Man jumps from the edge of space

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Raro video del desastre del transbordador Challenger

Mining the moon: Canada's possible new role in space

disclose.tv

By: Peter Rakobowchuk, The Canadian Press

Canada could play a key role in a new international space race, with the next sprint to the moon gearing up as an extra-terrestrial gold rush.

Industry insiders will be watching closely this week as the heads of the world's five biggest space agencies get together in Quebec City, where the partners on the International Space Station will discuss more than just the future of the orbiting lab.

They will also address an idea gaining currency in business and scientific circles: that within human reach lies an unfathomable wealth of resources, some of them common on Earth and others so exotic that they could change the way we live.

Canada could figure prominently in any discussion about lunar exploration, with nearly one-quarter of the world's top mining companies headquartered here and this country also known for robotics like the famous Canadarm.

Several countries, including China, have expressed a desire to start mining the moon's resources. The mining industry is now waiting for the Canadian Space Agency to make its intentions known, while the agency awaits direction from the federal government.

"When members of the international space community decide to go to the Moon or Mars, the CSA and Canada will be ready to contribute," the agency told The Canadian Press in an email last week.

The CSA has already begun developing a number of prototype lunar rovers, in co-operation with NASA and several Canadian firms.

The testing of these prototypes on Earth, with special drills for excavating, has already begun and more tests are planned this summer in Hawaii. The next phase would involve building space-bound rovers -- but the CSA can't move forward without federal approval.

"They're not headed for the moon, yet, although we have hopes for sure," Iain Christie, the president of Neptec Design Group, maker of one of the excavation rovers, said in an interview.

"We're making, I think, a contribution to what Canada's future space program might look like."

Ottawa-based Neptec made the laser-camera system that was used to inspect for damage on the exterior of the recently retired U.S. space shuttles.

For Christie, Canada's post-shuttle vocation is a no-brainer.

Of the top 40 global mining companies, with combined assets approaching $1 trillion, nine are Canadian, according to a 2011 study by PricewaterhouseCoopers. More >>

Conspiracy-Did a U.S. Radar Research Station Disable Russia's Phobos Probe?

Scientific American/ By Jim Nash

<SCRIPT language='JavaScript1.1' SRC="http://ad.doubleclick.net/adj/N5248.1147.1262225676521/B5983991.72;abr=!ie;sz=640x480;click0=http://oascentral.scientificamerican.com/RealMedia/ads/click_lx.ads/sciam.com/technology/L20/121556392/x81/sciam.com/p_2011-12_Siemens_Tech_overlay/p_2011-12_Siemens_Tech_640.html/72534b384355357844793841412b3530?;ord=121556392?"> </SCRIPT> <NOSCRIPT> <A HREF="http://oascentral.scientificamerican.com/RealMedia/ads/click_lx.ads/sciam.com/technology/L20/121556392/x81/sciam.com/p_2011-12_Siemens_Tech_overlay/p_2011-12_Siemens_Tech_640.html/72534b384355357844793841412b3530?http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/N5248.1147.1262225676521/B5983991.72;abr=!ie4;abr=!ie5;sz=640x480;ord=121556392?"> <IMG SRC="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/N5248.1147.1262225676521/B5983991.72;abr=!ie4;abr=!ie5;sz=640x480;ord=121556392?" BORDER=0 WIDTH=640 HEIGHT=480 ALT="Advertisement"></A> </NOSCRIPT>

 

HF ANTENNA ARRAY: A retired commander of Russia's ballistic missile early warning system implied that the U.S.'s High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) observatory in Alaska interfered with the Mars-bound Phobos-Grunt probe. HAARP is often a target of conspiracy theorists. Image: Courtesy of the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP)

After 19 attempts over 51 years, Russia has yet to chalk up a fully successful mission to Mars. That includes its ambitious Phobos–Grunt probe, launched November 8 from Kazakhstan and now stranded in low Earth orbit. Unable to regain control of the spacecraft, the Russians now expect it to fall back to Earth around January 9.

Responding to shame over the nation's Mars program, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has threatened to criminally prosecute those responsible if possible. Soon after Medvedev's comments, a former high-ranking Russian officer found a more convenient scapegoat in a remote Alaskan radar facility. But an analysis of the timing and physics involved shows that there is little basis for the claim.

