WANT to spot the International Space Station over Bundy?

With no clouds forecast for the next few days comes the chance to see the International Space Station fly over in the early evenings.

Bundy stargazers should be able to get a good view of the Space Station on the following days:

From 6.04pm for six minutes, max height 69 degrees, appears 10 degrees above SW.

From 6pm for one minute, max height 17 degrees, appears 17 degrees above NNW.

From 5.25am for one minute, max height 15 degrees, appears 10 degrees above NNE.

From 6.08am for two minutes, max height 54 degrees, appears 11 degrees above NNW.

From 5.16am for six minutes, max height 54 degrees, appears 11 degrees above NNW.

From 4.27am for one minute, max height 19 degrees, appears 10 degrees above W.

From 5.11am for three minutes, max height 39 degrees, appears 39 degrees above SW.

It will likely appear as a bright light moving quickly across the sky, as the space station flies at approximately 29,000 kmh.

The International Space Station is a large spacecraft that orbits around Earth and astronauts live on it.

The space station is also a science lab and many countries have worked together to build it.

They also work together to use it.

The space station is made of many pieces.

The pieces were put together in space by astronauts.

NASA uses the station to learn about living and working in space.

These lessons help NASA explore space.

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When and where to see the space station over Bundy - Bundaberg News Mail

Instead, thrust comes from an internal fan and steering is through three reaction wheels the latter classic satellite technology.

Inside is one of two exquisitely-engineered (see this and this video) self-contained 3d inertial orientation control modules both aimed at general-purpose use in space-craft, drones and even as self-propelled rolling cube ground robots.

The 100mm cube weighs 1.34 kg including a wireless communicator and a battery and includes six MEMS inertial sensors and three brushless DC motors driving three orthogonal rotating wheels as reaction masses (see image).

The sensors are mounted on the modules vertexes to improve attitude estimation accuracy, Hall sensors in the motors also feed-back rotational speed and each wheel has an electromagnetic brake. The brakes can generate 2.1Nm of torque, reducing wheel speed from 6000rpm to zero within 100ms, including demagnetization time.

Also in the module is a wireless tranceiver for telemetry and commands, and the lithium polymer battery.

A smaller inertial unit has 31mm reaction wheels and squeezes these, a guidance control computer and 6-axes of inertial sensing inside a 50g mass budget. Exploration of microgravity asteroids is a potential use for this one, said JAXA.

A video describing both of the inertial steering modules can be viewed here

Int-Ball, short for JEM Internal Ball Camera, was delivered to the Kibo Japanese Experiment Module by a Dragon spacecraft in early June.

Many of its parts were 3d-printed.

See the article here:

Inertia steers Int-Ball drone through International Space Station - Electronics Weekly

Footage from the ISS livestream, uploaded to YouTube, shows a massive hazy object come into view in the background away from the space station.

Commentators have described it as first appearing as a line of orange lights, before it begins to take on a larger form.

As the clip comes to the end, the lights appear to dim back into space.

The video was released by brothers Blake and Brett Cousins who run YouTube channel thirdphaseofmoon yesterday.

The pair showed an interview with a UFO expert in an effort to identify the mysterious anomaly.

Nasa*YouTube

In the video the expert says: "First, what I was looking at is I dont know exactly what I was looking at.

In the very beginning, you see these orange dots around it and by the end of it the entire thing almost shrinks up a little bit.

Almost as if its a giant mothership for all we know.

There have already been more than 40,000 views of the video.

One viewer said: Looks like the Battlestar Galactica just jumped into orbit.

NASA

1 of 14

ISS Nasa live cam cuts after 'suddenly locking on to mystery glowing UFO'

In the very beginning, you see these orange dots around it and by the end of it the entire thing almost shrinks up a little bit. Almost as if its a giant mothership for all we know.

UFO expert

Another said: Its an interstellar mother ship, watching what NASA is doing, as NASA have lied since the first encounter with UFO.

But a sceptical third said: To me it looks like the ISS filmed a storm in the upper atmosphere.

Thirdphaseofmoon has made it onto a number of UFO website and YouTube channel blacklists by more sceptical investigators, amid claims they use hoax and misrepresented footage.

The brothers deny this and claim to be legitimate researchers.

UFO chasers have reported seeing scores of UFOs on the livestream this year but they have turned out to be nothing more than ice, space debris, or lens flares which is when light refracts inside the camera lens and then is projected on to the still or video image.

Express.co.uk showed the video to Scott Brando, who runs debunking website ufoofinterest.org, who said it was just reflected light coming from the ISS itself, so there was no UFO and nothing was actually there.

Follow this link:

UFO LATEST: Truth about 'alien mothership' filmed 'tracking ... - Express.co.uk

National Institutes of Health (press release)

Space station project seeks to crystalize the means to counteract nerve poisons National Institutes of Health (press release) In June of this year, samples of the human AChE enzyme were sent to the International Space Station U.S. Laboratory by a team of CounterACT scientists led by Andrey Kovalevsky, Ph.D., Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Zoran ... Space station crystals to aid search for better antidotes for chemical ...UPI.com all 3 news articles »

Originally posted here:

Space station project seeks to crystalize the means to counteract nerve poisons - National Institutes of Health (press release)

The microgravity conditions of the International Space Station (ISS) may hold the key to improving our understanding of how to combat toxic nerve agents such as sarin and VX. That is the hope of Countermeasures Against Chemical Threats (CounterACT) project that is part of an initiative at the National Institutes of Health aimed at developing improved antidotes for chemical agents.

"With increasing worldwide concern about the use of chemical weapons, there is significant interest in developing better counteragents," said David A. Jett, Ph.D., director of the CounterACT program, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), a part of NIH.

