Daily Archives: March 27, 2017

President Donald Trump used his weekly address Saturday (March 25) to praise NASA's legacy of exploration and discovery in a video that also markedthe signing of the 2017 NASA authorization billearlier in the week.

"My fellow Americans, this week in the company of astronaut I was honored to sign the NASA Transition Authorization act right into law,"Trump said in his address on YouTube. "With this legislation, we renew our national commitment to NASA's mission of exploration and discovery, and we continue a tradition that is as old as mankind. We look to the heavens with wonder and curiosity." Trump signed the NASA authorization bill on Tuesday (March 21).

The video opened with clips from NASA's historic Apollo 11 moon landing mission, from a view of Neil Armstrong taking "one small step" on the lunar surface, to crowds cheering the Apollo 11 crew's return to Earth with a ticker tape parade. Trump then recounted a story from the Hubble Space Telescope's history. [Presidential Visions for NASA Throughout History]

"More than two decades ago, one scientist followed this curiosity and dramatically changed our understanding of the universe," Trump said. "The year was 1995. Taxpayers were spending billions and billions of dollars on the Hubble Space Telescope. The astronomer in charge had a novel idea. He wanted to use the expensive telescope in a totally unconventional way."

That scientist was Robert Williams, who wanted Hubble to stare at a completely empty patch of space for 100 hours (10 days over Christmas as Trump says in the video) to see what might be out there. The result was the Hubble Deep Field, the stunning discovery of thousands of galaxies in an otherwise empty patch of space. Science writer Nadia Drake has agreat recounting of the Hubble Deep Field's history here.

The original Hubble Deep Field image captured by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995.

"In that tiny patch of sky, the Hubble Deep Field showed thousands of lights. Each brilliant spot represented not a single star but an entire galaxy. The discovery was absolutely incredible," Trump said. "But the incredible image did not satisfy our deep hunger for knowledge. It increased ever more and even more, and reminded us how much we do not know about space, and frankly how much we do not know about life."

The Hubble Space Telescope has since made even longer observations of deep space, including the Hubble Ultra Deep Field in 2004 and the eXtreme Deep Field in 2012. NASA and the European Space Agency launched Hubble in 1990. The space telescope will celebrate its 27th anniversary in space in April.

Hubble's successor, the infrared James Webb Space Telescope, is scheduled to launch in 2018 to "gaze back through time and space to the very first stars and the earliest galaxies in the universe," Trump said. "We can only imagine what incredible visions it will bring."

Trump said he was glad Congress came together to approve the NASA authorization bill.

"At a time when Washington is consumed with the daily debates of our nation, I was proud that Congress came together overwhelmingly to reaffirm our nation's commitment to expanding the frontiers of knowledge," he said.

Trump added that there are many lessons NASA can teach all Americans, and not all of them are about space. "One lesson is the need to view old questions with fresh eyes; to have the courage to look for answers in places we have never looked before; to think in new ways because we have new information," he said. "Most of all, new discoveries remind us that in America anything is possible if we have the courage and wisdom to learn."

Trump closed with a look toward the future. He marveled at the pace at which Americans have explored space.

"In the span of one lifetime, our nation went from black and white pictures of the first airplane to beautiful images of the oldest galaxies captured by a camera in outer space," Trump said. "I am confident that if Americans can achieve these things, there is no problem we cannot solve. There is no challenge we cannot meet. There is no aim that is too high. Whatever it takes and however long it will be, we are a nation of problem solves and the future belongs to us. We are truly a great place to be. I love America."

Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him@tariqjmalikandGoogle+.Follow us@Spacedotcom,FacebookandGoogle+. Original article onSpace.com.

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President Trump Hails NASA's Space Exploration Spirit in Weekly Address - Space.com

Lockheed Martin experts are working to combat a critical shortage in engineers and stem professionals.

The company started a program aiming to encourage children to get interested in math and science at a young age. On Saturday, the group took to the streets of Huntsville with a mars bus with a mobile virtual reality to show students what it's like to drive on the surface of mars.

"The USis planning to go back to mars around 2030," Huntsville Site Director of Lockheed Martin, Jon Sharp,said. "So that means the next astronautto mars is in either grade school or middle school."

Lockheed Martin's Generation Beyond program also includes a classroom based curriculum that uses space exploration of spaceto inspire students to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and math.

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"Mars Bus" aims to teach children about space exploration - WAAY

Becoming master of the universe might be just an investment away for some of the worlds leading billionaires.

Private-owned space-travel companies have proliferated in the last few years. The government even jumped on board this week, when President Trump announced a $19.5 billion bill to fund NASA programs for the 2018 fiscal year. Add a smattering of billionaires investing in asteroid mining and missions to Mars, and well, space colonization seems almost inevitable.

Space X Founder and CEO Elon Musk isn't holding out for government funding though. The bill "changes almost nothing about what NASA is doing," Musk wrote. "Existing programs stay in place and there is no added funding for Mars.

Musk is a leading entrepreneur in the industry, but who else is bankrolling space ventures?

1 Elon Musk, Space X and Tesla Founder and CEO

Space Co: The company on every space geek's mind: SpaceX.

Enterprises: Musk has been collaborating with NASA under a $1.6 billion contract to enable colonization of, and space travel to, Mars. Recently, the program has flown 10 cargo missions to the International Space Station in addition to the historic feat of flipping rocket Falcon 9 in space and landing it upright on a drone ship in January 2017.

