Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Thu, 3 Jan 2013 17:00:00 PST Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101110/19025111806/dailydirt-fly-me-to-moon.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101110/19025111806/dailydirt-fly-me-to-moon.shtml

Speculation on China's rocket technology suggests the country's Long March 9 rocket will be more than capable for sending astronauts to the moon, Mars, and perhaps other distant destinations within our solar system. The Long March 9 is expected to be in service around 2020-2025. [url]

Google's Lunar X Prize is closed to new participants, but there are about 25 teams still competing for rewards totaling $30 million -- for these privately funded teams to send robots to the moon. The deadline for these teams is the end of 2015. Hopefully at least one team will succeed in its mission, and we'll have mini moon bases sending back all kinds of data before the end of the decade. [url]

The Soyuz spacecraft has been a workhorse for decades, but Russia has recently announced plans for its next generation spaceship design that could be used for manned missions to the moon (or possibly Mars). Test flights are scheduled to begin in 2017, and this Prospective Piloted Transport System (PPTS) could also service the International Space Station (creating another backup solution to supply the ISS). [url]

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]]> http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20101110/19025111806 Fri, 20 Jul 2012 17:00:00 PDT Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100803/16515610483/dailydirt-space-food.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100803/16515610483/dailydirt-space-food.shtml

Making bread in space isn't too easy, especially if you want it to have the same consistency as normal Earth-bound bread. A teenager has proposed a bread recipe for astronauts that involves low pressure aeration of flour dough and low temperature cooking. [url]

NASA created specially-prepared food for Apollo astronauts in the 1960s. An example meal is on display at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, and it looks just as unappetizing as it did several decades ago. [url]

University of Colorado Boulder students are working on a robotic farming system for growing food for astronauts in space. This project is meant to support long-term missions such as a journey to Mars, and the automated system will attempt to seed plants, monitor plant growth, harvest and process crop residues. [url]

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100803/16515610483 Mon, 16 Jul 2012 17:00:00 PDT Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100907/10144010923/dailydirt-space-suits-everyone.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100907/10144010923/dailydirt-space-suits-everyone.shtml

A skintight spacesuit took some MIT researchers several years to develop -- and its BioSuit still hasn't been worn in space. The result is still a very fashionable and functional outfit that looks like it could have been designed for a Star Trek episode. [url]

Bill Elkins, a designer of some Apollo-era space suits, talks about some of the old space suit designs and his experience testing them out. Elkins also holds a record for remaining conscious while sustaining 16.5 Gs of force in a big centrifuge. [url]

Final Frontier Design has recently completed a Kickstarter project that raised over $20,000 for creating a soft spacesuit. One backer spent $10,000 and will get a custom prototype suit -- which might become the most expensive Halloween costume ever. [url]

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100907/10144010923 Wed, 4 Apr 2012 17:00:00 PDT Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100407/1837138923/dailydirt-getting-to-bottom-it-all.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100407/1837138923/dailydirt-getting-to-bottom-it-all.shtml

James Cameron has been down to the bottom of the Mariana Trench and back -- filming a documentary for National Geographic. Are privately funded scientific efforts going to be a trend (like 3D movies)? [url]

Sir Richard Branson has created Virgin Oceanic to explore the Earth's oceans. And it's not an April Fools joke like Virgin Volcanic. [url]

Jeff Bezos has a privately funded team of deep-sea explorers, and they found discarded Apollo 11 rocket engines at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Bezos plans to bring at least one of these NASA artifacts of space exploration back to dry land. [url]

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100407/1837138923 Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:00:00 PST Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111118/22464816825/dailydirt-to-moon-alice.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111118/22464816825/dailydirt-to-moon-alice.shtml

Newt Gingrich's proposal to create a moon base by 2020 (excluding the 13,000 colonists part) was feasible in 2005 when George W. Bush had similar ideas, but now it could be a bit more difficult to accomplish in just 8 years. A new space race to the moon could see commercial space companies beating NASA to the lunar surface... (especially if vast amounts of unobtainium could be mined on the moon). [url]

NASA isn't exactly sure when manned test flights of its Orion will begin, but it should happen by 2021. Unmanned test flights are scheduled for 2014, but the new rocket to take cargo/passengers 3,700 miles away from Earth hasn't been finalized yet. [url]

What would space programs be like if the Apollo program never made it to the moon? Maybe there'd be a Russian/Soviet moon base or an international station on the moon -- or maybe the lunar surface would be covered with robots by now. [url]

To discover more links on space exploration, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20111118/22464816825 Thu, 17 Nov 2011 17:00:00 PST Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100802/09533510454/dailydirt-everyone-knows-moon-is-made-cheese.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100802/09533510454/dailydirt-everyone-knows-moon-is-made-cheese.shtml

Earlier this year, a piece of moondust stuck to a bit of tape was returned to NASA. All your moon bits are belong to us! Seriously, though, NASA says that its astronauts have brought back about 842 pounds of moon material, but some of the dust that stuck to equipment has been collected by enthusiasts over the years and sold. [url]

A lunar rock from the Apollo 16 mission looks to be about 100 million years younger than expected. Isotopes of lead and neodymium suggest that the age of this rock sample is 4.36 billion years old -- which means the moon solidified much later than we'd thought or that the moon itself is younger than we expected. [url]

The Indian Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft discovered a pretty big cave on the moon that might be suitable for a human colony. The cave is over a mile long and would provide natural shielding for a moon base. [url]

To discover more links on space exploration, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

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