Michael Belfiore contrasts the suborbital approaches of Virgin Galactic and Rocketplane. He doesn’t seem to like Rocketplane very much, to the point of questioning their sincerity. I’m no engineer - no hold on, (I’m a software engineer) - I’m no aerospace engineer, but Rand Simberg is, and he has a good response here.
There are cardboard companies with paper spaceships out there, but I don’t think that Rocketplane is one of them. Michael is right to have a little healthy skepticism, but in this case I think he’s targeting a friendly.
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With its closest approach to earth till 2018, the dusty orange planet Mars has been providing backyard astronomers some incredible views. Well the views have just gotten even more exciting with the outbreak of a fast developing dust storm.
In an article on Space.Com, it is said that Joel Warren, of Amarillo, TX took the first known picture of the developing storm with his 8 inch Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope, (SCT) early Friday as the rotation of the planet brought the storm into view.
Hats off to Warren for quickly recognizing what he had observed and getting the word out, affording amateur astronomers a chance at a unique visual “treat” this Halloween season.
He proceeded to contact several of his fellow astronomy friends alerting the of the storms existence. One of those that got the word was P. Clay Sherrod at the Arkansas Sly Observatories. “Dr. Clay”, as he is known to astronomy buffs, observed the storm as it expended at a rate of 35 MPH over the next 24 hours reaching a size estimated between 700-800 miles across. A gif animation made of images taken during those 24 hours of observations, can be seen at the bottom of a posting by Sherrod on the Observatory’s bulletin board, which clearly shows the explosive growth of the storm.
NASA also got the word and living up to its name the Mars rover Opportunity is operating just north and east of that area. The “can do” rover is being tasked to take images of the growing storm.
As Space.Com points out, storms of this size are not unusual for Mars, but with the close approach and the ever increasing quality of telescope optics available, backyard astronomers get the chance to play Mars weather reporters at least for a little while.
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…Um, yes you do according to Eric Anderson President and CEO of Space Adventures Ltd., who has a soon to be released book titled “The Space Tourist’s Handbook.” Dubbed the “ultimate guide for those who have ever dreamed of traveling to the final frontier,” the handbook provides you with a full overview of a space vacation — including the best destinations, vehicles, types of missions, training and preparation involved, and, of course, what to expect.
Chocked full of illustrations, the book features everything a person would need to know about space tourism — from travel planning tips to life-and-death survival skills. At that price, it is worth checking out, even if it is as close to a space flight some of us will ever get.
Everything a person needs to join the ranks of Dennis Tito, Mark Shuttleworth and Greg Olson, except $20 million and the ability to take about 2 years off from work for training and of course the flight. The handbook is priced at $15.95 and is published by Quirk Books.
In conjunction with the publication of the book, Philadelphia-based publisher Quirk Books and Space Adventures are co-sponsoring a sweepstakes that will send the lucky winner on a suborbital spaceflight. Contestants can enter online at www.quirkbooks.com from October 1, 2005 to June 30, 2006.
Lending a hand with the writing of The Space Tourist’s Handbook is Joshua Piven, co-author of the popular best-seller, The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook.
Watch your favorite book venders for the November release of the book, which will make a nice Holiday gift for any space enthusiast in your house.
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An out-of-this-world idea: ‘Sheboygan, we have liftoff’
That is the headline of an article appearing Friday, October21, 2005 in the Wisconsin State Journal, (the front page no less,) and their website. Carrying a byline for Ben Fisher, the article, intentionally or not, was written in such a manner as to leave me with a “tongue-in-cheek” impression of the piece.
With lines such as:
And someday soon you might be able to fly between the two cheesy paradises, if state lawmakers OK a new idea floated Thursday.
And other cheesy references it was at first hard to take seriously. Along with that was the fact Fisher, a business reporter, could find no state legislators to comment on the report. The article left me curious if not a bit skeptical.
A quick survey of the mainstream press, (the article was picked up by UPI) and a goodly number of space related blogs, showed all or portions of the original Fisher article but no additional information. Sometimes you just have to do things yourself, I dug a little deeper.
Formed on February 5th, 2001, National Coalition of Spaceport States, (NCSS), include member states New Mexico, Oklahoma, Alaska, and Alabama, to name just a few, which are in the process of developing non-federal government spaceports. The state of Wisconsin is also one of the original 14 member states in the NCSS.
