Felipe Aguilar points me to his short film Spacefaring in which he juxtaposes Indian village life with the country’s space aspirations:
SPACEFARING from BOGOTA D.C. on Vimeo.
Mars: Curiosty rovers latest findings + The mists of Mars
NASA JPL releases a overview of several studies of measurements made by the Curiosity Mars rover during the time since it landed in August of 2012: NASA Curiosity: First Mars Age Measurement and Human Exploration Help – NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
In a little more than a year on the Red Planet, the mobile Mars Science Laboratory has determined the age of a Martian rock, found evidence the planet could have sustained microbial life, taken the first readings of radiation on the surface, and shown how natural erosion could reveal the building blocks of life. Curiosity team members presented these results and more from Curiosity in six papers published online today by Science Express and in talks at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.
This illustration depicts a concept for the possible extent of an ancient lake
inside Gale Crater. The base map combines image data from the Context
Camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and color information
from Viking Orbiter imagery.
This video summarizes the findings:
===
Here’s an interesting post about clouds forming in low lying areas on Mars: The Mists of Mars – The Planetary Society
NASA / JPL / Malin Space Science Systems / Bill Dunford
The Clouds of Mars: A composite of global images of Mars taken on
November 29-30, 2013 by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Water ice
clouds cling to the summits of the major volcanoes, and fill the
giant canyon of Valles Marineris (the long, horizontal feature in the south).
Mars Society kicks off a new field season at Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS)
The Mars Society begins another round of crews staying at the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah:
Kick-Off of the 2013-14 MDRS Field Season
The Mars Society is pleased to announced the beginning of the 2013-14 Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) Field Season, with crew 131 from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University arriving earlier today at the Mars hab in southern Utah. A chilly start to the field season has the MDRS facility covered in snow and ice with temperatures well below freezing.
Enclosed please find the first Commander Report (Crew 131) written by Chelsea Iwig:
Commander Report (12/07/13)
Crew 131 arrived on Mars today after a long journey from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach. Upon arrival the crew immediately began
settling into their rooms, cleaning the Hab and organizing the laboratory and upstairs living area. Two crew members went to get the food and supplies for the crew’s two-week stay on the Red Planet. Once the supplies were brought back, they were inventoried and organized in the upstairs cabinets. Currently, the crew is finishing up making dinner and writing reports.
Tomorrow Crew 131 will be officially entering sim (simulation) after some outdoor orientation activities and a crew photo. The crew will also be making all final preparations for the studies they will be conducting while on Mars. These studies include a usability study on an aeroponics device that was built by students in the Human Factors undergraduate program at Embry-Riddle as well as a usability study on a pair of space suit gloves provided by a private space suit design company called Final Frontier Design.
Additionally, the crew will be conducting an exercise study looking at the effect of exercise on stress and mood as well as a sleep pattern study looking at how the crew’s sleep patterns change when in an isolated and confined environment. Finally, the last study will involve testing out a variety of behavioral questionnaires to determine which are best for monitoring crew function and cohesion. Data collection for these studies will begin on Monday.
Overall, the crew is settling in to their new home for the next two weeks and is excited to begin their research. The crew is also eagerly awaiting the opportunity to explore Mars in their first EVA, which will be on Monday.
For regular updates about our MDRS crews and their research, please visit the MDRS Facebook page. Also consider joining our MDRS Twitter feed: @MDRSupdates.
Help DigitalGlobe select top earth observation image of 2014
The earth observation satellite company DigitalGlobe is holding a contest to selected their top image of the year: Vote For DigitalGlobe’s Best Satellite Photo Of The Year – Popular Science
Help Us Choose the Top Image of 2013
DigitalGlobe saw many changes in 2013, including our combination with GeoEye in February. The combination grew our constellation to five satellites, adding the capability to collect more than one billion square kilometers of imagery to our archive this year alone!
[]
Dunalley, Australia, Jan. 6, 2013 – fires, false color image (red = healthy vegetation)
Digital Globe Facebook
As 2013 comes to a close, we’re looking back in the archive and choosing our favorite images captured byIKONOS, QuickBird, WorldView-1, GeoEye-1 and WorldView-2. Our DigitalGlobe team members helped to narrow the image selections from trillions of pixels to 20 images. Now we’re looking to you to help us select the top image from these chosen 20.
http://youtu.be/uvL3Pc6JbsI
Please join us in voting for DigitalGlobe’s third annual Top Commercial Satellite Image of the Year contest. To vote, simply go to DigitalGlobe’s Facebook page to see the Top Image Contest – 2013 Top 20 album. You can “like” as many images as you want, but only the five images with the most likes will make it to the final round. You have two weeks to vote, campaign for, and promote the images you want to see in the top five.
On December 17 we will announce the five images with the overall most “likes.” The images will be added to a new album, Top Image Contest – 2013 Top 5 album, where you can “like” your favorite image.
Want additional votes in this final round? Follow DigitalGlobe on Twitter, Pinterest, and Google+ to retweet, repin, and +1 your favorite images. We will announce the winning image of 2013 in early January 2014.
We want you to be the judge, so join the conversation and vote for the Top Image of 2013!
The Space Show this week
Here’s the line up of guests for The Space Show this week:
1. Monday, Dec. 9, 2013, 2-3:30 PM PST (5-6:30 PM EST, 4-5:30 PM CST): We welcome back MICHELLE EVANTS for updates regarding X-15 and her book on the subject, The X-15 Rocket Plane: Flying the First Wings into Space.
2. Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2013, 7-8:30 PM PST (10-11:30 PM EST, 9-10:30 PM CST): We welcome back DR. WENDELL MENDELL. Dr. Mendell is a planetary scientist at NASA JSC. We will be discussing the Moon and much more during this program.
3. Friday, Dec. 13, 2013, 9:30-11 AM PST (11:30- 1 PM CST, 12:30PM-2:00 PM EST): We welcome DR. DAVID BRAIN to the program to discuss the MAVEN mission, Mars, and more.
4. Sunday, Dec. 15, 2013, 12-1:30 PM PST (3-4:30 PM EST, 2-3:30 PM CST). We welcome back ERIC LERNER of Focus Fusion. We will be discussion fusion energy updates with our guest.
See also:
/– The Space Show on Vimeo – webinar videos
/– The Space Show’s Blog – summaries of interviews.
/– The Space Show Classroom Blog – tutorial programs
The Space Show is a project of the One Giant Leap Foundation.