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Space travelers from around the globe recently got a firsthand sense of China's blossoming plans to explore Earth orbit and beyond.
At the 27th Planetary Congress of the Association of Space Explorers (ASE), held in Beijing last month, China's space industry leaders extended an open invitation for other nations to take part in China's emerging space station program.
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Yang told the ASE delegates that by about 2022, China's first space station would be fully operational.
Elon Musk says that next year SpaceX should demonstrate the ability to reuse one of the company’s launch vehicles, something that could reduce the cost of getting to space by a factor of about 10.
The idea of reusing spacecraft is not new. But if SpaceX were to land and reuse one of its rockets it would be a first, and it would make the second launch considerably cheaper. The company has struggled to make the landings work in several experiments though, and Musk says the proceedure may not work reliably for some time.
In the past decade, the space industry has tried to go from risky and government-run to routine private enterprise - so routine that if you have lots of money you can buy a ticket on a private spaceship and become a space tourist. More than 500 people have booked a flight, including Justin Bieber, Ashton Kutcher and little known space scientist Alan Stern. But it all depends on flying becoming safe and routine. This week hasn't helped.
Three days after a private unmanned rocket taking cargo up to the International Space Station blew up six seconds into its flight, a test flight of SpaceShipTwo exploded Friday over the Mojave Desert with two people on board. The developments reignited the debate about the role of business in space and whether it is or will ever be safe enough for everyday people looking for an expensive 50-mile-high thrill ride. "It's a real setback to the idea that lots of people are going to be taking joyrides into the fringes of outer space any time soon," said John Logsdon, retired space policy director at George Washington University. "There were a lot of people who believed that the technology to carry people is safely at hand."
Wreckage lies near the site where a Virgin Galactic space tourism rocket, SpaceShipTwo, exploded and crashed in Mojave, Calif. Friday, Oct. 31, 2014. The explosion killed a pilot aboard and seriously injured another while scattering wreckage in Southern California's Mojave Desert, witnesses and officials said.
The question for space tourism might be, "if it survives," Logsdon said. But he thinks its momentum in recent years will keep it alive. Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson expressed the same view Saturday after arriving in Mojave, California, to meet with the project workforce reeling from the accident. "We would love to finish what was started some years ago, and I think pretty well all our astronauts would love us to finish it, love to go to space," he said. "Millions of people in the world would love to one day have the chance to go to space."
Federal estimates of the commercial space industry -only a little of it involving tourism - exceed $200 billion. NASA is counting on private companies such as SpaceX and Orbital Sciences to haul cargo to the space station. They are also spending billions to help SpaceX and Boeing build ships that will eventually take people there, too. Internet pioneers Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have gotten into the space game. Aviation entrepreneur Branson and others are pushing a billion-dollar space tourism industry. The Virgin Galactic and Orbital accidents have nothing in common except the words private space, Stern said. Still it raises issues about the space industry. Some experts said they worry that private industry may just not be as safe as the government when it comes to going into space.
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The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has initiated its Asteroid Redirect Mission, an important first step in sending astronauts on trips to Mars in the future.
The project, which has spent 18 months in the planning phases, involves towing an asteroid into lunar orbit to serve as a training platform for NASA astronauts and space probes. In one ARM proposal, a robotic spacecraft will seek out an asteroid of sufficient size before bringing it in to a stable orbit around the satellite; in the other an inflatable capture system could be deployed to secure the chunk of space rock.
The new plan has the seal of approval from US President Barack Obama, who has been an ally for the space agency and its plans to push the envelope on space exploration. The mission would be an excellent stepping stone to prepare for a Mars mission, according to most scientists.
The head of the space tourism company that suffered a tragic setback when its experimental rocket ship broke apart over the California desert says test flights could resume as early as next summer.
Early on the morning of Dec. 19, 2013, the pre-dawn sky above the coastal town of Kourou in French Guiana was briefly sliced by the brilliant exhaust of a Soyuz VS06 rocket as it ferried ESA’s “billion-star surveyor” Gaia into space, on its way to begin a five-year mission to map the precise locations of our galaxy’s stars. From its position in orbit around L2 Gaia will ultimately catalog the positions of over a billion stars… and in the meantime it will also locate a surprising amount of Jupiter-sized exoplanets – an estimated 21,000 by the end of its primary mission in 2019.
