Really Rocket Science

Ever wanted to have your own Observatory? Stargazing enthusiast Thomas Campbell did, so he created one and put it up in his own backyard, as seen below. Sure, it looks like a simple 2-3 man dome tent, but it’s actually has all of the features amateur astronomer might want and for under $40.

Campbell reports that two main reasons prompted him to build his observatory:

"Several years ago, I (not knowing any better) purchased a 60mm refractor (a Kmart Focus model) at a yard sale. The main tube has pretty good optics and the 20mm eyepiece (35x magnification) isn’t too bad, but the other eyepieces are only fair at best, and the wooden mount is pretty wobbly in even the slightest of breezes.

The most important reason, however, was light pollution in my backyard. I live in a small town, but live on a highway (with a lot of streetlights) and across the street from a county hospital (lots of light pollution there!). Even so, by cupping my hands around my eyes, on good nights of seeing, I can still make out the Milky Way, so the skies are still fairly dark.

I had found an article on the internet about how to make a light blocker out of PVC pipe and heavy-ply trash bags, but with the light coming from all around me, I would need about a dozen of them, and the amount of time needed putting all of those up would seriously cut into my observing time."

Not surprisingly, considering the tents ability to block light and wind, the $40 observatory seems to be working out for Campbell pretty well, saying it has,

"…allowed me to view things with my scope that I didn’t think was possible before. For instance, on nights of good seeing, I can now make out all four of the main stars of the Trapezium in the Orion Nebula. Before, I was only able to make out the three brightest stars at best. Overall, I believe I can now see objects about a half-magnitude fainter than I was able to before using the observatory."

Not bad for $30! Check out Campbell’s DIY observatory site for more information and maybe even check out some of the other projects he’s done ranging from building an astronomical red-dot finder out of a BB-gun site to constructing a ply-wood tripod & mount. Awesome stuff!

Alan Boyle over at the CosmicLog reports that a second team has joined the Rocket Racing League, the relatively new association charged with organizing and promoting the emerging sport of rocket racing, and, thus may soon be ready for actual competition. Yesteraday, the Bridenstine Rocket Racing Team, which is named after its leader Navy Lt. James Bridenstine, announced that it would be challenging the world first (and, previously, only) rocket racing team, the Leading Edge.

RRL President and CEO Granger Whitelaw thinks that the new teams might have some natural competition.

"Given the air force credentials of our first team, Leading Edge, and the navy aviation experience of this second team under Jim Bridenstine, we expect a good-natured competition as the Rocket Racing League prepares for its official launch in late 2007."

So when can we expect the RRL to ramp up to full gear? While the official word (as we see above) is late 2007, some are saying it could be even earlier. Boyle reports that the Mark1 X-Racers that are going to be used in the competition are still in development, early, usable, and expensive (the final crafts will cost about $1.2 million) prototypes could be hitting the scene within the next four five months. Those looking for an even earlier preview might keep an eye on the X Prize Cup, where the league is planning to show some of their wares next month.

NASA declared an emergency on the International Space Station briefly this morning after technicians discovered that potassium hydroxide was leaking into living quarters. The leak of the odorless chemical was found after a smoke alarm went off while the crew was conducting some work on an Elektron oxygen-generating device and reported a "chemical smell."

Fortunately, the crew was never in any danger — at its worst potassium hydroxide can irritate the skin and eyes — and NASA reacted swiftly. Following the incident, the crew put on surgical masks and gloves and inserted a charcoal filter into the station’s ventilation system, which will supposedly clean the air and eliminate the odor.

Reportedly, Problems with the Elektron should have been expected given the track record of the device. Over the past few years the Elektro nhas been a source of a fair amount of trouble, requiring regular maintenance and troubleshooting. Still, its not known why the problem with the unit has popped up now. According to the New York Times[Registration Required], Michael T. Suffredini, NASA head of the ISS program, had said:

"he did not yet know why the crew had been working on the Elektron. ‘We’re trying to figure out why,’ he said. ‘This Elektron has been working very well.’"

For those who are curious, no word has gotten out on how the whole incident may or may not effect Anousheh Ansari’s historic journey to the station, although her blog has documented the take off that occurred much earlier this morning.

The Wireless Report notes that mobile-delivered television service provider MobiTV is looking into the much discussed WiMAX technology as an "alternative delivery platform." Sure to take notice are those, such as Rupert Murdoch, who think television might just be the "killer app" that helps the last-mile connection method take off.

Personally, I’m probably in line with Om Malick on this one. While WiMAX could do a serviceable job delivering tv programing to an array of devices (especially those with smaller screens), the HD future means that a lot more bandwidth is going to be needed to deliver the kind of signal people are going to expect to see on the 137-in Plasma/Organic LED display of choice.

My bet for WiMax "killer app"? VoIP/Interent telephony, which is far more compatible with the bandwidth limitations of the technology and could do a lot to free us from the crappy mobile phone networks that plague the rural areas where WiMax will first emerge.

In his best-selling memoir Dreams from My Father, U.S. Senator Barack Obama wrote extensively about how corruption in his father’s native Kenya constantly thwarted his father’s ambitions and drive toward personal and economic betterment.

Obama recently returned to Kenya; now it appears that such corruption continues to this day. According to BusinessDay, the Kenyan Post Office and the citizens who used the cheap, high speed Internet access available at their local post offices had their satellite-based access to the world-wide web cut off due to lack of payment. Universal Satspace, a satellite communications company-based in Israel (or Delaware, depending on who you ask) had to cut off the service after the African country failed to pay its bills for over five quarters and owed more than $12.3 million dollars to the company.