Organophosphates (OPs), a family of chemicals that includes several pesticides as well as sarin and VX nerve agents, block the activity of the enzyme acetylcholinesterase (AChE). This enzyme is critical for allowing muscles to relax after they have been stimulated by the nervous system. When the activity of AChE is blocked (for example, by OPs), muscles cannot relax, leading to paralysis and eventually death.

Developing antidotes to this type of poisoning requires detailed knowledge about the structure of the AChE enzyme. Until now, the forces of gravity on Earth have posed a challenge to this area of research. That's where traveling into space comes in.

In June of this year, samples of the human AChE enzyme were sent to the International Space Station U.S. Laboratory by a team of CounterACT scientists led by Andrey Kovalevsky, Ph.D., Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Zoran Radic, Ph.D., University of California, San Diego. Using these samples, astronauts are currently growing large crystals of pure enzyme of a size that cannot be formed on Earth due to interference from gravity.

"By taking advantage of the microgravity conditions of the International Space Station, we hope to grow better, more uniform crystals that we are unable to grow on Earth," said Dr. Kovalevsky.

Once the crystals are grown to a large enough size, they will be returned to Earth and analyzed by a sophisticated imaging method called neutron diffraction that can provide an atomic-level view of the enzyme.

"Using this technique, we will be able to get a closer look at how the enzyme interacts with pesticides and nerve agents and learn about how the bond between the two can be chemically reversed," said Dr. Radic. "This method would not work on the smaller enzyme crystals that can be grown here."

Antidotes to OP exposure reactivate AChE by directly breaking its chemical bond with the OP. However, the speed at which the countermeasures available today are able to do this is too slow to be fully effective. This project will help researchers to develop antidotes that break the AChE-OP bond more quickly and that can also be delivered orally, which is another key to dealing with large-scale exposure to nerve poisons.

"Developing better countermeasures against these sorts of nerve agents is a major thrust of our overall program," said Dr. Jett. "This project is the kind of cutting-edge science we envisioned when we established the CounterACT program."

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Space station project seeks to crystallize the means to counteract nerve poisons - Space Daily

An adorable little robotic camera drone with wide illuminated eyes and a perpetually surprised expression has joined the crew of the International Space Station.

Known as Int-Ball, the bot can be controlled remotely by researchers on the ground, allowing them to capture images and video from aboard the artificial satellite.

Int-Ball contains actuators, rotational and acceleration sensors and electromagnetic brakes, which allow it to move around autonomously in zero gravity.

Developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), it was delivered to the ISS on 4 June 2017, and has already started feeding photos and video back to Earth.

JAXA claims that Int-Ball could eventually replace the need for astronauts to capture photos and record video aboard the ISS - tasks that currently take up about 10% of their time.

It could also enable more cooperative work between astronauts and researchers, as those on the ground would be able to see things from the same perspective as the crew.

During its time on the ISS, JAXA will be take part in experiments both inside and outside the space station, in order to test and improve its performance.

JAXA hopes that it will also help to promote the use of robotics technology in future space exploration missions.

Read the original post:

Cute zero-gravity robot is newest member of the International Space Station crew - Mirror.co.uk

Now anyone can see Europe from an astronaut's point of view with this epic video shot from the International Space Station.

Captured with a 4K ultra-high-definition camera, the video shows a crystal-clear view of Europe, starting with Spain and flying east all the way to Budapest, Hungary. In the time it took to shoot this video clip a little over 3 minutes the space station traveled nearly 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers). [Earth from Space: Amazing Astronaut Photos]

The space station orbits about 250 miles (400 km) above Earth, and it captures the view down below with several onboard cameras. Traveling at about 17,500 mph (28,000 km/h) relative to the ground, it whizzes around the globe every 92 minutes. But the view is not the same every 92 minutes, because the space station's flight pathshifts slightly with each orbit.

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station capture views of Zadar, Croatia; Vienna; Munich; and Salzburg, Austria.

The footage was recorded in August 2016, and NASA's Johnson Space Center, which oversees activities on the space station, released the video Monday (July 17). The groovy background music was produced by Swedish composer Joakim Karud.

Editor's note:Space.com senior producerSteve Spaletacontributed to this report.

Email Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@space.com or follow her@hannekescience. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebookand Google+. Original article on Space.com.

Read this article:

See Europe from Above in Breathtaking Ultra-HD Video from Space - Space.com

Space watchers have seen footballs, mini-soccer balls and water balls float through the International Space Station but never a drone ball. Now, new footage of a spherical Japanese robot shows it hovering and skittering around the Destiny laboratory.

The hope is that the robot will not only save the crewmembers time today, but could also improve robotic-human cooperation in future space expeditions, according to a statement from the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

"Int-Ball," as the drone is called, would add to a growing legacy of robot "helpers" in space, including NASA's Robonaut 2 (which can throw switches and may eventually do simple spacewalk tasks) and the adorable, talking Japanese Kirobo, which made small talk with astronaut Koichi Wakata in 2013.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's JEM Internal Ball Camera, called Int-Ball, can record video in space while remote controlled from the ground.

Videos show Int-Ball, under the watchful eye of NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, moving near the walls, taking pictures of experiments and other regions in its vicinity. One shot shows a laptop lazily floating by. In another clip, Peggy Whitson's fellow NASA astronaut Jack Fischer playfully hides behind a camera, taking pictures of the drone.

If the drone works out as planned, it could reduce or eliminate the time astronauts spend taking pictures, an activity that takes up about 10 percent of their working hours right now, JAXA officials said in the statement.

