Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
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January 13th, 2019
Curiosity Front Hazcam Left A image taken on Sol 2288, January 13, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has just begun Sol 2289 activities.
Reports Susanne Schwenzer, a planetary geologist at the Open University; Milton Keynes, the U.K.: “We will soon be leaving the Rock Hall area, thus this one last look at the drill site from a hazard camera perspective. Seeing those holes always is special, even for #19!”
Front Hazcam Left A image taken on Sol 2288, January 12, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Rock powder dumping
Curiosity Navcam Left A image acquired on Sol 2288, January 13, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
In recent planning, the rover was slated to dump the remaining rock powder from the drill and investigate it with all instruments, starting with the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS).
Schwenzer notes that Sol 2288 plans included a range of environmental investigations, with a dedicated morning science block on sol 2288 to a passive sky observation and a Mastcam tau to see how the dust loading in the atmosphere is changing.
Curiosity Mars Hand Lens Image (MAHLI) photo produced on Sol 2288, January 13, 2019. MAHLI is located on the turret at the end of the rover’s robotic arm.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Bedrock observations
The science block of sol 2289 is dedicated to spectral analysis of the dump pile with Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) passive and Mastcam multispectral investigations.
ChemCam is holding off on its active Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectrometer (LIBS) observations of the dump pile until scientists know that APXS and the spectral analysis completed successfully. Thus there are two bedrock observations in the sol 2290 plan: the targets are Dufftown and Lairg.
Curiosity ChemCam Remote Micro-Imager photo taken on Sol 2287, January 12, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL
Curiosity Mastcam Right image acquired on Sol 2287, January 12, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
“Both will be investigated with 10-point rasters to further capture the bedrock variability we have been seeing,” Schwenzer adds. “Monday’s plan will be the last one at Rock Hall before we start our descent of the ridge and into the clay unit. I am excited to explore the new terrain, and so is the entire team!”
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Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Artist concept showing the protective role of the wind and thermal shield (WTS) at the martian surface.
Credit: IPGP/David Ducros
Now in Sol 46, NASA’s InSight Mars lander acquired these images on January 13 using its robotic arm-mounted, Instrument Deployment Camera (IDC).
Operators will soon make use of the five mechanical fingers of the grapple to pick up the Wind and Thermal Shield, placing it on top of the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) now in position on the surface of Mars.
Insight’s robotic arm will also deploy the heat flow probe – a mole that burrows 16 feet (five meters) into the ground. That’s deeper than any instrument that has ever been to Mars.
The grapple fingers close around a handle that resembles a ball on top of a stem. Each of the three items the arm will lift has one of these handles.
Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University/CNSA/CLEP
NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) imagery has been used to further pinpoint the landing locale of China’s Chang’e-4 farside lander.
Looking at the just released Chang’e-4 descent frames to the surface made it easy to find the exact landing spot in a Narrow Angle Camera image produced by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, or LROC. That image was taken prior to the Chang’e-4’s touchdown, explains Mark Robinson, the principal investigator of the LROC at Arizona State University in Tempe.
The LROC is a system of three cameras mounted on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter that capture high resolution black and white images and moderate resolution multi-spectral images of the lunar surface.
A prominent crater, roughly 80 feet (25 meters) in diameter, is in front of the lander and can be seen in the LROC imagery, just below and to the left of the bottom arrow.
Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
Prominent crater
China’s Chang’e-4 safely set down on the plains of Von Kármán crater last week, on January 3.
Soon thereafter a color image of the immediate surroundings was relayed back to the Earth from the farside.
In reviewing the imagery, Robinson says the prominent crater, roughly 80 feet (25 meters) in diameter, in front of the lander can be seen in the LROC imagery.
Toward the end of the month, LRO will be overflying the Von Kármán crater and may provide imagery of the lander and the Yutu-2 rover.
Future plans
Meanwhile, a senior Chinese space expert reports that China will deepen its lunar exploration plans, including establishing a scientific research station at the south polar region of the Moon.
Credit: China Central Television (CCTV)/China National Space Administration (CNSA)/Screengrab/Inside Outer Space
Wu Weiren, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and chief designer of China’s lunar exploration program, told China’s Xinhua news service that the country’s current lunar program includes three phases: orbiting, landing, and returning.
