Chinese Space Station and More

Earlier this month China launched the Tiangong-2 ("Heavenly Palace") into orbit to replace the  Tiangong-1, which has been in orbit for the last 5 years and is expected to fall back to Earth late next year. These are really test missions that will lead to a permanent space station, planned for 2020.

Let's not forget that China has already placed a rover on the Moon (the Yutu shown above) and plans to send a rover to Mars in 2020 (see images below). All of which shows the nation is willing to find its own way of other nations do not wish to cooperate. 

Just as we have competition between the private sector entities in the U.S. space industry, maybe this competition between nations, which also includes countries such as India and Japan, is a smart way to allow different approaches and technologies to flourish. While I think an interstellar mission may need more centralization, we are far from that now (at least at the human level) and the competition in the meantime may help us to reach that goal more quickly. 

So best wishes to China and the other space-faring nations. 

North Korea on the Moon?

I am reading news reports that North Korea would like to send a mission to the Moon within 10 years. Is this idea similar to the plot of that movie where the Nazis place a secret base on the dark side of the Moon? 

Hyon Kwang II, director of the scientific research department of North Korea's National Aerospace Development Administration, stated:

Even though the U.S. and its allies try to block our space development, our aerospace scientists will conquer space and definitely plant the flag of the DPRK on the moon.

I wonder why. 

Of course, DPRK is an abbreviation for the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea. Why is it every country with "democratic" in its name is never democratic?

With all the trouble that country is causing on planet Earth we certainly do not need it on another world. I may want to see more journeys into space, but this might be one time where I think the space-faring country has more important tasks back here at home.

Google Goes to the Moon

I am happy to read that a private company has permission to land a rover on the Moon. Earlier this week, the Federal Aviation Administration granted Moon Express the permission, which it sought in part to win the Google Lunar X Prize.  This is a first for commercial space anywhere. 

On its website, Moon Express stated: 

The federal interagency approval of the Moon Express 2017 lunar mission establishes an important precedent for the private sector to engage in peaceful space exploration, bringing with it monumental implications for the advancement of technology, science, research, and development, as well as commercial ventures that expand Earth’s economic sphere.

What is interesting is that private companies have been spending more time talking about private trips to Mars and simply foregoing the Moon until now.  For instance, Mars One is still working on a Martian mission. 

Let's hope we start to see more commercial traffic heading to the moon and elsewhere.

Space Quotes: The Boring Moon?

"After two revolutions of the moon, it became clear that it was kind of boring. On Earth, you have rivers, oceans, continents, highlands and mountains, but the moon looks like one beat-up, sand-blasted ball with hole upon hole."

--Astronaut Bill Anders, who served on Apollo 8 during its lunar orbit in1968.  You can find the rest of his quote and a number of additional astronaut quotes in this Forbes magazine article.  

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.  

An Orbiting Moon Base?

Maybe those newly hired NASA astronauts will have a place to visit. Science.com notes there is talk about a habitat in a stable orbit around the Moon.

The project is part of NASA's Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP) Projects.  Using the Orion deep-space crew capsule, crews would visit and stay at the habitat for months at a time to prepare for a Mars mission. From here the crew could also conduct experiments with robots on the lunar surface. 

Best of all - the orbit will be stable for thousands of years unlike the International Space Station (ISS), which is a meteor waiting to happen. And no orbiting space junk will threaten the craft. However, the habitat would also be about 1,000 times further away than the ISS. That makes astronaut and resupply missions more complex.  

All said, it seems we are moving back towards the Moon after this Administration initially wrote it off. One can only wonder if the next President will build on this plan or tear it up as well.  

Great Image: Another Earthrise

I will never tire of the lunar views of Earth. The recent image above comes from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, launched in 2009.

NASA notes:

In this composite image we see Earth appear to rise over the lunar horizon from the viewpoint of the spacecraft, with the center of the Earth just off the coast of Liberia (at 4.04 degrees North, 12.44 degrees West). The large tan area in the upper right is the Sahara Desert, and just beyond is Saudi Arabia. The Atlantic and Pacific coasts of South America are visible to the left. On the moon, we get a glimpse of the crater Compton, which is located just beyond the eastern limb of the moon, on the lunar farside.

The first Earthrise photo, shown below, was taken by NASA's Lunar Orbiter 1 in 1966.  What a difference with some color and clarity.

