xp65 - Slashdot User

Submission + - Unknown Asteroid almost impacted on Earth (spacefellowship.com)

Submitted by xp65 on Tuesday November 10, 2009 @07:22AM

xp65 writes: A previously undiscovered asteroid came within 14,000 km of Earth last week, and astronomers noticed it only 15 hours before closest approach. On Nov. 6 at around 16:30 EST a 7 meter asteroid, now called 2009 VA, came only about 2 Earth radii from impacting our home planet. This is the third-closest known non-impacting Earth approach on record for a cataloged asteroid. The asteroid was discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey and was quickly identified by the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge MA as an object that would soon pass very close to the Earth. JPL’s Near-Earth Object Program Office also computed an orbit solution for this object, and determined that it was not headed for an impact.

Submission + - NASA Reproduces a Building Block of Life in Lab (spacefellowship.com)

Submitted by xp65 on Monday November 09, 2009 @09:11AM

xp65 writes: NASA scientists studying the origin of life have reproduced uracil, a key component of our hereditary material, in the laboratory. They discovered that an ice sample containing pyrimidine exposed to ultraviolet radiation under space-like conditions produces this essential ingredient of life. “We have demonstrated for the first time that we can make uracil, a component of RNA, non-biologically in a laboratory under conditions found in space,” said Michel Nuevo, research scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. “We are showing that these laboratory processes, which simulate occurrences in outer space, can make a fundamental building block used by living organisms on Earth.”

Submission + - Ice Satellite Maps Profound Polar Thinning (spacefellowship.com)

Submitted by

xp65

on Friday September 25, 2009 @02:14PM

xp65 writes: "Researchers have used NASA's Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite to compose the most comprehensive picture of changing glaciers along the coast of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. The new elevation maps show that all latitudes of the Greenland ice sheet are affected by dynamic thinning — the loss of ice due to accelerated ice flow to the ocean. The maps also show surprising, extensive thinning in Antarctica, affecting the ice sheet far inland. The study, led by Hamish Pritchard of the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, England, was published September 24 in Nature."

Submission + - NASA to team up with Russia for future Mars flight (spacefellowship.com)

Submitted by

xp65

on Tuesday August 25, 2009 @11:48AM

xp65 writes: "NASA has invited Russia to carry out a joint manned flight to Mars, the head of NASA's Moscow office said on Tuesday. Russia is currently planning to send its own expedition to Mars some time in the future. Marc Bowman told an international aviation and space conference in Moscow that the Mars mission should take advantage of the achievements made by the International Space Station and use a multinational crew."

Submission + - EA to offer week-long orbital space flights (spacefellowship.com)

Submitted by

xp65

on Tuesday August 18, 2009 @11:38AM

xp65 writes: "Excalibur Almaz Limited (EA), announced plans to open up a new era of private orbital space flight for commercial customers. This project joins Russian space technology expertise with an international private enterprise to create a commercial offering of orbital spaceflight services for global customers. EA plans to offer week-long orbital space flights beginning as early as 2013 — taking a big leap beyond the sub-orbital flight market targeted by most other private space companies. In addition to NPOM, other leading aerospace firms in the U.S., Europe and Japan will provide technical support for EA's space flight operations.

The original Almaz space system technology, comprising reusable reentry vehicle (RRV) and space station, was successfully tested in flight by NPOM. Working with NPOM and its international contractors, EA is now updating the spacecraft to conduct crew and cargo space missions for private individuals, corporations, academic institutions and national governments."

Submission + - NASA Discovers Life's Building Block in Comet (spacefellowship.com)

Submitted by

xp65

on Tuesday August 18, 2009 @09:15AM

xp65 writes: "NASA scientists have discovered glycine, a fundamental building block of life, in samples of comet Wild 2 returned by NASA's Stardust spacecraft. "Glycine is an amino acid used by living organisms to make proteins, and this is the first time an amino acid has been found in a comet," said Jamie Elsila of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Our discovery supports the theory that some of life's ingredients formed in space and were delivered to Earth long ago by meteorite and comet impacts.""

Submission + - Sun's outer atmosphere mystery solved (spacefellowship.com) 1

Submitted by

xp65

on Friday August 14, 2009 @07:14PM

xp65 writes: "The mystery of why temperatures in the solar corona, the sun's outer atmosphere, soar to several million degrees Kelvin (K) --much hotter than temperatures nearer the sun's surface--has puzzled scientists for decades. New observations made with instruments aboard Japan's Hinode satellite reveal the culprit to be nanoflares. Nanoflares are small, sudden bursts of heat and energy. "They occur within tiny strands that are bundled together to form a magnetic tube called a coronal loop," says Klimchuk. Coronal loops are the fundamental building blocks of the thin, translucent gas known as the sun's corona. The discovery that nanoflares play an important and perhaps dominant role in coronal heating paves the way to understanding how the sun affects Earth, our place in the universe."

Submission + - The Earth's period of habitability is nearly over (spacefellowship.com) 3

Submitted by

xp65

on Monday August 10, 2009 @07:49PM

xp65 writes: "Scientists at this year's XXVIIth General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil agree that we do yet know how ubiquitous or how fragile life is, but that: "The Earth's period of habitability is nearly over on a cosmological timescale. In a half to one billion years the Sun will start to be too luminous and warm for water to exist in liquid form on Earth, leading to a runaway greenhouse effect in less than 2 billion years". The IAU is the international astronomical organization that brings together almost 10 000 distinguished astronomers from all nations of the world. Its mission is to promote and safeguard the science of astronomy in all its aspects through international cooperation."

Submission + - NASA to Invest in Commercial Crew Concepts (spacefellowship.com)

Submitted by

xp65

on Thursday August 06, 2009 @07:07AM

xp65 writes: "Today NASA released information regarding its intention to invest $50 million in commercial crew concepts. This new program, known as the Commercial Crew Development or "CCDev," represents a new milestone in the development of an orbital commercial human spaceflight sector. By maturing "the design and development of commercial crew spaceflight concepts and associated enabling technologies and capabilities," the program will allow several companies to move a few steps forward towards the ultimate goal of full demonstration of commercial human spaceflight to orbit."

Submission + - Superconducting plasma rocket engine test (spacefellowship.com)

Submitted by

xp65

on Monday July 06, 2009 @11:19AM

xp65 writes: "Ad Astra Rocket Company has successfully demonstrated operation of its VX-200 plasma engine first stage at full power and under superconducting conditions in tests conducted at the company's Houston laboratory. This achievement is a key milestone in the engine's development and the first time ever a superconducting plasma rocket has been operated at that power level. The VX-200 engine is the first flight-like prototype of the VASIMR propulsion system, a new high-power plasma-based rocket, initially studied by NASA and now being developed privately by Ad Astra. VASIMR engines could enable space operations far more efficiently than today's chemical rockets and ultimately they could also greatly speed up robotic and human transit times for missions to Mars and beyond."

Submission + - SpaceX Falcon 1 Reaches orbit! (spacefellowship.com) 1

Submitted by

xp65

on Sunday September 28, 2008 @07:28PM

xp65 writes: "T+0:08:21 Falcon 1 reached orbital velocity, 5200 m/s Nominal Second stage cut off (SECO) — Falcon 1 has made history as the first privately developed liquid fueled launch vehicle to achieve earth orbit!"

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