December 6, 2006
NASA plans moon outpost by 2020
In what would be another giant step for mankind, NASA recently announced plans to start construction of a base station on the surface of the moon by the year 2020:
"NASA has opened the door to the next generation of space discovery by announcing ambitious plans for a permanently staffed base on the surface of the moon. Construction on the lunar outpost would begin soon after 2020, with astronauts living there within four years, the space agency said... Ultimately, the moon would be a staging post for humans to explore the solar system and one day land on Mars."
For now, the plan is to build on the south pole of the moon:
"A robotic probe will be sent in 2008 to scout potential sites, but the settlement is likely to be built on the moon's south pole... The southern end faces the sun for 75% of the time and would allow for the best harvesting of solar power. Scientists also believe that the south pole craters contain rich natural gases such as the rare helium-3 that could be used as fuel for the generation of nuclear power. In addition, teams of astronauts living there for six months at a time would mine for hydrogen and oxygen to make water and possibly rocket fuel."
Anyway, The Independent has put together a Q&A about the new lunar base in an attempt to figure out whether the trillion-dollar space program is worth the money.
[image: The NASA lunar base]
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November 7, 2006
India may send a manned mission to the moon
It looks like India is debating the pros and cons of sending a manned mission to the moon:
"India's space scientists and technologists will hold a brain-storming session... to explore the viability of undertaking a manned mission to the moon by the end of the next decade (2020). With President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam rooting for such an adventure, about 50-60 experts from top research labs and scientific institutions will get a preview of the ambitious project conceived by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) that is planning to send an Indian astronaut into space on a indigenous space capsule by 2014."
Of course, there's a lot of work to be done in mobilizing all the necessary resources, but it looks like India is already dreaming of becoming a true technological superpower:
"A successful manned mission to moon will give India the status of a super-power with technological capability on par with the United States, Russia, European Space Agency (ESA), China (in manned mission to space), development of new types of materials and breakthrough in medicine and life sciences, communications. According to Indian Space Commission member Roddam Narasimha, who is one of the invitees for the meeting, a manned mission to moon would make India a force to reckon with and count among the select few countries in the space club."
[image: Pakistani secret UFO Research Facility]
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September 6, 2006
The world's first female space tourist
Space Adventures, the world's leading space tourism company, has announced that a 40-year-old Iranian-born woman, Anousheh Ansari, will become the first female space tourist to visit the International Space Station. If you follow the space tourism industry, you'll probably recognize the name - the Ansari family was the founding sponsor of the $10 million Ansari X Prize competition for private manned spaceflight back in 2004. Anousheh Ansari will launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on September 14, along with two other crew members. For Ms. Ansari, who emigrated to the USA in 1984, the flight to the International Space Station marks the culmination of a lifelong dream: "By reaching this dream I’ve had since childhood, I hope to tangibly demonstrate to young people all over the world that there is no limit to what they can accomplish..."
Tags: Ansari space tourism innovation
[image: Anousheh Ansari]
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September 1, 2006
Fly me to the moon in 2020
In a battle between aerospace giants for a lucrative NASA contract to build a manned lunar spaceship, Lockheed Martin emerged as the winner:
"NASA on Thursday gave a multibillion dollar contract to build a manned lunar spaceship to Lockheed Martin Corp., the aerospace leader that usually builds unmanned rockets. The nation's space agency plans to use the Orion crew exploration vehicle to replace the space shuttle fleet, take astronauts to the moon and perhaps to Mars. Reusable and like Apollo and earlier spacecraft, it is perched atop the rocket."
If all goes according to plan, the first test flight of Orion will be September 2014 and astronauts could return to the moon by late 2019 or 2020. However, as the New York Times points out somewhat skeptically, just because Lockheed Martin won the NASA contract for an Apollo-like capsule, doesn't mean people will be flying to the moon anytime soon: "The last time NASA awarded a manned spaceship contract to Lockheed Martin was in 1996 for a spaceplane that was supposed to replace the space shuttle. NASA spent $912 million and the ship, called X-33, never got built because of technical problems..."
Tags: space innovation Orion Lockheed Martin
[image: New York Times]
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August 22, 2006
NASA awards half a billion bucks for space exploration
Two aerospace R&D teams headed by SpaceX and Rocketplane Kistler will receive a total of $485 million in financing from NASA for the development of new spaceships capable of transporting cargo and crew between Earth and the international space station. As MSNBC points out, this new initiative from NASA is heavy on the can-do entrepreneurial spirit of the private sector and "marks a dramatic departure in the way NASA does business." If all goes according to plan, the work by SpaceX and RocketPlane will "give a boost to the nascent private-sector space race - including space tourism for paying passengers." In the past, NASA has funded the entire development cost for creating spaceships for human spaceflight, ranging from Mercury capsules to space shuttles. Now, NASA will be "investing" in projects primarily supported by the private sector, with quarterly payments made as the development teams reach technical and financial milestones through the end of 2009. Of the $485 million, SpaceX is slated to receive $278 million and RocketPlane $207 million - provided they both meet all of the required milestones.
