Category Archives: Space Exploration

At the end of July the second richest man in the world, Amazons Jeff Bezos, plans to blast himself into space, a project that has prompted a satirical global petition asking him to stay there. If the history of human space exploration ended at that moment, with the phallic self-launch of a narcissistic tax avoider, it would be a bathetic endpiece to a remarkable story that began with Nazi weaponry and has encompassed arguably the greatest achievement to date of human civilisation.

It is nearly 50 years since people last walked on the surface of the moon the moon! in an age with no internet or smartphones, driven there in rattling tin cans at unimaginable speeds by huge controlled explosions. Boosters of the modern app economy love to claim that right now the pace of technological change is the fastest it has ever been, but they are somehow forgetting the period between 1957, when the USSR put the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, into orbit, and 1969, when three men flew to the moon and two of them descended in a separate spacecraft, walked around collecting rocks, and then blasted off again, docking with the original spacecraft, before flying back to Earth and splashing down safely in the ocean.

The vehicle that had pushed them laboriously out of Earths gravity well was the Saturn V, still the largest rocket ever built, a 36-storey-high behemoth designed under the guidance of Nazi rocket scientist Wernher von Braun. The inventor of the V2 rocket, which terrorised London from late 1944, Von Braun surrendered to the Americans at the end of the war, was gratefully transported to safety in the US and put in charge of designing rockets for ballistic missiles with which to nuke the Soviets.

But Von Braun still dreamed of less unpleasant ways to use his rocket science. Between 1952 and 1954 he wrote a series of articles for Colliers Magazine under the rubric Man Will Conquer Space Soon! Then came Sputnik and, in 1961, the first human being in space: Yuri Gagarin. The US military was alarmed. A month later, President Kennedy announced that the Americans would put someone on the moon by the end of the decade, and the space race was on.

It is this era that forms the narrative core of Australian space historian Colin Burgesss book, with each and every Nasa mission in the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programmes described in detail loving enough to thrill space nerds of all ages. But he also pays due homage to the remarkable achievements of the Soviets, who for much of the space races duration were still winning it, until suddenly they werent. This he attributes to the untimely death in 1966 of the Russian genius Sergei Korolev, an engineer who had survived two years in the Gulag after one of Stalins purges, worked on rockets during the war, and rose to become chief designer of the Soviet space programme.

It was Korolev who, in the mid-1950s, began firing dogs into the upper reaches of the atmosphere without asking them, to check the bio-effects of very high-altitude flight. In November 1957, just a month after Sputnik 1, Korolev launched the much bigger Sputnik 2, final home of the plucky cosmodog Laika, the planets first life-form to experience spaceflight, sent up there with bio-sensors to beam back data but no plans to bring her home. Dog lovers the world over protested at the cruelty of leaving her up there to circle the planet until her air ran out. The well-connected Burgess, though, has it on the authority of two Russian sources that Laika probably expired of heat exhaustion only a few hours into the flight, which might have been a relative mercy.

While the USSR were firing the first object, first animal, and then first human into space they got the first woman into space too, Valentina Tereshkova in 1963 the Americans were racing to catch up, eventually boosting a bunch of monkeys into the high atmosphere. In 1958 Nasa was formed, and the term astronaut (Greek for star sailor) officially adopted, the first American astronaut being a squirrel monkey named Miss Baker, who completed a short ballistic flight into space in 1959.

Burgess tells the subsequent tales of crewed spaceflight on both sides of the iron curtain with great verve, and a suspenseful narration of unheralded near-disasters. Gagarins spacecraft, for instance, only just avoided burning up on re-entry, as did John Glenns Friendship 7 craft on an early Mercury mission. Theres a nail-biting story of one cosmonaut whose suit ballooned and nearly prevented him from getting back through the airlock. On the Apollo 10 mission, the lunar lander nearly crashed because its radar locked on to the actual moon instead of the command module it was meant to rendezvous with. And Apollo 11 only landed safely because crack pilot Neil Armstrong overrode the automatic systems that were trying to set down on dangerous rocks and flew to a better landing zone with seconds of fuel left.

There are, too, sober analyses of the actual disasters, including the fatal fire in the command capsule of the first Apollo mission during a test on the ground, later found to be partly due to cost-cutting by a contractor (plus a change), and the loss of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986, owing to a frozen O-ring in a rocket booster. (Its silly no? / When a rocket-ship explodes / And everybody still wants to fly sang Prince a year later.)

Nasa now plans, though, to put people back on the moon by the middle of this decade, which rather prompts the question: why did moon-going stop nearly half a century ago? The answer seems to be, astonishingly in hindsight, that we just got bored of it. The sight of astronauts gleefully bouncing around in one-sixth gravity had become tiresome for many, Burgess notes, and public support for the space agencys lunar missions had plummeted.

So what has changed? Well, China landed a robot on the moon last year, and more recently announced plans to build a joint moon base with Russia. So some of Donald Trumps Space Force might want to be there jockeying for position too. But more generally space seems cool again, partly thanks to the antics of billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, of Tesla and SpaceX fame, who builds rockets for Nasa and used one of them to blast a red Tesla into orbit. (In the drivers seat is a mannequin called Starman, in homage to the David Bowie song.) Blinking in Musks authentic rocket exhaust are the minnows with vanity space companies, such as Bezoss Blue Origin and Richard Bransons Virgin Galactic, which is most notable for the fact that it has been promising its first tourist flights into space are just around the corner for more than a decade.

But does space exploration actually matter as something more than a dick-waving contest for plutocrats? Space exploration is a human imperative, Burgess writes, and travelling further afield in space is our undeniable destiny, but he might have offered a more full-throated defence of it. Some argue that space exploration is a waste of money while we still have problems to fix on our own planet, but that has never been an either/or proposition, just as it was not a binary choice for the UK between staying in the EU or spending more money on the NHS. The pure-science justification alone is strong, taking into account the cosmological discoveries that flowed from the Hubble telescope, and will do so from its successor, the James Webb space telescope, to be launched later this year.

But possibly the best reason is that, even if we decide to act as better stewards of the Earth, it could be rendered uninhabitable through no fault of our own. Perhaps a large asteroid strike, or a gamma-ray burst from a nearby star collapsing into a black hole, which would destroy the atmosphere. In that case, it might be nice to have a spare planet, and we might feel grateful to the pioneering space-sailors who helped make evacuation a possibility.

