Could Be Nothing, Could Be A Really Bad Something

RoboAction

Painting series by Dragan Ilić features abstracted mark-making using an industrial robot, sometimes carrying and guiding the artist himself:

The artist constantly transposes into the third dimension his decade’s long-running conceptual practice based on the usage of pencils as the basic draftsman’s tool, starting primarily with the media of performance art, installation and sculpture in extended field. Gradually, over the years, his expressive and mechanical compositions have become even more advanced with the development of modules, diverse in shape and sizes, devices designed for the task of mounting and holding his drawing tools, which has led ultimately to the construction of an appropriate drawing machine. Construed for non-artistic purposes, these robots have been reshaped into special draftsmanship implements with which the author is capable of processing his ideas at far greater speed and with considerably greater precision. The metamorphosis of the artistic work is positioned at a point where human and machine activity intersects, resulting in an interaction that is essentially based on the need to transcend the limitations of the human body. 

More Here

Mission Possible: Redirecting an Asteroid

As part of our Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), we plan to send a robotic spacecraft to an asteroid tens of millions of miles away from Earth, capture a multi-ton boulder and bring it to an orbit near the moon for future crew exploration.

This mission to visit a large near-Earth asteroid is part of our plan to advance the new technologies and spaceflight experience needed for a human mission to the Martian system in the 2030s.

How exactly will it work?

The robotic spacecraft, powered by the most advanced solar electric propulsion system, will travel for about 18 months to the target asteroid.

After the spacecraft arrives and the multi-ton boulder is collected from the surface, the spacecraft will hover near the asteroid to create a gravitational attraction that will slightly change the asteroid’s trajectory.

After the enhanced gravity tractor demonstration is compete, the robotic vehicle will deliver the boulder into a stable orbit near the moon. During the transit, the boulder will be further imaged and studied by the spacecraft.

Astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft will launch on the Space Launch System rocket to explore the returned boulder.

Orion will dock with the robotic vehicle that still has the boulder in its grasp. 

While docked, two crew members on spacewalks will explore the boulder and collect samples to bring back to Earth for further study.

The astronauts and collected samples will return to Earth in the Orion spacecraft.

How will ARM help us send humans to Mars in the 2030s?

This mission will demonstrate future Mars-level exploration missions closer to home and will fly a mission with technologies and real life operational constraints that we’ll encounter on the way to the Red Planet. A few of the capabilities it will help us test include: 

Solar Electric Propulsion – Using advanced Solar Electric Propulsion (SEP) technologies is an important part of future missions to send larger payloads into deep space and to the Mars system. Unlike chemical propulsion, which uses combustion and a nozzle to generate thrust, SEP uses electricity from solar arrays to create electromagnetic fields to accelerate and expel charged atoms (ions) to create a very low thrust with a very efficient use of propellant.

Trajectory and Navigation – When we move the massive asteroid boulder using low-thrust propulsion and leveraging the gravity fields of Earth and the moon, we’ll validate critical technologies for the future Mars missions. 

Advances in Spacesuits – Spacesuits designed to operate in deep space and for the Mars surface will require upgrades to the portable life support system (PLSS). We are working on advanced PLSS that will protect astronauts on Mars or in deep space by improving carbon dioxide removal, humidity control and oxygen regulation. We are also improving mobility by evaluating advances in gloves to improve thermal capacity and dexterity. 

Sample Collection and Containment Techniques – This experience will help us prepare to return samples from Mars through the development of new techniques for safe sample collection and containment. These techniques will ensure that humans do not contaminate the samples with microbes from Earth, while protecting our planet from any potential hazards in the samples that are returned. 

Rendezvous and Docking Capabilities – Future human missions to Mars will require new capabilities to rendezvous and dock spacecraft in deep space. We will advance the current system we’ve developed with the international partners aboard the International Space Station. 

Moving from spaceflight a couple hundred miles off Earth to the proving ground environment (40,000 miles beyond the moon) will allow us to start accumulating experience farther than humans have ever traveled in space.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

USADance (and I’m assuming the national organizations for other countries) still do this! The local chapters have to hold dances, and at least one of those a year has to be a formal: http://usadance.org/chapters/find-a-local-chapter/

You know what I wish we still had? Balls.

Like formal balls from fairytails. Instead of going to a club or a bar, you would go to a ballroom. There’d be music and dancing, and everyone could wear fancy clothes. There could be masquerades, where you could meet new people and reveal your real identity at the end of the night. There could be gay/lesbian balls and gothic balls and space fantasy balls. Just, formal balls. 

