President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of the U.S. Congress on February 28, 2017 in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. (Getty)

During his address to Congress on Tuesday evening, President Donald Trump delivered a brief line suggesting that America should resume its human exploration of space.

Towards the conclusion of Trumps remarks, the president talked about Americas centennial in 1876, when citizens gathered in Philadelphia to celebrate and inventors showed offtheir creations, including the telephone and the typewriter.

Trump then looked ahead to Americas 250th anniversary, listing off a number of things that America may be able to celebrate by then, including cures to illnesses and millions being lifted from welfare.

The president then said, American footprints on distant worlds are not too big a dream.

Before Trumps address, it was reported that the president would officially call for new manned space exploration. In actuality, there was only a brief reference to space travel, and Trump did not propose anything specific or place much emphasis on this statement.

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What Donald Trump Said About Space Travel During His Speech - Heavy.com

During his address to Congress Tuesday night, President Donald Trump will make a call for Americas space program to reemphasize human spaceflight and exploration, reports PBS NewsHour report citing an unidentified senior administration official.

PBS NewsHours John Yang wrote on Twitter that Trump will call for return of manned space exploration. Its entirely unclear what is meant by a return to human space exploration, and exactly what that entails different from current operations being pursued by NASA, which still regularly sends astronauts to the International Space Station.

Those remarks, if true, could go a number of ways during Trumps speech. The president may be referencing the fact that America itself has not been able to launch any astronauts into space from U.S. soil since 2011, when the Space Shuttle program was shuttered. The agency has since relied on Russian Soyuz launches to get its astronauts to the ISS even while U.S.-Russian relations have deteriorated to a new low since the Cold War.

The agency is seeking to rectify the problem with the Commercial Crew Program, which would hand over the task of ISS launches to U.S. spaceflight companies like SpaceX and Boeing. Unfortunately, the two companies have repeatedly forced delays on the program, which could put NASA in a fraught position of having reopen negotiations with Russias space agency to secure more seats on future Soyuz launches for another year or so.

So Trump may be calling for the United States to speed up the process of conducting its own crewed launches once again.

Tuesdays speech also comes a day after SpaceXs surprise announcement that it intends to send two private citizens on a flight around the moon and back in 2018. His remarks may be a simple allusion to this mission. Given how bullish many in his administration are on the prospect of increased commercialization of space, the president might simply plan to reflect positively on SpaceXs plan.

Another thread that these remarks might weave into may have to do with the idea of going back to the moon. Internal chatter in the administration suggests the president wishes to redirect some NASA resources toward a crewed mission to the moon. That plot thickens with NASAs recent initiation of a feasibility study that will consider turning its uncrewed 2018 Orion mission to the moon, into a crewed one.

Trump is expected to deliver his speech at 9 p.m. Eastern. Itll be on every channel, probably.

Photos via Getty Images / Pool

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Donald Trump Will Call For a Return of Human Space Exploration - Inverse

Rachael D'Amore, CTV Toronto Published Tuesday, February 28, 2017 6:21PM EST Last Updated Tuesday, February 28, 2017 7:14PM EST

A local nuclear plant is stepping up to ensure NASAs ongoing exploration of deep space continues for years to come.

CTV News Toronto has learned that the Darlington Nuclear Generating Station in Clarington, Ont. will produce and harvest Plutonium-238, a spacecraft fueling agent, for NASA.

Ontario Power Generation (OPG) and its venture arm, Canadian Nuclear Partners, have teamed up to fill the gap left after the United States stopped producing the glowing oxide pellet back in 1988.

Since then, their main source of Plutonium-238 dwindled and, aside from two remaining fuel packs, have practically dried up.

Now, NASA is teaming up with OPGs nuclear facilities to replenish their inventory and fuel their existing (and future) fleet of space probes.

Plutonium-238 acts like a battery to space craft. By emitting steady heat through natural radioactive decay, it produces electricity aboard the craft to fuel it and keep scientific equipment warm enough to function in space.

Space probes like the illustrious Voyager 1 -- which left Earth more than 40 years ago to explore Jupiter and Saturn and now floats beyond Pluto -- requires Plutonium-238 for power.

With more than 19 billion kilometers between Voyager 1 and the sun, it can take hours for the craft's signals to reach the station on Earth.

Without the spacecrafts Plutonium-238 batteries, none of this would be possible.

"Spacecraft's usually use the sun to provide electricity to solar panels but that only works in the inner solar system," Randy Attwood, of the Royal Astronomical Society, told CTV News Toronto.

"Once we send spacecrafts out beyond Jupiter, there's not enough sunlight out there to provide enough electricity to allow the spacecraft to work."

A source tells CTV News Toronto that the proposed plan would have rods produced by Pacific Northwest National Laboratories (PNNL) in Washington State and shipped to Darlington where they would be inserted into the reactor core to produce the Plutonium-238.

The next time the rods need to be refueled, the new partly-Canadian made space batteries would be inserted.

The collaboration with PNNL is expected to be more efficient both for costs and timing than alternative routes.

Unlike Plutonium-239, the 238 isotope is not weapons grade, thus practically impossible to use for a nuclear bomb and safe to move when handled properly.

Though it will take several years before the process gets underway, one day, Ontarians will be able to look up into the night sky and know that local technology played a role in the exploration of space.

With files from Paul Bliss.

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Darlington power plant helps fuel NASA's space exploration - CTV News

Space exploration is one of the most important scientific projects many countries have undertaken in recent years. The majority of these countries however are outside Africa and if one is to name the African countries which have joined the race, South Africa is one of them. Though considered to be the leading country in Africa in-terms of Space Exploration,there are many aspects which hinders the full functionality of South Africa to meet the world standards. The hindrances range from social, political and economic causes.

With that being said, there are alternatives however which South Africa can take to ultimately revive or at-least make better the exploration of space.Since this period is considered by many to be the, 'SPACE AGE' it is everyone's obligation to appreciate the need for its exploration.For this to happen, the government should be the major player at insuring that many people participate in Space related projects.This can be achieved through setting up of multiple Space Centers around the country and this will enable students or anybody else interested to observe and learn about extraterrestrial information.

It is also on the government's shoulder to promote the study of sciences in schools which will enable people to come up with scientific ideas to make better astronomy.The other way of improving the country's space program is to partner with other nations in research and development.Partnering with other countries will improve our understanding and allow us to make significant changes in our research and development fields.

To add on that, the cost of experiments and other necessities will be bearable if there is partnership between countries. There should be opportunities and resources for astronomy enthusiasts to study many other branches of astronomy like astrobiology, astrogeology , astrophysics and many more.

Those who archive greatness in these and other fields must be honored with rewards to instill more willingness and enthusiasm for further research.

BY TAFADZWA ASTRO MUNETSI

Disclaimer: All articles and letters published on MyNews24 have been independently written by members of News24's community. The views of users published on News24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent the views of News24. News24 editors also reserve the right to edit or delete any and all comments received.

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How to improve SA's space program - News24

Space is a cruel place. It's cold, it's airless, it's riddled with deadly radiation, and most cruelly of all it's just so darned big. NASA's Apollo missions aside, it's why almost all space exploration is done by robots, who are stronger, more resilient, and easier to maintain. We're not going to stop exploring space using robots. Instead, we're going to wear them, with some claiming that incredible advances in wearable technology could help spread humanity to the very furthest reaches of the galaxy.

But it's going to take a lot more than a souped-up smartwatch.

Today the most famous space robot is Curiosity. The Martian rover has plenty of company on the red planet, most notably Opportunity, while dozens of robotic space probes are buzzing around Jupiter, Saturn and the dwarf planet Ceres. Here on Earth we also have exploration robots, including robotic submersibles (even underwater humanoid robots) and maintenance droids in the oceans, with autonomous industrial drones and self-driving cars almost upon us.

Such robots are extensions of ourselves, and both wearables and robots are already being trialled on the International Space Station (ISS). French astronaut Thomas Pesquet, currently orbiting Earth on the ISS, is wearing BodyCap's Blood Pulse Wave sensor and e-TACT patch, while set to join the ISS crew this year or next is both Astroskin and a robotic cube called Astrobee. Russian cosmonauts on the ISS will get a humanoid robot called FEDOR in 2021.

Must-read: Being better than human with bionics

"NASA has a long history of building humanoid platforms, and has Robonaut 2 on the ISS, which is just an upper torso," says Sethu Vijayakumar, Professor of Robotics at University of Edinburgh and Director of the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics, which owns one of NASA's Valkyrie humanoid robots. Although Robonaut 2 comes packed with image recognition systems and sensors galore, its main use is to take care of repetitive tasks to clear astronauts' clogged to-do lists. Robonaut 2, whose development also led to a 'human grasp assist' device called Robo-Glove, could potentially hop outside the ISS to do repairs. Dextre, another 'robotic handyman' on the ISS, has already conducted repairs to the spaceship's batteries, saving the crew from risky spacewalks. Such robots could be used on Mars to assemble a habitat in advance of a manned mission. And it's on missions to Mars and beyond where wearable technology comes in.

