Walking in space

Two astronauts, Peggy Whitson and Shane Kimbrough, exit ISS to fiddle about doing this and that. Seeing the station up close is interesting, we're used to seeing cheesy and rather plain movie sets with astronauts clomping around on them in magnetic 'gravity' boots or dangling from wires to simulate weightlessness, but the actual surface is quite detailed. The amount of external cabling surprised me, and I imagine it would horrify IT network engineer types with its sometimes rather haphazard looking routing. Also, since gravity isn't an issue, the station spreads out in a far more organic manner, with the modules, solar panels, and what-not laid out as needed. 

There was, in a couple of shots, what looked like debris of some sort that was orbiting in proximity of the station. Were I ever to do an ISS spacewalk, that debris would probably include my space suited body when I forgot to secure my safety harness properly and floated away to my doom.  

I gave it my 'walking in cities' tag. There is no city, and for that matter no walking, but it's close enough I guess.

 

An encounter in the Kuiper belt

Arrokoth is a small object, measuring 22 miles long by 12 miles wide and 6 miles thick, which orbits in the Kuiper belt beyond the orbit of Neptune. It was discovered while the New Horizons space craft was already in flight. New Horizons was redirected to pass within ~2200 miles of Arrokoth to photograph and measure it. 

Arrokoth appears to be two small globular objects that collided at a slow speed and eventually fused together. It is the most distant celestial object yet visited by humans. 

    

Welding in space

The above video explains cold welding, a process in which two surfaces of the same metal can adhere to each other in a vacuum. This of course can cause problems in satellites and other space vehicles. The video offers a nice demonstration of how cold welding occurs and discusses some of the issues it causes in the space programs and their solutions. 

  

Space themed playing cards

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In 1964 General Dynamics Astronautics released a space themed deck of playing cards. As material with the deck explained:

"These space cards tell a story – the story of America’s man-in-space programs. The hearts deal with the human element, the clubs portray the sciences, the spades show products and the diamonds depict modern aerospace management without which the other three elements could not be successful." 

 

Returning to Earth from the ISS

An interesting video on how the Soyuz capsule is used to return crew from the International Space Station. The actual touchdown of it looks pretty brutal.

KSC - a review of Florida's high-tech tourist trap

Bas relief of the original 8 astronauts of the Mercury program

(click image to enlarge)

I visited the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) at Cape Canaveral last week. It has been over 20 years since I last visited the Center, and the changes were significant. As is the way of things in the Sunshine State, bits and pieces of old Florida are eventually replaced with a newer more Disneyfied version. The Center has not escaped that evolution.

The Center used to have a field where various rockets -- from the Redstone to the Saturn -- were displayed, a large building holding capsules and other space hardware and two tours. One tour was of the old Mercury and Gemini facilities (the Mercury pad was particularly striking with the blockhouse very near the launch pad and stuffed full of tube powered analog computers and, as its center piece, the large red button you pushed to launch the rocket). The other tour was of the Apollo facilities and featured launch control, the VAB and the Shuttle landing strip.

Upon entering the Center on this trip the first thing I noticed was the change to the rocket field, now called the rocket garden. It now had large buildings along its perimeter and pathways, some elevated, wound between the rockets. The effect was to obscure both their actual size and their size relative to the other rockets. It was difficult to compare them to each other.

The Saturn rocket has been moved and is now housed inside a very large building. Again, its size is somewhat obscured by not being as easily visible as well as now being contained in a larger structure. On the plus side the Shuttle Atlantis was now also being displayed. It was hung at an angle in a large building with its cargo bay doors open and, with two levels of walkways, you could get a very good look at it.

The museum that had the capsules and hardware was no more. I assume some of the stuff got scattered, but I never saw the Mercury, Gemini or Soyuz capsules, nor the Skylab mockup. In place of the museum were a number of 3D and iMax movies. I didn't watch any.

I think the old Mercury and Gemini pads got disassembled -- it is a shame they didn't at least move the Mercury blockhouse. Launch complex 34, where the Apollo Moon missions took off from has been leased by SpaceX. They've constructed their own launch tower.

The Center used to be the best tourists trap in Florida and I think it still ranks up there as one of the best to visit. It's a shame some of the history seems to have been lost or minimized, but I suspect it is a better stop for families these days. Regardless, if you're in Florida be sure to schedule a visit.

NASA's space tourism posters

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The Jet Propulsion Laboratory has posted Visions of the Future, which contains a number of hypothetical posters for space tourism. To those of us of a certain age it is just a reminder of the sorry follow-up to Apollo. Ah, what might have been.

