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Welcome to HobbySpace. the site that will prove to you that everyone can participate in space exploration and development in one way or another.
November 2011
Space for All Blog Space Transport News Blog
Special Features
NewSpace Log 2011
The NewSpace Log 2011
This section holds links to blog posts, articles, pictures, etc. about events and developments this year in NewSpace. See also NewSpace Log 2010.
NewSpace 2011 Conference
NewSpace 2011 Conference Review
A report on the annual Space Frontier Foundation's conference, held this year at NASA Ames in Mountain View, California. Topics of discussion ranged from entrepreneurial space businesses to lunar miing to fully reusable suborbital space vehicles.
Space Access 2011
Space Access 11 Conference Review
A report on the annual Space Access Society's annual conference in Phoenix, Arizona. The focus, as always, was on efforts by entrepreneurial companies to achieve dramatically lower costs for getting to space..


More Interviews, Articles, and Special Topics.
Space Art Spotlight

Apollo LEM - Tom Sachs
Apollo LEM

Space Suit - Tom Sachs
Space Suit

Crawler - Tom Sachs
Crawler
Mission Control Center: Coat Rack- Tom Sachs
Mission Control Center: Coat Rack
Yellow Edge - Tom Sachs
Yellow Edge


Tom Sachs
More space art...
Space News from Virtual Amanda Bush

Here is the latest Virtual SpaceTV 3D show, which was created by BINARY SPACE with story content from HobbySpace. The virtual presenter Amanda Bush begins with a story on the first confirmed exoplanet similar to earth in orbit around a star similar to our sun. She also talks about a rocket flight by Armadillo Aerospace, the setting of a date for the first visit to the ISS by a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, and about Paul Allen's new Stratolaunch project.

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Previous Virtual SpaceTV 3D shows are available on the HobbySpace Youtube Channel.

These videos are intended as demonstrations of an experimental technique for generating animated presentations. The show was generated autonomously by software and without human interaction. The project is described in the Virtual Producer whitepaper (pdf). For further information contact info@binary-space.com.

Space Music Video of the Month
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Onward to the Edge: a Space Musical - Lights in the Dark
John D. Boswell & Symphony of Science project
Previous space music in spotlight
Space Hobbies & Activities in the Spotlight
Space Advocacy Video Competitions

Several space advocacy organizations in the past few years have sponsored contests for the best videos that support space exploration and development. (Some people make such videos on their own as well.) Most recently the Coalition for Space Exploration announced the winner and runners-up of its “What’s Next?” in space exploration contest. The grand prize winner is Caleb Ekeroth with his video Visit Mars Today, which "takes viewers through a timeline of human spaceflight history into the future with an in-flight commentary of the first tourist trip to the red planet".

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Runner-up Daniel Land Land won for Accept the Risks, "a video that supports the beginning of a new era of space exploration to Mars".

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And runner-up Sthanley Joseph gives a spirited monologe about his views of What's Next for space.

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It's a Whole New Outer Space Out There

Blue Origin is Building and Flying Rockets

It is known that the firm Blue Origin, which is owned by Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com fame, aims to design fully reusable rocket vehicles that will greatly lower the cost of getting to space. They are pursuing markets such as space tourism and research and even providing NASA astronauts transportation to the International Space Station.

Blue, however, has been very secretive about the details of their rocket projects. It is known that they are developing a fully reusable suborbital, vertical takeoff and landing vehicle (VTOL) that can reach 100 kilometers in altitude routinely. In 2007 they posted photos and videos of a test flight of a VTVL prototype at their test site in West Texas. Since then they have been very quiet about their hardware development.

Recently, however, they have cracked opened the door a bit. A newly revamped web site includes photos and videos of another prototype vehicle (PM2) that they flew twice in 2011. Here is the PM2 prototype vehicle on the pad in May 2011:

Blue Origin PM2 vehicle on pad in May 2011

The following video shows a "hop" flight in May 2011:

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This diagram shows the basic elements of the PM2:

Blue Origin prototype

Unfortunately, the PM2 vehicle was destroyed in August 2011 when a supersonic flight to high altitudes went awry. A new vehicle is under construction.

Blue Origin is a participant in NASA's Commercial Crew Program (CCP) in which Blue is developing an orbital crew module like that shown here:

Biconic Crew Module

The crew module initially will fly on the expendable Atlas V rocket but later will fly on a fully reusable booster that Blue Origin is developing:

Blue Origin design for reusable booster

With the great resources and ambitions of Bezos, Blue Origin should go far in the coming years.



Check for the latest in leading edge rocket and space travel projects on the
Space Transport News Blog
Satellite Tracking at HobbySpace

Tutorial videos
Satellite tracks
Satellite track display

3-D viewing option
Run the Satellite Tracking Tool from BINARY SPACE right here at HobbySpace in your browser. The program allows you to track a large set of satellites in both low earth and geostationary orbits. (Note: the program requires Microsoft Silverlight, Version 5 or higher, as well as the latest version of your browser. Currently the program works on the Microsoft® Windows® platform only.) The Satellite Observing section provides additional information and web resources about the hobby of satellite tracking and watching.
Real-Time Space Viewers
Earth Viewer
Earth
Weather maps, remote sensing
and spysat images.
Space Weather Viewer
Space Weather
Sun, solar wind, aurora images
and the latest data

Space Explorer Viewer
Space Explorers
Images and data from
deep space probes.

See the archive of previous HobbySpace homepage Spotlight items ...
October 11 - December 11

HobbySpace has been providing thousands of space links, news and information daily since

January 1999.

The Art of C. Sergent Lindsey

 
 
 
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