DIY Space: Spacecraft in A Bedroom

Wow! Sometimes it’s good to be a kid. Especially the kid of a father who designs AND BUILDS a spacecraft to sleep and play in. This Make article shows the amount of detail and time a crafty father put into building a spacecraft in his son’s bedroom. There are communications, sound effects, lights, and switches. […]

She’s Got a Golden Space Ticket!!

Okay, so this is admittedly a nice public relations stunt from XCOR Aerospace. But for the recipient of this stunt, it’s pretty awesome. Imagine the scenario: you’re a typical comic nerd attending the San Diego Comic Con in 2012. Suddenly, there’s an announcement that certain audience members are eligible for a “golden ticket” for a […]

Has it really been a year?

For the readers and site subscribers, this is kind of space-related. But only because I’m the one who is writing for this site. It’s really a celebration!! Why? It’s because I’ve written a lot of stories, almost every day, for a year! That’s right!! I started themadspaceball.com and my writing on the site a year ago. […]

Space Geckos Saved and Space Surveillance Satellites Launched

These are two follow-ups, one closing out one of last week’s posts and one continuing a post I wrote in February. First, the geckos. I wrote last week about the Russian geckos that were sent into space on a satellite. There was supposed to be some kind of “gecko orgy” that Russian scientists were interested […]

Satellites Track the Re-floating of a Cruise Ship

Yes, the European Union types are using satellites to monitor the re-floating of the Costa Concordia cruise ship. This Airbus Defence & Space post notes that the satellites are involved as part of the Copernicus Emergency Management System (CEMS). They are: TerraSAR-X and Pleiades satellites. TerraSAR-X is a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite that is very accurate […]