Robotics on Mars is a different beast to working on the ISS. "Robots on the ISS work in zero gravity, but when you go to Mars they will have to work in varying gravity environments, and will need to have bipedal locomotion, so we need dextrous manipulations, sensing and walking, and that's where we come in," says Vijayakumar, who is working on the ultimate in space wearables: exoskeletons.

Exoskeletons are basically wearable robots that make astronauts stronger or more mobile in different environments, but they'll be crucial long before man gets to the surface of Mars. Since micro-gravity makes muscles work less, the crew of the ISS need to work-out 2.5 hours per day, six days a week just to keep minimum muscle performance, but they're still weaklings when they descend back to Earth. "Astronauts on the ISS have to strap themselves to a treadmill," says Vijayakumar. "But instead of providing assistance, exoskeletons can act as a resistive device."

That will be crucial if astronauts are to arrive at Mars in any fit state, but some serious miniaturisation is needed. "The exercise device on the ISS is 2,000lbs and wouldn't fit in the crew vehicle that would go to Mars, so they will need a new kind of exercise equipment," says Dr. Peter Neuhaus, Senior Research Scientist at Florida's Institute for Human & Machine Cognition (IHMC), which works on technology to extend human capabilities. However, the IHMC is also working on exoskeletons purely for space exploration, developing the X1 Mina with NASA, and more recently Mina V2, which has motors on the ankle, hip and knees.

The X1 Mina exoskeleton

Motors embedded on 'soft' exoskeletons essentially space suits would help make up for the differing gravity on Mars, and the fact that space suits are pressurised. "On Mars the gravity is less, so that will help astronauts support their own bodyweight when they try to stand and walk, but they will have spent between six and nine months in micro-gravity getting to Mars, so they might need an exoskeleton for their space suit," says Neuhaus. He explains that the pressurised Apollo space-suits used by NASA on the Moon acted like a spring, making it difficult for the astronauts to bend their legs. Cue motors at all joints to achieve a customised gait.

"With reduced gravity we could assist them with different gaits," says Neuhaus." Apollo astronauts used a hopping gait on the Moon's surface, but with exoskeleton devices we could help them to do a more bounding gait, which could help them travel further on the surface."

Read next: The best stargazing apps for your smartwatch

For Vijayakumar it's all about the user interface between man and machine. That means exoskeletons with haptic feedback and 'multi-model sensory information'. "One of our projects is how to provide sensory feedback to amputees who have lost a limb," says Vijayakumar, explaining that his work for NASA is based upon the same technology he's developing for real-time control of exoskeletons for stroke patients, amputees, and for prosthesis. "We have an artificial limb they wear, but they currently don't have ownership of the device because of the lack of feedback."

Perhaps the ultimate wearable exoskeleton-like device was shown off recently by South Korean robotics company Hankook Mirae Technology, whose 1.5-ton Method-2is a manned bipedal robot that can travel forwards and backwards, though only on flat ground. As you might expect, this bipedal robot is controlled by someone sitting inside, and apparently 'shakes the ground' when it takes a step, though it reportedly has balance issues.

To visualise what engineers will be able to achieve in a decade or so takes some deep thinking. "Future exoskeletons will be much better," says engineer and futurist Dr Ian Pearson, describing a 'Spider-Man' suit a few millimetres thick that uses either electro-active polymers or folded graphene capacitors to create electromagnetic muscles enabling super-human strength. "It wouldn't look like metal armour, more like a wetsuit and it could be done in 10 years if you had the kind of development budget that a spacesuit normally has," he says.

How successful exoskeletons can be in space depends on the gravity of the situation. "Your legs are only of use on Mars and the Moon," says Neuhaus. "They're the only places with gravity, aside from some of the bigger planets, which we're not going to send humans for a very long time."

On asteroids, which astronauts will probably have to mine for resources to fuel any long-term space exploration outside the Solar System, gravity is insignificant. "On an asteroid it would be all about an astronaut's arms," says Neuhaus. "Astronauts would probably be in some kind of floating device around the asteroid, and have use of their arms either directly, or via robotic arms that respond to their motions." That could be done in two ways; the wearable arms could be an exoskeleton, or the user could be an avatar for those arms.

Ah yes, avatars. "I look at avatars as a sister to robots, but robots powered by human intelligence," says Dr. Harry Floor, CEO at Jupiter 9 Productions and curator of the upcoming ANA Avatar X prize. "The Avatar X prize concept is that we don't just want robots with artificial intelligence, we want to power them using human intelligence so people can teleport themselves anywhere in the world by transferring their consciousness," he said at January's CES 2017. "But it's not like in the movie you are seeing and hearing through a virtual reality headset, and using haptics gloves you can move, control and touch there needs to be a marriage between robots and avatars."

The German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) has successfully operated its robot AILA in Germany using its upper-body exoskeleton CAPIO located in Russia. That kind of teleoperation would allow hands-off exploration of a planetary surface by astronauts, though it would have to be a short-range data link, probably on the planet's surface. "You cannot do tele-operations from Earth because of the delays it takes about 30 minutes for a signal to come back from Mars so you have to build significant autonomy into robots," says Vijayakumar.

"It's not like the robot has a mind of its own, but it needs to able to take care of low-level operations." He also points out that communications channels in space are typically unreliable, so tele-operating an avatar-robot while orbiting of Mars would likely be disrupted. The use of lasers to create 'space broadband' could change all that, though British ESA astronaut Tim Peake already remotely operated a Mars rover in an Airbus facility in Stevenage, UK while aboard the ISS last year.

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Space is just too big to make real-time control of anything remote possible. So why waste time working on ways to send humans safely to other planets when you could just, you know, directly upload their brains to tiny 'space fairies'? "Once we can do a full direct mind-link and put the human mind inside a computer, we could fit about 10,000 human minds in the volume of a cubic millimetre a pin-head," says Pearson, explaining that nanotech devices could theoretically be put beside every neuron and synapse in your brain and create a deep neural network in silicon that's an exact copy.

But space fairies? Pearson's predictions of advances in genetic engineering, IT and consciousness development go way further. "You could make a fairy-sized space farer just a few centimetres tall or smaller, which would make space travel so much easier and it would also be much easier to build wormholes if you wanted to have high-speed space travel." It all sounds bizarre, yet Pearson thinks that it will be possible this century, probably around the year 2090. "Nobody expects us to be doing interstellar travel before then anyway," he reasons. He's right.

But Pearson's point is that the technology to upload our brains will come a long time before conventional Star Trek or Passengers-style interstellar missions into the cosmos aboard vast spaceships. Uploading a brain to a tiny 'space fairy' has other intriguing possibilities. "Once you've digitised a human mind, you could make as many copies of you as you like, and send them out all over the cosmos," he says, adding that if we identified a particularly good astronaut-explorer, we could clone them, and generally use cloning to more quickly colonise other planets. Small astronauts, in small space-ships, would go a lot faster. "Space travel will become a lot easier," says Pearson.

And a lot weirder, too.

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Why the 'ultimate wearables' lie in the future of space exploration - Wareable

According to NASA, humanity has seven new possibly livable planets to dream about inhabiting.

Before you get your bag ready for an Interstellar-like journey, the Editorial Board has something for you to consider. The space travel excitement is a little premature. Our current planet has larger problems to handle before we make plans to inhabit other worlds. Namely, we need to invest in curbing climate change to sustain life on Earth.

First of all, NASA believes the system of planets may orbit a dwarf star that is 40 light years away. Because we cannot travel anywhere near the speed of light yet, thats a little far-fetched for the Editorial Board.

Forty light years roughly translates to 235 trillion miles, which would take us just over 11 thousand years to traverse with current technology.

Furthermore, NASA seems more focused on finding alien life than finding humans a new planet to inhabit.

Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASAs Science Mission Directorate, said that Answering the question are we alone? is a top science priority shortly after the exoplanets were found.

This discovery reminds us on Earth that we are likely not alone or special.

While this is all exciting, its kind of hard to be completely excited when you think about the state of our own planet.

The Portland Press Herald reported that global warming is linked to the shrinkage of the Colorado River. With rising temperatures, precipitation is happening less and more states are experiencing drought.

Yes, it is important to fund space travel and exploration, but if we dont first take care of the issues at hand, we will really need to leave Earth and find a new home.

Its hard to believe that President Trump is quick to fund and support NASA, which for all he knows could be making up its data, yet he wont do the same for climate change something most respected scientists agree on.

We can applaud Trump for his ideas of expanding NASAs scope. While campaigning last October, Trump said I will free NASA from the restriction of serving primarily as a logistics agency for low earth orbit activity.

