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The Computer History Museum is a great stop if you happen to be in the SF Bay Area. They also have a series of talks, most of which they also stream live on facebook.
Restore Historic Mission ControlAccept the Webster Challenge! Help restore this Apollo-era landmark.
Historic Mission Control urgently needs restoration. Please help preserve this National Historic Landmark.The Apollo Mission Control Center (MCC) at NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) is the site where NASA’s flight control team planned, trained and executed a series of human spaceflight missions whose goal was to land a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth. On July 20, 1969, the Apollo 11 mission achieved that historic goal — one of the most significant achievements in human history. In 1985, Historic Mission Control, a “cathedral of engineering,” was named to the National Register of Historic Places in recognition of its historical significance.
On 2017 August 21, a total eclipse of the Sun is visible from within a narrow corridor that traverses the United States of America. The path of the Moon's umbral shadow begins in northern Pacific and crosses the USA from west to east through parts of the following states: Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, and South Carolina (note: only a tiny corner of Montana and Iowa are in the eclipse path). The Moon's penumbral shadow produces a partial eclipse visible from a much larger region covering most of North America.
On Monday, August 21, 2017, The Great American Eclipse will occur. In San Diego, it will be visible from 9:07 a.m. until 11:45 a.m. While totality will be visible from other parts of the country, in San Diego we will only see a partial eclipse. It will reach its maximum point of visibility in San Diego at 10:23 a.m. We won't see another solar eclipse in San Diego until 2023, so don't miss this one!Come to the Fleet to learn more about The Great American Eclipse and to safely view it! We have multiple events planned leading up to the eclipse, as well as an Eclipse-Viewing Event on August 21.Eclipse-Viewing EventOn Monday, August 21, come to the Fleet to safely view the eclipse! This FREE outdoor event begins at 9 a.m. and includes:Free eclipse viewing from the Plaza in front of the Fleet Science Center.Ask an Astronomer-our resident astronomer, Dr. Lisa Will, will answer your eclipse and space questions.Pinhole Projectors-we'll provide the supplies and instructions and you can make your own simple object that will project the eclipse.Visualizing the Eclipse-get a feel for eclipses with a tactile, Braille guide to the eclipse, courtesy of NASA.Galactic Education-learn more about the eclipse, discover facts about the Sun, investigate clouds, explore the orbits of planets and more! Activities courtesy of the National Informal STEM Education Network's Explore Science: Earth and Space kit.Solar eclipse glasses for sale-these inexpensive glasses are made with special filters that allow you to view the eclipse without risking eye damage. Prices start at $4.99.No tickets are needed for the Eclipse Viewing Event on the Plaza. Our cafe, Craveology, will be open for your morning latte, croissant or smoothie needs!Though we won't see totality overhead in San Diego, we are planning to show it on the Giant Dome Screen!
Coming soon to a nightmare near you!"Fossil hunters find bones of human-sized penguin on New Zealand beach"You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login
. The Top 10 Tech Issues for 2018January 2, 2018 - 5,557 Likes - 69 Commentsby Brad Smith and Carol Ann BrowneOver the past six months we’ve written in our Today in Technology series about historical tech developments and the insights they provide for our current day. As the calendar flips to 2018, we are looking back at the top tech issues of the last year, offering our perspectives for the coming 12 months, recapping what we’ve learned, and sharing how Microsoft is helping to address these issues. The following are our top 10.1. Cybersecurity: From WannaCry and electoral attacks to a Digital Geneva Convention2. Immigration: From the travel ban to DACA to the green card backlog3. Technology for Rural Communities: Ensuring a fair shot for everyone4. Diversity and Tech: A watershed year5. Privacy and Surveillance: More milestones in an eventful decade6. AI and its Role in Society: The future of technology7. Sustainability and the Paris Accord: The U.S. government pulled out, but the tech sector stayed in8. Net Neutrality: A single vote sometimes doesn’t last forever9. Coding in Schools: A decisive year in a decade-long movement10. Globalization of the IT Sector: It’s a new world
Cover PhotoElon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, at Launch Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Monday, where the Falcon Heavy rocket is expected to launch on Tuesday afternoon. Credit Todd Anderson for The New York TimesBy KENNETH CHANGFEB. 6, 2018KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. - After facing early failures and skeptical attitudes, SpaceX has disrupted the business of launching rockets into space by combining cut-rate prices with the routine recovery of used rocket boosters. On Tuesday, the company, founded by Elon Musk, hopes to achieve a new milestone with a successful test launch of its Falcon Heavy rocket, which would be the most powerful rocket in operation in the world today.Mr. Musk’s ultimate goal - sending people to Mars - requires inventing businesses and profits that do not exist today. He also may be angling for the federal government to help pay his way.Whatever the case, the Falcon Heavy is SpaceX’s next step in aiming beyond the existing launch business and demonstrating that it can do more than place communications satellites in orbit and haul cargo for NASA to the International Space Station.What exactly is SpaceX launching?The Falcon Heavy rocket is essentially a turbocharged version of SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9 rocket. It is the same height and its central booster looks the same. But attached on the sides are two additional Falcon 9 boosters, which triples the thrust at liftoff. That means that the Heavy will be able to lift far heavier payloads, up to 140,000 pounds, to low-Earth orbit.Continue reading the main storyRelated Coverage Elon Musk’s Mars Vision: A One-Size-Fits-All Rocket. A Very Big One. SEPT. 28, 2017 SpaceX’s Big Rocket, the Falcon Heavy, Finally Reaches the Launchpad JAN. 22, 2018The rocket is sitting on Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. That’s the same starting point of some of NASA’s most famous achievements, including Apollo 11 in 1969, the first mission that took astronauts to the moon, and the first space shuttle launch in 1981.When are they launching it and how can I watch?SpaceX will broadcast the launch on its website, spacex.com, beginning at 1:10 p.m. Eastern, and on YouTube. We’ll add the live video feed to this page once it becomes available.The launch window is from 1:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Eastern. Weather forecasts call for an 80 percent chance of favorable conditions. If the weather doesn’t cooperate, or if some technical glitch postpones the launch, SpaceX has a second opportunity on Wednesday, also between 1:30 and 4:00 p.m. (If that happens, you can sign up for The Times’s Space Calendar to get a reminder.)“The weather is looking good,” said Elon Musk, the founder and chief executive of SpaceX at a news conference on Monday. “The rocket is looking good.”Why is the Falcon Heavy launch important??The Falcon Heavy will be able to lift more payload than any other American rocket since the Saturn 5, the gargantuan rocket that NASA used for the Apollo moon landings. (The space shuttle also had more liftoff thrust, but less payload capacity, because most of the thrust went into lifting the orbiter.) It is also the first time that a commercial company has developed such a large rocket without any government financing.The Falcon Heavy will allow SpaceX to bid on missions for the Air Force for some spy satellites that are too heavy for the Falcon 9, and it could be useful to NASA for launching large space probes. Some think it could even serve as a replacement for the Space Launch System, a gigantic rocket NASA is currently developing for carrying astronauts on deep space missions, to the moon and eventually Mars.In terms of SpaceX’s core business, it’s less important than when the company first announced it seven years ago because of improvements the company made to the Falcon 9. That rocket can now carry considerably heavier payloads.What will Falcon Heavy carry into space?The payload is Mr. Musk’s cherry red Roadster from Tesla, his electric car company.Falcon Heavy Animation Video by SpaceXTest rockets typically carry a dummy payload, and Mr. Musk said he wanted to do something more fun. There are three cameras on the Roadster. “They should provide some epic views if they work,” Mr. Musk said.That’s a more ambitious payload than what was on the Falcon 9 flight that carried the first Dragon cargo capsule in 2010. For that one, SpaceX put a wheel of cheese aboard.Will the car get to Mars?When Mr. Musk first posted on Twitter his intent to send a car on the Heavy launch, he said the destination was “Mars orbit.” The car will not go into orbit around Mars. Rather the second stage of the Heavy is to fire three times to send the car on an elliptical orbit around the sun that extends as far out as Mars, and that car could remain in orbit for hundreds of millions of years. At times, it might pass very close to Mars, and Mr. Musk said there was an “extremely tiny” chance that it could crash into Mars.What could go wrong?According to Mr. Musk, a lot. “This is a test mission,” he said. “There is so much that can go wrong.” As long as the rocket gets high enough so that any explosions do not damage the launchpad, Mr. Musk said he would regard that as a success. (The propellant on the rocket at launch will have the explosive energy of four million pounds of TNT, he said.)Damage from a launchpad explosion would take nine to 12 months to repair, Mr. Musk estimated. When a Falcon 9 exploded on the launchpad at nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in September 2016, the pad was out of commission for more than a yearMr. Musk said he is usually “super stressed” the day before a launch, but this time, “I feel quite giddy and happy.” He added that perhaps that was a bad sign.He put chances of a complete success - the rocket taking off, successfully launching its payload and then landing its three boosters back on Earth - at one-half to two-thirds.A test firing of the Falcon Heavy’s 27 engines at the launchpad in January showed that SpaceX knows how to ignite all of them - nine in each of the three boosters - at once.The greatest unknown is the aerodynamical interactions of the three boosters as they accelerate though through the sound barrier during ascent, with shock waves bouncing between them. The system to separate the side boosters also has not yet been tested in flight.Once all of the boosters have dropped off, and the second stage engine starts, the greatest challenges will have passed.But not all.The second stage will coast for six hours, part of the orbital maneuvers needed to position it for the journey away from Earth. In the process, it will pass through the Van Allen radiation belts, the energetic charged particles caught in Earth’s magnetic field. SpaceX has not performed such a long coast for a second stage before, and there could be glitches like the freezing of the fuel. The Van Allen belts could also cause electrical glitches.SpaceX will also try to recover all three boosters. The two side boosters are to set down on land at Cape Canaveral while the central booster will head toward a floating platform in the Atlantic.“I’d say tune in,” Mr. Musk said. “It’s going to be worth your time.”