NASA astronauts Peggy Whitson and Jack Fischer work on the International Space Station as Int-Ball observes, above.

It also would let teams on the ground, where Int-Ball is controlled, look at the crew's work from the drone's viewpoint, JAXA added. "The effective cooperative work between in-space and on-the-ground [teams] will contribute to maximized results of 'Kibo' utilization experiments," the agency said, referring to the Japanese experiment module on the space station.

Int-Ball launched aboard SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft on the CRS-11 resupply mission June 3 and arrived at the space station June 5. It's now in testing to ensure that its images and video are recording information as planned, under control from the JAXA Tsukuba Space Center.

JAXA added that Int-Ball's camera which appears to be located between two "eyes" on the robot uses technology that has already been tested on past drones. The ball's exterior and interior were fully 3D-printed on the ground.

Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

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BB-8 Flies? Adorable Japanese Drone Ball Tours Space Station - Space.com

An analysis by John Bucknell (x-Spacex senior engineer) describes an 11 meter diameter robotic vehicle with a 6,000-megawatt nuclear thermal rocket in a NTTR arrangement. The rocket would be single stage to orbit and would be immediately be able to refly after landing and refueling much like todays airliners. Even fully reusable Spacex rockets where all stages are resused would need to be re-assembled.

He describes SSTOH missions to place a 21 meter minor and 214 meter major diameter toroidal habitat in space, capable of full terrestrial gravity simulation by spinning at 3 rpm. The habitat begins as two thin films defining the interior and exterior surfaces of the torus, which is then inflated with lunar-sourced water in a 1m thick shell and allowed to freeze.

Access to space is driven by the economics of launch vehicles. A previously published rocket propulsion cycle called the Nuclear Thermal Turbo Rocket (NTTR) is able to achieve payload fractions of more than 45% to Low Earth Orbit (LEO). This rocket is intended to be completely reusable for the launch mission as it is a Single Stage to Orbit (SSTO) vehicle, which improves economics vastly. However, providing material to LEO is not always the most economical solution for permanent space-based habitation. In-situ resource utilization (ISRU) has been proposed as a method for avoiding the Earths gravity well for space-based construction with solutions proposed using Lunar, Martian as well as other resources.

The Air enhanced nuclear thermal rocket has been described a couple at times at Nextbigfuture.

The proposed space station would be close to the size of Titanic but the space station would consist of mostly water ice

Water ice can be used as both reaction mass for propellant in liquid form and as structure in solid form. Nuclear Thermal rockets in particular are well-suited to in-space propulsion as they can add enthalpy to a variety of propellants for thrust without requiring processing plants to achieve chemically active reactants, thus saving on mission payload mass. A mission is proposed that leverages the NTTR vehicle as well as ISRU to construct an orbital habitat of Lunar water ice with a single terrestrial launch (Single Stage to Orbital Habitat SSTOH).

The lunar water ice is extracted from permanently shadowed regolith on the Lunar south pole, where the NTTR vehicle propulsively lands and places 54 tons of payload. The lunar payload is comprised of a small 30 MWth nuclear reactor and associated mechanisms able to extract sub-surface ice.

NOTE NASA will soon officially confirm that there is surface water ice at the lunar pole. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter did find evidence of frost on the moon earlier in the year, but there is a NASA paper that will be released soon that will confirm surface water ice.

The NTTR vehicle fills its propellant tank with 720 tons of lunar water, and using the water as a propellant delivers 400 tons of water to the habitat in LLO before returning to the Lunar water extraction plant. The reusable NTTR vehicle makes 100 trips to inflate the 40,000-ton habitat, with approximately one trip per 24 hours. Subsequently, the lunar water extraction reactor can be transported to the habitat as a power supply and the NTTR vehicle can push the habitat to a Lagrange point.

The 40,000 ton habitat would be just short of the max cargo of a Panamax container ship. The ISS weighs 450 tons.

In such a fashion, a single vehicle of low investment can produce a 199,000m^3 habitat within 5 months of launch.

In 2015, Bucknell presented the Nuclear Thermal Turbo rocket which added air-breathing to a nuclear thermal rocket. Bucknell design would have 1664 ISP. 60% more than the best prior nuclear thermal rocket designs.

Link:

Plan for a mostly water ice space station 90 times bigger than the ISS - Next Big Future

An air lock designed by Webster-based NanoRacks for the International Space Station passed an astronaut training exercise at Johnson Space Center's Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory.

Continue for a look inside the NanoRacks office.

Continue for a look inside the

Mechanical engineer Cody Burgey inspects a deep-freeze contraption at NanoRacks in Webster.

Mechanical engineer Cody Burgey inspects a deep-freeze contraption at NanoRacks in Webster.

Operations engineer Jerry Mathew interprets data at NanoRacks in Webster.

Operations engineer Jerry Mathew interprets data at NanoRacks in Webster.

