Daily Archives: October 14, 2020

Commercializing the International Space Station (ISS) could allow for testing components for future moon and Mars missions, and the orbiting platform could also be a pit stop on the way to the moon, according to a panel at the virtual International Astronautical Congress.

The IAC usually runs in-person at a different city every year, but its 2020 conference in Dubai was delayed by a year in favor of virtual sessions a necessary change due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. Participants in the ISS commercialization discussion Tuesday (Oct. 13) represented private space companies on three continents who have forged close relationships with NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

"The vastness of the microgravity environment provides a huge opportunity for us to do research, to manufacture items in orbit, and to allow our species to make a step off our home planet and live in other parts of the universe," said Axiom Space CEO Michael Suffredini, who was NASA's ISS program manager from 2005 to 2015.

Related: ISS at 20: Commercialization and its looming end of life

In January, NASA picked the Houston-based company Axiom Space to build at least one habitable private module that will attach to the ISS no earlier than the end of 2021. Suffredini said this module would be the first of several planned space rooms to eventually bridge the commercial users of the ISS to moving their operations to Axiom.

Axiom itself plans to have an independent commercial space station in low Earth orbit after the ISS's planned retirement in 2024. The ISS, however, could be extended to 2028 or beyond with the approval of the international partners.

"The [current] users of the ISS have a place to evolve to," Suffredini said of the Axiom module, adding it will be "critical for success" for other companies looking to make a business out of activities in low Earth orbit.

It is unclear what will happen to the ISS after the international consortium plans to retire the facility, which celebrates 20 years of continuous, long-duration human occupation this October. The vision right now is to deorbit the station, but some entities have talked about breaking off parts of it for smaller, commercially run space stations.

The ISS could also morph into a new role, which would be serving the Earth-to-moon missions that NASA hopes to start running in the near future, said Andreas Hammer, who leads the space exploration unit at Airbus Defence and Space in Bremen, Germany. (Airbus built the European Space Agency's Columbus ISS module, among other space activities.)

The Trump administration would like to see astronauts touch down again on the moon's surface in 2024 during the Artemis 3 mission, with the first orbital mission (Artemis 2) taking place in 2023 or 2024. NASA is seeking international support for these missions and Hammer said his company hopes these moon missions will indeed be part of a long-duration program, instead of just the short visits the Apollo program had in the 1960s and 1970s.

"The aim must be for humans, mankind, to stay longer there to build a kind of lunar ecosystem in the years to come, as a necessary bridgehead for the next step ... going in the direction of Mars," Hammer said.

Related: Trump administration urges more commercial activities in space

Having space to work on the ISS provides another advantage to companies, in that they can test out hardware and have it returned rather than launching it on a satellite and relying on only remote data. For example, Hammer added, companies can evaluate the effects of space radiation on equipment at the ISS by examining the hardware directly after it is brought back to Earth.

He urged using the facilities of the ISS to test systems ahead of jumping ahead to deeper-space destinations, to make sure items such as life support could stand up to months or years in space. Further, he advocated for shipping items from the ISS to the moon to lower costs of exploration. "I do believe that the moon is not possible without LEO [low Earth orbit]," he added.

Space agencies will need to deepen their relationships with commercial partners if the "new space" economy is to get going in earnest, but that is already starting to happen. NASA is already opening up the ISS to more commercial modules and soon, private astronauts. JAXA tasked the Japanese startup Space BD with satellite deployment, running an external platform and doing rideshare services, mostly basing its operations in space at the JAXA Kibo module.

"JAXA could have gone with a large company for these opportunities, but instead selected [us]," Space BD co-founder and CEO Masatoshi Nagasaki said. "We believe ... their priority was not just hiring a company, but rather a company's [strategic] direction. It facilitates JAXA's movement to opening space industrial demand with business-oriented design."

The participants did not address U.S. budgets or politics at all in the panel, but the activities of the next few months will be key to the future of the ISS. NASA is currently undergoing review for the Trump administration's 2021 fiscal budget request, which was put in before the pandemic altered the economy of the United States for the foreseeable future. The United States is also undergoing presidential elections, with officials expecting the ballot-box outcome in the next few weeks after mail-in ballots are counted along with in-person ballots and ballots cast from space.

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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How commercializing the International Space Station can help astronauts get to the moon and Mars - Space.com

Description: The accessibility of space allows for a number of scientific and technological innovations and exploration of planets and other universes. However, it also raises issues related to the ethical study of space that would allow for these innovations to occur. Such questions include: who owns space, how space ownership should be legally regulated, whether space should be privatized or commercialized, what technologies would aid in the study of space, and what international space collaboration might look like. This session provides early career researchers (ECRs) with an opportunity to describe their space policy work published in Journal of Science Policy & Governance (JSPG), interact with science policy professionals and lead fruitful discussions on space exploration, protection, technology, and collaboration.

