Here's a nice gallery of space art and photos, ready to email to your friends.

I particularly like the Rockets and Astronomy galleries.

(Hat tip: Hobbyspace).

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Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne lit off its rocket again today, this time for 40 seconds. No official details have been released by ScaledComposites yet, but reports indicate that SpaceShipOne climbed past 100,000 feet at Mach 2.

Congratulations to Rutan and crew!

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Today, Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne received a suborbital launch license from the FAA.

My birthday is coming up in a little less than a week, and I can think of no better present than to see a privately-built and -owned spaceship launched.

Update: The FAA actually issued the license on April 1, 2004, as explained in this press release.

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I feel like I've linked to this before, but even if I have, it's worth repeating (note well: large download; requires Shockwave plugin).

(Hat tip: Jerry Pournelle)

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It appears that both the Mars Express orbiter and an earthbound team have independently detected Methane in Mars' atmosphere, on the order of 11 parts per billion. This is exciting news, as it points to the possibility of life, or of vulcanism (or both).

(Hat tip to Fred Kiesche at Martian Soil who turned me on to new blogroll member MainlyMartian).

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One nice thing about an article like this one is that it helps to incrementally decrease the "giggle factor" associated with discussing such outlandish notions as terraforming and colonizing Mars. For a more serious examination of the giggle factor, see this military article on planetary defense.

I literally remember an event at my high school (in Physics class, no less) in which I saw the giggle factor implemented mercilessly. In sharp contrast to the Thomistic, sophisticated, and rational priests and teachers in the vast majority of my other classes there, this class was taught be a priest whose thoughts seemed to predate Vatican II (heck, his ideas even seemed to predate Galileo!)

One day, our classroom discussion veered away from pure Physics (we were talking about Kepler, I think, and duplicating his experiment of plotting Brahe's data and discovering that Mars' orbit was elliptical) and one of the students asked about the prospects of life on Mars. Not just life that might have evolved there, but our prospects as a species living there.

I'll never forget how that ignorant ass of a priest dismissed him out of hand, essentially stating that G-d had created "Man" for this Earth and that there was no other life in the universe and no place for Man elsewhere in the universe. Of course, most of the other guys in my class were your run-of-the-mill mundanes, and they were seized by a fit of the giggles. He wouldn't hear the end of it for some time.

The poor guy. At the time I hardly knew him (although I knew him all too well, in a sense, as I had almost identical thoughts about Mars, but somehow had the sense not to chum the shark-infested waters of high school with them), but he is now one of my better friends. How ironic that after all this time, what we geeks felt intuitively back then to be possible, to be true, may finally become a reality.

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Thursday March 4, the US House of Representatives approved HR 3752, The Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act.

The bill adds definitions to the existing Commercial Space Launch Act for "crew," "space flight participants," and "suborbital rockets," among others and clears the way for suborbital rocket flights with passengers, at least on an experimental basis. The Act is aimed at encouraging X-Prize participants and other similarly-situated rocket developers by removing the legal uncertainties they face, as bill sponsor Rep. Dana Rohrabacher makes clear:

"It is my sincere hope that this bill will encourage individuals like Burt Rutan and others to continue leading the way in pushing the boundaries of technology and safety by building and flight testing hardware, something NASA has yet to do. This fine piece of legislation carries forward my goal of promoting this new industry and cutting back bureaucratic red tape, while protecting the public health
and safety."

Let's hope that with some regulatory certainty, we'll see many private launches in the near future.

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Brian Doss at Catallarchy summarizes Robert Zubrin and Christopher McKay's ideas on terraforming Mars, linking to numerous resources regarding the technologies and timescales required.

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There is a fantastic scene in one of Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars books (either Red or Green, can't remember off the top of my head) in which the colonists tap an aquifer under the Martian surface, triggering a torrential flood. Is there that much water there now? We don't know.

Yet.

But NASA announced today that Mars was once awash in water. Drenched, in fact (at least at the Opportunity landing site).

This is great news. If there is still an appreciable amount of water on Mars, then the costs of exploration and settlement decrease drastically. And the chances of finding current or past life increase dramatically.

