Now in space, a cutting-edge satellite the size of a shoebox, and UW students built it – Seattle Times

Just be thankful there are students like Paige Northway and Nathan Wacker, two University of Washington students who think its neat to work on stuff like a satellite the size of a shoebox.

For most of us, all that is beyond our comprehension.

But thats how things move forward in our high-tech age. Going from rotary phones to the 1973 brick-like mobile phones to todays 7-ounce smartphones entails complicated engineering, and that means technologically savvy people like Northway and Wacker.

In case you missed it and you probably did one big part of the future in space is tiny satellites weighing maybe 7 pounds, with thousands orbiting around the Earth. Their size, numbers and advancements in technology will mean everything from making the internet faster to helping climate research.

Instead of relying on two or three large satellites to look at weather, a whole bunch of mini-satellites can cover an area in much more detail.

Earlier this month, at 7 in the morning, a satellite assembled by about six dozen UW students was blasted up into space at NASAs Wallops Flight Facility on the Virginia coast.It piggybacked on an unmanned cargo spacecraft sent to the International Space Station to resupply astronauts and pick up their garbage.

Over the past five years the students had spent an estimated 25,000 hours on the project, including building a custom thruster for the satellite. The thruster uses new technology that uses no moving parts. Instead, sparks are used to vaporize small amounts of solid sulfur, which then propel the satellite.

Thats not the kind of propulsion thatll have the power to send a craft up into space. But its enough to nudge a mini-satellite while in orbit.

Another custom-built item was a system that would transmit data at such a high frequency that itd quickly send down reams of information at a cheaper cost than now available. The UW mini-satellite will transmit down a test packet. For those of you that paid attention in science class, that high frequency is 24GHz, which is in the K-band spectrum.

All this work is a complicated, long ways from playing an intergalactic-themed video game or movies, says professor Robert Winglee, the groups adviser.

The name CubeSats is used to describe this new way of making a cheap, small satellite a 4-inch cube thats standardized in size so parts can be mass-produced. The UW one is three times as big. The students decided to call it HuskySat-1.

Northway says the hardware for the UW one cost around $40,000. NASA provided the main grant money.

Because of the standardization, the UW mini-satellite has a little Sony camera module that sells for $65 and will take pictures of Earth. Certainly, there are plenty of those from space.

But camera setup was built with the help of students at the Raisbeck Aviation High School in the Highline School District.

Northway, 30, is a doctoral student in Earth and Space Sciences.

Right from the start while in high school in Brainerd, Minnesota, I did well in math. I knew I wanted to do engineering, she says. Her dad runs a construction consulting firm, her mom runs payroll at a resort.

Wacker, 20, is a junior in computer science and a graduate of Mercer Island High School.

NASA spokesman Keith Koehler says the CubeSats program is a success, with 23 universities around the country getting funding students are receiving the hands-on aspects of the projects, as well as the real-world problem resolution.

Technology has advanced so much, says Koehler, that the mini-satellites are at least 1,000 times faster in processing speed than the guidance computer on the historic Apollo 11 mission.

Curt Blake, president and CEO of SpaceFlight, the Seattle company that assists in ride-share launches for CubeSats, says the mini-satellite industry is in its infancy. He compares it to the smartphone, which initially was used mostly for messaging and email.

Now there are millions of applications available, he says. Access to space is doing the same thing.

In a way, the mini-satellites hark to the very first ones. The very first satellite, Sputnik I, launched by the Soviets in 1957, weighed 184 pounds. Explorer I, the first U. S. satellite, launched the next year in 1958, weighed all of 31 pounds.

The Cygnus cargo spacecraft carrying the UW mini-satellite and other mini-satellites is now attached to the space station, where it will stay until early 2020.

Then the Cygnus will leave the space station, at which point the mini-satellites will be placed into orbit from a deployer with springs that will push them out into space.

The Cygnus will burn up as it enters the atmosphere, along with the garbage itll be carrying.

The UW mini-satellite will circle the Earth every 94 minutes for around 3 years, begin to lose altitude and then also burn up.

When Wacker tells his 20-something friends about the project, about this contraption the size of a bread loaf thatll be orbiting the Earth, he says they reply, Thats cool. Wow.

It really is.

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Now in space, a cutting-edge satellite the size of a shoebox, and UW students built it - Seattle Times

Human Heart Cells Transform in Space; Return to Normal on Earth: Study – The Weather Channel

Representational image

Heart cells are altered in space, but return to normal within 10 days on Earth, say researchers who examined cell-level cardiac function and gene expression in human heart cells cultured aboard the International Space Station (ISS) for 5.5 weeks.

Exposure to microgravity altered the expression of thousands of genes, but largely normal patterns of gene expression reappeared within 10 days after returning to Earth, according to the study published in the journal Stem Cell Reports.

"We're surprised about how quickly human heart muscle cells are able to adapt to the environment in which they are placed, including microgravity," said senior study author Joseph C. Wu from Stanford University.

These studies may not only provide insight into cellular mechanisms that could benefit astronaut health during long-duration spaceflight, but also potentially lay the foundation for new insights into improving heart health on Earth.

Past studies have shown that spaceflight induces physiological changes in cardiac function, including reduced heart rate, lowered arterial pressure, and increased cardiac output.

But to date, most cardiovascular microgravity physiology studies have been conducted either in non-human models or at tissue, organ, or systemic levels.

Relatively little is known about the role of microgravity in influencing human cardiac function at the cellular level.

To address this question, the research team studied human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs). They generated hiPSC lines from three individuals by reprogramming blood cells, and then differentiated them into heart cells.

Beating heart cells were then sent to the ISS aboard a SpaceX spacecraft as part of a commercial resupply service mission. Simultaneously, ground control heart cells were cultured on Earth for comparison purposes.

Upon return to Earth, space-flown heart cells showed normal structure and morphology. However, they did adapt by modifying their beating pattern and calcium recycling patterns.

In addition, the researchers performed RNA sequencing of heart cells harvested at 4.5 weeks aboard the ISS, and 10 days after returning to Earth.

These results showed that 2,635 genes were differentially expressed among flight, post-flight, and ground control samples.

Most notably, gene pathways related to mitochondrial function were expressed more in space-flown heart cells.

A comparison of the samples revealed that heart cells adopt a unique gene expression pattern during spaceflight, which reverts to one that is similar to ground-side controls upon return to normal gravity, the study noted.

According to Wu, limitations of the study include its short duration and the use of 2D cell culture.

In future studies, the researchers plan to examine the effects of spaceflight and microgravity using more physiologically relevant hiPSC-derived 3D heart tissues with various cell types, including blood vessel cells.

"We also plan to test different treatments on the human heart cells to determine if we can prevent some of the changes the heart cells undergo during spaceflight," Wu said.

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Human Heart Cells Transform in Space; Return to Normal on Earth: Study - The Weather Channel

NASA Marshall expands ties with UA to advance in-space manufacturing – Made In Alabama

Additive manufacturing is a rapidly evolving, disruptive technology, Singer said. As NASA continues to invest in in-space additive technology innovations, we welcome collaborations with industry and academia to develop these technologies.

I applaud the University of Alabama for pursuing the development of advanced technologies that will help NASA achieve our mission.

EXPANDING EXPERTISE

UA will enhance its core curriculum in areas of advanced and in-space manufacturing and foster new collaborations to further this emerging technology.

Areas of emphasis include modeling, analysis and simulation, data analytics, robotics, rendezvous and capture, navigation, advanced materials, on-site resource utilization, additive manufacturing, digital design, and manufacturing and construction.

Our partnership with NASA is an important priority in our efforts to provide opportunities for our students and researchers to offer solutions to leading-edge challenges, Bell said.

Working to further in-space manufacturing will establish the Universitys expertise in the area while training a skilled workforce our state can rely on to remain competitive in the global economy.

Marshall has worked with UA through multiple Space Act Agreements since 2015. Through these agreements and other partnership mechanisms, NASA shares resources, personnel and expertise, facilities and equipment, and technology with UA to advance aerospace research or achieve mission goals.

Marshall has entered Space Act Agreements with numerous colleges, including in-state institutions Auburn University, Alabama A&M University in Huntsville and the University of North Alabama in Florence.

NASA is actively partnering with universities and industry from across the country to leverage and accelerate technology development in key areas, especially areas that will make it possible to sustainably live and work on the lunar surface, achieving the Artemis vision, Singer said.

Artemis is NASAs path to the Moon and the next step in human exploration of our solar system. Through Artemis, NASA will land the first woman and next man on the Moon by 2024, assisted by innovative partners, technologies and systems.

NASA is investing in innovative in-space manufacturing technologies that will aid in developing the technological solutions needed to enable human missions to the Moon, Mars and other deep space destinations.

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Can We Genetically Engineer Humans to Survive Missions to Mars? – Space.com

Will we one day combine tardigrade DNA with our cells to go to Mars?

Chris Mason, a geneticist and associate professor of physiology and biophysics at Weill Cornell University in New York, has investigated the genetic effects of spaceflight and how humans might overcome these challenges to expand our species farther into the solar system. One of the (strangest) ways that we might protect future astronauts on missions to places like Mars, Mason said, might involve the DNA of tardigrades, tiny micro-animals that can survive the most extreme conditions, even the vacuum of space!

Mason led one of the 10 teams of researchers NASA chose to study twin astronauts Mark and Scott Kelly. After launching in 2015, Scott Kelly spent almost a year aboard the International Space Station while his twin brother, Mark Kelly, stayed back on Earth.

Related:By the Numbers: Astronaut Scott Kelly's Year-in-Space Mission

Geneticist Chris Mason discusses the genetic effects of spaceflight at the 8th Human Genetics in NYC Conference on Oct. 29, 2019.