The Greatest Adventure: A History of Human Space Exploration is published by Reaktion. To support the Guardian and the Observer buy a copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

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The Greatest Adventure by Colin Burgess review a history of human space exploration - The Guardian

The last Apollo mission to the Moon was almost 50 years ago and in that time no human has set foot on any celestial body outside of Earth. In those intervening decades, we have made advances in space science, engineering and commerce but, when it comes to hands-on experience in exploring another world, humanity is only now about to break the half-century mark of inaction. The Artemis Program aims to establish a sustainable human presence on the Moon in preparation for missions to Mars and here Gabriel Swiney describes the journey to the creation of the Artemis Accords and why he believes these sometimes controversial commitments are vital for the long-term sustainability of Artemis.

The Artemis Program, first announced by the Trump Administration and endorsed in January 2021 by the Biden Administration, is a comprehensive plan by NASA to return humans to the Moon, build a sustainable architecture for lunar exploration, and leverage that experience to explore Mars.

Although the celestial destination is the same as Apollo, the programmes could not be more different. While Apollo was a purely US activity, Artemis will involve a coalition of partner countries and space agencies. Apollo hardware, from the Saturn V rockets to the lunar landers, was designed, owned and operated by the US government; for Artemis NASA is contracting commercial services, relying on private industry to design and provide the bulk of exploration hardware. The United States and its partners are not likely to be the only ones in the neighbourhood, as other countries, such as China and Russia, are also planning lunar exploration programmes.

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A shared vision for space exploration - Room: The Space Journal - ROOM Space Journal

The SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket lifts off from historic launch pad 39-A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., February 6, 2018. (Thom Baur/Reuters)

NASA may not like the competition, but its how well beat China in the new space race.

As Jeff Bezos, the wealthiest man on the planet, readies to launch himself into space aboard one of his own rockets, the world is watching the birth of a new dawn in space. Previously, America relied on its government agency, NASA, to propel it to the cosmos during the last space race with the Soviet Union. Today, Americas greatest hopes are with its private sector.

Jeff Bezos is not engaging in such risky behavior simply because hes an adrenaline junky. No, hes launching himself into orbit because his Blue Origins is in a titanic struggle with Elon Musks SpaceX and Bezoss firm is losing.

Whatever happens, the American people will benefit from the competition that is shaping up between Americas space entrepreneurs. This has always been how innovation occurs: through the dynamic, often cutthroat competition between actors in the private sector. While money is their ultimate prize, fame and fortune are also alluring temptations to make men like Musk and Bezos risk much of their wealth to change the world.

The private space race among these entrepreneurs is part of a far more important marathon between Red China and the United States. Whichever nation wins the new space race will determine the future of the earth below.

Consider this: Since winning its initial contracts to launch sensitive U.S. military satellites into orbit, SpaceX has lowered the cost of military satellite launches on taxpayers by over a million dollars less than what bigger defense contractors can do. Elon Musk is convinced that he can bring these costs down even more, thanks to his reusable Falcon 9 rocket.

The competition between the private space start-ups is fierce just as the competition between Edison and Westinghouse was but the upshot is ultimately greater innovation and lower costs for you and me. In fact, Elon Musk insists that if NASA gives SpaceX the contract for building the Human Landing System for the Artemis mission, NASA would return astronauts to the lunar surface by 2024 four years before NASA believes it will do so. (Incidentally, 2024 is also when China anticipates having a functional base on the moons southern pole.)

Whereas China has an all-of-society approach to its space race with the United States, Washington has yet to fully galvanize the country in the way that John F. Kennedy rallied America to wage and win the space race in the Cold War. Americas private sector, therefore, is the silver bullet against Chinas quest for total space dominance. If left unrestricted by meddlesome Washington bureaucrats, these companies will ensure that the United States retains its overall competitive advantage over China and all other challengers, for that matter.

Indeed, the next four years could prove decisive in who will be victorious.

Enter the newly minted NASA director, Bill Nelson, whose station at the agency has effectively poured cold water on the private sectors ambitious space plans. Space is not going to be the Wild West for billionaires or anyone else looking to blast off, Nelson admonished an inquiring reporter.

Why not?

Americas actions during its western expansion created a dynamic and advanced nation that was well-positioned to dominate the world for the next century. Should we not attempt to emulate this in order to remain dominant in the next century?

More important, this is precisely how China treats space: as a new Wild West . . . but one in which Beijings forces will dominate. China takes a leap-without-looking approach to space development everything that can be done to further its grand ambition of becoming the worlds most dominant power by 2049 will be done. Meanwhile, the Biden administration wants to prevent Americas greatest strength, the free market, from helping to beat its foremost geopolitical competitor.

Nelsons comments are fundamentally at odds with Americas spirit and animating principles. Whatever ones opinion about Bezos or Musk, the fact is that their private space companies are inspiring greater innovation today in the space sector after years of its being left in the sclerotic hands of the U.S. government.

Sensing that the federal governments dominance of U.S. space policy is waning, the Biden administration would rather cede the strategic high ground of space to China than let wildcatting innovators do the hard work. Today, the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) and NASA are contriving new ways for strangling the budding private space sector, just as it is taking flight.

Risk aversion is not how one innovates. Risk is what led Americans to the moon just 66 years after the Wright brothers flew their first airplane. A willingness for risk doesnt exist today in the federal government which is why the feds shouldnt be running space policy.

The U.S. government should be partnering with the new space start-ups, not shunning them. The FAA should be automatically approving SpaceX launches, not stymying them. The federal government will not win space any more than it could win the West or build the locomotive. It takes strong-willed, brilliant individuals of a rare caliber to do that. All government can do is to give the resources and support to private-sector innovators and let them make history for us.

The next decade will decide who wins space. Let it be America and let Americas dynamic start-ups win that race, not Chinas state capitalism.

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The Future of Space Exploration Depends on the Private Sector - National Review

The big news on the spaceflight front last week was the announcement by billionaire Richard Branson that he would ride his Virgin Galactic spacecraft aloft on July 11, beating fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos to the edge of space by nine days.

Big news, that is, for anyone mourning the demise of the TV show Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, which ran out its string more than 15 years ago.

For anyone else anchored here on planet Earth, the competition to be the first billionaire in space should mark a milestone in the towering vanity of the wealthy.

Everybody says that when you go to space, it changes you.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, promoting his Blue Origin space tourism venture in 2017

Both billionaires place their ventures in the context of the need to test humans resilience to spaceflight, establish the safety of their craft, and expand humankinds reach beyond our home planet.

Thats also a theme of the third billionaire engaged in this plutocrats space race, Elon Musk. He hasnt been talking about taking a flight himself but does say the goal of his company, SpaceX, is to give humankind a foothold on other planets, specifically Mars.

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Lets promptly dispense with the notion that any of these flights will add anything to our scientific knowledge, unless its the establishment of a new metric for how long it takes for money to burn a hole in your pocket when you have more than you could possibly need. Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, told a news conference in 2017 that he was cashing in about $1 billion in Amazon stock every year to invest in his spaceflight company, Blue Origin.

