Category Archives: Space Station

The International Space Station sometimes has to shift its path to stay in the right orbit or to avoid debris (like it did last week). Usually, the ISS crew calls on Russian equipment to provide the thrust for the adjustments, but NASA tried to use a Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo craft in a "reboost" test on Monday. It didn't go as planned.

Cygnus-17 was supposed to fire its engine for a little over 5 minutes, but the firing aborted after just 5 seconds. In a statement on Monday, NASA said the "the cause for the abort is understood and under review," but didn't elaborate on what happened.

The ISS flies in a low Earth orbit, and the planet's atmosphere is constantly dragging on it. Regular reboosts help the station stay in orbit. "The reboost is designed to provide Cygnus with an enhanced capability for station operations as a standard service for NASA," the space agency said.

Back in 2018, NASA performed a short test of an ISS reboost maneuver with a different Cygnus spacecraft, but there's a little more importance to the operation this time around. Russian cosmonauts and American and European astronauts are getting along just fine on the ISS, but there are tensions on the ground due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. It makes sense for NASA to have a way to adjust the station's orbit that doesn't rely on Russian gear.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk suggested in February that SpaceX's Dragon capsules could also handle reboost duties if needed.

The Cygnus-17 spacecraft was used to transport cargo to the ISS. The crew emptied it and then repacked it with trash and discarded gear. It will soon depart from the ISS and burn up in Earth's atmosphere, like a space garbage disposal. But first, NASA is hoping to pull off a successful reboost. The do-over could happen as soon as Saturday.

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NASA Attempt to Boost Space Station Cuts Off Unexpectedly - CNET

The International Space Station (ISS) travelling in front of the Sun was clicked by a professional photographer named Jamie Cooper captured. It was taken in under one second.

The International Space Station has been going around the Earth since 1998. Ever since its launch, the spacecraft has facilitated multiple space missions and has observed many space chronicles. This permanently manned space station has also intrigued and fascinated many on the Earth as well. One of them, England-based Jamie Cooper, a professional photographer is also an admirer of the spacecraft. When he found out that the ISS would be seen passing the Sun from his location, he could not help but take a picture of the event. The resulting photograph looks absolutely breathtaking. Also read: International Space Station just escaped crashing into Russian weapons test debris, reveals NASA

According to a BBC report, 52-years old Jamie Cooper captured this tricky shot on June 17th. After finding out that the International Space Station would be visible from his house in Whilton, near Daventry, Northamptonshire, he brought out his telescope and high-speed video camera to record this moment which was going to last less than a second.

There's a very narrow band where you, the space station and the Sun are all in a straight line and it's about three miles wide. I'd checked the data three days before and it was going to miss my house, I checked the day before and it was going to be over my house, so I was lucky, Cooper told BBC.

At 10:22 BST (2:52 PM IST), the ISS was going to appear to pass the Sun from a particular location in Whilton in England. However, the entire passage was going to take place in less than a second. Even the slightest delay could have resulted in missing out on a very rare sight. However, Cooper prepared his specialist telescope along with filters to ensure he was able to capture the image. Also read: Viral! This man REJECTS call on iPhone from astronaut on International Space Station, breaks Internet!

It's important to say I use a specialist telescope with a filter because you should never look at the Sun without a filter - it can lead to permanent blindness, he added.

The final image of the ISS clearly showcases the minuscule looking space station passing in front of the Sun in a straight line. Although it may appear that the ISS is passing the Sun, it is actually just revolving around the Earth, and our perspective from the planet makes it appear as if it is venturing close to the Sun.

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Is that a bird? Is that a plane? No, that is the International Space Station in front of the SUN! - HT Tech

Sierra Space has plans for its Dream Chaser, including carrying astronauts into low-Earth orbit. Photo: Sierra Space

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NASA is working with private industry to handle the day-to-day business of space, like delivering supplies to the International Space Station. One of those companies will soon be Sierra Space.

Well speak with Sierra Space CEO Tom Vice about the companys plans for its Dream Chaser spaceplane, and how private industry is giving NASA a hand when it comes to business in low-Earth orbit.

