NeRD – Page 24 – NeRDs Moonbase

Estonia joins Artemis Accords as moon-exploration coalition agrees to continue outreach efforts

October 15, 2024 NeRD

MILAN — The nations signed up to the Artemis Accords are looking to spread the word on common principles and best practices on exploring outer space. Estonia became the 45th country to sign up to the Accords just ahead of the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) here, which opened on Monday (Oct. 14). But engagement and enlargement efforts won’t stop there. The Artemis Accords — a set of statements that set out common principles, guidelines and best practices for exploration of the moon and beyond — had its third heads-of-agencies meeting…

Dr. Rickey Shyne Named Crain’s Notable Black Leader

October 15, 2024 NeRD

1 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Dr. Rickey Shyne is responsible for leading a staff of approximately 1,100 engineers and scientists. Credit: NASA Dr. Rickey J. Shyne, director of Research and Engineering at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, has been named one of Crain’s Cleveland Business’ 2024 Notable Black Leaders. Shyne is responsible for leading a staff of approximately 1,100 engineers and scientists, and managing research and development in propulsion, communications, power, and materials and structures for extreme environments in support of the agency’s missions.…

Spooky on the Space Station

October 15, 2024 NeRD

4 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Science in Space: October 2024 Cultures around the world celebrate Halloween on Oct 31. In many places, in addition to people wearing costumes and eating candy, this day is associated with spooky decorating using fake blood, skeletons, flies, and spiders, some of them glow-in-the-dark. Crew members on the International Space Station have been known to indulge in a bit of dressing up and candy consumption to mark the day, and the research they conduct year-round occasionally involves these iconic…

Europa Clipper Begins Journey to Jupiter’s Icy Moon

October 15, 2024 NeRD

A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket carrying NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft lifts off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 12:06 p.m. EDT on Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. After launch, the spacecraft plans to fly by Mars in February 2025, then back by Earth in December 2026, using the gravity of each planet to increase its momentum. With help of these “gravity assists,” Europa Clipper will achieve the velocity needed to reach Jupiter in April 2030.

OpenET: Balancing Water Supply and Demand in the West

October 14, 2024 NeRD

15 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) At the end of 2022, 65 percent of the Western United States was in severe drought, the result of a two decades long mega drought in the Colorado River Basin that had captured headlines around the world. However, it was flooding, not drought, that was making headlines when we began our research for this story about OpenET, a revolutionary new online platform geared towards helping farmers and water managers monitor and reduce water use in watersheds where supplies were…

‘Predator: Hunting Grounds’ scores a striking makeover for PS5 and Xbox X/S

October 14, 2024 NeRD

Rising production costs for A-list video game projects are entering the stratosphere these days, but one way for publishers to deliver new products without going bankrupt is to upscale older games with a modern makeover for next-gen consoles. While we’re still waiting to hear about the next entry in the “Predator” movie franchise, the most recent Predator video game — the four-year-old “Predator: Hunting Grounds — recently got the deluxe treatment with a shiny new update for modern consoles.” This revamped game entered into the sci-fi horror gaming sphere on…

James Webb Space Telescope takes center stage in ‘Infinite Cosmos’. Author Ethan Siegel explains it all (exclusive)

October 14, 2024 NeRD

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has been an astonishing piece of technology for the advancement of humankind’s understanding of the universe, and the source of awe-inspiring images of black holes, galaxies, and nebulae it’s returned to scientists and astronomers since it was deployed into a solar orbit back in 2022. “Infinite Cosmos: Visions From the James Webb Space Telescope” is a 224-page hardback published Oct. 8, 2024 from National Geographic that breaks down the history of this remarkable $10 billion observatory platform from conception to deployment, and reveals the…

HTC threw us into the Squid Games to preview their new VR headset — the Vive Focus Vision

October 14, 2024 NeRD

It’s fair to say that virtual reality has transitioned from a flashy wonder technology of the future into something that we’re just kind of used to. New VR headsets are constantly trickling out, and while some of them cause a big splash because of their outrageous price tag (looking at you Apple Vision Pro), they’ve still yet to truly deliver on the space-age promise of the technology that will help it smash through into the mainstream. Now HTC is here with their latest VR headset — the HTC Vive Focus…

Liftoff! NASA’s Europa Clipper Sails Toward Ocean Moon of Jupiter

October 14, 2024 NeRD

NASA Spotlight: Felipe Valdez, an Inspiring Engineer

October 14, 2024 NeRD

3 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Felipe Valdez, a NASA engineer at Armstrong Flight Research Center’s Dale Reed Subscale Flight Research Laboratory, stands next to a subscale model of the Hybrid Quadrotor (HQ-90) aircraft. NASA / Charles Genaro Vavuris Felipe Valdez is someone who took advantage of every possible opportunity at NASA, working his way from undergraduate intern to his current job as a flight controls engineer. Born in the United States but raised in Mexico, Valdez faced significant challenges growing up. “My mom worked…