Image: courtesy of Shutterstock/Bruce Rolff

Elon Musk has always been a big-idea man. The guy co-founded Tesla Motors and Paypal and is worth more than $2.4 billion. Oh, did we mention he builds spaceships, too? Musk is the founder and CEO of SpaceX, a private space transport company that builds rockets and spacecrafts used by NASA. So it should be no surprise that his next venture is similarly out-of-this-world. Musk is planning to build a giant colony on Mars inside an enormous, pressurized bubble.  The ambitious billionaire has already mapped out the beginning phases of his Red Planet city, and one thing is for sure: it’s going to cost him. Read more!

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Curiosity rover: Martian solar day 2

Olympics, schmeauxlympics. The most exciting news of the last week was not who took gold in swimming or which favorite was ‘felled’ in fencing, but rather, “WE LANDED ON MARS”.  Landed by proxy, of course–in this case, by “Curiosity”, the NASA rover that made history last Monday when it anchored down on the Red Planet. On Thursday, Curiosity transmitted the first color panorama of the Gale Crater, its landing site, giving the world a view of Mars that looked a bit like our own (specifically, the Mojave Desert). Yet the images were marked by some glaring “holes”, gaps where the rover had yet to process.

Now, 360 Cities has posted an interactive panorama of Curiosity’s Gale Crater lookout, filling in those black areas but at the expense of all color. The resultant sepia-tinged image was created using the latest high-res photographs released by NASA–including the aforementioned panorama and a moody, black-and-white “self-portrait” of Curiosity itself–stitched together into an encompassing vista of overwhelming beauty. Make sure to view it in full screen!

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Handgepäck by Studio Besau-Marguerre

“If you had to envisage life on some other habitable planet other than Earth, what kind of minimal hand luggage would you take with you?” That was the question posed to designers as part of a collective exhibition entitled “Another Terra / Home Away from Home” at this year’s Milan Design Week. The show’s theme was formed in response to NASA’s recent discovery of Kepler-22b, which, in turn, presented a breakthrough of sorts in the space agency’s ongoing campaign to find the “Earth’s twin.” Located 600-light years away, Kepler-22b was found to orbit a sun-like star but at a far enough remove to foster an Earth-like atmosphere, with the possibility of liquid water existing on the planet’s surface.

The whimsical objects submitted for the “Another Terra” exhibition are nostalgic souvenirs of a place, or former home, long gone and vacated. Studio Besau-Marguerre’s Handgepäck is a greenhouse in miniature, a micro-crystal palace enshrining the last vestige of our native planet, whose seeds will spread to populate our next home with “new gardens of Eden”. You know, just like in “Wall-E”. The plants will, thus, be on of our most valuable “carry-ons”, an integral part of building life on another terra.

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Using data culled from over 200,000 galaxies, NASA has determined the average hue of our universe. “Cosmic Latte,” as the color was christened in a naming contest, is the average shade of light emanating from the millions of stars around us.

Fascinatingly, universe has been slowly changing color for 10 billion years (apparently the renovation was delayed by a union dispute). According to NASA, the once-bluish hue has become much more red, “indicating that redder stars are becoming more prevalent.” Looks like Pantone can finally announce their hotly-anticipated Color of the Millennia.

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NASA/Jim Grossmann.

These pictures, of the disassembly of NASA’s space shuttle program will either awe you with their space-seared splendor or as one commenter put it, “make you feel like you just put your dog down.”

Not sure if we’re quite in tears yet – even after repeated childhood viewings of The Brave Little Toaster – but there is something sad about The Atlantic’s recent photo feature of the ongoing work to deconstruct the space shuttles.

In reaction to the decommissioning, many commenters are spouting fairly vile things about the current administration. In fact, the end of the shuttle program was a long-planned milestone in NASA’s development. Focusing its resources on developing more efficient propulsion systems and closer-to-home Lower Earth Orbit projects means NASA will be working on programs that directly relate to the dilemmas facing the planet. Previous administrations were accused of only keeping the program alive as a vanity project – and for the great photo-ops, of course!

Despite the controversy, almost all of us grew up obsessed by images and books about the space shuttles, making this a bi-partisan farewell. Future kids will probably read about Field Propulsion-powered deep space craft on their iPad 35s. Damn kids! Back in my day…

See the full set here.

Removing the chairs from the shuttle, through a signature-covered corridor. NASA/Jim Grossmann.

The launch pad. NASA/Kim Shiflett.

NASA/Frankie Martin.

Off into the sunset. NASA/Jim Grossmann.

The “flame trench” of the launch pad. NASA/Jim Grossmann.

