mhotchin writes "The Globe and Mail says that NASA has evaluated all the submissions for a robot repair mission to Hubble, and the only bid requested is from the Canadian company that developed the Canadarm. It appears they would copy the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator ('Dexter'), developed for ISS, as the main unit for the repairs."

MasterLock writes "If you are in the Eastern US take a moment tonight (13 May 2004) around 9:30 PM EDT to step outside and watch an eclipse of Jupiter by the International Space Station. Details at NASA."

deglr6328 writes "Physics Today has a report detailing the surprisingly heated controversy surrounding the usually sober science of nuclear isomers (the Washington Post has run a less scientifically rigorous version). Since the 70's it has been known that the specific "m2" isomer of Hafnium-178 has an extraordinarily long half life of 31 years (nuclear isomers usually have half-lives on orders of pico or nanoseconds) and on decaying, emits high energy gamma rays at ~2.5 Mev. The prospect of energy storage and rapid release in Hf-178 for the puropse of creating large energy stores, bombs and even exotic gamma ray lasers did not escape the interest of Reagan era Star Wars researchers and was seriously studied for a time during SDI's heyday, but was eventually abandoned after being considered unfeasible. Then, in 1999, Carl Collins at the Univ. of Texas Center for Quantum Electronics reported inducing energy release from Hf-178 by bombarding a sample with X-rays (from a dental machine no less). Immediately, comments about the article were submitted, pointing out inconsistencies with basic nuclear theory and the controversy has only grown since then, with claims and counter-claims of flawed experimental design, incompetence and irrational theories in feuds reminiscent of the cold fusion debacle of the late 80's. It's seeming more unlikely as the arguments drag on, but if a Hafnium bomb could be built, it is thought that a golf ball sized chunk could produce the energy equivalent of 10 tons of conventional explosives."

mykepredko writes "According to CNN, using a robot to repair/update the Hubble observatory is much more feasible than NASA originally believed. According to the article, the desires for keeping Hubble operational, while keeping shuttle astronauts safe seems to be the impeus for suggesting robotic repair of the satellite. The article goes on to discuss 'Robonaut' and 'Ranger robot', two machines which can approximate the capabilities of a space-suited astronaut. I'm wondering if these robots could be used for the ISS assembly/maintenance, minimizing crew EVAs while maximizing assembly time and hopefully reducing costs."

Devar writes "According to this space.com article The US has turned down China's offer for cooperation in space because their 'technology was not mature.' "Anticipating future space cooperation with the U.S., China fitted the Shenzhou craft with a docking ring capable of linking up with the International Space Station (ISS) and has at least one launch site, Jiuquan, located at near the same latitude as NASA's Cape Canaveral, which would allow similar launch profiles." This action has prompted China to turn to the ESA."

Z4rd0Z writes "Russian Cosmonauts at the International Space Station today heard a loud drumlike noise for the second time since November. The sound seemed to be coming from the same place as before. In February a space walk to find the source of the sound was cut short."

Sgt York writes "Space Adventures announced yesterday that Gregory Olsen will be their next private space tourism client. He paid $20M to hop on a Soyuz, sometime by 2005, and go spend some time on the ISS. The cool thing is, he's not just playing tourist. He's the CEO of Sensors Unlimited, has a MS in physics, and a PhD in materials science. He's planning on using the trip to 'help inspire today's youth to dream big' and conduct a few experiments, including testing out some of his company's equipment. SA is billing him as his own 'private space program.'" There's also a space.com story.

MGDruss writes "NASA are proposing an empirical measurement on the ISS which would test general relativity to a precision within the bounds of superstring (and other) theories to predict deviation." We mentioned the Cassini experiment last year.

An anonymous reader writes "A new Internet worm wriggled across the entire Internet in the span of a few hours Saturday morning to all computers running several recent versions of firewall software from Internet Security Systems, including BlackICE and RealSecure, according to this story at Washingtonpost.com. The flaw that Witty exploited was discovered Wednesday by eEye Digital Security. The worm overwrites data on the first few sectors of the victim's hard drive, making the machine virtually ubootable and potentially destroying much - if not all - of the victim's data." Update: 03/21 02:18 GMT by T : Reader Jeff Horning points out that eEye actually disovered the worm on the 8th of March, and came up with a fix the next day.

chuckpeters writes "The battle over saving Hubble is just starting to heat up! The House Science Committee Democrats released their views and estimates report. Recommendation number two was that until Congress gets better information on the long term costs of Bush's Moon/Mars initiative, NASA's 2005 funding requests should go to existing programs. The House Science Committee has also decided that they want to hear from outside experts on Bush's space initiative. Just as Hubble isn't going quietly into the night, Bush's Moon/Mars plan isn't going quickly into space!"