November 11 2016: Mariel Rico, operations engineer, describes how cubes holding student experiments collect data at NanoRacks in Webster, Texas. (Leslie Plaza Johnson/Freelance)

November 11 2016: Mariel Rico, operations engineer, describes how cubes holding student experiments collect data at NanoRacks in Webster, Texas. (Leslie Plaza Johnson/Freelance)

November 11 2016: Kyle Warner, operations engineer demonstrates the location and placement of a payload system at NanoRacks in Webster, Texas. (Leslie Plaza Johnson/Freelance)

November 11 2016: Kyle Warner, operations engineer demonstrates the location and placement of a payload system at NanoRacks in Webster, Texas. (Leslie Plaza Johnson/Freelance)

November 11 2016: Keith Tran, Manager of Flight Operations demonstrates the mechanics of a mockup at NanoRacks in Webster, Texas. (Leslie Plaza Johnson/Freelance)

November 11 2016: Keith Tran, Manager of Flight Operations demonstrates the mechanics of a mockup at NanoRacks in Webster, Texas. (Leslie Plaza Johnson/Freelance)

November 11 2016: Cubes such as the plexiglass version pictured here contain student-generated experiments at NanoRacks in Webster, Texas. (Leslie Plaza Johnson/Freelance)

November 11 2016: Cubes such as the plexiglass version pictured here contain student-generated experiments at NanoRacks in Webster, Texas. (Leslie Plaza Johnson/Freelance)

November 11 2016: Jerry Mathew, operations engineer describes the function of a section of payload equipment at NanoRacks in Webster, Texas. (Leslie Plaza Johnson/Freelance)

November 11 2016: Jerry Mathew, operations engineer describes the function of a section of payload equipment at NanoRacks in Webster, Texas. (Leslie Plaza Johnson/Freelance)

November 11 2016: Doug Wilson, operations manager holds up a mockup part at NanoRacks in Webster, Texas. (Leslie Plaza Johnson/Freelance)

November 11 2016: Doug Wilson, operations manager holds up a mockup part at NanoRacks in Webster, Texas. (Leslie Plaza Johnson/Freelance)

November 11 2016: The robotic arm is one of many design projects underway at NanoRacks in Webster, Texas. (Leslie Plaza Johnson/Freelance)

November 11 2016: The robotic arm is one of many design projects underway at NanoRacks in Webster, Texas. (Leslie Plaza Johnson/Freelance)

November 11 2016: Keith Tran, Manager of Flight Operations and Jerry Mathew, operations manager discuss one of the ongoing projects at NanoRacks in Webster, Texas. (Leslie Plaza Johnson/Freelance)

November 11 2016: Keith Tran, Manager of Flight Operations and Jerry Mathew, operations manager discuss one of the ongoing projects at NanoRacks in Webster, Texas. (Leslie Plaza Johnson/Freelance)

November 11 2016: Marcia Blount, Director of Houston Operations handles a plexiglass cube used by students to conduct experiments at NanoRacks in Webster, Texas. (Leslie Plaza Johnson/Freelance)

November 11 2016: Marcia Blount, Director of Houston Operations handles a plexiglass cube used by students to conduct experiments at NanoRacks in Webster, Texas. (Leslie Plaza Johnson/Freelance)

November 11 2016: Marcia Blount, Director of Houston Operations handles an integral part of a design at NanoRacks in Webster, Texas. (Leslie Plaza Johnson/Freelance)

November 11 2016: Marcia Blount, Director of Houston Operations handles an integral part of a design at NanoRacks in Webster, Texas. (Leslie Plaza Johnson/Freelance)

November 11 2016: Keith Tran, Manager of Flight Operations demonstrates the mechanics of a mockup at NanoRacks in Webster, Texas. (Leslie Plaza Johnson/Freelance)

November 11 2016: Keith Tran, Manager of Flight Operations demonstrates the mechanics of a mockup at NanoRacks in Webster, Texas. (Leslie Plaza Johnson/Freelance)

November 11 2016: Daniel Acevedo, engineering technician works on a 3-D printer at NanoRacks in Webster, Texas. (Leslie Plaza Johnson/Freelance)

November 11 2016: Daniel Acevedo, engineering technician works on a 3-D printer at NanoRacks in Webster, Texas. (Leslie Plaza Johnson/Freelance)

November 11 2016: Keith Tran, Manager of Flight Operations and Doug Wilson, operations engineer describe the function of a mockup section at NanoRacks in Webster, Texas. (Leslie Plaza Johnson/Freelance)

November 11 2016: Keith Tran, Manager of Flight Operations and Doug Wilson, operations engineer describe the function of a mockup section at NanoRacks in Webster, Texas. (Leslie Plaza Johnson/Freelance)

November 11 2016: Cody Burgey, mechanical engineer and Keith Tran, Manager of Flight Operations assemble a mockup at NanoRacks in Webster, Texas. (Leslie Plaza Johnson/Freelance)

November 11 2016: Cody Burgey, mechanical engineer and Keith Tran, Manager of Flight Operations assemble a mockup at NanoRacks in Webster, Texas. (Leslie Plaza Johnson/Freelance)

November 11 2016: Jerry Mathew, operations engineer simulates the grasping capabilities of the robotic arm at NanoRacks in Webster, Texas. (Leslie Plaza Johnson/Freelance)

November 11 2016: Jerry Mathew, operations engineer simulates the grasping capabilities of the robotic arm at NanoRacks in Webster, Texas. (Leslie Plaza Johnson/Freelance)

November 11 2016: Keith Tran, Manager of Flight Operations explains one of the many ongoing projects at NanoRacks in Webster, Texas. (Leslie Plaza Johnson/Freelance)

November 11 2016: Keith Tran, Manager of Flight Operations explains one of the many ongoing projects at NanoRacks in Webster, Texas. (Leslie Plaza Johnson/Freelance)

November 11 2016: Cody Burgey, mechanical engineer, assembles a mockup at NanoRacks in Webster, Texas. (Leslie Plaza Johnson/Freelance)

November 11 2016: Cody Burgey, mechanical engineer, assembles a mockup at NanoRacks in Webster, Texas. (Leslie Plaza Johnson/Freelance)

Read more:

Webster company's air lock passes training exercise at Johnson Space Center - Chron.com

You, a lone Soviet cosmonaut, are sent to investigate a communications blackout on a space station. When you arrive the place is falling apart, the crew is missing, and its up to you to find out what happened to the station and the workers aboard it. Set in the 80s, Outreach fuses real-world history with conspiracy theories. The environments are realistic, modeled on Russias famous Mir space station, meaning theres no technology that didnt exist at the time. Developer Pixel Spill spent months researching the era, and it shows. Everything from computer consoles to clothing has a feel of authenticity. Its like stepping back in time.

