September 14, 2017

Nelson: Rejecting Climate Change is 'Denying Reality' (Source: The Hill)
Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) is chiding those who reject climate change in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma. Nelson drew a link between climate change and Irma during an interview with Politico on Tuesday, saying global warming played a part in the storm's intensity. “It’s denying reality,” Nelson said.

“You can call it politics or whatever, but the Earth is getting hotter. This storm is another reminder of what we’re going to have to deal with in the future.” Nelson also said climate change will be an "important issue" in his reelection campaign. His comments come after Irma tore through Florida, leaving millions of people without power. (9/13)

Big Launch Companies Predict Doom for Upcoming Smallsat Launchers (Source: Space News)
Leading launch service providers say emerging companies developing a generation of dedicated small-satellite launchers will struggle to compete in the marketplace and will ultimately lose out to the bigger players. Top executives of the world’s five leading launch service providers agreed that the future small-satellite launch market will favor ridesharing and customized services on larger launch vehicles rather than tailored launches by the newcomers.

“At SpaceX, we started with a small launch vehicle,” said SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell, whose company has launched its Falcon 9 rocket 13 times since last September’s on-pad fueling accident destroyed a Spacecom’s Amos-6 satellite. “We really wanted to make a business of Falcon 1 … we just could not make it work.” ULA's Tory Bruno said some of the newcomers may initially succeed in the market only to be taken down by the big players later on. (9/13)

Boeing Satellite Chief Stepping Down (Source: Space News)
Mark Spiwak is retiring as head of Boeing Satellite Systems International at the end of November. Spiwak, who took over Boeing’s satellite division in mid-2014, is going out on a high note for Boeing. On Monday, satellite fleet operator announced that it had selected Boeing over incumbent Thales Alenia Space to build seven satellites for a new constellation called O3b mPower. (9/13)

USAF: Building a Space Commons (Source: Air Force Magazine)
In the near future, space will become a “domain for common human endeavor,” Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson said Tuesday. Led by a dramatic “decline in the cost of launch” and the “miniaturization of technology” seen in systems like cube satellites, space is opening up so that “more players can do more things from space,” Wilson told the audience at a Politico event in Washington, D.C.

While she sees opportunity for peaceful collaboration in space, “it will be more congested, it will be potentially more contested,” Wilson warned. “I think space will become more like the oceans” with governmental and non-governmental entities increasingly interacting in a common domain. Like the oceans, Wilson said space is likely to remain “ungoverned” but with “common practices and agreements on appropriate behavior” between “countries and allies who protect the security” of the space domain for all users. (9/13)

World's Largest Telescope Prepares For Completion (Source: Forbes)
If you want to learn more about the Universe than you ever have before, there's only so much you can do. You can improve your optics and your seeing, making your mirrors smoother and defect-free than ever before. You can improve your conditions, through adaptive optics or optimizing your observatory's location. You can work on your camera/CCD/grism technology, to make the most of every single photon your telescope is capable of collecting.

But even if you do all that, there's one improvement that will take you beyond anything you've ever accomplished before: size. The larger your primary mirror, the deeper, faster, and higher-resolution you'll be able to image anything you look at in the Universe.

Currently, there are a number of 10-meter (33-foot) diameter optical telescopes in the world, with the Giant Magellan Telescope, at 25 meters (82 feet), poised to break that record in just a few years. But an even more ambitious project, the 39 meter (128 foot) diameter Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) by the European Southern Observatory (ESO), began construction in 2014. By time the mid-2020s come around, it will blow everything else away. (9/13)