Our astronauts would love to get themselves into a more flexible suit while floating through space. Takahiko Hariyama and his team at Japan’s Hamamatsu University School of Medicine appear to have found a solution. Their so called nano-suit is currently just for insects but it could be developed for use in space.

If we try to take a nanometer-level resolution image of an insect using a scanning electron microscope, that creature won’t survive the process since it is required that the subject is kept in a vacuum.

But Hariyama and his colleagues noticed that when electrons were fired at a fruit fly larva polymerization caused its skin molecules to link together to form a barrier, and they named this barrier as the nano-suit. The nano-suit helped the larva to survive in a vacuum by preventing the escape of moisture from its body.

But the formation of a natural nano-suit did not happen with other larvae. So they developed a suit using a chemical called Tween 20 and water. This artificial nano-suit ensured the survival of the insects. And since it remains flexible without breaking, scientists can now try to capture nanometer-level videos of insects while they are in motion.

Hariyama is currently trying to develop an artificial nano-suit that can also protect an insect from electron radiation.

This certainly could find applications in spacesuit development for astronauts. You can imagine a very thin and flexible space shield capable of protecting humans from radiation and other issues.

[Source]

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Watch any space-based Sci-fi program and there will be some engineer complaining to the captain that “the last photon torpedo disrupted the nuclear fusion reactor” or “if we reverse the polarity of the nuclear fusion generator we can travel back in time and get some whales to save earth!”.

Nuclear fusion pops up so often in popular culture, that we forget that researchers are actually working on it at this moment. In fact research is going so well that a unique nuclear fusion test will take place this summer.

Researchers from the University of Washington, with funding from Nasa, are working on a new type of plasma encapsulated in a magnetic field. This material is so powerful that just one grain produces as much energy as a gallon of traditional rocket fuel.

The team behind the research believe that using nuclear fusion to power rockets and space stations would be cheaper and simpler, but also faster with a trip from the Earth to Mars taking just 30 days rather than 4 years if we were to use current fuel methods.

Of course, don’t expect this to happen anytime soon. Still, the potential is there. What do you think?

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Not including a long 563,000,000 km (350,000,000 mi) journey, NASA’s Mars Rover Curiosity has been on Mars for nearly 7 month now. In this time, Curiosity has been gathering data about the “Red Planet”. Up until now, the journey has gone smoothly. However, corrupted memory could be putting Curiosity at risk.

Yesterday, NASA’s Curiosity’s Twitter feed read: ”Don’t flip out: I just flipped over to my B-side computer while the team looks into an A-side memory issue”.

The source of this hiccup is corrupted memory files on the A-side computer. In response to the rover failing to follow through with it’s normal daily tasks, Curiosity was put into a minimal activity state known as “Safe Mode”. This move, in addition to the switch to the B-side computer, will keep the rover on hold until it is properly updated.

Richard Cook of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. says that ”We’re still early on in the process. We have probably several days, maybe a week of activities to get everything back and reconfigured.”

The main goal of the switch to safe mode and the reconfiguration is to get both the A and B computers health. Although this issue will slightly delay the rover, Richard Cook also noted that it will have no affect on Curiosity’s overall long-term mission.

Have you been following the Curiosity rover? Do you think that we should be spending more time and effort in space exploration? Let us know in the comments below.

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Rather than shuttling all the necessary materials up to the moon (which can be heavy and thus costly), the approach being considered is 3D printing. Architectural firm Foster and Partners is working with the European Space Agency on the effort. The idea is that you send the 3D printing robots to the moon, they collect the local moon rocks and soil, grind them all up, and 3D print out a dome-like structure where people can live and work.

In addition to the 3D printed portions, we’ll also need to bring in a lightweight pressurized inflatable. Together, they should be able to provide suitable protection against extreme temperatures and radiation. Foster and Partners has already tested this kind of technology in extreme Earth conditions, so they don’t see why it couldn’t be adapted to the moon’s surface. The structure itself will utilized hollow closed cells, not unlike what we find with bird bones. This provides strength while keeping weight low.

Monolite founder Enrico Dini has been working on these 3D building printers since 2010 and he says that current machines can produce at about 6.5 feet per hour. The next generation of machines will increase that to 11.5 feet an hour, effectively printing that lunar base in about a week. It seems like a fascinating idea, but I can’t help but think that this picture looks a lot like Tatooine. Maybe old Ben Kenobi can help us. You might even say he’s our only hope.

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Picture God taking a peek at the universe, rotating planets with his mighty arms, going from the Earth to Jupiter with a single gesture, and speeding, slowing and reversing time with the movement of an index finger. That will look somewhat like what Microsoft Surface researcher David Brown is doing in the clip below with his superb space app dubbed NUIverse. The app is simply marvellous!

From the demonstration, you will get to know about the awesome multi-touch capabilities of Microsoft Surface and the computational power of the Samsung SUR40 which runs NUIverse (anagram of the word universe and NUI stands for natural user interface, in case you didn’t notice).

If you own a smartphone, you might be familiar with a lot of NUI gestures such as grabs, twists and swipes. You will find all those being used by Brown, but the new app is much more than that. He is utilizing gestures to move about in the universe in both time and space, and using on-screen dials for controlling effects such as the camera FOV and the passage of time. He is even using transparent disks which can be placed on the screen and moved. The disk provides him with details of the objects it covers.