And this realism extends to the way you navigate the station, with zero gravity to deal with. You can push against scenery to propel your body forward, or grab railings to pull yourself along. Its slightly headspinning at first, and adjusting to the fact that theres no up or down takes some getting used to. But when you master it, floating around is a lot of fun. And when you realise that you can grab objects, throw them, and watch them spin through the air realistically, the story will take a temporary backseat as you experiment and play around with the physics. The zero-gravity movement feels just right, which is the result of a lot of painstaking tweaking and adjusting by Pixel Spill.

Theres something wonderfully eerie about the lifeless station. Abandoned space stations are nothing new in games, but the realism element in Outreach makes it feel unique. The chunky tech is reminiscent of Alien: Isolation, which Pixel Spill cites as a big influence on the art design. I drift through the station discovering remnants of the mysteriously missing crew: conversations recorded on cassette tapes, letters, and family photos. I methodically check each and every module for clues, but find nothing. Then I reach a door with a broken handle, meaning Im going to have to go for a spacewalk to reach the next area.

When I step outside into the expanse of space, the size of the Earth below makes me feel dizzy. The sense of scale is incredible. And while I felt relatively safe in the confines of the station, out here Im suddenly overwhelmed by dread. A sensation thats justified when I try and leap towards a handrail, only to miss, float helplessly away and die horribly in the depths of space.

This section is remarkably tense, requiring patience, timing, and concentration to carefully grab each rail and pull yourself to a distant airlock. You have to hit the grab button at precisely the right time, otherwise youll overshoot the rail and drift away from the station with no way to make your way back. I make it eventually, but I die several times in the process. Then, cruelly, the demo ends, and I dont get to see whats inside.

Outreach is fascinating, but my demo leaves me none the wiser about what kind of story itll tell. Will it be a psychological thriller? Or is there something supernatural going on aboard the station? Im looking forward to finding out in the finished game. Pixel Spill promises players will discover the lives and motivations of the crew and learn about something called Project Outreach, which sounds suitably sinister.

The developer also says that youll uncover the true nature of the space station as you explore it, which is filling my head with questions. Im told the game will be a relatively short experiencemaybe three or four hours, the length of a long movieand Im okay with that. Short, focused, well-told stories are fast becoming one of my favourite kinds of game on PC, and I hope Outreach is one that delivers

See the article here:

Exploring an abandoned Soviet space station in Outreach - PC Gamer

July 17, 2017 Samples of human AChE enzyme travel to the International Space Station aboard the SpaceX-11 Dragon capsule. Credit: NASA

The microgravity conditions of the International Space Station (ISS) may hold the key to improving our understanding of how to combat toxic nerve agents such as sarin and VX. That is the hope of Countermeasures Against Chemical Threats (CounterACT) project that is part of an initiative at the National Institutes of Health aimed at developing improved antidotes for chemical agents.

"With increasing worldwide concern about the use of chemical weapons, there is significant interest in developing better counteragents," said David A. Jett, Ph.D., director of the CounterACT program, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), a part of NIH.

Organophosphates (OPs), a family of chemicals that includes several pesticides as well as sarin and VX nerve agents, block the activity of the enzyme acetylcholinesterase (AChE). This enzyme is critical for allowing muscles to relax after they have been stimulated by the nervous system. When the activity of AChE is blocked (for example, by OPs), muscles cannot relax, leading to paralysis and eventually death.

Developing antidotes to this type of poisoning requires detailed knowledge about the structure of the AChE enzyme. Until now, the forces of gravity on Earth have posed a challenge to this area of research. That's where traveling into space comes in.

In June of this year, samples of the human AChE enzyme were sent to the International Space Station U.S. Laboratory by a team of CounterACT scientists led by Andrey Kovalevsky, Ph.D., Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Zoran Radic, Ph.D., University of California, San Diego. Using these samples, astronauts are currently growing large crystals of pure enzyme of a size that cannot be formed on Earth due to interference from gravity.

The video will load shortly

"By taking advantage of the microgravity conditions of the International Space Station, we hope to grow better, more uniform crystals that we are unable to grow on Earth," said Dr. Kovalevsky.

Once the crystals are grown to a large enough size, they will be returned to Earth and analyzed by a sophisticated imaging method called neutron diffraction that can provide an atomic-level view of the enzyme.

"Using this technique, we will be able to get a closer look at how the enzyme interacts with pesticides and nerve agents and learn about how the bond between the two can be chemically reversed," said Dr. Radic. "This method would not work on the smaller enzyme crystals that can be grown here."

Antidotes to OP exposure reactivate AChE by directly breaking its chemical bond with the OP. However, the speed at which the countermeasures available today are able to do this is too slow to be fully effective. This project will help researchers to develop antidotes that break the AChE-OP bond more quickly and that can also be delivered orally, which is another key to dealing with large-scale exposure to nerve poisons.

"Developing better countermeasures against these sorts of nerve agents is a major thrust of our overall program," said Dr. Jett. "This project is the kind of cutting-edge science we envisioned when we established the CounterACT program."

Explore further: OSU chemist developing solution to nerve agent exposure

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In July 2015, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft sent home the first close-up pictures of Pluto and its moons amazing imagery that inspired many to wonder what a flight over the distant worlds' icy terrain might be like.

