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Saturday, April 30, 2011

NASA to decide Endeavour launch date today

NASA may decide today whether the delayed final launch of the space shuttle Endeavour will occur Monday afternoon, the space agency said.

If the problem can be isolated to an open circuit in a suspect thermostat, a replacement possibly could be installed in time to support a second launch attempt Monday, at 2:34 p.m. EDT. But if the problem is traced to the aft load control assembly avionics box that routes power to the heaters, launch likely would be delayed until at least May 8, reports SpaceflightNow.

If a Monday launch is possible, the countdown would resume at 10:07 p.m. Sunday. Fueling would begin at 5:09 a.m. Monday and the crew would begin strapping in at 11:14 a.m. to await launch at 2:34 p.m. EDT.

Space Adventures Circumlunar Mission Developments Teleconference May 5, 2011

Space Adventures Board Chairman Eric Anderson and Vice-Chairman Richard Garriott will outline the future of private exploration and announce new developments regarding the company’s circumlunar mission during a teleconference Thursday, May 5, 2:30 PM, according to a report by Doug Messier at Parabolic Arc.

The Virginia-based Space Adventures has already sent seven private citizens into space to visit the International Space Station and it plans on sending more. But the firm's officers and directors are also hard at work planning its first moon trip. In fact President Tom Shelley says the company is "confident that we'll be able to make an announcement about that mission later this year."

"You're going to get to within 100 kilometers [62 miles] of the moon's surface, so you're going to get a really close-up view of the moon and that incredible Earthrise as well. There are only 24 people who have seen that," Shelley told TIME this past week. The private lunar space mission will take humans on a circumlunar space flight over 7 or 8 days.

Space Adventures has been planning a lunar flyby since 2005. It offered the two seats aboard a Russian-made Soyuz spacecraft that will fly around the moon in a mission scheduled for 2015. Anderson won't say who purchased the first $150 million ticket, but hinted that you'll know the person's name when you hear it. Perhaps there will be more information Thursday afternoon in the planned Anderson-Garriott telecon.

Who could afford such a $150-million dollar space trek you ask? CLICK HERE, there are hundreds from around the Earth.

Yang Liwei Seeks Promise of Cooperation

China's most renowned taikonaut said in Beijing Friday his country and the United States should make good on their presidents' promises to cooperate in space, reports Reuters.

"I think the two countries should proactively implement the intent expressed in the joint communique to eliminate obstacles and promote exchange and cooperation in our space programs," Yang Liwei [vid], now the vice director of the country's Manned Space Engineering Office, said.

Efforts at U.S.-China cooperation in space have failed in the past decade, stymied by economic, diplomatic and security tensions, despite a 2009 attempt by President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, to launch collaboration.

Obama and Hu, in a statement in November 2009, called for "the initiation of a joint dialogue on human spaceflight and space exploration, based on the principles of transparency, reciprocity and mutual benefit."

Yang Liwei noted that female taikonauts will likely launch to space from China in 2012, with speculation that it may occur on the Shenzhou 10 mission.

Dramatization of first Chinese female taikonaut below.

NASA: What's Up For May 2011?


All month of May long watch 4 planets and the moon gather just before sunrise.

Friday, April 29, 2011

Popovkin Named Russian Space Agency Head by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin

The 53-years old ex-Deputy Minister of Defense, Vladimir Popovkin, has been appointed the head of Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) in place of 65-years old Anatoly Perminov, which has been in charge of this department for seven years, RIA Novosti reports. Rumors of Perminov's removal have been circulating since December 2010. The action was taken by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin today, according to RIA Novosti.

Soyuz Rocket Begins Dry Runs at Kourou


A Europeanized version of Russia’s Soyuz rocket on April 29 was rolled out to its new launch pad at Europe’s Guiana Space Center, Kourou, French Guiana, in the first of a series of dry runs to simulate a launch campaign. The tests were scheduled to continue through May 5 with a countdown to verify the functionality of the launch base.

Led by the French government, the European Space Agency has built a dedicated Soyuz launch pad at the equatorial launch site in French Guiana. French officials said the Soyuz rocket, equipped with a Fregat upper stage, is about ready for operations. But the inaugural payload — two European Galileo navigation satellites — will not be ready until September. A confirmation of the launch date is expected by mid-May 2011, reports SpaceNews today.

NASA Heavy-Lift May Result in Bid Protests

As NASA hashes out an acquisition strategy for building a congressionally mandated heavy-lift launch vehicle that leverages space shuttle and Ares rocket technologies, agency officials are hoping to minimize the potential for a formal protest from industry.

