Archive for the ‘Space Book Reviews’ Category
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November 13th, 2024
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has identified three technologies in science, technology, and engineering that are trending toward maturity: Gene editing, Biodegradable bioplastics, and guess what – Space-based manufacturing of semiconductor crystals.
Space-based manufacturing of semiconductor crystals, may enable the production of high-quality semiconductors, the GAO reports.
“The unique conditions of space—such as microgravity, a natural vacuum, and reduced contamination—could enable the production of semiconductor crystals with fewer defects and greater purity than those manufactured on Earth,” the report explains.
Of what on-Earth use?
“These semiconductors could lead to more powerful computers, faster communication systems, and improved consumer electronics,” notes the GAO document.
As for the implications, GAO spotlights the dependency on foreign supply chains for raw materials, and safeguarding the spacecraft needed for enabling such manufacturing.
“A potential consideration for policymakers is whether a comprehensive licensing framework for investment, development, and intellectual property protection would benefit the development of these technologies,” concludes the GAO study.
GAO developed this report focused on technologies approximately 10 years on the horizon. “The goal is to provide foresight into developing technologies that could have significant impacts on Americans,” the report explains.
Go to the full GAO report at:
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Image credit: CSIS Aerospace Security Project
“There is a lot of promise—and hype—around the future of humankind in cislunar space. But there are also hard realities,” explains a report by the Aerospace Security Project, a study arm of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
Salmon Swimming Upstream – charting a course in cislunar space points out that “only the United States and China are positioned to develop and launch crewed spacecraft to the Moon.”
The report’s title was prompted by Apollo 11 moonwalker, Neil Armstrong, the first person on the Moon: “I think we’re going to the Moon because it’s in the nature of the human being to face challenges. It’s by the nature of his deep inner soul . . . we’re required to do these things just as salmon swim upstream.”
Common ground
A key comment by the report’s principal author, Clayton Swope, and contributing author, Louis Gleason is that cislunar space and beyond is probably the best environment—maybe the only environment today—where the United States and China, as well as many other nations, can find common ground on shared interests.
Image credit: CSIS Aerospace Security Project
“The United States should seize this opportunity, both for U.S. national interests and for humankind more broadly,” the report concludes.
Policies and activities
This informative report features:
- National Cislunar Policies and Activities
- International Space Governance Frameworks
- Non-space International Frameworks with Analogues to Space Governance
- Cislunar Governance and Policy Challenges
- Cislunar Operational and Infrastructure Challenges
- Key Considerations for Next Steps
To access the report — Salmon Swimming Upstream – charting a course in cislunar space – go to:
Image credit: NASA
Now that the election is over, here are some of the major issues facing the nation and next Congress in regards to space programs, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).
“Competition in space is growing as more countries launch their own space programs. We’ve reviewed NASA’s major projects—including sending Americans back to the moon by the end of September 2026 and then (eventually) on to Mars,” reports the GAO.
Image credit: NASA
“Our work has reported several challenges these efforts face that have caused delays and increased costs,” the GAO notes.
Space issue page
A GAO “space issue” page outlines the government watchdog’s most recent work on NASA’s efforts.
Spotlighted are the following reports and open recommendations:
- NASA Artemis Missions: Exploration Ground Systems Program Could Strengthen Schedule Decisions
- Artemis Programs: NASA Should Document and Communicate Plans to Address Gateway’s Mass Risk
- NASA Lunar Programs: Improved Mission Guidance Needed as Artemis Complexity Grows
To read these GAO space reports, go to:
The prestigious National Academies has taken a hard look at the NASA of today and what’s ahead.
And for a space agency that has been a leader in exploring our planet and other worlds, it is in a world of hurt.
That’s the thrust of a hard-hitting report from an Academies blue-ribbon committee.
Norm Augustine, committee chair and former Lockheed Martin CEO, details report findings during a webinar.
Image credit: National Academies/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Core issues
The report released last month is titled “NASA at a Crossroads: Maintaining Workforce, Infrastructure, and Technology Preeminence in the Coming Decades.”
