Category Archives: Space Station

It's been two months since astronaut and Maine native Jessica Meir returned from space and now the Caribou native is speaking out about what it was like to be a member of the first all-female spacewalk.

Meir, who was first selected by NASA in 2013, had a childhood dream of going to space.

From 2019 to 2020, she got to serve as a flight engineer on the International Space Station for Expedition 61 and 62.

Over the past year, and particularly since the beginning of her time on the ISS in 2019, Meir said she found herself in a variety of situations she didn't necessarily expect.

Those moments have included giving tips on isolation for people stuck at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, making appearances on late night talk shows and getting serenaded by one of her favorite bands, The National.

But it was the spacewalk that made a lot of national headlines, when she and fellow astronaut, Christina Koch, donned space suits and went outside the ISS to do maintenance and keep the orbiting lab functional.

During the time she and Koch were doing that work, Meir says the priority was just that. The work.

She had a job to do and, as she points out, the class of astronauts she was part of in 2013, was also the first to have 50% men and 50% women.

By the numbers, Meir says everyone should expect to see more women on more NASA missions and notes the agency has committed to putting a woman on the Moon.

Still, she'll also tell you that just because space can be a physical and emotional vacuum when you're working in it, with inches of a protective suit between you and death, there are moments of reflection after the hatch closes.

"It was a very proud and humbling moment," she said, during an interview with NECN and NBC10 Boston on Friday.

She explained that she and Koch, "were quite overwhelmed by the level of excitement for it on the ground" and that the experience wasn't necessarily something she had expected.

The credit for the achievement, however, Meir says, actually goes to all of the previous NASA astronauts whose shoulders, Meir feels she stands on.

"That spacewalk had really nothing to do with Christina and myself," she said. "That was really for all these women that came before us."

In the present and on Earth, Meir has continued contributing to efforts for future efforts, who Meir believes will be from many diverse backgrounds, as they prepare for more private-sector supported space travel along with missions to the Moon and Mars.

In particular, Meir is looking forward to the publication of a paper she worked on about an experiment in space to find different ways to combat muscular and skeletal atrophy.

She explained that the zero-gravity environment in space takes a heavy toll on an animal's muscles and bones, which, in turn, would make a long space flight to somewhere like Mars rather difficult since a spacecraft making that journey would likely be smaller and not have room for the exercise equipment Meir had access to stay healthy on the ISS.

A third of all humans currently in space are from the state of Maine. Last week, York native Chris Cassidy joined Caribou native Jessica Meir on the International Space Station who will be preparing to head back to Earth.

"There was one experiment using a mice model that has applications not only for long-term space flight but also to many disease states on the ground, conditions where people have problems with their muscular and skeletal systems," Meir said.

"That's actually yielded some incredibly interesting results and we've recently just submitted a paper to publish those results. You'll have to stay tuned just a little bit longer," she added.

Waiting a bit longer is something Meir quickly realized she too would be doing after landing in Kazakhstan in April.

Because of COVID-19, her mother was unable to fly to Houston to see her in person as planned and Meir hasn't been able to fly to Maine either.

"I still haven't seen my mom," she said. "Outside of [her] friends in the local area, I haven't seen any of my family or friends and that's been disappointing and difficult for me to deal with but it's something that everybody is having to deal with."

Meir says keeping her family and friends healthy by not traveling to them is more important right now.

While she stays grounded, Meir is also waiting to find out if she will be selected for any of NASA's upcoming missions to the Moon or beyond.

As she pointed out, the decision is not hers, but if possible she would get on a rocket tomorrow to return to space.

"To go to the Moon, that is really my next great dream and there's a chance that could happen," she said.

In the meantime, Meir says she's going to appreciate everything she missed while she was in orbit, a list that includes the friends she can see right now, fresh fruits and vegetables, yogurt at breakfast and salads.

She is also thinking about what she will do when she eventually returns to Maine and thinking of all the people she wants to thank in person.

"New England has always played such a special part of my life, I was living and working in Boston before I got this job and spent all of my first years in Maine and spent all of my first 18 years in Maine," she said.

Read more:
Astronaut and Maine Native Jessica Meir Talks About Experience in Space - NECN

That is only about one-third of the way to the 62-mile altitude that is often considered the boundary of outer space, but it is still high enough to see that our planet is indeed round. Ms. Poynter said the price for a ride would be more expensive than the $75,000 that World View had planned to charge, probably about $125,000.

The new design is simplified. Instead of trying to steer by finding winds blowing in the desired direction, Space Perspectives balloon will lift off and head in the direction of that days winds. By letting out some of the hydrogen that makes the balloon lighter than air, the craft slowly descends to a splashdown in either the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico.

The craft will have a parachute to allow a safe return if the balloon somehow deflated.

Ms. Poynter said Space Perspective has to obtain enough investment for its initial development work, including an uncrewed test flight in the first quarter of next year. If all goes according to plan, the first flights with passengers might take off around the beginning of 2025, nearly a decade after the target date the founders had set for World View.

In addition to World View, Ms. Poynter and Mr. MacCallum have attempted other ambitious space projects. They worked on the balloon and craft that lifted Alan Eustace, a Google executive, to near the top of the stratosphere for a successful record-setting parachute dive in 2014.

They also collaborated with Dennis Tito, an entrepreneur who is one of the few private citizens to visit the International Space Station, on Inspiration Mars, a private endeavor to launch two people on a flyby of the red planet. That proved out of reach because available rockets were not powerful enough.