(Image credit: Chelsea Gohd/Space.com)

By comparing how they biologically reacted to their vastly different environments during that time, scientists aimed to learn more about how long-duration missions affects the human body. Mason and the dozens of other researchers who worked to assess the genetic effects of spaceflight uncovered a wealth of data that has so far revealed many new findings about how space affects the human body.

Researchers hope that this work, which continues today, might inform strategies to support astronaut health on future missions. Mason discussed some of the results of this research at a talk at the 8th Human Genetics in NYC Conference on Oct. 29.

In addition to the research Mason discussed at the conference, these researchers are working on seven more papers incorporating the data from the twins study. However, they also hope to use new data from a larger sample.

"We want to do some of the same studies, longitudinal studies, with people on Earth, people in space," Mason told Space.com at the conference.

By studying, specifically, how certain genes are expressed during the different stages of spaceflight (including the intense return to Earth), these research efforts could support future efforts to mitigate the dangers of spaceflight, Mason said.

For instance, if further studies were to confirm that landing back on Earth were harmful to the human body, scientists could develop ways to prevent those detrimental effects. But with such a small body of data (the twins study was just two people), scientists aren't ready to prescribe any specific treatment or preventative medicine to alter how humans genetically react to spaceflight.

"I think we do what is normally done in science We see something interesting; let's try it in mice first," Mason said.

He noted that they might not even find it necessary to prescribe anything to alter the effects they've seen in astronauts like Scott Kelly. "Some of those changes, even though they're dramatic, maybe that's how the body needed to respond," Mason said.

Related: Space Radiation Threat to Astronauts Explained (Infographic)

While, Mason noted, future astronauts might be prescribed medicine or other tools to help to mitigate the effects which they've uncovered with this research. However, new studies are investigating how tools such as gene editing could make humans more capable of traveling farther into space and even to planets such as Mars.

One of the main health concerns with space travel is radiation exposure. If, for example, scientists could figure out a way to make human cells more resilient to the effects of radiation, astronauts could remain healthier for longer durations in space. Theoretically, this type of technology could also be used to combat the effects of radiation on healthy cells during cancer treatments on Earth, Mason noted.

However, the idea of tinkering with human genes is controversial. But Mason emphasized that there will likely be decades of research completed before this kind of science is applied to humans.

"I don't have any plans of having engineered astronauts in the next one to two decades," Mason said. "If we have another 20 years of pure discovery and mapping and functional validation of what we think we know, maybe by 20 years from now, I'm hoping we could be at the stage where we would be able to say we can make a human that could be better surviving on Mars."

But what does it mean to genetically engineer a person to better survive in space or on another planet? There are multiple possible approaches.

One way that scientists could alter future astronauts is through epigenetic engineering, which essentially means that they would "turn on or off" the expression of specific genes, Mason explained

Alternatively, and even more strangely, these researchers are exploring how to combine the DNA of other species, namely tardigrades, with human cells to make them more resistant to the harmful effects of spaceflight, like radiation.

This wild concept was explored in a 2016 paper, and Mason and his team aim to build upon that research to see if, by using the DNA of ultra-resilient tardigrades, they could protect astronauts from the harmful effects of spaceflight.

Genetically editing humans for space travel would likely be a part of natural changes to the human physiology that could occur after living on Mars for a number of years, Mason said. "It's not if we evolve; it's when we evolve," he added.

While changes to the human body are to be expected as our species expands off-Earth, there is a way to do this science responsibly, Mason said. "In terms of a question of liberty, you're engineering it [a future human] to have lots more opportunities, again assuming we haven't taken away opportunities," he said. "If we learned that, in some way, when we decided to try and prove the ability of humans to live beyond Earth, and we take away their ability to live on Earth, I think that would be unjust."

Genetically engineering humans could be ethical if it makes people more capable of inhabiting Mars safely without interfering with their ability to live on Earth, Mason said.

Follow Chelsea Gohd on Twitter @chelsea_gohd. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Need more space? Subscribe to our sister title "All About Space" Magazine for the latest amazing news from the final frontier!

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NASA’s SOFIA Observatory: The Flying Telescope – Space.com

NASA's Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) is a stargazing platform unlike any other.

SOFIA observes nebulae and galaxies in a variety of "colors" of infrared light. It may not boast as large a mirror as some of its ground-based relatives, and it doesn't enjoy the complete freedom from Earth's atmosphere that the Spitzer Space Telescope does, but SOFIA's ability to capture a wide range of wavelengths and distinguish between fine shades of colors make it an observatory unrivaled in the astronomical world. The fact that SOFIA lives on an airplane also makes it pretty remarkable, as it has made observations from above a dozen countries spanning both hemispheres.

"This observatory allows us access to a part of the universe that otherwise we cannot study from any other facility," said Naseem Rangwala, an astrophysicist at NASA Ames Research Center and principal investigator of the SOFIA observing program.

Taking over from the Kuiper Airborne Observatory, NASA's previous high-flying infrared eye, SOFIA has been watching the skies since 2010 and is scheduled to operate until the early 2030s. The observatory takes the form of a compact Boeing 747, retrofitted specifically for this purpose. The aircraft makes about four flights each week, cruising for 10 hours at a time between 40,000 and 44,000 feet (12,000 and 13,000 meters), putting it above more than 99% of the infrared-scattering water vapor in Earth's atmosphere. For most of the year SOFIA operates from California, but it also makes trips to New Zealand for Southern Hemisphere stargazing, as well as to Germany, whose space agency developed three of the platform's eight instruments.

Related: Now You Can 3D-Print a NASA SOFIA Flying Telescope of Your Very Own!

A large door toward the rear of the craft opens to reveal a 8.9-foot (2.7 m), nearly 20-ton mirror, which swivels nimbly to maintain a fixed lock on its celestial marks while the plane bobs and vibrates.

"One of the things I like best is just watching the telescope," said Michael Person, a planetary scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who uses SOFIA to study planetary atmospheres. "Eventually you realize the telescope is perfectly still as it must be to be pointing at the target, and it's the plane and you and everything else that's jostling and moving around."

Seats have been stripped from the main cabin to transform it into a control room, with table-mounted consoles for instrument operators, data analysts and visiting scientists. The flight crew and navigators hang out on an upper level, and the front of the plane retains its seats for takeoff, landing and enjoying the view. "In the Southern Hemisphere, you get to see the lights of the aurora," Rangwala said. "It's an amazing experience."

A panoramic view of SOFIA's interior.

(Image credit: NASA)

Portable, cutting-edge observatories don't come cheap. SOFIA cost $85.2 million to run in 2017, putting it close to the Hubble Space Telescope as one of NASA's priciest programs (although DLR, the German space agency, shoulders 20% of SOFIAs cost). But the missions the telescopes work on couldn't be more different.

Once a telescope arrives in space, that's typically the end of its development. SOFIA, however, which returns to the ground every day, can add new instruments and upgrade old ones without launching a single rocket.

In 2015, the German Aerospace Center upgraded its German Receiver for Astronomy at Terahertz Frequencies (GREAT) instrument aboard SOFIA. With the new hardware, researchers were able to identify in deep space molecules of helium hydride the type of molecules long thought to have participated in the universe's earliest chemical reactions. "This molecule was predicted by theorists for decades," Rangwala said. "We finally found it."

Then last year SOFIAs High-Resolution Airborne Wideband Camera Plus (HAWC+) came online, allowing researchers to image magnetic fields and study the role they play in star creation.

Magnetic fields in the Orion Nebula shown as steam lines over an infrared image taken by the Very Large Telescope in Chile. SOFIA's HAWC+ instrument is sensitive to the alignment of dust grains, which line up along magnetic fields, letting researchers infer the direction and strength.

(Image credit: NASA/SOFIA/D. Chauss et al. and European Southern Observatory/M. McCaughrean et al.)

Another unique characteristic of SOFIA is its range. Some telescopes specialize in a few particular colors of infrared light. Others, like the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope, are powerful but narrowly focused on a small spot of space. SOFIA, however, can do it all. Its instruments span much of the infrared spectrum from a few microns to hundreds. Stars burn brightly enough to emit visible light, but in this other swath of the spectrum SOFIA can pick out dimmer, cooler objects from galaxies to nebulae to dust clouds, similar to how infrared goggles can discern people and animals at night. The telescope can also tell one shade from another with rare precision an important ability for spotting the fingerprints of individual molecules.

The astronomical community has fully embraced the platform's unique rsum of skills. For instance, Michael Person, a research scientist at MIT, used SOFIA to observe Pluto in the summer of 2015. He and his colleagues have been studying the dwarf planet's atmosphere for 20 years through an eclipse-like phenomenon called occultation when Pluto moves in front of a star, casting a shadow out into space. At that moment, starlight passes through Pluto's atmosphere, and any telescope that finds itself in Pluto's diminutive shadow can extract some information about the gases that surround the dwarf planet.

Most occultation shadows fall over the ocean, though, and even if they don't, their path across the Earth is tough to predict. But SOFIA can overcome both of those challenges. In June of 2015, Person found himself on board the aircraft, fielding calls from MIT with final predictions and updating the navigators, who tweaked the flight plan in real time to chase Pluto's shadow across the Pacific Ocean. "At the last minute we can reposition [SOFIA] in a way you can't just quickly move a telescope on the ground," Person said.

The team's improvising paid off. By observing Pluto's atmosphere in two colors, they were able to help settle a long-standing debate about whether the dwarf planet's fuzziness indicated haze or heat. Two weeks later, the New Horizons probe flew by Pluto and confirmed their findings: Pluto was hazy. "It was basically the ideal experiment," Person said.

An image of stars forming in the W51 stellar nursery. The SOFIA FORCAST mosaic (color) is superimposed on a star field image from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.

