September 26 News Items

From 4 Key Players, A Sense of Regret and A Call to Action (Source: USA Today)
USA Today interviews Konrad Dannenberg, Michael Griffin, Elon Musk, and Tom Stafford to get their take on the history and future of space exploration. Visit http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2007-09-25-sputnik-4-players_N.htm to view the article.

Space Junk Threat to Earth (Source: Geelong Advertiser)
Space junk, comets crashing through our atmosphere, extra-terrestrial micro-organisms that survive in appalling cold or searing heat, bacteria that grow more virulent in the gravity-free vacuum of space. What happens when fate conspires to bring such creatures and creations to earth? There's no shortage of speculation of what the future might hold, what with holes in the ozone admitting cosmic radiation and comets, meteorites, space junks -- and all the microscopic hitchhikers they might be carrying -- hurtling towards us at mind-boggling speeds. Now there's a new kid on the inter-planetary catastrophist's block: superbugs. Super spacebugs. Scientists working on and with the space shuttle have found certain bugs, dangerous enough when earth-bound, will grow more powerful in space.

A Man, A Plan, A Planet: Mars Direct (Source: The Varsity)
Dr. Robert Zubrin is an ambitious man with an equally ambitious idea: he not only wants to see humans on Mars in seven years, he also has a workable plan to make it a reality. With its apparently dry riverbeds and ice-capped poles, Mars has remained a tantalizing target for space programs and the governments that fund them. What happened? Why aren’t we there yet? As far as Zubrin is concerned, we should be able to get there soon. He expressed the nature of the problem using a simple analogy: “In principle, it can take any amount of rope to connect two posts separated by 10 metres. The issue is whether you want to connect the posts or sell rope.”

In other words, a bare-bones mission designed to keep costs low while still sending people to Mars is feasible but unappealing to the numerous corporations contracted by NASA to design and manufacture the necessary equipment. Politicians also complicate the issue. Bush has declared that before America goes to Mars, there must first be a launch pad on the moon. A not-so- subtle land grab, the lunar base also carries a huge price tag of U.S. $450 billion. But there’s another problem with Bush’s plan: it just doesn’t make sense. “Flying to the moon before going to Mars is like flying to Saskatoon on your way to Chicago,” said Zubrin. Visit http://www.thevarsity.ca/article/438 to view the article.

Scientists Warn Against Colonisation in Space (Source: The Statesman)
A top Indian scientist today warned the international space community against colonization of Moon and Mars and said any knowledge gained by such expeditions should be shared among all countries without discrimination. “All resources on the Moon and Mars should be used for the common good of mankind. Nobody can claim ownership on celestial bodies because of their technology or because they reached there first”, said an ISRO deputy director. "The biggest ethical question before the space-faring nations is whether mankind is looking at ‘habitation or colonization’ of Moon and Mars. The construction and occupation of bases should be fundamentally treated as habitations rather than colonies in the conventional sense,” he said.

NASA's Griffin Ready to Cooperate with India (Source: The Hindu)
Michael Griffin reiterated that NASA “will be open to the idea of cooperating with India in human space flights for our efforts beyond the [International] Space Station, which could again be taking people back to the moon and establishing a research station there.” NASA was also “open to discussions [with India] for Chandrayaan-II or other missions,” he said. The U.S. was already on Chandrayaan-I mission and exchange of scientific data.

“The centrepiece of our programme right now is the Space Station. We hope that when we return to the moon, it will be done with our space station partners and others may be India.” But he made it clear that the Government of India had not made any specific proposal on these lines. “You have a capable organization in ISRO and a capable chairman and I am pleased to have the opportunity to know him and may be the opportunity to work with ISRO. At this point, the discussions are in an exploratory stage,” he said.

To Save Humanity (Source: UPI)
The official reasons for renewing the human space flight program usually start with scientific research and end with national prestige, but they never mention the fact that humanity will one day be wiped out unless it has found a habitat beyond the Earth. Mars is by far the most congenial candidate, with potential to eventually be "terraformed" into a planet where pressure suits and airtight structures will no longer be needed to sustain human beings. That's a long way off, and it may never happen at the rate our current space efforts are progressing. But whenever you hear about other ways we might spend money set aside for the human space flight program, you ought to think about the big rock that is out there somewhere, destined to destroy everything we have created unless human beings have found another place to live.

Space Tether Experiment Hits Major Snag (Source: SpaceFlightNow.com)
A small capsule the size of a beach ball was stranded in Earth orbit early Tuesday after an attempt to return the craft from space via a revolutionary technique using a nearly 20-mile-long tether. The 12-pound Fotino re-entry capsule was to be released from the tether to parachute to a landing in Kazakhstan Tuesday, but the deployment procedure apparently hit a snag, according to the European Space Agency. The Young Engineers' Satellite 2 test mission was sponsored by ESA as part of its experiment package on the Russian Foton M3 microgravity research mission. Delta-Utec, a Dutch contractor specializing in tether systems, provided the technology and solicited the help of about 450 students from across Europe.

NASA Extends European Space Station Engineering Services Contract (Source: NASA)
NASA has awarded a contract modification to the European Space Agency's Space Technology Center for additional engineering services for the International Space Station Node 2 and 3 modules. The modification is valued at $27.5 million. The contract modification extends the current contract to reflect adjustments made to the station's assembly manifest and to meet increased contract requirements through June 30, 2011. The two-year extension increases the value of the $22 million fixed price contract to $49.5 million.

Asteroid Defense Possible Career Field (Source: Aerospace Daily)
A growing awareness of the threat to Earth posed by even relatively small asteroids and comet chunks suggests a potential career path for budding engineers. William Ailor, an engineer who directs the Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies at The Aerospace Corp., told the International Astronautical Congress here Sept. 24 that the possibility of another event the size of the one that leveled a Siberian forest in 1908 with an airburst estimated as the equivalent of 10-15 megatons of high explosive is about one in 10 in any given century. Had it happened near Manhattan instead of the isolated Tunguska River, it would have been an unprecedented disaster.

The chance of an actual civilization-threatening impact - caused by an asteroid a kilometer across - is about one in 1,000 over a century, while an extinction-level event like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs has a one-in-a-million chance of happening over a century, he said. NASA's goal is to identify 90 percent of the 1-kilometer near-Earth objects by the end of next year. Tracking an object after it is spotted with enough accuracy and lead time to justify and accomplish a multibillion international attempt to deflect it is very tricky, and the methods for doing so are uncertain at best. "If you're a young person and you're just getting into the space field, it is not unlikely that you might get involved in actually doing some serious planning for a deflection mission," Ailor said. "This is not something that is many generations off. It's something that we really should be preparing for."