Category Archives: Space Exploration

A massive map of the surface of Mars takes up most of the floor inside the gym at Jennie E. Smith Elementary School in Brookside.

Advanced Academics teacher Julia Dooley attended the Honeywell Educator Space Academy last summer in an astronaut training facility in Huntsville, Alabama. Through that, she connected with the Buzz Aldrin ShareSpace Foundation to bring the giant Mars map to her school.

"My students, right now, are driving rovers on Mars, so they've had to calibrate their rovers and choose the speed and targets that they want to go and visit," said Dooley.

The map is 25'-by-25'--too large for any classroom--and Jennie E. Smith Elementary is one of just 50 schools in the country that received the map. It was rolled out on the floor for two weeks to inspire hands-on learning, but it's not just for science students. Students in every class at every grade level, kindergarten through 5th, are using the map, which itself is aimed at promoting space exploration through a variety of disciplines, including science, technology, engineering, art and math (STEAM).

"In music, they're investigating the physics of sound, so thinking about radio telescopes and how sound and science go together," explained Dooley. "In the library, they're creating landers that are going to be dropped on the surface....in art, they are creating Mars posters...encourage Mars travel."

The colorful, topographical vinyl map shows students the landscape and distant hot water flow patterns of Mars, and has gotten them excited about space exploration.

"I learned that Mars is a really big planet, and it's really far from Earth. If you see it, it looks like a dot--like a star--compared to the Moon cause the Moon is closer," said fifth grade student Amatullah Wilson."It just looks really different."

"That map is really big, and it's really cool...I thought it was going to be small for everyone to hold," said fifth grader Marcai Reed. "My Mars rover was made out of card stock, marshmallows...a paper cup and straws."

Reed and Wilson learned the hard way how difficult it can be to land on Mars.

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"I learned that I could've done it better like putting on the straws on the bottom so it could land all flat," he said.

"In real life, they might take someone to Mars, and in real life, you need to think about your plan because if one little thing goes wrong, and you land wrong, you don't know what's going to happen to that person," she said.

Reed was excited to learn that at some point there may have been some life on Mars--and that maybe life could exist there again.

"I would want to go to Mars, but right now, I wouldn't because we don't know a lot about it, and if I go on a spaceship, I wouldn't be able to get back because I don't have a lot of fuel, so I would try to go in the future."

But it's that future that Dooley wants her students to be thinking about as they consider future careers.

"This is the generation that will be going to Mars, it's anticipated in the next 15 years that people will step foot in Mars," she said. "So it's wonderful to think about any of these students being one of those people."

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VIDEO: EdWatch: Massive Mars map has Christina students considering space exploration careers - WDEL 1150AM

NASA is looking to explore the area of space near the moon for clues on how to travel to Mars and even farther into the solar system, the space agency announced Tuesday. Acrucial part of that mission could be a newcrew-tended spaceport circling the moon that could be used to test how the agency mightsend astronauts to other planets, NASA said.

"NASA is working with domestic and international partners to solve the great challenges of deep space exploration. Missions in the vicinity of the moon will span multiple phases as part of NASAs framework to build a flexible, reusable and sustainable infrastructure that will last multiple decades and support missions of increasing complexity," NASA said in a statement.

The reusable spaceport could be used to support robotic missions to the moon and toother destinations in the solar system, NASA said. If the project works as envisioned, the spaceportwould rely onelectric and chemical propulsion totake a crewto their destination and thenreturn them to the gateway.

I envision different partners, both international and commercial, contributing to the gateway and using it in a variety of ways with a system that can move to different orbits to enable a variety of missions, said William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Human Exploration and Operations at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

It wasn't immediately known how much the project would cost. A test flight could lift off in late 2018.

NASA's previous space exploration plan under the Obama administration called for using achunk of an asteroid to test missions to deep space. The Trump administration killed the projectreportedly because it didn't sound exciting enough compared with a return to the moon by 2020.

NASA will investigate approaches for reducing the costs of exploration missions to enable a more expansive exploration program, a White House 2018 budget proposal released earlier this month said.

