Senior NASA photographer Bill Ingalls apparently set up his Canon EOS 5DS at an unlucky spot near yesterday's SpaceX rocket launch. He placed it outside the pad perimeter yet the launch sparked a small brush fire that cooked the camera. "I had many other cameras much closer to the pad than this and all are safe," Ingalls wrote.
Fortunately, the SD cards didn't melt and he was able to access the final photos taken by the camera before its untimely death. Two of them are below.
You likely read about "Mad" Mike Hughes in the news last year – you know, when you weren't busy stockpiling canned goods and potassium Iodide tablets to help deal with the existential dread that's currently gripping the planet. Hughes is the flat-earth loving, paradoxical science-hating DIY rocket designer who stated that he'd blast himself into the sky in a steam-powered, homemade rocket to prove that the earth isn't round.
That was a mouthful, but there's a lot going on here.
The first time that Hughes attempted to fire himself into the air in a blaze of Darwinism, the Department of Land Management shut him down, as his flight path would have taken him into the airspace over public lands. So, Hughes scrubbed the launch. Yesterday, he took another go.
According to the Associated Press, Hughes's steam-powered death chair was able to carry him to a distance of 1,875 feet into the air before he and his capsule floated back to earth, in relative safety, via parachute. When questioned about how he was feeling after surviving his flight, Hughes seemed happy that it was over and done with, citing that his back hurt, but over all he felt relieved that it was over.
No matter what you believe about Hughes' beliefs about the shape of the earth, of the lunacy it takes to strap yourself to the tip of a homemade rocket, you've got to respect that he pulled it off. Maybe he didn't gain as much altitude as he'd wanted. Read the rest
Over the weekend, flat-Earther and DIY rocketeer Mike Hughes tried again to launch himself into space. Unfortunately, he failed. As a result, his belief that the Earth isn't round stands. The Washington Post has been following Hughes's misadventures:
All critics would be silenced, Hughes promised then, when he finally launched on private property outside the town of Amboy, Calif., on Saturday....
“I pulled the plunger five different times,” Hughes said. “I considered beating on the rocket nozzle from the underneath side. But you can't get anyone under there. It'll kill you. It'll scald you to death. It'll blow the skin and muscle off your bones.”..
Hughes's plans are unclear now. He said he'd take apart the rocket to see what went wrong, but he has commitments to think of besides science. He was supposed to be in court on Tuesday, he told the crowd, because he was suing the governor of California for unspecified reasons. He was also trying to claim the legal right to Charles Manson's guitar. He is a man of many ambitions...
“Guys, I'm sorry,” Hughes said. “What can you do?”
"A flat-earther finally tried to fly away. His rocket didn’t even ignite." (Washington Post) Read the rest
Last week, SpaceX launched its Falcon 9, freaking out a lot of people in Southern California who thought they were seeing a UFO streak across the sky. Jesse Watson of Yuma, Arizona captured this incredible time-lapse of the awesome moment. He shot 2452 still images that he edited down to 1315 for this stunning video. From his Vimeo post:
Read the restI scouted four locations that had foregrounds to add depth to the imagery and was uniquely inspiring to my hometown. Location choices were between a favorite local hiking mountain, the Imperial Sand Dunes, or a small hill that resides in the historic downtown area overlooking the city. I ended up choosing the location that overlooked the city, partially because it was the easiest to access with all of my time-lapse gear. I used The Photographer’s Ephemeris and Google Maps to help scouting and initial line up...
I have never shot a rocket launch before, so I did not know exactly what to expect as far as exposure or precise location of the rocket in the horizon. I wanted to be prepared to capture comprehensive coverage of the spectacle.
Airbus mounted a 360-degree camera on a rocket being launched as part of a microgravity experiment, and the result it pretty phenomenal. Watch the stages separate and the earth's curvature reveal itself as the Maxus 9 pops up through the clouds.
Via Airbus:
Following a successful launch of Maxus 9 the largest European sounding rocket with scientific micro gravity experiments, Airbus is providing a stunning 360° view from space. The spacecraft, launched from the Esrange Space Center in Kiruna, Sweden, was equipped by Airbus with support from their joint venture partner Swedish Space Corporation in order to provide unique 360° footage of the launch from the rocket perspective. Viewers can see spectacular images of the take-off, down to Lapland getting smaller while the rocket soars into the sky, then spectacular views of the Planet and Space once the sounding rocket goes through the atmosphere and reaches its highest altitude of 700km, before the payload falls free back down to earth, and completes its’ parachute-assisted touchdown.
The Maxus programme is a joint venture between Swedish Space Corporation and Airbus, providing access to microgravity for ESA-contracted experiments. Sounding rockets are important to the scientific community as they offer research institutes a one-stop lab in which they can perform micro-gravity experiments. Technicians receive data and can adjust parameters thanks to real-time transmission to ground stations throughout the free fall time. Being able to launch, monitor and retrieve experiments in one day enables researchers to analyze their results almost immediately.
