Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category

Filmmaker Tate Taylor has signed up to direct In the Event of a Moon Disaster for FilmNation.

The movie is inspired by a 1969 speech written for U.S. President Richard Nixon by William Safire, then on White House duty as a presidential speechwriter. The July 18, 1969 document was sent to White House official, H.R. Halderman, with Safire titling his internal White House essay: “In Event of Moon Disaster.”

 Safire’s speech was to be read by Nixon in the event that the first human landing on the Moon by Apollo 11’s Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin met with tragedy. Those remarks were uncovered after Safire’s death in 2009.

After his White House years, Safire became a Pulitzer Prize-winning political columnist for The New York Times.

The movie to be directed by Taylor, set to start in early 2015, will present an alternate version of events to the milestone making landing and completion of the Apollo 11 mission in July 1969.

Prepared eulogy

“I note that, in recent years, a document has surfaced that was authored by a President Nixon speech writer, William Safire, about our Apollo moon mission. It was written, I suppose, in the spirit that the ‘if factor’ did not work in our favor,” explains Buzz Aldrin.

“Senior officials must always be prepared with remarks for breakthroughs as well as tragedies,” Aldrin writes in his 2013 book “Mission to Mars – My Vision for Space Exploration” published by National Geographic, co-authored with Leonard David.

“Apollo 11 had the potential to fit into either one of those categories,” Aldrin explains. “Reading the prepared eulogy, I am proud to say that our mission…brought us back home safely.”

 

Engineers on Earth are trying to get a little traction about wheels on Mars.

NASA’s Curiosity rover is showing wheel “wear and tear” that engineers did not expect this early into the mission. Getting to Mount Sharp is a priority, but the robot has had to adjust its driving to compensate for the wheel damage.

Sharp, pointy rocks have played havoc with Curiosity’s wheels, forcing driving teams to seek soft patches of sandy Martian soil.

To help lessen the wheel issues on Mars a team of experts recently visiting the Dumont Dunes in California’s Mojave Desert, near Death Valley.

Scarecrow

Making use of a Curiosity’s test vehicle for driving, Scarecrow, engineers earlier this month appraised plotting a pathway on the Red Planet that involves trekking across less-damaging sand ripples.

Scarecrow has a full-size version of Curiosity’s wheels and other driving equipment, but doesn’t have the “brains.” Engineers use it to test drive on different types of terrain.

Curiosity is halfway to Mount Sharp, a three-mile-high mountain which scientists call “the Promised Land.” At the base of Mount Sharp, scientists expect to find a variety of rocks and minerals stacked in layers. Each layer could tell a story about what the environment was like when the layer formed as well as any changes through time.

My latest up on SPACE.com:

Research Center Launched to Combat Space Junk Menace

http://www.space.com/26344-space-junk-research-center-coder.html

Question: How do you feed a six-person crew on a three-year mission to Mars?

Answer: It’s not easy!

That point was underscored during a June 23 panel discussion on living and working in extreme conditions at the 2014 Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) Annual Meeting & Food Expo held this week in New Orleans.

A highly acceptable, nutritious food system is central to crew health and performance on a long duration space mission.

NASA is embarking on “the ultimate challenge,” to create a viable food program by 2030 that will feed a six-person team of astronauts for up to three years.

The current space food system will not meet shelf life values that may be required, noted Grace Douglas, a Human Research Program Advanced Food Technology (AFT) Portfolio Scientist at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

Gravity, pressure, and radiation

The goal of the NASA AFT Portfolio is to determine the requirements, methods, and technologies that will deliver a safe, nutritious, and acceptable food system for space travelers.

But doing so must be within the constraints of available resources and alterations in gravity, pressure, and radiation during all phases of long duration missions.

Douglas reported that AFT maintains an integrated and collaborative research plan into alternative processing, packaging, formulation, environmental conditions, and bioregenerative/surface processing systems.

That plan seeks to investigate how each of these factors can be altered or combined to provide a food system that consistently meets mission requirements and promotes crew health.

Lighter, tastier and more nutritious

Douglas notes that recent advances include a method to deliver nutrition to crew in a pressurized suit and optimization of delivery approaches of probiotics to crew in spaceflight.

Probiotics are organisms such as bacteria or yeast that are believed to improve health. They are available in supplements and foods.

“We need to create a safe and nutritious food system that meets space flight requirements,” said Douglas. For example, beverages must withstand high pressure, and food must have the appropriate viscosity to remain on a fork or spoon. Optimally, the food will have “crew acceptability,” meaning the astronauts want to eat the products over many years, according to an IFT press statement.

With current prepackaged foods designed for space, it is estimated that six crew members living on Mars for 1,095 days will require over 13 tons (12,023 kilograms) of food.

That being the case, NASA food scientists, and other organizations, are working to make prepackaged foods that are lighter, tastier and more nutritious, with a longer shelf life.

