Category Archives: Space Exploration

In a few weeks, the most ambitious, costly robot probe ever built, the 6.8bn James Webb space telescope, will be blasted into space on top of a giant European Ariane 5 rocket. The launch of the observatory which has been plagued by decades of delays and massive cost overruns promises to be the most nervously watched liftoff in the history of unmanned space exploration.

The observatory built by Nasa with European and Canadian space agency collaboration has been designed to revolutionise our study of the early universe and to pinpoint possible life-supporting planets inside our galaxy. However, its planning and construction have taken more than 30 years, with the project suffering cancellation threats, political controversies and further tribulations. In the process, several other scientific projects had to be cancelled to meet the massive, swelling price tag of the observatory. As the journal Nature put it, this is the telescope that ate astronomy.

Now scientists are about to discover if those sacrifices and soaring costs are justified when, according to current schedules, the telescope is fired into space on 22 December. Its the launch of a generation, says Daniel De Chambure of the European Space Agency (Esa).

Designed as a replacement for the Hubble space telescope still in operation after its 1990 launch the James Webb is a far bigger, much more complex instrument with many more ambitious goals. For a start, it will not study the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum as does the Hubble and most ground-based telescopes but will gather only infrared radiation.

There are many reasons for this, says Prof Gillian Wright, director of the UK Astronomy Technology Centre in Edinburgh. For a start, infrared is the perfect part of the spectrum for looking through dust, and that is important because stars and planets form in regions full of dust. So if you want to understand where and how other solar systems are being created, the James Webb should provide crucial data.

In addition, atmospheres of planets that might contain chemicals such as methane a gas associated with biological processes are also best studied by gathering infrared radiation and could indicate if they are capable of supporting life.

Spectroscopy is an important way of looking at the formation of promising planets in our own galaxy, adds Wright, who is the European principal investigator for the team that built one of the Webbs four main instruments: the MIRI or Mid-infrared instrument. (The other three devices will also study the infrared spectrum but at differing wavelengths.)

This part of the James Webbs operations is essentially a local affair and will involve looking at stars in our own galaxy. However, astronomers also want to study the very early universe in the period that followed the birth of the cosmos in the big bang 13.8bn years ago. That means focusing on very, very distant galaxies. And again studying infrared radiation provides key advantages.

A telescope is a time machine. It lets you see what the universe was like in the past because light takes a finite time to reach us from a distant object, says Prof Martin Ward of Durham University, who is a member of the MIRI science consortium. However, light gets fainter and redder the further back you look into the universe until its wavelength reaches the infrared part of the spectrum. So if we want to study how the first stars, black holes and galaxies formed, you also need an infrared telescope.

Ground observatories can operate at infrared wavelengths but for prime-quality observations telescopes really need to be lifted above Earths warm, wet atmosphere, which blocks much of the infrared radiation that reaches us from space. Unfortunately, putting such a telescope into orbit has been so demanding it has led to countless delays as thousands of scientists and engineers have struggled to overcome the technical hurdles thrown up by the James Webbs ambitious design.

One problem has been the simple fact that the telescope will not be able to rely on human aid once launched. Hubble still flies in low Earth orbit, where astronauts on the space shuttle were able to repair and service it. But the shuttle was grounded a decade ago and so the James Webb has been designed to operate without any prospect of hands-on help from humans.

Instead, it will be fired on a trajectory that will take it into orbit round the sun to a region known as the second Lagrange point (L2), where, 1m miles from the Earth, the gravity of our planet and the gravity of the sun cancel each other out. Here the telescope can be kept stationary in roughly the same position, where it can operate continuously for 24 hours a day. In addition, small gas engines will be burned to ensure the craft remains at L2.

At Lagrange 2, it will also be easier to keep the James Webb cold. The telescope has been designed to operate at around 40C above absolute zero (about -233C) so that its instruments do not generate spurious heat signals that could swamp the faint infrared radiation it receives from the other end of the universe. Far away from its warm home planet, the telescope will be protected by a five-layer-thick shield that will block out radiation from the sun and Earth, and its MIRI will also be chilled by a liquid helium refrigerator, the James Webb should be able to keep its cool for up to a decade, its designers hope.

But first the observatory will have to overcome a journey riddled with risk. For a start there is the danger of launcher failure. The Ariane 5 has notched up a total 111 liftoffs since 1996, 106 of which were successful. More importantly, its failures occurred early in the rockets development schedule and it is now rated as a highly reliable launcher. Nevertheless there is a chance it could fail as it lifts off from Esas space port at Kourou in French Guiana. And given the amount of money, time and effort already expended on the project, that is still a scary prospect.

And that is just the beginning. On its months-long journey to its new home at Lagrange 2, the telescope will be slowly unfurled as it cruises across space. First to be released will be huge sheets of wafer-thin foil that will act like giant parasols for keeping the telescope cool. Next to appear will be James Webbs main mirror, the heart of the telescope that will collect that infrared radiation from across the universe. It is seven times bigger than Hubbles mirror far too large to be accommodated as a single item. As Wright says: It is a simple fact that putting large objects in space is a lot harder than launching small ones. That has been a key technical challenge for the telescope.

To get round the size issue, the James Webbs designers have built a mirror that is constructed of 18 hexagons of gold-coated beryllium mirror. These will unfurl like a blooming flower and slot together automatically to create a 6.5-metre (21ft) mirror.

