Lisa Katayama

Photo of laptops in zero gravity

Over on the front page, Xeni posted this fabulous photo of astronauts from the STS-128 NASA mission to the International Space Station. It's actually a screenshot from a silent YouTube HD video taken on their seventh day in orbit.

I wonder what the optimal ergonomic position for laptop usage is in zero gravity.

Spacemen are transmitting silent little floaty vlogs at planet Earth [Boing Boing]

Rob Beschizza

Toronto Department of Zombie Disposal commences operations

Shannon Larratt, inspired by Pittsburgh's proactive response to the zombie menace, took up the mantle to become sheriff of the first department beyond the borders of the U.S. and Haiti. [Zentastic]

Steven Leckart

Full Moon Credenza Glows In The Dark

Designer Sotirios Papadopoulos developed "ELI" (Eco Light Inside) a material that glows in the dark and, previously, was used on this illuminating mirror.

Beats using a night light. Maybe.

[via Generate]

Steven Leckart

Contest Winner!: Fighting Space Chicken

Well, I really had no idea so many BBG readers would want to get their hands on my fighting cock bot.

In the end, the winner was a reader by the name of Paul (aka Misterfricative), who won us over with a beautiful, succinct jingle.

Interesting side note: Paul lives in Taiwan, where the fighting cock bot was constructed some 20 years ago. Apart from the fact his tune is fantastic, the notion of returning the bot to its homeland certainly influenced our decision.

And without further adieu, here's the bot-winning song:

Enjoy the cock bot, Paul. And remember, "Never let a child swallow the bullet."

Of course, other BBG readers submitted some wonderful entries. Below are a few of the highlights. Thanks to everyone who entered!

READ THE REST

Lisa Katayama

Photos from inside an abandoned Titan missile silo

Over on the front page, Xeni wrote about amazing photographs from the inside of an abandoned Titan I missile. Check them out.

Lisa Katayama

French postal service ad turns a MacBook into a spaceship

In this delightful French TV ad for La Poste, France's national postal service, a man demonstrates the process of mailing a letter online. He reads the instructions, clicks on "send via computer," and then, to his surprise, the computer turns into a spaceship and flies out the window. The simplicity of the concept and the way it's materialized is just great, a rarity in a world full of over-processed commercials.

["Transformers" ad for La Poste via AdFreak.com]

Lisa Katayama

If Mr. Potato head was in the army...

...he'd look like this. These prototypes were created with a 3D printer by Avihai Shurin.

[via Designboom]

Steven Leckart

"Southpaw nothing. I'll drop him in three."

Lisa Katayama

Louis Vuitton's fancy Apollo-inspired trunk

Starting today, you can see this very schmancy Louis Vuitton trunk that has been custom-made for the 40th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing at the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the Museum of Natural History in NYC.

via Hypebeast

Lisa Katayama

So what happened to the original Apollo tapes, anyway?

Sure, it's awesome that NASA is restoring the footage they have of the Apollo 11 moon landing, but what really happened to the original slow-scan telemetry tapes that the highest resolution footage was recorded on? Rumors abound about them being lost forever, or found again. To find out what really happened, I had a chat with Dick Nafzger, the Goddard Space Flight Center engineer who was in charge of coordinating all TV operations for the moon landing back in 1969, at the age of 28. He still works at Goddard as an engineer, and has been one of the leading characters in the tape restoration this year. Here are excerpts from our interview in which he answered the question: Are the original Apollo 11 tapes lost forever?

The conclusion my team and I have reached is that they were degaussed and erased. They're gone. The original tapes are gone.

Everything that was on the original tapes was transmitted live to the world, but back then, we had to degauss tapes all the time. The telemetry tape we used for Apollo 11 had 14 tracks, and one of them was used for video. It just dropped through the cracks that there was just one slow scan of that mission only on that telemetry tape. From Apollo 12 on, we switched to a broadcast standard on regular television recorder.

