Enjoy this beautiful picture of the Crab Nebula, made up of 24 different images taken by the Hubble in 1999 and 2000. (Click the pic for full size).

Posted by: JohnL at 07:57 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Ted points us to some good news on the successful test of some space elevator precursor technology.

More SF coming true.

Posted by: JohnL at 11:27 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Does anyone know of a decent online archive of Martian maps, including the highest resolution scans from the most recent orbiters, organized like Google maps?

I'm thinking specifically of a draggable, clickable, zoomable Martian atlas.

I've done some googling around, but haven't found anything like this yet.

Any leads would be much appreciated.

Posted by: JohnL at 11:10 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I read this and especially this part:

"Researchers continue to look for new ways to counteract the physical changes associated with long-term space flight whether through diet, exercise, medication or a combination of strategies."

What's missing from that list? How about, say, engineering? Why don't any of these studies ever look at testing a centrifugal/centripetal force method of creating quasi-gravity?

It's not like the concept is a new one. After all, Wernher von Braun had already dreamed of the "wheel" space station so poetically realized in 2001: A Space Odyssey as early as the 1950s.

I'm surprised there haven't been any tests of the concept yet. It seems like it would have been pretty simple to already have built a rat-scale ring that would have fit in a shuttle bay (or one of the station modules) to see how the forces would have affected the rats. Is there a certain minimum diameter needed to prevent disorienting coriolis effects?

Does anyone know of any tests along these lines? It seems a lot easier than trying to change human biology with medications.

Posted by: JohnL at 11:00 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The headline of this article made me think of Milliway's.

You know. Restaurant at the End of the Universe... Bar at the Center of the Milky Way. I wonder if they serve Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters there.

Posted by: JohnL at 10:40 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Thankfully, it appears that today's repair mission was a complete success, and the potentially threatening gap fillers were removed with minimal effort and without causing any damage to the thermal tiles. Read about it here.

Unfortunately, it now appears that a second spacewalk may be necessary to repair a thermal quilt outside the cockpit that may have been damaged by launch debris.

I wonder how many of these kinds of issues have previously gone unnoticed or uncared-about. Since NASA added additional cameras for the return-to-flight mission, Discovery has to be the most closely-studied orbiter in the history of the program. Perhaps our earlier ignorance really was bliss. I'm just surprised that this level of scrutiny wasn't applied to the earlier shuttle missions.

It will be interesting to see whether the safety-first culture at NASA will abate any after a few successful missions. It will have to in order to ever succeed in implementing President Bush's exploration initiative. It seems that repair spacewalks should be something that every crew of every vessel in space should be prepared to do.

Posted by: JohnL at 11:59 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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The Sunday Times (UK) ran a profile/interview of Burt Rutan on March 13, 2005 (found via X-Prize Space Race News).

Mr. Rutan comes across like a character out of an Ayn Rand novel (and I mean that in a good way):

Apollo 17 landed on the moon on December 11, 1972, and thereafter the US space effort ground to an undignified halt. Nasa invested in the Space Shuttle, the ugliest and most pointless machine ever built. They told the US government it would be 10 times cheaper to put payloads in space with the shuttle than it had been with ApolloÂ’s Saturn V rocket. In fact, it turned out to be 10 times more expensive....

“You can’t fix it by throwing money at it,” says Burt, “because you make something that’s bad because it’s too complex even more complex.”

On top of all that, Nasa, having become an insanely defensive bureaucracy, went out of its way to crush all opposition both within and without. Any rival trying to get into space more safely and cheaply was either absorbed or drained of cash and talent. With the collapsing Soviet Union all but dropping out of the space race, and China just clinging onto a precarious toehold, the whole extraterrestrial adventure seemed to be over. A sci-fi generation, now in their fifties and sixties, realised that their childhood dream of roaring rockets taking them up to wheeling orbital space stations and beyond was dead.

Burt made sure that Nasa only heard about his project at the same time as everybody else — when he wheeled SpaceShipOne out on the tarmac at Mojave to be photographed by Aviation Week. He points out sadly that, but for Nasa, we’d be holidaying in orbital if not moon-based hotels already. He has no faith in George Bush’s new decision to spend the next 20 years going back to the moon and then on to Mars, because it uses the same old dumb technology and keeps the government monopoly intact. But it doesn’t matter, because Nasa won’t survive the next 20 years. Burt thinks it is about to be wiped out by a sudden space explosion in the private sector. And so now, at 61, he expects to live long enough to see the first moon resorts.