Russian Budget Cuts and the Moon

NASA is not the only space Agency facing budget cuts. Russia too has limited resources in the space arena. The Moscow Times recently reported:

Russia's federal space agency Roscosmos will receive just 1.5 trillion rubles ($22.5 billion) in government funding over the next ten years, less than half of estimated figures cited by space officials earlier this year, a Roscosmos statement said on Monday evening.

Hard times in Russia are taking their toll.  Yet optimism appears to be in the air.  A TASS article in the same week discussed Russia's plans to send cosmonauts to the moon by 2029, stating

According to a preliminary plan, Russia’s first manned flight to the Moon is possible in 2029. One year ahead of that it is planned to conduct a flight around the Moon, the testing and qualification of space systems for the future manned landing. However, this project may become a reality only if the work to create a new-generation manned transport spacecraft, the Angara-A5 rocket, lunar boosters and other needed rocket and space technology and infrastructure is included in the draft Federal Space Program for 2016-2025.

Russia also plans to send a lunar lander, Luna 25, to the moon's south pole in 2024. Certainly an ambitious schedule for a space agency short of funds.  Yet clear targets can better center efforts and resources.  We need more of that in the US (as well as more funds). 

 

Space Junk: Apollo 16 Booster Crash Site Located

It appears a Johns Hopkins University physicist just located the crash site of the Apollo 16 third-stage booster.  Until now, NASA had no idea where the booster landed.  The 1972 mission was the fifth to land on the moon and the second-to-last for the Apollo program. 

But wait, didn't the Russian question the whole moon landing story last summer?   In a Moscow Times article, we learned that Russia's Investigative Committee spokesman, Vladimir Markin, expressed concerns about the disappearance of film footage associated with the 1969 moon landing as well as missing moon rocks. 

The paper quoted Mr. Markin as stating:

We are not contending that they did not fly [to the moon], and simply made a film about it. But all of these scientific — or perhaps cultural — artifacts are part of the legacy of humanity, and their disappearance without a trace is our common loss. An investigation will reveal what happened.

Maybe this latest booster sighting will help Mr. Markin sleep a little better.  Russia can train its telescopes on the site if it wants its own footage of moon rocks disturbed by a U.S. lunar landing.  

The Backside of the Moon

We now have another perspective of our home planet, and this time it includes the backside of the moon, which we never get to view here on Earth.  Our planet is certainly a bright, shiny object compared to its moon.  The new view comes from the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) placed between the Earth and sun to provide warning about incoming solar storms, thereby giving government agencies and the private sector time to prepare. 

DSCOVR was launched last February on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.  Now located 1 million miles from Earth at a point where the Earth and Sun's gravity cancel one another out (called L1), it operates as a partnership between National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NASA, and the U.S. Air Force. 

Go here for more information on the DSCOVR mission and you can also learn more about the mission via this video.

Image Credits:  NOAA

Another Great Image: Tethys 'Eyes' Saturn

 

My first thought when seeing the image was the earlier Star Wars film where the Death Star was rounding a targeted planet.  However, this shot was taken from the Cassini spacecraft and shows the moon of Tethys.  Here is the rest of the story from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory:

The two large craters on Tethys, near the line where day fades to night, almost resemble two giant eyes observing Saturn.

The location of these craters on Tethys’ terminator throws their topography into sharp relief. Both are large craters, but the larger and southernmost of the two shows a more complex structure. The angle of the lighting highlights a central peak in this crater. Central peaks are the result of the surface reacting to the violent post-impact excavation of the crater. The northern crater does not show a similar feature. Possibly the impact was too small to form a central peak, or the composition of the material in the immediate vicinity couldn’t support the formation of a central peak.

In this image Tethys is significantly closer to the camera, while the planet is in the background. Yet the moon is still utterly dwarfed by the giant Saturn.

This view looks toward the anti-Saturn side of Tethys. North on Tethys is up and rotated 42 degrees to the right. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on April 11, 2015.

The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 75,000 miles (120,000 kilometers) from Tethys. Image scale at Tethys is 4 miles (7 kilometers) per pixel.

And let's not forget Mimas, another moon of Saturn, that has even greater resemblance to the Death Star up close. 

Video Clip: The Fermi Paradox

This video on the Fermi Paradox by Kurz Gesagt is a thought-provoking piece on the absence of other known civilizations in our galaxy.  He also talks about the impossibility of travel to any other galaxies outside our cluster due to increasing distances. It is a very sobering piece, though I think we have plenty to explore in our own neighborhood, particularly if the space is available for settlement.  

