Update #2 on Chris Hadfield’s condition
May 16, 2013
An update on Chris Hadfield’s condition
by Raffi Kuyumjian, CSA’s Chief Medical Officer and Hadfield’s Flight SurgeonChris is already showing noticeable improvement in his walk and equilibrium since yesterday, but it usually takes about 3 weeks until we are confident a returning astronaut can return to driving. He will be driven to where he needs to be until then.
Today is a bit of a lighter day for Chris to help him recover from effects of gravity, as well as the jet-lag and the 24-hour flight to Houston from the landing site. He has a medical check, a 2-hour reconditioning session and short debrief meetings in addition to this morning’s press conference. He needs the rest as tomorrow is a full day of science data collection, medical checks and reconditioning.
Chris Hadfield: “How does the body control blood pressure? Scarecrow on a tilt table to measure how.”
Photo credit: Chris Hadfield
You can also see this article about his return. Not easy to feel gravity again !
(Source: asc-csa.gc.ca)
From How Space Stations Work:
On May 14, 1973, NASA launched its first space station — Skylab 1 — into orbit. During the launch, the station was damaged. A critical meteoroid shield and one of the station’s two main solar panels were ripped off and the other solar panel was not fully stretched out. That meant that Skylab had little electrical power and the internal temperature rose to 126 degrees Fahrenheit (52 degrees Celsius).
The first crew, Skylab2, was launched 10 days later to fix the ailing station. The crew consisted of Commander Charles “Pete” Conrad, Paul Weitz and Joseph Kerwin. The Skylab 2 astronauts stretched out the remaining solar panel and set up an umbrella-like sunshade to cool the station. With the station repaired, the astronauts spent 28 days in space conducting scientific and biomedical research.
Modified from the third stage of a Saturn V moon rocket, Skylab had the following parts:
- Orbital workshop - living and working quarters for the crew
- Airlock module - allowed access to the outside of the station
- Multiple docking adapter - allowed more than one Apollo spacecraft to dock to the station at once (However, there were never any overlapping crews in the station.)
- Apollo telescope mount - contained telescopes for observing the sun, stars and Earth (Keep in mind that the Hubble Space Telescope had not been built yet.)
- Apollo spacecraft - command and service module for transporting the crew to and from the Earth’s surface
Skylab was manned by two additional crews. Skylab 3 consisted of Commander Alan Bean and astronauts Jack Lousma and Owen Garriot. They spent 59 days in space. The final crew, Skylab 4, consisted of Commander Gerald Carr and astronauts William Pogue and Edward Gibson. This crew spent 84 days in orbit, conducted experiments and photographed comet Kohoutek.
Skylab was never meant to be a permanent home in space, but rather a workshop where the United States could test the effects of long-duration space flights (that is, greater than the two weeks required to go to the moon) on the human body. When the flight of the third crew was finished, Skylab was abandoned. Skylab remained aloft until intense solar flare activity caused its orbit to decay sooner than expected. Skylab re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere and burned over Australia in 1979.
Learn more about Skylab over at NASA’s mission hub. Image credit: NASA.
New Photo Reveals ‘Ghostly’ Green Nebula in Deep Space
An amazing new photo from a telescope in Chile has captured the most detailed view yet of a green glowing blob 3,300 light-years away from Earth.
Image: This photo shows the glowing green planetary nebula IC 1295 surrounding a dim and dying star. It is located about 3300 light-years away from Earth. Credit: ESO
The new image, released today (April 10) by the European Southern Observatory, shows the planetary nebula IC 1295 like it has never been seen before. This picture, which ESO scientists dubbed “ghostly,” marks the first time the nebula has been imaged such unprecedented detail.
“It has the unusual feature of being surrounded by multiple shells that make it resemble a microorganism seen under a microscope, with many layers corresponding to the membranes of a cell,” officials from the European Southern Observatory wrote in a statement.
