Mars One - Dutch Reality TV Program colonising Mars

The updated HD version is also available: Mars One introduction film (updated version).

The updated version includes subtitles in several languages: http://youtu.be/n4tgkyUBkbY

Hello Mars, here we come! A TV production Dutch company says it will produce the biggest reality TV show ever, centered around a group of humans who will colonise Mars.

Mars One was founded by Bas Lansdrop, a Netherlands researcher from Delft University, and has the backing of Nobel Prize-winning physicist, Gerard Hooft.

The TV firm claims it will put four people on the red planet every two years, beginning 2023.

Nasa Sphere Satellites in the ISS

The International Space Station has 3 small Sphere satellites used to test control algorithms. 

They form part of an MIT Project and are available for students to program.

They are designed to act in unison with each other in a group or swarm.

Nasa

Star Maps From Mobile App Maker Brings Astronomy to the Masses

Skywatching enthusiasts, rejoice! The makers of a popular astronomy app have released a series of free star maps and new educational tools to help both casual and more experienced stargazers learn more about the cosmos, the app's designers said.

Starmap is providing users with free customizable regional star maps and an infographic that illustrates the history of astronomy, and includes resources can be downloaded from the company's website.

The resources join the ranks of a growing field of space-themed apps for digital devices.

"You can download the map month-by-month for the Northern and Southern hemisphere, and you can see the exact times on a list of what can be seen with the naked eye or with telescopes," Frederick Descamps, an astronomer and the creator of the Starmap mobile app, told SPACE.com.

Once users select their hemisphere, region and desired time of night, the map is automatically generated and highlights constellations, planets, moon phases and other cosmic objects that could be visible.

The maps will also separate objects that can be seen with the naked eye, binoculars, small telescopes and larger telescopes.

The Plan for Code - An open.NASA

Today (Jan 4th 2012) NASA are launching code.nasa.gov, the latest member of the open NASA web family.

Through their website, they will continue, unify, and expand NASA’s open source activities.

The site is intended to serve to reveal existing projects, provide a forum for discussing projects and processes, and guide internal and external groups in open development, release, and contribution.

In their initial release, they are focusing on providing a home for the current state of open source at the Agency.

This includes guidance on how to engage the open source process, points of contact, and a directory of existing projects.

By elucidating the process, they hope to lower the barriers to building open technology in partnership with their public.

PHASE Two

Phase two will concentrate on providing a robust forum for ongoing discussion of open source concepts, policies, and projects at the Agency.

PHASE Three
In their third phase, they hope to turn to the tools and mechanisms development projects generally need to be successful, such as distributed version control, issue tracking, continuous integration, documentation, communication, and planning/management.

During this phase, they hope to create and host a tool, service, and process chain to further lower the burden to going open.

The GOAL

Ultimately, their goal is to create a highly visible community hub that will imbue open concepts into the formulation stages of new hardware and software projects, and help existing projects transition to open modes of development and operation.


They are going to need your help to get there! Please use the “Share your Ideas” icon (bottom right on their blog) to comment on their blog post, or email them at opengov@nasa.gov to let them know how code can help you, where you would like to see the site go, and how best they can fulfill their purpose.

NASA believes that tomorrow’s space and science systems will be built in the open, and that code.nasa.gov will play a big part in getting us there. Will your code someday escape our solar system or land on an alien planet? NASA's working to make it happen, and with your help, it will.

Visit the open.NASA at The Plan for Code - open.NASA

Death of one of the founders of the Soviet space program, Boris Chertok, aged 99

This file photo was taken on Friday, Sept. 21, 2007, when Boris Chertok was speaking to reporters in Moscow. 

Chertok, who died in Moscow Wednesday at the age of 99, was one of the founders of the Soviet space program and played a key role in many Soviet space achievements. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits, file)

Boris Chertok, a Russian rocket designer who played a key role in engineering Soviet-era space programs, has died, aged 99.

The state-controlled RKK Energiya rocket builder where he worked as a top consultant said Chertok died in Moscow on Wednesday after contracting pneumonia.

For many years, Chertok served as a deputy to the father of the Soviet space program, Sergei Korolyov. 

He was closely involved in putting the world's first satellite in orbit on Oct. 4, 1957, and preparing the first human flight to space by Yuri Gagarin on April, 12 1961.

Chertok was born in Lodz, Poland, when it was still part of the Russian empire and his family moved to Moscow at the start of World War I.

