Space Tourism Society Vice President Samuel Coniglio has co-created a new machine, the CosmoBot, that automatically mixes Cosmopolitans. He demonstrated it duirng a party at his Oakland home on July 5, 2009. The future of bartending – no tips, and no one to listen to your problems.
International Space Station
Russia Today interviewed Mark Bowman, manager of NASA Moscow Technical Liaison Office, about U.S.-Russian cooperation on the International Space Station. A few excerpts:
NASA PRESS RELEASE
As part of the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the first lunar landing, Apollo 11, award-winning science journalist and space historian Andrew Chaikin will be a featured speaker on Thursday, July 9 at NASA Ames Research Center.
Russia launched 15 rockets during the first half of 2009. The country plans a total of 39 launches by the end of the year.
NASA's Ares I rocket lifts off in this artist's conception. (Credit: NASA)
Vibration Analysis Delays Ares I-X Stacking
Aviation Week
Crews at Kennedy Space Center will wait to start stacking the Ares I-X test vehicle so engineers will have more time to analyze three vibration-loads issues that could threaten range safety during its suborbital test flight, which probably will slip into October.
The Space Review takes a look at European space tourism, Charles Bolden and the challenges he faces at NASA, and other topics of interest.
The Senate will hold a confirmation hearing on Wednesday for Charles Bolden and Lori Garver as NASA administrator and deputy administrator, respectively. The Senate will likely confirm both nominees.
NASA and ATK test engineers at the US Army's Yuma Proving Ground prepare for the first test of all three Ares I main parachutes. Image Credit: U.S. Army Yuma Proving Grounds
NASA’s Ares I Starting To Take Shape at Marshall
Aviation Week
Four years after NASA embraced Ares I as the next route to space for U.S. astronauts, the new crew launch vehicle is beginning to move from computer-aided-design workstations to the floors of various “fab labs” here that in some cases date back to the Saturn V program in the 1960s.
However, the Ares I’s destiny is very much up in the air as a panel headed by former Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine pores over options for U.S. human spaceflight. The panel is pitting progress, and problems, here against human-rating the Delta IV heavy that already is flying cargo, and against a few other concepts that are still in the “paper-rocket” stage (see pp. 12, 45 and 46).
Steve Jurvetson: Only investing in the unknown
CNET
Draper Fisher Jurvetson, has invested in both Tesla and Reva Electric (Reva makes low-cost electric city runabouts). He knew little about the auto business when he got into the field, and admits he’s been very lucky. Regarding electric cars, he says, “You couldn’t possibly have put a business plan together that foresaw what is happening today.”
AD ASTRA PRESS RELEASE
Ad Astra Rocket Company has successfully demonstrated operation of its VX-200 plasma engine first stage at full power and under superconducting conditions in tests conducted today at the company’s Houston laboratory. This achievement is a key milestone in the engine’s development and the first time a superconducting plasma rocket has been operated at that power level.