Everything to do with this unfolding, this unprecedented automated self-assembly, will have to work flawlessly, a process that will take around six months to complete. Only then will astronomers find out if the James Webb is going to be one of the great technological triumphs of the 21st century or a dollar-devouring disaster. As Thomas Zurbuchen, Nasas associate administrator for science missions, puts it: Those who are not worried or even terrified about this are not understanding what we are trying to do.

A different perspective on the caution and delay that has affected the telescope is provided by Faye Hunter of Airbus, who acted as project manager for the MIRI instrument 10 years ago. I was just going into secondary school when the idea of the James Webb telescope was agreed, she says. Now I am a mother, and a successful project manager and the telescope still has not been launched.

However, Hunter stresses the care and attention that has been taken to make sure the observatory operates perfectly once in orbit, a process that has involved more than 200 engineers and scientists working on MIRI alone. A European consortium provided the components and MIRI was assembled from these at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire, she adds.

Then it was put in test chambers, which had all air sucked from them, and temperatures were reduced to levels that the telescope will experience in space. After it passed these tests, MIRI was sent to Nasa, integrated with the telescopes other three infrared detectors and again put through more cyrovac tests. It takes a long time to do this sort of thing but it will be worth the effort.

The decades-long delay inflicted on the James Webb has had other consequences, however. Since it was originally named in 2002, politics has moved on. In 2021, many scientists regard the name as inappropriate since they accuse James Webb a former Nasa administrator of purging gay and lesbian people from jobs in Nasa in the 1950s and 1960s and have pressed for the telescope to be given another name. The space agency has refused such demands, though the controversy is likely to linger.

It also remains to be seen what the James Webb will discover. In its three decades of operations, Hubble helped pin down the age of the universe to 13.8bn years ago; determined the rate at which the universe is expanding; and showed that nearly every major galaxy is anchored by a black hole at its core.

This time, astronomers will be expecting even more. Among their hopes is the prospect of imaging the first galaxies to form after the big bang, understanding how stars are born and evolve, and investigating the potential for life to appear in planetary systems. All this will have to be done in a decade, the maximum likely lifetime of the James Webb. After 10 years, it is expected that it will run out of fuel and the telescope will no longer be able to keep itself located at L2. Then it will drift off course to become the most expensive piece of space junk ever built.

It is unlikely an observatory as costly and complex as the James Webb will be constructed again for a very long time, says Ward. Big observatories like these are like Christmas trees. They are fitted with so many different instruments that are attached like baubles. In future, we can expect that smaller and cheaper telescopes with more specific roles will be preferred by space agencies. So yes, in a sense, this could be the last Christmas for space astronomy.

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The James Webb space telescope: in search of the secrets of the Milky Way - The Guardian

Jancy McPhee kept meeting people who did not know about the International Space Station. At the time, humans had been living in space for nearly 10 years. How could people not know?

Her day job was managing scientific research for NASAs Human Research Program, but McPhee couldnt let go of this question.

I was getting more and more interested in how we talk about space, McPhee said. They have to be motivated. They have to care in order to remember the details given to them about the future of space exploration.

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So McPhee, whose hobbies have always revolved around music and theater, created a student art competition to motivate a younger generation. This contest accompanied an international human spaceflight symposium held in Houston in 2011, and she received 550 entries from 22 countries.

This contest was followed by another, and another, until the program became too large to be included with her day job at the nonprofit research corporation Universities Space Research Association.

McPhee created the SciArt Exchange nonprofit in 2015. And this year, it was one of 19 nonprofits to each be offered $1 million in grant money from Blue Origins Club for the Future, its foundation focused on STEM education.

Now we have a little bit of seed funding that will allow us to increase our capabilities, McPhee said, and, ideally, to really have a greater impact and start moving even further into our ultimate vision.

That vision starts by getting people excited about space exploration; making them feel welcome and inviting them to contribute to the future in space. Then SciArt Exchange wants to train people on communication, creative problem solving and collaboration. Ultimately, it hopes to get people from a variety of backgrounds scientists, engineers, painters, musicians, etc. to work together to solve future challenges on Earth and in space.

Today, SciArt Exchange creates competitions that ask children and adults to create paintings, music, films and stories around broad questions about the future of space. This creativity is shared through live performances and displays around the world, which helps engage an even broader audience about whats happening in space.

The questions vary, with past competitions focused on the International Space Station and the emerging commercial space sector, exploring and colonizing the moon, Mars and beyond, and using space, science and technology to benefit humanity.

But artists often echo the same themes: protecting the Earth from strife and climate change, building cities on other planets and exploring space as one international community.

In 2012, Arundhati Chowdhury entered a contest with her story titled Back to Home. Its about a child growing up on another planet who learns that Earth was destroyed by pollution and world wars. Shes then inspired to become a scientist to reverse the destruction her ancestors caused on Earth.

Chowdhury is from India and submitted this story when she was 13. She won first place for Overall Literature ages 10 to 13 and first place for Short Story Non-Native English Literature ages 10 to 13. She was flown to Cologne, Germany, for an award ceremony in July 2013, where she met rocket engineers, scientists and researchers who changed her life.

The moment I put my feet onto the soil, I knew that I wanted to be here and I knew that I wanted to study physics, Chowdhury said. I found a goal that I could work toward. And I knew in my mind, Hey, I won a competition hosted by NASA. I could do this too.

Chowdhury, now 22, is at the University of Cologne working on a masters degree in physics.

