Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend the Discovery STS 131 launch and to say the least it was an awesome opportunity. To begin the adventure Dave Masten and I went on a tour of the Kennedy Space Center, which included getting very close to the Launch Pad 39A, and allowing us take some great pictures. To my surprise during the tour we happened to run into Kevin Sagis and Michael Pollmiller (some of our Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander X PRIZE Challenge competitors), as well as some of their family members. Not too far behind was Greg Maryniak one of our X PRIZE Foundation board members and dear friends of the X PRIZE space team. So over all, it was a lot of fun to go through this experience surrounded by friends and family of the X PRIZE Foundation. We had the pleasure to have as our tour guide Astronaut Michael Foale. Foale has been a crew member on six space missions and has had the opportunity to spend sometime in the Russian space station MIR. After the tour was done we had the evening to rest and get ready for the Launch.
We watched the launch from the OSB II building where the NASA administrator Charles Bolden welcomed his guests. The morning started with welcoming remarks, a buffet and a detailed presentation regarding the mission. The Discovery crew is to deliver supplies and hardware (roughly 8 tons of cargo in Leonardo, a pressurized module in the cargo bay) to the International Space Station, as well as perform three spacewalks designed to help prepares the station for the post-shuttle era. The launch was set for 6:21 a.m EDT and around 6:12 a.m we had the opportunity to admire the space station as it was doing its fly by. Everyone in the building was so excited, they were cheering and clapping until the station was out of sight. At some point during the countdown the launch was on a no-go status due to some weather issues, but soon after the hold Discovery STS 131 was given the go. Even though it was still pretty dark while the shuttle was lifting off, they sky was so bright it looked like if it was the middle of the day. Being that there are only three more launches left, this was an amazing experience and I really can’t find more works to describe it. I am glad I got to see the shuttle in action one more time before the end of the program and I recommend that if you all have a chance you should try and experience it. Many thanks to Dave Masten for such a wonderful invitation!
@NLSI: Two important dates: July 18th- 1st LunarGradCon, July 19th- NextGen Lunar Scientists & Engineers Workshop, both at Ames. More info coming.
Since I have more than the 140 twitter characters NLSI had to work with, I'll note that the 3rd annual NASA Lunar Science Forum is scheduled for July 20-22, also at Ames. There will be a student poster competition with cash prizes at the conference.
Here's the LunGradCon link.
NewSpace 2010 is scheduled for July 23-25 at NASA Ames. It sounds like a convenient 2-conferences-for-1-trip package for anyone interested in both the Moon and commercial space.
Space conference at UCF set for 2011 - Central Florida Times covers the Second Annual Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference.
Here's a recent Space Show interview featuring the Space Access '10 conference: Henry Vanderbilt - March 15, 2010
Also see: Space Access '10 Conference - latest update - RLV News
@tedprize: Follow @missionblue as they set out on the Mission Blue Voyage for Sylvia's TEDPrize wish, http://www.tedprize.org/mission-blue-voyage/ #FF
@Bob_Richards: Joining Naveen Jain & @PeterDiamandis for @ChurchillClub Commercial Space panel Apr21 in Palo Alto http://bit.ly/9HVELU
@LunaCI: Google Lunar X PRIZE Roundup #12: http://is.gd/aVlDU Pretty active week around the GLXP :)
Google Lunar X PRIZE Roundup #13!: http://is.gd/bc3Fj
@PTScientists: http://twitpic.com/1cvhky - I've got a cool new Jogging shirt! Thanks #SpaceX :-)
@glxp: "This is not your father's moon": NewScientist article on the state of lunar science http://bit.ly/d1AKUY (thx @iamjem)
@TeamPrometheus: Going back to Calli! With three launch Goals! Lander, Rockoon and Amatuer Altitude record! Not coming back to Texas... http://bit.ly/8XLjJd
Here's a couple Space Show interviews with prize themes (of course the interviews cover a lot of other ground, too):
Peter Homer - March 19th, 2010 (Astronaut Glove Challenge)
Dr. Paul Dear - March 26, 2010 (N-Prize)
The Space Elevator Games are still active:
Vertical no more - LaserMotive
Space Elevator Blog celebrates its 4 year anniversary - Space Elevator Blog
The McGill Space Elevator Team site has a new look. They're in the game for the 2010 competition:
We are currently working hard to finish our climber and power beaming laser system for the upcoming competition scheduled for May 2010. Be sure to visit our blog for frequent updates.
Lunar payloads for sale - Dispatches from the Final Frontier
CMU researchers aim for the moon by developing lunar rover - Pittsburgh Business Times
ECO-MARATHON ULM in Vichy - This is s competition for flying as far as possible using as little energy as possible.
2nd International CanSat Competition - DeSoto: ESA´s CanSat competition.
Hi GLXP fans!
Friday Fun Day this week was inspired by two of our teams, the Part Time Scientists and Euroluna, who both had interviews this week on radio stations in their respective countries (Germany and Denmark). On their Facebook Fan Page, the PTS have also been listing the music they would like to play during lunar descent of their vehicle (including a song from The Bravery off of the Sun and Moon album).