Douglas Cooke, head of NASA’s Exploration Systems Mission Directorate here, said officials are still formulating plans for the Space Launch System that lawmakers directed NASA to start work on this year. In addition to settling on a final design, the agency is sorting through different contracting mechanisms for procuring the heavy-lift vehicle, reports SpaceNews with details.

President Visits Astronauts After Delay

President Barack Obama meets with Space Shuttle Endeavor commander Mark Kelly, husband of wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., and shuttle astronauts, after their launch was scrubbed, Friday, April 29, 2011, at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. The next launch attempt may come Monday, May 2, 2011 - at the earliest. It was about one year ago that Obama trekked to the space center to announce his new national space policy. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak).

Endeavour Launch Delayed 72-Hr Minimum


The launch of space shuttle Endeavour has been delayed at least until Monday due to a failed heater circuit in one of the orbiter's three Auxiliary Power Units. Launch director Mike Leinbach says there'll be a 72-hour "scrub turnaround" while engineers assess and try to correct the problem. The next attempt to launch STS-134 will come no earlier than Monday at 2:33 p.m. EDT.

The three APUs provide hydraulic power to steer the shuttle's aerosurfaces during ascent and entry. Heaters are required to keep the APUs' hydrazine from freezing on orbit. During today's countdown, attempts to activate the heater were not successful and engineers now believe the problem might be associated with a Load Control Assembly, which is a switchbox, located in the aft end of Endeavour, or an electrical short in the wires leading into or out of the switchbox.

Lunar Science for Children Introduced


West Virginia Mountain State Science reports on video games as an educational tool. Keri Brown has more on research at Wheeling Jesuit University's Center for Educational Technologies on video games that allow students to conduct their own science experiments.

Ten Years Ago Dennis Tito Goes to Space


Miles O'Brien reports on the first space tourist flight of Dennis Tito. Tito, an Italian American engineer and multimillionaire, is widely known as the first space tourist to fund his own trip into space. In mid-2001, he spent nearly eight days in orbit as a crew member of ISS EP-1, a visiting mission to the International Space Station. This mission was launched by the spacecraft Soyuz TM-32, and was landed by Soyuz TM-31 on a deal brokered by Virginia-based Space Adventures.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

STS-134 Final Launch Campaign Continues


After nearly two decades of achievements in space, Endeavour makes one last reach for the stars on its 25th and final mission, STS-134. This webcast examines the mission to come and explores the storied flying career for the youngest of NASA's shuttle orbiters.

Voyager on Interstellar Destination




These animations show NASA's Voyager spacecraft encounters with Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. The mission continues... Destination: Interstellar space.

SpaceX Develops Commercial Crew Vehicle

parthenon: ancient legos

i started my official holiday today - in greece! i probably wont be posting much over the next week, but i couldnt resist sharing some photos from a walk up to the acropolis of athens today.




is it just me, or does the parthenon look like it was put together with stone legos? ;)




Γειά σας!

why dark matter matters

this is an excellent pencast from phd comics.

Dark Matters from PHD Comics on Vimeo.

Russian Progress 42 to Dock at ISS Today


The ISS Progress 42 resupply craft launched Wednesday morning to replenish the International Space Station. Launch was at 9:05 a.m. EDT (7:05 p.m. Kazakhstan time) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The Russian cargo craft will dock to the Pirs docking compartment at 10:29 a.m. Friday.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Miles O'Brien to Host 'You Talk to Endeavour'


Space shuttle Endeavour and International Space Station astronauts will answer your questions in a LIVE interview -- scheduled for Monday, May 2, at 2:15 p.m. ET, and hosted by NewsHour correspondent Miles O'Brien, as the crew orbits the earth at 17,500 mph. You can submit your questions and vote on the best ones. You can watch the interview LIVE on NewsHour.PBS.org and on YouTube.

Click here to add your question or video: http://bit.ly/talk2Endeavour. The hashtag for Twitter is #utalk2nasa. For more information, visit: http://to.pbs.org/uTalk2NASA.

MANAGEMENT: Endeavour Ready to Fly


With two days to go to launch, the six-member crew of STS-134 Endeavour continued its last-minute preparations for its scheduled flight to the International Space Station on Friday. That assessment came following a meeting of the shuttle's Mission Management Team.

timelapse

the moon set is my favorite scene in this one. interesting editing with the wind turbine shots too! the music is violin concerto: III by philip glass.

