August 25, 2018

Space Adventures Selected to Participate in NASA’s Study for the Commercialization of Low-Earth Orbit (Source: Parabolic Arc)
NASA recently announced that Space Adventures, the only company to have delivered private human spaceflight missions to the International Space Station (ISS), was one of 13 companies selected to study the future of commercial human spaceflight in low-Earth orbit (LEO).

The purpose of the study is to inform NASA’s strategy for enabling the commercialization of human spaceflight in LEO and NASA’s long-term requirements for the ISS. In December, Space Adventures will submit recommendations to NASA on how to quantify the LEO market opportunity, evaluate technical concepts for low-cost habitation, and describe a viable and sustainable business case in LEO. (8/24)

Mayo Clinic Jacksonville Researchers Studying Space Medicine Device (Source: Florida Times Union)
A husband and wife research team at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville are on the forefront of an aeromedicine project with potential benefits for future astronauts as well as patients home on earth. When the Suborbital Autonomous Rocket with Guidance rocket by Exos Aerospace launches from Spaceport America, its payload will include a small hands-free camera equipped with specialized software capable of monitoring an astronaut’s vital signs continuously, contact-free while several feet away.

Currently astronauts monitor their vital signs intermittently in space for experiments in part because continuous monitoring requires multiple contact points on the body and the use of cumbersome batteries. Mayo researchers David and Michelle Freeman, who also are physicians, are studying the camera device for future use in space and on the ground.

“The technology is called photoplethysmography. Essentially it’s computer software that uses a high resolution camera to detect the very subtle pulsations of blood through the skin. So it uses that capability to calculate your pulse and oxygenation,” she said. (8/24)

Asteroid Billiards: This Wild Idea to Protect Earth Just Might Work (Source: Space.com)
Protecting Earth from dangerous space rocks might require a little asteroid-on-asteroid violence. Researchers are proposing to add a new arrow to our planetary-defense quiver: steering small, benign near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) into big and hazardous ones, in a dramatic, high-stakes game of cosmic billiards. This idea isn't as crazy as it may sound, its architects say.

It involves launching a robotic spacecraft out to a small NEA — one 33 feet (10 m) wide or so. The probe would land on (and anchor itself to) the asteroid, then fire up its thrusters to set up a "gravity assist" flyby of Earth. (Alternatively, the probe could pluck a boulder off a larger asteroid and then fly off with that rock, Dunham said.)

This speed-boosting, trajectory-altering flyby would steer the spacecraft-asteroid combo toward the hazardous object. As it neared its target, the rock-riding probe would refine its course using onboard ranging instruments, as well as reflectors and transponders placed on the big and dangerous rock, Dunham said. The collision, when it came, would be much more powerful and effective than a smashup generated by a naked spacecraft serving as the kinetic impactor, he said. (8/24)

NASA Will Measure Polar Ice Cover Down to the Centimeter with Lasers From Space (Source: Motherboard)
Shooting lasers at Earth sounds like a sketchy idea on paper, but it’s actually one of the best possible methods of studying our planet from space. Many satellites carry LIDAR systems that bounce harmless laser pulses toff Earth’s surface, and pick up valuable information about the contours and dynamics of target regions from the returning photons.

Now, NASA is upping the ante on space-based lasers with a new mission called Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2). Scheduled for launch on September 15 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, ICESat-2 will monitor ice sheet elevation, land topography, and vegetation cover with an unprecedented LIDAR component called the Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System (ATLAS).

ATLAS is far more sensitive and active compared to the LIDAR system onboard this mission’s predecessor, ICESat, which retired in 2010. Once it safely reaches its polar orbit and becomes operational, the satellite will fire 10,000 pulses every second, which will result in ground elevation measurements accurate to within a centimeter. Every pulse unleashes about 20 trillion photons, and only around a dozen return to be recorded by the satellite’s telescope. (8/24)

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Spacecraft Recovery Ship Gets a Helipad (Source: Teslarati)
SpaceX’s primary Crew Dragon recovery vessel GO Searcher is undergoing a number of modifications in preparation for inaugural demonstrations flights of the company’s first human-rated spacecraft. Most notably, GO Searcher is being fitted with a helipad that will be used to rapidly transfer astronauts from Crew Dragon to Cape Canaveral, where they will go through a number of medical evaluations and debriefings after a six-month stay in orbit aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

Over the last year or so, the long-time member of SpaceX’s East Coast rocket recovery fleet has been gradually receiving upgrades and conducting sea trials and mockup Dragon recovery tests, performed in concert with the US Air Force and NASA. Once Commercial Crew missions start launching in earnest, GO Searcher will be SpaceX’s sole Crew Dragon spacecraft and astronaut recovery vessel, a new mission that required a number of visible modifications.

