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When Dr. Don Pettit lived aboard the International Space Station in 2002, he became known for his "Saturday Morning Science" sessions, during which he would demonstrate really cool, simple microgravity experiments.

Earlier this month, Pettit returned to space, this time as member of space shuttle Endeavour’s crew on a mission to upgrade the outpost. After 10 days of hard work, the STS-126 crew got some time off Sunday morning and Pettit took the opportunity to film a special episode of Saturday, err, Sunday Morning Science.

In his video, which he later narrated for Mission Control, Dr. Pettit demonstrated his take on a zero-gravity coffee cup…

Astronaut demos drinking coffee in space

But as the NASA rocket thingy shot up to the skies last night for another interesting mission, the only thing on my mind was the water they will drink.

Because it appears that they will be sipping their own recycled urine.

I know, I know. There are many cities in the world where the tap water is undrinkable. And I had hoped that this was merely a cost-cutting move in our tight times. But the fact is that this wastewater recycling gizmoid cost $250 million and is one of the featured experiments on this trip. Two more nuggets of information that make my natural ease turn to quease.

"We did blind taste tests of the water. Nobody had any strong objections. Other than a faint taste of iodine, it is just as refreshing as any other kind of water," NASA’s lead urinary engineer Bob Bagdigian told the Daily Telegraph.

I understand that it’s not easy keeping astronauts hydrated out there in the black beyond. And I know that there have even been Prime Ministers who swore by drinking their own entirely unrecycled piddle.

But some small part of me wishes there was, as Tony Blair always used to waffle, a third way.

This will be one of the last ten flights of the Space Shuttle. It is being retired and after 2010 the only flights will be Soyuzes.

But the current aim is for 92% of all the water drunk on board to be produced by the crew’s urinary tracts and the moisture in the air- some of which might be created, one supposes, by sweating crew members.

And when you listen to the chemistry of the process, Lord, it might turn your tummy. They distill, filtrate and oxidate.

The final gourmet touch is the addition of that little smidgen of iodine to control microbial growth. Which I’m assuming is something to do with little mites feeding on your waste and having babies half way down your throat.

I am sorry. As Heidi Klum always says on Project Runway: "one day urine and the next day urout." I’m out.

Source: Cnet.com

A dust storm and the onset of Martian winter have brought the Phoenix Mars Lander’s mission to an end, NASA announced Monday.

"We are actually ceasing operations, declaring an end to mission operations at this point," project manager Barry Goldstein with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory told reporters in a teleconference.

Mission controllers last heard from the vehicle on November 2.

Despite ongoing efforts to re-establish contact using NASA satellites in orbit around Mars, the spacecraft is silent.

"We’ll constantly turn on the radio and try to hail Phoenix to see if it is alive, but at this point nobody on the team has any expectations of that happening," Goldstein said. "But we do hope the vehicle will surprise us once again."

The Phoenix team knew when it selected a landing site on Mars’ arctic plain that the spacecraft would not survive a winter there. But researchers picked it anyway because satellite observations indicated vast quantities of frozen water were in that area, most likely in the form of permafrost.

They thought such a location would be a promising place to look for organic chemicals that would signal a habitable environment.

Phoenix landed on May 25 — mid-summer in the Martian year — and conducted five months of research, scooping up soil samples for analysis in onboard scientific instruments. The sun never sets on the arctic region during the summer, so the solar-powered craft had plenty of power for the first few months of its mission.

Read more @ CNN

Succumbing to a swirling dust storm and the cold of an encroaching Martian winter, the Phoenix Mars lander fell quiet for a day, before coming back to life Thursday evening, albeit weakly.

The lander’s batteries appeared to have drained, mission managers said, with all systems, including its heaters, shut down. The mission managers had instructed the spacecraft to wake up and send word of its condition at 12:30 a.m. Thursday via the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which was passing overhead. It did not.

But the spacecraft is programmed with a so-called Lazarus mode that enables it to resuscitate itself and recharge its batteries during the day.

Once restarted, the lander conserved its energy for 17 hours, then tried to communicate for two hours with any orbiter passing overhead, repeating the cycle until it received new instructions.

The lander successfully communicated with the Mars Odyssey orbiter Thursday evening.

Read more @ NYtimes

The 18 year old telescope is up and running again after t encountered some problems that kept Goddard scientists working around the clock in order to restore good functioning to the old telescope. Hubble had problems in transmitting information to Earth and recognizing commands.
After many attempts, scientists replaced the main system, Side A, with the backup one, Side B, but even this turned out to be problematic. After many attempts to repair the telescope and much hard work, it seems that Hubble is working again just how it should be. The telescope has recently sent back to Earth a picture showing two interacting galaxies that appear to form the number “10.” The image is truly beautiful, showing exactly where the two galaxies connected, a blue ring being formed in that exact place.

Unfortunately, for the old telescope, it seems that any accomplishment must be joined by some sort of bad luck. Because of the delays in repairing the telescope and due to other problems the shuttle meant to go into outer space and replace some of its out-dated instruments. Scientists have said that the shuttle was due for launch in February but because of some problems, they can only hope that the mission will be launched in May next year. NASA has announced that it needs the extra time in order to prepare another data handling unit to be sent and installed on the telescope by space shuttle Atlantis.