First reported last month in All Africa, the Kenyan government is supposedly holding back its payment to Universal Satspace because it suspects that the contracted is connected to government contract-leasing scandal that has emerged in the country over the past year and a half. Universal Satspace is, understandably, fervently denying any allegations of wrong doing, claiming that the Kenyan government is using the claims of corruption as a way of getting out of making the necessary payments.

The real tragedy, of course, is that the country’s refusal to pay and Universal Satspace’s response has resulted in the Kenyan people’s disconnection from the Internet. According to the Business Day report, while the agreement’s main goal was to modernize the state’s postal system (which, in turn, has made it a model for the rest of Africa) the introduction of Internet service to even the most rural of post offices enabled the government to provide its people access to fax and Internet service at prices far lower than what was offered by Internet cafes.

As we can see in the video above, the service really worked and was doing a great deal to connect Kenyans to growing online communities. Hopefully, an agreement between Universal Satspace and the government can be worked out soon.

While its use of the global positioning system or SatCom may be its only direct tie to satellites, the new Twin M hull vessel “Stiletto” was too cool to avoid mention here on RRS. In addition to looking really cool, the craft offers new advances in watercraft design, it’s twin M hull allowing the craft, according to M Ship Company’s (it’s maker) website, "[recapture] the bow wave using its energy to create an air cushion for more efficient planing."

Navy SEALs are already using the technology according to a navy website:

"The Stiletto’s patented M-shaped hull provides a stable, yet fast, platform for mounting electronic surveillance equipment or weapons, or for conducting special operations. The hull design does not require foils or lifting devices to achieve a smooth ride at high speeds in rough conditions. Its shallow draft means the M80 Stiletto can operate in riverine environments and potentially allows for beach landings."

Although tangential to a lot of what we cover on RRS, the Sitletto really shows the interesting work that is being done around the country in engineering. Awesome stuff!

An article in today’s issue of the Financial Times, says that flights on discount airline, RyanAir, are going to make use of mobile telephones available on their entire fleet of Boeing 737-800s over the next two years. AirFrance will launch the first trial of the same system, which uses technology developed by OnAir, in February, while RyanAir hopes to have obnoxious ringtones going off at 35,000 feet starting in July. BMI British Midlands and TAP Air Portugal will also be testing the OnAir system in Q2 2007.

For those that are worried about the inevitable volume increase the addition of mobile phone service to airliners will cause, Ryan Air’s Chief Executive Michael O’Leary tells customers to expect nothing less from his airline.

"If you want a quiet flight, use another airline. Ryanair is noisy, full and we are always trying to sell you something."

Nonetheless, there is some hope that airlines without Ryanair’s brashness will limit the calling to some degree: According to the Financial Times piece, pilots can control the service and are likely to switch to "silent" mode on night flights, blocking calls but allowing text messages.

According to the AP, Russian flight engineer Mikhail Tyurin will drive a golf ball back to mother earth from atop the International Space Station on Thanksgiving Day 2006 in a publicity stunt to promote Canadian golf club manufacturer, Element 21 Golf Co.

Element 21 asked the Cosmonaut to pull the stunt to publisize its new line of golf clubs and to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the time astronaut Alan Shepard hit golf balls on the moon during the Apollo 14 mission. The stunt, which cost the company an undisclosed amount of money, was originally planned for a June spacewalk, but was pushed back so other tasks could be accomplished.

Oh, and don’t worry about being knocked out by dimpled piece of plastic. The golf ball will most likely return to the earth’s atmosphere in three days, burning up upon reentry.

Even the best rocket scientists need a beer from time to time, so that’s why we were heartened to find out one of our favorite bar game vendor and satellite-based, interactive game provider, Buzztime, has announced a new product, Crazy Golf.

For those that haven’t gotten to use Buzztime products in the past, the company’s most popular games (by far) are trivia-based, spicing up the standard pub quiz by automating the process and pitting you against fellow booze-hounds around the country and the world via satellite. Those that are really into the trivia can form a team, keep the name, and log on to the company’s player’s forum and trash talk that team in Tucson that kept on demanding Lord of the Rings questions to their heart’s content.

Pique your interest? Use Buzztime’s website to find a bar near you that has the service. For those of you who are already Buzztime junkies, you might want to consider subscribing via Dish Network, it only costs $3.99/month and it’ll definitely save you on your bar tab. As for your dating opportunities? Well, it’s probably not going to help — but that’s why you took up bar trivia, right?

Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports that RocketPlane Kistler and SpaceX are trying to gain the right to test rockets at the Australian Defense Department site in Woomera, South Australia. Attracted by the size (about as large as England) and remoteness of the location, the Kistler and SpaceX hope to use the site to do test launches of the rockets NASA International Space Station.

Military history buffs will remember the Woomera Prohibited Area (WPA) as the largest land-based testing range in the world and the site of much of Australia and the U.K.’s nuclear (and otherwise) missile testing throughout the cold war. The WPA, which is still in use today for weapons testing, was also the location of many of European Launcher Development Organization (ELDO)‘s EUROPA rocket launches (one waiting to be launched is seen above) and NASA’s Island Lagoon Deep Space Tracking Station throughout the 1960s.

In addition to being a site with a great history, Woomera seems to have some good site-seeing opportunities and be just as beautiful as much of the rest of the Outback.