Then, industries throughout the global economy are feeling the impacts of supply chain issues, and the aerospace world is not immune to these challenges. But one commercial space leader argues the aerospace supply chain problem is a bit different than other sectors of the economy. Well speak with Morpheus Space co-founder and president Istvn Lrincz about the unique challenges and possible solutions to supply chain issues in the aerospace industry.

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From a new space station to supply chain solutions, a check in with commercial space - WMFE

After the successful completion of OFT-2, which saw an uncrewed Boeing Starliner spacecraft delivering supplies to the International Space Station (ISS), NASA will be sending two of its astronauts aboard the Boeing Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission to the ISS where they will live and work for about two weeks.

NASA astronaut Sunita Suni L. Williams will serve as a pilot and will be joined by CFT commander Barry Butch Wilmore. Williams was previously the backup test pilot for CFT while assigned as commander of NASAs Boeing Starliner-1 mission, Starliners post-certification mission. Williams takes the place of NASA astronaut Nicole Mann, who was originally assigned the mission in 2018. NASA had reassigned Mann to the agencys SpaceX Crew-5 mission in 2021.

A short-duration mission with two astronaut pilots is sufficient to meet all NASA and Boeing test objectives for CFT, based upon current space station resources and scheduling needs. The objectives include demonstrating Starliners ability to safely fly operational crewed missions to and from the space station. NASA may extend the CFT docked period duration up to six months and add an additional astronaut later if needed.

Formerly assigned as the joint Operations Commander for CFT, NASA astronaut Mike Fincke will now train as the backup spacecraft test pilot and will remain eligible for assignment to a future mission. According to the space agency, Finckes unique expertise will benefit the team as he retains his position as a flight test lead.

Mike Fincke has dedicated the last nine years of his career to these first Boeing missions and Suni the last seven. Butch has done a marvellous job leading the team as the spacecraft commander since 2020. It was great to see Starliners successful journey to the International Space Station during the Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2) mission last month. We are all looking forward to cheering on Butch and Suni as they fly the first crewed Starliner mission, said Reid Wiseman, chief, Astronaut Office at NASAs Johnson Space Center in Houston, in a press statement.

All three astronauts have each flown previously as long-duration crew members aboard the space station. Boeings Starliner spacecraft will launch aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida for the crewed flight test.

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NASA astronauts to fly to International Space Station on Boeing Starliner test mission - The Indian Express

Garver said her efforts to reform NASA as deputy administrator from 2009 to 2013 in particular, canceling the Constellation space vehicle program that fizzled after four years and billions of dollars ran headlong into the trillion-dollar military-industrial complex.

I was attacked by Democrats and Republicans in Congress, by the aerospace industry, and by hero astronauts for proposing an agenda that didnt suit their parochial interests, she writes in Escaping Gravity: My Quest to Transform NASA and Launch a New Space Age, which she shared with POLITICO ahead of publication.

Garver, who joined NASA in 1996 and held a series of increasingly senior posts, accuses her former boss, Charles Bolden, the first Black NASA administrator, of multiple leadership failures from presiding over declining diversity in the astronaut corps to doing the bidding of entrenched interests and their backers in Congress.

She calls out aerospace giants Boeing and Lockheed Martin and their suppliers for greedily pushing NASA leaders and Congress to initiate the $23 billion-and-counting Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion capsule that she fears will bankrupt the space program before it ever returns astronauts to the moon.

Garver accuses lawmakers in both parties of continuing to put their own political interests above NASAs.

She says one of the biggest impediments to reform was Bill Nelson, the former U.S. senator from Florida who represented Kennedy Space Center and now runs NASA.

It was Nelson, she writes, who led the opposition to the Commercial Crew Program the novel public-private partnership she championed that culminated in 2020 with SpaceXs Crew Dragon returning American astronauts to the International Space Station from U.S. soil for the first time in a decade.

Garver contends that if Nelson and Bolden had their way a decade ago, the United States would still be dependent on Russia to send astronauts to the space station.

And Nelson, she says, who along with then-Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison forced on us the SLS, the taxpayer-funded mega-moon rocket that is years behind schedule, billions over cost and slated to finally make its first uncrewed flight this summer.

NASA on Monday again had to prematurely halt the practice countdown for SLS, including fueling the rocket, in what was its fourth attempt.

