DailyDirt: If People Were Meant To Fly In Space...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

When the Soviets launched Sputnik 1 in 1957, the US launched a satellite and put together its own space agency less than a year later. In the past week, NASA has commemorated the loss of its astronauts in the Challenger and Columbia disasters, as well as the men who died in Apollo 1. There's a new generation of kids who have only seen SpaceX and Soyuz take stuff into low earth orbit (plus maybe a successful Orion test) -- and a few other private companies reaching the edge of space. Robots have been doing an excellent job of exploring mars and other destinations in our solar system, but we shouldn't forget about manned space exploration entirely.

• The Columbia space shuttle disaster might have been averted with a second space shuttle launch to dock with it and rescue the astronauts. A rescue mission would have involved a complex space walk and several unknown risks, but plans were drawn up -- and that's why subsequent shuttle launches had a second shuttle on standby. (But the rescuing shuttle would still have the same problem of a potentially damaged wing, too...) [url]
• The Challenger explosion was predicted by a handful of NASA engineers who argued against launching the shuttle because they had data that indicated the o-rings wouldn't seal properly under the cold weather conditions. Bob Ebeling still blames himself, but hindsight is always clearer -- and it wasn't Ebeling's decision to launch. [url]
• NASA has lost 24 pilots and astronauts in space launches and test flights. Manned space exploration is still a NASA priority, and spaceflight will always be an inherently risky venture -- especially as it pushes technology to ever more distant places. [url]

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Filed Under: apollo, bob ebeling, manned missions, mars, soyez, space, space exploration, space shuttle
Companies: nasa

DailyDirt: Can't Get Enough Of The Moon...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

It's been a while since Apollo 17. Getting to Mars sounds like a worthy follow-up mission, but just figuring out how to live inside a metal tube for longer than a year outside of low Earth orbit is also a pretty challenging project. NASA hasn't been very focused on going back to the moon recently, but that could change depending on who becomes the next US president. But in the meantime, here are a few other efforts working on missions to get to the moon.

• The Part Time Scientists team is working on a lunar rover with funding from Audi -- and this project might be able to get a few million bucks from Google and the X Prize foundation someday. The Google Lunar X Prize requirements are looking for a private team to soft-land a robot on the moon, have that robot travel 500 meters on the surface and send back some high-def video and photos. Only a couple of teams (and the Part Time Scientists isn't one of them) have already secured launch contracts to get to the moon, but these German space geeks have their own ambitious plans to go to the moon and do some cool stuff -- without needing to win the X Prize. (And it's not a crazy space conspiracy.) [url]
• So far, only NASA has sent people to the moon, but it's not the only space program to go to our largest natural satellite. We know ice exists on the moon, and some private space companies could mine the moon for its resources to extend other space exploration missions. [url]
• SinterHab is a proposal to turn lunar dust into a moonbase by melting the metals in the moon's 'topsoil' to create ceramic building materials. A robot could potentially build a moonbase structure without transporting heavy materials to the moon, so it could be made relatively cheaply. [url]

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Filed Under: 3d printing, apollo, google lunar x prize, lunar rover, moon, moonbase, part time scientists, sinterhab, space, space exploration
Companies: audi, google, nasa

DailyDirt: Manned Space Exploration Is Coming Back

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The Apollo 11 Moon landing was a pretty big deal in 1969 (and it still is). It's been just 46 years since a human being first set foot on the moon, and it's a bit disappointing that we haven't been back more recently. Fortunately, there are some folks still working on manned space exploration (phew, SpaceX..), so people won't be limited to just visiting the ISS or Tiangong 1. If you're a space enthusiast, check out a few of these links on manned spaceflight stuff.

• Neil Armstrong's Apollo 11 spacesuit isn't on display for the public to gawk at (for its own protection), but a Kickstarter project is aiming to raise a cool half million bucks to digitize the suit and document it thoroughly so that it can be made more accessible to the public. Donations to this project will go to the Smithsonian Institution, and a portion of every donation may be tax deductible. Too bad none of the rewards include a 3D printable file of an entire suit.... [url]
• China has a unique place in space faring history -- with its taikonauts gaining equal footing with US astronauts and Russian cosmonauts. The Chinese space program has been back to the moon with a lunar rover, and it plans to bring back moon rocks in a couple years. People may walk on the moon again in a few years, too, but they probably won't have NASA logos on their suits. [url]
• Robert Behnken, Sunita Williams, Eric Boe, and Douglas Hurley will be the next US astronauts... to fly on private spaceships. The first test flights will begin as early as 2017 with SpaceX and Boeing taking astronauts to the International Space Station. Commercial tickets to get to the ISS will cost under $60 million (less than a Soyuz trip), but there's not that much room on the ISS for tourists. [url]