The Apollo 11 mission required special provisions because we were still exploring, and we weren't sure what the transmission capabilities were at the time. We were not confident that we could broadcast at that distance. So we changed everything to be at a lower bandwidth and lower power so we could transmit a smaller signal and convert it. We just wanted to make sure we could get a signal to the moon.

We are also still looking for two tapes from Parkes Observatory in Australia that contained about 10-12 minutes of the original walk in the original slow scan format. They're not the primary tapes, but were part of an experimental program. The tapes were made at Parkes, and we know they came back to the Applied Physics Lab to be viewed 40 years ago, right after the mission. They could be anywhere right now.

What we're restoring now are the best available converted tapes from Sydney, Australia and TBS in New York, taken from a TV monitor in Houston during the mission. It's about 40% done, and the final product will be revealed in September. All things considered, I'm very satisfied with where we are at with the restoration efforts, which will be done in September. We're trying to restore history, not produce something from scratch that's high definition. It's an archive for future generations.

Steven Leckart

Motorola Tries Cashing in On Apollo

Does it seem shameless for Motorola to release an Apollo-themed phone that comes bundled with NASA video footage, pics and ringtones like "That's one small step for man..."?

Guess again.

Motorola famously supplied NASA, and specifically the Apollo program, with communications equipment, including the transponder that transmitted those first images, audio, and telemetry back from the Lunar surface. Hence the company's famous Moon-boot ad from 1970 which declared, "Motorola was there."

The special "Celestial Edition" phone is an update to the AURA (from 2008), meaning the tech is basically the same (only a 2MP sensor and 2GB of memory?!). BUT, the handset does come bundled with commemorative postcards and the following info laser-etched into it:

"Motorola AURA Celestial Edition, Honouring the Apollo 11 mission, 20th July 1969"

Yep, that's right. "Honouring" is spelled with a 'u' because the phone is available in the UK.

Ha ha.

[via SlipperBrick]

Steven Leckart

Moon Landing Pics: "Gee-Whiz" Afterthought

This is, perhaps, the most famous photo from the Apollo Moon landing. It was taken by Neil Armstrong, who shot most of the pics taken on the Lunar surface using a Hasselblad 500EL camera outfitted with a Zeiss Biogon f-5.6/60 mm lens and 70mm Kodak film that was "thin-based and thin emulsion double-perforated."

Called the Data Camera, the 500EL used on the Moon was modded with a special silver finish to boost the hardware's ability to withstand extreme thermal variations (the middle camera pictured here has the silver finish). The Data Camera also featured a glass Reseau plate, which produced a 5x5 grid of little crosses you can still see on the image. NASA used the markings to help account for film distortion and calculate the angular distance(s) between specific points in the image.

Pictured above is Buzz Aldrin, who appears in the bulk of the Moon landing pics. In fact, there's essentially only one photo of Armstrong taken while on the Moon, a blurry close-up of his reflection in Aldrin's visor.

Although a lot of brainpower went into creating the camera taken to the Moon, Aldrin says little planning went into the photography itself, which is why he became the unofficial star of the Moon.

From Aldrin's book Magnificent Desolation:

Neil shot most of the photos on the moon, having the camera attached to a fitting on his spacesuit much of the time while I was doing a variety of experiments. I didn't have such a camera holder on my suit, so it just made sense that Neil should handle the photography. He took some fantastic photographs, too, especially when one considers that there was no viewfinder on the intricate Hasselblad camera. We were basically "pointing and shooting." Imagine taking such historic photographs and not even being able to tell what image you were getting. Unlike the digital camera era of today, in 1969 we were shooting on film, typically looking through a small optical opening on the back of the camera that corresponded with what the camera's lens was "seeing." But with our large space helmets, such a viewfinder would have done little good anyhow. So, similar to cowboys shooting their sixguns from their hips, we aimed the camera in the direction of what we wanted to photograph, and squeezed the trigger. Given that ambiguity, it is even more of a credit to Neil that we brought back such stunning photographs from the moon.

