A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasts off from Kennedy Space Center in Titusville, Fla., Thursday. It was the first recycled rocket launched by SpaceX, the biggest leap yet in its bid to drive down costs and speed up flights. (Red Huber/Orlando Sentinel via AP)

Reusing rockets is key to transporting humans to other planets because passengers otherwise will be making one-way trips, the president of SpaceX said Wednesday at the 33rd annual Space Symposium at The Broadmoor hotel.

Gwynne Shotwell, who also is chief operating officer of the privately held rocket launch company, said the only alternative to reuse is finding materials and assembling a rocket to enable humans to make the return trip to Earth. SpaceX launched a reused rocket last week for the first time - a process that took nearly a year to complete after the spacecraft was used April 9 to ferry cargo to space, then later landed successfully on an Pacific Ocean platform.

"This ushers in a new era with more enterprise in space," Shotwell said during a brief speech and question-and-answer session. "It has taken us 15 years to get it right, and it was a lot of work. But the only way to explore the solar system and return is for the system to be reusable. Otherwise, it is a one-way trip unless they (the crew) learn to build a rocket there."

SpaceX still has a lot of work to do to reach its goal of being able to reuse a rocket within 24 hours of its first launch, which Shotwell agreed is the company's goal - though she didn't say how quickly it would achieve it.

Once the goal is met, the cost of reusing the spacecraft will drop from half the cost of building a new rocket to 10 percent, she said.

"We learned from the (space) shuttle program that reuse is really hard, especially refurbishment after the rocket has been in the ocean. Fortunately, we only needed minimal refurbishment on the engine," Shotwell said.

A reusable spacecraft is a key element of the company's planned mission to Mars because "when we do that, we will have the ability to bring (the crew) back. It is important to live on more than one planet. It is risk management for humans."

She told the crowd she "hope you all are thinking of buying tickets to Mars" and took a shot a competitors who have shunned reusing rockets as not economically feasible, saying she believes "you will see that position changing."

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Reusing rockets is best way to advance space travel, SpaceX officer tells symposium attendees - Colorado Springs Gazette

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MIT Conference To Focus On Space Travel For The Public CBS Boston / WBZ The New Space Age conference is being held Saturday at the Samberg Conference Center. The discussion focuses on the new space race as private companies continue to create and expand a new commercial market for space travel. Participants will ... and more »

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MIT Conference To Focus On Space Travel For The Public - CBS Boston / WBZ

United State Congress has passed a huge funding bill that gives NASA $19.5 billion for space exploration and has presented it to the president. The NASA Authorization Act of 2017 is focused on transforming NASA back into the great scientific organization it was during the Apollo Program. The bill authorizes NASA programs like the Space Station, deep space exploration, and asteroid redirect missions for 2017. Also included in the bill is a mandate for human space travel to Mars in 2033.

As part of the mission, Congress has asked NASA to create an initial human exploration roadmap by December 2017. The roadmap, which NASA has been working on for a while, is a step by step guide on how to get to Mars. It includes ever expanding stages of space travel starting with low-Earth orbit, then cislunar space, and culminating in the mission to Mars. NASA calls these stages Earth Reliant, Proving Ground, and Earth Independent.

The authorization report;

SEC. 435. MARS 2033 REPORT.

(a) In General.Not later than 120 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Administrator shall contract with an independent, non-governmental systems engineering and technical assistance organization to study a Mars human space flight mission to be launched in 2033.

(b) Contents.The study shall include

(1) a technical development, test, fielding, and operations plan using the Space Launch System, Orion, and other systems to successfully launch such a Mars human space flight mission by 2033;

(2) an annual budget profile, including cost estimates, for the technical development, test, fielding, and operations plan to carry out a Mars human space flight mission by 2033; and

(3) a comparison of the annual budget profile to the 5-year budget profile contained in the Presidents budget request for fiscal year 2017 under section 1105 of title 31, United States Code.

(c) Report.Not later than 180 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Administrator shall submit to the appropriate committees of Congress a report on the study, including findings and recommendations regarding the Mars 2033 human space flight mission described in subsection (a).

(d) Assessment.Not later than 60 days after the date the report is submitted under subsection (c), the Administrator shall submit to the appropriate committees of Congress an assessment by the NASA Advisory Council of whether the proposal for a Mars human space flight mission to be launched in 2033 is in the strategic interests of the United States in space exploration.

NASA has often been criticized for being slow to adapt to change and advancements in technology. They have their old ways of doing things and are traditionally very hesitant to explore new options. This has given rise to the private space industry and companies like SpaceX.

Ever since Apollo 11, NASA has had its sights set on Mars as the new final frontier. The Curiosity and 2020 rovers are key tools in discovering what resources Mars has to offer. This funding bill and Mars mandate has the space community rejoicing; and for good reason. Were one step closer to what will arguably be the greatest event in human exploration, ever.

Source: Techspot

Innocent Korie is an ICT and Project Management Professional with very good flair in business development, and social media management. He has a degree in Electronic & Computer Engineering. He is currently stationed at the Online Unit of Nigerian Television Authority

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Space Exploration: US congress approves $19.5 billion for NASA to get humans to Mars by 2033 - NTA News

Fast radio bursts (FRB) are perhaps the most mysterious phenomena we observe in the cosmos. Earlier this year, astronomers announced they had pinpointed an FRB for the first time in a dwarf galaxy that sits three billion light-years away. These intense blasts of radio waves last only 1 to 5 milliseconds, and they have perplexed astronomers since the first one was discovered in 2007.

The leading theories suggest that FRBs come from incredibly volatile cosmic events, such as material being ejected from supermassive black holes, the explosions of superluminous supernovae, or rotating magnetars that lash surrounding material with their immense magnetic fields. But researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) have proposed a much more enticing theory. What if FRBs aren't natural phenomena at all, but rather come from a massive artificial structure used to power alien spacecraft?

Mysterious Fast Radio Burst Located for First Time

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"Fast radio bursts are exceedingly bright given their short duration and origin at great distances, and we haven't identified a possible natural source with any confidence," said Harvard professor Avi Loeb in a press release. "An artificial origin is worth contemplating and checking."

The idea is that FRBs come from an immense alien power plant that is used to propel ships using light sails. A powerful beam of light can propel a reflective surface in the vacuum of space, which is the basis for light sail technology. Current human light sail experiments use light from the sun, but scientists are also working to develop a worldwide system of lasers that could propel small nanoprobes to about 20 percent the speed of light. Such technology, called photonic propulsion, could send a probe to Alpha Centauri, the closet star system to us, in roughly 20 years.

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It's possible that a more advanced alien species uses photonic propulsion to power much larger spaceships. Loeb and fellow Harvard researcher Manasvi Lingam found that if an object twice the size of the Earth were harnessing solar power and converting the energy into a laser beam to propel spacecraft, then the radio emissions from it would be detectable even across billions of light-years. Such a planet-sized power system would be capable of accelerating a spaceship weighing a million tons, which is about 20 times bigger than the biggest cruise ships.

"That's big enough to carry living passengers across interstellar or even intergalactic distances," says Lingam.

The team's findings are outlined in a paper titled, "Fast Radio Bursts from Extragalactic Light Sails," which has been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. To accelerate a spaceship's light sail, the device would need to constantly aim its beams of light at the craft. On Earth, we would see this from time to time as a quick flash of high intensity radio waves rather than a sustained signal because the movement of distant galaxies and planets means the laser would only line up with our planet for a split second.

The Real Story Behind the Myth of Area 51

The fast radio burst that we located earlier this year actually was detected nine times over the course of six months, which, if the signal is coming from an alien power plant, could be an indication that the device lines up with us regularly, or we could be seeing the planet-sized laser system being switched on and off.

Of course, this is all highly speculative theory. The new study simply outlines the fact that it is possible that FRBs are from an alien propulsion system according to our current laws of physics. Our species is nowhere near achieving such advanced technology, but perhaps a more advanced race has unlocked large-scale interstellar travel.

Loeb was asked whether he really believes FRBs come from an advanced alien civilization, to which he responded: "Science isn't a matter of belief, it's a matter of evidence. Deciding what's likely ahead of time limits the possibilities. It's worth putting ideas out there and letting the data be the judge."

Source: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

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Harvard Scientists Theorize That Fast Radio Bursts Come From Alien Space Travel - Popular Mechanics

So far its been an eventful year for both NASA and SpaceX, the private space exploration company founded by Elon Musk.

With the recent planetary discoveries, the potential change in the Hubble constant, and now SpaceXs announcement of private space travel, theres a lot to look forward to.

SpaceX is promoting privately funded space travel, and we think this may be our best bet to literally reach the stars.

