Tag Archive for 'human exploration'

Back to the Moon - with Company

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Doug
on July 26, 2008
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The moon beckons again - for U.S., 8 other nations
Mike Swift
San Jose Mercury News

In hopes of discovering clues to the origin of life on Earth, the United States and eight other nations signed a landmark agreement at NASA’s Ames Research Center this week that scientists hope will lay the groundwork for a new generation of lunar exploration and science.

Unlike the all-American Apollo program, the new agreement sees a multinational fleet of robot spacecraft returning to the moon in coming years, with the maturing space programs of countries like India, Germany and South Korea playing key roles in an effort that ultimately would lead to the return of astronauts.

“It’s sort of like the beginning of a beautiful friendship, like at the end of ‘Casablanca,’ ” James Green, director of NASA’s planetary science division, said at Moffett Field this week.

Scientists Meet at Ames to Plan Out Lunar Trips

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on July 23, 2008
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Scientists and engineers are meeting this week at NASA Ames Research Center in California to plan out humanity’s return to the moon.

NASA plans GPS-like system for return to the moon
Scientific American

NASA has coughed up $1.2 million for a navigation system that will help astronauts find their way around the lunar surface when they return in 2020. The Lunar Astronaut Spatial Orientation and Information System (LASOIS) is designed to function  much the same way as a global positioning system (GPS).

Scientists swap moon, Mars exploration plans
San Francisco Chronicle

“Christopher P. McKay, a NASA scientist at the Ames Research Center in Mountain View, has one overriding question for the future of human exploration on the moon and Mars.

“Could astronauts stay on the moon for any length of time where lunar gravity is six times weaker than it is on Earth or on Mars, where the gravity is an insupportably three times weaker than Earth’s?

“If those questions can’t be answered, McKay said, we may visit those distant places, but we won’t be able to stay.”

NASA: The Moon is not enough
The Register (UK)

“NASA and its international aeronautical cohorts have some serious explaining to do before they start rocketing folks to the Moon again.

“They better convince the public why it’s so important for our species to invest hand-over-fist just to root around some boring gray orbital dust ball - a dust ball we already stuck a flag in a full score and 19 years ago.

“Perhaps they’re preaching to the choir, but this week a gathering of scientists are giving this sort of time-tested anti-space exploration diatribe a workout at the NASA/AMES Research Center in Mountain View, California.”

Mars on My Mind

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Doug
on July 19, 2008
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Andrei Kislyakov looks at the problems of human missions to the Red Planet in his commentary, Will we reach Mars? And what is the main obstacle to sending people to Mars? People.

“Hardly anything can prevent mankind from launching piloted flights to other planets. But alongside technicalities, it will have to resolve the problem of preserving the life and health of a man who will be the most precious and vulnerable link in a Martian or any other mission,” he writes.

Meanwhile, University of Hartford history professor Michael Robinson makes the case for robotic Mars missions over their much more expensive human counterparts.

“Space exploration is a zero-sum game. Sending astronauts to Mars (a planet now studied quite efficiently by rovers, orbiters, and, as of late May, the Phoenix Lander) requires an enormous investment that will come at the expense of smaller, more useful, scientific projects,” Robinson argues.

Arizona’s East Valley Tribune says that based on initial Phoenix soil analysis, Mars would be a perfect to grow turnips, asparagus and green beans. Well, aside from the “violent extremes of temperature, lack of liquid water and the lethal ultraviolet radiation,” of course.

To the Moon, Alice! To the Moon!

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Doug
on July 13, 2008
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Writing in the WaPo Sunday Outlook section, Micheal Benson suggests sending the International Space Station to infinity and beyond. Or at least the moon and Mars:

“The only problem with this $156 billion manifestation of human genius — a project as large as a football field that has been called the single most expensive thing ever built — is that it’s still going nowhere at a very high rate of speed. And as a scientific research platform, it still has virtually no purpose and is accomplishing nothing….

“The ISS, you see, is already an interplanetary spacecraft — at least potentially. It’s missing a drive system and a steerage module, but those are technicalities. Although it’s ungainly in appearance, it’s designed to be boosted periodically to a higher altitude by a shuttle, a Russian Soyuz or one of the upcoming new Constellation program Orion spacecraft. It could fairly easily be retrofitted for operations beyond low-Earth orbit. In principle, we could fly it almost anywhere within the inner solar system — to any place where it could still receive enough solar power to keep all its systems running.”

Update: WaPo has published this rebuttal, It’s a Station, Not a Ship, by Jeff Volosin, a former NASA engineer and current space agency contractor. The title pretty much says it all.

Space Shuttle to Remain Forever 29; Successor Program Going Great…or Not

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Doug
on July 8, 2008
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NASA has released the schedule for its remaining ten space shuttle missions. The plan includes nine flights to the International Space Station and a Hubble servicing mission in October. Endeavour is set to close out the shuttle era beginning on May 31, 2010 - about 10 months short of the 30th anniversary of the program’s inaugural mission on April 12, 1981.

Meanwhile, NASA has ramped work on the shuttle’s successor, Constellation. In lieu of actual test flights (which won’t begin until next year), the space agency has created a really snazzy video showing how Constellation will place us on a path back to the moon beginning in 2013….or 2015.

