We made it on to Alltop.com!!!

So finally our blog is starting to gain traction & get some attention from the more established web sites.

Today we where added to Guy Kawasaki's Alltop.com in the Alltop Space section along with some of the best space news & space blogs on the internet.

Read more about what Alltop.com is all about here. This is real privilage & honour for us & It's also a tribute to all the hard work our team has put into generating our web presence in such a short time. Many thanks to Guy & Neenz for making this happen :)

It's Mystery, and we completely agree

If you have been following the Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP) developments during the past months, you probably heard that a new team joined the competition but exercised their right to conceal their identity. For the timebeing they are known just as "Mystery Team". According to GLXP rules they can remain anonymous until 20th of July 2009 (the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing) but they are also free to reveal themselves anytime before then. So far the only signficant clue we have to their identities is that they are based in the United States.

Few days ago, Discovery channel conducted an Instant Messaging (IM) interview with the team's leader (see the IM interview transcript on the discovery website).

We at White Label Space found this interview extremely interesting because the Mystery Team seems to have a set of views on private space exploration and the GLXP competition that is 90% in common with those of our members. Hopefully, soon we will be able to tell you soon what the 10% of difference are!

In the mean time, we recommend you to have a look at the above interview and let us know what you think about their views!

Oh, and by the way, what will they call the second and third Mystery Teams if they join?

SCE to AUX: When Apollo 12 got hit by lightning

So, you sat on top of what virtually is a bomb hurtling into space & the last thing you need is to be struck by lightning. That's exactly what happened to Apollo 12 during launch on November 14th 1969 on the second attempt to land on the moon. Thanks to the natural curiosity of John Aaron the then ECOM the mission was saved after all electrical systems malfunctioned. When the rocket took the lightning strike the readout from spaces telemetry data at mission control & on Apollo 12 became non-sensical. John remembered seeing a similar pattern before & made the famous call "Flight, tell 'em to take the SCE to AUX". Luckily astronaut Alan Bean knew where the obscure AUX switch was & managed to restore all systems. That must have been a hell of a first mission as flight director for Gerry Griffin. I think if I had been in the same situation I too would have done exactly the same as astronaut Pete Conrad & laughed all the way into orbit.

- Steve Allen

Self-Replicating Robots for Solar System Exploration

This fascinating article in Astrobiology Magazine explains a thought experiment about future exploration of another solar system. The author, Ray Villard, imagines a super-advanced spaceship that completes its 100+ year interstellar voyage and then deploys an armada of self-replicating robotic explorers.

Using the Artificial Intelligence onboard the mother ship, the exploration of the new solar system aims to find evidence of life, much like current-day space exploration here in our solar system.

Considering the rapid and accelerating advances in technologies underway now, perhaps this science fiction concept is closer to reality than we realize. Indeed, the RepRap Project is well on its way to creating the first ever self-replicating machine.

But one things for sure, such a mission is ever created, it will sure put a lot of space agency staff and industrial contractors in the space industry out of work since it will essentially do everything they do at almost zero cost!

GLXP War Over the Moon Part II - Dr. Evil Laser

Well, as you saw in our earlier post, the Moon might be becoming the next target for military expansion.. but perhaps that should be no surprise given Dr. Evil's plans;

Perhaps the Google Lunar X PRIZE can do something to stop him!

Explore Space in Second Life

Going to Space, apparently, is a hard task. The main reason is that the physical world has its own rules, and these cannot be bent or crossed.
As a result, sending something or someone to Outer Space requires a great deal of money, matter and sweat. Others found a simpler solution, although some might say they have cheated.

If you cannot visit Space, bring Space to you. Directly from the Second Life blog, is the story of a boy that wanted to built rockets, and ended up man building Space, the Second Life environment space.
http://blog.secondlife.com/2005/03/12/space-exploration/.

Many people still consider Second Life a toy for computer geeks, a dating site, or just something wacky. When informed that Second Life has its own economy and circulating currency they get surprised. When they are told that people manage businesses in Second Life, make money, invest in virtual land and even use it to laundry money, they get mind boggled.

Whether you consider Second Life a time waster or a legitimate source of fun, the fact is that there are people that consider Second Life a very promising platform, for marketing, long distance collaboration and conference tool, or simple and plain advertisement.

As a sub set of the Internet, it is no surprise that the same passioned people that put online websites about Space and rockets also buy land and start islands dedicated to their passion. As an example, here are 10 activities to do in SL related to Space and our neighboring planets.
http://dsc.discovery.com/space/top-10/space-10-second-life-places.html

Not only individuals but also Space related organizations are starting to populate SL, like the NASA Ames Research Center: http://www.space.com/adastra/070526_isdc_second_life.html

Another list of must do's in SL: Visit a rocket museum, or the NASA Amphitheater, where you can hover over the amphitheater of see the video programming from NASA TV on the big screen.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17865952/?pg=1#space_slguide_070330

GLXP War over the Moon

Well, it's not something that we at White Label Space would like to include in our GLXP mission but this ScoopOrbit post raises an interesting question for the GLXP - What position does GLXP have regarding the military use of space and the development of dual-use technologies?

Can GLXP teams sell their designs to a military contractor?

Can a military payload be flown on a GLXP lander or rover?

ScoopOrbit also included the above picture of a new space suit development for lunar operations. Maybe some people are already thinking along these lines :-)

First Art Exhibition in Outer Space

Call for Space Art;

Tohoku University, Japan, is now developing a small satellite, named SPRITE-SAT, with launch planned for January 2009. The main mission of the satellite is a scientific study of lightening phenomena above the cloud layers but using this opportunity, they are also organizing the first art exhibition in outer space!

To take part in this exhibition you should submit monochrome digital pictures, which will be shrunk to a size of 1mm squares arranged as a mosaic on a silicon wafer fabricated using photolithography technology. The photolithography and etching process will be done on a standard silicon wafer, cut into a 3 cm by 3 cm piece, which will be exhibited in orbit attached on the top of an antenna boom on the top of the satellite. The artworks will also be exhibited on a special web page.

Submitting your artwork:
Please submit a digital drawing in 500×500 pixels, or a line drawing 500×500 pixels resolution. Black and white, no halftones. Submit as a digital file which can be displayed in 10 cm square on a computer screen.

Deadline of submission: August 10, 2008

Please send your submission or any questions to Prof. Kazuya Yoshida:
yoshida@astro.mech.tohoku.ac.jp