‘Scientists have discovered that inorganic material can take on the characteristics of living organisms in space, a development that could transform views of alien life.
An international panel from the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Max Planck institute in Germany and the University of Sydney found that galactic dust could form spontaneously into helixes and double helixes and that the inorganic creations had memory and the power to reproduce themselves.
A similar rethinking of prospective alien life is being undertaken by the National Research Council, an advisory body to the US government. It says Nasa should start a search for what it describes as “weird life” – organisms that lack DNA or other molecules found in life on Earth.’
It’s kinda like a backwards version of the old classic. You’re the asteroid. Destroy the ships.
‘The thought screen helmet blocks telepathic communication between aliens and humans. An abductee who took voltage readings from a second helmet while wearing another one demonstrates that this communication is a form of electromagnetic energy.
Aliens cannot immobilize people wearing thought screens nor can they control their minds or communicate with them using their telepathy. When aliens can’t communicate or control humans, they do not take them.’
One of the abductees is kinda hot. I’d certainly probe her if I was an alien.
‘Even by astronomical standards, Roger Angel thinks big.
Angel, a leading astronomer at the University of Arizona, is proposing an enormous liquid-mirror telescope on the moon that could be hundreds of times more sensitive than the Hubble Space Telescope.
Using a rotating dish of reflective liquid as its primary mirror, Angel’s telescope would the largest ever built, and would permit astronomers to study the oldest and most distant objects in the universe, including the very first stars.
“It’s an idea that’s been around, and we decided to flesh it out,” Angel says. [..]
Angel dreams of a 100-meter mirror, which would be larger than two side-by-side football fields and would collect 1,736 times more light than the Hubble.’
‘The last question was asked for the first time, half in jest, on May 21, 2061, at a time when humanity first stepped into the light. The question came about as a result of a five dollar bet over highballs, and it happened this way:
Alexander Adell and Bertram Lupov were two of the faithful attendants of Multivac. As well as any human beings could, they knew what lay behind the cold, clicking, flashing face — miles and miles of face — of that giant computer. They had at least a vague notion of the general plan of relays and circuits that had long since grown past the point where any single human could possibly have a firm grasp of the whole.
Multivac was self-adjusting and self-correcting. It had to be, for nothing human could adjust and correct it quickly enough or even adequately enough — so Adell and Lupov attended the monstrous giant only lightly and superficially, yet as well as any men could. They fed it data, adjusted questions to its needs and translated the answers that were issued. Certainly they, and all others like them, were fully entitled to share In the glory that was Multivac’s.’
‘NASA is investigating sabotage of a noncritical computer due to be flown to the International Space Station aboard the space shuttle Endeavour, which was cleared to lift off on August 7, the U.S. space agency said on Thursday.
NASA revealed the sabotage a day ahead of releasing studies that the publication Aviation Week reported had found astronauts were allowed to fly on at least two occasions despite warnings they were so drunk they posed a flight risk.
The damage to wiring in an electronics box was intentional and obvious, NASA’s associate administrator for space operations, Bill Gerstenmaier told reporters at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.’
‘The Baikonur Cosmodrome is the world’s oldest and largest operational space launch facility. It is located in Kazakhstan, about 200 km east of the Aral Sea, on the north bank of the Syr Darya, near the town of Tyuratam.’
‘Brian May, the multimillionaire guitarist who founded the rock group Queen, has finally completed the PhD in astrophysics that he abandoned more than 30 years ago.
The 59-year-old composer of hits such as Fat Bottomed Girls and We Will Rock You turned his back on the stars for international fame with Freddie Mercury and his band. His thesis on interplanetary dust clouds lay gathering dust of its own in the attic of his home in Surrey.
May’s interest in the subject was rekindled last year when he co-authored a children’s science book with the astronomer Sir Patrick Moore. He discovered that remarkably little research had been done in the intervening 33 years.’
‘Physicist Lawrence Krauss and Case Western Reserve colleagues think they have found the answer to the paradox. In a paper accepted for publication in Physical Review D, they have constructed a lengthy mathematical formula that shows, in effect, black holes can’t form at all. The key involves the relativistic effect of time, Krauss explains. As Einstein demonstrated in his Theory of General Relativity, a passenger inside a spaceship traveling toward a black hole would feel the ship accelerating, while an outside observer would see the ship slow down. When the ship reached the event horizon, it would appear to stop, staying there forever and never falling in toward oblivion. In effect, Krauss says, time effectively stops at that point, meaning time is infinite for black holes. If black holes radiate away their mass over time, as Hawking showed, then they should evaporate before they even form, Krauss says. It would be like pouring water into a glass that has no bottom. In essence, physicists have been arguing over a trick question for 40 years.’