Audiences:

Objectives:

Panelists:

Introduction:

Main panel moderator:

Panelists:

Breakout sessions:

Promotion:

JSPG is on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.

Tweet at JSPG: @SciPolJournal

See the article here:

Ethical study of space exploration and utilisation - SpaceNews

Lindy Elkins-Tanton is managing director and co-chair of the Arizona State University Interplanetary Initiative and principal investigator of NASAs Psyche mission, which is projected to launch in 2022 to explore a metal asteroid orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter. Before participating in a Zcalo/ASU Interplanetary Initiative event, Can Space Exploration Save Humanity?, she visited the virtual green room to talk about breaking barriers in space, why she appreciates the Guardians of the Galaxy series, and the questions she gets asked the most at dinner parties.

Q:

Speaking of which: Youre part of an all-women panel on space exploration. What do you think women bring to exploration?

A:

Im of the opinion that there are few fundamental differences between men and women behaviorally, neurologically; most of the differences we experience are socialized. What I really want is something where everyone who wants to participate can participate, and where every voice is heard, and where you rise on your merits. Exploration has been one of the most difficult areas for women to break into, partly because its been based so fundamentally on the idea of physical toughness and being in remote areas and being isolated as groups. And those are all areas where theres a huge bias against women being a successful part of the team. I think space exploration is one where we can break those barriers.

Q:

In a moment of interesting national debate, what space-related topics do you want to see in the national dialogue?

A:

Space gives us a way uniquely to imagine us as our better selvesto imagine humanity as it could be. Theres been almost no exploration on Earth that hasnt involved the annihilation of indigenous peoples or a completely profit motive. Weve had some pure exploration of the poles that was actually quite nationalistic and a hero model; it was all about making one person great.

The thing about space exploration is, it gives us the opportunity to be curious about something thats so far beyond us. It gets us out of our skins, to imagine ourselves as cooperative and imagine ourselves with a greater meaning to what were doing. And to avoid the personal emotional reaction thats causing so many problems around the world right now and look at something thats greater. Thats what space exploration really does for us.

Q:

You wear a lot of hatsat ASU, NASA, and an education start-up. Do you have any secrets to organizing your time that youd like to share?

A:

Developing a calmness about changing from one topic to the next. I need to pivot from one major issue to another major issue with no transition time, so cultivating a willingness to drop one thing and turn to another has been really helpful for my emotional stability. And only choosing topics or projects that I really, really care about.

Q:

Whats the question you get asked most often at cocktail and dinner partiespre-COVID of coursewhen people find out youre a planetary scientist and leading a NASA mission?

A:

Theres not really a single question. It seems theres two categories of reactions: One is, Thats really great, thats so interesting; I love thinking about the planets or aliens. And the other one is really a blank look, as if I said, Im a particle physicist.

More here:

Planetary Scientist Lindy Elkins-Tanton | In the Green Room | - zocalopublicsquare.org

Bruno has pitched the idea of a "strategic propellant reserve" to the National Space Council

WASHINGTON The idea that rocket propellants could be made from lunar ice is not new. But the U.S. government should now consider doing that at scale in order to stimulate the space economy and enable human life on the moon and Mars, said United Launch Alliance President and CEO Tory Bruno.

This is about having a self-sustaining cislunar economy, Bruno said Oct. 13 on a webinar organized by Beyond Earth Institute, a nonprofit focused on the public policy implications of living and working in space.

What would be the one thing that the government could do, the one big lever that it could pull to stimulate economic activity in cislunar space? The answer, we believe, is the establishment of a strategic propellant reserve, said Bruno.

ULAs economic models show that a government investment of about $20 billion in infrastructure could energize space activity to the tune of $3 trillion by 2050, Bruno said. That activity would include mining, transportation, manufacturing and space tourism.

The cost of transportation is a problem in developing a space economy so finding ways to produce fuel in space would be critical, he said.

Propellants could be made from the more than 20 billion metric tons of ice available on the moon, Bruno said. The great discovery of our time that has gone largely unheralded is the fact that water is nearly everywhere. This is literally millions of years of propellant. He said water could be easily converted into liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen which are used to propel rockets.

All we need is the infrastructure in place to mine the ice to convert it to propellant, and to distribute it to a transportation network that would exist in cislunar space, Bruno said.

