Mars Rover video

Well, I've been away for a while, but saw this video today and thought it was sufficiently cool to post it. It shows a time lapse movie of the Opportunity Rover's 3 year journey across the Martian plains to Endeavour Crater.

Mars looks like a pretty bleak place.

Cool picture of Shuttle and ISS

I think this is a really amazing picture of the Space Shuttle Discovery as it approaches the ISS (International Space Station). This picture is taken FROM THE GROUND as the 2 spacecraft flew over England.

 

More details on the photo can be found at:

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1879.html

Tortillas in Space?

Ever wonder about those fresh tomatoes in the picture above the space food exhibit in Beyond Blastoff? How the heck does one cut up a fresh tomato in space without making an amazing mess?

As a regular follower of Paolo Nespali's flickr posts from the ISS, and thanks to the frequent comments by pc0101 (whoever you are), I came across these interesting articles about the practical aspects of cooking in space. There are 2 parts to the article so don't miss the second half.

Food and Cooking in Space

Food and Cooking in Space, Part 2

Enjoy

Micrometeorites and Spacewalking Astronauts

Recently in the Beyond Blastoff exhibit at Chabot Space and Science Center I was showing the sample of space suit material to a visitor. The outer layers of the suit are designed to help protect the spacewalker from many hazards, including micrometeorites, tiny bits of dust to sand sized bits of stuff flying through space.

The visitor asked me if the astronauts could feel the micrometeorites hitting the suit and I had to say I did not know, but would try to find out. I sent off an email to Chris Hatfield and Bobby Satcher, both NASA astronauts who have walked in space who I met on my recent trip to Russia.

Both of them agreed that they were not aware of any astronaut being hit my a micrometeorite. Seems that space is pretty big, and an astronaut is a pretty small target relative to the number of micrometeorites whizzing by. They had never heard of a suit being damaged by one or even showing any signs after the fact of having been hit in any of the many hundreds of hours of EVA that have happened since the 1960's.

Space suits have developed small leaks, especially around the glove from working too hard causing snags/tears/rub-throughs, but all very small, well within the O2 supply capacity of the suit. Seems that just working in space puts a lot of strain in this area. But the leaks have been small, and the suit is designed to handle small leaks and can compensate by increasing the flow of oxygen.

Chris added that in the training pool there have been a few cases of bigger leaks in the suits. A shoulder seam popped open, and a few cracked visors, but this is in a training environment, and it is expected that things will go wrong there.

Cool Picture from Space of Northeastern US

Thought this NASA photo was a really cool picture of the recent storms on the east coast.

Enjoy

Kepler Announcement at Chabot Wednesday!

Tomorrow, February 2nd at 10am PST, NASA will make an announcement concerning the Kepler Mission. The Kepler mission is an unmanned spacecraft searching for Earth-like planets orbiting Sun-like stars.  The announcement will concern new findings and it could be pretty big news.

NASA-TV will carry a press conference live at 10am PST, which will be routed to Chabot’s MATV monitors. We’ll also set up a viewing room (in the Kepler classroom of course) if any visitors or guests would like to watch the press conference.

For more information on the Kepler mission visit:   http://kepler.nasa.gov/news/nasakeplernews/
 

Two cargo vessels arrive at ISS

In the past few days 2 different cargo vessels have arrived at the ISS with lots of supplies and equipment for the crew.


Friday HTV-II arrived from Japan, (http://www.flickr.com/photos/magisstra/5393134148/in/photostream/) and Sunday, the Russian Progress ship arrived (http://www.flickr.com/photos/magisstra/5401615469/in/photostream/). Lots of unpacking for the crew to do.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/magisstra/5395174039/in/photostream/

Seems that HTV-II brought the astronauts some goodies from home. It's hard to tell but I think that's a bag of chocolates in Cady's hand.

-steve