Archive | Videos | Armed with Science

A Hilltop in Foggy Bottom – Brother Against Brother & A New Mission

Filed under Scientific Military History, Videos by jtozer on July 17, 2012 at 7:30 am {no comments}

The home of the Old Naval Observatory (1844-1893) and the Navy Medical Department (1894-2012) is where many firsts in science and technology took place.

This is where the science of oceanography was born, where the moons of Mars were discovered, where the underwater path of the first transatlantic cable was plotted. This location played a key role in the Civil War, our first westward expansion, and in the development of military medicine.

In 1902, the Naval Observatory was renamed the Naval Medical School, and later became home to the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery until it was closed through the Department of Defense’s Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC).

Videos courtesy of the Office of Medical History, U.S. Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery

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A Hilltop in Foggy Bottom: Light House In The Sky And Pathfinder Of The Seas

Filed under Scientific Military History, Videos by jtozer on July 16, 2012 at 7:10 am {no comments}

The home of the Old Naval Observatory (1844-1893) and the Navy Medical Department (1894-2012) is where many firsts in science and technology took place.

Videos courtesy of the Office of Medical History, U.S. Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery

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Using Quasars to Measure the Earth

Filed under Space, Videos by jtozer on July 8, 2012 at 7:46 am {no comments}

VLBI, or Very Long Baseline Interferometry, is a technique that uses multiple radio telescopes to very precisely measure the Earth’s orientation.

It was originally invented back in the 1960s to take better pictures of quasars, but scientists soon found out that if you threw the process in reverse, you could measure how the ground beneath the telescopes moves around, how long days really are, and how the Earth wobbles on its axis as it revolves around the sun!

For more information about NASA’s Space Geodesy Project, click here!

NASA is now making movies in 3D! If you want to see this movie in all live-action fun of 3D, click on this link.

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Space Salvaging

Filed under Space, STEM, Videos by jtozer on July 6, 2012 at 7:39 am {one comment}

Check out this artist’s depiction of how a retired satellite’s still usable antenna might one day be salvaged and turned into a new space asset as part of DARPA’s Phoenix program.

The goal of Phoenix is to develop and demonstrate technologies to cooperatively harvest and re-use valuable components from retired, nonworking satellites in GEO to create new space systems at greatly reduced cost.

By robotically removing and re-using GEO-based space apertures and antennas from de-commissioned satellites in the graveyard or disposal orbit, space “junk” could become space “asset.”

Video provided by DARPATV

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Coming In For A Landing

Filed under Featured, STEM, Videos by jtozer on July 4, 2012 at 7:17 am {no comments}

The Air Force's unmanned, reusable space plane landed in the early morning of June 16 at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., a successful conclusion to a record-setting test-flight mission that began March 5 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. (U.S. Air Force file photo)

The Air Force‘s unmanned, reusable space plane landed in the early morning of June 16 at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., a successful conclusion to a record-setting test-flight mission that began March 5, 2011, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.

The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, one of two such vehicles, spent 469 days in orbit to conduct on-orbit experiments, primarily checkout of the vehicle itself.

“The vehicle was designed for a mission duration of about 270 days,” said Lt. Col. Tom McIntyre, the X-37B program manager. “We knew from post-flight assessments from the first mission that OTV-1 could have stayed in orbit longer. So one of the goals of this mission was to see how much farther we could push the on-orbit duration.”

Managed by the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, the X-37B program performs risk reduction, experimentation, and concept of operations development for reusable space vehicle technologies. The X-37B mission is the longest space mission only after the NASA Discovery shuttle program.
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These Robot Legs Were Made For Walkin’

Filed under Robots, Videos by jtozer on June 26, 2012 at 7:40 am {no comments}

"They call me...PETMAN." (No really, they call him Petman)

Remember the $2 million-dollar robot contest I was telling you about a couple of months ago?

Well check out these babies.

This video shows versions of DARPA and Boston Dynamics robots climbing stairs, walking on a treadmill and doing pushups.

A modified platform resembling these robots is expected to be used as government-funded equipment (GFE) for performers in Tracks B and C of the DARPA Robotics Challenge. The GFE Platform is expected to have two arms, two legs, a torso and a head, and will be physically capable of performing all of the tasks required for the disaster response scenarios scheduled in the Challenge.

However, despite the appearance of the robots in the video, the Challenge is decidedly not exclusive to humanoid robot solutions.

Any designs are welcome provided they are compatible with shared human-robot environments, compatible with human tools, and compatible with human operators so that a human without expertise in robotics can give commands and confidently anticipate the response.
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The Opportunity Of A Lifetime

Filed under Space, Videos by jtozer on June 25, 2012 at 7:54 am {no comments}

Ever wonder what it’s like to be part of a NASA team? Well, three student interns have been given the opportunity of a lifetime. They were asked to create a major component for the Balloon Experimental Twin Telescope for Infrared Interferometry (BETTII) mission. Principal Investigator Stephen Rinehart mentored the students and gave them the freedom to be creative in making a star camera, which will study star birth in deep space.

Video provided by the NASA Goddard YouTube Channel

For more info about Goddard Internships, click here.

Or find NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on Facebook. and on Twitter, too!

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Energize!

Filed under Energy, STEM, Videos by jtozer on June 18, 2012 at 7:49 am {no comments}

Kang Xu, an Army Research Laboratory scientist, is one of the inventors responsible for a 30-percent increase in energy density in lithium batteries. (Photo by Conrad Johnson)

Army scientists are squeezing more power from batteries by developing new methods and materials with incredible results.

“Our battery group has recently developed some new materials that could potentially increase the energy density of batteries by 30 percent,” said Cynthia Lundgren, electrochemical branch chief at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory.

This small group of scientists work on energy and power solutions for America’s soldiers.

“This 30 percent is actually quite a big deal. Typically improvements range about one percent a year with a few step changes,” Lundgren said.

For years, researchers studied how batteries work. They looked at how each component reacts with another. At high voltages, batteries are extremely energetic systems.

“There has never been a battery, a single cell, that operated at five volts,” Lundgren explained. “Through our understanding of that interface, we were able to design an additive that you add into the electrolyte that is somewhat of a sacrificial agent. It preferentially reacts with the electrode and forms a stable interface. Now the battery is able to operate at five volts.”

Scientists are calling the additive a major step forward. Since Army researchers Kang Xu and Arthur Cresce designed the substance two years ago, the lab has filed patent applications.
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