According to the author, the first flight into space aboard a Virgin Galactic spaceship should take place in about three years and contain some interesting characters:

It will carry — and this is very informed guesswork — William Shatner and Sigourney Weaver. Shatner is the favourite, as he will officially name the ship the VSS Enterprise. So both Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise and Ripley of Alien have signed up to pay $200,000 (just over £100,000) for the trip, but they don’t yet know who will be on the first flight. If Ripley has anything to do with it, there will certainly be a giant, homicidal lizard. Victoria Principal, the former Dallas star, has also signed up. Burt and Sir Richard Branson will be on board, as, I think, will Branson’s dad, Ted. Bill Cullen, the 63-year-old chairman of Renault Ireland, might be there too; he’s the only one of the 21,000 applicants for tickets who has paid the whole sum upfront....

I can't do the interview justice with excerpts, so go read the whole thing.

Posted by: JohnL at 10:16 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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According to Space.com, a pair of scientists at NASA's Ames Research Center believe they have found strong evidence that life may exist today in Martian caves.

Carol Stoker and Larry Lemke have submitted their paper for publication in Science, and the paper is currently under peer review.

Their evidence is a circumstantial case based upon methane signatures and comparisons to similar caves and methane signatures on Earth, where microbes account for the methane.

I am of mixed feelings on this. I think discovering life elsewhere would be fantastic, but I am worried that Martian life will lead to a quarantine of the planet, thus foreclosing settlement by humans for the foreseeable future.

Guess I'll have to back out of that Valles Marineris condo development deal now...

Posted by: JohnL at 10:36 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Two days ago, Congresscritter James Oberstar introduced /bss/d109query.html|">a bill to "enhance" the safety of the infant commercial space flight industry. Here's a sampling of his verbal diarrhea (via SpaceRef):

"We can and should protect the safety of passengers on space flights in this new and emerging industry, without placing unreasonable limitations on industry development. I urge my colleagues to join me in working to pass this important legislation."

(emphasis mine)

It's clear from the context of Oberstar's comments that he's not merely concerned with range safety (i.e., innocent bystanders). No. He wants to use the blunt instrument of federal regulation to "protect" the safety of early passengers on commercial spaceflights.

Yeah, right. We all know what a good job the government does at protecting passengers in spaceships. (Cheap shot, I know. But I'm not sorry). I'm not sorry, because there is one trait of government that I simply cannot abide, regardless of party affiliation: nannyism. Manny, in Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, put this unsavory aspect of government, as a reflection on human nature, most eloquently:

Must be a yearning deep in human heart to stop other people from doing as they please. Rules, laws -- always for other fellow. A murky part of us, something we had before we came down out of trees, and failed to shuck when we stood up. Because not one of those people said: "Please pass this so that I won't be able to do something I know I should stop." Nyet, tovarishchee, was always something they hated to see neighbors doing. Stop them "for their own good" -- not because speaker claimed to be harmed by it.

In a nascent industry like this, which is just an exotic form of "extreme tourism," participants should be allowed to make up their own minds about risk tolerance. Asshats like Oberstar either (a) want to strangle the private space business in the cradle (look for donations from entrenched contractors like Boeing/LockMart) or (b) are stupid enough to think there is such a thing as safety regulations for experimental spacecraft that do not impose unreasonable limitations on commercial space flight startups. Either way, he should be turned out of office.

Posted by: JohnL at 11:01 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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When I was a kid, wishing that the Space Shuttle would just take off already (this was circa 1980), I kept thinking to myself: "someday I'll make lots of money and then I'll be rich enough to build my own spaceship." Alas, that hasn't happened, but apparently other members of my generation thought the same thing.

Here's a nice article about one of those generational peers, Elon Musk, the CEO and CTO of SpaceX. Like Jeff Bezos, Musk is turning his dot.com riches into hardware and business plans to develop the final frontier.

While Bezos, Rutan, and others focus on the suborbital market, Musk has been looking at ways to make orbital access cheaper by an order of magnitude. Reading through the Fast Company article, it's fascinating to see how he is implementing an entrepreneurial, fast-growth company mentality in building space hardware.

You may have seen this quote elsewhere, but it's worth repeating: "Many times we've been asked: 'If you reduce the cost, don't you reduce reliability?' This is completely ridiculous. A Ferrari is a very expensive car. It is not reliable. But I would bet you 1,000-to-1 that if you bought a Honda Civic that that sucker will not break down in the first year of operation. You can have a cheap car that's reliable, and the same applies to rockets."

Of course the proof of the pudding will be in the tasting. And that tasting is scheduled to take place later this month, with the first scheduled launch of a Falcon I to take place.

Posted by: JohnL at 10:14 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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It looks like the Huygens probe may have landed on or near a beach on Saturn's frigid moon Titan, based on these initial raw images.

I look forward to seeing the rest of the images, especially after they have been processed.

