Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
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May 4th, 2016
SpaceX Dragon makes use of Supersonic Retro-Propulsion (SRP) to land on Mars.
Credit: SpaceX
One small tweet for humankind…a giant leap to Mars?
A lot of high fives have been flying since Elon Musk and his fellow Musketeers tweeted April 27: “Planning to send Dragon to Mars as soon as 2018. Red Dragons will inform overall Mars architecture, details to come.”
Details aside, at SpaceX they’ve never been secretive about future intentions, as noted on the company’s website.
“SpaceX designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft. The company was founded in 2002 to revolutionize space technology, with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets.”
SpaceX testing of SuperDraco rocket engines is in full-blast mode.
Credit: SpaceX
To that end goal, enter the SpaceX SuperDraco – a hypergolic propellant liquid rocket engine. It is part of SpaceX’s Draco family of rocket engines. A redundant array of eight SuperDraco engines provides fault-tolerant propulsion for use as a launch escape system and propulsive-landing thrust for the Dragon V2 passenger-carrying space capsule.
Dealing with Deceleration
The other key to the kingdom of Mars is Supersonic Retro-Propulsion (SRP).
Human-scale Mars landers require the delivery of much heavier payloads to the surface of Mars than previously attempted. Most current concepts for large Mars landers are not able to passively achieve subsonic velocities and must use SRP to perform the final deceleration and a soft landing on the Martian surface.
“We have been studying SRP-based entry, descent and landing systems for both human and robotic scale for a few of years now. I am hopeful,” explains Rob Manning, chief engineer and a Mars authority at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on getting big payloads down safe and sound on the Red Planet.
Parachutes are still in the future for Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity rover-scale missions and smaller, Manning told Inside Outer Space. “SRP has a big overhead in cost and mass that the big launch vehicles can help overcome,” he adds.
Building blocks
Bullish on Elon Musk’s march to Mars is Robert Braun of the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering.
Supersonic Retropropulsion profile.
Credit: Humphrey Price, Robert Manning, Evgeniy Sklyanskiy, Robert Braun
“SpaceX’s plan to land a robotic mission on Mars is inspiring, ground-breaking, and a testament to the innovative culture that is alive and well in the U.S. space industry,” Braun tells Inside Outer Space.
“Once Falcon Heavy and Dragon 2 are flying on Earth, SpaceX will have the building blocks needed to land on Mars,” Braun adds.
First stage landing taken by remote camera photo from “Of Course I Still Love You” droneship on April 8, 2016.
Credit: SpaceX
Mars-relevant
Braun points out that SpaceX utilizes supersonic retropropulsion technology in Mars-relevant conditions each time they return their first-stage booster to Earth.
“Having reviewed this data, I don’t believe there are any SRP showstoppers on the path to the Mars surface,” Braun says. Because this entry, descent and landing approach — blunt-body entry followed by SRP to the surface — is scalable to larger payloads “this EDL architecture has promise for one day landing humans on Mars,” he advises.
“Don’t get me wrong, any landing on Mars, particularly a new architecture, is a risky proposition,” Braun points out. “But, you’ve got to give them credit. Their plan relies extensively on systems they will be flying on Earth over the next few years. That certainly improves their chances of success at Mars,” he concludes.
Artist’s view of still to fly SpaceX Falcon Heavy.
Credit: SpaceX
Details to follow
One of those details yet to follow is what possible payloads could Dragon ships plop down on Mars? Options include deployable science gear to look for life, trial-run oxygen and propellant production gear using local resources on Mars – perhaps even shoot back to Earth samples of the Red Planet.
For sure, NASA engineers are keen on instrumenting up the tail pipe any Mars-bound Dragon to gain more SRP data.
Musk has advised that he’ll roll out details on the SpaceX Mars plan during the International Astronautical Congress to be held September 26-30 this year in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Posted in 
Single Person Spacecraft (SPS) mock up.