Postcards that were anti-women-voting, circa 1900s through 1920

Getting to Mars: What It’ll Take

Join us as we take a closer look at the next steps in our journey to the Red Planet:

The journey to Mars crosses three thresholds, each with increasing challenges as humans move farther from Earth. We’re managing these challenges by developing and demonstrating capabilities in incremental steps:

Earth Reliant

Earth Reliant exploration is focused on research aboard the International Space Station. From this world-class microgravity laboratory, we are testing technologies and advancing human health and performance research that will enable deep space, long duration missions.

On the space station, we are advancing human health and behavioral research for Mars-class missions. We are pushing the state-of-the-art life support systems, printing 3-D parts and analyzing material handling techniques.

Proving Ground

In the Proving Ground, we will learn to conduct complex operations in a deep space environment that allows crews to return to Earth in a matter of days. Primarily operating in cislunar space (the volume of space around the moon). We will advance and validate the capabilities required for humans to live and work at distances much farther away from our home planet…such as at Mars.

Earth Independent

Earth Independent activities build on what we learn on the space station and in deep space to enable human missions to the Mars vicinity, possibly to low-Mars orbit or one of the Martian moons, and eventually the Martian surface. Future Mars missions will represent a collaborative effort between us and our partners.

Did you know….that through our robotic missions, we have already been on and around Mars for 40 years! Taking nearly every opportunity to send orbiters, landers and rovers with increasingly complex experiments and sensing systems. These orbiters and rovers have returned vital data about the Martian environment, helping us understand what challenges we may face and resources we may encounter.

Through the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), we will demonstrate an advanced solar electric propulsion capability that will be a critical component of our journey to Mars. ARM will also provide an unprecedented opportunity for us to validate new spacewalk and sample handling techniques as astronauts investigate several tons of an asteroid boulder.

Living and working in space require accepting risks – and the journey to Mars is worth the risks. A new and powerful space transportation system is key to the journey, but we will also need to learn new ways of operating in space.

We Need You!

In the future, Mars will need all kinds of explorers, farmers, surveyors, teachers…but most of all YOU! As we overcome the challenges associated with traveling to deep space, we will still need the next generation of explorers to join us on this journey. Come with us on the journey to Mars as we explore with robots and send humans there one day.

Join us as we go behind-the-scenes:

We’re offering a behind-the-scenes look Thursday, Aug. 18 at our journey to Mars. Join us for the following events:

Journey to Mars Televised Event at 9:30 a.m. EDT Join in as we host a conversation about the numerous efforts enabling exploration of the Red Planet. Use #askNASA to ask your questions! Tune in HERE.

Facebook Live at 1:30 p.m. EDT Join in as we showcase the work and exhibits at our Michoud Assembly Facility. Participate HERE.

Hot Fire Test of an RS-25 Engine at 6 p.m. EDT The 7.5-minute test is part of a series of tests designed to put the upgraded former space shuttle engines through the rigorous temperature and pressure conditions they will experience during a launch. Watch HERE.  

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Biomimicry in action to aid robots in walking

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZBD2tcKOU4)

It’s amazing how crafty humans are! [Via @veritablehokum]

Remember back in August when the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) asked for the public’s input on where future subways in the city might run by means of an interactive “draw a subway map” tool? 

Well, thy’ve just released the collated results of that survey – wich had some 2,600 respondents – as a heat map, and the results are certainly definitive. It would seem that almost everyone wants a subway line along the length of Geary Boulevard, with another major “crosstown” connection running south along 19th Avenue. An extension of the Central Subway to Fort Mason also seems popular, as is – if you combined all the disparate routes into one – a second Transbay Tube. 

Though these corridors have been identified, there’s still a lot more planning and funding work to be done before any concrete plans start to take shape. Still, an interesting conclusion to this little public outreach exercise! There’s also an online GIS-based version of this map showing all of the submitted ideas, but it takes forever to load all 2,600 of them!

Source: SFconnect website

At what point did Britain and France stop always being on the brink of war with each other?

He [Wilhelm II] returned to Europe [from his tour of the Holy Land] in autumn to find Britain on the point of war with France over a solitary little fort in the middle of nowhere in southern Sudan called Fashoda. Fashoda was the point where French plans to dominate Africa east to west, from Dakar to Djibouti, intersected with British plans to connect South Africa to Cairo.

A French troop occupied the fort; a British one sat outside it – very politely. The two commanders took tea together.

The quote is taken from George, Nicholas and Wilhelm: Three Royal Cousins and the Road to World War I by Miranda Carter.

50, 100 years down the line, will this be in the history books? Will the "War on terror" be over?

Battle of Mosul begins as forces push toward Islamic State stronghold.