‘The first NASA sign at launch pad 39A encouraging the next launch of space shuttle Endeavour at Kennedy Space Center was misspelled and noticed by someone looking at the craft.
When the shuttle rolled out from the Vehicle Assembly Building Wednesday, a giant “Go Endeavour” sign was put on a fence in front of the craft.
However, one item was missing from the sign: the “u” in Endeavour.
Someone spotted the mistake and called KSC to fix it, WKMG-TV reported.
NASA scrambled someone out to pad 39A with a new sign that has orbiter Endeavour’s name spelled correctly.’
‘In 1969, Neil Armstrong made history by becoming the first man to walk on the moon, uttering the immortal phrase, “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Or did he? Previously suppressed footage discovered by blogjam shows that Armstrong’s reaction was a great deal more uninhibited than history suggests, and that a hasty editing job was needed to prepare the astronaut’s moment of glory for broadcast.
So here, for the first time, is the unedited NASA film from the triumphant Apollo 11 mission.’
(358kB Shockwave)
‘Former astronaut Lisa Nowak didn’t wear diapers during her 950-mile road trip to confront a romantic rival, her lawyer said Friday, disputing one of the more bizarre details to emerge from the NASA love triangle.
“The biggest lie in this preposterous tale that has been told is that my client drove from Houston, Texas, to Orlando, Florida, nonstop, wearing a diaper,” Donald Lykkebak said after filing motions to suppress evidence in Nowak’s criminal case. “That is an absolute fabrication.”
The tidbit that Nowak wore diapers during her trip was written in the police report filed after Nowak’s arrest in February.
“I then asked Mrs. Nowak why she had baby diapers,” according to the charging affidavit written by Officer William “Chris” Becton. “Mrs. Nowak said that she didn’t want to stop and use the restroom, so she used the diapers to collect her urine.”‘
Followup to Lisa Nowak NASA Astronaut DIAPER left behind..RARE!.
‘What are the last true outposts on our planet? In an era when humanity seems to have subjugated the whole world, are there any places left untouched by human influence?
To find out, New Scientist set out to discover the Last Places on Earth. Pleasingly, there were plenty to choose from: unclimbed mountains, unexplored caves, unmapped deserts, tribes untouched by the outside world and islands where alien species have yet to invade. We also discovered the last place dinosaurs roamed, the last place to make radio contact with the rest of the world, the very last place that will survive when our sun expands – and many more. So join us on our grand tour of the planet’s most unknown, pristine or downright extraordinary locations…’
‘A supersonic scramjet engine has been successfully launched from a test range in Australia. The Australian Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) said the scramjet achieved reached 10 times the speed of sound during the test.
Scramjets are supersonic combustion engines that use oxygen from the atmosphere to burn onboard fuel. By contrast, conventional rockets carry their own oxygen to burn fuel. The hope is that scramjets can be made lighter and faster than oxygen-carrying rockets.
But mixing oxygen with a fuel in a supersonic airflow and then igniting it is tricky. The tests involved accelerating the scramjet to several times the speed of sound and switching it on.’
‘Crews aboard the space shuttle Atlantis and the International Space Station revived the third and final part of the station’s prime computer network on Saturday and scoured the complex for the cause of the crash.
The computers, which control the station’s position in orbit, were restored after station commander Fyodor Yurchikin and flight engineer Oleg Kotov hot-wired the systems to bypass suspect power sources. [..]
So far, the best explanation for the crash is a subtle change in the space environment now that the station’s size has grown, Suffredini said.
As the station flies 220 miles above Earth, it plows through streams of charged particles which create friction and build up a static voltage charge on the outside.
“As the station gets bigger, this potential continues to grow,” Suffredini said. “I think we’re going to find system sensitivities as we change the space station.”‘
‘An elementary school science teacher in this Chicago suburb doesn’t have to turn on the news for an update on NASA’s space mission. She just turns on her video baby monitor.
Since Sunday, one of the two channels on Natalie Meilinger’s baby monitor has been picking up black-and-white video from inside the space shuttle Atlantis. The other still lets her keep an eye on her baby.
“Whoever has a baby monitor knows what you’ll usually see,” Meilinger said. “No one would ever expect this.”
Live video of the mission is available on NASA’s Web site, so it’s possible the monitor is picking up a signal from somewhere.’
(1.5meg Flash video)
see it here »
‘Astrophysicists have found a star-like object with a surface temperature just one tenth that of the Sun.
The cold object is known as a brown dwarf: a “failed” star that never achieved the mass required to begin nuclear fusion reactions in its core.
This one – called J0034-00 – is thought to have a surface temperature of just 600-700 Kelvin (up to 430C/800F).
It is the coldest solitary brown dwarf ever seen, according to the British team that discovered it.
This find further tests the boundary between high-mass gas planets and the smallest brown dwarfs. ‘
‘The Bush administration. You know ’em, you… well, love isn’t exactly the right emotion.
