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