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Man on Mars: NASA Plans to Test Deep Space Exploration With New Spaceport Orbiting the Moon - Newsweek

By Lily Nothling

Posted March 27, 2017 16:24:50

Australia's contribution to space exploration lags shamefully behind the rest of the world, experts say.

Panellists at the World Science Festival's Earth 2.0 forum criticised Australia's lack of a space agency, flagging it as an important area of investment in the future.

Andrew Thomas, Australian-born NASA astronaut and the first Australian to travel to space, said the space industry was valued at $350 billion a year worldwide, and growing at $10 billion a year.

"Australia's current share is 0.8 per cent, which is shameful," Dr Thomas said.

He said while an Australian space agency would not yet be concerned with launching people into space, there were a range of reasons why an agency was a valuable proposition.

"We're talking about satellite imagery, Earth monitoring, ocean monitoring, environmental monitoring, national security and defence monitoring," he said.

Geologist and president of the Mars Society Australia, Jon Clarke, said Australia exposed itself to significant vulnerabilities by not having its own satellite resources.

He said Australian bushfire monitoring system Sentinel relied on raw satellite data being processed in the United States, which posed a major risk during the US Government shut-down of 2013.

"Because government workers had to handle [the data], they couldn't do it," he said.

"Right in the middle of the bush fire season, we lost one of our key strands in bushfire monitoring.

"We could've had another Victorian bushfire, or another Canberra bushfire without the early warning, without the remote sensing to allow us to predict it."

He said our reliance on outsourcing satellite resources had impacts across the board.

"All of our satellite navigation we get for free, if countries start charging us for space navigation services, where will we be?" he said.

Dr Clarke said the Australian public needed to put pressure on the Government to overcome political hostility towards space exploration.

"Those of us who think Australia should have a space agency have been trying to convince the Government to do this for 50 years, and we haven't quite succeeded yet," he said.

"If we as a people want to have a say in what happens with solar system exploration, we need to be lobbying our politicians to invest money, stimulate industry and stimulate research into these fields.

"No bucks, no Buck Rogers."

Dr Thomas said a space agency would unlock Australia's potential to be involved in space exploration in the future.

"The naysayers say Australia doesn't need a space industry because it doesn't have a space program, but Australia doesn't have a space program because it doesn't have a space industry," he said.

"A human stepping onto Mars will be one of the great undertakings of the 21st century, and I certainly hope we get to see it happen."

This story is part of a collaboration for the World Science Festival between QUT and the ABC.

Topics: science-and-technology, earth-sciences, astronomy-space, space-exploration, australia

Excerpt from:

World Science Festival: Australia 'lags rest of the world in space exploration' - ABC Online

OAKLAND Chabot Space & Science Center will be a place to learn about the current trends in space travel, art and science April 8 as the center celebrates Yuri Gagarin, the first man to travel in space, with the Yuris Night event.

This is going to be a cross between the Burning Man crowd and the Maker Faire combined with talks and focused on where space innovation is going in the 21st century, said Sean Casey of the Silicon Valley Space Society, which matches science startups with venture capitalists and funding angels.

Casey, who worked as a scientist for NASA for more than two decades, sees space travel in its relative infancy today. With the privatization of space exploration through Space X, Virgin Orbit and others, he sees 2017 space travel being the equivalent of 1917 aviation travel. Theres a long way to go, but growth is inevitable.

Look how aviation grew over a century. Look how automobiles grew over a century, he said. It boggles the mind how space flight might grow in the 21st century.

Yuris Night Bay Area is organized by Marcia Fiamengo, a microgravity scientist and nuclear engineer who has worked on water filtration systems used in the International Space Station. She considers herself a space exploration evangelist and has a ticket to visit outer space with World View Enterprises, a private space exploration company.

Yuris Night is one of those events that is what you make it, she said. For some, the concept of space exploration is so eclectic. Its something that everybody can feel that they relate to.