As has been the case virtually since the dawn of the Space Age, manned spaceflight is all about public relations. I can say this from personal experience; as a schoolboy in the 1960s I knew the names and vital statistics of every one of the original seven Mercury astronauts, detailed as they were by Life magazine, which had reached an exclusive publicity deal with NASA.

The arrangement was the first step in a PR blitz that kept the space program at the forefront of American voters consciousness through successes and failures, right up to the moon landing of July 20, 1969. After that, anomie set in, broken now and then by upsurges in talk of further manned voyages to the moon and a new quest to place astronauts on Mars.

The space shuttle, NASAs follow-up to projects Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, never seemed to capture the public imagination as did those earlier programs aimed at landing on the moon.

The suborbital, up-and-then-back-down-again flights scheduled by Blue Origin will just barely reach the altitude generally regarded as the edge of space, 100 kilometers or about 62 miles; Virgins will fall about 12 miles short of that point.

As for advancing the science of spaceflight, its proper to note that the achievement of suborbital spaceflight was reached by the first launch of Project Mercury, with Alan Shepard aboard the Freedom 7 capsule 60 years ago. (By then, of course, the Soviet Union had already sent cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin into orbit.)

Since then, the practical rationale for human spaceflight has only receded. As physicist Steven Weinberg observed way back in 2004, NASA administrators, astronauts, aerospace contractors, and politicians typically find manned space flight just wonderful.

Thats still the case in 2017, the theme was picked up by Donald Trump, though it suffered the fate of so many other ventures of the Trump White House, subsumed into Trumps usual miasma of boredom.

The Bezos and Branson flights are quite evidently designed to pump up the appeal of their companies nascent space tourism businesses.

Blue Origin says its ultimate goal is to support millions of people ... living and working in space, but its shorter-term goal is to ferry passengers on flights of 10 minutes or so, during which they can experience about three minutes of weightlessness and perhaps get an inspiring glimpse of Earth from afar.

Everybody says that when you go to space, it changes you, Bezos said at that 2017 event. All the astronauts come back with stories like that. Its very emotional to see this Earth, to see the thin limit of the atmosphere.

The glamour of life in space has been part of popular culture for the better part of a century. In recent decades it has been fostered by 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Trek and Star Wars, and The Martian.

The real danger of thrill-seeking via spaceship is that it distracts from problems here on the ground. Its become a bit of a cliche to say that we should be spending more on the fight against global warming, but NASA projects have contributed immeasurably to Earth science at least until congressional conservatives steered the agency away from those projects so it could spend more on interplanetary exploration.

Almost every goal cited for manned spaceflight, Weinberg observed, could be performed today more efficiently and more cheaply by unmanned flights.

The most spectacular gains in knowledge about Mars, for instance, have been provided by by robots. They include NASAs Perseverance rover, which landed on the red planet on Feb. 18, about seven months after its unmanned launch, and Curiosity, which landed in 2012 and is still sending photographs our way. They were preceded by Spirit and Opportunity, which were launched in 2003 and landed the following year.

Those projects cost a mere fraction of what it would have taken to send humans to Mars, even if that were technically possible. The reason is that once humans are aboard, their safety becomes the paramount concern of the mission, driving up its cost exponentially.

As I observed after Trumps Feb. 28, 2017, address to Congress in which he hinted at a resumption of manned space exploration, the public obviously considers human participants to be indispensable, so much so that a loss of life can almost destroy a space program, as happened with the space shuttle program after two human catastrophes.

One example of the wastefulness of manned missions is the Hubble Space Telescope, which was placed into orbit in 1990 by the space shuttle. But the Hubble could just as easily have been launched by an unmanned mission indeed, as Riccardo Giacconi, the former director of the Space Telescope Science Institute, estimated, doing so would have allowed seven Hubbles to be launched for the same price as the single shuttle-launched telescope.

Manned space missions are customarily justified by the advances in science and technological know-how thrown off by the space race. That notion has an enduring allure. Two Trump advisors writing just before the 2016 election promoted the notion of renewed manned exploration by citing the brilliant returns for our economy, our security, and our sense of national destiny produced by past investments in space exploration.

They didnt mention any specific economic returns, brilliant or otherwise, perhaps because they couldnt identify any that would not have been produced by an unmanned moon program. (One of the authors was Peter Navarro, then of UC Irvine, whose later promotion of a useless remedy for COVID-19 should put his expertise in perspective.)

The vanity projects of the billionaire astronauts are endowed with a science-y veneer. Larry Connor, an Ohio apartment tycoon who put up a reported $55 million for an eight-day stay on the International Space Station, ferried there by Musks SpaceX, told the Washington Post hes collaborating with the Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic on research projects and will give classes on his experience to students at a Dayton charter school.

Perhaps these projects will have genuine scientific value. If so, however, they would be conducted by experienced scientists, not a 77-year-old Dayton real estate man. More likely, theyll be like other science projects sent aloft on the space shuttle, which Weinberg acerbically dismissed as having the flavor of projects done for a high school science talent contest.

What about the prospects of humans colonizing or even conducting research on Mars? This has the flavor of popular science fiction. The truth is that Mars is a place irredeemably hostile to human life. The planets atmosphere is unbreathably thin and lacks a global magnetic field, which means that human residents would be inundated with cosmic and UV rays.

Its surface temperatures fall as low as minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit, a level approaching that of Antarctica. At the poles, temperatures can reach as low as minus 200 degrees F. The planets gravitational pull is about one-third that of Earth.

Mars aficionados like Musk counter these facts with hand-waving. It is a little cold, but we can warm it up, SpaceX says. Gravity on Mars is about 38% of that of Earth, so you would be able to lift heavy things and bound around. Never mind that low gravity, as experienced by astronauts on long missions, wreaks havoc with human biological systems including the heart, bones and muscles.

One underlying theme of space travel enthusiasts like Musk and Bezos is that humans need a Plan B. The assumption is weve screwed up Earth so badly that theres little point in trying to fix what we broke. They have the wrong end of the stick. Answers to global warming and disease are still much more accessible than fleeing Earth for space. The dream of interplanetary travel and colonization is the dream of schoolchildren, and its time that the billionaires grew up.

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Space race for Bezos, Branson, Musk is a mere vanity project - Los Angeles Times

Optics icon joins with digital astronomy disruptor to unlock the future of consumer telescope technology and accelerate New Astronomy.

MARSEILLE, France & TOKYO, July 07, 2021--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Since the beginning of time, humans have observed the night sky with awe and wonder and sought to connect our lives to the events we see happening far above us. And for generations, people everywhere have been captivated by space exploration. But while industrial and professional space technologies race ahead at lightspeed, consumers have been left far behind in the race to explore, observe, and understand outer space.

