Nine Baud Tech News

A remote West Texas spaceport being built and bankrolled by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos launched a test rocket Monday for the first time.

“There was a launch, a one- or two-minute event,” Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Roland Herwig said from the agency’s office in Oklahoma City. He had no details.

The exact nature of the 6:30 a.m. launch or the type of spacecraft was not immediately known.

A Houston-based spokesman for Blue Origin, the Bezos-owned firm developing the private commercial space venture, did not immediately respond to a telephone inquiry from The Associated Press.

Cool stuff! Hopefully this worked. The space race needs more players.

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Tags: Space, Rocket, Jeff Bezos, Test Launch

Thishad me in stitches. Duct tape is the glue that holds the world together. And now, it has made the leap to the final frontier.

The spacewalkers hope they can use Kapton tape to hold the backpack latches in place when they make their next spacewalk on Wednesday. The tape is like duct tape but slippery and able to withstand both frigid cold and fiery hot temperatures.

“We’re not called upon to get into any tight quarters, as far as we know yet, so I think with a little bit of tape, and the fact that we’re doing it out in the open most of the time, means we’re good to go,” Sellers told The Associated Press via satellite Tuesday.

Things like this make me smile when I’m longing to be out of the office.

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Tags: Duct Tape, Space Walk, Repairs in Space, NASA, Kapton Tape

The space shuttle Discovery took off today on its mission to the ISS. This was the first launch ever on a July 4th. This is just the second launch since the Columbia disaster in 2003. During liftoff several pieces of foam were seen falling from the shuttle. If you recall this led in part to the Columbia disaster.

“About two minutes and 47 seconds give or take, we saw three perhaps four pieces come off,” said Wayne Hale, shuttle program manager.

He said it was unclear whether it was insulating foam or “something else” but said it was too high to cause damage to the craft.

I hope that they are able to safely return home.

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Tags: Discovery, Space Shuttle, Shuttle Launch, ISS