And, should Gaia continue observations in extended missions beyond 2019 improvements in detection methods will likely turn up even moreexoplanets, anywhere from 50,000 to 90,000 over the course of a ten-year mission. Gaia could very well far surpass NASA’s Kepler spacecraft for exoplanet big game hunting!
The following statement is from John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington, about the successful comet landing by the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft:
“We congratulate ESA on their successful landing on a comet today. This achievement represents a breakthrough moment in the exploration of our solar system and a milestone for international cooperation. We are proud to be a part of this historic day and look forward to receiving valuable data from the three NASA instruments on board Rosetta that will map the comet’s nucleus and examine it for signs of water.
Two new “magic islands” have recently been discovered on Titan, the giant moon of Saturn, following the discovery of a similar formation in one of the moon’s seas this summer: the immensely deep Kraken Mare, estimated to be 656 feet deep — three times the depth of Lake Superior.
The observations were revealed on Monday, captured by the Cassini spacecraft, which has been orbiting the ringed giant planet since 2004. The moon is known to be a frozen land that somewhat resembles earth, with a number of seas, lakes and rivers that have appeared in its photographs. These islands of rock are referred to as magic islands, because of their ability to seemingly appear and reappear on the surface of the planet, a phenomenon that scientists suspect is caused by waves of liquid methane rippling over it.
A European spacecraft that launched late last year could eventually discover 70,000 exoplanets, helping researchers better understand the number and characteristics of alien worlds throughout the galaxy, a new study reports.
The European Space Agency's star-monitoring Gaia mission, which launched in December 2013, should find about 21,000 alien planets over the course of its five-year mission and perhaps 70,000 distant worlds if it keeps operating for 10 years, the study found.
Europe's robot lab Philae was "working well" on the surface of its host comet, though likely perched on a steep slope, ground controllers said a day after the probe made its historic landing.
Some data suggested the washing machine-sized probe may have touched down three times on the low-gravity comet, which is zipping towards the Sun at 18 kilometres per second (11 miles per second), according to updates from ground control.
Philae's anchoring harpoons failed to deploy, but it still managed to send back scientific data for the European Space Agency (ESA) flagship mission as well as the first-ever picture taken from the surface of a comet.
"Philae is working well. Its battery is working well and is providing power," mission head Philippe Gaudon of France's CNES space agency told AFP by phone from ground control in Toulouse on Thursday.
Europe's deep-space robot lab Philae worked against the clock Friday, attempting to drill into a comet 510 million kilometres (320 million miles) from Earth to crown a historic exploration before its battery ...
You are aware of course that Obama with support of the Democrats stripped NASA of anyway to reach orbit or space? We must hire private enterprise to deliver materials to the space station and must use Russia to send people into space.
We have no space vehicle and no plans to make another. Ohh did I mention that Obama and the democrats cut NASA's budget to the bone?
Where's the money to come from? Oh yeah it's all Obama's fault. How about taking a few billion from the military's 700b.? After all with a Nasa budget of around 17b, 2 or 3b would be a real shot in the arm.Congress got the will to do that? Do you Sarge?
"A NASA authorization bill drafted by the Republican majority of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology proposes to slash NASA's funding to $16.6 billion for 2014 $300 million less than it received in 2013, and $1.1 billion less than President Obama requested for NASA in 2014. The bill which authorizes spending levels but provides no actual funding would roll back NASAs funding to a level $1.2 billion less than its 2012 budget."
LINK: Space.com
You are aware of course that Obama with support of the Democrats stripped NASA of anyway to reach orbit or space? We must hire private enterprise to deliver materials to the space station and must use Russia to send people into space.
We have no space vehicle and no plans to make another. Ohh did I mention that Obama and the democrats cut NASA's budget to the bone?
Where's the money to come from? Oh yeah it's all Obama's fault. How about taking a few billion from the military's 700b.? After all with a Nasa budget of around 17b, 2 or 3b would be a real shot in the arm.Congress got the will to do that? Do you Sarge?
