Daily Archives: August 25, 2017

Transforming science fiction to reality, UC Santa Barbara physics professor Philip Lubin is creating a laser-cannon system to propel miniature spaceships with solar sails more than 25 trillion miles to the suns nearest star Proxima Centuari.

Loaded with cameras, other sensors, historical records of humanity, greetings from Earth and possibly human DNA, the smartphone-sized crafts, or interstellar arks, would be thrust on an historic journey that would take about 20 years a blink of an eye in space travel.

People understood roughly 100 years ago that it was possible using then- technology to send a human to the moon and return them, Lubin said, noting that one challenge was scaling down equipment. If you look at the popular literature at that time, the idea was treated as science fiction, like Flash Gordon.

Lubins ambitious vision is showcased in Laser-Sailing Starships, one of eight new books in the Out of this World Series (World Book, 2017). Targeted to middle- school students, the books focus on research fellows involved in the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program. NASAs aim is to foster the next generation of scientific talent.

The great part about the whole series is that it doesnt talk down to kids, but addresses the science head-on, said Jason Derleth, the program executive for NASA, which helps fund Lubins research.

In 2009, Lubin began examining how to use directed energy a phased laser array to deflect asteroids bound for Earth. But there was limited outside interest in the UCSB research, he said, because the planet doesnt get hit often.

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Bold Space Travel - Santa Barbara Edhat

A strain of yeast that can recycle urine and carbon dioxide into omega-3 fatty acids and polymers has been developed by US scientists, who say it could help astronauts turn waste products into food on long interplanetary journeys.

Biomolecular engineer Mark Blenner from Clemson University in South Carolina presented the work at the 254th American Chemical Society National Meeting and Exposition in Washington, DC, as part of a broader session on getting people to Mars.

Our yeast not only grow on human urine, they actually prefer it to other nitrogen sources

Mark Blenner, Clemson University

Blenners research focuses on the yeast species Yarrowia lipolytica whose cells naturally produce and accumulate omega-3 fatty acids. He says that these products could be used as nutritional supplements for astronauts, as theyve been implicated in preventing bone loss and maintaining cardiovascular and ocular health, but dont have a long enough shelf life for adequate supplies to be brought from Earth. His group showed that the yeast could grow using human urine as a source of nitrogen, something that there would be a plentiful supply of on manned space missions.

Our yeast not only grow on human urine, they actually prefer it to other nitrogen sources, Brenner says. His group have also used synthetic biology to engineer a strain of the same yeast to produce polyhydroxyalkanoates, which shows they have the potential to manufacture polymer inks that could be used to fabricate objects in a 3D printer. In particular, he said this could be very useful in situations where an astronaut has lost a tool or a piece of equipment that they need.

Blenner admits they dont currently know how the biology would react to being in space. But in the meantime there are several more terrestrial applications they can explore, such as producing omega-3 supplements for fish farms and making other speciality chemicals. He says the next stepis for his team to demonstrate that they can get usable quantities of both the polyestersand the omega-3 fatty acids from these astronaut waste stream. We are going to be doing genetic engineering to the cell to really try and force it to make the products that we want, by knocking out certain pathways that might syphon off intermediates, Blenner explains. The team is also still at the early stages of characterising how the yeast go about taking up a lot of these waste substrates. We havent really done a full analysis yet of whats left over to try and see if there is any way to get the yeast to use some of the leftovers, he says.

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Space travel microbes turn urine into polymers - Chemistry World (subscription)

Elon Musk teased space travel fanatics with the first photo of the SpaceXs spacesuit today. On Instagram, the CEO of SpaceX claimed that the minimalist white prototype actually works and had already been tested under near vacuum.

Musk notes that the design team wrestled with balancing [a]esthetics and function. Eschewing bulky, formless space suit designs, the commercial spaceflight companys formfitting suit appears to follow the athleisure for space trend that Boeing introduced earlier this year.

On pressurized spacecraft, passengers dont need spacesuits all the time. But as Tim Fernholz writes, pressurized suits are a mandatory safety precaution in national space programs.

Experience has led space programs to conclude that a pressure suit is worth the weight, cost and discomfort. Soviet astronauts flew without pressure suitsthey wanted to project an image of this being a ride on a bus, Nicholas de Monchaux saysbut when an oxygen valve failed on a Soyuz craft returning to earth in 1971, it depressurized 100 miles above the ground. The recovery crew found the three cosmonauts onboard dead from asphyxiation. Now, all Soyuz crew members wear suits when they fly.