Credit: Genesis Engineering
In space history, only a handful of Russian and American travelers have experienced single-person orbital flight.
That “you’re on your own” encapsulated feeling is palpable as you face your instrument panel.
A three month competition has led to some creative interiors for a single-person spacecraft. Genesis Engineering Solutions (GES) in Lanham, Maryland sponsored the contest as a way to integrate student creativity into the development of their Single-Person Spacecraft (SPS).
Shirtsleeve operations
According to GES, the SPS includes an inner pressure vessel for shirtsleeve (normal clothing) operations and an outer unpressurized cylinder for micrometeoroid/orbital debris and impact protection.
Subsystems are packaged in the space between and in the overhead crown leaving the interior open for control, displays and other outfitting.
An SPS astronaut will have rapid access to the work site to repair the aging International Space Station…or to an asteroid for sample collection, for example.
WHISPS Team proposal, spotlighting usability testing using full scale mock up.
Credit: FIT
Creature and stay-alive comforts
The contest involved students from engineering, industrial design, human factors, and space architecture.
They were encouraged to develop creative internal designs using only existing technologies. Furthermore, they had to provide controls for flying the SPS and operating robotic arms all while floating in zero-gravity.
The interior had to include displays and controls, warning lights and alarms, pilot restraints, creature comforts, and other accoutrements one might find in an automobile here on Earth.
Design prizes
Two prizes were awarded: a $2,500 Grand Prize and one $1,500 Superior Design Prize.
- The Grand Prize was awarded to The WHISPS Team from Florida Institute of Technology (FIT) whose submission addressed the challenges of working in the extreme environment of space and balanced new unproven technology in space like touch pads with old-school analog knobs. The WHISPS Team, including Ondrej Doule, Joseph Torkaman, De Vere – Michael Kiss, Kareim Elbaz, and Azeez Batcha from the Florida Institute of Technology (FIT) School of Human-Centered Design, Innovation, and Art.
- The Superior Design prize was awarded to Brett Montoya and Canaan Martin from the University of Houston (UH). Their entry paid careful attention to ensuring a common viewpoint across the anthropometric scale and augmented control using a clear canopy.
University of Houston Team proposal.
Credit: Brett Montoya/Canaan Martin
“We didn’t know what to expect and now we have an excess of great ideas to choose from,” said Robert Rashford, GES President & CEO in a press statement.
The winners of the SPS internal design competition were selected by a panel of experienced space experts. In addition to GES personnel, jurors included a former NASA Astronaut, NASA human factors engineers, and specialists in robotics.
Genesis Engineering Solutions has supported NASA projects since 1993, including the Hubble Servicing Missions and the James Webb Space Telescope.
Japan’s X-ray Astronomy Satellite ASTRO-H (Hitomi).
Credit: JAXA
The recent loss of Japan’s X-ray Astronomy Satellite ASTRO-H (Hitomi) is a blow to acquiring new space-based views of the universe – but also adds to the growing issue of Earth orbiting debris.
Furthermore, some of the errant 2.7 ton spacecraft is expected to reach terra firma when it eventually makes it fiery fall through the atmosphere.
Castaway panels
Credit: JAXA
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) ASTRO-H was boosted into space on February 17, 2016 (JST) from the Tanegashima Space Center. But late last month, after emergency attempts to salvage the craft, JAXA declared the mission lost to space.
“Most of our analyses including simulations on the mechanisms of object separation, it is highly likely that both solar array paddles had broken off at their bases where they are vulnerable to rotation,” a JAXA statement notes.
Pre-launch photo of ASTRO-H.
Credit: JAXA
“Accordingly, JAXA will cease the efforts to restore ASTRO-H and will focus on the investigation of anomaly causes. We will carefully review all phases from design, manufacturing, verification, and operations to identify the causes that may have led to this anomaly including background factors,” JAXA states.
