The experimental tier-scalable reconnaissance process begins with an orbiting spacecraft deciding on its own where to send an airship armed with further probes. The airship itself, once deployed planetside, could also override the orbiter and decide on its own where to send its stable of landers, NASA said. The first real-world example of the process is set to blast off in 2009. Called the Sky Crane carrier, the probe will hover above the surface of Mars (it's so hot right now!) on retrorockets before lowering an "SUV-sized rover using a winch and tether" onto the ideal landing site.

Meanwhile, back here on earth scientists at Caltech have started testing new pseudo self-aware algorithms with three small rovers and a camera that surveys a simulated indoor landscape. The camera identifies targets of opportunity and obstacles, and in turn commands the rovers to drive around obstacles to reach targets without an ounce of human intervention. Eventually, the camera will be replaced with the hivemind airship. The cylon wars will follow soon afterward, we imagine. [MSNBC]

The flash in the sky is a remnant of a blast 7,000 light-years away in the Lupus constellation. Scientists say that it was the brightest observed supernova in recorded history, and that the light from the explosion could be seen in the daytime for weeks afterward.

The supernova sent a shockwave that traveled outwards at nearly 20 million mph. In the 1960s, radio astronomers first detected the ring of material pushed out by the shockwave. With the latest imagery, released by the Hubble Space Telescope's science team, you can see a gossamer stripe with starlight shining through it – the rocket's red glare indeed.

[Cosmiclog]

The House of Representatives just passed bill H.R. 6063, directing NASA to come up with plans for a cheap mission to send a craft to the Apophis asteroid to attach a tracking device. Apophis is on route to come closer to Earth than geostational satellites in 2029, and if it smacked into the planet we'd be a little bit screwed.

In addition to paying close attention to Apophis, the bill requires the Director of the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy to come up with a policy for notifying Federal agencies and other emergency response groups of an impending near-Earth object threat. Hopefully they'll come up with better plans than whatever it is they have enacted for natural disasters now, because their track record doesn't really inspire confidence. [KurzweilAI]

Deadline Approaching to Apply for New NASA Astronaut Class

HOUSTON — NASA's deadline for accepting applications for the 2009 Astronaut Candidate Class is July 1. Those selected could fly to space for long-duration stays on the International Space Station and missions to the moon.

To be considered, a bachelor's degree in engineering, science or math and three years of relevant professional experience are required. Typically, successful applicants have significant qualifications in engineering or science, or extensive experience flying high-performance jet aircraft.

Teaching experience, including work at the kindergarten through 12th grade level, is considered qualifying. Educators with the appropriate educational background are encouraged to apply.

After a six-month period of evaluation and interviews, NASA will announce final selections in early 2009. Astronaut candidates will report to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston during the summer of 2009 to begin the basic training program to prepare them for future spaceflight assignments.

To apply to be an astronaut, click here.

[NASA]

[The Big Picture]

According to NASA, at its closest approach Solar Probe+ will be about 7 million km from the sun (image below). At that point, the probe's incredibly important carbon-composite heat shield must withstand temperatures greater than 1400 C. Oh, and there's the incessant blasts of radiation at "levels not experienced by any previous spacecraft" to contend with too.
And those mysterious alluded to earlier? NASA spells them out thusly:

• Mystery #1—the corona: If you stuck a thermometer in the surface of the sun, it would read about 6000o C. Intuition says the temperature should drop as you back away; instead, it rises. The sun's outer atmosphere, the corona, registers more than a million degrees Celsius, hundreds of times hotter than the star below. This high temperature remains a mystery more than 60 years after it was first measured.
• Mystery #2—the solar wind: The sun spews a hot, million mph wind of charged particles throughout the solar system. Planets, comets, asteroids—they all feel it. Curiously, there is no organized wind close to the sun's surface, yet out among the planets there blows a veritable gale. Somewhere in between, some unknown agent gives the solar wind its great velocity. The question is, what?