The first two phases have been accomplished, and the next step is to launch the Chang’e-5 probe to collect roughly four pounds (2 kilograms) of samples and bring them back to the Earth, Wu said.
“We are discussing and drawing up the plan for the fourth phase of the lunar exploration program, including missions to the polar regions of the Moon,” Wu added.
Research station
Next phase: sample return.
Credit: CCTV/Screengrab/Inside Outer Space
Some places at the south pole of the Moon receive sunlight for over 180 consecutive days, and some areas in craters there are never exposed to sunlight and might hold frozen water, scientists say.
“We hope to build a scientific research station in the south polar region of the Moon. It would be operated automatically and visited by people for short periods,” Wu envisioned.
According to Xinhua, a heavy-lift carrier rocket, with a takeoff weight of about 4,000 tons and a diameter of 10 meters, is a goal for 2030. It would help realize the aim of bringing Mars samples back to the Earth and sending Chinese astronauts to the Moon.
New videos
Zhang Hongbo, chief designer of Chang’e-4’s ground application system, explains Chang’e-4’s landing in the Von Karman Crater, located in the Aitken Basin, in the South Pole region on the far side of the Moon, on 3 January 2019, at 02:26 UTC (10:26 Beijing time).
Credit: China Central Television (CCTV)/China National Space Administration (CNSA)
The landing of the Chang’e-4 lunar mission seen from the onboard camera. Chang’e-4 (嫦娥四号) lander and the rover Yutu-2 (玉兔二号, Jade Rabbit-2) landed in the Von Karman Crater, located in the Aitken Basin, in the South Pole region on the far side of the Moon, on 3 January 2019, at 02:26 UTC (10:26 Beijing time).
Credit: China National Space Administration (CNSA)
Music: Lau Tzu Ehru by Doug Maxwell courtesy of YouTube Audio Library
Chang’e-4 lunar rover took panoramic photos of its landing site, the Von Karman Crater, located in the Aitken Basin, in the South Pole region on the far side of the Moon. Chang’e-4 (嫦娥四号) lunar mission, the lander and the rover Yutu-2 (玉兔二号, Jade Rabbit-2), landed in the crater on 3 January 2019, at 02:26 UTC (10:26 Beijing time). Communications with Earth are provided by the relay satellite Queqiao (鹊桥, Magpie Bridge).
Credit: China Central Television (CCTV)/China National Space Administration (CNSA)
Site-seeing
To explore more of the area around the Chang’e-4 landing site, go to LROC zoomify mode via:
http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/posts/1087
China National Space Administration (CNSA) has also released a video recording of the entire soft landing on the Moon’s farside by China’s Chang’e-4 probe.
Go to:
https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d774e7755544f31457a6333566d54/share_p.html
Also, go to this side by side video of the landings of Chang’e-3 (December 2013) and Chang’e-4 (January 3) by clicking image:
Chang’e-4 lander on Moon’s farside. Image taken by Yutu-2 rover. Credit: CNSA/CLEP
Image of China’s Yutu-2 lunar rover taken by Chang’e-4 lander.
Credit: CNSA/CLEP
Yutu-2 lunar rover, ready for exploration duties. Credit: CNSA/CLEP
Image credits: Chinese Academy of Sciences / Chinese Lunar Exploration Program / China National Space Administration (CNSA).
Chang’e-4 views its landing site, including the Yutu-2 rover just to the south, in the first panorama taken after landing, on January 10, 2019.
Go to:
http://www.360cities.net/image/first-lunar-far-side-panorama-change-4
Chang’e-4 farside lander and Yutu-2 rover.
Credit: CNSA/CLEP
China’s CGTN has posted new imagery of China’s Chang’e-4 probe and its rover Yutu-2. The lunar twosome took photos of each other on Friday.
China’s Chang’e-4 landing image taken from video.
Credit: CNSA/CLEP
Chang’e-4 probe touched down at the preselected landing area at 177.6 degrees east longitude and 45.5 degrees south latitude in the Von Karman Crater in the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) Basin on the farside of the Moon on January 3, and the rover drove onto the lunar surface late that night.