After graduating from the Moscow Energy Institute in 1940, he started working as an aviation engineer. 

When World War II ended, Chertok was selected to lead a group of Soviet experts to travel to Germany to tap the Nazi know-how in rockets. He first met Korolyov there, and the two worked closely together until Korolyov's death in 1966.

Chertok, who specialized in control systems for rockets and spacecraft, has published memoirs chronicling the rise of the Soviet space program from its early days to the moon race the Soviet Union lost to the United States.

"Each of these first rockets was like a beloved woman for us," Chertok said at a meeting with reporters. 

"We were in love with every rocket, we desperately wanted it to blast off successfully. We would give our hearts and souls to see it flying."

Even the names of Chertok and other leaders of the space program were a tightly-guarded secret, and he only was permitted to travel abroad only in the late 1980s, after Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev liberalized the Soviet Union.

Chertok's voluminous work for the first time revealed to the public details of the endeavors which had been hidden by the veil of Soviet-era secrecy.

"I deeply regret the loss of this brilliant and genuinely humane person," said James Oberg, a NASA veteran who has written books on the Russian space program and who now works as a space consultant.

"A man like him should live forever," Oberg said in an emailed message. "He will do so, in his accomplishments and his books."

In recent years, Chertok has frequently appeared on national television and participated in events marking historic achievements. Chertok made stinging criticism of the Russian leadership for losing the nation's edge in space.

"The new elite consisting of the superrich and corrupt officials feeding on windfall energy revenues don't care about the national space program," he said in an interview published earlier this year.

New psychological intervention program shows promise in helping those with bowel diseases

New psychological intervention program shows promise in helping those with bowel diseases — Science Blog

Teenagers with IBD, including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, often have serious trouble coping with the disorders. But a new cognitive-behavioral, skills-based treatment intervention program developed and tested by psychologists at the University of Georgia shows promise of reducing physical symptoms and increasing adaptive coping strategies. It could help bring some relief to the hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. alone who often suffer in silence.

The latest study on the effectiveness of the coping skills intervention involved 24 female teenagers age 11-17 — a population that especially struggles with the intimate and sometimes embarrassing nature of IBD.

“We saw significant improvements in these adolescents’ physical symptoms and coping strategies following treatment,” said Ronald Blount, professor of clinical psychology at UGA and an author of the study. “Parents, who were also involved in the study, reported reductions in catastrophic thoughts related to their daughters’ pain and improved behavioral reactions related to their daughters’ physical symptoms. We aimed to teach parents to become coaches for their daughters to help them better manage their symptoms.”

The research was just published online in the journal Inflammatory Bowel Diseases. Co-authors were Megan McCormick and Bonney Reed-Knight, both psychology doctoral students at UGA, and Drs. Jeffrey Lewis and Benjamin Gold of the Children’s Center for Digestive Health Care in Atlanta. The department of psychology at UGA is part of the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.

IBD is unpredictable and can cause severe suffering for those diagnosed with the disease. With symptoms such as abdominal pain, frequent diarrhea, delayed growth and intestinal or rectal bleeding, the disorders are a challenge for teens and parents alike. Sometimes just as difficult, IBD is associated with such things as elevated stress levels and poor emotional functioning.

Those directing the study divided the 24 adolescent girls and their parents involved in the study into two groups for the one-day intervention. One group began training in the new protocols immediately, while the second was “wait-listed” as a control group, though all eventually received the training.

While the on-site training lasted but a day, it was followed by six weeks of a web-based coping skills program, including weekly homework assignments and group chat sessions aimed at reinforcing the skills learned in the one-day intervention.

Decommissioning the NASA Space Shuttle program should be postponed indefinitely

A Symbol: An in-space ballerina and hypersonic flying marvel, the Space Shuttle Orbiter is almost impossible for others to duplicate and continues to generate international admiration and respect for U.S. technical capabilities.

Full Potential Not Yet Realised: The multi-functional Orbiter has performed "as designed" on all assignments including reentry and a key role in the International Space Station (ISS) assembly. Like any new manned system, as crews and engineers become more familiar (like a helicopter) performance "in the box" improves and extending-the-box opportunities are identified. So far the Orbiter has operated generally within the box.