"To solve these mysteries, Solar Probe+ will actually enter the corona," said program scientist Lika Guhathakurta of NASA Headquarters. "That's where the action is." No kidding. Just be sure to bring the SPF 10,000, little guy. [NASA]

The first implementation is a lightweight, flexible design to be used for launches, spacewalks and the occasional cabin leak. But for when astronauts will be walking around the moon's surface, they'll need a heavier duty suit with, among other apparent upgrades, sturdier boots. So that's where the second design comes into play. It looks gloriously weighty and awkwardly restricting, just like a spacesuit should be.

Look for the new suits in 2015 when they're part of NASA's Orion mission. [newscientist]

They broadcast a 30 second video (what format isn't clear; I hope the aliens have VLC!) into space which was voted on by the British to best represent life on Earth, or at least the moments of life on Earth that involve trying to sell unhealthy corn chips. Peter Charles, Head of the "Doritos Broadcast Project" can apparently still sleep at night after saying "We also shouldn't be too surprised if the first aliens start arriving on planet Earth immediately demanding a bag of Doritos." If so, the universe is more doomed than I thought. [Physorg]

[io9]

Daniel Fabricant, an astrophysicist for the Harvard-Smithsonian center thinks that the precision (a fraction of a wavelength of light) required for a telescope of that stature would pose a sizable challenge in making one that large. He also thinks it would be really, really, really expensive. But the leader of NASA's team, Peter Chen, claims that without Moon dust and on-site manufacturing, it would be impossible to get telescopes to the moon.

According to Chen, making a telescope equivalent in size to the Hubble (2.4 meters) on the Moon would require 1300 pounds of Moon dust, 130 pounds of epoxy, 13 pounds of carbon nanotubes and under a gram of aluminum. Now if we could turn those telescopes into lasers and get a little pew pew, we'd be set. [New Scientist]

It's true, we have a problem with the flushing system. This is a serious matter. In such circumstances there's even the possibility of an emergency departure from the station.

This Thursday and Friday, visiting NASA astronauts will try to fix the problem. If the space plungers don't work, the aliens are in for one nasty surprise welcoming when they make first contact. [breitbart]

The primary goal of the mission is to drill a few inches into Martian soil, where scientists think they may find red "water-ice," known on earth as strawberry Slushee, which could provide compelling evidence that life once did (or one day could) exist there. Digging is expected to start soon, but for now there's plenty of terrain pr0n at the Phoenix official website [Phoenix via NY Times] -by John Herrman

The video shows "an extraterrestrial's head popping up outside of a window at night, looking in the window, that's visible through an infrared camera." That all sounds well and good to me, but I wonder just how convincing any video can be in this day and age. When an amateur special effects creator can make an incredibly convincing UFO video in his spare time, I highly doubt that some fuzzy night vision footage of an alien peeking in someone's bedroom window is going to win over skeptics.

Also, just look at Peckman's eyes! If those aren't crazy eyes, I don't know what are. Those eyes alone are enough to convince me that he's full of it and his video is a fake. [Rocky Mountain News]

While the solid waste functions of the toilet are still functioning all right, the liquid waste fan is working intermittently. So while the crew awaits a possible space plumber from the upcoming Discovery mission (that had planned on docking at the station anyway), they've made due with a backup "bag-like" system.

But what are the real implications of a broken toilet? Maybe NASA's Allard Beutel summed it up best:

Like any home anywhere, the importance of having a working bathroom is obvious.

A lot can go wrong when you're trying to reach 130,000 feet up in the air. At above 40,000 feet, there's no longer enough oxygen to breathe. At 12 miles up, the air pressure can cause blood to boil. Fournier will be taking the trip in a special space suit, but if it malfunctions, he'll be dead within seconds.

If he makes it, Fournier will set records for falling the longest, farthest and fastest of anyone in history. The fall will be the cumulation of 20 years of research and physical and emotional preparation. To pay for his training and equipment, Fournier has sold almost all his belongings and spent roughly $20 million, mostly raised from private donations.