At 4:47 p.m. BJT on Friday, the images of the lander and the rover appeared on a large screen at the Beijing Aerospace Control Center, showing the Chinese national flag on both the lander and the rover with the desolate landscape dotted with craters on the farside of the Moon as the background.
CGTN on January 11 offered a 45-minute special program on Chang’e-4, the farside of the Moon and lunar exploration.
Go to:
https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d557a4e304d545a326c4754/share_p.html
China National Space Administration (CNSA) has also released a video recording of the entire soft landing on the Moon’s farside by China’s Chang’e-4 probe.
Go to:
https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d774e7755544f31457a6333566d54/share_p.html
Image of China’s Yutu-2 lunar rover taken by Chang’e-4 lander.
Credit: CNSA/CLEP
Post-nap restart
The Yutu-2 restarted its exploration on Thursday after taking a “nap” as solar radiation raised the temperature on the lunar surface to over 100 degrees Centigrade.
The 360-degree panorama image was published by CNSA on Friday, pieced together from 80 photos taken by a camera on the lander, according to Li Chunlai, deputy director of the National Astronomical Observatories of China and commander-in-chief of the ground application system of Chang’e-4.
Rugged terrain
As reported by China’s Xinhua news service: “From the panorama, we could see the probe was surrounded by many small craters. It was really thrilling,” Li said.
Image of Chang’e-4 lander taken by Yutu-2 rover.
Credit: CNSA/CLEP
“One of the craters close to the rover Yutu-2 has a diameter of about 20 meters and a depth of about 4 meters. The rugged terrain will pose great challenges for planning the route of the rover,” Li said. “Compared with the landing site of the Chang’e-3, which was sent to the Sinus Iridum, or the Bay of Rainbows, on the Moon’s nearside, fewer rocks can be found in the area surrounding Chang’e-4, indicating the landing area of Chang’e-4 might be older.”
Avoiding obstacles
The CNSA released video of the landing process of the Chang’e-4, which was produced by processing more than 4,700 pictures taken by a camera on the landing craft. The video, lasting about 12 minutes, shows the lander adjusting its altitude, hovering and avoiding obstacles during the descent.
China’s first Moon lander, Chang’e-3, taken by Yutu-1 rover during 2013 nearside exploration.
Credit: CNSA/CLEP
“From the video, we can see more dust was thrown up when the Chang’e-4 touched down on the farside of the Moon compared with the landing of Chang’e-3, indicating that the lunar dust at the landing area of Chang’e-4 is thicker than the region where Chang’e-3 landed,” said Zhang Hongbo, chief designer of the ground application system of Chang’e-4, as reported by Xinhua.
“The thicker dust shows that the lunar regolith in the region has undergone longer space weathering, which also gives strong evidence of the region being older. We will conduct comparative research between the landing areas of Chang’e-3 and Chang’e-4,” Li said.
Artist’s concept of the New Horizons spacecraft encountering Pluto and its largest moon, Charon (foreground) in July 2015.
Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/Steve Gribben/Alex Parker
The Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory issued impressive videos – “Summiting the Solar System” – that spotlights the voyage of NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft and the flyby a small Kuiper Belt Object known scientifically as 2014 MU69, but nicknamed “Ultima Thule.”
New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern of Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, CO., left, with print of a U.S. stamp with suggested update since the New Horizons spacecraft explored Pluto in July 2015.
Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
Ultima, four billion miles from Earth, is the most ancient and most distant world ever explored close up. It offers discoveries about the origin and evolution of our solar system.
Big passions, small team
But “Summiting” is much more than the story of a sophisticated, plutonium-fueled robotic spacecraft exploring far from the Sun.
The New Horizons mission is powered as much by the passions of a small team of humans—men and women, scientists and engineers—for whom pushing the frontiers of the known, climbing the very peaks of the possible, has been the dream of many decades.
Credit: Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute (JHUAPL/SwRI)
Behind the scenes
“Summiting” goes behind the scenes of the most ambitious occultation campaigns ever mounted, as scientists deployed telescopes to Senegal and Colombia in 2018, and Argentina, South Africa and New Zealand in 2017, to glimpse Ultima as it passed in front of a star, and gathered data on the object’s size and orbit that has been essential to planning the flyby.
