Space shuttle Atlantis heads for Florida landing (Reuters) | Learn …
Reuters – Astronauts aboard space shuttle Atlantis fired their ships braking rockets on Friday to leave orbit and begin an hour-long glide to Earth, the last leg of an 11-day mission to the International Space Station.

Shuttle Landing: Atlantis Astronauts Back On Earth
Space shuttle Atlantis and its seven astronauts returned to Earth with a smooth touchdown Friday to end an 11-day flight that resupplied the International Space Station. With bright sunlight glinting off it, the shuttle swooped through …

Space shuttle Atlantis heads for Florida landing – Reuters | Buzz …
Author: SciTech – Google News | Categories: Entertainment, Tech | Posted: 27 November, 2009.

Space Shuttle Atlantis Heads For Morning Landing – Technology News …
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Space shuttle Atlantis and seven astronauts are on their way home. Friday, November 27, 2009.

Space Shuttle Atlantis Is Back At Kennedy Space Center | AVIATION-NEWS
Space shuttle Atlantis has landed at Kennedy Space Center, Fla. The STS-129 mission that included three spacewalks and more than six days at the.

Space shuttle Atlantis aims for morning landing (AP) | Daily News Blog
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Space shuttle Atlantis is headed for a landing, weather permitting. The shuttles seven astronauts.

Space shuttle Atlantis heads for Florida landing | Buzz Newsroom
Author: Reuters Top News | Categories: Entertainment, News | Posted: 27 November, 2009.

Space shuttle Atlantis aims for morning landing – Technology …
(AP) — Space shuttle Atlantis looks to be headed for an on-time landing.

Space shuttle Atlantis aims for morning landing – Breaking News …
Space shuttle Atlantis is headed for a landing, weather permitting.

Where can I find a step by step description of what the space shuttle does to leave its orbit & land on earth?

the Space Shuttle, why does it take from Florida but lands in California after it s mission is complete?
I ve got a geography essay and we have to write a story about our own journey to the centre of the earth. Usually I would think this would be fun but we have to add geographical facts about the earth s core and that. We watched a movie called The Core and we were allowed to take some ideas from the film and put them into our essay. I looked up the film on wikipedia and looked at the plot and it said: When 32 people in Boston mysteriously drop dead, scientists Dr. Josh Keyes (Aaron Eckhart) and Serge Leveque are called in to investigate, and they discover they all had pacemakers which obviously ceased to work. A while later, flocks of pigeons in London s Trafalgar Square lose their ability to navigate, crashing into buildings, people and cars, and the Space Shuttle Endeavour is forced to crash-land because of unknown failure. After these events, scientists, led by Keyes and Conrad Zimsky (Stanley Tucci), discover that the Earth s molten core is slowly coming to a stop; without its rotation, the electromagnetic field will disappear, exposing the surface to the unfiltered solar radiation and will incinerate anything or anyone exposed to it. I don t understand how the core of the Earth would affect pigeons and pacemakers. Can somebody please give me a simple explanation? Sorry it s a bit lengthy.

I don t understand how this works? Please read this !?
Just wondering if there are any laws preventing me from doing space travel. I.e would i be breaking any laws if somehow I managed to create my own space shuttle and just flew out into space. Also are there any laws against damaging other planets? So if i landed on one and set off a couple of A bombs then came back to earth would I get put in jail? Its a weird and very pointless question I know but i was just wondering.

Laws about space travel?
I m building my very own Hot Air Balloon and when it s complete, I ll continuously apply as much hot air as necessary till I find myself in Space. I thought I don t have the resources and the time to become a professional astronaut and join NASA, and, most importantly, why does NASA spend billions of dollars building “Discovery” shuttle and launching it into Space, when I can actually fly to Space from my very own garden in London without asking for anyone s permission? I just want to make sure it s legal and I m not arrested by the police once I descent back to Earth. I want to go into the thermosphere (600 km. above Earth) and spend there a few hours and watch our blue planet from high above, and then come back to Earth. I know that the ascent will be very easy, as I use Hot Air Balloons all the time. It s very simple: raising the air temperature inside the envelope makes it lighter than the surrounding (ambient) air. The balloon floats because of the buoyant force exerted on it. This force is the same force that acts on objects when they are in water and is described by Archimedes principle. So, I ve calculated that by continuously going up and up, I will enter Space in about 2 hour s time. My primary concern is this: is there any law which regulates the traffic up there in Space? What if my balloon interferes with the satellites or ISS (International Space Station)? Can the authorities on Earth later on prosecute me for “reckless driving” (or “reckless flying”, as the case may be) ??? Also, since my departure point is London, England, and our planet rotates, is it possible, that once I start my descend, I ll land in some entirely different country, and can I be prosecuted for this?