Phobos–Grunt was to retrieve soil ("grunt" in Russian) from the Martian moon Phobos and return it to Earth for study. But the rocket engine intended to boost the spacecraft into a higher orbit failed. The probe itself has since communicated only sporadically with ground stations, and even then it has murmured only unintelligible noise.

To Lt. Gen. Nikolay Rodionov, a retired commander of Russia's ballistic missile early warning system, U.S. technology could have caused the rocket malfunction. In a November 24 interview with the Russian news agency Interfax, Rodionov said "powerful American radars" in Alaska "could have influenced the control systems of our interplanetary rover."

Rodionov was quoted saying the U.S. wants to use the ionosphere as part of its missile defense, although he did not elaborate. A subsequent article in India's The Hindu expanded on Rodionov's statement, indicating that he was likely referring to the U.S.'s High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) observatory established in 1993.

NASA Launches Super-size Rover to Mars

China termina con éxito la misión de la nave espacial Shenzhou-8

Microsiervos

La Shenzhou-8 tras el aterrizaje

Con el retorno en perfectas condiciones de la cápsula de la tripulación de la Shenzhou-8 el programa espacial chino ha completado con éxito su primera misión destinada a establecer una estación espacial propia.

En este caso la Shenzhou-8 realizó dos acoplamientos automáticos con el módulo Tiangong 1, Palacio en el paraíso en español, al que permaneció atracada un total de dos semanas, antes de partir de vuelta a Tierra con los maniquíes de astronautas que llevaba a bordo como tripulantes.

El éxito de esta misión deja abierto el camino para que el 2012 China pueda lanzar las dos misiones tripuladas que tiene planeadas en las Shenzhou-9 y 10 .

El Tiangong 1, lanzado en septiembre de este mismo año, es un módulo relativamente pequeño, en especial si lo comparamos con la Estación Espacial Internacional, con un diámetro máximo de 3,35 metros, una longitud es de 9 metros, un peso de 8,5 toneladas, y espacio para dos tripulantes.

Pero es sólo el primer paso de los planes chinos para construir una estación mayor, pues el Tiangong-1 será sustituida por el Tiangong 2, y más tarde por el Tiangong 3, aunque el objetivo final de China es poner una estación espacial en órbita, lo que podría comenzar a suceder a partir de 2020.

No se conocen todos los detalles, ni mucho menos, aparte de que están sujetos a cambios, pero se habla de que podría constar de un módulo central de un peso de unas 20 toneladas al que se acoplarían otros dos módulos especializados.

Como siempre, Daniel Marín tiene un montón de información extremadamente detallada al respecto en Completada la misión Shenzhou-8.

• China consigue el primer acoplamiento espacial de su historia y China completa el segundo acoplamiento de su programa espacial, dos hitos importantes de esta misión.

Russian Mars Probe Will Likely Come Crashing Back to Earth

wired.com/ By Adam Mann

Things are looking grim for the Russian space agency’s Phobos-Grunt mission to Mars, with experts in the space industry calling the probability of rescue nearly zero.

The spacecraft has been stranded in low-Earth orbit following an engine failure almost immediately after launch on Nov. 8. Efforts to contact the probe have proved futile and the Pentagon’s NORAD has reportedly projected that the vehicle will reenter the Earth’s atmosphere on Nov. 26, the day after NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory is scheduled to launch. (Wired was unable to confirm this date with NORAD due to the federal holiday.)

It was hoped that Phobos-Grunt would be the first fully successful Russian mission to the Red Planet after a 50-year-long string of failures. It was set to land on Mars’ moon Phobos and return a soil sample from its surface.

The spacecraft is currently in a decaying orbit around Earth that should allow it to remain in space for at least a few weeks. During this time, Russian engineers will continue trying to contact the probe, hoping for a miracle.

In the event that no contact is established, the probe will soon fall back to Earth. The probable fall zone is currently very large — between 51.4 degrees N latitude and 51.4 degrees S latitude, which includes most of the U.S., part of Europe, all of Africa and Australia and virtually all of South America and Asia — and could prove dangerous if the spacecraft were to come down over a populated area.

While most of the 15-ton vehicle is expected to burn up in the atmosphere, its size and mass suggests that some debris would reach the Earth’s surface.