Space is expensive. Therefore, we cannot rely on just the government to get our astronauts or plain space lovers into the cosmos. By funding these programs privately, we will get more work done.

When SpaceX announced its plan to send two people on a moon tour, the Indiana Daily Student asked professor Constantine Deliyannis what he thought about these plans. Deliyannis teaches in the astronomy and physics department at IU.

Deliyannis said he loved that NASA and SpaceX were working together to get more work done than they would accomplish separately.

He stressed the importance of recognizing our accomplishments so far and putting into perspective what we will need to do for the future.

Its expensive to study space, and its even more expensive to travel and investigate space. Because of this, SpaceX felt it was more important to fund space exploration privately rather than publicly. The government has a capped budget for what it can give to space exploration. Right now, the government is giving NASA $19 billion of the $3.73 trillion budget for the fiscal year of 2017.

Out of this budget, a projected $8 billion is geared toward human exploration. While this may seem like a large number, only $3 billion of that is budgeted for actual exploration. The other $5 billion is budgeted for the research that goes into getting people into space.

Of course, that is still a large sum of money.

The two tourists traveling with SpaceX will pay at least $35 million for a ticket, which was the most recent price to send astronauts to the International Space Station. NASA is paying $80 million per astronaut for rover missions on the moon.

Private spaceflight will one day become its own industry because of the steps SpaceX is taking. In our lifetime, we may see a new era of the space race.

Blue Origin is a private spaceflight company owned by Jeff Bezos. It announced that it too will be supporting private spaceflights. The rocket design and the astronaut who will be partaking in these private spaceflights were revealed earlier this month.

This brewing competition is not only exciting, but it is producing more technology and information about space travel.

Rather than pitting countries against each other in a race to space, we are seeing privately funded companies do the exact same thing.

This time around, though, if one of them fails, it is not at the expense of the government or the people of the country.

One day humans will see commercial space tourism. Private space companies are helping us get there.

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EDITORIAL: Exploring private space travel - Indiana Daily Student

Astronaut Bruce McCandless II floats above Earth, 330 feet (100 meters) from the cargo bay of the space shuttle Challenger, in 1984.

NASA's requirements for becoming an astronautare stringent, but not overly daunting. Essentially, hopefuls must have a bachelor's degree in science, be physically fit, and stand between 58.5 and 76 inches tall. What NASA doesn't mention, however, are the intangibles. You can probably think of a few: coolness under pressure, a problem-solving mentality, and the ability to work in a team setting. But one trait you might not consider is a strong stomach. The following stories illustrate why that definitely can come in handy.

The microgravity of space can lead to a lot of disgusting situations. If you think carpet spills are hard to clean, try collecting floating vomit, or desiccated skin.

"The calluses on your feet in space will eventually fall off," astronaut Scott Kelly revealed in aReddit AMA. "So, the bottoms of your feet become very soft like newborn baby feet. But the top of my feet develop rough alligator skin because I use the top of my feet to get around here on space station when using foot rails."

Floating calluses with the potential to enter an unaware, open mouth is enough to irk most people, but that's not the worst of it. Take whathappened during STS-1, for example.

In April 1981, astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen piloted the Space Shuttle Columbia successfully through its maiden mission, but not without a few hitches. The toilet clogged early on, forcing the two crewmembers to usefecal containment systems,long, tube-shaped bags affixed to the buttocks with a sticky seal to trap, and store, evacuated feces. Even worse, during re-entry, vacuum-dried fecal matter from the broken, bloated toilet migrated to the ventilation system and entered the main cabin. Young and Crippen survived the poop particles and soldiered through the *ick* factor in professional fashion.

Fecal containment systems were a brief inconvenience during STS-1, but they were business as usual during the Apollo missions. The clunky apparatuses were far from foolproof, especially in microgravity. During Apollo 10, when Tom Stafford, Gene Cernan, and John Young orbited the Moon, it seems a few "turds" may have eluded containment. Alan Boyleuncovered the smelly situationwhilst reviewing the declassified mission logs, and brought it to light over atNBC's Cosmic Log:

"Give me a napkin, quick," Stafford says. "There's a turd floating through the air."

"I didn't do it," Young says. "It ain't one of mine."

"I don't think it's one of mine," Cernan says.

"Mine was a little more sticky than that," Stafford replies. "Throw that away."

The astronauts discuss the finer points of waste disposal in space, and then move on to other business. But minutes later, it's "Houston, we have a problem" all over again.

"Here's another goddam turd," Cernan says. "What's the matter with you guys?"

Thanks to futuristicvacuum toiletsand well-designed filtration systems, escaped turds are no longer an issue. In fact, the International Space Station is "many, many times cleaner than your bathroom at home," Astrobiologist Kasthuri Venkateswaran,told theWashington Post.

Good news for aspiring astronauts who are easily grossed out!

Original article on RealClearScience.

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Why Space Travel Can Be Absolutely Disgusting - Live Science

In 1969, man walked on the Moon. Since then, we havent done much. Sure, man made a few return trip and has viewed a lot further into the universe than ever expected. But as far as space travel is concerned, there hasnt been much progress. However, in recent years, entrepreneurs of all shapes and sizes have decided that NASA isnt the only one that gets to reach for the stars. And they have completely changed the way we think about outer space.

Whether theyre starting a commercial airline for space or reinventing the rocket, these entrepreneurs have forever altered the future of space travel. Theyre contributions to the field will make leaving our atmosphere as simple as buying a ticket. Sure, itll be a really expensive ticket, but well cross that bridge when we come to it.

If you want to learn about some of the most innovative minds in the space travel discussion, check out these four entrepreneurs:

Obviously, the founder of SpaceXis first on this list. Before Musk, space travel used to be an overwhelmingly expensive endeavor that required you toshoot millions of dollars worth of equipment into space without any hopes of getting back. Now, thanks to Musks revolutionary self-landing rocket, NASA and anyone else that wants to leave our atmosphere can do so without spending too much money. Granted, its still incredibly expensive, but its a little bit less so thanks to this man.

In the past, the only hope everyday citizens had of traveling to the Moon was becoming an astronaut.And if you struggled with math and hate enclosed spaces, that wasnt really an option. But thanks to Richard Branson and his company, Virgin Galactic, going to the Moon could soon be as easier as booking a flight to Australia.

The British philanthropist isnt the only way trying to make space travel a regular occurrence. Jeff Bezos and his company Blue Originare also in pursuit of affordable space travel. And if the space race wasnt heating up enough already, Bezos has locked down his first paying customer for a trip, a huge milestone for the company considering it was almost entirely funded by the CEO of Amazon.

While some entrepreneurs strive to send people into space, Naveen Jain and his company Moon Express hope to be the first private company to set foot on the Moon. As the first private entity to be given permission to take to the stars, Jain has taken a huge step towards combining space travel and business. As part of the Google Lunar XPRIZE competition, Moon Express is competing with a number of other companies to make it to the Moon before the deadline.

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4 Entrepreneurs Changing the Way We Think About Space Travel - Tech.Co

Typically SRAM-based FPGAs when used in space, can experience the problem of changes to the information written in the SRAM due to the effects of radiation, says NEC.

For example, radiation can cause an electrical charge in the semiconductor substrate. As a result, a failure occurs to the SRAMs in FPGAs that record information based on the amount of charge, causing a change in the circuit configuration.

NEC claims its NanoBridge technology enables a tenfold improvement over the power efficiency of conventional FPGAs as well as providing them with high radiation tolerance.

NEC has conducted an operation demonstration jointly with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), using the newly developed NB-FPGA in a tough radioactive terrestrial environment.

As a result, it has confirmed that the ON and OFF states of the NanoBridge remain unchanged, whether radiation is delivered or not.

Yuichi Nakamura, general manager at NEC Research Laboratories, writes:

Based on the result, NEC expects that the NanoBridge will be able to reduce the frequency of errors caused by radiation to one percent or less and contribute to the creation of an LSI that offers high radiation tolerance and ultra-low power consumption simultaneously.

The next step is to validate the NB-FPGA by incorporating it in the Satellite Technology Demonstration 1, which will be launched in FY2018.

The NanoBridge uses the cross-link of metal atoms in a solid electrolyte to place the signals into the ON or OFF state (See Figure.1 right).

The ON or OFF state is maintained even after voltage is released. The cross-link created by metal atoms in the NanoBridge is free from the impact of electrical charges generated by the delivery of radiation.

Accordingly, the possibility of rewriting is extremely remote in the circuit of NB-FPGA, even in a space environment that is exposed to a large amount of radiation, which improves reliability, says NEC.

