Category Archives: Space Exploration

Two years ago, rocket engineer Diana Alsindy typed a seemingly straightforward query in Arabic on Google: Why do satellites not fall from the sky? she asked.

Her search returned zero answers.

But when Alsindy typed the same phrase in English, she was inundated with pages upon pages of information.

There were hundreds of articles, with videos and illustrations and graphics, says the Baghdad-born Alsindy, a propulsion engineer at Boeing in California.

[Arabs] were pioneers in maths, astronomy, calligraphy and so many of the technologies we use to this day were discovered by Arab scientists and engineers. And it seems like we kind of went downhill.

If were expecting to expand the Arab world [in science and technology], how do you expect people to learn if youre not saying it in their language?

Instead of complaining, Alsindy, 27, whose family immigrated to the US from Iraq in 2008, decided to do something about it. She launched the Instagram account @TheArabianStargazer that same year in 2018, posting science, technology and engineering as well as space exploration content in Arabic and English.

It was an immediate success, quickly winning her a steady following mostly from Arabic speakers around the world. The account now has more than 110,000 followers.

When you make it normal to talk about science in Arabic, more people feel included. If I hear someone speaking in Japanese, I wont listen to it, because I dont understand it. You need to deliver that inclusivity, she says.

From questions about wearing veils in space, to the challenges of being a Muslim astronaut and how young female students can convince their parents how they can work in a male-dominated career such as space, Alsindy says she gets hundreds of questions from her followers all over the world.

Two years ago, I received a message from a girl and she said, I am from Egypt and that I really look up to you and I want to be in this field one day.

We kept in touch and a year later she got it touch again and said she was messaging me from her dormitory in Stanford University and thanked me for being an inspiration. She said she wouldnt have applied for Stanford if it wasnt for my platform and was really thankful to be there. She went straight from Egypt to an Ivy League school and thats so amazing.

When we immigrated, I barely spoke English. So I didnt even think of which career I was going to be in

There are detractors too, she notes.

I sometimes get comments like Youre a woman, you should be in the kitchen. Im a scientist and engineer and they still think its OK to say say these things, she laughs. But the positive feedback is way more than the negative. So its cool.

Alsindys desire to share her knowledge in Arabic was born out of her own experience growing up in the US. She was 14 when her parents moved her and two younger siblings from Baghdad to San Diego, California.

When we immigrated, I barely spoke English. So I didnt even think of which career I was going to be in, she recalls.

Her father, who studied mechanical engineering in Iraq, worked as an artist in the US. But Alsindy thought being an engineer could give her more options as a career.

In school, she says she really enjoyed maths and physics because there wasnt one way of doing something.

You can always solve an equation or a formula in so many different ways, she recalls.

When Alsindy was 19, she read an article about a female scientist and engineer, who was part of the crew at the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah, which was replicating life on Mars.

They were simulating life on the planet to see if humans could live on there. She was wearing the space suit and walking on red dust and rocks. And the story really caught my attention.

I never before thought about space that way and I never thought you could have a career in space.

Alsindy says she picked chemical engineering as her major in university so she could find opportunities in different careers just in case aerospace engineering didnt work out.

Still, Nasa seemed like a world away then, she recalls.

I kept looking for opportunities but whatever I did, it seemed like Nasa was so far way and there was no way I could reach it. And Nasa seemed to be the only place I could be if I wanted to be in space, she says.

But she was wrong. At the University of California, San Diego, which she joined in 2014, Alsindy was the Propulsion Team Lead at an undergrad group who had a passion for space.

Called Students for the Exploration and Development of Space, the group took part in Nasas Cube Quest Challenge a competition to build flight-qualified, small satellites capable of advanced communication and propulsion near and beyond the moon. Their entry, called Triteia, was a 3D-printed engine thruster, which could propel a satellite into the moons orbit.

Our engine was made from 90 per cent hydrogen peroxide, which means that there was only one place that could give us the facility to test it Nasa. The competition was three years long and evaluated every three months when we had to present the evolution of the design as we competed against high schools, other universities, graduate students and companies, she explains.

This meant a lot of meetings with Nasa. They did critical design reviews, preliminary design reviews and test readiness reviews, and it really exposed me to what the space industry was really about. It wasnt my physics class, it wasnt my maths teacher who taught me how to solve an equation, it was this hands-on experience I used all of these acronyms and methodologies as a professional working in space.

Alsindys team didnt win but working in that environment exposed her to space and what space really means, she says.

It doesnt mean you have to wear a suit and go to space and walk on rocky ground. It doesnt mean you have to be a genius in maths or physics or chemistry. It simply meant finding the right people, the right experiences and opportunity and applying your skill sets and know what youre good at.

Alsindy later became the Propulsion Development Engineer at Virgin Orbit, working on the LauncherOne rocket, which took off for space in January. She says she started The Arabian Stargazer soon after to share her love for space and clear misconceptions about its accessibility, especially in the Arab world.

There is a misconception that this is a difficult career to get into. Its just a little tricky because there isnt a clear path thats straight through, she says.

Ive always had this desire to be cause-driven and I have documents on my hard drive way before the Arabian Stargazer on how I can give back to the community using my strengths. And Ive had this feeling of I need to give back to the Arab world.

