Really Rocket Science

I posted earlier about Phil’s prediction that the earth probably wouldn’t have a date with a comet last month. And it looks like he was right. There is, however, a YouTube video showing what it might have looked like had Phil been right.

Okay, it’s probably not exactly like it would have been (the meteor in the CGI video looks much bigger than I think the theoretical comet would have been), but the video is still worth a look.

Being mono-lingual, I can’t tell what the announcer is saying. Can anyone translate? And how accurate is this video anyway?

Via TechEBLog.

" Is the day near when you will get music on your BlackBerry and e-mail on your iPod?"

That’s the question swirling around the blogosphere after the Globe and Mail published a report this weekend claiming that senior executives at Intel have recommended that Research in Motion, Ltd. — makers of the uniquitous Blackberry — team up with Apple to work on a new product.  

The rumors began when analyst Peter Misek — who last year predicted the Intel/RIM collaboration– speculated on the partnership and argued that, in the least, the idea looks good on paper. 

Stan Beer over at ITWire shoots the whole thing down: 

One thing I do know, however, is that Apple is a hardware company that likes to control its own hardware. Another thing I know is that just three weeks ago we ran a substantiated story on this very site that outlined details of Apple working on its own iPod 3G mobile phone with Japanese company Softbank. As the story relates, Softbank president, Masayoshi Son and Apple CEO, Steve Jobs have met and reached an agreement to release a 3G iPhone for the Japanese market sometime in 2006.

The idea of Apple bringing its own iPod mobile phone to market appears to be more in line with the company’s culture than forming a joint venture with another hardware company that plays in a totally different market space. Apple is a company that does not like to share its brand and it likes to develop its own technology. Neither of those two philosophies appears to fit a Blackberry partnership.

What do you think? Is there an AppleBerry in your future? Or is the idea just another Ipod urban myth, like the Ipod that fell to Earth?

I have to confess, one of the things I like most about traveling for business is that it usually means a long period of time during which I’m unreachable. The mobile phone is shut off, and I don’t have internet access so I can’t answer email. I’m free to take a nap or read a book while I’m in the air.

Well, no more. JetBlue is moving to do away with my mile-high refuge by making wi-fi internet available in-flight. 

JetBlue Airways Corp. won a government auction Friday for wireless spectrum that could be used to provide in-flight telephone, Internet, or entertainment services.

The winning bid of $7.02 million was placed through New York-based JetBlue’s entertainment subsidiary, LiveTV LLC, which provides DirecTV service on JetBlue flights.

The licenses will not mean travelers can use their cell phones in the air, but between instant messaging and the avilability of free Skype calls in the U.S. and Canada, who needs to use their movile phone in-flight.

A couple of fifth grade students are going to see thier first rocket launch, and it’s a happy story of the internet community coming together to help a couple of fifth-graders who may be the next generation of rocket scientists. 

Here’s your chance to help do just that. Two fifth grade students from Indiana, Cameron Wade and Billy Shannon, both 11 years old, have an experiment that will launch onboard a suborbital NASA rocket. It’s part of a partnership between their school and NASA. The problem is, the grant they have doesn’t cover their own travel to Virginia to see the rocket launch!

They still want to go, of course. The trip will cost $3000, and they’re still $1000 from their goal.

And their experiment sounds pretty interesting. 

Their experiment is already in Virginia, waiting to be loaded onto the rocket. The students placed nuts and bolts screwed together in tiny bottles to see whether the vibrations from the rocket will break them apart.

They also sent up plant seeds, which they will plant this summer along with seeds that haven’t been airborne to see whether there is a difference in growth.

“They’re learning how to follow an experiment through,” Ghaffarian said. “They’re learning how to change the variables and see what happens, and it’s cool because … it makes it much more exciting than if you just buy a couple seeds and plant them.”

The nuts and bolts tie in with a unit the class did on robots and cars. The seeds work with lessons on extreme environments. Everyone in Ghaffarian’s third- through fifth-grade multiage class wrote essays that were judged by the school’s office staff on why they should be chosen for the Virginia field trip.

The good news? In less than a day, the money was raised. 

I am incredibly pleased and proud to announce that after just a few hours, BABloggers have donated more than $1000 to help the two fifth-graders and their teacher fly to Virginia to see their rocket launch!

… I just talked to Pamela Ghaffarian, the teacher, on the phone, and she was thrilled with how wonderful people have been to send her this money. She told me the two students, Cameron Wade and Billy Shannon, are really excited about the trip. I know they’re happy now, but wait until they actually see the launch! Even though it’s a small rocket, it’ll be really dramatic, and they’ll have the time of their lives.