In the Innovative Satellite Technology Demonstration 1, a demonstration experiment of compressing and transmitting camera-captured images through the NB-FPGA will be carried out in a harsh environment.

Image:Operation mechanism of NanoBridge (left), NB-FPGA chip (right)

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NEC develops reliable FPGAs for space travel - Electronics Weekly - Electronics Weekly

DENVER (CBS4) Its been 60 years since the first Earth satellite was launched into outer space. The Soviet Union sent Sputnik into orbit in 1957, triggering a space race with the United States. Now theres a new out-of-this-world mission and Colorado is helping lead the way.

More than four decades have flown by since humans were launched into space for a mission to the moon. Private company SpaceX is planning to change that by sending two people into space next year.

(credit: CBS)

I think this should be a really exciting mission that hopefully gets the world really excited about sending people into deep space again, said SpaceX founder Elon Musk.

Reigniting space travel is also launching a new kind of space race no longer between countries like in the Sputnik era instead between private companies.

Theyre taking the ball from NASA, from government, which theyve partnered with, and theyre going to go do big things, said Phil Larson a former employee of SpaceX, and the assistant dean of University of Colorados School of Engineering and Applied Science.

(credit: CBS)

Larson says privatizing space travel is good news for Colorado.

New jobs, new industries, new technologies, Larson said.

Larson says Colorado is one of the main aerospace capitals of the world with numerous companies. Even schools, like CU, have developed numerous designs for NASA.

Phil Larson (credit: CBS)

Theyve launched instruments in spacecraft to every planet in the solar system and beyond, he said.

And with a new era of space exploration taking off, Colorado is on the leading edge, launching new opportunities for decades to come.

Its awesome to know that thats happening right here, in Colorado, in the United States and were helping lead the way in this new era in space. Its not just governments anymore, Larson said.

(credit: CBS)

In another Colorado space connection, students at Metropolitan State University of Denver will soon be building satellites. The school recently partnered with York Space Systems to move its headquarters into Metros new aerospace and engineering sciences building this summer.

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Colorado Likely To Benefit From Privatized Space Travel - CBS Local

The countdown to space tourism is on. In 2018, if all goes well, two civilians will be taking off on a rocket ship built by SpaceX, the company founded by billionaire Elon Musk. The itinerary includes a lunar orbit and the commercial passengers are expected to log more than a week in space. The pair will travel 400,000 miles away from earth, the farthest anyone has gone from our planet since the Apollo moon missions of more than 40 years ago.

The SpaceX lunar venture represents a new phase in commercial space exploration. In the past, only government agencies like NASA and Roscosmos (the Russian Space Agency) had the resources to accomplish ambitious missions like landing men on the moon or launching an international space station.

Nowadays, however, entrepreneurs are entering the space race in a big way. There are plans for low-orbit vehicles, which would shuttle private citizens into space for a fee. Also, private inventors are competing for Google X prize money for building a robotic spacecraft capable of landing on the moon and transmitting signals back. Not to be outdone, Musk is boasting about sending humans to Mars by 2025.

Would you book a flight to the moon or beyond? Before you make a reservation, here are a few of the developments you need to know about.

Billionaire Elon Musk has always aimed high. In the process, hes achieved spectacular successes, but also significant failures. Two of his companys rockets have blown up. But, under his leadership, SpaceX also became the first private firm to build a vehicle that reached the International Space Station. In fact, SpaceX now has a contract with NASA to fly astronauts into orbit.

What animates Musk, apparently, is the desire to rekindle the spirit of exploration, adventure and human striving that fueled Americas space program in the 1960s. In a conference call with journalists explaining the SpaceX lunar mission, Musk said, What matters is the advancement of space exploration and exceeding the high-water mark that was set in 1969 with the Apollo program. And having a really exciting future in space that inspires the world.

Ultimately, the entrepreneur sees the moon as a base for further and deeper explorations of the final frontier. Indeed, Musk insists that his company will be ready to start sending humans to Mars in less than a decade. However, many experts believe landing people on the red planet in that short a timeframe is overly optimistic. However, most see Musks lunar expedition as being quite feasible within the next year or two.

Musk is not the only entrepreneur who wants to turn the dream of commercial space travel into a reality. Amazons Jeff Bezos is pursuing a program called Blue Origins, which also plans to get tourists into space within the next couple of years.

The key to both the Blue Origins and SpaceX initiatives are the idea of reusable rockets. Put simply, space crafts are extremely expensive to build and launch. In order for commercial spaceflight to work economically, it is essential to develop vehicles that can be used again and again.

The companies headed by Bezos and Musk are in a fierce competition to perfect reusable rockets. Blue Origin expects to test its orbital vehicle sometime in 2019. Those interested in reserving a seat for what promises to be an eleven-minute ride to the edge of outer space can learn more by clicking here.

Virgin Galactics Richard Branson is another billionaire determined to push the envelope when it comes to commercial space travel. The British entrepreneur is developing a fleet of five space crafts, which are designed to be air-launched from a mother aircraft.

The SpaceShipTwo, as the pioneering model is known, will ferry paying customers 68 miles above the earths surface, roughly six miles above the Krmn line, which is the boundary between the earths atmosphere and outer space. During the suborbital flight, passengers will enjoy several minutes of weightlessness before the reusable craft reenters the earths atmosphere. If all goes as planned, SpaceShipTwo will glide back to a runway like an airplane.

When it comes to commercial space travel, however, there are still bugs to be ironed out. In 2014, for instance, the first Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo crashed in the Mojave Desert following crew error. One pilot was killed, but another survived. The next generation of the craft is being built. However, the company has declined to announce when its commercial fleet might be ready. Nevertheless, several high-profile adventurers, most notably actor Tom Hanks, cosmologist Stephen Hawking and actress Angelina Jolie have reportedly ponied up the $250,000 it costs to reserve a seat on the spacecraft.

The prospect of commercial space travel excites most people. In the past, only highly-trained astronauts had the opportunity to venture into outer space. In the future, ordinary people may be able to buy a roundtrip ticket to the moon. Of course, in the near term, the cost of even a suborbital flight will be prohibitive for most people. The going rate for an advance reservation is about $250,000.

Undoubtedly, the future of space travel is being shaped by individuals with extreme wealth. Only the well-off are likely to enjoy a flight into orbit anytime soon. Is this fair? In the short term, its probably inevitable. The government, faced with other spending priorities, is relying on the private sector to pick up the slack when it comes to space exploration. Indeed, many experts believe that private-public partnerships represent the future of space exploration. Most agree that this trend will accelerate during the Trump administration.

Nevertheless, its important that the development and exploration of space benefit not just the privileged few, but all of us. This was a point made by Dr. Edythe Weeks, a space expert, who I contacted by email. In her view, activities like space mining are likely to produce multi-trillionaires [but] without addressing the international issue of how space can be used to benefit all of humanity. In other words, unless the benefits of space exploration are spread more widely, there is likely to be resentment. Even if we travel to distant regions in space, we still will wrestle with potential injustice.

Other entrepreneurs, most notably Vulcan Aerospaces Paul Allen, have joined the space race too. Undoubtedly, these pioneers are driven by a mixture of ambition, competitiveness and a desire to write a new chapter in the history of space exploration. However, there are other deep-seated reasons why these individuals are so fiercely devoted to the cause of interplanetary travel.

To begin with, they are convinced that mankind is destined to venture beyond our own planet in search of new worlds and intelligent life elsewhere in the galaxy. They also believe that humanity must seek and harness resources from other planets because ours are finite. In addition, they insist that space exploration is a necessary hedge against a species extinction event caused by nuclear war, global warming or an asteroid hit.

Someday soon, space travel may be as routine as boarding a flight to another continent. Since the dawning of our species, humans have been fascinated by flight and the skies above us. There is a yearning to escape the bounds of the earth and venture upwards and outwards. Interestingly, scientists say that the atoms in our bodies were forged in a solar explosion that occurred eons ago. As we travel into outer space we are, in a very real sense, seeking to discover both our origins and our destiny.

Would you book a flight to outer space? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Scott OReilly

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Would You Book A Flight To The Moon? - The Alternative Daily (blog)

This week were learning more about space travel and planetary colonization. Charles Wohlforth discusses his new book, Beyond Earth, and answers questions about humanity and its potential for reaching new worlds. Its a scientific, and economic, examinationat what it would take for humans to leave this planet to explore new worlds and possibly colonize them.

From a leading planetary scientist and an award-winning science writer: a propulsive account of the developments and initiatives that have transformed the dream of space colonization into something that may well be achievable.

We are at the cusp of a golden age in space science, as increasingly more entrepreneurs Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Jeff Bezosare seduced by the commercial potential of human access to space. But BEYOND EARTH by Charles Wohlforth and Amanda R. Hendrix, Ph.D. (Pantheon Books / November 15, 2016 / $27.95) does not offer another wide-eyed technology fantasy: instead, it is grounded not only in the human capacity for invention and the appeal of adventure, but also in the bureaucratic, political, and scientific realities that present obstacles to space travelrealities that have hampered NASAs efforts ever since the Challenger fiasco. In Beyond Earth, the authors offer groundbreaking research and argue persuasively that not Mars, but Titana moon of Saturn with a nitrogen atmosphere, a weather cycle, and an inexhaustible supply of cheap energy, and where we will even be able to fly like birds in the minimal gravitational fieldoffers the most realistic, and thrilling, prospect of life without support from Earth.

GUESTS:

MODERATOR:

HOST:Alaska World Affairs Council

LINKS:

RECORDED: Friday, February 03,2017 at theHilton Hotel.

ALASKA WORLD AFFAIRS COUNCIL ARCHIVE

Eric Bork, or you can just call him Bork because everybody else does, is the FM Content Producer for KSKA-FM. He produces and edits episodes of Outdoor Explorer, Addressing Alaskans, as well as a few other programs. He also maintains the web posts for those shows and many others on alaskapublic.org. You can sometimes hear him filling in for Morning Edition or find him operating the sound board for any of the live broadcast programs. After escaping the Detroit area when he was 18, Bork made it up to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where he earned a degree in Communications/Radio Broadcasting from Northern Michigan University. He spent time managing the college radio station, working for the local NPR affiliate and then in top 40 radio in Michigan before coming to Alaska to work his first few summers. After then moving to Chicago, it only took five years to convince him to move back to Alaska in 2010. When not involved in great radio programming hes probably riding a bicycle, thinking about riding bicycles, dreaming about bikes, reading a book or planning the next place hell travel to. Only two continents left to conquer!

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Beyond Earth talking about space travel - Alaska Public Radio Network

NASA astronaut Michael Barratt watches a water bubble float by on board the Discovery in 2011. NASA hide caption

NASA astronaut Michael Barratt watches a water bubble float by on board the Discovery in 2011.

Spending time in space changes people: Not just their outlook on life, but also their eyesight.

For years, a North Texas doctor has been trying to find out what is causing this vision change among astronauts. His latest research provides some clues and connects astronauts on the International Space Station, cancer patients on a roller coaster plane flight, and high-tech sleeping sacks.

After spending six months on the International Space Station, Michael Barratt had a strange request when he finally stepped foot on Earth.

He wanted a spinal tap.

Barratt isn't a masochist, he's a NASA astronaut. While flying hundreds of miles above Earth in 2009, he noticed his vision was changing. He was struggling to read manuals and checklists.

An image of astronaut Michael Barratt's right eye shows some of the changes in shape after long-duration space flight. Courtesy of NASA hide caption

An image of astronaut Michael Barratt's right eye shows some of the changes in shape after long-duration space flight.

"I spent a lot of time on the Russian segment as well. When you're reading in Russian in small print in a dark place, and your visual acuity starts to tank, you notice it!" Barratt says.

Barratt is also a very curious physician, which brings us to his request for a spinal tap to check the pressure in his brain. He knew he wasn't the first astronaut whose vision had changed while in space, and he hoped sticking a needle into his back might provide a clue to his vision loss. The leading theory at the time was that microgravity raises pressure in the head and reshapes the eyeballs, which could be problematic for long-term space travel to places like Mars.

"This is a medical issue that affects a large percentage of people who fly in space," Barratt says. "So the stakes are extremely high."

Scientists know that when people go into space, the fluid normally below their hearts goes into their heads. But is it creating enough pressure to damage the eyes? Does it flatten them and affect the optic nerve? Or is there something else at play?

Dr. Benjamin Levine is on a mission to find out. He's a professor at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and Director of the Institute for Exercise and Environmental Medicine. Instead of sticking needles in astronauts' backs, though, Levine decided to stick needles inside the brains of specific people who stay on Earth.

Trent Barton, a volunteer for the study looking at pressure inside the brain during space flights. Courtesy of David Ham hide caption

Trent Barton, a volunteer for the study looking at pressure inside the brain during space flights.

He found eight healthy cancer survivors who still had ports in their heads, once used to deliver chemotherapy. Those ports would allow him to directly measure their intracranial pressure.

Then, he convinced them to get on a plane for a sort of extreme roller coaster ride to simulate the zero gravity found on the ISS.

You know that feeling of weightlessness when you drop on a roller coaster? Well, these folks did that, except they plunged 8,000 feet in 30 seconds, dozens of times, all in the name of science.

Trent Barton, a lymphoma survivor from Dallas, went on the wild trip above the Texas-Mexico border.

"I enjoyed each and every rotation we did," Barton says.

Dr. Justin Lawley, instructor in internal medicine at University of Texas Southwestern, floating in zero gravity. Courtesy of David Ham hide caption

Dr. Justin Lawley, instructor in internal medicine at University of Texas Southwestern, floating in zero gravity.

During the flight, a needle in the port in his head monitored the pressure in the fluid surrounding his brain.

Turns out, Levine says, space flight doesn't cause pressure to be much higher than it is when you or I are standing up. But, it is a little higher. He published the results in The Journal of Physiology.

But, unlike us earthlings, astronauts never get to rest their brains in lower pressure. When they're standing up in zero gravity, the fluid stays in their heads and won't go to their feet. So, researchers like Levine are now trying to find a way to give these astronaut brains a rest. So we now think this mild but persistent pressure may be the thing that's stimulating remodeling the eye and causing the visual impairment," Levine says.

"We've been working with UnderArmour, the garment company, to come up with a soft, but comfortable almost like a sleeping sack or pair of trousers, that you can put on at night, hook up to a vacuum cleaner, suck the blood and fluid into the feet and unload the heart and the brain while your sleeping," he says.

Astronaut Dr. Mike Barratt says he'd be willing to try the sleeping sack, but he also wants to do more tests on the ISS to better understand intracranial pressure before we send astronauts deeper into space.

As for Barratt's eyesight, six years after his flight?

"It's my right eye that has apparently been permanently remodeled," Barratt says. "Other than that, I'm totally normal."

In other words, he's still the same curious doctor, he just sees things a bit differently now that he's back on Earth.

Read the original here:

Doctor Launches Vision Quest To Help Astronauts' Eyeballs - NPR

"How embarrassing to be human" the tagline ofBlack Holes informs viewers of its tone from the get-go.

The film tells the story of Dave the Astronaut, who in a near future is set to be on NASA's first mission to Mars. Grappling with the financial, geopolitical and emotional challenges, Black Holes has a sharp wit and social awareness which is incredibly refreshing. And the main sidekick is an "intelligent melon." You'll have to watch to find out what that means.

The fast-paced, satirical and visually slick animation fromNoodles, a Paris and L.A. based collective of award-winning artists, has just come back from this year's Sundance Film Festival, and is on Vimeo for your viewing pleasure.

Black Holes from NOODLES on Vimeo.

Black Holesis described as "a satirical animated series aboutspace conquest, the meaning of life and proctology"on its Kickstarter page.

The film was selected in the short film competition at Sundance 2017, and shows just a teaser of what could be, as it actually represents a concept prototype for the series of 10 x 22-minute episodes that the team is working to develop.

Brothers David and Laurent Nicolasare co-writers and directors ofBlack Holes, and Ed Banger Records artists SebastiAnand Quentin Dupieux (Mr Oizo) have contributed to the project.

(Screenshot: Noodles)

The Kickstarter campaign forBlack Holes has already raised over $60,000 towards the $100,000 target, which will allow the production of the first episode of the series. Full of stories, drawings and further information, you can donate to theBlack Holesproject here.

With the success ofSouth Park andBojack Horseman, loved by older audiences around the world, there's clearly strong demand for animation for all ages. Maybe we won't get to go into space until 2018 at the earliest, but with a bit more helpBlack Holescould be shooting onto screens pretty soon.

Read More ->5 Empowering Movies To Celebrate Women's History Month

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Watch: 'Black Holes' A Satirical Comedy About Space Travel From Sundance 2017 - Konbini US

The dwarf star Trappist-1 and its seven newly discovered planets are promising targets to search for alien life - but researchers might not even have to travel that far.

"We might find alien life in our own backyard of our solar system," said NASA's Kevin Peter Hand at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Boston this month.

Astrobiologists searching for extraterrestrial life pin their hopes on Jupiter's moons Europa, Callisto and Ganymede as well as on Saturn's moon Enceladus.

