Category Archives: Space Travel

On May 25, 2008, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter satellite transmitted a grainy image back to Earth. It showed two white dots - the Phoenix Mars lander and its parachute - descending against the backdrop of the planet's vast Heimdal impact crater. Chris Lewicki, the Phoenix mission's manager, hadn't seen the lander since its launch on August 3, 2007, on board the Delta II rocket that carried it into space. The Phoenix landed 20km from the huge crater, kick-starting its search for microbial-friendly habitats on Mars.

For Nasa, this was the beginning of another successful mission, but to Lewicki, things began to feel repetitive. He had first become obsessed with space at the age of 11, when he saw images of Nasa's Voyager mission, the space probe that captured images of the Solar System's outer planets. He studied Aerospace Engineering at the University of Arizona and, in 1999, joined Nasa, where he rose through the ranks. In 2003, at the age of 29, he oversaw the landing of the Spirit and the Opportunity Mars Rovers.

Those missions were the fulfilment of his childhood dream. Now, with the Phoenix - his third mission to Mars - he began to feel restless. "A lot of my friends were working on the next big robot project, Curiosity," he says. "But that felt like the easy thing to do." So he started casting around for a new job.

That's when he received a call from an old friend, Peter Diamandis, a man best known for creating the XPRIZE Foundation, a $10 million (7.7m) award for the development of the first reusable space rocket. Lewicki had met him at an international astronomy organisation called Students for the Exploration and Development of Space, set up by Diamandis in 1980 to promote interest in space exploration. Lewicki had built its website, helped set up its offices and even written letters to Congress. "We'd been in and out of each other's spheres since then," he explains.

During that phone call, Diamandis told Lewicki about his new startup. It had an ambitious goal: to mine asteroids for their natural resources. Diamandis was looking for a CEO. Was he interested? "I just told him he was fucking crazy," says Lewicki.

In the days after that conversation, however, the more he thought about it, the less crazy Diamandis's project seemed to be.

John Keatley

For one, the concept of asteroid mining made sense - in theory. There are more than a million asteroids orbiting our Sun, ranging from a few centimetres to hundreds of kilometres in diameter. Most are lumps of inert rock and dirt. Some, however, are ancient proto-planetary cores stripped of their outer layers during the violent tumult of our Solar System's youth. These are made of pure metal, usually nickel, iron and platinum. "Having an abundant source of platinum group metals from space can transform the way our world works," Lewicki says. "Much as we transformed our relationship with metals when we figured out how to extract aluminium from the Earth's crust."

Furthermore, Lewicki had worked on Nasa's Near Shoemaker, the first space mission to touch down on an asteroid, the Eros, so he had first-hand knowledge of the procedure. "We've sent people and robots to the Moon so it's a place that we understand and feel close to," he says, "But there are also 15,000 near-Earth asteroids which have orbits that come close to us. In the past 20 years, we've found about 5,000 of those that, from an engineering standpoint, are easier to get to than landing on the Moon."

And, of course, Peter Diamandis's ideas had paid off before, as one of the pioneers behind such companies as Blue Origin, Scaled Composites and Elon Musk's SpaceX. "I had been at Nasa for ten years," Lewicki says, "and began to realise there was more I could do to move space exploration forward in the private sector."

So when Lewicki became CEO of Planetary Resources - the world's first asteroid-mining startup - in 2009, he was no longer of the opinion that this was a pipe dream. He was just surprised no one had thought about it before.

John Keatley

At 22:22.00 on October 28, 2014, Chris Lewicki stood in the observation bay at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island, Virginia, to watch the launch of the first test spacecraft built by Planetary Resources.

Weighing just 4kg, the Arkyd-3 only had prototype communications and control systems, but no sensors. It was but a tiny piece among a 2,300kg payload of supplies for the International Space Station (ISS) and would place Planetary Resources among that rarefied subset of startups that have actually sent a satellite into space.

At exactly 22:22.38, the gently billowing steam of condensing fuel surrounding the Antares 130 launch vehicle erupted in a burst of fierce yellow light and dark smoke. Half a second later the launch tower fell away and, perched atop a column of crackling white fire, the 300-tonne rocket rose up into the night.

Fifteen seconds after the launch and scarcely 60 metres above the Atlantic Ocean, however, the main engine exploded. As quickly as it rose, and with twice the pyrotechnics, the rocket plummeted to Earth, taking Planetary Resource's first satellite with it.

"As far as fireworks go it was beautiful," Lewicki recalls. "As far as getting a spacecraft into space, not that good." The loss of Arkyd-3, Lewicki claims, while disappointing, really wasn't that big of a setback. "Part of our philosophy is that the satellite should be somewhat disposable."

