Raeden Zen's Blog, page 265
December 25, 2013
sagansense:
Apollo’s Lunar Approach Simulator
China landed its...
A view of LOLA's Model 1 and Model 2 with a track system designed to support a moving TV camera to simulate a manned spacecraft passing over the lunar surface.
Artists used paintbrushes and airbrushes to recreate the lunar surface for each of the LOLA models that made up the simulator at Langley Research Center.
Artists used machined styrofoam to create highly accurate 3-D models of the moon's surface based on photographs.
Artist Compares Real Image with Recreation
Astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Jim Lovell would have sat in this early simulator while they accustomed themselves to the surface of the moon.
During typical test runs, pilots sat in the cockpit for up to an hour watching the landscape go by. When the pilot started his descent to land, the cameras would take the pilot down to the surface.
Apollo’s Lunar Approach Simulator
China landed its unmanned Chang’e-3 spacecraft on the moon Dec. 14, making it the third nation to accomplish this monumentally technical feat.
It got us thinking about the beginning of efforts to reach and, ultimately, land humans on the moon. One part of those early efforts involved NASA’s Lunar Orbit and Landing Approach, a spaceflight simulator built at Langley Research Center in the 1960s.
The $2 million project was meant to train astronauts what their approach to the moon would be like and to learn problems they might encounter. The system was made of four scale models of portions of the lunar surface as they would appear at different altitudes, a cockpit with controls mounted on a gantry and a closed-circuit TV system.
Source: txchnologist
Decisions… Decisions…
Decisions… Decisions…
Twenty great directors and their best movies
1. Akira Kurosawa - Ran
2. The Coen Brothers - the Big Lebowski
3. Sergio Leone - Once Upon a Time in the West or the Good, the Bad, & the Ugly
4. Andrei Tarkovsky - Stalker
5. Paul Thomas Anderson - Magnolia
6. Stanley Kubrick - A Clockwork Orange
7. Ingmar Bergman - Fanny and…
David Fincher - Fight Club
scienceyoucanlove:
Gullies in Lyell crater, Mars....
Gullies in Lyell crater, Mars. PSP_004804_1105. HiRISE. Credit - NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission
science-junkie:
Making a Gem of a Tiny Crystal
Nature builds...
Making a Gem of a Tiny Crystal
Nature builds flawless diamonds, sapphires and other gems. Now a Northwestern University research team is the first to build near-perfect single crystals out of nanoparticles and DNA, using the same structure favored by nature.
“Single crystals are the backbone of many things we rely on — diamonds for beauty as well as industrial applications, sapphires for lasers and silicon for electronics,” said nanoscientist Chad A. Mirkin. “The precise placement of atoms within a well-defined lattice defines these high-quality crystals.
“Now we can do the same with nanomaterials and DNA, the blueprint of life,” Mirkin said. “Our method could lead to novel technologies and even enable new industries, much as the ability to grow silicon in perfect crystalline arrangements made possible the multibillion-dollar semiconductor industry.”
His research group developed the “recipe” for using nanomaterials as atoms, DNA as bonds and a little heat to form tiny crystals. This single-crystal recipe builds on superlattice techniques Mirkin’s lab has been developing for nearly two decades.
"To grow mature is to separate more distinctly, to connect more closely."
- Hugo Von Hofmannsthal. (via quotedojo)
