Archive for the 'Space' Category
SpaceX Flight Opens Door for U.S. Military Payloads
June 6th, 2012Via: Reuters: Space Exploration Technologies’ unmanned Dragon capsule arrived in Los Angeles on Tuesday following a test flight for NASA that could open the door to a long-desired and more elusive customer – the U.S. military. The cargo capsule blasted off May on 22 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Base in Florida and three days […]
Castoff NRO Satellites Have Better Telescopes Than Hubble; If Pointed at Earth ‘Can See a Dime Sitting on Top of the Washington Monument’
June 4th, 2012The way it was told to me back in the 1980s, by a guy I thought was nuts, was that, “A dime on the sidewalk was no problem,” for NRO. Well, that’s pretty similar to what was just printed in the Washington Post today: NASA official Michael Moore gave some hint of what a Hubble-class […]
SpaceX Rocket Blasts Off for Space Station
May 22nd, 2012Via: AP: A commercial rocket blasted off early Tuesday with a load of supplies for the International Space Station, opening a new era of dollar-driven spaceflight. The SpaceX company made history as its Falcon 9 rocket rose from its seaside launch pad and pierced the pre-dawn sky, aiming for a rendezvous later this week with […]
Google Billionaires Eric Schmidt and Larry Page Have Teamed Up with James Cameron for Space Mining Venture
April 21st, 2012Via: Reuters: Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt and billionaire co-founder Larry Page have teamed up with “Avatar” director James Cameron and other investors to back an ambitious space exploration and natural resources venture, details of which will be unveiled next week. The fledgling company, called Planetary Resources, will be unveiled at a Tuesday news conference […]
Open Thread: Space Doom
March 8th, 2012Lots of people like to submit Space Doom stories. Even though I wouldn’t normally post about this stuff, some of the boards I read (which rarely have any credible information on them anyway) are losing their minds over this solar flare event, which I doubt will amount to much, if anything at all. I think […]
‘The First Goal Is an Uncensorable Internet in Space’
December 31st, 2011Here’s one for your Don’t-Hold-Your-Breath file folder. Via: BBC: Computer hackers plan to take the internet beyond the reach of censors by putting their own communication satellites into orbit. The scheme was outlined at the Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin. The project’s organisers said the Hackerspace Global Grid will also involve developing a grid of […]
U.S. Air Force Funds SETI, Will Investigate Using Radio Telescope Array to Detect and Track Orbiting Space Objects
December 7th, 2011Via: SETI Institute: The Allen Telescope Array (ATA) is once again searching planetary systems for signals that would be evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence. Among its first targets are some of the exoplanet candidates recently discovered by NASA’s Kepler space telescope. “This is a superb opportunity for SETI observations,” said Jill Tarter, the Director of the […]
X-37B Spacecraft: “It’s Still Up There”
December 1st, 2011Via: MSNBC: The secretive X-37B robotic space plane is about to set its own space-endurance record on a hush-hush project operated by the U.S. Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office. The craft, also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle-2, was boosted into Earth orbit atop an Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on March 5. […]
China Has Space Tracking Station in Australia
November 7th, 2011Via: AFP / Space Daily: China has acquired a space tracking station in Australia, its first such facility in a close US ally, a report said Saturday. The station in remote Dongara, about 350 kilometres (217 miles) north of Perth in western Australia, was used during Tuesday’s launch of the Shenzhou VIII mission, Hong Kong […]
X-37 Variant Might Carry Astronauts
October 12th, 2011Via: Wired: The Air Force’s mysterious X-37B “space plane” is only on its second, eight-month-plus orbital mission, ostensibly conducting science experiments. But manufacturer Boeing has already drawn up plans for a major upgrade to the nimble, 29-foot-long robot — one that could more than double the vehicle’s size and make room for up to six […]
