Ending a long cool summer on one of its hottest days, NASA Ames bid adieu to the International Space University at a closing ceremony Friday evening.
With temperatures sweltering into the 90s outside and lights failing inside due to a faulty light board, 130 students were awarded certificates of completion at the NASA center in Mountain View, Calif.
Peter Diamandis
Co-founder, Singularity University
An experiment that has been a “spectacular success”
graduating students; “type triple A personality”
done an amazing job in just a few weeks….
a least six companies are being formed as a result of the nine week summer session….
Singularity University will be expanding from initial 40 students to 100 students next summer
Today, we’re launching our executive program with the first session set for the end of the year or early next year…
looked forward to 20 years from now when there are 2,000 graduates of the program, just as there are in ISU today….
Futurist Ray Kurzweil
co-founder of SU
Created a group consciousness….the beginning of a community that is going to go forth and change the world….
Singularity has created a vibrant community that has already changed all of our lives here….
Presentations of group projects were very professional….looked like they were under development for two years, not just a few weeks….
Parabolic Archers voted Adriana Lima as the Victoria’s Secret Angel that they would most like to see float in space. Heidi Klum, Marisa Miller and Miranda Kerr were runners up.
I was at a private party in Cupertino this evening. I walked into the kitchen and there standing before me was NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver standing side-by-side with Ames Director Pete Worden.
With wine glasses in hand, they held forth on various NASA policy issues and plans before a circle of about a dozen people. There were various questions about the Earth sciences budget and different ways to evaluating potential missions.
Over the last six months, there have been several new legal developments in the case of space commercialization pioneer Walt Anderson, who is serving a 9-year sentence for tax fraud at a federal prison in New Jersey. The legal developments have renewed call from Anderson’s vocal supporters that the entrepreneur is innocent and should be released from prison.
Pete Gauthier, a packing engineer for United Space Alliance, prepares the COLBERT treadmill and its parts for loading into the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module Leonardo in preparation for launch to the International Space Station. Image credit: NASA/Jack Pfaller
NASA MISSION UPDATE
On Earth, we all know that exercise is good for us. But do we know exactly how good?
The situation is similar on the International Space Station. Astronauts and cosmonauts have been working out on orbit for close to 10 years, and researchers believe the exercise is a good countermeasure for the bone and muscle density loss that occurs when humans live for a long time without gravity.
But the exercise equipment on the station doesn’t have the ability to record details about the workouts. Two new workout tools do have that capability. One, the Advanced Resistive Exercise Device, is on orbit already. A second is being delivered on the STS-128 shuttle mission.
The Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill, or COLBERT, will be the second treadmill on the space station, adding to a complement of six different exercise devices already in orbit that range from stationary bicycles to resistive exercise devices.
NASA MISSION UPDATE
The mission management team opted to give engineers more time to refine their analysis of a fill-and-drain valve inside Discovery rather than push quickly into a new launch cycle, NASA pre-launch mission management team chairman Mike Moses said.”We gave the team a day to go and keep working on it,” he said.
The decision moved Discovery’s liftoff to Friday at 11:59 p.m. EDT to begin the STS-128 mission to the International Space Station.
AFP reports that when Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte flies into orbit next month on his space tourism joyride, we should be prepared for some wackiness:
Already his screen saver pictures his mission colleagues — US astronaut Jeffrey Williams and cosmonaut Maksim Surayev — in space suits and red clown noses, and he says he will bring six more clown snouts to those now in orbit.
Ah, exciting stuff!
Pete Conrad
CONRAD FOUNDATION PRESS RELEASE
The Conrad Foundation, a non-profit science-education and entrepreneurship advocacy organization, today announced that it has opened registration for the 2010 Spirit of Innovation Awards.
This competition challenges teams of high school students to create innovative products in four categories: aerospace exploration, space nutrition, renewable energy and green schools.
Swanky Space Hotel Concept Revealed
Space.com
A robot concierge, a redesigned showerhead and a full-sensory exercise wall are just part of the Space Hotel Project created by master’s degree students in a program hosted by Imperial College London and the Royal College of Art in the UK. The concept could theoretically attach to the International Space Station, so long as the growing space outpost remains in orbit.
Artist's conception of NASA's Ames Sustainability Base, a new green building at the space agency's facility in Mountain View, Calif.
NASA PRESS RELEASE
NASA today held a ceremonial groundbreaking and dedication event for what is expected to become the highest-performing building in the federal government.
The new, environmentally friendly building at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. is being named ‘Sustainability Base’ in honor of the first humans to walk on the surface of another world from their Tranquility Base Apollo 11 lunar landing site 40 years ago. It will serve as a highly efficient collaborative support facility providing workspace for a wide range of NASA’s aeronautics and space exploration missions.
REACTION ENGINES PRESS RELEASE
On 15th August 2009, this Oxfordshire aerospace company celebrated its 20th anniversary. Reaction Engines Ltd (REL) has been developing the SKYLON spaceplane, a progression from the HOTOL project, over the past 2 decades and believes that a single stage to orbit (SSTO) reusable launch vehicle (RLV) is the future of global Space travel.
The secret to SKYLON’s success is its innovative SABRE engine which possesses the dual capability to be in air-breathing mode up to 30km and Mach 5 before switching to rocket mode.
