Senator McCain is Upset About Russian Rocket Engines in the Budget

With the new Federal budget opening the door again to the previously banned Russian RD-180 rocket engine, Senator McCain, Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, was not happy at all as expressed in his statement of the floor of the Senate:

This is outrageous. And it is shameful. And it is the height of hypocrisy, especially for my colleagues who claim to care about the plight of Ukraine and the need to punish Russia for its aggression. How can our government tell European governments that they need to hold the line on maintaining sanctions on Russia, which is far harder for them to do than us, when we are gutting our own policy in this way? How can we tell our French allies, in particular, that they should not sell Vladimir Putin amphibious assault ships, as we have, and then turn around and try to buy rocket engines from Putin’s cronies? Again, this is the height of hypocrisy. 

Excellent points, yet Senator Shelby from Alabama was not deterred by Senator McCain's remarks and defended his middle-of-the-night manuever:

I’m the first one to argue that we should not be dependent upon any foreign power for access to space — especially in the national security arena. I have already worked to secure more than $300 million in funding for the development of an American-made rocket engine. However, recklessly restricting the use of the RD-180 in the near-term will undermine both national security and the prospects for real competition in the military launch business.

I expect the United Launch Alliance believes Senator Shelby has been good this year and will properly reward him with a little something extra in his Christmas stocking. 

The Expanse: An Imagined Future

If you think the future entails bigger brains, SyFy has other ideas. In tonight's new series The Expanse you learn the future depends on precious commodities other than gold, platinum, and helium 3. And inequality has been relocated rather than removed - this time placed on the dwarf planet Ceres.  Yes, in the future the strange lights on Ceres will be mining colonies. As a concept I like the science of the show even if the sociology is depressing. 

Here is the basic story surrounding The Expanse:

Hundreds of years in the future, humans have colonized the solar system. The U.N. controls Earth. Mars is an independent military power. The planets rely on the resources of the Asteroid Belt, where air and water are more precious than gold. For decades, tensions have been rising between these three places. Earth, Mars and the Belt are now on the brink of war. And all it will take is a single spark. 

It is within this future that The Expanse begins. The series follows the case of a missing young woman that brings a hardened detective and a rogue ship’s captain together in a race across the solar system that will expose the greatest conspiracy in human history.

The first episode has been available on the website for some time. I enjoyed the pilot and look forward to more about the situation on Earth since our planet is being run by the United Nations and Mars by the corporations.  You can already see the upcoming democrat/republican dichotomy.  The Red States have moved to the Red Planet with potentially deadly consequences for all. Although it is set hundreds of years into the future, I would not be surprised if the descendents of Trump and Cruz are running around. Talk about terror-forming ideas...

By the way, the three-night miniseries Childhood's End starts tonight on SyFy as well. This series indicates things could get even worse than humanity soiling its own sandbox. If you have not read the book, this trailer gives you a glimpse of what is ahead.

Are Some Distant Planets a Mirage?

“It was thought that the reliability of the Kepler exoplanets detection was very good – between 10 and 20% of them were not planets. Our extensive spectroscopic survey, of the largest exoplanets discovered by Kepler, shows that this percentage is much higher, even above 50%. This has strong implications in our understanding of the exoplanet population in the Kepler field”.

-- Alexandre Santerne, Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço, discussing a new study by his team - SOPHIE velocimetry of Kepler transit candidates XVII. The physical properties of giant exoplanets within 400 days of period.  The team used SOPHIE (Spectrographe pour l’Observation des Phénomènes des Intérieurs stellaires et des Exoplanètes) to conduct its study, which is located in an observatory in france.

Great Image: Pluto Up Close

NASA's New Horizons images of Pluto only become more stunning.  The image above shows mountains abutting a Sputnik Planum.  Did anyone really expect such a magical surface on this dwarf planet?  Here is the full description from NASA:

The Mountainous Shoreline of Sputnik Planum: In this highest-resolution image from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, great blocks of Pluto’s water-ice crust appear jammed together in the informally named al-Idrisi mountains. "The mountains bordering Sputnik Planum are absolutely stunning at this resolution," said New Horizons science team member John Spencer of the Southwest Research Institute. "The new details revealed here, particularly the crumpled ridges in the rubbly material surrounding several of the mountains, reinforce our earlier impression that the mountains are huge ice blocks that have been jostled and tumbled and somehow transported to their present locations."