Today, thanks to a collaboration between astronomy disruptor Unistellar and optics icon Nikon, a wide public of consumers is about to catch up to their professional and scientific counterparts. People everywhere will soon be able to see the hidden beauties of the night sky and connect to the universe like never before. Not only will they enjoy and learn about the universe on an emotional level, but they will also have a decisive impact on astronomical research: Fostered by Unistellar, this change is so complete and dramatic it was called "New Astronomy."

A Global Revolution in Popular Astronomy

Thanks to its groundbreaking patented technologies, Unistellars eVscope has ignited a global revolution in popular astronomy. This unique, easy-to-use, smart telescope allows everyone to enjoy astronomy, combining high visual power and unparalleled convenience with the ability to make serious scientific discoveries.

Today, five thousand eVscope users worldwide have already created a new phenomenon, experiencing the thrill and beauty of outer space while learning about the cosmos. This community also works as a network of citizen astronomers which already started to make important contributions to science, thanks to collaborations with renowned institutes like the SETI Institute, helping professional astronomers observe and understand what is happening in the night sky. An experience which can be achieved from anywhere, even in light-polluted urban cores, thanks to Unistellars unique light-pollution reduction technology. This was recently illustrated when users from seven different countries successfully detected the poorly known Near-Earth Asteroid 1999 AP10, in the worlds largest-ever citizen astronomy planetary defense research campaign.

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Meanwhile, Nikon has an incredible legacy of democratizing complex and expensive human endeavors with highest quality optics and industrial expertise, empowering everyone to see and capture the world around us in an entirely new light. Nikon products have also provided key contributions to space exploration: Most cameras used by astronauts to show the beauty of Earth from above, for example, are Nikon cameras.

Democratizing High-End Technologies

Through this new partnership, Nikon will help Unistellar expand its success by sharing its cutting-edge optical technologies and industrial know-how. Nikons skill at embedding high-end technologies into popular hobbies such as photography is a natural fit with Unistellars vision of making space exploration an adventure everyone can experience.

"Like Nikon has done and continues to do in many fields related with optics and imaging, we see Unistellars products spark joy and excitement on an important and meaningful topic that was previously difficult to grasp for consumers." said Yasuhiro Ohmura, Senior Vice President of Nikon. "We are also especially sensitive to the unique way Unistellar promotes science and enlightenment at a popular level and are happy to collaborate in widening and furthering this mission."

Sharing Their Passion for Science

Unistellar and Nikon also share a commitment to enhancing the human experience. Both are eager to join forces to promote knowledge, education, and advancements in science in general and astronomy in particular.

The Unistellar community has already achieved groundbreaking citizen science successes in many places around the world, including Japan, detecting asteroids and exoplanets while cooperating with outreach institutions.

"The Unistellar and Nikon brands share remarkably similar values at heart. Not only this partnership represents a great business opportunity for Unistellar, as we are looking to benefit from Nikons incredible know-how in democratizing technology," said Laurent Marfisi, CEO of Unistellar. "But the passion and drive of Nikons teams for our common projects has been incredible. We cant wait to reveal our future products to the public and how they will accelerate the New Astronomy revolution."

About Unistellar

Unistellar is the start-up behind the eVscope and the eVscope eQuinox, the worlds most powerful and simple-to-operate digital telescopes that bring the wonders of the universe to life in secondseven in light-polluted urban settings. Thanks to a partnership with the SETI Institute, these game-changing consumer telescopes allow users to become citizen scientists and contribute to cutting-edge research on exoplanet transits, asteroid occultations, comets, and much more.

The Unistellar eVscope received a CES Innovation Award in 2018 in the Tech for a Better World category and was nominated for a SXSW 2019 Innovation Award. Nearly 5,000 Unistellar digital telescopes are now operating in Europe, Japan, and North America, and their users are participating in an unprecedented observing experience.

About Nikon

Nikon has been a pioneer in optical technology markets worldwide since its inception in 1917. Today, utilizing advanced technologies, Nikon offers a wide range of products and solutions from digital cameras and binoculars to industrial precision equipment such as FPD and semiconductor lithography systems, microscopes, and measuring instruments, as well as for the healthcare field. In the future, Nikon will take advantage of Nikons core technologies to generate new core pillars of profit including the material processing business. Nikon strives to be a leading company in precision and optics fields that realizes sustainable growth of enterprise value in the medium to long term.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210707005315/en/

Contacts

For distribution or business inquiries, please contact sales@unistellaroptics.com

For North America: Bospar PR Marissa Goldmanmarissa@bospar.com +1 847.951.5715

For Europe: Liberty Communications PR unistellareurope@libertycomms.com + 44 207.751.4444

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Consumers Will See Space in a New Light Thanks to Unistellar-Nikon Collaboration - Yahoo Finance

AMARILLO, Texas (KAMR/KCIT) Joan Higginbotham began her career at NASA in 1987 as a payload electrical engineer at the Kennedy Space Center(KSC) in Florida.

During her nine-year tenure there, she participated in numerous space shuttle launches from the firingroom, the nerve center for launches an impressive accomplishment for anyone. However, when she returned to KSC for the launch of Space Shuttle Discovery on STS-116, a 12-day mission to the International Space Station, she took participation to a whole new level: as astronaut Joan Higginbotham. To date, she is the third of only three African American women astronauts to fly in space.

For astronauts like Joan, performing common tasks that we take for granted here on Earth, can be quite challenging in space. Take exercising for instance. Astronauts in space exercise up to 14 hours a week to stay healthy, and their clothes take a beating. This is one of the examples of why NASA is teaming up with P&G to create and learn about new innovations that efficiently clean clothing within constrained environments. The partnership will help unveil breakthrough insights and power future innovations within the next decade. NASA Tide, a detergent, is being developed specifically for use in space to help combat challenges, such as malodor, cleanliness and stain removal, all while ensuring the laundry water output can be recycled for re-use as drinking water. Products like this will be used to advance environmentally friendly, low-resource-use laundry solutions here on Earth.

Tide will also be a part of the future Artemis Moon and Mars Missions to help develop cleaning solutions for even longer duration crewed missions.On June 23, Joan Higginbotham will be available to discuss how more sustainable solutions in space can lead to practical, impactful solutions here at home. Shell also share memories of her spaceflight and what she expects to see from the NASA space program in the years to come.

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Former Astronaut on How Space Exploration is Helping Earth - KAMR - MyHighPlains.com

Since the dawn of human civilisation, weve been explorers looking for food, shelter, and safety. We dared to walk past uncharted territories filled with imminent mortal threats and unfamiliar landscapes. But our urge to explore never diminished and hence we kept exploring our planet. We invented agriculture, made settlements, built civilizations and kept our quest for more alive.