Within a few weeks after Arkyd-3's fiery demise, Planetary Resources were able to assemble its replacement and, a few months later, attach it to a follow-up ride to the space station.

John Keatley

This decision to favour multiple "good enough" systems over expensive ones is a result of Lewicki's frustrations at Nasa.

An attachment to already proven technology lead to the Phoenix lander launching with an obsolete 20 year-old computer chip.

"The standard practice has been that a spacecraft has one computer, which does everything, and if something goes wrong, you fall out of the sky," Lewicki says. "This breeds a philosophy that failure's not an option, so success gets really expensive and extremely time consuming."

Planetary Resources' next batch of satellites, the Arkyd-6, will distribute tasks among 17 smaller computers per satellite, so if one fails, it doesn't take the others down. This approach will also be applied to its first prospector spacecraft,the Arkyd-200, which it expects to launch in 2025. "We often over-predict what will happen in a year's time, but we almost always under-predict what will happen in ten years," he says.

The biggest challenge Planetary Resources faces to launch a space mining industry, Lewicki argues, is not technical, but political. In November 2015, the US Congress signed a raft of legislation called the Space Act that guarantees the property rights of private companies over the resources they mine in space. When the Space Act was passed, Lewicki was ecstatic.

Internationally, however, the reaction was much less positive. (The only exception was Luxembourg, which passed similar legislation last year). During the 55th session of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space in April 2016, various member states voiced opposition to the US law.

"We're hardwired to think in terms of scarcity and competition," Lewicki says. "But in space these limits don't apply. Exploiting them gives us the opportunity to think about how much more there is to develop and share. There are resources there beyond our comprehension."

Lewicki feels that there's reason for optimism. This February, Etienne Schneider, the deputy prime minister of The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, announced plans to invest 171 million into space resource startups, 21 million of which went to Planetary Resources. This comes in addition to more than 18 million in publicly announced prior investments from, among others, Google founder Larry Page and chairman Eric Schmidt, alongside Virgin CEO and founder Richard Branson. "The change has been profound," he says. When we started, if you brought up asteroid mining, you'd get sniggers. But now people are beginning to realise that this is available in our lifetime."

John Keatley

The home of Planetary Resources is a nondescript building located in an industrial unit just outside Redmond, Washington State. One hundred metres away is the headquarters of Elon Musk's SpaceX.

Chris Lewicki wears his thick, brown hair swept to the side and has a quick, boyish smile. He's dressed in a blue-checked shirt and jeans and has a way of condensing highly technical topics into seemingly straightforward explanations that make you feel like maybe you too could understand rocket science.

As we sit in the company's boardroom, Chris Voorhees, Planetary Resources COO and a former Nasa graduate, enters the room, hefting a large laptop-sized chunk of shiny, jagged rock.

"This is around 90 per cent refinery-grade iron, mixed with cobalt and nickel," Voorhees says. "You melt it, and you get steel."

What he's holding is a meteorite, one of the tens of thousands of shattered asteroid fragments that come hurtling down to Earth, bringing clues about the riches beyond our atmosphere.

"There's more platinum in this meteorite, by percentage, than the most productive mines in the world," Voorhees continues. "Miners on Earth have to expend enormous energy and create huge amounts of waste to extract and refine this much metal. But this came from something several kilometres across and that was the same purity of metal all the way through."

Through observational data collected by Nasa and other space agencies, Planetary Resources has been building a shortlist of the asteroids that are large enough to explore, small enough to easily land on and take off from and near enough in orbit from Earth to allow for transit times of less than a year or two.

There is, however, only so much you can tell about an asteroid from so far away in Earth orbit. In 2010, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's unmanned spacecraft, Hayabusa, returned a few milligrams of grains from the surface of the Itokawa asteroid. A follow-up mission is currently on route to the asteroid Ryugu, with arrival scheduled for July 2018.

Of most interest to Lewicki and Voorhees however, is OSIRIS-REx, a current Nasa mission, on target to meet Bennu, a 492-metre-diameter, near-Earth asteroid made of porous carbon, by 2018, and return with approximately 60g of sample material.

"All of our telescopic data currently indicates that Bennu is rich in carbon and water," explains the project's principal investigator, University of Arizona professor Dante Lauretta, who also sits on Planetary Resources' scientific advisory team. "OSIRIS-REx is a pathfinder for exploring asteroids."

To decide where to create the first space- resource extraction site, however, Planetary Resources will need to send its own spacecraft out into the Solar System for a closer look.