Below we have another image showing the distant surface contains a series of smaller stories told over time.  Again, NASA describes the image in detail (and here is a video showing all these shots together):

This highest-resolution image from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft reveals new details of Pluto’s rugged, icy cratered plains, including layering in the interior walls of many craters. "Impact craters are nature's drill rigs, and the new, highest-resolution pictures of the bigger craters seem to show that Pluto's icy crust, at least in places, is distinctly layered,” said William McKinnon, deputy lead of the New Horizons Geology, Geophysics and Imaging team, from Washington University in St. Louis. "Looking into Pluto’s depths is looking back into geologic time, which will help us piece together Pluto's geological history.”

Akatsuki: A Determined Little Spacecraft

The Japanese spacecraft Akatsuki, meaning "dawn" in Japanese, was successfully inserted into orbit above Venus earlier this week.  This is a great accomplishment for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) after the Venus Climate Orbiter overshot the planet five years ago.  The view of Venus below is one of the first images sent back by the spacecraft. 

According to JAXA, the little spacecraft has plenty of work do to while in orbit:

Meteorological information will be obtained by globally mapping clouds and minor constituents successively with 4 cameras at ultraviolet and infrared wavelengths, detecting lightning with a high-speed imager, and observing the vertical structure of the atmosphere with radio science technique. The equatorial elongated orbit with westward revolution fits the observations of the movement and temporal variation of the Venusian atmosphere which rotates westward. The systematic, continuous imaging observations will provide us with an unprecedented large dataset of the Venusian atmospheric dynamics. Additional targets of the mission are the exploration of the ground surface and the observation of zodiacal light.

The Akatsuki was designed to complement the European Space Agency's (ESA) Venus Express, which went into orbit over the planet in 2006.  Venus Express could only wait so long.  ESA lost most contact with the spacecraft in November last year.  Fortunately, the spacecraft had accomplished its full mission by that point. 

Orbital ATK Back in the Station Business

Orbital ATK is back after a rough year. The successful Sunday launch of the Cygnus capsule aboard an Atlas V rocket put the company back in rotation for International Space Station (ISS) resupply missions, even if it has yet to field its own rocket. This is also the maiden voyage of an Atlas V rocket in an ISS mission.

The Cygnus spacecraft will arrive at the space station tomorrow morning.  The payload includes items lost in recent mission failures (three in a little over a year). 

Update:  The Cygnus space capsule (pictured below) safely arrived at the ISS Wednesday morning.  According to NASA, Cygnus has a diverse payload:

Science payloads will support science and research investigations that will occur during the space station’s Expeditions 45 and 46, including experiments in biology, biotechnology, physical science and Earth science -- research that impacts life on Earth. Investigations will offer a new life science facility that will support studies on cell cultures, bacteria and other microorganisms, a microsatellite deployer and the first microsatellite that will be deployed from the space station, and experiments that will study the behavior of gases and liquids and clarify the thermo-physical properties of molten steel and evaluations of flame-resistant textiles

In its press release announcing the successful mission, Orbital ATK stated it hopes to begin using its own Antares rocket by next year:

Under the CRS contract with NASA, Orbital ATK will deliver approximately 62,000 pounds (28,000 kilograms) of cargo to the ISS over 10 missions through 2018. To date, the company has delivered more than seven tons of essential supplies to the ISS since the first mission conducted in early 2014, with three additional CRS missions scheduled for 2016. Another Cygnus mission will be launched on an Atlas V in March, after which Orbital ATK’s Antares rocket will launch at least two ISS resupply missions in the second and fourth quarters of 2016.

I Will Support This Space Mission - One Way Only

 Here is a recent tweet by Mr. Bezos:

@JeffBezos

Finally trashed by @realDonaldTrump. Will still reserve him a seat on the Blue Origin rocket. #sendDonaldtospace http://bit.ly/1OpyW5N

Star Swallowing Black Holes

Via radio signals, scientists have detected a black hole swallowing a star similar to our sun.  A team of astrophysicists, led by a Johns Hopkins University scientist, were able to witness destruction, which led to the ejection of a flare of matter that moved close to the speed of light.
Sjoert van Velzen, a Hubble fellow at Johns Hopkins, stated:

These events are extremely rare...It's the first time we see everything from the stellar destruction followed by the launch of a conical outflow, also called a jet, and we watched it unfold over several months.

We have seen this before. Years back NASA's Swift satellite discovered evidence of a neutron star being swallowed by a black hole back in 2005.  It is not the same thing as watching a sun like our own being pulled apart, but it similarly demonstrates the danger of a star's proximity to the sun.