State of the art instruments
Equipped with four state of the art instruments, ASTRO-H was built to eye the hot and energetic universe.
The word “Hitomi” generally means “eye” — and specifically the pupil, or entrance window of the eye — the aperture, according to JAXA background information on the spacecraft.
ASTRO-H was the sixth satellite in a series of highly successful X-ray astronomy missions initiated by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) JAXA.
Debris survival
So round and round it goes, and where Hitomi will fall is far from predictable.
Credit: JAXA
Inside Outer Space asked JAXA for a statement on when the spacecraft will plunge to Earth – and any expected debris survival.
“The reentry time period for X-ray Astronomy Satellite ASTRO-H
(Hitomi) is expected within 25 years,” responded Izumi Yoshizaki of JAXA’s Public Affairs Department.
“Pre-launch analysis/modeling of the spacecraft’s reentry and survivable hardware that could land on Earth was done,” Yoshizaki said. The RCS (Reaction Control System) tank made of titanium is expected to survive during the reentry.”
Reentry window?
However, the “within 25 years” means more analysis of the object’s reentry time would be helpful.
According to satellite tracker extraordinaire, Ted Molczan of Canada, he estimates that ASTRO-H will remain in orbit for at least a few years.
Shortly after launch, ASTRO-H is cast off into Earth orbit.
Credit: JAXA
Scott Hull, an orbital debris engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center adds that, in addition to the very unfortunate loss of a valuable science asset, any breakup is of concern to the orbital debris community as potential threat to other spacecraft.
“It is somewhat fortunate that most of the secondary objects from this breakup are considered relatively small, and in general their orbits are already decaying, reducing the duration of any threat. Apparently one debris object has already reentered,” Hull told Inside Outer Space.
One arguable question is whether the dead hulk of Hitomi might make it a candidate for a debris removal experiment?
Credit: National Geographic
The next frontier in space exploration is Mars, the red planet—and human habitation of Mars isn’t much farther off.
In October 2015, NASA declared Mars “an achievable goal;” that same season, Ridley Scott and Matt Damon’s The Martian drew crowds into theaters, grossing nearly half a billion dollars in the first two months. Now the National Geographic Channel goes years fast-forward with “Mars,” a six-part series documenting and dramatizing the next 25 years as humans land on and learn to live on Mars.
Following on the visionary success of Buzz Aldrin’s Mission to Mars and the visual glory of Marc Kaufman’s Mars Up Close, this companion book to the Nat Geo series shows the science behind the mission and the challenges awaiting those brave individuals. The book combines science, technology, photography, art, and story-telling, offering what only National Geographic can create. Clear scientific explanations, gorgeous photography from outer space and the planet itself, and dramatic scenes from the TV series featuring exquisitely constructed sets made to replicate Mars make the Mars experience real and provide amazing visuals to savor and return to again and again.
Hardcover
304 pages; 200 color illustrations
9 1/8″ x 10 7/8″
© 2016
Author Bio
Ron Howard has made a lifelong career in television and film, winning numerous accolades and awards as actor, director, and producer. He is co-chair with Brian Grazer of Imagine Entertainment, which has recently partnered with National Geographic on Breakthrough as well as Red Planet.
Leonard David is an award-winning space journalist who has been reporting on space activities for over 50 years. He frequently contributes to the website Space.com as their “Space Insider Columnist” and is the coauthor of Buzz Aldrin’s Mission to Mars. In 2015, he became the first recipient of the American Astronautical Society’s (AAS) “Ordway Award for Sustained Excellence in Spaceflight History” in the category of journalism, and in 2010 he received the National Press Club Award for his space journalism.
For more information on the book – Mars: Our Future on the Red Planet — to be released October 25th, go to:
https://shop.nationalgeographic.com/product/books/books/new-books/mars
Also go to Amazon at:
Credit: NASA
What kind of map is needed to best aide human explorers strutting about on Mars?