Fournier has insisted that he's not free falling to break world records. And though the data collected from the jump could have ramifications on aerospace escape procedures, many argue that there is very little to be gained scientifically.

Rather, this experiment probably has its roots in something much more basic and instinctual, despite its decidedly high-tech makeup. Fournier is out to fulfill his all-too-human need to find and, hopefully, exceed his own limitations. [NYTimes and Le Grand Saut]

According to Hirabayahsi, he "came up with that idea while drinking. The aliens probably won't understand that (kanpai and toast) part." We can only hope that whoever is looking for life at their radio telescope up there won't be drunk as well, if only to ensure good inter-planetary relations from the start. Example:

Obviously, this means: "Dear People of Altair, We are organisms who reproduce sexually to form families. Life on Earth started in the water." Kind of scary, but better than the alternative—after five whiskies: "Hey alien dudes, here on Earth we are all nudist. Some of us are giants with big tits. Others are giants with tiny penises. Fishes like to suntan on the beach. Turn the page to see us drunk. Kanpai!"

Whatever happens with the decoding of this binary message, at least it gives a little hope to Mulder-wannabes and tinfoil hatters all over the world, who may see alien contact in just seven years. Otherwise, the prospect was quite bad: US scientists sent another message to M13—the Hercules globular cluster—thinking that having a big concentration of stars, it may give us a bigger possibility of getting an answer back, instead of Elvis singing back "Return to Sender." Unfortunately, they didn't think that the waiting time to get a message back from a planet in M13 would be a bit too long: a mere 46,000 years.

While Hirabayashi is hopeful that his message was received in 1999 and now a reply is getting back to be received by any Jodie Foster listening out there, he knows that it's highly improbable that it would work. "I believe in aliens, but they are very difficult to find," he says.

If you add the fact that Altair may not have any planets at all, the chances are extremely slim. Still, he says that they did it because "it was good enough," and he is glad about it, especially after all the messages he got from schoolchildren everywhere: "children's response is the best thing."

What he doesn't realize is that children are small, talk in strange gibberish and get green sometimes, so his aliens may have contacted him already. [Sankei via Pink Tentacle]

Scientists also believe that when two large, planar bodies, referred to as branes, collide in the universe, they release enough energy to create a rapid expansion that can spawn a new universe (see explanatory gallery here).
While they can re-create scenarios they believe to be the same as these events, the lack of monitoring tech available makes it impossible to verify. The list of mysteries and theories that scientists have attacked over the last few years makes this an interesting read for fans of Hawking-esque space thinking. [PopSci]

Computerworld reports that the shuttle mission included conducting atmospheric tests:

One of those tests was an experiment for the National Institute of Standards and Technology to determine how xenon gas flows in a zero gravity environment.

The drive, already eight years old at the time of the mission, took a beating in the crash, and took another beating during recovery. Stripped down to the platter alone, it was placed in another mechanism and "carefully aligned" with a new motor. As it spun, it sustained more damage, but didn't crap out before Kroll could get the goods. More gory details, and a lot of great pictures, are over at Computerworld.

I know, I know: Why don't they make the shuttle out of the same material they make the drive? The non-standup-comedian answer is that two other drives on the shuttle were completely unrecoverable, so there's definitely a luck element here. [Computerworld]

Though a Fresnel sensor has the same sharpness as a glass lens, it only collects about 10% of the light. That's why the sheet has to be really really big, like the 30-meter one mentioned above. Even worse, the Fresnel lens brings light to focus far away from its own surface. A 30-meter panel may require a spaceship with secondary lens and camera located several kilometers away to line up within a few millimeters to capture the image precisely on camera. That's some tricky flying, and would require a lot of energy, especially when the panel itself is constantly tilting to look at new, wondrous things. [New Scientist via Kurzweil AI]

Says NASA, via its Jet Propulsion Laboratory web page:

If Mars had an on-line Web site for ads, one of them might say something like this: "Wanted: Gentle space-age dust removal system to clean solar cells without leaving grit behind. Please direct inquiries to NASA."