Tags: NASA space SpaceX RocketPlane innovation
[image: MSNBC]
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July 21, 2006
Inflatable space stations
Peter Spotts of The Christian Science Monitor takes a closer look at the new generation of "inflatable" space stations that are being designed by Las Vegas-based Bigelow Aerospace with technology licensed from NASA:
"The new kid on the cosmic block is Genesis 1, a diminutive prototype for what could be a new generation of inflatable, commercial space stations, orbital hotels, or even living quarters and labs for the moon or Mars. The module, which has the silhouette of a 14-feet-long, 8-feet-wide blunt sausage, lofted on a Russian rocket last week. The Genesis may be small, but it should not be underestimated. Its successful launch and deployment add an important dimension to efforts to open the final frontier to Everyman, analysts say. Genesis 1 "is incredibly significant," says George Whitesides, executive director of the National Space Society, a space-advocacy group in Washington. "This is the only real, funded project that's trying to create a destination in space privately, as opposed to the other folks, who are creating private launch vehicles."
Anyway, the article also has a brief rundown of other space innovation efforts that have occurred over the past 12 months, including the proliferation of "space ports" across the country in places like Oklahoma and New Mexico.
Tags: space innovation space station
[image: Genesis 1 prototype]
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June 22, 2006
The next best thing to being an astronaut
The next best thing to actually being an astronaut: being part of an invitation-only launch event for the next mission to the International Space Station. For the low, low price of $14,995, you can now travel to Kazakhstan, get an inside look at the secret cosmonaut training center in Moscow, and hang out with fellow space travel fans from around the world. It's all being brought to you by U.S.-based Space Adventures, which has just released details of its innovative VIP Launch Tour:
"Experience sights and sounds more powerful than you can imagine - five liquid-fuelled engines igniting, and blasting a 162-foot tall rocket to speeds in excess of 1,000 mph in less than 70 seconds. This coming September, you can be part of a select group that will watch the launch of the next Soyuz mission to the International Space Station. Launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, in Kazakhstan, the Soyuz will be transporting a crew including Japanese entrepreneur, Daisuke "Dice-K" Enomoto.
Space Adventures has put together a week long experience, where you will tour Baikonur and observe the pre-launch activities, culminating in witnessing the spectacular launch from a distance of less than one mile. Also included is a tour of the Gagarin Training Center in Star City, outside Moscow, where cosmonauts have trained for space travel since the dawn of the Space Age. Both of these sites remain largely inaccessible to the general public."
Hanging out in Kazakhstan is cool (yo, is Da Ali G coming?), but I think the real treat is getting to tour the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center outside Moscow. Up until a few years ago, this place was sealed shut - a top-secret installation that foreigners only heard of from afar. It's not like you can bribe your way inside with a bottle of vodka and a pack of cheap smokes - you need some serious blat to get inside.
[image: Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center]
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May 1, 2006
Space Adventures: five years of space innovation
Space Adventures, which pioneered the growth and development of the space tourism industry, recently celebrated the five-year anniversary of the first-ever commercial space tourism passenger:
"On this day [April 28], five years ago, Space Adventures, Ltd.'s client, Dennis Tito, became the world’s first commercial passenger to launch to space marking the beginning of the space tourism industry. Since then, Space Adventures’ efforts in offering commercial seats to the public have resulted in $120 million worth of orbital spaceflight sales.
“Dennis had the courage, will and adventurous spirit needed to realize his dream of spaceflight,” said Eric Anderson, president and CEO of Space Adventures. "We, at Space Adventures, are proud of our influence in the opening of the space frontier. The $120 million in orbital spaceflights sold is proof positive that the commercial space travel industry is well underway and will only continue to grow.”
Space Adventures offers a variety of programs such as orbital spaceflight missions to the International Space Station, commercial missions around the moon, Zero-Gravity and MiG flights, cosmonaut training, spaceflight qualification programs and reservations on future suborbital spacecrafts.
