Russia Lied About How The First Man In Space Died (Jalopnik)

On March 27, 1968, the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin, died. He was in a MiG-15 on a routine training flight with his instructor when his plane crashed. The official explanation has been that he had to avoid a "foreign" object, but new information from Cosmonaut Alexi Leonov tells a different story.P

Leonov was the first man to walk in space, and much later was also on the committee that investigated Gagarin's crash. Leonov has been trying to reveal the truth of what happened for over 20 years, and the information has only now been de-classified, prompting Leonov to explain the truth of what happened in an interview with Russia Today.P

Of the official "foreign object" explanation — which could mean a goose, a hot air balloon, a squirrel in a home-made bark ultralight — Leonov says “That conclusion is believable to a civilian – not to a professional,” and reveals that the truth is that another fighter jet, a Sukhoi Su-15, flew much too close to Gagarin's MiG.P

The issue was that the Su-15 was flying far lower than it was supposed to. As Leonov tells RT:P

“We knew that a Su-15 was scheduled to be tested that day, but it was supposed to be flying at the altitude of 10,000 meters or higher, not 450-500 meters. It was a violation of the flight procedure.”P

When the Su-15 flew so close to Gagarin's plane, the passage caused the MiG to go into an uncontrollable spin, similar to that scene in Top Gun I bet at least half of you are picturing right now. Leonov explains to Russia Today:
P

“While afterburning the aircraft reduced its echelon at a distance of 10-15 meters in the clouds, passing close to Gagarin, turning his plane and thus sending it into a tailspin – a deep spiral, to be precise – at a speed of 750 kilometers per hour,"P

The involved and intense 40+ year cover up was mostly to hide that such a lapse in air-traffic logistics could have happened so close to Moscow and to someone so important. In fact, Gagarin was deemed too valuable a public relations tool to ever be sent into space again, especially after the death of Vladimir Komarov in Soyuz 1, a mission Gagarin himself felt was launched prematurely.P

SEXPANDP

Gagarin had proven to be a PR handful after his flight, behaving in ways the Soviet leadership found problematic, such as diving out of a second-story window when his wife caught him with another woman. Because of the Soviets' desire to keep Gagarin as a pure propaganda tool, there has been much speculation that the accident that took his life was planned by the KGB, along with many other conspiracy theories.P

The truth is more mundane, but no less tragic. P

One of the conditions of finally allowing Leonov to reveal the truth is that the Su-15's pilot remains anonymous. As Leonov wisely points out,P

I was asked not to disclose the pilot’s name. He is a good test pilot…It will fix nothing,”

source - jalopnik.com 

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Lizard on Mars! Or is it just a rock plus wild imagination again? (ufosightingsdaily)

A science blogger with a keen sense of vision claims to have spotted a lizard meandering around Mars. 

The unknown spotter is from Japan and alerted the website, UFO Sightings Daily, of the unusual sight. 

The rather unbelievable and completely unsubstantiated claim has caused some excitable conspiracy theorists to fear that the NASA could be planting life on the planet for scientific testing.

The creature, judged to be either a rat or lizard, appeared in photos that were released by the American space agency in March. 

The photos were captured by a camera on NASA's Curiosity Rover.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2332516/Sharp-eyed-blogger-excitable-imagination-claims-spotted-LIZARD-Mars.html#ixzz2UfMQ3fsB 

Unpack a Meal of Astronaut Space Food (Smithsonian Magazine)

Surely I’m not the only one whose primary memory of childhood trips to Washington, D.C. focuses less on my exposure to the splendid pageant of democracy, or soaking in the accumulated treasure of America’s cultural history but, rather, on a 3- by 3-inch foil-wrapped block of something called astronaut ice cream. This was before freeze-dried ice cream had become standard museum gift-shop fare—obviously way before the advent of www.astronauticecreamshop.com. The highlight of a weekend in the nation’s capital was unwrapping that weirdly light packet, revealing the tricolored brick within. It had the consistency of Styrofoam and left a strange, slick film on the back of your teeth; even at that age, if pressed, I would have had to admit that regular, frozen Earth ice cream was in every way superior. But astronaut ice cream came with the ultimate value-added, better than hot fudge or peanuts: I was eating what astronauts ate!

