The Week: Most Recent Outer Space

SpaceX's successful launch: 4 predictions for what's next

The Week — Tue, 22 May 2012 16:25:00 -0400

For the first time ever, a privately owned spacecraft successfully blasted off Tuesday, representing a monumental transition in the future of space travel. SpaceX's Falcon 9 launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., carrying a cone-shaped space capsule, named Dragon, filled with supplies headed for the International Space Station. Here, four predictions about what it all means:

1. We'll soon welcome a new generation of rocketeers...
"NASA isn't the only game in town anymore," says Pete Spotts at The Christian Science Monitor. Rocket scientists, aerospace engineers, and aspiring...

SpaceX's historic launch: By the numbers

The Week — Mon, 21 May 2012 17:20:00 -0400

All nine of the Falcon 9 rocket's engines were roaring and ready to blast off on Saturday when a valve malfunction caused SpaceX's computers to pull the plug at the last possible second. The privately-owned, California-based company will attempt a second launch early Tuesday morning at Florida's Kennedy Space Center where, if all goes well, the rocket and attached Dragon cargo capsule will officially begin a two-week trek to the International Space Station (ISS). The mission potentially marks the dawn of a new era for space travel, in which a resource-strapped NASA leans more heavily on the private...

The ambitious plan to build Star Trek's USS Enterprise

The Week — Wed, 16 May 2012 07:40:00 -0400

If Elon Musk's space exploration company SpaceX is any indication, the future of space travel is in the hands of people with big imaginations. And nobody's vision is quite as ambitious as one engineer who has outlined an elaborate plan to build Star Trek's USS Enterprise, which he says could be ready to fly within the next 20 years. "We have the technological reach to build the first generation of the spaceship... so let's do it," writes BTE Dan on his website, BuildTheEnterprise.org (which has been loading intermittently because of heavy traffic). The website includes conceptual blueprints...

SpaceX: Should we cheer private space flight?

The Week — Mon, 14 May 2012 10:42:00 -0400

On the same day that a teary-eyed NASA crew powered down the last space shuttle, Endeavor, for the last time, the U.S. space agency greenlit the May 19 launch of the shuttle fleet's first private successor, the SpaceX Dragon. If all goes according to plan, the unmanned Dragon cargo capsule will launch atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, orbit the Earth, then dock at the International Space Station, whose crew will unload the enclosed supplies and send the capsule back for a splash landing off the coast of California. SpaceX, owned by PayPal co-founder Elon Musk, has also announced a partnership with...

The dark matter pelting your body right now: A guide

The Week — Thu, 03 May 2012 07:38:00 -0400

Particles known as dark matter are flying through your body as often as once a minute, claims new research. Old theories suggested that these particles collided with particles in our body maybe once in a lifetime, but now, a team of experts argues that the previous estimates were way too low. Here's what you should know:

What is dark matter?
Think of dark matter as the invisible glue that holds the cosmos together, allowing things like fast-spinning galaxies to retain their shape. Evidence of dark matter's existence first emerged in the 1930s, when researchers tried to calculate the total mass...

NASA's dwindling budget: Why has America stopped reaching for the stars?

The Week — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 12:35:00 -0400

I STUDY THE universe for a living. I've served on two presidential commissions that studied space exploration, but at heart I'm an academic. Being an academic means I don't wield power over person, place, or thing. I don't command armies; I don't lead labor unions. All I have is the power of thought.

And here's my thought: As a nation, we need to keep reaching for the stars, to push back our boundaries and stake out new frontiers. In the current economic and political climate, it might be difficult to imagine much support for a renewed commitment to space — even in the face of a direct...

Asteroid mining: Is there money to be made in space?

The Week — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 13:47:00 -0400

An intriguing new company called Planetary Resources Inc. has some questions to answer at its public unveiling on Tuesday, not least of which is: What does the firm do, anyway? Given its somewhat cryptic pledge to "overlay two critical sectors — space exploration and natural resources," most are assuming that the company hopes to pioneer the field of mining asteroids for metals and minerals. If that sounds like a ridiculous "page out of a sci-fi novel or a Hollywood movie scene," says Amir Efrati in The Wall Street Journal, Planetary Resources boasts enough space experts and deep-pocketed...

The space shuttle Discovery's bittersweet final flight over D.C.

The Week — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 17:25:00 -0400

Applause erupted on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., Tuesday morning as a space shuttle mounted on the back of a modified 747 airplane flew over the nation's capital. The space shuttle Discovery was en route to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum annex near Dulles Airport, its new permanent home. (Watch the video below.) It marked the final flight for the shuttle, which NASA retired in March 2011. Here, a guide to the "extraordinary sight" and the Discovery's legacy:

Why is Discovery important?
Discovery first flew in August 1984, completed 39 trips into space, and remains...

