NASA has grounded the shuttle fleet after several pieces of insulating foam fell from the fuel tank during launch. Engineers didn’t expect it to fall from this area, according to shuttle program manager John Shannon:
The little thing at the bottom of this image is the space shuttle Endeavour, which was supposed to launch today. That huge glowing thing is a lightning striking from the sky. Not surprisingly, the launch has been delayed:
I’ve seen the shuttle pulling a Moonraker with NASA’s modified 747 mothership before—like in this spectacular zenithal shot of Endeavour—but it never ceases to amaze me to see the two of them taking off.
At CeBit yesterday, the guys at Altech were showing off the Shuttle X50 touchscreen net-top. And although I couldn’t get a price on it, the 1366 x 768 touchscreen computer looked fantastic, as you can see from the video below.
The Shuttle X50 is a touchscreen nettop that isn’t afraid to be manhandled around the house
If something goes wrong with the upcoming space shuttle replacement program, and we hope it does not, this is what could save the astronauts’ lives. As they hurtle hundreds of miles per hour into the heavens, and their ship begins to break apart, mission control will scream “ABORT!” (or perhaps something a bit more technical), and the astronauts will be ejected from the capsule with a force that’s actually much greater than the g’s they’ll experience during launch.
Virgin Mobile USA is soon to launch its first handset that uses tech from newly acquired Helio. Just as predicted, the slider phone will indeed include advanced features like social networking and other mobile services “through partnerships with Accuweather, ESPN, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Yahoo!” and others. There’s also Virgin Mobile’s first location-based services like “Buddy Beacon” (a friend-finder) and “Where,” which supplies local service info. The 3G EV-DO handset is set to cost below US$100, have a 1.3-megapixel cam, Bluetooth and a 2-inch screen, and will be exclusively out at Best Buy Mobile and BestBuy.com on 28th September. Press release below.
The USAF and Boeing will launch the X-37B–the first military orbital space plane if you discount the secret military shuttle–on top of an Atlas V rocket in November. They want to test its flying features in space and during atmospheric reentry. And probably its anti-matter rays and nuclear bays and hyperspace engines too (but of course, they are never going to tell you that). However, there seems to be a conflict with the civilian space program which may push one of the Moon exploration missions to 2009.
NASA has put a final date on the shuttle program: May 31 2010. That day, the shuttle will launch for the last time, putting an end to 29 years of amazing missions, two of them with tragic endings. The final will be STS-133, in which Endeavour “will carry critical spare components that will be placed on the outside of the station,” including new communication antennas, a gas tank, spare parts for giant space robot Dextre, and the coolest of them all: “micrometeoroid debris shields.” I don’t know about you, but I hope these involve invisible fields or laser micro-turrets or some kind of plasma generator. They also released details for the remaining flights of Endeavour, Discovery, and Atlantis:
Here’s a small form factor PC by Shuttle meant to function as a media server. What’s clever is the 7-inch touchscreen and I hope some general UI for getting around your files and programs. I’ve stashed a Shuttle box or two in a closet, and it fit great but using a keyboard and mouse in the closet is rough. So is planting a monitor between your shirts and pants. So this is a nice idea. (Please ignore the photoshopped floating screenshots to the sides of the LCD.) [Shuttle]