That aspiration has taken her on speaking tours around the Middle East, including the UAE, where she spoke at the Dubai Airshow in 2019. Her ultimate mission is much bigger, she says.

Ive talked to various organisations on how I could do internship-style fellowships for Arab students. Being in the space industry really opened my eyes to the fact that in order to really flourish in a certain career, especially engineering and space, you have to be in an environment where you can really explore things by hand. Also, to know if you like this before you commit to a full-time job. And that experience doesnt exist in the Middle East, she says.

The UAE, which has been leading the Arab world in space projects, could be a great partner in her mission to promote Stem (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education in the region, she says.

I want to work with [the UAE] to build some kind of an academy where we teach students, newly graduates or not yet, on how gain these skill sets by hand, she says.

I want to provide that same opportunity I had to students in high school or university and equip them with the resources.

When companies abroad see that there are students who are trained by American professionals, they are going to come and invest in these students, she adds.

Ultimately, my drive is to give all these students with opportunities they might not get somewhere else.

Technicians work at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) in Dubai. MBRSC / AFP

An employee works at the control room of the Mars Mission at MBRSC. AFP

Employees work at the control room of the Mars Mission at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre. AFP

Engineers observe a KhalifaSat model at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre. AFP

An engineer walks toward a KhalifaSat model. AFP

Scientists work at a laboratory in the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre. AFP

Engineers observe a KhalifaSat model. AFP

Engineers walk the corridors of Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre. AFP

The entrance of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre in Dubai. AFP

The entrance of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre in Dubai. AFP

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Arabian Stargazer: Meet Diana Alsindy, the woman who's teaching young people about science and space, in Arabic - The National

PRESS RELEASE Space exploration just took an exciting turn at the Air Zoo in Portage, MI, with the recent addition of an interactive traveling summer exhibit named Be the Astronaut. This hands-on and highly immersive experience is well-suited for space fans of all ages and will be on site for guests through September 12, 2021.

Air Zoo visitors will have the opportunity to experience the wonders of space as they are guided through three training stations by virtual spaceflight experts, specializing in science, navigation, and engineering. Astronauts in training will not only plan a space mission, but they will also hop into the open-cockpit simulators to pilot the mission to completion! Missions include traveling to the moon, Mars, Jupiter, and the asteroid belt.

This exhibit provides an outstanding experience that we hope will ignite a passion for space exploration and inspire our future generations to consider career paths in science, engineering, and technology, states Air Zoo President & CEO, Troy Thrash. We take advantage of any opportunity we have to immerse kids (of ALL ages) in cool STEAM experiences.

This exciting experience was produced by Eureka Exhibits and designed by NASA engineers, providing a birds-eye view of real astronaut pretraining using state-of-the-art video game technology found in the touch screen stations and interactive simulator pods. Astronauts of all ages will also enjoy the display of interesting space related artifacts and information stations.

This out-of-this-world exhibit is included with general admission, with the entire Air Zoo experience, and as always free to members and children 4 and under. Admission information can be found at airzoo.org/plan-you-visit. The Air Zoo is a proud member of Museums for All, which is a national initiative to provide inspiring museum opportunities to families receiving food assistance. Guests with valid EBT*/WIC cards will receive a reduced admission fee, $2/person in the household, children 4 and under are always free.

About the Air Zoo

Located at 6151 Portage Rd., Portage, MI 49002, the Air Zoo is a Smithsonian-affiliated aerospace & science experience with over 100 rare air & space craft, inspiring interactive exhibits, indoor amusement park rides, full-motion flight simulators, hands-on science-based education programs, and more. The Air Zoo is a not-for-profit organization and is open 360+ days per year. For hours, tickets, safety policies and procedures as well as temporarily altered experiences due to COVID-19, visit airzoo.org

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New Hands-on Space Traveling Exhibit at The Air Zoo - Warbirds News

Among the kids reaching for the stars this summer, two youth from the NWT will joining Canadas Junior Astronaut Space Camp program.

Fort Smiths Taylor Porter and Inuviks Kieran McCarthy will join 50 eager astronauts-in-waiting at the July 26 to 30 camp, which will be held online.

My family and I were talking about what we wanted to do when we are older, said Porter. I mentioned that being an astronaut would be really cool and I guess my mom remembered about this camp. She asked me if I was interested in participating and of course, I said yes.

I really like the idea that theres so much more out there that we dont know about. Just thinking about it makes you realize how small you are and how much power you actually hold. I find it super cool to think that there might be other life forms or even civilizations on other planets that we have no idea about. We dont know what we could find out there, it could range from new resources to new friends or enemies.

McCarthy, who is also an avid fan of robotics, said he was really excited to be attending.

He said he had heard about the program two years ago and put in an entry and much to his own surprise, he was selected. He said the vast scope of space

The world gets smaller and small every day on Earth, he said. Theres so much out there. Ive heard there may even be planets made of diamonds.

This is the first-ever Canadian Junior Astronaut Camp. Originally planned for 2020, the camp was delayed to this year because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Attendees were selected randomly from a pool of candidates across Canada. To be eligible for the draw, candidates had to complete a task in one of three streams that reflect the workload of an astronaut either fitness and nutrition, communications and teamwork or science and technology. They also had to submit a video explaining why they wanted to attend the camp.