(Image credit: NASA/SOFIA/Lim and De Buizer et al. and Sloan Digital Sky Survey)

Recently, SOFIA has embarked on two legacy programs both require observations spanning many hours. One aims to study groups of stars of different sizes to determine whether their bubbles and shockwaves make it easier or harder for other stars to form nearby.

The other is targeting a large tract of the center of the Milky Way about the size of four full moons. Despite an abundance of star ingredients, something seems to be stopping stellar birth in this region, and researchers hope more detailed images will help them figure out what.

Even as the more powerful James Webb Space Telescope comes online, Rangwala emphasized that SOFIA's complementary nature will make it an even more valuable part of NASA's fleet of astronomical hardware. Such sweeping maps of the Milky Way will be essential for helping the much more narrowly focused space telescope get its bearings, she said. "If the [JWST] wants to know where to point, [SOFIA] will be one of the most precise instruments for pointing."

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Massive Space Explosion Releases as Much Energy in 20 Seconds as Sun Does in 10 Days – The Weather Channel

llustration depicting a Type I X-ray burst.

NASA has detected a massive thermonuclear explosion coming from outer space, caused by a massive thermonuclear flash on the surface of a pulsarthe crushed remains of a star that long ago exploded as a supernova.

The explosion released as much energy in 20 seconds as the Sun does in nearly 10 days.

NASA's Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) telescope on the International Space Station (ISS) detected a sudden spike of X-rays on August 20, reports the US space agency. The X-ray burst, the brightest seen by NICER so far, came from an object named "J1808".

The observations reveal many phenomena that have never been seen together in a single burst. In addition, the subsiding fireball briefly brightened again for reasons astronomers cannot yet explain.

"This burst was outstanding. We see a two-step change in brightness, which we think is caused by the ejection of separate layers from the pulsar surface, and other features that will help us decode the physics of these powerful events," said lead researcher Peter Bult, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

The detail NICER captured on this record-setting eruption will help astronomers fine-tune their understanding of the physical processes driving the thermonuclear flare-ups of it and other bursting pulsars.

"J1808" is located about 11,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius. It spins at a dizzying 401 rotations each second, and is one member of a binary system. Its companion is a brown dwarf, an object larger than a giant planet yet too small to be a star. A steady stream of hydrogen gas flows from the companion toward the neutron star, and it accumulates in a vast storage structure called an accretion disk.

Astronomers employ a concept called the "Eddington limit", named after English astrophysicist Sir Arthur Eddington, to describe the maximum radiation intensity a star can have before that radiation causes the star to expand. This point depends strongly on the composition of the material lying above the emission source.

"Our study exploits this longstanding concept in a new way," said co-author Deepto Chakrabarty, a professor of physics at MIT.

"We are apparently seeing the Eddington limit for two different compositions in the same X-ray burst. This is a very powerful and direct way of following the nuclear burning reactions that underlie the event."

A paper describing the findings has been published by The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The Weather Companys primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.

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Airstream Enjoys Return to U.S. Space Program in Partnership with Boeing – Chief Executive Group

Airstream has become known as the makers of the pinnacle of recreational vehicles signified by their silver bullet profiles. But a half-century ago, Airstream also was recognized as a supplier of transportation services to the American space program. Now the company is getting a chance to reprise its role in rocketry as the U.S. space program begins experiencing a bit of a renaissance.

The Jackson Center, Ohio-based manufacturer has initiated a partnership with Boeing as the aircraft giant competes with Elon Musks SpaceX to launch next year what would be the first contingent of Americans taking off for space from U.S. soil since the last Space Shuttle launch in 2011. Boeings CST-100 Starliner spacecraft is slated to carry three humans to the International Space Station in 2020.

No, the Starliner isnt shaped like an Airstream travel trailer. But Airstream is supplying a vehicle known as Astrovan II to transport the astronauts to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The vehicle is a modified Airstream Atlas Touring Coach named after the original Airstream trailer, nicknamed Astrovan, that, beginning in 1983, carried astronauts the last few miles to their space-shuttle launches at the Cape.

More than just a promotion, this represents the latest chapter in Airstreams involvement in manned space flight, Airstream CEO Bob Wheeler told Chief Executive. We love this part of our history.

And actually, Airstreams history with the space program goes back way before the space-shuttle program. Airstream first became associated with the space program in the public consciousness in 1969, the year Apollo 11 landed on the moon. It was tasked with supplying a vehicle that many Americans of baby boomer vintage and older will remember: the trailer that quarantined astronauts from other earthlings after they returned home from the moon.

NASA scientists wanted to protect against the possibility that the astronauts might carry back some alien pathogen from humanitys first physical contact with the lunar environment. And so Airstream outfitted a modified version of its Excella RV to house Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Mike Collins after they splashed down on Earth from their triumphal return from the moon.

We were seen as a capable technology company building mobile environments, where we developed special air filtering and handling equipment, Wheeler explained. They wanted to keep the astronauts isolated for a time in that kind of environment. It seems quaint at this point, but put yourself back then.

Airstream built a total of four of the mobile quarantine labs for NASAs use in the last years of the Apollo program. Now it is being re-enlisted as America begins re-engaging space travel in a number of ways.

Some key fans of the brand inside Boeing, Wheeler said, helped get Airstream consideration for the role that became Astrovan II, including Warren Brown, Boeings executive director of marketing, brand and advertising, and Chris Ferguson, who led the final space-shuttle mission as an astronaut and is scheduled, at the age of 59, to command the first Starliner flight.

He was a three-time original shuttle astronaut, Wheeler said. He told me he loved the original Astrovan. So we had [Brown] pushing on one side and the guy whos leading the [next] mission say hed love to have Airstream be part of this story.

Wheeler said the company, a unit of Thor Industries, is just thrilled with its partnership with Boeing. Its an interesting sidelight to the [Airstream] brand overall, but it also demonstrates that very high-level technology organizations respect what we do in a way that compels them to involve us in their efforts.

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‘Star Trek,’ Space Travel and Teleportation with Tig Notaro – Space.com

Beloved stand-up comedian and "Star Trek: Discovery" actor Tig Notaro is proud to be in the Trek universe, but isn't so sure she'd fly to space herself.

Notaro recently took some time to chat with Space.com during the weekend of the Bentzen Ball, an annual comedy festival in Washington, D.C., that she curates and performs at. During the conversation, Notaro revealed her feelings regarding human spaceflight, the importance of diversity and representation, and what it feels like to become a part of the "Star Trek" universe.

Notaro has recently played chief engineer Reno in "Star Trek: Discovery" and an astronaut in the film "Lucy in the Sky." She also recently made waves in the space world as she joined forces with NASA's James Webb Space Telescope on Twitter.

Related:'Star Trek: Discovery' Renewed for Third Season

Here you can see comedian and actor Tig Notaro as Chief Engineer Reno in "Brother," Episode 201 of "Star Trek: Discovery."

(Image credit: Jan Thijs/CBS)

"It's not anything that I chose," Notaro said about her work in sci-fi with roles in both Trek and "Lucy in the Sky." But, while she noted that she wasn't seeking out sci-fi acting gigs, "I feel open to that world," the actor said.

"It's very different," Notaro added as a person who works primarily as a stand-up comic about her foray into science fiction. But, while it's different, "I like it, I like being a recurring role on "Star Trek" I'm not looking to become a full cast member but I enjoy the world, and I enjoy the cast and crew, and I think what I have going on is kind of perfect."

Now, while Notaro might be a relatively new face in the sci-fi world, "I did follow 'Star Trek' when I was a child, the original series obviously I'm more familiar with Discovery now, but I love being a part of it, if just simply for the ability to tell people I am on 'Star Trek,' it's really fun to be able to say that."

"It's fun, I'm proud to be a part of it," she added. "My sons, they think I actually work in space because whenever I go off to Toronto to film 'Star Trek,' I always tell them I have to go work on the space rocket "

Notaro, unsurprisingly, had a few funny words to say about her other recent sci-fi work in "Lucy in the Sky." According to Notaro, the film's director Noah Hawley liked her stand-up work and reached out, then joked that he thought, "she could probably act like herself in this too." She added that she received a nice surprise after filming, when the "Lucy in the Sky" team gave her the on-screen spacesuit that she wore in the movie.

While Notaro has recently played characters who either travel to space ("Lucy in the Sky") or spend their lives working in space ("Star Trek: Discovery"), she's not sure she would launch into space herself.

"I think it's really exciting and terrifying," she said. "If I could be in space, I would like to just be teleported; I don't know that I would want that actually takeoff and journey to outer space."

"I was just talking to my wife about that; she has absolutely no interest in being in outer space. I don't think were gonna run into 'should we go, should we not go?'" Notaro said, adding that, while her wife isn't interested, her sons would probably want to go. "I would bring my sons. I really think they would be interested."

Notaro, as a gay woman leading in stand-up comedy, is no stranger to providing representation for marginalized groups in spaces typically dominated by straight men.

On the topic of representation and diversity in Trek, Notaro noted that "It's really impressive, 'Star Trek' was already so ahead of its time with diversity and representation, but that's, I think, another part of what makes me proud to be a part of that show," she said. "It's really thoughtful it's just a smart, thoughtful show and it's nice to be a part of something that's positive. It's not just some random space series or sci-fi project. It's a really smart, thoughtful, diverse series."

"I'm certainly in ridiculous things, like my own nonsense talk show, but the other projects that I do, it is nice to have that anchor of pride with something. And I think it's tremendously important to have the representation that they do and the diversity." Notaro added.

This past year, NASA astronaut Anne McClain became the first active astronaut to be out as part of the LGBTQ+ community, astronauts Jessica Meir and Christina Koch completed the first all-woman spacewalk, and NASA, with their Artemis program, has increased its efforts to land the first woman on the moon.