US astronauts on the space shuttle likewise went into space in shirtsleeve comfort, in the words of one NASA hand-out, until the commission formed to investigate the Challenger explosion in 1986 demanded more robust efforts to protect them. Pressure suits became mandatory, and the iconic pumpkin suitor the Advanced Crew Escape Suit (ACES)was developed. ()

On the International Space Station itself, most of the time is spent in shirtsleeves. Yet pressure suits still come in handy in times of dangersuch as the potential ammonia leak that recently led some of the astronauts to briefly evacuate their compartment, until a sensor failure was blamed. You dont wear an oxygen mask or life vest on a jetliner, but you still want to know theyre there if you need them.

SpaceX is planning a maiden voyage to the moon for its first two paying customers by next year. It is also redesigning its private spacecraft Dragon to carry humans in addition to cargo.

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Elon Musk is teasing space travel fanatics with a photo of SpaceX's first working spacesuit - Quartz

This week, Elon Musk dragged space fashion into the 21st century with the newly revealed SpaceX spacesuit . But can he do the same for space tourism?

The allure of space travel is deeply embedded in our psyche. Jules Vernes 1865 novel From Earth to the Moon captured some of this drive. But it was JFKs 1961 Moon Shot speech, and the space programs that followed, that encouraged ordinary people to imagine they might one day be able to travel beyond the Earth.

That possibility came closer in 2004 when Burt Rutans SpaceShip One became the first private vessel to carry its three pilots into suborbital flight. Since then, a handful of companies have been pushing hard to kickstart the future of space tourism.

$250,000 will secure you a seat on Sir Richard Bransons Virgin Galactic, even though the company has yet to make its maiden passenger voyage. And Jeff Bezos is also gearing up to give budding space tourists a similar experience with Blue Origins Space Capsule.

Both Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic are promising a few minutes of weightlessness and stunning views of the Earth from spacealbeit at the cost of a second mortgage. But these are little more than titillating carnival rides compared to true space travel.

For this, aspiring space tourists need to look to SpaceX. In February, Musk announced plans to fly two paying passengers around the moon in 2018. This is still the equivalent of a stroll down the street given the vastness of the solar system. But unlike the toe-dipping experiences promised by Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin, its more likely to capture the full space experience.

And that includes the risks.

If theres one thing weve learned in recent decades, its that space is dangerous. For space tourism to come close to succeeding, companies offering trips beyond the Earths atmosphere are going to have to grapple with a complex and shifting risk landscape.

Space travel encapsulates a remarkable frisson between risk and safety. For many people, the anticipated experience of being in space seems to far outweigh perceived personal risksjust look at the number of people willing to risk their lives on a one-way trip to Mars!

Yet irrespective of what individuals are willing to accept, the possibility of civilian injuries and deaths present a major challenge to the future of space tourism. Expect to see crippling insurance premiums, cold-footed investors, and the specter of regulations that potentially suck the lifeblood out of a fragile industry. But also expect public backlashes against seemingly reckless private ventures that potentially leave deep public scars if they fail.

These and similar risks dont spell the death of space tourism by any stretch of the imagination. But success will depend on weaving a subtle course through new risk territory. Of course, itll mean ensuring that passengers are adequately protected in the event of system failures, and that theyre kept as safe as possible without restricting the experience theyve paid for. But it will also mean granting companies the social and legal license to operate.

And trivial as it may seem, a well-designed spacesuit taps in to all of these. Naturally, you cant succeed in space tourism simply by creating a sexy spacesuit. But you can do a lot with a suit thats functional, desirable, and iconic. And you can excel with one that makes the complete experience worthwhilenot only for the wearer, but for the rest of us who are vicariously experiencing this new adventure from a distance, and everything it promises for the future.

This is a tall order. But maybe Musks sleek new spacesuit will bring us a step closer toward a viable and vibrant future of space tourism.

Andrew Maynard is a professor in the Arizona State University (ASU) School for the Future of Innovation in Society, and director of the ASU Risk Innovation Lab.

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Elon Musk's Sexy Spacesuit Is One Giant Leap for Space Tourism - Fortune

Imagine you're on your way to Mars, and you lose a crucial tool during a spacewalk. Not to worry, you'll simply re-enter your spacecraft and use some microorganisms to convert your urine and exhaled carbon dioxide (CO2) into chemicals to make a new one. That's one of the ultimate goals of scientists who are developing ways to make long space trips feasible.

