space

NASA will e-mail you when the ISS is overhead

You may or may not know that the International Space Station is visible from Earth with the naked eye. If you didn't know, NASA wants to make sure you do. The space agency has created a service that will send e-mail and text alerts when the ISS is above your location.

It's called "Spot the Station." The system allows you to give your e-mail address and receive notices when the ISS, the third brightest object in the sky after the sun and moon, is orbiting above your area. Given that the ISS passes over roughly 90 percent of the Earth's population, most people will have a chance to spot the space station sooner or later.… Read more

Surface fine print: Windows eats up storage space

Windows has a bad rep for gobbling up storage space on PCs. Ditto Surface.

The $499 32GB Surface tablet actually leaves you with only 16GB free storage space for things like music, photos, and videos, according to Microsoft documentation.

So, what's devouring all of that flash storage space? On a 32GB Surface, Windows reports 29GB available. Subtract 5GB for Windows recovery tools, then another 8GB for Windows RT, Microsoft Office, and built-in apps. That leaves 16GB for the user.

On the 64GB model, you're left with 46GB.

Microsoft does offer advice on the same FAQ page about how … Read more

Set desktop wallpaper easily, restoring lost functionality from Leopard

SpaceSuit is an app that lets you select pictures to use for different desktops. This was a feature supported by OS X Leopard, but later versions of Mac OS X have removed this customization capability. SpaceSuit restores that option, allowing you to have a different background image for each desktop. SpaceSuit was not available in the App Store for this review, but we downloaded it from several sites on the Web.

Using SpaceSuit you can set a new desktop wallpaper by simply dragging any image over the program icon, which immediately sets the wallpaper to that image. To remove a … Read more

Shuttle Atlantis, NASA's last orbiter, departs for museum duty

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. -- By dawn's early light today, the shuttle Atlantis was hauled out of the cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building for the last time, rolling not to the launch pad but to the spaceport Visitor Complex 10 miles away, where it will go on public display next year -- the last of the iconic winged orbiters to make the transition to Earth-bound museum duty.

Mounted atop a 76-wheel transporter, Atlantis was slowly rolled out of the VAB starting at 3:30 a.m. PT, cheered on by a crowd of several hundred spaceport workers; a throng of … Read more

Retake Earth from nasty aliens

Ares is a graphical strategy and action game that takes place in the far reaches of the galaxy. Your mission is to reclaim the planet Earth from alien invaders, but to do that you have to handle manufacturing and resources, as well as be handy with your trigger finger to blow the enemy to little pieces. You can try Ares for free, but the full game will set you back $25.

The Ares interface is laid out with controls and status reports in a pane to the left, and the graphics in a much larger pane to the right. A … Read more

Hurricane Sandy puts Google's Nexus event on hold

Due to the severe weather conditions of Hurricane Sandy, we won't be filming a CNET Update show out of our New York studio. We'll return once the storm passes. In the meantime, here are some of the top tech headlines for Monday:

- Tracking Sandy: Many on the east coast spent the weekend boarding up windows rather than upgrading Windows. You can keep tabs on Sandy news through several websites, apps and Twitter accounts. Google has a helpful Crisis Response map that marks emergency shelters, evacuation routes and the storm forecast. News outlets like the The New York … Read more

SpaceX cargo ship returns to Earth after station visit

In a major milestone for the space station program, a commercial cargo capsule loaded with nearly a ton of long-awaited experiment samples, broken components, and other gear returned to Earth on Sunday, plunging back through the atmosphere to a Pacific Ocean splashdown and wrapping up the spacecraft's first operational flight.

The SpaceX Dragon capsule is the first space station cargo ship since the shuttle capable of carrying large amounts of equipment both to and from the lab complex. As such, it restores a critical capability for NASA -- the return of experiment samples from the station -- along with … Read more

Can anyone in space hear you scream? Scientists try to find out

Some screams come from the gut.

Yes, just like that horrible monster thing in "Alien."

Now scientists with only extreme discovery in their locker of ambition have decided to learn, once and for all, whether a scream in outer space can awaken alien ears.

The Cambridge University Spaceflight team behind this experiment are truly committed explorers.

They have created a video featuring Albert Einstein -- or at least a posh-speaking version of him.

The idea is very simple. They want you to go to YouTube and record your best and most frightening, piercing scream. Indeed, the scientists want you to scream "in a creative way." … Read more

SpaceX's Dragon capsule prepares to head home

As it looks to successfully complete the first of at least 12 regularly scheduled missions to the International Space Station, SpaceX's Dragon cargo capsule will leave the ISS tomorrow morning and head back to Earth, with NASA broadcasting the return live.

Commercially manufactured, Dragon became the first such craft to link up with the ISS, during a test mission in late May when flight engineer Donald Pettit used the ISS's robot arm to pluck the vessel out of "the sky." The craft successfully splashed down on May 31 and returned to the station on October 10 … Read more

Canada wants more wheels in space with new rovers

Not content with a robot arm and a handyman on the International Space Station, ever-aggressive Canada is aiming for a bigger slice of the space pie with some new rover prototypes.

The Canadian Space Agency recently showed off the fleet of vehicles designed to inspire machines that will explore the moon and Mars.

They include mini-rovers that can act as scouts, as well as larger vehicles that could do double-duty as astronaut transporters. NASA is hoping to work with some of the vehicles, but the earliest that they would be aboard a mission to Mars or the moon would be 2020. … Read more