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Space
Thursday, October 8th, 2009

You guys have probably seen the reports about this, but we just wanted you to know where to go to get the straight gouge. NASA has a pretty amazing site dedicated to this mission. Check it out.
What do we think — water, yes or no?
And I have dibs on “Moon Bomb” as the name of my next band.
– Ward
Posted in Space | 28 Comments »
Sunday, August 17th, 2008
Trouble brewing?
Lawmakers warned this week that escalating tensions with Russia may leave the U.S. without ready transport to the ISS after NASA retires the space shuttle fleet in 2010.
The space agency does not expect the shuttle’s replacement, the Orionan Apollo-like craft being developed as part of the Constellation programto be ready to fly until 2015. NASA’s plan was for the interim was to use Russian Soyuz craft to send up crew and cargo to the $100 billion station.
How awkward would it be if the Russian relief showed up in 2010 and left the American on board? Kind of hard to ask Russia for a hitch to space while you’re actively running logistics to their Georgian enemies.
It’s an interesting scenario to wargame out: If Ivan refuses to send up American astronauts and sticks to a Russia-only crew, does that mean that they’d be guilty of the first documented case of space hijacking?
That said, Russia will probably honor the agreement. They’ll want to avoid the natural influx of funding Congress would send to NASA to fast track Orion or keep the shuttles running for 5 more years.
Lucrative business, spacelift.
–John Noonan
Posted in Space | 10 Comments »
Tuesday, August 5th, 2008

Elon Musk is one of the gutsiest entrepreneurs in the world. After making a pile from his share of PayPal which he co-founded Elon decided he wanted to do something no new company has done, build a new launch vehicle from scratch and then sell it.
A dogged and gifted salesman, he sold the Air Force on the idea. They were being pushed hard by Congress to come up with a cheaper and simpler rocket to lift small– and medium-sized satellites into orbit, and Elon had a workable solution risky, but workable.
But the third try which analysis of past launch programs indicate was crucial since programs that dont have a successful launch in the first three rarely succeed was pretty much an unmitigated failure, no matter how adeptly Elon tries to spin it. The launch from Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific went well but the second stage did not separate correctly.
Even Jim Armor, former head of the National Security Space Office and a devout supporter of Operationally Responsive Space, now says he would not approve launch of any national security payload atop a Falcon launch system unless Elon gets two successful and successive launches under his belt.
Armor, now an independent consultant, confessed to being disheartened by the latest SpaceX failure.
What a heartbreaker, he said when I reached him on the phone. He said Elon must accept that his companys systems engineering skills are just not up to the task of putting together several rocket stages and getting them to work. As far as bringing it together in a stack Elon has been humbled by rocket science, Armor said. If I were him I would stop trying to do it by myself and would seek some outside expertise.”
Read the rest of this story and get the latest update at DoD Buzz.
– Colin Clark
Posted in Space | 6 Comments »
Monday, April 28th, 2008

The U.S. Army plans to build and launch into orbit a constellation of satellites for the first time in roughly 50 years. And it plans to build the cluster of eight miniature communications satellites within as little as nine months, defense officials told Military.com.
The roughly $5 million effort is part of the Army’s commitment to what is known as Operationally Responsive Space. The joint program, based at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., was created in May 2007 after years of vigorous prodding by Congress to get the U.S. military to change how it conceives of, builds and flies satellites.
For the Army, this is “a pathfinder project to fulfill an urgent need for beyond line of sight communications capability,” said James Lee, chief of strategy and policy for Space and Missile Defense Command in Huntsville, Ala.
Lee’s office set up a task force in March to decide how the Army should tackle the deployment of space assets. And the money for the service’s satellite effort is coming from Army coffers, Lee added.
The requirement for the bantam-weight sats — which measure about 30 inches square and weigh around five pounds — was generated by a combatant commander whom Lee declined to identify. But you can get some idea who it is by the mission he described for the so-called “cubesats.“
The satellites should provide communications for Army units below the brigade level operating in parts of the world where the military has no current secure satellite communications, such as Africa, Lee explained.
(more…)
Posted in Space | 15 Comments »
Friday, March 14th, 2008

