Ship-happenss - S H I P H A P P E N S

Hogwarts Houses Aesthetics

Gryffindor- holding rocks from the beach in yours hands, watching them flow out, being at the playground at midnight with your best friends, completing dares that no one even dared you to do, running just for the purpose of doing something, sending your best friend appreciation paragraphs for them at 3:00 A.M., going on roller coasters very confident but freaking out a little when you get to the top, playing ghosts in the graveyard with you or friends at 11:00 A.M., putting on makeup and dressing up even though you have nowhere to go, dancing and lip syncing in your room crazily, finding wonders in the little things, spacing out, diving in right away in the lake, handing out feminism badges, walking at a regular pace in the rain with your arms out, forming new clubs, being overly-excited, making small designs on the misty car window, either taking 0 selfies or 1938284 at a time, red lipstick and black mascara, scraped up legs

Hufflepuff- sugar highs, putting so much trust in your friends, dressing up as your favorite book and tv show characters, growing out your hair, blueberry pancakes when you wake up, whether that’s at 6:00 A.M. or 12:00 P.M., catching fireflies, the feeling you get when you make all your friends fall over laughing, seeing a spiny chair and immediately know what you will be doing for the rest of the day, ice cream bigger than your head, putting flowers in your friend’s hair, being the last to finish your popsicle, getting excited when you hear the ice cream truck, heart-shaped sunglasses, petting every puppy you see on the street, making a big deal out of everything, getting your friends presents even though there is no special occasion, candy shops, slumber parties, writing songs, writing stories, musicals and Broadway plays, caring about others more than you care about yourself, strip malls, taking pictures of your friends, happy drunk, defending the underdog, finding beauty in everyone’s eyes

Ravenclaw- record shops, when your face gets red after you get complimented, chokers, laughing when your nervous, cuddling with your friends at 2:00 A.M., drinking coffee in the morning, going to the beach when the waves are crazy, telling yourself to only read one more chapter but you end up finishing the book, writing letters to the author, scented candles, knee high socks, taking videos so you can remember the moment, perfect makeup techniques, laying on the rooftop at 3:00 A.M., looking at the stars, making multiple playlists for different moods, watching documentaries, playing mindlessly with your friend’s hair, eating a three course meal at 12:00 A.M., pranking your friends when they’re sleeping, putting your headphones on long car rides, binge watching Netflix, spending your day at the library, asking your friend to go to the bathroom with you, getting a churro at the fair, studying because you want to, not because anyone else wants you to

Slytherin- testing the limits, fire whiskey, mysteries, the sound of the thunderstorm against your window while you are drifting to sleep, doing anything for your friends, talking back to the teacher, smirking against the classroom, splashing the people who think the water is too cold in the lake, escaping reality, black roses, rooting for the underdog, downtown, skyscrapers, doing anything to get your way, cat ears headband, correcting people’s grammar, solving moral dilemmas easily, fixing your best friend’s makeup in the school bathroom, leather jackets, playful smirks, making faces across the classroom, knowing what your friend is saying just by reading their expression, self-deprecating humor, the moon, looks that could kill, playing sweet and sour with your close friends, doing everything yourself, with no help, rewriting history, chopping a little bit or a lot of your hair off, dirty jokes, sleepless nights, being the hero to your class because you found all the answers online, knowing when to stop but not stopping anyway

Addressing gender imbalance in academic work

Happy National Techies Day!

October 3 is National Techies Day…and here at NASA we have quite a few people who get REALLY excited about technology. Without techies and the technology they develop, we wouldn’t be able to do the amazing things we do at NASA, or on Earth and in space.

Our Techies

We love our techies! The passionate engineers, researchers and scientists who work on our technology efforts enable us to make a difference in the world around us. They are responsible for developing the pioneering, new technologies and capabilities needed to achieve our current and future missions.

Research and technology development take place within our centers, in academia and industry, and leverage partnerships with other government agencies and international partners. We work to engage and inspire thousands of technologists and innovators creating a community of our best and brightest working on the nation’s toughest challenges.

Technology Drives Exploration

Our investments in technology development enable and advance space exploration. We are continually seeking to improve our ability to access and travel through space, land more mass in more locations, enable humans to live and explore in space and accelerate the pace of discovery.

Techie Technology

Advanced Manufacturing Technologies

When traveling to other planetary bodies, each and every pound of cargo matters. If we can reduce the weight by building tools once we arrive, that’s less weight we need to launch from Earth and carry through space.

