Free Republic

Some guys spend their spare time restoring automobiles, devoting garage space to motionless Corvettes and Camaros. Pares is making his own warp drive. To hear him and his small team of supporters tell it, something weird is happening out here in the garage. “The compression of the fabric of space,” Pares says matter-of-factly. Pares’ garage is exactly as it sounds. This is not some converted hangar or temperature-controlled shed. Pares’ laboratory, the headquarters for his Space Warp Dynamics endeavor, is attached to the mid-size Aksarben-area home where he lives with his wife and their cat. It is split in halves,...

NASA's Kepler space telescope is discovering alien planets again. The prolific spacecraft has spotted its first new alien planet since being hobbled by a malfunction in May 2013, researchers announced Dec. 18. The newly discovered world, called HIP 116454b, is a "super Earth" about 2.5 times larger than our home planet. It lies 180 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Pisces — close enough to be studied by other instruments, scientists said. "Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Kepler has been reborn and is continuing to make discoveries," study lead author Andrew Vanderburg, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics...

“While the recent static fire test accomplished nearly all of our goals, the test did not run the full duration. The data suggests we could push forward without a second attempt, but out of an abundance of caution, we are opting to execute a second static fire test prior to launch.” “The ISS orbits through a high beta angle period a few times a year. This is where the angle between the ISS orbital plane and the sun is high, resulting in the ISS being in almost constant sunlight for a 10 day period. “During this time, there are thermal...

Unexplained methane spikes suggest bacteria is living on the red planet Nasa scientists in California have revealed evidence for life on Mars They say methane spikes on the planet could be produced by bacteria And, at the moment, there is no better explanation for the spikes The signs were spotted briefly occurring by one of Curiosity's instruments Life is the chief producer of methane on Earth, although there are many non-biological processes that can also generate the gas But no such process could be ruled out during tests - suggesting there may be bacteria living on or under the surface...

A spaceship powered by nuclear bombs secretly launched in the 1960s. A colony ship on 100-year journey to spread humanity to the stars. These central themes of the SyFy Channel's epic "Ascension" miniseries this week sound like pure science fiction, U.S. scientists actually worked to build such a spaceship in the 1960s. In "Ascension," a three-part SyFy miniseries that launches tonight (Dec. 15), 600 people live aboard an Orion-class nuclear spacecraft on a mission to Proxima Centauri. The mission launched in 1963, when the Space Race was in full swing and the Cold War made the threat of global nuclear...

Asteroid sourced hydrogen and oxygen will literally and figuratively fuel expansion of the space economy by providing a locally sourced fuel resource that will change how industry operates in space. While existing satellites cannot be refueled directly today, space tugs fueled by asteroids that are currently being developed, will maneuver Geostationary satellites into their assigned orbit. Thus, keeping them operating and generating revenue far beyond their current life expectancy. Water from asteroids can also be used for a plethora of other applications beyond fuels in space. It can be consumed, used as a radiation shield for humans during deep space...

Scientists have calculated that 2014 UR116 asteroid will fly in dangerous proximity to Earth every three years. If it collides with the planet the energy of the explosion could be a thousand times greater than the impact of the Chelyabinsk meteorite. Vladimir Lipunov, a leading scientist on the team which discovered the asteroid this October, says the scientists now know its orbit and its period which is 3 years, but they cannot say precisely when the asteroid will approach the Earth. “We should track it constantly. Because if we have a single mistake, there will be a catastrophe. The consequences...

I got to witness the launch of Or1on EFT-1 (I know, it was a couple of days ago, but when you get up 2 days in a row at approx. 2 AM . . . ). We watched it from Space View Park. We met several folks who had paid to see it from "inside" the Cape, but they said this was a better view (and it was free, had restrooms, and was easy to exit after the launch). First, I want to congratulate Lockheed Martin. They built every manned launch except the Space Shuttle, and it's good to have...

If the new space race was like the movies, this week would be The Empires Strikes Back. On Friday, after a weather delay, Nasa launched a very cool space capsule, in what at first blush looked like another Apollo mission. It rose on a massive rocket spewing superheated exhaust like some creature from a Peter Jackson movie. All went well just now – and given the expertise of engineers performing what was essentially an update of a 1970s Apollo mission, that much was expected: a four-seat capsule called Orion will detach any minute now, and soar around the Earth twice,...