NASA's Spirit rover has accumulated a lot of dust during four years of exploring Mars, especially following last year's dust storms. Only about one-third of incoming sunlight is able to penetrate dust on the rover's solar panels to be converted to electricity. As a result, Spirit is experiencing the lowest energy levels to date and accumulating a backlog of data waiting to be transmitted to Earth. The only available cleaning agent would be a timely gust of Martian wind!

The Giove-B is a half-ton, 2.4x1x1 meter box which contains a passive hydrogen maser clock, the most stable clock ever to be shot into permanent orbit. The clock is designed to keep time with an accuracy of better than one nanosecond in 24 hours. If everything goes well and the clock stays ticking, the Giove-B's launch will be a template for about 30 operational platforms necessary to build Europe's Galileo satellite navigation system - one of the continent's key high-tech ventures.

Galileo, meant to be complimentary to GPS, will improve the availability and accuracy of timing signals delivered from space. Users will be able to pinpoint positions with an error of less than three feet, making those movie scenes where a sat-nav system zooms down on someone so close you can see their pores much less of a fantasy scenario.

A video of the launch is available on the BBC website. [BBC]

Unlike Superman's ship, these strands have to be very long—even a test run will require a total of 10 kilometers of the strand, which is currently stitched by hand using ultrasound. Also, as they require solar wind, they won't be much for interstellar travel. Still, as you can see in the video below, it's wild stuff, promising to provide plentiful free "fuel" for fast travel around the solar system. [New Scientist via KurzweilAI]

While growing plants in what is essentially rock do not make for optimal green-nurturing conditions, scientists realized that by adding various bacteria to the anorthosite, the plants were able to draw essential nutrients they needed from the rock. Better still, these bacteria are a tough breed of microbe, ready for the tough conditions of the moon.

Obviously the plants still need atmospheric enclosure, planned to include algae.

And though scientists are confident that they can grow a variety of other plants on the moon (like cabbage), they may or may not get to participate in moon visits scheduled for 2015 and after. [telegraph via digg]

The asteroid in question is the Apophosis. If it runs into one or more of the earth's 40,000 satellites as its path brings it closest to our planet on April 13, 2029, the collision could be enough to alter its trajectory and send a 200-billion-ton ball of iron and iridium our way in 2036. The impact would be followed by tsunamis that would destroy coastal and inland areas around the Atlantic Ocean. To top this disaster-movie situation off, a thick layer of dust would blanket the Earth.

So how did NASA get it wrong? Perhaps they did not take into account the possibility of that trajectory-changing first collision—either that or they forgot to carry a digit somewhere, because 450 and 45,000 do look vaguely similar. I am guessing that young Nico's project, "Apophis — The Killer Astroid" won the regional science competition that it was entered into. [Yahoo! News]

Laika's statue resides outside the Moscow military research facility where her flight team prepared the original space mission in 1957. Reuters reports the monument features the hot dog standing atop a rocket.

Like all dogs used in the Soviet space program Laika was a stray. Strays were selected because Soviet doctors apparently believed the mean streets of Moscow were similar to conditions experienced in space. Small dogs were selected due to the size constraints of the Sputnik 2 capsule, but at least Laika got to travel in style with this custom space suit-complete with euthanasia needle and feeding trough!

"Laika was quiet and charming," Dr. Vladimir Yazdovsky wrote in his book about Soviet space medicine. He even took the dog home to play with his children. "I wanted to do something nice for her: She had so little time left to live," he said. After fetch with the kids, Yazdovsky launched Laika into space, attached to a fuel-filled tin can with no parachute, and into history. We should all be so lucky. [Images: Telstar Logistics and Reuters]

So far Selene has collected six million data points, and it keeps going on. These 3D data points are all being processed now to further enhance what already is the most detailed topographic map in the history of space exploration.