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Via Adot's Notblog.

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I wonder if Mark Oakley has one of these?

(Hat tip: Rocket Jones)

Update: Oops, I just fixed the link. Mark probably went, "huh?"

(The fixed link now takes you to a picture of a T-Shirt that says, "As a Matter of Fact, I AM a Rocket Scientist!")

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Wired has an interesting writeup about astrobiologist Chris McKay's efforts to find evidence of life in the high desert of the Atacama, Chile.

I was surprised to learn just how sterile the Atacama is. Despite the discovery in recent decades of "extremophiles," it appears that there are limits to what hardy microbial life can tolerate, even on Earth. Learning how to detect the trace amounts of life, preventing forward contamination of the test site and contamination of gathered samples, and determining where to find any trace life are all skills that will serve the first human explorers of Mars well.

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Moon Base Clavius.

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. . . Is only a couple of weeks away. In case you didn't know, DARPA is hosting a race, "The Grand Challenge," among "autonomous ground vehicles" between Los Angeles and Las Vegas next month.

They will pay a cash award of $1 million to the team that fields the first vehicle to complete the designated route within the specified time limit. The purpose of the challenge, in DARPA's own words, "is to leverage American ingenuity to accelerate the development of autonomous vehicle technologies that can be applied to military
requirements."

NASA could learn a thing or two (or many more!) from DARPA.

Update: Jay Manifold noticed this story, too (I found it directly on the DARPA site; he links to Space.com's story), and is seeking input on what kind of contest his readers would set up for a $10 million prize.

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OK, OK. I've been promising this for a while. Other people kept writing bits and pieces of what I was thinking, so I decided to bite the bullet and try to put down some of my thoughts, too. These aren't fully formed, and, since this is my blog, I reserve the right to edit or elaborate in future.

Anyone who has known me for any length of time eventually learns that I am a space nut at heart. I have been since as early as I can remember. To try and compose an essay seeking to answer "why should we go to space" is like asking Deep Thought the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything.

The problem is really with the question. The answer varies depending on the assumptions behind the question. These assumptions are typically that space is too hard or expensive for anyone other than the government to do it. I hope that certain current events may help to prove this premise false. Another assumption is that space is solely for scientific purposes. Many pro-space advocates fall into this trap.

Which is why I was happy today to see Rand Simberg's link to an interesting op-ed by Jim Muncy in the Washington Times. Mr. Muncy's opinion really gets at what I have been trying to write for some time. Key quote (extracted by Rand, too):

"Space exploration is not merely about the wonders of science and technology, although it produces countless discoveries and innovations. It is not merely about stunning images and daring adventures, although it has those aplenty. And to the disbelief of so many space professionals and aficionados alike, it is not even really about outer space. "Rather, space exploration is about strengthening and spreading the very essence of freedom: the magic of going and doing what you want, where you want, when you want and why you want. It is about the endless and innately human quest for a better, wiser and richer life, not just for yourself today but for generations hence. Freedom is as much about the creation and pursuit of new dreams, horizons and challenges as it is about achieving them."

Brian Doss at Catallarchy gets at this latter idea:

"[T]he reason I support Martian colonization is on the general grounds that liberty thrives on the frontier, and that human society does best when there is a frontier to interact with the ancestral land. Innovation is spurred, trade blooms, opportunities abound, and more importantly, there is space to go to help make a new society when you don't like the one you're in. To an extent, America is still the World's frontier, as it is the place most non-Americans go when they want to get away from wherever it was they were born; America is vibrant, young, and constantly re-inventing itself with countless subcultures and communities. But America isn't a true frontier society anymore, and for those of us fortunate enough to have been born here, where does one go when even America is too staid and developed to suit? Well, the old answer is new again- leave for the frontier, which would now be Mars."

