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

Experimenting with nasaimages.org web site

This should show a sequence of images of astronaut Ed Lu putting on his Sokol space suit. This should be useful for anyone doing the Sokol space suit demo at Chabot Space and Science Center.

HTV2 on the way to ISS

Friday afternoon California time the HTV2 or Kounotori2 was launched into space from Tanegashima Japan after a 2 day delay because of weather. This supply ship will arrive at the ISS on Jan 27. When it does, it will be grappled with the stations robot arm by NASA astronaut Cady Coleman, where it will be attached to one of the docking ports.

The arrival of the HTV2 at the ISS will be on NASA TV early Friday morning California time. Might be worth programming the Tivo for?

The HTV2 has both pressurized cargo area, which can be accessed from inside the ISS by the astronauts, and unpressurized cargo area which must be accessed by either the robotic arm, or by space walking astronauts.

More on Kounotori2 at http://www.jaxa.jp/countdown/h2bf2/index_e.html
There are several other cargo vehicles arriving at the ISS in the first part of this year. Lots more info at
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition26/resupply_feature.html

Paolo gets a haircut

High above earth on the ISS, ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli gets a haircut from his crewmate, NASA astrpnaut Cady Coleman. Notice how the lack of gravity allows the barber to just float over the top of the head to get a better angle of attack. Also notice the lack of a barber chair.

Paolo appears to have a second razor/clipper in his hand along with a mirror, no doubt to keep an eye on Cady's work.

Why are they both wearing 2 watches? Isn't there an old saying along the lines of "a person with 2 watches is never sure what time it is"?

Soyuz Launch Video

Some of you know that I went to Baikonur Kazakhstan to see the launch of Soyuz TMA-20 with NASA astronaut, and friend of a friend Cady Coleman aboard. You've really got to be there in person to appreciate one of these big rockets taking off. The feeling of how the air and the ground vibrate around you just cannot be captured.

Here's a video, better than the one I took of the launch.

Global Temperature Trend Measurements

Today's post is a bit more down to earth than my usual space based links. In case you ever wondered about those rankings you see in the headlines like "2010 ties 2005 as the warmest year ever", here's an article about how they figure this out, and what it really means.

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2010-climate-records.html

This might help answer some questions that could come up in the BNCL. The key point I think is that it is not the individual years rankings that matter, but the decade by decade rankings that really count. There is a lot of variation and noise in the data for each year, but if you start looking at the decade time scale, the trend becomes very clear.

Flickr page for CSSC Volunteers

I've started putting together a flickr photo set for pictures that might be useful for CSSC volunteers, especially exhibit guides.

Check it out at http://www.flickr.com/photos/steveberl/sets/72157625677946769/

Trip to the ISS anyone?

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=space-tourism-to-international-spac-2011-01-12

In case you want to know what a day on ISS is like...

Here are links to the time lines for each day. It shows what each crew member is supposed to be doing.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/timelines/index.html

There's a lot of jargon and acronyms here. If there is anything in particular you want translated, let me know, and I'll try to find out what it means.

Rovers entering 8th year exploring the surface of Mars

The 2 rovers that were supposed to spend 90 days exploring the surface of Mars are having an anniversary.

Spirit landed on Mars at 04:35 Ground UTC on January 4, 2004. It is now stuck in the sand and no longer able to move. Assuming it wakes up from its winter hibernation soon, it will continue to send back data from a fixed location on the surface. More about Spirit at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_rover.

Opportunity landed on January 25, 2004 05:05 Ground UTC. It is still mobile and actively exploring a football-field-size crater called "Santa Maria." More info at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/news/mro20110104.html

Perhaps Chabot should have a party to celebrate?

Soyuz landing video

Here are links to a few Soyuz landing videos





 Lots of people ask if the the Soyuz lands in the water like the American Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo spacecraft did. It does not. It lands on land.

That big puff of smoke just as it hits the group is a set of small rocket engines that slow the capsule down a bit more just before it hits the ground. A NASA astronaut who has flown in the Soyuz told me that the landing is "a bunch of loud explosions, followed immediately by a car crash".

Kepler finds first rocky exoplanet

Press release from NASA

Kepler_Rocky_Planet

Saturn Eclipses the Sun?

In the Shadow of Saturn

Something you will never see from Earth, Saturn coming between you and the sun.

This used to be up on the wall in the Solar-Go-Round room at Chabot Space and Science Center, but when Bill Nye moved it, the picture seems to have gone away.

For me, the coolest thing about this picture is that you can see Earth as a tiny dot between the bright and fuzzy rings to the left of the planet.

Great picture by Paolo from ISS

http://www.flickr.com/photos/magisstra/5335505925/


I think this is particularly cool because it show how "3-D" the aurora really is.