An international call is open to students, cartographers, and graphic artists from all countries to participate in planning the first human mission to Mars.
The International Cartographic Association (ICA) Commission on Planetary Cartography is organizing a competition for creating maps to find a suitable landing site for human explorers of Mars.
The contest is part of International Map Year activities.
Exploration zones
NASA’s march to Mars centers on a 2035 target date for the first human touchdown on the Red Planet.
Overview map shows all proposed Exploration Zones (EZ)/human landing sites for NASA’s 2035 Mars mission.
Credit: ICA/NASA
Last year, nearly 50 landing sites or Exploration Zones (EZ) — each some 120 miles (200 kilometers) in diameter – were proposed by the planetary science community. These should be mapped in high detail in the forthcoming years to enable proper comparison of the sites and the selection of a final spot to be visited by an expeditionary crew.
Creativity required
The ICA initiative is to select one candidate landing site and design an actual map that a competition participant envisions will be useful in surface operations. Not wanted is just creating a simple geologic map.
Rather, what ICA is looking for is a product that can be used by Marswalkers during their approximately one-year long mission within the Exploration Zone. This requires creativity, and it is also useful to have a good knowledge of surface features, surface hazards, science goals and the use of the proper cartographic tools.
“Our goal is to develop maps that could ultimately be used by the astronauts during their daily field works,” explains the ICA website. “Technology can change a lot between now and 2035. The field maps will most likely be digital maps, shown on display, VR glasses, projected onto the helmet or made visible by a yet-to-discover technology. We can’t know the future mapping technology so what we ask is to make a map that you would find it useful to orient yourself in the chosen EZ, document future plans and already visited sites, mark the locations of the landmarks and habitat units.”
Example of one proposed landing site for humans near America’s Viking 1 lander.
Credit: H Hargitai/coordinates from JMARS2035
Deadline of submission of maps and papers: September 1, 2016. Submission can be electronic or paper (paper submissions must arrive at NASA Ames Research Center in California no later than September 15, 2016).
For detailed information on the competition, go to:
https://planetcarto.wordpress.com/2016/04/22/mars-exploration-zone-map-competition/
Curiosity Navcam Left B image taken on Sol 1326, April 29, 2016.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Curiosity rover on Mars is just about to enter Sol 1328 as of this posting.
Ryan Anderson, a planetary scientist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona, reports: “After a nice rest on Sol 1325, Curiosity was charged up and ready for lots of science!”
That Sol 1325 was used primarily to recharge the rover’s batteries.
On Sol 1326, scientists conducted multispectral Mastcam observations of the pile of dumped powder from the “Lubango” drill target and the targets “Rubikon” and “Ebony.”
The rover’s Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) made a passive observation of the dump pile, followed by active observations using the laser on Rubikon as well as “Ida” and “Lorelei,” Anderson notes. “Mastcam documented the ChemCam observations as usual, and then finished the science block with an atmospheric observation.”
Dump pile
On Sol 1326, the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) observed the dump pile and drill tailings, as well as a bedrock target called “Nara Valley”. Finally, the rover’s Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) made an overnight observation of the dump pile, Anderson adds.
Curiosity’s Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), located on the turret at the end of the rover’s robotic arm, took this image on April 28, 2016, Sol 1325.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
A weekend plan that covers Sols 1327-1329 calls for a sol focused on dumping out more of the powder acquired from the Lubango drill, “this time after passing it through a sieve,” Anderson explains. “Mastcam and MAHLI will take pictures of the new dump location before and after the sieved sample is dumped, and then APXS will do an overnight measurement.”
On Sol 1238, the plan calls for lots of remote sensing. Navcam and Mastcam have a few atmospheric observations, and then ChemCam will measure the pre- and post-sieve dump piles, Nara Valley, and a target called “Ovitoto”.
Drive and drill
On Sol 1329, Curiosity is on tap to do a short drive to a nearby patch of flat Stimson formation sandstone that should not have as much silica enrichment as what has been seen at Lubango. “This will put us in position to drill that location sometime next week,” Anderson reports.