Travelling to Space in a Hot-Air Balloon?
I m building my very own Hot Air Balloon and when it s complete, I ll continuously apply as much hot air as necessary till I find myself in Space. I thought I don t have the resources and the time to become a professional astronaut and join NASA, and, most importantly, why does NASA spend billions of dollars building “Discovery” shuttle and launching it into Space, when I can actually fly to Space from my very own garden in London without asking for anyone s permission? I just want to make sure it s legal and I m not arrested by the police once I descent back to Earth. I want to go into the thermosphere (600 km. above Earth) and spend there a few hours and watch our blue planet from high above, and then come back to Earth. I know that the ascent will be very easy, as I use Hot Air Balloons all the time. It s very simple: raising the air temperature inside the envelope makes it lighter than the surrounding (ambient) air. The balloon floats because of the buoyant force exerted on it. This force is the same force that acts on objects when they are in water and is described by Archimedes principle. So, I ve calculated that by continuously going up and up, I will enter Space in about 2 hour s time. My primary concern is this: is there any law which regulates the traffic up there in Space? What if my balloon interferes with the satellites or ISS (International Space Station)? Can the authorities on Earth later on prosecute me for “reckless driving” (or “reckless flying”, as the case may be) ??? Also, since my departure point is London, England, and our planet rotates, is it possible, that once I start my descend, I ll land in some entirely different country, and can I be prosecuted for this?

Can I Travel to Space and Back in a Hot Air Balloon?
Does anyone specialise in Space Law? I m building my very own Hot Air Balloon and when it s complete, I ll continuously apply as much hot air as necessary till I find myself in Space. I thought I don t have the resources and the time to become a professional astronaut and join NASA, and, most importantly, why does NASA spend billions of dollars building “Discovery” shuttle and launching it into Space, when I can actually fly to Space from my very own garden in London without asking for anyone s permission? I just want to make sure it s legal and I m not arrested by the police once I descent back to Earth. I want to go into the thermosphere (600 km. above Earth) and spend there a few hours and watch our blue planet from high above, and then come back to Earth. I know that the ascent will be very easy, as I use Hot Air Balloons all the time. It s very simple: raising the air temperature inside the envelope makes it lighter than the surrounding (ambient) air. The balloon floats because of the buoyant force exerted on it. This force is the same force that acts on objects when they are in water and is described by Archimedes principle. So, I ve calculated that by continuously going up and up, I will enter Space in about 2 hour s time. My primary concern is this: is there any law which regulates the traffic up there in Space? What if my balloon interferes with the satellites or ISS (International Space Station)? Can the authorities on Earth later on prosecute me for “reckless driving” (or “reckless flying”, as the case may be) ??? Also, since my departure point is London, England, and our planet rotates, is it possible, that once I start my descend, I ll land in some entirely different country, and can I be prosecuted for this?My balloon is stronger than the winds which I ll have to encounter. I ve got a very advanced hot-air injector which will blow air so rapidly into the “envelope”, that no wind could ever change my direction. I ve already sent my teddy-bear into Space in a similar hot-air balloon (unmanned, obviously). The only way for him (i.e. my teddy-bear) was up and up.

Is it Legal to Build My Own Hot Air Balloon?
1.)write 625 using exponents in many ways as you can 2.)the afican bush elephant is the largest land animal and eights about 8 tons.write this amount in expontial form 3.)SPACE SHUTTLE the cost of each flight of the space is about $10,000,000.write the amount in expontial form. 4.)many prefixes are used in mathmetics and science.the prefix giga in gigameter represents 1,000,000,000 meters. write this as a power of ten