Mission scientists recall the astonishing scientific success of flying through the Pluto system in 2015, and use comparative planetology to show how Earth and Pluto are both amazingly different and—with glaciers, tall mountains, volcanoes and blue skies—awesomely similar.
Along for the ride
Appealing to all, “Summiting” brings viewers along for the ride of a lifetime as New Horizons pushes past Pluto and braves an even more hazardous unknown.
These videos were produced by Geoff Haines Stiles of Geoff Haines Stiles Productions (GHSPi) and can be found here at:
Yutu-2 lunar rover, ready for exploration duties. Credit: CNSA/CLEP
China’s Yutu-2 lunar rover has been reactivated on Thursday, following a planned “nap,” reports China’s Global Television Network, or CGTN.
“China’s space engineers care about the reactivation as the last model [Yutu-1] failed its first awakening in February 2014,” CGTN said.
Safe on the farside, Chang’e 4 set down somewhere in this NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter LROC image obtained July 17, 2010. The lines connect craters seen in the Chang’e 4 descent image (CNSA/CLEP) with the same craters seen in the LROC image.
Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
Chang’e-4 landed on January 3 within the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) Basin, the largest and deepest basin in the solar system. The touchdown was in Von Kármán crater, a 110 miles (186-kilometers) wide region.
International payloads
Meanwhile, a suite of international payloads carried on the farside Chang’e-4 mission have started operation.
A neutron radiation detector aboard the lander, developed by Germany, and a neutral atom detector on the rover, developed by Sweden, have both been switched on, according to China National Space Administration (CNSA) statement. Both detectors have been booted up and are under testing.
Advanced Small Analyzer for Neutrals (ASAN) device.
Credit: Swedish Institute of Space Physics
Moon water
Sweden’s Advanced Small Analyzer for Neutrals (ASAN) device is to study how the solar wind interacts with the lunar surface. ASAN was built in collaboration with the Chinese National Space Science Center (NSSC). It is the first time an energetic neutral atom sensor is deployed on the lunar surface. From a vantage point of only a few decimeters above the regolith surface, ASAN will measure energy spectra of energetic neutral atoms originating from reflected solar wind ions under different solar wind illumination conditions.
“Yes, we have successfully started commissioning of ASAN and expect the first science data before mid February…it depends on the rover being in a favorable position,” Martin Wieser, researcher at the Swedish Institute of Space Physics and principal investigator of ASAN, told Inside Outer Space.
ASAN is mounted on the Yutu-2 rover making it possible to perform measurements at different locations. The measurements could shed light on the processes responsible for the formation of water on the Moon.
Relay satellite for handling farside operations.
Credit: CNSA’s Lunar Exploration and Space Engineering Center (CNSA-LESEC)
Data from these instruments will be transmitted to the ground via the relay satellite Queqiao (Magpie Bridge), which was launched in May 2018 to set up the communication link between Earth and the Moon’s farside, and jointly studied by Chinese and foreign scientists, CNSA said.
Tricky landing
In a Xinhua news item, Yang Yuguang, a professor at the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation, said the farside landing was tricky. The terrain at the farside of the Moon is entirely different compared to the nearside. There are more highlands, craters, and mountains and the landform is much steeper.
Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
Yang underscored a new low-frequency spectrometer carried on the Chang’e-4 mission that will conduct a radio-astronomical study from the farside, an ideal place to conduct the study as there is no radio disturbance from Earth.
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
Chinese space officials have noted the cooperation offered by NASA, specifically orbital data from the space agency’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). The Chinese side has provided the landing timing and location, CNSA said.
NASA’s LRO is slated to overfly the area in coming weeks and may possibly spot the Chang’e-4 and its rover. LRO will be able to scout for the Chang’e-4 lander and Yutu-2 rover about midnight, January 31st, Mark Robinson told Inside Outer Space. He is principal investigator for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter LROC camera system at Arizona State University in Tempe.
Credit: China Central Television (CCTV)/China National Space Administration (CNSA)/Screengrab/Inside Outer Space
Cooperation
An Argentina-based ground station built by China has played an important role in the monitoring and control of the mission. Furthermore, ground stations run by the European Space Agency will also offer support, according to Xinhua.
The Chang’e-4 mission also includes a radioisotope heat source, a collaboration between Chinese and Russian scientists, to thwart the 14 day/14 night temperature swings on the Moon.
