Rachel Maddow on NASA

I love Rachel!  We don't watch Rachel Maddow ENOUGH!  But we happened to catch much of this evenings show - Monday, 8/6/12 - and her coverage of the Curiosity landing on Mars is touching.  It's only 4 minutes long....

Check out this great MSN video - No holding back by enthused NASA engineer

Live NASA feed

You can watch the landing of the Curiosity spacecraft on Mars by tuning into the live NASA stream by clicking here.  Tell me how it went, because I'll be sleeping!  10:30pm Central time (Aug 5) is the start of the NASA feed and the landing is scheduled for about 2 hours after that. 

Thingamagoop

Bleep Labs, based in Austin, has come up with some unusual products.  Here's one...

The Thingamagoop 2 is a handmade, analog + digital synthesizer you control with light.

- Analog VCO controlled by photocell.
- Digital mode with sample and hold, Arpeggios, noise, and bit crush effects.
- Open source, Arduino code so you can program your own sounds!
- Analog mode with all the sounds of the original Thingamagoop.
- Controllable “LEDacle” – Ramp and random waveforms with rate control.
- New modulators – Square wave amplitude modulator and triangle wave pulse width modulator.
- Tough, stomp box type body with silk screened graphics in 3 different styles.
- Easy to access battery – No more screws.
- Much fuller and louder speaker.
- CV out. Control your vintage synth or modular with light!
- Kit now comes with a pre-drilled enclosure.
- Still assembled in Austin, Texas by Dr. Bleep and friends.

Bleep Labs

Curiosity on track

Obama must have planned this visit to Mars just to make himself look good!  What a tyrant!  An evil genius!


NASA's Curiosity rover edges closer to Mars

The Curiosity rover remains perfectly on course to make its Monday (GMT) landing on the Red Planet.

The Nasa robot's flight trajectory is so good engineers cancelled the latest course correction they had planned.

To be sure of touching down in the right place on the surface, the vehicle must hit a box at the top of the atmosphere that is just 3km by 12km.

"Our inbound trajectory is right down the pipe," said Arthur Amador, Curiosity's mission manager.

"The team is confident and thrilled to finally be arriving at Mars, and we're reminding ourselves to breathe every so often. We're ready to go."

The rover's power and communications systems are in excellent shape.

The one major task left for the mission team is to prime the back-up computer that will take command if the main unit fails during the entry, descent and landing (EDL) manoeuvres.

Curiosity - also known as the Mars Science Laboratory - has spent the past eight months travelling from Earth to Mars, covering more than 560 million km.

The robot was approaching Mars at about 13,000km/h on Saturday. By the time the spacecraft hits the top of Mars' atmosphere, about seven minutes before touch-down, gravity will have accelerated it to about 21,000km/h.

The vehicle is being aimed at Gale Crater, a deep depression just south of the planet's equator.

It is equipped with the most sophisticated science payload ever sent to another world.

Its mission, when it gets on the ground, is to characterise the geology in Gale and examine its rocks for signs that ancient environments on Mars could have supported microbial life.

Touch-down is expected at 05:31 GMT (06:31 BST) Monday 6 August; 22:31 PDT, Sunday 5 August.

Facts about the mission:

• Mission goal is to determine whether Mars has ever had the conditions to support life
• Project costed at $2.5bn; will see initial surface operations lasting two Earth years
• Onboard plutonium generators will deliver heat and electricity for at least 14 years
• 75kg science payload more than 10 times as massive as those of earlier US Mars rovers
• Equipped with tools to brush and drill into rocks, to scoop up, sort and sieve samples
• Variety of analytical techniques to discern chemistry in rocks, soil and atmosphere
• Will try to make first definitive identification of organic (carbon-rich) compounds
• Even carries a laser to zap rocks; beam will identify atomic elements in rocks

Read more here.

Gregg Costa

You can make a difference, if you get involved.

Before you check out for the weekend we wanted to make sure you saw this BIG news about how your work has a lasting effect.

U.S. District Court Judge Gregg Costa made a ruling yesterday protecting civic groups’ right to engage and register Texas voters. Costa ruled in favor of plaintiff Project Vote and its affiliate in Voting for America v. Andrade and ordered the state of Texas to stop enforcing certain laws that restrict voter registration drives.

While the ruling itself is exciting, it also highlights the work Progress Texas has been doing to push for progressive judicial nominees to fill the judicial vacancies plaguing Texas.

Judge Gregg Costa was one of the first nominees we pushed to get confirmed when we launched the Texans for a Fair Judiciary coalition. Costa's confirmation and ruling is a clear example of why our courts matter and why we continue to fight for progressive judicial nominees.