some one give me these anwsers plz before the night is over plzzz?
On August 20, 1975 NASA launched Viking 1 into space in hopes of reaching the surface of Mars. This was one of a two identical spacecraft that had the purpose of successfully taking pictures, conducting biological experiments on the soil and atmosphere, and then returning that data back to Earth. The second, identical spacecraft, was shot off September 9, 1975.(1) The two orbited the planet looking for the perfect place to land. Vikings1 &2 were identical spacecrafts each consisting of an orbiter and a lander. The lander was to break away from the orbiter and land on the surface. It would then take pictures and conduct experiments on the soil.(2) It would then transmit the images and data back to the orbiter. The orbiter also had the job of transmitting all the information back to NASA. The firs images were transmitted 25 seconds after the shuttle landed. (2) The Viking shuttles, also conducted experiments to look for signs of life. Although The two landed successfully in different locations on the planet. Here they would stay transmitting images for seven years. They transmitted over 1400 images of the surface. They unsuccessful in finding traces of life on the red planet, but gave valuable information about the physical and atmospheric conditions on the surface.(3) Sources: 1. http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/viking.html 2. http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/masterCatalog.do?sc=1975-075C 3. http://pds.jpl.nasa.gov/planets/welcome/viking.htm

What do you think of my diction question it is about viking 1 and 2~for class?

how does a space shuttle land?
Did anyone feel the sonic Boom from the Space Shuttle Discovery landing in Southern California???

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Today tweeters joined us at NASA Headquarters in Washington DC to chat with Space Station crewmates @astro_Jeff Williams and @astro_Nicole Stott live onorbit. So nice to meet you all!

Former astronaut Tom Jones helped MC the event and answer questions. When the master alarm sounded on Station ending our live interview, Tom stepped in to explain the onorbit process Jeff and Nicole would be following to check out the cause of the alarm. (All is well on Station. Rest assured.)

Our tweeters had great fun with Tom’s name and tweeted names of songs made famous by singer Tom Jones. (I really didn’t get the reference until later. I was busy tweeting on my iPhone. I saw a few strange references flow down the twitterfall screen at the front, but had no idea what they meant. I guess I need a life.)

Adorable astronaut Mike Fincke, veteran of two Station missions, joined us from Houston (via NASA TV feed) to answer questions from tweeters. He absolutely twinkles. Gotta love him. We also heard from NASA Deputy Lori Garver, Space Operations Deputy Lynn Cline, and Space Operations Jacob Keaton. Jacob shared some anecdotes about the node naming contest and our interaction with U2.

Oh, and BTW, we played Star Girl by McFly in space during the downlink. Yay. So excited to engage an enthusiastic new demographic of music fans who may now perk their ears when NASA missions occur. Star Girl and ThankYouNASA both climbed the Twitter Trending chart after the Tweet-Up. Tom Fletcher, mastermind of the #StarGirlinSpace campaign, thanks NASA.

Let’s now talk a bit about the master alarm episode. Quite unsettling. My first thought, how horrific if something were to happen to Station while our Twitter guests sat and watched. My second thought, confirmation, once again, that:

Space is an unforgiving business. What we do is hard.

We make it look easy.

Our astronauts who live and work in space onboard Space Station put their lives on the line EVERY SINGLE DAY. Watching Jeff and Nicole calmly excuse themselves to go check out the source of the alarm, demonstrates our professionalism. Chances were the alarm registered a false reading. Had the reverse occurred, the worst case scenario would send the crew to the Russian Soyuz escape vehicles to abandon ship.

None of this happened. Whew! Our tweeters went home happy. No traumatic scars from that day at NASA Headquarters when “the alarm” sounded. Yay. Hurray. On with the show.

Here are my iPhone pics from the day. Yes, they’re a bit fuzzy. Work with me. (I’ll caption them properly when I’m not sleepy.)

Note: Just so you know, the spacesuit on the stage is “headless” because the helmets are out being refurbished. It’s really not a Halloween statement, as some thought.

The US space agency, Nasa, is rolling out its Ares 1-X test rocket.

The super-slim, 100m-tall launcher is a demonstrator for the vehicle Nasa plans to use in the next decade to take its new astronaut crewship into orbit.

The Ares I-X is expected to make an unmanned, two-minute flight at the end of the month to check out basic design concepts and gather engineering data.

However, the project’s long-term future is uncertain and could conceivably be cancelled in the coming months.

US President Barack Obama convened an expert panel back in May to review American human spaceflight plans and priorities.

Led by former Lockheed Martin CEO Norm Augustine, the advisory group has suggested a range of options for getting astronauts into space – most of which do not require the new stick-like Ares launcher.