“International cooperation is the future of lunar exploration,” said Wu Weiren, chief designer of China’s lunar exploration program. The participating countries would share the costs, risks and achievements, and learn from each other. We hope to have more international cooperation,” Wu told Xinhua.
Landing region
A summary of the geology of the Chang’e-4 landing region can be found in the Journal of Geophysical Research: 5294 – Huang, J., Z. Xiao, J. Flahaut, M. Martinot, J. W. Head III, X. Xiao, M. Xie, and L. Xiao (2018), Geological characteristics of Von Kármán crater, northwestern South Pole-Aitken basin: Chang’E-4 landing site region, J. Geophys. Res., 123, doi: 10.1029/2018JE005577.
Go to:
Credit: National Geographic
Invite to the Colorado space community
Join me in a special presentation I’ll be giving concerning Our Future on the Red Planet (and on the Moon too!)
Wednesday, January 16, 2019
Chautauqua Community House
900 Baseline Road
Boulder, CO 80302
Doors: 6:30 PM
Showtime: 7:00 PM
Tickets: $12.00 ($9.00 Concert Member)*
For more information, go to:
Also, go to the general site for overview information at:
Giving a listen for other star folk, the Allen Telescope Array in California.
Credit: SETI Institute
Technosearch is a new-web-based tool that includes all published Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) listen and look-sees from 1960 until the present.
The tool also allows users to submit their own searches and keep the database current.
Jill Tarter, Director, Center of SETI Research and the Bernard M. Oliver Chair for SETI.
Credit: SETI Institute
Keeping it current
Jill Tarter, SETI pioneer and co-founder of the SETI Institute, has launched Technosearch: “I started keeping this search archive when I was a graduate student. Some of the original papers were presented at conferences, or appear in obscure journals that are difficult for newcomers to the SETI field to access. I’m delighted that we now have a tool that can be used by the entire community and a methodology for keeping it current.”
Tarter developed Technosearch in collaboration with former Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) interns, graduate students working with Professor Jason Wright at Penn State University and Andrew Garcia, SETI Institute 2018 REU student.
Frank Drake, center, with his colleagues, Optical SETI (OSETI) Principal Investigator Shelley Wright and Rem Stone with the 40-inch Nickel telescope at Lick Observatory in California. Outfitted with the OSETI instrument, the silver rectangular instrument package protrudes from the bottom of the telescope, plus computers, etc.
Credit: Laurie Hatch Photography, used with permission
Tracking information
One significant challenge for the SETI community has been keeping track of the hundreds of searches that have already been conducted. Technosearch should address this problem.
Technosearch tracks information including:
* Title of the search paper
* Name(s) of observers
* Search date
* Objects observed
* Facility where the search was conducted
* Size and sensitivity of the telescope used
* Resolving power of the instrument
* Time spent observing each object
* A link to the original published research paper
* Comments that explain the search strategy
* Observer notes
Technosearch includes sections for both radio and optical SETI. Currently this tool holds 102 Radio searches and 38 Optical searches, for a total of 140 different explorations.
Frank Drake with cosmic equation to gauge the presence of intelligent life in the cosmos. The Drake Equation identifies specific factors believed to play a role in the development of civilizations in our galaxy.
Credit: SETI Institute
Technosearch will be maintained by the SETI Institute at:
Also, go to this informative list containing the SETI searches looking for signals in the Radio part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
This list contains the first SETI observations written in the 1960s up to present day searches being conducted by teams all over the world. To see the bibliographic information, click on the title of the search you’re interested in.
Go to:
First step poster, a precursor to an interstellar probe.
Credit: John’s Hopkins APL
New ideas for an interstellar probe are percolating. Ambitious science and strategic plans are being formulated for the fastest flight ever out of our solar system, almost six times faster than the milestone making Voyager 1 spacecraft.
With the goal of reaching 90 billion miles from the Sun, this robotic explorer would push the limits of engineering know-how and space technology.
For more information, go to my new Space.com story:
A Wild ‘Interstellar Probe’ Mission Idea Is Gaining Momentum
By Leonard David, Space.com’s Space Insider Columnist
January 9, 2019 06:54am ET
https://www.space.com/42935-nasa-interstellar-probe-mission-idea.html
Russian engineer, Yuri Artsutanov, known as one of the fathers of the modern space elevator program.
