Nice launch and congratulations to SpaceX!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37459323

As I predicted back in January [SpaceX: Finally some new news.] SpaceX is going to be attempting a launch of their Falcon 9 rocket this Friday.  This is great news. 

The remaining hurdle has been waiting for Air Force approval as they check that SpaceX has the proper capability to terminate the flight (i.e. blow up the rocket effectively) if it veers from its flight plan.  This is what is termed the Flight Termination System or FTS.

Today [6/1] we completed end to end testing of the Falcon 9 as required by the Air Force Range and everything was nominal. Later this evening, we will finish final system connections for the FTS. Tomorrow we plan to rollout in the morning, and erect the vehicle in the afternoon. On Friday, the targeted schedule is as follows:

Friday 4 June 2010
Launch Window Opens: 11:00 AM Eastern / 8:00 AM Pacific / 1500 UTC
Launch window lasts 4 hours. SpaceX has also reserved a second launch day on Saturday 5 June, with the same hours.

There will be a live webcast of the launch here.

Let’s all hope it goes off clean and easy.  SpaceX is one of the cornerstones of the new Obama space policy which is intended to rely more and more on private industry.  Elon Musk [SpaceX CEO] has positioned his company ideally to benefit from the shift in policy.

After years fo research and development, the J Craig Ventner Institute has finally succeeded in creating a living organism from synthetic DNA.  the organism was created by inerting a complete genome of labratory created DNA into a host cell from which the DNA had been removed.  The cell was able to replicate using only the synthetic DNA.

The hope is this synthetic organism will become a labratory platform for research into DNA and the origins of life. 

Today, some drugs and other organic compounds can be synthesized by inserting sequences of DNA into a model organism such as e. coli.  There is always some risk of contamination from the host organism, so obviously using a synthetic host organism at least guarantees that any contimanation coudl only come from an organism who's complete genome is well understood.

Jupiter has recently emerged beltless after spending the winter on the opposite side of the sun from the Earth.  The reasons behind our largest planet’s change in fashionremain unclear at this time.  Neighborhood sources interviewed expressed concern that with insufficient support, the planet could be vulnerable to a surprise pantsing, as Pluto is well-known for its practical jokes.

Jupiter did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

Now Elon has a vested interest in the privatization of the space program but he also  has a lot of the current knowledge of the industry that objective observers do not like your’s truly.

His statement focuses on the economics of the program which, if that is what you focus on exclusively, make the decision an easy one to cancel.  And yet there is also the inspirational aspects to a robust manned program run directly by NASA.  I’m unsure if a private space program will inspire as much as one run by the USA directly.

Regardless it is what it is now.  Go read Elon’s statement here: [Space X: Elon Musk statement]

Carbon Nanotubes are one of the most talked about inventions in nanotechnology…but, what are they good for?  There are pie in the sky dreams of using carbon nanotube fiber to create the space elevator ribbon, there are attempts to line it up as a near superconductor.  But creating multi-mile long cohesive strips of the stuff is going to be hard.

On a smaller scale it appears have some applications that might actually be achievable in the short term such as a synthetic muscle.

Artificial muscles made from carbon nanotubes are 100 times stronger than human muscles. [link]

Trippy.

It turns out I might be wrong about my prediction for a launch: “So for my money that means May or June in actuality.  (heh).”

Because they just ran a successful test fire of the Falcon 9 last Saturday 3.13.2010.

With the success of Saturday's "hot fire" test, the Falcon 9 could lift off for the first time as early as April 12.

Cool.  Link to the news item: [MSNBC]

Very cool video of an Atlas 5 launch [launch details here] that leaves ripples in the clouds as it breaks the sound barrier.  If you notice there is a “Sun Dog” there too that gets dispersed from the sound shock waves.

Really Cool.

Sonic Boom Meets Sun Dog from barbara tomlinson on Vimeo.

Video from Kennedy Space Center Apollo Center February 11, 2010. Launch of Solar Dynamics Observatory on an Atlas V rocket. About 1 minute 14 seconds after liftoff the vehicle went supersonic. The shock wave obliterated a sun dog. It was really beautiful, and poetic for this mission. A sun dog or parhelion is a bright rainbow effect in the sky caused by refraction of sunlight through ice crystals.

This is an item that holds double interest.

1. It is a cool display of the Shuttle Launch profile with three items in view on the page.  The Shuttle STS-116 launch video and three telemetry data displays: Speed, Altitude, Downrange distance.

2. It is an implementation of cool HTML 5.0 specification page markup.  The video is embedded in the page as a <video> tag (not the <object> tag nor the <embed> tag) and the graphs are all implemented by the <canvas> tag (again no flash).

This is all really cool stuff.

Scientists have analyzed data from the Mini-SAR radar on India's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft to discover nearly 600 million tons of water ice locked in permanently shadowed craters near the moon's north pole.

Lunar water is a resource of inestimable value. Reserves of this volume would be enough to support a permanent colony on the moon and could even be used as fuel for missions to Mars, the asteroids, and beyond.  Water is the key to the exploration and exploitation of natural resources in space.  Finding this much water on the moon is unbelievably great!