Posted by: JohnL at 09:01 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I've been pruning and revising the blogroll. Since these aren't really blogs, I'm moving them to here, so they'll be readily accessible from my archives.

• Space.com


• Wickman Spacecraft and Propulsion


• Pratt Hobbies Rocketry Catalog


• Scale Model Rockets


• Beginner's Guide to Model Rockets


• SpaceDaily

Posted by: JohnL at 07:09 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The early space visionary and scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky famously stated: "The earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot remain in the cradle forever."

James Muncy describes two important political baby-steps out of the cradle: the Congressional funding of the President's Vision for Space Exploration and the passage of the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act.

I would argue that the latter, together with the successful flights of SpaceShipOne to win the X-prize, represents a much larger step than pouring yet more money into NASA, new "vision" or not.

Posted by: JohnL at 09:53 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Though I've updated my earlier entry, it's worth noting here that, upon additional analysis, Asteroid 2004 MN4 does not present as great a risk as initially thought. The riskiest orbit now appears due in the year 2051, again on my birthday, but that orbit only ranks a zero on the Torino impact risk scale and a minus 1.93 on the Palermo.

Posted by: JohnL at 09:36 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I've always proudly claimed the number 13 as my lucky number, as I was born on the 13th day of April in 1968.

But now I read from Alan Brain that my 61st birthday may be a profoundly unlucky day for me (and other Earth residents).

According to NASA's data, an asteroid (2004 MN4) will pass very close to Earth on April 13, 2029. The asteroid rates a 4 on the Torino Impact Hazard Scale and has a Palermo value of 1 (any value greater than zero on the Palermo scale is a cause for concern).

With this much advance notice, I expect we have enough time to determine what, if anything, needs to and can be done to minimize the risk of impact. As Heinlein said, the earth is simply to small and fragile a basket to keep all of our eggs in, so I hope we can move more quickly to expand and disperse to the moon, to Mars, and to orbital habitats.

Glenn Reynolds and Jay Manifold have each provided some commentary on this, too.

Update: It now appears that the risk has been significantly downgraded. Whew!

Posted by: JohnL at 09:25 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I posted a version of this at Freespace earlier today, but thought it would fit fine here, too.

The House of Representatives' recent passage of the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act of 2004 marks a positive development for the fledgling commercial space tourism industry. Alan Boyle has been following this legislation and has a comprehensive article explaining the pros and cons of the bill.

Despite some shortcomings, the bill provides clearer guidance for the FAA, which has so far been working on an ad hoc basis in licensing experimental spaceships like Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne. In principle, I would prefer no regulation at all. But both the aviation and rocketry industries are already subject to onerous regulatory schemes, which could have been extended to strangle the suborbital tourism business while it is still in the cradle. So this is an improvement on the pre-existing legal framework. I might write up more on this later, but Alan Boyle's article is a good place to start.

Posted by: JohnL at 09:53 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Fred Kiesche found this neat repository of space quotes.

Be sure to check out the first topic, We Must Colonize Space to Survive.... I love brevity in an author. After reading through the eloquent-but-wordy musings of Carl Sagan, Steven Hawking, and Gene Roddenberry, see how Heinlein expresses the same sentiment in a mere sentence. He's not considered a "grand master" of his craft for nothing.

Posted by: JohnL at 09:48 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Assuming the lawmakers and regulators don't strangle the baby in the cradle, there appears to be quite a bit of pent-up demand to pay $200,000 for a flight into space (even if there are only 5-10 minutes of weightlessness).

If I had the means, I know I certainly would, risks be damned.

Posted by: JohnL at 04:49 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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A few of my favorite things about the X-Prize coverage:

Google's Logo yesterday:

Xeni Jardin's link-filled report at BoingBoing.

Alan Boyle's writeup at MSNBC.

Miles O'Brien's ever-enthusiastic entry at CNN.

Posted by: JohnL at 09:20 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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While I would love to liveblog this morning's attempt to win the Ansari X-Prize, I'm not getting a very good connection to the stream at work this morning, and in any case have too much work to spend the morning watching and blogging. You can get the video stream here.

Best wishes to all involved for a safe flight.

Update 0946 CDT (yeah, I know I'm not liveblogging): Brian Binnie is the pilot for today's attempt.

Update 0950 CDT: Separation! . . . Rocket firing . . .

Update 0951CDT: Engine burnout. No rolls like last time.

Update 0955CDT: Looks like they won! Unofficially 368,000 feet.

Update 1007CDT: SpaceShipOne should be landing in less than 5 minutes. Rand Simberg has been liveblogging this morning, and is sure to have good follow-up and commentary.

Update 1013CDT: Safe landing! Welcome to the era of commercial space flight!

Update 1021CDT: Rand Simberg earlier pointed out the other space-related historical significance of this date.

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