Category Archives: Space

View from the ISS

Did you know that the ISS has a webcam? You can see the live stream on Ustream or on the NASA website (oder bei der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Luft- und Raumfahrt, DLR).

You can also see the ISS overhead at night. When? Look it up at Spot the Station on the NASA website.

If you’d like to see where on above earth the ISS is right now, check this page, which gives the ISS’s position and velocity as well as the time until the next sunset. Similar information is available at ISSTracker.com.

NASA also offers a lot of other live information, for example crew timelines, science timelines and live console displays.

Inspiration Watching the world turn bei Pharmama.

This rescue was considered challenging but feasible.

Ars Technica: The audacious rescue plan that might have saved space shuttle Columbia. The untold story of the rescue mission that could have been NASA’s finest hour. By Lee Hutchinson.

“At 10:39 Eastern Standard Time on January 16, 2003, space shuttle Columbia lifted off from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. A mere 81.7 seconds later, a chunk of insulating foam tore free from the orange external tank and smashed into the leading edge of the orbiter’s left wing at a relative velocity of at least 400 miles per hour (640 kph), but Columbia continued to climb toward orbit. […]
Sixteen days later, as Columbia re-entered the atmosphere, superheated plasma entered the orbiter’s structure through the hole in the wing and the shuttle began to disintegrate. […]
That’s the way events actually unfolded. But imagine an alternate timeline for the Columbia mission in which NASA quickly realized just how devastating the foam strike had been. Could the Columbia astronauts have been safely retrieved from orbit?”

Link via MetaFilter.

Next vacation destination?

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 downlinked the video on Nov. 18, just hours before she, cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and Flight Engineer Aki Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency departed in their Soyuz TMA-05M spacecraft for a landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan. The tour includes scenes of each of the station’s modules and research facilities with a running narrative by Williams of the work that has taken place and which is ongoing aboard the orbital outpost.”

Sunita Williams holds the records for number of spacewalks for a female and most spacewalk time for a female. She ran the first marathon by an astronaut in orbit and was the first to complete a triathlon in space as well.

Link via Kottke.org.

Sad news

Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, passed away yesterday.

Some relevant videos:

  • Apollo 11: Prelaunch Press Conference / EVA Training (1969)
  • Landing of the Apollo 11 lunar module
  • “One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind”
  • Armstrong’s message of thanks after leaving the moon surface
  • BBC interview with Neil Armstrong from 1970
  • 60 Minutes interview
  • The Bottom Line Interview (posted previously)

    • I also highly recommend the HBO series From the Earth to the Moon (I’ve got it on DVD), the part about the Eagle landing is available online.

    The Big Picture: Remembering Apollo 11.

    Statement from his family:

    “For those who may ask what they can do to honor Neil, we have a simple request. Honor his example of service, accomplishment and modesty, and the next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink.”

    Links via MetaFilter: Man on the moon, which is worth reading in its entirety because lots of people share their memories of the Apollo 11 mission and Neil Armstrong.

    Oh, to do physics experiments in space

    Sometimes I wish that you could switch of gravity for some experiments, especially during some lessons at school. I’m sure my students and I would have as much fun as Don Pettit (his weblog is Letters to Earth) who uses his spare time on the ISS to do some fun experiments. I especially enjoyed watching Thin Film Physics, Goo! and of course the vacuum cleaner hose turned into didgeridoo.

    By the way, his time lapse from space is also pretty neat.

    Links via MetaFilter: Physics Demos that are OUt of this World, Earth from Day to Night.