The committee is expected to deliver its final report to the White House this week. The 1-X is being moved out of the giant Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center.

Its 6.7km (4.2 miles) journey to the launch pad is expected to last about seven hours.

The test launch is scheduled to take place from the Florida spaceport no earlier than the 27th of the month.

The 1-X will climb about 40km (25 miles) into the sky during the powered phase of its flight, continuously measuring vehicle aerodynamics, controls and performance of the rocket’s first stage.

The demonstrator will help verify design assumptions so that when the Ares 1 proper is built, the engineers can be confident it will fly as expected.

However, all the systems are under review, and many commentators expect the Ares development plans to be heavily modified or even cancelled.

If it is allowed to proceed, a manned Ares 1 is not expected to fly before 2016.

An American scientist who worked for the US defence department and the space agency Nasa has been charged with attempted espionage, officials say.

Stewart David Nozette tried to give classified information to a person who he believed was an Israeli intelligence officer, the justice department said.

The 52-year-old, who once had top security clearance, was arrested on Monday by FBI agents, it added. The complaint does not allege Israel or anyone acting for it violated US law. Mr Nozette, who is expected to appear in court in Washington on Tuesday, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted.

“The conduct alleged in this complaint is serious and should serve as a warning to anyone who would consider compromising our nation’s secrets for profit,” said US Assistant Attorney-General David Kris.

According to an affidavit, Mr Nozette worked at the White House on the National Space Council from 1989 to 1990, where he developed a radar experiment that purportedly discovered water on the moon.

Last month, Mr Nozette was contacted by an undercover FBI agent posing as an Israeli intelligence officer, whom he allegedly told he would be willing to regularly answer questions about classified information in exchange for money and an Israeli passport.

Over the course of the next month, the scientist provided letters with answers containing information “classified as both Top Secret and Secret that concerned US satellites, early warning systems, means of defence or retaliation against large-scale attack, communications intelligence information, and major elements of defence strategy”, the justice department said. In return, Mr Nozette accepted cash totalling $11,000, it added.

Washington, October 10 (ANI): NASA’s much-anticipated “Moon bombing” mission, in which it sent the LCROSS spacecraft to the Moon to strike a crater in order to collect frozen water, may have literally hit a “dry hole”, as there were no billowing plumes of dust and ice visible after the impact. According to a report in National Geographic News, NASA’s LCROSS mission sent two spacecraft “bombing” into the moon on October 9.

The craft successfully struck their target, a crater thought to harbor frozen water. But, the much-hyped moon show that had been expected to accompany the impact, however, turned out to be a flop, as no billowing plumes of dust and ice were visible through backyard telescopes or on NASA TV. The low-impact collision had one NASA expert musing that LCROSS may have struck a “dry hole.”

At 7:31 a.m. ET on October 9, a 2.2-ton empty rocket shot from the LCROSS probe hit the crater Cabeus A on the moon’s south pole. Four minutes later, LCROSS (Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite) performed its own kamikaze dive, which was the final act in its mission to detect evidence of water ice in the moon’s shadowed craters. Whether or not sky-watchers could see the LCROSS crashes, NASA insists they happened.

“I can certainly report that there was an impact,” said LCROSS principal investigator Anthony Colaprete. “We saw the impact and we saw the crater,” he added. When the rocket crashed into the moon, though, cameras on LCROSS registered no discernable change in the crater-at least to the untrained eye. “It was hard to tell what we saw there,” said Michael Bicay, science director at NASA Ames Research Center in California, during live coverage on NASA TV.

A closer inspection of LCROSS impact images, though, has revealed a small white speck that scientists think is the debris thrown up by the first crash, but it will take time for scientists to determine whether it is evidence of water on the moon, according to NASA. I’m not going to say anything about water or no water, but we got the data that we need to address the question, LCROSS principal investigator Colaprete said.

For many amateur astronomers who got up early to watch the crashes through telescopes or on NASA TV, the crashes were a bit anticlimactic. “We had telescopes (as wide as) 32 inches, and nothing was seen,” said Siegfried Jachmann, vice president of the Salt Lake Astronomical Society in Utah. Scientists said that it could be days before data transmitted by LCROSS are fully analyzed. (ANI)

WASHINGTON, DC – NASA bombed the moon this morning, in order to find water beneath the surface!

