March 28, 2018

Betting on the Moon (Source: Air & Space)
On April 10, 1964, 20-year-old British sci-fi fan David Threlfall placed the first wager of his life: £10 (just under a week’s pay, around $223 today) that U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s historic 1961 moon landing prediction (“before this decade is out…”) would come true. Threlfall’s was the first official wager in the Space Race, and the odds were not in his favor: Famous bookmakers William Hill allowed him odds of 1,000 to 1 “for any man, woman or child, from any nation on Earth, being on the Moon, or any other planet, star or heavenly body of comparable distance from Earth, before January, 1971.”

Once the media learned of his offbeat wager, lunar betting became wildly popular in the United Kingdom, where bookmakers routinely accept wagers on everything from election results to tomorrow’s weather. By year’s end, payoffs dropped to 100 to 1 (for the USSR’s space program) or 150 to 1 (for the U.S.), and as missions succeeded, the odds fell further. Uncrewed Luna 9’s soft landing in April 1966 spurred another flurry of moon bets at 8 to 1, and by Gemini 9’s flight that June, the odds further improved to 7 to 4. Click here. (3/27)

Efforts Underway to Ease Florida’s Space Coast Launch Congestion (Source: Space News)
The Air Force’s 45th Space Wing, which operates Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and the Eastern Range, has been working to address that surge in launch demand. Those efforts fall under a strategy dubbed “Drive for 48,” for the ability to support 48 launches a year — an average of one a week, with two two-week maintenance periods — within five years.

However, launches aren’t evenly spaced. “That’s causing some interesting concerns for us as far as how we deconflict the range and how we schedule the range,” said Col. Z. Walter Jackim, vice commander of the 45th Space Wing. Jackim said the Air Force is looking at how close together it can schedule launches on the range. In recent years, there have been two launches within three days of each other. “Right now we’re looking at the capability of two launches in 24 hours,” he said. Click here. (3/26)

Moon Goal Not Blurring NASA’s Mars Focus (Source: Aviation Week)
NASA is sticking with its decades-long effort to arrive at an executable human Mars mission architecture, even as it hews to the White House Space Policy Directive signed by President Trump late last year that formally set the agency on a course to the Moon.

The two objectives seem to have grown ever more intertwined with the White House decision to include a Lunar Orbiter Platform Gateway, previously known conceptually as the Deep Space Gateway, in NASA’s 2019 budget request. The gateway, timed for assembly with the Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion crew capsule in the 2020s, will likely serve as a departure and return point to the lunar surface as well as a spaceport for a still-notional Deep Space Transport (DST), a reusable spacecraft designed to shuttle four-member astronaut crews to and from Mars.

As envisioned in an ever-evolving succession of Mars architecture studies dating to the 1980s, the DST would rely on a combination of chemical and solar-electric propulsion technologies for performance as well as to constrain the launch mass of the transport elements and take advantage of in-space propellant production possibilities. In contrast to Elon Musk’s strategy for a flexible Big Falcon Rocket, sized with reusable, refuelable hardware for missions to Earth orbit, the Moon and Mars, NASA’s strategy would rely on two expendable SLS launches annually, with the prospect of ramping up to a third in some years. (3/26)

Wandering Star Shook Up the Prehistoric Solar System (Source: Astronomy)
Around 70,000 years ago, a supervolcano named Toba erupted, blowing roughly 670 cubic miles of vaporized rock and debris into the air. This is thought to have caused a massive struggle for humanity, ultimately leading to a population bottleneck that whittled down our numbers to as few as 1,000 reproductive adults. According to a 2015 study, during this pivotal point in human history, a small reddish star also was likely passing within a light-year of the Sun, just skimming the outer rim of the Oort cloud.

Previously, astronomers believed that this wandering star — dubbed Scholz’s star — passed relatively peacefully by the Oort cloud, influencing very few (if any) outer solar system objects. But, according to a new study, researchers now think that Scholz’s star may have caused more of a ruckus. Researchers analyzed the orbital evolution of 339 known minor objects (like asteroids and comets) with hyperbolic orbits that will eventually usher them out of the solar system. They ran full N-body simulations with these objects in reverse for 100,000 years.