Leica Summilux-C w/ Tom Lowe from Band Pro Film & Digital on Vimeo.

Sable Lake Ice Update, First Wild Flowers, Dunes, and Beaver Information

Yesterday it rained most of the day. Late in the afternoon I went over to Sable Lake to check on the progress of the ice melting. The wind concentrate the ice toward the south and west part of the lake leaving the east side of the lake ice free. It is amazing how fast open water appeared.


A couple of days ago I hiked down the Masse Homestead/Logslide trail and went up into the dunes. Along the trail I saw the first wild flowers of the spring.


Soon the forest floor along this trail will be covered in wild flowers. It is almost as if the forest celebrates the coming of spring.


Up in the dunes I spotted this telegraph pole that has been split. I'm sure I've seen this pole before, but the weather over the fall or winter must have split it.


The last shot below shows two large trees that were cut down by beaver. These trees were more than 20 feet long and at least 12 inches in diameter. The beavers were bold, but not able to drag them away.

I have always been intrigued with beavers and decided to do a little bit of Internet research.


The beaver (genus Castor) is a primarily nocturnal, large, semi-aquatic rodent. Beavers are known for building dams, canals, and lodges (homes). They are the second-largest rodent in the world (after the capybara). Their colonies create one or more dams to provide still, deep water to protect against predators, and to float food and building material. The North American beaver population was once more than 60 million, but as of 1988 was 6–12 million. This population decline is due to extensive hunting for fur, for glands used as medicine and perfume, and because their harvesting of trees and flooding of waterways may interfere with other land uses.

Beavers are known for their natural trait of building dams on rivers and streams, and building their homes (known as "lodges") in the resulting pond. Beavers also build canals to float build materials that are difficult to haul over land. They use powerful front teeth to cut trees and other plants that they use both for building and for food. They usually drag and float the trees through the water. In the absence of existing ponds, beavers must construct dams before building their lodges. First they place vertical poles, and then fill between the poles with a crisscross of horizontally placed branches. They fill in the gaps between the branches with a combination of weeds, mud, and rocks until the dam impounds sufficient water to surround the lodge. The lodges are usually built near the dams. Each lodge has one nesting chamber located above the water’s surface and several entrances through underwater channels. Wonderful diggers, beavers may also burrow underground tunnels from the banks up to favorite feeding grounds and excavate channels to other parts of the stream or river.

Beavers live an average of 10 to 12 years in the wild. They generally mate for life and live in family units that consist of an adult male and female and three to four kits. Once they are old enough to leave the lodge, kits spend most of their time playing in the water around the lodge, but are buoyant and cannot dive. Young beavers usually stay with their parents—helping out with the family chores of maintaining the lodge and dam, until they reach sexual maturity at about two years of age. Then, chased away from their natal territory by their parents, they go stake their own claim usually downstream.

They are known for their alarm signal: when startled or frightened, a swimming beaver will rapidly dive while forcefully slapping the water with its broad tail, audible over great distances above and below water. This serves as a warning to beavers in the area. Once a beaver has sounded the alarm, nearby beavers will dive and may not reemerge for some time. Beavers are slow on land, but are good swimmers, and can stay under water for as long as 15 minutes.

Beavers are herbivores, and prefer the wood of quaking aspen, cottonwood, willow, alder, birch, maple and cherry trees. They also eat sedges, pondweed, and water lilies.

Beavers do not hibernate, but store sticks and logs in a pile in their ponds, eating the under bark. Some of the pile is generally above water and accumulates snow in the winter. This insulation of snow often keeps the water from freezing in and around the food pile, providing a location where beavers can breathe when outside their lodge.



The STS-134 Endevour Crew Profiles

Commercial Lunar Flight Closer: $150million


If you've got $150 million to spare and want to take a trip around the moon, don't wait for much longer—just one of the two seats that private space firm Virginia-based Space Adventures is selling for a proposed lunar flyby remains, reports Popular Mechanics.

The Man Who Will Bring Us To Mars


Funny -Weird ThingsTV!

AHOY: New Chinese Space Station to be Open to International Scientists

China laid out plans for its future in space yesterday, unveiling details of an ambitious new space station to be built in orbit within a decade that will be open to international space scientists, according to The Guardian and other media outlets around the globe.