"A NASA authorization bill drafted by the Republican majority of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology proposes to slash NASA's funding to $16.6 billion for 2014 $300 million less than it received in 2013, and $1.1 billion less than President Obama requested for NASA in 2014. The bill which authorizes spending levels but provides no actual funding would roll back NASAs funding to a level $1.2 billion less than its 2012 budget."
LINK: Space.com
Why would you want to cut our military budget? Especially with the world in upheaval right now? That would be stupid IMO. Cut wasteful spending, okay. Other than that though, I say no cuts to the military budget. We need a strong and powerful military. Like it or not, might makes right. That's the way it has always been and the way it will always be.
The pioneering lander Philae completed its primary mission of exploring the comet's surface and returned plenty of data before depleted batteries forced it to go silent, the European Space Agency said Saturday.
You are aware of course that Obama with support of the Democrats stripped NASA of anyway to reach orbit or space? We must hire private enterprise to deliver materials to the space station and must use Russia to send people into space.
We have no space vehicle and no plans to make another. Ohh did I mention that Obama and the democrats cut NASA's budget to the bone?
Where's the money to come from? Oh yeah it's all Obama's fault. How about taking a few billion from the military's 700b.? After all with a Nasa budget of around 17b, 2 or 3b would be a real shot in the arm.Congress got the will to do that? Do you Sarge?
"A NASA authorization bill drafted by the Republican majority of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology proposes to slash NASA's funding to $16.6 billion for 2014 $300 million less than it received in 2013, and $1.1 billion less than President Obama requested for NASA in 2014. The bill which authorizes spending levels but provides no actual funding would roll back NASAs funding to a level $1.2 billion less than its 2012 budget."
LINK: Space.com
Why would you want to cut our military budget? Especially with the world in upheaval right now? That would be stupid IMO. Cut wasteful spending, okay. Other than that though, I say no cuts to the military budget. We need a strong and powerful military. Like it or not, might makes right. That's the way it has always been and the way it will always be.
Here's the key to our disagreement on this issue, you say "Cut wasteful spending, okay..." I totally agree that the World is a very dangerous place right now and for the foreseeable future, and that the U.S. has to have a powerful and agile military equipped to respond to multiple kinds of threats. I believe it can accomplish that objective with a lot less money. The conservatives are right in this case, government wildly throwing money at the DoD is not going to accomplish the goal. Resources are not unlimited, they have to be allocated in a lot more intelligent way now than they have been in the last 50 yrs. You could take a look at a couple of examples to get an idea of what I mean. For instance the F-35 JSF...
"The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is the most expensive, and possible the most error ridden, project in the history of the United States military. But DOD has sunk so much money into the F-35 — which is expected to cost $1.5 trillion over the 55-year life of the program — that the Pentagon deemed it "too big to fail" in 2010.
Now, the Air Force has taken steps to make sure that the unmitigated disaster that the F-35 has become does not happen again.
The Air Force, in its 20-year strategic forecast entitled "America's Air Force: A Call to the Future," has called for an end to big-ticket programs like the F-35. Instead, it plans to invest in what DOD officials have called more "agile" weapons that can be adapted for multiple uses.
The report paints a future of the Air Force that resembles an innovative 21st Century company as opposed to a traditional fighting force. The document says that it's now impossible for the United States to build a strategy advantage with large, expensive programs that take years — in the case of the F-35, 14 years and counting to complete.".......LINK: CNBC
400 billion dollars spent to date and a cost of at least 1.5 trillion dollars over the life-span of the aircraft. And for this the armed forces, according to most of the experts I've read, are going to be getting a fighter that is going to under-achieve in the multiple roles it is supposed to fill. And from what I've read a few old much much cheaper A-10 Warthogs would be a more lethal platform in the air war against ISIS than a squadron of F-35's.
Another example I would urge you to look at is the Navy's LCS multi-billion dollar program. Some experts question whether some of these ships will even be survivable in the first few minutes of combat. Imagine asking the men and women of the Navy to man ships that may be vulnerable to even the glorified speedboats that Iran uses in the gulf.
