NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
Sep 18, 2023
The Red Sprite and the Tree
The sprite and tree could hardly be more different. To start, the red sprite is an unusual form of lightning, while the tree is a common plant. The sprite is far away high in Earth's atmosphere, while the tree is nearby only about a football field away. The sprite is fast electrons streaming up and down at near light's speed, while the tree is slow wood anchored to the ground. The sprite is bright lighting up the sky, while the tree is dim shining mostly by reflected light. The sprite was fleeting lasting only a small fraction of a second, while the tree is durable living now for many years. Both however, when captured together, appear oddly similar in this featured composite image captured early this month in France as a thunderstorm passed over mountains of the Atlantic Pyrenees.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html?
Revolutionary new bicycle tires inspired by NASA don’t need to be filled with air
Published Sep 17th, 2023 10:34AM EDT
Two years ago, Ohio-based SMART Tire Company revealed its NASA-inspired never-go-flat tires, which were designed to be completely airless. Now, the company has revealed that the tires are available to purchase, but it’s all happening via a Kickstarter campaign.
The new tires, which will undoubtedly revolutionize the way that we look at bike tires going forward, were inspired by NASA’s titanium tires, which it created and used on the Perseverance Rover. These tires were created to help overcome the way that rubber-based tires slowly leak air and the deterioration they face.
The never-go-flat tires are called Metl, and they look similar to slinkies you might have played with as a kid. The spring is made to be shaped just like a normal tire, but it’s made of a nickel-titanium alloy called NiTinol instead of the usual rubber material that tires are made of.
SMART Tire Company calls its Metl tires “space-age tires” and says that they’ll never require air pressure, and will ride just as smooth as traditional pneumatic tires. They’ll also feature low rolling resistance, which SMART Tire Company says will mean less work for the rider. The waitlist for the tires currently sits at over 10,000 cyclists, SMART Tire Company explains on its Kickstarter page.
The page still has over 20 days to go at the time of writing this article, and it has already garnered close to $80,000. Its original goal was just $25,000, so the Kickstarter campaign seems to have come off as a huge success for the company. If these never-go-flat airless tires continue to rise in popularity, it’s possible we could see some kind of change to how we utilize tires on cars as well.
Never having to worry about your tires going flat sounds like a nice thing to me, so I’m all for what we’re seeing with this kind of technology.
https://bgr.com/tech/revolutionary-new-bicycle-tires-inspired-by-nasa-dont-need-to-be-filled-with-air/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN4SUY5fUYo
Kennedy Space Center post office closing after 58 years of postmarks
Sep 16, 2023
The Kennedy Space Center post office has been, well, cancelled.
The contract facility, which was established at NASA's Florida spaceport on July 1, 1965, will close permanently "near the end of the fiscal year," or sometime before Sept. 30. Since 2013, the post office has been operated for NASA by Post Masters Mail and Print Services, a division of the nonprofit Anthony Wayne Rehabilitation Center (AWRC).
The agency's mail will now go through Cocoa Beach to Orlando for processing. But with the closure of the office, the public will no longer be able to request that stamped envelopes (called philatelic "covers") be postmarked with a cancellation device displaying the location of Kennedy Space Center.
Collectors' requests will instead be directed to Titusville, the next closest office to the space center, according to a notice from AWRC. Submitted covers will receive a Titusville postmark.
The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) will also not service covers using the Kennedy Space Center postmark through its fulfillment center in Kansas City, Missouri.
Philatelic covers are stamped envelopes postmarked on the dates of significant events. Since the first rocket left Florida's Space Coast more than 70 years ago, collectors have had covers serviced at the post office nearest the site of the launch. In addition to Titusville, there are post offices today in Merritt Island, Cape Canaveral and at the Patrick Space Force Station.
Thomas Spaur, supervisor of the Kennedy Space Center post office, told Linn's Stamp News that the office recently averaged about 5,000 postmark requests each year. Since the 1969 launch of Apollo 12 and the end of the space shuttle program in 2011, drop boxes had been available at the spaceport's visitor center (today, the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex) for the public to have their envelopes submitted for servicing, but those bins are no more.
Collectors' requests for postmarks dated for the last day of service should be submitted to the Kennedy Space Center post office by Friday (Sept. 15). Self-addressed stamped envelopes (or stamped envelopes addressed to others of the sender's choice) should be placed into a larger envelope addressed to:
US Postal Service/CPU
KMSC-003/Clerk In Charge
Kennedy Space Center, FL 32815-9998
Collectors and the public can also send stamped envelopes and postcards without addresses for postmark, so long as they supply a larger self-addressed envelope with adequate postage. After applying the postmark, the post office will return the covers (with or without addresses) in the addressed larger envelope.
After the Kennedy office closes, cover requests should be addressed to: Titusville Post Office, Attn: Supervisor, 2503 S. Washington Ave., Titusville, FL 32780.
https://www.space.com/kennedy-space-center-post-office-closing