Currently known as Tiangong, or “heavenly palace,” (Chinese officials are asking the public for suggestions for a permanent name) the 66-ton space station will support a crew of three and host two laboratories for astronomy, microgravity, and biological experiments. And, depending on the politics and economics surrounding the ISS, it could be the only space station in orbit in the decade following 2020 (the ISS is scheduled to be decommissioned then, though its life could be extended to 2028), reports Popular Science.

The space station, whose name will be picked by a public competition, will consist of a core module with two laboratory units, according to The People's Daily. It will be around one-fifth of the length of the International Space Station, currently the only other space station in orbit, and one-seventh of the weight, according to specifications released by China's Manned Space Engineering Office.

"The 60-ton space station is rather small compared to the International Space Station (419 tons), and Russia's Mir Space Station (137 tons) which served between 1996 and 2001," said Pang Zhihao, a researcher and deputy editor-in-chief of the monthly magazine, Space International. "But it is only the world's third multi-module space station, which usually demands much more complicated technology than a single-module space lab," he said.

They’ve also extended an invite to the world’s scientists saying “[they] will adhere to the policy of opening up to the outside world, Scientists of all countries are welcome to participate in space science experimental research on China's space station," reports TheVine.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Out of Gas and Stuck in Space?

"You're cruising round the moon, all engines go, having the time of your life, and then you notice your fuel needle's jittering dangerously close to “E.” Tap-tap-tap, but no, it's not stuck, and you're about to discover how far past "E" the needle goes. What do you do?'

Matt Peckham, writing for TIME, has the answer. A propellent station?

heidelberg, germany

two weeks ago i visited the lovely city of heidelberg, germany and the max planck institute for astronomy (MPIA) located on top of a mountain overlooking heidelberg.

the little city has a very large castle!



and a big river with an old bridge to walk across.



i love the coziness of restaurants that serve german food, i just wish i would have thought to take this photo when the plate was still full with yummy spätzle and meat.


after a nice journey up the steep hill ("berg" = mountain) in a funicular, we saw some lovely views and walked the rest of the way to MPIA through a forest.


just next to the MPIA, a building is being constructed in the shape of a spiral galaxy (!!) and will host the haus der astronomie - an exciting organization dedicated to teaching astronomy to school children and adults all over the german-speaking world!


i was lucky enough to get a full tour :)

STS-134 Astronauts Arrive at Launch Site


STS-134 Commander Mark Kelly and the five members of his crew arrived at the Kennedy Space Center following their flight from Houston in their NASA T-38 aircraft. Kelly, pilot Greg Johnson, mission specialists Mike Fincke, Drew Feustel, Greg Chamitoff and European Space Agency astronaut Roberto Vittori are scheduled to liftoff at 3:47 pm EDT Friday, April 29, 2011 aboard space shuttle Endeavour on a two-week journey to the International Space Station.

Sable Lake Ice Melt

So how does ice melt on a frozen lake anyway?  I have never actually seen the final moments when the ice on the surface of Sable Lake in the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore goes away.  I have been watching it over the last few days.  The ice is breaking into sections and getting darker in color. 

I decided to go onto the Internet to see if there is an explanation of how ice melts.  From various web pages, I have pieced together the following explanation.  To understand how a lake thaws, it's helpful to know how it freezes.
  1. As water cools, it gets more dense. That's why colder water is at the bottom of a lake in the summer -- it is denser and sinks.  But when water cools to 39 degrees it gets as dense as it's going to get. As it gets colder still, water actually becomes less dense. So the coldest water remains on the surface of a lake and eventually starts to freeze.
  2. Since ice is even less dense than water that is between 32 and 39 degrees, it floats on top.  That is why ice cubes float in a glass of water. If this were not true and if the colder water and ice sank to the bottom,  lakes would freeze solid from the bottom up.  This would not be good for fish, other aquatic animals, aquatic plants, and fishermen!
  3. The lake loses heat to the atmosphere, and then on a day or night when the wind is not blowing, ice forms. Lakes tend to start freezing first along shorelines, where water is shallow and calm.  The ice starts forming and grows away from shore and gets thicker as long as the lake can continue to lose heat.
  4. In most Januaries and Februaries, snow both reflects sunlight and insulates the lake. With a thick snow layer, the lake neither gains nor loses heat. The bottom sediment is actually heating the lake water slightly over the winter, from stored summer heat.
  5. In the spring, the ice starts to melt in reverse order of how it formed.  Around March as the air warms and the sun gets more intense, the snow melts, allowing light to penetrate the ice. Because the ice acts like the glass in a greenhouse, the water beneath it begins to warm, and the ice begins to melt FROM THE BOTTOM. The shallow shorelines melt first, because those waters warm first. The water beneath the ice warms and pushes up against the bottom of the ice, eroding it.  Ice also melts from the surface, and rain can help the process. The ice loses its structural integrity as it warms. It's weakened by the heat it's absorbing.
  6. When the ice thickness erodes to between 4 and 12 inches, it transforms into long vertical crystals called "candles." (See pictures taken from the Internet below.). These crystals that develop in columns perpendicular to the surface of the lake conduct light even better, so the ice starts to look black because it is not reflecting much sunlight.  Candle Ice makes a clinking sound when the candles are broken apart and floating in the water, bumping up against each other. The ice still might be 18 inches thick, but it won't support weight. It's soft and flexible -- ''rotten'' some say. That's why when the ice goes away in the spring, it's not a thin layer that goes out.  
  1. Warming continues because the light energy is being transferred to the water below the ice. Melt water fills in between the crystals, which begin breaking apart. The surface appears grayish as the ice reflects a bit more light than before. Wind breaks up the deteriorating ice and speeds up the melting process. The lake turns into a big slurpy, with the ice crystals tinkling in the waves. Then it's just a matter of time before the ice disappears.  Usually this happens in a matter of hours.