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Space station project seeks to crystalize the means to counteract nerve poisons - Phys.Org

NASA astronauts, scientists and engineers will join industry and academia for a three-day, in-depth conversation about the International Space Station (ISS) as a catalyst for discovery during the sixth annual ISS Research and Development Conference July 17-20 in Washington. Acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot will provide the morning keynote on Wednesday, July 19.

See the conference agenda for a full list of topics and speakers. Keynote addresses and panels from the conference will be broadcast on NASA TV and the agency's website.

The conference, hosted by the American Astronautical Society and the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), in cooperation with NASA, brings together leaders from industry, academia and government.

Attendees will explore innovations and breakthroughs in microgravity research; life sciences; materials development; technology development; human health and remote sensing; the potential applications for space-based research; and the economic benefits of increased commercial activity in low-Earth orbit.

NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, who tested an innovative technology in orbit that may improve medical diagnoses in space and on Earth, will provide a keynote presentation. Rubins completed her first spaceflight in 2016, and was the first person to sequence DNA in space.

The technology she used could help diagnose potentially fatal diseases in remote locations, including during long space voyages. Rubins also grew heart cells in orbit, performing real-time analysis and experiments.

NASA and CASIS, both manage and fund research on the space station, will provide overviews of research applications, external and internal capabilities, and upcoming opportunities.

During the Monday, July 17 preconference day, NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will host a joint workshop covering the achievements and opportunities tied to cooperative use of unique JAXA experiment hardware for joint research.

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NASA Offers Space Station as Catalyst for Discovery in Washington - Space Daily

WASHINGTON, July 14, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA astronauts, scientists and engineers will join industry and academia for a three-day, in-depth conversation about the International Space Station (ISS) as a catalyst for discovery during the sixth annual ISS Research & Development Conference July 17-20 in Washington. Acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot will provide the morning keynote on Wednesday, July 19.

See the conference agenda for a full list of topics and speakers. Keynote addresses and panels from the conference will be broadcast on NASA TV and the agency's website.

The conference, hosted by the American Astronautical Society and the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), in cooperation with NASA, brings together leaders from industry, academia and government. Attendees will explore innovations and breakthroughs in microgravity research; life sciences; materials development; technology development; human health and remote sensing; the potential applications for space-based research; and the economic benefits of increased commercial activity in low-Earth orbit.

NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, who tested an innovative technology in orbit that may improve medical diagnoses in space and on Earth, will provide a keynote presentation. Rubins completed her first spaceflight in 2016, and was the first person to sequence DNA in space. The technology she used could help diagnose potentially fatal diseases in remote locations, including during long space voyages. Rubins also grew heart cells in orbit, performing real-time analysis and experiments.

NASA and CASIS, both manage and fund research on the space station, will provide overviews of research applications, external and internal capabilities, and upcoming opportunities.

During the Monday, July 17 preconference day, NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will host a joint workshop covering the achievements and opportunities tied to cooperative use of unique JAXA experiment hardware for joint research.

Media interested in interviewing NASA personnel should contact Tabatha Thompson at 202-358-1100 or tabatha.t.thompson@nasa.gov.

Watch the conference live stream at:

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NASA Offers Space Station as Catalyst for Discovery in Washington - PR Newswire (press release)

Randy Bresnik will get a closer look at the August eclipse than anyone back on Earth from 250 miles above the Lowcountry.

Bresnik, a graduate of The Citadel, is scheduled to launch July 28 for the International Space Station, where he'll take over on Sept. 1 as commander of an American-Russian crew. The spacecraft will be positioned just north of Charleston when a relatively rare total solar eclipse occurs Aug. 21.

The crew's job is to continue a few hundred experiments already underway, such as research studying the effects of the craft's micro-gravity on heart stem cells.

But on that August afternoon, Bresnik will be doing the same thing as a lot of people in the world beneath him: shooting photos and video.

"We'll get a different perspective than what you will see, and a different perspective than what the satellites see (from farther out in space)," he said Friday during a brief phone interview from the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia.

The closely monitored and timed interview, conducted with NASA officials breaking in to announce the remaining minutes and then to end it, is a glimpse into Bresnik's daily mission-training life. The interview was one in a series scheduled back-to-back before Bresnik travels Sunday to the takeoff launch site, the Cosmodrome in Baikonur, Kazakhstan.

Star City is a secure location, like a military fort, in the forest near the Chkalovsky Airport on the outskirts of Moscow. Built as its own city, most there have no need to come or go. It looks like a lot of woodsy Southern U.S. military base towns, where the tree-lined homes are modest and the roads turn from asphalt to dirt.

The family of Gagarin, the Russian cosmonaut who was the first human in space, still live there, according to the Daily Mail of London.

Baikonur, about 400 miles to the south, is a village in arid, flat scrubland along the Podstepka River with touristy downtown spots amid rows of Soviet-era low-rise structures. The terrain looks like West Texas. The Cosmodrome sits just to its north, another secure facility in the barren flats.

Bresnik, a 1989 graduate of the Citadel, was a Marine Corps aviator when he became one of 11 members of NASA's Astronaut Class 9 in 2004, a class selected from about 4,000 applicants. He space-walked in 2009 aboard the shuttle Atlantis.

For more than a year, he and other crew members have been in rigorous training for the space station mission in both the United States and Russia, as well as locations in Europe. The training has included Russian language tutoring.

Other training has been done in mock-ups of the station and its array of modules, some underwater to simulate the free float of work outside the spacecraft. A lot of the rest is studying reams of manuals and making responses routine for the crew to the necessary communication needs and other duties.