Showing that there is no place safe from idiocy, here’s an absolutely astronomically stupid comment from NASA Administrator Michael Griffin. A statement so stupid, it makes the invasion of Iraq and the management of Katrina look like genius.
Michael Griffin NASA Administrator has told America’s National Public Radio that while he has no doubt a trend of global warming exists “I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with.”‘
‘We’ve all heard the “official conspiracy theory” of the Death Star attack. We all know about Luke Skywalker and his ragtag bunch of rebels, how they mounted a foolhardy attack on the most powerful, well-defended battle station ever built. And we’ve all seen the video over, and over, and over, of the one-in-a-million shot that resulted in a massive chain reaction that not just damaged, but completely obliterated that massive technological wonder.
Like many, I was fed this story when I was growing up. But as I watched the video, I began to realize that all was not as it seemed. And the more I questioned the official story, the deeper into the rabbit hole I went.’
‘If it seems Canadians weigh less than their American neighbours, they do – but not for the reasons you might think. A large swath of Canada actually boasts lower gravity than its surroundings.
Researchers have puzzled for years over whether this was due to the crust there rebounding slowly after the end of the last ice age or a deeper issue involving convection in the Earth’s mantle – or some combination of the two.
Now, ultra-precise measurements taken over four years by a pair of satellites known as GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) reveal that each effect is equally responsible for Canada’s low gravity. The work could shed light on how continents form and evolve over time.’
‘On January 16, 2007, a dazzling blue flame blasted across the sands of the Mojave desert. In many respects, it looked like an ordinary rocket engine test, but this was different. While most NASA rockets are powered by liquid oxygen and hydrogen or solid chemicals, “we were testing a methane engine,” says project manager Terri Tramel of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). [..]
The main engine, built and fired by the NASA contractor team Alliant Techsystems/XCOR Aerospace, is still in an early stage of development and isn’t ready for space. But if the technology proves itself, methane engines like this one could eventually be key to deep space exploration.
Methane (CH4), the principal component of natural gas, is abundant in the outer solar system. It can be harvested from Mars, Titan, Jupiter, and many other planets and moons. With fuel waiting at the destination, a rocket leaving Earth wouldn’t have to carry so much propellant, reducing the cost of a mission.’
Check out the video.
(3.3meg Windows media)
‘Voyager 1 and 2 both carry with them a golden record that contains pictures and sounds of Earth, along with symbolic directions for playing the record and data detailing the location of Earth. The record is intended as a combination time capsule and interstellar message to any civilization, alien or far-future human, that recovers either of the Voyager craft. The contents of this record were selected by a committee chaired by Carl Sagan.
The following is a selection of pictures electronically placed on the phonograph records which are carried onboard the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft.’
There’s some graphs showing the change in light levels that indicate the planet is there. Also a graph of light from a binary start system.
‘How do you get rid of the body of a dead astronaut on a three-year mission to Mars and back?
When should the plug be pulled on a critically ill astronaut who is using up precious oxygen and endangering the rest of the crew? Should NASA employ DNA testing to weed out astronauts who might get a disease on a long flight?
With NASA planning to land on Mars 30 years from now, and with the recent discovery of the most “Earth-like” planet ever seen outside the solar system, the space agency has begun to ponder some of the thorny practical and ethical questions posed by deep space exploration.’
There are some seriously fucken large objects in the universe.
(9.7meg Google video)
see it here »
‘A group of American aerospace engineers have written a book on how to defend the earth against alien invasion.
Travis Shane Taylor, Bob Boan, Charles Anding and T Conley Powell hold a variety of PhDs and other degrees in hard sciences and technology. All have worked on weapons and aerospace programmes for defence contractors, NASA and various parts of the US forces. Taylor and Boan also claim expertise in various kinds of technical military intelligence-gathering.
Their book An Introduction to Planetary Defense: A Study of Modern Warfare Applied to Extra-Terrestrial Invasion is out now in paperback, and getting a fair bit of play in the media.’
‘For the first time astronomers have discovered a planet outside our solar system that is potentially habitable, with Earth-like temperatures, a find researchers described Tuesday as a big step in the search for “life in the universe.”
The planet is just the right size, might have water in liquid form, and in galactic terms is relatively nearby at 120 trillion miles away. But the star it closely orbits, known as a “red dwarf,” is much smaller, dimmer and cooler than our sun.’
‘An armed man killed a hostage, then himself, at Nasa’s Johnson Space Centre, the latest incident to rattle the United States after the shooting massacre this week at Virginia Tech university.
Another hostage, a female co-worker, was found bound with duct tape, but unharmed, police said.
“Apparently there was some type of dispute between the suspect and the victim,” Houston police chief Harold Hurtt said.’