Here are the details of how this all happened:

• On September 8, 2011, President Obama nominated Costa to the seat on the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

• On December 2, 2011, Progress Texas launched the Texans For A Fair Judiciary (TFJ) coalition. The coalition included Texans For Public Justice, Texas Together, Equality Texas, National Council of Jewish Women, Texas Freedom Network, La Fe, Texas Watch, and Texas League of Conservation Voters.

• At the time of TFJ's launch in early December, Costa's confirmation had been pending for 86 days.

• Then, you all took action:

o 4,975 of you contacted Senators Cornyn and Hutchison directly.

o 30 of you submitted letters to the editors to your local papers.

o Hundreds of you called Senators Cornyn and Hutchison office moments before critical votes.

• On April 26, 2012, Costa's nomination was approved by the U.S. Senate by a 97-2 vote 232 days after his nomination was submitted by President Obama.

• On August 2, 2012, Judge Gregg Costa ruled in favor of plaintiff Project Vote and its affiliate in Voting for America v. Andrade and ordered the state of Texas to stop enforcing certain laws that restrict voter registration drives.

Let's be clear. This is a big deal. 

You made this happen. Don't doubt for a second the influence you can have and the change we can make. Together we are going to communicate progressive values in Texas and we will change the direction of our state.

To learn more about this issue, go to our website. If you haven't yet, tell John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison this issue is important to you.

In the meantime, thank you for your vigilance and never-give-up attitude.

Sincerely,

Matt Glazer
Progress Texas

P.S. We try to not ask for money too often (and we know we recently asked) but if you love seeing victories like this, become a sustaining donor or chip-in a few dollars with a one-time contribution. Our operations are funded completely through donations and we can only continue this work with your support.

Don't smoke weed

August Stargazing

SkyTips: August 2012

Final Approach

Mars Science Laboratory prepares to enter the Martian atmosphere in this artist's concept. The mission, which consists of the nuclear-powered Curiosity rover, is scheduled to land on Mars on the night of August 5.

Stargazing Summary  

Multi-partner conjunctions continue to highlight summer's skies. Venus and Jupiter remain close together in the early morning, with some of the most famous features of Taurus nearby: his orange eye, Aldebaran, and his sparkly shoulder, the Pleiades star cluster. In the evening sky, Mars passes between Saturn and Spica, which have huddled close together all year. Two signature constellations of summer, Scorpius and Sagittarius, scoot low across the south during the evening. On dark, moonless nights, the shimmering band of the Milky Way arcs high overhead.

Perseid Meteor Shower  

The next meteor shower is the Perseids on the night of August 11. The Moon is a thin crescent that rises about three hours before the Sun, so it will provide little interference. At the shower's peak you might see a few dozen meteors per hour.

More information »

Radio Program Highlights  

Hear StarDate every day on more than 300 radio stations nationwide.

Premium Audio: Listen to today's program today on-demand with a paid subscription to StarDate premium audio.

August 1-5: The swan. Cygnus, the swan, soars gracefully through the Milky Way on summer evenings. The constellation is home to one of the most appealing double stars in the night sky, as well as one of the first confirmed black holes.

August 6-12: Moon, Mars, and meteors. The Moon has some bright companions this week, and so does the planet Mars. We'll have details. We'll also talk about a summer meteor shower, and an exhibit of artworks inspired by the stars.

August 13-19: Intimate stars. Many stars have close companions — other stars in tight orbits. But a few take companionship to extremes. The stars actually touch each other, and even trade some of their gas.

August 20-26: A new Dawn. A spacecraft like no other will depart the first of its two destinations this week — the asteroid Vesta. We'll have details on the Dawn mission, its journey, and its next destination.

August 27-31: Colorful skies. One of the most colorful stars in the night sky is on display in the early evening right now, and we'll have details. We'll also tell you about some other star colors, plus a colorful Moon — a blue one.

August Program Schedule »

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Coming Up In StarDate Magazine  

In the September/October issue of StarDate, author Bradford Behr updates us on the bounty brought in by WISE, the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer. And we'll look back on efforts to communicate with inhabitants of other planets in the early days of radio.

News From the Observatory  

Why the Higgs Boson Matters

Nobel prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg holds a joint appointment in the astronomy and physics departments at The University of Texas at Austin. In this article, he explains the recent announcement out of CERN, the particle collider lab in Switzerland, that physicists are fairly certain they have proved the existence of the Higgs boson. The sub-atomic particle, sought for decades, is thought to be what gives all objects in the universe their mass. The discovery could have major implications for astronomy and cosmology.  

Show Your Support for Science Education  

At every level of government, civic and elected leaders speak in agreement about the need to improve science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) opportunities in elementary and secondary schools nationwide. McDonald Observatory has worked for decades with this mission in mind, giving teachers the tools they need for lesson planning and classroom instruction. Please help us continue this work by making a donation to McDonald Observatory's 2012 Annual Fund. Gifts are 100% tax-deductible and any amount helps.

Donate now »