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And thats why we do what we do :) Enjoy!!

and to poison the waters of an amazing performance, here's the relevant(?) copyright law: http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/05/economist-explains-12?fsrc=scn/tw_ec/how_does_copyright_work_in_space_

And in case you wonder, this is *not* the most expensive music video ever made. Also, launching his guitar to the orbit was still far cheaper than the cost of some guitars sold on earth. Where else can this info come from if not http://what-if.xkcd.com/45/

remember the discussion I tried to trigger in the team a few weeks ago ...

I love the linked article provided by Johannes! It expresses very elegantly why I still fail to understand even extremely smart and busy people in my view apparently waiting their time in playing computer games - but I recognise that there is something in games that we apparently need / gives us something we cherish .... "In fact, half a million players so far have registered to help destroy the 64 billion tiny blocks that compose that one gigantic cube, all working in tandem toward a singular goal: discovering the secret that Curiosity's creator says awaits one lucky player inside. That's right: After millions of man-hours of work, only one player will ever see the center of the cube. Curiosity is the first release from 22Cans, an independent game studio founded earlier this year by Peter Molyneux, a longtime game designer known for ambitious projects like Populous, Black & White and Fable. Players can carve important messages (or shameless self-promotion) onto the face of the cube as they whittle it to nothing. Image: Wired Molyneux is equally famous for his tendency to overpromise and under-deliver on his games. In 2008, he said that his upcoming game would be "such a significant scientific achievement that it will be on the cover of Wired." That game turned out to be Milo & Kate, a Kinect tech demo that went nowhere and was canceled. Following this, Molyneux left Microsoft to go indie and form 22Cans. Not held back by the past, the Molyneux hype train is going full speed ahead with Curiosity, which the studio grandiosely promises will be merely the first of 22 similar "experiments." Somehow, it is wildly popular. The biggest challenge facing players of Curiosity isn't how to blast through the 2,000 layers of the cube, but rather successfully connecting to 22Cans' servers. So many players are attempting to log in that the server cannot handle it. Some players go for utter efficiency, tapping rapidly to rack up combo multipliers and get more

why are video games so much different than collecting stamps or spotting birds or planes ? One could say they are all just hobbies

"The One Hundred Year Study on Artificial Intelligence, launched in the fall of 2014, is a long-term investigation of the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its influences on people, their communities, and society." (...) "The report is designed to address four intended audiences. For the general public, it aims to provide an accessible, scientifically and technologically accurate portrayal of the current state of AI and its potential. For industry, the report describes relevant technologies and legal and ethical challenges, and may help guide resource allocation. The report is also directed to local, national, and international governments to help them better plan for AI in governance. Finally, the report can help AI researchers, as well as their institutions and funders, to set priorities and consider the ethical and legal issues raised by AI research and its applications."

For the first time, ultra-cold atoms interfere in space The MAIUS 1 experiment was launched on 23 January 2017 at 3:30 CET on board a sounding rocket from Esrange Space Center near Kiruna in northern Sweden. German scientists have, for the first time, succeeded in producing a Bose-Einstein condensate in space and using it for interferometry experiments.

After graphene and blue brain, the European Commission has quietly announced plans to launch a €1-billion Euro project to boost a raft of quantum technologies - from secure communication networks to ultra-precise gravity sensors and clocks.

Trying the new rocket with humans right away (and 1.5 years to go). What can possibly go wrong? The Trump administration has directed NASA to study whether it is feasible to fly astronauts on the debut flight of the agency's heavy-lift rocket, a mission currently planned to be unmanned and targeted to launch in late 2018, officials said on Friday.

The only extraterrestrial life detection experiments ever conducted were the three which were components of the 1976 Viking Mission to Mars. Of these, only the Labeled Release experiment obtained a clearly positive response. [...] These analyses support the interpretation that the Viking LR experiment did detect extant microbial life on Mars.

...unless life arrived together with the nutrients...

Viking was one of the best sterilised sc we have ever launched! Just strange to read such an article published in an obscure Korean journal ...

crowdsourcing science funding ...

there have been a few of these popping out lately, thanks to Kickstarter's incredible success. This one http://www.petridish.org/ launched last month, and has a lot of projects already, including a fully funded one (219 backers, $12,247 raised) to "find the first exomoon": http://www.petridish.org/projects/help-us-find-the-first-exomoon

spaceship1 on steroids ...

Looks slightly fragile in the middle...

throwing empty spacesuits out of the ISS, converted into improvised satellites... now there's something I'd expect to see coming out of an ACT brainstorming session :)

Here's the video of the satellite's "launch": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPx-KNTHGCA

This December, NASA plans to launch a set of packs, filled with a material akin to kitty litter, functioning as planters for six romaine lettuce plants. The lettuce will be grown under bright-pink LED lights, ready to harvest after just 28 days. Once harvested, it will be frozen and stored away for testing back on Earth. No one is allowed to eat anything before the plants are thoroughly vetted for cosmic microbes.

