Really Rocket Science

Looks like the spacewalk we blogged about yesterday went off without a hitch. Almost.

The spacewalk took 6 1/2-hours, longer than expected, but nowhere near the record of eight hours and 56 minutes set in 2001.

"OK. We’re going out," Russian commander Pavel Vinogradov said at 6:48 p.m. EDT Thursday as he and U.S. flight engineer Jeff Williams exited the Russian side of the station in their bulky suits while the outpost soared more than 220 miles above Earth.

Vinogradov attached himself to the end of a boom that can extend to 50 feet and Williams maneuvered him to an area on the station where the Russian commander installed a new vent for a broken oxygen-generation system. At one point, the spacewalkers were bathed in a golden glow from a sunset over the Pacific Ocean. After the sun passed, the temperature got chilly.

"My feet are like ice," Williams joked in Russian when asked if he was cold. A Russian flight controller responded, "We need to put brandy into the system instead of water." 

No word on the brandy, but there was a pretty cool droid on board the ISS.

More interesting uses for Google Maps — the site that brought satellite imagery to your desktop — keep cropping up.

Google has launched its first mashup–a map-based Web site with information about earth-friendly locations in five of the U.S.’s top travel destinations.

The site, at maps.google.com/green, features information on and video tours of spots in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York and Orlando, Fla., as well as tips for "traveling green" during the summer using Google Maps. 

… Listings include the Las Vegas Natural History Museum and the Go Raw Cafe in Las Vegas, the Tree People park and EcoLimo in Los Angeles, the Skyscraper Museum and Central Park in New York, the Forever Florida nature preserve and Horse World Riding Stables in Orlando and, in San Francisco the Red Victorian Bed and Breakfast and the Exploratorium.

But I think my favorite is a non-official mashup called Placeopedia, which matches WikiPedia articles with their locations. You can add a place, or spend click around to various places, which is a great time-waster or way to take a vacation without leaving your desk.

A couple of fifth grade students are going to see thier first rocket launch, and it’s a happy story of the internet community coming together to help a couple of fifth-graders who may be the next generation of rocket scientists. 

Here’s your chance to help do just that. Two fifth grade students from Indiana, Cameron Wade and Billy Shannon, both 11 years old, have an experiment that will launch onboard a suborbital NASA rocket. It’s part of a partnership between their school and NASA. The problem is, the grant they have doesn’t cover their own travel to Virginia to see the rocket launch!

They still want to go, of course. The trip will cost $3000, and they’re still $1000 from their goal.

And their experiment sounds pretty interesting. 

Their experiment is already in Virginia, waiting to be loaded onto the rocket. The students placed nuts and bolts screwed together in tiny bottles to see whether the vibrations from the rocket will break them apart.

They also sent up plant seeds, which they will plant this summer along with seeds that haven’t been airborne to see whether there is a difference in growth.

“They’re learning how to follow an experiment through,” Ghaffarian said. “They’re learning how to change the variables and see what happens, and it’s cool because … it makes it much more exciting than if you just buy a couple seeds and plant them.”

The nuts and bolts tie in with a unit the class did on robots and cars. The seeds work with lessons on extreme environments. Everyone in Ghaffarian’s third- through fifth-grade multiage class wrote essays that were judged by the school’s office staff on why they should be chosen for the Virginia field trip.

The good news? In less than a day, the money was raised. 

I am incredibly pleased and proud to announce that after just a few hours, BABloggers have donated more than $1000 to help the two fifth-graders and their teacher fly to Virginia to see their rocket launch!

… I just talked to Pamela Ghaffarian, the teacher, on the phone, and she was thrilled with how wonderful people have been to send her this money. She told me the two students, Cameron Wade and Billy Shannon, are really excited about the trip. I know they’re happy now, but wait until they actually see the launch! Even though it’s a small rocket, it’ll be really dramatic, and they’ll have the time of their lives.

And it might also inspire them to keep aiming high. Here’s to the science blogging community for coming together so quickly to help these students out!

I wrote earlier about the amount of debris in outerspace. Well, there’s one bit of debris that we won’t be adding to what’s already up there. 

Thursday’s 5 1/2-hour spacewalk by the Russian and U.S. occupants of the International Space Station will not include the previously announced attempt to hit a radio transmitting golf ball into Earth orbit, The New York Times reported Wednesday. 

The publicity stunt involved the payment of an undisclosed amount of money to Russia from a Canadian golf company. Russian officials did not explain the reason for the postponement.

In place of the golf shot, the astronauts will replace a malfunctioning camera on the U.S. side of the ISS. 

The spacewalk, sans golf clubs, is on for 6:40pm.

Via Marsblog.