People dont want to be critical of our current leadership, Garver said in an interview. And Senator Nelson is now Administrator Nelson. We are still at a point where it is not exactly clear weve developed something that is sustainable for deep space.

But is she concerned about how her book will be received by Nelson, Bolden or others she worked so closely with?

Im not passive-aggressive, Garver told POLITICO. They have been. They have blocked me from things. I think they very clearly are not going to like it.

Garver admitted she had not anticipated that Nelson would be running the space program when her memoir came out. I was nearly done with this book when he was appointed, she said. It did give me pause. My publisher loved it. Im like, oh, man.

NASA and Nelson, through a spokesperson, declined to respond to the charges and criticisms that Garver levels in her book. Bolden and the prime contractors for the SLS program also did not respond to requests to comment.

Garver, who after she left NASA ran the Air Line Pilots Association, also takes direct aim at what she calls NASAs male-dominated and military culture.

She notes in the book that all 14 NASA administrators have been men and only two of the 134 Space Shuttle missions were helmed by women. She also labels the pledge to land the first woman on the moon first by the Trump administration and now the Biden White House as little more than a marketing gimmick.

And despite her own success moving up the chain, women have also been openly denigrated, she writes.

Many who disagreed with my views attacked me with vulgar, gendered language, depredation, and physical threats, Garver, now 61, writes in the book. Ive been called an ugly whore, a motherf-cking b-tch, and a c-nt; told I need to get laid, and asked if Im on my period or going through menopause.

Garver also blames predominantly white male group think at NASA and in Congress as contributing heavily to NASAs troubled record of programs that are years behind schedule and costing billions more than advertised.

She takes particular aim at Nelson. She recounts how the then-senator, while pushing for the SLS also tried to block the public-private Commercial Crew program that helped to finance the SpaceX Crew Dragon.

Garver refers to Nelson in the book as a lifetime politician most known for his out-of-this-world political junket in 1986: a taxpayer-funded ride on the Space Shuttle. (Bolden piloted the mission as an astronaut.)

Many who disagreed with my views attacked me with vulgar, gendered language, depredation, and physical threats

Lori Garver

She says that, years later, she was the personal target of then-Senator Nelsons ire for advocating that private companies be given a chance to propose alternatives to NASAs traditional government-run approach.

For example, when Musk made public comments that he could help fix NASAs problems, she recounts how then-Senator Nelson, in a private meeting, shouted at me to get your boy Elon in line.

She accuses Nelson of rewriting history during his 2021 Senate confirmation hearing. Not surprisingly, the new NASA Administrator recalls his record differently, she writes. The seventy-nine-year-old is doing his best to wrap himself in the Commercial Crew flag.

The bad blood between the two Democrats also comes across in an episode Garver recounts from 2020, when she was a space policy adviser to Joe Bidens presidential campaign.

She says Nelson, then a former senator, had her disinvited from a 2020 campaign event heralding the upcoming maiden launch of SpaceXs Crew Dragon to the space station.

Garver reserves some of her harshest criticism, however, for the SLS the mega-rocket and space capsule built by Boeing and Lockheed Martin that NASA is banking on to return astronauts to the moon by 2025. She faults its lack of reusability, exorbitant anticipated price per launch, as well as the self-dealing government acquisition system that rewards existing contractors and programs.

Had SLS flown for the amount of money and in the period of time that we were told they would there would be no book, she said in an interview.

Garver, who has been publicly attacking the SLS project as wasteful for years, derides it in the book as the Senate Launch System.

She says the political pressure to keep production lines going was overwhelming even if it meant that taxpayers paid double for components in a system that might never fly more than a few times.

She recounts how the bureaucracy initiated the program out of the ashes of the Constellation effort knowing that what they were promising was not achievable.

NASA staff from the program offices, centers, legislative affairs, general counsel, and even public affairs had been working against us in secret, she writes. I thought about how many people in the room and across the country were ecstatic with the announcement, unaware that their leadership was lying to them about what was achievable. Thousands of people would spend their next decade working on systems that werent sustainable over the long term.

It was easier to keep doing the same thing while charging the government more and more money, she added. This process continues to this day.

After $40 billion spent on a space transportation system that is not reusable and by recent estimates will cost at least $4 billion per launch she faults NASA under the Biden administration for sticking with it.

