Category Archives: NASA

Moon on Christmas Eve "brightest you've ever seen"

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Shiny: The Moon, photographed by P-M Heden of Vallentuna, Sweden. (via NASA)
The prose in this press release is purple, the planet is red. Mars and the Moon on December 24 will cross the sky together in a beautiful display, according to NASA (link, below).
The 98-percent-full Moon on Christmas Eve might also be the “brightest you’ve ever seen,” because it will be the highest-riding Moon we will experience until 2023.

NASA also uses this announcement to plug its back-to-the-Moon plans for 2020.

“Plans are to establish a lunar base for exploration,” the release reads, “and use the moon’s surface as a springboard to even further destinations.”

clipped from science.nasa.gov
It’s Christmas Eve, and you’re snuggled cozily in your den. A glowing fire gently crackles and pops in the fireplace, and your head starts to droop as you nod off. Just then, something cold and wet nudges your cheek.

You open your eyes to stare directly into a large black nose. It’s time to take the dog for his walk.

Grumbling in vain, you put on your coat, snap the leash onto the wiggling dog’s collar, open the door to a rush of cold air. You step outside and enter a magical landscape.

2012: NASA sees start of "new solar cycle"

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A bumpy ride ahead for sats and power grids. (Image: NASA)

NASA today published a forecast for a “big and intense” new solar cycle in 2011 or 2012, which its suggests will wreak havoc on satellite GPS and telecommunications, power grids and air traffic.

NASA says the next solar cycle, Solar Cycle 24, “could make itself felt as never before.”

We are now at the end of Solar Cycle 23 (see graphic, and excerpts, below), according to the U.S. space agency.

clipped from science.nasa.gov
Is a New Solar Cycle
Beginning
It may not look like much, but “this patch of magnetism could be a sign of the next solar cycle,” says solar physicist David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center.

2012: NASA sees start of "new solar cycle"

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A bumpy ride ahead for sats and power grids. (Image: NASA)

NASA today published a forecast for a “big and intense” new solar cycle in 2011 or 2012, which its suggests will wreak havoc on satellite GPS and telecommunications, power grids and air traffic.

NASA says the next solar cycle, Solar Cycle 24, “could make itself felt as never before.”

We are now at the end of Solar Cycle 23 (see graphic, and excerpts, below), according to the U.S. space agency.

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clipped from science.nasa.gov
Is a New Solar Cycle
Beginning
It may not look like much, but “this patch of magnetism could be a sign of the next solar cycle,” says solar physicist David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center.

Having Sex without Gravity

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Time for a quickie? Space shuttle astronauts in 1996 explored sexual positions in Zero-G.

Astronauts are experimenting with sexual positions in space, this report (link and excerpt, below) suggests.

clipped from www.guardian.co.uk
US and Russian astronauts have had sex in space for separate research programmes on how human beings might survive years in orbit, according to a book published yesterday.
Pierre Kohler, a respected French scientific writer, says in The Final Mission: Mir, The Human Adventure that the subject is taboo both at Nasa and at mission control in Moscow, but that cosmic couplings have taken place.
“The issue of sex in space is a serious one,” he says. “The experiments carried out so far relate to missions planned for married couples on the future International Space Station, the successor to Mir. Scientists need to know how far sexual relations are possible without gravity.”
He cites a confidential Nasa report on a space shuttle mission in 1996. A project codenamed STS-XX was to explore sexual positions possible in a weightless atmosphere.
four positions were found possible without “mechanical assistance”
six needed a special elastic belt and inflatable tunnel, like an open-ended sleeping bag

Having Sex without Gravity

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Time for a quickie? Space shuttle astronauts in 1996 explored sexual positions in Zero-G.

Astronauts are experimenting with sexual positions in space, this report (link and excerpt, below) suggests.

– Mark Baard

clipped from www.guardian.co.uk
US and Russian astronauts have had sex in space for separate research programmes on how human beings might survive years in orbit, according to a book published yesterday.
Pierre Kohler, a respected French scientific writer, says in The Final Mission: Mir, The Human Adventure that the subject is taboo both at Nasa and at mission control in Moscow, but that cosmic couplings have taken place.
“The issue of sex in space is a serious one,” he says. “The experiments carried out so far relate to missions planned for married couples on the future International Space Station, the successor to Mir. Scientists need to know how far sexual relations are possible without gravity.”
He cites a confidential Nasa report on a space shuttle mission in 1996. A project codenamed STS-XX was to explore sexual positions possible in a weightless atmosphere.
…four positions were found possible without “mechanical assistance”…
…six needed a special elastic belt and inflatable tunnel, like an open-ended sleeping bag…