EnterSpace

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! My New Year's resolution is to post more frequently.

(I think I was psychologically scarred by a long and thoughtful essay on terraforming that I made a month ago or so, but which "disappeared" just as I was about to post it. Few things are more frustrating than a browser or server error just as you're about to click "save". I re-learned the lesson to compose first in Word, alas too late.)

Anyway, all positivity today, so have a great Holiday Season regardless of your religious tradition or lack thereof...

Infographic: NASA's "Future of American Human Spaceflight"

Lots of travel and the holidays aren't helping my ability to do new posts, but just to keep the ball rolling, I found this infographic by NASA to be kinda neat. Put this on your cellphone to show your friends and family if you hear them moan over the holidays about the "death of the American space program". 

From NASA:

NASA is embarking on a new era of space exploration in which humans will travel deeper into the solar system than ever before. The International Space Station is the centerpiece for space operations. Serving as a test bed for research and new technologies, the space station is a steppingstone toward future exploration destinations. The commercial industry will transport cargo and eventually crew to the space station while NASA focuses on developing the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, Space Launch System, and advanced exploration systems that will enable a sustainable human presence to destinations such as the moon, near-Earth asteroids and Mars. To learn more, visit NASA.

Click the pic to embiggen, or use the link below to see the full PDF.

Download NASA_future_human_space_flight 

Assuming the folks on Capitol Hill don't do something really dumb that guts NASA's budget, the future of spaceflight - both NASA and NewSpace - is going to be even more interesting in the next ten years than it was since - I don't know, let's say 1981. (I wasn't a big Shuttle fan, sorry. When I saw Endeavour at Udvar-Hazy in May this year I was struck by how huge that thing was and so I have genuine appreciation for the Shuttle as a technological achievement. It was truly impressive. But it was still inherently flawed as a launch vehicle/system, way too expensive, and left us literally going around in circles for nearly 30 years at the expense of doing more interesting stuff. Hats off to those who built, flew, and launched the orbiters, but it was way past time to end the program and start something new.)

I also have mixed feelings about SLS, but that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish. I'll save that for a future post.

Image credit: NASA

Space S&T as an innovation pathway for Earth sustainability

PISCES will be posting our presentations on their website shortly, but in the meantime here's a link to the presentation I gave last week at the PISCES 2012 conference on the Big Island.

Btw, Buzz Aldrin was in the house and gave a great presentation on his Mars Cycler concept. I think Buzz can talk orbital mechanics all day long. It was an honor to have him there, and a pleasure to have several good conversations with him (mostly about scuba diving in New Guinea and Fiji!).

Download Burnett-PISCES_Presentation_Nov2012_v2 (PDF version)

 

International space S&T research as an innovation pathway for Earth sustainability

I have been a traveling madman for the last several months (Fiji, Florida, Texas) and haven't had time to post much lately, and likely won't for another couple of weeks. But in the meantime, here is the abstract of a presentation I will give at the 2012 PISCES (Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems) conference "Pioneering Planetary Surface Systems Technologies and Capabilities" that will meet on the Big Island of Hawaii next week.

International space S&T research as an innovation pathway for Earth sustainability

Burke Burnett
Executive Secretary
Pacific Science Association
[email protected]

Abstract:

The 21^st Century will see the planet warm, human populations rise toward 10b, and escalating stresses on food, water, and energy resources. As governments rise to face a series of serious and interconnected environmental, demographic, and humanitarian threats, increasingly constrained public budgets may challenge current rationales for government space programs. This need not be the case. Only through major technological advances will an expanding human population that is able to enjoy modest levels of prosperity be consistent with economic systems that do not exceed so-called “planetary boundaries”. Given the unique problem set of space exploration as well as the inherently multidisciplinary, collaborative nature of such efforts, space S&T research is one of the critical innovation pathways that can significantly advance sustainability technologies. For example, the pursuit of new and more effective technologies to keep a crew safely housed with reliable food supplies and access to energy, telemedicine, sanitation, and communication on the ultimate resource-poor “island” of the moon will surely help drive innovations that facilitate sustainability solutions for not only the island states of the Pacific, but the world. In addition, the future of science and technology research increasingly lies in cross-disciplinary collaborations that link various research networks both within and among countries. International space-related research, of which PISCES and ILRP are exemplary examples, is an important endeavor worthy of greater public appreciation and support.

Image credit: PISCES

China Builds New Rockets for Space Station, Moon Missions: Scientific American

China is making progress on its new line of Long March rockets capable of heavier payload missions beyond LEO. Specifically, it has conducted successful tests of its proprietary high-pressure staged combustion cycle engine that will be used on it Long March 5 rocket scheduled for first launch in 2014. This type of engine would "make China the second country in the world after Russia to grasp the core technologies for a LOX/kerosene high-pressure staged combustion cycle rocket engine."

