Why NASA Spews Out Half A Million Gallons Of Water During Rocket Launches

This is almost half a million gallons of water being blasted a hundred feet into the air.
The most impressive part? It was all done in just 60 seconds.

NASA created the massive fountain as part of a test for its Space Launch System, scheduled to launch for the first time in 2020.

It will be the largest, most powerful rocket NASA has ever built. Standing upright, the SLS will reach 322 feet in height, 17 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty, and weigh almost 6 million pounds.

Its first planned mission? A 25-day trip around the moon.

Tech Insider

NASA Examines Technology To Fold Aircraft Wings In Flight

Fascinating stuff...

NASA conducts a flight test series to investigate the ability of an innovative technology to fold the outer portions of wings in flight as part of the Spanwise Adaptive Wing project, or SAW. Flight tests took place at NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center in California, using an autonomous subscale UAV called Prototype Technology-Evaluation Research Aircraft, or PTERA, provided by Area-I.

NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland developed the alloy material, and worked with Boeing Research & Technology to integrate the material into an actuator. The alloy is triggered by temperature to move the outer portions of wings up or down in flight.

The ability to fold wings to the ideal position of various flight conditions may produce several aerodynamic benefits for both subsonic and supersonic aircraft.

NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center

Speeding Asteroid Will Not Hit Earth On Wednesday, But It Will Get Close

Phew! It's not our time yet...

Much to the relief of humankind, NASA recently announced that a fairly large asteroid headed this way and arriving on April 19 will not hit Earth. However, the speeding space object, officially known as 2014 JO25, will get relatively close. It is expected to pass at a distance of 1.1 million miles. That’s about 4.6 times the space existing between our planet and the moon.

GeoBeats News

NASA Radar Images of Asteroid 2014 JO25

Radar images of asteroid 2014 JO25 were generated and collected on April 18, 2017, by NASA's Goldstone Solar System Radar in California's Mojave Desert. At the time, asteroid 2014 JO25 was 1.9 million miles (3 million kilometers) from Earth. The asteroid will safely pass Earth at a distance of 1.1 million miles (1.8 million km) on April 19 at about 8:24 a.m EDT (12:24 UTC).

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

World's First Live 360 Rocket Launch: Orbital ATK CRS-7

Streamed live an hour ago...

NASA, in coordination with United Launch Alliance (ULA) and Orbital ATK, will broadcast the world’s first live 360-degree stream of a rocket launch. This stream will begin at approximately 11:00a.m. EDT on April 18th, and will last until the rocket is out of sight. This stream enables you to look around in 360 degrees -as if you were actually standing on the launch pad.

The Orbital ATK CRS-7 resupply mission to the International Space Staion is scheduled to launch during a 30 minute window opening at 11:11a.m. EDT. Orbital ATK’s Cygnus spacecraft will launch on a ULA Atlas V rocket carrying more than 7,600 pounds of science research, crew supplies and hardware to the orbiting laboratory.

NASA