The Biden administration is now the third administration to ignore such realities, she writes, so the absurdity continues.

She notes, for example, that NASA is paying Aerojet Rocketdyne to refurbish engines for the SLS that the government initially developed under the Space Shuttle program at $150 million apiece.

Since the SLS throws four away each launch, taxpayers will spend $600 million per launch for engines they paid for already, Garver writes. By contrast, SpaceX sells a Falcon Heavy launch for $90 million, reusable engines included.

If Escaping Gravity is an indictment of business as usual in Washington, it also reads at times as a love letter to billionaire space barons Musk, Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin space companies.

My story is difficult to separate from Elons, Garver boasts in the book, because I wouldnt have managed to pull off much of a transformation at NASA without him and SpaceX.

Likewise, she describes her discussions with Bezos as like talking to a friend Ive known for years, calling him relaxed, inquisitive, and hilarious.

And she refers to Branson as the most naturally charismatic of the billionaire space barons.

Whether we personally like the billionaire space titans as individuals is beside the point, she writes. By all accounts, they are following established laws, and instead of investing in space companies, they could be spending all of their money on creature comforts that do little for our national economy.

She maintains she has no personal interest in championing the space billionaires. I have never worked for any of those guys, she told POLITICO. I have never taken a dime from them.

Garver leads a foundation called Earthrise, which is dedicated to using satellites to combat climate change. She has financial ties to the space industry. She is an executive at Bessemer Venture Partners, though she says she is not a shareholder in any of its companies. She also serves on the board of Hydrosat, a Luxembourg-based space imaging company, and previously was on the board of space technology company Maxar Technologies.

Im not conflicted, she maintained in an interview. Its not my thing.

The book still outlines what she sees as brighter prospects for NASAs future. Garver expresses optimism that her battles have set the stage for a new era in the space program.

Thankfully, she writes, while the dinosaurs devour the last of the leaves on the high treetops, the furry mammals have continued to evolve.

She heralds NASAs decision to select SpaceX to build the Human Landing System for the Artemis moon program and lauds congressional pressure to open up the competition to other companies in the future.

She is also hopeful that NASA will eventually be more open to SpaceXs reusable Starship that is now under development.

If successful, Starship alone could perform the entire Artemis mission without SLS, Orion, or the Lunar Gateway, at significantly reduced cost and increased capability, she writes, referring to the NASA rocket, space capsule and plans for a small orbiting space station around the moon.

The shift to a more sustainable architecture for human space exploration again feels in reach, she adds.

But the entrenched interests arent about to give up, either, Garver warns. [T]he traditional players havent retired; they are writing new plays while enjoying and fueling the fratricide, she writes in the book. In my view, we still need to keep our eye on the ball in order to assure sustainable progress. The stakeholders who brought us SLS and Orion are heavily invested in protecting them.

She told POLITICO she fears too much is still driven by, oh we really need to do it in a way that employs these friends of mine or these companies have good relationships with these members of Congress so therefore it should be funded. That shouldnt have anything to do with it.

For the military-industrial complex, she added, the aerospace people have been very successful at keeping those government contracts closely held. Theyve got every incentive to do so. The system reinforces that.

She said government bureaucrats need to get tougher to withstand the political pressure: the job is to do the very best with taxpayer dollars. It isnt to feather the nests of our friends.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this report misspelled Lori Garvers name in a photo caption.

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'Get your boy Elon in line': NASA tell-all recounts turmoil over private space race - POLITICO

Enlarge / A graphic representation of the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment in orbit near the Moon.

NASA

NASA and Rocket Lab are gearing up to fly a novel mission to lunar orbit that in many ways serves as the vanguard of what is to come as the space agency and US companies ramp up exploration and development of the Moon.

The space agency is financially supporting the privately built satellite, named CAPSTONE, with a $13.7 million grant. It is scheduled to launch on an Electron rocket as early as Saturday from New Zealand.Developed by a Colorado-based company named Advanced Space, the spacecraft itself is modestly sized, just a 12U cubesat with a mass of around 25 kg. It could fit comfortably inside a mini-refrigerator.