if you look more carefully at the reflection in the gold visor on my helmet, you can see the Eagle with its landing pad, my shadow with the sun's halo effect, several of the experiments we had set up, and even Neil taking the picture. It is a truly astounding shot, and was the result of an entirely serendipitous moment on Neil's part. Later, pundits and others would wonder why most of the photographs on the moon were of me. It wasn't because I was the more photogenic of the two helmet-clad guys on the moon. Some even conjectured that it must have been a purposeful attempt on my part to shun Neil in the photos. That, of course, was ridiculous. We had our assigned tasks, and since Neil had the camera most of the time we were on the surface, it simply made sense that he would photograph our activities and the panoramas of the lunar landscape. And since I was the only other person there . . .

Ironically, the photography on the moon was one of those things that we had not laid out exactly prior to our launch. NASA's Public Affairs people didn't say, "Hey, you've got to take a lot of pictures of this or that." Everyone was interested in the science. So we did the science and the rest of it was sort of gee-whiz. We had not really planned a lot of the gee-whiz stuff that, in retrospect, proved quite important.

You can purchase a 16x20 print of the above pic and other Apollo-11 shots from Moonpans.com.

photo by Neil Armstrong/NASA via Boston Globe via Todd Lappin

Steven Leckart

New Rover is a Hi-Def TV Studio, Internet Node

Astrobotic Technology's prototype is scheduled to explore the Apollo landing site in 2011 &mdash and hopefully win the $25 million Google Lunar X Prize. Developed by Dr. William Whittaker, a roboticist at Carnegie Mellon, the solar-powered rover has been tweaked and fine-tuned for its mission, which will involve examining how materials used by the Apollo 11 mission have weathered on the Moon.

Here are a few unique engineering feats:

Unlike Mars rovers that have motors in the hub of each wheel, the Astrobotic lunar rover tucks two motors inside the body of the robot where they are safeguarded both from heat and the abrasive lunar dust. Each motor drives one side of the robot's wheels using a chain drive like a bicycle. Key to the design are tailored composite structures made from carbon fiber tape and resin...

The fundamental innovation developed at Carnegie Mellon is the rover's asymmetrical shape. On the cold side, there's a flat radiator angled up to the black lunar sky as well as a vertical panel for the logos of the corporations sponsoring the expedition. On the hot side, a half-cone of solar cells generates ample electrical power to power the wheels, run the computers and energize the transmitter beaming back stereo HD video to Earth.

Another innovation is a lunar-specific drive train. Unlike Mars rovers that have motors in the hub of each wheel, the Astrobotic lunar rover tucks two motors inside the body of the robot where they are safeguarded both from heat and the abrasive lunar dust. Each motor drives one side of the robot's wheels using a chain drive, like a bicycle. The chain drive mechanism has been tested in a Carnegie Mellon vacuum chamber to ensure that is does not experience "cold welding" &mdash a process where materials sometimes merge or weld to each other when touching in a hard vacuum.

Steven Leckart

Buzz Aldrin: Engineer, Rapper, Heart-Breaking Realist

"That's not going to happen."

In just five words, Buzz Aldrin casually broke my heart. Which is to say, the former astronaut-turned-rapper reminded me that despite the haze of nostalgia surrounding the 40th anniversary of the Moon landing, Aldrin is still very much an engineer, a logician who deals in pragmatic extremes. Not some romantic willing to dive into hyperbole or seemingly-pointless hypotheticals.

The question prompting the above response seemed simple enough at the time: "If you could go back for another Moon walk or orbit Mars tomorrow, which would you choose?"

A total softball question, I admit, but I'd just spent the last half hour listening to Aldrin mostly ramble and rehash much of what he's already said about NASA's failures, China, why we should focus on Mars, and more. Not all that surprising, considering Xeni found Aldrin relatively incoherent when she interviewed him a year ago.

