Category: Space

Astronaut Tim Peake interview: boldly going where no body has gone before

Timothy_Peake,_official_portraitFor Tim Peake it’s T minus 600 hours until launch. Come 15th December, the 43 year old father of two will be strapped atop 150 tonnes of rocket fuel looking skyward. He will be spending six months aboard the International Space Station, during which time he will be floating around, admiring the view, and playing with test tubes. The life of the astronaut – boldly going where no one has gone before. It’s every schoolboy’s (and girl’s?) dream job. Except that it isn’t. If they knew what being an astronaut was really like, that is.

Earlier this year I interviewed Tim while he was undergoing final preparations in Houston, Texas. I asked him about what life would be like in space and, with my doctor’s hat on, wanted to know what medical research he would be doing when in space. I learnt that going into space isn’t like in the movies. Within moments of Tim entering orbit, his body’s internal workings will be tipped upside down. As soon as he enters zero gravity, blood will rush to his head, causing his heart and kidneys to go haywire. When not nursing a killer headache, he would be emptying his bladder in the space khazi as his body fluid levels rapidly adjust. In the days and weeks that follow, his bones will rapidly leech out their calcium, his muscles will shrink and his heart get weaker. He will grow a couple of inches taller which, while not a problem in space, will give him terrible back ache when gets back onto terra firma. Read more

Why is the Universe is Expanding and Accelerating? Here’s my pet theory… (by a non-physicist)

Scientists don’t normally make much money.

space
An accelerating, expanding Universe?
But Nobel Prize winners Perlmutter, Riess and Schmidt don’t need worry about being short of cash anymore. They can forget eating instant noodles and cobbling together loose change to keep the electricity meter running. Winning the highest accolade in science is more than luck. It wasn’t their lucky stars that bagged them the $1.5 million Prize this week; but their tenacity in studying celestial bodies.

Their discovery – that the Universe is expanding at an ever increasing speed – is simply profound. Although they first discovered it back in 1998, it still causes confusion amongst bespeckled star-gazers and flies in the face of the accepted notion that everything around us is simply the result of a Big Explosion.

No one has yet come up with a wholly convincing reason why stars are speeding away from each other at an increasing rate of knots. I have a little theory that’s been on my mind for a while – and I’d like to share it. Watch out, things are going to get rather theoretical… Read more

Obama cracks a joke to the Atlantis Shuttle Crew – So why wasn’t it funny?

Shuttle Atlantis Crew aboard the International Space Station
Observed the entertained expressions!
In space, no one can hear the tumble-weed.

Obama: “I was just dialing out for pizza, and I didn’t expect to end up in space…”

Recently, the US President took some time out from his busy schedule to make a surprise phone call to the Space Shuttle Atlantis crew. Clearly in need of some light-hearted distraction from the doldrums of trying to resolve the incipient US debt crisis, he tried his hand at a potentially humorous ‘pizza delivery’ quip.

It was bad – toe-curlingly cringe-worthily bad. Watch it for yourself, and try not to squirm in embarrassment. I think it’s what’s known in the business as a ‘Dad’ joke… Read more

What the Higgs is going on? The idiot’s ludicrously simple guide to what the ‘God Particle’ is… (and in under 4 minutes)

1/365 [dazed & confused]
Science Confusing?
Does science make you queasy? Thinking about physics tends to make me feel rather seasick. If you’ve ever tried to imagine how big infinity is then you’ll probably know what I mean.

News agencies have been buzzing with reports that the discovery of the fabled ‘God particle’ is close at hand. But who really knows what this enigmatic thing actually is? What difference is it really going to have to Joe-public? Research shows that despite the lab-coat wearer’s best efforts most people just don’t ‘get’ science.

So here is an attempt to redress the balance (albeit in a tiny way). This is a delightfully simple 4 minute guide to everything you need to know about the Large Hadron Collider, the Higgs boson, the ‘God particle’ and particle physics. I’m no particle physicist, so hopefully it will be easy to understand – and shouldn’t get you feeling too nauseous… Read more

That’s How Big? Dr Stu Rediscovers the Classic Film: ‘Powers of Ten’

Oh no, not another boring science video! That was my first thought when, at 12 years of age, the science teacher wheeled out the TV trolley. Videos seemed such a cheap excuse for teaching…

What is Our Place in The Universe?
But by the time the ten minute short ‘Powers of Ten‘ had finished, there was an unusual calm in the classroom. Some might have been in awe of the ground-breaking Star-Wars style special effects. For me, those few minutes had opened my eyes to the awesomeness of the Universe in a way no arm-waving teacher could.

The premise is magnificently simple and beautifully put together. From a starting point at a picnic in a Chicago park the camera slowly starts to zoom out. Every ten seconds the view becomes ten times further away, until the earth, and then finally our galaxy becomes a tiny speck in the distance. The film then reverses – and after returning to the picnic scene, starts to zoom in closer and closer

I was delighted to rediscover this video on Youtube – and I hope you enjoy it too. Even though it was made in 1968, it has aged better than a single malt. A modern remake narrated by Morgan Freeman was put together in 1996.

Which is better? You decide – just kick back and enjoy: Read more

Out of This World! The Amateur’s Guide to Making Your Own Satellite

Money
What would you do with US$10,000? (That's about £6,000) ... Build your own satellite perhaps?
What could you do with $10,000?

Take a trip around the world? Refit the kitchen or replace the ageing car? Perhaps you would invest it in stocks and shares?

But what would you say to building and launching your very own satellite? Forget paying to have a star named after you: Technology is now smaller and cheaper than ever before, so building your very own ‘Sputnik’ is a very real possibility. Utilising the kind of gizmos normally found in a mobile phone, amateurs can buy ‘DIY satellite kits’ and build their very planetary orbiter. These ‘nano-satellites’ are no bigger than a bottle of coke and weigh less than a bag of potatoes – and nice space agencies will let you ‘hitch a ride’ on the next rocket launch for next to nothing!

Amateurs and professionals alike are flocking to get a piece of the action: Ever fancy starting your own satellite TV station? What about monitoring weather patterns or having your personal Hubble Space Telescope?

Read on to find out the steps to making your very own ‘CubeSat’… Read more

Earn a Nobel Prize in your Lunch-Break! The Best “Citizen Science” Games Reviewed!

Have you ever felt like you could be an undiscovered genius? Well scientists have now come up with ingenious ways of you using your brain to push back the boundaries of science... by playing video games! So if you'd like the chance to see if you're the next Einstein (without the hair) just put down that Sudoku, stop playing Angry Birds and take a look at these computer games! You never know, by playing them you just might help discover the cure for cancer...

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How to Build a Spaceship: The Best (and worst) Amateur Astronauts!

Imagine this view from your office window!

So, you want to be an astronaut?

It’s going to be a job with some ups and downs: Cramped living conditions and rubbish food, but great views and plenty to talk about at parties when you get home!

But if you’re not a millionaire or a member of NASA, how easy is it to get into space and experience some zero-gravity weightlessness?  As it happens, pretty difficult…

Since 1996, a $10 million prize was offered for the first person to do it (governments not allowed), and amateurs have going at it like the clappers! There have been some mixed successes, and today’s blog is dedicated to some of man’s attempts to break free from Earth…. Read more