(via scinerds)
NASA’s Spitzer Puts Planets in a Petri Dish
Our galaxy is teeming with a wild variety of planets. In addition to our solar system’s eight near-and-dear planets, there are more than 800 so-called exoplanets known to circle stars beyond our sun. One of the first “species” of exoplanets to be discovered is the hot Jupiters, also known as roasters. These are gas giants like Jupiters, but they orbit closely to their stars, blistering under the heat.
Thanks to NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, researchers are beginning to dissect this exotic class of planets, revealing raging winds and other aspects of their turbulent nature. A twist to come out of the recent research is the planets’ wide range of climates. Some are covered with a haze, while others are clear. Their temperature profiles, chemistries and densities differ as well.
(via stufftoblowyourmind)
NASA Celebrates the 40th Anniversary of Skylab
NASA will commemorate the 40th anniversary of America’s first space station Monday, May 13, with a televised roundtable discussion featuring Skylab astronauts, a current astronaut and agency managers planning future space missions.
The discussion, open to NASA employees and the public, will begin at 2:30 p.m. EDT in the James Webb Auditorium of NASA Headquarters at 300 E St. SW in Washington. The event will air live on NASA Television and the agency’s website.NASA launched Skylab on May 14, 1973. It was the nation’s first foray into significant scientific research in microgravity. The three Skylab crews proved humans could live and work effectively for long durations in space. The knowledge gathered during Skylab helped inform development and construction of the International Space Station, just as the research and technology demonstrations being conducted aboard the ISS will help shape a new set of missions that will take Americans farther into the solar system.
The bottom image is the original Skylab concept
This sketch of Skylab was drawn by George E. Mueller, NASA associate administrator for Manned Space Flight. This concept drawing was created at a meeting at the Marshall Space Flight Center on Aug. 19, 1966. The image details the station’s major elements. In 1970, the station became known as Skylab. Three crewed Skylab missions (Skylab 2 in May 1973; Skylab 3 in July 1973; and Skylab 4 in November 1973) were flown, on which experiments were conducted in space science, Earth resources, life sciences, space technology and student projects.
Read more about Skylab at NASA History in:
SKYLAB, Our First Space Station
Living and Working in Space: A History of SKYLAB
(via itsfullofstars)
World’s Largest Infrared Space Telescope Shuts Down Forever
After nearly four years mapping the “hidden universe,” the largest infrared telescope ever launched into space has reached the end of its life, European Space Agency officials say.
The $1.4 billion Herschel Space Observatory has exhausted the vital supply of liquid helium coolant that allowed it make the most sensitive and detailed observations of the cosmos in infrared light, ESA officials announced Monday (April 29).The infrared space telescope’s official end was recorded by a ground station in Australia, which recorded an increase in temperature for all of the spacecraft’s instruments during the telescope’s daily communications session. It began its mission in May 2009. [Amazing Photos from the Herschel Space Telescope]
“Herschel has offered us a new view of the hitherto hidden universe, pointing us to a previously unseen process of star birth and galaxy formation, and allowing us to trace water through the universe from molecular clouds to newborn stars and their planet-forming discs and belts of comets,” ESA’s Herschel project scientist Göran Pilbratt said in a statement.
Named for famed 18th century astronomer William Herschel, the space telescope was the most powerful infrared observatory ever launched to space until it stopped functioning this week. It has a main mirror 11.5 feet (3.5 meters) across nearly 1.5 times larger than Hubble Space Telescope, and was designed to chart the universe in the far-infrared to sub-millimeter wavelengths of light.
“Herschel gave us the opportunity to peer into the dark and cold regions of the universe that are invisible to other telescopes,”> said John Grunsfeld, NASA’s associate administrator for science missions. The U.S. space agency was a partner with ESA in the Herschel mission.