NASA sent a 2.2-ton empty rocket crashing into the moon at 5,600 miles per hour this morning, followed by the satellite that had been tracking it. The crash, equal to the power of 1.5 tons of TNT, should have punched a 12 foot hole into the 2-mile-deep crater Cabeus to find out if ice is hidden beneath the surface.

Some believe NASA had other motives, such as destroying evidence of a a secret black op moon base or an extraterrestrial colony. However, there is no way to prove or disprove these theories.

Video of the explosion was attempted, but the results were somewhat disappointing.

This is the shot from the satellite following the rocket:

And here is a far away shot from another camera. The explosion can be barely seen at 0:09

Thanks to the power of technology, people around the world were watching a live feed on NASA’s website at 13:30 South African time today. The reason for the sudden interest in the US space agency? NASA planned to crash a rocket into a crater near the moon’s south pole to kick up debris that scientists will then search for signs of water.

Our office was a buzz as we all tuned into ‘NASA TV’ in eager anticipation of watching “the moon being bombed”, and while it was great seeing the craters becoming bigger and bigger as the rocket got closer, and watching the rocket’s progress, we were all disappointed that when it was time for the big event, the feed switched to the guys in the NASA control room congratulating one another!

Anyway, one still marvels that we were able to witness such an event in real time – it really does prove how amazing technology is! Of course, ‘LCROSS’, as the mission is known, has become a trending topic on Twitter, and has its own Facebook fan page, once again also showing the capacity of social media to generate interest in world events.

It will be interesting to follow NASA’s progress and findings from this mission…watch this space!

Dentro de unas horas la nave LCROSS chocará contra el Polo Sur de nuestro satélite, pero antes analizará los restos de la colisión de su cohete portador en busca de agua. Véanlo en directo en NASA TV.

Traducido para Astroseti por David Martínez, a partir de una artículo original del Dr. Tony Phillips.Science@NASA, 5 de octubre de 2009.

Sólo imaginen. Una nave espacial cae desde el cielo nocturno, impacta contra el suelo y explota. Un penacho de restos crece hacia el cielo, llevando su mirada hacia una segunda nave que la persigue estrechamente. Cuatro minutos más tarde esta otra nave impacta también contra el suelo. ¡Están lloviendo naves! Ponganse el casco y preparense para la acción, porque el viernes 9 de octubre esto que han imaginado se hará realidad, y pueden tener una butaca de patio.

El lugar del impacto es el cráter Cabeus, cercano al polo sur lunar. La NASA está guiando al Satélite de Observación y Sentido de Cráteres Lunares (Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, o LCROSS) y a su cohete de impulsión Centauro hacia el suelo del cráter para un espectacular doble impacto diseñado con el objeto de desenterrar signos de agua lunar.

Hay dos maneras de ver el espectáculo:

La primera, sintonicen NASA TV. La agencia espacial retransmitirá el suceso en directo, con cobertura desde el viernes por la mañana (3:15 am PDT; 10:15 UTC). Aproximadamente durante la primera hora previa al impacto, se ofrecerán comentarios de expertos, informes del estado de la misión, vistas desde la nave y animaciones basadas en la telemetría. El impacto real comenzará a las 7:30 am EDT (11:30 UTC). El cohete Centauro impactará primero, transformando 2.200 kg de masa y 10 mil millones de julios de energía cinética en un cegador flash de calor y luz. Los investigadores esperan que el impacto levante una nubes de desechos hasta 10 km. Detrás, muy cerca, la nave nodriza LCROSS fotografiará la colisión para NASA TV y luego volará a través de dicha nube. Los espectrómetros a bordo analizarán el soleado penacho en busca de signos de agua (H2O), fragmentos de agua (OH), sales, arcillas, minerales hidratados y un surtido de moléculas orgánicas. Si hay agua allí, o algo interesante, lo encontraremos, dice Tony Colaprete, investigador principal de la misión. A continuación viene la propia nube de la nave nodriza. Cuatro minutos despues de que alunice la Centauro, el satélite de 700 kg LCROSS impactará cerca, mandando otra nube, más pequeña, sobre el borde de Cabeus.