Coming soon: A telescope that crunches more data than the entire internet?

The Week — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 15:40:00 -0400

When it comes to telescopes, bigger is always better. That's why IBM is partnering with Netherlands-based astronomy institute ASTRON to develop the largest and most powerful telescope system the world has ever seen. Here, a look at the massive undertaking:

How big would this telescope be?
The supercomputing radio telescope, called the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), wouldn't be a traditional telescope. Instead, it would be a system of thousands of dishes spread across 3,000 kilometers, and linked together to get an enormously rich view of our universe. IBM and ASTRON, with the aid of an...

The gigantic solar tornado that could devour five Earths

The Week — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 16:53:00 -0400

The video: For the first time ever, a massive solar tornado was caught on camera, dramatizing the hellish power of the sun. This isn't a garden variety twister: This gargantuan writhing mass of super-scorching gas, many times the width of our planet, extended 125,000 miles from the sun's surface, or about half the distance between the Earth and the moon, and its temperature ranged from 90,000 to 3.6 million degrees Fahrenheit. And while our tornados top out at 150 miles per hour, this monster — referred to by scientists as a "beast" — reached an estimated speed of 186,000 miles per...

Does space travel damage eyesight?

The Week — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 12:46:00 -0400

If you were eyeing a $200,000 Virgin Galactic ticket to the stars, you might want to read on. A new study from the University of Texas suggests that astronauts who spend more than 30 days in a weightless, outer-space environment encounter serious ocular problems. Here's what you should know:

How does outer space affect the human body?
Researchers already know that spending long periods of time in a zero-gravity environment — such as that inside the International Space Station (ISS) — results in loss of bone density and damage to the body's muscles. That's partly why stays aboard the...

The 'chilling' new home video of the '86 Challenger explosion

The Week — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 15:05:00 -0400

The video: In January 1986, Jeffrey Ault, a 19-year-old Disneyland employee, traveled from California to Florida to witness the launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger — and brought along his Super 8 camera. "I was hoping to see an event that I would remember for the rest of my life," Ault tells The Huffington Post. "I did. Just not the way I would have liked to." The vintage footage that Ault captured depicts the tragic explosion — caused 73 seconds after liftoff by a faulty seal in one of the shuttle's rockets, and killing all seven astronauts onboard — from Ault's...

Did a rare 'supermoon' sink the Titanic?

The Week — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 07:00:00 -0500

A century has passed since the Titanic sank, killing 1,500 passengers and crew members. But a pair of Texas State University astronomers, Olson David and Russell Descher, have a brand new theory on what set the tragedy in motion. They say a rare lunar event may have put the ship on its catastrophic collision course with an iceberg. Here's how a once-in-a-lifetime "supermoon" may have spelled doom for the most famous maiden voyage in history:

What's a supermoon?
It's a term used to describe a full (or new) moon that occurs when the moon is making its closest approach to Earth, says Natalie...

NASA's 'unacceptable' security lapses: By the numbers

The Week — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 07:45:00 -0500

NASA is a gold mine of space-age secrets, so one might expect it to have an impenetrable security system. But the agency's inspector general, Paul Martin, last week told a House subcommittee of a litany of security breaches between 2009 and 2011, including a stolen laptop containing command and control codes for the International Space Station. "NASA's position as an agency for national edification of all things space makes it an especially porous and attractive target for hackers and thieves," says Heather McLellan at the Escapist. And "such a high volume of breaches is unacceptable for an agency...

Could a 'humongous' asteroid really hit Earth in 2040?

The Week — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 13:45:00 -0500

Wary scientists are keeping their eyes on a giant asteroid that has a teeny-tiny chance of smashing into Earth in 2040. The "humongous" rock's trajectory is apparently worrisome enough that some experts are already calling for ideas on how to deflect it. Here's everything you need to know about this potentially Earth-threatening asteroid:

How big of a threat is it?
Scientists are unsure of the 460-foot-wide rock's exact composition, or how devastating its impact would be. But after observing the space rock's orbit, they've calculated a 1-in-625 chance that the asteroid called 2011...

Why do astronauts crave spicy food?

The Week — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 13:03:00 -0500

Zero-gravity does a lot of weird things to the human body. It even makes astronauts suspended in space crave foods they wouldn't necessarily find themselves snacking on here on Earth — particularly hot sauce. What is it, exactly, that causes space explorers to salivate over Tabasco? Here, a brief guide:

Astronauts crave hot sauce?
They do. In one memorable example aboard the International Space Station in 2002, the fate of the visiting crew of the space shuttle Atlantis briefly hinged on the fiery condiment. Astronaut Peggy Whitson demanded that the Atlantis crew pony up a resupply of the...