How do everyday objects here on Earth stand a chance of surviving on distant Mars?

To find out, over two-dozen UK students have flown 80 experiments high above Earth courtesy of the MARSBalloon project.

The experiments were lofted 18.6 miles (30 kilometers) up into Earth’s atmosphere on a high altitude balloon named Tharsis – after a volcanic region of Mars.

At that height, the student investigations experienced temperatures as low as -50°C, pressures of 1 percent of that at sea level and increased levels of radiation; conditions which are very similar to that of the surface of the Red Planet. These conditions can rapidly degrade materials, damage electronics and sterilize organics.

The MARSBalloon launch took place from Frome, Somerset, landing on farmland in Pulham, Dorchester some two hours later. The recovered experiments were returned to the students who made them. They are encouraged to write up their scientific results for publishing on the project website.

Career boosting idea

The project was devised and is run by young space engineers from Thales Alenia Space UK with funding from the UK’s Science & Technology Facilities Council. This unique project is aimed at encouraging young people to take up careers in the UK space industry.

All of the experiments flown on the June 19^th mission developed by 30 UK secondary school students had to fit inside a Kinder Surprisetm toy capsule and were mounted onto a special tray beneath the balloon to maximize their exposure to the hostile environment.

The next MARSBalloon launch, named Elysium after another Martian volcanic region, is planned for mid-October.

 

 

 

 

 

 

UK secondary school teachers interested in entering their class or club into this flight can do so by going to the project website:

www.marsballoon.com

Full details of the flight including video highlights, imagery, flight data and experiment results are to be published on a dedicated website page.

 

 

A European forum is addressing the issue of who owns the Moon?

There is a growing debate within scientific, entrepreneurial and policy circles regarding lunar resources and access to those resources on Earth’s nearest celestial neighbor.

Experts on these issues are being brought together by Google Lunar XPRIZE at the EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF) 2014, Europe’s largest general science meeting.

The discussion is taking place today in Copenhagen, Denmark. 

Stakeholders in space

To date, only three nations – Russia, the U.S. and China – have “soft-landed” a spacecraft on the Moon, although other nations have launched successful lunar orbiters. 

But the stakeholders in space are changing: lunar exploration is no longer the domain of Governmental agencies alone. 

With activities like the Google Lunar XPRIZE and private-public partnerships stimulating a New Space industry, commercial organizations have business plans and are attracting investment to develop low-cost, regular, reliable access to the Moon within a decade. 

However, the Moon’s resources are not distributed evenly over the lunar surface.  The majority of water on the Moon is concentrated in ice deposits in or near deeply shadowed, dark craters at the poles. Therefore, access to these sites is vital, if the Moon is to be used as a future base and stepping-stone for exploration of the rest of the solar system.

Rare metals, minerals and water

According to a Google Lunar XPRIZE press release:

“New Space entrepreneurs are looking to the Moon’s supplies of rare metals, minerals, and – perhaps most importantly – water-ice to sustain their business in the long term. Water and organics are key to the development of life-support systems for any future human settlement on the Moon. In addition, water can be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen that can be used for rocket fuel.”

“With only one sixth of the Earth’s gravity and no atmosphere, the Moon is an ideal launch site for large, heavy spacecraft needed to support manned missions to Mars and even further out into the solar system,” the release states.

World strategy

According to one of the participants in the discussion, Bernard Foing, the Executive Director of the International Lunar Exploration Working Group (ILEWG) and Senior Exploration Officer at ESA/ESTEC:

“The Outer Space Treaty specifies that no country or citizen owns the Moon. With international cooperation towards a world strategy for the exploration and utilization of the Moon, we can exploit responsibly scarce lunar resources and still preserve sites of historic and scientific interest. Precursor landers can be operated in a coordinated robotic village, with in-situ use of resources, done with respect. This would prepare a sustainable and smart path towards humans living off the land in international lunar bases.”

For more information on this discussion, visit:

https://esof2014.pathable.com/#meetings/174596

Think big – that’s the astronomical and technical view of Martin Barstow of the University of Leicester in England.

Barstow is giving a talk at the National Astronomy Meeting (NAM 2014) in Portsmouth, England on June 24, set to call for governments and space agencies around the world to back the Advanced Technologies Large Aperture Space Telescope, or ATLAST for short.

The Royal Astronomical Society’s NAM is being held at the University of Portsmouth – one of the largest professional astronomy conferences in Europe.

ATLAST is an instrument that would give scientists a good chance of detecting hints of life on planets around other stars.

The plan

Make note that ATLAST is currently a concept. It’s under development in the United States and Europe.

Here’s the plan: Scientists and engineers envisage a telescope with a mirror as large as 20 meters (65.6 feet) across that, like the Hubble Space Telescope, would detect visible light and also operate from the far-ultraviolet to the infrared parts of the spectrum.