With this expansion, he hopes to create more jobs and further space exploration. This is great and all, but we wish he had the same sort of passion for things rooted on Earth.

We want to be a likable species who takes care of its planet so that if aliens ever do make contact with us, they wont want to immediately vaporize us.

In order to do that, we need to be mindful of the well-being of Earth, the well-being of each other, and the well-being of ourselves. Its crunch time on Earth and something needs to be done.

Think about how much you have enjoyed the weather these past few weeks. Warm, sunny and clean air makes us all happier people, but at a cost.

Remember that weve been enjoying this weather in the middle of February. Remember that on Valentines Day, a lot of us didnt need love to warm us up when the weather was already in the 60s.

Instead of looking at these seven planets as a backup plan, we should look at them as a goal in the distant future. We can hope to reach them one day, but we need to focus more on keeping our home planet healthy.

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EDITORIAL: Jumping at space travel - Indiana Daily Student

UNSPECIFIED: In this NASA digital illustration handout released on February 22, 2017, an artist's concept shows what the TRAPPIST-1 planetary system may look like, based on available data about the planets' diameters, masses and distances from the host star. The system has been revealed through observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope as well as other ground-based observatories, and the ground-based TRAPPIST telescope for which it was named after. The seven planets of TRAPPIST-1 are all Earth-sized and terrestrial, according to research published in 2017 in the journal Nature. TRAPPIST-1 is an ultra-cool dwarf star in the constellation Aquarius, and its planets orbit very close to it. They are likely all tidally locked, meaning the same face of the planet is always pointed at the star, as the same side of our moon is always pointed at Earth. This creates a perpetual night side and perpetual day side on each planet. TRAPPIST-1b and c receive the most light from the star and would be the warmest. TRAPPIST-1e, f and g all orbit in the habitable zone, the area where liquid water is most likely to be detected. But any of the planets could potentially harbor liquid water, depending on their compositions. In the imagined planets shown here, TRAPPIST-1b is shown as a larger analogue to Jupiter's moon Io. TRAPPIST-1d is depicted with a narrow band of water near the terminator, the divide between a hot, dry day and an ice-covered night side. TRAPPIST-1e and TRAPPIST-1f are both shown covered in water, but with progressively larger ice caps on the night side. TRAPPIST-1g is portrayed with an atmosphere like Neptune's, although it is still a rocky world. TRAPPIST-1h, the farthest from the star, would be the coldest. It is portrayed here as an icy world, similar to Jupiter's moon Europa, but the least is known about it. (Photo digital Illustration by NASA/NASA via Getty Images)

Craig and Cody discuss the rise of UFO sightings and the recent discovery of 7 new planets announced by NASA. Craig wonders if we explore new planets would end up being over lords?

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Space Exploration - WGN Radio

Forbes

Should Humans Leave Space Exploration To Robots? Forbes Should humans avoid space and leave it to our robots? originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. Answer by Yousif Al-Dujaili, Head of Growth @ Boom ...

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Should Humans Leave Space Exploration To Robots? - Forbes

NASA announced its X-Hab challenges to attract university teams that can design solutions for the many issues that arise when planning future human space missions.

The contest is part of NASAs Advanced Exploration Systems division, with the intention of developing foundational technologies and high-priority capabilities that form the building blocks for future human space missions.

The winners of X-Hab will receive $20,000 to $30,000 in prize money as they produce studies or products that will expand our space exploration capabilities.

For more information on X-Habs bases, participants can visit the main website here.

The 2018 X-Hab Challenge takes into consideration 11 different topics that are of utmost importance for humans to expand their reach in space exploration.

First and foremost, NASA is looking towards developing a human habitat featuring shared functions on both surface and in-space applications. Having a Martian habitat that can work alongside a planetary probe residing in orbit will make get every process and task much easier their completion more efficient. The proposed habitat is expected to serve as a training facility on Earth to allow the crew to become familiar with it, increasing the chance of survivability during the real mission.

The habitat should be large enough for 4 to 6 astronauts and able to sustain from 0 up to 1/3g of artificial gravity

NASA is also looking for a way to recover carbon dioxide and water for use during space travel and the Martian environment as one of the greatest challenges for deep space exploration is storing oxygen and water for extended periods of time.

Without water, a person would die in approximately three days. The reason why this is a problem in Mars is that there are no plants in Mars, and we take for granted how flora helps produce oxygen and remove carbon dioxide in Earths atmosphere. There are methods used in space exploration to obtain water and oxygen from carbon dioxide, but it requires combining or breaking down by-products of other processes. The process of recycling water and air is known among astronauts as closing the loop, but the extraction of carbon dioxide, which is lethal in high concentrations, is also a must for sealed environments.

For example, aboard the International Space Station astronauts are now using electrolysis to reclaim hydrogen and oxygen by electrifying water, but the problem is that hydrogen is highly flammable, which it is vented to the exterior. This process is expected to be improved by combining the hydrogen with the carbon dioxide exhaled by the crew to obtain water, a process known as Sabatier. Sabatier also produces methane, which would be expelled into space; but NASA would also like to use methane for propulsion fuel in the future. The water obtained from the process is filtered into drinking water or used to get more oxygen.

The current method aboard the ISS has been labeled as sensitive to contaminantsand mechanical failures NASA intends for students to design a project that can characterize a water removal and re-humidification system to be based on cryocapture to recover CO2.

X-hab applicants must be U.S. citizens and must teach an Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET)-accredited engineering senior or graduate design-related curriculum course at a university associated with the National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program or other organizations that encourage multi-institutional collaboration. NASA also encourages women and minorities to participate, alongside people with disabilities.

Participants cannot be citizens of controlled countries, which are labeled as so for national security purposes. The list includes Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Cambodia, Cuba, the Peoples Republic of China, Georgia, Iraq, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Macau, Moldova, Mongolia, North Korea, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.

The solicitation for entering the challenge is available here.

Teams can submit questions for technical interchange before April 3 to have them answered one week later. The teams proposal must be submitted no later than April 28, and the awards will be announced a month after that.

Living on Mars will be harder than any previous achievement by humans in space. Humans will have to deal with solar radiation, subzero temperatures, and scarce resources in a remote location. There are uncountable problems to solve before putting a human on Mars; just recently, NASA enacted the Space Poop Challenge, showing that even astronauts must go to the bathroom thousands of miles away from a good old-fashioned toilet. In general, designers were invited to develop mechanisms to deal with feces, urine, and menstruation in space suits. Astronauts have made extensive use of diapers, but the prolonged use of these garments can become hazardous to the crews health. Besides, its not nice to sit in your own waste for hours while performing delicate and possibly dangerous maneuvers in space.

Perhaps having several university-level teams brainstorming for solutions will bring forward some new ideas to make the task of colonizing another planet a reality.

Source: NASA

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NASA seeks university-level solutions for deep space human exploration challenges - Pulse Headlines

NASA officials confirmed Friday that they are exploring the feasibility of putting astronauts on the first flight of the Orion spacecraft, the agencys successor to the space shuttle program.If NASA does make the move, it wont come without risk, as Orion and its rocket system will need serious upgrades to make them capable of safely carrying astronauts and the agency may only have a year or two to make all the necessary changes.

This request appears to have come from the Trump administration, though NASA officialsin a Friday press call left unclear the White Houses motivationsandwhether itis seriously prepared to provide the funding necessary tomake Orions first flight a crewed mission.

NASA Watch, alongstanding agency watchdog news site, reported the details of what it described as a hastily-arranged 30 minute media briefing to discuss this potential change of plans. Agency officials Bill Gerstenmaier and Bill Hill stressed this was purely an exploratory study, and they had no opinion yet on whether this was a goodor plausible idea the basic tenor of the call appears to have been that NASA is just asking questions, and concrete answers about the missions future wont be possible until the study is completed later in the spring.

That the call was barely announced andheld on a Friday afternoon suggests NASA may not have wanted the announcement to get much attention, particularly when just two days before the agency captured the public imagination with a major exoplanet discovery.

The Orion spacecraftand its accompanying rocket, the Space Launch System, are designed to let NASA pursue human space exploration beyond low-Earth orbit for the first time since the Apollo program. The current plan calls for the first uncrewed mission in September 2018, with a three-week circuit around the moon. The next flight would carry astronauts for a similar lunar flyby sometime between 2021 and 2023, potentially marking the first such journey sinceApollo 17 in 1972. While an uncrewed dress rehearsal isnt always necessary the first orbitalspace shuttle flight, for instance, carried two astronauts such a major pivot in plans so soon before the planned launch date would leave NASA with precious little time to ensure the crews safety.

The potential plan under discussion would send two astronauts on an eight- or nine-day mission. The addition oflife support, emergency abort systems, and other significant upgrades to the SLS rocketneeded to make the mission capable of carrying humans would likely be both extensive and costly. The officials said the White House had at least indicated a willingness to push back the launch date if the results of the feasibility study were positive.