Now that theyve made the cut, the space campers will be put to work on several important activities reflecting space exploration. They will remotely operate a real lunar rover in a test-simulation. They will use satellite images to solve on the ground problems. They will experience physical training alongside astronauts and learn about robotics and the role they place in space.

Having recently competed in the Skills Canada National Robotics competition, McCarthy said he wanted to learn more about the logistics of space exploration.

With several years of robotics under his belt already, McCarthy is already learning the skills needed to grow into a career in space. He said he first focused on the programming, but this year built his first robot by himself.

It was a robot kit. There was an instruction manual for it, and I modified that into a whole new robot. It was a lot of fun, he said. It picked up wooden dowels. I could just put on the floor, it drove over to a platform and put them down. It could stack them on top of each other, so it would essentially build a wood log-house.

It sounds very simple, but it took me months to program that.

As for Porter, she looking forward to learning more about the experience of being an astronaut, though she noted she had not committed to the lifestyle as of yet.

I would love to learn about peoples experiences going to space and how that affected them mentally and physically, she said. I want to expand my knowledge on the reality of things in our universe and find out some of the everyday things youd have to go through to be an astronaut. I know that it is a real challenge to get there but doing this camp will definitely help give me tips on what to do.

I think that it would be an amazing job and so cool to be able to do that but Im not sure if its that realistic. Yes, my dream is to go to space and to be an astronaut or something close to it but it is a lot of hard work to put in and Im not sure if Im up to it. I will definitely consider this job field when Im older but it all depends on what I enjoy and exceed in andor out of school.

McCarthy expressed his thanks to his family and robotics instructor, whom he credited for keeping him looking to the stars.

Thank you mom and dad, thank you to all my friends at the robotics club and thank you to all my teachers as well, he said.

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Two kids from NWT going to Canadas first space camp - Northern News Services

NASA's Juno space probe will zoom by Jupiter's largest moon Ganymede this week, collecting new data about the moon for the first time in two decades. The spacecraft, which has been orbiting planet Jupiter since 2016, will soar 645 miles above Ganymede's icy surface at 43,200 miles per hour.

The flyby will give researchers a better understanding of the enormous moon's water-ice crust and magnetic field to help prepare for future missions to Jupiter, reports NPR's Joe Palca.

"Juno carries a suite of sensitive instruments capable of seeing Ganymede in ways never before possible," said Scott Bolton, Juno's principal investigator at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio in a statement. "By flying so close, we will bring the exploration of Ganymede into the 21st century, both complementing future missions with our unique sensors and helping prepare for the next generation of missions to the Jovian system."

The Jovian moon is as fascinating as it is mysterious. The natural satellite is larger than the planet Mercury, and it's the only moon in our solar system with a magnetic field, reports Kim Lyons for the Verge. Ganymede's dense, iron-rich core produces the magnetic field, which creates visible ribbons of glowing auroras around its north and south poles. Surrounding the core is a spherical shell of rock and a 497-mile-thick ice shell that envelops and makes up the moon's surface. In 1996, the Hubble Space Telescope found evidence of a thin layer of oxygen-rich atmosphere trapped in its icy surface. While the atmosphere is too thin to support life as we know it, researchers suspect that there could have been life-producing conditions on Ganymede and other icy moons at some point, NPR reports.

Juno's flyby will be the closest any spacecraft has been to the frozen Jovian moon since NASA's Galileo space probe zipped by Ganymede in 2000. Before 2000, NASA's twin Voyager probes observed the moon in 1979. Aboard Juno are several instruments designed to photograph the moon and gather more data on its composition and icy shell. The tools include three different cameras, various radio instruments, an Ultraviolet Spectrograph (UVS), Microwave Radiometer (MWR), and the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM), reports Meghan Bartels for Space.com. Juno will begin collecting data three hours before it arrives at its closest approach of Ganymede.

Streaked across Ganymede's surface are bright light-colored regions of ridges and grooves that overlap darker-colored terrains along the icy shell. The textured scar-like areas suggest that the moon's surface underwent extreme changes over time. There's even some evidence that an ocean lies beneath Ganymede's surface, CNN reports. Scientists will use the microwave radiometer to identify what the lighter and darker patches on the moon are made of and how the moon maintains its frozen shell, per Space.com.

"Ganymede's ice shell has some light and dark regions, suggesting that some areas may be pure ice while other areas contain dirty ice," said Bolton in a statement. "[The microwave radiometer] will provide the first in-depth investigation of how the composition and structure of the ice varies with depth, leading to a better understanding of how the ice shell forms and the ongoing processes that resurface the ice over time."

The Juno mission's JunoCam, which has previously taken gorgeous images of the swirly gas giant, Jupiter, will also take photos of the planet's largest moonbut will need to be quick. The JunoCam will only have 25 minutes to snap five photos as the probe speeds by Ganymede, Space.com reports. Researchers will compare the images to those taken by the Voyager probes and Galileo spacecraft.

The Juno spacecraft will use the opportunity to make another flyby of Jupiter to help researchers plan future Jovian System missions. The missions include NASA's Europa Clipper and the European Space Agency's Jupiter Icy moons Explorer (JUICE) mission. Both missions focus on searching for life on icy moons and making detailed observations of their surfaces, CNN reports.