AMD-lover writes with word that you can purchase a museum-quality replica of the Destiny laboratory module used on the International Space Station. "Keep in mind the weight of approximately 20,000 pounds and the dimensions of 29 feet by 15 feet. But with a price of $1,650,000.00, it is really a steal."

Roland Piquepaille writes "George Aldrich works at NASA and is not an astronaut. Instead, he's a 'master sniffer.' He tests everything that goes up in space on the shuttle or on the ISS for smelliness, from tennis shoes to teddy bears, and from refrigerators to socks or mascara. Why? Because things smell different in spacecrafts which experience a full day/night cycle every 90 minutes. And bad odors into a spacecraft can even lead to the abortion of a mission, like it happened to a Russian mission back in 1976. Wired Magazine tells us more about NASA's nasalnaut, a man whose colleagues call "Most Smella Fella" and has performed 771 flawless smelling missions. This overview contains more details and selected excerpts from a previous interview with Aldrich given to New Scientist. It also includes a picture showing how the NASA's nasalnaut smells things."

SuperBanana writes "According to an AP story carried by the Boston Globe, an internal audit released yesterday by NASA found numerous problems with management of the station, in some ways similar to the problems in the shuttle program. This includes missing, inconsistent, or outdated technical drawings; inadequately trained staff, and analysis of failure trends that is 'severely lacking'. Despite the report's length(172 pages) no specifics are cited. The report is not yet available in the press section of NASA's site."

lhouk281 writes "According to Space.Com, astronauts have attached a mannequin to the outside of the International Space Station to study the effects of radiation on the human body. The mannequin contains actual bone surrounded by simulated organs and synthetic skin, with sensors studded throughout." There's another story that has detail on how the spacewalk went: a suit malfunction caused the spacewalk to end prematurely.

Buran writes "The Associated Press is reporting that RKK Energia is starting design work on a new manned spacecraft able to carry a crew of six (or more) to the International Space Station. The vehicle may have a reusable crew module (current Soyuz TMA and Progress vehicles are disposable) and would theoretically finally allow ISS crew size to increase, as the current limiting factor is the capacity of the Soyuz spacecraft, designed in the early 1960s for manned lunar flights. (While Soyuz never flew to the Moon, its Zond circumlunar variant did so several times, and Soyuz and Progress craft have been resupplying various space stations for over three decades.) It will be interesting to see how this develops, as at present ISS crews spend more time maintaining the station than they do performing research, due to the fact that the station wasn't designed to operate with a crew as small as two or three people."

RobertB-DC writes "The International Space Station's replacement crew is being pulled for the B-Team. While the Reuters story quotes officials talking about "certain considerations", a Moscow Times article lays it on the line: '"Incompatible" ISS Crew Ditched' due to 'a psychological incompatibility.' The Russian-American team had already been shaken up once, when the original American member dropped out due to illness. Now, they're being replaced with a whole new pair."

Aglassis writes "In an article at SpaceRef, the CTO of Orbital Recovery Corporation claims that his company will be able to develop a space tug that could save the Hubble Space Telescope (from becoming 'a ballisticly implanted reef in the Pacific') by either moving it into a much higher stable orbit, or by moving it to the ISS where it could be maintained and operated. Some of the reasons that he cites are that the Hubble's replacement, the James Webb Space Telescope, could be delayed or suffer some sort of failure. Since the JWST will be at the L2 point, servicing will be impossible."

zeux writes "With all the news we got recently from space I tried to gather some information about the next goals of the ESA (European Space Agency). Along with a space vehicle designed to carry supplies to the ISS between 2004 and 2013, they are working on the new 'Vega' launcher (2006) and still playing with the SMART-1 probe which is slowly heading to the moon testing an ion drive that is ten times more efficient than the usual chemical systems (1500 hours cumulated thrust time so far)."

Rommel writes "NewScientist.com is reporting that the cause of the leak in the International Space Station has been found and fixed. The leak was found in a hose in the Destiny lab module. The hose was used to equalize pressure and eliminate fog between two panes of a window. While the leak was so slow it was unlikely to pose a direct threat to the crew for months to come, some equipment on the ISS is only certified to operate above a certain air pressure. The leak was originally mentioned on Slashdot a few days back."

Rio writes "The International Space Station is experiencing a slow, steady drop in air pressure, and American and Russian flight controllers are investigating possible causes of the leak. The Local 6 News report says Mission Control notified astronaut Michael Foale and cosmonaut Alexander Kaleri about the leak just before their bedtime late Monday afternoon. Mission Control first noticed the drop in pressure Jan. 1 and said the data showed a daily decline of about 2 millimeters of mercury. As of Monday, the pressure had declined a total of nine millimeters. That is equivalent to about one-quarter of a pound per square inch, said NASA spokesman James Hartsfield."