On July 15, Virgin Galactic’s VSS Enterprise completed its first manned flight with Peter Slebold and Michael Alsbury. SpaceShipTwo was attached to VMS Eve aka WhiteKnightTwo with Mark Stucky, Peter Kalogiannis and Brian Maisler handling crew duties. The two-man crew aboard Enterprise completed a number of system tests on both vehicles with “objectives achieved.” Total [...]
Though none of us in this lifetime are likely to take actual tours of Mars (unless you’re part of the secret government that plans to move there when the end of the world comes—lucky jerks), Microsoft and NASA have a pretty good virtual tour going with the WorldWide Telescope software used to navigate the stars [...]
Last year, the European Space Agency launched the Planck telescope, sending it nearly a million miles deep into space. Using technology with light sensitivity, the telescope was able to capture the first image of the universe. Studying the evolution of space through heat left behind by the Big Bang, the Planck’s data will be used [...]
Ah, college kids. The perfect mix of intelligence and idle time.
Here’s what else is going on in nerd news around the web:
There was some scuttlebutt—not quite a brouhaha—this weekend when Stephen Hawking said the following during his new Into the Universe series on the Discovery Channel:
Robots… in… spaaace! General Motors and NASA have developed Robonaut 2, affectionately called “R2” to appeal to Star Wars fans, no doubt. Unlike the little garbage can on wheels, this R2 looks like it’s ready to do some pushups, smooch your girlfriend on the cheek for just long enough that you become uncomfortable, and then [...]
This is part of an ongoing weekly series called “Freeze Frame,” where we break down our very favorite sci-fi/fantasy/adventure moments – the scenes that we look forward to, that remind us why we so love this job. As you might guess, such discussions are riddled with spoilers. So consider yourself warned. (See previous Freeze Frame [...]
Today, Expedition 22 Flight Engineer T.J. Creamer has tweeted where no man has tweeted before.
On August 16, 1960, Joe Kittinger fell from 20 miles (102,800 feet) above the Earth’s surface setting the free fall record. In 2010, Felix Baumgartner plans to break Joe’s record by falling back down to Earth from 120,000 (~23 miles) feet high. Think about that for a second, folks.