Yuris Night is part networking event for those interested in careers in space travel. The ages 21 and older event will also feature very technical space exploration speakers as well as work from local artists and inventors.

Kristin Neidlinger, founder of Sensoree, will be one of the artists and inventors to show off her work at Yuris Night. She creates biometric and expressive clothing that monitors through medical equipment how the wearer feels. The clothing then translates those feelings to visual, tactile or audio displays to give feedback to the wearer and those around them.

We call it extimacy, or external intimacy, she said.

Her most popular design, for example, is her mood sweater that turns red when the wearer is excited or nervous. She also designed an inflatable corset that monitors the wearers heart rate and inflates to calm them down in stressful situations.

These designs could be used for caregivers to gain some insight into how someone feels who otherwise cant express themselves, like people with dementia or Alzheimers disease, or certain people on the autistic spectrum.

My ultimate dream is to design for space travel, said Neidlinger, an Oakland California College of the Arts graduate. Chabots Yuris Night event is one of 40 in 21 countries around the world. There will be DJs and dancing, LED displays, alcoholic drinks and telescope viewing.

Tickets to the event range from $11 to $500 and with the top tier ticket price comes special access to experts and a workshop on biometric clothing. The night is a fundraising event for Chabot Space & Science Center and other organizations.

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IF YOU GO What: Yuris Night Bay Area Where: Chabot Space & Science Center, 10000 Skyline Blvd., Oakland. When: 6 p.m. to 1 a.m. April 8 Who: Ages 21 and over. Cost: $11 to $500 Tickets and information: http://www.yurisnightbayarea.space

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Oakland: Yuri's Night offers space networking, fun - East Bay Times

Lockheed Martin experts are working to combat a critical shortage in engineers and stem professionals.

The company started a program aiming to encourage children to get interested in math and science at a young age. On Saturday, the group took to the streets of Huntsville with a mars bus with a mobile virtual reality to show students what it's like to drive on the surface of mars.

"The USis planning to go back to mars around 2030," Huntsville Site Director of Lockheed Martin, Jon Sharp,said. "So that means the next astronautto mars is in either grade school or middle school."

Lockheed Martin's Generation Beyond program also includes a classroom based curriculum that uses space exploration of spaceto inspire students to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and math.

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"Mars Bus" aims to teach children about space exploration - WAAY

President Donald Trump used his weekly address Saturday (March 25) to praise NASA's legacy of exploration and discovery in a video that also markedthe signing of the 2017 NASA authorization billearlier in the week.

"My fellow Americans, this week in the company of astronaut I was honored to sign the NASA Transition Authorization act right into law,"Trump said in his address on YouTube. "With this legislation, we renew our national commitment to NASA's mission of exploration and discovery, and we continue a tradition that is as old as mankind. We look to the heavens with wonder and curiosity." Trump signed the NASA authorization bill on Tuesday (March 21).

The video opened with clips from NASA's historic Apollo 11 moon landing mission, from a view of Neil Armstrong taking "one small step" on the lunar surface, to crowds cheering the Apollo 11 crew's return to Earth with a ticker tape parade. Trump then recounted a story from the Hubble Space Telescope's history. [Presidential Visions for NASA Throughout History]

"More than two decades ago, one scientist followed this curiosity and dramatically changed our understanding of the universe," Trump said. "The year was 1995. Taxpayers were spending billions and billions of dollars on the Hubble Space Telescope. The astronomer in charge had a novel idea. He wanted to use the expensive telescope in a totally unconventional way."

That scientist was Robert Williams, who wanted Hubble to stare at a completely empty patch of space for 100 hours (10 days over Christmas as Trump says in the video) to see what might be out there. The result was the Hubble Deep Field, the stunning discovery of thousands of galaxies in an otherwise empty patch of space. Science writer Nadia Drake has agreat recounting of the Hubble Deep Field's history here.

The original Hubble Deep Field image captured by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995.