However, I had figured a simple question like this might ground us, get the 79-year-old legend reflective &mdash possibly even a little misty-eyed &mdash or at least waxing semi-poetic. After all, Aldrin took part in one of the most glorious spectacles ever captured on film, an event which garnered what was, at the time, the most-watched live TV broadcast ever (some 600 million viewers). Getting to the Moon is still the gold standard to which invention and engineering can frequently be compared &mdash i.e. "We've gone to the Moon, but I still can't get cell phone reception in my home?"

All I wanted was for Aldrin to utter something like: "Well, my boy, I'd orbit Mars, because it's somewhere we've never been. And we should never stop pushing the limits of what's possible." etc. etc.

Find out what he actually said, after the jump, along with more reflections with/of/from the man Snoop Dogg now calls "Doc Ron," a shortened version of Aldrin's nickname "Dr. Rendezvous."

photo by NASA via Boston Globe via Todd Lappin

READ THE REST

Lisa Katayama

NASA's new restored footage of the Apollo 11 moon landing

To honor the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, NASA has just released these brand new restored videos of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's historic first steps on the moon. The space agency is working with Lowry Digital in Burbank to restore tapes from the July 20, 1969 moonwalk &mdash the project in its entirety will be completed in the fall, but they're offering a sneak peek at some of the iconic moments, like Neil Armstrong (above) and Buzz Aldrin (below) taking their first steps on the moon, starting right now. These clips show side-by-side comparisons of the footage stored in the NASA archives vs. the never-seen-before newly restored footage.

Stay tuned for more reporting about the "lost" Apollo 11 tapes and an interview with Buzz Aldrin on Monday.

Below, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin raising the American flag on the moon's surface:

Footage courtesy of NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Joel Johnson

LEGO "Desert Stunner"

Joel Johnson

SAGE (1954)

Steven Leckart

VIDEO: "Buzz Aldrin is so gangsta"

I actually teared up at the end.

[via @jennydeluxe]

Joel Johnson

Teaser: The Pacific

The teaser trailer for the new HBO show, The Pacific, a 10-part follow up to what is perhaps my favorite piece of filmed media of all time, Band of Brothers. I am in goosebumps and on the edge of tears, and I haven't even freaking watched it yet.

Xeni Jardin

BB Video: This Week in Space And Aviation, with Miles O'Brien

(Download / YouTube)

Boing Boing Video guest correspondent Miles O'Brien checks in with us for an update on the scheduled launch of the Space Shuttle, and on new information about what may have led to the recent Air France crash, and finally, on the confirmation that geese -- yes, geese -- were responsible for the emergency conditions that led to the "miracle on the Hudson" emergency landing.

Follow Miles' coverage of Endeavor's scheduled launch at spaceflightnow.com, or follow him on Twitter: @milesobrien.

Update, 11:15pm PT: From Miles' live-tweeting at the launch site: the space shuttle Endeavour launch has just been postponed because of another leak in the gaseous hydrogen venting system between the launch pad and external fuel tank.

Sponsor shout-out

Joel Johnson

U.S. Air Force Vapor Cars

Joel Johnson

Buzz Aldrin, Sally Ride, Jim Lovell for Louis Vuitton

Louis Vuitton is the most worthless, overhyped fashion brand ever to exist, but I can comfortable ignore that for putting three great spacers in their latest ad campaign. I can't ever imagine owning any LV crap myself, but now I sort of want to see a space suit covered in fleur-de-lis. [via Racked]

Joel Johnson

Knock Knock: Liquid Metal Breeching Rounds

David Hambling:

Special Forces also funded the development of another technology by Polyshok Inc., known as the Impact Reactive Projectile. The firm says this 12-gauge ammunition solid slug acts as a liquid. Unlike other projectiles, it will not over penetrate and go through walls. It pretty much stops where it hits - and causes gigantic injuries in the process.