The mission's scientific aims are also modestprimarily, the demonstration of a new system of autonomous navigation around and near the Moon. This Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System, or CAPS, is important because there is a lack of fixed tracking assets near the Moon, especially as the cislunar environment becomes more crowded during the coming decade.

Nevertheless, NASA views this as a pivotal interplanetary mission for a number of reasons.

In an interview, a senior engineer in NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate, Chris Baker, said the space agency is interested in this kind of technology as it makes plans to help manage growing traffic near the Moon, including its own Artemis missions and commercial spacecraft delivering NASA science payloads to the Moon's surface.

The CAPSTONE mission will also benefit NASA in another way. It will fly in a special orbit,called a near-rectilinear halo orbit, around the Moon. This is a highly elliptical orbit that periodically comes to within about 3,000 km of the Moon and travels as far away as 70,000 km. In that sense, it's a weird orbit, but because it is neatly balanced between the gravityof Earth and the Moon, the orbit is highly stable and requires only a small amount of spacecraft propellant to hold position.

Later this decade, NASA intends to start assembling a small space station,called the Lunar Gateway, in this elliptical orbit. The Gateway is intended to serve several purposes, including providing a way station for astronauts traveling down to the surface of the Moon. The CAPSTONE mission will be the first spacecraft to test out the parameters of this orbit and verify the stability of the orbit as predicted in simulations.

"The mathematical models are really good," Baker said. "There's not any concern that we're going to learn anything to affect it. This is really more about refining our understanding, looking at station-keeping Delta-v to ground those models with real flight data and optimize operations."

The CAPSTONE mission is a pathfinder in other ways that could prove important as exploration of the Earth-Moon system broadens beyond traditional space agencies. It may help uncover ways to cut the costs of reaching the Moon, a significant barrier to commercial activity.

Notably, this will be the first interplanetary mission launched by a small, liquid-fueled rocket, the Electron vehicle. The launch company, Rocket Lab, has built an interplanetary third stage called Lunar Photon that will separate from the rocket about 20 minutes after liftoff. Six days later, after raising CAPSTONE's orbit to 60,000 km, the Photon stage will make a final burn and boost CAPSTONE into deep space.Enlarge / A ballistic lunar transfer viewed in an Earth-centered inertial frame, top-down and inclined views.

Advanced Space

Then the spacecraft will spend nearly four months traveling to the Moon, following what's known as a ballistic lunar transfer that uses the Sun's gravity to follow an expansive trajectory. While this path will bring the spacecraft to a distance of more than three times that between the Earth and Moon, it will require the small vehicle to burn relatively little propellant to reach its destination.

"One of the things that makes this mission particularly attractive to us is the capabilities it is demonstrating, and the US small businesses and commercial capabilities that it's leveraging," Baker said. "It's demonstrating access to the Moon for a small spacecraft on a small rocket. It's really pushing the envelope as a commercially owned spacecraft operating at the Moon and helping to blaze a trail that others can follow."

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For the first time, a small rocket will launch a private spacecraft to the Moon - Ars Technica

NASA & SPACE NEWSThis image of Galveston and Bolivar Peninsula, separated by the Galveston Bay, were taken by the crew of the International Space Station as it orbited 262 miles above. In the image, Galveston Island is at right, Bolivar Peninsula at left, with the top of the picture being southeast. (NASA image)

(NASA) The issue of General Order No. 3 by Union troops on June 19, 1865, marked the official end of slavery in Texas and the U.S.

On that Monday, enslaved African Americans in Texas learned of their freedom. That day of liberation became known as Juneteenth, when the Emancipation Proclamation was announced by Union troops in Galveston, Texas.

On Thursday, June 17, 2021, President Joe Biden signed into law legislation making Juneteenth a federal holiday.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in this years Juneteenth Workforce Message:

Last year, President Biden signed legislation into law that established June 19 as Juneteenth National Independence Day a federal holiday. On this day, we reckon with the moral stain of slavery on our country. We reflect on centuries of racial injustice, inequality, and struggle that unfortunately still exist today.

There is still more work to do, and it is work we must all do. I encourage all members of the NASA family to participate in a Juneteenth celebration and reflect on this historic event in our history. Let us reaffirm and rededicate ourselves to building a more perfect union.