Out-of-date infrastructure, pressures to prioritize short-term objectives, budget mismatches, inefficient management practices, and nonstrategic reliance on commercial partners are spotlighted as core issues needing attention.
For an inside look at the report itself, and reactions to its findings, go to my new Space.com story — “NASA at a crossroads: Budget woes, aging infrastructure and hard choices ahead – ‘This is not a time for business as usual'” – at:
https://www.space.com/nasa-crossroads-budget-issues-national-academies-report
Image credit: NASA
The United States Government Accountability Office (GAO), a federal watchdog organization, has issued another look at the NASA Artemis, back to the Moon, program.
This GAO report – “Exploration Ground Systems Program Could Strengthen Schedule Decisions” – found that the program has made progress, but the Artemis schedule poses challenges.
Schedule driver
The Exploration Ground Systems (EGS) program develops and operates the systems and facilities necessary to integrate and launch rockets and spacecraft and then recover crew for the Artemis missions.
“NASA is planning to spend billions of dollars on the Artemis missions. This includes over $3 billion specifically for EGS from fiscal years 2024 through 2028,” the GAO report notes. “The EGS program was a key contributor during the launch of Artemis I in November 2022.”
The program will support crewed Artemis launches in upcoming years. Since Artemis I, EGS continues to improve facilities and develop capabilities for future Artemis missions, such as the EGS’s Mobile Launcher 2 (ML2) which is the primary schedule driver for Artemis IV.
Much work remains
Artemis II and III launches (planned for September 2025 and 2026, respectively): EGS is making progress refurbishing the Mobile Launcher 1—the structure used to transport and launch key systems—and modifying elements to support crew during these missions.
“New capabilities are taking longer than planned, and the program has only limited time to address potential issues,” the GAO report adds.
Artemis IV launch (planned for September 2028): EGS has made some progress toward this mission, such as modifying facilities to accommodate processing and launching the larger Space Launch System (SLS) Block 1B launch vehicle.
“However, much work remains, some of which cannot start until after the Artemis III launch,” the GAO report explains.
To review the GAO report — “Exploration Ground Systems Program Could Strengthen Schedule Decisions” – go to:
The American Foreign Policy Council Space Policy Initiative co-directors have designed a series of workshops to examine near-term scenarios that could have a significant psychological impact on public perceptions of space, and thus on resourcing and policy.
The report, REACTING TO MAJOR SPACE EVENTS ON THE MOON AND IN CISLUNAR SPACE —After Action Report— asks what do we want space to look like? What policies are necessary to get there?
Image credit: American Foreign Policy Council
Among futuristic scenarios, the report addresses what if China’s lunar factory crushes U.S. ambitions?; Can a private company claim the Moon?; Are China’s Moon safety zones a massive lunar land grab?
For access to the report, go to:
https://www.afpc.org/uploads/documents/Workshop_2_-_After_Action_Report_-_9.16.24.pdf
Meld the passion of a leading astrobiologist with the weighty nature of trying to grasp for answers to two key questions: Are we alone in the universe? How did life on Earth begin in the first place?
“The missions are telling us that the stuff we’re made of is not an accident. It’s almost common out there,” explains Nathalie Cabrol, Director of the Carl Sagan Center at the SETI Institute.
Cabrol’s book, The Secret Life of the Universe: An Astrobiologist’s Search for the Origins and Frontiers of Life (Scribner/Simon & Schuster), recently released, offers an insightful, and reflective view of the search for life – a mind-stretching quest not only looking “out there” but also right here on our home planet.
The observer and the observation
Perhaps part of the challenge is that humankind is both the observer and the observation, Cabrol explains. That is, we are life trying to understand itself and its origin.
“We are reminded that the universe is both an enigmatic puzzle and a profound mirror reflecting out own existence,” Cabrol writes.
Nathalie Cabrol is a French American explorer and the director of the Carl Sagan Center for Research at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California. In an exclusive interview, Space.com discussed with her the new book and the professional odyssey that she has embarked upon.