Additive manufacturing is a way of printing three-dimensional (3-D) components from a digital model. If you think of a common office printer, it uses a 2-D file to print images and text on a sheet of paper. A 3-D printer uses a 3D file to deposit thin layers of material on top of each other, creating a 3-D product.

Thanks to techies, we’re already using this technology on the International Space Station to print wrenches and other tools. Our Additive Construction for Mobile Emplacement (ACME) project is investigating ways to build structures on planetary surfaces using resources available at a given site.

Discover more about how our techies are working with advanced manufacturing HERE.

Technology Demonstrations

Our techies are always innovating and developing new cutting-edge ideas. We test these ideas in extreme environments both here on Earth and in space.  

Science missions in space require spacecraft propulsion systems that are high-performance, lightweight, compact and have a short development time. The Deep Space Engine project is looking to meet those needs. Our techies are currently testing a 100lbf (pound-force) thruster to see if this compact, lightweight, low-cost chemical propulsion system can operate at very low temperatures, which allows long duration storage capabilities.

Another technology in development is PUFFER, or the Pop-Up Flat Folding Explorer Robot…and it was inspired by origami! This robot’s lightweight design is capable of flattening itself, tucking in its wheels and crawling into places rovers can’t fit. PUFFER has been tested in a range of rugged terrains to explore areas that might be too risky for a full-fledged rover to go.

With our partners at Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., we’ve also collaborated on the Green Propellant Infusion Mission (GPIM), which will flight test a “green” alternative to the toxic propellant, hydrazine, in 2018. GPIM is the nation’s premier spacecraft demonstration of a new high-performance power and propulsion system — a more environmentally friendly fuel. This technology promises improved performance for future satellites and other space missions by providing for longer mission durations, increased payload mass and simplified pre-launch spacecraft processing, including safer handling and transfer of propellants.  

Find out more about our technology demonstrations HERE.

Aircraft Technology

What if you could travel from London to New York in less than 3.5 hours? Our techies’ research into supersonic flight could make that a reality! 

Currently, supersonic flight creates a disruptive, loud BOOM, but our goal is to instead create a soft “thump” so that flying at supersonic speeds could be permitted over land in the United States.

We’re conducting a series of flight tests to validate tools and models that will be used for the development of future quiet supersonic aircraft.

Did you know that with the ability to observe the location of an aircraft’s sonic booms, pilots can better keep the loud percussive sounds from disturbing communities on the ground? This display allows research pilots the ability to physically see their sonic footprint on a map as the boom occurs.

Learn more about our aircraft technology HERE.

Technology Spinoffs 

Did you know that some of the technology used in the commercial world was originally developed for NASA? For example, when we were testing parachutes for our Orion spacecraft (which will carry humans into deep space), we needed to capture every millisecond in extreme detail. This would ensure engineers saw and could fix any issues. The problem was,there didn’t exist a camera in the world that could shoot at a high enough frame rate – and store it in the camera’s memory – all while adjusting instantly from complete darkness to full daylight and withstanding the space vacuum, space radiation and water immersion after landing.

Oh…and it had to be small, lightweight, and run on low power. Luckily, techies built exactly what we needed. All these improvements have now been incorporated into the camera which is being used in a variety of non-space industries…including car crash tests, where high resolution camera memory help engineers get the most out of testing to make the cars we drive safer.

Learn about more of our spinoff technologies HERE.

Join Our Techie Team

We’re always looking for passionate and innovative techies to join the NASA team. From student opportunities to open technology competitions, see below for a list of ways to get involved:

NASA Solve is a gateway for everyone to participate in our mission through challenges, prize competition, citizen science and more! Here are a few opportunities:

Vascular Tissue Challenge 

The Vascular Tissue Challenge, a NASA Centennial Challenges competition, offers a $500,000 prize to be divided among the first three teams that successfully create thick, metabolically-functional human vascularized organ tissue in a controlled laboratory environment. More information HERE.

For open job opportunities at NASA, visit: https://nasajobs.nasa.gov. 

For open internship opportunities at NASA, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/stu-intern-current-opps.html

Stay tuned in to the latest NASA techie news, by following  @NASA_Technology on Twitter, NASA Technology on Facebook and visiting nasa.gov/technology.

Happy National Techies Day!