The above image of Galveston and Bolivar Peninsula, separated by the Galveston Bay, were taken by the crew of the International Space Station as it orbited 262 miles above. In the image, Galveston Island is at right, Bolivar Peninsula at left, with the top of the picture being southeast.

Premiering on Juneteenth, Sunday, June 19, The Color of Space is a 50-minute inspirational documentary by NASA that tells the stories of Black Americans determined to reach the stars.

It will be available to watch starting at noon EDT on NASA TV, the NASA app, NASA social media channels, and the agencys website.

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PHOTO OF THE DAY: International Space Station Captures Galveston and the Beginning of Juneteenth - SpaceCoastDaily.com

Parkinson's patients could be getting benefits from research conducted on the International Space Station that has connections to Louisville. Paula Grisanti, Chief Executive Officer for the National Stem Cell Foundation Headquarters in Louisville, spoke with WLKY about a groundbreaking new study.Organoids will be launched into space and will spend six weeks on the ISS before splashing back down.These organoids, which Grisanti described as "mini-brains," are composed of cells from people suffering from MS and Parkinson's Disease. After they return, the data they produce will be collected, prepared and refined for another mission in 2023. Grisanti said that sending the organoids to space allows them to communicate with each other in a zero-gravity environment. This activates them much like a spinner would on Earth but without "confusing" the organoids and preventing them from communicating at their best with each other. The hope is that the research will help scientists accelerate the discovery of Parkinson's before it onsets.

Parkinson's patients could be getting benefits from research conducted on the International Space Station that has connections to Louisville.

Paula Grisanti, Chief Executive Officer for the National Stem Cell Foundation Headquarters in Louisville, spoke with WLKY about a groundbreaking new study.

Organoids will be launched into space and will spend six weeks on the ISS before splashing back down.

These organoids, which Grisanti described as "mini-brains," are composed of cells from people suffering from MS and Parkinson's Disease.

After they return, the data they produce will be collected, prepared and refined for another mission in 2023.

Grisanti said that sending the organoids to space allows them to communicate with each other in a zero-gravity environment.

This activates them much like a spinner would on Earth but without "confusing" the organoids and preventing them from communicating at their best with each other.

The hope is that the research will help scientists accelerate the discovery of Parkinson's before it onsets.

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Research conducted in space to fight Parkinson's has Louisville connection - WLKY Louisville

Since E.E. Doc Smiths 1934 novel, Triplanetary, people have dreamed about performing the first space dive. As we make our first steps toward commercialising space travel, many people have started to wonder if we are any closer to achieving the first space dive.

When Jeff Bezos and Sir Richard Branson were celebrated for travelling to space, some people questioned whether they had actually gone to space, or simply reached the edge of space. This opened up a debate about where space really begins.

According to the Fdration Aronautique Internationale (FAI), which regulates aeronautics, astronautics and related activities, space begins 62 miles above sea level, a line dubbed the Krmn line after Theodore von Krmn, who calculated this altitude level. The region below this line is referred to as the edge of space. Once you cross the Krmn line, you can say that you have reached space, although reaching space doesnt imply being in orbit. However, the United States Air Forces definition of space begins at just 50 miles above sea level, reflecting changes in outer space. To reach orbit, you need to be ~248 miles above sea level, which is where the International Space Station is.

To date, there have been no successful space dives. People have been able to skydive from higher and higher. In 1959, Joseph Kittinger jumped from 74,700 feet, a record which he broke in 1960 when he skydived from 102,800 feet. In 1962, Yevgeni Andreyev set a new record when he skydived from 83,523 feet a record which was only surpassed in 2012 when Felix Baumgartner made skydived on three occasions, from 71,581 feet, 96,640 feet, and 128,000 feet, respectively. The current record for the highest and longest-distance free fall jump is held by Alan Eustace, who, in 2014, jumped from 135,908 feet. However, Kittinger still holds the record for the longest-duration free fall, for his 1960 jump, which lasted 4 minutes, and 36 seconds.

Space diving is a hard problem. Technical challenges have prevented successful jumps from the mesosphere or thermosphere. Orbital Outfitters, which is not defunct, worked unsuccessfully to develop a suit that would allow space diving. Any successful suit would have to be able to deliver larger amounts of oxygen than current suits are capable of, have a carbon dioxide absorber, be able to keep everything cool, and, well, just not melt. At that height, a space diver is at risk of being boiled from their blood outwards. To date, there has been no suit developed to overcome the challenges of space diving.

