Gizmorama - December 11, 2013

Good Morning,

New cameras can take high-res video of the Earth's surface from space. Just look up and then look for yourself on Youtube.

Learn about these interesting stories from the scientific community in today's issue.

Until Next Time,
Erin

P.S. Remember PulseTV customers, Thursday (by 10 a.m.) is the last day to get your order in time for Christmas with standard shipping!

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*-- Cameras for high-res images of Earth's surface on way to space station --*
OXFORD, England - Two cameras able to video the Earth's surface at detail as small as 3 feet across are on their way to the International Space Station, their British makers say. Created by the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire for a Canadian start-up called Urthecast, the cameras were aboard a Russian Progress space freighter that launched Thursday. Urthecast hopes to build a business by providing space station imagery to customers like news organizations that want moving pictures of war zones and regions of the Earth affected by natural disasters. From the space station's altitude of 275 miles things like large crowds and moving vehicles should be discernible in images from the cameras. Scott Larson, the head of Urthecast, was present at the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan to observe the launch. "There are a lot of very happy Canadians, a lot of very happy Brits and a lot of very happy Russians," he told the BBC. "It is truly spectacular." The cameras, once spacewalking astronauts install them on a special gantry at the rear of the ISS, should be in operation by the New Year, Larson said.


*-- Planning group calls for National Space Policy in Britain --*
LONDON - Britain needs a national space program, sufficiently funded and properly coordinated, a report by a government/industry planning group says. The Space Innovation & Growth Team, after a review of an industry that has been growing an average of more than 7 percent a year, has set a goal of increasing technology exports from $3.2 billion a year to $40 billion by 2030, the BBC reported Thursday. If the goal is to be achieved, the report says, government support of the country's space industry must be better coordinated. "I don't want this to be a criticism of government because they have done some incredible things for space of late, but we have been doing these things piece by piece," Andy Green of the U.K. Space Leadership Council said. "It's time now that we take a long-term view on our technologies and the bilaterals we have with other space nations, and make available a pool of funding over, say, the next five years that has some certainty," he said. "That will give us best value for money; the most bang for our buck," Green told the BBC. Most of Britain's $480 million civil space budget is spent on programs managed through the European Space Agency, with comparatively small amounts given to all-British initiatives. Other European countries -- notably Germany, France and Italy -- have robust national programs in addition to their ESA participation. The British government needs to create a National Space Policy, the strategy group's report said. "Many elements of this program already exist and therefore its creation does not necessarily require a large increase in government spending," the report said. "It does however call for a strategic approach driven by the National Space Policy and a multiyear commitment."

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