A group of tribes in the Pacific islands dared to cross the ocean which was of great risk during that time. However, natural disasters like frequent volcanism, earthquake, shortage of food and overwhelming population forced them to take the risk. As their ship drifted towards uncertainty for weeks, they were expecting to see a new world, and to their surprise, they stumbled upon a remote island in the Pacific where they settled down. That baby step ushered in the newfound urge for exploration. Curiosity overtook fear and the explorers discovered new islands scattered all over the Pacific.

Fast forward to the present, we still have explorers looking at a different scenario, the cosmic ocean. During the Cold War which later culminated into the Space Race, Russia and the United States began to test launch vehicles. Russia took a lead by putting the first satellite Sputnik 1 in orbit around Earth and the US put an end to it by sending 12 astronauts on the moon during the Apollo missions. Neil Armstrongs stepping on the moon was very significant, not only for human spaceflight but also for the overall vision of space exploration. The men on the Apollo program saw Earth like never before. Space race began as a battle of superiority but it gave rise to the dawn of space exploration.

Today researchers are developing theoretical concepts on interplanetary/interstellar space flight. However, our first stop is always the moon. Making a habitat on the moon will have a lot of challenges. Since there is no atmosphere, let alone greenhouse effect, the habitat housing future lunar astronauts will be vulnerable to the temperature fluctuations (ranging from -153 degrees Celsius at night to 107 degrees celsius during the day but not much to feel as there isnt any atmosphere) as the moon goes through its own day-night cycles. The gravity on the lunar surface is one-sixth that of earth and this will also have an effect on astronauts planning to stay there. Astronauts might have to deal with the loss of bone density and muscle strength but scientists are optimistic about finding a solution. Micrometeoroids and radiation will also be a major issues. However, with proper precautions and preparation, hazards can be avoided.

The International Space Station, an orbital habitat, the size of a football stadium will allow us to understand more about how weightlessness will affect astronauts on a mission to Mars and beyond. However, in order to counter the effects of micro-gravity or weightlessness, an external force could be used. A Stanford torus, which is a proposed design by NASA might have a solution. A Stanford torus is an orbiting habitat consisting of a ring which will rotate once every minute so that the inmates have access to artificial gravity. The centrifugal force (outward pulling force) will make the inmates feel as if theyre feeling the surficial gravitational attraction. Space exploration has received a lot of criticism lately because of the problem it has with the financial perspective and also based on the necessity to do the same. But just like the tribes living in the Pacific islands did, oneday we will have to venture into the deep cosmic ocean. Till today weve only dampened our toes but oneday we might have to wade deeper. Either we become spacefaring or extinct.

Space exploration will have a greater risk and it might not be feasible but human spaceflight is a necessity to ensure the existence of humans. And considering the progress of science over the past few decades, we can hope for a better tomorrow, and for a better tomorrow we need to be the pioneers who can ensure a better tomorrow. Earth might just be the perfect home with a nourishing atmosphere, a protective magnetic field and an awesome interplanetary neighbourhood but permanence is not a rule of the cosmos and hence we have to continue being the pioneers.

SHIPS ARE SAFE AT THE HARBOUR BUT THATS NOT WHAT SHIPS ARE BUILT FOR!

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The Urge And Necessity Of Space Exploration - Barak Bulletin

NASAs Human Landing System (HLS) program is the biggest bet the agency has made on the commercial space industry since the commercial crew program a decade ago. NASA decided to procure landing services rather than the landers themselves, awarding a $2.9 billion contract to SpaceX April 16 to fund development of a lunar lander based on the companys Starship vehicle and fly one demonstration mission with astronauts.

That approach has attracted plenty of scrutiny and criticism. The award to SpaceX is on hold as the Government Accountability Office evaluates protests filed by two losing bidders, Blue Origin and Dynetics. A bill passed by the Senate June 8 would require NASA to select a second company, although with no guarantee that the funding will be there to support both companies.

HLS may be the biggest example of NASA buying services to support the Artemis program, but it is not the only one. Even as some cornerstones of Artemis Orion, the Space Launch System and the Gateway move forward under conventional contracts where NASA owns and operates the hardware, its making greater use of service contracts to acquire the other things it needs to explore the moon, from landers and communications to even the spacesuits the astronauts will wear on their moonwalks.

HLS is not NASAs first lunar lander services program. In 2018, NASA unveiled the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, where the agency would buy payload space on commercially developed robotic lunar landers.

The idea was to provide frequent and inexpensive access to the moon for experiments and technology demonstrations, particularly those with a higher tolerance of risk. Agency officials often talked about taking shots on goal with CLPS, with the expectation that not every shot would make it in.

Fourteen companies have received NASA contracts through CLPS, making them eligible to bid on task orders for delivery missions. Four companies have won the six task orders NASA has issued to date: Astrobotic and Intuitive Machines each won two, along with Firefly Aerospace and Masten Space Systems. Their missions range from transporting scientific instruments that had been sitting on the shelf waiting for a ride to VIPER, a NASA rover the size of a golf cart that will search for ice deposits at the lunar south pole.

CLPS is also a pathfinder for buying services for lunar exploration. The big thing here is that were starting to work more closely with the commercial community, said Jake Bleacher, chief exploration scientist at NASA. CLPS is our first step on that front.

That has become a learning experience for both NASA and the companies as they get used to different ways of doing business. Some scientists who have experiments flying on CLPS missions have privately complained that NASAs approach of buying payload space on commercial landers shifts the technical burden, and costs, onto researchers. They now have to come up with their own solutions to engineering issues like thermal control that would, in a traditional approach, be handled in a more integrated fashion.

A services approach also doesnt prevent delays. When NASA made the first CLPS awards in May 2019, the three winners Astrobotic, Intuitive Machines and Orbit Beyond promised to launch their missions by the middle of 2021. But Orbit Beyond, whose lander was going to be the first to launch in September 2020, returned its award two months later because of what NASA called internal corporate challenges.

Intuitive Machines saw its first Nova-C lander mission slip slightly from July to October 2021. However, in a Federal Communication Commission license application filed in April, the company revealed its launch had been delayed to no earlier than the first quarter of 2022. The company blamed the delay on its launch provider, SpaceX, who said that unique mission requirements forced the delay.

Astrobotic, which originally was going to launch its Peregrine lander in June 2021, is still hoping to launch before the end of the year. It will fly on the inaugural Vulcan Centaur rocket from United Launch Alliance, whose development has been delayed by issues with its BE-4 main engine. ULA has suggested that customer payload delays, and not Vulcan issues, would delay its first launch with the Peregrine lander into 2022.

John Thornton, chief executive of Astrobotic, said at a June 9 event that the Peregrine launch is coming very soon but wasnt more specific.

There have been proposals to expand the CLPS program to include orbiters or even sample return missions. However, the next frontier for commercial services at the moon may involve infrastructure.

