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The Future
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Space |
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Students! Thinking about your future?
Click here for a special
section of our site made just for you. Tons of career
and homework resources.. |
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The
Future of Space
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Space Tourism
Have you ever dreamed of going to space? In the past, if
you wanted to leave this planet you had to dedicate your
life to becoming an astronaut. Even then, there is only a
select few that ever get to see Earth in the rear view
mirror. That could all change soon thanks to
Virgin Galactic
More space and
suborbital travel links
Teachers in Space - Space Frontier
Foundation
The Easy Rocket - XCOR
The Rocketplane
Armadillo Aerospace
Scaled Composites
Near Earth Objects
What are the
chances that a large asteroid will strike the Earth in the
next 20 years?
Near-Earth
Objects (NEOs) are comets and asteroids that have been
nudged into orbits that allow them to enter the Earth's
neighborhood. Efforts are being mounted to discover and
study these objects and to keep an eye upon their future
trajectories.
Near Earth Objects
Is the Space Station
Flying Over Your City?
Check out a
list of quick and easy satellite sightings in cities
all over the world.
Scientists: Watch for
Weird Life From Beyond
Life as we
know it on Earth is not the only kind possible in the
universe, scientists reminded NASA in a recent report.
Issued by the National Academy of Sciences and sponsored
by the space agency, the 116-page report reviews current
research into what life is and what it needs to survive,
as well as the way life might differ on other worlds.
Missing Cosmic Matter
Found
Astronomers
say they have definitely found half of the universe's
missing normal matter in the spaces between galaxies.
Astronomers 'See' the Invisible
By observing a rare head-on collision of galaxies at 10
million miles per hour, astronomers have made the first
direct detection of "dark matter"-- the mysterious,
invisible stuff that comprises at least one-quarter of the
universe. Read more at the National Science Foundation.
Sci-Fi vs. Science Fact
How much do
you know about space travel and the search for
extraterrestrial life? Take
the test.
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Microsoft's WorldWide
Telescope
Image courtesy of
Microsoft Worldwide Telescope
WorldWide
Telescope, created with Microsoft Corp.’s high-performance
Visual Experience Engine, enables seamless panning and
zooming around the night sky, planets and image
environments. View the sky from multiple wavelengths: See
the X-ray view of the sky and zoom into bright radiation
clouds, and then cross-fade into the visible light view
and discover the cloud remnants of a supernova explosion
from 1,000 years ago.
Pan and zoom
from aerial views of the moon and selected planets, and
see their precise positions in the sky from any location
on Earth, at any time in the past or future.
The
WorldWide Telescope is a single rich application portal
that blends terabytes of images, data and stories from
multiple sources over the Internet into a media-rich,
immersive experience.
WorldWide Telescope
Lassos in Space
by Sheri Beam,
NASA Langley Research Center
Roping cattle takes skill and finesse,
but imagine trying to lasso a satellite in space. Now,
imagine flinging the satellite up to a higher orbit to
actually launch it!
That’s what a small business in Bothell, Wash., is
planning to do. The researchers and engineers at Tethers
Unlimited Inc. are not cowboys, but they are developing
unique lassos. Their “lassos” are new systems that will be
used to capture and launch spacecraft.
The tether is a long string or wire deployed in space from
a spacecraft. These tethers can be used in different ways
to move satellites or spacecraft in space.
The “lasso” concept is similar to a giant sling that would
rotate as it orbits the Earth. The craft, ballast and
tether increase orbital momentum and energy for boosting
the payload to a higher orbit.
“It could swing down, pick up a spacecraft in low orbit
and carry it up and toss it into a higher orbit,” said Rob
Hoyt, Tethers Unlimited president.
Read the complete article at NASA
Watch the video
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