Space & Spaceflight

Explore the Dark Side of Your Desk With This Wooden Curiosity Model

If you want a Curiosity rover of your own but don’t quite have NASA’s budget, you can save yourself $2,499,999,850 by going with designer Arnold Patrick Martin’s beautiful wooden model. It doesn’t move, the cameras don’t work, and it probably won’t survive a trip to Mars, but it’s also only $150. And believe it or…

What New York City Would Look Like on Other Planets

The most iconic skyline in the world (or at least in America) would look completely different if it was on another world. On Venus, New York City would be a yellow haze, on Mercury would look glow in the dark, on Mars would make everything rusty and on Uranus and Neptune would totally obliterate the…

This Subterranean Telescope May Have Just Seen Humanity’s First Cosmic Neutrino

Catching a glimpse of even regular neutrinos—low-energy particles generated in the atmosphere—is difficult enough, but spotting a “cosmic neutrino” left over from the Big Bang has been downright impossible. That is until this cubic kilometer buried under Antartica’s frozen wastes started looking. Known as the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, this $279 million telescope is located under…

Skylab, America’s First Space Station, Launched 40 Years Ago Today

Before there was the International Space Station, there was Skylab, America’s first long-term research base in space. It launched 40 years ago today, on May 14, 1973, soaring into the sky on the last of the Apollo-era Saturn V rockets. Skylab orbited the Earth until 1979, and welcomed three manned missions of three crew members…

These Stamps Hail The Skylab Missions In 13 Awesome Ways

NASA launched the unmanned Skylab-1 into orbit by a Saturn V booster 40 years ago today, on May 14, 1973, from Kennedy Space Center. It was the United States’s first foray into significant scientific research in microgravity. The following three Skylab crews proved humans could live and work effectively for long durations in space, and…

Was Commander Hadfield’s Performance of Space Oddity the Most Expensive Music Video Ever?

Commander Chris Hadfield‘s cover version of Space Oddity took the internet by storm yesterday, but it got a lot of people thinking: does it amount to the most expensive music video ever made? http://gizmodo.com/preview/was-commander-hadfield-s-performance-of-space-oddity-th-505329292?rev=1368523119 Fortunately, Randall Munroe of XKCD fame has set his mind to the task of answering that question on his What If?…

Soyuz Capsule Returns Chris Hadfield and Crew Safely Back to Earth

After inspiring all of us on Earth, Commander Chris Hadfield and crew have finally re-joined us here. The Soyuz space capsule landed safely at 10:31 PM EDT in Kazakhstan. Hadfield had spent 144 days on the ISS, 2,336 orbits around the planet and totaled up around 62 million miles. That’s a lot of miles! https://gizmodo.com/how-chris-hadfield-made-us-care-about-astronauts-again-504479419…

A Supercut of All of Astronaut Chris Hadfield’s Best Moments in Space

Commander Chris Hadfield and the rest of the Expedition 35 team are headed home today. We’ve got a special place in our hearts for Hadfield and his silly and sublime dispatches from space, so we put together a supercut of all the best times to remember him by. Thanks, Chris. https://gizmodo.com/how-chris-hadfield-made-us-care-about-astronauts-again-504479419 Video edited by Michael…

How Chris Hadfield Made Us Care About Astronauts Again

It was a simple 31-second clip, uploaded to YouTube in early January—a watch flopping weightlessly around its owner’s wrist, the first such video from Commander Chris Hadfield aboard the International Space Station. No explanation, no context, just metal links and a watch face swishing around a hairy Canadian arm like a tangled length of seaweed.…

The Dust On Mars Would Be Dangerous To Human Visitors

It’s going to take more than a Swiffer to deal with this situation. Researchers and public health experts at the Humans 2 Mars Summit (H2M) grappled with the question of how to deal with Martian dust if a manned mission to Mars could actually get off the ground by 2030. The group raised concerns that…

What Would Be Different About A Baby Born In Space?

Astronauts are usually pretty busy while they’re off planet so there hasn’t been a lot of time to, um, look into this stuff, but it’s unclear whether humans can procreate in weightless conditions. Apparently, you can’t just march into space like you own it and do whatever you want. Vsauce is taking on the question…

The Photos From Today’s Emergency Spacewalk Are Totally Awe-Inspiring

When astronauts Chris Cassidy and Tom Marshburn left the ISS today to go fix a leaky ammonia pump all quicklike, everyone’s favorite YouTubing Canadian Commander, Chris Hadfield, stayed inside to keep things going there. But, as he is wont to do, he took some seriously awesome shots of the spacewalkers at work. https://gizmodo.com/watch-nasas-emergency-iss-spacewalk-live-right-now-501627379 Above is…

The super impromptu spacewalk to fix up the ISS’s broken ammonia pump was a success. The new pump is in place with no leaks to speak of and our walkers are back inside.

Barns Are Red Because of How Stars Explode

We all know that barns are usually red. But why? Well, the answer is a little more complicated than you might think, but basically it’s because of nuclear fusion. Googler Yonatan Zunger took the time to explain the whole thing in great detail on Google+, and the train of thought goes a little something like…

Watch NASA’s Emergency ISS Spacewalk Live Right Now (Updating)

Two days ago, astronauts on the ISS discovered some little white flakes suspiciously floating away from the station. And now, they’re already floating outside in zero gravity to fix it. From planning to go-time, this has been the most impromptu spacewalk in NASA history, and you can tune in below. https://gizmodo.com/the-international-space-station-has-an-ammonia-leak-499162045 Free live streaming by…

ISS Astronauts Preparing Emergency Spacewalk to Fix Critical System

Yesterday, astronauts aboard the International Space Station noticed odd flakes floating about outside, which turned out to be ammonia leaking out of the radiator lines of the space station’s power system. Now, after a day of deliberation, it turns out two astronauts will leave the ISS, and brave the great abyss to try to fix…

What Space Does to Each of Your Five Senses

Commander of the International Space Station and awesome-stronaut Chris Hadfield just finished a weeklong series called “Senses in Space,” where he describes what spending a long time in space does to each of your perceptions. And apparently, space is generally pretty bad for you. In the following five videos, Hadfield talks about blurred vision, loss…

NASA’s Space Exploration Vehicle: Pimp My Rover

After spending all that time, money and effort delivering a crew of astronauts millions of miles through space to some distant celestial body, do we really expect them to trundle around like a pack of schmucks once they get there? Not a chance. That’s why NASA’s next explorers will roll deep in the Space Exploration…

One Tiny But Vital Safety Check Before Going To The Moon

This item from the upcoming RR Space & Aviation Auction is one of the most interesting lots. What we see is a mission-critical X-ray image of Armstrong’s space suit connections, portion of Armstrong’s A7L space suit torso showing the neck ring and the suit’s PLSS and OPS inlets, taken only nine days before the launch…

The ISS Has Ditched Windows Entirely–For Linux

The United Space Alliance has decided to stop using all Windows computers aboard the ISS, in favour of Linux—to ensure it’s systems are “stable and reliable”. Ouch. The decision will see “dozens of laptops” change from running Windows XP to Debian 6, reports Extreme Tech. There are already Linux systems aboard the ISS, but from…