As always, planned rover activities are all subject to change due to a variety of factors related to the Martian environment, communication relays and rover status.
On April 27, James Lovell spoke at MIT as a special guest, invited by the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Photo: Bill Litant
It was 46 years ago this month that the words “Houston…we’ve had a problem” shot across space to ground controllers on Earth.
On April 14, 1970, just 56 hours into the Apollo 13 mission to the Moon, those words were uttered by crew members aboard the spacecraft.
Apollo 13 was to be NASA’s third landing of humans on the Moon. The transit to the Moon by the crew members was not prime-time television.
“All three networks received the signal — nobody carried it. There was the Dick Cavett show … a rerun of ‘I Love Lucy,’ and a ballgame…even people in the control center were watching the ballgame,” recalls Apollo 13 commander, James Lovell, speaking Wednesday as a special guest invited to the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AeroAstro) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Hiss, bang
Prior to the trouble, an oxygen tank explosion, “I said goodnight to everybody, turned off the camera, and was coming down the tunnel, when suddenly there was a ‘hiss, bang!’ and the spacecraft rocked back and forth, jets were firing, and there was noise all over,” Lovell explained.
James Lovell at MIT.
Photo: Bill Litant
“That explosion was the best thing to ever happen to NASA,” Lovell told the MIT audience. “It showed, really, the talent that NASA people had, in mission control and throughout the organization that turned an almost complete catastrophe into a successful recovery.”
Bomb waiting to go off
In a story written by Jennifer Chu of the MIT News Office, Lovell explained to his AeroAstro audience it was two weeks before launch of Apollo 13 that the spacecraft underwent its last test.
“As the countdown went on, we could see the whole spacecraft come to life,” Lovell said. “The test was successful — everything looked perfect.”
When the ground crew came by to empty the liquid oxygen tanks, which would be refilled before launch, they were unable to do so. It would take a month to replace the tanks, which would have delayed the mission. However, they noticed that one of the tanks was an old design — meant for Apollo 10 — that was configured with an oxygen-emptying tube and a heater.
“They figured, why not turn on the heater and boil the oxygen out and therefore save time? Not a bad idea, so that’s what they did,” Lovell said. “The day before liftoff, they filled it up once more with liquid oxygen. It was a bomb waiting to go off” because the fix actually damaged the internal elements of the tank.
Serious trouble
Shortly after Lovell ended a television broadcast back to Earth on April 14, a ‘hiss, bang!’ shook the spacecraft, he said. Checking the instrument gauges, he found that one oxygen tank was completely empty, while another was being rapidly depleted. As he looked out a side window, he witnessed a “gaseous substance, at high speed,” shooting out into space.
“That’s when that old lead weight went down in the bottom of my stomach,” Lovell added. “Because we needed oxygen for electricity, the third fuel cell would die, and because we used electricity to control our rocket engine, we’d lose the entire propulsion system. We were in serious trouble.”
Last maneuver
The cascade of spacecraft system failures that would follow — requiring the ingenuity of the Apollo 13 crew and ground controllers to safely bring back the astronauts to Earth — is a story captured in the 1995 Hollywood blockbuster “Apollo 13,” with Tom Hanks starring as Lovell.
Fred Haise (left), Jim Lovell, and Jack Swigert emerge from the recovery helicopter on-board the aircraft carrier Iwo Jima on April 17, 1970.
Credit Scan by Ed Hengeveld from Eric M. Jones Apollo 13 Image Library.
Underscoring Apollo 13’s reentry to Earth, “If you come in too shallow, it’ll be like skipping a stone across water, and you’re gone,” Lovell said. “If you come in too steep, the sudden deceleration will put you on fire like a meteorite and that will be it. … I guess I wouldn’t be here if that last maneuver wasn’t successful.”
