Categories
Apple Space

Mars Curiosity Lands

Mars Curiosity First Pics

I’ve said it once today, and I’ll say it again:

Realization: No matter what I do today, it won’t be as awesome as landing a 1 ton robot on Mars with a space crane.

Curiosity is the pinnacle of science and if it’s predecessors (Spirit and Opportunity) are any indication will have a long life of helping us explore Mars.

A neat little side note is that the processor of choice in the rover is a RAD750. Which is based on the PowerPC 750, aka the PowerPC G3. When you look at the specs, you’ve got to admit, it looks a lot like those G3 Mac’s (except they used spinning disks and not flash storage back then):

On-board memory includes 256MB of DRAM and 2 GB of Flash Memory both with error detection and correction and 256kB of EEPROM.

A neat little tidbit. This rover’s close relative was my desktop computer in High School.

Categories
Internet Space

NASA’s Streaming Server Setup

With Curiosity’s landing just hours away GigaOM has some information on how NASA plans to stream coverage of the landing. Sounds like the big winners are Nginx and Amazon Elastic Load Balancer:

They built a test infrastructure comprised of a single origin server (a Mac Pro housed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory) serving four bitrates (250, 500, 750 and 1,000) to a single Flash Media Server. Output was cached by a single “tier 1″ Nginx server, fronted by 40 “tier 2″ load-balanced Nginx servers running on Amazon EC2.

Nothing terribly shocking, though always interesting to see inside how others are handling large traffic events. Nginx is one heck of a capable server for this sort of task.

Categories
Google Space

Tour Kennedy Space Center In Google Maps

NASA - Shuttle Atlantis - Google Maps Tour

The folks at Gizmodo point out that Google Maps has an awesome feature now that lets you tour NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. You can point and click your way through all the different parts you’d never have the security clearance to go yourself.

Needless to say I spent a nice little chunk of the evening browsing around.

Categories
Space

Most Apollo Flags Still Standing

From the BBC:

Images taken by a NASA spacecraft show that the American flags planted in the Moon’s soil by Apollo astronauts are mostly still standing.

The photos from Lunar Reconaissance Orbiter (LRO) show the flags are still casting shadows – except the one planted during the Apollo 11 mission.

This matches Buzz Aldrin’s account of the flag being knocked over by engine exhaust as Apollo 11 lifted off.

Pretty amazing to think they survived this long. It also shows how little we know about the harsh space environment. Virtually nobody thought there was a chance of finding them intact.

Categories
Space

NASA To Use Apollo Era F-1 Rocket Again?

Apparently everything old is new again. NASA is looking at the possibility of once again using the F-1 rocket engine that got the Apollo missions (via the enormous Saturn V) off the ground. It doesn’t say if NASA is interested in the F-1, or the F-1A (which was developed post Apollo). Just goes to show that just because something is old, doesn’t mean it’s irrelevant.

Jeff Bezos and team found the F-1 engines of Apollo 11 a few months ago. Since then NASA has suggested The Smithsonian gets first dibs at an engine (which would still be their property if recovered), but a 2nd if recovered could go to the Museum of Flight.

Categories
Politics Space

Moon Landing Day

Moon Landing Day

There’s a petition going around to make July 20, the anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing a national holiday. The US has a fair number of holidays, however I don’t think we have anything that recognized a scientific achievement. Not a bad idea. Low chance of this going anywhere, but it’s a nice idea.

Why not a holiday that encourages Americans to literally shoot for the moon.

Categories
Audio/Video Space

Shuttle Enterprise Unmated At JFK

Shuttle Enterprise 747 Unmate @ JFK

About two weeks ago I got to see Shuttle Enterprise Arrive in NYC. NASA Television has now posted some video of the Shuttle being unmated from the 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. Unlike most of the times we’ve seen this process it was done by crane.

Categories
Photos Software Space

Shuttle Enterprise Arrives In NYC

Shuttle Enterprise 8

I got to walk down to the Hudson this morning and watch Shuttle Enterprise arrive in NYC. It was an amazing site to behold. It was cold, and the pier was pretty busy, but I think everyone had a great time regardless.

Categories
Audio/Video Space

Outer Space

Outer Space

The seemingly simple old NASA photo sequences set to music just amazes me.

[Hat Tip: Chris Cooper]

Categories
Space

Pioneer Anomaly Solved?

According to The Planetary Society the Pioneer Anomaly has been solved:

First of all, because the Pioneer spacecraft were spin-stabilized and almost always pointed their big dishes towards Earth. Second of all, because two sources of thermal radiation (heat) were then on the leading side of the spacecraft. The nuclear power sources, more formally Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTG), emitted heat towards the back side of the dishes. When the dishes reflected or re-radiated this heat, it went in the direction of travel of the spacecraft. Also, the warm electronics box for the spacecraft was on the leading side of the spacecraft, causing more heat to spill that direction. Photon pressure, the same type of thing used in solar sailing, then preferentially pushed against the direction of travel, causing a tiny, but measurable, deceleration of the spacecraft – the Pioneer Anomaly.

Emphasis mine.

Of course this isn’t the first time it has been said to be solved. This isn’t even the first time this theory has surfaced. It’s still interesting regardless. I bet in 20 years scientists will still bet debating.