And it might also inspire them to keep aiming high. Here’s to the science blogging community for coming together so quickly to help these students out!

I wrote earlier about the amount of debris in outerspace. Well, there’s one bit of debris that we won’t be adding to what’s already up there. 

Thursday’s 5 1/2-hour spacewalk by the Russian and U.S. occupants of the International Space Station will not include the previously announced attempt to hit a radio transmitting golf ball into Earth orbit, The New York Times reported Wednesday. 

The publicity stunt involved the payment of an undisclosed amount of money to Russia from a Canadian golf company. Russian officials did not explain the reason for the postponement.

In place of the golf shot, the astronauts will replace a malfunctioning camera on the U.S. side of the ISS. 

The spacewalk, sans golf clubs, is on for 6:40pm.

Via Marsblog.  

We’ve written before about scientists using satellites to track climate change and uncover Mayan ruins. Now scientists and activists are using satellites for another purpose– to spot human rights abuses:

Satellite images captured under a pioneering program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) provide powerful evidence that the government of Zimbabwe has destroyed an entire settlement and relocated thousands of residents as part of a campaign against political opponents.

The images, analyzed by the AAAS staff, show two views of the settlement of Porta Farm, located just west of the Zimbabwean capital of Harare. The first, an archived image from June 2002, shows an intact settlement with more than 850 homes and other buildings; an estimated 6,000 to 10,000 people lived in Porta Farm at the time. The second photo, taken by satellite on 6 April this year, shows that the settlement has been leveled.

The pictures were released Wednesday 31 May as central evidence in a report compiled by the international secretariat of Amnesty International in London and Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR), based in Harare. The report, “Shattered Lives: The Case of Porta Farm,” views the destruction of the settlement and the forced relocation of its residents as emblematic of a broad campaign by the government of President Robert Mugabe to repress political opposition.

(Via Kottke.) 

What’s that in the sky? A bird? A plane? Well, no. It’s a comet, but nothing you need to worry about according to Phil over at Bad Astronomy.

Well, today is the day, once again, that the world won’t end. I’m shocked, shocked, that the comet fragment predicted to hit in the Atlantic causing a seismic event and an ensuing tidal wave hasn’t materialized.

Of course, the day’s not over yet. But I’m pretty sure how this will turn out.

Chris has been blogging the story of whether or not a comet will hit the earth today, and is pretty sure it won’t. He’s updated his post about his Sirus Radio interview on the subject with more than enough links to make an effective case. 

But keep one eye on the sky today just in case, will ya?

Via Google Maps Mania comes this very cool mashup:

South Florida newspaper Florida Today has built a Google Maps mashup of space launch sites at Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral. It includes a database of every launch since the dawn of the space age, shuttle and rocket launch video and images, and video tours inside facilities people usually don’t get a chance to see guided by its space reporters. It also has an enhanced 3D Google Earth version you can download as well 

The standard 2-D tour is interesting, but if you want an amazing tour experience you’ll want a (warning: highly addictive) copy of Google Earth (available here) to view the mashup.

In either version, you can click on various launch pads and browse photos, videos, and a database of launches, and generally while away a good part of a Tuesday at work.

We’ve launched a new gizmo here at the Really Rocket Science blog– free countdown ringtones for your mobile phone.

The idea for the ringtone came from Andrew Tytla,  Marketing Communications Manager at SES AMERICOM and Jim Lewis of CCI Florida, who suggested it to International Launch Services. (CCI Florida produces all launch video broadcast for Cape Canaveral.)

While in the studio for the ASTRA 1KR launch in April, Don Spencer (PDF) sat down and recorded a clean “countdown” for the ringtone, which was later combined with a dramatic Atlas rocket liftoff.

If you have witnessed the broadcast of an Atlas launch, you have heard Don Spencer’s voice. He’s known as the “Voice of Atlas.”

Now you can download the ringtone for free and have the “Voice of Atlas” tell you when you’ve got an incoming call.

Some of you may be familiar with a rumor that’s been circulating various apocalyptic astronomy blogs: that fragments of the comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann will impact the Atlantic Ocean this Thursday, thus ruining the Memorial Day weekend plans for millions of people (but perhaps leading to a bounceback for Posiedon’s flagging box office receipts).

Phil Plait over at the Bad Astronomy Blog has been busy debunking the myth, pointing out that, among other things, the closest the disintegrating comet is coming to earth is, oh, about 5.5 million miles.

Hardly the makings of a disaster film, much less a reason to cancel a trip to the Jersey Shore.

In any case — if you want to have a clever astronomical answer to the watercooler question of "what are you doing for Memorial Day weekend?", Phil has a collection of blog posts he’s written on the topic. And the photos he’s collected of the comet are worth checking out.