Category Archives: Space Station

Kerbal Space Program: Launching a space station
In this video I Launch a space station into orbit on kerbal space program. Songs: Witty- Youth No Trace - N.A.S.A.

By: JonGibbs

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Kerbal Space Program: Launching a space station - Video

Space Station Live: HD Earth-View Cameras Heading to Station
Space Station Live commentator Pat Ryan interviews Lori Motes, the lead engineer of the High-Definition Earth Viewing experiment that will fly to station on ...

By: ReelNASA

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Space Station Live: HD Earth-View Cameras Heading to Station - Video

Dead Space 2 - What does it feel like to fly [1080p HD Xbox 360 PS3]
Can we reach 1 Like? b)b Would love one b.____.)b Must see Top Videos: 1) Dead Space 2 - Boss corners me http://youtu.be/TNgVjUglWjM?hd=1 2) Dead Spac...

By: SuperGameSpoilers

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Dead Space 2 - What does it feel like to fly [1080p HD Xbox 360 PS3] - Video

Hey Space Fans, if you're in Austin, Texas, attending the annual SXSW festival, NASA has some events planned that might peak your cosmic interest.

"At SXSW Interactive in Austin, Texas, attendees will find out how NASA is answering the tough questions such as: Is there life on other planets? Are we smarter than the dinosaurs? What are astronauts studying on the International Space Station?"Editor's Note:If you see NASA at SXSW, let us know! We'd love to see your photos or videos of space themes at SXSW. You can send images and comments into managing editor Tariq Malik atspacephotos@space.comfor potential stories or galleries.

NASA officials said in an statement. You can see the full schedule of NASA's events at SXSW below taken straight from NASA's own announcement:

Live from Space! Talk with Astronauts in Orbit Sat, Mar 8; 11:00am, Omni Downtown, Capital Ballroom http://schedule.sxsw.com/2014/events/event_IAP25456

John Yembrick, NASA's social media manager, will lead a discussion about how technology has evolved the way the agency connects with the public. Just a few short years ago, only a select few were able to talk to astronauts in space. Today, all you need is to be on the Internet. At SXSW, audience members can ask questions directly to astronauts Mike Hopkinsand Rick Mastracchio from 250 miles away in space.

"You don't have to go to the movies to feel connected to human spaceflight, Yembrick said. "Every day on social media astronauts on the International Space Station are sharing their experience with us down here on Earth. The station is not only an outstanding test bed for future space exploration, but also at providing us the human perspective of looking back at our home planet from orbit. Like never before, we can live vicariously through the eyes of the astronauts."

That's Hot: Visualizing NASA Climate Science Data Sat, Mar. 8; 12:30pm, Omni Downtown, Lone Star Room http://schedule.sxsw.com/2014/events/event_IAP24689

NASA has a fleet of spacecraft studying every aspect of our home planet with five new missions launching in 2014. This panel will demonstrate how NASA is using mobile applications, interactive websites, near real-time visualizations and social media to deliver meaningful and understandable Earth science data - in some cases just hours after it's collected. Representatives from JPL on this panel include Michael Green, manager for public engagement formulation, Doug Ellison, visualization producer, and Veronica McGregor, media relations manager.

NASA and Kerbal Space Program: The Asteroid Mission In Real and Virtual Worlds Sat, Mar. 8; 12:30pm, Palmer Events Center, Exhibit Hall 1 http://schedule.sxsw.com/2014/events/event_OE03288

Kerbal Space Programand NASA will share the stage at SXSW Gaming during SXSW. Their panel will offer the first look at the in-game mission as well as discuss the process of taking a real mission that is still highly conceptual and assembling it in Kerbal Space Program. NASA will be represented at the panel by Jason Townsend, Deputy Social Media Manager, and Jason Kessler, Grand Challenges Program executive, who leads NASA's efforts to "find all asteroid threats to human populations and know what to do about them."

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NASA at SXSW: A Space Fan's Guide

The Winklevoss twins will ride Virgin Galactic into space. But NASA astronauts Mark and Scott Kelly are the first set of identical twins to fly in space.

The Winklevoss twins launched into the headlines Wednesday (March 5) by announcing their plan to ride a Virgin Galactic space plane (and paying with Bitcoins, no less), but they aren't the first set of identical twins to fly in space. NASA, it turns out, got there first.

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Years before the Winklevoss twins planned their Virgin Galactic space trip, the identical twins Mark and Scott Kelly both 50 of West Orange, N.J., were busy flying space shuttles for NASA. Not only are the Kelly brothers the first identical twin astronauts in history, but they were also simultaneous captains in the U.S. Navy until Mark Kelly retired from both NASA and the Navy in 2011.

The Kelly brothers (Mark is six minutes older) joined NASA's astronaut corps in 1996, with Mark flying four space shuttle missions and Scott flying three spaceflights, including a 159-day stay on the International Space Station. Both astronauts served as space shuttle commanders, with Scott commanding the space station during most recent spaceflight, which ran from October 2010 and ended in March 2011. [Twins in Space: NASA Astronauts Mark and Scott Kelly]

Now when it comes to the Winklevoss brothers the founders of Winklevoss Capital investing group this part is key. The Winklevoss twins could be the first identical siblings to fly at the same time.

The Winklevoss brothers are paying the Bitcoin equivalent of $250,000 for the suborbital spaceflight. Virgin Galactic is offering trips into suborbital space (they don't reach Earth orbit like NASA shuttles) by launching the SpaceShipTwo vehicle from a high-altitude mothership called WhiteKnightTwo. The SpaceShipTwo can carry two pilots and six passengers per flight.

The Kelly brothers never had the chance to fly in space together, though at one point it was planned.

