Carnival of Space #116

Welcome to the Carnival of Space #116. For more information on the Carnival of Space, please click here.

The Last Words of the Voice of Mission Control

Collect Space has a real gem. Here, we have Further Reflections on a Golden Era by Paul Haney (1928-2009), the last writings of this great man. This is a must read. I can't do it justice with any summary.

Explaining the Orbit of WASP-17

The SpaceWriter muses on Perseid spotting and the tragedy of meteor flare. Billiards are also used to explain the odd orbit of a recently found exoplanet.

A Community's Respond

The Planetary Society Blog goes over how the space community reacted to and confirmed the recent Jupiter impacts.

Image by Anthony Wesley via The Planetary Society Blog

Look at the Image Below

That great image is by a group of artists running a project called Experience the Planets. To learn more about the project and to get your hands on more images head over to Bad Astronomy.

Canceled Missions

Cheap Astronomy goes sailing on the seas of space-time with a review of one of the great might-have-been space missions Cosmos 1.

Don't Let The Pervious Podcast Get You Down

21st Century Waves is here to give the space community hope! (It's a bird, it's a plane...) This blog explains how a recent Gallup poll shows that public support for space has increased since 1979. Also, how we only have 16 years to wait until our vision of a space faring human species is reality.

Epic

A 3-D flythrough of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field is being shown at Starts With A Bang. It is just epic and assume, go, go now! Why are you still here!

GRAIL Or The Quest For The Moon Continues

OrbitalHub explains the GRAIL. The Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) is a mission that will measure the lunar gravity field in unprecedented detail. The twin spacecraft will orbit the Moon in tandem and collect scientific data for several months.

Problems With a Terraformed Mars

Colony Worlds gives us the cold, hard facts. If humanity ever does gain the necessary technology to terraform Mars into a habitable world (air pressure and temperature wise), we may discover that although the red planet makes an excellent habitat for terrestrial vegetation, it may make an extremely poor one for colonists and animals. Head over to Colony Worlds to learn more.

Private Space

Warp World gives us an overview of commercial space flight.

How Your PDAs Can Be a Tool To Observe Space

Aartscope Blog gives us the iPhone adapter for a telescope. I used the word epic too many times in this posts, but this is mind blowing.

The Paper Confirming WASP-17b

Centauri Dreams offers up an overview of the discovery paper for WASP-17b. The discovery paper lays out the basics on this huge planet orbiting in retrograde fashion around its star. It seems that extreme tidal effects have something to do with its size, but we still have so much to learn about exoplanets...

Nuclear Power and Space

From Next Big Future, there were two items about Nuclear Power and Space. First, the question "How much Uranium (and other elements) are there in the solar system and where in the solar system are they" is answered. The Mr. Fusion scenario where nuclear fusion energy becomes cheap and abundant is covered. In this overview, we are given several candidate technology projects that are funded and could lead to this scenario. The scenario directly connects to easy access to space and easy movement around the solar system. It also means an abundant supply of nuclear weapons are available to those who have cheap and abundant energy and asteroids can be used as more powerful than nuclear bomb weapons. There is a solution for that issue as well. Find out more at Next Big Future.

HiRISE

Universe Today gives us shiny new images. The where released by the HiRISE camera. The images include a new view of Victoria Crater. You can even see Opportunity scampering across Merdiani Planum.

Image by the following groups: NASA,JPL and University of Arizona

A Lesson in Space History

The entry from New Frontier News is a summary of the satellites launched by the first nations in space.

James Bond in Space

The space community has been given a treat from A Babe in the Universe. In the bond movie Moonraker Bond overcomes his fear of heights with a fight on the cableway before being launched into orbit.  The movie reminds us of 1970's dreams of Space.  Through special effects we saw Shuttles serving a modular space station and carrying out a military mission. Learn more over at A Babe in the Universe.

Are You Studying The Last Hubble Mission

If so, The Rocket Scientist has a treat for you. These posts covers everything from the safety features of STS-125 to the benefits of the mission to the Hubble servicing mission. This blog post series can be read in the following parts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.

A Dimming Star

Look up if you have the chance one night. If you look at the constellation Scorpius you will notice that the brightest star in the constellation, Antares (alpha Scorpii), is getting dimmer. The great folks over at simostronomy provide the data.

A Darkening Cloud Over the Dreams of the Space Community (or, wow this is ending on a sad note)

You might want a box of tissue handy before you read this post. Cumbrian Sky gives us a reaction to the heart crushing, passion stealing, demotivating news that the Augustine Commission delivered to the space community. You can hear this blogger weep over the death of the Moon and Mars manned missions. Cause of death, as Cumbrian Sky reports, was financial suffocation.

 

Image by I'll Never Grow Up.

Well, that will do it for the Carnival of Space #116 here at Habitation Intention. Thanks to the space community for creating such amazing content, all these posts move us closer to the community's goals.