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Filed Under: apollo, astronauts, cosmonauts, international space station, iss, lunar rover, manned missions, moon, moon landing, soyuz, space, space exploration, spacesuit, taikonauts
Companies: boeing, kickstarter, nasa, smithsonian institution, spacex

DailyDirt: Life's Little Problems In Space

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Space travel isn't easy. It's risky and involves quite a bit of preparation if the trip is going to last more than a few minutes or hours. But if humanity is really going to commit to space exploration, there are a few problems to solve. Life support systems are obviously going to need to protect our fragile bodies from radiation and the vacuum of space. On top of that, we also need to counteract the negative effects of microgravity on our health. Some people are thinking about these problems, but it's likely that we won't have solutions until at least 2030.

• NASA officially forbids pregnancy in space due to the unknown hazards it presents to the unborn. If humans are going to colonize other worlds, we're going to need to figure out how to procreate in different environments -- and bring along 10,000-40,000 astronauts to keep the genetic diversity high (unless space explorers opt to do far more genetic engineering experiments than we do on earth). [url]
• Plenty of people have volunteered for the Mars One mission -- a one-way trip to the red planet. A short documentary of a few of the people willing to die on Mars (or on the way) shows that these folks are a bit weird, but that they're not so crazy, either. [url]
• Astronauts haven't been to the moon in a while, so we've almost forgotten all of the things they've done and left behind on the moon. Astronauts have slept for 8 hours on the moon. They've left behind all kinds of waste -- but not bags of vomit, apparently. [url]

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Filed Under: apollo, astronauts, life support, mars, mars one, space, space exploration
Companies: nasa

DailyDirt: The Right Stuff From The Original Space Race

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

It's surprising how poorly documented some of the Apollo missions are now -- with lost original footage of the first lunar landing (eventually restored from other recordings). Now we're entering a new phase of space that's more privatized, so it's even more likely that commercial space programs will not be preserved for the benefit of all. Maybe someday all of NASA's tweets will be safely stored on magnetic tape, and SpaceX's first reusable rocket landing video will be preserved in HD. Or maybe we'll have to check on Elon Musk's closet after he dies to look for Martian souvenirs.

• Neil Armstrong stashed away some cool stuff from his first walk on the moon -- including the camera that was used to record the mission and a bunch of cables and straps. Armstrong's widow recently found these artifacts in a closet, and historians should probably go through his underwear drawer to check for moon rocks. [url]
• NASA's first group of astronauts (aka the "Mercury 7") were a bunch of guys who were put through all kinds of endurance tests to make sure they were made of the right stuff to go into space. However, few people have heard of the group of "Mercury 13" women who also trained to be astronauts in the 1950s (but never got to go to space). [url]
• Hundreds of plant seeds were sent on the 1971 Apollo 14 mission and came back -- and some of the "Moon Trees" are still growing today. There wasn't an official list to keep track of Moon Trees when they were planted in the mid-1970s, but there's a partial list now maintained by NASA. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: apollo, astronauts, elon musk, manned missions, mercury 13, mercury 7, moon trees, neil armstrong, space, space exploration
Companies: nasa, spacex

DailyDirt: Space Explorers Need Your Help...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

We've mentioned a few DIY space projects before where nearly anyone can participate in an effort to expand our knowledge of our solar system or to develop a cheaper way to get into space. More and more space exploration seems to rely on the help of a growing ecosystem of space geeks who can volunteer their time/resources to learn more about the universe around us. Here are just a few other crowdfunding or crowdsourcing efforts to explore space.

• Lunar Mission One is an ambitious Kickstarter project to send a probe to the moon and drill deep down below the surface in order to get a more complete picture of the moon's composition. This project also includes a "time capsule" mission so backers can send up information (and maybe hair/DNA samples?) to the moon for posterity. [url]
• In case you missed it, NASA open sourced the code for Apollo 11 -- and actually, all of the software NASA writes is open. A catalog of NASA's software is available for budding space scientists, but it's not just for space nerds -- some biologists adapted the Hubble Space Telescope's star-mapping algorithm to track endangered whales -- and presumably there are other gems just waiting to be adapted to other good uses. [url]
• NASA is looking for anyone with good suggestions on how to do something more productive with the "dead mass" that is typically ejected during the descent phase of a probe. The Mars Balance Challenge wants to know what you'd do with 150kg of mass that would be ejected at different times prior to landing a probe on Mars. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: apollo, crowdfunding, crowdsourcing, diy space, lunar mission one, nasa software, space, space exploration
Companies: innocentive, kickstarter, nasa

DailyDirt: Abandoned Space Vehicles

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The space race created a lot of ambitious plans and designs for spaceships that never actually made it into space. While we're entering a new era of a space race, which includes commercial ventures and fragile alliances with certain countries, it's fascinating to look back at some government-funded projects that could have been taken to the next step. Would anyone even consider nuclear-bomb propulsion systems today? Here are just a few plans to ship people to the moon or Mars (or farther!) that are just gathering dust.

