Skip to Content

Gadling's resident pilot explains what life in the cockpit is like
AOL Tech

Posts with tag nasa

Healthy Man Resigned to Bed for 3 Months in NASA Study

by Lee Bains, posted Sep 17th 2008 at 1:38PM



Slackers, rejoice! CNN reports that NASA, as part of an ongoing study, has recently promised to pay one subject $12,000 for little more than staying in bed for 84 days.

The Space Administration has hired several subjects -- among them 40-year-old Ohioan Roderick Jones, a temporarily out-of-work chemist -- to remain bedridden so that researchers can assess the process of bone loss that astronauts invariably undergo in space. As they observe the condition of his bones, scientists instruct Jones to exercise two hours a day on a zero-gravity treadmill, analyzing the ability of exercise to counteract that bone loss.

While in bed, Jones is allowed to do whatever he wants: Read, talk on the phone, watch movies he missed in the theater or surf the Internet. (Leave it to NASA to pick a chemist, and dash the dreams of couch potatoes and listless bloggers everywhere). [From: CNN]

Computer Virus Found on Space Station

by Tim Stevens, posted Aug 27th 2008 at 11:02AM

Computer Virus Invades the International Space Station

When humans go into space, they're protected from the cold extremes by armored walls, thick glass and airlocks. They're also prevented from coming into contact with any potential space bugs thanks to their completely sealed suits. Their computers, apparently, are completely exposed to the elements, being shot up into space with nary a virus scanner aboard. No surprise, then, that computers on the International Space Station have been infected with a common computer virus.

The virus is Gammima.AG and is the type that runs in the background and steals usernames and passwords, with the hopes of hijacking people's accounts to a variety of popular Asian online games. Fortunately, this is hardly a major threat to our orbital security, but it suggests that our space security may need to be tighter. NASA is pledging to install scanners on any laptops destined for orbit, and we're hoping it also has them back on Earth, too. [From: BBC News]
Engadget

NASA's Phoenix Lander Discovers Water On Mars

by Nilay Patel, posted Aug 1st 2008 at 7:45AM


Yep, just like we'd heard, the Phoenix rover has identified water in a soil sample it collected in Mars earlier, and NASA's extended the mission for another 90 days to go look for more. There's no analysis of the ice yet, but it doesn't look like there's any organic materials in the sample, and it'll take another three to four weeks before there's any more data to reveal. Hopefully that means we'll be packing up our silver go-go boots and taking off for our fabulous future lives on Mars in a month, but we'll see how things go. [Source: BBC]
Engadget

NASA Creates Hyperwall-2, the World's Highest Resolution Visualization System

by Joshua Fruhlinger, posted Jun 28th 2008 at 5:10PM


Leave it to space nerds with money to come up with the world's highest resolution visualization system. NASA's Advanced Supercomputing Division at Ames has created the 128-screen hyperwall-2, a mega display capable of rendering one quarter billion pixels.

Hyperwall-2 measures 23- x 10-feet of LCD goodness, and is powered by 128 GPUs and 1,024 processor cores with 74 teraflops of peak processing power. To top things off, 475 terabytes of storage keep the system rolling. All in all, hyperwall-2 has more than 100 times the processing power of its poor predecessor, hyperwall, from 2002. The elder hyperwall was unavailable for comment and is most likely on an alcoholic bender somewhere, complaining about "kids these days." [Source: NASA]

[Thanks, james]
Engadget

Mars Phoenix Lander Discovers Ice on Mars

by Paul Miller, posted Jun 20th 2008 at 10:25AM


It's only fitting that the glorious news of water ice on Mars was broken over Twitter last night, via the Mars Phoenix lander's own first-person ramblings. Apparently, Mars Phoenix was keeping an eye on some white patches it uncovered the other day, only to discover they'd disappeared today. According to the scientist folk over at NASA, that means those white patches must've been ice, which dissipated once uncovered.

Now Mars Phoenix still has the considerable task of uncovering more ice and sampling it, but the mission is ahead of schedule and NASA has already identified a hard patch of ground it wants to dig into. Congrats to Mars Phoenix and all the fine folks at NASA. Now be sure to watch out for the cave-dwelling little green men! [Source: Phoenix Mars Mission via Wired Science]
Engadget

NASA's New Suits Are One Giant Leap for Space Fashion

by Thomas Ricker, posted Jun 14th 2008 at 6:30PM


NASA just awarded its future spacesuit contract to Oceaneering International. The US firm must now design, test, and produce two suits -- the default suit (pictured after the break) worn on-board for launch and landing and a second, more versatile, cheese-proof suit worn during space walks and upon the surface of the moon.

The suits must be ready for the first scheduled launch of the Orion Space Capsule in 2015. The contract is valued at the government special price of just $745 million. Hey, we have to keep up appearances at the International Space Station, you know. [Source: New Scientist]

Continue reading NASA's New Suits Are One Giant Leap for Space Fashion

Engadget

Mars Phoenix Lander Makes Near-Perfect Landing

by Joshua Fruhlinger, posted May 27th 2008 at 9:28AM


Things are looking good for the Phoenix lander which touched down on Mars at 4:53pm on Sunday, May 25. The NASA nerds are reporting an almost perfect landing, with the spacebot tilted only one quarter of a degree. In fact, they're claiming that this landing was "far smoother than any simulation or test that was ever done." The lander's north-pole location is measured at -106 degrees Fahrenheit and chock-full of life-preserving ice. Phoenix will chill on Mars for 90 days, sniffing soil and looking for frozen Martians in whatever form they may take. Now that Mars Oddyssey -- one of its main communication uplinks -- has passed over the lander, we have our first pictures, one of which is above. Nice work, guys!