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NASA's Juno Space Probe Zooms by Largest Moon in the Solar System - Smithsonian Magazine

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3D printing an additive manufacturing (AM) technique is increasingly used for large industrial purposes. It is often much cheaper than traditional industrial manufacturing methods, especially in bespoke or low-volume applications. Now, 3D printing is increasingly becoming adopted in the space sector.

NASA, the US space agency, is a pioneer in 3D printing exploration, providing funding for many new technologies. These projects are 3D printing objects and parts for space travel, putting 3D printers onto spacecraft for maintenance and research, and even growing habitats for life with 3D printing technology.

NASAs enthusiastic adoption of 3D printing is largely due to cost. Creating bespoke molds and formworks necessary to manufacture many parts of a spacecraft is incredibly costly and leads to slower iteration and development of engineering and design.

Modern 3D printing technology, on the other hand, is capable of building custom parts and objects on demand. It costs no more to print a completely different design on the next print job, and more complex designs do not result in higher manufacturing costs.

With the latest industrial 3D printers now capable of producing very large, lightweight, and strong objects with complex shapes, the benefits of 3D printing can apply to large-scale industrial and manufacturing projects.

This is what makes industrial 3D printing increasingly appealing to engineers at the space agency. It provides the low production volumes, high degrees of design freedom, and low cost that their missions require.

Astronauts benefit from 3D printing with devices aboard spacecraft and stations that help to sustain long missions in space between resupplying. Since 2014, the International Space Station has used a 3D printer to develop custom tools, spare parts, and new equipment for research at the cutting edge of space exploration.

The latest generation of 3D printers is increasingly versatile, with more methods appearing all the time. Now, more materials can be used to make more complex shapes and structures with more resolution than ever before.

However, 3D printers all require feedstock to print anything, and this is a space- and weight-consuming resource. One NASA project is researching a potential means to reduce the need for transporting feedstock to 3D printers in space. The Refabricator will repurpose materials from used objects and waste for new 3D printer feedstocks for the 3D printing system onboard the ISS.

The Refabricator can be used to repeatedly complete the recycling loop for objects on the ISS. Tools and parts can be returned to the system to be remade more than once, without significantly degrading the material quality of the part. It is also designed to be able to repurpose foam and plastic packaging material used for delivering supplies to the space station.

In the future, large-scale 3D printers may be used to create landing pads, launch sites, and entire habitats capable of supporting life in space. In construction, AM technology is already selected for extreme conditions, such as in environmental disaster relief. 3D printers can build shelter and other structures quickly, constructing round-the-clock, and without risking human life. These qualities make them excellent candidates to be the builders of future infrastructure projects in space.

How 3D Printing in Space Could Revolutionize ManufacturingPlay

Video Credit: Seeker/YouTube.com

3D printing is already disrupting many industrial, engineering, and construction industries. It is also already widely adopted by NASA engineers and astronauts in space. As it continues to develop and its capabilities increase, the cost savings of 3D printing technology will continue to help make space exploration less expensive.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2015.01.003

Betz, Eri (2021). Space is Expensive: Can 3D Printing and On-Orbit Construction Drive Down the Cost. Astronomy.com. [Online] https://astronomy.com/news/2021/05/can-3d-printing-and-on-orbit-construction-make-space-more-accessible

Goldstein, Phil (2018). NASA Turns to 3D Printing to Help Astronauts Aboard the International Space Station. FedTech. [Online] https://fedtechmagazine.com/article/2018/10/nasa-turns-3d-printing-help-astronauts-aboard-international-space-station.

Gress, Douglas R. and Ronald V. Kalafsky (2015). Geographies of Production in 3D: Theoretical and Research Implications Stemming from Additive Manufacturing. Geoforum. [Online] https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2015.01.003.

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are those of the author expressed in their private capacity and do not necessarily represent the views of AZoM.com Limited T/A AZoNetwork the owner and operator of this website. This disclaimer forms part of the Terms and conditions of use of this website.

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Could 3D Printing Drive Down the Cost of Space Exploration? - AZoM

TAIPEI, TAIWAN - Chinas military may be examining its decades-old space program for ways to improve data collection and disrupt the satellites of other countries if needed, analysts said this week following a Mars landing and a debris crash into the Indian Ocean.

Earlier this month China placed a rover on Mars, the official Xinhua News Agency reported, becoming the second nation after the United States to make the landing. A little more than two years ago, China sent its robotic spacecraft Change 4 to a basin on the far side of the moon. A Chinese orbital space biology lab is due for completion by 2025, the Beijing-based Global Times news website said in March.

China Lands Spacecraft on Mars

Plans call for rover to stay in lander for few days of diagnostic tests before rolling down ramp to explore icy area of Mars, Utopia Planitia

Along with its achievements, Chinas fast-growing space program has caused some alarm. Earlier this month, there was real concern about possible casualties as debris from one of its rockets fell to earth, landing in the Indian Ocean west of the Maldives and south of India.

Although none of Chinas space missions has an express military motive, analysts believe the Peoples Liberation Army is monitoring this ever-deeper exploration for opportunities, such as new ways to collect intelligence or blind satellites from other countries during any conflict.

Now that they have a very modern launch vehicle fleet, they want to probe as much as they can, and if theres something thats attractive for industry or for military purposes, then theyll proceed, said Marco Cceres, director of space studies with the market analysis firm Teal Group Corp. in the United States.