"In that tiny patch of sky, the Hubble Deep Field showed thousands of lights. Each brilliant spot represented not a single star but an entire galaxy. The discovery was absolutely incredible," Trump said. "But the incredible image did not satisfy our deep hunger for knowledge. It increased ever more and even more, and reminded us how much we do not know about space, and frankly how much we do not know about life."

The Hubble Space Telescope has since made even longer observations of deep space, including the Hubble Ultra Deep Field in 2004 and the eXtreme Deep Field in 2012. NASA and the European Space Agency launched Hubble in 1990. The space telescope will celebrate its 27th anniversary in space in April.

Hubble's successor, the infrared James Webb Space Telescope, is scheduled to launch in 2018 to "gaze back through time and space to the very first stars and the earliest galaxies in the universe," Trump said. "We can only imagine what incredible visions it will bring."

Trump said he was glad Congress came together to approve the NASA authorization bill.

"At a time when Washington is consumed with the daily debates of our nation, I was proud that Congress came together overwhelmingly to reaffirm our nation's commitment to expanding the frontiers of knowledge," he said.

Trump added that there are many lessons NASA can teach all Americans, and not all of them are about space. "One lesson is the need to view old questions with fresh eyes; to have the courage to look for answers in places we have never looked before; to think in new ways because we have new information," he said. "Most of all, new discoveries remind us that in America anything is possible if we have the courage and wisdom to learn."

Trump closed with a look toward the future. He marveled at the pace at which Americans have explored space.

"In the span of one lifetime, our nation went from black and white pictures of the first airplane to beautiful images of the oldest galaxies captured by a camera in outer space," Trump said. "I am confident that if Americans can achieve these things, there is no problem we cannot solve. There is no challenge we cannot meet. There is no aim that is too high. Whatever it takes and however long it will be, we are a nation of problem solves and the future belongs to us. We are truly a great place to be. I love America."

Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him@tariqjmalikandGoogle+.Follow us@Spacedotcom,FacebookandGoogle+. Original article onSpace.com.

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President Trump Hails NASA's Space Exploration Spirit in Weekly Address - Space.com

Humans have set foot on the moon and may one day walk on Mars, but to push farther into space we will likely need a pit stop.

With that in mind, 32 students from around the world will meet up at Caltech from March 2631 for the 2017 Caltech Space Challenge, a competition to design a launch-and-supply station dubbed Lunarport for future space missions. The event is organized by the Graduate Aerospace Laboratories of the California Institute of Technology (GALCIT) to help mentor the next generation of aerospace engineers.

During the weeklong biennial event, the studentsa mix of graduate and undergraduateare divided into two teams, each of which has just five days to create a fresh design to tackle an upcoming space-exploration challenge. At the first Caltech Space Challenge in 2011, the teams were tasked with exploring an asteroid and returning with a sample of rock or ice. In 2013, the teams designed campaigns to land humans on a martian moon. That year, the winning team proposed a robotic precursor mission followed up by a three-astronaut exploration of both of Mars moons, Phobos and Deimos.

And at the most recent Caltech Space Challenge, in 2015, the students planned a mission to an asteroid that had been brought into lunar orbit, to extract its resources and demonstrate how they could be used.

The goal of every competition is to present students with a challenge that humanity is expected to face in the not-too-distant future. For example, a station like the Lunarport, if constructed someday, would provide a staging facility for heavy payloads, at which rockets could be refueled to continue their journey to deep space.

While working on the challenge, the students will also receive expert guidance via lectures from engineers at Orbital ATK, Blue Origin, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL, which Caltech manages for NASA), and other organizations. At the end of the week, each team will present its solution, and a winner will be selected by a jury of industry experts.

This year, 806 students applied to participate in the eventmore than the combined number of applicants for the three prior Caltech Space Challenges. The 32 successful applicants come from 14 different countries on four continents.

