Microsoft billionaire Charles Simonyi was thrust into space today, with a meal prepared by Martha Stewart (quail roasted in wine, duck breast with capers and rice pudding, among other courses). They’ll be celebrating Cosmonauts Day on 12 April 2007. Check his blog later this week to see how much they all liked it.

RSC Energia’s statement:

At 21:31:14 Moscow Time a launch vehicle Soyuz-FG with Soyuz TMA-10 spacecraft was launched from the Baikonur launch site to the International Space Station.

The Increment 15 (ISS-15) crew and visiting crew 12 (VC-12) are on board the Russian transport manned vehicle. Soyuz TMA-10 is carrying a crew consisting of Russian cosmonauts Oleg Valeriavich Kotov (Gagarin CTC test cosmonaut) and Fyodor Nikolaevich Yurchikhin (S.P. Korolev RSC Energia test cosmonaut), as well as a spaceflight participant of the ISS visiting crew, USA citizen, Charles Simonyi. The objective of the launch is the scheduled replacement of two ISS-14 crewmembers and of the Soyuz TMA-9 spacecraft that has been serving within the space station as its crew rescue vehicle since September 20, 2006.

And it only cost him $25 million. By the way, he’s ham radio’s first space tourist, too (KE7KDP).

Our friends over at the MAKE Blog linked to it a few days ago, but when I saw it I knew it’d be perfect link for our own DIY Friday feature.

Boozehound Labs is obsessed with tubes — no, not the ones that run these here Internets — the vacuum kind. Often forgotten in the digital age, most good audiophiles get a little weepy talking about the "warmth" vacuum tubes give to music when amplifying, recorded or live music. The folks over at Boozehound Labs have dedicate most of their site to honoring the Vacuum Tube and teaching visitors how to bring a 19th century technology into their modern life.

Those looking to get started should check out the site’s awesome Vacuum Tube Hi- Fi Primer, which not only gives you the low-down on how to make the kick-ass amp you see above, but also provides an excellent explanation of vacuum theory and the technology behind the tube.

Those already familiar with the tech should check out Boozehound Lab’s show-and-tell pages on microphone and guitar amps the "scientists" have already put together. If you want to get started on a project right now (well, actually, as soon as the materials can be shipped to you), make your way over to Triode System’s page and check out some of their cool kits. While you might not save as much as you’d like, you guaranteed to get all you need to create the amp of your dreams.

This is one of the coolest videos we’ve seen in a long time.

One could say Yves Rossy has distilled rocket science down to its essence, and created the perfect blend of man and machine:

His dream became reality mainly because of 4 model-engines which were built under his wings. With these, he can fly at over 200km/hr and conquer mountain summits. During the flight, Yves’s body becomes the likes of a bird and, other than a gas handle, Yves does not ride his wings but truly flies them, using various light body movements that he has learned to handle with perfection. These body movements are equal to those that birds use to fly…

As Robert Johnson wrote… 

Now, one and one is two, two and two is four
I’m heavy loaded baby, I’m booked, I gotta go
Cryin’ baby, honey, don’t you want to go
Back to the same old place, my sweet home Chicago

70 years later, still sounds good. In fact, Amazon has a nice box set available.

Last month, it was one and one and one is "no go:" the FCC dismissed (PDF) an application from the City of Chicago’s Office of Emergency Communications to operate a small satellite communications network consisting of a hub and two remote VSAT stations using sub-one-meter antennas. Besides not including a radiation hazard study, which is standard for earth station applications, the FCC found other details lacking:

Section 25.220(e)(1) of the Commission’s rules, 47 C.F.R. § 25.220(a)(1), requires applicants proposing non-routine earth stations to include with the application a certification from each target satellite operator that the target operator has reached agreements with adjacent satellite operators regarding the non-routine operations.

Chicago also wanted to be able to connect with any available satellite over the U.S. during an actual emergency. I’m sure they’ll refile their application, but they should probably consider using a pre-engineered, commercially-licensed emergency communications system such as REDiSat — which uses a the AMC-6 satellite’s Ku-band payload (which is actually pretty hot over Chicago) to connect to a fully-licensed earth station in Maryland. It uses an antenna that’s approved for two-way communications anywhere in the lower 48, typically a 1.2m Patriot antenna and an iDirect modem.

Los Angeles County installed an extensive VSAT network years ago, as did the State of Florida. But these are "hot spots" for these types of networks and they went to great lengths in designing and installing them. Other large cities have done likewise since 9/11. With simpler configurations such as the type REDiSat offers, smaller municipalities can now begin considering a communications network that uses the ultimate diverse path: through space.

Hey, it worked in Biloxi.

We told you about the launch a few weeks back, but the Orbital Express refueling system appears to be up, running, and pretty effective. For those that don’t remember here’s the story about the new technology:

The goal of the Orbital Express Space Operations Architecture program is to validate the technical feasibility of robotic, autonomous on-orbit refueling and reconfiguration of satellites to support a broad range of future U.S. national security and commercial space programs. Refueling satellites will enable frequent maneuver to improve coverage, change arrival times to counter denial and deception and improve survivability, as well as extend satellite lifetime. Electronics upgrades on-orbit can provide regular performance improvements and dramatically reduce the time to deploy new technology on-orbit.

The full story about the mission of the Orbital Express satellite can be found at NASA’s Automated Rendezvous & Docking program website.

The video you see about you is a survey of the NextSat, the kind of serviceable satellite the Orbital Express is designed to fuel, and its refueling buddy as taken by the camera on its own arm.

It’s no secret that those of us here at Really Rocket Science were big fans of the original X Prize and the X Prize Foundation.

For the uninitiated, the original Ansari X Prize, according to Wikipedia:

… was a space competition in which the X PRIZE Foundation offered a US$10,000,000 prize for the first non-government organization to launch a reusable manned spacecraft into space twice within two weeks. It was modelled after early 20th-century aviation prizes, and aimed to spur development of low-cost spaceflight. The prize was won on October 4, 2004, the 47th anniversary of the Sputnik 1 launch, by the Tier One project using the experimental spaceplane SpaceShipOne.

How could we not be obsessed with such a competition? Not only did the winning craft give us an opportunity to rekindle our long-held admiration for the aerospace designs of Burt Rutan — but the prize helped launch the X-Prize Cup and our beloved X-Racers.

The second X Prize, the Archon X Prize, is "$10 million for the first non-governmental organization to sequence the complete genomes of 100 humans in 10 days time."

And now, in accord with our obsession with speed and technology, comes the Automotive X Prize.

From the website:

People love their cars. They are vital links to our jobs, our community, ourselves. For everything we love about them, cars are chained to the most severe global crises of our time: oil dependence and climate change.

We aim to break this deadlock through the most radical approach to innovation yet – the X PRIZE.

The Automotive X PRIZE will invite teams from around the world to focus on a single goal: design viable, clean and super-efficient cars that people want to buy.

This will be a race for the ages, with major publicity and a big sack of cash waiting for the champion, and perhaps our future hanging in the balance.

How’s that for gripping PR copy? It sure makes us want to channel our inner De Lorean and get to work.  (Guidelines for entry can be found here.)

We’ll be keeping you up to date on the progress (and cool designs) of the Automotive X Prize as well as future X Prizes in other fields and technologies. Becuase we, too, believe in "revolution through competition." And one never knows what form of locomotion the winning design might use.