October 10, 2020

Space Command 'Visits' Will Start Soon, Colorado Official Says (Source: Military.com)
A county commissioner in the Colorado Springs, Colo. area says "site visits" will start soon to locations that are competing to host the permanent headquarters of U.S. Space Command. Mark Waller, county commission chairman for El Paso County in Colorado, was quoted by Colorado Springs radio station KRDO as saying that there will soon be "site visits" to possible locations competing for the headquarters of the prized command, that could come with some 1,400 new jobs.

Also Friday, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-CA, the ranking member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, visited Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and NASIC -- the National Air and Space Intelligence Center -- with U.S. Rep. Mike Turner, R-Dayton. Nunes commented on Wright-Patterson's chances at winning the Space Command headquarters competition. "I will say there will be proposals and there will be requirements," Nunes said. "I would be shocked if this facility here, with the size and scope of it and the available space and what they already do here, I would have to think that it would meet all the necessary criteria.

"I have not seen those requirements, but I would think this location (Wright-Patterson) would meet all those requirements and would have to be on the list of locations that they would look at," he added. Dayton advocates have self-nominated the region and Wright-Patterson to be the new home for that command's headquarters. Other communities across the nation have done the same in what has become a national race. (10/10)

What Elon Musk's 42,000 Starlink Satellites Could Do for — and to — Planet Earth (Source: Business Insider)
Starlink, the expansive constellation from Musk and SpaceX that hopes to bring the world low-latency high-speed internet, promises no more buffering and nearly instantaneous internet in every corner of the world. But experts worry it may come at a hefty cost for space exploration. Nearly half of the world's population does not have access to the internet, because most internet options require an extensive track of costly underground cables, leaving many rural locations offline. And while satellite internet can reach those areas.

Musk and SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell say that Starlink revenues could single-handedly fund the development of Starlink, Starship, and SpaceX's Mars-launch infrastructure. But as more satellites go up, so does the likelihood that they'll interfere with astronomers' views. We may not have as much notice as we want to detect a near-Earth object and thwart it and prevent it from hitting Earth. Beyond detecting deadly asteroids, the wall of satellites could also obstruct other astronomy. .

SpaceX realized it had to do something, and it did. It created what's called a DarkSat, which is a satellite that has all of its shiny parts coated in a very black, dark material. It also tried adding visors to shield those shiny parts from the ground. But unless the satellites are cloaked like a spaceship in "Star Trek," technology that does not exist, none of this will fully solve the problem. And even if it did, there is a much bigger issue at hand. There's a concern about space debris, because when you have so many satellites in the closest, tightest, densest orbits around Earth, there's a higher chance that those satellites could collide with each other or with other satellites. (10/9)

ULA Delta Heavy Could Launch on Oct. 15 (Source: Spaceflight Now)
United Launch Alliance has requested Thursday, Oct. 15, on the Eastern Range as the next launch attempt for the Delta 4-Heavy rocket on the NROL-44 mission for the National Reconnaissance Office. Despite publicly-released hazard areas and warning notices to pilots associated with the Oct. 15 launch opportunity from Cape Canaveral, ULA has so far not officially confirmed whether it plans to attempt a launch of the Delta 4-Heavy that day. (10/10)

Residents of Remote Scottish Peninsula Face Up to its Future as Spaceport (Source: The Guardian)
In two years, thousands of tourists and space enthusiasts could be gathering in the far north of Scotland to watch an unlikely event, the inaugural flight of a rocket blasting off from a peat bog usually grazed by deer and sheep. The Mhoine peninsula in Sutherland, a desolate stretch of peatland punctuated by mires and tiny lochs overlooking the Pentland Firth, has been chosen as the site of one of the UK’s first spaceports – provided it eventually wins approval from the Civil Aviation Authority.

In 2023, its backers hope to see small rockets, built in Scotland using carbon fibre and graphene, with engines made by the latest 3D printers, put the Mhoine port at the vanguard of a burgeoning industry firing microsatellites into near-earth polar orbit. For centuries the land has been grazed by sheep owned by local crofters, who cherish uninterrupted views of Orkney to the east and an archipelago of smaller islands sitting closer to shore. To the south, beyond a tidal estuary and an undulating expanse of peatland, sit the imposing peaks and ridges of Ben Loyal and Ben Hope. (10/9)

First European Service Module for Orion Finished Assembly (Source: ESA)
After two years of non-stop work at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Florida, and a trip to Plum Brook, Ohio, for testing, the next human-rated spacecraft to head to the Moon in over half a century is nearing completion. European and US technicians celebrated attaching the solar wings to the European Service Module that will power Orion on its first Artemis mission next year around the Moon.

With this operation the spacecraft is practically complete with most of the red “remove before flight” items now removed. These include the large red covers that are protecting the solar panels, the covers for the 33 engines that will propel and orient Orion around the Moon as well as sensors for navigation. After 10 days of work  on the critical solar wings installation, the teams of NASA, ESA and Airbus contractors  completed installation and testing of  the four solar array wings. (10/8)

Is Elon Musk Right? Should We Nuke Mars? (Source: Medium)
Elon Musk is a divisive man. To some, he is a visionary, to others he is out of his depth. But even if you are a devout follower of Musk, you have to admit that when he declared last August that we should ‘Nuke Mars!’ to terraform it into a habitable Earth-like planet it was his most outlandish, if not bizarre idea yet! But is this the ravings of a madman or an ingenious shot at interplanetary colonization? Firstly, how would nuking Mars transform it from a desolate cold planet with a thin atmosphere to a second Earth?

Well, luckily Musk has since elaborated on what he means. He wants to detonate nuclear devices on Mars’s poles, vaporising its’ frozen ice caps, releasing a colossal amount of water vapour and CO² into the Martian atmosphere. This will cause a runaway greenhouse effect. As the temperature rises due to the greenhouse gasses released by the explosions, the Martian rocks will heat up and outgas more CO², which heats the planet more, releasing more CO² and so on. This would lead to a wold that has a temperature similar to Earth, with a much thicker atmosphere and liquid water. All we would need to do to complete the transformation is to get a few plants to pump out some oxygen and hey presto! We have a new Earth.

Musk may have rushed into this one without thinking it through. What a shocker! There are quite a few flaws with this terraforming plan of his. Firstly, the number of nuclear devices needed is astronomical. Estimates say that you would need over 10,000 of the largest nuclear warheads to pull off such a move. Considering the world only has a stockpile of some 13,000, it might be difficult for Musk to get his hands on these bombs, let alone transport them to Mars! (10/6)

Physicists Just Confirmed The Upper Limit For The Speed of Sound in The Universe (Source: Science Alert)
It's impossible to measure the speed of sound in every single material in existence, but scientists have now managed to pin down an upper limit based on fundamental constants, the universal parameters by which we understand the physics of the Universe. That speed limit, according to the new calculations, is 36 kilometres per second (22 miles per second). That's about twice the speed of sound travelling through diamond.

Both sound and light travel as waves, but they behave slightly differently. Visible light is a form of electromagnetic radiation, so-named because light waves consist of oscillating electric and magnetic fields. These fields generate a self-perpetuating electromagnetic wave that can travel in a vacuum - and its top speed is around 300,000 kilometres per second. Travelling through a medium, like water or an atmosphere, slows it down.

Sound is a mechanical wave, which is caused by a vibration in a medium. As the wave travels through the medium, that medium's molecules collide with each other, transferring energy as they go. Hence, the more rigid the medium - the more difficult it is to compress - the faster sound travels. (10/9)