Interesting

The Curiosity Rover Landing

Landing will take place on 06:30 GMT (August 6th.)

NASA will be streaming live here:http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

The Mars Science Laboratory or Curiosity Rover is the largest payload ever delivered to the surface of a planet and it has a terrifyingly complicated descent and landing strategy. First, the atmosphere takes it from 13,000 mph to 2,000 mph. Then a parachute takes it down to 200 mph. The final, powered-descent stage lowers the craft to 21 feet above the surface, at which point it will be lowered by a tether and the rockets will detach and crash land elsewhere.

If the Curiosity survives it’s descent to Mars, it will be the most robust scientific tool to ever explore another planet. The size of a small car, the craft has a planned mission length of two years, during which time it could travel over 12 miles.

Curiosity’s goals are to study the geology and climate of Mars, to determine whether there was once life there, and to prepare for future human exploration of the Red Planet.

Google Street View in Antarctica

Antarctica is long known to be an inhospitable place of constant cold and wind and completely void of plant life. It is also supposed to be beautiful — filled with snowy vistas, blue-tinted glaciers, and penguins.

Google announced today that with the introduction of its new Google Maps feature people don’t need to gear up, survive the elements, and make the long journey to explore this corner of the world. They can simply fire up their computers and take a tour with Antarctic Street View.

One of the focuses of this special addition to Google Maps is to teach users about the history of Antarctic exploration and the people who first set up shop in this bleak environment.

Here’s what Google’s technical program manager for Street View Alex Starns wrote in a blog post:

In the winter of 1913, a British newspaper ran an advertisement to promote the latest imperial expedition to Antarctica, apparently placed by polar explorer Ernest Shackleton. It read, “Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success.” While the ad appears apocryphal, the dangerous nature of the journey to the South Pole is certainly not—as explorers like Roald Amundsen, Robert Falcon Scott and Shackleton himself discovered as they tried to become the first men to reach it.

Partnering with the Polar Geospatial Center at the University of Minnesota and the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust, Google has added 360-degree images of many historic spots, including the South Pole Telescope, Shackleton’s and Scott’s small wooden huts, Cape Royds Adelie Penguin Rookery, and the Ceremonial South Pole.

“They were built to withstand the drastic weather conditions only for the few short years that the explorers inhabited them,” Starns wrote, “but remarkably, after more than a century, the structures are still intact, along with well-preserved examples of the food, medicine, survival gear and equipment used during the expeditions.”

All of the images were taken with a lightweight tripod camera using a fisheye lens because it was impossible to use the typical Street View trikes in the snow-filled landscape.

These images and more information on the history of exploration outposts in the South Pole will be added to Google’s World Wonders Web site, which has other similar projects such as Kakadu National Park in Australia, Modern Mural paintings in Mexico City, and Stonehenge in England.

Google Maps’ Street View has recently launched several collaborations that take it beyond city streets. In March, it brought a remote region of Brazil’s Amazon to its maps and in February it took its cameras underwater to explore Australia’s Great Barrier Reef in a program called the Catlin Seaview Survey.

“The goal of these efforts is to provide scientists and travel (or penguin) enthusiasts all over the world with the most accurate, high-resolution data of these important historic locations,” Starns wrote. “With this access, schoolchildren as far as Bangalore can count penguin colonies on Snow Hill Island, and geologists in Georgia can trace sedimentary layers in the Dry Valleys from the comfort of their desks.”

HOW PROMETHEUS GOT ITS ATMOSPHERE

BY: SUSAN KARLIN

Having trouble figuring out the best off-world atmosphere to host your invading humans and indigenous aliens? Talk to the hand—Kevin Hand, Ridley Scott’s and James Cameron’s go-to astrobiologist.

Long before Prometheus launched, director Ridley Scott stopped by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA to talk a little exobiology.

Opening June 8 in the U.S., the prequel to Scott’s 1979 Alien chronicles an ill-fated exploration team that travels to a distant planet in search of humankind’s origin. To ground the plot in scientific plausibility, Scott turned to Kevin Hand, JPL’s deputy chief scientist for solar system exploration, to explain the kind of terrain, atmosphere, or ecosystem astronauts might encounter on a planet outside of our solar system.