We have done a lot of hard things in our day, Mr. MacCallum said, and some have worked out and some of them havent. And, some of them were, Wouldnt it be fantastic? Maybe low probability, but worth giving it a shot like Inspiration Mars.

Ms. Poynter said a marketing study that Space Perspective commissioned found that roughly 2 million people would be interested in their balloon trips, potentially a market worth a quarter of a trillion dollars.

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They Want to Sell Balloon Rides 19 Miles Up. Havent We Heard This Before? - The New York Times

Antietam Elementary School students talk with the International Space Station through a multipoint telebridge

Antietam Elementary School students talked with Commander Chris Cassidy through Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) in the first-ever virtual multipoint telebridge. Six students asked Cassidy questions during the short time frame that was allotted for the event.

Throughout the school year, ARISS assists with connecting schools to the crew aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Normally, at a school site, students would gather in one room to participate. A licensed amateur radio operator would set-up equipment at the school that would connect students to the ISS at a scheduled time. However, this year, with the closure of schools, ARISS found a way to add the element of connecting students virtually from their homes. The solution was building a multipoint telebridge.

Antietam Elementary Gifted Education Teacher Kathy Lamont, who is also a member of the ARISS education and executive committee, volunteered Antietam students to take part in the first multipoint telebridge with the ISS. From their homes, each student dialed into a conference call and logged into ARISS newly created YouTube channel. From his home in Rhode Island, Steve Rys was the master control of the live YouTube feed, which included a graphic depiction tracking the location of the ISS. The channel also served as a way to share informational videos with students about ARISS and the technology used to conduct space chats with the ISS.

John Kludt, based at his home in Atlanta, Georgia, served as the program moderator. Kludt kept tabs on the ISS, shared information and introduced Fred Kemmerer, the radio operator responsible for making contact with the ISS. Kemmerer used his 40-foot antenna at his home in New Hampshire to contact Cassidy aboard the ISS. Rys shared a live video feed of the ISS as it started flying over Canada.

The students and volunteers were excited as the time drew closer to begin contact with the ISS, which would only be in range of Kemmerers radio signal for about 10 minutes.

November Alpha One Sierra Sierra this is Alpha Bravo One Oscar Charlie, any copy? Kemmerer called out. After several attempts, Kemmerer switched from his primary channel, then to his back-up channel and back to his primary channel. Five minutes had past before Kemmerer called his contact at NASA in Huntsville, Alabama. Cassidy was having technical difficulties with the radio on-board the ISS. Determined to have a successful space chat for the Antietam students, Kemmerer continued to call and finally made contact.

Miles, a second-grader, was the first to ask Cassidy a question, What does the sun look like from outer space? He can barely be heard through the teleconference connection. Kemmerer asked Miles to repeat the question and the audio was still hard to understand.

Cassidy, who had a list of the questions, volunteered to answer them. In response to Miles he said, Good question Miles. The sun is the same exact appearance that we see on Earth. Its the same size and the same intensity, although we dont have the protection of the atmosphere, so its very, very bright for us.

Cassidy continues with the next question, which is from Henry, a kindergartner, who asked, How comfortable is it to sleep in space? The astronaut explained that they float inside sleeping bags tied to a wall and once they get use to not having a pillow, its very comfortable.

Kemmerer chimes in asking Cassidy to stand-by, then asks Catherine, a kindergartener, to ask her question. Despite some static, the question can be heard by Cassidy. Two more student questions were heard and answered by Cassidy before the ISS moved out of the range of Kemmerers antenna.

Lamont was excited to provide this opportunity for students.

I love being able to connect students to real activities and real careers. Anything that gets students more aware of their surroundings and shows them that they are a part of the much larger community is key, she shared.

Check out the video to hear Antietam students making history by talking to an astronaut aboard the ISS from their homes. ARISS has also shared the full program on their YouTube channel.

See the article here:
Students chat with the ISS from their homes - Brentsville District High

The Weekend Edition is pulled from the daily Stansberry Digest.

By Corey McLaughlin

Now seems like a great time to leave Earth...

A pandemic rages on. Some states are seeing their highest average of new daily cases since COVID-19 first struck the U.S. And for the past few weeks, cities across the country have surged with protests...

Police brutality is the flash point today, but we've been warning for years that mounting economic frustrations (much less virus-aided ones) would lead to more frequent and more intense civil unrest.

But we're not focusing on that today... Instead, we want to remind you about the types of triumphs that humankind can reach.

On Saturday, May 30, a pair of NASA astronauts got lucky...

Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley blasted off the planet from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on board a SpaceX rocket bound for the International Space Station 254 miles up in the sky.

It was a historic day for two big reasons...

It was the first time a private company, Elon Musk's SpaceX, launched NASA astronauts into space. And it was also the first time a crew left Earth via American soil at all since 2011.

For years, NASA astronauts have been hitching rides with Russian cosmonauts to the space station... reflecting an era of innovative stagnation, hesitation, and bureaucracy in U.S. space flight since the Columbia disaster, which killed seven astronauts during a reentry from space in 2003.

Enter SpaceX.

Musk, also known as the polarizing founder of Tesla (TSLA), started the company in 2002 with the crazy idea of colonizing Mars... putting a base on the moon... and having millions of people fly to both places from Earth, as if it were a flight from New York to Los Angeles.

As Musk said in a press conference after the successful launch...