Music and space exploration seem to go together like cats and the internet (and on wonderfully rare occasions, all of those worlds collide - see below). Astronauts wake up daily to chosen musical selections, everyone loves the popular and inspirational "Symphony of Science" videos, and frankly, I can't watch any docking sequence without thinking about The Blue Danube. [Update from Will and @amoroso: don't forget about Moon Bell, which creates music based on lunar altimetry, and the STS-116 wake up call].
So today's question is: If you were landing on the Moon, what song would you choose for your soundtrack?
Post in the comments below, or @-reply glxp on Twitter, and we'll put together a crowdsourced Moon Music playlist. Happy Friday!
Since today is April Fools’ Day and all kinds of people will be playing jokes on each other, I thought I would take a stab at giving you a few old ideas. Now there is the drippy prank- put some tiny pin drop holes in a plastic cup, offer your friend a drink, and see the liquid spill all over them. You could also try the keyboard prank- sneak into a co-worker’s office and put something over their mouse’s optical eye or standard rolling ball so that the cursor doesn’t move causing some fun frustration. And if all else fails, there is the whoopee cushion. HAHAHAHAHA
Now onto the real STEM discussion….. You may have seen pictures recently on The Launch Pad of one of the many 2010 FIRST Robotic Regional Competitions taking place around the US. Well, these were posted by Google Lunar X PRIZE staff that visited the FIRST Regional Competition held in Long Beach, California. Along with getting to observe the amazing competition between robots playing a form of soccer on a field, we also got a chance to walk around the pit area and visit with the teams. The teams are made up students who are mentored by engineers, teachers and business leaders. They had 46 days to brainstorm about solutions to design and develop their robot to compete at this regional event. I cannot even begin to tell you how incredible the teams were. Seeing our future scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs at work was very inspiring. Personally, the best aspect of the day was to hear these youth share their experiences about how they got involved in FIRST and how specialized education programs have helped paved their path in wanting to pursue careers in STEM.
Many local and out of state high school programs were represented in Long Beach. One in particular caught my attention. Hawthorn High School has formed an Engineering Academy at their school. One of the projects that youth work on is to develop a robot for FIRST. Jeff Ordway, a teacher at Hawthorn High School relayed to us that “students are told everyday that they can’t do things. This program shows them something different.” Many students also relayed to us their aspirations of going to college and wanting to major in Engineering. Having this academy at their high school has helped pave the way to reach their dream. There are approximately 250 youth attending the Engineering Academy at Hawthorn High School, and it is expected to grow to 500 youth next year. Posted below is a somewhat blurry, but cool shot of the team from this Academy. .jpg)
I am proud to share that STEM education is real and is truly making a difference not only at this high school, but with many high schools and after school programs involved with FIRST. I am now even more excited about my trip to Atlanta, Georgia to see the FIRST Worldwide Championship on April 15th, and am getting very eager to announce one of the first Google Lunar X PRIZE partnership challenges. Stay tuned!
Based on the number of times that I have audibly laughed at my desk today, I'm just going to put this out there: 2010 has been a great year for online April Fool's Day pranks.
- Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD), has photographic evidence of water on the Moon:
- unixkcd (my personal favorite): the popular web comic has turned itself into a unix terminal. Highly recommend typing in "echo", "cat", or "make me a sandwich", among other things.
Update (via @mattcannella): Type in "find kitten" to play "Robot Find Kitten". Cats, robots, and the internet, what could be better?
- ThinkGeek has a number of new products, including the 2001: A Space Odyssey Monolith Action Figure, and an incredibly disturbing "My First Bacon" toy featuring "velveteen pork flesh".
I also just discovered the delightful Tribbles and Bits cereal on the same site. I dare you to click the picture on the product page that says "Do. Not. Click."
- As @csete pointed out, YouTube is offering "text-only" videos. This video won't embed properly, but here is a Masten Space Systems rocket video that looks pretty awesome in text only, if I do say so myself: http://bit.ly/cvQBK1
- #TLXP Team Part Time Scientists wrote a blog post this morning about their IPv6 plans. My favorite part, on "Lunar Geo Positioning":
"The moon has a surface area of 3.793x10^7 km^2. With 10^38 unique addresses, we can divide the surface of the moon into 3.793x10^19 individual square millimeter patches and still be able to give unique IDs to up to 2.64x10^18 grains of dust in each patch."
- @krynsky pointed out this awesome "Space Travel Price Quote" website from BuyerZone. Cool idea, perhaps a few inaccuracies, but overall pretty entertaining.
- @JimmiC found out that Opera has ambitions to be the first browser in space. Now THIS is going to be my kind of 21st century space race!
"I believe that this company should commit itself to achieving the goal of putting a Web browser in space." -Jon von Tetzchner, co-founder, Opera Software
Just thought you'd all like to know that as of April 1st, 2010, the name of the competition has been changed to the Topeka Lunar X PRIZE.