While this news initially appears to track with the Trump administrations previously reported preference to scrap NASAs scientific research in favor of a greater emphasis on space exploration and human space exploration in particular an earlier analysisby NASA Watch founder and former agency scientist Keith Cowing calls that into question. In his view,the priority of Trumps top space advisers like former congressmen Newt Gingrich and Robert Walker is actually on commercial space exploration.

Orion and SLS are a top priority not for them, but for a group centeredat the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, where the spacecraft are being built, who favor the more traditional, government-backed approach that Orion represents. As Cowing suggests, bumping up the timeline for the first crewed mission could be an effort by the Marshall contingent to make Orion more appealing to the new administration, increasing the odds of its survival.

NASAs acting administrator Robert Lightfoot, who announced the feasibility study, is himself a former director of Marshall. Trump has yet to nominate a permanent NASA administrator. Until then, the future of space exploration under Trump remains uncertain. At least with Orion, more clarity should come with the release of the study later this spring.

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Why Does NASA Suddenly Want Humans On New Spacecraft's First Flight? - Vocativ

NASA has selected five space technologies to test on low-gravity-simulating aircraft, high-altitude balloons or suborbital rockets. The opportunity to fly on these vehicles helps advance technologies closer to practical use by taking them from a laboratory environment to the real world.

The selections were made for NASA's Flight Opportunities program which organizes chances to fly and selects experiments for NASA support twice each year. The program selects promising space technologies to test through relatively low-cost ways that simulate spaceflight or just reach the edge of "space" on commercial suborbital launch vehicles, reduced gravity aircraft and high-altitude balloon flights.

"These selections allow companies and academia to demonstrate technologies of interest to NASA in a much more realistic environment than what they could get in ground-based simulation facilities," said Stephan Ord, the program technology manager for NASA's Flight Opportunities program.

This program is a valuable platform for NASA to mature cutting-edge technologies that have the potential of supporting future agency mission needs."

Two topics were included in this call for research. Under the first topic, which requested demonstration of space technology payloads, NASA selected four proposals:

+ Protein-Drop Pinning in Microgravity Amir Hirsa, principal investigator, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York Demonstration of a system for maintaining protein solutions in liquid samples involved in the study of diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's without using a container, which often influences scientific measurements.

+ Rapid Calibration of Space Solar Cells in Suborbital Environments Justin Lee, principal investigator, The Aerospace Corporation, Los Angeles Demonstration of an automated solar cell calibration platform, using a device attached to a high-altitude balloon to capture the solar spectrum and characterize the performance of the solar cells at high altitude up to 22 miles.

+ Guided Parafoil High Altitude Research II Garrett "Storm" Dunker, principal investigator, Airborne Systems, Pennsauken, New Jersey Demonstration of a new parafoil design that can be used for precision delivery or mid-air retrieval of scientific payloads, tested from a high-altitude balloon. Once the parafoil is deployed at 60,000-foot altitude, it will select its landing point and perform an automatic precision landing.

+ Strata-S1 - Refining a Testbed to Evaluate the Behavior of Regolith Under Microgravity Conditions Adrienne Dove, principal investigator, University of Central Florida, Orlando Demonstration of a regolith compression mechanism with transparent tubes, which contain beads and pebbles that simulate regolith, to evaluate behavior at various gravity levels during suborbital flights.

Under the second topic, demonstration of vehicle capability enhancements and onboard research facilities for payload accommodation, NASA selected one proposal:

+ BioChip SubOrbitalLab: An Automated Microfluidic and Imaging Platform for Live-Cell Investigations in Microgravity Daniel O'Connell, principal investigator, HNU Phototonics LLC, Kahului, Hawaii Demonstration of an automated platform to visualize in real time how live cells will react to the different phases of a rocket launch. Cell cultures with fluorescent genes will be pumped through channels and recorded by an optical microscope camera during flight.

Awards will be made for payload integration and flight costs, as well as limited payload development costs.

These investments take technologies from the laboratory to a relevant flight environment, facilitate technology maturation, validate feasibility and reduce technical risks and enable infusion of key space technologies into multiple future space missions. The next call for proposals in this series, called the REDDI Flight Opportunities, will be released by the spring of 2017.

The Flight Opportunities program is funded by NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate in Washington and managed at NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. NASA's Ames Flight Research Center in Moffett Field, California, manages the solicitation and selection of technologies to be tested and demonstrated on commercial flight vehicles.

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NASA selects new technologies for flight tests for future space exploration - Space Daily

Wednesday's announcement of the discovery of seven planets that might sustain life, founding orbiting a dwarf star, should give a boost to interest in space exploration.

Astronomers say the planets, each about the size of our Earth, could be at the right temperature to sustain oceans of water. And they are about 40 light-years away, which sounds far but is close enough to allow study.

Scientists heralded it for its potential to help determine if there is life out there.

It comes on the heels of Sunday's successful launch of a SpaceX rocket, which sent into space a payload bound for the International Space Station. The first stage of the rocket safely returned to the launch pad in Florida, the same Kennedy Space Center pad from which Apollo astronauts bound for the moon left in the 1960s and 1970s. Watching the booster return and touch down on the launch pad may have been even more interesting than the launch.

The SpaceX Dragon is expected to send an unpiloted crew capsule on a test flight later this year, preparing to carry astronauts next year.

NASA, on its website, noted: "The intangible desire to explore and challenge the boundaries of what we know and where we have been has provided benefits to our society for centuries."

And while the space race of the 1960s was rooted in competition between the United States and the Soviet Union, today space exploration helps "foster a peaceful connection with other nations," the agency said.

That earlier space race pushed scientists to solve myriad challenges to sending a human into space, creating many new technologies and inventions. It advanced interest in the sciences.

Today's interest in space has focused far beyond the moon, to the possibility of putting humans on Mars or returning them to the moon, but at the International Space Station research also is looking into matters that could help us on Earth human physiology, plant biology, materials science and physics.

"This is the beginning of a new era in space exploration in which NASA has been challenged to develop systems and capabilities required to explore beyond low-Earth orbit, including destinations such as translunar space, near-Earth asteroids and eventually Mars," the NASA website said.

There are some who say we must leave the Earth in order to understand it.

Study of these seven newly found planets as well as the work taking place on the International Space Station may help us better understand the planet we call home.

See the article here:

Editorial: Exploration can help us understand this planet - Loveland Reporter-Herald

BY DASARI V. RAO, PATRICK MCCLURE AND DAVID I. POSTON Los Alamos National Laboratory

For the past five decades from the Apollo-era lunar science experiments to the Mars Curiosity and the New Horizons missions Pu-238 Radioisotope Thermal Generators (RTG) have served as a power source. While some of the NASAs forays will continue to rely on these RTGs, others will require larger power sources to enable human space and planetary exploration and establish reliable high bandwidth deep-space communications. Solar power cannot handle this goal. A larger nuclear-based power source is required. In a recent Washington Post article, Jeff Bezos, founder of amazon.com and creator of Blue Origin space project said, I think NASA should work on a space-rated nuclear reactor. If you had a nuclear reactor in space especially if you want to go anywhere beyond Mars you really need nuclear power. Solar power just gets progressively difficult as you get further way from the sun. And thats a completely doable thing to have a safe, space-qualified nuclear reactor. Calls for space nuclear power are not new. In fact, numerous reactor concepts have been proposed in the past. Their development is often dampened by the perception that nuclear is too hard, takes too long and costs too much.