Joel Johnson

LEGO: Walkers vs Wartracks

Xeni Jardin

BB Video: "Tank Tour" - One of World's Largest Collections of Historic Military Technology

(Download MP4 / Watch on YouTube )

In today's edition of Boing Boing Video, guest-host Todd Lappin explores a massive collection of historical military vehicles tanks collected by an eccentric Silicon Valley multimillionaire. The recently-departed Jacques Littlefield amassed one of the world's largest and most significant collections of this type, and his collection is now overseen by the nonprofit Military Vehicle Technology Foundation. Snip from their description:

Our goal is to acquire, restore, and interpret the historical significance of 20th and 21st century military vehicles. Domestic and foreign combat vehicles such as tanks, armored cars, self-propelled artillery, and other technically interesting mobile platforms are the focus of the collection. We also maintain an extensive technical library that describes many vehicles down to the part level. Aside from the vehicles, there are towed artillery, antitank, and antiaircraft guns. Military support equipment, inert ordnance, and accessories round out the collection.

The "tank tour" BBV shot for this episode was organized by BB pal Karen Marcelo and Dorkbot SF. They put on interesting events like this every month! Karen says,

June, 2009 is the 7 year anniversary of dorkbotSF. We have two cool events coming up, hope the some of the Boing Boing readers will come out for them! First one is jun 3 - at Greg Leyh's lightning lab. A live demo of scaled-down model of greg's 12-story Tesla coils, debut of Marc Powell's new software, and cool light printer from Jonathan Foote.

Then Jon Sarriugarte is hosting a big bash on the 20th! snail car, muffin cars, tesla roadster makers, fireworks, omega recoil's tesla coils, blacksmithing, etc. and he said more surprises he doesnt want to mention in advance!

Where to Find Boing Boing Video: RSS feed for new episodes here, YouTube channel here, subscribe on iTunes here. Get Twitter updates every time there's a new ep by following @boingboingvideo, and here are blog post archives for Boing Boing Video.

(Thanks to Boing Boing's video hosting partner Episodic, and to shooter-producer extraordinaire Eddie Codel and to our host Todd Lappin)

Steven Leckart

The Man With The Golden Gun = Saddam Hussein

Saddam's blinged-out gun collection perfectly compliments the former dictator's mega-yacht, no?

Arabist, who posted a gallery on flickr, says these images are circulating via email forward throughout the Arab world. Thus, I'm not sure who originally took them. A U.S. soldier with what appears to be the last name "Derrick" appears in one shot.

We'd love to credit the original photographer. If you have any info, please let us know in the comments or email me: steven AT boingboing DOT net.

[via Glaserei via Nerdcore]

Joel Johnson

Map: Band of Brothers set, Hatfield, UK

View Larger Map

Band of Brothers, the best WW2 series ever made, was shot primarily at the airfield outside of Hatfield, England. The sets are still standing and are visible on Google Maps.

I know where I'm when I'm next in the UK. (Which should be soonish; my pop just moved over there.)

Joel Johnson

How to rescue the Mars rover by Julian, age 7

Julian, age 7, heard that the Spirit Mars rover was stuck, and offered his idea to fix it. Turns out that's a pretty good idea and one that JPL folks are already considering.

The rover drivers were so pleased by Julian's suggestion that they're going to send him a reward.

Update: NASA is naming the next rover "Curiosity", a name offered by a sixth-grader.

Joel Johnson

More Mars in Crayon

Remember "Mars in Crayon" yesterday? Curator Dan Goods has put more images from JPL online, including this comparison of the pastels sketch and the actual decoded TV image above.

Though he used a brown/red color scheme, the thought that Mars was red did not enter his mind. He really was looking for the colors that best represented a grey scale, since that was what they were going to get anway. It is uncanny how close his color scheme is to the actual colors of Mars. It's as if they came right out of current images of the planet. I've seen some of the other color schemes he tried and it could have been green or purple!

Joel Johnson

Mars in Crayon

Jesus Diaz:

The people at the JPL were so excited to receive the images that they couldn't wait for them to be processed by the lab's imager. As the first picture was beamed down as a stream of 8-bit numbers--each point indicating a brightness point--they thought of a quick way to get an image straight away: Print the numbers indicating brightness in paper strips, put them together, and color them with pastel crayons.