Why NASA Intentionally Put Large Holes In Curiosity's Wheels

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Hubble telescope mission, Nasa's most dangerous endeavour

The Nasa Atlantis crew of seven astronauts will attempt to rescue the $7 billion Hubble Space Telescope from meltdown, while dodging deadly space-junk. The mission, which is costing Nasa $1.4 billion and is launched from Florida today, is considered so perilous that it was once cancelled by space agency chiefs who feared that it could cost the astronauts their lives. It was resurrected only after they agreed to place a second shuttle and crew on emergency standby, ready to blast into space to save their colleagues should a catastrophe occur. The move is unprecedented in the 28-year history of the shuttle fleet. Please come and have a look.

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Space cowgirl salvages NASA junk, finds 'Pic of the Century'

"NASA was so preoccupied with getting an astronaut to the moon ahead of the Soviets that little attention was paid to the mountains of scientific data that flowed back to Earth from its early space missions. The data, stored on miles of fragile tapes, grew into mountains that were packed up and sent to a government warehouse with crates of other stuff.

And so they eventually came to the attention of Nancy Evans, a no-nonsense woman with flaming red hair that fit her sometimes-impatient nature. She had been trained as a biologist, but within the sprawling space agency she had found her niche as an archivist."

Charged with archiving 2,500 unreadable NASA data tapes from the '66 Lunar Orbiter mission, a determined Nancy Evans scoured govt salvage yards to find a one-ton FR-900 Ampex tape drive to read them. Too costly for NASA, she retired, the drives in her garage. Thru stroke of luck, space junkies found her on a blog, and restored NASA's historic pics.

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Russian cosmonauts armed with 3-barreled gun

Among the training regimes that Russian cosmonauts pass before being admitted into orbit is the shooting range. The reason is that they must learn how to use a special three-barreled gun found on every Soyuz spacecraft. The TP-82 gun is part of the survival kit and is meant to be used on terra firma if cosmonauts land in the wilderness.

A gun in orbit is a controversial issue. NASA traditionally keeps a ‘no firearms on board’ policy, and their astronauts’ survival kit has had a machete-like knife as its only weapon for decades. When the International Space Station project was launched, the status of a pistol on Russian ships became one of the tricky legal questions.

The third space-faring nation China apparently sided with Russia in its attitude towards firearms in space. The Chinese media reported that the Shenzhou-6 expedition in 2005 was armed with pistols for self-defence, but no detail on the model or the number of the weapons was disclosed. Russian space experts believe that China may have borrowed the concept of the TP-82 and developed their own version.

* TP-82 with its three-barreled combination. (photo from http://diversant.h1.ru/)

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Astronauts head for extreme home makeover in space

The international space station is about to get all the comforts of a modern, high-end, "green" home: a fancy recycling water filter, a new fridge, extra bedrooms, workout equipment and the essential half-bath.

It will be a home makeover in the extreme. The space station will go from a three-bedroom, one-bath house with kitchenette to a five-bedroom, two-bath house with two kitchenettes and the latest gizmos NASA has to offer.

To be more precise, astronauts will be installing an extra toilet, more sleeping compartments with individual thermostats and laptop hookups, and an exercise machine capable of some 30 routines.

They also will be delivering the essentials of NASA's first attempt at a closed-loop environmental system in orbit, where almost everything gets recycled. Already, the power on the space station is generated from solar panels.

Most significant is the water recovery system - it will turn urine and condensation into fresh drinking water. The system is essential if NASA is to increase the size of the space station crew from three to six. That switch is supposed to occur by the middle of next year.

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Mythbustin' the Moon

Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage, special effects experts better known as the "MythBusters", just crushed the conspiracy theorists that said the moon landings were fake. "Do we really think that the same government that screwed up so badly during the Watergate scandal could have perpetrated the moon hoax? Come on!" "There seems to be a common tendency among conspiracy theorists, as well as among a lot of people with entrenched belief systems, to get stuck on an idea and never give up. Conspiracy theories are not really a special category -- maybe you can call them myths, but I look at them as an obsession that people want to maintain, like being abducted by aliens, Bigfoot and so on. You can't really expect that reasonable evidence will change anyone's mind if they are determined," observed Hyneman.

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