NASA

Today in Apple history: Mac sends first email from space

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A crew aboard the Atlantis space shuttle sent the world's first email from space.
This space shuttle crew sent the world's first email from space.
Photo: NASA

August 28: Today in Apple history: Mac sends first email from space August 28, 1991: The first email is sent from space using a Macintosh Portable and AppleLink software.

Sent by the crew of the Atlantis space shuttle, it reads, “Hello Earth! Greetings from the STS-43 Crew. This is the first AppleLink from space. Having a GREAT time, wish you were here,…send cryo and RCS! Hasta la vista, baby,…we’ll be back!”

Perseverance rover tools around Mars with ’90s iMac processor for its brain

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Perseverance rover tools around Mars with '90s iMac processor for its brain
This Mars rover and the brightly colored 1998 iMac have more in common than you might think.
Photo: NASA

A rover that recently landed on the surface of Mars uses the same processor that powered the 1998 iMac. NASA built Perseverance around a chip from decades ago because reliability is more important than being cutting edge when the computer is 130 million miles away.

Grab this out-of-this-world SpaceX wallpaper [Wallpaper Wednesday]

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"Human Kind" by Tristan Eaton would make a great wallpaper for your iPhone.

Today was supposed to be the day that NASA and Elon Musk’s SpaceX sent a manned mission to the International Space Station — the first launch from American soil in nine years, and the first manned rocket launch by a private company.

Instead, due to bad weather, the launch was scrubbed and rescheduled for Saturday afternoon. If it goes off as planned, some striking artwork by Tristan Eaton will accompany astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley into space.

The pieces Eaton made are called “Human Kind” and we are highlighting them for Wallpaper Wednesday.

Train NASA’s supercomputer by playing an underwater voyage iPhone game

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NASA
NASA's game looks basic, but it does a world of good.
Photo: NASA

NASA needs your help on its mission to save the planet’s coral reefs. The US space agency created a new video game for iPhone, iPad and Mac that sets players off on an underwater voyage to map coral reefs around the world.

Dubbed NeMO-Net, NASA’s game uses real 3D imaging data obtained during recent drone flybys in Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, and elsewhere. Players set off in their own ship, the Nautilus, and scan the ocean floors identifying and classifying different corals.

NASA’s solar eclipse coverage, Data Wing, and other awesome apps of the week

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Awesome Apps
'Appy weekend everyone!
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Want to know which app to download for everything you need to know about this week’s total solar eclipse? We’ve singled out one of the best options as part of our latest “Awesome Apps” roundup.

We’ve also got a great update to a brilliant iOS fighting game, a story-driven racing title, and a big improvement to ESPN’s app for every sport lover out there. Check out our choices below.

Apple’s self-driving car filmed cruising California highway

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lexus
The 2015 Lexus RX450h is Apple's vehicle of choice.
Photo: Lexus

The first video footage of Apple’s self-driving car has already surfaced on the internet, just over a month after the company first received permission to drive on public roads.

Apple’s self-driving car is actually a Lexus RX450h outfitted with sensors powered by Apple’s own autonomous driving software. Video of the car in action reveals Apple’s project is already highway-worthy as the company races to catch up to its competition.

Watch it cruise the road with ease:

Apple hires NASA expert to help its AR tech achieve lift off

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Future Apple technologies?
Photo: OpsLab JPL

Apple has hired Jeff Norris, a former Mission Operations Innovation Office at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, to work on augmented reality technology.

In his previous role, Norris worked on new ways to control spacecraft and robots in space using a combination of VR and AR technologies. Norris joined NASA back in 1999.

Ex-NASA engineers lead Apple’s self-driving car team

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lexus
The 2015 Lexus RX450h is Apple's vehicle of choice.
Photo: Lexus

Apple is tapping into some of the brilliant minds behind NASA’s recent project for its self-driving car concept, according to new documents that unmask some of the scientists on the team.

A new filing from the California DMV reveals the identity of the six drivers listed on Apple’s self-driving permit, some of whom weren’t even known to be working for Cupertino.

Why Apple is the new NASA

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Apple Watch swimming app
Apple analyzed the performance of 700 swimmers to develop new Workout app routines.
Photo: Apple

Thirty minutes into Apple’s special event last week, one tidbit of information blew my mind.

Onstage, Apple Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams was talking about the Workout app on the new “swim-proof” Apple Watch Series 2 and the effort the company put into advancing the software that makes the fitness device tick. The amount of research deployed, all in the pursuit of updating a segment of an app many Apple Watch wearers will never use, offers a peek into the enormous resources that Apple R&D commands.

It paints Apple, with its enduring emphasis on developing new materials, manufacturing processes and sophisticated software, as a scientific force to be reckoned with — a new NASA for the 21st century.

Apple celebrates NASA’s Juno mission with hypnotic space video

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Music and space have a lot more in common than you'd think.
Music and space have a lot more in common than you'd think.
Photo: Apple

NASA’s Juno mission is set to arrive at Jupiter on July 4th, so to celebrate the space agency did the most sensible thing it could think of: team up with Apple and Weezer to make awesome videos about space and music.