This is hopefully the first step on a journey... of life becoming multiplanetary for the first time in the 4.5-billion-year history of Earth. That's seeming increasingly real with what happened today.

Hundreds of years from now, if someone looks back on today's essay in a blockchain-powered content archive, maybe they'll laugh and say, "Of course... we've been going to Mars every summer for years." Until then, though...

We're not living on Mars yet, but people seem interested...

NASA said that more than 10 million people watched the launch of the Crew Dragon Demo-2.

It was a welcome break that gave us a strange sense of normalcy amid an endless stream of chaotic images on the mainstream news.

NASA's broadcast included live feeds of the cockpit. Behnken and Hurley, a pair of former military test pilots, were mostly along for the automated ride, but they did test manual controls while docking the spacecraft with the space station on Sunday...

The events also included fresh footage of one of SpaceX's signature "reusable rockets" landing in routine fashion on a boat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. This part of the process might be something you've seen before. But it wasn't always done this way...

You see, during a "normal" NASA launch, the "first stage" of the rocket the most powerful and most expensive part would usually just break off and drop back to Earth, crash-landing somewhere in the ocean... never to be seen again.

SpaceX reinvented this standard part of rocket-launching over the past two decades... The company designed technology to guide the first-stage rocket back to Earth in a controlled descent so that it can be used again.

Just like we reuse commercial airliners or cars, reusing rockets saves time, money, and critical components. It's a phenomenal step toward Musk's dream business of flying people all over outer space on a daily basis.

Not long ago, SpaceX was best known for exploding rockets...

When the company started experimenting with Musk's idea of reusing rockets and landing them back on Earth in 2013, the early results were almost comical...

There were explosions on the ground and in the air, as well as rockets that tipped over sideways like candles falling in the wind.

But these repeated failures, followed by commitment to the plan when no one was watching, is precisely what led to SpaceX's breakthrough event with millions paying attention.

Nowadays, the "reusable rocket" idea is almost an afterthought to rocket operations. That's a testament to the routine... It has been successfully done at least 50 times.

Private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin headed by Amazon (AMZN) CEO Jeff Bezos provide the technology, testing, and resources to actually build the rockets and take on the liability. (If anything went wrong during the launch on May 30, you can bet SpaceX would have shouldered most of the blame, not NASA.)

In the meantime, entities like NASA train the astronauts and bring their facilities and experience to the table. It's a match made in space-heaven...

And this private-public partnership became a necessity to actually get things done...

Following the Columbia tragedy, NASA's whole identity was upended.

Operations were shut down for two years. And after that, engineers needed to get approvals on proposed items or changes from up to several boards, which essentially acted as "filters."

The bureaucracy stifled innovation. As Garrett Reisman, a former NASA astronaut and senior adviser for SpaceX, explained during a presentation at our annual Stansberry Conference in Las Vegas last October...

What's the best way to design something if you want to get through this process quick and inexpensive? Just do the same thing you've always. That's where we ended up, with very little innovation.

We didn't really have the freedom to fail anymore, and it was largely because of the accidents we had over time. After Apollo 1, Challenger, Columbia, we got less and less willing to fail even in testing and development, where you need to be a bit reckless and push the boundaries in testing. Otherwise, you never do anything great.

Now, we can't discuss space any further without talking about the "Space Force"...

Forget for a moment that "Space Force" is the name of a TV sitcom on Netflix (NFLX), starring Steve Carell...

This newest branch of the U.S. military announced by President Donald Trump in December has actually been doing some interesting things in its short history. And the stakes couldn't be higher...

NASA's primary mandate from the White House is to put humans on the moon by 2024. And in the meantime, plenty of other projects are ongoing...

Even though reusable rockets and human spaceflight are what make headlines, satellites actually hold the key to the future in space. That's where companies are lining up to land government contracts...

In March, the Space Force launched its first rocket in the name of national security. The mission was to complete a "constellation" of military satellites... On May 16, the U.S. launched a robotic X-37B space plane into low-Earth orbit to complete a "secret" mission.

In the March issue of Stansberry Innovations Report, Dave Lashmet wrote about this mission. And he also outlined what the Space Force will actually do...

The Space Force will control our military and intelligence satellite launches, plus protect our assets in orbit. As such, it has two main missions...

The first is offensive. It will compete to control space as a U.S. observational post. It's almost a throwback to World War I, when the balloon corps used binoculars to see troop movements.

The Space Force's second mission is defensive. It must protect those satellites.

And it's wasting no time getting started...

One of the Space Force's big early tasks is to find the best partners to launch satellites into orbit and to construct the next generation of military technology technology that will keep us ahead of our enemies and competitors.

So there's money to be made in space on Earth...

Last month's high-profile launch was technically not a "Space Force" mission. But you could call it that by association...

Right now, four companies are competing to be the launch provider for the Space Force from 2022 to 2025... SpaceX is one of them. But if you're looking to make money with this company in the public markets, you can't right now. It's not publicly traded... at least not yet.

But you can make money with others right now...

For example, two of the other three companies in the "launch provider" battle are publicly traded. And a bunch of others could be in line for lucrative government contracts as we delve deeper into the final frontier and look down at Earth with more technology.

In the Stansberry Innovations Report, Dave and editor John Engel have identified the companies best-positioned to deliver big space-related returns. That includes one of the largest, most stable, publicly traded leaders in space technology... and a little-known American company that could have 1,000% upside.

Trillions of dollars will be made in the space industry, starting this year. Click here for all the details on these companies now.