Visible through the window of the boardroom are two solar-panel-plated cereal-box-sized units sitting on a clean room table. These are the Arkyd-6 satellites, the company's first space prospectors that will be instrumented with a mid-wavelength infrared sensor, and placed into low-Earth orbit later this year on one of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets.

In addition to infrared sensors, these miniature space telescopes will also carry hyper-spectral imaging sensors capable of analysing light from 40 points across the light spectrum. "By analysing the particular spectral fingerprint the reflected light that an object leaves on these two sensors, we can get a good idea of what it is made of," explains Lewicki.

Once they do know, Planetary Resources will then send small spacecrafts to inspect potential asteroid targets up close. A mock-up of one, the Arkyd-200, sits in the corner of the boardroom. It possesses a doughnut-shaped propellant tank no more than a metre wide. Small enough for several of the spacecrafts to hitch a ride into space orbit alongside a larger main payload, they are designed to move through low gravity under their own propulsion to reach the intended target asteroid.

John Keatley

In July 2015, around 90 million tonnes of solid platinum hurtled within 2.4 million kilometres of Earth - a distance 30 times closer than Venus. That 452 metre-long asteroid UW-158 is just one of many that contain vast resources of platinum-group metals. These are the sorts of precious metals that Lewicki expects to find and mine. His focus, however, remains on discovering the most precious substance of all: water.

Water, while abundant on Earth, is extremely rare in space. And that makes it very valuable. "We currently pay $50 million a tonne just to get it out of Earth's gravity and up to the ISS," Lewicki says. "But there are plenty of asteroids that have it stored under very low gravity already." This water won't be used solely for life support, but also as rocket fuel. "We can convert it into liquid oxygen and hydrogen," Lewicki says. "These are the same ingredients that fuelled all 135 Nasa space-shuttle missions."

To understand the difference the ability to refuel in space could make, consider that spacecraft currently need around ten tonnes of fuel for every tonne of mass that you want to transport.

Current launch systems partially mitigate this through multi-stage design, jettisoning the weight of spent fuel tanks to fall back down into the ocean part way through. Still, once you take into account other factors, such as air resistance, just to escape the Earth's gravity you're looking at a rocket that's 90 per cent pure propellant. For every tonne of additional propellant required for an onward Martian transfer, you would have needed a further ten just to carry that up from the Earth's surface.

Now imagine you didn't have to carry that fuel up with you. Imagine, orbiting around the edges of Earth's gravity well, the Solar System's first space service-station, supplied by asteroids. Somewhere to refuel your engines and refill your water tanks, before setting off on the next mission stage.

"It blows the mind how much this changes things," Lewicki says. "If you could take the amount of energy you had in that rocket to get out to space and refill it again, you could get to Pluto."

Exactly how this water will be extracted is still a work in progress. An early concept design involves a robotic spacecraft that will fully enclose the asteroid, heat the water, then allow it to condense against the outer walls of this container, before releasing the asteroid again and transporting the water to a refuelling station in Earth orbit.

The key resources needed for this are already provided by the environment of space, Voorhees points out. "You have energy from the Sun to heat the water, which will volatilise easily in a vacuum," he says. "Then deep space, which is cold in a way we can't even relate to, will help condense it back again."

John Keatley

And this, for Lewicki, is how humanity will move from throwing robotic probes out over the top of Earth's gravity well for a peek at the Solar System, to climbing up and exploring it ourselves.

"We're already seeing this, as SpaceX and Blue Origin have been getting better at the practice of returning a used rocket," he says. "Asteroids are the most accessible form of resources that will allow us to extend this further into space, to stretch our legs, to set up infrastructure on the way to Mars, and then on Mars itself. Infrastructure that doesn't require 100 per cent of its resupply from Earth. This is how colonisation takes off."

That means not only having the capacity to refuel in space, but actually build up there, too. It's in this environment, rather than on Earth, where those orbiting lumps of pure metal will have the greatest role to play.

"At the moment, most of the engineering and design that goes into a spacecraft is for the first nine minutes of its life," Lewicki says. "It's got to fit into the tiny capsule in the top of its launch vehicle; it has to survive the vibration and acceleration of the rocket ride; and, even when it's just sitting here in our offices, it's got to be able to hold its own weight in Earth's gravity. But if I build it in space, I don't have to care about any of that stuff."

Planetary Resources have already been practising. In the hallway outside their offices Lewicki opens a large padded box and pulls out a palm-sized object. "Don't drop this," he says, handing me a surprisingly heavy moonlander-like complex of delicate struts.

It may be small and merely decorative in function, but this is the first object to be 3D-printed directly from the powder of a pulverised asteroid chunk.