In 2018, Ricardo Bernardini entered an adult competition called Project Mars. Gareth Edwards, director of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, was among the judges.

Bernardini had been a graphic designer in Orlando, Fla., who made a living by creating websites and logos. He wanted to work in special effects and animation, but he couldnt get his foot in the door.

The competition was a chance to meet Edwards, so Bernardini wrote and directed a five-minute short film about the first mother on Mars. His film encapsulated the mothers guilt knowing her daughter would never see Earth and her pride knowing what her daughter could explore and accomplish on Mars.

The movie was selected by judges as the most inspirational film, and Bernardini began submitting it to film contests around the world. This got him work with Netflix, Disney, Hulu and EA Sports.

It affected his family, too. Bernardinis daughter Vicky, who acted in the film, became fascinated with math and science previously two of her least-favorite subjects. His daughter Emilia and son Leo, also in the film, can point out constellations and have spread their love of space to their friends (Bernardini cant take Leo to a rocket launch without also bringing his sons two best friends).

This contest was the door, the gateway to all of this he said. All of the sudden, things started to happen because of this short film.

The grant money from Blue Origins foundation will help SciArt Exchange grow and reach more people.

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McPhee, who has a doctorate in biophysics, has been the only employee since it opened in 2015, and she currently splits her time between SciArt Exchange and NASA. Through her affiliation with The Aerospace Corp., McPhee is associate chief scientist for the Human Research Program at the Johnson Space Center.

McPhee would like to hire three to four people who can help SciArt Exchange maintain sustainable funding, communicate to a broader audience and host activities, training and events that promote art-science collaborations that benefit humanity on Earth and in space.

This nonprofit is definitely an important outgrowth of myself, she said, but its time for me to step back and let a larger group of people help shape its next phase.

andrea.leinfelder@chron.com

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Houston nonprofit to use $1M from Blue Origin foundation toward 'ultimate vision' of space and art - Houston Chronicle

A chimney structure from the Sea Cliff hydrothermal vent field located more than 8,800 feet (2,700 meters) below the seas surface at the submarine boundary of the Pacific and Gorda tectonic plates. Credit: Photo by Ocean Exploration Trust

In the strange, dark world of the ocean floor, underwater fissures, called hydrothermal vents, host complex communities of life. These vents belch scorching hot fluids into extremely cold seawater, creating the chemical forces necessary for the small organisms that inhabit this extreme environment to live.

In a newly published study, biogeoscientists Jeffrey Dick and Everett Shock have determined that specific hydrothermal seafloor environments provide a unique habitat where certain organisms can thrive. In so doing, they have opened up new possibilities for life in the dark at the bottom of oceans on Earth, as well as throughout the solar system. Their results have been published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences.

On land, when organisms get energy out of the food they eat, they do so through a process called cellular respiration, where there is an intake of oxygen and the release of carbon dioxide. Biologically speaking, the molecules in our food are unstable in the presence of oxygen, and it is that instability that is harnessed by our cells to grow and reproduce, a process called biosynthesis.

But for organisms living on the seafloor, the conditions for life are dramatically different.

On land, in the oxygen-rich atmosphere of Earth, it is familiar to many people that making the molecules of life requires energy, said co-author Shock of Arizona State Universitys School of Earth and Space Exploration and the School of Molecular Sciences. In stunning contrast, around hydrothermal vents on the seafloor, hot fluids mix with extremely cold seawater to produce conditions where making the molecules of life releases energy.

In deep-sea microbial ecosystems, organisms thrive near vents where hydrothermal fluid mixes with ambient seawater. Previous research led by Shock found that the biosynthesis of basic cellular building blocks, like amino acids and sugars, is particularly favorable in areas where the vents are composed of ultramafic rock (igneous and meta-igneous rocks with very low silica content), because these rocks produce the most hydrogen.

Besides basic building blocks like amino acids and sugars, cells need to form larger molecules, or polymers, also known as biomacromolecules. Proteins are the most abundant of these molecules in cells, and the polymerization reaction (where small molecules combine to produce a larger biomolecule) itself requires energy in almost all conceivable environments.

In other words, where there is life, there is water, but water needs to be driven out of the system for polymerization to become favorable, said lead author Dick, who was a postdoctoral scholar at ASU when this research began and who is currently a geochemistry researcher in the School of Geosciences and Info-Physics at Central South University in Changsha, China. So, there are two opposing energy flows: release of energy by biosynthesis of basic building blocks, and the energy required for polymerization.

What Dick and Shock wanted to know is what happens when you add them up: Do you get proteins whose overall synthesis is actually favorable in the mixing zone?

They approached this problem by using a unique combination of theory and data.

From the theoretical side, they used a thermodynamic model for the proteins, called group additivity, which accounts for the specific amino acids in protein sequences as well as the polymerization energies. For the data, they used all the protein sequences in an entire genome of a well-studied vent organism called Methanocaldococcus jannaschii.

By running the calculations, they were able to show that the overall synthesis of almost all the proteins in the genome releases energy in the mixing zone of an ultramafic-hosted vent at the temperature where this organism grows the fastest, at around 185 degrees Fahrenheit (85 Celsius). By contrast, in a different vent system that produces less hydrogen (a basalt-hosted system), the synthesis of proteins is not favorable.

This finding provides a new perspective on not only biochemistry but also ecology because it suggests that certain groups of organisms are inherently more favored in specific hydrothermal environments, Dick said. Microbial ecology studies have found that methanogens, of which Methanocaldococcus jannaschii is one representative, are more abundant in ultramafic-hosted vent systems than in basalt-hosted systems. The favorable energetics of protein synthesis in ultramafic-hosted systems are consistent with that distribution.