Decades of space exploration

China launched its first satellite in 1970 and put its first man in space in 2003, becoming the worlds third nation, after Russia and the United States, to do so. Chinese officials have said they are using space exploration peacefully and have spoken at the U.N. Conference on Disarmament against the militarization of earths outer atmosphere.

Some of its scores of satellites are for military or dual-purpose use, the SpaceRef industry news website says. Western countries believe two in particular to be for express military use, it says.

The U.S. Department of Defense has said in reports on the Chinese armed forces that the manned space launch could help China militarily and that the country may be developing a direct-ascent anti-satellite weapon to jam U.S. navigation satellite signals.

'Dazzle'and gather data

The Chinese military could be looking for ways now to use direct energy beams to dazzle or disrupt other countries gear operating in low orbits, said Derek Grossman, senior analyst with the U.S.-based Rand Corp. research organization.

Its satellites might eventually gather information in a way that protects that data from adversarial interference, he added.

To target a foreign satellite would mean mutually assured destruction, said Carl Thayer, an Asia-specialized emeritus professor from the University of New South Wales in Australia.

China is not capable of militarizing the moon or Mars, said Alexander Huang, a strategic studies professor at Taiwans Tamkang University in Taiwan.

China Space Agency: Lunar Probe Successfully Lands on Moon

Probe is expected to gather lunar soil and rock samples and return them to Earth

Showing strength on earth

But missions to the far reaches of space let China flex muscle on earth, Thayer said.

The larger [agenda]is demonstrating technological prowess, advanced technology to convince the rest of the world youre on a losing wicket if youre going to stick to the U.S., that Chinas growing more and more powerful, Thayer said. Many smaller Asian governments consider Washington to be a military ally as Chinas navy becomes stronger in the region.

Chinas space program is catching up to the United States, currently the worlds top space power in terms of resources, Grossman said. Few other countries have programs that come even close. Their space program is second in the world, he said. They are catching up to us rapidly and will probably overtake us if we dont invest in the coming years.

China is anxious to compete especially so it can impress its own citizens around events such as the 100-year anniversary this year of the Communist Partys founding, Huang said. Its looking at space for scientific knowledge too, he said.

China needs one or two leading programs that can give more No. 1 stickers to China when they celebrate the centennial and continue to celebrate whatsoever, Huang said.

Steady progress, no agenda

China still lacks a specific agenda save to expand its presence in space as other countries do, Caceres said. But all along, he said, Chinas military will have the biggest role of any government department, even in multi-use endeavors.

The country with the world's third strongest armed forces after the United States and Russia is exploring space in a methodical way, without the shifts that the U.S. space agency, NASA, experiences when new presidents take office in Washingtonton, he said.

But overall, he said, theyre just kind of seeing whats possible."

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China Seen Expanding Military Capability in Space, but not Yet on Mars or the Moon - VOA Asia

John F. Kennedy had not even taken the oath of office when the battle began. In December 1960, with the inauguration a month away, the U.S. Air Force launched a first strikenot against a foreign enemy but against NASA, the civilian space agency. In a letter to commanders, the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force expressed confidence that the president-elect understood the imperative of military supremacy in space and would, therefore, grant the Air Force the primary role. Making sure that Kennedy got the point, the Air Force leaked its letter.

Space Fight, cheered Aviation Week. Yet this was more than a turf war. At stake was the very purpose of the U.S. space program. Would the nation stay committed to space for peace, the policy of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the outgoing president? Or would the new administration see space as the Air Force did: an arena of the Cold War, a battlefront on which armed conflict might be inevitable? The decision was Kennedys to makethough it would come to depend, as events unfolded, on an astronaut named John Glenn.

To the Air Force top brass, the existence of NASA was an affront. The Space Act of 1958, which created NASA and gave it control over human spaceflight, was a rebuke to every military planner with fantasies of orbital fighter planes or space stations teeming with missiles. At a time when the Soviet Union was achieving one first after anotherthe first satellite, the first animal in orbit, the first unmanned craft to reach the lunar surfaceEisenhower held to his view that space exploration served no national security interest. As a concession, he allowed the Air Force to continue development of the X-20, a high-altitude bomber, but the man-in-space program, Project Mercury , was NASAs domain.

Kennedys election gave the generals cause for hope. If the Soviets control space, he had said during the campaign, they can control earth. In the eyes of the world, he argued, second in space meant second in science and technology, second in military power, second in the struggle between freedom and totalitarian rule. In late 1960, a classified U.S. Information Agency reportwhich caused a stir when it leakedrevealed that Soviet superiority in space was eroding global confidence in the U.S. Satellite pessimism, analysts called it. Pressure was building for a show of strength in space.

And NASA held a weakening hand. The astronauts were popular with the public, but the manned program was well behind schedule and marred by failure. Rockets exploded on the launchpad; payloads ended up in the sea. Rumors circulated that Kennedy would transfer Mercury to the military or cancel it altogethera course that his science adviser, Jerome Wiesner, preferred.