All the best,

Corey McLaughlin

Editor's note: Dave and John see the space industry as a booming, profitable market. In their Stansberry Innovations Report, they've tracked down companies that are entering the newest "space race" and are well-positioned to earn you a profit. And recently, Dave and John shared the name of a little-known company entering the space industry... And you can take advantage of its 1,000% upside potential today. Click here to learn more.

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You Can Make Money in Space on Earth - DailyWealth

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question youd like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com.

In the zero-gravity airplanes or vomit comet, why does stuff behave like there is no gravity when it is just falling? Austin B., 11, Scranton, Pennsylvania

I have flown many times in zero-gravity airplane flights. Each time I still enjoy the feeling of floating free, the ability to fly across the cabin from just one gentle push on the wall, just like astronauts in the International Space Station, and the novelty of rotating your body in whatever direction you choose. The feeling is like the brief sensation on some roller coasters or off of a diving board, but for close to half a minute and without the air rushing past you its fun!

People feeling weightlessness without being in spaceflight might seem like a contradiction. But it is possible, and people frequently choose to do this for recreation or for research in an airplane that is flying in the atmosphere, not out in space.

I am a researcher in aerospace engineering and am interested in how to control and use liquids and gases in spaceflight. Examples are liquid rocket propellants in spacecraft or water in life support systems in human spacecraft.

When standing still, you actually experience the force we call gravity when you feel the Earth pull us toward its center. Gravity pulls you down, and the floor pushes up on your feet. If gravity disappeared, you could push off of the floor and float away, never returning to the floor unless you found a ceiling to push off of again. You would appear to float around like someone in a vomit-comet airplane flight or an astronaut in the International Space Station.

You may have learned that the space station orbits the Earth because the force of gravity on it is balanced by the sideways force caused by the circular flight path. This force is called centrifugal force, the same that you feel when turning in a car, train, amusement park ride or similar.

Airplanes fly closer to Earths surface, so gravity is a little stronger for the airplane than the International Space Station. But clearly the force of gravity caused by the Earth exists at the space station and at the vomit-comet, yet astronauts in space station and researchers or tourists in the vomit-comet look like there is no gravity. Why?

I have flown in the vomit-comet flights with science experiments and Purdue University students, and indeed, the experience feels like there is no gravity.

Yet each time I fly, gravity pulls the airplane down to the ground for the landing on the runway. Therefore, we know gravity must be present, and yet people look like and feel like there is no gravity during part of the vomit-comet flight.

These research flights are typically full of qualified researchers who have earned an advanced degree, in my case a Ph.D.

One everyday event might help you understand how apparently gravity is both present and absent at the same time. When you ride in a car that turns to the left, you feel pushed to right. You may even feel pushed against the right-hand side of the cars interior, and the door pushes back on you. Turning in the direction the car is traveling also changes what we call the velocity of the car.

Velocity encompasses both the speed of the car and the direction that it is traveling. Changing the direction feels like sideways gravity to you. Changing the speed, such as a sudden stop, feels like forwards gravity to you. Elevators starting and stopping feel for a moment like there is more or less gravity. These changes in velocity are called accelerations. Acceleration has an amount and direction, just like velocity does, and both are examples of vectors. Another vector is force, and one example is gravity, which pulls us down to the Earths surface.

You have experienced that acceleration feels the same as gravity does. Suppose you could find a way to create an anti-gravity acceleration: that is, an acceleration acting in the right direction and in the right amount to cancel out gravity. Is this possible?

The answer is yes this is what happens in a vomit-comet flight and in an orbit.

The shape of the vomit-comet flight path is called a parabola. Pilots achieve this by flying upwards at an angle of about 45 degrees and then they level out and dive at about 45 degrees, which creates the acceleration needed to cancel out gravity. The maximum speed for the airplane and how rapidly the airplane can pull up before and after a parabola determine how long this acceleration can last, about 25 seconds.

Gravity pulls down on us, and by accelerating down in just the right way in an aircraft or spacecraft, we can feel like we are in zero gravity. The correct physical term is weightlessness, but zero gravity is a descriptive term that also describes the sensation, so even in the aerospace research world and in NASA, zero gravity is the common term used most often by experts.

Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question youd like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.

And since curiosity has no age limit adults, let us know what youre wondering, too. We wont be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.

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What is the 'zero gravity' that people experience in the vomit comet or space flight? - The Conversation US

Artist illustration of a Pulsar

Just as lighthouses have helped sailors navigate safely into harbour for centuries, future space travellers may receive similar guidance from the steady signals created by pulsars.

Scientists and engineers are using the International Space Station to develop pulsar-based navigation using these cosmic lighthouses to assist with wayfinding on trips to the Moon under NASA's Artemis programme and on future human missions to Mars, the US space agency said on Wednesday.

Pulsars, or rapidly spinning neutron stars, are the extremely dense remains of stars that explode as supernovas. They emit X-ray photons in bright, narrow beams that sweep the sky like a lighthouse as the stars spin.

From a great distance, they appear to pulse, hence the name pulsars.

An X-ray telescope on the exterior of the space station, the Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer or NICER, collects and timestamps the arrival of X-ray light from neutron stars across the sky.

Software embedded in NICER, called the Station Explorer for X-ray Timing and Navigation Technology or SEXTANT, is using the beacons from pulsars to create a GPS-like system.

This concept, often referred to as XNAV, could provide autonomous navigation throughout the solar system and beyond.

