ESMD New and Improved Antimatter Spaceship for Mars Missions Most self-respecting starships in science fiction stories use antimatter as fuel for a good reason – it’s the most potent fuel known. While tons of chemical fuel are needed to propel a human mission to Mars, just tens of milligrams of antimatter will do (a milligram is about one-thousandth the weight of a piece of the original M&M candy). Image right: A spacecraft powered by a positron reactor would resemble this artist's concept of the Mars Reference Mission spacecraft. Credit: NASA Antimatter is sometimes called the mirror image of normal matter because while it looks just like ordinary matter, some properties are reversed. When antimatter meets matter, both annihilate in a flash of energy. Previous antimatter-powered spaceship designs employed antiprotons, which produce high-energy gamma rays when they annihilate. Image left: A diagram of a rocket powered by a positron reactor. It will be safer to launch as well.
| 100YSS® 2012 Public Symposium Catalog Page for PIA01907 Click on the image forSpirit's Winter Panorama Labeled Version Since April of 2006, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit has been sojourning in a place called "Winter Haven," where the robotic geologist spent several months parked on a north-facing slope in order to keep its solar panels pointed toward the sun. During that time, while the rover spent the daylight hours conducting as much scientific research as possible, science team members assigned informal names to rock outcrops, boulders, and patches of soil commemorating exploration sites in Antarctica and the southernmost islands of South America. Antarctic bases are places where researchers, like the rovers on Mars, hunker down for the winter in subzero temperatures. During the past Martian winter, Spirit endured temperatures lower than minus 100 degrees Celsius (minus 148 degrees Fahrenheit). This 360-degree view, called the "McMurdo" panorama, comes from the panoramic camera (Pancam) on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit.
Sony Nextep Computer Concept for 2020 by Hiromi Kiriki In 2020 We Can Wear Sony Computers On Our Wrist Our present need for internet connectivity is so profound that secondary devices like the Nextep Computer are bound to happen. Developed to be worn as a bracelet, this computer concept is constructed out of a flexible OLED touchscreen. Earmarked for the year 2020, features like a holographic projector (for screen), pull-out extra keyboard panels and social networking compatibility, make the concept plausible. Final Space Shuttle Crew Leaves Plaque on Atlantis | NASA Space Shuttle Prog... HOUSTON — Chris Ferguson almost forgot to leave it on board. Caught up in the moment of having just landed the space shuttle, ending NASA's 30 year shuttle program after 135 flights, commander Ferguson followed his crew out of shuttle Atlantis and only then realized he had forgotten about the plaque. "If I was as clear thinking as I wish I was right after landing, I would have put it right on there but I had to have someone run back and pull it out of my saddlebag and put it on there for me," Ferguson said Friday (July 22), a day after landing, after his return home to Houston. The small plaque, which was sized to fit perfectly over the center display screen in Atlantis' cockpit, was already a bit of an "afterthought" by the STS-135 crew, one devised with the help of the astronauts' simulator training team. Still it was the thought that counts. "The inscription is from the heart," said Ferguson. Keeping the dream alive “This plaque flew on the final Space Shuttle Mission in July, 2011.
NASA Makes Space for Open Source Software by Lisa Hoover - May. 11, 2009Comments (2) Space Shuttle Atlantis launched today on its way to the final Hubble telescope repair mission. There's an old joke originally quipped by astronaut Wally Schirra that NASA spacecraft really is a modern marvel, especially when you consider it's built by the lowest bidders. It's the government's tight purse strings, however, that has helped open source software put its fingerprints all over the space agency. NASA says it has four main reasons for promoting the use and development of open source software: * To increase NASA software quality via community peer review * To accelerate software development via community contributions* To maximize the awareness and impact of NASA research* To increase dissemination of NASA software in support of NASA's education mission NASA's CosmosCode program, launched in 2007, brings open source developers together to create space exploration software. Share Your Comments
Elon Musk Elon Musk (/ˈiːlɒn ˈmʌsk/; born 28 June 1971) is a South African-born Canadian-American business magnate, investor and inventor.[5][6] He is currently the CEO & CTO of SpaceX and CEO & Chief Product Architect of Tesla Motors.[7] He was an early investor of multiple companies, most notably SpaceX, PayPal, and Tesla Motors.[8][9] Early life and education[edit] Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa in 1971, to a Canadian mother and a South African-born British father.[10][11][12] Elon taught himself computer programming and at age 12 sold the computer code for a video game called Blastar for $500.[13] Career[edit] Zip2[edit] Musk started Zip2, a web software company, with his brother, Kimbal Musk. X.com and PayPal[edit] Elon Musk strongly favored the PayPal brand over the X brand. SpaceX[edit] Musk and President Barack Obama at the Falcon 9 launch site in 2010 In seven years, SpaceX designed the family of Falcon launch vehicles and the Dragon multi-purpose spacecraft from the ground up.
NASA's Juno Spacecraft Headed to Jupiter Friday This Friday a NASA spacecraft is slated to launch on a five-year journey to Jupiter. When it arrives, the craft will probe deeper into the gas giant planet than any previous mission, searching for the unseen core hidden below the thick atmosphere. It will also endure the solar system's strongest radiation zone to study the origins of the giant auroras that dance across Jupiter's poles. The probe—dubbed Juno—will blast off from Florida aboard an Atlas V rocket, starting a 400-million-mile (644-million-kilometer) trek. When it arrives at Jupiter in 2016, the spacecraft will spend about one Earth year making 33 elliptical polar orbits, skimming as close as 3,100 miles (5,000 kilometers) above the clouds. Watch NASA video about the Juno mission. Carrying a suite of eight main science instruments, Juno will collect data on Jupiter's atmosphere that may be key to understanding the birth of our cosmic neighborhood. "It has that same feel. Jupiter Water May Offer Clues to Planet Birth
Mars Exploration Rover Mission: Press Releases PASADENA, Calif. – After a journey of almost three years, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has reached the Red Planet's Endeavour crater to study rocks never seen before. On Aug. 9, the golf cart-sized rover relayed its arrival at a location named Spirit Point on the crater's rim. Opportunity drove approximately 13 miles (21 kilometers) since climbing out of the Victoria crater. "NASA is continuing to write remarkable chapters in our nation's story of exploration with discoveries on Mars and trips to an array of challenging new destinations," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. Endeavour crater, which is more than 25 times wider than Victoria crater, is 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter. "We're soon going to get the opportunity to sample a rock type the rovers haven't seen yet," said Matthew Golombek, Mars Exploration Rover science team member, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif.