Hawaii Event Recognizes Onizuka as
Museum Prepares to Close (Source: West Hawaii Today)
The Astronaut Ellison S. Onizuka Space Center’s last event on Sunday
attracted astronauts, family, friends and first-time visitors. “The
last 30 years, it’s really gone by fast,” said Ellison’s brother,
Claude, in opening remarks to a packed room, stairwell and platform.
The museum honors Ellison Onizuka, one of seven astronauts killed in
the Challenger disaster on Jan. 28, 1986. The museum also sought to
expand interest in science learning and space exploration. Although the
museum will remain open into March, many people came because as it was
the last event for the museum. (2/1)
Camden County Could Become Commercial
Georgia ‘Space Coast’ Site (Source: WABE)
Georgia could soon have its own space coast. Officials in Camden
County, in the southeastern corner of the state, hope to build a
commercial spaceport where companies could launch rockets. This is one
of several spaceports either being proposed or already being built
around the country as rural areas hope to cash in on the private space
race.
Camden County administrator and lead Spaceport Camden booster Steve
Howard says whenever he presents the idea to an audience, he always
starts off with a question: “What did Camden County, Georgia and Frank
Sinatra have in common in 1965?” Then he pulls out a Life Magazine with
Sinatra on the cover and flips to page 73, where there’s a full page
article about a rocket test that happened in Camden County, conducted
by the chemical company Thiokol, which had a plant there. (2/1)
Successful Launch Expands China’s
Beidou Navigation System (Source: SpaceFlight Now)
A new addition to China’s Beidou navigation network launched Monday on
top of a Long March 3C rocket, which injected the satellite into an
orbit more than 13,000 miles above Earth several hours later. The
Beidou spacecraft will test inter-satellite communications links with
other members of the Chinese navigation constellation and support the
system’s growth from regional coverage over China to a global
positioning provider. (2/2)
UK Spaceport Bid is Poised on Launchpad
(Source: The Courier)
Leuchars is very much in it to win it as the race to host Europe’s
first commercial spaceport heats up this week. It is T minus two days
and counting until six sites still in the running to host the
out-of-this-world facility go head-to-head at a conference in London.
And even though no decisions will be made at the event on Wednesday,
the gathering is expected to give some indication as to who the
strongest contenders are likely to be. (2/1)
Campbeltown Case for Spaceport in
Contest This Week (Source: Forargyll)
The privatization of space exploration isn’t new. Much of the US’ work
in space is already accomplished through government contracts with
private companies: Lockheed Martin won the contract to build and launch
the New Horizons probe, and NASA chose SpaceX and a few of its rivals
to resupply the ISS through 2024. Still, the primary objective for
these projects was to serve the interests of science and discovery
rather than the goals of the companies, which is why a growing trend
toward commercialization is so notable.
Billion-dollar government investments into the space program have long
been rationalized in academic terms, as steps toward figuring out
humankind’s place in the universe. Economic spillovers stemming from
space innovation — satellite technologies, memory foam mattresses and
Michael Phelps’s swimwear, to name a few — served as retroactive
justifications.
But for many, a deeper philosophical justification came from proving
that a liberal market economy could match up in greatness to the
government-led system of the Soviet Union. As Communist powers began
making great strides in space exploration in the mid-20th century,
President Kennedy pushed to keep pace. Despite limited market
incentives to expand space exploration, it was the US that got to the
moon first — a major ideological win for the liberal world. Click here.
(2/1)
Space Travel is Nearing the Bounds of
Affordability (Source: Tech Insider)
Perhaps within the next five to ten years, an average Joe could check
off "experience space travel" from their bucket list, according to Tom
Shelley, the president of Virginia-based company Space Adventures.
That's all due to a number of factors, including the increase in
companies working on different ways to get people there, and recent
breakthroughs in reusable rockets by companies like Jeff Bezos' Blue
Origin and Elon Musk's SpaceX. Click here.
(2/1)
NASA’s ‘Super Guppy’ Delivers EM-1
Orion to Kennedy Space Center (Source: SpaceFlight Insider)
One of NASA's more unique aircraft touched down at Kennedy Space
Center's Shuttle Landing Facility in Florida. Safely cocooned within
the aircraft's cavernous interior - was the pressure vessel for the
Orion spacecraft selected to carry out Exploration Mission 1 (EM-1) -
the first integrated flight of Orion and the Space Launch System (SLS)
rocket. (2/1)
NASA Stole the Rocket Countdown From a
1929 Film (Source: Atlas Obscura)
In the mid-1920s, Germany had a bad case of rocket fever. Still getting
over the trauma of World War I, and unsure how to reconcile the power
of new technology with the power of old-school spirituality, the public
turned to space travel as a literal escapist fantasy, writes media
scholar Katharina Loew.
The surprise bestseller of the decade was a popularized version of Die
Rakete zu den Palnetenräumen (By Rocket into Planetary Space), a
Transylvanian high school teacher’s rejected dissertation that argued
scientifically for the possibility of space travel. What followed was a
historic collaboration between art and science. For each obstacle that
faced the spacefaring characters—rocket design, oxygen shortages, zero
gravity—Oberth would calculate the most probable solution, and Lang and
his crew would make it happen.
As the astronauts lie in their bunks, eyes wide and jaws tense, the
screen cuts to an announcement: “Noch 10 Sekunden-!”—10 seconds
remaining! The mission leader grips the firing lever—”Noch 6 Sekunden!”
The numbers get bigger, filling the screen: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, JETZT! Now!