Both of these statements really seem to boil down to "we should go to space because it is there, because we can, and, oh yes, it's good for freedom." Most other space policy debate seems to focus almost exclusively on the science to be done, the things to learn. But most people aren't "scientists" and don't want to be scientists. I fear that if we make outer space a reserve for scientists alone, then space will look like Antarctica in the future: a small contingent of on-site researchers, a very small number of "extreme" tourists, and no normal people. Forget for a moment the goals of scientists here on earth. Think of your goals instead. Why do you work each day? What things are important to you? Where do you find beauty? Would you like to strap on a pair of wings and literally fly like a bird in one-sixth Earth's gravity beneath the stars in a lunar resort? Can you see yourself standing at the edge of the Valles Marineris, looking into a canyon system that makes the Grand Canyon look like a small valley? Do you like architecture or music? Think of the possibilities for the forms that buildings could take in the lower gravity of Luna or Mars. What symphonies, what poems, what great novels will the vistas of new planets, new experiences, new pains and losses and challenges stimulate? What new businesses can we create? I think all these aspects of the human experience are of equal value to the abstract knowledge we may gain about the geology, meterology, and chemistry of these new places. I want an outer space future that looks like the world of Heinlein's Rolling Stones or Niven's Known Space; a place where families live and work and grow, where belters mine asteroids and trade goods with Luna, Mars, and Earth. A place indistinguishable from our current civilization, except that we happen to live elsewhere. In other words, a space-based civilization. If we do this, then we will have learned what we need to get our eggs out of this fragile basket. And maybe in the process we will learn just how much more precious is our Earth. Why go to space? To stay.

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When I was first getting seriously into written SF, Carl Sagan was on PBS with his groundbreaking series, Cosmos.

As he explained in the episode entitled "Heaven and Hell," the surface of Venus is 900 degrees (F) and subject to crushing pressure. A far cry from the fertile swamps of Heinlein's Venus in Between Planets, an early favorite of mine.

Don Mitchell has reprocessed some of the raw image data from the Soviet Venera 9, 10, 13, and 14 landers. Not nearly as stunning as the Martian surface, but still it has an austere beauty.

(Hat tip: Jerry Pournelle).

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Sorry Mr. Oakley, Burt Rutan borrows your appellation in this recent Christian Science Monitor article.

Money quote: [Regarding certification of Burt's aircraft, only one of which -- the Starship -- ever obtained it]: "It would be a waste" to seek certification, says [Rutan's brother] Dick. "He's an innovative, creative designer. Why should he waste all of his time trying to certify an airplane with a bunch of know-nothing bureaucrats?"

We haven't heard much from Scaled Composites recently, but apparently Rutan's crew is now waiting for the FAA/AST to issue their license. I'll wager that he will win the X-Prize very shortly after getting the license.

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Thanks to Jay Manifold (who linked to this page), I found this page on Space Settlements at NASA.

Reminds me of the big dreams I had of someday living or vacationing in space. Not the cramped government housing represented by Mir and the ISS. Instead, vast space habitats, like the station in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Maybe with life-extension technology I'll live long enough to see structures like these built. Unless of course the religious fanatics and allied Luddites ban cloning and nanotech research.

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Patrick Stewart (a/k/a weenie Captain Jean Luc Picard) opposes human exploration of outer space.

Reason: "It would take up so many resources, which I personally feel should be directed at our own planet."

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I've always liked Long John Silver's, even though Mrs. Texasbestgrok's shellfish allergy has cut down on my opportunities to visit.

Turns out they have offered a free giant shrimp to anyone asking for it on March 15, 2004, but only if NASA discovers and announces "conclusive evidence" of an ocean on Mars before February 29, 2004.

Here are the official terms of the offer, for any lawyerly types. I particularly like this line in the press release: "In the letter [to NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe], [Long John Silver's President] Davis also officially registered interest in Long John Silver's becoming the first seafood restaurant on Mars. 'It's not a matter of "if," it's just a matter of "when" human beings are able to live permanently on Mars. Long John Silver's mission is to feed people with delicious seafood wherever they are -- on earth or even outer space.'"

It may be a gimmick, but I plan to pay to sample a few of these giant shrimp as soon as they are available on February 15.

Update: I should have put a hat-tip to SFSignal in this article.

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