To read my new Space.com interview with the renowned astrobiologist, go to – “‘We are close:’ SETI astrobiologist Nathalie Cabrol on the search for life” – at:
https://www.space.com/seti-nathalie-cabrol-the-secret-life-of-the-universe
Wait-a-Minute!
Image credit: Barbara David
In a new Wait-a-Minute report, the prestigious National Academies has taken a hard look at the NASA of today and what’s ahead.
For a space agency that has been a leader in exploring our planet and other worlds, it is in a world of hurt, the report suggests.
Sign of the crossroad.
The report identifies out-of-date infrastructure, pressures to prioritize short-term objectives, budget mismatches, inefficient management practices, and nonstrategic reliance on commercial partners as the core issues.
That said, the report explains that NASA should rebalance its priorities and increase investments in its facilities, expert workforce, and development of cutting-edge technology, “even if it means forestalling initiation of new missions.”
As noted in an Academies press statement, “NASA’s portfolio is based on accomplishing things that have never been done before, but the environment in which the agency functions is complicated by several factors,” including:
- Rapid advancements in technology
- The need to compete for talent with the commercial space sector, other space agencies, and other high-tech sectors
- A declining federal discretionary budget and a flat agency budget (in terms of purchasing power)
- Lack of timely congressional authorization acts
- Shortfalls in the nation’s pre-K-12 education system
- Increasing competition in space from China
Astronauts explore lunar south pole crater. A water ice-rich resource ready for processing awaits?
Credit: NASA
Core findings
The committee offers seven “core findings” that, in its view, rise to the highest level of priority. They are:
Core Finding 1: NASA’s ability to pursue high-risk, long-lead science and technology challenges and opportunities in aeronautics, space science, Earth science, and space operations and exploration has arguably been the agency’s greatest value to the nation. Pursuit of such potentially transformative opportunities requires constancy of purpose, consistent long-term funding commensurate with the tasks it has been asked to undertake, a technically skilled workforce able to devote sustained effort to address challenging problems, and leading-edge equipment and supporting infrastructure that enable work at the cutting edge of science and engineering.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Core Finding 2: NASA faces internal and external pressures to prioritize short-term measures without adequate consideration of longer-term needs and implications. This produces adverse impacts on contracting, budgeting, funding, infrastructure, R&D, and execution of NASA’s mission portfolio. If left unchecked, these pressures are likely to result in a NASA that is incapable of satisfying national objectives in the longer term.
Core Finding 3: NASA’s budget is often incompatible with the scope, complexity, and difficulty of its mission work. The long-term impacts of this mismatch include erosion of capabilities in workforce, critical infrastructure, and advanced technology development. The current relative allocations of funding to mission work as compared with that allocated to institutional support has degraded NASA’s capabilities to the point where agency sustainability is in question.
Image credit: NASA
Core Finding 4: NASA’s shift to milestone-based purchase-of-service contracts for first-of-a-kind, low-technology-readiness-level mission work can, if misused, erode the agency’s in-house capabilities, degrade the agency’s ability to provide creative and experienced insight and oversight of programs, and put the agency and the United States at increased risk of program failure.
Core Finding 5: Mission effectiveness across NASA is compromised by slow and cumbersome business operations that have been a consequence of legitimate efforts to increase efficiency and better coordinate complex tasks.
Artemis 2 crewmembers will cruise by the Moon during their mission, an eye-encounter of the lunar kind.
Image credit: NASA/Kennedy Space Center
Core Finding 6: Over the past decade, significant responsibilities and authorities for major programs previously delegated to the NASA center level have been shifting to the mission directorates. This may have potentially compromised checks and balances for a clear and independent technical oversight. While the optimum allocation of checks and balances can depend on the needs of a particular organization and mission, incorrectly establishing this balance can have extreme impacts.
To read the full and troublesome report — NASA at a Crossroads: Maintaining Workforce, Infrastructure, and Technology Preeminence in the Coming Decades – go to:
Wait a Minute!
Image credit: Barbara David
Book Review: Still As Bright: An Illuminating History of the Moon, from Antiquity to Tomorrow by Christopher Cokinos; Pegasus Books; 2024; Hardcover, 448 pages; $32.00.