All in all, Hubble is now fixed and scientists say that the system is stable enough to resist until the repair mission will reach the telescope in May 2009.

Source: Eflux Media

A NASA official said Friday that the top Googlers’ new fighter jet will be used mostly to fly missions for the agency that four other jets owned by Google’s top executives could not handle.

“They are dedicating the plane primarily for NASA payloads,” said Steve Zornetzer, associate director of the NASA Ames Research Center, which operates Moffett Field near the Google campus. He said that the Google executives’ pilots would use the Dornier Alpha Jet for “training and pilot proficiency.”

Last year, a company controlled by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google’s founders, along with Eric Schmidt, its chief executive, signed an unusual agreement with NASA giving them rights to use Moffett Field, an airfield adjacent to Google, for their growing fleet of private airplanes. At the time, NASA described the arrangement as a win-win: NASA would receive $1.3 million in rent every year, and it would get to place scientific instruments on the planes for use by its researchers.

Mr. Zornetzer said things didn’t turn out exactly as expected. The Googlers and the agency both found out that they could not make modifications to the passenger planes, which include a Boeing 767, a Boeing 757 and two Gulfstream Vs, without getting new certifications from the Federal Aviation Administration each time.

Continue reading @ NYtimes

Scientists have better maps of distant Mars than the moon where astronauts have walked. But India hopes to change that with its first lunar mission.

Chandrayaan-1 — which means "Moon Craft" in ancient Sanskrit — is scheduled to launch from the Sriharikota space center in southern India at 8:50 p.m. EDT Tuesday in a two-year mission aimed at laying the groundwork for further Indian space expeditions.

Chief among the mission’s goals is mapping not only the surface of the moon, but what lies beneath. If the launch is successful, India will join what’s shaping up as a 21st century space race with Chinese and Japanese crafts already in orbit around the moon.

The United States, which won the 1960s race to send men to the moon, won’t jump in this race with its new lunar probe until next spring, but it is providing key mapping equipment for India’s mission.

As India’s economy has boomed in recent years, it has sought to convert its new found wealth — built on its high-tech sector — into political and military clout and stake a claim as a world leader. It is hoping that a moon mission — coming just months after it finalized a deal with the United States that recognizes India as a nuclear power — will further enhance that status.

"It is a remarkable technological achievement for the country," said S. Satish, a spokesman for the Indian Space Research Organization, which plans to use the 3,080-pound lunar probe to create a high-resolution map of the lunar surface and what minerals are below. The mapping instruments are a joint project with NASA.

Until now, India’s space launches have been more practical, with weather warning satellites and communication systems, said former NASA associate administrator Scott Pace, director of space policy at the George Washington University.

Read more @ AP

Pages from an Israeli astronaut’s diary that survived the explosion of thespace shuttle Columbia and a 37-mile fall to earth are going on display this weekend for the first time in Jerusalem.

The diary belonged to Ilan Ramon,Israel’s first astronaut and one of seven crew members killed when Columbia disintegrated upon re-entering the atmosphere on Feb. 1, 2003. Part of the restored diary will be displayed at the Israel Museum beginning Sunday.

A little over two months after the shuttle explosion, NASA searchers found 37 pages from Ramon’s diary, wet and crumpled, in a field just outside the U.S. town of Palestine, Texas. The diary survived extreme heat in the explosion, extreme atmospheric cold, and then "was attacked by microorganisms and insects" in the field where it fell, said museum curatorYigal Zalmona.

"It’s almost a miracle that it survived — it’s incredible," Zalmona said. There is "no rational explanation" for how it was recovered when most of the shuttle was not, he said.

NASA officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Source: Yahoo! News

Astronaut Zhai Zhigang became the first Chinese man to walk in space on Saturday, clambering out of China’s Shenzhou VII spacecraft in a technological feat that Beijing wants the world to marvel at.

"I’m feeling quite well. I greet the Chinese people and the people of the world," Zhai said as he climbed out of the craft, his historic achievement carried live on state television.

Zhai, the 41-year-old son of a snack-seller, unveiled a small Chinese flag, helped by colleague Liu Boming, who also briefly popped his head out of the capsule.

Zhai re-entered the spacecraft safely after a walk of about 15 minutes, marking the high point of China’s third manned space flight, which has received blanket media coverage.

Full article @ Reuters.com

The provisional launch date of space shuttle Atlantis on its STS-125 mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope has been postponed from 10 to 14 October due to the knock-on effects of Hurricane Ike.

Ike forced the closure of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, resulting in a "lost week of training and mission preparation". NASA will confirm a concrete launch date for Atlantis on 3 October.

The delay has also affected the intended launch of Endeavour, due to carry the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module to the International Space Station on 12 November on mission STS-126. This is now slated for a 16 November blast-off.

STS-125 - the last mission to Hubble - extends to 11 days, during which the Atlantis crew (Commander Scott Altman, Pilot Gregory C. Johnson and Mission Specialists Andrew Feustel, Michael Good, John Grunsfeld, Mike Massimino and Megan McArthur) will carry out five spacewalks.

Full story @ TheRegister.co.uk