NASA Unveils Moon Rocket
Next generation space travel is closer to reality with the Ares 1-X rocket making its debut this week. The Constellation Program’s centerpiece is supposed to be the rocket that launches Orion, the ship that will take astronauts back to the moon, but that dream may be fading away.
Nasa officials plan to go ahead with the Ares 1-X test flight even as Barack Obama’s administration considers plans to shelve the Constellation programme through lack of funding.
A detailed review of Nasa’s future programmes recently delivered to the White House raised concerns that the space agency does not have deep enough pockets to fulfil its vision for a return to the moon. The review said the agency may have to abandon the Ares rockets and switch to a cheaper design. (Photo: NASA).
Here’s a rendering of an Ares launch.
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BuckyBalls Magnetic Toys are 216 rare earth magnet balls that can be shaped and molded into virtually any shape. Tear 'em apart and snap 'em back together in unlimited ways for hours of fun! Watch the video for a quick demo of what BuckyBalls can do. Remember to get two for twice the fun! Link |
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Largest Ever Model Rocket Launched
[YouTube - Link]
On Saturday, a man in Maryland successfully launched a 1:10 scale model of a Saturn V Rocket. The Saturn V is the rocket that took NASA astronauts to the Moon during the Apollo missions. The launch of the 36 foot tall rocket also breaks the record for the largest model rocket ever launched.
– via wired
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Don't Worry Folks: That Flash Over Virginia Was Just ... Russian Rockets?!
To be fair, the Russians aren’t attacking. In fact, the US military knew this was coming and expected it. Debris from launched spacecraft and rocketry regularly fall back into the atmosphere. Stilll, residents who didn’t know that might well have thought that the Russians were invading when they dialed 911. Things might have gone rather differently a few decades ago.
The mysterious boom and flash of light seen over parts of Virginia Sunday night was not a meteor, but actually exploding space junk from the second stage of a Russian Soyuz rocket falling back to Earth, according to an official with the U.S. Naval Observatory.
The Russian-built Soyuz rocket lifted off Thursday from the Central Asian spaceport of Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to launch a new crew and American billionaire Charles Simonyi — the world’s first two-time space tourist — to the International Space Station. The spaceflyers arrived at the space station on Saturday.
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X-Wing Fighter Rocket
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the first Star Wars movie, Polecat Aerospace built a 21 foot (6.4 m) long rocket shaped like an X-Wing Fighter! And they’re going to launch it in two days…
We decided to make the project to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the first Star Wars movie. Our club members are making several Star Wars based projects to fly at Plaster Blaster VI, or Plaster Wars.
We decided to make the project challenging in several ways. The first is just the massive size of the rocket. It is over 21′ long, with a wingspan of over 19′. We opted to use a cluster of four motors to emulate the "real" X-wing, and positioned the motors in the wing pods. The real challenge was to make the wings move in flight, from the "attack" position, or extended to the "landing" position, or folded. This proved to be quite a mechanical feat.
Link | More at Plaster Wars – Thanks Eugenio Martínez Sierra and Robert N.!
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