You may have heard that earlier this week a consortium of billionaires has started a company called Planetary Resources to mine the asteroids. If you’re wondering why, consider this: How much useful material is out there is astonishing. A famous 1997 publication, “Mining the Stars,” suggested that at that year’s prices, a small metallic asteroid […]
Why Mine Asteroids? Read More »
There’s a popular myth that NASA spent “millions” of dollars developing a pen for astronauts to use in the weightless environment of a space ship – while their sensible Russian counterparts were happy to use the low-tech pencil. Alas, for all its appeal and plausibility, this is not true. Initially, astronauts and cosmonauts were both
Its a Myth: NASA’s Million Dollar Pen Read More »
According to Ubergizmo, NASA supplied the astronauts on the recently launched Discovery with special glasses that would make it easier for them to see in space. Superfocus glasses aim to help folks suffering from presbyopia. The glasses act like a regular pair of spectacles, with prescription lenses on the outer layer, while a pair of
Superfocus Glasses For Astronauts Read More »
Since there are no washing machines on the International Space Station, astronauts often wear the same underwear for three or four days before disposing of it by hurtling it back towards Earth where, hopefully, it burns up on reentry. The costs of sending anything in space currently range from between $2500 and $5000 per pound,
The Final Frontier: How Do You Wash Dirty Underwear in Space? Read More »
In space, what happens to the bubbles in a glass of beer? How do you pour it? Can you even drink beer in space? Two beer-preneurs plan to find out when they market the first beer in space. BusinessWeek has more: Jason Held and Jaron Mitchell have a dream. In that dream, you are floating
Coming Soon: Beer in Space! Read More »
Are Google executives Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, (Avatar and Titanic) director James Cameron, and Ross Perot Jr starting a company to mine asteroids? It sounds like it. Their new company promises to: overlay two critical sectors – space exploration and natural resources – to add trillions of dollars to the global GDP. This innovative
Mining the Asteroids? Read More »
An unlikely duo has teamed up to design spacesuits with the space tourism market in mind. At first, Nikolay Moiseev, a long-time Russian Federal Space Agency employee, and Ted Southern, a costume designer who was the first to dress Victoria’s Secret models in angel wings, don’t seem like an obvious pairing. But to hear them
Victoria’s Secret Designer Making Space Suits for Space Tourism Read More »
ExtremeTech: “Your dream of visiting the Red Planet may soon come true if the claim made by Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, actually comes to fruition. The commercial space travel entrepreneur told the BBC in an interview that he’s figured out how to send a person on a round-trip journey to Mars and back, and
Go To Mars for $500K Read More »
io9: Forget spring break trips to Cancun — in the future everyone will holiday in the Commercial Space Station created by Orbital Technologies (assuming it ever gets constructed). Space hotel guests will have access to the stars, via Russian Soyuz rockets. It only costs about $164,000 to stay for five days in the CSS. But
First Look: Space Hotel Read More »
The X Prize awarded $10,000,000 to the first non-government organization to launch a reusable manned spacecraft to a height of 100 kilometers, twice within two weeks. A Spanish entrepreneur who wants to take private astronauts to “near-space” argues that the 100-km definition of space is somewhat arbitrary. Autotopia has more on his audacious plans: A
Going to Space in a Balloon Read More »