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JFK, John Glenn and the Fight for Space for Peace - The Wall Street Journal

Bill NelsonClarence (Bill) William NelsonDemings raises Democrats' hopes in uphill fight to defeat Rubio Stephanie Murphy won't run for Senate seat in Florida next year China fires back after NASA criticism of rocket debris reentry MORE, the administrator of NASA, attended a hearing of the House Appropriations Subcommittee for Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies on the subject of the space agencys fiscal 2022 budget recently. His testimony was a master class on how sausage making is going to take America back to the moon. It also demonstrated the wisdom of once again naming a politician as the chief of NASA.

German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck once famously said that one should not look too closely at how laws or sausages are made. However, a look at how the subcommittee hearings proceeded is a master class on the unseemly side of how laws, in this case NASA funding, are made.

Much of the hearings consisted of various members of the subcommittee complaining about how SpaceX got the sole contract for the lunar Human Landing System (HLS) that will take the first Americans to the lunar surface in over 50 years. The theory is that, just as with the Commercial Crew program, two providers are better for the redundancy they provide. Nelson, several times, had to explain that the reason NASA was not able to contract for two lunar landers was that the previous Congress was excessively stingy in funding the HLS, granting just $850 million for the current fiscal year instead of the $3.4 billion that NASA had requested.

Fortunately, as Space News reported, Nelson offered a way for Congress to correct its mistake. He noted that the Biden administration and Congress are debating the content and scope of an infrastructure bill, which Nelson and members of the committee were careful to call a jobs bill. The NASA chief suggested that it would be a good idea if Congress could give the space agency about $11.6 billion of that bill.

Over $5 billion would go for the follow-on selection for the lunar HLS, presumably giving companies such as Blue Origin a second shot at the prize. Another $5.4 billion would pay for repairs and infrastructure upgrades at various NASA centers. Two hundred million dollars would pay for developing new space suits for lunar explorers, and $585 million would help to develop a nuclear thermal rocket system to take astronauts to Mars. The money would presumably be paid out over several years.

Nelsons plan depends a lot on there being an infrastructure or a jobs bill. As Hot Air reports, the back-and-forth between the Biden administration and Senate Republicans over how much the bill will cost, how it will get paid for and what will be included is still ongoing as of this writing.

Nelson was also quick to show an image taken from the Chinese Zhurong rover of the surface of Mars. While he was careful to congratulate the Chinese for their space feat, he also took pains to note that it represented a burgeoning capability in space that could prove to be a challenge to the United States. The Chinese are planning to land their taikonauts on the moon, he stated. The implication was clear The United States had better get moving with the Artemis return to the moon program lest it get shown up by China.

Nelson did not spend much time going over the wonky arguments for funding NASA, the science, how it facilitates commerce, or even how it inspires Americas youth. He concentrated on two primal motivators that everyone, especially members of Congress, experience: greed and fear.

Funding NASA, even out of the grab bag infrastructure or, if one prefers, jobs bill, means money for campaign contributors and employment for voters. Failing to fund NASA might mean having to watch Chinese taikonauts on the moon doing the one small step and one giant leap routine on live streaming video with Americans nowhere to be seen. The humiliation would be exquisite. Politicians who let it happen might not be in office for very long.

Its all sausage making. NASA ought not to be a jobs program. NASA is supposed to be about exploring the universe. However, Nelson knows that the unseemly stuff like jobs in the district and not being shown up by one of the worlds least favorite countries motivates politicians more than the glories of pushing back the final frontier.

One can only hope that the unquestioned benefits of space exploration, the science, the commerce and the soft political power will follow resulting from all that money that Nelson seeks to extract from his fellow politicians and that not too much of it will be wasted.

Mark Whittington, who writes frequently about space and politics, has published a political study of space exploration entitled Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon? as well as The Moon, Mars and Beyond, and, most recently, Why is America going back to the Moon. He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner. He is published in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Hill, USA Today, the LA Times and the Washington Post, among other venues.

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NASA's Bill Nelson shows how sausage making will take America back to the moon | TheHill - The Hill

What happens when you cross one of the worlds largest defense contractors with one of the worlds largest automobile manufacturers? Apparently, you get an electrically powered autonomous lunar rover. At least that is the fruit of a new collaboration between Lockheed Martin (LM) and General Motors (GM).

Mobility is one of the major priorities of the Artemis program, which is set to send humans back to the moon, and provide a permanent human settlement there, by the end of the decade. Last year they released a call asking for innovative approaches to rovers. LM and GM have answered that call with a still conceptual rover that is electric, can drive itself, and can travel farther than the original lunar buggies launched with the Apollo missions in the 1970s.

That last metric is not a hard one to beat the Apollo rovers were only capable of traveling 4 miles at a max speed of 8 miles per house. Improving on those specifications should be no challenge for the combination of LMs space exploration nous and GMs mobility expertise. Achieving feats that engineers 40 years ago could never have dreamed of would be different challenge though.

Two of the most interesting features of the proposed rover lean heavily on developments in the automotive industry over the last 10 years. Electrification and autonomy are buzzwords in what is slowly being rebranded as the mobility industry. Each would have advantages for lunar exploration missions.

Electric drive trains would either allow rovers to recharge themselves using onboard solar panels or quickly stop by a recharging station at a landing site or base for a top up before venturing out for more exploration. Solar power is relatively abundant on the moon, at least for the month when a hemisphere is facing the sun. How to charge the rovers, and the rest of any permanent settlement, for the months that their hemisphere is not pointing to the sun is a question that has yet to be answered.