Image: Roscosmos/IKI

Genetically Altered Astronaut Poo? NASA Wants to Know

Discovery News
Has bacteria in astronaut poop left on the moon been genetically altered? Did solar wind and ultraviolet radiation destroy the flag at Tranquility Base, landing site for the first Apollo moon mission? Are the lunar rovers dented with micrometeoroid impacts?
These are among the science questions raised by a NASA team tasked to come up with guidelines to preserve lunar artifacts before contenders in a $30-million competition sponsored by Google arrive on the moon beginning in about two years.
About 28 teams are competing to send privately funded robotic spacecraft to photograph and explore the lunar surface. Winners can get bonuses if they visit lunar historic sites, a prospect that got NASA thinking about its property on the moon.
PHOTOS: Myths of the Moon Missions
Six crews landed on lunar surface between 1969 and 1972, leaving behind descent modules, communications antennas, rovers and yes, even bags with feces. The Apollo artifacts are part of a larger collection of relics that also include Soviet-era spacecraft and crashed NASA probes.
More >

Paisajes de Marte a través de los ojos de un robot

Una aurora austral vista desde la Soyuz 2

Me encontré esta alucinante foto en un tuit de @Astro_Ron, Ron Garan, aunque en realidad es una foto que tomó Mike Fossum, @Astro_Aggie.
El original está en The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth, de donde se puede descargar a 4.256×2.832 puntos.

'Heavenly' Chinese space module blasts off

Around the World in 90 Minutes [Documentary]

Top Documentary Films

At midnight, travel to the tiny country of Monaco and watch residents riding on a gondola on a beautiful summer night.

By 12:05 a.m. you are transported to Canada to watch a gaggle of geese forage for food on a grassy knoll. Seem impossible? Not when the photographs are provided by the International Space Station as it orbits the Earth.

Around the World in 90 Minutes tells the spectacular story of what happens around the globe during one 90-minute voyage through a series of high definition images broadcast from thousands of miles away.

Lluvia de basura espacial: diez peores casos

RRD Mundo

20 de febrero de 2008, Estados Unidos:La Armada de ese país interceptó su satélite espía USA-193 -ya en desuso-, dejando una estela de desechos. Astrónomos amateurs reportaron que parte de ese material cayó en el noroeste de EE UU y Canadá. Aseguraron que los restos recogidos no eran más grandes que un balón de fútbol.

Continuar leyendo >

I hope doesn't hit my head: NASA gives 1-hour window for satellite collision with Earth

• FILE - In this file image provided by NASA this is the STS-48 onboard photo of the …

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - A 6-ton NASA satellite on a collision course with Earth clung to space Friday, apparently flipping position in its ever-lower orbit and stalling its death plunge.
The old research spacecraft was targeted to crash through the atmosphere sometime Friday night or early Saturday, putting Canada and Africa in the potential crosshairs, although most of the satellite should burn up during re-entry. The United States wasn't entirely out of the woods; the possible strike zone skirted Washington state.
"It just doesn't want to come down," said Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
McDowell said the satellite's delayed demise demonstrates how unreliable predictions can be. That said, "the best guess is that it will still splash in the ocean, just because there's more ocean out there."
Until Friday, increased solar activity was causing the atmosphere to expand and the 35-foot, bus-size satellite to free fall more quickly. But late Friday morning, NASA said the sun was no longer the major factor in the rate of descent and that the satellite's position, shape or both had changed by the time it slipped down to a 100-mile orbit.
"In the last 24 hours, something has happened to the spacecraft," said NASA orbital debris scientist Mark Matney.
On Friday night, NASA said it expected the satellite to come crashing down between 11:45 p.m. and 12:45 a.m. EDT Saturday. It was going to be passing over the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans at that time, as well as Canada and Africa.
"The risk to public safety is very remote," NASA said in a statement.
Any surviving wreckage is expected to be limited to a 500-mile swath.
The Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, or UARS, will be the biggest NASA spacecraft to crash back to Earth, uncontrolled, since the post-Apollo 75-ton Skylab space station and the more than 10-ton Pegasus 2 satellite, both in 1979.
Russia's 135-ton Mir space station slammed through the atmosphere in 2001, but it was a controlled dive into the Pacific.
Some 26 pieces of the UARS satellite — representing 1,200 pounds of heavy metal — are expected to rain down somewhere. The biggest surviving chunk should be no more than 300 pounds (136 kilograms).
Earthlings can take comfort in the fact that no one has ever been hurt by falling space junk — to anyone's knowledge — and there has been no serious property damage. NASA put the chances that somebody somewhere on Earth would get hurt at 1-in-3,200. But any one person's odds of being struck were estimated at 1-in-22 trillion, given there are 7 billion people on the planet.
"Keep in mind that we have bits of debris re-entering the atmosphere every single day," Matney said in brief remarks broadcast on NASA TV.
In any case, finders definitely aren't keepers.
Any surviving wreckage belongs to NASA, and it is against the law to keep or sell even the smallest piece. There are no toxic chemicals on board, but sharp edges could be dangerous, so the space agency is warning the public to keep hands off and call police.
The $740 million UARS was launched in 1991 from space shuttle Discovery to study the atmosphere and the ozone layer. At the time, the rules weren't as firm for safe satellite disposal; now a spacecraft must be built to burn up upon re-entry or have a motor to propel it into a much higher, long-term orbit.
NASA shut UARS down in 2005 after lowering its orbit to hurry its end. A potential satellite-retrieval mission was ruled out following the 2003 shuttle Columbia disaster, and NASA did not want the satellite hanging around orbit posing a debris hazard.
Space junk is a growing problem in low-Earth orbit. More than 20,000 pieces of debris, at least 4 inches in diameter, are being tracked on a daily basis. These objects pose a serious threat to the International Space Station.

