Phil & Kaja Foglio’s campaign on Kickstarter for the next round of hardcopy publishing is wildly popular with more than triple its goal pledged already.
Today’s video of the day is Lady Soliloque’s ‘The Doctor is Extra-Terrestrial’, a mashup remix of Doctor Who composer Murray Gold’s ‘I am the Doctor’ and Katy Perry’s ‘Extra-Terrestrial’.
David Bowie’s Space Oddity is one of the modern classics of geek pop, but it’s never actually been performed on location in space – until now. Chris Hadfield has done a cover of it to mark his return to Planet Earth today aboard the Soyuz landing craft, but rewrites the lyrics a bit so that the ending isn’t so much of a downer. He really is a good singer, and does the song justice – and watching that guitar floating gracefully down the interior of one of the modules of the pressurized habitat aboard the Internation Space Station gives us chills.
And naturally, you’ll hear this version on Krypton Radio at any time during our broadcast days if you tune in to listen.
For his last downlink before returning to Earth, CSA Astronaut Chris Hadfield performed I.S.S. (Is Somebody Singing) with hundreds of students at the Ontario Science Centre and nearly a million people, mostly students from coast-to-coast Canada and around the world, performing the song in unison from their location. CSA Astronaut Jeremy Hansen was present at the history-making Music Monday event at the Science Centre and moderated a Q&A with students and Commander Hadfield.
I.S.S (Is Someone Singing) is a song co-written by Hadfield and the Barenaked Ladies’ front man Ed Robertson. (Credit: CSA /NASA)
We had to post this – we sang along, and not without tears in our eyes.
We realize this isn’t the first parody of Korean artist Psy’s Gangnam Style, but this one was too good to pass up. We’re all huge space geeks at Krypton Radio, and we love this.
And of course, as the only science fiction and comics radio station in the world, it’s our duty to put this song on our playlist. And we have.
NASA Johnson Style is a volunteer outreach video project created by the students of NASA’s Johnson Space Center. It was created as an educational parody of Psy’s Gangnam Style. The lyrics and scenes in the video have been re-imagined in order to inform the public about the amazing work going on at NASA and the Johnson Space Center.
The video features singing and dancing NASA astronauts including Mike Massimino, (whom we think is the guy up front singing) who deftly repaired the Hubble Space Telescope among other things, Clayton Anderson and Tracy Caldwell Dyson who lived and worked for many months aboard the International Space Station, and Mike Coats, a Shuttle commander and the retiring Director of the Johnson Space Center.
The video also features actual footage from the International Space Station , Apollo moonwalks, the Curiosity rover on Mars, dawn at Vesta, Houston Mission control, the SLS and Orion crew vehicle as well as real research labs and scientists here on Earth.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – A privately built rocket lit up the night sky over Florida Sunday (Oct. 7) to kick off the first-ever cargo delivery trip to the International Space Station by a robotic, American-made spacecraft.
The unmanned Dragon space capsule, built by the commercial spaceflight firm SpaceX, roared into space atop the company’s Falcon 9 rocket from a launch pad here at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, beginning a three-day flight to the space station. Liftoff occurred at 8:35 p.m. EDT (0035 Monday GMT). This is just the first mission, but you could say it’s the most important one, because it’s the first time the craft has been used to deliver cargo to the orbiting science platform. Each flight costs NASA a bit under $1.6 billion. This flight, being the first mission, is dubbed SpaceX CRS-1 and is expected to arrive at the orbiting lab on Wednesday morning (Oct. 10). The CRS in the flight designation stands for “Commercial Resupply Services”, essentially identifying it as a cargo ship.
NASA space station program manager Mike Suffredini said Dragon’s ability to launch supplies to the station and return cargo back to Earth is a cornerstone of boosting scientific research on the orbiting laboratory, as well as its day-to-day maintenance. “Not to be overdramatic, but it’s critical to the International Space Station,” Suffredini said during the countdown to launch.
Sunday night’s launch was nearly flawless. One of the Falcon 9 rocket nine engines apparently shut down unexpectedly during the ascent – in this video you might see bits of something in the rocket flare, an indication that something didn’t go quite right – but the booster’s eight other engines compensated for the glitch and delivered the Dragon spacecraft into its intended orbit. It’s designed to do exactly that, so distributing the responsibility for safe delivery across several engines was all part of the plan.
