I’m sorry but that’s just stunning. Once again I’m complaining at the fact that the UK has no space program of its own. Grumble.
More pictures can be found…here!
http://triggerpit.com/2010/11/22/incredible-pics-nasa-astronaut-wheelock/
A video from my friend Ben: http://jamtat.tumblr.com about the ISS’ “reboost” into a higher orbit.
Essentially what is happening is that the Space Station has kicked on its thrusters in order to make it orbit higher. The consequence of this for the astronauts on board is that of Newtons Third Law pair of forces: the acceleration by the Space Station is being exerted on the astronauts in an equal and opposite direction, leaving them comically drifting backwards at a very meandering pace. These forces are a genuine Newton Third Law pair since they are a) equal b) acting in opposite directions and the one people tend to forget, c) they are both of the same type of force…unless I am mistaken.
On a completely different note, its hilariously funny to watch the guys drift backwards, especially Flight Engineer Satoshi Furukawa saying nothing but “wow….wow…WOW” for 10 seconds in the video. Proof if needed that space and space exploration continues to astound even the most hardened veteran.
This is ridiculous, Discovery's flight deck.
A true modern marvel of engineering I feel. Floor to ceiling packed with switches and buttons and screens, all of them vital to the success and the survival of the crew. Every function needs to be memorised by the astronauts since split second reactions are key. In the age of the sleek and shiny, integrated, touchscreen gadgetry (looking at you, Cupertino) its almost refreshing to see a lot of physical inputs packed in one space.
Hey, this is highly relevant to what I'm currently doing in Physics!
A timeline by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Caltech of our ideas about how the universe worked. We moved from a geocentric model to a heliocentric model, also changing from circular orbits to elliptical orbits (for elliptical, read: squashed circle) that helped to explain the retrograde motion of Mars without having to go to the complexities that Copernicus had to. Copernicus had the planets moving on epicycles to explain why Mars would sometimes be seen going backwards in relation to the Earth.
1992 was the first time that exoplanets had been discovered, 2 planets orbiting a pulsar. But these planets could never harbour life due to the intense radiation bombardment it received from the pulsar.
I’m gonna miss the sight of NASA space craft being blasted into orbit. Genuine sadness.
I was one of those people that was really gutted when America’s space program ended this year, mainly because back in Indonesia when I was like about 4 I wanted to be an astronaut. The Shuttle itself is a study in criticality as there are so many components on it that needed to work without fail, otherwise it would have been put in extreme jeopardy.
One of the components that did fail (as I researched) was a HSRI (High-Temperature Reusable Surface Insulation) tile that fell off a side and then hit an RCC (Reinforced Carbon-Carbon) panel on the wing, which caused the hot temperatures and gases on re-entry to destroy the wing.