From this morning’s front page at Military.com.
The threat from an adversary’s use of space is more than just zapping a satellite out of sky. It could be as mundane as grabbing an up-to-date reconnaissance image from a free Web site.
That’s a scenario a top Air Force official is trying to counter as more countries push their own commercial payloads into the highest frontier. With the easy access to free online imagery services such as Google Earth and Yahoo Maps, and other paid sites, military officials are worried an enemy might gain vital intelligence on U.S. and allied military positions anonymously and with little investment.
“It could be as simple as how is it that an adversary gets an image off of Google Earth that could somehow threaten American lives or interests,” said Lt. Gen. Michael Hamel, who manages space and missile systems development for the Air Force. “That is an example of a space threat that we may face in the future,”
(more…)
Posted in Space | 26 Comments »
Wednesday, December 26th, 2007

Here’s an interesting story ripped from the headlines at Military.com. I’m intrigued by this idea and I’m wondering if some of our more informed readers out there can add some light to this subject.
BALI, Indonesia — While great nations fretted over coal, oil and global warming, one of the smallest at the U.N. climate conference was looking toward the heavens for its energy.
The annual meeting’s corridors can be a sounding board for unlikely “solutions” to climate change — from filling the skies with soot to block the sun, to cultivating oceans of seaweed to absorb the atmosphere’s heat-trapping carbon dioxide.
Unlike other ideas, however, one this year had an influential backer, the Pentagon, which is investigating whether space-based solar power — beaming energy down from satellites — will provide “affordable, clean, safe, reliable, sustainable and expandable energy for mankind.“
Tommy Remengesau Jr. is interested, too. “We’d like to look at it,” said the president of the tiny western Pacific nation of Palau.
(more…)
Posted in Space | 26 Comments »
Wednesday, November 28th, 2007

Moderate temperatures, nearly perpetual sunshine, flat landing areas and subterranean resources make the rim of the Shackleton Crater — situated within the solar system’s largest impact crater — an ideal location for a lunar homestead, down near the moon’s south pole. NASA hopes to send the first pioneers there by 2020.
“Hardscrabble” was what future president Ulysses S. Grant named his ramshackle homestead on the pre-Civil War Missouri frontier. That might be an apt title for NASA’s planned lunar outpost, for its residents will find the moon a harsh place to settle. Survival will depend on their ability to evade micrometeoroids, extract oxygen from rocks and even, like Grant, grow wheat.
The space agency announced its strategy to return to the moon last December. Instead of emulating the series of six Apollo landings, it chose as its initial goal the establishment of a single lunar outpost. Using the new crew exploration vehicle, Orion, NASA plans to send four astronauts to the moon as early as 2020 (“Mission: Moon,” March ’07). Eventually, four-man crews will rotate home every six months. Their goal will be to live off the land, extend scientific exploration and practice for an eventual leap to Mars.
The moon, says NASA, is the place to get our space-suited hands dirty. “The lunar base is part of an overall plan that has legs, that makes sense,” says Wendell Mendell, chief of the Office of Lunar and Planetary Exploration at Johnson Space Center. “We’re moving the human species out into the solar system.”
Learn how NASA plans to build a Moon colony at Military.com.
– Christian
Posted in Space | 15 Comments »
Tuesday, November 13th, 2007

High-altitude balloons, filmy bags of helium floating at altitudes that no known airplane can sustain, have attracted increasing attention as the US Air Force has looked at “near space” — above air traffic, with long lines of sight — as an operating regime. One snag: balloons go whither the wind blows, payload and all.
A USAF-sponsored project to deal with that problem, Talon Topper, has been under way for several years, and a critical demonstration has just been disclosed. Contractor Near Space Corporation — based in Oregon — has successfully tested a Payload Return Vehicle (PRV), a radical lifting-body glider that can safely descend from very high altitudes to a controlled landing, returning an instrument package to a desired location.
Alert readers will instantly recognize the PRV for what it is — a close relative of the Facetmobile, the all-flat-surface personal aircraft designed and test-flown by Barnaby Wainfan, who is employed in civilian life as as an ace aerodynamicist at Northrop Grumman.
Important aspects of the design include the ability to stay under control in a Mach 0.98 dive (don’t try that with a conventional glider design), very light weight (useful for something carried by a balloon) and a shape that readily accommodates large payloads and antennas. It also has a very low stalling speed for easy and safe recovery. Faceting is not there for stealth but to make the aircraft easy to build.
See the entire entry from Aviation Week’s Ares blog at Military.com.
– Christian
Posted in Space | 10 Comments »
Monday, November 5th, 2007