2nd Launch attempt. http://www.ustream.tv/nasahdtv The launch window opens at 7:05 a.m. EST (1205 GMT) and runs through 9:44 a.m. EST (1444 GMT).

[I love the idea of going to Mars. We humans are explorers and pioneers. But if government does this, it will be just too costly, like the Apollo Moon program. Elon Musk of the private SpaceX company already has put rockets into space and he wants to send settlers to Mars, including himself. So since governments have screwed up this planet, how about reserving Mars for free people?!] Breaking: NASA is sending humans to Mars NASA has announced that a test launch of their Orion space capsule will take place on Thursday, in the first step of a mission that...

NASA TV

Rosetta's lander lasted just 60 hours on a comet after it bounced into the dark shadows of a cliff, where its solar panels couldn't power the vehicle. Why didn't it carry a more reliable power source, say a nuclear battery like one that's unfailingly fueled Voyager for decades? It's a simple question with a fascinating answer, one that begins with the Cold War and ends with the future space exploration. When it comes to space travel, plutonium-238 is the perfect fuel: long-lasting and, as I'll explain later, relatively safe. Without it, we have no hope of going much further than...

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is set to awake on Dec. 6 from the last of its 18 hibernation periods and prepare for its initial approach towards Pluto, which will take place on Jan. 15. The spacecraft is scheduled to come as close as 6,200 miles from the surface of Pluto on July 14, 2015 -- the closest any man-made object has come to the dwarf planet. The mission marks the first visit outside Neptune's orbit to the Kuiper Belt, which consists of Pluto and thousands of objects that have not yet been identified, according to Spaceflight Now, a space news...

Strange thrust: the unproven science that could propel our children into space For many decades, a fantasy among space enthusiasts has been to invent a device that produces a net thrust in one direction, without any need for reaction mass. Of course, a reactionless space drive of this type is impossible. Or is it? By Charles Platt div#main-image {background-image:url('http://media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Figure-6.jpg');} Ever since I was old enough to read science fiction, I've wanted to visit Mars. Even the Moon would be better than nothing. Alas, rocket technology is unlikely to take me there within my lifetime. The problem is that rockets are a...

Defense: Members of Congress warn that the State Department is working on arms accords to demilitarize space and ban anti-satellite weapons, leaving Russia and China with a huge lead in military space capabilities. On Jan. 17, 2012, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a statement announcing the Obama administration's intention to work with the European Union on an International Code of Conduct for Outer Space Activities. It was supposed to be sort of a "rules of the road" for space-faring nations to deal with issues such as the accumulating space junk jeopardizing satellites and manned space activities such as the...

Link to video For 20 years, the Russians took a survival drilling pistol kit with them into space.  Then they ran out of ammunition.  The YouTube video above does a good job of highlighting the pistol and kit.  Such an item would likely be a "collector's and curio" item in the United States, as no ammunition is available for the shotgun barrels and very few were made.   Some enterprising importer would do well to get a couple of dozen thrown into a Russian import container of rifles and shotguns.   Collectors in the United States would gobble them up!  The shotgun...

We can’t see the birth of our own solar system, but an incredible new telescopic image is giving us hints about how planets are born. Humans are cosmic mayflies. Our lives come and go quickly, only offering us glimpses of the slow evolution of the Universe. Human history is measured in centuries, while the birth and death of stars and planets take place over millions and billions of years. For that reason, we will never see the formation of another solar system unfold before our eyes. Instead, astronomers hope to observe planet formation in all its stages, each marking a...

Christopher Nolan's Interstellar took first place on Friday, though family moviegoers should drive Disney Animation's Big Hero 6 to a weekend win. After two days in limited release, Interstellar expanded to 3,561 locations and earned an estimated $17 million. That's well below Inception's $21.8 million debut, though it is at least roughly on par with Gravity's $17.5 million start last year. Interstellar's audience was split evenly between men (52 percent) and women, and skewed much older (75 percent were at least 25 years of age). They awarded the movie a "B+" CinemaScore, which is in line with Inception.

Virgin Galactic is reporting that there has been an "in-flight anomaly" aboard SpaceShip Two. There are unconfirmed reports that one of the two pilots is dead.