The Martian Movie And Our Real Journey To Mars

The Atom: Part 4 of 5 (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) Episode 6: Deeper, Deeper, Deeper Still, Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey

An Adaptable Species: Part 2 of 4 (Part 1) Episode 11: The Immortals, Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey

Fill your void

Incredible “EPIC” View Of The Moon Passing In Front Of The Earth

This is real, folks. It is not a computer-generated animation. NASA’s DSCOVR (Deep Space Climate Observatory) satellite took these incredible shots on July 16 using its Earth-facing EPIC camera from its vantage point between the Earth and the Sun, a million miles away!

DSCOVR sits at what’s known as the L1 Lagrangian point, where the gravitational pull of the Earth and Sun balance out in such a way that satellites positioned there can remain in stable orbit while using minimal energy:

Image: NASA/NOAA

This view of the far side of the Moon reminds us that it is anything but dark. The Moon is tidally locked, meaning that we see the same face all the time, but the sun regularly shines on the side that we don’t see (we’re just seeing a new or crescent moon when that happens). The far side also lacks the dark plains, or maria, that texture the Earth-facing side, made of basalt laid down by ancient lunar lava flows, reminding us that our lunar satellite has a complex geologic history:

The One-Year Mission

First off, what is the One-Year Crew? Obviously, they’re doing something for a year, but what, and why?

Two crew members on the International Space Station have just met the halfway point of their year in space. NASA Astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian Cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko are living in space for 342 days and will help us better understand the effects of microgravity on the human body.

Why 342 days and not 365? Thought you might ask. Due to crew rotation schedules, which involve training timelines and dictate when launches and landings occur, the mission was confined to 342 days. Plenty of time to conduct great research though!

The studies performed throughout their stay will yield beneficial knowledge on the medical, psychological and biomedical challenges faced by astronauts during long-duration spaceflight.

The weightlessness of the space environment has various effects on the human body, including: Fluid shifts that cause changes in vision, rapid bone loss, disturbances to sensorimotor ability, weakened muscles and more.

The goal of the One-Year Mission is to understand and minimize these effects on humans while in space.

The Twins Study

A unique investigation that is being conducted during this year in space is the Twins Study. NASA Astronaut Scott Kelly’s twin brother Mark Kelly will spend the year on Earth while Scott is in space. Since their genetic makeup is as close to identical as we can get, this allows a unique research perspective. We can now compare all of the results from Scott Kelly in space to his brother Mark on Earth.

But why are we studying all of this? If we want to move forward with our journey to Mars and travel into deep space, astronauts will need to live in microgravity for long periods of time. In order to mitigate the effects of long duration spaceflight on the human body, we need to understand the causes. The One-Year mission hopes to find these answers.

Halfway Point

Today, September 15 marks the halfway point of their year in space, and they now enter the final stretch of their mission. 

Here are a few fun tidbits on human spaceflight to put things in perspective:

1) Scott Kelly has logged 180 days in space on his three previous flights, two of which were Space Shuttle missions. 

2) The American astronaut with the most cumulative time in space is Mkie Fincke, with 382 days in space on three flights. Kelly will surpass this record for most cumulative time in space by a U.S. astronaut on October 16.

3) Kelly will pass Mike Lopez-Alegria’s mark for most time on a single spaceflight (215 days) on October 29.

4) By the end of this one-year mission, Kelly will have traveled for 342 days, made 5,472 orbits and traveled 141.7 million miles in a single mission. 

Have you seen the amazing images that Astronaut Scott Kelly has shared during the first half of his year in space? Check out this collection, and also follow him on social media to see what he posts for the duration of his #YearInSpace: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. 

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Engineers are preparing to test the parachute system for NASA’s Orion spacecraft at the U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground in Yuma, Arizona. During the test, planned for Wednesday, Aug. 26, a C-17 aircraft will carry a representative Orion capsule to 35,000 feet in altitude and then drop it from its cargo bay. Engineers will test a scenario in which one of Orion’s two drogue parachutes, used to stabilize it in the air, does not deploy, and one of its three main parachutes, used to slow the capsule during the final stage of descent, also does not deploy. The risky test will provide data engineers will use as they gear up to qualify Orion’s parachutes for missions with astronauts. On Aug. 24, a C-17 was loaded with the test version of Orion, which has a similar mass and interfaces with the parachutes as the Orion being developed for deep space missions but is shorter on top to fit inside the aircraft.

Pickering’s Triangle