And below is an image from a few years ago showing a flare from a star being destroyed at a galaxy's center by a black hole.  As the NASA site noted:

These images, taken with NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer and the Pan-STARRS1 telescope in Hawaii, show a brightening inside a galaxy caused by a flare from its nucleus. The arrow in each image points to the galaxy. The flare is a signature of the galaxy's central black hole shredding a star that wandered too close.

Yes, the universe can be a violent place.

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.  

Great Image: Bombetoka Bay

 

This view of Bombetoka Bay, Madagascar, taken by NASA's TERRA satellite, shows again the magic of looking back at our amazing planet in all its beauty.  Here is the rest of the story from NASA:

On the northwestern coast of Madagascar, the salty waters of the Mozambique Channel penetrate inland to join with the freshwater outflow of the Betsiboka River, forming Bombetoka Bay. Numerous islands and sandbars have formed in the estuary from the large amount of sediment carried in by the Betsiboka River and have been shaped by the flow of the river and the push and pull of tides.

The part of the bay shown in the scene is just upriver from the important Malagasy (the adjective used to describe things and people from Madagascar) port city of Mahajanga. Near water, shrimp and rice farming are common—the rectangular blue areas near the top center edge may be shrimp pens—while coffee plantations abound in the surrounding terrain.

Image Credit:  NASA image courtesy the U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team, NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS

A Depressing View of Our Future in Space?

A recent article in Scientific American titled "Oh the Placed we Won't Go," had a quote from the Planetary Society's co-founder Louis Friedman's book Human Spaceflight: From Mars to the Stars:

Humans will become a multi-planet species by making it to Mars, but no farther. That is, they will never travel beyond Mars...Exploring beyond Mars will be done virtually, by processing information from other worlds while our bodies stay at home (albeit, I hope, on a multi-planet home of Earth and Mars)...To be clear: I believe that human space exploration will continue forever, but that human spaceflight will stop at Mars. This is not a contradiction—it is just a new way of thinking, a problem perhaps for an older generation but not for future ones where already ideas about connectivity, networking, exploration, and virtual reality influence the perception of “being there.”

I find this assessment to be consistent with our space missions to date, where robots have sent back amazing images from throughout the solar system, and telescopes have peered billions of years into the past, yet also a sad commentary on the future of man stuck on either the third or fourth rock from the sun.  Scientists are currently looking for evidence that distant civilizations have colonized a complete galaxy, with little luck thus far.  Are we now to believe that all past and future planetary species stay at home and can only explore remotely?  That is like saying I will never go to Paris, but I can send my iPhone.  Not a very hopeful view of vacations.

Blue Origin Success Bugs Musk

Monday was a great day for Blue Origin, a small rocket company funded by Amazon's Jeff Bezos. The firm successfully landed its BE-3 reusable rocket (shown above), something SpaceX has struggled with. The rocket also carried a space capsule, the New Shepard (shown below), 62 miles up before it too successfully landed via parachute.

On its website, Blue Origin stated:

We are building Blue Origin to seed an enduring human presence in space, to help us move beyond this blue planet that is the origin of all we know. We are pursuing this vision patiently, step-by-step. Our fantastic team in Kent, Van Horn and Cape Canaveral is working hard not just to build space vehicles, but to bring closer the day when millions of people can live and work in space.

Blue Origin's plans are to use the rocket and space capsule for space tourism.  However, the firm has joined the United Launch Alliance as they compete against SpaceX for future defense and space missions. 

From the sounds of it, Elon Musk is not impressed. Following the successful landing, he tweeted:

@elonmusk: Jeff maybe unaware SpaceX suborbital VTOL flight began 2013. Orbital water landing 2014. Orbital land landing next. https://t.co/S6WMRnEFY5

Oh well, one could say "boys with their toys," but I think the competition is great for the US space industry. Let's have more of it.

More on Mars: Rings?

Following up on my earlier post about the demise of  Phobos, some scientists are now speculating that the "moon" may break apart in orbit rather than hit the surface, thereby creating rings around the planet.

USAToday provides this quote from one scientist:

If Phobos shatters all at once, “you’d expect the ring to unfurl … very quickly, over the course of days to weeks,” said study author and planetary scientist Benjamin Black, who will soon join City University of New York. Someone standing on the surface of Mars “might see a bright arc in the sky.”