So, while Notaro is very familiar with the world of comedy, and now sci-fi, she also spoke about the importance of increasing diversity and representation in other sectors, like the world of real human spaceflight. As she described, it is extremely important "to kind of make sure that people and especially younger generations know that it's possible to do what you think is not possible."

Notaro, who was born in Mississippi, grew up largely before such representation was mainstream. "As a kid, when you don't have that, you just kinda skim past it and and you do feel like 'oh that's not for me' or 'I don't have that opportunity.' And then when you do see somebody, how invigorating it is and all the possibilities that start coming to light. I know it's kind of an obvious thing, but it's really really powerful."

Follow Chelsea Gohd on Twitter @chelsea_gohd. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Space station receives spacewalking gear, new baking oven – Spaceflight Now

Northrop Grummans Cygnus supply ship was captured by the space stations robotic arm at 4:10 a.m. EST (0910 GMT) Monday. Credit: NASA TV/Spaceflight Now

NASA astronaut Jessica Meir took control of the International Space Stations Canadian-built robot arm Monday to capture a Northrop Grumman Cygnus supply ship carrying crew provisions, spacewalking gear to repair an aging particle physics experiment, tech demo satellites for the U.S. military, and an oven to bake the first cookies in space.

The automated cargo freighter arrived at the space station Monday, using GPS and laser-guided navigation to fine-tune its rendezvous along an approach corridor below the research complex. The Cygnus spacecraft held its position less than 40 feet, or about 12 meters, below the station for Meir to command the robotic arm to capture the supply ship at 4:10 a.m. EST (0910 GMT) Monday.

Engineers in mission control were expected to take over commanding of the robot arm to berth the Cygnus spacecraft to the stations Unity module a few hours later, setting the stage for astronauts to open hatches leading to the pressurized cargo carrier to begin unpacking the supplies inside.

The Cygnus spacecraft launched Saturday atop an Antares rocket from Wallops Island, Virginia, with approximately 8,168 pounds (3,705 kilograms) of food, experiments, hardware, and small satellites set for deployment in orbit in the coming months.

Heres a breakdown of the cargo manifest provided by NASA:

The equipment inside the Cygnus cargo freighters Italian-made pressurized compartment include tools and replacement hardware for an upcoming repair of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer.

European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano and NASA flight engineer Andrew Morgan will perform the spacewalks to repair the AMS instrument, which was not designed to be serviced in space. The complicated repairs are expected to require four or five spacewalks to complete, beginning in mid-November.

Mounted on the space stations truss on the final mission of the space shuttle Endeavour in 2011, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer is effectively a powerful magnet that attracts cosmic rays, subatomic particles traveling through space at nearly the speed of light.

Three of the four coolant pumps on AMSs silicon tracker, which measures the trajectory and energy of the cosmic rays captured by the instrument, have failed, prompting NASA engineers to develop a plan to repair the coolant system. The work required the development of special tools to cut into the AMS instrument, install new hardware, and re-seal tiny coolant lines.

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer was never designed to be serviced in space. Read our earlier story for details on the repairs.

There were 15 small satellites riding aboard the Cygnus spacecraft for Saturdays launch.

The biggest of the group is a U.S. Air Force satellite named STPSat 4, which weighs roughly 220 pounds (100 kilograms) and will be transferred into the space stations Kibo module by astronauts the Cygnus hatch is opened. Sponsored by the militarys Space Test Program, STPSat 4 will be one of the largest satellites ever deployed from the space station.

STPSat 4 carries five experiments from the Air Force Research Laboratory, the U.S. Air Force Academy, and the U.S. Navy. The experiments will test radio frequency module tiles, help develop new solar array technology, collect data with a miniaturized space weather instrument, demonstrate the performance of an advanced U.S.-built star tracker, and assist in nanosatellite tracking.

Craig Technologies, based on Floridas Space Coast, is providing integration services for the STPSat 4 spacecraft, which will be released from the Space Station Integrated Kinetic Launcher for Orbital Payload Systems, or SSIKLOPS, deployer. The mechanism, which was first used in 2014, is designed to release small satellites with masses between 100 and 200 pounds.

The other CubeSats on-board the NG-12 mission are sponsored by NASA, the Air Force, and the National Reconnaissance Office. NanoRacks, a Houston-based space services company, arranged the launch of most of the CubeSats.

Some will be ejected from the space station after the Cygnus spacecrafts arrival, and others will be released from the Cygnus itself after the cargo vehicle departs the station in January.

Other payloads aboard the Cygnus supply ship include a rodent research experiment. Scientists loaded mice into the spacecraft to investigate how the animals respond to changes in their circatidal clock in microgravity.

The 12-hour circatidal clock, in which animals experience equal amounts of light and dark phases each day, is associated with maintaining stress responsive pathways. Scientists want to know if exposure to microgravity changes the animals circadian rhythm.

Recent research shows that genes associated with the 12-hour clock are linked with the most common form of human liver disease. The rodent research experiment on the space station could reveal new insights into liver disease, and give scientists ideas for new pharmaceutical treatments, according to NASA.

The Cygnus also carries an experimental garment that astronauts could use to protect themselves from harmful radiation on future deep space missions to the moon and Mars, outside the natural shielding of Earths magnetic field.

The Cygnus also delivered an oven to the space station designed to bake cookies in microgravity, demonstrating technology that will help future crews cook their own food on lengthy expeditions to the moon or Mars.

But an oven in microgravity doesnt work the same as one on Earth. The heating elements on the Zero-G Oven, developed by Zero G Kitchen and Nanoracks, are arranged around the oven to focus heat in the center, similar to the way a toaster oven works.

Currently, on the International Space Station, there is rally a limited ability to prepare foods in ways that were used to, said IanFichtenbaum, founder and co-chef of Zero G Kitchen.

Astronauts will load cookies into the oven on a special tray designed to keep the food from floating away in microgravity. Temperatures inside the oven will reach up to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (177 degrees Celsius) during baking, according to NASA.

Baking in space is different because theres no gravity, Fichtenbaum said. On earth, that air is churning around in the oven, and thats convection. In space, that is not happening. Instead, we have to use conduction through the oven, conduction through the air, to warm it up.

The first cookie to be baked in space comes from DoubleTree by Hilton, which provided chocolate chip cookie dough for the baking experiment.

Science is awesome, food is awesome, and this is just going to be an amazing journey to see what comes out of this, said JordanaFichtenbaum, founder and co-chef of Zero G Kitchen.

The Cygnus spacecraft also delivered mice to the space stationto investigate how the animals respond to changes in their circatidal clock in microgravity.

The 12-hour circatidal clock, in which animals experience equal amounts of light and dark phases each day, is associated with maintaining stress responsive pathways. Scientists want to know if exposure to microgravity changes the animals circadian rhythm.

Recent research shows that genes associated with the 12-hour clock are linked with the most common form of human liver disease. The rodent research experiment on the space station could reveal new insights into liver disease, and give scientists ideas for new pharmaceutical treatments, according to NASA.

The Cygnus also carries an experimental garment that astronauts could use to protect themselves from harmful radiation on future deep space missions to the moon and Mars, outside the natural shielding of Earths magnetic field.

The AstroRad Vest could shield astronauts from radiation from unpredictable solar storms, which can deliver enough radiation in a few hours to cause serious health problems for space fliers, officials said.

Our innovation was selective shielding, so were selectively shielding those organs that are most prone to either acute radiation syndrome or a cancer down the road, saidOren Milstein, co-founder and chief scientific officer for StemRad, an Israeli company that originally developed the vest garment to protect first responders from radiation during a nuclear accident.

StemRad is partnering with Lockheed Martin, the prime contractor for NASAs Orion crew capsule, to transfer the vest technology to space.

Astronauts on the International Space Station will wear the vest to check its comfort and function, according toKathleen Coderre, the AstroRad Vests principal investigator from Lockheed Martin.

The vest weighs nearly 50 pounds (about 22 kilograms). Milstein said the garment is made ofdense polyethylene embedded in a highly flexible textile mesh.

It is an ergonomic experiment, so the vest needs to protect the crew from the deep space radiation environment, but it also needs to be comfortable to wear, flexible enough for them to do their daily duties, Coderre said.

A similar vest will fly on the Orion crew module on the Artemis 1 mission, an unpiloted test flight into orbit around the moon that will verify the spacecrafts readiness to carry astronaut. That experiment will test the vests protective capability in the deep space radiation environment, which is more harsh than the radiation present at the International Space Station in low Earth orbit.

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Space station receives spacewalking gear, new baking oven - Spaceflight Now

A Journey to Mars Starts on the Space Station – Space.com

NASA is looking for ways to make a visit to the International Space Station a little more like a voyage to Mars.

Of course, nothing can ever truly replicate the experience of a Mars mission before humans embark on that journey for real. But NASA can prepare by mimicking as many different aspects of the trip as possible. So the agency is strategizing ways the space station can host such practice sessions without interfering with the orbiting lab's other priorities.

"My job is to imagine what a Mars mission would look like: Where would we go, what would we do, and how would we do it?" Michelle Rucker, an engineer at NASA's Exploration Mission Planning Office, said during a panel held at the International Astronautical Congress in Washington last month. "Going to Mars would be difficult, but fortunately, we don't have to start from scratch, because we've already built these other platforms that we can use to practice some of the operations that we would use on a human Mars mission."

More: NASA Wants 10 More Yearlong Space Station Missions for Mars PrepRelated: International Space Station at 20: A Photo Tour

Spaceflight professionals call those practice scenarios analog missions. The most striking Mars-analog missions so far are those that isolate crewmembers on Earth, perhaps in an exotic destination. But those analogs can't replicate specific characteristics of spaceflight, and that's why NASA decided to investigate ways that the agency could explicitly use the International Space Station as an analog for Mars missions.