Its not just about the suit, though. A space diver would need a parachute that could withstand being deployed at the kind of extraordinarily high speeds involved. At the beginning of space, we are talking about reaching velocities of nearly 4,474 miles per hour. At the level of the International Space Station, we are talking about velocities of nearly 17150 miles per hour. With the technology we have, that would kill the space diver.

Scientists have been trying to figure out these equipment problems for decades. Theyre still having to create flowcharts to develop equipment for every single dangerous phase of this audacious feat. Were close, but not very.

Just when you think it couldnt get worse, things get worse, much worse. Re-entry is possibly the single biggest challenge from a technical point of view. Quite simply, any space diver faces the possibility of being burnt alive. No suit in existence can withstand the extreme temperatures that a space diver would be facing. A space diver would have to endure temperatures of as much as 1,370C, whereas the standard spacesuit can only withstand temperatures of about a fifth of that.

Lets make things even harder: if a space diver were hurtling down from the International Space Station, they would be hurtling past satellites and space debris, all of which would be travelling at phenomenal speeds and either of which could instantly kill that space diver upon impact. Basically, it would be like asking someone to race through a firing range and hoping they dont get hit by a bullet.

A final complication is this: if you were space diving from the International Space Station, you wouldnt simply hurtle toward earth, you would orbit for as much as two years, all the while requiring food and water and oxygen, before your orbit started to decay and you fell toward earth.

Space diving is, basically, impossible. From extreme heat, to death by starvation, our intrepid space diver simply faces too many hurdles to ever make it. Perhaps ever is too strong a word. Maybe a century from now we will have resolved all the challenges and space diving will be as common as skydiving.

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On The Impossibility Of Space Diving - Science 2.0

NASA's ECOSTRESS instrument recorded ground temperatures around Las Vegas at 5:23 p.m. on June 10. In the city, the hottest surfaces were the dark-colored streets at more than 122 degrees Fahrenheit (50 degrees Celsius).Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

An instrument on the space station documented how built and natural surfaces responded to record heat in Las Vegas.

June 18, 2022 - On June 10, Las Vegas reached a record daily high temperature of 109 degrees Fahrenheit (43 degrees Celsius), and temperatures of the ground surface itself were higher still. NASAs Ecosystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) instrument recorded this image of surface temperatures at 5:23 p.m. that day.

Within the city, the hottest surfaces were the streets the grid of dark red lines in the center of the image. Pavement temperatures exceeded 122 F (50 C), while the exteriors of downtown buildings were a few degrees cooler than paved surfaces. Suburban neighborhoods averaged about 14 F (8 C) cooler than pavement, and green spaces such as golf courses were 23 F (13 C) cooler.

Cities are usually warmer than open land because of human activities and the materials used for building. Streets are often the hottest part of the built environment due to asphalt paving. Dark-colored surfaces absorb more heat from the Sun than lighter-colored ones; asphalt absorbs up to 95% of solar radiation and retains the heat for hours into the nighttime. In this image, patches of dark-colored volcanic rock south of Lake Mead are also noticeably hot.

ECOSTRESS measures the temperature of the ground, which is hotter than the air temperature during the daytime. The instrument launched to the space station in 2018. Its primary mission is to identify plants thresholds for water use and water stress, giving insight into their ability to adapt to a warming climate. However, ECOSTRESS is also useful for documenting other heat-related phenomena, like patterns of heat absorption and retention. Its high-resolution images, with a pixel size of about 225 feet (70 meters) by 125 feet (38 meters), are a powerful tool for understanding our environment.

NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California built and manages the ECOSTRESS mission for the Earth Science Division in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. ECOSTRESS is an Earth Venture Instrument mission; the program is managed by NASAs Earth System Science Pathfinder program at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

More information about ECOSTRESS is available here:

https://ecostress.jpl.nasa.gov/Source: NASA

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NASA's ECOSTRESS Sees Las Vegas Streets Turn Up the Heat Space Station Instruments Record Pavement Temperatures of Over 122 Degrees - Sierra Sun...