Imágenes de satélite de la NASA que caerá sobre la Tierra

Realmente no sobre la Tierra en abstracto, sino sobre Canada. Una cosa de 6 toneladas cayendo de alla arriba sin control y los hijos de puta de la NASA encargados de esa mision durmiendo 8 horas diarias confiados en que no les caera en la cabeza a ellos.

Más vídeos en Antena3

La Patilla

La NASA está siguiendo de cerca la trayectoria del satélite de Investigación de la Alta Atmósfera (UARS), que retiró de funcionamiento en 2005 y que según dijo hoy espera que impacte en la Tierra el próximo 23 de septiembre.

Foto archivo

El transbordador “Discovery” transportó en 1991 este satélite de seis toneladas diseñado para medir los cambios atmosféricos y los efectos de la polución, que emprendió su camino de regreso a la Tierra hace seis años.

Los científicos de la NASA calculan que el satélite se despedazará al entrar en la atmósfera pero aseguraron que, aunque no se desintegren todas sus piezas, las probabilidades de que puedan poner en riesgo a los ciudadanos es “extremadamente pequeña”.

En este sentido indicó que las probabilidades de que un objeto espacial hiera a una persona durante su reingreso es menos de una entre 10.000.

De hecho, aseguran que desde el principio de la era espacial no se ha confirmado ningún caso en el que haya resultado herida una persona por un objeto espacial durante la maniobra de reingreso.

La NASA sigue la trayectoria del satélite junto con otras agencias espaciales extranjeras e informará sobre el movimiento del objeto espacial a medida que se acerque a la Tierra.

Estaba previsto que llegara a finales de septiembre o principios de octubre pero, según explicaron los científicos, esperan antes su llegada debido a un fuerte aumento en la actividad solar esta semana.