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

LL Ori and the Orion Nebula : Stars can make waves in the Orion Nebula’s sea of gas and dust. This esthetic close-up of cosmic clouds and stellar winds features LL Orionis, interacting with the Orion Nebula flow. Adrift in Orion’s stellar nursery and still in its formative years, variable star LL Orionis produces a wind more energetic than the wind from our own middle-aged Sun. As the fast stellar wind runs into slow moving gas a shock front is formed, analogous to the bow wave of a boat moving through water or a plane traveling at supersonic speed. The small, arcing, graceful structure just above and left of center is LL Ori’s cosmic bow shock, measuring about half a light-year across. The slower gas is flowing away from the Orion Nebula’s hot central star cluster, the Trapezium, located off the upper left corner of the picture. In three dimensions, LL Ori’s wrap-around shock front is shaped like a bowl that appears brightest when viewed along the “bottom” edge. This beautiful painting-like photograph is part of a large mosaic view of the complex stellar nursery in Orion, filled with a myriad of fluid shapes associated with star formation. via NASA

the types as people i know (by an intj)

intj (not me tho) -“yeah i got into medical school quite easily honestly if you try even a little what’s the problem” -good at almost everything -gives the best advice -high standards for art and music -has never heard of taking breaks -really deep emotions secretly -science is art -unique humour that’s hard to describe? like they never tell jokes they just say things in a way that’s hilarious

entj -would 10/10 run for president -Gets Shit Done -speaks loudly -rly confident -has a lot to say -everybody knows them -incredibly creative but somehow approaches it ironically -gives great hugs -also shows affection by suggesting ways u can improve -they protec -they attac

istj -so intelligent i’m screaming -knows so much -huge but fragile ego  -friendly with everyone -glares at ppl a lot tho -wants power -everything has it’s order and don’t u dare change it -secretly sentimental -corrects ur grammar

estj -works 24/7 -cares too much about [insert franchise] -seriously don’t criticise it even jokingly -will cut u -studies law and philosophy -suddenly rly bad at arguments once feelings r involved -we talked about space and philosophy a lot when we were close sigh

istp -can’t plan for shiT -is in charge of planning at their job???? why the fuck -glares at everyone -speaks loudly -drives a motorcycle, the stereotype lives

estp -jokes in class constantly -somehow intimidatingly funny -asks annoying questions -reads the chat on ur phone while ur texting, out loud -asks u to repeat something slightly embarrassing u just did

isfp -so soft -wears black exclusively  -strong aesthetic -doodles in class -their writing is TINY -likes to talk about rly personal stuff or not at all -just wants to help -a hoe for vinyl

esfp -the smoothest person I’ve ever met -hilarious -ripped™ -eats chips at all times tho??? -amazing dancer -great taste in music -soft and affectionate af if they love u -u might be surprised how empathetic they r -rly dosen’t want to have to think about the future -either ready to party or wants u to leave them alone

infj -way too soft for everyone and everything -somebody help them -always on tumblr -reblogs cheesy motivational quotes -shy and in ur face at the same time -loves books but mainly as a concept -the best way to stay calm at a party is to find the local pet

enfj -way too soft somebody help them dear god -a teacher but can’t tell u when ur answer is wrong bc they don’t wanna hurt ur feelings -harmony!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! -politically correct -gives useless advice but feels great about it -wants to change the world and make everyone happy -life dream to be a parent

isfj -replies to ur message in 30 seconds -so sweet but it’s unexpected -likes intellectual discussions  -rly quiet usually -their partner is their number 1 priority tbh -loves history & greek mythology

esfj -everybody knows them -they know everybody -once got a social award just for being a nice person -good hair and nice clothes -always brings home-cooked meals in tupperware -is rly good with kids -asks u what u put as ur answer on a personality test -has their life together -no one knows y tho bc they’re always oblivious to what’s going on

intp -never in my life has anyone made me laugh so much -actual meme god -somehow both confident and awkward -incredibly intelligent but doesn’t give a shit about school  -that’s why dumb teachers were surprised to see them succeed academically after school -wings everything but get’s through with it

entp -smooth and funny wow -knows so much wtf -if u ask them about a topic they will tell u about it for 20 hours without stopping -science!!! -can’t decide on a career bc everything is so interesting and also so boring -i know 6 people who have a crush on them -oblivious™ to that -flirts with everybody

infp -strong ass philosophy on life -will roast both u and themselves  -angst -self deprecating memes -wants to do theatre but doesn’t -incredible at foreign languages -tbh soft but not v expressive with emotions

enfp -ppl think they’re Mysterious and Broody and Emotionless -bubbly if u get close to them -is actually a dog -rly soft -affectionate with friends -thinks about magic a lot probably -most emotionally intelligent person i know -the only person i actually like