"Every analog has some advantages, and every analog has some disadvantages," Julie Robinson, chief scientist of NASA's International Space Station Program, told Space.com. "It's worth thinking about what does [the space station] match and not match across all the different hazards of human spaceflight."

So NASA asked scientists, engineers and astronauts to consider how they could use time on the space station to better prepare for the long journey to Mars, ignoring the traditional constraints that rule on the orbiting laboratory. A team has been evaluating those possibilities and considering how they could be implemented.

Some aren't very feasible. For example, the team concluded, there's no straightforward way to adjust modules on the space station to mimic the squeeze that would be necessary for a Mars mission. That's better done on Earth.

The space station is also a more dynamic environment than a spacecraft headed to Mars would be, making the orbiting laboratory a poor model for the sort of social constraints Mars-bound astronauts would experience.

"The ISS is huge," Robinson said. "Compared to what I think is a likely Mars transit vehicle, it's a palace, and it has lots of coming and going." Trying to redesign these aspects of the space station as an analog would interfere dramatically with everything else about the space station.

But the team found that other key aspects of the long journey could be replicated onboard the space station. One priority is increasing the number of astronauts who remain in space for longer than the typical six-month stay, since a round-trip voyage to Mars would likely last about three years.

"On ISS, we've done a couple of one-year missions, and those have given us some concern," Robinson said. "We need to have enough crewmembers that have been on ISS for a longer period of time so that we really feel like we understand the variability in human responses to being in microgravity for that period of time."

Two NASA astronauts currently in orbit, Christina Koch and Andrew Morgan, will be spending a little longer than usual in flight. But before the agency can study longer flights in earnest, it needs its commercial crew providers, SpaceX and Boeing, to begin ferrying astronauts to the space station next year.

Time on the space station can also give NASA personnel a better sense of just how accurately they can prepare for a voyage that would take them far out of reach of any resupply missions. Rucker imagines an exercise in which mission staff attempt to plan out everything astronauts need for a specific period of time, then check how well the planning matched real crew needs.

"Was there anything not on the list? Did we forget something that, halfway to Mars, you would've said, 'Oh, we ran out of wet wipes,' or whatever," Rucker said. "It's a very simple thing to do, but if you are halfway to Mars and you're out of a critical item, it's not going to be a good day."

A second category of analogs relying on the space station makes use of returning crewmembers as they reaccustom themselves to dealing with terrestrial gravity. This serves as a model for the amount and type of activity astronauts could perform in their first hours on Mars. "What you can and can't assume the crew can do in the first day is a huge driver of the mass of the mission," Robinson said. That's because more impaired astronauts need more equipment; more equipment increases mission costs.

Right now, returning astronauts touch down in Kazakhstan, where it's difficult to run the types of tests NASA would want. And crewed SpaceX capsules will land in the ocean, where waves will interfere with the transition back to gravity. So for this type of test, NASA will have to wait until Boeing Starliner capsules are making their returns, which will be on land.

A final type of analog scenario involving the ISS is easier to implement, thanks to a recent upgrade to the station's computer facilities. These scenarios tackle the challenges of communication during a Mars mission.

Two such types of challenges face would-be Mars visitors: the sheer amount of time needed to hear back from colleagues on Earth during a time-sensitive situation and the occasional communications blackout, which would last up to two weeks. The latter is trickier to mimic on the space station, but practices that NASA already uses to prepare for spacewalks could become the basis for Mars blackout procedures, Robinson said.

And a recent computer update means that NASA can now implement a virtual communications lag that will allow everyone involved in a mission to practice dealing with such a distance from Earth. Right now, Robinson said, NASA is ready for scientists to develop specific scenarios to use that technology. "We don't want to just use it for a day for fun."

Having fun isn't a good way to mimic a Mars mission anyway, she added. "Think of a crew boarding that vehicle and waving goodbye and then being just the four of them for the next possibly three years," Robinson said. "That first leg of it, that first year, is like the worst family vacation you've ever imagined, because there's nothing to do."

Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her @meghanbartels. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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A Journey to Mars Starts on the Space Station - Space.com

Historic space flight artifacts donated by legendary cosmonaut displayed at space museum in Weatherford – KFOR Oklahoma City

WEATHERFORD, Okla. (KFOR) A legendary Soviet cosmonauts personal space flight artifacts are on display at the Stafford Air and Space Museum in Weatherford.

Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov died on Oct. 11 from an ongoing illness.

But a part of his legacy remains through his own personal artifacts on display at the Stafford Air and Space Museum, named for Astronaut Thomas P. Stafford, in Weatherford, Okla, a Stafford Air and Space Museum news release states.

Leonov donated artifacts from his personal collection to the museum to honor the close friendship he shared with Stafford.

Leonov twice decorated with his countrys top honor, the Hero of the Soviet Union was the first human to walk in space.

The highly accomplished cosmonaut commanded the Soviet side of the Apollo-Soyuz mission, which was the final flight for the Apollo program, and the first spaceflight in which spacecraft from different nations docked in space.

The United States and the Soviet Union were bitter rivals during the space race years that preceded the Apollo-Soyuz mission.

Leonov and Stafford, the Apollos commander, became close friends as they prepared for the mission, according to the news release.

The Soviet Cosmonaut and Western Oklahoma boy had a special bond from the very beginning. Their friendship turned the unlikely duo into lifelong friends; both becoming more like brothers. Alexei visited the Stafford Museum on several occasions, and many community members had the privilege of meeting the diplomat, the news release states.

Leonov honored his friendship with Stafford by donating a handful of significant personal items over the years to the museum, including his actual museum uniform.

Those precious items are now on display at the museum.

In the Apollo-Soyuz gallery, a life-size mannequin of Major General Alexei Leonov stands dressed in his actual flown cosmonaut in-flight garment that he wore during the Apollo-Soyuz mission, the news release states.

The museums gallery also contains many other Russian treasures, including a triple barrel gun that Leonov gave to Stafford.

The same type of gun was carried aboard the Soviet spacecraft as part of their survival kits, the news release states.

An NK-33 rocket engine is the museums most recent Russian collection acquisition. The NK-33 was the highest performing liquid oxygen/kerosene engine ever built. It was designed to power the giant N-1 moon rocket the Soviet competitor to the American Saturn V rocket, according to the news release.

The Stafford Air and Space Museum is the only facility in the world to have the main propulsion engines from both the Soviet and U.S. moon rockets, the news release states.

The museums connection to the Russian space program will continue beyond Leonovs death.

The museum will continue to share the story of the two unlikely comrades that aided in one of the most significant collaborations in history, showing that cooperation between countries of diverse nature could work, and that nations could come together for the greater good, forever impacting the future of spaceflight, the news release states.

The Stafford Air and Space Museum is one of only three Smithsonian Affiliate museums in Oklahoma. Click here for more museum information.

The museum is open seven days a week.

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Historic space flight artifacts donated by legendary cosmonaut displayed at space museum in Weatherford - KFOR Oklahoma City

Virgin Galactic: From Space To The Stock Market – Forbes

NEW YORK, NY - OCTOBER 28: Sir Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin Galactic, gives the thumbs up ... [+] after ringing a ceremonial bell on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) to promote the first day of trading of Virgin Galactic Holdings shares on October 28, 2019 in New York City. Virgin Galactic Holdings became the first space-tourism company to go public as it began trading on Monday with a market value of about $1 billion. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

This week, Virgin Galactic, the space tourism company launched by billionaire Sir Richard Branson in 2004, made its first appearance on stock markets. Virgin Galactic Holdings began trading on Monday, October 28 on the NYSE as SPCE. (Branson also had another, less-publicized triumph this week when his Virgin Trains was approved to sell $3.25 billion in bonds to create a Las Vegas-California high speed train line.)

Over 9 million shares changed hands on October 28. The stock, which hit a high of 12.93 on its launch date, has since fallen back to earth somewhat, closing on October 30 at 10.61. The stock price is a fraction of the $250,000 cost to consumers of a future Virgin Galactic flight.

Today is the start of a new era for the human spaceflight industry, said Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides, in a statement timed to the beginning of stock trading. Now that VG is a publicly traded company, anyone can invest in a human spaceflight company that is striving to truly transform the market and be part of the excitement of the commercial space industry.

The company did not reach stock market orbit as a hot IPO, but through a reverse merger with Social Capital Hedosophia. The company is to all intents and purposes a pre-revenue startup; it just happens to be public having merged with a listed cash shell, according to Seeking Alpha, which rated the company Neutral. Right now it has no fundamentals - no revenue, no earnings, no commercial operations.

What Virgin Galactic does have is 15 years of research and development in manned suborbital flight. These tourist jaunts are based on a reusable vehicle being launched from a mothership and zooming up to 300,000 feet.

Virgin Galactic says there is a path to profit, from such space tourists flights according to a presentation to the Securities and Exchange Commission reviewed by Space.com. Projections included a $104 million loss in 2020 while Virgin Galactic launches its space tourism program, near break-even operations by 2021 and a projected $274 million in earnings by 2023.

So what, exactly, is Virgin Galactic selling? Its not just a couple of weightless minutes in space, but the experience of it all, a concept that millions of potential Millennial customers apparently crave.

As a Virgin investor relations release put it, Using its proprietary and reusable technologies, and supported by a distinctive, Virgin-branded customer experience, [Virgin] is developing a spaceflight system designed to offer customers a unique, multi-day experience culminating in a spaceflight that includes several minutes of weightlessness and views of Earth from space.