For next steps, Dick and Shock are looking at ways to use these energetic calculations across the tree of life, which they hope will provide a firmer link between geochemistry and genome evolution.

As we explore, were reminded time and again that we should never equate where we live as what is habitable to life, Shock said.

Reference: The Release of Energy During Protein Synthesis at Ultramafic-Hosted Submarine Hydrothermal Ecosystems by Jeffrey M. Dick, Everett L. Shock, 30 October 2021, Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeoscience.DOI: 10.1029/2021JG006436

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New Possibilities for Life in the Strange, Dark World at the Bottom of Earths Ocean And Perhaps in Oceans on Other Planets - SciTechDaily

The holidays still happen in space, they just look a little bit different. But the sentiments are the same.

"I'm going to do whatever I can to show how thankful I am for my crewmates," said NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei in a NASA video shared from the International Space Station Monday. "It's wonderful having all of these folks up here. We haven't been up here together that long, but wow it sure has been wonderful already."

The space station will host seven crew members throughout the holiday season.

The international crew includes Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov, NASA astronauts Raja Chari, Thomas Marshburn, Kayla Barron and Vande Hei, and European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer.

"We'll be working but looking forward to an awesome meal together," Barron said. "We'll invite our cosmonaut colleagues to join us, so it's a very international Thanksgiving."

The astronauts shared traditions they usually share with their families. Chari said he and his family typically go around the table and have each person say what they are thankful for, so he's going to call in "and do that remotely" this year.

The astronauts usually call home to talk with friends, family and loved ones on holidays spent far from home.

Chari also said while Thanksgiving-themed runs like Turkey Trots happen on Earth, he brought special colored headbands for him and the crew to wear as they run off their holiday meal on the space station's treadmill.

This year, the astronaut Thanksgiving menu includes crab bisque, roast turkey, potatoes au gratin, candied yams and cherry blueberry cobbler.

"I just want my family to know how much I appreciate their love and support. Even though I'm going to be really far away and moving really fast, my heart is definitely with them," Vande Hei said.

Astronauts have marked the tradition of celebrating holidays in space since the days of the Apollo mission, when the Apollo 8 crew famously shared their Christmas Eve message in a live television broadcast in 1968 by taking turns reading from the Book of Genesis in the Bible.

The first Thanksgiving in space was celebrated on November 22, 1973, when Skylab 4 astronauts Gerald P. Carr, Edward G. Gibson and William R. Pogue each ate two meals at dinnertime, although nothing special was on the menu for the occasion. The three worked on and supported a spacewalk lasting six hours and 33 minutes earlier in the day and missed lunch.

The next one didn't occur until November 28, 1985, when the seven members of the STS-61B crew of Brewster H. Shaw, Bryan D. O'Connor, Jerry L. Ross, Mary L. Cleave, Sherwood C. "Woody" Spring, Charles D. Walker, and Rodolfo Neri Vela enjoyed a special meal on the space shuttle Atlantis.

In addition to shrimp cocktail, irradiated turkey and cranberry sauce, Neri Vela famously brought tortillas to space. Unlike bread, which crumbles easily, tortillas are a perfect addition to the space menu, and they are an astronaut favorite to this day. Recently, tortillas were the perfect vehicle for space tacos made using the first chile peppers grown in space.

The first Thanksgiving on the space station took place on November 23, 2000, just three weeks after the trio of NASA astronaut William M. Shepherd and Russian cosmonauts Yuri P. Gidzenko and Sergei K. Krikalev arrived. The festive meal kicked off a celebration that has taken place on the station every November since.

The space station hosted the largest and most diverse Thanksgiving celebration yet in 2009. A six-astronaut crew, including Jeffrey N. Williams, Maksim V. Suraev, Nicole P. Stott, Roman Y. Romanenko, Frank L. DeWinne and Robert B. Thirsk, were already on board. Then, they welcomed six members of the STS-129 space shuttle crew, which brought Charles O. Hobaugh, Barry E. Wilmore, Michael J. Foreman, Robert L. Satcher, Randolph J. Bresnik and Leland D. Melvin aboard.

The 12 crew members represented the United States, Russia, Belgium and Canada, and they celebrated together two days early since the shuttle departed the space station on Thanksgiving itself.

How these holidays are marked and celebrated is up to each individual crew, and space veterans tend to share suggestions and ideas with rookies before they go up, NASA astronaut Dr. Andrew Morgan told CNN in 2020.

Morgan spent the entirety of the holiday season on the space station in 2019 alongside crewmates Jessica Meir, Christina Koch, Alexander Skvortsov, Oleg Skripochka and Luca Parmitano.

It was a busy time on the space station with multiple spacewalks and experiments on the schedule, but the astronauts were able to come together for a special meal that weekend with their international crew members and talk about what Thanksgiving meant to them.

Turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes are on the standard menu for NASA astronauts in space, but they also saved special treats like smoked salmon and cranberry sauce to share with each other. In space, the cranberry sauce perfectly retains the shape of the can it came in. Meir and Koch also made hand turkeys for their table decor.

In 2020, the menu included cornbread dressing, smoked turkey, green beans and mashed potatoes. Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Soichi Noguchi brought some Japanese "party food" to share, including curry rice, red bean rice and some special seafood that a Japanese high school student on Earth prepared for the crew.

For NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins, it was his second Thanksgiving in space after spending the holiday on the station in 2013.

"For me, Thanksgiving is all about family," Hopkins said. "This year, I'm spending it with my international family. We all feel very blessed to be up here and we're very grateful for everything we have."

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This is how astronauts celebrate Thanksgiving in space - WAOW

For centuries, people dreamed about leaving Earth and travelling to other worlds. Then, in 1957, the Soviet Union made the first small step into space by launching a small satellite, called Sputnik. The Space Age had begun.

Early space activities were dominated by the United States and the Soviet Union. However, as time went by, Europe and Japan also learned how to build their own satellites and rockets. Today, countries such as China, India, South Korea, Israel and Brazil are developing their own space industries.

During the last 60 years, unmanned probes have been sent towards all of the planets in the Solar System, as well as many satellites, asteroids and comets. Spacecraft have soft-landed on half a dozen worlds, while rovers have driven over the surfaces of the Moon and Mars. The Sun has also been explored in great detail by a fleet of spacecraft.

Many space observatories, such as the Hubble Space Telescope, have been launched to look at the distant Universe. They have sent back some amazing pictures taken in visible light. But they can also observe stars and galaxies at wavelengths that are invisible to human eyes radio, infrared, ultraviolet, X-rays and gamma rays. The flood of discoveries has changed the way we look at the Universe.

More than 500 people have also flown in space since Yuri Gagarin paved the way in 1961. 20 people have travelled to the Moon and 12 of them have walked on the Moon. Space stations have been built, and astronauts have learned to live and work in space for many months, or even years.

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ESA - Space for Kids - Space Exploration

July 20th, 2009 was the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11s historic flight to the moon, where astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first human beings to walk on the moon. 40 years ago, space flight inspired such awe that astronauts were hailed as heroes and celebrities by men, women, and children alike. 40 years later none of us, besides the most avid space fanatic, would likely to be able to name one astronaut in service today.

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Despite the tragedies of Space Shuttle Challenger, and later Columbia, where the world is shocked into being reminded of the inherit dangers of sitting on 1 million gallons of rocket fuel, or re-entering the earths atmosphere at 1,870miles per hour. We all see space flight as mundane because the vast majority of space flights since Apollo 11, have been mostly conducting seemingly routine scientific experiments. Now dont get me wrong, I believe in the importance of science in space, but these experiments dont exactly inspire awe in the general population like, oh say, a manned mission to Mars would. We also dont have the fever of beating those damned Ruskies because they might go to space and blow us all up, which we had during the height of the cold war when Apollo 11 touched down on the lunar Sea of Tranquility.

Watching some fantastic documentaries (such as Discoverys When We Left Earth) celebrating the 40th anniversary this week, I got to thinking about the importance of continuing space exploration. I hear many people decry the importance of NASA and space flight. Most saying that it is a waste of time, and more importantly money. I disagree with such assessments. I often wonder if people threw out the same criticisms of our European ancestors, who dared to explore on wooden ships to discover the new world.

In my humble opinion, space exploration is important not only to humanitys curiosity of the great beyond, but it is also important for the future of the earth and all of us living on it. So here I will count down Houston style, my top 5 reasons why space exploration is important for the world.

5. Promote Science Education The Apollo missions inspired a whole generation of kids who wanted to grow up to be astronauts, rocket scientists, and engineers. We all know that science education has been slightly lacking in the United States as of late. Dont you think that NASAs return to the moon, or more importantly the much anticipated manned mission to Mars will again inspire a whole new generation to reach for the stars so to speak? I do.

4. NASAs Environmental Research You would think that the guys who burn a million pounds of rocket fuel wouldnt be the most environmentally minded people in the world, or out of the world as it may be. However, most people dont know that NASA does a lot of good environmental research while they are up there looking down at all of us. NASA has done a lot of work in studying air quality, climate change, alternative energy, and near earth objects; which as we all know from the movies can destroy the earth any day now without warning, unless we have a group of oil drillers, a nuke, and Bruce Willis.

3. Eliminate Earth Over Population The current earth population is almost 6.8 BILLION people. Arguably beyond the carrying capacity of the earth already. The big dream is space colonization. We need somewhere to put all these people, or we all might end up living in skyscrapers, see all animals habitats destroyed, and smog up the air beyond what is breathable (see: China).

2. Natural Resources Related to over population, we are burning through the earths natural resources pretty quickly. Out in space there is virtually unlimited resources. It is all just a matter of collecting it and bringing it back, which granted will not be an easy task. Still it is virtually unlimited natural resources! There will be no more excuses for hiking up prices on barrels of oil. (Although hopefully we will have moved far beyond oil by then).

1. Put Ourselves into Perspective From space earth is really small. From space earth is really fragile. Sometimes I think it would be a good thing to put our place in the universe into perspective. I dont go into your house light up a stogy, start pulling up your carpet, kick down your door, and then kill your cat. Yet, we as the human species have been doing that to our own home the earth for quite a while now. If we start seeing how small and fragile we are out there floating in space, maybe, just maybe we will not be so prone to abusing our one true home.

Blast Off! Heres to the men and women who gave their lives to explore the great unknown. We cannot ignore the importance of space exploration, nor be complacent in its meaning to all of us. I hope space exploration can continue to inspire, educate, and provide for us in the next 40 years as it has the last 40 years.