The lever lowers, and the rocket blasts out of the water. Nearly a
hundred years later, it still gets the heart pumping. (2/1)
Election 2016: Keep Tabs on the
Presidential Candidates' Space Plans (Source: Space.com)
You can now keep track of everything the 2016 presidential candidates
say about spaceflight and exploration, thanks to the nonprofit
Planetary Society. The Planetary Society is cataloguing the
space-related statements made by Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Hillary
Clinton, Bernie Sanders and other contenders as the presidential
primary election events get into full swing. Click here.
(2/1)
Todd May Named Marshall Space Flight
Center Director (Source: NASA)
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden has named Todd May director of the
agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. May was
appointed Marshall deputy director in August 2015 and has been serving
as acting director since the Nov. 13, 2015 retirement of Patrick
Scheuermann.
As director, May will lead one of NASA's largest field installations,
with almost 6,000 civil service and contractor employees, an annual
budget of approximately $2.5 billion and a broad spectrum of human
spaceflight, science and technology development missions. (2/1)
What Will Power Tomorrow's Spacecraft?
(Source: BBC)
Power systems are a critical part of a spacecraft. They need to be able
to operate in extreme environments and be utterly reliable. Yet, with
the ever-increasing power demands of more complex spacecraft, what does
the future hold for their power technologies?
The latest mobile phones can barely last a day without the need to be
plugged into a power socket. Yet the Voyager space probe, which was
launched 38 years ago, is still sending us information from beyond the
edges of our solar system. The Voyager probes are capable of
efficiently processing 81,000 instructions every second, but the
average smartphone is more than 7,000 times faster. Click here.
(2/1)
China Shares Vivid Photos of the
Moon's Surface with the World. Why Now? (Source: CSM)
To see hundreds upon hundreds of true color, high definition photos of
the moon's surface, just ask China. The typically secretive China
National Space Administration recently made images from its successful
moon landing available to the public for download.
Though the images were captured back in December 2013 by cameras on the
Chang’e-3 lander and Yutu rover, they demonstrate a still-impressive
achievement: China's mission to the moon's surface was the first
successful soft landing in 37 years, and China was only the third
country to achieve it, after Russia and the United States. Click here.
(2/1)
NASA and Facebook Offer Taste of What
it's Like to Stand on Mars (Source: CSM)
NASA, with the help of Facebook, has made it possible to view a 360
degree video of the Martian terrain through the eyes of its intrepid
rover, Curiosity.
The space agency used technology created by the social network to
string together 57 images taken by NASA's Mars Curiosity rover while it
was examining dunes along the Bagnold field on the Red Planet, which is
along the rover's route up the lower slope of Mount Sharp. These dunes
surround the mountain's northwestern edge, with some as tall as a
two-story building and wide as a football field, according to NASA.
Click here.
(2/1)
University of Calgary Receives Funding
Boost for Space Science (Source: CTV News)
Canada's Space Agency is investing $1.4 million in funding for space
research and four projects at the University of Calgary will benefit
from the awards. The awards were given to four Earth-Space projects at
the University of Calgary, three at the University of Alberta and one
at the University of Waterloo. (2/1)
NASA Considers Europa Mission
Alternatives (Source: Space News)
NASA is considering launching a congressionally mandated Europa lander
separately from a spacecraft already under development. The fiscal year
2016 appropriations bill directs NASA to fly a mission to the icy moon
of Jupiter that consists of an orbiter and a lander, launching them on
an SLS by 2022. NASA officials said Monday that adding the mass of the
lander to the "clipper" mission under development would not only
require an SLS, but force the mission to use a slower trajectory to
reach Jupiter. One option under consideration is to continue with
development of the clipper mission for launch in 2022, to be followed
by a lander mission. (2/2)
Orion Arrives at Cape Canaveral
Spaceport (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
The next Orion spacecraft flew to Florida Monday inside a cargo
airplane. NASA used a Super Guppy aircraft to transport the Orion
pressure vessel from New Orleans, where it was put together at the
Michoud Assembly Facility, to the Kennedy Space Center. The pressure
vessel will be outfitted with the spacecraft's other key subsystems in
the coming months at KSC. The spacecraft is scheduled to launch on an
uncrewed test flight in late 2018 on an SLS. (2/1)
Russians Skeptical of Reusable
Launchers (Source: Tass)
The main Russian space research institute is skeptical about the
prospects for reusable launch vehicles. A spokesman for TsNIIMash said
that the institute's research suggests the economic feasibility of
reusable vehicles "is not obvious" despite recent technical
achievements by Blue Origin and SpaceX. "The designers are still to
demonstrate the real costs of production and of making reusable stages
for re-launching," the institute's spokesman added. (2/2)
Bezos Still Ready to Launch Trump
(Source: Nieman Lab)
If Donald Trump is looking to make a getaway from Iowa, Jeff Bezos is
still offering a ride. Bezos, owner of the Washington Post, held a town
hall meeting with staff Monday where he reiterated an offer he made to
Trump in December: a seat on a future flight on one of his Blue Origin
launch vehicles. "My offer to send Donald to space still stands," Bezos
said, according to tweets from several Post employees attending the
meeting. Trump, who finished second in the Iowa Republican Party
caucuses Monday night, had criticized Bezos and his various business
ventures back in December. (2/2)
Face it, America: The Space Shuttle
was a Total Failure (Source: Fusion)
If you ever get to see one of the retired space shuttles up close, you
will be struck by how rickety it looks. Just go to the California
Science Center in Los Angeles or the Intrepid Museum in New York.
Walking under the wings or by the cockpit’s windows, you get the
unmistakable impression that this incredible piece of engineering is,
at best, sketchy.
It is a miracle, and not in a good way. It is surprisingly tiny and
appears cobbled together, with slightly deformed bulkheads, uneven
rivets and burned tiles on its underside. In all, it seems custom-built
and handmade and not nearly as sturdy as an airliner. Click here.
(2/1)
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