The FAA’s Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation (AST) has this snazzy set of maps on the second page of this pdf file, showing the current and currently proposed locations of US space ports.
In early May of 1996, Rockets for Students, a state-based program, launched a rocket with a payload constructed by a team of students and professionals from the University of Wisconsin, making Sheboygan, the first inland sub-orbital launch site.
The Transportation Policy, Operations and Logistics Center (TPOL) at George Mason University (School of Public Policy) released a 2002 handbook that portions of which can be seen HERE.
The handbook describes the Wisconsin Spaceport this way:
Wisconsin Spaceport. The Wisconsin Spaceport is being established at Sheboygan, on Lake Michigan. It began operating 4 years ago and has launched several sounding rockets to altitudes of 34 miles. Although there has been no approval by the state for future development, the plan is to have the capability for RLV launch and recovery if the market warrants.
It is possible that last sentence may soon change. The state legislature has two bills in the works the senate bill and the assembly bill that do indeed address the nine-member panel to be known as the “Wisconsin Aerospace Authority,” and to develop those further capabilities.
To give Mr. Fisher his due, I know how copy editors can take a story, deem it worthy of the front page, then hack it down to the point it is no longer recognizable.
So, the long and short of it is, the legislation is real, the spaceport is already happening to a certain extent and passage will knock about 500 miles off my trip to the nearest spaceport. I even managed to refrain from mentioning the “Dairyland State” and cows jumping over the moon.
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T L James at MarsBlog reports:
Michael Griffin spoke at JSC today, and is reported to have said that the Chinese are “five or six years closer to the Moon than we are”.
And there is a spirited discussion about it going on at Transterrestrial Musings.
It’s interesting, and probably true, but not in the way that most people are interpreting it.
Griffin’s comments have a more mundane meaning than first appears, because his comment is true even if China has no human lunar spaceflight program. If they announced one today, then this would be ‘year zero’ of their effort. However, it’s going to take NASA five years to get to the same point - having announced a human lunar return, it’s going to take five years to finish the station, retire the shuttle, and develop the CEV - at which time, they will be ready to start the moon program in earnest, just like China could today if they chose.
So China’s five year head start does not mean that China is five years further than NASA into a Lunar development program - it means that China is able to start one today if they so decide, and NASA has a five year handicap in the form of Shuttle, Station and CEV.
China would be starting at Year Zero, and NASA is currently at Year Minus Five.
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You have to assume that the giggle factor that once plagued private spaceflight efforts is well on its way out the door when you see serious headlines like this.
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This just in via NASA Watch: NASA administrator Michael Griffin is under investigation for a rather unusual misuse of government property.
Rand Simberg is also live blogging from the Space Frontier Foundation conference.
U.S. Air Force Colonel Jack Weinstein, commander of the 30th Space Wing and the Western Range at Vandenberg Air Force Base, said, it’s very easy to get focused on the booster going into orbit, “but the tail in order to do that is really huge.” Responsive space also means cutting red tape to see blue sky, in terms of lessening paperwork requirements when you come to any launch range, he said.
This is from a Leonard David piece for Space.com. Dubbed “Behind the Scenes: Vandenberg Air Force Base,” the article provides us with “the nickel tour” of the base and a chance to hear from the folks that run it, in the form of Colonel Weinstein.
Defining the Air Force’s catch phrase, “Responsive Space” as, a need to rapidly and affordably fly space missions, Weinstein said, “I think we’re making progress, but it’s an evolutionary progress not really revolutionary progress.”
A true “rocketman” at heart
“We do about 7,000 range operations a year,” Weinstein pointed out… “When I give the clear to launch poll…my blood pressure is a little high. The adrenalin is flowing. Watching the team put something into space. It’s inspiring. I love it,” Weinstein said. “To be honest, I’m like a little kid on launch. I think it’s one of the coolest things we do.”
Sounds like my kind of guy, doing my kind of job…some folks have all the luck.
An interesting article, check it out then,
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Michael Mealing appears to be live blogging Space Frontier Conference 14 at RocketForge.
Looks like the ITAR holdups between Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic have been sorted out. Now they can get on with the business of building and flying SpaceShipTwo.