Space junk reaching "tipping point," report warns

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla,. (Reuters) - The amount of debris orbiting the Earth has reached "a tipping point" for collisions, which would in turn generate more of the debris that threatens astronauts and satellites, according to a U.S. study released on Thursday.
NASA needs a new strategic plan for mitigating the hazards posed by spent rocket bodies, discarded satellites and thousands of other pieces of junk flying around the planet at speeds of 17,500 miles per hour, the National Research Council said in the study.
The council is one of the private, nonprofit U.S. national academies that provide expert advice on scientific problems.
Orbital debris poses a threat to the approximately 1,000 operational commercial, military and civilian satellites orbiting the Earth -- part of a global industry that generated $168 billion in revenues last year, Satellite Industry Association figures show.
The world's first space smashup occurred in 2009 when a working Iridium communications satellite and a non-operational Russian satellite collided 490 miles over Siberia, generating thousands of new pieces of orbital debris.
The crash followed China's destruction in 2007 of one of its defunct weather satellites as part of a widely condemned anti-satellite missile test.
The amount of orbital debris tracked by the U.S. Space Surveillance Network jumped from 9,949 cataloged objects in December 2006 to 16,094 in July 2011, with nearly 20 percent of the objects stemming from the destruction of the Chinese FENGYUN 1-C satellite, the National Research Council said.
The surveillance network tracks objects approximately 10 centimeters in diameter and larger.
Some computer models show the amount of orbital debris "has reached a tipping point, with enough currently in orbit to continually collide and create even more debris, raising the risk of spacecraft failures," the research council said in a statement released Thursday as part its 182-page report.
"The current space environment is growing increasingly hazardous to spacecraft and astronauts," Donald Kessler, the former head of NASA's Orbital Debris Program Office who chaired the study team, said in a statement.
In addition to more than 30 findings, the panel made two dozen recommendations for NASA to mitigate and improve the orbital debris environment, including collaborating with the State Department to develop the legal and regulatory framework for removing junk from space.
Current international legal principles, for example, ban nations from salvaging or otherwise collecting other nations' space objects.
"The problem of space debris is similar to a host of other environmental problems and public concerns characterized by possibly significant differences between the short- and long-run damage accruing to society," the report said.
It cited "damage related to atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, storage of nuclear waste and long-lived pharmaceutical residue in underground aquifers. Each has small short-run effects but, if left unaddressed, will have much larger impacts on society in the future," it said.
The study, "Limiting Future Collision Risk to Spacecraft: An Assessment of NASA's Meteoroid and Orbital Debris Programs," was sponsored by NASA.
(Editing by Jane Sutton and Todd Eastham)

$150 Million Army Airship Goes Down Just Hours After Launch

Read »

The COSMOS 954 Accident: Soviet nuclear satellite crashes in Canadian North

I've managed to amass quite a bit of info on the Russian Cosmos 954 satellite than crashed in the NWT in the late 70's, thanks to the wonders of the Internet. However, I'm always searching for more info, so if you know any information about this event, please write and share it with me.

Meanwhile, here is what I've put together: (info taken from various web sites and magazines)

Cosmos 954 was a Soviet Radar Ocean Reconnaissance Satellite (RORSAT) which was powered by a nuclear reactor. Previous Soviet missions using such technology would split the reactor from the parent body of the spacecraft and boost the radioactive material into a higher orbit where the reactor would remain for 300-1000 years once the short lifetime of the satellite was over (which was well beyond the life of the radioactive material). Cosmos 954 had a special problem however - it went out of control and the technicians were unable to separate the reactor from the spacecraft's parent body.

The Russians sent out a warning that one of their satellites was going to crash and it was monitored on radar by NORAD. On January 24, 1978, Cosmos 954 deorbited and came crashing into the Great Slave Lake area of the Northwest Territories, disintegrated during reentry into a shower of radioactive debris which spread over some 124,000 square kilometers. A radioactive portion of the craft fell near a trapper's camp. A canoeist travelling through the north found this, looked at the unusual phenomenon and then left it alone. A massive search was begun to locate the debris that was made up of over 200 troops from both the Canadian Air Force and the US military and lasted until October. Around "key" areas of the crash, tight security was present and no civilians were permitted to view the scene(s). The canoeist and his radioactive find were both located and taken back to Yellowknife, where the canoeist was found to be in good health and the reactor pieces were impounded. Some of the debris was flown to Manitoba for testing.

After the clean-up, the Canadian Government sent a $15 million bill to the Soviets. The Soviets paid less than half of this amount and agreed not to take back the spacecraft. The Canadians were happy with the amount they received and were happier still that the Soviets had acknowledged the spacecraft's existence.
Of the thousands of radioactive fragments that reached the earth's surface, some were potentially lethal (i.e., the gamma ray radiation, near contact, was as high as 500 R/h). However, less than 1% of radioactive material was recovered. Think about that - 99% of the radioactive parts of this satellite are now floating around in Great Slave Lake. Keep an eye out for three-eyed trout next time you're out fishing...
As an interesting aside, psychic Earl Curley claims to have been the one who located the crashed satellite (while working in conjunction with DND). 

Read more...

More  information from the Canadian Goverment  Here...

#NASA space shuttle Endeavour final landing

Space shuttle Endeavour and its six astronauts returned to Earth on Wednesday, ending the next-to-last mission in NASA's 30-year programme with a safe landing in the middle of the night.