"GPS uses precisely synchronised signals. Pulsations from some neutron stars are very stable, some even as stable as terrestrial atomic clocks in the long term, which makes them potentially useful in a similar way," said Luke Winternitz, a researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The stability of the pulses allows highly accurate predictions of their time of arrival to any reference point in the solar system.

Scientists have developed detailed models that predict precisely when a pulse would arrive at, for example, the centre of Earth.

Timing the arrival of the pulse to a detector on a spacecraft, and comparing that to when it is predicted to arrive at a reference point, provides information for navigating far beyond our planet.

"Navigation information provided by pulsars does not degrade by moving away from Earth since pulsars are distributed throughout our Milky Way galaxy," said SEXTANT team member Munther Hassouneh, navigation technologist.

"It effectively turns the G' in GPS from Global to Galactic," added team member Jason Mitchell, Director of the Advanced Communications and Navigation Technology Division in NASA's Space Communication and Navigation Program.

"It could work anywhere in the solar system and even carry robotic or crewed systems beyond the solar system."

Read the rest here:
Cosmic 'Lighthouses' to Help Space Travellers Find Ways to Moon, Mars - The Weather Channel

SpaceX is looking to add an offshore rocket launch facility to the infrastructure its building in South Texas, according to company job postings seeking offshore operations engineers and offshore system technicians.

Founded by billionaire Elon Musk, SpaceX has been developing and testing prototypes of its Starship spacecraft planned to take people to the moon, Mars and beyond at a launch site just outside Brownsville.

Now, it appears that Musk wants floating launchpads, too.

SpaceX is building floating, superheavy-class spaceports for Mars, moon & hypersonic travel around Earth, Musk said on Twitter.

On HoustonChronicle.com: SpaceX connects Brownsville to a new world of space enthusiasts

Its the latest announcement in a now six-year adventure for those living in South Texas.

The company announced it would build a launch site for its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets near Boca Chica Beach in 2014, but the proposed launch site sat idle for several years.

Construction was delayed by unstable ground that required trucking in 310,000 cubic yards of soil, enough to cover a football field 13 to 14 stories tall, to settle and compress the land. Anomalies during a flight to the International Space Station in 2015 and a launchpad test a year later also forced the company to put Boca Chica on the back burner.

Activity increased gradually and then suddenly. And it wasnt with the originally planned Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. SpaceX opted to build and test a 65-foot-tall prototype called the Starhopper.

In April 2019, SpaceX fired its first engine at the Texas launch site. The prototype made a tethered hop that same month. Then came two hover tests in July and August, the latter having the Starhopper lift itself to nearly 500 feet before returning safely to Earth.

Its more recent testing of Starship prototypes has seen a variety of leaks or explosions, the most recent a small rupture on Monday. But Musk keeps pushing forward with a fast-paced cadence of test, fail, fix, test again, fail again and then fix again.

This Starship vehicle is one of three selected by NASA to potentially lower astronauts to the lunar surface in 2024. And this vehicle wont be the first to partner with the agency.

On May 30, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule launched NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley toward the International Space Station.

In an interview aired on NASA TV ahead of that launch, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine praised SpaceX for its willingness to learn from failures.

SpaceX can do things that NASA historically has not done, Bridenstine said. They test, they fail, they fix, they fly. They test, they fail, they fix, they fly until the point where we are today where not only is SpaceX comfortable but NASA is comfortable.

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SpaceX is building a floating, superheavy-class spaceport in the Gulf of Mexico - Houston Chronicle

Here on Earth, the concept of architecture (and those who specialize in it), is pretty clear and straightforward. But in space, human beings have comparatively little experience living and working in habitats. For the past sixty years, multiple space stations have been sent to Low Earth Orbit (LEO), which include the now-defunct Salyut stations, Skylab, and Mir, as well as the present-day International Space Station (ISS).

But in the near the future, we hope to build stations and commercial habitats in LEO, on the surface of the Moon, and Mars. In addition to needing a steady supply of food, water, and other necessities, measures will need to be taken to ensure the psychological well-being of their crews. In a recent article, Stellar Amenities founder and CEO (a space architect herself!) Anastasia Prosina explored how space architecture can meet these needs.

In this article, which is available on Stellar Amenities website, Prosina indicates how space architecture borrows from multiple forms of niche architecture to accomplish the task of ensuring human beings can live and work in space. These include the kinds of design elements one finds in tiny housing, small living apartments/houses, vehicle design, capsule hotels, and more.

Prosina summarized the similarities between Earth-bound and space architecture to Universe Today via email:

No matter what kind of architecture it is, it pursues the mission of enhancing the human experience This is the exact same mission [when it comes] to the small architecture of tiny houses, small apartments, Arctic, or any other remote area stations and capsule hotels.

However, as one ventures beyond the realm of principle and gets into the actual process, some very notable differences become clear. In regular architecture, the architects vision comes first, and it is then the responsibility of the engineer to realize this vision. In space architecture, the opposite is the case, where the engineers build and the architects follow.

For the engineers, this means designing and assembling the physical structure in space and incorporating all the essential systems like life support, power systems, water recycling, storage, waste disposal, food, etc. The architect follows, bringing the design elements that make a habitat in space feel worth living in. As Prosina describes the architects role:

The mission of space architecture is to break the monotony of small space habitat and ensure the design helps mitigate risks associated with isolation, said Prosina. A space architect comes afterwards to help design for the human needs in the confined environment.