While Weezer created the patriotic rock anthem “I Love the USA” to mark the occasion, Apple created a hypnotic short film called “Visions of Harmony” that explores the link between space travel and music. The soundtrack for the hypnotic film was created by Nine Inch Nails frontman and Apple VP Trent Reznor and collaborator Atticus Ross.

Watch it below:

Hello Sitter, Perchang, and other awesome apps of the week

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'Appy weekend
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

It’s the weekend again, and what better way to spend the remaining hours of Sunday than by checking out the best new apps — and major app updates — to hit the App Store? From a stunning real-time feed of Earth from space to a tremendous Rube Goldberg-style puzzler, you’re almost certain to find something of interest in this week’s picks.

Check them out below.

NASA’s Apple TV app gives you realtime view of Earth from the stars

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HEADING
Your own private window from the International Space Station!
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Apple loves talking about Apple TV’s impressive screensavers, which let viewers fly through some of the most jaw-dropping locations on the planet. You know what’s even more impressive than the world’s most gorgeous locations, though? The most dazzling locations out of this world!

That’s the concept behind NASA’s stunning new Apple TV app, which offers realtime views of the Earth as glimpsed from the International Space Station, among other space-age features.

Bored at your job? NASA is looking for new astronauts

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The job of astronaut may require some travel.
The job of astronaut may require some travel.
Photo: NASA/Flickr CC

When companies list “frequent travel may be required” in their job postings, they usually mean flying business class to the annual convention in Omaha and staying at the airport Ramada.

It’s a good business practice to let candidates know this up front — especially when the company doing the hiring is NASA and the openings are for astronauts.

NASA announced Monday it is looking for people with the Right Stuff for work aboard the International Space Station and flights in new commercial spacecraft and well-traveled Russian Soyuz ships. Oh yeah, a trip to Mars is said to be in the works.

Google’s mind-bending quantum computer actually works

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Quantum computers will lead to advancements in artificial intelligence.
Photo: D-Wave Systems Inc.
D-Wave 1000Q quantum computing - lower res1
Quantum computers will lead to advancements in artificial intelligence. (Photo courtesy of D-Wave Systems Inc.)

A major breakthrough from Google’s quantum-computing team could eventually lead to artificial-intelligence systems complex enough to make sci-fi nerds lose sleep in fear of the robot apocalypse. The breakthrough sounds simple, but it has massive implications: The quantum computer the team co-operates with NASA actually works.

And not only does it work, but it can do the same process up to 100 million times faster than its predecessors.

Future spacecraft could repair its own skin

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The International Space Station occasionally has to dodge pieces of debris floating in space.
The International Space Station occasionally has to dodge pieces of debris floating in space.
Photo: NASA

To see a satellite image of the field of space debris that floats around the earth is like looking at fleas swarming an unfortunate dog. About a half-million pieces of debris are the size of a marble, but even tiny pieces that travel more than 17,000 miles per hour could be deadly to a spacecraft with astronauts.

Researchers from the University of Michigan and NASA have developed a self-healing material that could instantly plug up a hole in the hull of a ship just milliseconds after impact.

Be the first in your family to land on Mars

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I've got my ticket to Mars. How about you?
I've got my ticket to Mars. How about you?
Photo: NASA

There’s a good chance I will be the first Pierini to land on Mars. No, I did not win some contest that sends me on a one-way trip to the Red Planet in the name of reality TV.

But I did register my name with NASA to have it embedded on a microchip headed to Mars. Now it’s your turn.

NASA’s space shuttle to fly again – or at least pieces of it

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NASA recently pulled the water tanks from the space shuttle Endeavor.
NASA recently pulled the water tanks from the space shuttle Endeavor.
Photo: California Science Center

If you get to a museum to see one of the shuttles that actually flew in space, your jaw may drop. Just don’t mind the guys pulling parts from it.

NASA recently sent engineers to the California Science Center in Los Angeles to dust off the mothballs of the space shuttle Endeavor and remove four water storage tanks for future use aboard the International Space Station.

NASA needs a smartwatch app for its astronauts

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ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti worked with iPad during a recent mission on the International Space Station. NASA wants astronauts to start using smartwatches for some of their tasks.
ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti worked with iPad during a recent mission on the International Space Station. NASA wants astronauts to start using smartwatches for some of their tasks.
Photo: NASA

There’s a smartwatch app for almost everything, but very few are useful to the men and women who work in microgravity.

So NASA is asking the pubic to design a smartwatch app for its astronauts to do everything from keeping them organized during science experiments to alerting them to space debris approaching.

NASA flyby gives closer look at Pluto’s mysterious ‘heart’

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When NASA shared this image of Pluto with its Instagram followers Tuesday, scientists called it a love letter.
When NASA shared this image of Pluto with its Instagram followers Tuesday, scientists called it a love letter.
Photo: NASA/APL/SwRI

We downgraded its status, but Pluto still showed us its heart.

