It isn’t often that aircraft fly over the National Mall in Washington DC at low altitudes. Any aircraft that attempts to do so without permission would be blown out of the sky before making. NASA and the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum received fly by permission to carry some very special cargo: the Space Shuttle Discovery. The sub-1500 ft altitude pass took the iconic vehicle over crowds watching from Washington DC while mounted on top of a modified 747 as it heads towards it permanent home at the Smithsonian’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, VA. …

One of our missions is to help to educate the world about technology and science falls into the category as something that we want the world to know. It’s not our core but it’s a part of what drives that core. The video below is relatively old but utterly amazing in the way it simplifies local space. Worthy of a 10-minute watch. …

At first glance, it doesn’t seem real. This video of time lapse sequences from the International Space Station crews of expedition 28 and 29 use a special low-light 4K-camera. Shot from August through October, 2011, these spectacular images make the world seem small and wonderful while highlighting the awe-inspiring view from the ISS. If you ever dreamed of being an astronaut, do not watch the video. It’s bound to re-ignite the flames that once drove you. Here is a list of the shooting locations: Aurora Borealis Pass over the United States at Night Aurora Borealis and eastern United States at…

In late March 2011, NASA’s Swift satellite alerted astronomers to intense and unusual high-energy flares from a new source in the constellation Draco. They soon realized that the source, which is now known as Swift J1644+57, was the result of a truly extraordinary event — the awakening of a distant galaxy’s dormant black hole as it shredded and consumed a star. The galaxy is so far away that the radiation from the blast has traveled 3.9 billion years before reaching Earth. Speculative video representations of something unseen are often weak at best and completely wrong at worst. When NASA steps…

MakerBot, the company that brought us the 3D printer to “democratize manufacturing” has been making the news a lot lately with their clever stunts and interesting business model. Their most recent stunt involves Stephen Colbert, and it’s a doozy. We first looked at 3D printers last month. The technology is astounding, bringing us a step closer to Star Trek replicators. MakerBot and their premier offering, The Thing-O-Matic, tapped Comedy Central’s host and pundit of The Colbert Report to make a replica of his head. In true open source fashion, they put the data collected online, allowing designers…

When Astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson was on Bill Maher last week, he laid into the plans to slash NASA’s budget. When the topic of the James Webb Space Telescope came up, he broke in and said, “Don’t get me started.” Maher had him. “No, I want to get you started…” What followed was intelligent, eloquent, passionate, and truthful – all of the qualities of a rant worth watching. We posted the video he had produced about it last month, but this one is even better because it came off the cuff, from the heart. Today, he continued the attacks with a little humor in the tweet above. Go ahead, click through and…

“The most powerful agency on the dreams of a nation is currently underfunded to do what it needs to be doing, and that’s making dreams come true.” American astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson is passionate about space. As the final space shuttle prepares to land later this week for the last time, Tyson puts his passion to video with facts and opinions that ring true for millions of Americans who are upset with the decreased emphasis on manned space exploration. “I see the most powerful particle accelerators in some other country,” Tyson said. “The fastest trains are built by Germany and are running…

In today’s episode of 1-minute science, we look up. The sun is the source of, well, just about everything that we need. It would be an insult to our readers to go over the details of how important the Sun is to our very existence, so suffice to say that we need it. This graphic by 1bog puts that all into perspective and offers facts and figures that may be helpful if you ever make it to Who Wants To Be a Millionaire. Is that show still around? Click to Enlarge. Home Solar Power Discounts – One Block Off the Grid…

I am so frequently reminded of how I should totally have stuck with science a little more, if even to send little pieces of mobile tech into space as a hobby. Hindsight is always 20/20. Oh well. Lucky for me, we have father-son teams like this posting videos of their own adventures to Vimeo, that I might live vicariously through their eyes and know the joys of science for myself. After a solid eight months of research, the aforementioned father and son (alright, so really just the father – but that kid is the opposite of uncute, regardless) released a weather balloon, HD video camera and iPhone in tow,…

I was bored and decided to check out the Virgin Galactic site earlier. I ended up accidentally swallowing an entire ice cube and giving myself massive brain freeze when I noticed a little “book” option. For those not in the know, Virgin Galactic is the project started by Virgin CEO Richard Branson with the final hope of private space flight. The original plan was for tickets to be $200,000 and it seems the company plans on living up to that. God, my head still hurts as I type this, I’m going to send Richard Branson an invoice for causing me such pain and suffering. You can now book tickets by paying…