iss

Oftentimes I'm perfectly happy being in the cheap seats when witnessing life's spectacular moments. (Well, not perfectly happy. I'm always searching for a better view.)

Take the Northern Lights. In recent weeks, some people who normally might not be able to gaze at the Aurora Borealis from their own back yard got treated to quite the light show, thanks to a solar radiation storm late last month.

But what would the Northern Lights look like from the real nosebleeds (though not cheap)? What would they look like from, say, the International Space Station? NASA has released video … Read more

A Russian Soyuz capsule carrying three of the International Space Station's six crew members suffered an unexpected communications blackout just before plunging back into Earth's atmosphere, completing a nail-biting descent in radio silence with repeated calls from flight controllers near Moscow going unanswered.

Finally, recovery crews spotted the Soyuz TMA-21's braking parachute, communications with ground crews were established and the spacecraft touched down in Kazakhstan at 9:59 a.m. local time Friday (8:59 p.m. PT Thursday), tipping over on its side as it closed out an expedition lasting 164 days since launch April 4 … Read more

The shuttle Atlantis is set to carry two Nexus S phones into orbit tomorrow that will turn a trio of floating satellites on the International Space Station into remote-operated robots.

The 135th and last flight of the shuttle program, set for 11:26 a.m. ET, will help advance the cause of robotkind when the Android handsets are attached to the bowling ball-size orbs.

Propelled by small CO2 thrusters, the Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites (Spheres) were developed at MIT and have been in use on the ISS since 2006.

As seen in the vid below, they look like the Star Wars lightsaber training droid but are designed to test spacecraft maneuvers, satellite servicing, and flight formation.

Normally, the Spheres orbs carry out preprogrammed commands from a computer aboard the ISS, but the Nexus Android phones will give them increased computing power, cameras, and links to ground crew who will pilot them. … Read more

The calls for Research in Motion to reconsider its current executive structure are getting louder.

Today major shareholder advisory group International Shareholder Services (ISS) added its voice to the mix, telling clients they should support a proposal to split the company's CEO and chairman roles. Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie are co-CEOs and co-chairmen of the Waterloo, Ontario-based mobile computing company.

"The board's mandate is to represent the interests of shareholders through overseeing management and instilling accountability...Conflicts of interest may arise when one person holds both the Chair and CEO positions," ISS said today, according to Bloomberg. … Read more

NOORDWIJK, The Netherlands--I'm inside Columbus, one of the modules of the International Space Station, trying to decide whether I'm more interested in the glovebox that allows scientists to work on experiments in a vacuum or in the exercise bike.

Actually, I'm not really in space--I'm about an hour south of Amsterdam. But I am inside Columbus, at least a full-size mockup of it that's located here, inside ESTEC--the European Space Research and Technology Center--part of the European Space Agency (ESA).

I've come as part of Road Trip 2011, and as someone interested in the … Read more

Robotkind got NASA to send one of their own into space today--an unassuming humanoid "robot butler" that will be in the perfect spot to destroy Earth from orbit.

Sporting a terrifying mask, touting dumbbells, and tipping the scales at 330 pounds, Robonaut 2 has convinced just about everyone that despite its appearance it's not evil incarnate.

Before the macho droid lifted off in the Space Shuttle Discovery on the orbiter's final mission today at 1:53 p.m. PT, it tweeted innocently, "Excited to be a part of our nation's current & future space technology. Investments are critical to both our future in space and life on Earth."

Notice how it didn't say "humanity's future." That's a dead giveaway. It's clearly referring to the Robopocalypse (and I'm not talking about the forthcoming novel by Daniel Wilson).

It's no surprise that Robonaut 2, or R2, has pretty vague job aboard the International Space Station. The robot co-developed by General Motors is supposed to help the crew--and interact with it. It will be set up for certain tasks, handle tools and flip switches, working autonomously or by remote control. … Read more

I'm a huge fan of space. I write about space here on Crave as much as I can. One of my dreams has always been to go to space, but one thing has always kept me from boldly going: the complete lack of beer.

Sure, here on Earth we can get "space beer," or beer made with barley that was grown on the ISS, but we can't have it in space. But that's changing. Some scienticians who are tired of curing diseases like cancer and Juggaloism are developing a beer that can be consumed in the microgravity environments of space. … Read more

How do you send a robot to space? Very, very carefully.

When Robonaut 2 heads to the International Space Station this fall, it won't be strapped into a seat like its astronaut companions. Instead, it will be carefully packed inside dense foam and an aluminum frame that's specially designed to withstand the intense vibrations and gravity forces the bot will experience during its ascent into orbit.

Engineers have spent several months devising the best way to secure the humanoid, nicknamed R2, so it arrives at the ISS unharmed. The engineers concocted a plan to attach the robot to … Read more

The entire point of workflow software is to make work better organized and more efficient. It's certainly not supposed to make things more difficult. Unfortunately, that's exactly what happens with ISS Smart Flow Freeware Edition. The program's unintuitive interface makes potentially useful features a tremendous pain to use.

At first glance, the program's interface looks nice enough. It has a sleekness to it and is a bit reminiscent of Office 2007 products. But users are soon confronted with Work Processes, WorkFlow Templates, and Document Templates, and it's not at all obvious how any of these … Read more