This years Caltech Space Challenge is being organized by Caltech graduate students Ilana Gat (MS 14) and Thibaud Talon (MS 14). The Caltech faculty advisers are Paul Dimotakis (BS 68, MS 69, PhD 73), the John K. Northrop Professor of Aeronautics and professor of applied physics; Jakob van Zyl (MS 83, PhD 86), senior faculty associate in electrical engineering and aerospace, lecturer in electrical engineering, and director for solar system exploration at JPL; and Anthony Freeman, lecturer in aerospace and manager of the JPL Innovation Foundry. The event is supported by Caltech and its Division of Engineering and Applied Science, JPL, the Keck Institute for Space Studies, and Caltechs Moore-Hufstedler Fund. Its corporate sponsors include Airbus, Microsoft, Orbital ATK, Northrop Grumman, Blue Origin, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Schlumberger, and Honeybee Robotics.

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Students to Plan Moon Base for Deep-Space Exploration at Next Week's Caltech Space Challenge - Pasadena Now

Becoming master of the universe might be just an investment away for some of the worlds leading billionaires.

Private-owned space-travel companies have proliferated in the last few years. The government even jumped on board this week, when President Trump announced a $19.5 billion bill to fund NASA programs for the 2018 fiscal year. Add a smattering of billionaires investing in asteroid mining and missions to Mars, and well, space colonization seems almost inevitable.

Space X Founder and CEO Elon Musk isn't holding out for government funding though. The bill "changes almost nothing about what NASA is doing," Musk wrote. "Existing programs stay in place and there is no added funding for Mars.

Musk is a leading entrepreneur in the industry, but who else is bankrolling space ventures?

1 Elon Musk, Space X and Tesla Founder and CEO

Space Co: The company on every space geek's mind: SpaceX.

Enterprises: Musk has been collaborating with NASA under a $1.6 billion contract to enable colonization of, and space travel to, Mars. Recently, the program has flown 10 cargo missions to the International Space Station in addition to the historic feat of flipping rocket Falcon 9 in space and landing it upright on a drone ship in January 2017.

Net worth: $11.5 Billion

2 Jeffrey Bezos, Amazon CEO

Space Co: Blue Origin

Enterprises: The venture has successfully sent its suborbital spacecraft New Shepard to space six times. Bezos recently unveiled a new rocket engine built to advance the company goal of orbiting people and satellites in space. His direct competition: SpaceX.

Net worth: $73.4 Billion

3 Richard Branson, Virgin Group CEO and Founder

Space Ventures: Virgin Galactic

Enterprises: Branson recently announced he will take 75-year-old Stephen Hawking to space on Virgin Galactic. (Space travel has been a dream of the renowned physicist.) Branson is creating a fleet of rockets to take tourists to suborbital space at at a price of $250,000.

Net worth: $5 Billion

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4 Paul Allen, Microsoft Co-Founder

Space Co: Vulcan Aerospace

Enterprises: While his counterpart, Bill Gates, disdains those who spend money on space exploration, Allen recently created Stratolaunch Systems to launch satellites into orbit from the world's largest airplane.

Net worth: $15.8 Billion

5 Larry Page, CEO of Google

Space Co: Backer of Planetary Resources

Enterprises: The venture aims to mine asteroids for precious metals and water for Earth or space travel.

Net worth: $35 Billion

6 Eric Schmidt, Chairman of Alphabet Inc.

Space CO: Backer of Planetary Resources

Enterprises: In addition to asteroid mining, the company is creating an "Earth observation system," which will use 10 micro-satellites to determine the make-up of any spot on our planet.

Net worth: $10.1 billion

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7 James Cameron, Film Producer and Director

8 Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook Founder and CEO

Space Co: Serving on the board of Starshot

Enterprises: Funded by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, the $100 million research program aims to explore space for extraterrestrial life and to eventually perform a flyby mission to Alpha Centauri within a generation.

Net worth: $58.9 Billion

9 Charles Simonyi, architect of Microsoft

Space Co: He doesn't own any private projects, but the billionaire is the only person to visit space twice as a tourist. The trips cost him $60 million dollars and six months of training.