And how is work going on the Ares rockets and Orion capsule? Officially, everything’s coming up Milhouse. In fact, you can read about how well things are going on NASA’s official Constellation website. Or read this story about Ares in the Houston Chronicle.

Others aren’t so sure.

Continue reading ‘Space Shuttle to Remain Forever 29; Successor Program Going Great…or Not’

Lunar Musings: Salvaging the Vision

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Doug
on May 5, 2008
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Charles E. Miller and Jeff Foust have put forth Part II of their plan to save George Bush’s Vision for Space Exploration. (If you missed it, here’s the link to Part I.) It’s a little complicated, but their plan basically amounts to pursuing cheap and reliable access to space, whose acronym - CRATS - may well remind you of a domesticated pet, a Broadway musical, or a bodily function.

In the same edition of The Space Review, Greg Zsidisin takes a look at how we can avoid what he calls “another Apollo debacle” - developing massively expensive technology and then tossing it away for something much less useful.

Meanwhile, Rand Simberg analyzes both these posts at his Transterrestrial Musings blog.

VSE Update: Cislunar Architecture, Propellant Loss, and Commercial Communications

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Doug
on April 23, 2008
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Some updates on plans for sending humans back to the moon, courtesy of Rob Coppinger over at Flight Global….

ESA considers cislunar space station for lunar exploration
“The European Space Agency, Russia and Japan are all considering a cislunar orbital complex that could consist of a habitation section and a resource module that would provide power and fuel and possibly be a safe haven for Orion crew exploration vehicle crews.”

NASA begins work to solve boil-off problem
“NASA has started the contractor selection process for its lunar surface thermal control system study that could find a solution to the biggest hurdle in its plans to return to the Moon: stopping propellant loss.”

ESA in favour of commercial lunar communications
Bernhard Hufenbach, ESA’s human spaceflight directorate’s head of strategy and architecture office, speaks enthusiastically of commercial communications services for a lunar outpost.

Hawking: Build Space Colonies in Case We Blow Ourselves Up

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Doug
on April 22, 2008
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Worried that humanity could destroy itself and the Earth with it, famed physicist Stephen Hawking on Monday advocated a massive global spending effort to establish off-world colonies as an insurance policy against a global holocaust, New Scientist reports.

Speaking in Washington, DC, in honor of NASA’s 50th anniversary, Hawking advocated spending about 10 times more than NASA’s current $17 billion budget on the initiative. This expenditure would amount to about 0.25 percent of global GDP.

“Even if we were to increase the international [space exploration] budget 20 times to make a serious effort to go into space, it would only be a small fraction of world GDP,” Hawking told the crowd. “Isn’t our future worth a quarter of a percent?”

Hawking advocated speeding up NASA’s plans to establish a settlement on the moon and send humans off to the Red Planet. “A goal of a base on the Moon by 2020 and of a manned landing on Mars by 2025 would reignite the space program and give it a sense of purpose in the same way that President Kennedy’s Moon target did in the 1960s,” he said.

As much as I admire Hawking, I wonder about the effectiveness of his approach. It would pretty much involve overturning the way politics are practiced.

Continue reading ‘Hawking: Build Space Colonies in Case We Blow Ourselves Up’

Mike Griffin’s New Math: 1 Video = 1,000,000 Words + 17,614,000,000 Dollars

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Doug
on April 20, 2008
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NASA Administrator Mike Griffin was in New Jersey last week, promoting his agency’s efforts at exploring and settling space as the ultimate way of ensuring humanity’s survival in the face of a likely global holocaust, NJHerald.com reports.

Speaking before an audience at the County College of Morris, Griffin played a video narrated by physicist Stephen Hawking that showed the Earth shrinking into the vast cosmos. “Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers,” Hawking intoned ominously. “I think the human race has no future if it doesn’t go into space.”

Griffin heartily agreed, saying that if a picture is worth a thousand words, then the video is worth “a thousand pictures.” He then proceeded to make a pitch for why it’s also worth billions in tax dollars for his space agency’s efforts to explore and settle Earth orbit, the moon and Mars.

“People ask me why we’re going back to the moon. Haven’t we already been there?” Griffin said. “Well, yes, we have. But using that critereon, then Spain should have stopped colonizing the New World. We’re returning to the moon both to learn how to go further and for the science we can learn about the moon, on the moon.”

Continue reading ‘Mike Griffin’s New Math: 1 Video = 1,000,000 Words + 17,614,000,000 Dollars’

ESA to Study Radiation Risk to Astronauts on Mars Trips

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Doug
on April 16, 2008
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7699_web.jpg
View inside the 120-meter long accelerator UNILAC at GSI.
Credit: G. Otto

GSI PRESS RELEASE

ESA has chosen the GSI accelerator facility in Germany to assess radiation risks that astronauts will be exposed to on a Mars mission. GSI was selected because its accelerator is the only one in Europe able to create ion beams similar to those found in space.

To determine possible health risks of manned space flights, scientists from all over Europe have been asked to investigate the effects of ion beams in human cells and organs. The first experiments will be launched this year and subsequently continued at GSI’s planned FAIR accelerator system.

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