Category Archives: Transhuman News

WASHINGTON -- Journalists are invited to participate in a NASA Social from 9:30 a.m. to noon EST Wednesday, Feb. 20, in the James Webb Auditorium of NASA Headquarters at 300 E St. SW in Washington.

During this event, 150 social media followers and their guests will speak with three of the six crew members currently aboard the International Space Station orbiting about 240 miles above Earth. The participants also will hear from agency scientists and engineers about ground-breaking research taking place daily on the orbiting laboratory.

NASA Socials are in-person meetings for people who engage with the agency through Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and other social networks.

Participants in this NASA Social will learn about the discoveries enabled by the space station's unique microgravity environment that benefit humanity and increase our understanding of how humans can safely work and live in space for long periods.

Astronauts and officials scheduled to meet with the NASA Social participants are:

-- Astronauts Kevin Ford and Tom Marshburn of NASA and Chris Hadfield of the Canadian Space Agency will participate from the space station

-- NASA astronaut Don Pettit, a former space station resident

-- Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for human exploration and operations Mission Directorate

-- Marshall Porterfield, director of NASA's Space Life and Physical Sciences Research and Applications Division

-- Tara Ruttley of NASA, an associate space station program scientist

See original here:
Reporters Invited to International Space Station Social Media Event

Lego space Station
cool

By: Thomas young

Here is the original post:
Lego space Station - Video

Scientists are preparing to release the first round of results from a key experiment aboard the International Space Station that has been sampling a soup of high-energy particles in space.

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer particle detector was installed on the station during the next-to-last space shuttle mission in April 2011. Since then, the $2 billion instrument, a collaboration of 60 research institutes in 16 countries, has been amassing a proverbial mountain of data, including a headcount of 7.7 billion electrons and positrons (the antimatter counterpart to electrons.)

Scientists are less interested in the overall numbers of particles than the ratio between the two. The idea is to determine if there are more antimatter particles than matter, and, if so, at exactly what energy level does the disparity occur.

The smoking gun that were looking for in the positron-to-electron ratio is a rise and then a dramatic fall. Thats the key signature that would come from the dark matter annihilating the halo, said Michael Turner, director of the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago.

The halo Turner is referring to is the halo of the Milky Way galaxy, the region beyond the central disk of stars and dust. If current theoretical models are correct, theres a massively massive pool of dark matter perhaps as big as 1 million light years across that envelopes the visible galaxy, which is about 100,000 light years in diameter.

Continue reading here:
1st Results from Space Station Particle Detector Experiment Coming in March

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield has beamed down responses to users of a popular social media website while circling Earth on the International Space Station.

Hadfield used a laptop to field questions sent up Sunday from users of the website Reddit in the "Ask Me Anything" discussion, which drew more than 2,000 queries and comments.

He says the scariest thing he's seen in space was a large meteorite burning up in front of him, sending a "shiver up my back" as he imagined the "lump of rock" hurtling towards the station instead.

Hadfield told one user a space mutiny was not going to happen, since the shared scientific goals of the station crew "keeps mutinies to a minimum."

He says he often loses track of which way is "up" in the station, and told one terrestrial questioner that if his daughter wanted to be an astronaut she'd have to stay fit and smart by eating her greens and doing her homework.

Hadfield says his favourite thing to do in space is to "simply fly" from one end of the station to the other.

And the 53-year-old astronaut waxed poetic when asked to describe his view of space outside.

"It looks like a carpet of countless tiny perfect unblinking lights in endless velvet, with the Milky Way as a glowing area of paler texture," he replied.

Hadfield said that space privatization is "the right and natural way to go," noting that the privately developed SpaceX Dragon spacecraft was due to float up and dock with the station in two weeks.

"And we'll grab it with Canadarm2," he said.

Follow this link:
Astronaut Chris Hadfield beams down replies from space station in online Q&A

An astronaut on the International Space Station has revealed his scariest moment - watching a large meteorite burn up over Australia.

Colonel Chris Hadfield, 53, a former Royal Canadian Air Force fighter pilot, is on board the ISS as the leader of Expedition 35.

Col Hadfield, who has also flown two space shuttle missions, blasted off for the ISS on December 19 on board a Russian Soyuz TMA-07M.

He has been keeping in touch with followers on Earth using social news site Reddit to host a question-and-answer session.

Reddit user unfortunatelyhuman asked him: "Which part of the world looks the coolest from space?"

The astronaut, who has been tweeting pictures from space , replied: "Australia looks coolest - the colours and textures of the Outback are severely artistic.

"The most beautiful to me are the Bahamas, the vast glowing reefs of every shade of blue that exists."

But it was also while the space station was over Australia that he admitted he had had his most scary moment - the meteorite encounter.

He wrote: "I watched a large meteorite burn up between me and Australia.

"To think of that hypersonic dumb lump of rock randomly hurtling into us instead sent a shiver up my back."

See original here:
Astronaut On Scariest Space Station Moment