"They are covered in ice but beneath there might be oceans with rocky seafloors," said Hand, chief scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.

NASA plans to launch a rocket in 2024 sending a lander to Europa which will explore the moon, take samples and possibly"find life that is alive today."

Sure, the Europa mission probably won't discover intelligent, human-like life and possibly not even fish-like life. But bacteria, which have developed there, would be just as fascinating for researchers.

Although, there is one thing they have to ensure in the first place.

Does Europa harbour life?

Avoiding hitchhikers

The worst-case scenario for astrobiologists is to one day find life on Europa or elsewhere which has been brought there by humans themselves.

"We don't want to study bacteria from Florida [on other planets]," said Norine Noonan, biologist at the University of South Florida in St. Petersburg.

Just as much as researchers have to prevent potential alien organisms from contaminating Earth, they work hard on protecting space from Earth-based life.

"Any equipment that is sent to touch down on moons or other planets is sterilized several times during its construction", Christian Gritzner of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), told DW.

Rovers, landers and other equipment that are sent to space are built in a clean facility, heated up to over 110 degree centigrade (230 degree Fahrenheit) for several hours or even days, they are irradiated with UV light and sanitized with solvents - measures to kill any bacterium or fungus that might try to get a free ride into outer space.

The Europa lander will also be wrapped in a biobarrier, NASA's Kevin Hand explained - an aluminum foil-like sheath that keeps out any contaminants until it reaches Jupiter's moon.

"The truth is still out there," Noonan pointed out. "Let's not destroy the opportunity to find it."

Protecting the ecosystem on other planets - every astronaut's challenge

Good citizens of the solar system

Protecting other worlds from Earth-based organisms is not just a voluntary moral conception which some responsible researchers cling to.It is international space law.

United Nations Outer Space Treaty which entered into force in October 1967 calls for all states to"avoid harmful contamination of space and celestial bodies."The treaty came into being in preparation of the landing on the moon.

People were afraid that a visit to the moon might bring uninvited guests to Earth, for example, a deadly microorganism that causes a catastrophic outbreak - just like in the sci-fi novel "The Andromeda Strain" by Michael Crichton.

All rock samples that were flown in from the Moon - as well as the first men on the moon - were put into strict quarantine when entering Earth.Only later, when researchers had realized there is nothing alive on the Moon, rules were relaxed.Still later, people realized that contamination works in both directions.

"NASA found strange bumps on the lens of some camera equipment of the unmanned Surveyor landers that had been sent to the Moon three years before," said Christian Gritzner. "Nobody knew what it was."

These bumps turned out to be flu viruses. They seem to have been delivered from Earth to the Moon with the help of some technician who had sneezed on the equipment, Gritzner explained.

"Even after 3 years in space, these viruses were still able to reproduce in the lab."

According to Gritzner, this was the moment that people realized how crucial planetary protection really was.

ExoMars lander Schiaparelli - particularly germ-free

Leaving Mars as it is

"It is unlikely we'll find life on Mars today," said Norine Noonan.Even if there had once been bacteria or other simple organisms, they are possibly long gone.Still, researchers might find remnants of previous life on Mars and get to know how it emerged and what it was like.

Unlike the Moon and many other celestial bodies in our universe, Mars has an atmosphere and a surface that can harbor life - that makes traveling there even more complicated.

"Any hitchhiker we might deliver there can spread," said NASA's Kevin Hand.According to the European Space Agency ESA, the ExoMars project which tries to find life on Mars, even built a new cleanroom in which to construct itslander Schiaparelli.The landing module even had a portable "clean tent" which traveled with it to its launch site in Baikonur.

"We cannot bake humans"

The challenge to avoid contamination gets even harder when astronauts join their equipment on its travel to Mars - i.e. on a manned spaceflight.

"We are spewing fountains of bacteria," said Norine Noonan, adding that it is impossible to sterilize humans: "We cannot put them into an oven and bake them."

It will still be a long way to figure out which measures will protect Mars from life on Earth during such a journey.

"Maybe a habitat on Mars will have a sanitizing air lock spraying disinfectants," Gritzner said. Astronauts would have to pass the lock every time they enter the Mars surface from their space settlement.

But there will be time enough to figure that out, Gritzner adds, as "a manned spaceflight to Mars is still a long way off."

The rest is here:

Safe space travel: Protecting alien worlds from earthlings - and vice versa - Deutsche Welle

The first Axiom Module (lower right, with body-mounted solar panels) to join the International Space Station (rendering by Axiom).

SpaceXs announcement that they will launch two tourists on a trip around the moon has captured imaginations with renewed speculation about the future of space travel and accessibility to the beyond. We are excited to announce that SpaceX has been approached to fly two private citizens on a trip around the moon late next year. []

SpaceXs announcement that they will launch two tourists on a trip around the moon has captured imaginations with renewed speculation about the future of space travel and accessibility to the beyond.

We are excited to announce that SpaceX has been approached to fly two private citizens on a trip around the moon late next year. They have already paid a significant deposit to do a moon mission, Musk wrote in their announcement. Like the Apollo astronauts before them, these individuals will travel into space carrying the hopes and dreams of all humankind, driven by the universal human spirit of exploration.

However, it really is not fair to a number of other companies that are revolutionizing space travel all the same but dont have the substantial resources or notoriety of Elon Musks gargantuan company. Musks celebrity status makes his every tweet a news story (not totally unlike, but in many ways extremely unlike, the newest US president). With that sort of figure, it is hard to capture peoples attention if you are running one of SpaceXs pretenders and competitors. The Hawthorne, Cali company not only operates its own mission services using rockets it built itself, but also sells those rockets to other launch providers.

SpaceX is playing with an optimistic clock in terms of travel to Mars. Whether or not they do make it, and there is no reason to doubt they cant beat the likes of NASA to the Martian surface, there is still a lot of ground to cover to ensure a sustainable space industry for the United States and beyond.

This years Lunar XPRIZE contest sponsored by Google will likely kick off a new era in space-bound venture capital and entrepreneurship as a flock of phoenixes rise from the sands of 2017s moonshots. But plenty of other companies not looking to land rovers on nearby celestial bodies (sometimes more distant ones, or none at all) will also likely benefit from a sector that is overdue for an investment boom, including a growing number of firms building their own rockets with sleeker and more compact designs than the SpaceX Falcon 9.

This is a non-exhaustive list of 10 companies mirroring, challenging, or augmenting the work SpaceX is doing by following through on the next steps to getting humanity into space on a more regular basis:

SpaceILs resdesigned lunar probe, which may make Israel only the 4th country to land a rover on the moon (SpaceIL)

SpaceIL is also worth mentioning here, but not for the same reasons as Moon Express. They are also part of the Google Lunar XPrize contest, but whetheror not they winthey will have enabled a team of some 250 people to get stronger in skill sets that will likely serve as the base of an entirely new ecosystem for space-faring technology. Being located in Israel and with enormous notoriety, its a foregone conclusion that simply being associated with this team will pay dividends for SpaceIL veterans.

They will also have major connections to the local startup ecosystems most influential leaders and top investors, eager to underwrite any entrepreneurship coming from the team. Expect that the end of the decade will see as many if not more space ventures come from Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Haifa as you will see from San Mateo, Palo Alto, and Menlo Park.

SpaceIL shows off their latest and greatest model for their lunar lander, scheduled to go up in 2017 with SpaceX (image: Geektime/Gedalyah Reback)

With those kinds of networks in hand and numerous well-connected government connections the team has made since launching the project, theres a good chance this team will spawn a new sub-sector of the space startup scene: landers and probes. For the foreseeable remainder of 2017, nanosatellites will remain the booming sector for space, but talk of new missions across the solar system in addition to efforts to reach the moon will propel competition in the rover industry.

The first Axiom Module (lower right, with body-mounted solar panels) to join the International Space Station (rendering by Axiom).

Founded by CEO and President Michael T. Suffredini, former manager of the International Space Station for 10 years and instrumental in the ISSs development, Axiom is developing thefirst private version of an ISS, which will become extremely important when the ISS is retired in the next few years.

Axioms plan is to attach the basis of the new station to the old ISS, making it independent when the original station is decommissioned. Once operating, the station will host 60-day-long astronautical missions, 7-to-10-day space tourist trips, on-orbit research and manufacturing (microgravity is ideal for production of bacteria for example, according to startup SpacePharma), and exploration systems testing with eyes on customers like Moon Express or SpaceX, which are considering plans for manned missions to the surfaces of the Moon and Mars.

Axiom Space concept for private ISS (rendering by Axiom)

It sports a stacked team with BizDev run by space shuttle mission specialist Michael Lopez-Alegria, Intuitive Machines CEO and Deputy Director of NASA Johnson Space Center Stephen Altemus, and Space Angels Network Managing DirectorAmir Blachman running strategic development.