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Zero Gravity Roller Coaster, Image: Nick Kaloterakis

The “Vomit Comet,” NASA’s training vessel used to acclimate budding astronauts to the pressures of extraterrestrial conditions, received its name because over a third of its first passengers “lost their lunch” when they were submitted to reduced gravity states. The craft–at present, the KC-135A–is swung rapidly in a parabolic arc several kilometers in circumference, generating roughly 25 seconds of weightlessness within the cabin. By accelerating fast enough, the pull of gravity on the aircraft is temporarily neutralized.

What was once reserved exclusively for NASA (and perhaps, loony billionaires) may soon become available for the more adventurous of the populace. BRC Imagination Arts, a design firm based in Southern California, has conceived of an entirely new amusement ride that promises to capture the sensation of zero gravity for up to eight seconds per emission. To achieve that singular feat, the shuttle-like vehicle would zoom up a towering steel track at 100 mph before slightly decelerating–jolting passengers off their seats–and then dropping down the incline at a controlled speed monitored by a linear induction motor system that matches that of the falling passengers. The precision with which the computer system responds to the gravitational shift extends the initial feeling of weightlessness into an 8-second limbo, where the passenger remains hovered above his or her chair.

A single car would seat 6 to 16 passengers, each of whom would be provided with all manner of objects, from gyroscopes to cups of water, to fully experience the effects of zero gravity. The vehicle would also be fitted with ducts that would suck up any gastro matter that may have been expelled during the journey. BRC says that if it were to secure the $50 million funds needed to finance the project, it would be able to construct a functional ride by the end of 2013.

Interior, Image: Greg Maxson

[via Pop-Sci]

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Syncom 1, the first geosynchronous satellite. Image via NASA.

The patent complexity of architecture, its need to bring together many minds and many hands to enact physical change upon the environment, once restricted the medium’s services to a powerful elite. But these days, architecture’s more pluralistic streak has emerged, approaching full force in the forms of incredible temporary pavilions, subversive urban interventions, self-built homes, and inhabitable sculptures (just think of Burning Man). What’s the next frontier for this movement? Well, outer space, of course. According to the BBC, a group of German hackers are in the midst of developing a DIY space program that would use ungoverned satellites to provide uncensored Internet to earthlings. Read on.

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Photo via NASA

Though Google has had a rather slippery grip on the virtual world as of late (the Google+ friend adds have stopped trickling in at this point), the company has been chugging along with its global architectural conquest, injecting funds into eclectic offices, historic landmarks, and even supporting new social housing projects. Next on its list: Hangar One at NASA’s Ames Research Center, the massive zeppelin-accommodating airship hangar in California’s Moffet Field, and the hopeful new home for Google’s fleet of private jets.

The hangar spans over eight acres of open space and stands alone without interior columns or supports, making it one of the largest freestanding buildings in the world. Neglected for decades after airships were no longer considered viable military vehicles, NASA let go of the costly upkeep, and the hangar fell into disrepair. The structure is currently in desperate need of restoration, as its external paneling, laden with toxic chemicals, is currently in the process of being removed, thus leaving the frame and foundation bare and exposed to the elements. The historic hangar awaits its saving grace in the form of a $33 million restoration bill, and here comes Google looking for the ideal space for private jet parking. While some find the pairing sacrilegious, the bottom line is that this Naval monument is in dire need of repair, and Google is a bordering-on-military force to be reckoned with.

[via Mercury News]

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Imagining lunar occupation. All images: NASA/Pat Rawlings

Ambitions of lunar occupation have, regrettably for the sci-fi fans and the more speculative among us, all but receded from governmental charters and popular imagination, given the present international austerity measures which effectively ended NASA’s space shuttle program. In this economic climate, dreams of space colonies, floating cities, or extraterrestrial luxury hotels aren’t deemed appropriate, if not entirely discouraged. Dr. Paul Spudis of the Lunar and Planetary Institute, on the other hand, wants to reclaim our spacefaring agency, and he has the plans to do just that. More after the jump!

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Man walked on the moon for the first time in 1969, but it wasn’t long before we began seriously conceptualizing permanent life in space. In the summer of 1975, NASA’s Ames Research Center together with Stanford University conducted a seminar which posited the sustainability of organic systems in huge self-sufficient cities orbiting the earth. The team of scientists, engineers, and artists envisioned vast galactic megastructures which would harvest sunlight to be used by the space colonies for industry or transmitted to earth by microwave beam. They then concluded that these solar stations could be built by the year 2000. Oh, how we’ve failed. More images after the jump!

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