The following series of shots show pictures taken from the overlook on the northeast side of Sable Lake.  I took similar shots 24 hours apart.  The first picture below was taken on April 24th and the next on April 25th.  Notice how the ice is much darker on the second day.



Another series:  day 1 and then day 2.


Here is a close up of some of the swirls from day 1.  I am not sure if these are left over from snowmobilers or if the swirls form from wind blown snow drifts.

From one day to the next, the amount of open water along shore at least doubled. 

This is a shot from the east end of the lake.  There is a lot of open water here, probably because of the shallow depth.  It looks like in some cases the ice is melting in sections.

We have had a couple of good sunsets in the past few days.  Here is one.

ways to stay creative

for the most part, this list is great (see number 1), but personally, i dont do number 7 (does this surprise you as much as it does me? i dont know, i just never think to do it).

 from life on michigan avenue

Monday, April 25, 2011

ET Phone Calls on Hold: Quarters Please?

A collection of sophisticated radio telescopes in California that scan the heavens for extraterrestrial signals has suspended operations because of lack of funding, a spokeswoman said Monday.

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute operates the Allen Telescope Array, the field of dish-like scopes some 300 miles north of San Francisco. The telescopes are a joint effort of SETI and University of California-Berkeley's Radio Astronomy Lab and have been funded largely by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who donated more than $25 million to the project.

A state budget crisis and reduced federal dollars have choked the project of funding, said Karen Randall, SETI's director of special projects. SETI put the Allen Telescope Array on hold a week ago -- a situation publicly revealed by Franck Marchis, a principal investigator for SETI who doesn't work on the affected project, on his blog, reports CNN.

Sable River Hike

On Saturday, friends and I hiked from Sable Falls into the dunes and along the west side of Sable River, before we doubled back into the dunes. There was very little snow and ice left along the side of Sable River.


Along the path, I spotted this Striped Maple tree. I just love the bark on these young trees. Other information about this species:

Leaf: Opposite, simple, orbicular, 5 to 8 inches long, 3-lobed (resembles a goose foot), serrated margin; green above and paler below.

Flower: Dioecious; yellow-green, bell shaped, 1/4 inch long, appear in long, hanging slender clusters in late spring.

Fruit: Paired, wide-spreading samaras, 3/4 to 1 inch long, in hanging clusters, ripen in late summer and early fall.

Twig: Moderately stout, green changing to red or reddish brown, smooth; reddish buds narrowly ovoid, stalked, valvate.

Bark: When young, smooth gray-green with prominent white lengthwise stripes, older bark becomes reddish brown.

Form: Small tree or large shrub up to 30 feet tall.

The range for this tree is shown on the map below.


 As we walked along the river, we spotted this partially completed beaver dam.


We approached the bluff over looking Lake Superior just west of Sable River.  Here is a close up shot of part of the river's mouth, as well as a couple of shots of a guy who was fishing the river's mouth.


More shots from the bluff....



Now that all the beach ice has melted, agate hunters are showing up.



There is almost no snow left in the dunes at all.  Below you can see one small area of dampness with a bit of white snow showing in the top center part of the picture.

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