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space
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I’m Seriously Considering Going To Space
14 May 2012 by Seth Rotherham / 2 Comments
That’s right, I am officially considering it. I spent some time with Virgin Galactic‘s Commerical Director, Stephen Attenborough (no relation, but an appropriate coincidence, nonetheless) the other day, as we shot the breeze at the Mount Nelson hotel. ETV News captured our conversation, so keep an eye out for the Tech Report on Thursday nights (channel […]
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Asteroid Mining Could Save The World’s Economy
23 Apr 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Time-tested wisdom says the sky’s the limit. However, a group of billionaires are looking to change that as they launch the first ever venture to mine asteroids, in space. For real. Click through for the details.
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Space Shuttle Discovery’s Final, Majestic Flight [VIDEO]
19 Apr 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 1 Comment
Earlier this week, space shuttle Discovery took its final flight, from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to Dulles International Airport, on the back of a 747. That’s a space shuttle piggybacking on a jumbo jet, and it was awesome. Click through for the video.
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Brilliant Solar Flares Exploded From The Sun Yesterday [VIDEO]
18 Apr 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 1 Comment
Yesterday NASA managed to capture the clearest-yet footage of a solar flare in process after magnetic fields on the Sun’s northeastern curve exploded in huge streams of plasma and sun stuff. The footage only accounts for about five seconds of explosion, but it’s very, very cool, both in and out of time-lapse.
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Amazing Time Lapse Shot From The ISS [VIDEO]
22 Mar 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Ease back into the remainder of the week with this gorgeous time lapse video shot from the ISS in low orbit over earth. Bask in the beauty of our planet from a point of view that preciously few of us will ever get to experience in real life.
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Take A Peek Inside America’s First Private Spaceship [PICS]
19 Mar 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Ever since NASA cancelled their Space Shuttle Program two years ago, the Americans have been searching for an alternative option for space travel to save them from teaming up with their cosmic nemesis Russia. On 16 March, the first viable option presented itself and blew the competition away.
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First Commercial Spaceship To Launch To Space Station April 30
16 Mar 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
NASA officials have announced that the first launch of a commercially built space capsule to the International Space Station is scheduled for the end of April. California-based Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) are the dudes responsible for the capsule in question, the unmanned Dragon spacecraft.
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Man Completes 21,8km Space Jump! [PICS]
16 Mar 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 1 Comment
In a society of thrill-seekers, bigger (or longer, or higher, or faster) is always better. Many South Africans revel in the fact that the country is home to the highest bungee jump in the world, it also boasts some of the best sky-diving and BASE-jumping opportunities available (just ask Jeb). But, there’s always this one guy who takes things to the next level, like jumping from space…
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NASA Unveils Space Atlas [Amazing PICS]
15 Mar 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Bad. Ass. NASA has released a new space atlas, detailing over 560 million stars, galaxies and asteroids, many never seen before. The 18 000 awesome images were taken by NASA’s infrared space telescope, the Wide-field Survey Explorer (WISE). Take a look at some of the incredible space-images after the space-jump.
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NASA: The World Won’t End In 2012 [VIDEO]
09 Mar 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 1 Comment
Hey Doomsdayers, guess what? The world isn’t going to end in 2012, or any time soon for that matter. At least that’s according to a NASA astrophysicist, who I’d assume has a library that smells of rich mahogany and is filled with many leather-bound books, and also a degree in astrophysics.
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NASA Now Recruiting Chefs For Mars
22 Feb 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
It’s normally the scientists and engineers that go up into space, but NASA has realised that while people are up there, they need to eat. Whilst a little ahead of itself, a study has opened in Hawaii to find a chef for Mars. Do you have what it takes?
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SpaceX Test-Fires ‘Super’ Rocket Engines [VIDEO]
03 Feb 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Spaceflight start-up, SpaceX – those guys who want to put a person on Mars in the next decade or two – has been demonstrating the potency of its SuperDraco rockets at their test facility in Texas. Take a look at the fancily-named rockets in action after the jump.
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Amazing New High-Definition Photo Of Earth
27 Jan 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Looks like the iPhone is going to have to update its default lock-screen. A new 64-megapixel, high-definition version of the “Blue Marble” has been taken from the newest Earth observation satellite, Suomi NPP, 824 kilometres above the earth. It’s a stunning photo of the planet, built out of several composite “swaths.”
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Time-Lapse Of ISS Passing Over Stormy Africa [VIDEO]
24 Jan 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Start your Tuesday the way your forefathers did, with an amazing time-lapse video of the International Space Station passing over a storm-struck African continent with the Milky Way popping in to say hello in the background. Also visible is Comet Lovejoy, two weeks after its near-fatal sunburn. Please, go look. You’ll feel better about being up.
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iPad Survives 30km Drop From Space [VIDEO]
10 Jan 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 8 Comments
It’s nice that companies are willing to go to insane lengths to try and make us buy their things. Take G-Form, who wrapped up an Apple tablet in their ‘Extreme Edge’ case, and launched it into space on a weather balloon before dropping it back to earth to prove how extreme their case really is.
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NASA Goes Open-Source
09 Jan 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
NASA has launched an open-source portal to make it easier for agencies to evaluate and improve upon its projects. The initial setup works as a simple directory of open-sourced projects in development, which is hoped to expand into a platform for tracking, hosting and planning the various pieces of software created by the American space agency.