The folks over at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments released a new report late last week on the U.S. efforts to develop space-based weaponry.
The long and the short of it is that Steve Kosiak, their principle budget analyst and author of the report, believes at this point space-based missile defense and space-based anti-satellite systems are too expensive for their relative effectiveness.
A constellation of space-based weapons designed to defend the United States against an attack with intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) would be extremely costly to acquire and support. Moreover, at least based on the technology likely to be available over the next twenty years, such a system would probably not prove to be a cost-effective investment, especially when measured against the cost to a potential adversary of defeating such a system.
Second, while space-based weapons intended to strike terrestrial-based targets could, in some cases, cost substantially less to acquire and support than space-based ballistic missile defense systems, such weapons would likely prove more costlyand, in some instances, far more costlythan comparably effective terrestrial-based alternatives.
Third, while space-based ASAT weapons would also generally be less costly to acquire and support than space-based ballistic missile defense systems, there does not appear to be a compelling need, on either cost or effectiveness grounds, to acquire a dedicated space-based ASAT capabilityin part, because the US military already possesses or is acquiring a range of terrestrial-based weapons with significant inherent ASAT capabilities.
Fourth, space-based defensive (bodyguard) satellites would, to a great extent, be indistinguishable from space-based ASAT weapons. Thus, such systems would likely have similar costs. In addition, their deployment would presumably have similar implications for sparking or accelerating an arms race in space. These weapons would also be incapable of protecting against some of the ASAT threats most likely to emerge in coming years. A more effective and cost-effective approach might be to rely on a range of passive countermeasures. Strengthening US space surveillance and tracking capabilities could also offer an important means of improving the security of US satellites.
Fifth, although space-based weapons designed to strike terrestrial-based targets, conduct ASAT attacks, or intercept enemy ASAT weapons appear to be neither necessary, nor, generally, as cost effective as terrestrial-based alternatives, in a few instancesunlike space-based ballistic missile defense systemsthey appear to be relatively affordable and may even represent cost-effective options. In these cases, non-budgetary considerations, such the perceived strategic importance of the capability and the potential arms race implications of moving ahead with such a system, will have to play the dominant role in shaping programmatic and policy choices.
What he does advocate is some mix of decoy satellites, high-altitude drones that mimic satellite capabilities and the rejiggering of ground-based ICBM interceptors to an ASAT role.
Ultimately … the most cost-effective means of protecting US satellite capabilities may be to rely on a range of passive countermeasures, such as decoys, and terrestrial-based alternatives, such unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). … Strengthening US space surveillance and tracking capabilities offers an important means of improving the security of US satellites.
I tend to believe that space weapons will be increasingly important given the U.S. reliance on satellites for everything from navigation to communications. But I like the idea that the U.S. can exploit vulnerabilities in anti-satellite weaponry and weaknesses without breaking the bank, countering one countrys propaganda win with a quiet so what?
– Christian
Posted in Space | 34 Comments »
Thursday, October 25th, 2007

MIT astronautics professor Dava Newman tries on her custom-fitted BioSuit, designed for exploration and work on Mars. The pattern of thick, semi-elastic polymer threads forms a support structure to counter the low pressure of other planets.
Until recently, astronauts rarely worried about what to wear — a standard gas-pressurized spacesuit was the only choice. But navigating Mars in a bulky 300-pound setup would be like doing gymnastics in a suit of armor. “They’re not going there to sit in the habitat,” says Newman. “They’ll have to work five to seven days a week.”
Newman has designed an alternative with enough flexibility to get the job done. Partially inspired by giraffe anatomy — the tall beasts use tight leg skin to help regulate blood pressure — the BioSuit relies on mechanical counterpressure instead of gas pressure. Every suit must be tailored to squeeze its owner.
– Popular Mechanics
Posted in Space | 12 Comments »
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