Cosmonaut Survival Kit

TheAppendix.net presents a brief glimpse at survival kits aboard Russian spacecraft. Firearms are included in the kit.

Read the article HERE

 

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Asteroids Can Be Redirected With Spray Paint

Phys.org reports –

There is research that is off the wall, some off the charts and some off the planet, such as what a Texas A&M University aerospace and physics professor is exploring. It’s a plan to deflect a killer asteroid by using paint, and the science behind it is absolutely rock solid, so to speak, so much so that NASA is getting involved and wants to know much more.

Continue reading HERE

 

 

First Man To Pee On The Moon – And 4 Other Odd Apollo 11 Facts

On the 42nd. anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, the HousonPress reported 5 very weird facts about the mission.

One giant leak for mankind — Neil Armstrong may have been the first man to set foot on the moon, but Buzz Aldrin was the first one to take a leak on it. As millions watched across the globe unknowingly, Buzz let loose the floodgates and enjoyed a good old session of draining the lizard.

Read all 5 items HERE.

Uganda’s Space Program Has A Ways To Go

According to the BBC –

For a start, his research centre is based in his back garden where there’s not much evidence of the type of sophisticated tools and machinery I’d imagine you need for this kind of work. When I was there, most of the engineers were equipped with just sandpaper and paint brushes. They haven’t even started work on the shuttle yet, at the moment it’s more of a theoretical project. They have begun to build an aircraft though, apparently to test their engineering skills before they begin work on a shuttle which they hope will send a Ugandan cosmonaut into space. The plane they’ve built is sandwiched tightly, nose-to-tail, between two single-storey buildings which house Chris and his team. It is painted blue and white and has the Ugandan flag proudly displayed on the side of the cockpit. It’s far from complete, there’s still no engine – just a pile of bricks to simulate weight, and a mass of wires hang out underneath. But it still seems like quite an achievement and if this hadn’t been a space programme I’d have been pretty impressed. Chris believes that if his team is successful, this will still be the first aeroplane designed and built in Uganda.

Continue reading HERE.

 

Hypersonic Plane Lost On Test Flight

The LA Times reports –

A test flight of an experimental aircraft capable of speeding through air at 20 times the speed of sound ended prematurely Thursday morning when the arrowhead-shaped plane failed and stopped sending back real-time data to engineers and scientists who were moderating the mission. In the test flight, the aircraft, known as the Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2, was launched at 7:45 a.m. from Vandenberg Air Force Base, located northwest of Santa Barbara, into the upper reaches of  Earth’s  atmosphere aboard an eight-story Minotaur IV rocket, made by Orbital Sciences Corp. The plan was for the Falcon to speed westward for 30 minutes before plunging into the ocean near Kwajalein Atoll, about 4,000 miles from Vandenberg. But about 20 minutes into the mission, the Pentagon’s research arm, known as Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, announced on its Twitter account that: “Range assets have lost telemetry.” It sounds eerily similar to the problems that plagued the Falcon’s first flight, which took place in April 2010. That test flight ended prematurely with only nine minutes of flight time. Engineers went back to the drawing board and were believed to have had things ironed out.

Continue reading HERE.

 

Panoramic View Inside Space Shuttle Discovery’s Cockpit

Visit this page to check out an interactive 360 degree panorama of the space shuttle Discovery cockpit.

Explore the cockpit HERE.

 

 

Chinese Sending Dogs Into Space – Why? – They Taste Good

The Telegraph reports –

Yang Liwei, the 44-year-old military pilot who commanded the Shenzhou Five mission in 2003, revealed the menu on-board the spacecraft in his autobiography, The Nine Levels between Heaven and Earth. “Many of my friends are curious about what we eat [in space] and think that the astronauts must have some expensive delicacies, like shark’s fin or abalone,” he wrote. “Actually we ate quite normal food, there is no need to keep it a secret,” he added. He listed a menu including braised chicken, steamed fish and dog meat from Huajiang county in Guangdong, which is famed for its nutritional benefits in China. A local proverb in the south of China is that “Huajiang dog is better for you than ginseng”, referring to the medicinal root that plays a vital role in traditional Chinese medicine.

Continue reading HERE.