european space agency

Thursday, October 22, 2009
Science

Volunteers Wanted For 520-Day Pretend Trip To Mars

7:00PM Rosa Golijan | The European Space Agency is looking for volunteers to spend 520 days isolated in a Moscow facility where they’d simulate travelling to, living on and coming back from Mars. Not bad, except the pretend travel lasts 250 days each way. More »
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Friday, October 2, 2009
Gadgets

Antenna-Based Personal Communicator Realises My Fantasies

2:00PM Rosa Golijan | My second biggest Star Trek fantasy? Being able to tap a badge to communicate. Silly, but not to a Finnish company who is improving on Star Trek design and my fantasies with flexible, fabric communicators toting built-in GPS to boot. More »
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Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Science

Russia Locks Up Volunteers In Mock Space Ship To Simulate Mars Trip

11:20PM Mark Wilson | A group of 6 volunteers just finished a simulated 105-day mission to Mars. Completely stuck on the ground, the subjects were essentially locked in a room so that researchers could gauge the psychological impact of isolation. More »
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Sunday, March 9, 2008
Science

ESA’s Autonomous Space Truck Blasts Off Tomorrow

7:00AM Wilson Rothman | The European Space Agency is launching the first Automated Transfer Vehicle tomorrow in French Guyana. Though it looks like a satellite, the ATV, christened Jules Verne, is really an unmanned cargo-hauling robot capable of carting 7.6 tons of supplies and other astro-crap up from earth, and even tow the International Space Station itself to a higher orbit. And it’ll do a lot of this stuff with no guidance from the carbon units: More »
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