Too Young For Retirement: Each remaining Orbiter has many missions and years of life remaining. The Orbiter was designed for a one hundred mission life with a factor of four (i.e. 400 flight potential). It has experienced low flight rates and has not been structurally overloaded (maximum loads occur during the boost phase and high wind shear situations have been avoided through pre-flight meteorological observations) and receives a complete examination and any necessary refurbishment between each flight.

The System is Safe for Continued Man Flights: No critical failures have originated from within the triply redundant Orbiter itself but like any spacecraft designed for light-weight, it is vulnerable to abuse (e.g. SRB O rings, ET insulation debris); these are now known and addressable problems.

The Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSME)s were a principal safety concern through the development years but their flight record has been excellent and it may be that the integrity of recovered, refurbished rocket engines is as good as or even better than new ones. Some rocket engine incipient failures may lie undetected in ocean graves.

Real Usability Through "Landing With Dignity": Turnaround man hours are costly for the Orbiter, not the least demanding being the heat shield preparation and changes are continually being made to improve the situation. Even so, this relatively light-weight, first generation radiant heat shield is itself reusable and obviates having to pay for a new vehicle and other ancillary costs such as ocean recovery for every flight. Note: In depth reviews of "flown" Apollo command modules concluded that second flights of the hardware would be too costly at that time.

New Space Initiatives Depend On The Orbiter For Identification and Pursuit: The on-orbit assembly option for a deep space manned system became more viable upon completion of the International Space Station (ISS) using the Orbiter. An "Orbiter" segment of a deep space system would be used in assembly activities, on-orbit transfers, tug functions and most importantly for the crew Earth-to-orbit and orbit-to-Earth transfer.

Reliance on an Orbiter for re-entry would eliminate configuration constraints on size and shape and the weight of items such as parachutes, heat shields and landing impact structure and the energy needed to transport this otherwise useless added weight throughout the entire deep space mission.

This approach essentially would trade-off these advantages against the development of an additional propulsion module for return from deep space to high/low Earth orbit. The present Orbiter would be a key mechanism in the early development of such an on-orbit assembled system.

The Shuttle Continues to Be An Intriguing Candidate For "Commercialisation": The system is presently operational. Its payload-to-orbit delivery and other capabilities are well documented. Its risks are known and assessable for payload insurance and crew-safety considerations and industrial elements are already doing much of the work in many areas.

Bailing, leasing and/or other type of agreement for use of government equipment (Orbiters, pads, control centers, etc.) is probably feasible in some arrangement. Needed is an industry, NASA-government, Congressional meeting of the minds on all related elements including government flight requirements, (e.g. ISS servicing) and commercial pricing policies.

If such a government hand-off to industry could be affected it would, of course, keep the Shuttle Program available for another decade or two should presently unforeseen government needs arise (even today it would be most helpful to have Apollo supply and rescue vehicles that serviced Skylab available for use on the ISS).

U. S. Taxpayers Have Not Yet Realised Their Full Return-on-Investment (ROI) From the Shuttle System:

+ It really works; it is not just a briefing chart promise.

+ It has much life remaining and could be the key to the identification and development of new systems.

+ It is man-rated and safe--probably as safe as any manned system will be-no others will get over one hundred flights down the learning curve.

+ The infrastructure is in place and operational and has provided industry through extensive, hands-on participation with the depth of training necessary to assume total system accountability.

+ To replace the Orbiter capabilities will take decades and billions.

Decommissioning the Space Shuttle should be postponed indefinitely.

Bolivia Creates Space Agency To Manage Satellite Program

Bolivian President Evo Morales has signed a decree establishing a national space agency to oversee a satellite project scheduled to be completed by 2013, the Latin American Herald Tribune said.
The document, signed by the Bolivian president on Wednesday, stipulates that the Bolivian Space Agency "will promote technology transfer, human-resource development and the application of satellite-communications programs to education, defense, medicine and meteorology."

The new government body will also manage the implementation of the Tupac Katari satellite project, named after the leader of an Indian rebellion against the Spanish colony in the 18th century.

The agency will have an initial budget of $1 million and will be financed through government funding, donations and foreign loans, the Latin American Herald Tribune said, citing the country's Public Works Minister Walter Delgadillo Terceros.

According to the Latin American Herald Tribune, technical experts from China and Bolivia met in January to assess Bolivia's telecommunications capabilities and to start preliminary work on the design of the Tupac Katari, which will be built on the basis of the Chinese DFH-4 satellite.

The first Bolivian satellite is expected to be put into orbit in 2013.