In 2011, NASA hoped to launch its second-to-last space shuttle mission the STS-134 flight on Endeavour early in the year, during the time that Scott Kelly was in command of the International Space Station. Mark Kelly, meanwhile, would command Endeavour. It would be a historic identical twin space commander flight.

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Astronaut twins in space? NASA did it before Winklevoss brothers

The comedic sci-fi drama stars out actor Matt Bomer and is written and directed by Jack Plotnick

Space Station 76, starring openly gay heartthrob Matt Bomer, will get its South By Southwest premiere this weekend, and has already been picked international distribution with Sony Pictures Worldwide, reports The Hollywood Reporter.

Domestic rights were previously secured through Preferred Content. Bomer is joined by Liv Tyler and Patrick Wilson, and the film is helmed by Jack Plotnick, who also wrote the script along with Jennifer Cox, Sam Pancake, Kali Rocha, and Michael Stoyanov.

Set in a highly stylized, 1970s version of the future, Space Station 76 is a light-hearted drama focusing on the situations caused by the arrival of a new female assistant captain. But as personalities collide onboard when an approaching asteroid threatens the lives of the entire crew.

In addition to his career as a writer-director, Jack Plotnick previously performed in roles in television shows such as Ellen, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and Nip/Tuck. However, he may be more famous as his drag persona Evie Harris from the film Girls Will Be Girls.

Along with his co-stars Coco Peru and Varla Simonds, Plotnick received awards from both OutFest and the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival.

While no date for a wide release has been announced, the films Facebook page notes that fans should "look for it" in early 2014.

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Gay-Helmed Sci-Fi Film 'Space Station 76' Debuts at SXSW

Astronauts, get your welding goggles on the space station is going into the foundry business. The International Space Station (ISS) is set to do a spot of industrial research this June, when ESAs Materials Science Laboratory-Electromagnetic Levitator (MSL-EML) heads for the station aboard Europe's Automated Transfer Vehicle 5 (ATV-5) Georges Lematre unmanned space freighter as part of a program to study the casting of alloys in a weightless environment.

Most metals have are crystalline and their properties depend on this microstructure, which develops as they cool. An everyday version of this is tempering, where a steel knife blade is heated to red hot and then plunged into cold water. The sudden cooling alters the crystalline microstructure of the steel, making it hard and able to hold a sharp edge.

The example is a simple one, but the process is actually extremely complex. Its even more so when molten metal is cooled inside a casting. The temperature and density differences, convection forces as the cooling molten metal rises and falls in the mold, and any number of other factors are among the many reasons why casting metals, especially exotic alloys, is often as much art as science.

Microgravity is one way of reducing this complexity, so scientists are better able to understand it. In the absence of gravity, there aren't any convection forces, so metal castings have an even temperature. Furthermore, in a gravity-free environment metal samples can be suspended in a magnetic field and heated using conduction coils. This means there are no complicating factors, such as the molten sample sticking to a crucible wall or being contaminated by it.

By means of microgravity, scientists hope to gain a better understanding of an alloys surface tension, viscosity, melting range, fraction solid, specific heat, heat of fusion, mass density, and thermal expansion among other things. This would be of tremendous importance for everything from casting turbine blades to developing lighter weight alloys.

The problem is, there isn't a lot of of microgravity on Earth and most of that involves falling. You can get 20 seconds in an airplane during a parabolic trajectory and six minutes in a sounding rocket, but neither of those are very practical for carrying out metallurgical research. To get serious, you need a space station. And on the ISS, theres all the microgravity you want.

Weighing about 360 kg (795 lb), the MSL-EML was built by Airbus Defence and Space in collaboration with ESA and the DLR Space Administration. It consists of an automated chamber that keeps samples in a vacuum or a controlled gas mixture. In addition to electromagnetic levitation and induction heating coils, there is a digital video observation camera, a high-speed data camera capable of capturing up to 30,000 images per second, and a pyrometer.

When activated, the MSL-EML automatically feeds one of 18 spherical samples, 5 to 8 mm in diameter, consisting of various aluminum, copper, and nickel alloys into the process chamber using a rotating magazine. The machine uses electromagnetic fields to levitate samples in a the container, keeping them out of contact with the walls or any other materials. Then the inductive heating pushes the sample temperatures up to 2,000 C (3,600 F), reducing them to a liquid state.

In such a controlled environment, scientists will be able to dial-in various factors and study how such samples change as they cool and solidify. Theres no need for crucibles, which could contaminate the samples, and the samples aren't under the influence of gravity, which would deform the developing crystals or set up convection currents, resulting in uneven cooling. Meanwhile, the sensors record every detail of the process.

According to ESA, the microgravity containerless system produces a purer sample with fewer variables to take account of. The findings from the MSL-ELM can be compared to computer models and findings from experiments conducted on similar samples on Earth on parabolic flights.

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Electromagnetic Levitator headed to ISS for future materials research

Can Astronauts Return to Earth Without Russia?
The crisis in Ukraine is causing some tension between the United States and Russia. If Russia decided that they don #39;t want to bring American astronauts on th...

By: DNews

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Can Astronauts Return to Earth Without Russia? - Video

Rebecca #39;s Picks: 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...

By: Rebecca Costa

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Rebecca's Picks: Departing Space Station Commander Provides Tour of Orbital Laboratory - Video

Space Station Live: Delivering Drugs in Tiny Balloons
Space Station Live commentator Pat Ryan interviews Dr. Dennis Morrison from NuVue Therapeutics, Inc. Morrison is the principal investigator of MEPS (Microenc...

By: Waspie_Dwarf

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Space Station Live: Delivering Drugs in Tiny Balloons - Video