A NASA photo of astronaut and American hero Neil Armstrong on July 20, 1969 when he became the first man to walk on the moon.
Neil Armstrong, first human being to set foot on the Moon in the historic landing of the Eagle lunar lander on July 20, 1969, died today from complications after heart surgery. He was 82. It was Armstrong who composed and first uttered the famous quote: “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.”
It’s hard to overstate Armstrong’s courage and his contribution to the dreams, aspirations and future of all humanity. He was one of Earth’s greatest heroes.
Amstrong’s family announced his death in a written statement:
“While we mourn the loss of a very good man, we also celebrate his remarkable life and hope that it serves as an example to young people around the world to work hard to make their dreams come true, to be willing to explore and push the limits, and to selflessly serve a cause greater than themselves. For those who may ask what they can do to honor Neil, we have a simple request. Honor his example of service, accomplishment and modesty, and the next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink.”
Rest in peace, Neil. And thank you, from all of us.
This 360-degree panorama provided by NASA last Wednesday August 22, 2012 shows the evidence of a successful first test drive by Curiosity on the Martian surface. NASA’s rover moved forward about 15 feet, turned 120 degrees, then backed up about 8 feet. Curiosity is roughly 20 feet from its landing point, named ‘Bradbury Landing’ after the famous science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, author of “The Martian Chronicles”.
Last Wednesday, the newly landed Mars rover “Curiosity” tweeted that it had named its landing spot in honor of recently departed science fiction and fantasy writer Ray Bradbury. The naming was part of a NASA briefing about the Curiosity Rover’s progress. Curiosity’s Twitter feed shared the news with a photo, saying: “In tribute, I dedicate my landing spot on Mars to you, Ray Bradbury. Greetings from Bradbury Landing!”
Although Curiosity successfully landed on Mars on Aug. 6, NASA officials waited to announce the name of the site until August 22, which would have been Bradbury’s 92nd birthday. During Wednesday’s briefing, Michael Meyer, NASA’s lead scientists for the Mars Exploration Program said, “In his honor, we declared the place that Curiosity touched down to be forever known as Bradbury Landing,” the Washington Post reported.
Famous for his collection of stories “The Martian Chronicles”, Bradbury had worked as a consultant with NASA (and also with Disney). He was well noted for having brought the world’s attention to science fiction as literature – he died at his Los Angeles home on June 5, 2012 at the age of 91.
NASA scientist Bobak Ferdowsi, with his unique star-spangled mohawk, became an instant internet meme when the world watched NASA’s video feed as the Curiosity rover made a save touchdown on the surface of Mars.
As if chucking something the size of an SUV into space and dropping it from a rocket-powered sky crane onto the surface of Mars wasn’t cool enough, on the 17th NASA released this parody music video on their YouTube Channel, and naturally it went viral. Since it’s pretty much exactly the kind of thing we play on Krypton Radio anyway, we thought we’d make this our Video of the Day. Listen for the cut on Krypton Radio too.
As of this moment, it’s three hours to touchdown for the NASA Curiosity Rover. The Mars rover Curiosity, on a quest for signs the Red Planet once hosted ingredients for life, streaked into the home stretch of its eight-month voyage on Sunday nearing a make-or-break landing attempt that NASA calls one of the toughest feats of robotic spaceflight. The landing system has to be reprogrammed in flight a few times depending on what task it faces next – this is the first time any probe has been reprogrammed to this degree, on the fly, during its mission.
The rover will be burning off thousands of miles an hour of descent speed to enable a final drop from a rocket-powered crane drop at the last moment – once the Curiosity rover is on the ground, the crane is supposed to cut the cables and fly clear of the landing site, its last task complete.
We and NASA are now awaiting a nerve-wracking landing on Mars, the most nail-biting part of which is the seven minute lag between the time the Curosity lands (or crashes) on the surface of Mars and the time we find out what happened. The lag is due to the time it takes for a signal to get from Mars to Earth. Mars is about seven light-minutes away, and radio waves can only move at the speed of light.
Everything is looking good. “Nominal” is the word NASA has been using, and that’s a good thing. Nothing weird – no wobbles, no sudden unexpected malfunctions, and the some of the course corrections they thought they might have to make weren’t needed.
“It’s definitely the quiet before the storm,” said NASA sciences chief John Grunsfeld. “There’s tremendous anticipation.”