JAXA—Japan's space agency—also announced that the Selene mission has gathered detailed information regarding the mineral composition of parts of the Moon's surface, including thorium, potassium, and uranium sites.

This topographical and mineral information will be crucial for the planning for future manned lunar missions, including the foundation of permanent lunar posts. And they can always include them in the next edition of Rand McNally's Moon Road Atlas, so astronauts can keep it in the glove compartment. [JAXA]

The only catch? The superconductor needs to be at a temperature below -300 degrees Fahrenheit. That means that this tech will be used to keep spacecraft tethered together without touching rather than to build a real model of Luke's speeder from Star Wars. Pity. So wait, how exactly is this going to work?

Magnetic pinning works by placing two modules — one with an unpowered, but supercooled, superconductor and the other with an ordinary permanent magnet — near each other. The permanent magnet induces currents in the superconductor that are persistent and exactly opposite to the fields generated by the magnet. By strategically placing the magnets and superconductors, the orientation of both modules can be pinned at any orientation. In essence, one "grips" the other with an invisible magnetic glove, and will resist any movement. Even in the presence of outside forces, magnetic pinning will hold the two modules in place. The effect is so intense that is very difficult to move them, even when physically pushed from the outside. According to Cornell, it is almost impossible to force the modules to touch one another, making the technique a fail-safe system for preventing spacecraft modules from colliding with each other.

About 50 percent of all trackable objects are due to in-orbit explosion events (about 200) or collision events (less than 10).

Yes, we knew that there was a lot of crap out there, but not to this extent. According to the ESA, this is really bad news and urgent measures are needed. Explosions in space are not disastrous on their own, but because of the aftermath. One example: a geostationary satellite travels at 6,213 miles per hour. If it explodes, all the debris stays near the orbit, forming a cloud around the Earth within a few days, as this simulation shows:

The ESA is urging to introduce measures to mitigate this problem, like the complete depletion of fuel in rocket stages (like some Delta launchers already do following NASA's Procedural Requirements for Limiting Orbital Debris) or returning objects to Earth once their mission is complete (perhaps to destroy them on re-entry,) just like SES Americom is going to do with their brand-new AMC-14. This satellite failed to reach its projected altitude and now has to be splashed into the sea because of a dispute with Boeing, which won't let SES Americom use their patented recovery method to put the satellite into the right geostationary orbit.

The impact of these measures could be huge, as reflected by this simulation of how things could look by the year 2112, with and without taking action:

While the idea of bringing back used stages and satellites back to Earth may seem too expensive, in the long run it's clear that leaving all this trash up there is going to have huge consequences to the development of space exploration and colonization. Those concepts may still seem science fiction for many, but as these simulations show, the current and future problem is very real, and could be extremely dangerous.

This is how it looks when orbital debris hits a spaceship, simulated in a laboratory.

[ESA Gallery, Space debris: assessing the risk, NASA, Wikipedia — via Space Travel and Slashdot]

• It navigated seemingly challenging terrain with relative ease, even if the ride was not so smooth for the passenger.
• The motion of the vehicle was a little disconcerting, as it didn't move in a conventional manner; climbing, sliding and dropping in an apparent erratic manner.
• The six wheels could be controlled independently to navigate really, really challenging space spots.
• The suspension is souped up to the galactic brim; the chassis can be raised a whopping, 28-inches in height.
• It's freaking mahoosive, weighing in at 4,500 pounds it is far too large to make it to the moon in its current state.
• The Lunar Chariot is using commercial parts—a cheap webcam and Earth-car grade tires that would never make the final draft, and neither would they survive out in the big old vacuum.

So, the Chariot is a long way off being the cruiser of choice for space travelers. Nevertheless, the test proves it is bad-ass; we're thinking we could use one right here on Earth. Now, to raise that $2 million purchase fee, as well as a ten-man design crew. Hmm, it's back to our crapmobile, me thinks. [NYT]