Image Credit: TopTechWriter.US on Flickr

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Top 5 Reasons why Space Exploration is Important for the ...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.(KRQE) New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (NMT) is one step closer to space exploration thanks to the Air Force Research Laboratory. The university is getting $6.2 million to complete the first phase of its $30 million five-year project for the Magdalena Ridge Observatory Interferometer.

When complete, the project will improve detection and characterization of objects at Geosynchronous Earth Orbit and beyond, said Van Romero in a news release, vice president for research and professor of physics at NMT. It will allow astronomers to assess the health and orientation of man-made objects and study starspots, newly forming planets around young stars, and accretion disk physics around super-massive black holes.

With the money, New Mexico Tech says it will be able to build three telescopes and two scientific instruments in Socorro. The funding will also support a team of more than 40 scientists, engineers, students and support staff.

According to the news release from the Air Force Research Lab, the Magdalena Ridge Observatory Interferometer will be one of the largest Earth-based optical telescopes, made up of collecting mirrors that work together to produce images with resolutions equal to a single telescope of more than three football fields across.The news release states that the observatory is expected to be completed in 2026.

The news release states that NMT anticipates the facility will be available to public tours, and K-12 school programs, and will promote collaborations with universities.

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Air Force Research Lab, New Mexico Tech to further space exploration - KRQE News 13

NASA and the Department of Energy (DOE) are asking U.S. companies for help putting a nuclear reactor on the moon by 2031.

Providing a reliable, high-power system on the moon is a vital next step in human space exploration, and achieving it is within our grasp, Sebastian Corbisiero, the Fission Surface Power Project lead at the DOEs Idaho National Laboratory, said in a news release.

The challenge: NASA plans to send astronauts back to the moon as soon as 2025, with the goal of establishing a long-term presence on its surface. While there, astronauts will conduct research that will help NASA figure out how to send humans to Mars for the first time, perhaps by learning how to extract rocket fuel from moon ice.

They wont be able to conduct that research, though, if they dont have plenty of power for their rovers, life-support systems, and other tech.

NASA wants reactors that can produce 40 kilowatts thats enough to sustain 30 households for 10 years.

Plentiful energy will be key to future space exploration, Jim Reuter, associate administrator for NASAs Space Technology Mission Directorate, said in a news release.

Some of this power can come from solar panels, but lunar nights can last for weeks, and NASA also wants to be able to explore places sunlight cant reach, such as deep within the moons lava tubes.

The idea: NASA believes nuclear could be the ideal energy source for lunar astronauts since its reliable and powerful. It actually might not be too difficult to put a nuclear reactor on the moon, either.

While the nuclear reactors providing power here on Earth tend to be massive, researchers are already developing microreactors small enough to transport by truck and the less weight NASA has to send up, the cheaper the mission will be.

A reliable, high-power system on the moon is a vital next step in human space exploration.

The ask: NASA and the DOE are now asking U.S. companies to help them put a nuclear reactor on the moon for a demonstration within the next 10 years.

Specifically, they want proposals for nuclear systems capable of producing 40 kilowatts about how much 30 households use over the course of a decade while operating autonomously from the deck of a lunar lander or rover.

Proposed reactors must also weigh less than 13,200 pounds (about 6,000 kg) and be able to fit in a cylindrical container 18 feet long and 12 feet wide.

Putting a nuclear reactor on the moon could drive innovation for fission on Earth.

Looking ahead: Proposals must be submitted by February 9, 2022. NASA and the DOE will then spend a year helping chosen companies further develop their nuclear reactor designs.

Using what they learn from that process, NASA and the DOE will then ask companies for final design ideas. One of those systems will then be built and sent to the moon within the next decade, if all goes according to plan.

The big picture: Putting a nuclear reactor on the moon would not only help with space exploration, it could also drive innovation for uses here on Earth, according to NASAs Reuter and that could be huge in the fight against climate change.

Nuclear is the most reliable source of clean energy we currently have available, but many existing plants are nearing the end of their lifespans, and building similarly sized replacements can take billions of dollars and most of a decade.

Smaller nuclear reactors could be put into use far more quickly and for far less money, if we can work out the kinks in developing them and NASAs plan to put a nuclear reactor on the moon could help us get there.

Wed love to hear from you! If you have a comment about this article or if you have a tip for a future Freethink story, please email us at tips@freethink.com.

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NASA plans to put a nuclear reactor on the moon by 2031 - Freethink

Space is thought to be unlimited, but the lower Earth orbit (LEO) is limited - and filling quickly up with new satellites and space litter from old ones.

The lack of space has already put the two richest men on planet Earth, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, at odds.

Musk's Starlink has placed some 16,000 satellites in orbit to deliver high-speed internet to anyone on the planet.

Amazon's Bezos' competing project, Kuiper, hopes to have 3,200 satellites in operation after its first launch in 2022, while OneWeb is more than halfway to its target of 648 satellites.

A request from Musk, to move some of his Starlink satellites to a lower altitude than originally planned, recently led to a dispute at the American Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

This is perhaps the first, but certainly not the last, dispute over how to operate in space.

The American Federal Communications Commission earlier this month (3 November) granted aerospace giant Boeing permission to place 147 satellites in orbit, while French satellite company Kinis was granted permission (18 November) to offer satellite services in the US market from 25 small, low-Earth orbit satellites.

There are two main reasons why the world is facing an exponential growth of satellites. First, it has never been easier to get a satellite into space and secondly, satellites have become smaller.