Inherently safe design

During steady state, a reactor operates with a neutron multiplication factor of 1.000; that is, the number of neutrons in the core remains unchanged from one generation to the next generation. Almost every perturbation in a reactors operation ultimately translates into either a positive or a negative reactivity insertion incident, defined as the state in which the core neutron multiplication factor deviates from its steady state value. Sudden and significant positive reactivity insertion can lead to runaway reactor kinetics, wherein temperatures can exceed thermal limits very rapidly. Past development approaches relied on sophisticated control systems to reduce or eliminate such a likelihood. Luckily, reactors also have an inherent ability to self-correct via negative temperature reactivity feedback; reactor power automatically decreases as core temperature increases, and vice versa. It has been known that strongly reflected small compact fast reactors, such as kiloPower, can be designed to maximize these mechanisms to a point of being totally self-regulating. Our objective is to design-in self-regulation as the front-line feature in order to minimize technical and programmatic risk and to demonstrate via testing that self-regulation is both reliable and repeatable. To that end, multi-scale and multi-physics simulations are relied upon to perform high fidelity design studies that explicitly examined (a) how choices related to fabrication, alloying and bonding techniques would affect the internal crystalline structure of each nuclear component and in turn (b) how that morphology affects that components thermal, mechanical and nuclear performance at conditions of interest. Nevertheless, reactor recovers from this perturbation and regains steady state, assuring us that there is no need for advanced autonomous control system. Rapid prototyping and engineering demonstration

A key objective of the affordable strategy is that the nuclear components can be fabricated to the exacting tolerances demanded by the designers. This includes not only the physical dimensions, but also density and crystalline phase of the alloys. The materials characteristics determine thermal and mechanical performance of the core, which in turn affects its nuclear performance. After several joint efforts, an exact replica of the kiloPower core was fabricated at Y-12 with depleted uranium. This provided needed experience and data on casting, machining and material characteristics of the reactor core. The second phase involved engineering demonstrations where the DU core is assembled together with the rest of the system (including the heat pipes and Stirling engines) in the configuration needed for a flight space reactor. Finely controlled resistance heaters were used to closely mimic the nuclear heat profile that is expected in the nuclear core during regular operation. These tests were performed in a vacuum chamber to simulate the environment in outer space. Data collected during these tests confirmed the predictions of computer simulations of the reactor. The data showed a well-characterized thermal response of the system including demonstrating that the Stirling engines could meet the required electrical output. Other data, like the thermal expansion of the reactor core, were measured as input to computer simulations of the nuclear kinetics and system dynamics. These data were then used to help complete the design for the nuclear demonstration experiment that is planned for later in 2017. Los Alamos National Laboratory, in partnership with NASA Research Centers and other DOE National Labs, is developing and rapidly maturing a suite of very small fission power sources to meet power needs that range from hundreds of Watts-electric (We) to 100 kWe. These designs, commonly referred to as kiloPower reactors, are based on well-established physics that simultaneously simplifies reactor controls necessary to operate the plant and incorporates inherent safety features that guard against consequences of launch accidents and operational transients. Equally important, designers have taken a fundamentally different approach for rapidly maturing the concept from design to full-scale demonstration. Feasibility of the design was demonstrated in 2012 and since then designers have focused on successfully overcoming the remaining R&D challenges driving towards a full-scale demonstration in 2017.

Full-scale nuclear test

The nuclear demonstration test will occur in late summer or early fall of 2017. The test will be conducted at the Device Assembly Facility at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS). It will be comprised of a ~32 kilogram enriched uranium reactor core (about the size of a circular oatmeal box) made from uranium metal going critical, and generating heat that will be transported by sodium heat pipes to Stirling engines that will produce electricity. The test will include connecting heat pipes and Stirling engines enclosed in a vacuum chamber sitting on the top of a critical experiment stand. The critical experiment stand has a lower plate than can be raised and lowered. On this plate will be stacked rings of Beryllium Oxide (BeO) that form the neutron reflector in the reactor concept. A critical mass is achieved by raising the BeO reflector to generate fission in the reactor core. Once fission has begun, the BeO reflector will be slowly raised to increase the temperature in the system to 800 degrees Centigrade. The heat pipes will deliver heat from the core to the Stirling engines and allow the system to make ~250 watts of electricity. For the purpose of testing only, two of the eight Stirling engines will make electricity, the others will only discard heat. The data gained will inform the engineers regarding startup and shutdown of the reactor, how the reactor performs at steady state, how the reactor load follows when Stirling engines are turned on and off and how the system behaves when all cooling is removed. This data will be essential to moving forward with a final design concept. Potential for missions to Mars

Once the nuclear demonstration testing has been completed, the path to putting a nuclear reactor on a NASA mission to deep space or the Mars surface is still several years away. A finalized design must be completed along with rigorous testing of the system for reliability and safety. The most recent NASA studies have focused on the use of KiloPower for potential Mars human exploration. NASA has examined the need for power on Mars and determined that approximately 40 kilowatts would be needed. Five 10-kilowatt KiloPower reactors (four main reactors plus one spare) could solve this power requirement. The 40 kilowatts would initially be used to make oxygen and possibly propellant needed by the Mars Ascent Vehicle to send astronauts back into Martian orbit. After making oxygen or fuel, the power would then be available to run the Martian habitat or provided power to Martian rovers all needed by the astronauts during their stay on Mars. Nuclear power has the advantage of being able to run full time day or night, as well as being able to operate closer to the Martian poles where it is believed water exists in substantial quantities.

Lessons learned

Lessons learned from the kiloPower development program are being leveraged to develop a Mega Watt class of reactors termed MegaPower reactors. These concepts all contain intrinsic safety features similar to those in kiloPower, including reactor self-regulation, low reactor core power density and the use of heat pipes for reactor core heat removal. The use of these higher power reactors is for terrestrial applications, such as power in remote locations, or to power larger human planetary colonies. The MegaPower reactor concept produces approximately two megawatts of electric power. The reactor would be attached to an open air Brayton cycle power conversion system. A Brayton power cycle uses air as the working fluid and as the means of ultimate heat removal. MegaPower design and development process will rely on advanced manufacturing technology to fabricate the reactor core, reactor fuels and other structural elements. Research has also devised methods for fabricating and characterizing high temperature moderators that could enhance fuel utilization and thus reduce fuel enrichment levels.

This story was written by: Dasari V. Rao, director of the Office of Civilian Nuclear Programs, Patrick McClure, System Design and Analysis, of Los Alamos National Laboratory, and David I. Poston of Los Alamos National Laboratory.

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Nuclear reactors to power space exploration - Los Alamos Monitor

By Olivia Richter | 02/21/17 10:08am

There have been few events in world history that have successfully connected people from all around the planet regardless of country or culture. In 1969, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first human beings to set foot on the moon, the world watched in awe of the scientific and technological feat that so closely resembled a miracle.

The moon is a constant for every human being; no matter where you live, you look to the same moon as the seven billion other inhabitants of Earth. On July 20, 1969, everyone was united in the unprecedented, incredible space adventure of three American astronauts. At that time, the United States was far ahead in the international space race, and we intended to keep it that way.

Over many decades and eleven presidents, we have grown less and less involved in our efforts to understand and explore space. Today, many people argue that NASA is dying; some believe it is not worthy of any further government funding.

Our slowed exploration in comparison to other nations like China and Russia has taken away our old and proud status as the most committed space pioneers. American astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson explained, In America, contrary to our self-image, we are no longer leaders but simply players. Weve moved backward just by standing still. It is time we start moving again.

I dont believe that winning the so-called space race should be the real reason why the United States should increase its funding for NASA and get back its motivation to explore space. The true reason lies within the spirit of the United States.

This is not easily explained as a matter-of-fact concept, like saying that it would be good for our economy or that it would create jobs (although research points that way). The mystery of space is heavily ingrained in our popular culture through timeless films and television shows like Star Wars and Star Trek, and more recent blockbusters like Passengers, Gravity, The Martian and Interstellar.

Space is just inherently cool, reaching across cultural and personal lines and infatuating us all with its mystery. That may not be a good enough reason to pour more money into the U.S. space program, but the passion and the spirit of adventure that the U.S. prides itself on should be considered a great reason for space exploration.

Though you may not need reminding, the United States is in a huge amount of debt. Increasing the funding of NASA may seem like an extra or a want, not a need, that we just cant afford right now. In the fiscal year 2015, only .47 percent of the US budget went to NASA, the lowest it has ever been since 1960.

These cuts are counterproductive. Even though they save money in the budget, spending more on a program like NASA and enabling it to flourish stimulates the economy, improves upon our technological abilities and creates jobs for Americans.

When NASAs Discovery space shuttle was retired in 2011, an estimated 4,600 jobs were lost. The work that NASA does has even improved the success of other businesses. Many private companies have gained immense success by working with products developed by NASA including the very popular Tempurpedic mattress, which is made using the memory foam technology NASA originally created for its astronauts during space travel.

NASA and its groundbreaking work represents good old-fashioned American innovation. The folks that work there are the pioneers of the smartphones in our pockets and the GPS systems that get us where we want to go, along with countless other technological advancements that today seem so commonplace. Space travel, though many would argue to be the most exciting part, is only a piece of the work that NASA does in advancing science and technology.

The next frontier that astronauts look to explore is Mars. NASA is developing the technology and advanced spacecrafts to send human beings farther into our solar system than ever before. The goal now is to successfully get the first human being to Mars.

Perhaps in our lifetimes, we will huddle around the television like our relatives did in 1969 to watch the first human being set foot on the surface of the red planet. NASAs work is well worth our funding. Not only is it good for our economy and good for our technology, it is good for the American spirit of adventure and connectedness. Something, I daresay, we could use more of these days.

Olivia Richter is a junior in the School of Communication and a columnist for The Eagle.

orichter@theeagleonline.com

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Space exploration programs must continue - The Eagle

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I do hope that Gavin Toast Schmidt, the head of NASAs Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS), followed the advice I gave him a few months back. Because it now looks very much as if he and many of his colleagues are about to face exciting new job opportunities, hopefully in areas best suited to their talents, such as thechallenging world of fast-food retail.