In case you have not seen this one yet...

Nice one, very impressive (also filming it with a drone :)! I noticed at 0:56 that the exhaust flames do travel upwards on the descent. I wonder how much of a problem this would be for the actual reusability / next flight approval?

impressive!

"A Soviet supercavitation torpedo called Shkval was able to reach a speed of 370km/h or more - much faster than any other conventional torpedoes," he said. However, The SCMP highlighted two problems in supercavitation technology. First, the submerged vessel needed to be launched at high speeds, approaching 100km/h, to generate and maintain the air bubble. Secondly, it is difficult if not impossible to steer the vessel using conventional mechanisms, which are inside the bubble, without direct contact with water. As a result, its application has been limited to unmanned vessels, fired in a straight line.

can't you just selectively inject the gas so that you control in which direction the bubble forms?

Nice video featuring the technology. Plus it comes with a good soundtrack! Google's project wing uses a lifting wing concept (more fuel efficient than normal airplane layouts and MUCH more efficient than quadrocopters) but it equips the plane with engines strong enough to hover in a nose up position, allowing vertical landing and takeoff. For the delivery of packages the drone does not even need to land - it can lower them on a wire - much like the skycrane concept used to deliver the Curiosity rover on Mars. Not sure if the skycrane is really necessary but it is certainly cool. Anyways, the video is great for its soundtrack alone! ;-P

Fair enough, but even if you consider advanced/robust/efficient AI, why would you use a drone? Do we envision hundreds of drones above our heads in the street instead of UPS vans, or postmen, considering delivers letters might be more easily achievable. I am not so sure if personal delivery will take this route. On the other hand, if the system would work smoothly, I can image that I'm send a mail with the question whether I'm home (or they might know already from my personal GPS tracker) and then notify me that they are launching my DVD and it will come crashing into my door in 5min.

I'm more curios how they're planning to keep people from stealing the drones. I could do with a drone army myself and having cheap amazon or google drones flying about sounds like a decent source.

A team of researchers at Colorado based Escape Dynamics is reporting that initial tests indicate that it might really be possible to launch space-planes into space using microwaves sent from the ground, to allow for a single stage spacecraft. If the idea pans out, the cost savings for sending satellites (or perhaps humans) into orbit could be considerable.

Not very new, but a very slick video nonetheless! Will it work? I am not so sure whether "just engineering" applies in this case. The array of antenna's required is quite significant to compensate for beam losses. Wall plug efficiency is not that high therefore, then again.. solar energy is for free almost in the future so who cares.. let's go for it! :)

The SpaceX Falcon 9 explosion was caused by a failed strut that allowed a helium bottle to burst free inside the rocket's liquid oxygen tank, CEO Elon Musk said Monday. "One of those struts broke free during flight," Musk told reporters on a conference call to discuss the June 28 blast on what was supposed to be a routine cargo mission to the International Space Station.

I guess this is how it starts as they mentioned they will inspect struts individually before each flight. Also for the space shuttle they believed a rapid inspection between launches would be feasible, but in the end there was a need for individual assessment almost. And we haven't even considered human spaceflight yet.

as predicted, first failure, first inquiry board, first new safety procedures ... and certainly many more will follow and all will make sense but with the risk of loosing the competitive edge

Really interesting bit hidden in the last paragraph: Monitoring coral bleaching from space with Envisat penetrating down to a depth of 10 m "[...] Envisat's Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer sensor can detect coral bleaching down to depths of ten metres, meaning Envisat could potentially map coral bleaching on a global scale."

No, it can't :-) Since 8 April 2012 Envisat is a proud holder of the title of one of the biggest pieces of space junk out there in LEO...

admittedly correct, so the past tense would have been a more appropriate choice... Nevertheless, plenty of data to look back at and Sentinel-3 will launch eventually! ;)

In 2017 a private moon landing could make news. If the mission is successful, said GeekWire, Moon Express could become the first privately backed venture to achieve a soft lunar landing. Bob Richards is CEO of Moon Express and he announced the launch plan earlier this month at the Space Technology & Investment Summit in San Francisco.

Bob Richards ist ja kein unbeschriebenes Blatt ...

Even after reading this sentence: "NASA wants to put a photograph of your face on one of the remaining space shuttle missions and launch it into orbit." it's not clear to me what exactly they plan to do... anyone?

Wow, they even mentioned it in the news on the Polish radio yesterday... What I am curious is if they really take the physical (or at least digital) photo and name to the orbit, or is this just, as you called it, "symbolic" ...

It is usually for real. Sometimes it is on a plate or slab, sometimes on a DVD, ... I will have my name on STS-134 :-)