ULA has pitched the idea to the National Space Councils users advisory council. Bruno said the group agreed to study it further.

Precious metals in space

In cislunar space between Earth and the moon, and on asteroids that are within easy reach of the moon there is tremendous wealth, an abundance that literally defies human imagination, said Bruno.

On these bodies there is more than 1,000 years worth of planet Earths annual production of industrial and precious metals such as gold, silver and platinum, he said. There is tremendous potential for economic wealth and economic activity just in the natural resources, let alone specialty manufacturing and things that we can only make practically in the environment of space.

Why havent these resources been tapped? Well, like any economic activity that occurs across great distances, its all about transportation, Bruno said. And transportation is all about the availability of energy.

The strategic propellant reserve that ULA is proposing is modeled after the strategic petroleum reserve set up by the U.S. government after the oil crisis of the 1970s. The strategic reserve has enough oil to sustain the U.S. economy for about 90 days. The propellant reserve should have enough to fuel space vehicles in cislunar space for two years, said Bruno, to prevent the risk of interrupting transportation to and from Mars.

As a provider of launch services, ULA would benefit from the economic development in cislunar space. But Bruno said the company has not yet committed to developing a heavier rocket for deep space exploration.

ULA has hinted it would consider building a three-stage Vulcan Heavy rocket, a much larger version of the single-core Vulcan Centaur that ULA is developing and expects to debut next year.

Bruno said he didnt know whether there would be a demand for a heavier Vulcan. Well develop whatever our customers need us to do, he said. A three-core vehicle is something that, if the marketplace asks of us, we know how to do it.

See more here:

ULA's Tory Bruno argues for US investments in the production of fuel in space - SpaceNews

Planetary researchers have mapped and characterized ancient sand dune fields in the canyons of Valles Marineris on Mars. Their discovery offers new insights on past climatic conditions on the Red Planet.

This oblique color view from the HiRISE instrument onboard NASAs Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a lithified field of sand dunes within Melas Chasma, Valles Marineris. The large degree of preserved morphology for many of these paleodunes reveals important information regarding the acting wind regime and climate prior to their cementation. Image credit: NASA / JPL / University of Arizona.

Wind-driven sand dunes are common on modern Mars, and the presence of certain sedimentary rock layers indicates that these landforms occurred there in the past.

Using data from several instruments onboard NASAs Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Odyssey spacecraft, planetary scientist Matthew Chojnacki and colleagues explored dune-like features within Melas Chasma in the Valles Marineris region.

Mapping extensive sedimentary rock deposits in Valles Marineris show clear evidence for preserved lithification and burial of dune fields, said Dr. Chojnacki, a researcher in the Planetary Science Institute and the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona.

While modern sand dunes and other wind formed features are common on the surface of Mars and other terrestrial planets, typically most of the deposits are worn away by erosion.

We identified and mapped extensive dune fields in the canyons of Valles Marineris which show clear evidence for lithification and burial.

This level of preservation is rare for terrestrial sand dunes due to ongoing erosion and tectonics.

Based on the dune deposits relationships to other geologic units and modern erosion rates we estimate these to be roughly a billion years old, he said.

Because of the duneforms size and spatial arrangements, which are not that much different to modern equivalents, we suggest that the climate and atmospheric pressure to have been similar to that of contemporary Mars.

Context maps of Melas Chasma paleodune fields: (a) regional distribution of paleodune (blue polygons outlined in white) and modern (red polygons) dune fields; (b) Southwest Melas Chasma reentrant canyon and the (d) central basin of Melas Chasma. Image credit: Murray Lab / Caltech / MSSS / NASA / JPL / Chojnacki et al., doi: 10.1029/2020JE006510.

Surface erosion and landscape evolution are greatly different on Earth and Mars.

Water and tectonics that constantly reshape the surface of Earth are not currently a factor on Mars, thus there is an opportunity to learn from the geologic record of the red planet, Dr. Chojnacki said.

The ancient dune fields found within Valles Marineris, with their complex variety of landform shapes, degree of preservation, and context, reveal the richness of regional geology.

These results inform us that wind-driven sand transport, deposition, and lithification have occurred throughout much of Mars recent history and illustrate how landscape evolution there greatly differs compared to that of Earth.

The study was published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.

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Matthew Chojnacki et al. Ancient Martian Aeolian Sand Dune Deposits Recorded in the Stratigraphy of Valles Marineris and Implications for Past Climates. Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, published online August 7, 2020; doi: 10.1029/2020JE006510

Link:

One-Billion-Year-Old Sand Dunes Spotted on Mars | Planetary Science, Space Exploration - Sci-News.com