El Telescopio Espacial Hubble, el Orbitador de Reconocimiento Lunar (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, LRO) y cientos de telescopios, grandes y pequeños sobre la Tierra escrutarán los dos penachos en busca de señales de agua y de lo inesperado. Esto nos da una pista sobre la segunda manera de ver el espectáculo: monten su telescopio. Esperamos que las nubes de residuos se vean a traves de telescopios medianos, a partir de 10 pulgadas, dice Brian Day de la NASA / Ames. Day es astrónomo aficionado y divulgador principal para Educación y público en general de LCROSS. La explosión inicial probablemente quedará oculta trás las paredes del cráter, pero las nubes subirán lo suficiente sobre los bordes del cráter para ser vistas desde la Tierra. El Océano Pacífico y las regiones occidentales de Norte América se verán favorecidas con la oscuridad y una buena visión de la Luna en el momento del impacto. Hawaii es el mejor sitio para estar, con los estados de la costa del Pacífico de USA en una cercan segunda posición. Sin embargo, cualquier lugar al oeste de Mississippi es un observatorio potencial.

Hacer click en la imagen para agrandar

Cuando los penachos emerjan de Cabeus serán iluminados por la luz solar que pasa sobre el terreno polar. El cráter estará en la oscuridad permanentemente oscurecido por sus propios muros. Esto es bueno, dice Day. La oscuridad del cráter proporcionará el fondo oscuro para ver las nubes iluminadas por el sol. Durante las primeras etapas de planificación de la misión, los científicos esperaban impactar un cráter más cercano al borde lunar de forma que los penachos pudieran crecer con el oscuro cielo nocturno, proporcionando el máximo contraste para los observadores desde la Tierra. Sin embargo, datos recientes del Orbitador de Reconocimiento Lunar de la NASA, de la nave japonesa Kaguya y de la sonda india Chandrayaan-1 alteraron estos planes. Hemos sabido que Cabeus puede contener depósitos relativamente ricos de hidrógeno y/o agua congelada, dice Colaprete. Cabeus no está tan cerca del limbo lunar como habríamos deseado, pero parece ofrecer la mejor oportunidad de impactar sobre H2O.

El equipo de LCROSS espera que mucha gente, tanto aficionados como profesionales, observen y fotografíen los penachos. Cuantos más ojos mejor, dice Day. Recuerden, nunca hemos hecho esto antes. No estamos seguros de lo que pasará, y son posibles grandes sorpresas. El veterano astrónomo aficionado Kurt Fisher ha preparado una presentacion de diapositivas de 13MB para ayudar a otros aficionados a localizar y presenciar los penachos: descárgenlo aquí. Hay igualmente un grupo de observadores del LCROSS online, donde los novatos pueden leer artículos introductorios y charlar con otros observadores. Es una maravillosa oportunidad para que los ciudadanos a quienes interese la ciencia se unan a la NASA en esta tarea descubridora, remarca Day, que anima a los observadores a enviar sus imágenes al LCROSS Citizen Science Site. Se trata de una gran aventura, y cualquiera puede participar.

Imagínenselo.

Más información

- Página de la Misión LCROSS (Fuente: NASA).

- LCROSS: Guía para el observador (Fuente: Ciencia@NASA).

- LCROSS Impact Party Toolkit (Fuente: NASA).

- NASA TV (Fuente: NASA).

Traducido por David Martínez.

Fuente: Astroseti

I just watched a pretty amazing live speech by Professor Steven Hawking on Nasa TV. I’ll post a link to a transcript when available.

Prof. Hawking spoke on the importance of resurrecting public interest in science, and mentioned the new children’s book he has written with his daughter.  He went on to discuss the probability of life on other planets, saying he believed primitive life forms were likely to be fairly common, but intelligent life rare.  He mentioned the possibility that intelligent life self-destructs upon reaching a certain technological advancement due to nuclear weapons and other methods of mass destruction, but said he preferred not to accept that explanation as the primary reason for us not having confirmed the presence of other intelligent life.

Prof. Hawking gave several possibilities for colonization, including the moon, mars, and titan (a moon of Saturn), as well as planets outside our solar system.  He suggests inter-solar system travel should be a goal for humanity to accomplish over the next 200-500 years. He spoke of possibility that life began on earth due to the intervention of a meteor carrying DNA from another planet.  He closed by stating that if humanity was to survive the next million years, colonization of another earth-like planet is a necessity.

