First, PetaPixel reminds us that Estee Lauder’s products will be launching into space this week:
The cosmetics giant Estee Lauder is paying NASA $128,000 for a product photography shoot onboard the International Space Station. Bloomberg reports that the company will be paying the space agency to fly 10 bottles of its Advanced Night Repair skin serum to the orbiting space station on…
Tag: cargo
Astronauts shelter as ISS boosted to avoid orbital debris
The International Space Station underwent an unscheduled reboost in orbit yesterday, to avoid a collision with an unknown piece of space junk. The 3-man crew was ordered to shelter, but is safe. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/astronauts-shelter-as-iss-boosted-to-avoid-orbital-debris…
Mysterious Mexican wreck was an illegal slave ship
Archaeologists have identified the wreck of a Mexican steamer as La Union, an illegal slave ship that smuggled the Maya as cargo to Cuba. Source: https://www.livescience.com/mayan-slave-ship-la-union-identified.html
Daimler Shows Off Long-Range Hydrogen Semi, New Battery Truck
Daimler, which has worked on hydrogen technology for decades, is developing a fuel-cell semi with range of up to 600 miles per fueling and next-generation battery trucks amid intensifying competition to curb diesel and carbon exhaust from heavy-duty vehicles. Forbes reports: The German auto giant’s truck unit showed off the Mercedes-Benz GenH2, a concept truck designed for long haul runs that…
Will Japan Have Flying Taxis by 2023?
Slashdot reader damitr shared IEEE Spectrum’s look at Japan’s push for flying taxi services: Last year, Spectrum reported on Japan’s public-private initiative to create a new industry around electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles and flying cars. Last Friday [August 28th], start-up company SkyDrive Inc. demonstrated the progress made since then when it held a press conference to spotlight its prototype…
The launch and landing of China’s reusable spacecraft
Although few details are known, and no images have been released, the Chinese did apparently launch a reusable spacecraft on September 4, 2020. It appears to have deployed a satellite to orbit and then returned to Earth safely 2 days later. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/china-reusable-spacecraft-mission-sept-2020…
SpaceX Launched and Landed Another Starship Prototype
“SpaceX took another step forward Thursday in developing its next-generation Starship rocket, conducting the second short flight test of a prototype in the past month,” reports CNBC:
Starship prototype Serial Number 6, or SN6, took off from the launchpad at SpaceX’s facility in Boca Chica, Texas. It gradually rose to about 500 feet above the ground before it returned back to land,…
SpaceX Now Valued at $46 Billion, Making It America’s Top ‘Unicorn’
“SpaceX, the Elon Musk-led company that recently became the first business in history to send astronauts into Earth’s orbit, is parlaying its successes into big money,” reports CNN Business: The company recently finished a $1.9 billion funding round, one of the largest single fundraising pushes by any privately held company, according to public filings and data aggregated by venture capital data…
Slick New ‘Dream Chaser’ Space Plane Set For Launch in 2021
Syfy reports:
Soaring into the wild blue yonder and beyond, the planet’s only non-capsule, private orbital spacecraft, Dream Chaser, is slated to make its first flight sometime next year shuttling supplies and cargo to the International Space Station for NASA. This stylish unmanned space plane was recently given its official name, Tenacity, and a pair of exotic composite material wings to complete…
Rust is Strong, Creates a Trademark-Owning Foundation
Though Mozilla laid off 250 people last week, the Rust Core Team wrote a blog post Tuesday reminding the world that “the Rust project as a whole is very resilient to such events…” it is a common misconception that all of the Mozilla employees who participated in Rust leadership did so as a part of their employment. In fact, many Mozilla…