As it turns out, I wasn’t. Or, rather, I was eating what only very few astronauts ever ate (unless, of course, they too grew up visiting the museum gift shop). Freeze-dried ice cream did make an appearance on the Apollo 7 mission, in 1968, but was scratched from the space program soon after. The astronauts, it seems, didn’t like the stuff. The good news is that, as the Smithsonian’s collection amply demonstrates, the history of feeding men and women in space is plenty fascinating without it.

The first thing you have to realize about space, says Jennifer Levasseur, who curates the some-485 items of space food at the National Air and Space Museum, is that it changes everything about what you can and cannot eat. Knives, for instance, pose a hazard; an accidental puncture of equipment could be catastrophic. In the highly flammable, oxygen-rich environment of a space ship, no packaging or utensils can run the risk of creating a spark. Famously, a corned-beef sandwich was smuggled aboard Gemini 3 by pilot John W. Young. This may have been seen as a triumph for devotees of delicatessen, but it was seriously frowned upon by the NASA powers that be.

Like a kid’s lunchbox at the end of the school day, the collection Levasseur administers is in some ways a barometer of failed foods. That is, leftovers—freeze-dried packets returned to Earth, unopened and summarily rejected. (Three signature NASM examples are on offer here : beef-barbecue cubes, fruitcake and coffee with cream—unused from Neil Armstrong’s meal allotments, avoided during the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon he commanded in 1969.) “We have a lot of instant breakfasts,” she says. “I get the feeling these were the kinds of guys who just woke up and drank coffee.” Foods transformed into totally unrecognizable forms also fared poorly—which may explain the failure of astronaut ice cream. “There was a ‘bacon bar’ that looks something like a granola bar,” adds Levasseur. “We have quite a lot of those.”

full story and gallery - smithsonianmag.com

Chris Hadfield - Space Oddity

Gravity - Official Teaser Trailer [HD]

NASA has discovered the most Earth-like planets yet (io9.com)

"NASA's Kepler mission has discovered a trio of distant planets that look remarkably like our own. Belonging to solar systems located 1,200 and 2,700 light years from Earth, the three Earth-sized worlds have been spotted orbiting in the so-called Goldilocks Zone of their parent stars – the "just-right" range at which liquid water, and life, can exist on a planet's surface. 

NASA's Kepler mission has been hunting for worlds beyond our solar system for a little over four years now, and it's been enormously successful. In that time, it's spotted literally thousands of planetary candidates. Today, three distant worlds –dubbed Kepler-62f, Kepler-62e, and Kepler-69c –have achieved planetary confirmation, while joining an elite cadre of so-called habitable planets. 

Kepler-62f (an artist's depiction of which appears above) and 62e possess radii just 1.4- and 1.6-times that of Earth's, respectively, and orbit a star some 1,200 light years away, along with three other newly discovered planets. Kepler-69c, on the other hand, has a radius 1.7-times that of Earth, and orbits a star around 2,700 light years distant from our own. Together, the three newly discovered worlds have become the second,third, and fourth known bodies to wear the badge of "Earth-like, habitable zone planet."

more info - io9.com

Famous F-1 Engine was recovered by Jeff Bezos

"What an incredible adventure. We are right now onboard the Seabed Worker headed back to Cape Canaveral after finishing three weeks at sea, working almost 3 miles below the surface. We found so much. We’ve seen an underwater wonderland – an incredible sculpture garden of twisted F-1 engines that tells the story of a fiery and violent end, one that serves testament to the Apollo program. We photographed many beautiful objects in situ and have now recovered many prime pieces. Each piece we bring on deck conjures for me the thousands of engineers who worked together back then to do what for all time had been thought surely impossible."

full story and more photos - bezosexpeditions.com