"Now imagine what this could look like printed in space," Lewicki says. "You can make things infinitely large - or light, dainty structures that never have to survive the very violent passage out of the Earth's gravity. This is going to create things that look like something from science fiction, because they have an entirely different set of constraints than engineers have today."

Lewicki continues. "On Earth, to add the 100th storey to a skyscraper you have to take into account how the 99 stories below are going to support it. Space is different. You can just add another level, and another, and another, and keep doing that forever. There's no limit."

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Inside the startup that wants to mine asteroids and transform space travel forever - Wired.co.uk

Tomorrow evening, Elon Musks interplanetary space travel company, SpaceX, will launch a Falcon 9 rocket, its third in a 10-day span.

The rocket will be sending a communications satellite, the Intelsat 35e, from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida into a geostationary orbit, some 23,000 miles above Earth.

SpaceX will not attempt to land the Falcon 9s rocket booster for reuse after this launch, the company said in a statement. This may be because the payload is so heavy and its going into such a high orbit that the mission requires more fuel, which wont leave the rocket with enough to make it back to land.

Watch the launch live Sunday at 7:36 pm ET / 4:36 pm PT here:

Last Sunday, June 25, SpaceX sent a new Falcon 9 rocket into space to deliver a set of Iridium satellites.

That launch came just two days after SpaceX launched a rocket that Friday, which was the second time in the companys history it successfully landed a recycled rocket. The rocket booster returned to Earth to land on SpaceXs drone ship, named Of Course I Still Love You.

Reusing rockets is central to SpaceXs mission to lower the cost of space travel. Musk, after all, wants space travel to become cheap enough for humans to one day colonize Mars. But rockets are typically too damaged after launching to be used again, and building a rocket can cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

For perspective on the cost of space travel, take what happened in 2015 when a Falcon 9 disintegrated after takeoff. SpaceX lost around $260 million with that mission, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.

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On Sunday, SpaceX is launching its third rocket in 10 days - Recode

June 30, 2017 by Wynn Ho, The Conversation Credit: NASA

NASA's Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer, or NICER, is an X-ray telescope launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in early June 2017. Installed on the International Space Station, by mid-July it will commence its scientific work to study the exotic astrophysical objects known as neutron stars and examine whether they could be used as deep-space navigation beacons for future generations of spacecraft.

What are neutron stars? When stars at least eight times more massive than the Sun exhaust all the fuel in their core through thermonuclear fusion reactions, the pressure of gravity causes them to collapse. The supernova explosion that results ejects most of the star's material into the far reaches of space. What remains forms either a neutron star or a black hole.

I study neutron stars because of their rich range of astrophysical phenomena and the many areas of physics to which they are connected. What makes neutron stars extremely interesting is that each star is about 1.5 times the mass of the Sun, but only about 25km in diameter the size of a single city. When you cram that much mass into such a small volume, the matter is more densely packed than that of an atomic nucleus. So, for example, while the nucleus of a helium atom has just two neutrons and two protons, a neutron star is essentially a single nucleus made up of 1057 neutrons and 1056 protons.

Exotic physics impossible on Earth

We can use neutron stars to probe properties of nuclear physics that cannot be investigated in laboratories on Earth. For example, some current theories predict that exotic particles of matter, such as hyperons and deconfined quarks, can appear at the high densities that are present in neutron stars. Theories also indicate that at temperatures of a billion degrees Celsius, protons in the neutron star become superconducting and neutrons, without charge, become superfluid.

The magnetic field of neutron stars is extreme as well, possibly the strongest in the universe, and billions of times stronger than anything created in laboratories. While the gravity at the surface of a neutron star may not be as strong as that near a black hole, neutron stars still create major distortions in spacetime and can be sources of gravitational waves, which were inferred from research into neutron stars in the 1970s, and confirmed from black holes by the LIGO experiments recently.

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The main focus of NICER is to accurately measure the mass and radius of several neutron stars and, although the telescope will observe other types of astronomical objects, those of us studying neutron stars hope NICER will provide us with unique insights into these fascinating objects and their physics. NICER will measure how the brightness of a neutron star changes according to its energy, and how it changes as the star rotates, revealing different parts of the surface. These observations will be compared to theoretical models based on properties of the star such as mass and radius. Accurate determinations of mass and radius will provide a vital test of nuclear theory.

A GPS for deep space

Another aspect of neutron stars that could prove important for future space travel is their rotation and this will also be tested by NICER. Rotating neutron stars, known as pulsars, emit beams of radiation like a lighthouse and are seen to spin as fast as 716 times per second. This rotation rate in some neutron stars is more stable than the best atomic clocks we have on Earth. In fact, it is this characteristic of neutron stars that led to the discovery of the first planets outside our solar system in 1992 three Earth-sized planets revolving around a neutron star.