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Russian Satellite Will Fall To Earth Next Week
06 Jan 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Phobos-Grunt, the 13-ton, US$ 170 million Russian space probe that was launched into orbit and promptly crippled by failed auxiliary engines, is due to crash back onto Earth soon. Russian space authorities have named January 15th as the likely re-entry date. In case you thought that your fears of high-speed orbital debris ended with 2011.
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Voyager 1 Is About To Leave Our Solar System
14 Dec 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Space probe Voyager 1 is about to do what no man made object has done in our history. It is about to burst through the outer reaches of our Solar System, almost 11 billion miles from the Sun.
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The First Beer In Space [VIDEO]
28 Nov 2011 by Jasmine Stone / 3 Comments
A couple of “Natty Light” enthusiasts approached the brewer, Natural Ice with the idea to make the mediocre frat-house beer slightly more remarkable by making it the first to be sent into space. Their spacecraft’ was a styrofoam cooler, a GPS tracking device, and an HD camera, launched into space with a weather balloon last week.
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A View From The Stars – Time Lapse Photography Of Our Electrifying Planet [VIDEO]
14 Nov 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
For centuries, people have been looking up at the night sky, admiring beautiful constellations and pondering the meaning of things greater than themselves. As beautiful as the view is, this video shows what things look like from the other side, and it’s pretty amazing.
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NASA Is Going to Harpoon An Asteroid [VIDEO]
30 Sep 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
NASA wants to put somebody on an asteroid by 2025 because they don’t know how else to get people’s attention. And to succeed in this entirely worthwhile endeavour, they’ve designed a mechanism by which to harpoon asteroids, so that vehicles can land on the thing despite the weakened gravity. Call me Ishmael.
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China Space Shuttle Prepped For Launch For Tonight
29 Sep 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
The unmanned spacecraft, Tiangong-1, which translates awesomely to Heavenly Palace, is set to blast off tonight from China’s Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gansu province, marking the start of China’s first rendezvous and docking mission. That guy is set to take off between 13h16 and 13h31 GMT.
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This Week’s Weather Report: Falling Satellites
21 Sep 2011 by Jasmine Stone / 4 Comments
Remember that defunct NASA satellite that was going to fall to earth some time, they just couldn’t tell us when or where? Well, don’t worry – they’ve told us that it’s definitely going to come screaming down to the planet’s surface some time this week. This Friday, actually.
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NASA Unveils Launch Vehicle To Take Astronauts To Mars
16 Sep 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Because what every good recession needs is a plan to go to space. NASA today announced their new launch vehicle, the Space Launch System (SLS), which should be able to take astronauts past the moon to near-Earth asteroids, and eventually to Mars some time in the 2030s.
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Huge, Potentially Life-Supporting Exo-Planet Discovered
13 Sep 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Screw climate change, we’ve found a new home. Well, I mean that’s my attitude whenever astronomers says they’ve found new planets within the “Goldiclocks zone” of core temperature – like the one European astronomers announced yesterday, the catchy-sounding HD85512b, which fits life support parameters, and is a little over three times the size of Earth.
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NASA’s Satellite Is Going To Fall To Earth. They Just Don’t Know When Or Where
08 Sep 2011 by Jasmine Stone / 5 Comments
Awesome. The Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS), NASA’s defunct, 60 000 kg baby, will be re-entering Earth’s atmosphere sometime later this month or in early October, and NASA doesn’t really know when or where it’s going to happen. What they do know is that it’s going to leave a 800km-wide debris footprint, somewhere. Heads up.
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Meet Virgin Galactic’s First Astronaut
11 Aug 2011 by Jasmine Stone / 1 Comment
Dave MacKay, 53-year-old British pilot, will be the first captain of Virgin Galactic‘s commercial space fleet, taking up the role first with the maiden voyage of SpaceShipTwo, scheduled for 2013. MacKay has over 30 years of regular flying experience, but like pretty much everybody, he’s wanted to fly spaceships since he was a kid.
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Tiny Homes, Bigger Cars: Why This Curse Of Progress Needs To End
21 Jun 2011 by Jasmine Stone / 3 Comments
I am concerned. There’s an alarming trend that I’ve noticed, and it’s all getting a bit out of control. Every new generation of vehicles emerges fatter than the last. I drove a new Opel Astra last month which barely scraped into my garage. An Astra. It’s hardly a monster truck. Yet every new property development I’ve encountered is essentially a maze of shoeboxes. Are we forgetting the ultimate luxury?
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They Shut Down The Mars Rover
26 May 2011 by Jasmine Stone / 1 Comment
Ending a seven-year mission, NASA has decided to cut off communications with the Mars rover Spirit. Data was last received from Spirit in March 2010, and it hasn’t been heard from since – the thinking is that the rover was damaged during the martian winter when there wasn’t enough solar power for its survival heaters to run.
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Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo Test Flight [VIDEO]
19 May 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo, the commercial spaceflight vehicle, recently had its seventh test flight, dropped from a height of 15km to see if it could adjust speed and bearing with various wing configurations. Which sounds technically fancy, but really just looks insanely cool.
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