Axioms missions are tentatively scheduled to begin by 2019.

Screenshot of the Space Nation app against a backdrop of an astronaut (courtesy)

Launching a contest to go on a space vacation is the stuff of Total Recall, but the first true iteration of it is coming out of Finland this year. The effort is backed by a consortium of companies that includes the aforementioned Axiom Space. Equal partners include space media company Cohu Experience, new Space and education company Edge of Space, and Finnish education company Fun Academy.

Theyear-plus-long contest to recruit a new astronaut is itself a long-term test of brains, brawn and fortitude that begins with the release of a free-to-download app in the fall of 2017. After several months of open competition with brain games and challenges through the app, 130 semi-finalists will be invited for a two-week intensive course at a yet-to-be-chosen location. After that, 12 finalists will face off in a three-month-long battle to win the worlds first astronautical prize. The trip wont be a vacation, as the winner be he or she a scientist or not will be trained to do experiments aboard the International Space Station. From there, one would presume the world is the winners oyster and a budding number of career opportunities will come their way.

Kalle Vh-Jaakkola, CEO of the Cohu Experience and Space Nation. Photo credit: Courtesy

Back in the 90s I began to wonder, Why arent we on Mars? Why arent we back to the Moon? Cohu Experience Founder and CEOKalle Vh-Jaakkola told Geektime recently. The golden age of startups has spurred his childhood dreams and an opportunity for a yet-to-be-found rookie astronaut. We wouldnt have founded this company and this venture, without this empowerment and all that entrepreneurial movement that anything is possible.

DSI is the only team on this list that is dead set on mining asteroids. Asteroid composition varies for a number of reasons and contain untold quantities of chemical and metallic resources from sulfur to gold. They are planning to reach so-called Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) before daring to venture further out to the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The company explains many NEAs are smaller in mass, meaning their gravity will not be an obstacle to reaching the rocks and extracting resources.

Of course like any mining operation there will be a timeline. Probes would have to conduct prospecting, then harvest ore and process it. Thats without the task of returning the extracted material to Earth.Those initial prospecting missions are supposed to start soon with the launch of small probes like the Prospector-X, which will be tested in LEO with the co-sponsorship of the government of Luxembourg. Following what they hope are successful tests, a suped-up probe called Prospector-1 will be deployed to an NEA.

Prospector-X, a joint project with Luxembourg (DSI)

DSI is developing Prospector-1 both for its own asteroid mining ambitions, as well as to bring an extremely low-cost, yet high-performance exploration capability to the market,Grant Bonin, chief engineer at Deep Space Industries, explains on the company website.We hope to enable both existing and new public and private organizations to explore the inner solar system using this affordable platform.

But the most innovative idea here might not be in plans to dig up gold, platinum, or perhaps Rare Earth metals like lithium. They are targeting water-and-ice-rich asteroids first, which they claim will be in abundance among NEAs. The reason is simple: water will be the engine propellant the probes will use, thus initial missions will also save precious mass by refueling via its resource-extraction tests.

Concept of Deep Space Industries asteroid capture plan (DSI)

That plan resolves issues of feasibility. If their probes can successfully collect a resource and deploy it on the same trip, that would lend credence to ideas of using similar concepts with liquid methane lakes on the surface of Saturns moon Titan or processing metals on site to construct replacement pieces for on-board computer hardware. Its a robotic and engineering challenge that could pay bigger dividends for DSI than even the resources themselves.

Bigelow Aerospace is one of the companies making strides building portable habitats for astronauts. Their first model, BEAM, was successfully attached to the International Space Station in spring 2016. The inflatable room was put together in seven hours by NASA astronaut Jeff Williams. At 13 feet long and 10.5 feet wide (4 x 3.2 meters), its definitely small, but this is just the companys first deployment since receiving a $17.8 million contract from NASA back in 2013 to design and deploy an inflatable habitat.

It sounds sort of like popcorn in a frying pan starts up, Williams said at the time, reflecting the immediate effect pumped air had in the vacuum of space when BEAM was deployed.The goal is ultimately to extend these sorts of dwellings to locations beyond the ISS with the surfaces of the Moon and Mars first and foremost in the minds of the companys executives and engineers.

Expandable habitats significantly decrease the amount of transport volume for future space missions, said NASAs BEAM project manager, Rajib Dasgupta, said last year. These expandables take up less room on a rocket, but once set up, provide greater volume for living and working. After thorough testing, we believe crews traveling to the Moon, Mars, asteroids or other destinations could use them as habitable structures or as labs or work areas.

Creating a puncture-proof habitat would be critical for emergencies. Presumably, a long-term surface habitat would not be made only of inflatables, but these would serve astronauts in the field exploring Mars away from home base or as temporary fixes for fully-fledged and more complex astronaut homes in the future.

Founded by Paul G. Allen in 2011, Vulcans subsidiary Stratolaunch Systems has been pushing for a more flexible and more cost-effective model for orbital launches that relies on using specially-designed high-atmospheric planes to deploy small payloads into low-Earth orbit (LEO). Deploying payloads by plane in theory will grant a lot of flexibility in terms of launch location and launch windows.

Without getting specific about the materials used to design their plane, Vulcan has commissioned Scaled Composites to build it. It will be 238 feet long and have a wing span of 385 feet, propelled by 6X Pratt & Whitney PW4056 engines with a maximum takeoff weight of 1.3 million pounds.

The stratolaunch plane design (Vulcan Aerospace)

They also reached a multi-year agreement in October 2016 with public aerospace and defense company Orbital ATK to use the latters Pegasus XL air-launch vehicles attached to Vulcans space-ward planes.

Orbital ATK President Scott Lehrsaid at the time, The combination of our extensive air-launch experience and the Stratolaunch aircraft has the potential to provide innovative and cost-effective options for commercial launch customers.

Vulcan stratospheric launches concept (Vulcan)

Their investment arm Vulcan Capital also took part in a $20 million Series B funding round for Spaceflight Industries back in March 2015.

While their concept is not new, it remains more logistically familiar than using rockets. Rocket reusability is also a novel and still unperfected concept. The durability and multi-usability of planes makes this an attractive option.

Named after the Greek goddess of pain, Odyne is trying to make it cheaper to get nanosatellites into space by continuously working on more efficient rockets for smaller amounts of cargo. They certainly have the minds to meet needs for mettle. The company was founded by mechanical engineer and systems architect Eric Ward of MIT, who is also a co-founder of the MIT New Space Age Conference.

He will work in tandem with embedded systems expert and entrepreneur Andrew Greenberg, whose other companies have dealt with medical devices. Hes also the founder of the Portland State Aerospace Society (PSAS), whose acronym must be an allusion to the pizzazz the two hope to bring to the industrial space ecosystem.

Space is Hard, but we wont make it harder. We consider ourselves Rocket Engineers not Rocket Scientists, Odynes website explains. Humans have been launching liquid-fueled rockets for almost a century, and the foundational science has already been done. We combine this science and knowledge into simple, effective and reliable rockets, to launch micro- and nano-satellites to orbit.

Theyre advised by Accion Systems Co-Founder and CEO Natalya Brikner as well as MIT School of Management lecturer Shari Loessberg.

The more the merrier when it comes to new rocket concepts. The talent behind this project is what gets it on the list, as there has been no proof of concept or even a design provided yet by Odyne. Ward is a prime example of the new kind of entrepreneur hitting the skies, as seen in this feature by Fast Company.

An American-Kiwi company, Rocket Labis the brainchild of New Zealander Peter Beck and just recently sent its Electron rocket for testing in February 2017 to its own launching station. Theyve developed their own engine, the4,600lbf (pound force inch), turbo-pumped LOX/RP-1 Rutherford. Their first rocket, dubbed somewhat lazily Its a Test, should get the all-clear to go to space later in 2017.

Its an important milestone for our team and for the space industry, Beck said about the final pre-launch testing. In the past, its been countries that go to space, not companies. Through the innovative use of new technologies our team has created a launch vehicle designed for manufacture at scale. Our ultimate goal is to change our ability to access space.

Theyve raised an undisclosed amount of investments from Bessemer Venture Partners, K1W1, Khosla Ventures and even Lockheed Martin. Where those investors are excited is the service of selling the rockets themselves, which were projected back in 2015 to have an eventual price tag of a mere $4.9 million each. Thats about a tenth the price of a SpaceX Falcon 9. Their limit comes in the lighter payload.