The NICER mission, using a part of the telescope called SEXTANT, will test whether the extraordinary regularity and stability of neutron star rotation could be used as a network of navigation beacons in deep space. Neutron stars could thus serve as natural satellites contributing to a Galactic (rather than Global) Positioning System and could be relied upon by future manned and unmanned spacecraft to navigate among the stars.

NICER will operate for 18 months, but it is hoped that NASA will continue to support its operation afterwards, especially if it can deliver on its ambitious scientific goals. I hope so too, because NICER combines and greatly improves upon the invaluable capabilities of previous X-ray spacecraft RXTE, Chandra, and XMM-Newton that are used to uncover neutron stars' mysteries and reveal properties of fundamental physics.

The first neutron star, a pulsar, was discovered in 1967 by Jocelyn Bell Burnell. It would be fitting to obtain a breakthrough on neutron stars in this 50th anniversary year.

Explore further: Image: Close-up view of neutron star mission's X-ray concentrator optics

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Neutron stars could be our GPS for deep space travel - Phys.Org

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The German village that changed the war BBC News The research and development carried out in Peenemnde was not only crucial to the course of the biggest war in history, but impacted the future of weapons of mass destruction, as well as space travel. Today, all that remains of the complex is an old ...

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The German village that changed the war - BBC News

The fantasy of humans living on Mars is a step closer to reality after Elon Musk, the founder-CEO of California-based SpaceX, put his space-travel vision on paper this month.

Musk's article in the journal New Space has a fittingly lofty title: "Making humans a multi-planetary species." But it has an appropriately down-to-Earth goal: Musk begins by saying he's writing "to make Mars seem possible -- make it see it is something that we can do in our lifetimes. There really is a way that anyone can go if they wanted to."

What follows is 16 pages, mostly understandable for the layman, of plans and illustrations that are both inspiring and practical-looking.

Perhaps this exhortation to put heart and mind behind further exploration of outer space is just what Americans need at a time when public life is dominated by self-interest, narrow-mindedness and insularity.

Or maybe it's just a good investment opportunity and a hedge against whatever disaster could someday -- as Musk thinks might happen -- leave Earth uninhabitable.

Musk, whose SpaceX is the world's largest private producer of rocket engines, says it's possible to colonize Mars with as many as 1 million men and women over the next 50 to 100 years.

The key is affordability; he thinks the per-person cost of a Mars trip can be shrunk from an estimated $10 billion using conventional ways of space travel to $200,000 or less.

The key to such cost-cutting is having reusable, refuelable rockets, and hundreds of spaceships that could live in Earth orbit before beginning 80-day flights to Mars when the planets align properly every 26 months.

Musk, a South Africa native who founded Tesla and SolarCity, is estimated to be worth $15 billion. But even he can't personally fund sustained travel to Mars and a human base there.

Ultimately, Musk wants to encourage investment by other billionaires, and perhaps a public-private partnership.

That's why making the plans public and plausible is a step in the right direction.

But judge for yourself. See Musk's article at: http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/pdf/10.1089/space.2017.29009.emu

-- By the L.A. Daily News editorial board, Digital First Media

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EDITORIAL: An important step on long journey to Mars - Sentinel & Enterprise

Mae Jemison the first African American woman in space. Photograph: NASA/Roger Ressmeyer/Corbis/VCG/Getty Images

Female scientists provided the rocket fuel that launched the space race into orbit, but it wasnt until Hidden Figures was released that these women or, at least, three of these women gained global recognition. Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson have since been rightly lauded as pioneers, but the history of women in space is long and filled with shining stars. Here are a few more names we ought to remember.

Born in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1925, Nancy Grace Roman was a stargazer from an early age. When only 11, she formed an astronomy club with her classmates, going on to gain a PhD in astronomy. She followed her guiding star all the way to Nasa where, as chief of astronomy, she became the first woman to hold a managerial position. Leading the Hubble Space Telescope project was among her most famous achievements, earning her the Mother of Hubble nickname.

Valentina Tereshkova took up skydiving in her early 20s, and it was this expertise that led her to be selected, from among 400 applicants, for space travel. On 16 June 1963, aged 26, she was sealed inside the Vostok 6 and launched into space, where she spent almost three days, completing 48 Earth orbits.

Without the software created by Margaret Hamiltons team, the 1969 moon landing would never have taken place. In recognition of her contribution to space exploration, Hamilton has been given both the Nasa Exceptional Space Act Award (in 2003) and the Presidential Medal of Freedom (in 2016). She is also credited with creating the building blocks for modern software engineering.

Unlike the two Soviet Union women who preceded her, the then 32-year-old Sally Ride was already an experienced astrophysicist when she undertook her first space mission. During a pre-launch press conference, Ride was subjected to such inane questions as: Will the flight affect your reproductive organs? and: Do you weep when things go wrong on the job? Her smiling response: How come nobody ever asks Rick [crewmate Captain Rick Hauck] those questions?

Few people remember the second woman in space, so its lucky for Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya that she has another record to her name: in July 1984, two years after her first space flight, Savitskaya became the first woman to complete a spacewalk. In a 1995 interview she described the sexism she encountered upon first entering the Salyut 7 space station, when a male crewmate presented her with an apron and told her to get to work.

One of Dr Helen Sharmans pre-astronaut jobs involved improving the flavour of chocolate for Mars confectionery, but her space mission didnt take her quite as far as the Red Planet. She did, however, spend an eight-day mission aboard the Mir space station, having been selected live on television. After returning to Earth, Sharman dedicated herself to inspiring others, later publishing a childrens book called The Space Place.

I remember being irritated that there were no women astronauts, Mae Jemison said of her reaction to the 1969 moon landings, as a then 12-year-old. People tried to explain that to me, and I did not buy it. Twenty-three years later, the engineer and physician became the first African American woman in space. She took several symbolic objects along for the ride, including a photograph of Bessie Coleman, the first African American woman to fly an aeroplane.

Anousheh Ansari has said she prefers spaceflight participant to space tourist, but whatever you call it, this Iranian American entrepreneur blazed a trail when she self-funded her way to the International Space Station (ISS). She has since become a proponent of the privatisation of space and has announced plans to create a fleet of suborbital spaceflight vehicles for commercial use.

At time of writing, 57-year-old Peggy Whitson is actually in space, serving aboard the International Space Station. On 24 April 2017, she broke the record for the longest total time spent in space by any Nasa astronaut (534 days) and, in recognition of her achievement, received a televised phone call from the Oval Office. President Trump expressed his hope that a Nasa astronaut would land on Mars during my first term or, at worst, during my second term, to which Whitson responded: Well do our best.

On 5 November 2013, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully put a satellite into orbit around Mars, making India the first nation in the world to do so on its first attempt. Nandini Harinath, a 20-year veteran of ISRO and mother of two, was one of several female scientists to work on the project, working 20-hour days during the launch.

Hidden Figures is launching on Blu-ray and DVD on 3 July, and is available on Digital Download now.

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More hidden figures: 10 women who helped take us to space - The Guardian

In tech circles, amid the chatter about terrestrial innovations such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and genomics, theres excitement building around another important emerging sector: private space travel.

Teslas Elon Musk, Amazons Jeff Bezos, Virgins Richard Branson, and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen all have private space ventures underway. NASA is once again ramping up its efforts, launching a rocket this morning that lit up the pre-dawn sky with colorful tracers. Although were nowhere near 1960s-space-race levels of enthusiasm in the U.S., its clear that our titans of digital industry, at least, see a lot of opportunity in expanding the reach of business beyond the Earth.

Tri-D Dynamics, a startup launched from the Purdue Foundry accelerator earlier this year, is preparing for the coming era of private space flight. The company wants to commercialize low-cost rocket engines that can be fabricated quickly through 3D printing and other additive manufacturing processes.

We want to be contract manufacturers for rocket engine components, says Alex Finch, Tri-Ds co-founder. Finch says the companys process is proprietary, but doesnt have the same constraints on component size or scalability that traditional 3D metal printing methods do. Our technology tries to move past those constraints, he adds.

Finch says his companys timing is perfect, as he sees the aerospace industry transitioning from being the provenance of government entities to being dominated by private companies, where the potential for profits is higher. We anticipate a big spike in demand, he says. There are a lot of rocket and satellite companies that are bringing value to commercial customers, and thats driving more demand.

If private space travel becomes more common, as its predicted to, Finch says an infrastructure will be required, and it will be rockets that ferry the necessary equipment to space. Youve got Branson with Virgin Galactic, Musk with SpaceX, and Bezos with Blue Origin, and then there are a dozen others in the U.S. alone, he points out. Globally, there are even more. We see the industry primed for exponential growth in 10 to 20 years.

In 2015, rocket manufacturing in the U.S. was a $2 billion industry, Finch says. Tri-D has done market research that shows demand for rocket engines will double by 2020.

According to Finch, Tri-D Dynamics was born out of research conducted at Purdue and University of California, San Diego, and has been five years in the making. The four-person company is based in Los Angeles, CA, but hopes to eventually locate its manufacturing operation in Indiana. Purdue is currently in the process of building a new aerospace manufacturing center, Finch says, which could provide a future pipeline of talent.

