Star Trek Discovery Update

CBS issued press release:Star Trek Discovery launch has been pushed 

back.  DISCOVERY will now launch in May 2017.

To get more information please press HERE

Scientists Discover Possible Origin of oxygen

A team of researchers just confirmed the presence of oxygen in a galaxy 13.1 billion light years away.

This is the furthest oxygen has ever been detected. Suggesting that this may  be the first oxygen to form in the early universe.

The scientists based their conclusions on data collected by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observatory.

The galaxy SXDF-NB1006-2, was discovered just four years ago, and they have been trying to identify the elements that are present ever since. The scientists describe their findings in a new paper published in the magazine "Science".

For Complete article, press HERE

Shuttle Discovery's Last Flight

Fromm NASA via Boing Boing & YouTube comes a short film of the last flight of Discovery. Lets take a moment to reflect on everything that means. There it is sitting atop the modified 747 flying over our nation's other monuments in Washington DC. It is a moving experience for sure. Certainly one worth documenting. But then people started clapping. Maybe I am being a bit too sensitive here, but clapping with joy as the past pinnacle of out once great space program flies off into the haze was not one of joy....

Don't get me wrong here! I do applaud the brave people who flew it and died with it. The great minds that went the extra mile even though they were hamstrung from the beginning. I applaud the engineering marvel that was the shuttle and the men who were tasked with making a potato fly. But applaud its passing? No, at the risk of melodrama...hat in hand, head bowed I turn away. oh and here is more at Discovery Air and Space

360 Degree VR view of the Shuttle Flight Deck

I found this real neat 360-degree virtual tour of the Space Shuttle Discovery flight deck on Boing Boing. It allows you to 360 degrees, zoom in and out and pan up and down! Mouse or keyboard operated, so there are no complicated commands just click and move.

The sim can be found here

Good bye Discovery

Well I am sure you know what 3/9/11 is all about. I can't imagine that anyone reading this right now has to have STS 133 explained in detail. However just to put a small cap on it.
From Space.com:

• Discovery landed for the final time here at NASA's Kennedy Space Center at 11:57 a.m. EST

Having that melancholy moment again are we?

And just so Space.com can nail it home for Discovery one last time:

• after 27 years and 39 flights, Discovery's wheels rolled to a stop for the very last time under the warm sun at the Florida spaceport's Shuttle Landing Facility.

Not to lessen the fact that the shuttle program was fraught with engineering failures, cost over-runs - despite the fact that it was never even close to as fast, cheap or safe as it was promoted as becoming - It still was a damn fine space craft of a fleet of supremely capable machines. The people who designed, maintained and flew the system were and are the best in the world at what they do. I know, it's just a machine, but at the risk of anthropomorphizing it - it was a damn fine one!

Space.com article

Robonaut due for launch to ISS

Dan brought in an article reminding me that NASA's new robotic platform Robonaut is due for launch to the International Space Station November 3 2010. The station already has robust robotic arms from Canada and Japan, but what makes Robonaut different is that it can carry out tasks without human intervention where the present robotic equipment requires trained operators to operate them at all times. Another milestone for the platform is that it is the first humanoid robot ever sent into space. The "R2" unit, weighing in at apx. 300 pounds is just the upper half of a complete system, however with two arms and two five finger hands, it is very well suited for space operations. The unit has 350 sensors throughout its body. The gold visored head contains 4 nomal light cameras and an infra-red camera behind the forward facing grill. NASA hopes to have a reliable leg sub-assembly delivered sometime next year which will bring Robonaut to complete functionality.

Robonaut will fly on Discovery's 39th mission which is the next to last shuttle mission (although NASA is reserving one additional flight if needed) .

Wiki site