To read the full account by Chu of Lovell’s MIT visit, go to:
http://news.mit.edu/2016/apollo-13-commander-james-lovell-0428
Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Just how crowded is it out there…or are we Earthlings a one-off species?
A just issued paper has tackled this long-standing puzzler. The research attempts to assign a new empirically valid probability to whether any other advanced technological civilizations have ever existed.
Bottom line: unless the odds of advanced life evolving on a habitable planet are astonishingly low, then human kind is not the universe’s first technological, or advanced, civilization.
Pessimism/optimism
The paper, published in Astrobiology, also shows for the first time just what “pessimism” or “optimism” equates to when it comes to estimating the likelihood of advanced extraterrestrial life.
A New Empirical Constraint on the Prevalence of Technological Species in the Universe has been authored by Adam Frank, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Rochester and Woodruff Sullivan of the astronomy department and astrobiology program at the University of Washington.
Are humans unique and alone in the vast universe? The famous Drake equation is repeatedly invoked to help eek out an answer.
One aspect of the Drake equation remains a big question and is completely unknown: How long civilizations might survive.
“The fact that humans have had rudimentary technology for roughly ten thousand years doesn’t really tell us if other societies would last that long or perhaps much longer,” Frank explained in a University of Rochester press statement.
Dealing with odds
In 1961, astrophysicist Frank Drake developed an equation to estimate the number of advanced civilizations likely to exist in the Milky Way galaxy. The Drake equation (top row) has proven to be a durable framework for research, and space technology has advanced scientists’ knowledge of several variables. But it is impossible to do anything more than guess at variables such as L, the probably longevity of other advanced civilizations.
In new research, Adam Frank and Woodruff Sullivan offer a new equation (bottom row) to address a slightly different question: What is the number of advanced civilizations likely to have developed over the history of the observable universe? Frank and Sullivan’s equation draws on Drake’s, but eliminates the need for “L”.
Credit: University of Rochester
Frank and Sullivan calculate how unlikely advanced life must be if there has never been another example among the universe’s ten billion trillion stars, or even among our own Milky Way galaxy’s hundred billion.
The result?
Frank and Sullivan find that human civilization is likely to be unique in the cosmos only if the odds of a civilization developing on a habitable planet are less than about one in 10 billion trillion, or one part in 10 to the 22th power.
“One in 10 billion trillion is incredibly small,” says Frank. “To me, this implies that other intelligent, technology-producing species very likely have evolved before us.”
Take a read of this new research at:
http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1089/ast.2015.1418
Credit: NASA
A new NASA technical memorandum has taken a hard look at the prospect of sustainable colonization of Mars, one that is safe, affordable, and nurtures independence of residents on the Red Planet from Earth.
Frontier In-Situ Resource Utilization for Enabling Sustained Human Presence on Mars has been authored by Robert Moses and Dennis Bushnell of NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. Moses is an aerospace engineer and Bushnell is chief scientist at the NASA center.
“There are massive resources on Mars obtainable from the atmosphere and extracted from the regolith which are capable of supporting human colonization,” the 55-page, April 2016 report explains. Using Martian resources, existing technologies could supply water, oxygen, fuel, and building materials “to relax the dependence on Earth during the buildup of a colony on Mars.”
Frontier technologies
Credit: NASA
On the to-do list is matching In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) with frontier technologies, the report says, that include robotics, machine intelligence, nanotechnology, synthetic biology, 3-D printing/additive manufacturing and autonomy. “These technologies combined with the vast natural resources should enable serious, pre- and post-human arrival ISRU to greatly increase reliability and safety and reduce cost for human colonization of Mars,” the memorandum notes.
Wide range of needs
The sweeping and far-reaching NASA technical memorandum highlights the latest discoveries of water, minerals, and other materials on Mars that reshapes thinking about using the planet’s resources.