So far, Tri-D has relied on government grants to support itself as it develops its research from concept to commercialization, but Finch is also in the process of seeking venture backing. While many other companies are innovating in the broad category of 3D printing, Finch says none that hes aware of compete directly with Tri-Ds technology.

Some of the technology were using is already known, but we do have a patent pending, he says.

The startup also signed its first customer in the spring. Tri-D will take its customers engine design and create a full-scale prototype using its 3D printing technology by February. Finch says once the rocket engine printing process has been perfected, the company wants to explore other verticals, such as manufacturing jet engines or large-scale equipment for the oil and gas or nuclear industries.

Sarah Schmid Stevenson is the editor of Xconomy Detroit/Ann Arbor. You can reach her at 313-570-9823 or sschmid@xconomy.com.

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Tri-D Dynamics Aspires to Print Rocket Components for New Space Age - Xconomy

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The first commercial deep sea and space research centre wants to prepare you for space travel the Irish News The world's first commercial deep sea and space exploration centre, designed by one of the architects behind London's Gherkin, will open on a soon-to-close RAF base in 2019. Aptly named Blue Abyss, the 120 million facility will prepare the way for ... and more »

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The first commercial deep sea and space research centre wants to prepare you for space travel - the Irish News

WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) - How does one establish proper policy and regulation without stymying innovation in the space travel industry? Thats a question scientists, legal experts and lawmakers from around the world have been working to answer since the 1960s.

The Outer Space Treaty, the primary source of international space law, was ratified two years before the Apollo 11 astronauts walked on the moon. It requires that countries be responsible for national space activities involving both governmental and non-governmental entities and holds them liable for any and all damage that results from those activities.

Joanne Gabrynowicz, aninternationally recognized space law expert and editor-in-chief emerita of theJournal of Space Law,contends that the Outer Space Treaty includes an even more significant principle a strict prohibition on placing nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in space.

The Outer Space Treaty is one of the most important treaties of the 20th century, because for 50 years, we have had a successful ban on those weapons in space, she said.

Dr. Frans von der Dunk, a professor of space law at the University of Nebraska College of Law, explains that international space treaties, including the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, as well as the 1972 Convention on International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects and 1975 Convention on Registration of Objects Launched into Outer Space, were drafted during the Cold War era with governmental space activities in mind.

While he says the treaties are in many ways insufficiently precise or open to deviating interpretations, they form the legal foundation for commercial spaceflight. A number of countries have drafted their own national space laws to fulfill treaty obligations and exercise some control over private companies that get involved in space activities.

Henry Hertzfeld, a professor of space policy and international affairs at George Washington University, agrees that space treaties ratified in the 1960s and 1970s reflect both the era and international compromises.

So, are they perfect for commercial operations in space? he said. No, theyre not, but were able to do the commercial and private sector stuff anyway because they dont prohibit it and the United States in particular has encouraged it."

Von der Dunk contends that the United States has the most extended legal regime, with the Federal Aviation Administration licensing space launches, Federal Communications Commission satellite communications and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration remote sensing operations.

The FAAs Office of Commercial Space Transportation licenses commercial space transportation activities in accordance with theCommercial Space Launch Act. Enacted in 1984, this law permitted the private sector to get involved in space activities and develop commercial launch vehicles, orbital satellites, and operate private launch sites and services.

The Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act of 2004 built on this law and instituted several regulations, including a mandate that companies conducting commercial spaceflight operations ensure that participants are informed of the risks associated with those operations. Companies must obtain written consent from spaceflight participants that demonstrates acceptance of the risks.

The law also introduced a learning period to prevent the FAA from imposing stringent safety regulations that could potentially stifle the growing industry.

The most recent update to commercial spaceflight policy came in the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act in 2015. In addition to extending companies learning period to 2023, the law permits companies and the government to continue sharing the risks of space launch until 2025.

Gabrynowicz contends that U.S. space law has developed in tandem with spaceflight technology. She says the newer laws the Commercial Space LaunchCompetitiveness Act, theNational Aeronautics and Space AdministrationTransition Authorization Act of 2017 and a pending bill known as the American Space Commerce Free EnterpriseAct of 2017 dont actually help regulate national space activities.

Overall, these laws and bills are more politics than law and contain little substance, she said. They have a lot of technical legal language, like sense of Congress provisions that do not create law.

In all, they are intended to appear like authentic law when, in reality, they embody a great deal of legal uncertainty.

Hertzfeld points out that the industry needs policies that address for-profit operations in space, particularly activities that will be managed or operated by the private sector. Until now, he says, most private sector activities have been narrow, but that could change as companies become more involved with satellites and in spaceflight.