Three of those upgrades are especially obvious. First, a large helipad (pictured above) is being constructed on GO Searcher’s deck. That helipad is a critical addition that will enable the rapid transport of astronauts, recovery experts, technicians, doctors, and more (perhaps even press) to or from the ship, which will be at most a few hundred kilometers east of the Florida Coast during Dragon recovery operations, and likely closer to a few tens of kilometers. (8/23)

Cancer-Causing Compounds Found in Alligators, Dolphins, Wildlife at Kennedy Space Center (Source: Florida Today)
Greg Bossart finds them in dolphins in the Indian River. Russ Lowers encounters them in the blood of the alligators he snares at Kennedy Space Center. And, perhaps, it is no surprise that they also lurk in the fish that dolphins and gators eat like the mullet Doug Adams nets nearby.

All three biologists and their colleagues are independently discovering that the toxic compounds from once-widely used firefighting foams are present throughout the local food chain. Apex predators — those at the top of the chain, like dolphins and gators — store them in their bodies at higher concentrations with worrying implications. These are the same substances recently found in groundwater in Satellite Beach and Cocoa Beach; the same chemicals that worry many who live, work or go to school near Patrick Air Force Base and Kennedy Space Center. (8/24)

Nearing the End, Kepler Enters Sleep Mode (Source: NASA)
The Kepler spacecraft went into sleep mode after successfully downloading Campaign 18 data. It is unclear how much fuel is still on board; NASA is looking into the health of the spacecraft and determining a full range of options and next steps. (8/24)

What Can We Do With the Water on the Moon? We Ask Planetary Physicist Philip Metzger (Source: New Atlas)
Following a long drip feed of ambiguities and highly suggestive hints, scientists have confirmed once and for all that the evidence for water on the Moon is rock solid. So now that we know the stuff of life awaits future explorers at the lunar poles, how easily will they be able to collect it? And what can they use it for when they do?

Philip Metzger is a planetary physicist who worked on the roadmap for planetary surface technologies at NASA's Kennedy Space Center and co-founded KSC Swamp Works, a NASA innovation lab focused on developing technologies needed for living and working on the surface of the Moon and other bodies in the Solar System. Now at UCF, Metzger continues his mission to help move civilization beyond its single-planet existence. He regards this week's discovery as a "truly remarkable piece of scientific work" with "important consequences." We asked him what it all means and what might come next. Click here. (8/23)

UFO Lobby Thrilled by Republican House Candidate Who Says She Was Abducted by Aliens (Source: Daily Beast)
Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera could make intergalactic history this fall. If she wins Tuesday’s primary in Florida she would be in position to become the first person elected to Congress who says she was once abducted by aliens. That possibility has given immense pleasure to one of Washington D.C.’s most peculiar lobbying shops: the Paradigm Research Group, which advocates for discussing and unveiling “facts surrounding an extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race.”

“This is a milestone,” Stephen Bassett, executive director of the group, said of Aguilera’s candidacy. “If she were to win the election, she would be the first open contactee to serve in Congress.” Aguilera, a Republican, is running in Florida’s 27th Congressional District, a Miami-area seat being vacated by Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. She is not a fringe figure. The Miami Herald endorsed her candidacy recently. But even in doing so, they acknowledged she is a bit “unusual.”

That’s because Aguilera has asserted that as a child, she was taken aboard a UFO by aliens who looked like the Christ the Redeemer statue in Brazil. In a series of YouTube videos, Aguilera said the aliens told her “God is a universal energy, not a person,” that the center of the world’s energy is in Africa and that thousands of non-human skulls were discovered in a cave on Malta. (8/24)