• Pictures of a secret Soviet lunar lander from the Moscow Aviation Institute shows an unsuccessful program to put a man on the moon. An orbit module and a landing module were constructed that look superficially similar to Apollo spacecraft, but only one cosmonaut would travel in this vehicle. [url]
• In the early 1970s, NASA had plans for a Reusable Nuclear Shuttle (RNS) that could travel back and forth to the moon. This nuclear-powered shuttle would never land on Earth, and if you approached it from the wrong side, you might get a fatal dose of radiation. [url]
• Project Orion was an ambitious plan to build a spaceship the size of an ocean liner and send it to Mars (and beyond)... using atomic bombs as propulsion. The Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963 made it difficult for any practical work to continue on this kind of spacecraft design. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: apollo, lunar lander, manned missions, moscow aviation institute, project orion, re-usable rockets, reusable nuclear shuttle, space exploration
Companies: nasa

DailyDirt: Fly Me To The Moon...

Apollo 17 launched in December 1972, and it was the last time a human being went to the moon -- or even traveled beyond low Earth orbit. Since then, there have been several plans to return to the moon (or to skip it and go straight to Mars). Plenty of other countries (and even corporations) are now looking to land spacecraft on the moon again, and here are just a few of these competitors in the post-Apollo space race.

• Speculation on China's rocket technology suggests the country's Long March 9 rocket will be more than capable for sending astronauts to the moon, Mars, and perhaps other distant destinations within our solar system. The Long March 9 is expected to be in service around 2020-2025. [url]
• Google's Lunar X Prize is closed to new participants, but there are about 25 teams still competing for rewards totaling $30 million -- for these privately funded teams to send robots to the moon. The deadline for these teams is the end of 2015. Hopefully at least one team will succeed in its mission, and we'll have mini moon bases sending back all kinds of data before the end of the decade. [url]
• The Soyuz spacecraft has been a workhorse for decades, but Russia has recently announced plans for its next generation spaceship design that could be used for manned missions to the moon (or possibly Mars). Test flights are scheduled to begin in 2017, and this Prospective Piloted Transport System (PPTS) could also service the International Space Station (creating another backup solution to supply the ISS). [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Filed Under: apollo, astronauts, long march 9, lunar x prize, ppts, rockets, soyuz, space, spacecraft
Companies: google, nasa

DailyDirt: Space Food

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Most people's idea of astronaut food is freeze-dried ice cream -- which astronauts don't actually eat anymore. But with all the commercial space ventures that are trying to create a space tourism industry, maybe there should be more culinary options for zero gravity meals. Here are just a few examples of space food that might be better than a packet of salted peanuts.

• Making bread in space isn't too easy, especially if you want it to have the same consistency as normal Earth-bound bread. A teenager has proposed a bread recipe for astronauts that involves low pressure aeration of flour dough and low temperature cooking. [url]
• NASA created specially-prepared food for Apollo astronauts in the 1960s. An example meal is on display at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, and it looks just as unappetizing as it did several decades ago. [url]
• University of Colorado Boulder students are working on a robotic farming system for growing food for astronauts in space. This project is meant to support long-term missions such as a journey to Mars, and the automated system will attempt to seed plants, monitor plant growth, harvest and process crop residues. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Filed Under: apollo, astronaut, bread, food, freeze-dried meals, mars, robotic farming, space

DailyDirt: Space Suits For Everyone

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Commercial space flights for tourists could be a routine program someday soon. With that in mind, there is some renewed excitement surrounding manned spaceflight, and for people with a few million bucks burning a hole in their pockets, an opportunity to go up into low earth orbit is not a ridiculous vacation idea. But before you pack your bags, you should check out some next generation spacesuit designs that claim to be more comfortable than ever before.

• A skintight spacesuit took some MIT researchers several years to develop -- and its BioSuit still hasn't been worn in space. The result is still a very fashionable and functional outfit that looks like it could have been designed for a Star Trek episode. [url]
• Bill Elkins, a designer of some Apollo-era space suits, talks about some of the old space suit designs and his experience testing them out. Elkins also holds a record for remaining conscious while sustaining 16.5 Gs of force in a big centrifuge. [url]
• Final Frontier Design has recently completed a Kickstarter project that raised over $20,000 for creating a soft spacesuit. One backer spent $10,000 and will get a custom prototype suit -- which might become the most expensive Halloween costume ever. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Filed Under: apollo, bill elkins, biosuit, nasa, space, spaceflight, spacesuit
Companies: final frontier design, kickstarter