NASA is studying a concept it calls LunaNet: a network of satellites that would relay communications and provide navigation information for spacecraft on or around the moon. Current and proposed missions can communicate directly to Earth, but increasing lunar traffic will strain existing ground networks, and wont work for missions on the lunar farside, where Earth is out of view.

Our philosophy is that each mission should not have to create its own communications and navigation infrastructure. Thats not efficient, said Andy Petro, lunar communications and navigation implementation lead at NASA Headquarters. We see having an infrastructure to provide those services lowers the barrier to entry for new missions and capabilities.

Exactly what LunaNet will look like is unclear, as the project is still in its earliest phases of development. The idea of having relays this early was not anticipated, he said at a meeting of a Space Studies Board committee in April. Interest in doing missions on the far side of the moon, as well as exploration of the polar regions where direct-to-Earth communications can be difficult, accelerated planning for a communications network.

However, its unlikely that LunaNet would be a conventional NASA program. Were looking at doing something that NASA would not necessarily build and operate, but through either commercial public private partnerships or service contract arrangements, quite possibly from multiple providers, he said.

In a request for information (RFI) last October, NASA asked for details from potential commercial service providers for lunar communications and navigation. That included not just technical capabilities but also cost estimates and the potential for partnerships and options for financing the system.

Petro said at the April meeting that NASA is still working on an acquisition strategy for LunaNet. I dont expect it to be the traditional development and procurement that weve done in other cases.

NASA is not the only agency looking at commercial approaches to lunar communications and navigation. On May 20, the European Space Agency announced it issued study contracts to two consortia, one led by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. (SSTL) and the other by Telespazio, for an initiative called Moonlight. The two groups will spend the next 12 to 18 months studying concepts for satellite networks around the moon for communications and navigation.

Moonlight could be a flagship European project to create the first operational comms and navigation system around the moon, David Parker, ESAs director of human and robotic exploration, said at a briefing about the contracts.

The goal, he emphasized, is to create a commercial system, one developed in partnership with ESA but offering services to others. That will be part of the initial Moonlight studies: the feasibility of the system but also the business case, Parker said. The studies will be done in time for ESA to decide whether to seek support for the program at its next ministerial meeting in late 2022.

SSTL has a head start. It is developing a spacecraft called Lunar Pathfinder scheduled for launch in 2024 that will provide commercial communications relay services. It will operate in an elliptical orbit providing coverage over the south polar regions of the moon, using UHF and S-band links with spacecraft on the lunar surface and X-band for communications with Earth.

Were creating this shared communications and navigation network for the moon that we believe will undoubtedly act as a catalyst to inspire more exploration missions, said Phil Brownett, managing director of SSTL.

ESA officials said NASA was aware of Moonlight but added that having multiple networks of communications and navigation satellites at the moon could have benefits provided there was some degree of interoperability, like that between the GPS and Galileo satellite navigation systems.

Petro said NASA also supported interoperability. Were promoting this idea of mutually agreed-upon standards among a set of cooperating networks, he said, which could go beyond communications and navigation to other services, like solar storm warnings. We think this could be introduced as part of the earliest missions.

NASA is also examining how it can use services, rather than conventional contracts, for the spacesuits it will need for future Artemis missions. NASA previously announced plans to develop a new spacesuit, called the exploration extravehicular mobility unit or xEMU, that astronauts will wear on the lunar surface.

However, in an April 14 RFI, NASA said it was considering moving to a services model for those suits. One or more companies would produce, own and maintain the suits, with NASA effectively renting them as needed for missions. The same approach could also be used for spacesuits needed for International Space Station spacewalks.

We are always looking at ways to lower costs for the taxpayer and focus our efforts and resources on future technology and our bold missions in deep space, said Mark Kirasich, head of NASAs Advanced Exploration Systems division. We hope to receive industry input on the feasibility of shifting our exploration spacewalk acquisition activities to a service-based model like our procurement for commercial cargo and crew services.

NASA will continue its own design work on the xEMU suit and share that information with industry, but companies would be able to develop their own designs that meet NASA requirements.

Responses to the spacesuit RFI were due to NASA at the end of April. A draft request for proposals could be released in mid-June, according to a tentative schedule included in the RFI, with a contract award as soon as the end of the calendar year.

All these efforts by NASA and other agencies to procure services, rather than spacecraft and other hardware, are driven by the belief that doing so can save time and money for governments and give companies the flexibility to offer similar services to other customers.

In a June 9 talk in Pittsburgh, after visiting the headquarters of Astrobotic, Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA associate administrator for science, explained that Artemis was pairing science and exploration with the entrepreneurial spirit exemplified by Astrobotic and others in the CLPS program.

Combining those would create a lunar program that weve never seen before and open the path for Americans to go back to the surface of the moon later this decade, he said.

This article originally appeared in the June 2021 issue of SpaceNews magazine.

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Lunar Exploration as a Service: From landers to spacesuits, NASA is renting rather than owning - SpaceNews

Many people may not know that NASA has a vast catalog of free software available for anyone to download. Most of the software it offers was originally developed to help space exploration, and the programs are available for people to download for other uses here on Earth. The software catalog has hundreds of programs and more than 180 new applications, all available at no cost.

NASA says that its programs have been adapted and used by government agencies, entrepreneurs, researchers, and other users. Among the software is a program called TetrUSS which is a computational fluid dynamics program developed at NASA. The software was originally designed to allow engineers to study the shape of an aircraft to minimize drag and maximize fuel efficiency. The program is available in the US and is one of the most downloaded applications in NASA history.

NASA says that TetrUSS has been used to design aircraft, cars, and boats as well as investigating architectural aerodynamics and to assist in aircraft crash investigations. Another popular application is called WorldWind. NASA admits that the volume of data its satellites capture can make the data difficult to use. WorldWind visualizes data NASA has gathered using a virtual globe of the Earth described as video game-like.

Users of the software can zoom from satellite altitude all the way down to any point on the planets surface. The software has been used to help manage resources all around the world. Its also used to support the Coast Guard by generating a map from live feeds of satellite and maritime data.

NASA says there are dozens of other environmental science programs available for download at no cost. Other tools include one to calculate a solar power systems size and power requirements using fuel cells, solar cells, and batteries. Another program can analyze solar aircraft concepts by evaluating their flight worthiness and providing design feedback. Currently, the NASA software catalog contains more than 800 programs and can be searched here.

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NASAs most popular free software was originally designed to enable space exploration - SlashGear

A clash among members of a famous galaxy quintet in space reveals an assortment of stars across a wide color range, from young, blue stars to aging, red stars. Ancient Greek astronomers paved the way for our modern understanding of the heavens. Credit: NASAandESA Public Domain

Business moguls Sir Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos should be thanking ancient Greek astronomers for being able to realize their travel off the face of the earth and into space this month. Virgin Galactics Branson hopes to beat Amazon CEO Bezos to travel to space, announcing plans to be Astronaut 001 on the firms July 11 test flight.

