You may have seen the music video for OK Go’s song “This Too Shall Pass.” But what you probably don’t know is that the amazing, extended Rube Goldberg device that is its centerpiece was partly designed by a few engineers and staffers at NASA’ Jet Propulsion Laboratory. JPL engineers Mike Pauken and Heather Knight, planetary scientist Eldar Noe Dobrea, and intern Chris Becker joined forces with Syyn Labs, a group of engineers who “twist together art and technology” and were tapped to build OK Go’s machine. The results — featuring dominos, a falling piano, a Mars rover, and a TV showing the band’s…
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Guenter Wendt, a NASA contractor who was in charge of launch pad activity during the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs, passed away today at 85. The German-born Wendt ruled his launch pads with an iron fist — so much so that astronauts affectionately dubbed him the “pad fuehrer.” “It’s easy to get along with Guenter,” astronaut Pete Conrad once said. “All you have to do is agree with him.” But deep down, astronauts such as Wally Schirra and Gordon Cooper appreciated his attention to detail and his dogged enforcement of the rules designed to keep them alive. As Wendt said…
Here’s some Friday Fun for space geeks like myself. NASA astronauts earlier this week installed the Tranquility node, featuring a domed window giving astronauts a panoramic view of Earth, on the International Space Station. This picture, the first taken through Tranquility’s 6.5 foot by 5 foot cupola window 250 miles above the Earth’s surface, is of the Sahara Desert. The window wouldn’t look out of place in the cockpits of Star Wars spaceships like the Millennium Falcon or TIE Fighter. Its intended purpose, NASA said, is to give astronauts a good, direct view of robots operating on the station’s exterior without having to rely…
NASA’s having a garage sale, and everything must go! Seriously, everything. The three-decade-old space shuttle program is winding down later this year, and NASA has decided to sell the three remaining shuttles to museums. The only problem is they’re not getting much interest. So last Friday, NASA did what any motivated seller would: Slash the price. NASA is now selling shuttles Atlantis and Endeavour for $28.8 million — nearly a third less than their original price tag of $42 million. (Shuttle Discovery has been promised to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy center in Northern Virginia, which currently houses the…
What may be the most expensive consolation prize in NASA history will soon be aboard the International Space Station. A $5 million treadmill named for political satirist and faux TV pundit Stephen Colbert will be one of the first items unloaded this afternoon from a cargo container docked at the station, according to the Associated Press. The Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill, now as elevated as its namesake’s ego, will soon be used by astronauts to stay healthy and strengthen their muscles in the zero-G environment. Earlier this year, NASA started an online poll allowing Web site visitors…
During a week when much of the Senate ground to a halt for the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings, the Senate cleared two nominees Wednesday to lead NASA. Marine Corps Major Gen. Charles Bolden is now NASA’s administrator, with Laurie Garver as deputy administrator. The nominations were approved by voice vote. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., managed Bolden’s nomination on the floor. Nelson, a former astronaut, flew with Bolden on a 1986 space shuttle mission.
No, little green men have not been found on Mars and residents of West Windsor Township, N.J. have nothing to fear. But a team of NASA scientists have discovered something that could prove there is life on the red planet: methane. The gas is a byproduct of biological and geological activity. On Earth, much of the methane in Earth’s atmosphere is released by organisms as they digest food. But geological processes, such iron oxidation, also release the gas. NASA observations of the Martian atmosphere over the last several years have shown that methane is being continually released into the air…
Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration, one of President-elect Barack Obama’s top military advisers, is said to be the pick to lead NASA. Our colleagues at Space News were the first to report the story yesterday. Gration is a decorated fighter pilot and held senior policy positions in the military, but does not have a space background, according to Space News. No word on whether current NASA administrator Mike Griffin’s wife has ended her campaign to convince Obama her husband should stay.
The Associated Press reported last week that the wife of Michael Griffin, the current NASA administrator, has been sending e-mails to friends and family asking them to sign an online petition urging President-elect Barack Obama to keep her husband on as administrator. Rebecca Griffin apparently sent the appeal entitled “Campaign for Mike†on Christmas Eve. According to AP, she told the recipients: Yes, once again I am embarrassing my husband by reaching out to our friends and ‘imposing’ on them…. And if this is inappropriate, I’m sorry.” It’s not clear why she’d start such a petition, particularly given the reportedly…
NASA released a report today detailing the last moments of the seven astronauts who died when the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated upon reentry in February 2003. The report, written by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, said that nothing could have been done to save the crew. But the board used lessons from the accident to make recommendations to NASA about how to improve to flight vehicles, equipment and training to increase the chances astronauts could survive a future accident.