Net worth: $11.5 Billion

2 Jeffrey Bezos, Amazon CEO

Space Co: Blue Origin

Enterprises: The venture has successfully sent its suborbital spacecraft New Shepard to space six times. Bezos recently unveiled a new rocket engine built to advance the company goal of orbiting people and satellites in space. His direct competition: SpaceX.

Net worth: $73.4 Billion

3 Richard Branson, Virgin Group CEO and Founder

Space Ventures: Virgin Galactic

Enterprises: Branson recently announced he will take 75-year-old Stephen Hawking to space on Virgin Galactic. (Space travel has been a dream of the renowned physicist.) Branson is creating a fleet of rockets to take tourists to suborbital space at at a price of $250,000.

Net worth: $5 Billion

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4 Paul Allen, Microsoft Co-Founder

Space Co: Vulcan Aerospace

Enterprises: While his counterpart, Bill Gates, disdains those who spend money on space exploration, Allen recently created Stratolaunch Systems to launch satellites into orbit from the world's largest airplane.

Net worth: $15.8 Billion

5 Larry Page, CEO of Google

Space Co: Backer of Planetary Resources

Enterprises: The venture aims to mine asteroids for precious metals and water for Earth or space travel.

Net worth: $35 Billion

6 Eric Schmidt, Chairman of Alphabet Inc.

Space CO: Backer of Planetary Resources

Enterprises: In addition to asteroid mining, the company is creating an "Earth observation system," which will use 10 micro-satellites to determine the make-up of any spot on our planet.

Net worth: $10.1 billion

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7 James Cameron, Film Producer and Director

8 Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook Founder and CEO

Space Co: Serving on the board of Starshot

Enterprises: Funded by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, the $100 million research program aims to explore space for extraterrestrial life and to eventually perform a flyby mission to Alpha Centauri within a generation.

Net worth: $58.9 Billion

9 Charles Simonyi, architect of Microsoft

Space Co: He doesn't own any private projects, but the billionaire is the only person to visit space twice as a tourist. The trips cost him $60 million dollars and six months of training.

Net Worth: $2 billion

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10 Luxembourg (the country)

Space Co: A $200 million dollar fund for asteroid mining

Enterprises: In an effort to attract space mining companies like Planetary Resources and Deep Space the tiny nation of 600,000 people hopes to become an international hub for the space industry.

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10 Billionaires Investing in Space Exploration - TownandCountrymag.com (blog)

Humans have set foot on the moon and may one day walk on Mars, but to push farther into space we will likely need a pit stop.

With that in mind, 32 students from around the world will meet up at Caltech from March 2631 for the 2017 Caltech Space Challenge, a competition to design a launch-and-supply station dubbed Lunarport for future space missions. The event is organized by the Graduate Aerospace Laboratories of the California Institute of Technology (GALCIT) to help mentor the next generation of aerospace engineers.

During the weeklong biennial event, the studentsa mix of graduate and undergraduateare divided into two teams, each of which has just five days to create a fresh design to tackle an upcoming space-exploration challenge. At the first Caltech Space Challenge in 2011, the teams were tasked with exploring an asteroid and returning with a sample of rock or ice. In 2013, the teams designed campaigns to land humans on a martian moon. That year, the winning team proposed a robotic precursor mission followed up by a three-astronaut exploration of both of Mars moons, Phobos and Deimos.

And at the most recent Caltech Space Challenge, in 2015, the students planned a mission to an asteroid that had been brought into lunar orbit, to extract its resources and demonstrate how they could be used.

The goal of every competition is to present students with a challenge that humanity is expected to face in the not-too-distant future. For example, a station like the Lunarport, if constructed someday, would provide a staging facility for heavy payloads, at which rockets could be refueled to continue their journey to deep space.

While working on the challenge, the students will also receive expert guidance via lectures from engineers at Orbital ATK, Blue Origin, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL, which Caltech manages for NASA), and other organizations. At the end of the week, each team will present its solution, and a winner will be selected by a jury of industry experts.

This year, 806 students applied to participate in the eventmore than the combined number of applicants for the three prior Caltech Space Challenges. The 32 successful applicants come from 14 different countries on four continents.

This years Caltech Space Challenge is being organized by Caltech graduate students Ilana Gat (MS 14) and Thibaud Talon (MS 14). The Caltech faculty advisers are Paul Dimotakis (BS 68, MS 69, PhD 73), the John K. Northrop Professor of Aeronautics and professor of applied physics; Jakob van Zyl (MS 83, PhD 86), senior faculty associate in electrical engineering and aerospace, lecturer in electrical engineering, and director for solar system exploration at JPL; and Anthony Freeman, lecturer in aerospace and manager of the JPL Innovation Foundry. The event is supported by Caltech and its Division of Engineering and Applied Science, JPL, the Keck Institute for Space Studies, and Caltechs Moore-Hufstedler Fund. Its corporate sponsors include Airbus, Microsoft, Orbital ATK, Northrop Grumman, Blue Origin, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Schlumberger, and Honeybee Robotics.

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Students to Plan Moon Base for Deep-Space Exploration at Next Week's Caltech Space Challenge - Pasadena Now