James Webb Space Telescope's First Primary Mirror Segment Undergoes Final Coating

REDONDO BEACH, Calif. -- A primary mirror segment of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has completed the final step in the manufacturing process. It is the first of the telescope's primary mirror segments to achieve this milestone. Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) is leading the telescope's design and development effort for the space agency's Goddard Space Flight Center.

The mirror segment, an engineering development unit and flight spare, has been coated with an ultra-thin layer of ev [...]

Full story at http://spacefellowship.com/news/art22042/james-webb-space-telescope-s-first-primary-mirror-segment-undergoes-final-coating.html

Cluster Collisions Switch on Radio Halos

This is a composite image of the northern part of the galaxy cluster Abell 1758, located about 3.2 billion light years from Earth, showing the effects of a collision between two smaller galaxy clusters.� Chandra X-ray data (blue) reveals hot gas in the cluster and data from the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) in India (pink) shows huge "halos" generated by ultra-relativistic particles and magnetic fields over vast scales. Optical data from the Digitized Sky Survey are colored gold.



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Full story at http://spacefellowship.com/news/art22044/cluster-collisions-switch-on-radio-halos.html

NASA Funds Experimental "Near Space" Vehicles

Commercial space companies Armadillo Aerospace and Masten Space Systems have been awarded a total of $475,000 to perform test flights of their experimental vehicles near the edge of space. The award is part of NASA's Commercial Reusable Suborbital Research Program (CRuSR), which seeks to develop commercial reusable transportation to near space for frequent, low-cost trips to near-space for small payloads.



"These two awards are just the beginning of an innovative teaming relationship with i [...]

Full story at http://spacefellowship.com/news/art22048/nasa-funds-experimental-near-space-vehicles.html

Metrocontextual science map

Crispian Jago makes completely transparent attempts to get linked from blogs. The thing is, he keeps doing spectacular stuff!

This time it’s a metro-subway-style map showing scientists of the past 400 or so years. It’s wonderfully detailed! Here it is shrunk enough to fit on my meager 610-pixel wide blog:

[Click to unsubwaynate and get the 2Mb 4500 x 2700 pixel version.]

Each color track route represent a field of science – brown is chemistry, red is theoretical physical and quantum mechanics, and so on – and the time is concentric, with the 16th Century in the middle, and current time on the outside. Just like a subway map where there are transfer points, some people span more than one discipline, and you can see that as two circles connecting different tracks. Stephen Hawking, for example, is astronomy and physics. Here’s a zoom:

Cool, huh? Galileo was clearly a man of many hats. Lots of other scientists straddle multiple fields, but interestingly, the number of them dwindles with time. I’m no science historian – I’m not sure science existed before Twitter – but I imagine there are many reasons for this, not the least of which was that when science as a method was new, it was easier to make grand discoveries that spanned many different disciplines. It’s just plain old harder to do that these days. To make a name for yourself you have to be pretty good in a narrow field, and very few people have that sort of polymath capability when modern science is so deep and rich.

Note that for the 20th Century, Crispian started including a lot of popularizers of science as well. There may be a few names you recognize…

I expect this map will go viral once places like Geekologie and Boing Boing find it. Which they will. Get in on the coolness on the ground floor now. Or, of course, one flight lower.

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Related posts:

- I am a skeptic chipmunk

- Easy-reading chiropractic libel for young readers

- Respect mah skeptical authoritay

- Taking the P out of pseudoscience

Full story at http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BadAstronomyBlog/~3/jtJPxfi-zNY/

NASA's Successful Ice Cloud and Land Elevation Mission Comes to an End

One of NASA's orbiting sentinels is expected to return to Earth in a few days. The agency's Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation (ICESat) satellite completed a very productive scientific mission earlier this year. NASA lowered the satellite's orbit last month and then decommissioned the spacecraft in preparation for re-entry. It is estimated that the satellite will re-enter the Earth's atmosphere and largely burn up on or about August 29.

ICESat was launched in January 2003, as a three-year mission [...]

Full story at http://spacefellowship.com/news/art22015/nasa-s-successful-ice-cloud-and-land-elevation-mission-comes-to-an-end.html

Station Crew Prepares Cargo Craft for Undocking

The ISS Progress 38 cargo craft currently docked with the International Space Station will undock from the aft end of the Zvezda service module on Tuesday. Progress 38 will be deorbited and re-enter the Earth?s atmosphere on Sept. 6. The Expedition 24 crew members have been loading the Progress 38 with trash and other discarded items for disposal and burn up over the Pacific Ocean. The unmanned Progress 39 cargo craft will automatically dock and resupply the station crew on Sept. 10.

The s [...]

Full story at http://spacefellowship.com/news/art22019/station-crew-prepares-cargo-craft-for-undocking.html

This Week On The Space Show

The Space Show, hosted by David Livingston under www.TheSpaceShow.com, will have the following guests this week:

1. Friday, September 3, 2010, 9:30-11 AM PDT (16:30-18 GMT)
Taped interviews from Space 2010. When you see the program on the website, its ready for play and podcasting. There may be additional programs uploaded for Saturday. If that is the case, you will also see them ready for play and podcasting on the website.





2. Sunday, September 5, 2010, 12-1:30 PM PDT (19-20:30 GM [...]

Full story at http://spacefellowship.com/news/art22022/this-week-on-the-space-show.html