Of course, these potential rings are quite distant in the future. Who knows whether Phobos will be around since humans settling Mars may find other uses for it.

Image Credit: Art by Tushar Mittal, graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley

ULA Concedes Defeat

It is pretty amazing to see the United Launch Alliance (ULA) walk away from a US Air Force contact, basically handing it over to SpaceX.  The consortium of Lockheed Martin and Boeing admitted they were not prepared for a contract bid.

Explaining ULA's position, CEO Tory Bruno stated: 

The key elements of reliability and schedule, certainly our most important strengths, are not allowed to be considered to differentiate bidders...It comes down to being a price-only comparison, which takes our biggest strengths off the table.

In other words, ULA cannot compete on price.  ULA also wanted to use Russian rockets, while Congress opposes this option.  

In the past the Pentagon would have handed it to them regardless of such readiness, so this is a win for SpaceX and taxpayers. Let the competition continue.

Secret Space Escapes

Last week on the Science Channel's new series Secret Space Escapes (November 10) we learned more about a fire aboard Russia's Mir Space Station from a US astronaut's perspective.

One might wonder why US astronauts were aboard Mir, a predecessor to the International Space Station (ISS) in orbit from 1986 to 2001. The joint mission was part of the Shuttle-Mir program agreed to in 1993 between U.S. Vice President Al Gore, Jr. and Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin.  

We have a fair number of joint missions with the Russians, including the ISS, that has stretched our science and our dollars. This makes sense regardless of the stress back home assuming each country is collaborating rather than co-dependent. For example, the US should have its own means to get astronauts to the ISS. 

Now that China is looking skyward we should consider joint missions with them as well. We do not lose if we communicate and collaborate. It is a dirty word in Washington, DC, but the way of science.

Update: Of course, even the ISS has issues, including loss of power as ABC News just reported:

NASA said Monday the six astronauts were left with one less power channel Friday. A short circuit in equipment on the station's framework is to blame. The short apparently tripped a current-switching device, resulting in the loss of one of eight channels used to power the orbiting lab. The affected systems were switched to alternate lines.

Political Quotes Not Very Encouraging

You may have heard Donald Trumps recent statement to a 10 year-old concerning the future of NASA and our space program.  It was not very inspirational from a man that claims to be a billionaire.  Trump's response was simple:

You know, in the old days, it was great. Right now, we have bigger problems — you understand that? We've got to fix our potholes. You know, we don't exactly have a lot of money.

The man seems to have no dreams beyond piles of money and super models.  And he calls himself a leader?

Of course, Jeb Bush did little to inspire faith, even when discussing a space disaster.  Stumping in  New Hampshire last month at the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center, he attempted to recall the loss of the second space shuttle.  He stated:

I was thinking, you were going to bring up the tragedy that took place, I will never forget that, when I went as governor of Florida, to the tarmac for a tribute to the astronauts, that died. I think it was 2005, maybe — um , yeah. (audience: Christa McAuliffe?”) No, the other one, 2002. In the 2000s. It was horrible, It’s a reminder that this is a dangerous endeavor, but it is worth us, for all sorts of reasons, to be engaged in it.

 Yes, it is worth us being engaged in the 2003 Columbia shuttle disaster.  It is also worth staying engaged in our space program.  Do we have any presidential candidates able to do this?

Unknown Civilization in Kazakhstan

It's hard to believe a Discovery Channel program on mummies led to the uncovering of a mysterious 8,000 year-old civilization on the steppes of Kazakhstan.  That is the tale in the New York Times story on amateur archaeologist Dmitriy Dey who spotted the mounds, swastika-like structures, and other geoglyphs using Google Earth.  NASA later assisted with satellite imagery, shown in the photos provided.  The article goes on to describe the site:

The rich lands of the steppe were a destination for Stone Age tribes seeking hunting grounds, and Mr. Dey’s research suggests that the Mahandzhar culture, which flourished there from 7,000 B.C. to 5,000 B.C., could be linked to the older figures. But scientists marvel that a nomadic population would have stayed in place for the time required to lay ramparts and dig out lake bed sediments to construct the huge mounds, originally 6 to 10 feet high and now 3 feet high and nearly 40 feet across.

Archaeologist Persis B. Clarkson from the University of Winnipeg said these Kazakhstan geoglyphs 

...has caused archaeologists to deeply rethink the nature and timing of sophisticated large-scale human organization as one that predates settled and civilized societies.