Virgin Galactic reaches space for the first time during its 4th powered flight from Mojave, Calif. ... [+] The aircraft called VSS Unity reached an altitude of 271,268 feet reaching the lower altitudes of space. (AP Photo/Matt Hartman)

To get customers there, Virgin Galactic has developed its reusable SpaceShipTwo spaceflight system.It consists of WhiteKnightTwo, a custom-built, four engine, dual-fuselage carrier aircraft. At 45,000 feet, WhiteKnight will launch its load, SpaceShipTwo, for a rocket-powered journey to the edge of space.

SpaceShipTwo is a reusable, winged spacecraft designed to carry eight people (including two pilots) into space.Its powered by a hybrid rocket moter which Virgin Galactic says combines the simplicity of a solid-fuel motor with the easier control of a liquid rocket motor. SpaceShipTwos wings and tail boomsare designed to rotate upwards while in space, feathering like a badminton shuttlecock to help create a safe glide to re-entry.

The prospect of the experience around of space flight has excited many. More than 600 people, reportedly including Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, have put down a combined $80 million in deposits on prospective $250,000 spaceflights.

However, Seeking Alpha notes that The space tourism company isn't due to begin operations until June of 2020. If true, that will be twelve years, and well over a billion dollars in investment, after an originally announced date of 2008.

Is there a market for what Virgin Galactic is offering? According to the Swiss investment bank UBS, the space tourism industry will grow by more than 10% a year to be worth about $3 billion dollars by 2030.

As an investment, a company with no revenue and no track record of sending astronauts into space is certainly highly speculative. But potential investors might find it interesting to note that Boeing recently put $20 million into the company as well. A Boeing spokesperson said its work with Virgin Galactic will help unlock the future of space travel and high-speed mobility, potentially pointing towards high-speed international travel.

Or, as the irrepressible Sir Richard Branson put it, "This is the beginning of an important collaboration for the future of air and space travel, which are the natural next steps for our human spaceflight program.

TOPSHOT - Virgin Galactic's SpaceshipTwo takes off for a suborbital test flight on December 13, ... [+] 2018, in Mojave, California. - Virgin Galactic marked a major milestone on Thursday as its spaceship made it to a peak height, or apogee, of 51.4 miles (82.7 kilometers), after taking off attached to an airplane from Mojave, California, then firing its rocket motors to reach new heights. (Photo by Gene Blevins / AFP) (Photo credit should read GENE BLEVINS/AFP/Getty Images)

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Virgin Galactic: From Space To The Stock Market - Forbes

Virgin Galactic’s high-risk space adventure will likely pay off – Space Daily

Richard Branson rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange on October 28 as Virgin Galactic became the first commercial spaceflight company to list on the stock market. It was valued at more than US$1 billion following its merger with publicly-listed holding firm Social Capital Hedosophia, then experienced a 20% drop in its share price after a week of trading. It is now worth around US$800m.

The route to success in the space tourism industry is bound to be a wild ride and Branson is hoping his first mover advantage will bring healthy returns in the long run. Indeed, this high-risk venture could well pay off - it's just a question of when.

Virgin Galactic was founded in 2004 to offer paying customers a trip into suborbital space. For US$250,000, anyone can take a 90-minute flight into the upper reaches of the atmosphere where they will experience a few minutes of weightlessness and see the curvature of the Earth's surface. According to Virgin, 600 people from some 60 countries have already made their reservations, while a further 3,700 people have registered for the opportunity to buy flights once ticket sales are back on offer. This suggests that the combination of Branson's marketing prowess and the allure of space for humans are a plausible value proposition for investors.

Virgin is also offering a much cheaper route to experiencing space than its competitors. There have only been seven space tourists to date and none since 2009. All travelled on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) at a reported price tag of tens of millions of dollars.

NASA announced in June that it would offer trips to the ISS at a cost of US$35,000 per night, not including the cost of a taxi ride there from SpaceX and Boeing. The cost of these rides is likely to be at least US$60m, which is what NASA pays to take its astronauts to the ISS, and these visits are due to start in 2020. In September 2018, SpaceX unveiled its 2023 lunar passenger flight that would take Japanese billionaire businessman Yusaku Maezawa and six of his guests on a space flight around the moon using its Big Falcon Rocket for an undisclosed, but certainly a very substantial, price.

Substantial progressAlthough it has yet to fly any paying passengers and is currently loss making, Virgin Galactic aims to be profitable by 2021, based on completing 115 flights that generate US$210m in revenue. By 2023, it is forecasting revenues of US$590m and expects to have flown more than 3,000 passengers. Since that number is a tiny portion of the target market of high net-worth individuals with assets of at least US$10m, its projections could well be achievable. And, currently, Virgin Galactic appears to be ahead of Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin in fulfilling the vision of space tourism.

While Virgin Galactic has failed to deliver on expectations in the past - it missed its own targets for flights commencing and experienced a catastrophic accident in 2014 - it has more recently made substantial progress. In December 2018 it achieved its first suborbital space flight. Given that achievement and subsequent progress, it seems likely that commercial flights could commence within the next 18 months.

It is also diversifying its offering as it gears up for launch. In collaboration with the sportswear maker Under Armour, Virgin Galactic has developed a line of high-tech clothing that its passengers will wear on their flights. At the same time, it is moving into its new facilities at Spaceport America in the desert lands of New Mexico.

Spaceport America, where Virgin's flights will take off from and return to, has a US$220m investment by the New Mexico government. It is also here that passengers will undergo three days of training to prepare for the G-forces and weightlessness that they will experience on flights.

The business of space tourism is only just beginning. Air travel similarly started small with a limited target market, but grew to become a mass market with many commercial air carriers and millions travelling every month, served by airports that over time became large commercial hubs. The trajectory for space tourism travel in the decades to come has the potential to be similar. From a highly niche market, it can become one that has much broader appeal when costs reduce.

At the same time, spaceports can, like airports before them, become large concentrated centres of commercial activity. Should Virgin Galactic maintain its first mover advantage in space tourism in the years ahead, there is the prospect for healthy returns to investors in this high risk venture.

Related LinksVirgin GalacticSpace Tourism, Space Transport and Space Exploration News

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Virgin Galactic's high-risk space adventure will likely pay off - Space Daily

SAIC and Sinequa Align to Deliver an Intelligent Search Experience to NASA Marshall Space Flight Center SAIC and Sinequa Align to Deliver an…

Sinequas intelligent search platform will empower NASA Marshall Space Flight Center to explore NASAs Information Galaxies

Science Applications International Corp. and Sinequa, a leader in AI-powered search and analytics, are working together to deliver an intelligent search experience with Sinequas advanced natural language processing and machine learning technologies for NASAs global information access capability at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

SAIC, recently awarded a contract to deploy and sustain a global knowledge management capability for NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, chose Sinequas insight engine to help search and analyze NASAs structured and unstructured content while improving the search experience, which supports missions and operations.

Marketing Technology News: Shadowfencing Redefines Proximity Targeting for Leading Brands Across the US

Organizations like NASA have been looking at how to utilize decades of information and reports and to extract valuable insights from those data stores. In the past, knowledge managers and corporate librarians helped with that process but now tools such as Sinequas AI-powered search technologies are providing these insights using machine learning, state of the art natural language processing and knowledge mining, stated Dave Schubmehl, Research Director, AI Software Platforms, Content Analytics and Search at IDC. At IDC, we see this as an emerging trend to improve the search and information finding and use experience across a broad range of industries and government agencies.

Marketing Technology News: b8ta Announces $50 Million Series C and Launches Ark

We are excited to work with Sinequa on this important contract. Using its knowledge management platform, we are helping NASA to access and utilize decades worth of information, said Bob Genter, SAIC executive vice president and general manager of the Civilian Markets Customer Group. By better connecting NASAs workforce to digital content, we can help them deliver on critical space missions.

To be selected by such a well-known and a highly-regarded organization to provide a solution to the experts at NASA is thrilling, said Xavier Pornain, senior vice president, North America at Sinequa. Together with SAIC, Sinequas powerful search and analytics technology will unlock NASAs galactic treasure trove of information and make it actionable to the engineers and scientists who are planning future missions.

Marketing Technology News: Acoustic Collaborates With GBG to Accelerate Marketing Transformation

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SAIC and Sinequa Align to Deliver an Intelligent Search Experience to NASA Marshall Space Flight Center SAIC and Sinequa Align to Deliver an...

Mars Society Founder Makes Case for ‘Mars Direct’ Path to the Red Planet – Space.com

WASHINGTON Both SpaceX and NASA have ideas about how to get humans to the Red Planet, but the founder of the Mars Society says there's a better way to do it.

In a colorful talk here at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) on Oct. 23, Robert Zubrin made the case for his long-standing "Mars Direct" plan. Mars Direct, Zubrin argued, makes more sense than SpaceX's current Starship architecture and the plans of NASA, which may use the Gateway lunar space station as a staging point for human Mars missions.

Mars Direct, which Zubrin first proposed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, calls for an Earth Return Vehicle (ERV) that launches uncrewed to Mars and arrives at the Red Planet six months later. Aboard this spacecraft will be a nuclear-powered rover that generates rocket fuel from the carbon-dioxide-dominated Martian atmosphere. This rover's work will ensure that the ERV's fuel tank is topped up on the Red Planet.

Related: How Living on Mars Could Challenge Colonists (Infographic)More: Space News from the 70th International Astronautical Congress

Two more spacecraft would launch from Earth to Mars at the next available window, 26 months after the ERV took flight: a second ERV, and a habitat carrying the astronauts.

The crew then would spend 18 months on Mars before returning to Earth. Half a year later, they would arrive back on their home planet, and the next ERV and habitat combination would already be flying to the Red Planet, Zubrin suggested.

But this plan is not what SpaceX or NASA want to do, Zubrin said in his talk.

SpaceX's Starship has gone through multiple design and name changes since company founder and CEO Elon Musk unveiled the basic architecture in September 2016 under the moniker "Interplanetary Transport System."