• 360 degree video of sounding rocket's Maxus 9 launch (YouTube / Airbus Defence and Space) Read the rest
This handheld, rocket-powered robot can leap about 30 meters and make a targeted landing. Once it's on the ground, it can then spin up and then abruptly brake its flywheel to jump forward or backward for a bit more mobility. Developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, the rocketeer robot could someday liftoff from a planetary or lunar lander or rover. The 450-gram prototype uses an Estes C11 rocket engine like those used in model rocketry! From IEEE Spectrum:
Read the restThe robot is mounted on an angled rail and when it’s time to fly, it spins up its reaction wheel and sets off the primary rocket. The rocket launches the robot on a parabolic trajectory with a maximum range, in Earth gravity, of up to about 30 meters, which would increase to about 200 meters under lunar gravity. The reaction wheel minimizes the effect of the robot body tumbling during flight, keeping the robot going on a straight line: We held this little thing with the gyro wheel turned on during an interactive session at (the International Conference on Robotics and Automation), and it was impressively powerful: There was a significant amount of resistance to any kind of sideways rotation. Since solid-fuel rocket engines can’t be throttled, the opposing thrust motors are fired when necessary to alter the robot’s trajectory for a targeted landing. It’s a fairly effective technique, and in their tests the standard deviation of a series of launches decreased from 1.2 to 0.29 meters, or four times more precise than without the opposing rockets.
Lego just announced its new NASA Apollo Saturn V model rocket set. It's based on a Lego Ideas submission by a builder named saabfun, it's a 1:110 scale model of the real thing. Of course the Saturn V was the workhorse rocket that took astronauts to the moon beginning in 1969 and delivered Skylab to orbit in 1973. and The 1,969 piece set will sell for $120 starting in June. It looks fantastic but I'll wait (and hope) for a Voyager Mission set complete with the Golden Record!
There's something so uncanny and futuristic about Falcon 9 landing that it triggers the part of our brains trained to be on the lookout for computer graphics. The overcast sky and haze of fog gives it a Simon Stålenhag vibe. Read the rest
For the last four years, the Rocketry Organization of California (ROC), a club for hardcore model rocket geeks, has hosted the Tripoli Rocketry Association's LDRS (Large, Dangerous Rocket Ships) launch at the Lucerne Dry Lake Bed. These aren't the small Estes rockets you can launch on your local baseball field but rather large High Powered Rockets propelled by engines rated "G" or higher. Photographer Sean Lemoine documented the spectacular scene in a series of photos that made me wish even more that I was there for lift off.
More at Sean Lemoine's LRDS project page.
Swiss "writing instrument" manufacturer Caran d'Ache and watchmaker MB&F collaborated to create the Astrograph fountain pen, an otherworldly pen with the astronomical price of $20,000. There will only be 99 of them produced and each includes a small, magnetic astronaut. Do not chew the cap.
This writing instrument is fitted with an ink pump, but may also be used with cartridges. The pen nib is made from rhodium-plated 18-carat gold, available in size M...
The rocket-shaped pen body is rhodium-plated and either highly polished or sandblasted matt, or plated in ruthenium anthracite. The chequered pattern is made from anthracite lacquer...
The base of the "engine" is plated with ruthenium. The stabiliser legs, the joints and miniature ladder are polished, sandblasted, satin-finished and rhodium-plated.
The Astrograph (via Uncrate)
The 12 oz, dishwasher/microwave safe Retro Raygun Rocket Mug is $9.72 and ships worldwide. (via Geeks Are Sexy) Read the rest
For Air & Space Magazine, photographer James Hill visited Russia's "Rocket Town," the city of Baikonur in Kazakhstan, where, he says, "everything you see is related to space." Read the rest
SPONSORED: This post is presented by the Toyota RAV4 EV. Because innovation can be measured in miles, kilowatts and cubic feet. Learn more at toyota.com/rav4ev
When asked what we are here for, Beat writer William S. Burroughs famously answered, "This is the space age, and we are here to go." We can't easily grab a seat to orbit but model rocketry is an excellent space age maker hobby that's stood the test of time. For a good time, call the LUNAR hotline! LUNAR is the Livermore Unit of the National Association of Rocketry, the northern California hub for model rocketry enthusiasts. Every month, LUNAR hosts a legal "sport launch" at NASA's Ames Research Center on the Moffett Federal Airfield in Silicon Valley. Everyone is invited to bring their model rockets, engines, and get ready for lift-off! It's a wonderful, supportive scene for new and old rocket buffs and families. One recent weekend, our sponsor Toyota loaned us a Toyota RAV4 EV and we decided the LUNAR launch was the perfect destination for a new electric car. And we're counting down... Read the rest
The SpaceX Grasshopper's latest launch—and graceful descent!—captured by a drone-mounted camera. Grasshopper was most recently seen terrifying the cows. Read the rest
Demonstration of SpaceX's experimental rocket design tools melding gestural interfaces, 3D design, virtual reality, and 3D printing. Read the rest
Hydrazine has powered rockets since WWII. Unfortunately, it's also highly toxic. Researchers in the U.S. and Sweden are working to create a better alternative, and may have a couple new fuels that could do the same job with less risk. Read the rest
Amy Shira Teitel has a nice essay about how we grapple with (and awkwardly avoid) the full legacy of Wernher Von Braun — father of the American space program and a Nazi whose rockets were once built by prison laborers. Read the rest