You can infer that they have raised in the tens of millions of dollars at least, since New Zealands government will provide up to $5 million in matching investments for R&D with hi-tech businesses through theCallaghan Innovation Growth Grants program that Rocket Lab benefited from in 2014.

Ixion concept attached to the ISS (bottom) (image via Ixion Initiative)

Not to be confused with the design-similar Axiom, Ixion is another joint effort making the list and yet another new venture that has already secured a deal with NASA. Backed by NanoRacks, Space SystemsLoral (SSL) and the United Launch Alliance, Ixion will endeavor to figure out the best way to convert the upper stages of rockets into long-term habitats. That would circumvent the issue of throwing a habitat into a cargo hold or building one from scratch using 3D-printing-like machines on the surface of the Moon or Mars.

Ixion will enter theNext Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships-2 (NextSTEP-2) program and start by testing their projects in LEO. They will try to demonstrate its proof of concept by converting a Centaur rockets upper stage, then attaching it to the International Space Station. Like Bigelow, they have their eyes set on the surfaces of not-so-distant moons and the rest of the Suns planets.

Our plan is to dramatically lower the proposed costs for habitats to allow for the largest customer base, both commercial and government, says NanoRacks CEOJeffrey Manber. With Loral and NanoRacks working together, we have the knowledge base to assure a solid commercial use of tomorrows habitats via re-purposed ULA Centaur platforms.

The ISS will support three of the companies on this list in the near future, illustrating how important Axioms private space station project will be for future habitability tests and support. Expect more companies to enter that fray eventually as it becomes one the one hand more feasible to build alternative private space stations and more experts from agencies like NASA with ISS experience enter the business world.

a href=http://www.fireflyspace.com>Firefly wants to make space launches ubiquitous, and they see that happening through their proprietary light rocket design. Theyre looking to capitalize on projected, meteoric growth in the small satellites industry that has seen companies like Planet launch massive (88-strong) constellations as recently as February 2017. That launch included other projects though from small nanosat companies and even universities. With demand expected to grow and payloads regularly hosting more than 100 nanosatellites at a time, there will be a race to provide fast and efficient service. This rocket is thin. Stage 1 (the bottom part) is only 6 feet in diameter while Stage 2 (the top part) is 5 feet in diameter.

It can hold a 200 kg payload and uses an aerospike booster, which the company says is more efficient across the range of pressures in rocket flight than traditional bell nozzles.They recently announced $300 million worth of preliminary orders (which they refer to as letters of intent/LOI) from prospective customers that would fill their launch schedule through 2021.

That would include 42 launches, with another 35 launches worth $280 million anticipated between 2022 and 2025.With a NASA deal in hand, expect their first NASA launch to take place in March 2018.

The rest is here:

Forget SpaceX: 10 companies that will change space travel in 2017 & 2018 - Geektime

SpaceXs Dragon was launched on 19 February to resupply the International Space Station (ISS). Part of the events significance is that the launch site used was the same one that sent Neil Armstrong to the moon, having been leased to SpaceX by Nasa. This instance symbolises an increasing move towards the privatisation of space exploration; for Nasa this launch exemplified an ongoing transition towards greater reliance on the private sector for low Earth orbit travels. Currently several private companies hold contracts to transport supplies, and sometimes even astronauts, to the ISS.

While advancements in manned space exploration have arguably been stagnant since the Cold War space race, the push for further discoveries is considered paramount for a number of reasons. The next logical step for many is putting man on Mars. It is the closest planet to Earth with a rocky surface and in whose distant past has supported many of the pre-requisites for carbon-based life, thus it is most suited for investigation and possibly, in the far future, even colonisation.

Beyond the dreams of science fiction which imagine a resource boon and terraforming transformation, human exploration of Mars could yield results unknown and unquantifiable, and teach us about the origins of life in our solar system. Yet travel to the red planet and further manned space exploration could also be beneficial in the here and now. The 1969 moon landing inspired and excited a generation of scientists and engineers, a generation that went on to develop personal computing, mobile phones and many other technologies we use on a daily basis. Is it reasonable to suppose that a welcome by-product of sending humans to Mars will create millions of new scientists, industries and challenges upon which our civilisation can thrive?

Many in the field consider privately-financed exploration to be the future.Despite the existence of state plans for moon and Mars missions in the coming years, such programmes have a poor track record of completion.

The Bush Sr. administration programme, the 2004 Constellation programme, and Obamas plans for Mars missions are just a few examples of state-sponsored programmes that were not given adequate funding and were eventually cancelled. With administrations changing every four to eight years, it is far from certain that any long-term plans can be realised, which can go some way to explain Nasas stagnation since 1973.

Today space travel is often criticised for the huge sums of money required, despite it utilising less than one per cent of the US federal budget. Nasa currently pays Roscosmos State Corporation, who own the only craft capable of carrying humans to space, at a cost of $82 million per seat. The private sectors streamlining of such costs means that alternatively, seats on SpaceX or Boeing rockets would cost considerably less at $58 million and launches at $50 million, this compared to the $4 billion currently spent by the US each year.

Some argue that extra-governmental exploration facilitates international cooperation and progress, and that commercialisation causes greater competition for innovation, leading to faster development. Since Nasa opened its doors to the private sector over 13 years ago, it is hard to argue that there have not been some amazing advancements. Private outsourcing seems to be the current trajectory, and we can only hope that this signals the opening of new volumes in human history.

Image: Pixabay

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Crowding the cosmos: space travel turns private - The Student

FSU Dean of the College of Human Sciences and Professor Michael Delp

NASA-Funded Project to Examine Vision, Cardiovascular Problems

A Florida State University researcher will lead a joint U.S.-Russia project that will examine the effect of space travel on astronauts vision, an ongoing problem that NASA has been eager to solve.

The issue of vision impairment is very important to NASA, said Michael Delp, dean of the College Human Sciences and the lead investigator on the project. When astronauts go into space, they lose bone density and muscle mass, but thats mostly preventable or recoverable. The vision may not be, and not everyone is willing to risk their sight.

The work will be funded by a $750,000 grant from NASA.

In recent years, NASA has spearheaded research into vision problems experienced by astronauts returning from space. On shorter trips, astronauts have often experienced minor vision changes that eventually self-corrected. But longer trips to space have caused more structural changes to the eye that have permanently altered astronauts ability to see.

Delp and colleagues at the Russian Academy of Sciences previously collaborated on a study that found space travel may diminish the bodys ability to regulate blood flowing to the brain, which could contribute to temporary or permanent changes in vision for astronauts.

For this study, researchers will send male mice into space on a SpaceX rocket in August 2017. The mice will live at the International Space Station for 30 days and then return to Earth to be recovered by the U.S. Navy off the California coast.

Scientists will then examine changes to the lymphatic and vascular functions to see how that may affect vision.

Were looking at cerebral arteries, cerebral veins and the lymphatics that drain the brain to see if vascular function in any of those areas are changed with micro gravity, Delp said. Were also looking at the blood brain barrier. So if the vessels become leaky and allow fluid out into the brain, that might be another reason were seeing vision problems in astronauts.

Delps research has been funded by NASA for several decades. Prior to becoming dean of the College of Human Sciences in 2013, he worked as a professor at the University of Florida, West Virginia University and Texas A&M University. He received his doctoral degree from University of Georgia.

The grant will fund three graduate students and one postdoctoral researcher at Florida State University, as well as scientists and graduate students from Texas A&M University.

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FSU researcher to lead US-Russia project on health, space travel - Florida State News

NASAs fingerprints were all over the Academy Awards, with key members of the associations history gaining particular recognition.

Amid a troubling political landscape, and the controversial execution of the Best Picture prizeat last nights Academy Awards (26 February), NASAs high achievers received some serious recognition at the event.

NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson, one of the many women that helped to drive the space race in the 1950s-60s and inspire the blockbuster movie Hidden Figures, took to the stage and received a standing ovation for her achievements.

Although the movie failed to take the top prize, Johnsons appearance on stage was something that NASA was particularly proud of.

Movies about the lives of men and women in the history books have long been a staple of storytellers. Sometimes, the names and deeds are the heroes, and their names are known to all, said actress JanelleMone.

Co-star Taraji P Henson, who played Johnson in Hidden Figures, added: We were honoured to be in an inspiring film about three such women.

Johnson, now 98, was escorted onto the stage by NASA astronaut Yvonne Cagle, before thanking everyone in attendance.

A physicist, space scientist and mathematician, Johnson was integral to early crewed space flight. She carried out the calculations for Alan Shepards flight (which made him the first American in space). She also verified the calculations made by an electronic computer for John Glenns orbit at Glenns request and for Apollo 11s trajectory to the moon.

In 2016, NASA named a building at the Langley Research Center after Johnson, who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2014.