Technologies, new approaches, and new thought about Red Planet resources are spotlighted in the report, suggesting ISRU-related research areas. It also lays out an implementation strategy whereby the ISRU elements are phased into the mission campaign over time for enabling a sustainable human presence on Mars.
Credit: NASA/Pat Rawlings
And what’s the resource utilization on Mars upshot?
Doing so not only supports colonies on the Red Planet and crew return to Earth, says the report, but also missions to go elsewhere from low Earth orbit or from low Mars orbit, as well as space tourism in the inner solar system.
Live off the land
The currently known resources on Mars are huge, including extensive quantities of water and carbon dioxide – ideal for such things as life support, fuels and plastics.
Report co-author, Moses, tells Inside Outer Space: “Sustaining human presence on Mars looks affordable and safe when counting on extensive ISRU on the planet. The known resources on Mars open up a vast opportunity to make on Mars most of what’s needed at Mars to support pioneering there.”
Asks Moses, why not ISRU?
“What other ways are our pioneering astronauts to live off the land at Mars?”
Large-scale ISRU
Still, there’s work to do.
Credit: NASA/Pat Rawlings
Given the discovery of substantial amounts of water ice on Mars, however, the report flags a fact: There has not yet been a fully comprehensive study of large-scale ISRU on Mars.
ISRU could conceivably enable, given the immense resources now known to be available on Mars, the following:
- A habitat incorporating significant Galactic Cosmic Ray (GCR) protection via burial beneath 5 meters of regolith;
- Fuel for on-planet ascent, outbound, return and powered entry, descent and landing (EDL);
- Life support systems for food, water and breathable atmosphere; habitable temperatures and pressures; and 3-D printing and other manufacturing approaches (including synthetic biology) along with a variety of hardware including equipage and on-planet transport vehicles.
Off-planet Walmart
Utilizing extensive ISRU “could possibly be the gamechanger that achieves the requirements necessary for pioneering and ultimately colonization,” the report adds.
The report stresses that Mars can become the “proving ground” for many new technologies “that not only improve Earth independence but set up Mars to become the supply source for fuels, oxidizers, life support, spare parts, replacement vehicles, habitats, and other products” for space faring beyond low Earth orbit.
Indeed, using Mars-produced fuel and transforming Martian resources would constitute “an effective inner solar system Walmart for, eventually, nearly everything required for space faring and colonization,” the memorandum concludes.
NOTE: Many of the issues regarding the homesteading of Mars are to be featured in my new book — “Mars: Our Future on the Red Planet” — to be published by National Geographic this October. The book is a companion to the National Geographic Channel six-part series coming in November.
Credit: Dan Durda
Johann-Dietrich Wörner, Director General of the European Space Agency (ESA).
Credit: ESA–Stephane Corvaja, 2016
The European Space agency is pressing forward on its vision to establish a “Moon Village,” a product of international collaboration between space faring nations. This village would be a permanent lunar base for science, business, mining and even tourism.
The Moon Village concept was advocated by Johann-Dietrich Wörner, Director General of the European Space Agency (ESA) during the 32nd Space Symposium held in Colorado Springs, Colorado, April 11-14 and sponsored by the Space Foundation.
Wörner emphasized that the Moon Village would be an open station, for use by member states of ESA and for different states around the globe. The European strategy considers the Moon as the next destination for humans venturing beyond low Earth-orbit. Utilizing the Moon is seen as part of the roadmap towards human missions to Mars…and beyond, he said.
For access to my new Space.com story, go to:
Europe Aiming for International ‘Moon Village’
http://www.space.com/32695-moon-colony-european-space-agency.html
NOTE: Videos that detail the Moon Village are available here:
Earth’s Moon as seen from the International Space Station taken by ESA British astronaut, Tim Peake.
Credit: NASA/ESA
Inside look at one idea the European Space Agency is exploring in its formulation of a “Moon Village” that incorporates 3D printing.
Credit: ESA/ Foster + Partners
