Saturday, July 9, 2011

Last Space Shuttle + IPhone 4

The Space Shuttle Program's last flight blasted off yesterday in Florida for a 12 day mission to the International Space Station.  The lift-off of Space Shuttle Atlantis marks the end of America's 30 year old Space Shuttle program.  It has been a fruitful 30 years of labor, highlighted by the Hubble and the International space station, and I salute all the astronauts, engineers, scientists and support crews of NASA for a job well done!  Your work will benefit us all.

Here is brief video of that historical launch:


Here is a tribute video with Hi Def images of various shuttle launches:


Nothing combines photography and technology more perfectly than "space photography" -- the final frontier.  I happen to be an avid fan of both.

Speaking of technology, Space Shuttle Atlantis is carrying two IPhone 4s aboard its last mission loaded with the new SpaceLab App for iOS. The App is designed to utilize IPhone 4's cutting-edge capabilities including the 3-axis-gyro, accelerometer, retina display, cameras and A4 processor.

The IPhones will be used to conduct 4 experiments:
- An experiment will measure the distance and exact location of the iPhone in relation to the Earth’s center.
- Calibration of the three-axis gyro and accelerometer to make subsequent measurements more accurate.
- Calculation the longitude and latitude of the spacecraft multiple times to predict the spacecraft’s path of orbit.
- To monitor and categorize how radiation affects the iPhone.

The goal of the SpaceLab App is to gather as much data as possible now to aid in developing more advanced mobile applications in the future.

Here is a gallery of my favorite photographs from 30 years of Space Shuttle missions.  Enjoy!:



-- videos and photos courtesy of NASA.

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