Posts Tagged ‘NASA’
Keep those cards and letters coming…
for larger version, click image above (or here), and then click again
Readers will recall earlier visits to Letters of Note (“correspondence deserving of a wider audience”). That wonderful site now has company– and official company at that.
The letter-of-request above*, and tens of thousands of other historically- and politically-interesting documents can now be found at the Online Public Access Prototype of the National Archives.
* One notes that, while the Vice President’s response to Disney was “schedule too tight,” later President Nixon used Disney World as the venue for his “I am not a crook” speech…
[TotH to GMSV]
As we sharpen our quills, we might recall that it was on this date in 1972 (months before his Disney World performance) that President Nixon signed the bill authorizing $5.5 million to develop the Space Shuttle program– NASA’s main focus from that point until President Obama’s recent redirection.
Nixon with NASA Administrator James Fletcher and a model of spacecraft-to-come (Source: NASA)
The secret, revealed…
By Alex Koplin (Typcut) and David Meiklejohn; Alex explains here. (Thanks, Flowing Data)
As we reengage with our inner Bobby McFerrin, we might recall that it was on this date in 1962 that the first communications satellite, Telstar I, was launched. An ATT project, it was a collaboration among Bell Laboratories, NASA, the British General Post Office, and the French National PTT aimed at communications over the Atlantic Ocean. And indeed, it relayed the first television pictures, telephone calls and fax images through space and provided the first live transatlantic television feed.
I said “pinHOLE,” not “pinhead”…
Today is Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day— a global celebration of lens-less photography.
As we relax because we don’t have to worry about focusing, we might recall that it was on this date in 1990 that the (current) “mother of all cameras,” the Hubble Space Telescope, went into orbit, deployed by the crew of the Space Shuttle Discovery (which had lifted off the day before).
It’s a Dirty Job, Redux…
The good folks at PopSci have poked through “the hard, dangerous and downright grody work involved in truly audacious science,” and compiled a list that, even in a time of near-10% unemployment, one might consider cautionary: “The Ten Worst Jobs in Science.”
By way of example, beware…
Bad Dance Observer
It’s no chore to watch supermodels shake it in a nightclub. But Peter J. Lovatt, a former professional dancer and a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire in England, must examine the often unflattering gyrations of everyone from preteens to the elderly in search of the influences and motivations behind human dancing. Lovatt and his team record videos of the dancers and then quantify their groove thang using a special movement-analysis technique and software. Other times, observers rate traits such as the overall attractiveness of the dancers’ movements on video, or the observers wear a visor that tracks what elements of the dancer they are looking at. Findings suggest that young women rate the dancing of middle-aged men as less attractive than the dance moves of younger men, perhaps an evolutionary trait that discourages women from choosing older mates—middle– aged men tend to use big, uncoordinated movements, and women typically find complex movement most attractive. But don’t lose hope. Above age 60, men dance with more complexity. They also exhibit their highest dance confidence at that age. No wonder grandpa thinks he works it so good.
Other employment opportunities one might skip at “The Ten Worst Jobs in Science.”
As we wonder what became of Mr. Wizard, we might recall that it was on this date in 1962 that the first American satellite to reach the Moon surface, the Ranger IV, was launched from Cape Canaveral, impacting the Moon three days later. The spacecraft was designed to drop a scientific package on the back side of the Moon that would return seismic, radar and television information to Earth. Instead, the probe had a computer failure; the solar panels did not extend, and the satellite crashed on the Moon. Still, though it failed its full mission, it was the first US object on the Moon.
They Came from Outer Space!…
source: NASA, via IEEE Spectrum
For years, scientists have known that satellites and astronauts are vulnerable to “space weather,” more specifically to geo-magnetic storms that generate “killer electrons” powerful enough to penetrate shielding, damage spacecraft, and injure spacemen. But no one has been able to explain just how these nefarious particles are produced… so there’s been no trustworthy ability to predict– and avoid– them.
Now, as IEEE Spectrum and the European Space Agency report, scientists affiliated Los Alamos National Labs and a separate team at the ESA have begun to explain the phenomenon. The details are referenced in the cited reports; here suffice it to say that the electrons (originating in the Van Allen Belt) are accelerated– to velocities approaching the speed of light– by a combination of Very Low Frequency and (higher amplitude) Ultra Low Frequency electromagnetic waves, themselves excited by the impact of solar storms on the earth’s protective electromagnetic bubble.
And not a moment too soon: As Philippe Escoubet, an ESA scientist remarks, “These new findings help us to improve the models predicting the radiation environment in which satellites and astronauts operate. With solar activity now ramping up, we expect more of these shocks to impact our magnetosphere over the months and years to come.”
As we re-fit our tin foil helmets, we might recall that it was on this date in 1845 that Stephen Perry patented the rubber band. The milk of the rubber tree had been long used by folks who lived where the trees were native to make shoes, clothes, and “bottles”– which were brought back to England by returning sailors. In 1820, Thomas Hancock sliced up one of the bottles to create elastic garters and “belts.” Perry, who owned a rubber manufacturing company was sufficiently taken with Hancock’s idea to file a patent on the rubber band– the first of which were made from vulcanized rubber. (They are now commonly made of a combination of rubber and latex.)
(It was also on this date in 1950 that Glenn Seaborg and a team of colleagues at UC Berkeley announced a new element, number 98– Californium– a radioactive element the isotopes of which have important medical and industrial uses, as they are powerful point sources of neutrons.)
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