The Long March 6 and Long March 7 are also under development, and China is also building a new spaceport in Hainan off its south coast.

Leonard David from Space.com has more in an article cross-posted at Scientific American. Re-posted after the jump.

Image credit: Spaceports 

Mental Health Break: "My God, it's full of stars!"

Crazy post-travel day and don't have time to make a proper post, so I'm re-posting something from the indispensable Bad Astronomer, Phil Plait.

Beautious!

Behold the brain-busting beauty of Barnard 59!

[Click to ennicotianatabacumenate - and seriously, do it! - or stick the gargantuan 16,000 x 15,000 pixel version (!!) into your pipe and smoke it.]

This incredible picture was taken by the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at the European Southern Observatory’s La Silla Observatory in Chile. The chunk of sky shown in this image is pretty big for a deep sky photo – about 6 arcminutes on a side. For comparison, the Moon is about 30 arcminutes across, so we’re still talking just a teeny region. But look at all those stars!

Of course, it’s not the stars that draw your attention: it’s the not stars. This region of the sky, in the constellation Ophiuchus, is toward the center of the galaxy, and is lousy with gas and dust – the latter of which is actually composed of complex chains of molecules. These form grains astronomers call dust, though they’re not like the bunnies you find under your dresser: these are more like particles of smoke in size. Ethereally thin by earthly standards, they form clouds that are still so large, light years across, that they are effectively opaque. They block the light coming from stars behind them, so in rich star fields like this one the dust clouds are made visible by their silhouettes.

What you’re seeing here is one particular complex of dust in the much larger cloud called the Pipe Nebula. The picture inset here shows the whole thing, and the reason for the name is obvious. Barnard 59, seen in incredible detail above, is the mouthpiece of the pipe.

You really need to take a look at at least the medium resolution image. You can see tendrils, wisps, and many other features. One of the neat things that you might miss at first is how the dark clouds change the colors of stars behind them. Start in the center of the cloud, then look near the edge, where the cloud starts to thin out, and you can see stars once again. See how the stars along the edge are redder than the stars farther out? Dust scatters blue light – a blue photon sent straight at us by a star can hit a dust grain and be sent off in another direction, missing us. There’s enough dust at the edge of the cloud to do that.

But toward the center of the cloud we’re through a lot more of that floating junk, so much that it absorbs the light coming from behind it. This effect is called interstellar extinction, and it’s kind of a pain when you’re trying to look at stuff through a cloud. However, it does make for a very pretty effect in pictures like this.

One more thing. See those fuzzy stars in the center of the cloud? Those are stars being born right before your eyes! These clouds can have very dense, cold clumps of material which can collapse to form stars. Usually invisible to optical telescopes – these ones are on the near side of the dust cloud, which is why we can see them at all – they glow brightly in infrared, and telescopes that can see out past the visible part of the spectrum see these very clearly. And yeah, you really want to click that link. It’s eerie and beautiful and spectacular.

All of this is another reason I love astronomy. One person’s meat is another person’s poison. If you want to study stars, dark nebulae are a pain. But if you want to study how stars form, they’re the first place you want to look!

Image credit: ESO; ESO/Yuri Beletsky

via blogs.discovermagazine.com

Cool things NASA does

While idly surfing in Fiji, I ran across What the NASA?, a fun little website on with short and snappy little factoids on NASA spinoffs. WTN also has a sister website with a much naughtier, and non-family friendly name, but you can guess by its initials (WTF NASA?).

Each visit (or screen refresh) pulls up a different factoid outlining a particular NASA-derived technology now in the public/private sphere: Hubble imaging techniques used for breast cancer detection (one of my favorites - that always gets people's attention), fire-resistant materials, food preservation technologies... and on and on.

Many of these are well-known to your average space/technology nut, but it's a fun little site and useful in refreshing your memory on the important things NASA R&D has done that benefits society beyond space exploration.

Image: What the NASA?

 

Off to a work trip, no posts

Heading off to Fiji for a work trip so no blog posts until I return.

Image: Qamea Island, Fiji. Credit: Scott Putnam

David Brooks on Elon Musk

September 20, 2012

Temerity at the Top

By DAVID BROOKS

I guess we’re all supposed to be talking about how to build the middle class these days and look askance at the top 1 percent. But would you mind if I interrupted this cultural moment to point out that capitalism is an inherently elitist enterprise?