Elsewhere, engineer and astronaut Anousheh Ansari who self-funded her way to becoming the first ever Iranian in space and former NASA scientist Firouz Naderi accepted the Best Foreign Language Film award for The Salesman on behalf of director Asghar Farhadi.

Farhadi chose notto attend the event after US president Donald Trumps move to bar Iranian visa-holders from entering the US.

Oscar figurines. Image: 360b/Shutterstock

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Stars align for space travel at memorable Oscars ceremony - Siliconrepublic.com

Launching things into space is expensive really expensive. A rocket costs more than a commercial jet. But unlike jets that make thousands of trips before being retired, rockets are used only once because of the extreme stress and temperatures involved in leaving and re-entering the atmosphere.

SpaceX wants to change that. Founder Elon Musk believes that reusable rockets will eliminate the prohibitive cost of space travel and allow space travel to become commonplace.

Most modern rockets are multi-stage, built of multiple parts that each have their own engines and fuel. When each stage runs out of fuel, it falls back to Earth, and the next stage begins burning its propellant. The lighter mass makes it easier to accelerate the payload to escape velocity. This system works well for getting things into space, but isnt very efficient or cost-effective. The jettisoned rocket stages essentially become trash, cluttering Earths orbit or polluting its oceans. New rockets are then constructed for tens of millions of dollars.

SpaceXs rockets dont operate this way. After separating from the payload, instead of falling back to Earth, the first stage rocket decelerates itself with bursts of fuel and uses fins to steer onto a landing platform. When reusable rockets become commonplace and are more widely adopted, according to Musk, these landing platforms will be autonomous pods floating in the ocean. The first successful landing of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was in December 2015. However, the first successful rocket water landing was in April 2016. This week, a Falcon rocket was the first private rocket to launch from the historic NASA launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The idea behind reusable rockets seems simple enough, so why is this concept just now being tested? Traditional launch systems are designed to maximize performance and reliability. Government designers and engineers prioritize the safe completion of the intended mission on the first try over sustainability or efficiency. As former NASA administrator Alan Stern explains, [The Department of Defense] doesnt care whether it costs $100 million or $300 million ... what they want is a guarantee its going to work. And these systems do work. The Atlas V launch vehicle, sometimes called the worlds most reliable rocket, uses a different type of rocket for each stage, with up to three different kinds of propellant. This made the rockets extremely powerful and precise, but largely expensive to manufacture and fuel.

The Falcon rocket is designed to minimize cost a liberty SpaceX can take as a private company. All its engines are the same kind, running on liquid oxygen and RP1, a fuel made from refined kerosene.

The Falcons two stages are the same diameter and made from an aluminum-lithium alloy. The use of the same material for each stage reduces manufacturing costs. SpaceX also keeps costs down by manufacturing its own engines in-house. The Merlin engines designed for the Falcon use a needle-like device called a pintle to inject propellant to the combustion chamber.

According to Tom Mueller, SpaceX propulsion chief, its cheaper than typical rocket engines, which use a spray instead, and also less likely to cause explosions or other combustion-related accidents. The company also developed its own reusable, cost-effective heat shield technology, PICA-X, with help from NASA.

PICA-X, Merlin engines, and every other component of the Falcon rockets are designed to be as durable as possible to withstand reuse for trips back to Earth, journeys to the moon, and travel beyond. Musks ultimate goal is to use his rockets to settle humans on Mars by 2030. This will only be a possibility with quick innovation.

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SpaceX's reusable rockets make space travel much cheaper - The ... - CMU The Tartan Online

Space lovers around the country should start marking their calendars now in preparation for the 50th anniversary of the 1969 moon landing, because they might have the opportunity to see artifacts from the historic Apollo 11 mission at a city museum near them.

The Smithsonian Institution announced on Wednesday that it will send its Apollo 11 Columbia command module, normally housed in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., on a four-city tour in December as part of its new Destination Moon: The Apollo 11 Mission traveling exhibition.

Scheduled to culminate in Seattle, Wash., in 2019, the exhibit will celebrate the historical significance and technological achievement of the Apollo 11 mission while prompting visitors to also contemplate the future of space exploration.

The Apollo programis one of the greatest American achievements, Smithsonian Secretary David J. Skorton told a crowd of press and staff gathered in the restoration hanger at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly. When Apollo 11 landed on the moon and humans first stepped on another celestial body, it changed the way we saw ourselves.

The Columbia command module and the other objects featured in Destination Moon will first go to Space Center Houston in Texas, on Dec. 14. The exhibition will then move to the St. Louis Science Center in Missouri in April 2018 before going to Pittsburgh, Pa., where it will be housed at the Senator John Heinz History Center.

The exhibition will make its final stop in March 2019 at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, where it will be for the Apollo 11 missions 50th anniversary in July of that year.

Because the command module and other artifacts need to be in a well-regulated environment for conservation purposes, technical requirements, such as room temperature and security measures, as well as the amount of available space dictated which cities would get the exhibition, according to Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) director Myriam Springuel.

SITES has been organizing traveling tours for Smithsonian collections since 1952 and was responsible for arranging Destination Moon.

In addition to ensuring that they would be able to accommodate the exhibition, Springuel and her team wanted to focus on the 215 Smithsonian affiliate museums around the country.

According to its website, the Smithsonian works with affiliate organizations in more than 45 states to share exhibits and collections, collaborate on research projects, and develop educational strategies.

It really meant that we were looking at some of our leading science centers and history museums across the country, Springuel said of selecting the museums that would get the Apollo exhibition.

Houston stood out as a fitting location to launch the tour, since it is home to the Johnson Space Center, where the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) trains astronauts and conducts flight control.

For the exhibitions conclusion, SITES chose a city that Springuel calls the home of space exploration today.

Seattle has emerged as a hub for the commercial space industry, boasting the headquarters of companies like Blue Origin and SpaceX, and the city hosted the first-ever NewSpace conference in June 2016 to highlight the role of aerospace technology in the regions economy.

Its a huge honor for us, and weve been partners with the Smithsonian for a long time, so we really appreciate them deciding that, Museum of Flight president and CEO Douglas King said. Its an incredible historic opportunity to share with people who werent alive what was probably one of the great events [of the 20th century].

Launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida on July 16, 1969, the Apollo 11 spacecraft transported astronauts Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Edwin Buzz Aldrin on a journey to the moon that lasted a total of eight days and traversed nearly 1 million miles.

The astronauts landed on the moon on July 20, 1969, and an estimated 530 million people watched Armstrong become the first person to stand on the lunar surface, according to NASAs website.

Vaguely resembling a rusty lamp shade, the Columbia command module weighs 13,000 pounds, including its display mount. The capsule that served as the astronauts living quarters is more than 10 feet tall and 13 feet in diameter.

In addition to seeing the module itself unobscured by the plastic that normally encloses it at the National Air and Space Museum, attendees of the Destination Moon exhibit will be able to explore an interactive, three-dimensional model of the Columbia that offers a closer look at its cockpit.

The exhibition will also feature Aldrins helmet and the gloves he wore during the first moon walk, a box that contained the first lunar rock samples ever collected, an ejector plate from one of Apollo 11s engines, and medical and survival kits that were onboard the spacecraft.

National Air and Space Museum senior curator Michael Neufeld was responsible for creating the text that will accompany the exhibits artifacts. He included a timeline of NASAs space program, including the original Mercury and Gemini missions, as well as background on the Cold War and the space race between the U.S. and Soviet Union.

My co-curator [Alan] Needell and I felt it was necessary to set up the context for why America went to the moon in the first place, Neufeld said.

After the traveling tour concludes in September 2019, the Columbia and the other artifacts will return to the National Air and Space Museum for a permanent Destination Moon gallery scheduled to open in 2020.

Smithsonian staff have been organizing that permanent exhibit since 2010, but they decided to launch a traveling exhibition first when they realized that the permanent version would not be ready in time for the Apollo 11 missions 50th anniversary.

While the region will not be involved in the traveling exhibition, residents and visitors in the Washington, D.C., area can instead get a behind-the-scenes look at the conservation work that goes into maintaining the Air and Space Museums collections.

The restoration hanger at the Udvar-Hazy Center, normally closed off to the public, will have an open house on Mar. 4 from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., allowing visitors to meet conservation staff and see some of the objects that will be in the Destination Moon exhibition.

Apollo fundamentally has the appeal that this is a great American accomplishment, Neufeld said. [But] space in general has been a subject associated with the futureIt remains fascinating to a large number of people, and theyre still looking for us to keep going into space and doing something new.

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The history of space travel encapsulated - Fairfaxtimes.com