Sidepodspace - Rocket science is difficult

Testing Bruce's patience, and watching on with a hard hat

18/11/2014 by Steven Roy

Everyone who inhabits Sidepodcast knows that if a space rock is about to splatter the Earth you send Bruce Willis up to land on it then blow it to bits. Until this week landing on a space rock had never been done before so Bruce would have had no previous missions to learn from. The European Space Agency's Rosetta vehicle took a decade to arrive at comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. It launched on March 2nd 2004 but did not arrive at the comet until August 6th 2014. I am not sure Bruce would be happy to sit around a capsule that long.

Sidepodspace - Space robots, watery helmets and a new NASA class

Get your science and space fix with news, photos, videos and more

10/09/2013 by Steven Roy

One of the best things NASA has done for a while is a series of Youtube videos called ISS Science Garage. These are presented by Mike Massimino who many of you will know from The Big Bang Theory when he gave Howard the nickname Froot Loops, and Don Pettit who did some of the best educational science videos while he was on the ISS. All of them are on Youtube if you search for them.

Sidepodspace - A drive round the streets of Los Angeles

Featuring Austrians jumping out of space and more

17/10/2012 by Steven Roy

Many people thought when the shuttles stopped flying that activity in space was going to get very dull. Turns out those people could not have been more wrong. This week we have had the first paying commercial space flight, an attempt by an Austrian to take a balloon to 120,000 feet for no other reason than to jump out and the announcement of the first celebrity going to space.

Red Bull Stratos Launch

Mission to the edge of space

09/10/2012 by Davin Sturdivant

Today is one of those days where the limits of human intelligence, imagination and sheer bravery will be tested. In about 30 minutes, professional Austrian skydiver and basejumper, Felix Baumgartner will be attempting to break the record of the highest free-fall on record while exceeding the speed of sound by jumping out a space capsule. He’ll be jumping 23 miles above the earth’s surface, three times higher than what most commercial jets cruise at. The air is so thin that he should break the sound barrier in less than 40 seconds. Why would anyone do this? We do these things because we’re human beings, and it’s in our nature to find our limits before smashing through them. Besides, the whole thing is sponsored by Red Bull and they love doing insane things like this.

Sidepodspace - More scientific than looking at a see-through fish

The latest space news, including new moons for Pluto and a pet on the ISS

02/08/2012 by Steven Roy

It's a while since I last wrote a Sidepodspace post. The shuttle program meant that there were regular reminders that it was about time I wrote one and despite the fact that there are loads of interesting things happening in relation to space there is not the regular or irregular shuttle launch to give me a nudge.

Sidepodspace update - The moon sunk the Titanic

The latest science and space news, from Waterworld to the moon

20/03/2012 by Steven Roy

We have all at some point read or heard a sentence and thought it was one we would never read or hear. It was a comment like that by Christine on a post on Google Plus that lead to me writing this post. The subject was a Japanese plan to build a space elevator to carry passengers to a space station a tenth of the distance to the moon. Beyond the space station a nary orbit and has a high tech cable attaching it to the Earth at the equator. The car that travels up the cable will go at 125 mph which sounds fast but it will take 200 hours to get there which is more than 8 days. It is going to have to be a very special lift carriage to keep people entertained for more than a week.

Supersonic freefall and 200 year old spacecraft engines

Your science and space update includes big jumps and water on Mars

08/02/2012 by Steven Roy

When the shuttle fleet was grounded it was supposed to lead to a lull in space travel and news. In fact the opposite has happened. Now that journalists and bloggers no longer have the low hanging fruit the shuttles provided they have searched out their ladders and stretched up to the more difficult branches.

How many people are in space right now?

Keeping track of who is floating through the outer limits of space

20/11/2011 by Steven Roy

With the end of the space shuttle program and the delay before whatever will follow it becomes operational, it is easy to think the heady days of SidepodSpace are over but nothing could be further from the truth. In fact there is more happening now that at any time since the term SidepodSpace was coined.

Shell V-Power challenge - Your questions answered

A chat with Shell's V-Power fuel expert David Wood

06/12/2009 by Christine

Back in August, we undertook the Sidepodscience Shell V-Power, where we quite unscientifically tested the merits of premium fuels. Once complete we had a few questions we wanted to put to Shell and so did you. We compiled the best and put them to the man who walked us around the Silverstone paddock, Shell V-Power expert David Wood.

Sidepodscience: Quite a challenging challenge

An update on our investigation into Shell versus BP fuel

09/08/2009 by Mr. C

It's been a good month now since we launched the Sidepodscience Shell V-Power Challenge, and we've started to get some results in and have begun drawing conclusions. Although the experiment is by no means over, here are some of the things we've discovered.

Sidepodscience: The Shell V-Power challenge

Launching an investigation into Shell's super special fuel

29/06/2009 by Christine

You may have heard we visited the Shell lab and Ferrari garages during Friday Free Practice at Silverstone. We might have mentioned it once or twice.