Tags: space DennisTito innovation SpaceAdventures
[image: Dennis Tito]
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April 25, 2006
Virgin Galactic and the future of space innovation
If you're interested in the future of space innovation, it's worth signing up for the free Virgin Galactic e-newsletter. Virgin Galactic, of course, is the space tourism brainchild of billionaire tycoon Sir Richard Branson. Anyway, the fourth issue of the newsletter just crossed my desk recently, and it looks like the folks at Virgin Galactic have been busy recently. Among the highlights:
* The introduction of the newest member of the Virgin Galactic Founders Club. Pakistani-born Namira Salim, a citizen of Dubai, will be among one of the first 100 space travellers on Virgin Galactic when commercial operations start in 2008 or 2009;
* The announcement that any of the 700 pilots flying for Virgin Atlantic will have the opportunity to be trained as fully fledged astronaut pilots flying space tourists on SpaceShipTwo;
* Previews of the upcoming 25th annual Space Development Conference (Los Angeles), the Royal Aeronautical Society conference (London) and the Farnborough International Airshow (which will include an International Space Pavilion for the second year in a row).
Tags: space innovation VirginGalactic
[image: Virgin Galactic]
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April 12, 2006
The controversy over Brazil's first man in space
According to the New York Times, Brazil's efforts to send its first man into space - at a cost of $10.5 million - resulted in quite a bit of controversy. While some hailed the week-long visitor to the International Space Station as a national hero, others called him a mere "space tourist" who helped to drain the country's meager treasury at a time when the money could have been better spent elsewhere:
"Because of the manner in which Brazil's first astronaut was launched into space, national pride has been mixed with pointed criticisms of weaknesses and deficiencies in the country's three-decade-old space program.
The astronaut, Marcos Pontes, a 43-year-old air force colonel, has become a national idol, stealing headlines even from soccer stars like Ronaldinho. He has waved the Brazilian flag, talked with schoolchildren, reporters and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and even found himself lionized in a comic book and toys.
But many Brazilian scientists, along with newspaper columnists and editorial writers, have criticized the voyage, which ended early Sunday, as a boondoggle. They argue that the roughly $10.5 million that Brazil paid Russia to launch Colonel Pontes aboard a Soyuz rocket would have been better spent on research here on Earth or invested in rebuilding a space port destroyed in 2003 in a launching pad explosion that killed 21 scientists and technicians."
Of course, the Brazilian government views the ability to put the country's first man into space as a huge scientific and political win. If nothing else, it will be easier to "loosen the purse strings" of the treasury for future space development efforts. It also has a strong symbolic meaning: "The idea is to give visibility to the [space] program. A decade ago, China, Brazil and India were all at the same level, but China has surged ahead, and we have been left behind, largely because of a lack of sustained investment."
Apparently, Washington has been a strong backer of the Brazilian space program, too: "The United States was eager to have Brazil involved because Washington wants to increase scientific exchanges with a country that has excelled in several niches. Brazil is a recognized leader, for example, in the manufacture of medium-size jets, genome mapping and numerous technologies adapted for use in the tropics."
ASIDE: Today, April 12, marks the 45th anniversary of the first man in outer space, Yuri Gagarin. The Russians, in fact, now refer to Marcos Pontes (the Brazilian astronaut) as "Brazil's Yuri Gagarin."
[image: New York Times]
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April 11, 2006
NASA and outsider innovation
In the New York Times, Noah Shachtman highlights the unprecedented ways that NASA is opening up its innovation process to outsiders. Space innovation was once the exclusive preserve of FORTUNE 500 companies like Boeing, but not any longer. In one example cited by Shachtman, a college senior in Canada is actually helping NASA design and develop the "space elevator" concept - and he's doing it from his own dorm room:
"Steve Jones doesn't have a workshop, exactly, for his miniature space elevator; he is designing it in his dorm room and in four labs scattered across the University of British Columbia. He doesn't have a staff, either; a collection of friends and fellow space enthusiasts volunteer to help. And his budget, in the low five figures, comes mostly from the school activities fund, although Red Bull is donating some energy drinks.
But he might soon have a chance to join the ranks of the aerospace establishment by getting money from NASA and, in his own way, helping explore the solar system. To get ready, he is spending 60 hours a week on his elevator, which is meant to haul people and gear into orbit without a rocket. He has even put off graduation until the project is done."
In order to tap the expertise of the "tinkerers and students" at the edge of space innovation, NASA is also gearing up for 13 different innovation prize competitions:
"The agency is offering 13 contests, which it calls Centennial Challenges, that anyone can enter. The prizes range from $200,000 to more than $5 million, for building gear as diverse as solar sails, lunar excavators and the tiny elevators. But more important than the cash prizes, contestants and administrators say, is the opportunity to sidestep the traditional ways NASA has done business and bring some fresh faces to its ranks."
Without a doubt, the spectacular success of the X Prize competition for private manned space travel has played a major role in NASA's new-found willingness to embrace outside innovation. It's not just space travel that's on the agenda at NASA, though; the NASA prize competitions (formally known as the Centennial Challenges) tackle anything and everything, including robotics, high-tech astronaut gloves, "solar sails" and lunar landing modules.
Tags: outsideinnovation innovation NASA space
[image: New York Times]
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