Espace Magazine
groupe Tiqap
Mars/Avril 2007
Publisher’s Website
Librarian’s Note: This is probably the best general space interest magazine around. Great articles on a whole host of space topics, absolutely beautiful photos, posters with each issue, and more. This issue is of note for an article entitled “Afrique: L’eveil au spatial”, or “Africa: Awakening to Space”. One of my classmates at ISU got to work on the NigeriaSat-1 project, and my first team project at ISU was a report on South Africa’s space policy. If you can read French and can afford the international subscription rate I highly, highly recommend this magazine.
Sherwood, Brent
“What Will We Actually Do On the Moon?”
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Presented at STAIF 2007
Librarian’s Note: We’re trying to make this paper available online, but it got stuck with the lawyers. Still working…
Well, very soon you will be able to find out for yourself. Head on down to the Kennedy Space Center’s Visitor Complex, and go for the ride of your life on their soon-to-be-opened shuttle launch simulator.
Artist: Darrell K. Sweet
“At the Summit”
FenCon III (2006) Program Cover
02/24/2007
Alan Boyle over at Cosmic Log has just interviewed Robert Bigelow of Bigelow Aerospace, the company building and testing inflatable space habitats for low-Earth-orbit.
Turns out that they’re not just for low-Earth-orbit. Bigelow’s long-range plans include assembling moon-bases out of his modules, at the Earth-Moon-L1 lagrange point, and flying them whole to the lunar surface. Just cover with lunar regolith for radiation protection, and you have an instant prefabricated moon base. According to the interview, NASA is interested.
Of course, at this point it’s all speculation, but Bigelow does have one ace up his sleeve that most NewSpace companies can’t claim: hardware in orbit. An uncrewed, one-third-scale prototype of the habitat, Genesis One, is already being checked out in space. Another, more sophisticated prototype is due for launch in early April. Sometime after that, a one-half scale prototype will be launched, and Bigelow plans to have a human-capable space module, Sundancer, on-orbit and ready for occupation some time in 2010.
Henry, Keith
“Camping on the Moon Will Be One Far Out Experience”
NASA Langley Research Center
23 Feb 2007
On-Line Text
Librarian’s Note: Hmm, seems to be just the sort of thing that Bigelow Aerospace is trying to do.
Boyle, Alan
“Bigelow Shoots for the Moon”
Cosmic Log
02/22/2007
On-line Text
Librarian’s Note: Part of the article discusses stations at L-1. For more information on this phenomenal resource/destination please visit the EML-1 page over in the High Frontier section.
JAXA Feature Story
“Return to the Moon - Pursuing Our Destiny in the Sky”
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
19/02/2007
On-Line Text
In an article by Reuters where they appear confused whether to play it straight or sensationalize the story, they describe a presentation given by a group of astronauts, engineers and scientists. Rusty Schweickart, the former Apollo 9 astronaut and member of The Association of Space Explorers said, the group intends to host a series of high-level workshops this year to flesh out the plan and will make a formal proposal to the U.N. in 2009.
Out of the Cradle interviewed Rusty a year ago, if you missed that discussion you can catch it HERE.
Boyle, Alan
“Moon ventures could bring in good money”
MSNBC
02/19/2007
On-line Text
Bell, Trudy E.
“The Moon Is A School For Exploration”
MoonDaily
02/15/2007
On-line Text
“Space Academy”
BCI Eclipse
2007
Publisher’s Website
“The Astronaut Farmer” starring Billy Bob Thornton and Virginia Madsen. Slated for general release February 23rd nationwide.
One of the perquisites of being a member of a space organization like the National Space Society is that often we get special invites to special events not available to the general public. This was how some of the North Texas chapter members got to see “Roving Mars” early, and one day boxes of “Zathura” goodies showed up on my doorstep for us to distribute. (We of course always plunder first…) This time around is a new space movie, just in time for the run-up to the 2007 ISDC, which is adopting a strongly ‘frontier’ theme.
READ MORE…
Barry, Patrick L.
“181 Things To Do On The Moon”
Science@NASA
02/02/2007
On-line Text
Librarian’s Note: This feature is about the long list of potential objectives for activities on the Moon developed by NASA and many of its constituencies over the course of 2006. When NASA gave their Lunar South Pole base presentation back in December, I had this to say afterwords:
“I noted over at Space Politics that I was underwhelmed by the presentation, and that remains my position. It was actually strengthened when I went to the underlying ‘Objectives’ work and saw all of the neat comments and suggestions (found here). There could have been a really compelling presentation made of what we can do there, but instead we got a rather milquetoast slideshow on a Moonbase.
The ‘Objectives’ materials are the best part of what’s been created. One has to be careful though, and ignore the general categorizations to get to the meat of what was created, usually in columns 4 & 5, but the theme choices can be interesting as well as far as what NASA sees as economic development. It’s a bit of a slog, but NASA has been given all of the right pieces to enable a robust and sustainable return to the Moon that will be a piece in unlocking the Solar System for humanity.”
Ken Murphy, “Why Mars?”, Selenian Boondocks, 12/12/2006
The full list of objectives (pdf) can be found here.