The Herschel space observatory is responsible for some amazing images of far-off cosmic wonders, such as its dazzling views of the Eagle Nebula and Andromeda Galaxy. Its helium-cooled instruments allowed astronomers to study far away starburst galaxies and star formation closer to home in the Milky Way. The coolant kept Herschel’s instruments chilled to a temperature of minus 455 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 271 degrees Celsius), but that supply was expected to evaporate over time.
“It feels like losing a member of the family,” Herschel mission officials wrote in Twitter post at the mission’s end. “Almost 4 incredibly intense years in space.”
The Herschel observatory collected more than 35,000 scientific observations and 25,000 hours of data. According to ESA officials, that plethora of data will be Herschel’s main contribution to the world of science.
“The archive will become the legacy of the mission,” ESA officials explained in a statement. “It is expected to provide even more discoveries than have been made during the lifetime of the Herschel mission.”NASA scientists said the Herschel mission’s effect on astronomy will far outlast the four-year mission itself.
“Herschel has improved our understanding of how new stars and planets form, but has also raised many new questions,” said Paul Goldsmith, NASA Herschel project scientist at JPL, said in a statement. “Astronomers will be following up on Herschel’s discoveries with ground-based and future space-based observatories for years to come.”The space telescope has also paved the way for future missions focused on observing the universe in infrared wavelengths, ESA officials added.
“The mission resulted in a number of technological advancements applicable to future space missions and potential spin-off technologies,” ESA officials said. “The mission saw the development of advanced cryogenic systems, the construction of the largest telescope mirror ever flown in space, and the utilization of the most sensitive direct detectors for light in the far-infrared to millimeter range.”Stay Curious, Watch: The Herschel Story (via space.com)
image 1: This artist’s illustration shows the European Space Agency’s infrared Herschel Space Obsevatory set against a background image of the Vela C star-forming region. The space telescope launche din 2009 and ended its mission in 2013. credit: ESA/PACS & SPIRE Consortia, T. Hill, F. Motte, Laboratoire AIM Paris-Saclay, CEA/IRFU – CNRS/INSU – Uni. Paris Diderot, HOBYS Key Programme Consortium
image 2: Each of the thousands of dots in this image is an entire galaxy containing billions of stars, revealed in a region of space called the Lockman hole, which allows a clear line of sight out into the distant universe, as seen by the Herschel Space Observatory. See more amazing images obtained by Herschel since its launch in May, 2009
image 3: ESA Herschel space observatory image of Andromeda (M31) using both PACS and SPIRE instruments to observe at infrared wavelengths of 70 mm (blue), 100 mm (green) and 160 mm and 250 mm combined (red). Image released Jan. 28, 2013. credit: ESA/Herschel/PACS & SPIRE Consortium, O. Krause, HSC, H. Linz
(via itsfullofstars)
A key unknown in lunar science is to what extent the Moon is a melted, radially layered planet like Earth or a primordial unmelted relic of the early solar system, like many asteroids. A new era of lunar exploration is underway, offering major new insights into this decades-old question.
In this week’s podcast, planetary scientist Ben Weiss of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology reviews current understanding of the lunar interior and shares new results from spacecraft observations and studies of Apollo samples.
Image: NASA/JPL/Galileo Spacecraft
A graphic look at the huge mass of space junk out there.
To Fix the Giant Near-Tipping-Point Cloud of Space Trash Encircling the Earth, We May Need Space Harpoons
Every where we go we leave pollution and debris.
(via stufftoblowyourmind)
I thought everyone might enjoy this close-up of image #4 from my gallery “Amazing Retro Space Station Designs.” Fantastic cutaway…
This North American Rockwell concept for a12-man space station was developed as part of a program to design and develop a space station to see action by 1975. The cutaway drawing shows crew quarters, command and control areas, a laboratory and a gym. Circular openings at the top and bottom of the station would serve as docking ports for shuttles.
ALSO: Note the movie theater! - Robert
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Chris Hadfield wrings out a washcloth in space, proving once again that every single thing you do is 100x cooler in space.
