Congress Ponders Travel to Alpha Centauri

SpacePolicyOnline has put together a summary of the latest NASA bill from the House Appropriations Committee covering FY 2017 funding priorities.  Some of the highlights include:

• Rejection of the White House's plan to capture an asteroid and instead a new focus on a manned mission to the Moon;
• Continued support for a robotic mission to Europa;
• Continued support for the SLS and Orion spacecraft; and
• Support for a 2069 mission to Alpha Centauri using propulsion that is 1/10th the speed of light.

I had not heard of the Alpha Centauri mission earlier.  Here is the language from the committee report:

The Committee encourages NASA to study and develop propulsion concepts that could enable an interstellar scientific probe with the capability of achieving a cruise velocity of 0.1c. These efforts shall be centered on enabling such a mission to Alpha Centauri, which can be launched by the one-hundredth anniversary, 2069, of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Propulsion concepts may include, but are not limited to fusion-based implementations (including antimatter-catalyzed fusion and the Bussard interstellar ramjet); matter-antimatter annihilation reactions; multiple forms of beamed energy approaches; and immense ‘sails’ that intercept solar photons or the solar wind. At the present time, none of these are beyond technology readiness level (TRL) 1 or 2. The NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program is currently funding concept studies of directed energy propulsion for wafer-sized spacecraft that in principle could achieve velocities exceeding 0.1c and an electric sail that intercepts solar wind protons. Over the past few years NIAC has also funded mission-level concept studies of two fusion-based propulsion concepts. Therefore, within one year of enactment of this Act, NASA shall submit an interstellar propulsion technology assessment report with a draft conceptual roadmap, which may include an overview of potential advance propulsion concepts for such an interstellar mission, including technical challenges, technology readiness level assessments, risks, and potential near-term milestones and funding requirements.

It is odd that we are going back to the Moon while also planning for travel to another star.  Yet the Moon is seen as a better way to get us to Mars.  Here is the committee report on that point:

...the Committee believes that neither a robotic nor a crewed mission to an asteroid appreciably contribute to the over-arching mission to Mars. Further, the long-term costs of launching a robotic craft to the asteroid, followed by a crewed mission, are unknown and will divert scarce resources away from developing technology and equipment  necessary for missions to Mars, namely deep space habitats, accessing and utilizing space resources, and developing entry, descent, landing, and ascent technologies.
Toward that end, no funds are included in this bill for NASA to continue planning efforts to conduct either robotic or crewed missions to an asteroid. Instead, NASA is encouraged to develop plans to return to the Moon to test capabilities that will be needed for Mars, including habitation modules, lunar prospecting, and landing and ascent vehicles. Further, the Committee is supportive of NASA’s efforts to use the International Space Station (ISS) to conduct research necessary to enable long-term human spaceflight, or ‘‘Earth-reliant’’ technology development; cis-lunar space activities, or ‘‘proving ground’’ efforts such as Orion flights on SLS in the vicinity of the Moon, and deployment and testing of deep space habitation modules; and finally, NASA’s ‘‘Earth independent’’ activities which include using cis-lunar space as a staging area, mapping potential human exploration zones and caching samples on Mars as part of the Mars Rover 2020 mission.

It makes sense to me.  Returning to the Moon may not excite some out there, yet if we sell it as a testing ground for Mars it may gain greater support.  We may be joining the Chinese and Russians on the surface as well, but if it takes a space race to get us to the Moon and Mars then so be it.  

Early Report: BEAM Not Inflating

This week NASA started to inflate the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) while attached to the International Space Station. It should have looked like the image above, but early reports indicate the pressurization has not gone well.

NASA has a press conference at noon ET today to discuss the status of BEAM.  We shall learn more, yet I am not surprised with a few glitches at the start of a new approach to space habitation. Overall, I expect Bigelow's habitat will be a solid addition to the space program. 

Update:  Per NASA:

NASA and Bigelow Aerospace will make a second attempt at 9 a.m. EDT Saturday, May 28, to expand the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM), currently attached to the International Space Station. NASA Television coverage will begin at 8:45 a.m.

Second Update:  All is well. Yesterday the BEAM successfully inflated (as shows below).  Engineers believe the 15 months of storage may have made the pressurization process more difficult. 

India Tests its Space Shuttle

Who knew India had a space shuttle (shown above). Actually, it is a prototype of a reusable launch vehicle that should lead to greater things. The first flight on Monday lasted only 13 minutes.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted his pleasure at the successful flight earlier this week:

Launch of India's first indigenous space shuttle RLV-TD is the result of the industrious efforts of our scientists. Congrats to them.

This could help India increase its share of the space transportation industry, giving SpaceX and others some real competition. 