Just when we think we understand our own past, we stumble on the unknown again.  It goes to show that not all telescopes should be pointed at the heavens.  We still have much to learn back here at home.

Great Image: Slow Destruction of Phobos

Are we looking at a doomed "moon" of Mars? NASA scientists believe the marks seen above relate to tidal forces as Mars attempts to pull the captured asteroid down to its surface. Phobos is estimated to have another 30 to 50 million years until its destruction.

Terry Hurford of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, noted:

We think that Phobos has already started to fail, and the first sign of this failure is the production of these grooves.

I wonder how many other moons like Phobos have already fallen to the Martian surface.  No comment yet from Deimos.

Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltrch/University of Arizona

Simulated Russian Moon Mission

Tass reported six women recently completed a simulated moon mission over nine days. The project at the Russian Institute of Biomedical Problems involved issues that might come up during a real mission, including collecting lunar soil samples. What is odd is that the quarters simulated the International Space Station and not a capsule or lunar module. The article also noted that none of the girls "coped," but did not elaborate. 

Russia was the first country to put a woman into space yet has fallen behind in subsequent years. Only last year did it send the first female cosmonaut to the space station. 

EXIM: A Space Company?

There has been a lot of talk about EXIM and the space industry, but what does this entity do?  It is actually a bank and arm of government that assists exporters and importers, including those selling U.S. space products to foreign nations. Here is what the EXIM Bank has to say on its website:

Looking to jump-start or expand your foreign sales? EXIM is here to support your business. The Bank is an independent federal agency that fills gaps in private export finance in order to bolster U.S. job growth at no cost to American taxpayers.

EXIM provides trade financing solutions – including export credit insurance, working capital guarantees, and guarantees of commercial loans to foreign buyers – to empower exporters of U.S. goods and services.

You will also find this message on its website: 

Due to a lapse in EXIM Bank’s authority, as of July 1, 2015, the Bank is unable to process applications or engage in new business or other prohibited activities. 

This government agency has been in the news frequently this year because the republicans do not like the idea of helping U.S. exporters because it may stifle competition.  Unfortunately, that competition is already impacted by many other countries offering similar programs, and unilateral disarmament on exports will only hurt our fledgling private sector space industry.

Here is an EXIM press release from August 2013 that demonstrates how the bank assisted SpaceX:

Continuing its support of the space industry in America, the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank) has authorized a $105.4 million loan to Space Communication Ltd. of Ramat Gan, Israel, to finance the Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) launch of the Amos-6 communications satellite, the purchase of American made-solar arrays, and insurance brokered by Marsh USA (Marsh).

Loan financing is not sexy stuff, but it is essential if our private sector space industry is to become a global industry.  A smart partnership between the government and private industry helps everyone.  Why is this idea lost on many republicans?

The latest highway bill still being debated by Congress provides funding for the bank, so this issue may be resolved shortly.  But for how long?  These empty-headed dances over the funding of government programs has become a continuous distraction for more important business.  "Partnership" and "compromise" are dirty words with this Congress, and the resulting debates and threats are a slow cancer for a nation that hopes to lead the world in any area, including space travel. 

Update:  EXIM is open for business again.  Here is what Fred P. Hochberg, Chairman and President of EXIM, had to say yesterday (December 4, 2015): 

I'm pleased to report that after overwhelmingly bipartisan votes in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, President Obama signed EXIM Bank's reauthorization into law today. 

Beginning today, EXIM will be able to restart the work needed to meet its mission of supporting American jobs and equipping American businesses with the tools necessary to compete for global sales. Importantly, the Bank secured a long-term reauthorization that will be in effect until September 30, 2019.

Exporters and their supply chains are critical to the country's economic health. Export focused businesses bring a host of benefits to their communities and local economies, including generally paying higher wages to their employees than non-export businesses. 

Historic Moments: Mars 1M No.1

While last month marked release of The Martian, it is worth remembering that missions to Mars (and mission failures) have been a real issue for more than 50 years. Last month (October 10 to be exact) marked the 55th anniversary of the Soviet Mars 1M No. 1 probe, the first attempt to send a spacecraft to Mars.  The launch was a failure, as was the launch of Mars 1M No. 2 a few days later.  Nonetheless, the long race to Mars started.

ISS: 15 Years and Counting

Time flies when you are in Earth orbit, or so it seems. This week (November 2nd) marks the 15th year humans have continuously occupied  the International Space Station (ISS). 