As civilized societies were just learning to use the wheel on earth, the ancient Greeks were aiming at the sky and the stars, contemplating outer space and how to measure it.

Even the science of the study of the sky and the stars, astronomy, finds its root in the ancient Greek wordAstronomia.

It was under Greek skies that ancient astronomers began to develop theories about the planets overhead, theories that are now proven. Christopher Columbus may or may not have set out to prove that the earth was spherical, but it was the ancient Greek astronomer Aristarchus who initiated the theory that the universe is heliocentric and that the planets are round.

The Babylonians of Mesopotamia first looked to the skies and postulated that the stars, the moon and the sun as gods that ruled over men. However, it was the ancient Greeks who analyzed those theories of deities and turned them into mathematical equations and calculations.

If you really want to travel to the stars, there is an easier way than heading to Cape Canaveral, where NASA launches rockets from Florida into outer space, or getting an extraordinarily pricey ticket aboard the craft that Branson and Bezos will travel on this month.

If you can get to the Acropolis, just a few hundred meters away is the National Observatory, known in Greece as the Asteroskopeio. From the observatory, positioned directly across from the Acropolis on Lofos Nymphon in central Athens, you can get a birds eye view of Mars and the moon through the Doridis refractor telescope.

The National Observatory with a telescope that allows the public to view the stars directly across from the Acropolis. Credit: Dimboukas Creative CommonsAttribution 4.0 International

The National Observatory of Athens was founded in 1842, as the first research center of modern Greece. Its history is linked with the evolution of basic and applied research, the development of services provided to the Greek State and society at large, and the promotion of science.

And how amazing is it, that literally just steps away from where ancient Greek astronomers conducted their first experiments, contemporary Greek astronomers are working today and they can show you the planets in the night sky?

Metonas was a Greek mathematician, astronomer and engineer who lived in Athens in the 5th century BC. He is best known for the calculations he made for the Metonic cycle in 432 BC for the lunar calendar year of Attica.

Metonas calendar assumes that 19 solar years equals 235 lunar months, which equals 6,940 days. This system arose from calculations made by Metonas based on his own astronomical observations, which were confirmed by Aristarchus 152 years later.

According to the testimonies of ancient historians, Metonas installed the first Heliotropion, or Helioscope, in Pynx in Athens. The foundations of the Helioscope are still visible just behind the steps leading to Pnyx, the archaeological site perched on a small, rocky hill, just over 330 feet high in the center of Athens.

The site is in a large park, just below the National Observatory, to the west of the Acropolis. Metonas determined the dates of the equinoxes and the solstices based on the specific location of this helioscope.

From this position the sunrise during the summer solstice is seen from the top of Mt. Lycabettus, while six months later, during the winter solstice, the sun rises from the top of Mount Hymettus. The annual apparent movement of the sun on the horizon creates an arc of 60 degrees, the bisector of which is aligned with the rock of the Acropolis. The exact determination of the summer solstice was important to the ancient Athenians because the first moon, after the summer solstice, marked the beginning of the new year.

Metonas was one of many ancient Greek astronomers to formulate calculations while gazing at the skies above. Renowned mathematicians, many of these scholars, branched off in astronomy, cataloguing, calculating and observing. Whether they catalogued stars, contemplated shapes or tried to measure the physical space within and beyond the borders of earth, their work put contemporary man in the sky.

Today it is hard to believe in any other notion than spherical planets that revolve around the sun.

Pythagoras of Samos, who lived from 570 to 495 BC, was an ancient Greek astronomer and philosopher and the eponymous founder of Pythagoreanism. Pythagoras was credited with many mathematical and scientific discoveries in antiquity. Since at least the first century BC, Pythagoras has commonly been given credit for discovering the Pythagorean theorem in geometry, which states that in a right-angled triangle the square of the hypotenuse is equal (to the sum of) the squares of the two other sides.

It was said that he was the first man to call himself a philosopher, a lover of wisdom, in the Greek language, (philo/friend of sophia/wisdom). He was the first to divide the globe into five climatic zones.

In astronomy Pythagoras is credited with the belief that the earth is spherical and for identifying the morning and evening stars that we know today as the planet Venus. By the end of the fifth century BC, this fact was universally accepted among Greek intellectuals.

Philolaus, who lived from 470 to 385 BC, was a Greek Pythagorean and pre-Socratic philosopher. He was born in a Greek colony in Italy and migrated to Greece. Philolaus has been called one of three most prominent figures in the Pythagorean tradition and the most outstanding figure in the Pythagorean school.

Pythagoras developed a school of philosophy that was dominated by both mathematics and mysticism. Most of what is known today about the Pythagorean astronomical system is derived from Philolaus views. He may have been the first to write about Pythagorean doctrine.

Philolaus asserted that the earth was not the center of the universe, rebelling against the geo-centrism of the time. He is credited with the earliest known discussion of concepts in the development of heliocentrism, insisting the sun is the center of in the human universe.

Archimedes of Syracuse, who lived from 287 to 212 BC, was an ancient Greek astronomer, mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the leading scientists of classical antiquity. The most widely known anecdote about Archimedes tells of how he invented a method for determining the volume of an object with an irregular shape.

Archimedes principle involved a metal bar, placed into a container of water, on a scale. It displaces as much water as its own volume, increasing the mass of the containers contents and weighing down the scale.

A votive crown for a temple had been made for the king of Syracuse, who had supplied the pure gold to be used. Archimedes was asked to determine whether some silver had been substituted by a dishonest goldsmith. Archimedes had to solve the problem without damaging the crown, so he could not melt it down into a regularly shaped body to calculate its density.

Archimedes noticed while taking a bath that the level of the water in the tub rose as he got in. He realized that this effect could be used to determine the volume of the crown. For practical purposes, water is incompressible so the submerged crown would displace an amount of water equal to its own volume.

By dividing the mass of the crown by the volume of water displaced, the density of the crown could be obtained. This density would be lower than that of gold if cheaper and less dense metals had been added. Archimedes then took to the streets naked, so excited by his discovery that he had forgotten to dress himself, crying Eureka, which in Greek sounds like evreeka, literally meaning, I have found it!

The test on the crown was conducted successfully, proving that silver had indeed been mixed in with the gold.

Archimedes also explored astronomical measurements of the earth, the sun and the moon, as well as Aristarchus heliocentric model of the universe. Despite a lack of trigonometry and a table of chords, Archimedes described the procedure and instrument used to make observations, a straight rod with pegs or grooves, applied correction factors to these measurements, and finally gave the result in the form of upper and lower bounds to account for observational error.