From the moment you open the cover of this volume, the reader is literally moonbound.
Author Cokinos has written a suburb book about our nightlight in the sky, Earth’s celestial partner, the Moon. His early eyepiece fascination with the Moon, dashing across the rugged lunar landscape via a three-inch reflector telescope stuck with him – and the reader is forever enriched thanks to that early attraction.
This book is true treasure thanks to his tasty style of poetic and philosophic prose and, as he observes that the Moon is more than a rock. It’s a story. Within the 13 chapters, you’ll find a rich tapestry of space exploration events that has captured – sometimes failing – to tell us the true story of our Moon.
The blend of Space Race anecdotes with the allure of our Moon that still propels our exploration instincts is skillfully told, underscoring humankind’s attributes, albeit sometimes also demonstrating our shortcomings.
“When I look at the Moon I see a scumble of violence and change that I register as terrain and that my mind knows is time,” the author writes. Elsewhere in the book you’ll find Cokinos grappling with the UN Outer Space Treaty, who owns the Moon debates, protecting cultural heritage sites on the Moon, and as he points out: “So if the Moon belongs to us, it means the first thing we do is talk with the lawyers.”
By completing this honest, witty and wondrous read, it’s a given you’ll never look at the Moon the same way again. “The Moon has proven to be a patient teacher,” Cokinos explains.
So grab this book and let’s all be students of the unknown together.
Image credit: The Planetary Society/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Christopher Cokinos is a Professor, Emeritus of English at the University of Arizona and is the author of The Fallen Sky: An Intimate History of Shooting Stars, as well as Hope Is the Thing with Feathers: A Personal Chronicle of Vanished Birds. His articles, poems and essays about space and astronomy have been published in Sky & Telescope, the Los Angeles Times, has been featured in other venues, including NPR’s “All Things Considered.”
I want to spotlight a recent interview with Cokinos about this brilliant book. Take a view of “Talking with author Chris Cokinos about STILL AS BRIGHT” – a video from The Planetary Society’s Book Club, hosted by the firm-footed, but out of this world interviewer, Mat Kaplan, at:
https://www.planetary.org/video/talking-with-author-chris-cokinos
For more information on this book, go to:
http://www.pegasusbooks.com/books/still-as-bright-9781639365692-hardcover
A newly released report details the outcomes from potential near-term space-related scenarios that could significantly impact U.S. public perception, resourcing, and policy.
Image credit: OpenAI’s DALL·E.
The series of high-stakes, seminar-style wargames is designed to prepare U.S. leaders for possible space occurrences over the next two to three decades.
The simulations focused on scenarios that might plausibly confront the United States within the next two administrations.
A number of the scenarios were direct challenges by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to U.S. leadership in space.
Image credit: AFPC
Space scenarios
Reacting to Major Space Events at or Below Geostationary Orbit is a report of the American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC). The organization is “dedicated to bringing information to those who make or influence the foreign policy of the United States.”
Image credit: OpenAI’s DALL·E.
Scenario 1: Incident in the Cosmos — The Downing of a U.S. Satellite
Scenario 2: The Red Celestial Guard—PRC’s Co-orbital ASAT Constellation
Scenario 3: Orbital Tensions—Satellite Sabotage Showdown
Scenario 4: Celestial Vanguard—PLA’s Spaceplane Squadron Emergence
Scenario 5: Solar Sentinel—PRC’s Leap in Space-Based Power
Scenario 6: Celestial Core—PRC’s First Space Nuclear Reactor
Image credit: OpenAI’s DALL·E.
Strategic recommendations
The report offers strategic recommendations, such as the need to invest in critical technologies for maintaining and accelerating U.S. space leadership.
How best to prioritize space nuclear power and propulsion, space-based solar power satellites, and spaceplanes?
For the full report – Reacting to Major Space Events at or Below Geostationary Orbit — go to:
https://www.afpc.org/uploads/documents/Workshop_1_-_After_Action_Report_-_6.20.24.pdf