The latest iteration features a reusable spaceship and rocket called Starship and Super Heavy, respectively, that will stand 387 feet (118 meters) tall when stacked. Starship will be powered by six of SpaceX's next-generation Raptor engines, and Super Heavy will have slots for 37 Raptors (though some of these slots may be empty on operational missions).

Super Heavy will launch Starship to orbit, then come back down for landing and reuse. Starship, meanwhile, will fuel up in Earth orbit and zoom off to Mars. It will land on the Red Planet, be refueled there using local resources (as in the Mars Direct vision) and eventually launch off the Martian surface to come back toward Earth.

Related: SpaceX's Starship and Super Heavy Mars Rocket in Pictures

"In short, this is the wrong way to use a Starship," Zubrin told a standing-room-only crowd at the conference, arguing that the propellant requirements would be excessive for such a large vehicle. Instead, he said, "Starship could be used as a fully reusable Earth to LEO [low Earth orbit] heavy-lift vehicle." And from there, payloads could stage off Starship to head to Mars.

Zubrin proposed using another spacecraft a sort of mini-Starship to "stage off of Starship." It would be sized to be a fully reusable upper stage of SpaceX's workhorse Falcon 9 rocket. Zubrin said this would reduce the fuel requirements sixfold. "So, rather than being a 120-ton-to-orbit kind of vehicle, it's a 20-ton-to-orbit vehicle," he explained.

Zubrin said that NASA could then work to build a Mars lander to help Musk's Starship plans, since "Starship is all he's doing." Zubrin further suggested that NASA could develop a 10-ton or more "Mars-class lander" that could be sent off of Starship or the Space Launch System, the giant rocket that NASA is developing to send crews to the moon and Mars.

While NASA's plans for a Mars mission around 2035 are still under development, the agency has proposed using a deep-space transport spacecraft, a reusable vehicle that can use both chemical and electric propulsion. This craft would cycle between the Gateway and Mars, bringing cargo and astronauts back and forth as required.

Using the Gateway would allow the transport spacecraft to be "serviced and sent out again" to the Red Planet, NASA argued in a 2017 description. Gateway would also be a natural gathering spot to foster international and private partnerships, which NASA is trying to achieve for cost and multilateral support as the agency works to land humans on the moon by 2024.

Zubrin argued that the agency should reconsider this approach. "The reason they are building the lunar orbit Gateway is because we don't have a heavy Mars lander," Zubrin said in the IAC talk. "You don't solve that by building a lunar orbit Gateway. You solve that by building a heavy Mars lander."

He also said that using Gateway would add more time to a Mars mission, because astronauts would have to go the moon-orbiting outpost first.

In a news conference at IAC the following day (Oct. 24), NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said the agency is considering several architectures for human Mars missions (without getting into specifics about which ones are under consideration). He said a 2033 or 2035 mission could be possible "if the budgets were to materialize," and one possible scenario might include a Venus gravity assist to go faster. The agency is also looking at scenarios where astronauts would spend 30 days on the Martian surface before going home, or making a two-year Red Planet stay, depending on what resources are available.

Zubrin brought up a few alternative architectures for the plan that he's heard from the community, including the idea of sending Starship to the moon before going to Mars.

"Sending a Starship to the moon is like sending a carrier aircraft whitewater rafting. It's the wrong spot for it," Zubrin said to audience laughter. One issue would be the amount of ejecta Starship would produce in the lunar environment, which could not only damage any lunar settlement nearby, but the Starship itself, he said.

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Mars Society Founder Makes Case for 'Mars Direct' Path to the Red Planet - Space.com

Are there any realistic spaceflight technologies from Star Wars? – MIT Technology Review

There are actually quite a few technologies in the movies that have some real-life counterparts. Were beginning to see roboticists build machines that move around and operate like droids. Biotech engineers are developing high-tech prosthetics to replace or augment lost or damaged limbs. People are using holograms more and more in many different industries (especially in medicine). And humanity continues its never-ending pursuit to make the flying car happen.

Unfortunately, when it comes to space technology, Star Wars takes liberties to new extremes. There is practically nothing real about its depiction of spaceflight. In real life, getting a single rocket off the surface of Earth and into space takes an excruciating amount of power and effort. Its a process where a zillion things could go wrong and lead to catastrophic failure. And ships dont move like airplanes in the vacuum of space.

To be fair, there are some aspects presented in Star Wars (and other works of science fiction) that scientists and engineers want to make into reality. One of the best examples is the artificial gravity depictedinside these ships. The lack of gravity in space can cause a host of problems for human bodies, and artificial gravity could help mitigate these effects.

In Star Wars, whether its on a space station as giant as the Death Star or inside a craft as small as an X-wing, the artificial gravity is just there, like some kind of ether. It makes no sense.

Still, many experts think we could simulate gravity in space by generating a high amount of centripetal force, la 2001: A Space Odyssey.The closest humans have ever come to producing this effect was during NASAs Gemini 8 mission in 1966, and this was only because an accident induced a high acceleration that forced the mission to terminate early.Later that year, Gemini 11 attempted to produce artificial gravity through rotation. The effect was too small to be felt by the astronauts onboard, although small objects were seen falling toward the end of the capsule.

While artificial gravity is not a high priority right now for anybody, experts continue to pitch new proposals for studying its implementation. Were likely to see them taken more seriously as we pursue more long-duration missions. The general idea that you could simulate terrestrial gravity in a spacecraft is not unthinkable. It just requires a lot of smart engineering and the type of money and resources that exceed some countries annual GDPs.

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Are there any realistic spaceflight technologies from Star Wars? - MIT Technology Review

Virgin Galactic Stock Finds Its First Fan on Wall Street – Motley Fool

Every day, Wall Street analysts upgrade some stocks, downgrade others, and "initiate coverage" on a few more. But do these analysts even know what they're talking about? Today, we're taking one high-profile Wall Street pick and putting it under the microscope...

New space tourism company Virgin Galactic (NYSE:SPCE) says that after reverse merging into shell company Social Capital Hedosophialast week, it in effect created "the World's First and Only Publicly Traded Commercial Human Spaceflight Company."

To one analyst on Wall Street, that fact alone is reason enough to buy the stock.

This morning, investment banker Vertical Research announced it is initiating coverage of Virgin Galactic with a $20 price target and a buy rating -- the first such Wall Street firm to do so.

Vertical cited two main reasons for endorsing Virgin Galactic. The first is that simple fact that at present, Virgin Galactic is the only pure play on human spaceflight that an individual investor can invest in, anywhere in the world. Sure, there are other ways to invest in spaceflight:

And there are also other pure plays on manned spaceflight, such as Blue Origin or SpaceX -- but neither of those is currently publicly traded.

Virgin Galactic is.

And yet, more than a week after Virgin Galactic began trading on the NYSE, no one else on Wall Street has recommended buying the stock. Why is that?

Investors got a good look at some of those potential reasons last week, when the company filed an 8-K with the SEC describing a few of its key financial metrics.

In that report, Virgin revealed that, for example, it has very little revenue at present -- only about $2.4 million in sales booked over the past six months -- and that it's losing a lot of money as it prepares to begin commercial operations ($96.4 million in net losses accrued year to date).

Of course, this is all probably to be expected.

Already, Virgin Galactic has arguably proven its spacecraft capable of flying well-heeled tourists to the edge of space and returning them to Earth safely. It's taken in some $81.1 million in prepayments from more than 600 would-be passengers. However, Virgin doesn't get to book those payments as revenue until it actually provides the service for which the passengers have paid -- and after pushing its launch date once again last month, the company now says it doesn't expect to begin commercial operation until next year.

In Vertical Research's opinion, this may be the real reason investors have shown themselves to be leery of Virgin Galactic stock: Until the company flies a bunch of tourists to space and brings them back safely, there's going to be a lingering suspicion that itcannot. And perhaps this is the real reason why after Virgin's shares began trading, theyended last week down 18%.

That's a steep hit to take so early in the space game, but as Vertical Research explains today in a note covered by TheFly.com, if what investors are worried about is Virgin's "technical" ability to successfully build and fly a spaceship for space tourism, well, that risk is "less draconian than the stock appears to be pricing in."

Over the past five years, multiple successful test flights since the crash that destroyed the company's first SpaceShipTwo in 2014 have gone off without a hitch. And if Virgin is delaying its first commercial flight a bit longer than investors might like, well, if it's doing this out of an abundance of caution, then that's not something to criticize -- but to applaud.

Mind you, I don't know that I'm 100% convinced that Vertical is right to value Virgin Galactic shares at $20 -- I'm going to need to see proof of the revenue the company can make, and proof that it can be made profitably before I make that call. But as far as the technical risk goes, I agree with Vertical Research on this one:

Virgin Galactic stock at less than $10 looks like a good bet to me -- and I'd bet that as soon as that first commercial flight breaks above the Karman line, shares will go higher.

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Virgin Galactic Stock Finds Its First Fan on Wall Street - Motley Fool

NASA’s Voyager Spacecraft May Have 5 Years Left to Explore Interstellar Space – Space.com

The twin Voyager probes are the ultimate spaceflight overachievers, but everyone knows their run can't last forever.

Right now, it's looking like the grizzled spacefarers have about five years before they fall silent, when they'll be no longer able to send word of their adventures back to the humans who have eagerly awaited their telegrams for 42 years and counting. The Voyagers' journey will continue indefinitely, but we will no longer travel with them.

"It's cooling off, the spacecraft is getting colder all the time and the power is dropping," Ed Stone, the mission's project scientist and a physicist at Caltech, said during a news conference held Oct. 31 in conjunction with the publication of a handful of new scientific papers. "We know that somehow, in another five years or so, we may not have enough power to have any scientific instruments on any longer."

