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Chinese Hacker Behind Google Attack Found - ReadWriteWeb

Help NASA sort through thousands of Mars images and have fun learning about space exploration at the same time!  There have been so many images taken of Mars that scientists cannot sort through all of them by themselves.  So, they have asked the public to help them sort through the images through their website Be A Martian, which was created with the help of Microsoft.  

From BBC News article:

Players at Be A Martian can earn points in one game by helping Nasa examine and organize the images into a more complete map of the planet.

Another game gets users to count impact craters to help scientists understand better the relative age of rocks on Mars' surface.

Nasa hopes the mix of real data and fun will also inspire the planetary scientists of tomorrow.

"We really need the next generation of explorers," says Michelle Viotti, from the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which oversees Mars missions.

"And we're also accomplishing something important for Nasa. There's so much data coming back from Mars. Having a wider crowd look at the data, classify it and help understand its meaning is very important." 

Have fun and make your own discoveries!

[via BBC and Nerd Salad]

Today marks the 50th anniversary of when the Soviet Union successfully launched the first satellite, Sputnik I, into space.  NASA has written a restrospective story of Sputnik, including photos and references, on how the satellite gave rise to the space age and the U.S. - U.S.S.R. space race.

Related:
Sputnik program [Wikipedia]
Sputnik 1 [Wikipedia]
Arthur C. Clarke on Sputnik [BoingBoing]
Richard "Ultima" Garriott owns a Sputnik [BoingBoing]
I-Reporters' dreams launched along with Sputnik 50 years ago [CNN]

I'm not sure what planet (Could that be a ring of Saturn?) this moon belongs to, but it is a stunning picture.  Does anybody else think that moon looks like the Deathstar?  Just a thought.  Link to larger image.

From NASA:

A couple of space colony summer studies were conducted at NASA Ames in the 1970s. Colonies housing about 10,000 people were designed. A number of artistic renderings of the concepts were made.

Here is the gallery containing detailed artwork of the space colonies (cylindrical, toroidal, and bernal spheres) NASA designed. 

Cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov may be hitting a golf-plated golf ball into orbit during an August spacewalk as a publicity stunt for Element 21 Golf Co. 

At this time, NASA officials are determining if this stunt will be safe and will make a final decision at a later date; The Russian space agency have already given the go-ahead.

Ah, there's nothing better then cluttering up empty space.  I just hope he doesn't send the ball flying into the spacecraft...  now that wouldn't be good.

Update:  The golf  ball publicity stunt is the no go.  [Link]

Call it serendipity, but I just noticed Slashdot posted a link to some zero-g water balloon popping. I swear those editors read my mind. Expect a howto soon on making a tinfoil hat.

Technically, this experiment took place on a DC-9, but since I was already busy writing about quirky space experiments, we'll just pretend it happened in orbit.

When you watch the videos, check out how well the water holds together when the balloons are popped. According to the article, a syringe needle is used, which causes a "slice-type" rupture that propagates along a more predictable path.

This would explain the huge hematoma that forms opposite your elbow when the doctor decides a bloodletting is in order.

Why pop balloons in a micro gravity environment?

The tests were conducted in part to develop the ability to rapidly deploy large liquid drops by rupturing an enclosing membrane.

Notice the "in part." The other part was, of course, to goof off in zero gravity! That said, I can't stop brainstorming about the possible uses for rapidly deploying a large liquid drop. I haven't come up with anything good yet, except that maybe it's cheaper to launch Tang in balloons instead of plastic sippy bottles.

Please leave a comment and clue me in. Also, 10 points to the first person to find the official Tang website. I can't believe they don't have one.

Strange things that happen when you solder in space.

I've been preparing to write some electronics howtos and I was looking around the web for resources when I found these interesting videos of what happens when you try and solder in space.

It almost looks a little dangerous.

As the solder melts, it collects into a blob and the rosin pools together into a smaller droplet on the solder blob's surface. Then as the temperature increases, the little rosin drop begins to orbit the solder like a little satellite. It starts out slow, but proceeds to whip around the solder faster and faster as heat is applied.