Net Worth: $2 billion

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10 Luxembourg (the country)

Space Co: A $200 million dollar fund for asteroid mining

Enterprises: In an effort to attract space mining companies like Planetary Resources and Deep Space the tiny nation of 600,000 people hopes to become an international hub for the space industry.

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10 Billionaires Investing in Space Exploration - TownandCountrymag.com (blog)

The idea of space exploration has captured the hearts and minds of humankind since long before NASA put a man on the Moon. Following this amazing accomplishment, the reality of human spaceflight has continued to fascinate and inspire in the ensuing decades. But there is often an imbalance when the tales of struggles and success are recounted: these tales often revolve around the men who have accomplished so much, obscuring the women both at the forefront and behind the scenes of space exploration.

Launch Ladies aims to change all that by cultivating childrens interest in space exploration and shining a spotlight on the women who have both made it possible and continue to reach for the stars. This beautifully illustrated childrens board book will highlight accomplished and dedicated women including Margaret Hamilton, who led the development of onboard Apollo mission flight software, Dr. Mae Jemison, the first African-American woman in space, and Marleen Martinez, a programmer whose work will guide the future NASA Orion mission designed to take humans to Mars.

Launch Ladies is currently seeking funding via a Kickstarter campaign, with a projected goal of raising $9,000 by April 20 to fund production of the book, which is well on its way to completion. According to a recent tweet by Leila A. McNeill, a contributor to the project and editor-in-chief of the independent magazine Lady Science, Launch Ladies has already raised over $2,000 and reached 20 percent of its funding goal, with 28 days left to go.

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Launch Ladies children's book highlights the women behind space exploration - Astronomy Magazine

President Trump peeled back the curtain on his plans for the US space program on Tuesday singing a sweeping NASA policy bill into effect and reaffirming the agencys commitment to human exploration and putting a man on Mars.

For almost six decades NASAs work has inspired millions and millions of Americans to imagine distant worlds and a better future right here on Earth, Trump explained during the signing, which was attended by astronauts, lawmakers and scientists.

With this legislation, we support NASAs scientists, engineers, astronauts and their pursuit of discovery, he said. Its been a long time since a bill like this has been signed reaffirming our national commitment to the core mission of NASA, human space exploration, space science and technology.

The bill, dubbed the NASA Transition Authorization Act of 2017, was co-authored by Trumps campaign trail rivals Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Marco Rubio, both of whom were in attendance for the signing. The event marked the first time President Trump spoke about the space program in public since the election.

The new NASA legislation mainly keeps the agency on the same trajectory its been since its last authorization act in 2010, according to the Houston Chronicle.

The bill extends a number of important space programs, including the Hubble Telescope and the International Space Station through 2024 and calls for a crewed mission to Mars by 2033. It also states that manned missions to deep space would be NASAs main goal in the decades to come.

It is the first time in seven years weve had a NASA authorization bill, Cruz said, joking with Trump that they now had the ability to send Congress to space.

We could, Trump replied. What a great idea that could be.

Beginning in October, the legislation calls for $19.5 billion to be distributed throughout NASA for the space agencys 2018 fiscal year. Trump said the money will be used to fund missions with companies in the private sector, such as SpaceX.

This bill will make sure that NASAs most important and effective programs are sustained and orders NASA to continue, Trump said.

Transitioning activities to the commercial sector where we have seen great progress. Its amazing whats going on, he added. So many people and so many companies are so into exactly what NASA stands for. So the commercial and the private sector will get to use these facilities, and I hope theyre going to be paying us a lot of money, because theyre going to make great progress.

In addition, Vice President Mike Pence said Tuesday that Trump plans to relaunch the National Space Council which has been sitting on the shelf since George H.W. Bush left office.

Were going to be bringing together the best and the brightest in NASA and also in the private sector, Pence said.

Trumps decision to focus on space travel is a far cry from what Barack Obama did with NASA during his time in office. In addition to funneling billions of dollars into earth science and global warming research, the former commander-in-chief once publicly blasted the idea of putting another man on the moon famously saying, Weve been there before.

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Trump wants to make space exploration great again - New York Post