Star Trek Returns in Many Forms

If you are awaiting the new Star Trek series on CBS, you may enjoy this new clip setting the stage for the series' release in 2017.  It does not reveal any characters or plot lines, but it does promise new crews, new villains, new heroes, and new worlds.  What else can you ask for?

Of course, you can ask for more information on the next Star Trek film, Star Trek Beyond, and this trailer provides that as well.  As always, the scenes will keep you on the edge of your seat.  Better yet, you will only need to wait until July 22 for the film. 

NYT's APP: A Trip to Pluto

The New York Times has released a 3D video for smartphones called "Seeking Pluto's Frigid Heart" that takes you on a trip to Pluto via New Horizons.  It's a gripping tour specifically designed for a mobile device since you need to turn your entire body to take in everything around you, including the distant Sun, Charon on the horizon, and even the dwarf planet's surface as you observe craters and icy plains. 

The New York Times created the app with the Lunar and Planetary Institute and the Universities Space Research Association. The 3D video debuted at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival, which featured18 virtual reality movies.

You can also watch the video on your desktop, but it does not have the same effect and lacks the clarity of the app.  I recommend you download the app and enjoy the tour. 

Portrait of Mars

The Hubble Space Telescope is useful for "family" shots in our own solar system, as this new image taken May 12th demonstrates.

Here is the rest from NASA:

The large, dark region at far right is Syrtis Major Planitia, one of the first features identified on the surface of the planet by seventeenth-century observers. Christiaan Huygens used this feature to measure the rotation rate of Mars. (A Martian day is about 24 hours and 37 minutes.) Today we know that Syrtis Major is an ancient, inactive shield volcano. Late-afternoon clouds surround its summit in this view.

A large oval feature to the south of Syrtis Major is the bright Hellas Planitia basin. About 1,100 miles across and nearly five miles deep, it was formed about 3.5 billion years ago by an asteroid impact. 

The orange area in the center of the image is Arabia Terra, a vast upland region in northern Mars that covers about 2,800 miles. The landscape is densely cratered and heavily eroded, indicating that it could be among the oldest terrains on the planet. Dried river canyons (too small to be seen here) wind through the region and empty into the large northern lowlands. 

South of Arabia Terra, running east to west along the equator, are the long dark features known as Sinus Sabaeus (to the east) and Sinus Meridiani (to the west). These darker regions are covered by dark bedrock and fine-grained sand deposits ground down from ancient lava flows and other volcanic features. These sand grains are coarser and less reflective than the fine dust that gives the brighter regions of Mars their ruddy appearance. Early Mars watchers first mapped these regions. 

An extended blanket of clouds can be seen over the southern polar cap. The icy northern polar cap has receded to a comparatively small size because it is now late summer in the northern hemisphere. Hubble photographed a wispy afternoon lateral cloud extending for at least 1,000 miles at mid-northern latitudes. Early morning clouds and haze extend along the western limb.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), J. Bell (ASU), and M. Wolff (Space Science Institute)

Great Image: Double Transit of the Sun

The transit of Mercury across the sun was interesting to watch last week, as is the transit of the International Space Station. In fact, both transits are shown in the image above. 

Here is the full story from APOD:

This sharp video frame composite was taken from a well-chosen location in Philadelphia, USA. It follows the space station, moving from upper right to lower left, as it crossed the Sun's disk in 0.6 seconds. Mercury too is included as the small, round, almost stationary silhouette just below center. In apparent size, the International Space Station looms larger from low Earth orbit, about 450 kilometers from Philadelphia. Mercury was about 84 million kilometers away.

Image Credit & Copyright: Thierry Legault

Hillary and UFOs

I am not sure how many votes it will get her, but Hillary Clinton has given UFO enthusiasts her pledge to be more transparent with government data on such events.

In an interview, Clinton stated,

There are enough stories out there that I don’t think everybody is just sitting in their kitchen, making them up.

I remember Newt Gingrich discussing moon colonies during his presidential bid and all he got was a few chuckles. I don't expect Clinton will gain more than that. 

What I would like is full-throated support for a Martian mission. That might excite more Americans and move us beyond tax records, speech transcripts, hand size, and other topics that only frustrate the electorate. We need something hopeful for our future. 

Saving Earth

"The challenge of colonising Mars shares remarkable DNA with the challenges we face here on Earth. Living on Mars will require mastery of recycling matter and water, producing food from barren and arid soil, generating carbon-free nuclear and solar energy, building advanced batteries and materials, and extracting and storing carbon from atmospheric carbon dioxide – and doing it all at once."

--Science writer Joe Mascaro in an Aon article titled "To Save Earth, Go To Mars."

