Category Archives: Transhuman News

Departing Space Station Commander Provides Tour of Orbital Laboratory
In her final days as Commander of the International Space Station, Sunita Williams of NASA recorded an extensive tour of the orbital laboratory and downlinke...NASA Engineers use Universe Sandbox...

By: evolution

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Departing Space Station Commander Provides Tour of Orbital Laboratory - Video

In response to US sanctions aimed at Russia's space industry, Russian Deputy Prime MinisterDmitry Rogozin suggested that US astronauts get to the space station using a trampoline. Given a big enough trampoline, could that actually work?

Responding to new US sanctions to be imposed against his country in response to the Ukraine crisis, Russian Deputy Prime MinisterDmitry Rogozin took to Twitter on Tuesday to propose a novel way for US astronauts to travel to the International Space Station.

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"After analyzing the sanctions against our space industry," Dr. Rogozin tweeted in Russian, "I suggest to the USA to bring their astronauts to the International Space Station using a trampoline."

Following the conclusion of the Space Shuttle program in 2011, Russia's space program is the world's only institution currently capable of manned spaceflight. When US astronauts visit the International Space Station, they travel via Russian Soyuz spacecraft, at a fare of about $70 million per seat. Given the heightened tensions between our two countries, it's not unreasonable for the US to at least consider alternative transportation.

So exactly how feasible isRogozin's suggestion? Could a trampoline furnish an astronaut with the one giant leap needed to reach the space station, which orbits 220 miles above the Earth's surface?

Doing so would require significant trampoliningadvances, but Americans are nothing if not innovative. Just three weeks ago, in New York City's Rockefeller Plaza, acrobat Sean Kennedy, propelled by the combined kinetic energy of his brothers Eric and T.J., set the Guinness World Record for the highest trampoline jump, at 22 feet 1 inch, or 0.0018 percent of the distance to the space station.

Jonathan McDowellof the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics calculates that, for a trampolining astronaut to be properly flung into space, we would need a hole about one kilometer deep for the trampoline to stretch into. But he cautions that ordinary trampoline fabric would not be up to the task. "That's a problem for material scientists," he says.

Even if NASA were to design and build such a trampoline, say, by stretching some exotic, super-stretchy material across the Grand Canyon, an astronaut still wouldn't be able to bounce into space.

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Is it possible to reach the space station via trampoline?

Swanson compares space to 'being a kid and you find the best playground in the world'

Astronaut Steve Swanson, a University of Colorado graduate now living aboard the international space station, tries to spot Boulder every time the vessel flies by the U.S.

But the space station orbits Earth at roughly 5 miles per second, so even on clear days, he usually whiffs.

"I thought it would be easy," said Swanson, 53, during a video chat with students Wednesday. "You think you'll just look for the mountains, but by the time you take about 10 seconds to process it, you're past."

Donning a CU T-shirt and speaking into a floating microphone, Swanson who earned a bachelor's degree in engineering physics from CU in 1983 met for an hour with an audience of about 50 at CU's Fiske Planetarium, reminiscing about his days in Colorado and fielding questions on everything from gravitational physics to his distaste for space food.

He's been on the space station since March 25 and will assume command of the vessel in September. So far, so good, he said Wednesday.

"It's like being a kid and you find the best playground in the world, and then you get to stay there for five months," he said.

When asked his favorite part of living on the space station, Swanson didn't think twice.

"The best thing you can do is a space walk," he said. "The views are fantastic. The overall experience is just fantastic."

On one walk in particular, he told the audience, "I almost lost my mind with a sense of purpose."

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Astronaut Steve Swanson, a CU-Boulder grad, on space station: Great views, bad food

(Olive Branch, MS) Joshua Wright sat mesmerized as he learned new things about his favorite subject.

About space. What do I like about it? That you get to go to the moon.

This wasnt quite a trip to the moon, but more like a trip to the space station.

And like every trip, this one starts with blast-off.

We are going to learn about space exploration, said two puppets in a shuttle-like stage in the Overpark Elementary hallway.

Teachers Kelly Cook and Michelle Kinggard came up with the idea of learning by transforming their classroom into a space station.

You never know what youre going to find in our classroom. Last year we had the rainforest. This year we have outer space, said Kinggard.

Students traveled from one work station to another to learn different lessons from fellow students.

They have to become mission specialists in their area and they have to share that information with the kindergarten and first graders, said the spotlight teacher

Sharing what youve learned takes lots of study.

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Students Turn Classroom Into Space Station