Category Archives: space

Swatch Launches Space Collection

space, watch, , ,

Swatch logoSwatch has launched a five-watch space collection inspired by NASA and the exploration of space. On sale today in Swatch stores and from 8 June on-line, the watches feature the famous “worm” NASA logo. These are going to be hot.

The collection consists of two different model sets. The first set of three watches are Big Bold watches with Bioceramic 47 mm cases and take their cues from NASA flights and spacesuits. The Big Bold Chrono Extravehicular riffs on the spacesuits from the ISS; the Chrono Launch model uses the orange pumpkin suit from the Shuttle era; and the Jumpsuit uses the blue flight suits donned for ground-based activities.

Three wristwatches on the lunar surface
Image courtesy of Swatch

Bioceramic is Swatch’s latest innovation. It’s a new material composed of two-thirds ceramic along with one-third bio-sourced plastic from castor oil. Swatch says that it’s “lightweight, resilient and resistant with a silk-like touch”.

The second set are more traditional Swatch models: the Space Race is white with black accents and a silver dial in a 41 mm case. The Take Me To The Moon model comes with a 34 mm transparent case.

Two wristwatches on lunar surface
Image courtesy of Swatch

Prices are as follows:

  • Extravehicular – GB£137
  • Launch – GB£141
  • Jumpsuit – GB£108
  • Space Race – GB£79
  • Take Me To The Moon – GB£70

Available now from Swatch stores and on-line from 8 June. I think these will sell well, so if you are interested, I wouldn’t hang around.

13 Minutes to the Moon – Apollo 13

Podcast, space, ,

For the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 landing on the moon, the BBC World Service produced an excellent podcast called 13 Minutes to the Moon, based on interviews and recordings from the people who were there including Michael Collins, Jim Lovell and Poppy Northcutt who was the first woman to work as an engineer in an operational support role in NASA’s Mission Control.

To commemorate the amazing story of Apollo 13, there’s now a second season of programmes which reports on the events as they unfolded. Using both new interviews, archive material and recordings from the time, the episodes tell the story of what happened 200,000 miles from Earth when an oxygen tank exploded in the command module, Odyssey, leaving the spacecraft critically damaged. The interviews with the people who were there are just incredible, including Jim Lovell, his wife Marilyn, Fred Haise, Ken Mattingly and the team in Mission Control. Sadly the third member of the crew, Jack Swigert died in 1982.

As an aside, I was very surprised to discover that the film Apollo 13 is 25 years old now. I watched it recently and it holds up well – the launch sequence is phenomenal.

Photo credit: NASA. Scans by NASA and Ed Hengeveld.

Satellite that will Harpoon Space Junk Begins Test Flight

space

The RemoveDEBRIS satellite was deployed from the International Space Station on June 20, 2018. This was the third major micro satellite deployment for NanoRacks (a Houston-based company coordinating RemoveDEBRIS’ deployment) and the largest satellite that has been deployed from the ISS.

RemoveDEBRIS is one of the world’s first attempts to address the build-up of space debris orbiting Earth.

Space.com reported that RemoveDEBRIS will demonstrate active space debris-removal technologies, including a harpoon, a net, and a drag sail.

The ground controllers will spend the next two months switching on all the satellite’s subsystems and checking that they work as designed, according to Guglielmo Aglietti, director of the Surrey Space Centre at the University of Surrey and principal investigator of the European Union-funded, 5.2-million- euro ($18.7 million) mission.

Experiments are expected to start in September. The debris-catching net equipment, which was developed by Airbus in Germany, will be conducted in October. The satellite will release a cubesat, let it drift away a small distance, and then eject the net to capture the cubesat.

In December, RemoveDEBRIS will test vision-based navigation technologies developed by Airbus in France. The satellite will use a set of 2D cameras and a 3D lidar technology to track a second cubesat as it floats away from the main satellite.