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Rand Simberg at Transterrestrial Musings is reporting that SpaceX will delay the inaugural Falcon-1 flight from October 31 to some time in November. It doesn’t sound like there is a specific problem - just that they want a little more time to make doubly sure that they get everything right.
Take as long as you need, guys. There’s a lot more riding on this flight than a satellite. No one is going to care how long it was delayed when they teach the kids at Aristarchus High School about Falcon in their History of the Space Frontier class.
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Having watched the Hubble Search for Lunar Resources conference on NASA TV, I must say I had hoped for more. What we got was a good, solid summery of the project, the logic behind the project and what hopes are held for the data that is still to be gathered from the project.
Using Hubble’s ultra-violet camera, images were taken of the lunar surface at three locations. Two of those locations were Apollo landing sites and the third, the Aristarchus crater and nearby Schroter’s Valley rille.
Apollo 15 and 17 landing sites were chosen because both mare and highland regolith samples had been gathered giving a broad base of existing data for comparison. Because the relatively young impact crater cut deeply into the Aristarchus highlands and a huge cross section was exposed to depths greater than the Grand Canyon of the southwestern United States. The mare building vulcanization of Schroter’s Valley area should provide a counter point to the highland data to be gathered.
Additionally, the Aristarchus location allowed for a more, “over-head-down” angle for imaging which was why the currently more enticing polar regions were not used.
Previous mapping mission have hinted at the scope and diversity of the minerals located at this region, but opinions on the quantity levels of those minerals has been widely debated. One of the hopes for this project was to narrow the range of those levels to a workable factor. Another hope is to solidify the data of these areas prior to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter launches in 2008.
I personally hoped to see more data, and got some nice false-color images and a flashy 3-D “zoom and pivot” rendering of the Apollo 17 landing site. I guess that is just my “instant gratification” American blood rearing its ugly head.
Anyway, the data is being processed and will be released sometime in the, hopefully near future. In the meantime, images and press releases can be found HERE.
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One of the issues NASA has always had was explaining to the general public what they were getting for ALL THAT MONEY being spent on space. Tang® and Velcro® are always tossed out as examples of space-spin-offs, however Velcro was patented in 1948 nearly a decade before NASA was created and Tang was formulated in 1957 and hit the markets in 1959, not becoming space traveling favorite until 1965 when it first launched on a Gemini mission.
The list of actual space related spin-offs is long and illustrious, but most are so common in today’s lifestyle they are totally ignored as connected to space at all. Cordless power tools, cable and satellite TV, GPS tracking systems and those wonderful weather satellites (that give us the ability to ignore a 6-7 day lead time on hurricane warnings) are just a few obvious examples.
An effort that sounds all too familiar and probably with similar results
Well it seems this need to explain the benefits is not just a product of democracy, in an article released today, China too has to the public with a shopping list of benefits.
A few examples include the fact that during the deadly SARS outbreak a few years ago, the nurses and doctors burdened with heavy protective clothing were cooled by air conditioning undergarments utilizing spacesuit technology. Communications equipment that can filter out extraneous noise is also attributed to spacesuit advancements.
The list goes on, but I wonder, between the recent excitement in China of their successful manned-missions and their different form of government, will the Chinese general public buy the benefits shopping list any more than do Americans?
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NASA will be hosting a conference tomorrow, (1pm eastern, noon central, etc. etc.) Although the conference is billed in a NASA press release as an opportunity, “to discuss new Hubble Space Telescope images of the moon’s surface in ultraviolet light,” most of us are hoping for a glimpse at the data derived from those images.
As part of the program, images of two Apollo landing sites were taken which initially raised some eyebrows. However the reason for these images was to create a calibrating baseline from known regolith content via Apollo soil sample returns.
The ultra-violet spectrum is a relatively new area in lunar imaging, with Clemetine’s visible light camera barely able to scratch the ultra-light spectrum. Dr. Paul D. Spudis of Johns Hopkins, Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL) explained the importance of the data to me in this way, “HST can image in the UV part of the spectrum … where we expect an absorption band for ilmenite (Fe, Ti oxide). High ilmenite and/or Ti is correlated with high solar wind gas content, so a good map of Ti is also a map of solar wind hydrogen.”