“I met with Ridley and his creative team early in the process to see how science could be utilized in plotlines,” says Hand. “They had lots of questions about what it takes for humans to travel to distant worlds, how those worlds might be uninhabitable for humans, the constraints to consider when thinking about alien life, and how it might have adapted to that environment. It became a creative brainstorming session where we bounced ideas and questions off one another. My goal was to help them get the science right while maintaining a plot that tells a compelling story.”

Among the issues discussed were ways in which a localized portion of a human-friendly atmosphere might suddenly turn toxic. Hand cited volcanic outpouring of toxic gases. Scott also asked him for scientifically justifiable reasons a building interior could contain enough oxygen for astronauts to remove their helmets when the exterior atmosphere did not. Hand suggested water electrolysis (electricity splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen), and radioactive decay, which could also split water molecules.

“I haven’t seen the final film, so I don’t know what they incorporated,” says Hand. “Directors like James Cameron and Ridley Scott are dedicated to getting the science as right as possible, as part of the dialogue and conversation. At the same time you have to know when to let go of the science and allow things to be a fun, action-packed adventure. No one wants to listen to characters explaining five minutes of scientific concept.”

Hand is an established liaison to Hollywood. In addition to consulting on another Scott film in development, he’s also worked with James Cameron. Hand consulted on and appeared in Cameron’s 2005 IMAX documentary Aliens of the Deep, consulted on Avatar, and was among the scientists involved in his March expedition to the Pacific Ocean’s Challenger Deep, the deepest point on Earth. Hand, who holds a Ph.D. in geological and environmental sciences from Stanford University, has an expertise is planetary science and astrobiology, particularly the sub-surface oceans of Jupiter’s and Saturn’s respective moons, Europa and Enceladus.

Hollywood’s interest in scientific accuracy is a growing trend, in part, due to organizations such as Hollywood Health and Society and the Science and Entertainment Exchange that connect filmmakers and TV showrunners with scientists and physicians.

“We are becoming a more technological society, but I also think it makes for a better story if you get it right, because you appeal to the critical thinking skills of the audience,” says Hand. “It’s the difference between a mash-up bang-up science fiction film where people guffaw at everything that’s wrong scientifically, and a great science fiction film that tells an amazing story, while also expanding people’s understanding of science.”

Russians unveil space hotel. By Tiffany Lam

Plans to open the first-ever space hotel in 2016. But what’s there to do up there?
Russia’s space hotel, or Commercial Space Station, will be aimed at crazy-rich space tourists, as well as
corporate and industrial researchers. In other words, not you.

“Getting away from it all” may be a travel marketing cliché, but the phrase might take on a whole new meaning come 2016.

Russian firm Orbital Technologies plans to open the first space hotel in history in five year’s time.

The space hotel, or “Commercial Space Station,” as it’s officially called, will float 250 miles above Earth.

The hotel can accommodate a maximum of seven people at a time.

To check in, tourists will have to undergo special training that can take up to three months, depending on the type of spacecraft they fly to the hotel.

The firm says that stays can range from three days to six months.

On-board recreation

Spending your vacation in space will no doubt inspire travel stories like no other, but what’s there to do once you’re sealed in up there?

Not much, it turns out, apart from going online and watching TV.

“Most likely, there will be access to the Internet and other communications on the ground,” says Sergey Kostenko, CEO of Orbital Technologies, the company constructing the station.

“Menus will be chosen before the clients are launched,” Kostenko adds. “Food is prepared on the ground and shipped to space, dehydrated.” No impulsive late-night snacking then.

There will be no shower, but you can clean yourself with wet wipes. Fun!

You can’t seek solace in alcohol either, because it’s banned on board.

However, Kostenko says he hopes that the station can be a stopover for manned circumlunar flights, so making day trips to the far side of the moon and back may be a day-trip option.

Space industry cash cow

Orbital Technologies plans to use Russian Soyuz and Progress spacecrafts to transport passengers and workers to the “great gig in the sky,” although it does not rule out using other manned spacecraft made in the United States, Europe and China.

The firm is tight-lipped about how much it will cost to stay at the hotel, although the Russian government is hoping that the project can be a cash cow for its space exploration program.

“We consider the Commercial Space Station a very interesting project, encouraging private participation,” says Vitaly Davydov, Deputy Head of the Federal Space Agency of the Russian Federation. “It will attract private investment for the Russian space industry.”

Orbital Technologies will not confirm whether it has taken any reservations from customers yet, but says there are “many interested parties.”