notes.husk.org

"In 2007, around the time it launched its second unmanned station, Bigelow Aerospace boasted that as..."

Mon, 20 May 2013 19:37:04 +0100

“In 2007, around the time it launched its second unmanned station, Bigelow Aerospace boasted that as many 800 paying crewmembers could be flying in 10 years’ time. Six years later, the number of Bigelow astronauts remains zero. Bigelow has launched ambitious self-funded enterprises before, but he is also known for being capricious with them. In 2004 he pulled the plug on the National Institute for Discovery Science, which funded paranormal research. Bigelow’s”

- Greg Klerkx: Living in space

Space Situational Awareness (SSA) (by AstriumTV, via stml) A...

Fri, 17 May 2013 18:38:00 +0100

Space Situational Awareness (SSA) (by AstriumTV, via stml)

A list of the text captions from the video:

Debris must be monitored
Complex systems needed
Surveillance, Tracking & Analysis
Conjunction Prediction
Trajectories Prediction
Imaging requires data policy
Space Weather Surveillance
Solar Eruption Impact
Ariane Launch
Adaptation: safe de-orbitation
Active Debris Removal
For a safer space.

“Pavel Belyayev and Alexey Leonov on aboard the Voskhod-2...

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 19:43:01 +0100

“Pavel Belyayev and Alexey Leonov on aboard the Voskhod-2 spacecraft. Leonov became the first person to ever to conduct a spacewalk on the 18th of March, 1965.” from an io9 post of photos from the Soviet and Intercosmos programmes (via).

The Soviet space effort certainly cut some corners. Unlike NASA, whose Gemini two-man capsule was completely different to the Mercury design, “The Voskhod spacecraft was basically a Vostok spacecraft that had a backup, solid fuel retrorocket added to the top of the descent module”. Still, it worked.

"As the mental maps of each of the islands grew, they started to merge together and the islands of..."

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 20:16:11 +0100

“As the mental maps of each of the islands grew, they started to merge together and the islands of London metaphor began to gradually fade away. Eventually, I switched to a small shirt-pocket sized map of inner London and left my islands of London map book at the hotel.”

- dabcanboulet: Islands of London on Everything2.com (via)

It’s been over a decade ago since I had that experience regularly, but I know exactly what this feels like. He’s right: this is a great way to learn the city.

Berlin at night from space, with the old west and east still...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 18:26:05 +0100

Berlin at night from space, with the old west and east still visible:

“Berlin was divided into two parts for over 40 years,” explains Christa Mientus-Schirmer of Berlin’s city government. “And although we’ve made a lot of progress in the 20 years since the wall fell, we haven’t had the money we would have liked to equalise the two parts of the city.”

Daniela Augenstine, of the city’s street furniture department, says: “In the eastern part there are sodium-vapour lamps with a yellower colour. And in the western parts there are fluorescent lamps – mercury arc lamps and gas lamps – which all produce a whiter colour.” The western Federal Republic of Germany long favoured non-sodium lamps on the grounds of cost, maintenance and carbon emissions, she says.

Guardian quote via chriswoebken.

Blueprints for a rocket in the Soyuz family. This post is an...

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 21:33:18 +0100

Blueprints for a rocket in the Soyuz family.

This post is an inverted version of this image, via

Remember the ISS photography maps from Nathan Bergey? The ones...

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 01:24:00 +0000

Remember the ISS photography maps from Nathan Bergey? The ones where he asked “Draw a dot for the location of every photo of Earth taken from space what do we see?” Well, everyone loves an animated gif, so here’s the final “mission mapped separately” image rejigged as an animation.

It’s a little janky, because despite being a developer not a designer I ended up wrangling this in Photoshop, but hopefully you like it anyway.

The Colour Of Space

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 00:53:12 +0000

Fletcher: And this color, red, it doesn’t make much sense to me.
Low: What would be better?
Fletcher: Blue makes more sense… Space is blue.
Low: No Dr. Fletcher, Space is black!

Comet Pan-STARRS as seen by one of the two NASA Stereo solar...

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 22:17:23 +0000

Comet Pan-STARRS as seen by one of the two NASA Stereo solar observation probes, about six hours ago (via)

Patent #3,285,228, The Fisher Anti-Gravity Pen, from The Fisher...

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 04:30:42 +0000

Patent #3,285,228, The Fisher Anti-Gravity Pen, from The Fisher Space Pen Boldly Writes Where No Man Has Written Before in the Smithsonian’s Design Decoded blog.