NASA Deal Gives Dream Chaser A Shot In
The Arm (Source: Aviation Week)
Sierra Nevada Corp. is using its multibillion-dollar NASA contract to
deliver cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) as a marketing
starting gun aimed at selling its Dream Chaser lifting-body vehicle for
missions throughout the emerging low-Earth-orbit economy and beyond.
With its selection as a third cargo carrier in NASA’s $14 billion,
second-round Commercial Resupply Services competition, the privately
held aerospace company is pushing Dream Chaser into the international
marketplace. (6/9)
How to Build Satellites Much
Faster—and Cheaper [In Florida] (Source: Wall Street Journal)
The manufacturing of satellites is about to get an overhaul: Space Age,
meet the assembly line. Satellites have always relied on highly
customized, by-hand procedures that have slowed production and kept
their costs sky high. But now proponents of faster, cheaper methods
envision bringing together standardized, pretested modular components
and sidestepping some of the painstaking testing for which over the
years U.S. aerospace has become famous.
The driving force behind the change is U.S. entrepreneur Greg Wyler,
who has teamed up with European aerospace powerhouse Airbus Group SE to
try to reshape the satellite industry with a proposed automated
manufacturing facility at the Cape Canaveral Spaceport. Mr. Wyler’s
plans are for a high-volume, computer-assisted factory that churns out
hundreds of satellites annually with assembly practices akin to those
now used for medical devices or airplane equipment.
Such a shift in satellite production methods could push the boundaries
of robotic manufacturing, as OneWeb and other satellite makers
incorporate manufacturing concepts previously dismissed by the industry
largely due to reliability concerns. If they succeed, however, similar
fundamental changes in cost and quality control could be in store for
commercial, scientific and military space programs. (6/9)
Want to be an Astronaut? Your Chariots
Await (Source: Popular Science)
The human race is quickly becoming a spacefaring civilization. During
the Cold War, aggression and technological rivalry between two
superpowers led to humanity’s first journey into space and to those
first footsteps on the Moon. Today, exploration is driven by
competition in the commercial space industry. Private companies like
SpaceX, Boeing, and Sierra Nevada are already signed up to carry cargo
to the ISS. Later, they'll also build and fly their own human-capable
spacecraft, while NASA itself focuses on building a vehicle that will
eventually take humans to Mars. Click here.
(6/6)
Colorado Spaceport Designation Could
Come Before Summer’s End (Source: Colorado Space News)
Pending approval by the Federal Aviation Administration’s office of
commercial space transportation, Colorado could have a commercial
spaceport by the end of the summer. A spaceport designation would allow
the existing Front Range Airport to add FAA-licensed suborbital flight
capabilities to its current General Aviation operations.
David Ruppel, Airport Director for Front Range, spoke last week at the
Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference in Broomfield,
Colorado. He said Spaceport Colorado is envisioned as a horizontal
launch facility in which FAA-licensed Suborbital Reusable Launch
Vehicles (sRLV) will take off and land from existing airport runways.
Spaceport Colorado will not operate vertical launch rockets or
“Experimental” vehicles.
Once established, the spaceport will provide access to space for
scientific research, education and space tourism in the short-term and
point-to-point, high speed, suborbital transportation to other
international spaceports in the long-term. Ruppel said that despite
many delays in the licensing process, he hopes to receive federal
government approval for the facility within the next few months. (6/9)
Stephen Hawking Just Published a
Mind-Bending Theory About Black Holes (Source: Mic)
Previously, we thought black holes just swallowed up and destroyed
everything for good. If you fell into a black hole, there'd be no
coming out. Then, in the 1970s, Hawking proposed that radiation can
actually escape from a black hole. Basically this happens when a black
hole swallows one of two entangled particles. The one that isn't
swallowed escapes from the black hole in the form of radiation.
The problem is that this radiation wouldn't carry any record of
information about the particle that fell into the black hole. That
doesn't match up with one of the pillars of physics: Theoretically, if
we were to reverse time, the universe would look the same whether it's
going forward or backward.
Hawking and two colleagues, Malcolm Perry and Andrew Strominger, think
they're getting close to a solution. In their paper, they argue black
holes might be covered with "soft hair" — a layer of zero-energy
particles that record information about any objects that fall in. A
pattern of all the things a black hole has ever swallowed gets
imprinted on the hair. (6/8)
Wormholes Might Burrow Through Black
Hole Cores (Source: Space.com)
According to a team of physicists, the weird physics of a black hole's
singularity could turn our "classical" idea about black holes on its
head. What if general relativity breaks down and the singularity isn't
a singularity at all? What if we replace the singularity with a
wormhole? Suddenly, instead of being the ultimate trash compactors of
the universe, black holes become the ultimate sci-fi dream: they could
be space-time transportation hubs.
But, as is the case with most black hole stories, there's a catch. In
previous calculations, The team created a theoretical model of a black
hole without a singularity. To their surprise, in the singularity's
place, a finite-sized and spherical wormhole structure appeared. This
is very important; it seems that instead of spitting out a confounding
singularity, the math naturally creates a wormhole. (6/8)
Before Silicon Valley, Cocoa Beach
Area Brimmed with the Best Technical Minds (Source: Space Coast
Daily)
Cocoa Beach came to life during the 1960s when America’s space program
took off. Over the next decade the local population swelled from 23,000
to 70,000. Before there was a Silicon Valley for high-tech
entrepreneurship, Cocoa Beach and other surrounding towns were brimming
with the best and brightest technical minds around. Young families
flocked here with one or both parents working on some aspect of the
space program.
Their kids were dubbed the “Cape Brats.” After manned space flights,
the town staged parades with astronauts riding in flashy Corvettes.
Space fever was everywhere. Motels named The Sea Missile and Satellite
popped up alongside offbeat diners like The Moon Hut. Dining out,
locals often rubbed shoulders with astronauts and packs of rocket
scientists. Click here.
Editor's Note:
Brevard County (aka the "Space Coast) continues to top the state's K-12
scores for math and science, probably an example of the continued
impact of having a large population of aerospace industry workers.
(6/9)
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