How do you deal with property rights in space? he said. Ownership of these natural resources, mineral resources, up there? How do you deal with approaching satellites that are perhaps owned by someone else, particularly if its another nations satellite? How do you deal with debris that could cause accidents?

There are lots and lots of questions in how you do this internationally, because other nations are involved. These are the issues that are not clearly defined right now.

Von der Dunk adds that there are still many countries that have no, or only a limited, national space law program. As a result, he says, in the implementation of the Outer Space Treaty, a divergence has grown that has led to gaps, inconsistencies and overlaps in domestic oversight.

Ideally, at the international level it would be good to have some form of harmonization at least of the approaches, noting that of course every sovereign state may have some individual idiosyncratic elements to deal with, but that idea has never moved beyond the stage of academic discussion, von der Dunk said. Sovereign states are not willing to comply with any serious effort to make this happen.

Von der Dunk says that those in the space industry can implement good laws without stunting innovation by balancing two competing interests regulating ahead of the curve to protect safety, security and international peace and cooperation, and regulating as closely behind the curve as possible once a number of private manned flights have demonstrated specific risks and threats.

As far as I can see, the FAA in particular does a really great job in trying to balance those two sometimes contradictory interests, but it is after all charged by Congress to both regulate and stimulate, he said.

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Space travel laws need to balance 'competing interests'; Experts weigh in - Legal News Line

Cyrielle Gulacsy is an art director living in Paris, pretty far removed from the happenings of SpaceX, NASA, and the rocket launches that inspire her illustrations. She creates striking pieces with graphite or ink and has produced detailed illustrations of past space-faring machines. Gulacsys work was on exhibition last year throughout Paris making stops at the Ddessin Art Fair and at the Structure, Lamour. This year, Cyrielle Gulacsy completed her first solo showing at the Hotel Grand Amour in Paris and has now brought some of her collection to New York City, where it will be on display at the Cafe Henrie for a month. The Observer reached out to Gulacsy to learn about her art and interest in space exploration.

When did you first become interested in space?Ive always been drawn to space but it turned into a full-fledged passion when I read Stephen Hawkings A Brief History Of Time. A storm was unleashed within me, a curiosity that hasnt dulled since. Ive been drawing forever and when space became a major passion, it was evident the two would merge.

What about space inspires you?I read a lot on astrophysics and quantum mechanics. The concepts I encounter there are a great source of inspiration. Theres an obvious link between cosmos and the mind and thats a parallel I want to explore. And I like the idea of leading people to those questions through an unexpected channel.

Can you tell us a little about your spacecraft pieces?The satellites and the rocket are part of a body of work I started years ago about arts ability to communicate a vision. I dont choose objects randomly. First of all, its a subjective choice, because Im passionate about them, but this is not the only reason. These are very technical objects and their purpose is primarily functional and non aesthetic. It is through my perspective and my interest for these subjects, that I attempt to reveal their aesthetic aspect to others through my drawings. I show these objects from a different viewpoint and I strive to make them sculptural. To me, its a way to make science accessible through sublimation.

What is your favorite thing about space exploration right now?Tough question! I cant wait for the next James Webb telescope to start operating and I keep myself informed of all current research attempt to solve interstellar travel issues (emdrive, warp drive, solar sails, etc) and the conquest of Mars, of course!

Whats your dream job?I think Im just about to reach my dream job, Im currently working on my drawings and going to collaborate on a science fiction series with 3D animation called Black Holes. Check it out, its really awesome. The real dream would be to collaborate with NASA or Space X to create something between art and space. Or just being a little closer to them, I dont know how for the moment, but I just want to be at the place where the future is built.

You witnessed your first rocket launch by SpaceX this weekend in California, any quick thoughts?

It was stunning because it was the first time but a little frustrating. I wasnt close enough to see well. But it gave me motivation to make a real plan to see a launching in front row. It left me a strange sensation like a new goal that was gonna inspire me and motivate me.

Do you have any space pieces planned for the near future?

Space is always part of my work one way or another. At the moment Im preparing a series on plane engines and mechanical rocket parts for my next series.

Robin Seemangal has been reporting from the newsroom at NASAs Kennedy Space Center for the last two years for the Observer with by-lines also in Popular Science and Wired Magazine. He does in-depth coverage of SpaceX launches as well as Elon Musks mission to send humans to Mars. Robin has appeared on BBC, Russia Today, NPRs Are We There Yet Podcast, and radio stations around the world to discuss space exploration.

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This French Artist Gets Her Inspiration From Space Travel - Observer