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden recently stated:

Over the weekend, I called NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, who is currently halfway through his one-year mission aboard the International Space Station, to congratulate him on setting the American records for both cumulative and continuous days in space. 

I also took the opportunity to congratulate Commander Kelly -- and the rest of the space station crew -- for being part of a remarkable moment 5,478 days in the making: the 15th anniversary of continuous human presence aboard the space station.

ISS funding is expected can to continue through 2024, though Congress is a fickle institution so you never really know. But the ISS lasted this long, showing some decisions can still be made and financed. 

Notable Quote: Time to Lead the Way to Mars

"At a time of widespread pessimism both at home and abroad, a commitment to an ambitious program of space exploration could provide a much-needed infusion of optimism and self-confidence in America’s ability to solve complex domestic and international problems...Similar to the International Space Station, a human expedition to Mars would provide an excellent opportunity for international cooperation and collaboration in space. Already, the European Space Agency Is paying for and building the service module for the next flight of NASA’s new Orion Multipurpose Crew Vehicle—the spacecraft that will take humans to the moon and beyond. Sending humans to Mars should be s cooperative international enterprise instead of a competitive one."

-- Statement by Peter Juul, a Policy Analyst on the National Security and International Policy team at the Center for American Progress, in his article "Forging a New Consensus on America’s Future in Space."

Great Image: Kissing Stars May End Badly

This is more of a "great artist image" of two kissing stars imagined from observations by the European Space Agency (ESO) Very Large Telescope in Chile. The expected outcome of this amazing duo is either one large star or one big black hole. 

ESA noted:

The double star system VFTS 352 is located about 160,000 light-years away in the Tarantula Nebula. This remarkable region is the most active nursery of new stars in the nearby Universe and new observations from ESO’s VLT have revealed that this pair of young stars is among the most extreme and strangest yet found...VFTS 352 is composed of two very hot, bright and massive stars that orbit each other in little more than a day. The centres of the stars are separated by just 12 million kilometres.  In fact, the stars are so close that their surfaces overlap and a bridge has formed between them. 

Space Exploration: Beyond the Horizon

The Planetary Society and Symphony of Science put together an inspiring video called Beyond the Horizon to highlight how we need to be bold in our dreams about our future in space.  The video contains comments from Bill Nye the Science Guy, Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, science writer Emily Lakdawalla, and Dr. Carl Sagan.  As Dr. Sagan noted, "Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known."  Let's go find out.

Falcon 9 Returning in December

In December we should see SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket back on the launch pad blasting two commercial satellites into orbit. This will be about six months after the loss of the Falcon 9/Dragon mission to the International Space Station.

The two missions will allow SpaceX to test the rocket's second stage booster, which was determined to be the location of the June failure. The first commercial satellite launch will not even require the second stage to achieve orbit, so the system can be tested before being used for the next launch. Pretty smart.  

Universe Today has more on the upcoming missions.

KIC 8462852: Exocomet Fragments or Aliens?

The paper from the Royal Astronomical Society is pretty straightforward regarding  the fluctuating light around a distant exoplanet called KIC 8462852 as spotted by the Kepler Space Telescope:

Over the duration of the Kepler mission, KIC 8462852 was observed to undergo irregularly shaped, aperiodic dips in flux down to below the 20% level. The dipping activity can last for between 5 and 80 days. We characterize the object with high-resolution spectroscopy, spectral energy distribution fitting, and Fourier analyses of the Kepler light curve. We determine that KIC 8462852 is a main-sequence F3 V/IV star, with a rotation period ~0.88 d, that exhibits no significant IR excess. In this paper, we describe various scenarios to explain the mysterious events in the Kepler light curve, most of which have problems explaining the data in hand. By considering the observational constraints on dust clumps orbiting a normal main-sequence star, we conclude that the scenario most consistent with the data is the passage of a family of exocomet fragments, all of which are associated with a single previous breakup event. We discuss the necessity of future observations to help interpret the system.

However, some see an alien presence, as they did with "canals" on Mars and recent "lights" on Ceres. So we have speculation about an alien megastructure harnessing energy from the star. 

Ross Andersen in The Atlantic writes:

Jason Wright, an astronomer from Penn State University, is set to publish an alternative interpretation of the light pattern. SETI researchers have long suggested that we might be able to detect distant extraterrestrial civilizations, by looking for enormous technological artifacts orbiting other stars. Wright and his co-authors say the unusual star’s light pattern is consistent with a “swarm of megastructures,” perhaps stellar-light collectors, technology designed to catch energy from the star.