Related: Voyager 2's Interstellar Trip Deepens Mysteries Beyond Solar System

Their success is unprecedented, even by NASA standards; the mission has lasted for two-thirds of the agency's existence. "We're certainly surprised but also wonderfully excited by the fact that they do [still work]," Stone said. "When the two Voyagers were launched, the Space Age was only 20 years old, so it was hard to know at that time that anything could last over 40 years."

Just as stunning as the spacecraft's longevity has been the longevity of a handful of instruments on board the probes. Four instruments on Voyager 1 continue to work; their twins and a fifth instrument are still gathering data on Voyager 2.

Stamatios Krimigis, a space scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and the principal investigator of the mission's low-energy charged particles experiment, explained that the devices were designed to last just four years, during which they would need to conduct 250,000 turns of a motor (dubbed "steps") to take measurements. Both versions of the experiment are still running.

"That device has been stepping every 192 seconds for the last 42 years," Krimigis said during the news conference. "It's close to 8 million steps, and we're absolutely amazed that it's still working."

The Voyager spacecraft launched two weeks apart in 1977, taking slightly different trajectories past Jupiter and Saturn. Then, the probes parted ways. Voyager 1 scouted out Saturn's moon Titan and then made a beeline out of our solar system; Voyager 2 took a more leisurely route, giving humans our only look at Uranus and Neptune.

Related: NASA's Voyager 2 Went Interstellar the Same Day a Solar Probe Touched the Sun

Their longevity has translated to speed and distance that are difficult to fathom. Both spacecraft are traveling at more than 30,000 mph (48,000 km/h). On NASA's tracking page for the mission, each spacecraft's odometer ticks up by 10 miles (16 kilometers) or more twice a second, a constant churn that makes the passage of time suddenly excruciating.

But the Voyagers are traveling at nowhere near the speed of light (186,000 mps, or 300,000 km/s), as their messages do. And yet, it takes nearly 17 hours for messages from Voyager 2 to travel back to Earth and more than 20 hours for those sent by Voyager 1. A whole meme cycle can roil the internet here on Earth between a message's dispatch and its arrival.

The probes' distance only makes them more compelling emissaries. A year ago, the mission checked off yet another achievement when Voyager 2 followed its twin through the bubble that surrounds our solar system. In just a couple of hours, Voyager 2 went from being surrounded by material born in the sun to being bathed by the local neighborhood a transition Voyager 1 had made in 2012.

Stone and Krimigis spoke to mark the publication of the first batch of scientific papers comparing the two crossings. The twin spacecraft's transitions to interstellar space have been similar but not identical, variations on a theme that humans have no concrete plans to experience again anytime soon. Unless something very dramatic happens in the universe around us, Pluto veteran New Horizons, like the Pioneer spacecraft before it, will fall silent long before it escapes our little bubble.

What the Voyager mission has made clear, the scientists speaking at the news conference said, is that two crossings are hardly enough to begin understanding this bubble and that, nevertheless, the spacecraft have completely changed what we know about it.

"We had no good quantitative idea of how big this bubble is that the sun creates around itself," Stone said. "We didn't know how large the bubble was, and we certainly didn't know that the spacecraft could live long enough to reach the edge of the bubble and leave the bubble and enter interstellar space, at least nearby interstellar space."

And now, of course, they do.

"This has really been a wonderful journey," Stone said.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct a value for the speed of light. Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her @meghanbartels. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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NASA's Voyager Spacecraft May Have 5 Years Left to Explore Interstellar Space - Space.com

The White House puts a price on the SLS rocketand it’s a lot – Ars Technica

Enlarge / Technicians at NASAs Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans moved the Space Launch System's liquid hydrogen tank from the factory to the dock, where it was loaded onto the Pegasus barge on Dec. 14, 2018.

NASA/Steven Seipel

After the Senate Appropriations Committee released its fiscal year 2020 budget bill in September, the White House Office of Management and Budget responded with a letter to share some "additional views" on the process. This letter (see a copy), dated October 23 and signed by acting director of the White House budget office Russell Vought, provides some insight into NASA's large Space Launch System rocket.

Congress has mandated that NASA use the more costly SLS booster to launch the ambitious Europa Clipper mission to Jupiter in the early 2020s, while the White House prefers the agency to fly on a much-less-expensive commercial rocket. In a section discussing the Clipper mission, Vought's letter includes a cost estimate to build and fly a single SLS rocket in a given yearmore than $2 billionwhich NASA has not previously specified.

"The Europa mission could be launched by a commercial rocket," Vought wrote to the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Alabama Republican Richard Shelby. "At an estimated cost of over $2 billion per launch for the SLS once development is complete, the use of a commercial launch vehicle would provide over $1.5 billion in cost savings. The Administration urges the Congress to provide NASA the flexibility called for by the NASA Inspector General."

Independent estimates have pegged the SLS cost this high, but NASA has never admitted it. A $2 billion cost to launch one SLS rocket a year raises significant questions about the sustainability of such an exploration programthe government killed the similarly sized Saturn V rocket in the early 1970s because of unsustainable costs.

The letter also references a report published by NASA's Inspector General Paul Martin last May, which recommended that NASA scientists and engineers, rather than Congress, choose the best rocket for their science mission to Jupiter's Moon Europa. This report, however, placed a much lower cost estimate on the SLS rocket. It stated that "NASA officials estimate the third SLS Block 1 launch vehicles marginal cost will be at least $876 million."

This discrepancy can likely be explained by the difference between marginal costs and marginal plus fixed costs. Martin's estimate is for "marginal" cost alone, meaning how much it would cost NASA to build an additional rocket in a given year. This likely does not apply to the Europa Clipper mission, however, as NASA would like to launch the Clipper spacecraft in 2023 or 2024, a time when the SLS rocket's core stage contractor, Boeing, will probably not be capable of building more than one booster a year.

The real cost for an SLS rocket should therefore include fixed costssuch factory space at NASA's Michoud Assembly in Louisiana, the workforce, and all of the other costs beyond a rocket's metal and other physical components. In other words, if you are only capable of building and flying one rocket a year, the total price must include fixed and marginal costs, which brings the SLS cost to "over $2 billion."

The political wrangling over the launch vehicle has put NASA and the Clipper mission planners at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California in a difficult position. There are basically three different rides to Jupiter, and each would involve modifications to the spacecraft. To make a 2023 launch, the Clipper's design really needs to be locked down soon.

The powerful SLS booster offers the quickest ride for the six-ton spacecraft to Jupiter, less than three years. But for mission planners, there are multiple concerns about this rocket beyond just its extraordinary cost. There is the looming threat that the program may eventually be canceled (due to its cost and the emergence of significantly lower cost, privately built rockets). NASA's human exploration program also has priority on using the SLS rocket, so if there are manufacturing issues, a science mission might be pushed aside. Finally, there is the possibility of further developmental delayssignificant ground testing of SLS has yet to begin.

Another option is United Launch Alliance's Delta IV Heavy rocket, which has an excellent safety record and has launched several high-profile missions for NASA. However, this rocket requires multiple gravity assists to push the Clipper into a Jupiter orbit, including a Venus flyby. This heating would add additional thermal constraints to the mission, and scientists would prefer to avoid this if at all possible.

A final possibility is SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket, with a kick stage. This booster would take a little more than twice as long as the SLS rocket to get the Clipper payload to Jupiter, but it does not require a Venus flyby and therefore avoids those thermal issues. With a track record of three successful flights, the Falcon Heavy also avoids some of the development and manufacturing concerns raised by SLS vehicle. Finally, it offers the lowest cost of the three options.

In the end, however, the rocket decision will probably not come down to technical and cost considerations. Politics, rather, will have the final say. And the Senator to whom Vought's letter was addressed, Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), has championed the SLS rocket for nearly a decade. (The vehicle is designed and managed at Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, his home state). So for NASA to get its Europa mission, which the science community generally agrees is a high priority due to the presence of a large water ocean beneath the Moon's icy surface, taxpayers may have to pay an additional $1.5 billion to placate a powerful policymaker.

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The White House puts a price on the SLS rocketand it's a lot - Ars Technica

NASA Has a New Method For Cooling Down Electronics Crammed Together in a Spacecraft – Universe Today

The race is on to find life in other places in the Solar System, from underground reservoirs on Mars to the subsurface oceans on Europa and Enceladus.

If spacecraft, rovers or even astronauts make the momentous discovery of life on another world, thatll just open up new questions. Did it originate all on its own, completely independently from Earth, or are we somehow related? And if we are related, how long ago did our evolutionary trees branch away from each other.

Even though Mars is millions of kilometers away, it could be possible that were still related thanks to the concept of Panspermia; the idea that meteor impacts could transfer rocks and maybe even living creatures from world to world.

But could you go one step further? If we find life on another star system, could we discover that were actually related to them too? Is Galactic Panspermia possible?

Our Book is out!

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References:

https://www.hoyle.org.uk/resources/virusesfromspacecompressed.pdf

https://www.lpi.usra.edu/lpi/meteorites/The_Meteorite.shtml

https://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2013/03211549-lpsc-hermean-meteorite.html

https://www.dlr.de/me/en/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-1752/2384_read-54290/

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Humanoid

https://phys.org/news/2018-08-timescale-evolution-life-earth.html

https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1011/1011.0101.pdf

https://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/2013/20130926-gravity-assist.html

https://arxiv.org/abs/1011.0101

https://phys.org/news/2010-11-necropanspermia-seeding-life-earth.html

https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/198/3/723/1012846

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1910.06414.pdf

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2019/hubble-observes-1st-confirmed-interstellar-comet/

https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/476/3/3031/4909830

https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/hyakutake.html

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NASA Has a New Method For Cooling Down Electronics Crammed Together in a Spacecraft - Universe Today