Credit: Ted Semon/The Space Elevator Blog
Russian engineer, Yuri Artsutanov, known as one of the fathers of the modern space elevator program, died earlier this month.
Artsutanov’s proposal, created in the early 1960s, used newly discovered graphite whiskers to propose an Elevator to Space using cables attached to a satellite, and running in both directions.
Artsutanov published his ideas in the Sunday supplement Komsomolskaya Pravda in 1960.
Courtesy: ISEC
Eifel tower inspiration
The concept of the “space elevator” first appeared in 1895 when Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, inspired by the newly constructed Eifel Tower in Paris, thought of a tower that reached all the way into space.
In 1957 Yuri Artsutanov drew up a more feasible plan for building such a space tower. He proposed using a geostationary satellite as a base from which to build it. He suggested lowering a cable toward Earth while a counterweight was extended from Earth, keeping the cable’s center of gravity at the geosynchronous point.
Artsutanov published his ideas in the Sunday supplement Komsomolskaya Pravda (a national newspaper) in 1960.
Inspiration, concepts, and applications
Also paying tribute to Artsutanov is fellow innovator, Jerome Pearson.
“We in the space elevator technical community are all saddened to see the passing of Yuri Artsutanov, who applied his originality and inspiration to the grandiose idea of the space elevator, and later applied the concept to the Moon as well,” Pearson told Inside Outer Space.
Climber makes it way up lengthy space elevator.
Credit: Frank Chase/Chase Design Studios
Unfortunately, Artsutanov did not have initial government support for publication of his ideas, Pearson said, and he was limited to publishing in popular newspapers and magazines in the 1960’s and 1970’s when he produced multiple papers.
“But he was the first to conceive of the space elevator as a practical engineering feat, and originated the exponential taper from the maximum diameter at the synchronous orbit point to the ends, which is necessary to minimize the mass and make its construction feasible,” Pearson said. “I am glad to be a part of the community that publicly recognizes the debt we owe Yuri for his space elevator inspiration, concepts, and applications.”
Groundbreaking work
President of STAR, Inc. in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, Pearson pioneered the space elevator in the early 1970s, when he was at the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. He published his ideas in an international journal that first brought the idea to the attention of the entire world of spaceflight researchers.
Indeed, it was the groundbreaking work by both Artsutanov and Pearson that was recognized by Arthur C. Clarke in the afterword to the epic novel, The Fountains of Paradise.
Credit: Publisher: Gollancz/Orion Publishing Group
Clarke prediction
Bringing the concept to a popular readership, Clarke, in his 1978 novel, engineers construct a space elevator on top of a mountain peak in the mythical island of Taprobane – closely based on Sri Lanka, the country where Clarke resided.
The builders use advanced materials such as the carbon nanofibers.
“I’m often asked when I think the space elevator will be built,” Clarke said once during an interview. “My answer is about 10 years, when everyone stops laughing.”
Artwork of Pat Rawlings shows the concept of a space elevator as viewed from the geostationary transfer station looking down the length of the elevator towards the Earth.
Credit: NASA/Pat Rawlings
Pushing the concept to completion
“Yuri Artsutanov is recognized as one of the innovators in our field,” said Pete Swan, president of the International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC). He took the thought experiment of Tsiolkovsky [a compressive structure from Earth to Geosynchronous altitude] to the next level of development, a tether with tensile strength strong enough to deploy from GEO to the Earth and upward towards the counterweight [i.e. Apex Anchor], Swan said.
Artsutanov (3rd from left) and to his left, Jerome Pearson, at 2010 Space Elevator conference in Seattle with fellow blue sky thinkers.
Courtesy: Pete Swan/ISEC
“Artsutanov developed the baseline that we all use to understand the concept and grow towards an operational system,” Swan said. “He established key concepts and spoke out to push the concept towards completion.
The ISEC invited Artsutanov to be a keynote speaker at the 2010 International Space Elevator Conference in Seattle. “We enjoyed his presence in Seattle as he recognized that much had been accomplished and he was part of the initiation of our dream for the future,” Swan said.