Prosperity is often driven by small enclaves of extraordinary individuals that build new industries and amass large fortunes. These driven, manic individuals are frequently unpleasant to be around. But, if your country is not attracting and nurturing them, you’re cooked.

Let’s take a contemporary example, Elon Musk, who was just beautifully profiled by Ashlee Vance in Bloomberg Businessweek.

For those who don’t read the financial press or the gossip blogs, Musk is a 41-year-old entrepreneur who grew up in South Africa. At 15, he migrated to Canada, worked on farms and at a lumber mill and then got into Queen’s University in Ontario.

After two years, he transferred to Penn, earning degrees in economics and physics. While there, as he recently told Jon Stewart, he concluded that the three areas that would most transform humanity were the Internet, sustainable energy and space exploration.

He dropped out of a graduate physics program at Stanford to help start an Internet map and directory company called Zip2, which was sold to Compaq for more than $300 million.

He took his share of that money and helped create PayPal, serving for a time as its chief executive. When that was sold, he poured his share of his money into SpaceX, a space exploration company; Tesla, an electric car company; SolarCity, a solar power company; and Everdream, a data-center software firm.

SpaceX is the first private company to send a rocket into space. Already profitable, it has a long line of orders to take things into space. Tesla is selling its second model for about $55,000 each. Musk decided to revolutionize three industries all at once and is sort of doing it. His net worth is estimated to be about $2 billion.

Musk also told Businessweek about two other project designs he is working on. The first is something called the Hyperloop, a tube capable of taking people from downtown Los Angeles to downtown San Francisco in 30 minutes. The second is a vertical lift-off supersonic passenger jet that would surpass Boeing. He also hopes to open up a space colony on Mars within 10 or 15 years.

“Boldness of enterprise is the foremost cause of [America’s] rapid progress, its strength and its greatness,” Alexis de Tocqueville wrote nearly a couple of centuries ago. Musk is a fountain of bold enterprises, though, of course, he also has the vices of his virtues.

Many employees love him, but there has been at least one blog set up to catalog his mistreatment of those he deems mediocre. He’s run through two marriages already, and his first ex-wi

via www.nytimes.com

Tiangong Orbit Change Signals Likely Date for Shenzhou 10

Simple repost from Robert Christy, but worth noting.

Tiangong Orbit Change Signals Likely Date for Shenzhou 10
by Robert Christy FBIS
Scarborough, UK (SPX) Sep 04, 2012

File image.

August 30, Tiangong 1's controllers raised its orbit by 11 kilometres, indicating that a target date for the Shenzhou 10 mission has probably been set. As August 30 dawned, Tiangong 1 was following a 344 x 356 kilometre orbit at 42.8 degrees inclination. Soon after noon UTC, a firing of its thrusters raised perigee to create a new apogee. The orbit became 355 x 366 kilometres at the same inclination as before.

It was back to the same height that had been produced by a similar manoeuvre after Shenzhou 9 departed. A history of Tiangong's orbital manoeuvres can be seen here.

Before this latest adustment, Tiangong's orbit decay would have brought it back to the 330 kilometer Shenzhou operating altitude before the end of 2012. Controllers had been experimenting for a few weeks with thruster firings to control Tiangong's rate of decay very precisely.

It seemed to be heading for a rendezvous with Shenzhou 10 around November 26 during one of two launch windows covering the last few days of November and the first couple of weeks in December.

It was probably a 'holding pattern' based on an estimate of how long it would take to review Shenzhou 9 and prepare a new vehicle for launch with a crew.

Plans may now have firmed up a little with an aim to fly the mission early in the new year. Tiangong 1's new orbit will decay to Shenzhou altitude early February, during the next pair of launch windows that extend through January to mid-February. A current estimate of the likely Shenzhou launch date can be found here.

Shenzhou 10's mission is unlikely exceed Shenzhou 9's by anything significant in duration.

Where Shenzhou 9 was used to test and develop the logistics and mechanics of getting a crew aboard a space station, the next flight has the aim of introducing operational routines and simulating space station life.

It is set to be the final mission to Tiangong 1 which will reach the end of its two year rated lifetime next October.

Its docking unit is rated for use on six occasions, and four of them have already passed with two dockings each by Shenzhou 8 and Shenzhou 9.

Tiangong 1 will then steer itself to a safe re-entry and China will turn its attention to Tiangong 2. The new laboratory will be used to build more experience of space station operation so China is ready for the challenge of operating the 20-tonne core module of a more-permanent outpost towards the end of the decade.

Robert Christy has been analysing and documenting space events since the early 1960s and currently provides information via his web site.

 

via www.spacedaily.com