Check out this huge infograph that displays the last 50 years of space exploration. It’s awesome although it does kind of indicate that Venus is closer to earth than the Moon. The “50 Years of Space Exploration” graphic was created by Sean McNaughton and Samuel Velasco for National Geographic. I must say though, skip the interactive edition on NationalGeographic.com and check out the full size version on Flickr.

[via OhGizmo]

Be sure to set your alarm clock for around 6am this Friday, for at 6:15am NASA will, in the immortal words of Matt Drudge, “bomb the moon.” No, we’re not talking about some dumb Hollywood (redundancy alert!) scenario, but the most exciting part of the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) program: the lunar impact.

NASA will webcast the event on its Web site, so you don’t even have to get out of your pajamas to see the action.

I think it’s fairly obvious that my knowledge of NASA-related news is somewhat limited, but I can appreciate a good lunar impact with the rest of ‘em.

For only $22,500 you can own the robotic hand shown in the video above. That’s nothing for a piece of NASA history.

This impressive early prototype demands an important place within robotics history as the first motorized dexterous robotic hand. It represents one of the early steps towards making robots more anthropomorphic. The Omni-Hand was designed and built in the early 1990s by robot pioneer Mark Rosheim with funding from NASA contracts NAS8-37638 and NAS8-38417. Two prototypes were made. The first was a “test bed” whose features were then incorporated into this complete unit. Both had the same power and control system.

The more I watch the video above, the more I’m amazed that it was developed in the early ’90s. It seems that if it had artificial skin while holding that ostrich egg, it would make headlines even today. [ebay via luxarylaunches]

Of course you won’t be credited for your suggestions, but wouldn’t it be cool to know that you were the one who came up with the idea for a prize for capturing alien technology? Previous prizes have included the Astronaut Glove, the Lunar Lander, and the Power Beaming contest, all of which had substantial cash prizes.

So go tell NASA your crazy idea, and who knows.. it’s might be your contest they run with.

East Coasters, did you see any weird clouds Saturday night? Some people did as the event caused reports and calls from Boston all the way down the coast to Florida. But you have nothing to fear, the aliens from Independence Day didn’t make them, NASA did.

By using the exhaust particles from the fourth stage of a NASA Black Brant XII suborbital sounding rocking, NASA briefly created noctilucent clouds which are also known as night-shining clouds. These are the highest clouds naturally found on Earth and are normally found around 50 miles above Earth at high latitudes. NASA conducted this test not only to spark a bit of hysteria, but also to study the effect of rocket exhaust in the upper atmosphere. We just think that NASA likes to remind everyone that they are still around.

[photo credit: Space.com & Veres Viktor]

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter also has more instruments aboard and one of them, the Diviner Lunar Radiometer developed and operated by the California Institute of Technology Jet Propulsion Laboratory, is sending back some wild info about the Moon’s surface temperature.

The contraption works by measuring the infrared radiation’s intensity that’s emitted by the lunar surface. The hotter the surface, the great the emitted infrared radiation’s intensity. The map generated by Diviner will likely be used to help plan future manned Moon missions – whenever the hell that might be. But even still some of the info sent back is still of scientific value.

Apparently some spots on the lunar surface are always in a shadow and can nearly reach absolute zero. It’s thought that these spots can hold frozen water and might be some of the coldest spots in the galaxy including Pluto. These cold traps as they are called have been theorized about for nearly 50 years so you can imagine geek-types getting excited about the possible confirmation.

The unit will take about six months to complete its survey. The instrument was first turned activated on July 5 though, so it’s about 50% done.

The research is intended to study the effects of weightlessness on bone density, and to find ways to counter the negative effects of prolonged low-gravity on the human body. No word yet on when human beings will be floated around as part of this research.

Via TG Daily.

It’s laptops in space, people! What is there not to like?

That pic comes from this video, showing the STS-128 mission in action.

It’s Friday. We know you really don’t want to work. How about some nerdy space pr0n?

NASA just released a bunch of high-res images taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment between April and early August. There are 1,500 total images and some of them are stunning. It’s almost like we’re not looking at Mars, but rather desolate areas of Earth. Mars has never looked so alive.

HiRISE via TGDaily

I don’t care what you say. Astronauts have balls of steel. They strap themselves onto a rocket, shit in a vacuum, and are risking death by space junk tonight.

Apparently a new external ammonia tank for the ISS is important enough to risk getting it by a part of an old European rocket. NASA says that the junk should be far enough away and I guess it doesn’t really matter. I mean, if the the old rocket is close enough to hit the astronaut spacewalking, then it’s close enough to hit the actual station and therefore killing everyone aboard in a Moonraker-fashion.

NASA already has major budget issues so it’s a damn good thing the agency didn’t turn to AT&T to provide the wireless data coverage for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Because AT&T charges $0.0195 per kilobyte over a 5GB cap, it would cost roughly $231,883 for the daily data transmission of the 461GB. That’s $83,709,763 per year assuming AT&T didn’t come up with some charge for interplanetary roaming. All joking aside, this Moon satellite has an impressive data transmitter.

Somehow electrodes in a vacuum tube boosts microwave signals to high levels that are idea for transmitting large amounts of data. This amplifier can send data at a 100 megabytes a second back to Earth, more than 238,800 miles away. Similar designs were used on Kepler and Cassini, but the LRO’s system is the most powerful. And it has to be if it’s taking high-res photos of the Moon’s surface.

Hopefully John Hodgman was correct in calling Obama the first nerd president. If not, humans might not reach the Moon anytime soon because we all know a jock wouldn’t fund a science project. The current target is 2020 and the development is already underway of the vehicles needed to get people there. But there is one small issue: Money. NASA needs lots of money.

NASA had $3 billion cut from its budget back in February, but according to a committee setup by Obama, that’s just a drop in the bucket. In order to keep NASA on the current timetable, the agency is going to need $50 billion more added to its budget. But this is Washington we’re talking about and they want solutions, not begging – unless you’re Wall Street. The committee is going to present alternatives including new vehicles and different space targets.

So as it stands today, manned missions to the Moon seems like a pipe dream. Everyone knows our country is broke.

Fundamentally both the old and new tire are similar. Both utilize a wire mesh surface that can hold up very well in extreme temperatures unlike rubber. But the first generation used a weave of wires, where the new one is made up from springs hand-woven together. This new design allows for nearly all the energy expelled on the tire to be reclaimed, which dramatically cuts down on heat. Plus the springs are durable and and redundant if damaged, as there are 800 of them within each tire.

The Goodyear and NASA team had to go back reconstruct the Apollo tires with help from the original designers as most of the documentations was reportably destroyed thanks to the Cold War mentality. But once the old tires were remade, the team set out to design the next generation. Unlike the older ones, these new tires can sport a snazzy five-star rim because each wheel doesn’t have an electric engine within each wheel.

NASA was so impressed with the new tires that the agency took it as a show and tell item to the recent “Day on the Hill” event in Washington. Who knows, maybe someday Goodyear will find a way to incorporate the design into tires that can be used here on Earth.

AutoEvolution & NASA

Oh, and the photos of the pen are locked down by a bulletproof copywrite to SpacePen.com so what you’re looking at is not the actual pen. SpacePen.com apparently doesn’t want anyone using this thing called the “Internet.” But I love you all and thought I would post the neat pen despite the dick move.