Prof. Hawking displayed a sense of humor at various parts of his speech, and also quoted Star Trek and displayed an image of what appeared to be a “galaxy class” star ship from the TV series. He also spoke briefly about UFOs and alien abduction, making jokes about those who report such events.

This was a very interesting lecture, and rather progressive compared to what I would have anticipated at a NASA event. I’ll have more here as it becomes available.

Do you believe that space colonization is necessary for the survival of humanity? Comment below.

Update: It would seem NASA tricked me. Although, “live” was appearing during the lecture, it appears this was a repeat broadcast of a lecture given over a year ago.  You can find more information here.

…är en sån där irriterande truddelutt som ofrivilligt fastnar på hjärnan och gör sig påmind varje fredag

I jämförelse med många av världens fasor är väl detta ‘problem’ ganska trivialt. För en del instabila människor kan dock något så simpelt som just ‘äntligen fredagsmys’, trigga de mest våldsamma utfall mot sin omgivning, som i proportion till orsaken kan verka extremt.

Men inte för dessa människor…

Det kanske är mer safe att bara önska trevlig helg och samtidigt hoppas på bättre väder, så att Sveriges enda astronaut (och kosmonaut dessutom) kan återvända till Moder Jord, så vi kollektivt kan glädja oss åt hans bedrifter. Heja Christer!

…och dockningen med ISS inatt kl 03.30, på Rymdkanalen!

Detta är stort! Mer kan ses på NASA-TV också

Hoppas alla är lika exalterade som jag

Flight Patch

Good Weather Forecast for Morning Shuttle Landing in Florida …

… returns home aboard the shuttle after 4 1/2 months in orbit. Photo: Space Shuttle Endeavour touches down at the shuttle landing facility at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., July 31, 2009. (Matt Stroshane/Getty Images) …

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Buoyed by a good weather forecast, space shuttle Endeavour and its seven astronauts aimed for a Friday morning landing to end their.

… returns home aboard the shuttle after 4 1/2 months in orbit. Photo: Space Shuttle Endeavour touches down at the shuttle landing facility at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., July 31, 2009. (Matt Stroshane/Getty Images) …

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Buoyed by a good weather forecast, space shuttle Endeavour and its seven astronauts aimed for a Friday morning landing to end their.

The multinational crew of the space shuttle Endeavour prepared to return to Earth today, following a marathon mission to the International Space Station.

Forty years ago this week an event occurred that changed the history of mankind forever.

An event so monumental that the memory lingers on, even though the venue where the event took place has been, shall we say, “repurposed”.

But we’re not here to talk about the time that Minnesota Twins Manager Billy Martin appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

Instead, let’s talk space.

NASA is forever trying to interest the world in space exploration…and forever struggling to come up with the money to get things done.

Well, I’m not a scientist, nor an engineer, and I don’t assemble rocket vehicles…but I am a fake consultant, and if NASA took my advice, I’d bet my fake paycheck that money would be a lot less of a problem.

“You know what really makes your rocket ships go up?”

“The aerodynamics alone are so complicated—“

“Funding. That’s what makes your ships go up.
I’ll tell you something, and you guys, too.
No bucks, no Buck Rogers.”

–From Philip Kaufman’s movie version of “The Right Stuff”

So here’s the thing: there was a time when spaceflight was the ultimate exploit…but not any more…or at least not at NASA.

These days, NASA views spaceflight as a job—and the International Space Station has become a workspace.

There is no…adventure…in the process any more. Instead, it’s all about launching a payload to a platform where an anonymous Mission Specialist will conduct Fluid Merging Viscosity Measurements.

Even NASA TV, the Agency’s effort to make what they do more accessible to a wider audience, doesn’t seem to understand the basic elements of storytelling.

I mean, think about it for a minute: “Star Wars”, “Star Trek”, “Battlestar Galactica”…“Spaceballs”…every single one of them, with all the imitation space footage that money can buy (even the bad ones), are a thousand times more fun to watch than the real footage of the STS-127 Rendezvous Pitch Maneuver.

How is it possible that the one organization that has more film featuring genuine, no-kidding, space heroism than any other on the face of the Earth can’t make a space movie as interesting as “Killer Klowns From Outer Space”?

Why was “Apollo 13” actually more compelling to watch…than the actual Apollo 13?

To find an answer, we need to take a short detour—to Alaska.