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Yes, as we predicted, NASA is going to be stripped ofthe two main roles it enjoyed under the Obama administration Muslim outreach and green propaganda and return to its original day (and night) job as an agency dedicated to space exploration.

The U.S. Senate passed legislation recently cutting funding for NASAs global warming research.

The House is expected to pass the bill, and President Trump will likely sign it. Supporters say itre-balances NASAs budget back toward space exploration and away from global warming and earth science research. Republicans plan to end the more than $2 billion NASA spends on its Earth Science Mission Directorate.

By rebalancing, Id like for more funds to go into space exploration; were not going to zero out earth sciences, Texas Republican Rep. Lamar Smith, who chairs the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, told E&E News. Id like for us to remember what our priorities are, and there are another dozen agencies that study earth science and climate change, and they can continue to do that.

Before we shed too many tears for the plight ofGavin Schmidt and the rest of his global warming research team, though, lets just pause to reflect on how much damage they have done to the cause of honest science over the years and what eye-wateringly vast quantities of our money they have wasted.

A good place to start is this excellent pieceby Steve Goddard, entitled The Pause Is Real: NASA Temperatures Arent.

Here is the damning chart that says it all:

How did a supposedly respectable government agency get away with such blatant fraud?

Well, one answer is that it was encouraged to do so by the US government which paid its Earth Science research division $2 billion a year, while giving only$781.5 million and $826.7 millionto its astrophysics and space technology divisions. Obama wanted global warming to be real and dangerous: and lo! thanks to the magic of his crack prestidigitators at NASA, NOAA and the rest, it was.

But the longer answer is that this is what happens when green ideologues are allowed to infiltrate and hijack government institutions. As weve reported before, NASA has been caught out fiddling temperature data on an unbelievable scale. So too has NOAA. Thats because their global warming departments are mostly run by true believers scientists who want to show the world that global warming is a major threat in urgent need of more grant funding, regardless of what the actual temperature data shows. Hence the many, many adjustments.

This has done tremendous damage not just in the US but across the world because it has enabled green propagandists to point at the dodgy adjusted data from NASA and NOAA and claim: The Experts say

Now, thanks to Donald Trump, that fraud is about to come to a sudden and painful end. It never ceases to amaze and nauseate me that more people, especially on the right, arent more grateful for what is being done here.

While mainstream media commentators on both left and right bloviate about Trumps style (clearly they prefer Obamas empty rhetoric) and stoke up fake news stories about Russian plots, Trump is busily getting on with one of the most valuable and important missions ever conducted by a US president: he is putting an end to the biggest and most expensive scientific scam in history.

Oh, and he is also working wonders for property rights and business by rescinding such damaging regulations as the Waters Of The US and the Climate Action Plan.

A source briefed on the matter told The Washington Post one of the orders will instruct the Environmental Protection Agency to begin rewriting the 2015 regulation that limits greenhouse-gas emissions from existing electric utilities and order the Interior Departments Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to lift a moratorium on federal coal leasing.

Trump will issue a second order instructing the EPA and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to rewrite the Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) rule that expanded federal control over rivers, streams and wetlands even those on private property.

If ever a swamp needed draining, its the swamp of the $1.5 trillion environmental scam. This could have gone on for ever and ever. Our grandchildrenought to be properly grateful to President Trump that it didnt.

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DELINGPOLE: NASA to Stop Shilling for Big Green, Restart Exploring Space - Breitbart News

U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson spoke to Florida A&M University students Monday about his experience in space. He also promoted taking STEM subjects. STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.

Nelson said he hopes the movie Hidden Figures inspires students at the historically black college. The movie highlights the work of African American women who worked as skilled mathematicians during the early years of the U-S space program.

Theres a happy ending to this story because Katherine Johnson lived to see an African American president," he said. "Shortly after he was sworn in as president, he presented the presidential Medal of Freedom to Katherine Johnson. She was about 95 at the time.

As a Congressman, Nelson orbited Earth for almost a week in 1986. He landed just before the space shuttle Challenger exploded ten days later, killing all on board.

We were the most delayed flight ever," he said. "We scrubbed four times on the pad over a month before we finally launched on the fifth try into an almost flawless six-day mission.

The U.S. Senate recently approved Nelsons legislation giving $19.5 billion dollars to NASA to travel to Mars. Nelson said the plan to go to Mars in 2023 is doable.

NASA goes for deep space exploration and the commercial rockets take us into low-Earth orbit to and from the International Space Station, he said.

Nelsons legislation requires NASA to establish a human colony on Mars. It now moves to the House.

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Sen. Nelson Talks Space Exploration At Florida A&M University ... - WFSU

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Inside a series of nondescript buildings in the driest desert in North America, an entrepreneurial enclave is chasing the next frontier of commerce. Explosions are routine. The science is complex. Brain power and ambition are high, as is danger. This cluster of 17 young companies at the Mojave Air and Space Port, 90 miles northeast of Los Angeles, is shooting for the moonand beyond.

The startups there are building the components, engines, materials, and rockets that are dispatching a new generation of cell-phone-size satellites and more into space. These so-called NewSpace companies have sprung up around a former military base in the California desert. The remoteness of Mojave and the permissive attitude toward, say, detonation and flamesthe airports slogan: We eat explosions for breakfastmake it the ideal location for companies aiming to reach the heavens.

Mojave is the Silicon Valley of space exploration, says Mark Bnger, who follows the sector at Lux Research. Mojave isnt alone, as galactic entrepreneurship is also burgeoning in Seattle, Tucson, and Silicon Valley itself. Says Sunil Nagaraj of Bessemer Ventures: 2017 will be the year that NewSpace startups will hit their stride.

It used to be that space projects were so daunting and expensive that only governments and their massive corporate partners could take them on. Then, in the past decade or so, a cadre of billionairesthink Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Richard Bransonentered the arena with what first seemed like eccentric pet projects. Today, in the wake of their successes, theres a third generation: minnows that service those private companies and leverage the growing economies of scale such that a startup without extraordinary resources can now contemplate a voyage to another planet.

Plenty of factors are making space missions cheaper and more feasible: the miniaturization of electronics, the development of stronger and lighter materials, better engineering, and new standards that make it easier to build mini-satellites and send them up as hitchhikers on a larger launch. A traditional low-earth-orbit satellite, for instance, weighs three tons, stands two-stories tall, and costs tens of millions of dollars to build. Today there are microsatellites between 22 and 220 pounds and even nanosatellites under 22 pounds. A so-called cubesat, for example, weighs around two pounds, is about the size of a fist, and costs less than $100,000 to build. Some 60 companies now sell them, allowing small governments and companies to put a tiny probe into orbit for precision agriculture, oil spill monitoring, or security systems.

Of the 115 space-related companies started in the past decade and backed by investors, 84 focus on satellites, according to the Tauri Group, which tracks space investments. Just last year, those companies launched 100 microsatellites, up from 25 in 2011. Tauri projects that 2,400 nano- and microsatellites will launch between 2017 and 2023.

Investment is starting to take off. Venture capitalists have put $8.2 billion into space companies over the past five years, according to Tauri, most of it into rockets and satellites.

Mojave has become an oasis of billionaires, scientists, vendors, and service providers. Bransons Virgin Galactic has 500 people there building and testing propulsion systems and a suborbital spaceship, according to CEO George Whitesides. Paul Allens Vulcan Aerospace is nearing completion of its massive Stratolaunch airplane. NASA officials scout Mojave for technology and commercial space partners, and rockets are launched by small companies like XCOR and Masten Space Systems, which are assembling light, reusable launch vehicles to drastically reduce the cost of spaceflight. All that activity has drawn even smaller operations, including a school for test pilots and tiny vendors that provide everything from industrial coatings to ancillary offerings like financial services and a gym.

The biggest driver has been the deep pockets and confidence of Musk, Bezos, and others, including dotcom entrepreneur Naveen Jain and hotel mogul Robert Bigelow, who have been funding startups through venture investments and contests like the Google XPrize. Musks SpaceX slashed tens of millions of dollars from rocket prices, helping land the company a $1.6 billion deal with NASA to fly 12 cargo missions to the International Space Station. Musk and Bezos are now, separately, planning missions to Mars. They were the primer to the pump for this new resurgence, says Jay Gibson, CEO of XCOR.

Moon Express, funded by Jain, plans its maiden voyage to the moon later this year, vying for Googles Lunar XPrize, a $20 million award to the first company to land a robotic spacecraft on the moon and accomplish several technical challenges. Once there, Moon Express plans to extract iron ore, water, minerals, and precious metals, as well as nitrogen, hydrogen, and more. Ultimately, Jain thinks, the moon could become a fuel depot where spacecraft can stop before continuing longer journeys. Entrepreneurs have the potential to change the trajectory of how humanity lives, he says, where the moon becomes the eighth continent and a great place to live.

