Listening to: Can I Have It Like That - Pharrell featuring Gwen Stefani

NewScientist has a report on the recent 60 day test of a balloon-borne platform and tether:

…but there were several unexpected encounters with wildlife. More than a dozen insect colonies had been laid eggs on the tether, and in the first few days of the test, curious bats flew around the balloons, apparently attracted by the sound made by the tether’s vibrations. Late in the test, swallows were also seen swooping down on the balloons, possibly to sip the morning dew on their surfaces.

Listening to: Know It’s True - Evermore

Virgin Galactic has lots to show off at Wired NextFest (Phil: a report from the floor?):

• space.com: Virgin Galactic Unveils SpaceShipTwo Interior Concept
• TED Blog: Virgin Galactic unveils the rocket-powered ship to launch space tourism
• Gizmodo: First Images of Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo Cabin (lots of cool images)
• BBC World: Branson unveils Virgin spaceship

Listening to: Dreaming - BT

Found this over at NewScientist. Allow me to introduce the “emdrive”… a shaped cavity that traps microwaves and uses them to generate a net force in one direction:

Key is the fact that the diameter of a tubular cavity alters the path - and hence the effective velocity - of the microwaves travelling through it. Microwaves moving along a relatively wide tube follow a more or less uninterrupted path from end to end, while microwaves in a narrow tube move along it by reflecting off the walls. The narrower the tube gets, the more the microwaves get reflected and the slower their effective velocity along the tube becomes. Shawyer calculates the microwaves striking the end wall at the narrow end of his cavity will transfer less momentum to the cavity than those striking the wider end (see Diagram). The result is a net force that pushes the cavity in one direction. And that’s it, Shawyer says.

Hang on a minute, though. If the cavity is to move, it must be pushed by something. A rocket engine, for example, is propelled by hot exhaust gases pushing on the rear of the rocket. How can photons confined inside a cavity make the cavity move? This is where relativity and the strange nature of light come in. Since the microwave photons in the waveguide are travelling close to the speed of light, any attempt to resolve the forces they generate must take account of Einstein’s special theory of relativity. This says that the microwaves move in their own frame of reference. In other words they move independently of the cavity - as if they are outside it. As a result, the microwaves themselves exert a push on the cavity.

The thing that stops me from whipping out the “anti-crank-handle spray is this (and to be honest… the fact that physics was never my strong suite):

This raises another question. Why haven’t physicists stumbled across the effect before? They have, says Shawyer, and they design their cavities to counter it. The forces inside the latest accelerator cavities are so large that they stretch the chambers like plasticine. To counteract this, engineers use piezoelectric actuators to squeeze the cavities back into shape. “I doubt they’ve ever thought of turning the force to other uses,” he says.

Listening to: Sport And Religion - Shihad

BusinessWeek has a brief piece on the space-tourism industry… the new bit:

By then, space travel should already have taken off. Since 2001, Virginia-based Space Adventures has been selling an eight-day trip to the Space Station—round-trip airfare on a Russian shuttle Soyuz included—for $20 million. Three people have taken the trip so far, and in September, Anousheh Ansari will become the first female space tourist. Given the increased interest in space travel, the Space Adventures is involved in several other projects, including the construction of a massive spaceport in Singapore.

Listening to: My Life (Haji & Emmanuel Remix) - Chanel

The NY Times has a great article on the Lockheed NASA win. The article focuses on the business aspects… an interesting read.

Listening to: Erotic Discourse - Paul Woolford Presents Bobby Peru

The Observer has a good intro to the upcoming Space Elevator Games. I’m really looking forward to seeing the improvements that teams achieve this year.

Listening to: Local Hero / Wild Theme (Live) - Dire Straits

The new crewed NASA vehicle will be called the ‘Orion’. It will be conical in shape and will carry 6 to the ISS and 4 to the Moon:

Orion will be 16.5 feet in diameter and have a mass of about 25 tons. Inside, it will have more than 2.5 times the volume of an Apollo capsule. The spacecraft will return humans to the moon to stay for long periods as a testing ground for the longer journey to Mars.

BBC World has more details as does NASA (oddly enough).

UPDATE: It’s to be built by Lockheed Martin.

Listening to: Antique Toy - Future Sound of London

From BBC World:

Images from a camera orbiting Mars have shown the 100mph jets of carbon dioxide erupt through ice at the planet’s south pole, Arizona State University says.

From JPL:

Jets of carbon dioxide gas erupting from the ice cap as it warms in the spring carry dark sand and dust high aloft. The dark material falls back to the surface, creating dark patches on the ice cap which have long puzzled scientists. Deducing the eruptions of carbon dioxide gas from under the warming ice cap solves the riddle of the spots. It also reveals that this part of Mars is much more dynamically active than had been expected for any part of the planet.

Listening to: Recovering The Satellites - Counting Crows

Breitbart.com has a story about using the Apollo program as source material for the new Ares vehicle:

Facing tight deadlines and uncertain budgets as it works on President Bush’s plan to send astronauts back to the moon and on to Mars, NASA is both cannibalizing and analyzing pieces of its glory years, namely the Apollo program that first put humans on the lunar surface in 1969.

[Jim] Snoddy, a manager at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, has been removing valves and other parts from Apollo exhibits as he oversees construction of the upper-stage engine on the new moon rocket, dubbed Ares 1. Some of the pieces and accompanying documentation are not available anywhere but museums, he said.

src: /.

Listening to: Charlie - Red Hot Chili Peppers

I have to say that this really grabs my imagination… it is exciting and existential. It puts a smile on my face to know that space exploration isn’t just a science thing (thou cool because of that too):

3″-tall aluminum sculpture titled “Fallen Astronaut.” It was created by Belgian artist Paul Van Hoeydonck and installed by Apollo 15 astronaut David Scott, along with a plaque bearing the names of the 14 astronauts and cosmonauts who died in the service of space exploration.

src: Boing Boing