The global space economy represents more than 300bn per year, and could double within a decade, according to a report from the European Space Agency high-level advisory group on accelerating the use of space in Europe, published in October.

This commercial explosion touches on all sectors of space, from launchers to applications, from exploration to the LEO economy, it said. What will be Europe's share of it?

"Today, we have three nations [the US, China and Russia] being capable of launching their own astronauts into space, with one coming up very soon, India; and there will be others on the horizon," European Space Agency (ESA) director, Josef Aschbacher told a press conference in Portugal on Friday (19 November).

"The question is - does Europe also want to have its independent access to space for future space exploration? This means the next frontiers, which are of course in low-Earth orbit, but also on the Moon, on Mars and beyond," he said, at the end of a meeting of ESA member states ministers in the Portuguese city of Matosinhos.

The ministers adopted a new vision for space activity in Europe, the Matosinhos Manifesto.

A European space summit will be held in February 2022 in Toulouse, coinciding with France holding the Council of the European Union presidency from 1 January to 30 June 2022.

The summit is set to boost Europe's ambition in space for the next decade by announcing new flagship space programmes in addition to Copernicus and Galileo.

However, one big hurdle will be to find the public budgets needed to make such visions into reality.

"Human space exploration is well understood. The question is if Europe wants to develop its own capabilities in the medium to long term. I would like to ask the question to decision-makers. Is this something where Europe should really engage itself?" ESA director, Aschbacher said.

It is one thing is to send communication, navigation and observation satellites into orbit. It is another thing is to send astronauts, as European and Americans call humans in space. Russians who travel into space are known as cosmonauts - while China calls them taikonauts.

Musk's SpaceX in September 2021 sent the first four civilians 580km above the surface of Earth, which is even further away than the International Space Station.

ESA has currently seven active astronauts working closely with the American NASA astronauts, as Europe is not capable of launching their own astronauts into space. ESA is, however, recruiting a new crew of astronauts for future missions.

"Space is becoming a much more important sphere not just for humans but in all aspects of our lives; we see that through communication satellites, navigation satellites, earth observation satellites that really have become part of our infrastructure now. They are integrated into our modern societies," ESA astronaut, Andreas Mogensen, told EUobserver.

Mogensen and his NASA colleague, astronaut Kathleen Rubins last week (19 November) finished joint geology field trips to the Italian Dolomites and the Ries crater in Germany, as well Lanzarote, a Spanish volcanic island, in preparation for a potential landing on the Moon.

"Walking in a volcanic environment on the Earth, on the Moon surface or on Mars is actually very similar", Rubins explained to press on Lanzarote.

Time on the moon will be limited, as well as capacity, and astronauts need to know enough geology to understand what samples to pick, describe, measure and bring home.

"This is a very exciting time because it has been decided now to take the next step. We had more than 20 years of experience onboard the international space station where we learned what it means to live in space for longer periods of time. Six months even a year. And now we are going to return to the Moon hopefully this time to stay to create a presence on the Moon, a space station and then the plan is if everything goes well to take that experience and then in 10, 20, 30 years send humans to Mars," Mogensen said.

"The NASA plan is that when we return to the moon it is going to be with the first woman and the first person of colour onboard. This is not only an American plan it is actually an international plan", Rubins said.

She stands a very good chance to become the first female to set foot on the moon herself.

"It has been interesting to see a lot of the commercial space explosion happening. We want to go further and we want to explore, but really to do that we need to enable a commercial market. My hope that this allows us to expand space exploration and that we make this is not just for a few single individuals but that more people can get involved", Rubins said.

"As costs get lower and lower the access becomes available to more countries that want to send experiments to space, educational opportunities make space available to everybody. So, I see this as definitively 'collaboration'. It helps our space programme", she said.

The European Space Agency's headquarter is located in Paris, France. But it is not an EU institution, just working closely with the European Commission and members states and receiving some 25 percent of annual budgets from EU coffers.

There are around 2,200 staff working for ESA and the budget for 2021 is 6.49bn, which is only around a quarter of US public spending on space activities.

EU budgets are also directed at a new EU body called the EU Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) which was officially launched on 12 May 2021. It is based in Prague and oversights everything the European Union does as a bloc in orbit.

ESA and EUSPA are separate entities with national memberships that do not completely overlap - for example, the UK is in ESA but not in the EU, and therefore not in EUSPA.

A Financial Framework Partnership Agreement (FFPA) defines responsibilities and details the amount of money contributed by the EU to ESA up to 2027 - some 9bn out of a total EU space budget of 14.88bn.

European states also invest in their own national space programmes and activities.

France committed for example in October 2021 1.5bn to space as part of the "France 2030" investment plan, Norway announced it has secured funding to build a spaceport on the island of Andya, and Sweden for a spaceport in the Esrange Space Centre in Kiruna.

Scotland's government recently launched a new Scottish Space Strategy and even little Monaco established an Office for Outer Space Affairs.

Read more:

Europe to define new space ambitions at February summit - EUobserver

Photo prise pour Crossroads Magazine #2

During this weeks Space Caf, SpaceWatch.Global publisher Torsten Kriening caught up with the Director of European Space Resources Innovation Centre (ESRIC) and Director for International Affairs & SpaceResources.lu at the Luxembourg Space Agency (LSA) Dr. Mathias Link.