The current political tension between the U.S. and Russia hasn't spilled into the mission or the camaraderie, Bresnik said. The space station has been a joint mission between the two countries since it was launched in 1998. The technicians and astronauts remain dedicated to the mission.

"Nobody lets any of that (political) stuff get in the way of what we're doing," Bresnik said.

Besnik flew to Russia shortly after a break spending Christmas in Texas with his wife, Rebecca, and two children.

After his 2009 space-walking journey aboard the shuttle Atlantis, he talked about the awe and hard-to-grasp scale of circling the Earth with the sun rising every 90 minutes. The astronauts think of the two-week shuttle missions as a sprint, with so much to be accomplished very quickly.

A space station mission, on the other hand, is a marathon: 180 days aloft, along with "getting uphill and getting back down" in the Soyuz spacecraft.

Besnik said he is looking forward to one perk of life in the station a windowed cupola that juts from the craft and offers views of the universe and the world below. He anticipates spending some quality down time there, watching as he circles the planet.

Reach Bo Petersen Reporter at Facebook, @bopete on Twitter or 1-843-937-5744.

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Space cadet: Citadel grad astronaut Randy Bresnik preps to lift off from Russia - Charleston Post Courier

Microgravity research on the International Space Station may give new insights into fighting cancer, NASA said.

A new investigation in space is trying build a drug to to help the immune system kill cancer cells , which would prevent a given type of cancer from happening again in a patient. Investigators hope to make this possible using a new drug and antibody combination that could decrease the nasty side effects (such as nausea and hair loss) that are common with patients using chemotherapy, NASA officials said in a statement.

While chemotherapy is effective in treating cancer, the treatment unfortunately kills healthy cells along with the unhealthy ones. The new approach targets only cancer cells by combining an antibody with azonafide, a cancer-killing drug. Investigators said they are hopeful that the new combination will cause less severe issues than those associated with chemotherapy, though the treatment will still have side effects. [Benefits of Cancer Research on Space Station Explained (Video)]

New drugs in development on the International Space Station would target cancer cells and cause fewer side effects than chemotherapy. This six-well BioCell will culture the cancer cells.

"One of the reasons cancer cells grow in certain individuals is their defense mechanism fails to recognize" the cancer cells, co-investigator Dhaval Shah, an assistant pharmaceutical sciences professor at SUNY Buffalo in New York state, said in the statement.

"This [new] molecule also has the ability to wake up, or release the brake on existing immune cells within the cancer," Shah added. "In any given tumor, when these molecules are released [from the cancer cell], they 'wake up' the surrounding immune cells and stimulate the body's own immune system, making it recognize and kill the cancer cells itself."

Doing cancer research on the International Space Station provides other benefits as well, he said. The microgravity environment better simulates the human body, because you can grow large, spherical cancer tumors, Zea said.

Also, future explorers heading to Mars are at an increased risk of cancer due to radiation. This research could provide insights into how effective these drug combinations are in microgravity, which would be helpful if the illness happens to occur in astronauts en route to Mars or returning home, NASA stated.

"We don't know if the cells will be metabolizing the drug at the same rate as they do on Earth," said Shah. "In the long term, we need to be sure what drugs are going to work."

The investigation is called "Efficacy and Metabolism of Azonafide Antibody-Drug Conjugates (ADCs) in Microgravity." More information about microgravity investigations can be found @ISS_Research.

Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

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Cancer-Killing Treatment Tested on International Space Station - Space.com

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Four willing students in China have signed up to stay within a self-sustaining ecosystem inside two bunkers that simulate life inside a space station for 200 days.

Sealed from the outside world, the participating students from the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics will be involved in a lot of recycling and reusing items ranging from plant cuttings to urine.

The participants entered the Lunar Palace-1 on Sunday and will be living self-sufficiently throughout the duration of the program.According to Reuters, the simulation is aimed to help the students find out more about the conditions of living in a space station on another planet.

The program is part of a bigger project that will be creating a self-sustaining ecosystem that may, in the near future, provide humans the necessities to survive.

The students explained that they happily accepted the challenge as it somehow gets them closer to becoming real astronauts.

Ill get so much out of this, Liu Guanghui, a PhD student, was quoted as saying. Its truly a different life experience.

According to Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics professor and project head Liu Hong, they have carefully calculated every necessary component for human survival.

Weve designed it so the oxygen (produced by plants at the station) is exactly enough to satisfy the humans, the animals, and the organisms that break down the waste materials, she said.

She pointed out that aside from the physical needs, the experiment is also keen on studying the mental impact of being confined in such a limited space for a certain duration of time.

They can become a bit depressed, Liu said. If you spend a long time in this type of environment it can create some psychological problems.

Liu Hui, a student, and participant from the programs initial 60-day experiment at Lunar Palace-1,has reported that she sometimes felt a bit low after working for a day.

As an adjustment, the projects research team designed a specific set of daily tasks for the students to avoid stressing them out.

Part of the new experiment will also test the group how their bodies will react to living a for 200 days without exposure to sunlight.

We did this experiment with animals so we want to see how much impact it will have on people, the professor said.

The Chinese space program, which has been expanding in recent years, is set to probe to the dark side of the moon by next year, with the plan of putting astronauts on the moon by 2036.

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4 Chinese Students to Survive in 'Space Station' in Beijing For 200 ... - NextShark

NORMAL Maybe elementary and junior high school students can't take a ride on the vomit comet to experience zero gravity. But they can get a taste of how astronauts train for working in micro-gravity in a swimming pool.