Sci fi aside, we need to remain open-minded yet careful if we are to search the galaxy and beyond to know it better. And if we presume we are not alone, then the myriad of ways in which alien life might exist will always be part of the mystery before us. Hence, I am skeptical about a new megastructure but interested in learning more about this anomaly. 

SmallSats: More Private Sector Investment

NASA’s Launch Services Program recently awarded what are called Venture Class Launch Services  contracts to three private companies to provide small satellites (SmallSats) in low-Earth orbit. These three companies are:

• Firefly Space Systems Inc. of Cedar Park, Texas, $5.5 million
• Rocket Lab USA Inc. of Los Angeles, $6.9 million
• Virgin Galactic LLC of Long Beach, California, $4.7 million

Since Virgin Galactic seems to be making slow progress in the space tourism industry this may be a new opening for the company. And expanding NASA's rocket suppliers is always a good move as it spreads the risk of the space program. 

Image Credit: Firefly Alpha Rocket from Firefly Space Systems

What Are the Russians Up To?

It is bad enough that Russian military is operating dangerously close to NATO airspace and neutral Scandinavian airports, and now operating erratically in Syria and crossing over into Turkish airspace, but this questionable behavior is happening in space as well.

Three Russian satellites appear to operate independently and outside routine orbits while one, called Luch, has been orbiting close to U.S. commercial Intelsat satellites and potential spying on their operations. 

Space News reported: 

Many in the space community believe the incident marks one of the first publicly documented times a commercial operator has been subject to this kind of approach by a foreign military satellite. The episode also raises questions about what kind of recourse commercial satellite companies have in these situations.

In addition to the Luch satellite, launched in September 2014, Russia launched Cosmos 2499 (pictured above) in May 2014 and Cosmos 2504 in March 2015. All three spacecraft have worried U.S. space and military officials who believe the Russians are testing anti-satellite technology. 

Of course, as I have noted before, the US Air Force is not helpless. The X37B unmanned space shuttle, which can stay in orbit for more than a year at a time, appears to be our not-so-secret weapon that can most likely capture and destroy worrisome satellites. Hence, we appear to be on the brink of a new war arena and, like Ukraine and Syria, Russia is spoiling for a fight.

Update: The Russians are now attempting to explain the mysterious Luch satellite, stating it is

...simply a relay satellite, sending signals from spacecraft to Earth, for example from the International Space Station — we have communications problems there — and from one satellite to another.

I am not convinced.

Blue Skies on Pluto

NASA provided more news last week about Pluto, the mysterious dwarf planet that is now starting to share its secrets. The latest discovery relates to water on the surface of Pluto as well as blue skies above this surface, as shown above. This news, plus previous reports of mountain ranges and open plains, is making the dwarf planet less strange and more amazing with each returning batch of data.

NASA reports:

Pluto’s haze layer shows its blue color in this picture taken by the New Horizons Ralph/Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC). The high-altitude haze is thought to be similar in nature to that seen at Saturn’s moon Titan. The source of both hazes likely involves sunlight-initiated chemical reactions of nitrogen and methane, leading to relatively small, soot-like particles (called tholins) that grow as they settle toward the surface. This image was generated by software that combines information from blue, red and near-infrared images to replicate the color a human eye would perceive as closely as possible.

Image Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

Mission to Mars in Three Steps

The image above from NASA shows the three stages of humans getting to Mars - Earth Reliant, Proving Ground, and Earth Independent, as described by NASA below:

The journey to Mars crosses three thresholds, each with increasing challenges as humans move farther from Earth. NASA is managing these challenges by developing and demonstrating capabilities in incremental steps:  

Earth Reliant exploration is focused on research aboard the International Space Station. From this world-class microgravity laboratory, we are testing technologies and advancing human health and performance research that will enable deep space, long duration missions. 

In the Proving Ground, NASA will learn to conduct complex operations in a deep space environment that allows crews to return to Earth in a matter of days. Primarily operating in cislunar space—the volume of space around the moon featuring multiple possible stable staging orbits for future deep space missions—NASA will advance and validate capabilities required for humans to live and work at distances much farther away from our home planet, such as at Mars.  

Earth Independent activities build on what we learn on the space station and in deep space to enable human missions to the Mars vicinity, possibly to low-Mars orbit or one of the Martian moons, and eventually the Martian surface. Future Mars missions will represent a collaborative effort between NASA and its partners—a global achievement that marks a transition in humanity’s expansion as we go to Mars to seek the potential for sustainable life beyond Earth.