Needless to say, the challenges remain immense. I sound like a curmudgeon, but people always say this will be the year, says Gary Hudson, an industry veteran and the president of the Space Studies Institute. Everything costs more and takes longer than you think, and people die if you screw up.

The difficulty hasnt curbed enthusiasm at Interorbital Systems, a 12-person operation in Mojave. Cofounders Roderick and Randa Milliron started their business two decades ago with a goal of eventually living on the moon. Interorbital sells satellite kits and says it will launch 137 satellites this year with its modular rocket, whose size can be adjusted depending on the mission. The revenue from satellite and launch sales, space-testing missions, and more should help it reach its goal of using its rocket to get to the moon this year, as part of a team competing for the Lunar XPrize.

Perhaps the ultimate evidence that space technology is catching on is that it is even filtering down to hobbyists. A hacker space called Mojave Makers allows individuals to, say, build their own 3D-printed rocket motors. Says Bessemers Nagaraj: You now have people tinkering with space just as the previous generation tinkered with computers.

A version of this article appears in the March 1, 2017 issue of Fortune with the headline "Rocket Boom in the Desert."

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Space Startups Are Booming in the Mojave Desert - Fortune

High performance materials and structures are needed for safe and affordable next generation exploration systems such as transit vehicles, habitats, and power systems.

NASA will spend up to $30 million over the next five years to set up and support two new institutes dedicated to helping humanity extend its footprint out into the solar system.

The two Space Technology Research Institutes (STRIs) each of which will receive up to $15 million of NASA funding over a five-year "period of performance" will aim to develop new technologies in the fields of biomanufacturing and materials, agency officials said.

"These university-led, multidisciplinary research programs promote the synthesis of science, engineering and other disciplines to achieve specific research objectives with credible expected outcomes within five years," Steve Jurczyk, associate administrator for NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate, which is funding both STRIs, said in a statement. [NASA's Top 10 Innovations of All Time]

"At the same time, these institutes will expand the U.S. talent base in areas of research and development with broader applications beyond aerospace," Jurczyk added.

One of the new STRIs the Center for the Utilization of Biological Engineering in Space, or CUBES will focus on using microbes to make food, fuel, materials and pharmaceuticals. Such a biomanufacturing system could make astronauts more self-sufficient when they voyage through deep space or set up outposts on distant worlds, NASA officials said.

CUBES will be led by Adam Arkin, a professor of bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley. Utah State University; the University of California, Davis; Stanford University; Autodesk; and Physical Sciences Inc. will be partner organizations.

Advanced biological engineering techniques are rapidly emerging that can lead to innovative approaches for in situ biological manufacturing techniques using microbes and plants, and provide the means to create sustainable technologies for both future space exploration and terrestrial applications.

The other STRI, the Institute for Ultra-Strong Composites by Computational Design (US-COMP), will aim to develop a superstrong and extremely lightweight new aerospace material based on carbon-nanotube technology.

US-COMP will be led by Gregory Odegard of Michigan Technological University, in partnership with Florida State University, the University of Utah, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Florida A&M University, Johns Hopkins University, the Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Minnesota, Pennsylvania State University, the University of Colorado and Virginia Commonwealth University. Nanocomp Technologies and Solvay are industrial partners, and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory will be a collaborator.

Though CUBES and US-COMP are devoted primarily to advancing space technology, the work of both institutes could find applications on terra firma, NASA officials said. For example, CUBES plans to use carbon dioxide as a base for its materials manufacturing; the technology may therefore prove useful for managing this greenhouse gas in Earth's atmosphere. And the new materials developed by US-COMP could make their way into a variety of products, agency officials said.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.

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NASA Funds 2 New Research Institutes to Help Humanity Explore Deep Space - Space.com

SpaceX has just announced another successful landing of one of its reusable rockets.

The Falcon 9 rocket launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral at 9:38am local time on Sunday morning, and landed back in the same spot nine minutes later.

SpaceX founder, Elon Musk, shared a photo of the rocket touching down on Instagram, with the caption "Baby came back".

This was the third SpaceX rocket to be successfully landed on solid ground, and the first to do so in daylight. Five other successful landings have been made on sea-based platforms.

Meanwhile, Blue Origin, the space company founded by Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos ,has successfully launched and landed four of its New Shepard reusable rockets.

But space companies have been sending rockets into space for decades, so why the sudden interest in bringing them back to Earth?

The main argument for developing reusable rockets is cost.

At the moment, sending a rocket to the International Space Station costs over $60 million (48 million) - and each rocket can only be used once.

Bezos has compared this to using a Boeing 747 to fly across the country once and then throwing the plane away.

Musk claims that recycling a rocket over and over and learning to fly it like a plane could reduce the cost of access to space "by as much as a factor of a hundred".

This is because the only cost per launch would be a few replacement parts and about $200,000 for rocket fuel.

For Bezos, developing reusable rockets is about making space tourism a reality.

The idea is to take paying customers on joyrides to the edge of space, where they can experience zero gravity for a few minutes, before returning safely to Earth.

It's a slightly different approach to Richard Branson, whose spaceflight company Virgin Galactic is also developing commercial spacecraft with the aim of providing suborbital flights to space tourists.

Virgin Galactic's space tourism project was dealt a major blow after an in-air explosion killed one of the company's pilots on a test flight in 2014.

However, the company has since unveiled a new spacecraft called SpaceShipTwo, which looks more like an aeroplane than a rocket.

Rather than launching vertically, the spacecraft is carried to its launch altitude by a jet-powered cargo aircraft, before being released to fly on into the upper atmosphere powered by its rocket engine.

It then glides back to Earth and performs a conventional runway landing.

As well as tourism, reducing the cost of space travel could make it possible for scientists to conduct experiments outside the Earth's atsmosphere.

Blue Origin is already working with the University of Central Florida to build experiments for flight aboard the commercial space company's new spacecraft.

Physics Professor Joshua Colwell and his team are working on the Microgravity Experiment on Dust Environments in Astrophysics project, which aims to shed light on the process by which space dust builds up to form planets.

"The UCF team is tackling deep questions about the early solar system and asteroids, questions that simply cant be answered back on Earth," said Dr. Erika Wagner, Blue Origin head of payload programs.

Further afield, reusable rockets can massively reduce the cost of operating in space.

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets are already being used to deliver supplies to the International Space Station and launch satellites for paying customers.

Blue Origin also recently unveiled a reusable rocket called New Glenn, which is designed to launch commercial satellites.

Bezos has outlined a madcap plan to save the planet from a global energy crisis by moving heavy industries off the Earth entirely, and building giant factories and solar farms in space.

"Energy is limited here. In at least a few hundred years ... all of our heavy industry will be moved off-planet," Bezos said.

"Our vision is millions of people living and working in space."

Ultimately, the hope is that reusable rockets will make it possible for humans to explore deep space, and colonise other planets.

SpaceX recently unveiled a design for its Interplanetary Transport System (ITS) - a system that involves using reusable rockets to propel spaceships filled with hundreds of passengers to Mars.

Musk claims that each of these rockets will be reused up to 1,000 times. After taking off and delivering the spaceship into orbit, the rocket will return to Earth, where it will land safely.

It will then be fitted with a fuelling tank, before flying back into space to fuel the spaceship for its trip to Mars. The rocket will then land a second time.

By making the rocket reusable instead of discarding it after every launch, Musk said SpaceX hopes to some day make the cost of going to Mars about the same as buying a house.

He envisions 1,000 passenger ships flying en masse to the red planet within the next century, with one million people living on Mars by the mid-2060s.

Musk claims the system could even be used to explore further afield, allowing humans to travel as far as the Kuiper Belt, beyond Pluto.

"I think Earth will be a good place for a long time, but the probable lifespan of human civilisation will be much greater if we're a multiplanetary species," he said.

"This system really gives you freedom to go anywhere you want in the greater solar system."

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How reusable rockets are paving the way for the next phase of space exploration - Mirror.co.uk

In perhaps the most poetic passage from his inaugural address, President Trump said, We stand at the birth of a new millennium, ready to unlock the mysteries of space. So, how does Trump intend to do that?

Former Congressman Robert Walker, R-Pa., who was tapped to draft Trumps space policy during the campaign, spoke to Yahoo News about the administrations plan to place low Earth orbit missions predominantly in the hands of the private sector, with exceptions for military and intelligence satellites. The government would not compete with commercial interests in this region of space; instead, NASA would concentrate on deep-space exploration with the long-term goal of having humans explore the entire solar system by the 22nd century.

A number of private entities, such as Axiom Space and Bigelow Aerospace, are interested in creating commercial space stations and have technologies under development such as constellations of satellites for Earth observation or new communications tools that they believe can be profitable in low Earth orbit, the region of space up to an altitude of about 1,200 miles. Its the easiest orbit to enter and maintain. The International Space Station (ISS) is in low Earth orbit.