In February of 2019, RemoveDEBRIS will fire a harpoon into a panel that will deploy from the main spacecraft attached to a boom. Sometime in March 2019, RemoveDEBRIS will deploy a sail, which will speed up its deorbiting ability.

Morgan Freeman Brings You the Universe

space

http://youtu.be/VuwU3e_ojuo

Mankind has long been at the mercy of the cosmos – subject to the often violent happenings of the boundless universe that exists beyond the confines of Earth’s atmosphere. But today humans are taking huge steps to claim space for their own design, evolution and survival in what is becoming a new race for space. In the all-new three-part special MAN VS. THE UNIVERSE, world premiering Wednesday, August 13 at 10 PM ET/PT, Science Channel is bringing viewers a mind-blowing look at the innovative, high-tech work private businesses, engineers and scientists are doing to occupy Mars, mine the Moon’s fertile grounds and keep asteroids from destroying life on Earth.

“Space truly is the final frontier for humans,” said Rita Mullin, General Manager, Science Channel. “For the first time ever we’re taking proactive steps to protect ourselves from its perils, and use its vast resources to ensure our survival. This process features extraordinary ideas driven by astonishing feats of technology and engineering. We hope MAN VS. THE UNIVERSE captures some of the remarkable work happening right now in this new race for space, and gives viewers an appreciation for the incredibly smart, creative, driven people doing this work.”

MAN VS. THE UNIVERSE is an epic three-part miniseries from Science Channel and Revelations Entertainment, the producers of the critically acclaimed, Emmy-Award nominated series THROUGH THE WORMHOLE WITH MORGAN FREEMAN that unveils an unprecedented era of space exploration happening right now. In MAN VS. THE UNIVERSE viewers go inside the race to the Moon where the grand prize offers a total of $30 million in winnings to the first privately funded teams to land a robot on the Moon that successfully travels more than 500 meters (1,640 ft) and transmits back high-definition images and video. Deeper in our galaxy lies Mars, with an atmosphere 100 times thinner than Earth’s, air that is almost pure carbon dioxide and an average temperature of minus 80 degrees, colonizing this planet will be no picnic. MAN VS. THE UNIVERSE explores how high tech spacesuits are being created so humans can live comfortably in this environment 24/7, while we experiment turning Martian soil into water. MAN VS. THE UNIVERSE is also keeping an eye on our home planet as engineers and scientists prepare for the next mega asteroid attack, similar to what killed off the dinosaurs. They are pushing the limits trying to create an enormous capture bag – a robotic vehicle that will go out and snag an asteroid partway between Earth and Mars, and drag it back to orbit the moon. If that doesn’t work, Plan B is DE-STAR, a massive solar-powered array of laser beams that vaporize asteroids ten times larger than a football field.

Full-length Felix Bomgartner helmet cam video released

space, ,

Just over one year ago, Felix Bomgartner rode his Red Bull Stratos balloon to the staggering height of 128,000 feet and then leaped out, free-falling from the stratosphere. It was the highest skydive ever made and, thanks to the extremely thin atmosphere, Bomgartner quickly broke the record for the fastest freefall at just over 840 MPH.

Prior to now, bit and pieces of the footage recorded by Bomgartner’s helmet cam have been released, but now, on the heels of the documentary release, the full nine-minute video has been released.

Astronomer Phil Plait points out that “Baumgartner accelerates to a velocity of 700 km/hr in a mere 20 seconds. That means he was accelerating at an average of about 9.7 meters per second per second — just about what you’d expect for an object falling to Earth in a vacuum, where the only force is that of gravity”.

While many news agencies were quick to describe this jump as “from the edge of space”, Plait also points out that space begins at a height of 100 KM and Bomgartner leaped from 39 KM. That doesn’t make it any less cool, of course, just a technical aspect of the perspective. If you are high enough to see the curvature of the earth, then its not somewhere most people would be comfortable with being, let alone jumping from.