Surprisingly, the team found that over 10 percent of the objects originated from the direction of the constellation Gemini. This spot in the sky also happens to be exactly where astronomers would expect objects to come from if they were nudged by Scholz’s star during its close pass 70,000 years ago. The team also determined that eight of the objects they studied (including the recent interstellar visitor ‘Oumuamua) are traveling so quickly that they likely originated from outside the solar system. (3/27)

Fifty Years On, Yuri Gagarin's Death Still Shrouded in Mystery (Source: AFP)
Sergei Kravchinsky, 74, remembers learning of Gagarin's death when he was a young space engineer and had just finished a gymnastics class. "We heard a scream in the corridor: 'Guys, Gagarin is dead!'...It was a shock, all the women were crying," he recalls. For the first time in Soviet history, a day of national mourning was declared for someone who was not a head of state.

The engineers knew Gagarin was training on a MiG and that he had already experienced landing problems. When they heard the investigation commission give its conclusions, they were perplexed. According to the official version, the plane's crew had to make a sudden manoeuvre because of a "change in the situation in the air", which led to the crash. "The report of the official commission, which was 29 volumes, was never published," says Alexander Glushko. "This pushed colleagues and experts to start their own research."

At the time, wild rumours surrounding Gagarin's death were circulating around the Soviet Union: that he was killed by the Kremlin, drunk in the cockpit or kidnapped by aliens were just some popular theories. In 2011, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Gagarin's historic 1961 flight into space, the Kremlin released some fresh information on his death. Newly declassified documents said "one of the probable reasons" for the crash was a sharp manoeuvre made to avoid a weather balloon after which Gagarin and Seryogin lost control of the aircraft. (3/26)

South Korea Cutting Space Spending (Source: Yonhap)
South Korea is cutting spending on its space program by more than nine percent in 2018. The government said it will spend $566 million on space technology in 2018, a cut of 9.3 percent from 2017. The government said postponing development of a "nuclear battery" for a future lunar mission by two years is the main reason for the decrease. Most of the budget is funding work on a new multipurpose satellite and development of the KSLV-2 launch vehicle. (3/27)

NASA CFO Starts Work on Apr. 3 (Source: Arizona Capitol Times)
NASA's new chief financial officer will start work at the agency next week. Jeff DeWit said Tuesday that he will resign as treasurer of the state of Arizona on April 3, the same day he starts work as NASA CFO. DeWit was confirmed to the post by the Senate earlier this month without debate. (3/27)

SpinLaunch Getting Chilly Reception for Proposed Hawaii Spaceport (Source: Honolulu Civil Beat)
A California company proposing to develop an innovative launch system on the Big Island of Hawaii is facing opposition from locals. SpinLaunch, which claims that it has developed a centrifugal launch system that can place payloads into orbit with little need for chemical propulsion, is looking for state support to develop a launch complex on the southern part of the Big Island. Legislation authorizing bonds to build the complex is making its way through the state legislature, but local residents say they haven't been consulted about the plan and expressed concern about environmental impacts, such as sonic booms. (3/27)

NASA Recruiting Flight Directors (Source: NASA)
NASA's latest recruitment effort is not for astronauts but instead flight directors. The agency said Tuesday it's looking to hire an unspecified number of flight directors to work at Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center, supporting the International Space Station and future exploration missions. Applications are open until mid-April, with NASA planning to hire the directors by the middle of the year. (3/26)

JWST Problems Could Further Jeopardize WFIRST (Source: Space News)
Delays in JWST could have have effects on NASA's next flagship astronomy mission, the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST). That mission is expected to clear a review next month called Key Decision Point B after making changes to lower its cost, and work on the mission will continue in fiscal year 2018 despite a proposal in the administration's 2019 budget request to cancel WFIRST. Appropriators, though, hinted in the 2018 bill that they opposed the proposal to cancel WFIRST. Project officials warned that if JWST's delays cause, in turn, delays to WFIRST, its costs will increase. (3/27)

Relativity Space Raises $35 Million (Source: Space News)
Relativity Space, a company using 3D-printing technologies to manufacture launch vehicles, has raised $35 million. Playground Global, a fund co-founded by former Google executive Andy Rubin, led the Series B round, with Relativity's past investors also participating. The funding will support continued development of Relativity's Aeon 1 engine and Terran 1 launch vehicle, which make use of 3D printing to lower costs. (3/27)