We don't disagree that America has to maintain superior Armed Forces. We might disagree if it has to spend more money that the next 10 nations combined. Here's a chart of the top spenders;
So back to my original point in my other post. NASA. I think you're very mistaken if you don't think that the farther we get into the 21st century the more important capability in space will be to a nations defense. China will have men on the moon in the next decade or so, right now America is ceding dominance in space to them, and others. Also, doesn't it piss you off just a little that NASA can't even get astronauts to the space station without hitching a ride with the Russians? And the recent destruction of that private rocket shows that route is no where near safe enough or reliable enough yet.
Spend the available moneys smarter and in the long run you'll have to spend a lot less.
Up until this point, though, all of these readings were from the same telescope — and, as any scientist will tell you, it’s unwise to draw any conclusions from just a single patient or case study. Now, however, the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico — almost 10,000 miles away from Parkes — has detected a fast radio burst as well. Now, some 13 years after it was first detected, and seven years of random-anomaly purgatory, astronomers are taking the FRB very seriously indeed.
As for what causes FRBs, no one knows — and that’s why the astronomical community is so darn excited. The 2013 Parkes study, which found four bursts while looking at a tiny patch of sky for a year, suggests that FRBs are actually quite common, perhaps occurring as regularly as once every 10 seconds. FRBs are also intensely bright. Such regularity and intensity probably rules out a few likely origins, such as the evaporation of black holes or the merger of neutron star pairs. Gamma ray bursts have the right kind of intensity, but they only happen once a day or so. One possible explanation is that FRBs are created by magnetars — not fantastical monsters that you might face in a game of Dungeons & Dragons, but rather special neutron stars that can flare up and release as much energy in a millisecond as our Sun releases in 300,000 years.
Dr Fred Goessmann, principal investigator on the Cosac instrument, which made the organics detection, confirmed the find to BBC News. But he added that the team was still trying to interpret the results.
It has not been disclosed which molecules have been found, or how complex they are.
But the results are likely to provide insights into the possible role of comets in contributing some of the chemical building blocks to the primordial mix from which life evolved on the early Earth.
Preliminary results from the Mupus instrument, which deployed a hammer to the comet after Philae's landing, suggest there is a layer of dust 10-20cm thick on the surface with very hard water-ice underneath.
What dribble are you copying now? That probe has been dead for three days since the brilliant landing in the shade. If they're lucky it may see sunlight sometime next spring.Comet lander 'working well', but may be on slope
13 November 2014
Europe's robot lab Philae was "working well" on the surface of its host comet, though likely perched on a steep slope, ground controllers said a day after the probe made its historic landing.
Some data suggested the washing machine-sized probe may have touched down three times on the low-gravity comet, which is zipping towards the Sun at 18 kilometres per second (11 miles per second), according to updates from ground control.
Philae's anchoring harpoons failed to deploy, but it still managed to send back scientific data for the European Space Agency (ESA) flagship mission as well as the first-ever picture taken from the surface of a comet.
"Philae is working well. Its battery is working well and is providing power," mission head Philippe Gaudon of France's CNES space agency told AFP by phone from ground control in Toulouse on Thursday.
http://www.marsdaily..._slope_999.html
NASA has set its eyes on new sources of possible revenue and among those new sources, asteroid mining is definitely an out-of-the-ordinary bet. There is certainly a lot of doubt concerning NASA’s decision, especially since mining operations are experiencing tremendous difficulties in cost management on Earth, let alone on asteroids. Contracts have already been signed with Deep Space Industries and Planetary Resources, two independent tech companies who intent to pursue asteroid mining.
At some point in every project, you stop unpacking the parts and start putting them together. What's true for flat-pack furniture is also true for spacecraft, so Lockheed Martin has begun the Assembly, Test and Launch Operations (ATLO) phase of NASA's INterior exploration using Seismic investigations, geodesy and heat transport (InSight) Mars lander project. Scheduled to launch in 2016, the unmanned InSight probe will be the first deep-drilling mission sent to the Red Planet.