Have you ever seen “Ice Road Truckers”? If you haven’t, well, let’s just say that it’s a master class in how to tell a story. In the series, the producers actually make something that potentially could be incredibly boring—watching people drive trucks—into fascinating television, and they do it by applying the three most basic principles of how to tell a tale:

Create one or more interesting “heroes”, a “protagonist” over whom the heroes must somehow triumph, and an interesting situation within which the triumph can either occur…or not occur.

And that’s exactly what happens on the show: the plot revolves around a group of “recurring characters” who face two protagonists: the Arctic, and each other, as they compete to see who will earn the most money. The interesting situations? Trying to get the trucks, and their cargoes, across the Arctic terrain; creating a variety of new “subplots” every episode.

“Say Captain, I’m sick; how far is it to land?”

“About three miles”

“Which way”

“Straight down”

–From “10,000 Jokes, Toasts, and Stories”, Lewis and Faye Copeland

So how might NASA TV apply this principle?

The obvious first show: “Astronaut Candidate”. There is a huge amount of human drama in the candidate selection process…and with this show you can “humanize” both NASA and the people they send into space. The protagonists and the interesting situations? The other candidates and the tests required to make it through the process. (NASA does highlight their selection process…in the form of a webpage that links to bios and headshots, and “b-roll” segments on NASA TV’s “Video File”.)

And why not humanize science as well? After all, an experiment doesn’t have to be just a “science payload”…it can also be a human asking a question about the nature of human existence. “Send My Experiment Into Space” would do the trick nicely; the idea being that you would follow the successful—and unsuccessful—experiments, and the people behind them, from inception to what happens at the Space Station to the “analysis phase” that follows (and at the same time creating interest in science and engineering among students exactly when we need more students interested in science and engineering).

“Rocket Builders” could focus on the activities that take place as the vehicles that transport astronauts and experiments are fabricated and assembled. People have to test rocket motors, transport components, and assemble the vehicles…and all of this has to be done in an extraordinarily hazardous environment under severe time pressures.

The images would be great, and the pressures on the people involved create story after story—and again, we get the chance to learn that space is a people business as much as it is a hardware business.

The final links in the chain, of course, are the flight crews in orbit…and in this regard, NASA has never quite been able to figure it out. We get to see a lot of welcoming ceremonies and farewell ceremonies, usually from a single “lockdown” camera—but we see very little about the actual lives of the crew.

Did you know that in May astronauts performed a series of spacewalks to repair the Hubble telescope? That the work was so risky that a second Space Shuttle was waiting to be launched in case an emergency rescue was required? If you either sort of remember these events—or weren’t aware of them at all—NASA has failed to tell their story.

“In Flight” could be blockbuster programming—and educational to boot—if the right people were behind the camera and doing the editing.

So that’s the story: NASA actually goes to space, and they take cameras with them, but they can’t seem to make space exploration as interesting to the public as driving a truck. They have an entire cable channel full of high drama and big adventure…and yet the ratings are death.

In just the past few days we have been told that NASA is indeed the victim of chronic underfunding that has left the agency “in a terrible position”—and when you can’t tell your story effectively, funding becomes a problem.

On the other hand, if you put the stories of the people who are trying every day to advance the boundaries of science and human knowledge into a format that captures the imagination of that same public…well, bucks, my friends, equals Buck Rogers.

And as Walter Cronkite would have said: “That’s the way it is…”

Launch of NASA&s Endeavour to take place on Sunday

Reporter Saberi freed from Iranian jail Obama tells Google and Apple to stop playing footsie Some banks feeling much better, thanks Back to the moon, NASA? Really? Churches getting religion. …

Cape Canaveral (Florida, US),J – The lauch of the space shuttle Endeavour will take place on Sunday evening local time (on Monday morning IST) to give technical teams more time to evaluate lightning strikes at the launch pad.

Reporter Saberi freed from Iranian jail Obama tells Google and Apple to stop playing footsie Some banks feeling much better, thanks Back to the moon, NASA? Really? Churches getting religion. …

Reporter Saberi freed from Iranian jail Obama tells Google and Apple to stop playing footsie Some banks feeling much better, thanks Back to the moon, NASA? Really? Churches getting religion. …

Cape Canaveral (Florida, US),J – The lauch of the space shuttle Endeavour will take place on Sunday evening local time (on Monday morning IST) to give technical teams more time to evaluate lightning strikes at the launch pad.