Mathias is recognised as an expert in the field of space resources and currently works on the definition and implementation of Luxembourgs space sector policy, with a focus on international affairs, legal & regulatory issues, research, as well as finance. For more than ten years, Mathias Link has represented Luxembourg in space-related boards at the European Union and ESA, as well as in the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space.

This week, he and Torsten talk about why space resources will be driving the future of space exploration, Luxembourgs interest in space resources, and the community and start-up programme ESRIC and the LSA offers.

Luxembourg and interest in space resources

Luxembourg has been active in space since the 1980s, starting in commercial satellite communications with the creation of SES. Since then, the sector has grown, becoming an integral sector in the countrys economy.

And the sector is also recognized as one of the key priorities for diversification of our economy.

Mathias explained that from the government side, they began looking at space resources about 10 years ago.

We started looking into this and saw that this was actually very promising, obviously, space resource utilization, meaning using different resources like water gases, metals bring a lot of different applications.

The huge potential of space resources was recognized, and so Luxembourg began to investigate this.

And that led them to the launch of the space resources to the EU initiative in February 2016, where we gave ourselves the objective to contribute to the peaceful exploration and sustainable utilization of space resources for the benefit of humankind. And since then, we have really implemented a lot of different activities on many different aspects and layers.

This means, many different international partnerships with European partners at the European Space Agency, and the European Union, as well as becoming active at the United Nations. And adopting a national law in 2017, recognizing the possibility of resources ownership, but also laying down a complete framework for the authorization and supervision of corresponding missions.

Challenges putting the ideas into action

Mathias states that there are a few different challenges when putting space resources on the map in Luxembourg for both the public and the private sector. These challenges are on a technical, regulatory, and financial level.

And of course, you have the overall challenge that all these individual challenges are very much interlinked, they are very much related, you will of course, not find an investor investing in markets that do not exist with unclear legal issues and with an immature technology.

Another big challenge takes shape in trying to develop sustainable activities in cooperation with the private sector.

And the difficulty here is, of course, that we very often try to address markets that do not yet exist.

In order to address these challenges, there has to be a parallel focus and the role of governments and agencies is that of a bridging entity playing the role of an anchor for customers or early risk-takers to support the private industry.

And more specifically, what we have tried in Luxembourg is to look for companies that share this long-term vision that we also have, but also have ideas on proposing near term business models addressing existing markets in space and on Earth.

The Goal of ESRIC

ESRIC is an initiative that we took together with ESA, responding to both Luxembourgs national strategy space resources towards the EU, and to the ESA strategy on space resources, which was published in May 2019.

What we aim with as ESRIC is to create a new internationally recognized centre of expertise for both scientific and technical aspects, but also business and economic aspects related to the use of space resources. And of course, we do this again to go further in human and robotic exploration, but also to lay the grounds for future in space economy.

Mathias explains they are active in four main pillars on the global level.

The most important one, I would say, is the research pillar, where we will start research activities all along the value chain of space resources. So really going from the prospection of resources to the mining and beneficiation of these resources, and then to the processing and, and manufacturing of these resources into viable applications.

The second pillar is business with a focus on pushing commercial partnership but also including the launch of a launched support program for start-ups.

The third pillar is a platform to bring together the community in Europe.

Europe, because we know that many players that are active in this field, but what is missing is more opportunities to bring them together to exchange ideas and to come up with new projects.

The fourth pillar is the knowledge management pillar, where they try to build up a central platform together to structure and to make the knowledge available that exists in ESRIC, but also in Europe and even on an international level.

Bringing in the non-space industry

Now specifically for space resources, what we are doing is trying to increase the level of recognition and taking it seriously because I agree with you when you hear this for the first time, it sounds a bit like science fiction, but that has to change

In order to do so, Mathias describes that its all about taking the time to explain. They are active in the media showing the opportunities that are linked to space resource utilization to the general public.

So thats one thing, trying to just generally increase the knowledge. And by that also bringing in people and companies maybe that, that did not think about this as a huge opportunity.

Start-up programmes at the ESRIC Centre

ESRIC does not want to solely focus on research, but rather aid the develop further companies in this field. To do so, they launched the ESRIC start-up program at the ISC a few weeks ago.

The aim of that program, which is actually the worlds first fully dedicated to space resources, companies are to work in three phases.

The first phase, which companies and groups from all over the world can join, is about mentoring, bringing in teams that will receive both business and technical advice from the partners of ESRIC. The second phase is the incubation phase in Luxembourg, with office spaces and,000 euros of an initial grant to help develop the team. The third phase is residency, where the start-ups that are actually very close to the researchers and also have the opportunity to stay at ESRIC for a longer time.

Finally, the age-old question

What will come first: Asteroid resources, or Lunar resources?

To this chicken and egg question, Mathias explained, that they have conducted some studies and the results were very clear.

I think the moon has a lot of advantages in being more accessible, also having a lot of interest in recent years. So, the first space resource utilization, or lets say larger utilization will be on the moon.

From there, the further activities can happen in low Earth orbit, or Earths orbit in general, and then serve as a stepping stone towards Mars. Mathias states that asteroids also have a lot of advantages, which will be the next step to address.

To listen to Mathias Links insights on space resources and his experience with ESRIC and the LSA, you can watch the full program here:

Chiara Moenter is the event coordinator of SpaceWatch.Global and the co-founder of SDG18: Space for All. Currently, she is doing her masters in Sustainability Science at Maastricht University.

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Space Caf WebTalk with Dr. Mathias Link: Luxembourg and the space resources of the future - SpaceWatch.Global