There are already commercial organizations prepared to lift supplies that NASA needs for deep-space exploration into low Earth orbit for assembly.

As we look toward going back to the moon, going to Mars or further, well want to have space resources that would be assembled in orbit so we could make them large enough and capable enough to do real deep-space activities, Walker said.

Walker has extensive experience in the space sector. He was the first sitting member of Congress to receive NASAs Distinguished Service Medal, the agencys highest honor, and has been heavily involved in presidential commissions on the aerospace industrys future and space exploration.

Walker believes space policy must acknowledge that the space community is far bigger than NASA or the military and that private investors should take the opportunity to participate in achieving national goals. He is calling for the National Space Council, a policy-setting body disbanded in 1993, to be reconstituted under the leadership of the vice president to set national goals for all three stakeholders in space: commercial, military and civilian interests.

The questions to address, he said, are Whats the best way for us to access space in the future? And what opportunities exist if youre truly innovative about how your approach a space future?

Michael Suffredini, another recipient of the NASA Distinguished Service Medal, has more than 30 years of human space flight experience, has managed the ISS for 10 years and is CEO and president of Axiom Space, which is currently developing the first private, commercial space station. It is intended to be the successor to the ISS after its retirement in 2024.

Along with providing a facility for research, Axiom plans to offer human space flight programs for countries that wish to send their own astronauts into space and for space tourists who want to orbit the Earth for 7 to 10 days.

According to Suffredini, NASA has already been on a path toward commercializing low Earth orbit, and the Trump administration is interested in continuing this process.

We think the time is right for an almost completely from a development, launch and operations standpoint commercial platform in low Earth orbit that can replace what the ISS brings to the table when its ready to retire, Suffredini told Yahoo News. The Trump administrations plan forward really supports what were interested in doing.

Hes hopeful that the administration will support commercial endeavors moving out to cislunar space (the area between the Earth and the moon) as well as to the moon or even Mars. We can all debate, he said, how much commercial activity will happen beyond low Earth orbit in the near future.

[The administrations] thrust is to look at more and more ways to look at commercial entities to participate where they want to in space, Suffredini said.

Robert Bigelow, the founder and president of Bigelow Aerospace, said major aircraft manufacturers Boeing and Lockheed Martin the big guys have always had a lock on NASA and therefore on government money. He said privatizing low Earth orbit is a tremendous opportunity for the little guys to survive and build a thriving business.

This is a completely new era. The circumstances have been changed, because NASA is cash-poor, Bigelow said. Not only does it make sense, but its an absolute necessity.

Bigelow, who has argued that NASAs roughly $19 billion budget should be doubled, recalled conservations with William H. Gerstenmaier, the associate administrator for the Human Exploration and Operations Directorate at NASA, indicating that the agency does not have the resources to return humans to the moon (or accomplish similar lofty goals) without help from the private sector.

Bigelow Aerospace, based in North Las Vegas, Nev., develops expandable space station modules and other resources that could assist human space exploration whether to low Earth orbit, the moon, Mars or deep space. Bigelow said NASA and other national space agencies worldwide are prospective clients.

Aside from unmanned satellites, there are at this time no moneymaking, private operations in low Earth orbit, other than those catering to the ISS, such as the BEAM (Bigelow Expandable Activity Module).

There is nothing that private enterprise cant successfully take on, do more affordably and more quickly than any government operation can, Bigelow said. Private enterprise hasnt had the chance.

He said three things are necessary for any space activity: money, technology and legal permission, which itself requires political wherewithal.

The private sector invents technology and generates huge amounts of money, so the political permission is the stopping point, he continued. Up until the current time, aside from satellite communications, space has always been the domain of NASA as far as the United States is concerned. That is changing.

On Wednesday, Robert Lightfoot, the acting administrator for NASA, said in an agency update that the transition under the Trump administration is going smoothly. He also asked NASAs human exploration and operations mission directorate to look into the feasibility of adding astronauts to Exploration Mission 1 (EM-1), the first planned flight of the new Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and second flight of the Orion spacecraft, accelerating human exploration in deep space. With EM-1, NASA is developing the technologies that would be needed for a journey to Mars.

While speaking to a conference of suppliers for the SLS and other projects, Lightfoot emphasized the importance of private and public space industries in reaching the countrys goals.

We must work with everyone to secure our leadership in space and we will, he said.

According to NASA, the SLS and Orion missions (together with record levels of private investment in space) would ensure the United States leadership role in exploring the cosmos and put us closer to unlocking the mysteries of space.

Back in October, the Trump campaign called Walker and asked him to draft its space policy. He agreed and said he could come up with one in a few days, but the Trump team said they needed it much faster. Walker and Peter Navarro, Trumps chief trade adviser, put together what they consider a cohesive space policy within 48 hours.

I was thrilled to help them. This has been a long-duration mission of mine to get our space program as robust as possible, and I have been particularly an advocate for commercial space for a long time, Walker said.

Navarro would run their ideas by Trumps team, and they would offer suggestions that ultimately wound up in the policy, such as a focus on hypersonics (speeds of Mach 5 and above).

Afterward, Trump would mention space as part of his larger vision for the country. Vice President Mike Pence also held a roundtable in Florida during the campaign in which he outlined a space program that resembled Walkers outline.

At a campaign rally on Oct. 25 in Sanford, Fla., roughly an hours drive from the Kennedy Space Center, Trump said, I will free NASA from the restriction of serving primarily as a logistics agency for low Earth orbit activity big deal. Instead, we will refocus its mission on space exploration. Under a Trump administration, Florida and America will lead the way into the stars.

He said the expansion of public-private partnerships would result in maximum investment in space exploration creating thousands of jobs.

Trump has mentioned space as one of the places where we can demonstrate that America is attaining its greatness, Walker said. As hes gone out to some of these rallies, postelection, space was in a couple of his remarks.

In December, Trump named Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and of SpaceX, an aerospace manufacturer dedicated to colonizing Mars and reducing the cost of space transportation, to his Strategic and Policy Forum.

Still, certain aspects of Trumps space policy are bound to trouble liberals and scientists concerned about climate change. In an October op-ed for SpaceNews, Walker said NASA spends too much time on politically correct environmental monitoring.

Late last month, employees for more than a dozen government agencies reportedly launched rogue Twitter accounts to take a stance against what they see as Trumps attack on climate science research. These included scientists with the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Park Service and NASA.

Amid the barrage of Trump news, Walker said he has already seen some of his own ideas misconstrued and attacked. Walker said critics falsely accused him of wanting to eliminate NASAs Earth Science programs. He insists that he merely wanted to move them to another agency considered more appropriate for these projects, such as National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) or the National Science Foundation (NSF).

The suggestion was that we were eliminating the Earth Science programs that NASA is doing. And thats absolutely wrong. The reason for looking for a transfer was because we were taking NASA out of low Earth orbit, and most of the space-based assets for Earth Science are in low Earth orbit.

Though Walker is advising the Trump administration and drafted its space policy, he was not a formal member of the transition itself. With every new administration, some policies diverge from campaign rhetoric when confronted with the realities of governance. Consequently, as with other areas, its still too early to assess Trumps space initiatives.

Walker also serves on the board of directors for Space Adventures, a space tourism company, and was chairman of the board for the Space Foundation, a nonprofit that advocates for the space industry.

Brendan Curry, the vice president of Washington operations at the Space Foundation, said the conversation around private operations in space is nothing new. For instance, commercial communication satellites have been operating and generating revenue in geostationary orbit, at an altitude of 22,300 miles, for decades.

The idea of making money in space has been around almost as long as the Space Age has, he said.

NASAs commercial crew and cargo program, established in 2004 under former President George W. Bush, enjoys bipartisan support. Curry does not see any political efforts to derail or curtail it but said policymakers will need to account for the ISSs planned retirement. This raises a slew of questions: Should it be extended? Should there be a successor platform?

Were asking these companies to make investments in systems and capabilities to go to a destination that might not be around after 2024, he said, so weve got to decide: Are there going to be other opportunities for these companies to develop or maintain systems and capabilities to go to low Earth orbit to provide private services or a service to the federal government.

Robert Jacobs, the deputy associate administrator for NASAs office of communications, told Yahoo News that the agency has helped to create a robust commercial space economy by turning orbital resupply missions for the ISS over to commercial industry. He also said that NASA will soon return to the launching of American astronauts from U.S. soil aboard commercial spacecraft, as the agency focuses on pushing human and robotic exploration further into the solar system.

President Trump said in his inaugural address that we will unlock the mysteries of space, Jacobs said. Accordingly, it is imperative to the mission of this agency that we continue to work hard to do just that.

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One huge step: Trump's plans to privatize 'low Earth orbit' and send NASA into deep space - Yahoo News