Herein lies another key difference, which is the level of flexibility Earth-based architects have compared to their space counterparts. In short, the spaceflight industry does not enjoy the same level of creative freedom since their structures need to be functional more than anything. But perhaps the biggest constraint, says Prosina, arises from the fact that space architects need to launch their designs to space:

Architects on Earth are able to create almost everything that comes to their mind. In contrast, space architects have to follow the constraints of a prefabricated structure, a shell of spacecraft. Moreover, the current cost of launching something to space is about $2,700 per kg. Space architects should be creative in choosing the right materials and structures that are lightweight, [durable], and dont emit gasses on the confined environment.

This is not to say that the cost of sending payloads and people into space hasnt improved drastically in recent years. In 2000, NASA estimated that the cost of sending payloads to LEO was over $22,000 per kg ($10,000 per lbs). Naturally, this was something they hoped to reduce by two orders of magnitude in the next four decades to $1,000 per kg (~$450 per lbs) by 2025, and $100 per kg (~$45 per lbs) by 2040.

At present, SpaceX is able to send payloads to LEO for $1,410 per kg ($640 per lbs) using their Falcon Heavy rocket, a further improvement on what the Falcon 9 can do $2,719 per kg ($1,233 per lbs). Nevertheless, sending habitats to space is still a multi-multi-million dollar venture that requires multiple heavy launch systems. On top of that, the components of a space habitat need to be designed to be launched into space prior to assembly.

As Prosina explained, this raises another important constraint, which is the issue of transportation:

A habitat should perfectly fit into a transportation system and make the most efficient use of it in terms of volume, mass and multifunctionality. It decreases the price of going far away which allows to do more things per funding unit, thus fostering exploration

In recent years, the prospect of building habitats in space has moved beyond the realm of scientific proposals and science fiction to become a real possibility. Much of this is the result of the commercial space industry (aka. NewSpace), which has led the way in reducing the associated costs of individual launches and the move towards commercializing LEO.

In addition to allowing greater access to space (for companies, universities, research institutes, and individuals), the NewSpace industry has also focused attention on how going to space can be adventurous and even luxurious. This is where ideas like space tourism, space hotels, and commercial space stations in LEO and on other celestial bodies come into play.

In the coming years, Richard Branson (founder and CEO of Virgin Galactic) and Jeff Bezos (Amazon and Blue Origin founder and CEO) hope to offer flights to suborbit with their spaceplanes and rockets (respectively). Other companies, like SpaceX and Space Adventures, are looking to go even farther, offering flights to the Moon and even Mars.

In all of these cases, the challenges go far beyond engineering concerns. In NewSpace, says Prosina, companies need to offer more than just safety and access to space. They also need to offer a variety of experiences, leisure, and comfort to make the services appealing. This way, and only this way, will they be able to stay competitive against rival companies.

As Prosina indicated, this has also had an effect on the job description of the space architect:

Traditionally, space architect was equal to a systems engineer. Currently, here is a transition happening, and now if you want to work as a space architect at NASA, you should combine both disciplines, aerospace and architecture. Private sector is picking up faster. For example, Blue Origin and SpaceX are recognizing that design is as important as safety because design supports wellbeing which is critical in long missions.

In the coming years, Prosina anticipates that space architecture will become a fast-growing industry, and its professionals will be in high demand. In the next decade, a number of scientific and technological advances are expected that will enable architects to come up with increasingly sophisticated solutions to the challenges of living in space.

Since space habitats are extremely tiny, we, space architects, make sure that people inside of it dont feel confined, stressed, Prosina added. The users have a pretty close up view to their habitats so it is essential to pay attention to using color psychology and tactile experience to make the space feel bigger and diversify the experiences in a small environment.

Similar to what Marschitect Vera Mulyani (aka. Vera Mars), the founder and CEO of Mars City Design, and other space enthusiasts are proposing, the overall aim here is to find ways in which human beings can thrive in space, not just survive. This is essential if people are going to live beyond Earth in the near future, and its also necessary to make the prospect appealing. Said Prosina:

Vera and I are colleagues pursuing the common vision since this is how architecture is serving humanity. Architecture helps us thrive on Earth so we should apply it in other places wherever humanity goes! As for today, a total of 566 people from 41 countries have gone into space. Of those, only around 7 have been an orbit tourist whereas 56 thousand people can afford to do so. However, it takes more than wealth to go to space and to buy a ticket, it takes people to really want to go to space.

The way we make going to space affordable, concludes Prosina, is to get people to want to go to space. So not only do we need to reduce the associated costs and be creative with our interior designs, we also need an accompanying shift in perspective. However, its fair to say at this point that space tourism, commercializing space, and the idea of space being the new frontier are already popular.

One thing is clear, though. Humanity has the potential to build a very bright future that involves living in space. The benefits and opportunities, properly realized, are limitless and extend back to Earth.

Further Reading: Stellar Amenities

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What Does it Mean to Be a Space Architect? - Universe Today

All that talk of reforming space traffic management has crashed and burned, but there is still optimism Congress will act, says a leading authority on space regulations.

Why a new space economy could be the secret to economic recovery and the Space Force could play a big role.

Startup Space Perspective is setting up shop at Kennedy Space Center for tourist flights.