Autonomy, though it faces its own challenges, is potentially the more game-changing technology. Only 5% of the lunar surface has been explored directly, and, in the beginning at least, astronauts will not have significant amounts of time to dedicate to tramping around on the surface analyzing rocks. Autonomous rovers, however, could potentially serve that role nicely, leaving on research and sample collection sorties from a central hub without requiring any input from the astronauts that are trying to build a sustainable base.

Materials those rovers might find could prove to be key components to that base. However, there is also the risk that if an autonomous driving system fails, the astronauts would have to use valuable time to go and fetch the rover itself. Surely LM and GM know how bad such a failure would look under the national spotlight of an early stage moon mission.

They might not even get the chance to prove their chops however, as the rover is still theoretical. While the corporate duo plan to use it to pitch to the Artemis program, a final selection has not been made. This appears to be GMs first foray into space exploration, but LM hasnt been as successful as usual in pitching their programs to NASA, having recently been edged out by SpaceX to build the Artemis programs landing vehicle.

Surely GM and LM will not be the only options available for any such rover program either. But if the concepts contained in their proposed system do come to fruition, it would mean a giant leap in our ability to explore our closest neighbor.

Learn More:LM Lockheed Martin, General Motors Team to Further Lunar Exploration with Autonomous Moon RoverNBC GM, Lockheed Martin developing a next-generation lunar roverSpace.com Lockheed Martin, GM team up to build new astronaut moon buggyVerge Lockheed Martin and GM are working on an electric Moon buggy

Lead Image:Visualization of astronauts next to a new generation of lunar rover.Credit: Lockheed Martin

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Self-Driving Lunar Rovers for Astronaut Road Trips on the Moon - Universe Today

LISTS Lost in Space Music: Records That Explore the Outer Limits By George Grella May 28, 2021 Illustration by Jinhwa Jang

Space music, space rock, kosmische Musik: these are all well-known genres that share a cosmic aesthetica sense of expansiveness meant to capture feelings of awe, mirroring our deep connection with the universe that surrounds us, and the thrill of space exploration and science fiction narratives. Its music that offers fantasias of the final frontier.

But there is another kind of space music, and this type is not a genre, but a concept. This is music thats literally about outer space itself: its nature and substance, the experience of being in it, its effect on human beings, and the ways we interact with it. The stylistic range of this music is immense; it includes records made by Sun Ra as well as records made by NASA, which not only compiled music to be sent into space (the 1977 Voyager spacecrafts Golden Records), but also released the album Symphonies of the Planet, which features sounds captured by the Voyager probes. (Sounds in space? Yes, theyre there.)

Theres even more to explore on this list, which features music about the infinite breadth and depth of outer space, music about crossing almost incomprehensible interstellar distances, romantic narratives about space flight, the ominous power of the universe, and more.

Space is far from silenteven if we need special equipment to hear its sounds. Electromagnetic waves travel through the vacuum of outer space; this is the solar wind that collides with the Earths atmosphere and produces both lightthe Aurora borealis and Aurora australisand sound, in the form of low-frequency radio waves. For this deep and delicate project, Kim Cunio created piano accompaniment for the sounds of the atmosphere (generally called sferics)like the sound of lightning traveling through the atmosphere into space, as recorded by the Very Low Frequency receiver at the Halley Research Station in Antarctica. Collaborating with space weather research scientist Dr. Nigel Meredith and Cambridge-based artist-engineer Diana Scarborough, Cunio builds harmonies that rise and fall over individual still points, as the whispers and clicks and scrambles of the sferics dance around her.

Mysterious and almost impossibly ancient, gravity waves have been traveling through space since the beginning of time itself. The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) was built to detect these types of waves, and composer William Basinski used exclusive recordings of what LIGO captured as part of this commissioned work. More than just general gravity passing through the Earth, the waves incorporated into this album were produced by the merging of two massive black holes, 1.3 billion light years from here in time and space. Basinski produces ringing, flowing tones, underpinned by a regular, muffled, distant beat. The music sounds like gravity plucking a giant, planetary string, with the overtones rising and rippling out, back into the universe.

Steven Hawkings great breakthrough in cosmology came in 1974, when he determined that black holes werent empty voids from which no energy or information could escape, but that they emitted radiationwhat is now known as Hawking radiation. Jeremy Bibles four-hour opus is something of a metaphor for Hawking radiation taken one step further: What if black holes didnt just emit charged particles, but sound? Not such a strange idea, as both sound and radiation are types of waves. Music for Black Holes is the sound-poetry of these cosmicdeadends? Doorways? Warm swaths of tones gently glide above then sink below the threshold of hearing, and theres a meditative stillness evoking a surrender before vast and impersonal forces. Bible calls this, a map to guide one through the vacuum of space and time, and it can also be heard as the experience of passing through waves of Hawking radiation as one approaches the event horizon of Messier 31, never to return from an unfathomable destination.

This is space music as deep space music. If a black hole has infinite depths, the universe has practically infinite dimensions, expanding into the unknown every moment of existence. On this eight-hour album, S.E.T.I. (Andrew Lagowski) recognizes that one of the main challenges to interstellar travelers would be maintaining their sanity in the face of that endlessness. Here, he creates a hypnagogic environment for calming relaxation and sleep; a floating pool of sound to separate one from recycled air and the throb and hum of engine noise. Strange signals interrupt the music. Are they mangled communications from a distant and dying Earth? Alien civilizations trying to contact us? Listen deeply and find out.