One of the four member discussion panel is Mark Robinson, research associate professor, Center of Planetary Sciences, Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill. A member of the science team for this project, Robinson has been making a name for himself lately.
He landed a role on the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) camera science team, his group at Northwestern has provided imaging instrument packages for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mercury MESSENGER, as well as the up coming Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
It will be interesting to hear his prospective, especially in how it applies to LRO, anyway, you can be sure I’ll be watching.
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Michael Mealing at RocketForge makes a very important point:
The point of all this is a warning to pundits, myself included, to be clear about whether or not you are talking about the Architecture as articulated by NASA or the Vision as articulated by the President. They are not the same. We should all be very clear and vocal in our support for the Innovative Programs Office even as we may (or may not) support the various bits of hardware that NASA proposes to build. If you have a problem with Shuttle derived heavy lift then say so. But don’t call it part of the “VSE” because the Vision didn’t say anything about using Shuttle derived hardware.
NASA is struggling to make a budget that funds all of Shuttle, Station and the new ESAS architecture. Keith Cowing details the possible fallout. The options he discusses are not pretty.
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Not a revelation, exactly, but the penny just dropped for me (takes a while sometimes) when I read the America’s Space Prize rules again from Mark’s post.
When the Falcon 9 was announced, I thought that the intention to make the upper stage reusable was likely to become a bit of a ’stretch goal’ - ie, difficult to accomplish, and probably not necessary to Falcon 9’s early commercial success. But rule 6 of the America’s Space Prize states that no more than 20% of the spacecraft, including the launcher, may be composed of expendable hardware. Meeting the requirements of the America’s Space Prize makes tackling the upper stage re-usability early on make a little more sense.
Elon has always maintained that he wants the capability to launch humans to orbit, and the basic Falcon 9 configuration provides the payload capacity to enable that. He even makes a statement to that effect near the end of the latest SpaceX update:
Unlike Falcon 1, Falcon 9 is intended for manned flight one day and all critical systems have to function perfectly for potentially several days of occupied time.
That ‘occupied time’ bit is particularly interesting: Since the intention is to recover the upper stage anyway, I wonder if it could be taken as a hint that the SpaceX crew ‘capsule’ will actually be an integral part of the upper stage?
Wouldn’t that make that version of the Falcon 9 (which is a fairly conservative ELV design by alt.space standards) a crewed TSTO RLV?
Still can’t wait for that Halloween Falcon 1 flight. These guys seem to be on a really interesting development path…
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Observant readers will have noticed that the last few posts were the work of a newcomer to the OotC blog - I’d like to extend a warm welcome to Mark Trulson, the newest member of the blogging staff here.
Which brings us to a grand total staff count of two. Not bad: we’ve only been going for five weeks and we’ve already grown the organisation by 100%. 
Welcome to the crew, Mark!
Earlier this week (Opps, that was actually back on July 7th, I misread my notes…) Space News released an exclusive article by Leonard David introducing the official rules for the Space Prize. Designed to generate development of private access to LEO, the prize carries a deadline of January 10th, 2010.
The prize offered by Robert Bigelow, is a logical step to take for the founder of the hotel chain Budget Suites of America and more importantly in this case, founder of Bigelow Aerospace. The latter company is developing an inflatable space habitat system and will certainly benefit from cheap, reliable access to them.
Number four of the ten primary rules, clearly illustrates the intent of the contest…
4. The Spacecraft must dock or demonstrate its ability to dock with a Bigelow Aerospace inflatable space habitat and be capable of remaining on station for at least six (6) months;
Possibly acting as a target for that docking, a Bigelow habitat module is tentatively scheduled to launch in the first quarter of 2008 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The launcher is the third design in the Falcon series of rockets, none of which have flown as of yet.
With or without the docking, the rest of the requirements for the contest make for a major advancement and achievement for alt.space. The craft must reach a minimum altitude of 250 miles, carrying a crew of 5, (no mention of the equivalent weight for replacing the crew), gain a minimum velocity to sufficient to complete two (2) full orbits at altitude before, (of course…) returning safely to earth.
Now, I might be a little dense on this but it sounds like you don’t have actually complete the two orbits, only get to the speed so you could have… Most of these rules have been out in the public for a while, but now they are official.
