Spacecraft sniffer makes sure NASA’s missions come up roses.
Chemistry World introduces us to a particularly talented NASA veteran, George Aldrich – an expert smeller whose olfactory sensitivity ensures that bad smells don’t disrupt […]
space exploration
Japan landed two bouncing rovers on an asteroid.
Space.com makes an announcement that sounds… more fun than usual. The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency landed two rovers that hop (like fleas? like springtails? like […]
SONG: Taste the Wind
SONG: “Taste the Wind” [Download] . ARTIST: grant. SOURCE: Nature, 13 Aug 2018, “Spacecraft sets off to make humanity’s closest approach to the Sun”, as […]
Tasting the solar wind.
Nature reports on the Parker Solar Probe, a ship with a mission to closer than we’ve ever been to the Sun, even dipping into the […]
Science Art: Cylindrical Colonies: Interior view looking out through large windows, by Rick Guidice
Click to embiggen Over a million people could live here, in a double-cylinder colony in space. From the NASA Ames Research Center’s concepts of future […]
Science Art: Mercury Spacecraft Main Instrument Panel, 1959.
Click to embiggen Just in case you have to drive one of these, now you know where the controls are. I like that there’s a […]
Science Art: NASA spacecraft comparison, by D. Meltzer.
Click to embiggen vastly. You can see the astronauts’ faces! “Here am I floating in a tin can,” indeed. Here’s how much room some of […]
Science Art: A View From A Launch, by NASA/Joel Kowsky
Click to embiggen This is the bus that takes the astronauts to work at the space station. It’s a long commute for a longer shift […]
Science Art: Expedition 54 flight engineer Norishige Kanai of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), by NASA/GCTC/Andrey Shelepi, Dec. 17, 2017.
Click to embiggen More astronaut optimism, less everything else. From the NASA Image HQ Flickr account: Expedition 54 flight engineer Norishige Kanai of the Japan […]
Science Art: Apollo 8 Earthrise, Christmas Eve 1968
Click to embiggen “Oh, my God! Look at that picture over there! Here’s the earth coming up. Wow, is that pretty!” –Commander Frank Borman, Apollo […]
Falcon Heavy will carry Elon Musk’s car to Mars next month.
Ever the showman, Elon Musk has announced his plans (via Agence France-Presse) to not only launch one of the largest rockets ever into Mars orbit […]
SONG: “Heaven is Our Home”
SONG: “Heaven is Our Home” [Download] . ARTIST: grant. SOURCE:Tiangong-1: Chinese space station will crash to Earth within months,” The Guardian, 13 Oct 2017, as […]
A spacecraft thinner than a human hair can clean up space junk
Popular Science gets the skinny on a super-thin satellite that cleans up the metal messes we leave in orbit: This past spring, the NIAC awarded […]
Tiangong-1 is falling to Earth.
But, The Guardian says, we don’t have to worry about death by 8.5 tons of space junk – probably: China’s space agency has since notified […]
Science Art: Some User Assembly Required, NASA “Mars Explorers Wanted” collection.
Click to embiggen vastly A poster recruiting colonists to Mars. A bit early, sure, but it can’t hurt to be ready. Though I wonder how […]