Unless, as he postulates, a Type III civilization that controls the entire Milky Way is zapping potential civilizations that rise to threaten the neighborhood.  Think of it as the opposite of Star Trek where the Vulcans step in and help an emerging Earth.  This bleak scenario is close to ideas expressed by Dr. Hawking, where he noted we could get into trouble as we become a space-faring civilization.  Plenty to ponder as we move forward with SETI and space travel.

Mr. Gesagt has other informative video, including videos on the big bang and our moon.  I recommend you take a look at these videos as well. 

We Are Not Alone...

That is, we are not alone in our efforts to study the solar system and dream as a nation. This is good news, and yet also a little troubling since we saw ourselves as the smartest kid on the block (though one could argue that was not even the case with Russia during the Cold War until the Apollo landing).  While the Orion mission is a bold step forward, it is not clear where that step is leading as Congress debates destinations such as asteroids, the Moon, and Mars.  And the White House seems to be taking a back seat rather than voicing a vision. 

If you look at the traffic in space, you can see the "space race" is turning into rush hour:  Here are a few examples:

- Europe:  The Rosetta mission was a great accomplishment.  Landing a probe on a comet is no small task, and the European Space Agency (ESA) should be elated with this accomplishment.  ESA is also working with Russia on a new mission to Mars, something that the U.S. backed out of earlier.  Hence, alliances are forming with the U.S. being sidelined.

- China:  China continues to work on its plans for a space station and took further steps last year in its efforts to return samples from the moon.  China already has a rover on the Moon's surface. 

- Japan:  Japan launched the Hayabusa 2 mission last month (pictured above) heading for a 3,000-foot-wide asteroid named 1999 JU3.  NASA and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) plan to share asteroid samples.

- Russia:  The Russians continue to build most of the rockets we depend upon, have discussed pulling out of the International Space Station so they can build their own station, and recently restated plans to put cosmonauts on the Moon.  Whether or not Russia will have the budget to do these things in coming years will depend upon economics as much as science and technology given the state of the Russian economy. 

- India:  India joined the big leagues last year with its successful Mars Orbiter Mission, which put a spacecraft in orbit around the Red Planet. India is also taking steps to build a new rocket and capsule for future manned missions.

- Private Sector:  In addition to the various national missions, the private sector has its own plans, including Planetary Resources mining asteroid, Mars One bringing humans to Mars, SpaceX hopefully allowing the U.S. to move away from Russian rockets, and Bigelow designing inflatable space stations (see photo) for both science and tourism. 

All of the activity is encouraging, and maybe it will give the NASA and the Congress a swift kick in the pants, letting them know that the world will not stand idle while Rome (or budgets) burn and committees fiddle.  Competition helped us get to the Moon, and it may do so again. 

Image Credits:  Hayabusa 2 from JAXA and inflatable space station from Bigelow.

You Can Contribute to a Lunar Mission

Lunar Mission Ltd. is looking for investors via Kickstarter for a lunar mission.  Once funded, in about 10 years time Lunar Mission One will conduct science on the surface of the Moon to learn more about this orbiting body:

The spacecraft platform will drill down to a depth of at least 20 metres – about 10 times further than drilled before – though potentially as deep as 100 metres. This will enable us to access and analyse lunar rock that is 4.5 billion years old. By studying this ancient lunar rock we hope to shine some light on the following: What are the origins of the Moon? How did the late heavy bombardment of the inner solar system shape the history of our planet? Might the Moon be suitable for a permanently manned base for space exploration?

In addition to the science, contributors can leave something behind on the moon as well.  Contributions at certain levels will provide the donor with a "Digital Memory Box" where they can upload message, photos, videos, and more.  This information will be buried into the Moon's surface.

The current Kickstarter campaign is designed to raise about £600,000 (or about $900,000) to support continued planning for the mission.  Later on the sales of memory boxes to the general public should generate additional revenues to fund the rest of the mission.

Lunar Mission One, like Mars One, is another way to stimulate public interest in space projects and give them a sense of investment.  It reminds me of The Planetary Society's efforts to put members names on as many Mars missions and other missions as possible, which have included:  OSIRIS-REx, MAVEN, Hayabusa 2, IKAROS,  Akatsuki, Glory, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, Kaguya (SELENE), Phoenix, Dawn, New Horizons, Deep Impact. Cosmos 1, Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity, Hayabusa (MUSES-C), Stardust - Cassini-Huygens, Mars Pathfinder, and Mars '96. An impressive list. 

I wish the project team luck and will make my own Kickstarter contribution shortly.