Anyway, this is their blurb for the posters:

Imagination is our window into the future. At NASA/JPL we strive to be bold in advancing the edge of possibility so that someday, with the help of new generations of innovators and explorers, these visions of the future can become a reality. As you look through these images of imaginative travel destinations, remember that you can be an architect of the future.

There are more posters after the jump, and a few more. as well as more information and larger size downloads, at the JPL link.

More sleeping in space

From sleeping on the Moon we move onto sleeping on to sleeping on the ISS. They have much better arrangements than the lunar lander. They have little compartments with a sleeping bag tethered to the wall, a computer they can use for email and whatnot, and a door they can close for privacy and darkness.

One interesting detail -- the air needs to be well circulated or, in the weightlessness, a bubble of exhaled carbon dioxide will form around their heads as they sleep.
 

We Gotta Get Out Of This Place

A nice cover of the old Eric Burton and the Animals song by Space.

The Sounds of Venus

While the U.S. concentrated on landing probes on Mars, the Soviet Union sent a number of probes to Venus. One of them, Venera 14, had a microphone aboard. Above is a video with a soundtrack from Venera 14.

Not surprisingly the sound isn't all that interesting -- sadly, no outer-space monsters roaring in the background. However, the accompanying images from the surface of Venus are well worth a look.
 

The space toilet

Just in case you ever wondered -- and who hasn't? -- here's a short talk that explains the mechanics of space toilets.
    

RIP Neal Armstrong

Neal Armstrong reflected in Buzz Aldrin's visor

Neil Alden Armstrong
(August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012)

Earth, stars and the ISS

In videos and pictures from orbit often times the details of the sky are washed out by the glow from the Earth. The above video does a wonderful job highlighting the fields of stars against the structure of the ISS and the dynamic surface of the Earth it is orbiting. 

Found via Cliff Pickover's RealityCarnival.   
 

Stamps from the Space Age

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A lot of countries released postage stamps with space themes. The Soviets and their allies seemed to have cranked out quite a few of them. Understandably, considering the subject matter, many of the designs are quite striking when viewed closely.

These samples are from the Flikr group Space stamps. there are more examples after the jump, and of course many more at the Flikr group's link.

The flight of a booster

Bob's Blog has a very interesting post called Riding the rocket booster. It is a video that shows the flight of a Shuttle booster from lift-off to splash down some 8 minutes later.  

After separation you see the Shuttle pull away, the other booster tumbling in and out of the view and the contrail from Canaveral. What's really interesting about the video is the booster was miked so you hear the sounds of its flight. 

Be sure to head over to Bob's to watch it, and crank the volume up, because the creaking and groaning it makes is pretty amazing. 
 

Space colonies

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In the 1970s NASA Ames ran a series of summer studies for space colonies that could hold 10,000 people. On this page, and below the fold, is the artwork from those studies. Wonderfully optimistic stuff.

They're from the NASA Ames site Space Settlements, which has a lot of links to interesting material on the subject of space colonization. 

Outer Space

Sander van de Berg downloaded image sequences from NASA's Cassini and Voyager missions to put this video together. It is a nice, and rather unique, use of a of the photography done of Jupiter and Saturn. 

Wednesday Links

Democracy won.

Rescuing children from forced marriage—in England.

Carbon nanotubes was the secret of Damascus steel.

China's secret African slave empire.

Rich men are more likely to find mates, sire children.

The newest prime number.

Iran is more important than Wall Street.

Fourth time's a charm.

Mortgage brochures from hell.

Search Flickr by color.

Things you can get for free.

The warrior and the priest.

The social threat of naked long-buyers.

Learning from mistakes only works after age 12.

Study a little history, lest you relive it.

How government went wrong with mortgages.

Sunday Links

Get a plasma drive engine.

The triumph of the totalitarian will.

Ideas are just a multiplier.

Chain lightnin'.

86 wives.

Is schizophrenia a byproduct of brain evolution?

Big-time pandering.

What men have to do for love.

Paternalism is back.

Why you buy the rug.

The best man in Washington still going strong.

Friday Links

The sounds of Saturn.

Plasma antennas.

Abandoned swimming pools.

How to pretend you are Google in order to sneak in the back door.

The first hybrid pickup.

Look out Disney.

The rules of the swarm.

The top 30 magic tricks—video tutorials.

S. Korea joins the space race.

Whither blogging?

Has a simple Theory of Everything finally been found?