ATLAST would be capable of analyzing the light from planets the size of the Earth in orbit around other nearby stars, searching for features in their spectra such as molecular oxygen, ozone, water and methane that could suggest the presence of life. It might also be able to see how the surfaces of planets change with the seasons.

Details! Challenges ahead

But way before ATLAST goes prime time, perhaps around 2030, there are details!

Before this can happen, there are technical challenges to overcome such as enhancing the sensitivities of detectors and increasing the efficiencies of the coatings on the mirror segments.

Such a large structure may also need to be assembled in space before deployment rather than launching on a single rocket. All of this means that a decision to construct the telescope needs to happen soon for it to proceed.

ATLAST advocate, Barstow, is the President of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) and is supportive of the project in a personal capacity.

Ambitious but extraordinary

Barstow sees ATLAST as an ambitious but extraordinary project.

He argues that, since antiquity human beings have wondered whether we really are alone in the universe or whether there are other oases of life. This question is one of the fundamental goals of modern science and ATLAST could finally allow us to answer it.

 “The time is right for scientific and space agencies around the world, including those in the United Kingdom, to take a bold step forward and to commit to this project,” Barstow said in a RAS press statement.

 

Here’s a new one from me on use of satellite imagery to look for Noah’s Ark – a lightning rod article given all the reader comments!

Noah’s Search: Probing Satellite Imagery for Lost Ark

http://www.space.com/26318-noah-ark-search-satellite-images.html

It is called the Integrated Space Plan or ISP for short.

In the late 1980s, an ISP was drafted by Ron Jones, then at the aerospace giant, Rockwell International. The sweeping look into the future was developed to give a visual representation showing how the major space infrastructure elements fit together.

Fast forward to today. Things have changed!

In total, there are more than 50 national space programs. Now toss in more than 100 commercial space efforts while adding to the mix “big ideas” like asteroid mining, space elevators, space-based solar power, settlement of the Moon and Mars, and trekking outward to distant stars and their planetary systems.

Space visionaries

A quest to launch a new ISP is underway via Kickstarter, a way to fully update the plan and blueprint the extraordinary events likely to come over the next century.

“I was recently contacted by a group interested in reviving the ISP through a crowdfunding campaign,” said Jones, a member of a newly formed ISP Kickstarter Team of space visionaries.

Crowdfunding is a new way to raise funds and awareness for creative ventures, he said.

“The idea is, instead of going to one person — like a venture capitalist — to raise a lot of money, with today’s social media, you can reach out to a lot of people for a little financial support and this new ‘Kickstarter’ project is the result,” Jones said.

Future phase

The plan is to produce an updated version of the ISP that reflects the many changes in the space industry since the 1990’s.

Moreover, a future ISP phase is to create an interactive online version that will be regularly updated – taking advantage of modern advances in information technology and visualization. 

Once established, the online version will allow users increased research capabilities into ISP elements and give users around the world the ability to more directly contribute to the evolving vision of how humanity may logically expand into space.

Instructive guide

Joining Jones in the effort, Integrated Space Analytics will update the ISP with the latest developments in the space industry, including its increased internationalization and commercialization.

The ISP is seen as a valuable tool for understanding the desired space infrastructure, its influence on the global economy, and an instructive guide for gauging humanity’s future in space.

For more information on this unique project, go to:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/486671231/integrated-space-plan-envisioning-humanitys-future

Forget the smell of team spirit. Try getting a tantalizing whiff of Titan.

Data from the Cassini spacecraft’s Composite Infrared Spectrometer has been used to simulate Titan’s chemistry. A research team has been able to classify a previously unidentified material discovered by the Cassini spacecraft in the moon’s smoggy haze.

Titan’s dirty orange color comes from a mixture of hydrocarbons (molecules that contain hydrogen and carbon) and nitrogen-carrying chemicals called nitriles.

Nosey scientists began with benzene, which has been identified in Titan’s atmosphere, followed by a series of closely related chemicals that are likely to be present there. All of these gases belong to the subfamily of hydrocarbons known as aromatics.

Basic recipe

The outcome is that scientists chose an aromatic that contained nitrogen. When team members analyzed those lab products, they detected spectral features that matched up well with the distinctive signature that had been extracted from the Cassini-collected Titan data.

“Now we can say that this material has a strong aromatic character, which helps us understand more about the complex mixture of molecules that makes up Titan’s haze,” said Melissa Trainer, a planetary scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Carrie Anderson, a Cassini participating scientist at Goddard, was a co-author on the study, along with Trainer, Mark Loeffler and Joshua Sebreea, lead author of the study.

Now that the basic recipe has been demonstrated, future work will concentrate on tweaking the experimental conditions to perfect it.

The laboratory experiments were funded by NASA’s Planetary Atmospheres program.

The research is available online in Icarus at:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0019103514001651