Update:  Lunar Mission One's funding drive was a success. So what is the next step.  According to the mission site, now it is time to do some fine-tuning of the mission:

In January, Lunar Missions Ltd will assemble the initial project team to plan the fine details of the next six months – which will be project managed by RAL Space.  This is an incredibly complex programme involving at least four core project teams: Mission, Education, Science and Marketing.

Good News From Last Week

While the private space industry is still focused on the two failures last week, the Chinese government has plenty to celebrate after a successful flyby moon mission last week. The image above, taken by the Chang'e 5-T1 spacecraft, offered a fascinating reverse image of the Moon and its master. 

The Chang'e 5-T1 is part of a series of missions to the Moon. It started in 2007 with the Chang'e 1 mapping the moon, the Chang'e 2 orbiting the moon, the Chang'e 3 moon rover (Yutu), and eventually the Chang'e 5, planned for 2017, which will land on the Moon, extract samples, and return them to Earth.  The graphic below puts it all into perspective.

Noteworthy Quote: Leaving Humans on Other Planets

"These people have been trained and given the great historical value of being the first human beings in history to occupy another planet and people want to bring them back?...Let me ask those people who want to bring them back, what are you going to do with them back here on Earth that will in any way [justify] the billions and billions of dollars that have been invested in those human beings to put them on Mars?"

- Statement by former astronaut Buzz Aldrin discussing flying people to Mars (see London's Daily Mail) 

Footnote:  Maybe we should have left Buzz on the moon.  It was pretty expensive bringing him back.  

Does the Moon Ruin the Night Sky?

Did NASA's Administrator Charles Bolden make the following statements?

-- The moon is moon as “useless” and “a barren eyesore."
-- The moon “all but ruins the night sky for me.”
-- Every dollar spent on lunar exploration might as well have been “thrown straight in the trash.”

No, but those are the quotes in the ever-funny The Onion news story from which this was taken.  A little bit of humor these days never hurts.  And since my taste tend more towards Mars, I am not going to stand up for the moon.  

Google Now Maps the Moon and Mars

Google Earth has expanded beyond our planet and now provides tours of the Moon and Mars.  For instance, Moon in Google Earth allows you to:

-- Take tours of landing sites, narrated by Apollo astronauts;
-- View 3D models of landed spacecraft;
-- Zoom into 360-degree photos to see astronauts' footprint, and
-- Watch rare TV footage of the Apollo mission.

For example, the image below shows various keys points in the Apollo 11 mission. And should you want to track the activities of the Curiosity Rover on Mars you can do that as well.  All you need to do is download the Google Earth program and choose your location.  The navigation and content is not perfect, but it provides a good sense of where you are accompanied by panoramic images. 

I look forward to more planets and moons in the future.  And with NASA's New Horizons heading towards Pluto, we will soon be able to add dwarf planets to the list. 

Interesting Facts About the Apollo 11 Moon Landing

For the 40th anniversary of the Moon landing, Popular Science magazine published an article "Ten Things You Didn't Know About the Apollo 11 Moon Landing."  The stories are taken from Craig Nelson's book Rocket Men.  They bear mentioning again five years later.  You can read all 10 by going to the link (or read the book for even more facts), but here are three of my favorites:

-- The "one small step for man" wasn't actually that small. Armstrong set the ship down so gently that its shock absorbers didn't compress. He had to hop 3.5 feet from the Eagle's ladder to the surface.

-- When Buzz Aldrin joined Armstrong on the surface, he had to make sure not to lock the Eagle's door because there was no outer handle.

-- The toughest moonwalk task? Planting the flag. NASA's studies suggested that the lunar soil was soft, but Armstrong and Aldrin found the surface to be a thin wisp of dust over hard rock. They managed to drive the flagpole a few inches into the ground and film it for broadcast, and then took care not to accidentally knock it over.

I imagine the Moon missions would have ended that day if the astronauts had locked themselves outside of the capsule.  Many, many other little things had to go right for that mission and those that followed.  The Apollo missions represent the true triumph of the human spirit, and ingenuity as well.

45th Moon Landing Anniversary

Forty-five years ago this very day the Apollo 11 crew landed on the Moon and astronaut Neil Armstrong stated "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin visited the Moon's surface for about 22 hours before returning the the command module, where astronaut Michael Collins was waiting for them. The picture above is pretty dramatic, yet the world first saw the mission on television via the poor-quality video shown below.  NASA has restored the video showing about two and a half hours "extravehicular activity."  This was a amazing day in history, and hopefully we will have many more space moments in the future.  We have not returned to the Moon since 1972.  It may be time to revisit the Moon as part of plans to move further out into the solar system.