That's what 16 students entering sixth- through eighth-grade have been doing this week at Normal Community West High School in the Challenger Learning Center's International Space Station Underwater Adventure. It's part of Heartland Community College's Youth Enrichment Program.

Like the astronauts, the students learn they have to move slowly and carefully as they work to assemble modules that simulate the International Space Station.

It's harder than you think, said 11-year-old Josie Melrose of Bloomington, who will be a sixth-grader at Evans Junior High School this fall. It takes some time to get used to it.

Laura Pulley, 12, of Downs, has wanted to take the class for a couple of years but it wasn't offered last year and she was too young the year before.

I love to explore and learn especially about space, said Laura, who will be a seventh-grader at Tri-Valley. She did a Challenger center mission on a school field trip and said, ever since then, I've wanted to be an astronaut.

The students are using snorkeling equipment and a device similar to scuba equipment called a sea breathe. The sea breathe floats on the surface of the pool and two students at a time wear masks connected to it with hoses, breathing as they would with scuba gear.

Using the sea breathe and learning about scuba techniques, although it is not a scuba class, is the favorite part of the course for Rylan Nelson of Normal. But the 12-year-old, who will be in seventh-grade at Metcalf School, said he also likes learning about space and the International Space Station.

I like how they show us all of the science around it, he said.

But the students are learning more than science and snorkeling.

We will work on teamwork every day, said Shrewsbury.

That happens both in and out of the pool.

For example, they had a group activity where everyone was standing on a space blanket to protect them from the toxic surface of the planet they were on actually a classroom. They had to figure out how to reverse the blanket without losing any of their fellow astronauts.

About a third of the class wound up stepping off the blanket the first day, Shrewsbury said. But, by the second day, their communication and strategy skills improved and no one touched the toxic ground.

Another lesson is the importance of practice and training.

By Day 5, the students will be able to assemble the space station underwater in about an hour but the final task will be preceded by six or seven of practice, explained Shrewsbury.

That's about what it is for astronauts, she said at least six or seven hours of practice for an hourlong spacewalk.

They'll understand it's not just about being an astronaut, but in life it takes time and it takes practice and you have to work as a team, said Shrewsbury.

Josie was confident she and her fellow students would be ready when their parents came to watch.

I think by Friday we'll totally have it mastered, she said.

Mike Burt, a chemistry teacher at Normal West, who also teaches earth and space science, is helping with the class. He said it's a good opportunity to learn more about the Challenger center.

Even though they're just down the street, I had no idea they had all these resources, he said.

Follow Lenore Sobota on Twitter @Pg_Sobota

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Students take plunge to build space station | Local News ... - Bloomington Pantagraph

Bellefonte Area students could get chance to communicate with astronauts in space Centre Daily Times The school is one of 13 in the country to be approved for the second phase of a selection process to host the Earthbound part of amateur radio contact with the International Space Station crew. Representatives from the International Space Station are ...

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Bellefonte Area students could get chance to communicate with astronauts in space - Centre Daily Times

While some nations may be content to simply set foot on the moon, China has bigger things in mind. President Xi Jinping has said he wants his country to become a force in space exploration, and the plan is to start at the celestial body closest to Earth.

China wants to send a probe to the dark side of the moon by next year, and put astronauts on its surface by 2036, Reuters reports. But those astronauts may be staying for a bit longer than Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin: As part of its Lunar Palace 365 project, China is testing a self-sustaining space station that provides inhabitants with everything a person needs to survive, which could lead to extended stays on the moon.

Related: How rocket fuel mined from the moon will get us to Mars

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On Sunday, four students atBeihang Universityin Beijing entered Lunar Palace-1, a 160-square-meterbioregenerative life-support base located in one of the city's suburbs. They replaced a group who lived inside the station for 60 days, but the latest batch of students to call Lunar Palace-1 home will not leave until they've been living self-sufficiently for 200 days."I'll get so much out of this," Liu Guanghui, a Ph.D. studentwho entered the bunker on Sunday,told Reuters. "It's truly a different life experience."

The station's specifications have been meticulously curated. "We've designed it so the oxygen [produced by plants at the station] is exactly enough to satisfy the humans, the animalsand the organisms that break down the waste materials," said Liu Hong, the project's principal architect.

While living in Lunar Palace-1, students will recycle everything from leftover plant matter to their own waste. The latter task may bring to mind the Matt Damoncharacter Mark Watney in the 2015 film The Martian, in which an astronaut was forced to jerry-rig a space station to support him after he was left on Mars. In addition to using his own waste to fertilize plants, Watney had to cope with the psychological toll of being isolated from the outside world. The same is true of the Chinese students testing Lunar Palace-1.

"They can become a bit depressed," Liu Hong said of the students. "If you spend a long time in this type of environment it can create some psychological problems."

Students are given specific daily tasks that help keep their spirits up, but it's difficult to gauge the psychological effect of living in an environment so radically different than what a person is used to. When NASA astronaut Scott Kelly returned from living on the International Space Station for 340 consecutive days, he spoke of how the psychological stress was "harder to quantify and perhaps as damaging" as any physical changes he experienced.

Liu Hui, a student who participated in the initial 60-day experiment at Lunar Palace-1, said she at times"felt a bit low" at the end of the day. The students currently in the station will be there for more than three times as long as Liu Hui, so the psychological effect of a prolonged stay remains to be seen. It's a trick problem, but one that China and the rest of the world will have to negotiate if humanity ever wants to colonize anything outside of the Earth's atmosphere.

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Life on the Moon: China Is Testing a Self-Sustaining Space Station That Could Allow Long-Term Lunar Living - Newsweek