Ptolemy, quoting Hipparchus, also references Archimedes solstice observations in the Almagest. This would make Archimedes the first known ancient Greek astronomer to have recorded multiple solstice dates and times in successive years.

Ptolemy, 335-405 BC, used an astrolabe to record astronomical observations.

Today we know the exact time, the positions to the stars and planets, and our exact location, to the tenth of a degree but all these things were available to the ancient Greeks as well, in one device, thanks to the invention of the astrolabe.

The scientistPtolemy, who lived in Alexandria, was the brilliant mind behind this genius machine, which used sets of dials to determine altitude, latitude as long as the time was known the shifting positions of stars and planets, and to survey or triangulate your location on land.

Basically, the astrolabe was a handheld model of the universe. Its many functions also made it an elaborate inclinometer and an analog calculation device that was capable of working out several kinds of problems in astronomy.

The importance of the invention of the astrolabe comes not only from the early discoveries in astronomy, but also in determining latitude on land or on calm water, making it possible to navigate the seas in a limited way.

Aristarchus of Samos,who lived from 310 to c.230 BC, was an ancient Greek astronomer and mathematician who presented the first known heliocentric model that placed the sun at the center of the known universe, with the earth revolving around the sun once a year and rotating about its axis once a day. Aristarchus identified the central fire with the sun. He put the other planets in their correct order of distance around the sun.

Aristarchus suspected that the stars were just other bodies like the sun, albeit farther away from earth. His astronomical ideas were rejected in favor of the geocentric theories of Aristotle and Ptolemy.

Aristarchus estimated the sizes of the sun and moon as compared to earths size. He also estimated the distances from the earth to the sun and moon. He is considered one of the greatest astronomers of antiquity.

Aristarchus of Samos developed the first mathematical formula of astronomy to calculate planet size. Credit: Screenshot Youtube

Since Aristarchus suspected the stars were other suns that are very far away, there was no observable parallax that is, a movement of the stars relative to each other as the earth moves around the sun. Since stellar parallax is only detectable with telescopes, his accurate speculation was unprovable at the time.

It was not until the sixteenth century that a mathematical model of a heliocentric system was presented by the Renaissance mathematician, astronomer, and Catholic cleric, Nicolaus Copernicus, leading to the Copernican Revolution. In the following century, Johannes Kepler introduced elliptical orbits, and Galileo de Galilei presented supporting observations made using a telescope.

Eratosthenes of Cyrene, who lived from 276 BC to195 BC, was an ancient Greek astronomer who was also a multi-discipline scholar, or polymath. He was a mathematician, geographer, poet, astronomer and music theorist. He was a man of such learning that he also became the chief librarian at the Library of Alexandria. His work is comparable to what is now known as the study of geography, and he introduced some of the terminology still used in that discipline today.

Eratosthenes is best known for being the first person known to calculate the circumference of the earth, which he did by using the extensive survey results he could access in his role at the Library of Alexandria. His calculation was remarkably accurate. He was also the first to calculate earths axial tilt, which also proved to have remarkable accuracy. He created the first global projection of the world, incorporating parallels and meridians based on the available geographic knowledge of his era.

Eratosthenes was the founder of scientific chronology. He endeavored to revise the dates of the main events of the semi-mythological Trojan War, dating the Sack of Troy to 1183 BC. In number theory, he introduced the sieve of Eratosthenes, an efficient method of identifying prime numbers.

The measurement of Earths circumference is the most famous among the results obtained by Eratosthenes, who estimated that the meridian has a length of 252,000 stadia, with an error on the real value of less than two percent. Eratosthenes described his arc measurement technique, in a book entitled On the measure of the Earth.

Hipparchus of Nicaea, 190120 BC, yet another ancient Greek astronomer, erected an early observatory on the island of Rhodes around 150 BC, and set about compiling a star catalogue with approximately 850 entries. He calculated the celestial coordinates for each star using the first known trigonometric table, and developed and improved several astronomical instruments, including the astrolabe.

Dedicated to Hipparchus contribution to the early study of the solar system, a crater on the surface of Mars, was named after him in 1973. A larger crater on the moon was also named after the ancient Greek astronomer.

The Antikythera Mechanism,often referred to as the worlds first computer, was discovered inside an ancient shipwreck by Greek sponge divers on May 17, 1901. After numerous studies, it was estimated to have been constructed between 150 BC and 100 BC.A later study places it at 205 BC,just seven years after the death of Archimedes.

The worlds oldest surviving mechanical calculator, it was used by ancient Greek astronomers. The device has now been somewhat deteriorated by the passage of time, but when intact it would have appeared as a box, housing dozens of finely machined bronze gear wheels.

When manually rotated by a handle, the gears spun dials on the exterior showing the phases of the moon, the timing of lunar eclipses, and the positions of the five planets then known (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) at different times of the year. This even accounted for their retrograde motion an illusionary change in the movement of planets through the sky.

The moving parts of a a reproduction of the Antikythera Mechanism, an ancient analog computer. Credit: Freeth, T., Higgon, D., Dacanalis Creative CommonsAttribution 4.0 International

It may even have been the work of Archimedes himself, but there is no documentation of that, only speculation. Gearing technology with the sophistication of the Antikythera Mechanism was not seen again for one thousand years.

The ancient calculator also includes an astrological calendar, as the indicators seem to revolve around the zodiac, revealing the movements of both the moon and the planets.

A reproduction of the Antikythera Mechanism on display at the National Observatory in Athens. Credit: Moravec Creative CommonsAttribution-Share Alike 4.0 International

The National Observatory is the contemporary location for a journey to the stars. As noted above, the Asteroskopeio is within close proximity to the physical space used by ancient Greek astronomers who contributed so much to what we know of the universe today.

Ancient Greek astronomers such as Metonas, Pythagoras, Philolaus, Eratosthenes, Ptolemy, Aristarchus, Hipparchus, Archimedes developed the theories of calculation of the size, the time and the distance of planets within the human solar system. These contributions were the building blocks that made journeys off earth possible today.

Progress was marked by enlightened and renowned scientists in Greece who paved the way to knowledge with the creation of the Asteroskopeio in the 1800s. Thanks to the National Observatory, visitors to Athens can travel to the stars even if they are not Richard Branson or Jeff Bezos.

The tycoon Branson said, After more than 16 years of research, engineering, and testing, Virgin Galactic stands at the vanguard of a new commercial space industry, which is set to open space to humankind and change the world for good.

Lets hope he remembers to thank all those ancient Greek astronomers and not just the people who work for Virgin Galactic.

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How Ancient Greeks Set Humanity on the Path to Space Exploration - Greek Reporter