It is a logical approach, and nice to contemplate, yet the one thing I do not see are the dates for human missions. That has always been the big question and it remains so.

Russian Space Exhibit in London

Your best chance to learn about Russia's space program may entail a trip to London. A special exhibit, Cosmonauts: Birth of the Space Age, can be found at London's Science Museum.  And fortunately you have until March 2016 to see it. 

Some of the items on display include: 

- Vostok 6: the capsule flown by Valentina Tereshkova, the first ever woman in space. 
- Voskhod 1: the capsule used on the first mission to carry more than one crew member. 
- LK-3 Lunar Lander: a single cosmonaut craft built to compete with Apollo.
- A collection of gadgets that cosmonauts – and pioneering space dogs – need to live in space, including a shower, toilet, medical instruments, and survival kits for crash landings.

Russia has made significant contributions to space travel and this special exhibit allows you to see the equipment and other items up close. 

In a review of the exhibit, London's The Guardian noted:

A key figure is Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, a bearded provincial schoolteacher, almost completely deaf, who wielded a vast ear trumpet of his own design and manufacture and who from the late 1870s until his death in 1935 studied questions of weightlessness and space travel, and tried to communicate them through science fiction. The exhibition shows his notes and sketches for a 1930s film called Cosmic Voyage, on which he was a consultant. Their style has a schoolboy naivety, but they show insights into the ways and means of reaching space, including escape velocity, fuel, and the use of multi-stage rockets remarkably close to those that would eventually be employed.

The exhibit has received glowing reviews and provides the public with a better understanding of Russia's role getting us to where we are today in our quest to explore our solar system and more.  Since many will never travel to Russia, nor be able to see all of these items in one place again, this is a unique opportunity for space enthusiasts and others.

The Martian: Where Were the Russians?

If you have yet to see the new film The Martian you should ignore this post. But if you have seen the movie, maybe you too wondered about the Chinese assistance to NASA. Having the future Chinese assist with a rescue mission to Mars is not the issue. What I wonder is why the Russians were not consulted since they are far ahead of the Chinese today and would presumably be in the same position in the future.

And what about private ventures such as SpaceX and others? Are we to presume NASA was the only game in town? If so, this is a bleak view of the future.  I won't even mention Mars One (since maybe that mission was already dead on another side of the planet - or still in orbit).

Maybe the book explains these things, but I am hoping the future does not depend on only one or two government programs.

Dust Storms and The Martian

If you have yet to see the new film The Martian, you are in for a treat.  This amazingly beautiful and superbly acted film with stay with you for a long time, and hopefully it will increase the public awareness of the awesomeness as well as risks related to a Martian mission. The other words that come to mind after seeing the movie are duct tape, disco, and cooperation in space.  But you will know what I am talking about after you see it for yourself.

Of course, one of the stars in the film is the Martian weather, and the winds in particular.  In the movie, the winds proved destructive to the mission on Mars and continually rattled the equipment and housing modules.  NASA provided some insights on this in an article titled "The Fact and Fiction of Martian Dust Storms," noting:

“Once every three Mars years (about 5 ½ Earth years), on average, normal storms grow into planet-encircling dust storms, and we usually call those ‘global dust storms’ to distinguish them,” Smith said.

It is unlikely that even these dust storms could strand an astronaut on Mars, however. Even the wind in the largest dust storms likely could not tip or rip apart major mechanical equipment. The winds in the strongest Martian storms top out at about 60 miles per hour, less than half the speed of some hurricane-force winds on Earth.

Hence, the winds are not fun when trying to accomplish a task on the surface of Mars, yet they are not likely to destroy habitats or knock over a rocket.  This is not to pick on the film as much as to point out that we have a lot of things to worry about related to a Martian mission and fortunately this is not one of them.  That said, you should see the film and enjoy the show.

Image Credit:   This close-up image of a dust storm on Mars was acquired by the Mars Color Imager instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on November 7, 2007, around 3 p.m. local time on Mars. The full story from NASA is here.

Another Success ISS Mission

The supplies keep rolling in and things are returning to normal on the International Space Station (ISS).  Russia's Progress M-29M/61P supply ship docked with the ISS on Thursday, arriving a little over 6 hours after launch. While pressures increase on the ground between the U.S. and Russia, this time in Syria, it is good to see space cooperation is still strong. 

Image Credit:  Progress 61 from NASA TV