nasa's ideas to get more funding are getting ridiculous

i dunno if i'm buyin it. diamonds in uranus?

Neptune and Uranus May Have Oceans of Liquid Diamond
Future humans won't have to wait to travel to Pandora for the chance to mine unobtanium, because Neptune and Uranus may have diamond icebergs floating atop liquid diamond seas closer to home. The surprise finding comes from the first detailed measurements of the melting point of diamond, Discovery News reports.

Scientists zapped diamond with a laser at pressures 40 million times greater than the Earth's atmosphere at sea level, and then slowly reduced both temperature and pressure. They eventually found that diamond behaves like water during freezing and melting, and that chunks of diamond will float in the liquid diamond.

Diamond oceans could explain why the magnetic fields of Uranus and Neptune appear tilted so far off their north-south axes, given that they could deflect or tilt the magnetic fields. Both planets may consist of up to 10 percent carbon, the elemental building block of diamond.

Scientists won't know for sure until they can launch missions to the planets, or try to simulate planetary conditions on Earth. But we'd wager it's worth a shot for NASA, if there's any chance that U.S. space missions could begin to pay for themselves in the distant future.

via popsci

Cocaine found in NASA hanger

blows my mind..haha
Astro-Snorts
A BAG of cocaine has been found in a Space Shuttle hangar - sparking a Nasa investigation. US space chiefs fear an employee was seeking a different kind of out-of-this-world experience in the restricted area at Kennedy Space Centre, Florida.

About 200 staff and contractors have access to the hangar, which houses the shuttle Discovery.

Drug sniffer dogs were also brought in to find the culprit. Three years ago, Nasa was forced to deny allegations of boozy parties after an official report claimed two astronauts had flown into space while drunk. The discovery of drugs in a hangar before a mission raises safety concerns and will embarrass new Nasa chief Charlie Bolden.
via

NASA gets a new spokesman.

NASA's Newest, Meatiest Spokesman: The Rock

Apparently today’s kids need something more than the International Space Station to keep their imaginations whirring. So in a bid to convince kids that science is cool, that the space program has a multitude of practical applications right here on Earth, and that apparently “there’s no space like home,” NASA has teamed up with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson to use his newest animated film “Planet 51” as a springboard for all sorts of PR efforts.

full story + video here

ohhhh snap. nasa's funding woes might be over.

NASA finds 'significant' water on moon

NASA said Friday it had discovered water on the moon, opening "a new chapter" that could allow for the development of a lunar space station.

The discovery is based on preliminary data collected when the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, intentionally crashed October 9 into the permanently shadowed region of Cabeus crater near the moon's south pole.

full story via CNN

nasa bombing the moon. seriously.

and they wonder why their funding gets cut. there's gotta be an easier way to find out if there's water on the moon.
NASA's mission to bomb the Moon

NASA will tomorrow launch a spectacular mission to bomb the Moon. Their LCROSS mission will blast off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying a missile that will blast a hole in the lunar surface at twice the speed of a bullet.
full story here via scientific american

the mayans were right

this is how the world will end in 2012 (see last paragraph)
New ion engine could reach Mars in 39 days

Last week astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins both called for NASA to make Mars its next goal. But the standard chemical propulsion system would take six months to get to Mars and cost hundreds of billions of dollars. However, a new ion plasma rocket being developed by another former astronaut, Franklin Chang-Diaz, could potentially reach Mars in just 39 days using a fraction of the fuel.

Chang-Diaz’s prototype doesn’t achieve propulsion by combusting fuel but, rather, by superheating atoms to create and expel a plasma plume.

Named VASIMR, the system consists of three linked magnetic cells. The first stage works a bit like a kettle, heating the atoms of a neutral gas like argon with a radio frequency (RF) generator until electrons “boil” off, creating plasma.

The plasma is now very hot – about 50,000 degrees Celsius – but not hot enough to produce efficient thrust. The second stage of VASIMR acts as an amplifier, further energizing the plasma using electromagnetic waves. By now, the plasma reaches about a million degrees, comparable to the center of the sun.

The third and final stage is converts the energy into directed motion and, ultimately, high velocity thrust. And, in case you’re wondering how anything so hot could be possibly contained, that’s one of the reasons the cells are all magnetic. A magnetic field not only helps heat plasma but also contains it, so it won’t ever actually touch anything.

Chang-Diaz and his colleagues are readying VASIMR for a 2012 test with NASA on the International Space Station. It could just be the beginning of a new power in long-distance space travel.

via

cool pic from the ISS

click on the picture for full size