WELCOME TO POLITICO SPACE, our must-read briefing on the policies and personalities shaping the new space age in Washington and beyond. Email us at [emailprotected], [emailprotected] or [emailprotected] with tips, pitches and feedback, and find us on Twitter at @jacqklimas, @bryandbender and @dave_brown24. And dont forget to check out POLITICO's astropolitics page for articles, Q&As, opinion and more.

A message from Northrop Grumman:

Since 2014, the Antares rocket has been changing life aboard the International Space Station. In conjunction with the Cygnus Spacecraft, Antares ferries life-supporting cargo 250 miles above Earths surface, so our pioneers in space can continue to define possible. Learn More

TRAFFIC JAM: Two years after President Donald Trump signed a directive to overhaul how the nation tracks objects in space, one of its biggest proposals is stuck in congressional gridlock, says Andrew DUva, the president of consulting firm Providence Access Company and an expert on satellite regulations. Trump wanted the Commerce Department to take the mission over from the Department of Defense, but Congress has not authorized or funded a shift in responsibilities.

We have to have a lead agency for safety, DUva tells us in this weeks POLITICO Space Q&A. We also need to fund this. The Defense Department systems and capabilities were not designed for nor are they optimized for this safety mission. Theyre optimized for national security.

But that doesnt mean the government will start from scratch. Instead, DUva said the Commerce Department should build on advancements made in industry on how to combine data from multiple sources to provide a common picture of whats happening in orbit. The Commerce Department and U.S. industry can leverage the foundational space situational awareness activities that the government is already doing, add some commercial and academic capabilities, add in the ability to take in information from satellite operators and end up with a sum that's much greater than the parts, he said.

IS SPACE THE KEY ECONOMIC RECOVERY? Thats the view of retired Air Force Col. Michael Coyote Smith, a professor of strategic space studies at the Air Command and Staff College at the Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Ala.

In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is imperative for America and its allies to not only get their economies back up and running, but to generate an excess of capital in order to bring their manufacturing jobs home and to pay down their skyrocketing debts, he writes in a new POLITICO op-ed Such an economic boom is unlikely without some kind of extraordinary commercial expansion. Space offers such an opportunity.

Smith, one of the Air Forces leading futurists, cites a historical precedent: Christopher Columbus discovery of the New World. Those European monarchies who took the additional financial risk to send their explorers and merchant fleets to the New World, guarded by their navies, achieved three things: they secured resources to pay off their debts and expand their wealth, they denied such relief to their enemies, and they became superpowers, dominating geopolitics for centuries, he explains.

And he sees a major role for the Space Force but only if it evolves beyond the narrow vision of Pentagon leaders. The fledgling U.S. Space Force must develop quickly into far more than mere support for terrestrial warfighters, he argues. It must move beyond the narrow vision of the Department of the Air Force to become a navy on the new ocean of space; protecting commerce, enforcing the rule of law, and providing safety of navigation services for all lawful and non-hostile users of space.

Related: NASA, the European Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency will unveil a dashboard of satellite data showing impacts on the environment and socioeconomic activity caused by the global response to the coronavirus on June 25, announced NASA on Thursday.

NEW SPACE TOURISM TENANT: Space Perspective, a space tourism startup, announced Thursday it has established a launch operations center at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a major step in its plans to take passengers and research payloads to the edge of space aboard its Spaceship Neptune, a space balloon.

Were committed to fundamentally changing the way people have access to space both to perform much-needed research to benefit life on Earth and to affect how we view and connect with our planet, said Space Perspective Founder and Co-CEO Jane Poynter. Today, it is more crucial than ever to see Earth as a planet, a spaceship for all humanity and our global biosphere.

Eric Stallmer, president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, called the development a great opportunity for the Space Coast as a fresh capability will now be offered in the realm of space tourism and research.

The Neptune can take up to eight passengers on a six-hour journey to the edge of space.

TOP DOC I: NEW PENTAGON SPACE STRATEGY: The Pentagon rolled out its new Defense Space Strategy on Wednesday outlining three goals: to maintain space superiority, provide support to military operations and ensure space stability by cooperating with allies and private industry.

The document replaces a 2011 version crafted by the Obama administration and will set the Pentagons space priorities for the next decade. Stephen Kitay, the deputy assistant secretary for space, said the document is designed to shift the culture at the Defense Department from approaching space as a support function to approaching space as a warfighting domain.

Related: DoD Space Strategy Focuses On Allies, Commercial; Where Was Intel Community? via Breaking Defense.

TOP DOC II: DIFFICULT CHANGES: The National Security Space Association, an industry group representing a series of established and new space companies, this week released a new report, Acquiring Space Capabilities with Agility and Discipline at the Speed of Relevance, that lays out 16 recommendations for speeding up the development of space systems.

The need to outpace the rapidly evolving threat and sustain the U.S. comparative advantage in space is an urgent matter that requires the national security space enterprise to evolve the way it does business, says the report. This will involve necessary and difficult changes to both culture and operating models at every level of the U.S. government and industry.

Related: Pentagon not ready for space flight, experts say, via Foreign Policy

Joel Montalbano was named this week as the program manager for the International Space Station. Montalbano has served as deputy program manager since 2012.

Vernon Thorp is now director of global commercial sales at United Launch Alliance. He was previously ULAs commercial program manager.

QUESTION OF THE WEEK: Congratulations to Byron Hood, a senior vice president at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, for being the first to correctly answer that Pluto was named after the Roman god of the underworld by Venetia Burney Phair, a young British girl, in 1930.