Back at home, the human race has already established a history of actual space travel, though no human being has yet to make it past the Earths protective magnetic sphere. Yuri Gagarin was the first man to reach outer space, in 1961, and in the National Pools reimagining of the space race on this concept record, the Soviet Union continues to send cosmonauts ad astra. Psychological preparation is essential for the strange rigors of space travel, and this program was created by the Soviets to equip our cosmonaut comrades with these sounds. They intent [sic] for solo space travels, mind sharpening and concentration. An opening patriotic exhortation gives way to a sequence of music meant to focus on each task at hand, including the launch, while also steeling the nerves against nostalgia for home and country left behind, and the tragic and desperately lonely possibility that there will be no re-entry.

As of this year, only around 550 people have travelled into space (the number is approximate, because the determination of the boundary between Earth and space varies from country to country), with only two dozen having passed beyond earths orbit. But space travel narratives of science and technology have been in the human imagination for more than a century. Blak Saagans (Samuele Gottardello) debut album (and nom de plume) was inspired by Carl Sagans evocations of our place in the cosmos, kosmische Musik, and the psychedelic soundtracks of Italian science fiction and giallo films. On this Farfisa-based collection of original songs that emulate library music, Saagans vision of space is like Sagans: optimistic, joyous, more than a little playful, and eager to suspend all disbelief and indulge deeply in the most expansive possibilities of space exploration.

Darker legacies of the space age lie beneath the extensive shadow of triumph, possibilities, optimism, and progressive ideas for the future: the Cold War and militarization, detritus, disaster, death. Joel Giardinis concept records stand out both for his dark aesthetic and his emphasis on guitar-based textures. On The Age of Space, rocket and satellite debris circles the planet, threatening to spiral out of control into the atmosphere; launch stations sit abandoned, filled with puddles of water, the aroma of disintegrating paper, and overgrown with weeds; and cosmonauts, off course and drifting away, are lost in space. This is not Carl Sagans or Elon Musks concept of space exploration, but J.G. Ballards.

Kool Keith, Dan Emery, and Chad LEplattenier have an entirely different take on the space age: critical, funny, completely iconoclastic. Space Goretex begins with some kind of disaster on an alien spaceship: Im deep in the Milky Way/ Im headed toward the green planet/ My ships all fucked up. Kool Keith is here to tell us about space hallucinations, astronauts at the center of celebrity cults, robotic spaceships, sex in space, space suits and science fiction costumes as fetish objects. This is the space music concept a la Fritz the Cat, meant for a mature audience that looks at the multiple-entendre of a black hole from a funky and wise-ass angle.

Before there was space music in popular music genres, there was Gustav Holsts classical orchestral suite The Planets, which premiered in the fall of 1918. Christine Otts 2020 large-scale piece, Chimres, follows that classical lineage with a composition that imagines the cosmos realized through the nostalgic/futuristic sounds of early electronic musical instrument the ondes Martenot. Ott is an expert on the instrument, and a virtuosic thinker. She uses the 1920s-era electronic keyboard to blend tones that sound like both wordless singing and a lush string orchestra. Otts goal, in her own words, is to rub shoulders with electronic stars and caress incandescent planets. She floats through space, gazing on these orbs from a distance, their lights and colors turning the absolute zero of empty space into the burning cold of ice. This is a tour-de-force of instrumental playing and imagination.

Olaf Stapledons 1937 novel, Star Maker, is a science fiction classic. Narrated by a protagonist whose consciousness is projected throughout the expanse and duration of the universe, the book is Stapledons philosophical imaging of life in the cosmos. In this composition for chamber ensemble, Taylor Brook sets spoken excerpts from the novel above and against wordless vocalizations, skittering lyrical passages, crunchy timbres, electronic treatments, and field recordings. He draws an explicit connection to one of Stapledons most intriguing ideas, that spatial coordinates could be described via musical pitches. Brook represents both the out-of-body sensation and the survey of cosmological mysteries in his music, and theres a meaningful acknowledgement of the Lenape people and their landthe composer specifies the music was made in Lenapehoking, or the Mid-Atlantic region of the United Statesand touches of field recordings offer an intriguing look into Lenape cosmology, which connects the immediate experience of the land and nature to non-material higher universal plains, mediated through the soul.

Space is, finally, out there: it is everything beyond this planet, the universe itself. We may never reach it, but it reaches us, with waves and shudders and bursts that travel across the entire duration of the cosmos. The tracks on Pulse Emitters Voids evoke those celestial experiences near to EarthLunar Orbit/Lunar Surfaceand also that of distant, haunting objects like pulsars and quasars. The former is a pulsating star nearing the end of its billions-of-years life cycle, the latter a quasi-stellar radio sourcetheoretically the massive, hot, compressed energy at the core of a galaxy throbbing with radio wave radiation. Pulse Emitters sensual waves flow out of the speakers and spread out into the atmosphere and maybe out into space itself; eventually passing through the mindless waves of these cosmic phenomena, lasting until the heat death or compression of the universe, whichever may come first.

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Lost in Space Music: Records That Explore the Outer Limits - bandcamp.com