Exoplanets: The Count Increases

NASA announced this week that scientists analyzing 2015 data from the refurbished Kepler space telescope, now called K2, has discovered another 1,284 exoplanets. This doubles the number of planets discover by the telescope since it was put into operation.

Among these newly discovered exoplanets, 550 are rocky like Earth and 9 are within their sun's habitable zone. As a result, the Kepler mission has discovered a total of 21 exoplanets that appear to be similar to Earth.

This is goods news as K2 continues its mission while other space telescope missions are being planned to help with the search in the near future.

Mercury's Transit of the Sun

Don't go blind today trying to watch Mercury transit the Sun because it cannot be seen with the naked eye anyway. NASA has it covered with a live video here. The transit will started at 7:15 EST and last a little over seven hours. This event happens only 13 times a century and scientists are using it to study Meecury's exo-atmosphere. Yes, as with exoplanets, such transits in front of a sun are very informative.

The Search for Habitable Planets Expands

It is amazing that Star Trek in the 1960s and Cosmos on the 1970s speculated about distant planets, and here we are today actually studying thousands of newly discovered planets, searching for moons around these planets, and even planning to analyze the atmospheres on the planets themselves. We may not have flying cars as promised, but we are starting to see those distant worlds we predicted which I believe is far more fascinating.

Last month, NPR had a story on the search for moons around approximately 1,000 distant planets by astronomer David Kipping at Columbia University. He believes gaseous planets similar to Jupiter and Saturn may have habitable moons where life is possible. We know our solar system has such moons, such as Europa and Enceladus, that we have yet to adequately explore for signs of life. So we have plenty of work to do here at home as well. 

Another NPR story this month discussed three nearby planets that circle a red star. Only 40 light years away, the Earth-size planets may offer a habitable environment for life. And using the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers hope to be able to learn about the atmospheres of these planets as sunlight filters though them, while the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope will be able to provide details on the chemical composition of the atmosphere. More reasons to be excited about new space investments.

The search can only get more interesting as our technology improves and our curiosity grows. Whether in our solar system or far beyond, there is so much to study and understand. 

Above Image: Top row, left to right, is Titan, Earth's Moon, Europa, and Encelasus. Bottom row, left to right, Callisto, Charon, Ariel, and Io.

Bottom Image: Artist's rendering of the three distant planets around a red star. ESO/M. Kornmesser/Nature

SpaceX Aims for Mars

It wasn't too long ago NASA stated it would leave Low Earth Orbit (LEO) missions for the private sector while the space agency would take on the bigger tasks off Earth.

I guess Elon Musk never received the memo because he is gunning for Mars (while also doing quite well with LEO having just won a USAF contract).

Here are a few messages about his new Dragon 2 capsule, also labeled the Red Dragon, that he hopes to land on Mars in 2018.

 Elon Musk Retweeted

SpaceX@SpaceX Apr 27

 

Planning to send Dragon to Mars as soon as 2018. Red Dragons will inform overall Mars architecture, details to come 

Elon Musk@elonmusk

Dragon 2 is designed to be able to land anywhere in the solar system. Red Dragon Mars mission is the first test flight.

I don't want to be someone who bets against Mr. Musk and I hope can make it happen as the race for the Red Planet continues. Unfortunately, it seems the Europeans and Russians are delaying their ExoMars mission until 2020, so the field is open for SpaceX yet the path is still perilous.

Understanding Pluto's Neighbors

Later this month Chicago's Adler Planetarium will be premiering its new show Planet Nine. The program will discuss the New Horizons mission to Pluto, the dwarf planet's neighbors, and the search for Planet Nine (though I still argue Pluto should remain the ninth planet).

And in case you would like to read a little more on some of the other dwarf planets in the show (including the one that cost Pluto its place among planets), here is what the Adler Planetarium shared on its website:

Eris

The discovery of Eris prompted the International Astronomical Union to agree on an official definition of “planet” in 2006. Eris is almost exactly the same size as Pluto, yet it weighs 25 percent more. It is also remarkably bright, reflecting 97 percent of the light it receives from the Sun. To put that in perspective, the Moon reflects just 12 percent of the Sun’s rays.

Haumea

Shaped like a football, Haumea rotates incredibly fast—once every four hours! This object’s fast rotation causes its unusual shape. Were it rotating more slowly, gravity would pull it into a sphere, which is why it qualifies as a dwarf planet even though it isn’t round.

Sedna

Sedna’s orbit takes it deep into the far reaches of the Solar System, almost 20 times as far as Pluto ever goes. A year on Sedna is 11,400 times as long as a year on Earth! But perhaps the most interesting thing about Sedna is the hints it gives us that there are many more objects yet to be found at the edges of our cosmic backyard.

In the meantime, here is a video sharing more about the proposed Planet Nine from Astronomer Konstantin Batygi.