But, a good video is sometimes better than a thousand words, right? So, head below to know more about the app.

The thing, on which it runs, by the way, comes with a price tag of $9,049 (including the stand). The application is not slowed down at any point all thanks to the power of the SUR40. And we are not sure whether the app will be available commercially, but we might see it used for educational purposes in the future. It will be great if they release the program for planetariums.

You can close your mouth now and check out another video which shows the on-screen action of the app in use. The music in this video is kinda cool.

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Basically, this experiment is to see how well they can service working satellites using robots via remote control. Many satellites are launched without the expectation of really extending their lives beyond whatever fuel they get initially, but salvaging and continuing their service could really help with NASA’s shrinking budget.

A series of special RRM tools are being developed for various functions related to the maintenance and repair of satellites. These include the ability to remove and replace caps, open and close valves, handle wiring, and transfer fluids (like fuel). In order to fuel up, the module needs to provide extra protective thermal blankets. It also needs to be able to manipulate wiring, valves, caps and so on in a reliable and precise manner.

Early tests look promising. Space may be the final frontier, but we need to know how to extend our trip too. The video below demonstrates some of this work. There’s no sound, but us Canadians (I see the Canadarm!) tend to be a quiet bunch.

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Want to enjoy the sensation of complete weightlessness? No, you won’t have to produce millions of dollars and become a space tourist or study to become an astronaut.  And you will be able to float without leaving our planet. Design firm BRC Imagination Arts has proposed a zero gravity roller coaster which might become a reality if it gets the required funding of $50 million.

The new ride has been inspired by NASA’s KC-135, an astronaut training aircraft which is also known by the name “Vomit Comet”. For getting astronauts used to the sensation of space travel, the KC-135 performs parabolic plunges which give its passengers the feeling of weightlessness.

BRC’s roller coaster will give you a similar experience in an enclosed chamber. The roller coaster would go up a track at speeds of 100 mph before decelerating suddenly. This will leave the loosely-buckled riders suspended in the air. Then the roller coaster begins a controlled drop which will make sure that the passengers remain experiencing zero gravity for a few more seconds.

And in case there is a “Vomit Comet” effect, the roller coaster will be coming with a drainage system and attendants with hoses will remove any food stuff that people are unable to keep down. But they won’t be cleaning anything that will be stuck on your face. The cost for the project appears to be almost twice the price of most roller coasters nowadays. But the ride will certainly be cheaper than a zero-gravity flight.

Source: PopSci via BRC

Photo: Nick Kaloterakis
Illustration: Greg Maxson

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Since a lot of people worry about how much space junk is circling the Earth at any given time, some have found a way to at least make that junk useful.

How? You may ask. Well, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has proposed the Phoenix program. This is basically a space project that scours for usable parts from dead satellites in orbit and then attaches those parts to newly-arriving satellites.

There are currently over 100 decommissioned satellites in geosynchronous orbit around the earth, and, depending on their condition, they contain perfectly usable parts worth of a total of as much as $300 billion. Since the antennas are expensive to make and heavy to put in space, DARPA is particularly interested in recycling those.

Phoenix would work with an unmanned spacecraft which would be launched into orbit, locate PODS and extract a number of nanosatellites and store them aboard itself. Then, it would go to the “graveyard orbit”, locate specific satellites and attach the nanosatellites to the antenna. A human operator on Earth would then proceed to use its manipulator arms to remove the antenna. Sounds like some competition could arise where other Space agencies will build recon programs to harvest this space junk for their own satellite developments. There really is no jurisdiction in space now is there?

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In an attempt to win the John Carmack’s 100kft Micro Prize, a home-made rocket launched into the sky and roared beyond their target altitude of 100,000 feet, reaching an impressive 121,000 feet in just 92 seconds.

Dubbed “Qu8k” by the maker, Derek Deville, honoring the classic ID Software video game, Quake.  It landed safely after 7.5 minutes and was recovered just 24 hours after launch a mere 3 miles off the launch site in Black Rock Desert in Nevada.

The rocket was constructed from aluminum and measured 8 inches in diameter, 167.5 in length and it used an APCP rocket propellent for maximum velocity during the ascent. Deville equipped the rocket with two timers, four GPS decices, an accelerometer and a couple of video cameras as well as a Flip HD camera to provide detailed footage of the flight.

Armadillo Aerospace is the company that promised to give $5,000 to the winner of the 100kft competition, but they may not give the Deville team the money because were unable to log the required high altitude GPS data to demonstrate the 121,000 ft feat.

Photo Credit: Gregory L. Mayback

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A new project called KickSat aims to launch tiny satellites into space for the price of $300 per satellite.  The tiny boxes contain small, self-contained, solar-powered radio transmitters which can later be tracked using the Genso project for amateur radio operators.

Sprites are the size of postage stamps and are formed of solar cells, a radio transceiver, and a microcontroller with memory and sensors, exactly like bigger satellites, just at a smaller scale. The first version is able to transmit its name and a few bits of data, but future versions could include other types of sensors, from thermometers to cameras.

The KickSat will launch in low-altitude orbit and organizers have guaranteed that all the Sprites will re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere within a few days or weeks and it will leave no trace of space debris, much to the relief of those concerned about the amounts of debris piling up around the Earth. The launching capsule will probably last longer than the Sprites, organizers say, as it take a few months until it burns into the atmosphere.

The project is on Kickstarter and requires $30,000 to get off the ground.

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