This is very, very exciting. 

Planetary Resources, Inc. is not your average startup: its mission is to investigate and eventually mine asteroids in space!

Last week, the company issued a somewhat cryptic announcement saying they “will overlay two critical sectors – space exploration and natural resources – to add trillions of dollars to the global GDP”. I predicted this meant they wanted to mine asteroids, and yes, I will toot my own horn: I was right. They’re holding a press conference Tuesday morning to officially announce they’re going asteroid hunting.

The company had a pretty fierce amount of credibility right off the bat, with several ex-NASA engineers, an astronaut, and planetary scientists involved, as well as the backing of not one but several billionaires, including a few from Google… not to mention James Cameron. The co-founders of Planetary Resources are Peter Diamandis — he created the highly-successful X-Prize Foundation, to give cash awards to incremental accomplishments that will help achieve technological breakthroughs, including those for space travel — and Eric Anderson, X-Prize board member and Chairman of the Board of the Space Spaceflight Federation.

These are very, very heavy hitters. Clearly, they’re not screwing around.

(via Breaking: Private company does indeed plan to mine asteroids… and I think they can do it) 

Astronomical delights

Machine translated: “English photographer Vincent Fournier ( Vincent Fournier ) during the last 5 years, removes [let’s say ‘uncovers’ here, okay translation-bot?] everything connected with space exploration.”

This is a beautiful and inspiring set of images dealing with the Russian Space Programme.

(via Esquire Magazine)

It’s alive! Space station’s humanoid robot awake

NASA’s humanoid robot has finally awakened in space.

Ground controllers turned Robonaut on Monday for the first time since it was delivered to the International Space Station in February. The test involved sending power to all of Robonaut’s systems. The robot was not commanded to move; that will happen next week.

“Those electrons feel GOOD! One small step for man, one giant leap for tinman kind,” Robonaut posted in a Twitter update. (All right, so a Robonaut team member actually posted Monday’s tweets under AstroRobonaut.)

The four visible light cameras that serve as Robonaut’s eyes turned on in the gold-colored head, as did the infrared camera, located in the robot’s mouth and needed for depth perception. One of Robonaut’s tweets showed the view inside the American lab, Destiny.

“Sure wish I could move my head and look around,” Robonaut said in the tweet. Robonaut - the first humanoid robot in space - is being tested as a possible astronaut’s helper.

(via PhysOrg.com)

scienceetfiction:

Secured on a foot restraint device connected to the Canadian-built remote manipulator system arm aboard the Earth orbiting Atlantis, astronaut Jerry Ross, in Nov. 1985, participates (with astronaut Sherwood Spring, out of frame) in a STS-61B demonstration of future space station construction. 

info via NASA

(Source: mrcainessuits, via eirizu)

(Source: holavicente, via monstermadeofeyes)

fuckyeahspaceexploration:

Buzz Aldrin spacewalking

(via mariposima)

W A N T

(It resembles a prototype Gemini space-suit, a little.)

(via jaynawallace)

snowce:

Alexey Leonov on the first spacewalk during the Voskhod 2 mission

(via monstermadeofeyes)

crookedindifference:

Astronauts Stafford and Schirra check out the Gemini 6 spacecraft

(via monstermadeofeyes)

Loosely Translated:

This is the designer Hubert Vykukal and his spacesuit, the AX-3. This is an intermediate model AX Series, a collection of NASA space suits that cover the 60 and 70 and were the first to incorporate o-rings rotating technology.

This prototype AX-3 in particular weighs 23 kg, with an operating pressure of 0.5 to 0.7 bar and dates from 1977, the same year the Saturday Night Fever mass popular disco music. And it seems that Hubert Vykukal disco has caught the scent of the moment, as shown in the light plataformón boots, apart from the rounded shapes of the joints, which certainly gave him a modern.

As in the diving suits for deep, round shapes were not arbitrary.  A counter measure to be significant pressure on space, the use of spherical shapes able to better distribute the forces is an engineering solution to Hubert Vykukal began introducing their designs.

rubodewig:

El sastre que se probaba los trajes antes de mandarlos al espacio | Cooking Ideas - Un blog de Vodafone para alimentar tu mente de ideas

(via monstermadeofeyes)

pilnick:

Home from Above

(via spacerules)

Ten years of the International Space Station

“10 years ago today [EDIT: Not quite today, sorry.], Expedition 1 Commander Bill Shepherd and Flight Engineers Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko climbed aboard the International Space Station, marking the first of 3652 days of continuous occupation so far. I think that on that day a decade ago, we truly became a space-faring species.

Since that day, 200 men and women from more than a dozen nations have stayed aboard the station, living there, playing there, working there, and yes, even doing some science there.”

This movie was taken by Don Pettit on the International Space Station - it’s a time-lapse view of the Earth zooming by. You can see the northern lights glowing in the atmosphere, over illuminated cities. Gorgeous.

Spotted on Geographile

[Via: io9]

-clu-:

(via 3tongallery)