stage:
-Flight Dynamics Engineer Brent Barbee of the Goddard Space Flight Center
-NEOWISE Principal Investigator Amy Mainzer of JPL
-Applied Physics Research Scientist Cathy Plesko of Los Alamos National Lab
-Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy David Trilling of NAU
The low cost CubeSat approach to satellite design is growing rapidly in popularity and over 75 Cubesats have reached space already. Most of these have come from colleges, universities and small companies. Now even a K-8 school is building one: Young students aim to be among first to launch small satellite – SlashGear.
Students at St. Thomas More Cathedral School in Arlington, VA are aiming to be a part of a milestone. The school is looking to become the first K-8 school to launch a “CubeSat” satellite into space. The proposed satellite that the students will build would be four inches long in all directions and would weigh around three pounds.
The project has to be approved by NASA, but if the school gets clearance, the satellite will have a planned launch date sometime later in 2014. The CubeSat satellite that St. Thomas More students have planned will be designed to take photographs and temperature readings, and have them beamed back to the school on Earth.