The researchers are presenting their results this week at the 254th National Meeting and Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS). ACS, the world's largest scientific society, is holding the meeting here through Thursday. It features nearly 9,400 presentations on a wide range of science topics.

Astronauts can't take a lot of spare parts into space because every extra ounce adds to the cost of fuel needed to escape Earth's gravity. "If astronauts are going to make journeys that span several years, we'll need to find a way to reuse and recycle everything they bring with them," Mark A. Blenner, Ph.D., says. "Atom economy will become really important."

The solution lies in part with the astronauts themselves, who will constantly generate waste from breathing, eating and using materials. Unlike their friends on Earth, Blenner says, these spacefarers won't want to throw any waste molecules away. So he and his team are studying how to repurpose these molecules and convert them into products the astronauts need, such as polyesters and nutrients.

Some essential nutrients, such as omega-3 fatty acids, have a shelf life of just a couple of years, says Blenner, who is at Clemson University. They'll need to be made en route, beginning a few years after launch, or at the destination.

"Having a biological system that astronauts can awaken from a dormant state to start producing what they need, when they need it, is the motivation for our project," he says.

Blenner's biological system includes a variety of strains of the yeast Yarrowia lipolytica. These organisms require both nitrogen and carbon to grow. Blenner's team discovered that the yeast can obtain their nitrogen from urea in untreated urine.

Meanwhile, the yeast obtain their carbon from CO2, which could come from astronauts' exhaled breath, or from the Martian atmosphere. But to use CO2, the yeast require a middleman to "fix" the carbon into a form they can ingest. For this purpose, the yeast rely on photosynthetic cyanobacteria or algae provided by the researchers.

One of the yeast strains produces omega-3 fatty acids, which contribute to heart, eye and brain health. Another strain has been engineered to churn out monomers and link them to make polyester polymers.

Those polymers could then be used in a 3-D printer to generate new plastic parts. Blenner's team is continuing to engineer this yeast strain to produce a variety of monomers that can be polymerized into different types of polyesters with a range of properties.

For now, the engineered yeast strains can produce only small amounts of polyesters or nutrients, but the scientists are working on boosting output. They're also looking into applications here on Earth, in fish farming and human nutrition. For example, fish raised via aquaculture need to be given omega-3 fatty acid supplements, which could be produced by Blenner's yeast strains.

Although other research groups are also putting yeast to work, they aren't taking the same approach. For example, a team from DuPont is already using yeast to make omega-3 fatty acids for aquaculture, but its yeast feed on refined sugar instead of waste products, Blenner says. Meanwhile, two other teams are engineering yeast to make polyesters. However, unlike Blenner's group, they aren't engineering the organisms to optimize the type of polyester produced, he says.

Whatever their approach, these researchers are all adding to the body of knowledge about Y. lipolytica, which has been studied much less than, say, the yeast used in beer production.

"We're learning that Y. lipolytica is quite a bit different than other yeast in their genetics and biochemical nature," Blenner says. "Every new organism has some amount of quirkiness that you have to focus on and understand better."

A video on the research is available here

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Turning human waste into plastic, nutrients could aid long-distance space travel - Space Daily

BAE Systems

If you think getting knocked around in your backpack on the subway is tough on a computer, try going into space, where radiation and cosmic rays can cause sensitive computer equipment to degrade and fail.

Aerospace company BAE Systems has just announced a new computer it calls "radiation-hardened." According to the company, the new RAD5545 "provides next-generation spacecraft with the high-performance onboard processing capacity needed to support future space missions," and is faster and more power-efficient than its predecessor.

A single RAD5545 SBC replaces multiple cards on previous generations of spacecraft. It combines high performance, large amounts of memory, and fast throughput to improve spacecraft capability, efficiency, and mission performance. With its improved computational throughput, storage, and bandwidth, it will provide spacecraft with the ability to conduct new missions, including those requiring encryption processing, multiple operating systems, ultra high-resolution image processing, autonomous operation, and simultaneous support for multiple payloads missions that were impossible with previous single-board computers.

Because it's a single-card computer with all the components on one circuit board, it's smaller, with fewer parts to potentially fail, and it uses specially insulated components to protect against radiation. Long-term trips, such as to Mars, would especially require computer hardware that could stand up to the long-term rigors of space travel.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise meanwhile is trying a different approach to dealing with radiation. It's space-testing relatively ordinary computers with software to detect and correct radiation-induced computing errors.

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New radiation-hardened computers are ready to blast off on space missions - CNET