With today’s announcement’s of the Playstation 4 launch date came a new trailer for Watchdogs, which you can preorder now and will become available for Playstation 3 and Playstation 4 later this year.
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NASA Plans To Put Asteroid in Orbit Around The Moon
The mission is clear, NASA wants to capture and redirect an asteroid that’s about 7-10 meters in diameter, weighs around 500 tons and is reasonably close to Earth. After the asteroid is captured it will be placed in an orbit around our Moon. The next step will be to send up a manned spacecraft to intercept the now lunar orbiting asteroid/spacecraft and hitch onto it. Astronauts will then go outside the spacecraft and take samples of the asteroid to bring back to Earth.
This type of mission obviously requires an incredible amount of preparation and initial planning. One of the first steps will be improving asteroid detection here on Earth, then finding a Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA) that we can capture. An asteroid suitable for capture would need to be relatively stable and slow moving, it can’t be spinning wildly end-over-end tumbling through space or it would be to difficult to grab. Part of the capture process involves the capturing spacecraft matching the rotation of the asteroid in order to be able to catch it, this process is demonstrated in the animated video above. Next, we would need to focus on the asteroids composition, after all, if we are going to make a mission out of it we mine as well pick the most interesting asteroid, perhaps one with valuable resources.
This mission will also be the first step that mankind has taken toward intercepting an asteroid, which is significant not only for researching the asteroid itself but also in learning ways to in which to protect our planet from future asteroid impacts, especially ones that could cause widespread destruction. We currently have no “real” plans for protecting our only home and although it’s unlikely to happen anytime soon, we should still be preparing and expanding our knowledge in this area. Asteroid mining techniques could also prove to be very useful on long missions into the far reaches of our solar system. We could possibly use asteroids as a source of fuel or for harvesting elements needed to sustain life or to build structures.
The goal is to make all of this happen by 2025. You can read more about the Asteroid Initiative on NASA’s official page.
New Diablo III Console Commercial (Video)
Blizzard Entertainment is trying to ramp up excitement for their upcoming console release of the popular action-arcade style RPG, Diablo III. To accomplish this they have created this funny commercial, it’s actually not too bad. Diablo III will be appearing on store shelves no later the September 3, 2013 for both Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.
Adam Savage as Chewbacca!
Adam Savage from Mythbusters dressed up as Chewbacca at the 2013 Comic-Con earlier this year to raise money for charity. Adam was inducted into the 501st Legion: the largest international fan organization for Star Wars cosplayers. This video is from Tested, a great geeky website that I mentioned earlier that Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman are a part of.
2013 World Magic Cup Enters Final Day
The World Magic Cup has been underway at the Amsterdam Convention Factory from August 2-4 and it’s been a great tournament so far. If you aren’t familiar with the World Magic Cup, it’s the best of the best from around the world representing their home countries as they go head to head playing Magic: The Gathering.
Currently, Austria is the number one seed and they will be up against Hungary. The Czech Republic will play against New Zealand. France is up against Belgium and Estonia will face off against Iceland all in the top 8 quarter-finals. You can catch the live webcast for August 4th along with replay videos and event coverage including the latest brackets all on the event page from Wizards of the Coast.