Danger In The New Space Frontier: China?

It appears that China shot down one of it's own satellites, in an unprecedented display of power. Read the choice quotes below from the full story from Defense Tech.

"...Wynne said the shoot-down of a 1990's-era Chinese weather satellite in polar orbit has forced astronauts aboard the international space station to avoid the debris field scattered in the intercept, and he concluded that China now claims space as a legitimate battlefield...

..The test put at risk the assets of all space faring nations and posed dangers to human space flight due to the creation of an unprecedented amount of debris," the report stated. "The direct ascent ASAT system is one component of a multi-dimensional program to generate the capability to deny others access to outer space."

Were in ur shuttle swizlin ur scotch

Aviation Week first reported that a special panel studying astronaut health that 'stronauts were allowed to fly even though they were drunk and posed a safety risk. According to the report "Alcohol is freely used in crew quarters."

Jealous girlfriend Nowak arrested for murder plot, space trash, now this? When is Fox going to make a sitcom?

Endeavour to Polute the Atmo?

So they agonize about it. Then dump it in space, hoping that after a year most of it burns up in the atmosphere. I understand the value of these projects and the fact that our atmo is very very big. But it seems they could take those big budgets and genius Mensa engineers and come up with a way to not pollute. It seems courteous to the other projects.

Read rueters article about the August Endeavour launch.

Serenity takes off into the black...

No! Really. 'Browncoat' Sci-fi movie Serenity fan astronaut Steven R. Swanson takes the DVDs to space on shuttle mission STS-117.

I guess Cory is right about sci-fi being now.

Check out the blog Breaking Atmo.

European Space Agency is looking for a few good persons

ESA is looking for experimental 'virtuonauts' (terminology mine) to man a virtual mission to mars. Finally a looming solution to migrant worker problems.

Read the full story here.

download application here

Spaceship Repair Man

Tom Jones for Pop Mech talks of resident astronauts who are called on to repair the ailing Hubble. (no not that Tom Jones). I begin to wonder when we will demystify the role of "astronaut" which used to be a group of near super human national selections to Space Repairman and Space Janitor. Kind of a mix of engineer/technician and crab fisherman as the industry grows.

Space Diving

Pop Sci is talking a new adrenaline sport called "Space Diving" as proposed by Canadian Arrow. Likened to base jumping from the edge of space, Orbital Outfitters is working on the right space suite. Only thing is at 120,000 feet you have to watch out for burning up on re-entry, spinning wildly out of control and then there is the decompression. (not to mention the cost of getting there.)