I think our homes should be made more Eco-friendly here in the United States. Many of the houses here have many lights, more than many of us expected, I discovered, while reading the posts of others who live in the United States. Also, those who live in warm states like Houston turn on their air-conditioning quite often, like my family does. So, I researched on NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) for information on solar panels and getting natural energy from wind turbines. I found out that NASA used 3 large solar panels to power an entire mission to Jupiter.
I thought from this, that 3 large solar panels can easily power a large area of residences. I think our country should take a step towards this, and advance towards a better world. We should set this as our goal, to try to do what we can to make the world a better place for those that come after us and to leave a smaller carbon footprint.

NASA has released more videos of the mesmerising northern lights, captured from the International Space Station. Some of the videos show bright city lights of the northern United States and Canada.

Astronauts’ eyeballs deformed by long missions in space, study finds:

They were alerted to the issue when astronauts who had flown on the space shuttle and International Space Station reported changes to their eyesight, with some seeing worse and others better than they had before.

Brain scans revealed that seven of the 27 astronauts had a flattening of the back of one or both eyes. By making the eyeball shorter, this made the astronauts more long-sighted, which in some cases had the effect of reducing or correcting their short-sightedness.

This could impact the nascent space tourism industry.

A spectacular video of the space station flying above the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis).

Auroras are caused when charged particles ejected from the sun slam into Earth’s atmosphere. These particles are usually guided along Earth’s magnetic field lines to the polar regions, which is why skywatchers in higher latitudes see them much more often than folks in more temperate climes do.

International Space Station experiment explores fire in micro-gravity:

http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-pick/international-space-station-experiment-explores-fire-in-micro-gravity-2012025/

Say what you will about the International Space Station (ISS), but it seems like it’s being put to good use. One of the currently running experiments is taking a look at how fire burns in micro-gravity, and how to create extinguishing substances to create a safer environment for future space voyages.

Stephen Colbert Makes a PSA for NASA reminding us that space research provides extensive benefits to our daily lives!

NASA announces portal for open source projects

code.NASA, aims to “continue, unify, and expand NASA’s open source activities” by surfacing existing projects, providing forums for researchers, and all sorts of useful things.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/7/2689479/code-nasa-open-source-portal

Related video…

A short page of information about the topic but it includes links to the Primary Colours of Light, What Colour is it? and Introduction to the Electromagnetic Spectrum.
It says that these three units then prepare students for the Remote Sensing unit - could be very interesting.

Multinational crew blasts off for space station

More activity for the International Space Station! Cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, NASA Flight Engineer Don Pettit and European Space Agency Flight Engineer Andre Kuipers began five months in space with the successful launch of their Soyuz spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome to the International Space Station. The three are joining Expedition 30 station Commander Dan Burbank of NASA and Russian Flight Engineers Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin, who’ve been on the outpost for just over a month.

Paul Allen to build behemoth plane for space launches:

The Microsoft co-founder’s Stratolaunch Systems plans to use the giant six-engine jet as a rocket launcher for satellites, cargo and tourists.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-paul-allen-spaceship-20111214,0,1197007.story

Allen, 58, wants to see the first flight within five years and declined to say how much the venture will cost, but he made clear that the program needs to move quickly now that NASA’s fleet of space shuttles has been retired.