space

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Felix Baumgartner Makes Record-Breaking Jump From The Edge Of Space

Felix Baumgartner prepares to make a 96,000 foot test jump. Photo: After 5 years of preparation, a lawsuit, a 96,000-foot test jump, and wind that twice delayed his attempt, Felix Baumgartner finally made the highest and fastest jump in history yesterday. “I know the whole world is watching, and I wish the whole world could see what I see,” he said as he stood 128,100 feet above the Earth. “Sometimes you have to go up really high to understand how small you really are.” Then he... READ ON

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Joseph Kittinger: The First High-Altitude Jumper

Wikimedia Commons Next week, “Fearless Felix” Baumgartner will attempt the highest, fastest free fall in history when he leaps out of a capsule 23 miles above Roswell, New Mexico wearing just a pressurized suit and helmet. But Baumgartner isn’t the first person to make a crazy jump like this. That distinction belongs to Joseph Kittinger, who made a series of high altitude jumps between 1959 and... READ ON

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Space Madness: The Psychosis That Never Happened

From Star Trek to Ren and Stimpy to Van Der Graaf Generator’s “Pioneers Over C,” pop culture and fiction are filled with men, women, and animals who have gone excitedly beyond the bounds of the Earth ... only to lose their grips on reality and mentally break from the stress of space travel. The phenomenon is colloquially known as Space Madness—and while we laugh it off as a TV trope today, in the late 50s, when manned space travel was just a few years away, the disorder was a valid... READ ON

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Mars Curiosity Rover's Gears - Made in the USA

In this video, we learn about the Forest City Gear factory in Rockford, Illinois where all the gears and other moving parts for the Curiosity rover were made. "Anything that moves on the rover, any of the actuators, any of the gears — we cut all the gears that did that," says Jeff Hallberg. Fun fact: the gears are all made of titanium. Lots of small businesses made parts for Curiosity. ABC News even has a video about how "nearly all of" Curiosity was Made in the USA, including parts from... READ ON

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How NASA is Preparing to Visit and/or Destroy Asteroids

So there's this asteroid, 99942 Apophis, that will make a "close approach to" (read: "near miss of") Earth in 2029 and possibly again in 2036. Don't worry, we're probably fine -- there are lots of way more dangerous asteroids coming our way...just not quite so soon. Before an asteroid hits Earth (and one eventually will -- it has happened before), we need a plan to take it out, Deep Impact/Armageddon style -- or at least a plan to visit and study the near-miss asteroids, since they'll be in the... READ ON

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The 12 Men Who Walked on the Moon

In the wake of the passing of Neil Armstrong, many people have expressed sadness at the fact that the Apollo lunar missions were so long ago, and that soon there will be no one left alive who actually went to the moon. Randall Munroe of xkcd addressed that concept some time ago. It's time we remembered -or got to know- the only twelve people who ever walked on a body other than planet Earth. 1. Neil Alden... READ ON

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Curiosity's Landing - Best Video Yet

In this stunning video, we see the best view yet available of NASA's Discovery lander speeding towards the surface of Mars. What makes it special is the relative smoothness of the video -- editor Dominic Muller took the source material, a roughly 4 frame-per-second set of still shots from the Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) and interpolated those frames to a roughly 25-fps HD video. This process of interpolation (creating interstitial frames where there were none before, by calculating what "should" be... READ ON

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Neil Armstrong's Giant Leap

Neil Armstrong -- astronaut, engineer, professor, Navy pilot, and first man on the moon -- has died at the age of 82. He is best known for the words he spoke just after he set foot on the moon. Contrary to popular belief, Armstrong said (emphasis added): "That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." That word "a" was garbled in the satellite feed heard by the world. Regardless of our ability to hear him, Armstrong was a man of powerful words. Here are a few more to remember him by.... READ ON

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Wander Through Kennedy Space Center Using Google Street View

Google Street View is handy for finding places you're driving to -- but Google has been putting together a series of special "Street View" tours of places that aren't out on the street. Like Kennedy Space Center. By following that link, you can see a bunch of places where Google brought its Street View cameras into NASA spaces -- allowing you to take a virtual tour. Check out the various locations within Kennedy by clicking around on that page. My favorite is the Apollo 14 Command Module -- as you... READ ON

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Yo-Yos in Space!

In this video, astronaut Don Pettit demonstrates yo-yo tricks in space. Yes, he's on the International Space Station making time to vlog about yo-yos and science. Pettit: "Because I'm in space, and I can, I get to name these yo-yo tricks as I invent them. I call this one 'Shoot the Planets!'" He also offers relationship advice for yo-yo/physics loving folks. More like this, please. This is not the first time we've mentioned Dr. Pettit. He took the recent "Star Trails" photos, and he showed us... READ ON