astronauts

A picture is worth a thousand words, right? Well, these stunningly beautiful cutting boards are doing all the talking.

When I first stumbled upon that image, my first reaction was that it was an illustration of an astronaut walking on Jupiter. Too colorful to be the moon, not red enough to be Mars. It had to at least be an extra-terrestrial background. Even though Jupiter would be pretty hard to walk on, it looks like a tourist shot straight from the Great Red Spot. Of course, it turns out to be right from our own backyard.

Constructed of wood from … Read more

While many in the tech industry have their eyes on the cloud, Ester Dyson has set her sights on the stars.

The longtime tech pundit and investor on Tuesday said she is putting aside most of her day-to-day activities to undergo full-time astronaut training. She'll be a backup to another member of the tech industry, Charles Simonyi, who is set to make a second trip to the International Space Station next spring.

Dyson and Simonyi are indulging their cosmic interests under the auspices of Space Adventures, a company that arranges space flights for private citizens and in which Dyson … Read more

Astronauts will probably miss out on the luxurious quarters and gourmet meals planned for space tourists, but moon living may be cushier than expected.

Luna Gaia, a habitat designed by an international team of scientists, engineers and graduate students, provides up to a dozen astronauts with fresh vegetables, fish, spacious rooms and clean drinking water (albeit recycled from their own urine).

Read the full report at Popular Science: "The Green Side of the Moon"

Google Earth users now have a really neat layer to play with, straight from the folks at NASA. It comes in the form of new astronaut photography, satellite imagery, and a mode called "Earth City Lights," which shows the entire globe at night. The real standout, however, is the selection of shots from space. Many of these were taken at interesting times on the Earth's landscape like volcanic eruptions, massive forest fires, dust storms, or the unusually thick ice on Lake Michigan during the winter of 2003. Each shot can be blown up and comes with a … Read more

It's just a guess, but something tells us that consumer gadgets promising to kill bacteria aren't quite strong enough for outer space. NASA apparently agrees, so it's developed its own microorganism detector to warn astronauts when alien bugs might be in the vicinity, according to Medgadget.

Technically named (of course) the "Lab-On-a-Chip Application Development?Portable Test System," it's a handheld device designed to detect bacteria or fungi on spacecraft surfaces far more quickly than standard culturing without the assistance of earth-bound labs, NASA says. This fall, an advanced prototype that can identify 130 microorganisms … Read more

Astronaut Sunita L. Williams wouldn't miss the Boston Marathon for anything. Even if she's not on planet Earth.

As luck would have it, space is where Williams will be on April 16, the date of the 2007 Boston Marathon. She'll be competing anyway.

According to the Associated Press, Williams is registered for the Boston Marathon and will compete by running on a treadmill in the International Space Station.

Although Williams will be the first person to run the Boston Marathon in space, she won't be the first off-site competitor. Since 2005, U.S. soldiers in Iraq … Read more