The State of Private Space Flight—Good Luck Elon Musk

542114512

 

Good news—private, corporate space flight company Orbital ATK successfully docked their spacecraft with the international space station last month. Good news—Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos’ New Shepard spacecraft managed to land itself on a launch pad in recent weeks.

Not so great? Elon Musk’s SpaceX craft has been grounded since it exploded during what Musk called a ‘rapid, unscheduled disassembly’ while attempting a landing earlier this year. But the Falcon 9 rocket has been updated, and now sits on a Cape Canaveral pad awaiting launch tomorrow night.

So maybe NASA’s not up to as much as it once was. But, given the strides countries like China and India have made in the last year—and the progress made by private interests…it may be that our dreams of a future in space are more realistic than ever before.

That’s all good news to me.

For more, check out: http://news.nationalpost.com/news/spacex-scheduled-to-return-to-flight-sunday-and-attempt-another-dramatic-landing-this-time-on-land

Lazarus Moon Rover Resurrected

Image

Lazarus Moon Rover Resurrected

Jade Rabbit’s back! China’s plucky moon rover, Jade Rabbit, who landed on the lunar surface in December, then captured the hearts of the world when it announced its own malfunction and imminent demise, has risen from the dead.
The Rover, speaking on the Chinese social media site Weibo , told the world of it’s coming death and signed-off with a final, “Goodnight Earth. Goodnight Humanity.” And tens of thousands took to the internet to send their condolences.
Now, three weeks later, the rover is back! He’s up and running and only a little worse for wear. And the world is thrilled again.
Check out the details here:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/china-shows-resurrected-lunar-rover-jade-rabbit-some-love/article16913625/

Heddy Lamar–The Bombshell Beauty with an Inventor’s Mind

Image

Heddy Lamar--The Bombshell Beauty with an Inventor's Mind

In THE TIME EATER, Foster Raymond’s neighbour and fellow fossil hunter, Ashanti, is a fiery Swahili inventor. The inspiration for this strong, brilliant girl was—surprisingly—1930’s MGM movie star, Heddy Lamar. Beautiful, brainy, successful—Heddy was a take-no-prisoners woman in a time when that was rare.

She was a awarded a patent in 1942 for a super-secret communications system that made today’s cellphones and WIFI possible, as well as inventing tons of unusual products in a variety of fields.

And she wasn’t the only celebrity inventor—check out this article for some surprising revelations.

http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/shortcuts/2011/dec/04/hedy-lamarr-wifi