This weeks question: Sally Ride became the first American woman in space 37 years ago. How many days did Ride spend in space on the historic mission? The first person to email [emailprotected] gets bragging rights and a shoutout in next weeks newsletter!

A message from Northrop Grumman:

Since 2014, the Antares rocket has been changing life aboard the International Space Station. It boosts our Cygnus spacecraft into orbit to ferry important cargo like scientific experiments, food, and critical instruments to keep the station running. It has proven time and time again that its a reliable way to support our pioneers in space. Learn more about Antares capabilities. Learn more

NASAs Kathy Leuders officially begins as head of human spaceflight program: Florida Today

New agreement will allow American companies to use British spaceports: U.K. Space Agency

Alaska officials say U.S. Space Command HQ should be in Anchorage: Air Force Times

Commerce secretary talks up space business: The Philadelphia Inquirer

Russia space agency urged Pentagon to avoid space arms race: Tass News Agency

SpaceX wants a flotilla of launch pads off the Texas coast: Popular Mechanics

THURSDAY: Gen. John Raymond, chief of space operations in the Space Force, speaks at a virtual event hosted by the Center for a New American Security.

THURSDAY: The Aerospace Corporation hosts a virtual event on stewardship of orbits around the moon.

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Whatever happened to reforming space traffic management? - Politico

Marcia Dunn, Associated Press

updated on May 27, 2020 | 4:25 PM

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) The launch of a SpaceX rocket ship with two NASA astronauts on a history-making flight into orbit has been called off with 16 minutes to go in the countdown because of the danger of lightning.

Liftoff is rescheduled for Saturday.

The spacecraft was set to blast off Wednesday afternoon for the International Space Station, ushering in a new era in commercial spaceflight and putting NASA back in the business of launching astronauts from U.S. soil for the first time in nearly a decade.

Ever since the space shuttle was retired in 2011, NASA has relied on Russian rockets to carry astronauts to and from the space station.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. APs earlier story follows below.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) With thunderstorms threatening a delay, two NASA astronauts climbed aboard a SpaceX rocket ship Wednesday for liftoff on a history-making flight that was seen as a giant leap forward for the booming business of commercial space travel.

Space veterans Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken were scheduled to ride into orbit aboard the brand-new Dragon capsule on top of a Falcon 9 rocket, taking off for the International Space Station at 4:33 p.m. EDT from the same launch pad used during the Apollo moon missions a half-century ago.

Smiling, waving and giving the traditional thumbs-up, the two men said farewell to their families exchanging blown kisses and pantomiming hugs for their young sons from a coronavirus-safe distance before setting out for the pad in a gull-wing Tesla SUV, another product from SpaceXs visionary founder, Elon Musk.

Both President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence arrived to watch the liftoff.

The flight would mark the first time a private company sent humans into orbit.

It would also be the first time in nearly a decade that the United States launched astronauts into orbit from U.S. soil. Ever since the space shuttle was retired in 2011, NASA has relied on Russian spaceships launched from Kazakhstan to take U.S. astronauts to and from the space station.

With 2 1/2 hours to go before liftoff, controllers put the chances of launch at just 40 percent because of thunderstorms at NASAs Kennedy Space Center. Thunder could be heard as the astronauts made their way to the pad, and a tornado warning was issued moments after they climbed into their capsule.

In the event of a postponement, the next launch opportunity would be Saturday.

The preparations took place in the shadow of the coronavirus outbreak that has killed an estimated 100,000 Americans.

Were launching American astronauts on American rockets from American soil. We havent done this really since 2011, so this is a unique moment in time, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said.

With this launch, he said, everybody can look up and say, Look, the future is so much brighter than the present. And I really hope that this is an inspiration to the world.

Musk, wearing a mask and keeping his distance, chatted with the two NASA astronauts just before they left for the launch pad. The mission would put Musk and SpaceX in the same league as only three countries Russia, the U.S. and China, which sent astronauts into orbit in that order.

What today is about is reigniting the dream of space and getting people fired up about the future, he said in a NASA interview.

A solemn-sounding Musk said he felt his responsibilities most strongly when he saw the astronauts wives and sons just before launch. He said he told them: Weve done everything we can to make sure your dads come back OK.

NASA pushed ahead with the launch despite the viral outbreak but kept the guest list at Kennedy extremely limited and asked spectators to stay at home. Still, beaches and parks along Floridas Space Coast are open again, and hours before the launch, cars and RVs already were lining the causeway in Cape Canaveral.

The space agency also estimated 1.7 million people were watching the launch preparations online during the afternoon.

Among the sightseers was Erin Gatz, who came prepared for both rain and pandemic. Accompanied by her 14-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son, she brought face masks and a small tent to protect against the elements.

She said the children had faint memories of watching in person one of the last shuttle launches almost a decade ago when they were preschoolers.

I wanted them to see the flip side and get to see the next era of space travel, said Gatz, who lives in Deltona, Florida. Its exciting and hopeful.

Hurley, 53, and Behnken, 49, are both two-time shuttle fliers.

NASA hired SpaceX and Boeing in 2014 to transport astronauts to the space station in a new kind of public-private partnership. Development of SpaceXs Dragon and Boeings Starliner capsules took longer than expected, however. Boeings ship is not expected to fly astronauts into space until early 2021.

Were doing it differently than weve ever done it before, Bridenstine said. Were transforming how we do spaceflight in the future.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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Livestream: NASAs SpaceX Demo-2 launch to the International Space Station - Boston.com