A spartan but warm-toned orb with a prominent heart-shaped terrain came into clear view Tuesday morning after NASA’s New Horizons snapped a picture some 476,000 miles from its surface after nearly a decade of travel.

Pluto was still considered a planet when New Horizon’s took off in 2006 for the end of our solar system. Since then, astronomers changed its status to a dwarf planet, but that did not diminish the excitement scientists and fans of star-gazing as the probe approached Pluto and its moons.

Hubble finds football-shaped moons in the end zone of our solar system

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An artist's rendering shows the wobbble and oblong shape of Pluto's moon, Nix.
An artist's rendering shows the wobbble and oblong shape of Pluto's moon, Nix.
Illustration: NASA

Just because Pluto lost its planetary status doesn’t mean it’s any less interesting to astronomers.

NASA on Wednesday reported two football-shaped moons that wobble so unpredictably that the sun could rise in a different direction every day from either of the moons.

The Hubble Telescope recorded the oddball orbits of the oblong moons Nix and Hydra, which wobble because they are embedded in a constantly shifting gravitational field created by dwarf planet Pluto and its largest moon, Charon. Pluto and Charon share a common center of gravity.

Screaming ‘fire!’ in a crowded Russian space capsule is useless

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ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen, left, and Russian cosmonaut Sergei Volkov work through artificial fire aboard a Soyuz simulator.
ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen, left, and Russian cosmonaut Sergei Volkov work through artificial fire aboard a Soyuz simulator.

A first-class flight in a Soyuz space capsule is rocky, reliable and rather snug. An astronaut sits in a semi-fetal position, works the controls with a stick and feels a pretty heavy G load, especially on reentry.

So imagine if a fire breaks out on the Soyuz spacecraft. There’s no extinguisher, no exit and no help to call.

ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen narrated a video showing he and Russian cosmonaut Sergei Volkov going through a simulated fire on a capsule to train for an upcoming flight to the International Space Station.

This toilet demo shows how astronauts boldly go in space

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Astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti took time out from her work aboard the International Space Station to explain how astronauts go to the bathroom in zero gravity. Photo: ESA/YouTube
Astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti took time out from her work aboard the International Space Station to explain how astronauts go to the bathroom in zero gravity. Photo: ESA/YouTube

We have a reinvigorated interest in the mysteries of space. Astronaut Scott Kelly is just beginning a record-breaking stint in zero gravity, a space probe is about to fly by Pluto and manned missions to an asteroid and Mars are in the pipeline.

There is also the ongoing science on how to go to the bathroom in space, where things tend to float.

Astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti explained that mystery over the weekend, when she took time from her work on the International Space Station to give a video tour of the bathroom (see below) and delicately describe going Numbers 1 and 2 in zero gravity.

Apollo mission patches put stars in the eyes of a family

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The Apollo 11 mission patch. Photo: NASA/Neil F. Smith/YouTube
The Apollo 11 mission patch. Photo: NASA/Neil F. Smith/YouTube

I had the kind of dad who brought his work home with him. That was exciting since he was in the business of putting men on the moon.

Each time there was a scheduled launch, my two brothers and I could always expect our dad to come home with mission patches. Robert Pierini was an engineer in the late 1960s and early ’70s with an electronics company in Milwaukee that developed the guidance system for the Apollo mission.

So when filmmaker Neil F. Smith recently posted a video to YouTube, bringing animated life to each mission emblem, I immediately felt the same rush I had as a kid when I held a patch in my hand.

NASA’s new Mars mission technology looks like a flying saucer

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NASA is testing a saucer-like space craft that could bring heavy payloads to Mars. Photo illustration: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA is testing a saucer-like spacecraft that could bring heavy payloads to Mars. Photo illustration: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Flying saucers from Mars is the stuff of science fiction. But a flying saucer from Earth is part of the mission to get astronauts to the Martian surface.

NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory completed a successful spin test of a saucer-shaped experimental craft in front of a live web audience Tuesday. The saucer will next lift off by balloon from Hawaii, where from 120,000 feet it will be dropped to test a new kind of parachute and an inflatable Kevlar ring to add drag for a slower descent.

Help NASA solve space’s mysteries with this asteroid app

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The Big Dipper rises behind the Catalina Sky Survey  telescope. Photo: Catalina Sky Survey/University of Arizona
The Big Dipper rises behind the Catalina Sky Survey telescope. Photo: Catalina Sky Survey/University of Arizona

There are millions of asteroids in the Solar System and relatively few astronomers to track them. They’d hate to miss that one dangerous rogue headed on a collision course with Earth.

So NASA has made it easier for the amateur stargazer to record and compare their discoveries and put extra eyes on the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

NASA and Planetary Resources Inc. have developed a computer program that is based on an algorithm that analyzes images for potential asteroids. The new asteroid hunting application, available for free download here, was announced Sunday by NASA at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas.