Clipmarks | kelvin273's 'space' clips

Five Science Fiction Movies That Get the Science Right

Fri, 09 May 2008 22:24:50 GMT

clipped by: nohobot
clipper's remarks: "2001: A Space Odyssey" is my all-time favorite film, so I included almost all of the information from that section. The others on the list are also interesting, though, of course.

Clip Source: www.newscientist.com

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

"Open the pod-bay doors, HAL."

Despite being made before the first moon landing, Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C Clarke's masterpiece is a strikingly realistic depiction of space travel.

Among the film's neater details:

All scenes in outer space are silent – sound does not travel in a vacuum

The stars do not move past the ship – for there to be a visible motion of the star field, the ship would have to be travelling at close to the speed of light

The crew eat paste-like food and only drink liquids through straws.

Additionally, crew members are shown coping with the boredom and routine of a long, straightforward trek across empty space.

Newtonian physics is strictly obeyed in the behaviour of the ship and little "pods" that the astronauts use to travel outside it. Trouble only starts when a carefully-aligned radio transmitter, the crew's lifeline to Earth, begins to drift out of position.

Foxes guarding NASA's henhouse

Thu, 01 May 2008 04:08:52 GMT

clipped by: kelvin273
clipper's remarks: This has become such a business as usual thing in government that I'm not sure I can summon the outrage anymore.

Clip Source: www.space.com

The NASA inspector general says the space agency is breaking the law by allowing conflicts of interest on a board overseeing the building of a new spaceship to return astronauts to the moon.

The board is set up to review NASA's new Orion capsule. The panel is loaded with employees of the contractors it is supposed to scrutinize, the inspector general report says.

The report says the board chairman and five other members work for contractors hired by NASA for the multi-billion-dollar space shuttle replacement program. Four of the six are also stockholders in firms making money off the NASA project, the report says.

Tags: science, space, nasa

Russian space shuttle clone retired

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 01:06:40 GMT

clipped by: kelvin273
clipper's remarks: It would have been interesting to see how the Buran would have developed. While we were good at going to the moon and sending probes to planets, the Soviet program was more concerned with the kind of earth-orbit stuff the shuttle's about.

Clip Source: www.space.com

COLOGNE, Germany (AP) - The one-time pride of the Soviet space program is making a decidedly sedate journey to its new home, chugging up the Rhine River aboard a pontoon boat.

The Buran 002 space shuttle is headed for the Technik-Museum Speyer in southwestern Germany, which says it has long had its eye on the spacecraft.

The shuttle has been in storage in Bahrain since 2002.

The Buran - the Soviet space program's answer to NASA's space shuttle, to which it bears a strong resemblance - made its maiden flight in 1988.

Soviet space officials claimed at the time that the Buran was superior to its American rival because of its ability to fly on autopilot and its bigger capacity, but the program was mothballed amid chaos and fund shortages in the run-up to the 1991 Soviet collapse. Several Buran shuttles were left rusting in hangars.

Tags: space, russia

Space Flight Center in Alabama

Mon, 31 Dec 2007 08:28:21 GMT

clipped by: kelvin273
clipper's remarks: I had to clip this because one of my uncles used to live in Huntsville. Of course, he says there were some very poor parts of town. Apparently, the great schools and wealth are entirely concentrated in the areas where the rocket scientists live.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — In 1950, this cotton market town in northern Alabama lost a bid for a military aviation project that would have revived its mothballed arsenal. The consolation prize was dubious: 118 German rocket scientists who had surrendered to the Americans during World War II, led by a man — a crackpot, evidently — who claimed humans could visit the moon.

Ultimately those German immigrants made history, launching the first American satellite, Explorer I, into orbit in January 1958 and putting astronauts on the moon in 1969.

Far less attention, though, has been given to the space program’s permanent transformation of Huntsville, now a city of 170,000 with one of the country’s highest concentrations of scientists and engineers.

Rocket scientists, propulsion experts and military contractors have given the area per capita income levels above the national average and well above the rest of the state.

Tags: space, science, huntsville, alabama

Slight chance asteroid may slam into Mars

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 06:29:16 GMT

clipped by: kelvin273
clipper's remarks: Apparently, astronomers are so bored that a 1 in 75 chance of a collision makes them "excited."

Clip Source: www.space.com

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Mars could be in for an asteroid hit. A newly discovered hunk of space rock has a 1 in 75 chance of slamming into the Red Planet on Jan. 30, scientists said Thursday.

The asteroid, known as 2007 WD5, was discovered in late November and is similar in size to an object that hit remote central Siberia in 1908, unleashing energy equivalent to a 15-megaton nuclear bomb and wiping out 60 million trees.

If the asteroid does smash into Mars, it will probably hit near the equator close to where the rover Opportunity has been exploring the Martian plains since 2004. The robot is not in danger because it lies outside the impact zone. Speeding at 8 miles a second, a collision would carve a hole the size of the famed Meteor Crater in Arizona.

"Unlike an Earth impact, we're not afraid, but we're excited," Chesley said.

Tags: space, mars, astronomy, collision, asteroid

Interesting Theory On Space Time and Travel

Fri, 22 Jun 2007 23:47:21 GMT

clipped by: axelsenzon

Clip Source: www.haftu.com

[Video]

Tags: science, discovery, interesting, einstein

The Story of the Space Shuttle - 'A Rocket To Nowhere'

Thu, 23 Nov 2006 13:51:59 GMT

clipped by: Djiezes
clipper's remarks: very interesting story on the space shuttle
... click source to read more ...

Clip Source: www.idlewords.com

A Rocket To Nowhere

Future archaeologists trying to understand what the Shuttle was for are going to have a mess on their hands. Why was such a powerful rocket used only to reach very low orbits, where air resistance and debris would limit the useful lifetime of a satellite to a few years? Why was there both a big cargo bay and a big crew compartment? What kind of missions would require people to assist in deploying a large payload? Why was the Shuttle intentionally crippled so that it could not land on autopilot? 1 Why go through all the trouble to give the Shuttle large wings if it has no jet engines and the glide characteristics of a brick? Why build such complex, adjustable main engines and then rely on the equivalent of two giant firecrackers to provide most of the takeoff thrust? Why use a glass thermal protection system, rather than a low-tech ablative shield? And having chosen such a fragile method of heat protection, why on earth mount the orbiter on the side of the rocket, where things will fall on it during launch?

Taken on its own merits, the Shuttle gives the impression of a vehicle designed to be launched repeatedly to near-Earth orbit, tended by five to seven passengers with little concern for their personal safety, and requiring extravagant care and preparation before each flight, with an almost fetishistic emphasis on reuse. Clearly this primitive space plane must have been a sacred artifact, used in religious rituals to deliver sacrifice to a sky god.

Many source links for this article are available on my del.icio.us page.

Tags: space shuttle, shuttle, space, nasa, rocket, article, literature, odd, bizarre, technology, cold war, spacecraft

Cosmonaut drives golf ball from Int. Space Station

Thu, 23 Nov 2006 03:25:55 GMT

clipped by: kelvin273
clipper's remarks: It's fun to watch that desperately cash-starved Russian space program sometimes.

Clip Source: sports.espn.go.com

Long hitter: Cosmonaut drives golf ball into orbit

Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin was late for his tee time in space Wednesday, but he still managed to launch a super-lightweight golf ball into orbit -- even if he shanked his shot.

Tyurin hit the golf ball 77 minutes behind schedule after delays to fix an overheating spacesuit and a stuck exterior hatch.

Using a gold-plated six-iorn and an American astronaut in the role of caddie and safety holder, Tyurin hit the drive from a spring-like tee outside the international space station, 220 miles over the northwest Pacific Ocean. The shot, which veered a little to the right, kicked off a planned six-hour spacewalk.

"I can see it as a little dot moving away from us," Tyurin said.

But just how far did that baby go?

As in any golf story, it depends on who you talk to.

That drive went a billion miles -- or will by the time it eventually comes down in a couple years -- said Nataliya Hearn, the president of Element 21 Golf Company. The Toronto firm is paying the cash-starved Russian space agency an undisclosed amount for the golf stunt to promote its new golf club that includes a space-program-derived metal.

That's a huge exaggeration, according to NASA's lead spacewalk flight director, Holly Ridings. She said NASA's calculations are that golf balls would only stay up two to three days, which would put the drive closer to a mere million miles.

Just how far the golf ball travels won't be known until the ball burns up and enters Earth's atmosphere. The ball weighs 3 grams, only about 1/15th the weight of a normal golf ball. It weighs less to minimize any damage should it actually strike something.

Tags: space, sports, golf, science