With the deadline a little over four years away and a $50,000,000 prize, it will certainly be interesting to see who picks up the challenge and in what shapes and methods.
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Sony, the parent company of Columbia Pictures, will probably spend more money on promoting the new movie Zathura, than a lot of alt. space companies and space related interest groups have as annual budgets. Is there a way to utilize those studio PR dollars to our benefit?
This movie provides an angle that might be interesting to follow… a “Cross-Curricular Science and Language Arts Program,” tied to the new movie.
“Space Science: Adventure Is Waiting is a dynamic education program to build student skills in both science and language arts. “Developed in cooperation with both NASA and Scholastic, Space Science: Adventure Is Waiting has been generously sponsored by Columbia Pictures.”
Links are available to downloadable easy-to-use teacher guides, national standards–based lessons and reproducibles, (teachers love reproducibles…) as well as a sweepstakes for a Family Trip for four to Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida and other prizes and stuff.
Is this just more PR for the movie? Can it even maintain, let alone build new interest? What might we do as an add-on follow-up effort of these educational promotions?
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The rumor mill has it that the next space tourist to visit the International Space Station will be Japanese investor and former board director of the Livedoor Internet firm, Daisuke Enomoto. The Russian Space Agency, (RKA) leaked the name Enomoto on their website according to report from Xinhua, the Chinese news agency.
A French Press Agency (AFP) article says, and I quote, “If he gets Russian approval, Enomoto said he wanted to dress up on the trip as “Char Aznable”, a character in the popular “Gundam” hero robot series of animation whose name is inspired by French singer Charles Aznavour.”
Usually I’d have some witty comment to add at this point, but some things just stand on their own. The French article can be found HERE.
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China successfully launched their second manned-mission around 6:00 p.m. Beijing time, October 12, 2005.
In regard to China’s Space Program, I’ve recently heard how they are patient, slow but methodical, ever-moving forward. Even beyond the historical reference, the name of their launch vehicle, “Long March,” speaks of a slow, extended process.
Well, they just went from the equivalent of NASA’s Mercury to Gemini program in two launches. The launching two years ago of Shenzhou-5 made Yang Liwei China’s first astronaut. Today, forming the two-person crew of Shenzhou-6, Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng became astronauts two and three.
The Associated Press filed this story on the launch while the English language version of Xinhua, China’s official news media, provided this view of the event.
Neither article speaks of any long term “Lunar” plans by China, with Xinhua, focusing on the gathering of data for use toward an orbital laboratory, (read that as space station).
If this is a slow, extend process, I’d hate to see what happens when they are in a hurry. In the mean time “hat’s off to them” for coming so far, in a patient and methodically-short time.
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Congratulations to Dennis Wingo and Orbital Recovery, who have just announced the signing of their first customer for the CX-OLEV space tug.
People have been talking about space tugs for years, but little came of it until Orbital Recovery came along. These guys have put together a business plan that has a really good chance of working. That just leaves the simpler engineering task of building the thing and flying it.
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With the first Falcon 1 launch just around the corner, SpaceX have released a new update. Lots of good info about the Kwajalein launch site, and the thinking behind the Falcon 9.
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Peter Diamandis, organiser of the X-Prize, has announced the formation of a rocket racing league. In a blend of NASCAR, the Reno air races and high-powered rocketry, four racers will compete in the league finals at the 2006 X-Prize Cup, and ten are expected for 2007.
Stern, S. Alan
“Ex Luna, Scientia”
The Space Review
10/03/2005
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Pages (999999): [1] 2 3 » ... Last » | “Masten Space Applauds NASA’s New Suborbital Challenges”
“Santa Clara, California - 10/19/05 Masten Space Systems announced today that it strongly supported the recent agreement between NASA and the X PRIZE Foundation to develop two suborbital Centennial Challenges and that, pending announcements on rules, it looked forward to participating.”
So reads the opening paragraph of a recent press […]
READ MORE... Recently I turned the tables on SpaceShot CEO Sam Dinkin, a regular columnist at The Space Review. Normally, he’s the one who gets to ask the questions, but he very kindly agreed to answer a few instead, about his soon-to-be-launched online skill game where players will compete to win a suborbital trip to space.
OotC: Tell […]
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