Space Travel // Current TV

Scientists have discovered a 'super Earth'; would you be willing to look outside our galaxy for a place to live?

Scientists have discovered a potentially habitable planet being described as a... more

sgwhites
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Men Landed on the Moon... Riiiight

http://wp.me/pWlqU-2V Searching the google machine that is the Internet for... more

donniccolo
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5 months ago
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Top 50 Blogs for Learning About Private Space Travel

Ever since space travel began, the only real way to go was to be selected by NASA.... more

eva2
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1 year ago
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PETA Saves 27 Squirrel Monkeys from NASA's Radiation Experiments

http://www.greenwala.com/channels/nature/blog/12284-PETA-Saves-27-Squirrel-Monkeys-from... more

RedHeadedWriter
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1 year ago
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Space tourism expected to take off

- It's unlikely that you've heard of PJ King, despite the fact that... more

unimatrix0
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1 year ago
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Earth Being Prepped for First Contact?

I am not certainly not the one that discovered this, but I may be the first one to... more

derk
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1 year ago
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Boeing Signs Up to Explore Space Tourism as Early as 2015

Another day, another small reason to be optimistic that space tourism will (someday)... more

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1 year ago
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NASA Considering Rail Gun Launch System to the Stars | Universe Today

The idea for using rail guns to launch objects to space has been around for years... more

DogBoy
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Plants Will Be The First Extraterrestrials To Inhabit The Moon | ForUsToBe

The first extraterrestrials to inhabit the moon probably won't be little green... more

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1 year ago
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World's First Amateur Rocket to Send Humans into Space

Tired of waiting for SpaceX or any other firm to come up with a cheaper solution to... more

itgrunts
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1 year ago
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A Rocket of His Own [video]

TIME magazine recently went to interview astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson and we noticed... more

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1 year ago
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Voyager 2, which has been traveling through the solar system since the late '70s, has suffered a data formatting glitch that is preventing NASA from interpreting the content of its scientific data transmissions. Control and diagnostic transmissions are unaffected, which should enable the engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to troubleshoot the problem, provided they're patient—it currently takes nearly 13 hours for transmissions from Earth to catch up with the probe.

According to a statement released by the JPL, the problem first became apparent on April 22nd. Data from the scientific transmission, which currently reports on the conditions at the very edge of the solar system, began coming through with improper formatting, making it impossible to interpret the contents. Engineering data is still intelligible, so the JPL staff is expecting that it will be possible to figure out what's going wrong and introduce a fix. Serious attempts at repair were delayed by a planned roll maneuver, and only started on Friday. With a round-trip time of over a day, however, progress will undoubtedly be slow.

According to an Associated Press report, engineers think that there's been a fault in the memory that stores the formatted data prior to transmission. This either corrupted its current contents, or has introduced some bad bits into the onboard memory. It should be possible to either reset the bad memory, or program the system to stop using the errant hardware entirely.

Voyager 2 is currently the second-most distant human-made object, trailing its twin, Voyager 1, by about 3 billion kilometers (Voyager 1 is now 16.9 billion kilometers—about 10.5 billion miles—from Earth). Right now, the probes are near the turbulent sector of space where the solar wind pushes up against interstellar space. Both probes are expected to cross into interstellar space within the next few years, providing our first in-place observational data from outside the solar system. They'll also record what happens at the boundary itself—they may cross it several times, given that its precise location fluctuates with changes in solar activity.Voyager 2, which has been traveling through the solar system since the late '70s,... more

cclark_productions
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1 year ago
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Illustrations : A Showcase of Astonishing Spaceship Concepts

chandu
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1 year ago
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4 comments

Mars is the planned ultimate destination for NASA

cyman01
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1 year ago
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5 comments

Shocking Space Debris Images.

absworldone
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2 years ago
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30 comments

Total number of astronauts flown to space to increase by factor of SIX within 5-7 years

Despite NASA retiring the space shuttle late next year and not having a replacement... more

check
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2 years ago
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1 comment

Weirdly Beautiful Spacecraft Models

The days of the space race were a fascinating time in American history. Now, Life.com... more

whitespacecarpet
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2 years ago
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Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo Roll Out

Governors Bill Richardson and Arnold Schwarzenegger both contributed at the press... more

electricbrave
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2 years ago
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NASA Nukeships for OffWorld Exploration?

NASA is looking at bringing nuclear power to other planets. It's an intelligent option, perfectly suited to off-world exploration, and is being rigorously tested - so look forward to headlines screaming "NASA NUKING SPACE SHOCKER OUTRAGE!"

The thing to remember is NASA aren't idiots - they are literally an organization of rocket scientists, and nuclear power is an excellent option for offworld energy. The technology is well known, it's the most power bang per fuel mass buck available, and the small size and off-world nature of any space reactors means that's the only "bang" there could actually be. And in case you haven't noticed, off-world exploration is the most incredible and envelope-pushing mission mankind is capable of. It would be imbecilic to rule anything out.

The system works off a Stirling engine, one of the original heat engines (built as a rival to steam designs) which operates off the difference between a hot and cold location. The small nuclear fission pile provides the heat, conducted by liquid metal, and the cold is conveniently provided by being in space - or at the very least, being on a planet that's not as hot as nuclear reactions. The liquid metal is a sodium potassium mixture, and yes, this does mean that NASA are not only cooler than the T1000 but are actually using it to do work.

The system still needs a radiator, a forty-by-sixty meter cooling fin which will get rid of excess heat. It's important to remember that a heat engine doesn't convert hot into electricity - "hot" isn't actually a thing, and the point of the nuclear power is to provide a constant high temperature region. If you let the temperature get to high you'll run into all sorts of awful melting things, especially in space - it's extremely capable of cold, but there's no conduction or convection, so it's extremely easy to overheat if you don't work to radiate.

Solar power is perfect for some space applications but not everything we want to do lives in the light (or can afford the weight of batteries to store excess power for night-side operations). Until we come up with something better, nuclear power is our only option if we don't want to become reverse-vampires who have to hide in the sunshine. The Fission Surface Power (FSP) project has tested all the parts of this power source individually and is gearing up for full scale trials in 2014.

But don't let little things like logic, strict controls, or rigorous testing of proven hardware distract you. Look forward to lunacy as soon as news of nuclear hits the anti-everything crowd, and use it to discriminate between intelligent environmental activists and those who hear buzzwords and start screaming. Nuclear weaponry is undeniably the scariest thing we've ever achieved, and power plants need the very strictest of standards, it's true - but surely even if you hate nuclear material you'd be in favor of getting it off the planet?NASA is looking at bringing nuclear power to other planets. It's an intelligent... more

pjacobs51
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2 years ago
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2 comments

Inside Astronaut Boot Camp

"Three test pilots. Two flight surgeons. One molecular biologist. A flight... more

CalPal
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2 years ago
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1 comment

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