September 28, 2019

Health-Hazard Military Dump Site Confirmed Near Patrick AFB (Source: Florida Today)
As people were getting sick and desperate, the military was adamant: They never owned, leased or used an old dump site just south of Patrick Air Force Base. Now, 28 years later, the Department of Defense has reversed its long-standing position and admits its forces are responsible for whatever military waste might be buried there. This about-face is because military researchers recently unearthed some 70-odd-year-old documents seemingly out of nowhere.

The letters and memos were buried among 150 boxes in several national archives. Their discovery has proved to be the key in getting Washington to take responsibility and ultimately, depending on what's unearthed, clean up a long-buried — many fear toxic — military mess just south of Patrick Air Force Base. (9/27)

Cool NASA Concept Envisions a Shapeshifting Robot to Explore Saturn’s Moon Titan (Source: Gizmodo)
Why send one robot to explore a world when you can send a whole bunch all at once? Such is the thinking behind NASA’s highly conceptual Shapeshifter—a modular, morphing, self-assembling robot capable of deploying several smaller machines. The Shapeshifter concept is currently being developed as part of NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program, which encourages researchers to devise creative new ways of exploring distant words. The morphing bot is being designed and built at NASA JPL. (9/27)

Astrophysicists: There May Be Black Holes Orbiting Our Sun (Source: Futurism)
Scientists have long speculated that a “planet 9,” in orbit very far from the Sun, could explain why other bodies in our solar system have strange, hard-to-explain orbits. Now, a pair of astrophysicists are suggesting a strange twist on that idea: that a black hole — or even a number of them — could be orbiting our Sun right now, way beyond Neptune. (9/26)

How Many Humans Could the Moon Support? (Source: Live Science)
It's the year 3000. Having used up all of Earth's natural resources, humans have become a spacefaring race and established colonies on the moon. Vast, sealed domes cluster across its surface, housing cities populated by hundreds of thousands of people. This cold, gray rock has somehow become humanity's new home. Of course, this is pure science fiction. But no vision of the future is complete without an exterrestrial colony of humans, and since the moon is the closest celestial body to our planet, it's the easiest to imagine as our futuristic home.

But does this vision align with reality? Will the moon one day be a hot property, and if so, how many people could its unwelcoming landscape realistically support? One way to answer that question is to simply consider the moon's surface area. At a quarter the size of our planet, the moon could theoretically fit a quarter of Earth's current population, at Earth's current density. But how many people could fit on the moon's surface is a very different question than how many people that world could sustainably support. (9/28)

SLS Practice Rocket Arrives at Kennedy Space Center (Source: Florida Today)
Under clear skies and a light breeze, a massive barge sailed into Kennedy Space Center Friday, carrying with it hardware that will help the spaceport prepare for the debut of NASA's Space Launch System rocket. Topped with a "pathfinder" mockup of the SLS core stage, the 310-foot-long Pegasus barge sailed into KSC's historic turn basin – located near the Vehicle Assembly Building – and docked at 3:45 p.m. after a week-long journey from Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. The pathfinder is identical in size, shape and weight to the core stage of SLS and will give teams practice with stacking and fit maneuvers after its move to the VAB on Monday. (9/278)

This Space Geek Built a DIY Radio Telescope for $150 (Source: Boing Boing)
David Schneider built his own radio telescope out of roof flashing, an empty paint thinner can, a free software-defined radio app, USB receiver, and a length of coaxial cable. The whole project cost him less than $150 and he's already used it to detect galactic hydrogen and monitor the motion of our Milky Way galaxy's spiral arms. (With a radio telescope, you look for and measure radio-frequency radiation emitted by astronomical objects.) (9/27)