space

Spare parts Enterprise boldy goes …

Spare parts Enterprise boldy goes …

From the MAKE Flickr pool … where no LED has gone before. Observe the maiden voyage of a tiny space-faring ship. Upon encountering the above-seen “magnetic anomaly” the ship’s onboard magnetic reed switch is activated. Chief engineer Origamiwolf explains the ship’s schematics – A resistor is added to each of the red LED branches; this […]

Successful amateur EVE space radio bounce

Successful amateur EVE space radio bounce

A group of German amateur radio hobbyists has successfully bounced a radio signal off the planet Venus, over 31 million miles (50 million km) away, and received it back on Earth (Earth-Venus-Earth = EVE). Peter Guelzow (DB2OS), President of AMSAT-DL, writes: On March 25th, 2009, a team from the German space organisation AMSAT-DL reached another […]

Spanish students beat NASA

Spanish students beat NASA

A group of student makers took kite arial photography to a new level: weather balloon photography. They certainly are undercutting NASA’s budget, spending very little on their project, and fabricating most of the structure and electronics themselves. Check out Gareth’s previous entry on the project. Mail Online has a decent writeup. Nice of them to […]

The N-Prize, the not-quite-right stuff

The N-Prize, the not-quite-right stuff

Introducing: The N-Prize. The what? “The N-Prize is a challenge to launch an impossibly small satellite into orbit on a ludicrously small budget, for a pitifully small cash prize.” First proposed on Halfbakery, the site for cooking up crazy ideas, the N-Prize has now become a serious endeavor. The prize, of £9,999.99 sterling cash, will […]

Teddies in near space

Teddies in near space

MAKE reader James Coxon emailed to tell us about the recent Cambridge University Spaceflight project that teamed up university students with kids from the SPARKS science club to send four teddy bears aloft via helium filled high altitude balloon. The aim of the experiment was to determine which materials provided the best insulation against the […]

Zero-gravity coffee cup

Astronaut Dr. Don Pettit demonstrates what is likely the most convenient method for enjoying a beverage in space – using a simple cup with airplane-wing-like shape which uses a liquid’s surface tension to draw the beverage evenly towards the mouth – When Dr. Don Pettit lived aboard the International Space Station in 2002, he became […]