[Source: The Phoenix Mission]

German Schoolboy Who Corrected NASA Is Wrong, Says NASA, ESA

by Will Safer, posted Apr 16th 2008 at 11:48AM

german schoolboy asteroid

A possible 'Armageddon'-like disaster has been predicted and averted, all within a few hours today, as NASA scientists confirmed their original estimate of a possible asteroid collision with Earth to be slight, even though a 13-year-old German schoolboy found himself fêted across the Internet for "correcting" the estimate. Using open source software he downloaded, the boy stated a high probability of impact for the asteroid.

NASA's numbers spell out a 1 in 45,000 chance of the asteroid Apophis hitting Earth in 2036. The schoolboy, from Potsdam, Germany, tried to factor in the odds of the asteroid actually hitting a man-made satellite during its first close pass to our planet in 2029, which he said could alter the trajectory and put it on course with Earth during its return trip, with a 1 in 450 chance of hitting our friendly planet.

The story made the rounds today across the Internet, even getting picked up by various international press outlets. Now, it seems, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are refuting the boy's prediction, saying the odds of the asteroid hitting a satellite were not properly calculated.

Phew. That was a close one. [Sources: The Register and IT Week.]

New Lunar Rover Could Build Roads On the Moon

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Mar 27th 2008 at 3:03PM


If you've been wondering what your tax dollars are being spent on over at NASA just take a quick look at this video. The new lunar rover, dubbed Chariot because astronauts ride it while standing on the back, is getting put through its paces at the Lunar Yard at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

The six-wheeled Chariot tops out at 20-miles-per-hour and can accept a range of interchangeable attachments, including plows and drills. Scientists have so far been happy with the results, and say it has had no problem handling the moon-like loose surface at the Lunar Yard, which is a good thing since the Chariot is designed to one day build roads or drill for minerals on moon's surface.

Even though the first build has exceeded the engineers expectations, it will undergo further improvements, including wheels that can move up or down independently of one another for greater agility and a smoother ride.

From Engadget and New Scientist

Related Links:

Two-Hour New York-Tokyo Flights Coming Soon?

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Dec 17th 2007 at 3:40PM

Two Hour Flights From New York to Tokyo Coming Soon?

Chances are you've never heard of a scramjet, and if you have, we can almost guarantee you've never seen one in action (unless you happen to work for NASA or DARPA). The concept of scramjets has been around for a while -- President Reagan even announced a major scramjet project, the National Aerospace Plane, in his 1986 State of the Union address. Reagan envisioned the scramjet replacing the space shuttle, military bombers and commercial aircraft. The program never got off the ground and was canceled by President Clinton in 1994.

Recent advances, however, have moved the scramjet from the lab to field tests. While researchers have been testing scramjets for a couple years, the most recent tests have been extremely favorable.

Scramjets work by sucking air to a chamber that narrows until the air is so condensed it ignites. Just before ignition, standard jet fuel is injected into the chamber. The lack of moving parts and modern construction materials mean that scramjets can withstand much more heat and force than a standard turbine-powered jet engine. Standard jet turbines would melt around Mach 3, but theoretically scramjets should be viable up to Mach 15, or around 10,000 miles per hour. That means that a two-hour flight from New York to Tokyo is theoretically possible.

Of course, the interest in scramjets isn't just about transportation. The military foresees scramjet-powered intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of hitting targets around the globe before an enemy would even have a chance to respond. And, of course, America isn't the only one racing for the prize. The governments of China, Australia, and others are in hot pursuit of the first practical scramjet engine.

From Slashdot and Popular Science

Related links:

What It Will Be Like To Land On Mars

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Jul 20th 2007 at 5:09PM

Mars Landing Site
Landing on another world seems like an equally exhilarating and terrifying proposition. Exactly 38 years ago today, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were probably shaking in their space boots saying to themselves "I hope this works," as they descended to the surface of the moon.

Well if an article in Universe Today is to be believed, landing on Mars may be an even more terrifying endeavor. It seems these pesky things called the laws of physics prevent touching down on the red planet from being as straightforward as landing on Earth or even the Moon.

The airbag method used for deploying unmanned probes won't work since we'll probably want our astronauts to avoid death or maiming. The Martian atmosphere is too thin for parachutes or aerobrakes to be effective with such a heavy payload, and the gravity on our sister planet is too strong for a powered descent like that used on the aforementioned Apollo missions.

The best bet so far is to use an inflatable donut with a skin stretched across it in a conical shape that will slow the landing craft from Mach 4 or 5 to Mach 1.

From Slashdot

Related links:


    AOL Tech Network



    Latest Reviews from CNET.com

    CNET provides the latest tech news, unbiased reviews, videos, podcasts, software, and downloads, making tech products easy to find, understand and use.

    Top Product Reviews

    Weblogs, Inc. Network

    AOL News

    Other Weblogs Inc. Network blogs you might be interested in:

    Joystiq
    Download Squad
    The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
    BloggingStocks
    Xbox 360 Fanboy
    Autoblog
    Big Download Blog
    Fanhouse NFL Blog