Daily Archives: May 11, 2017

Nasa should aim to reach an important milestone on the way to Mars during Donald Trumps presidency, astronaut Buzz Aldrin told a conference on Tuesday.

Trump spoke of being ready to unlock the mysteries of space in his inaugural address and last month signed a Nasa funding bill containing the most comprehensive language yet in support of Mars exploration, setting a target of 2033 for a manned mission.

Aldrin, who recently met the vice-president, Mike Pence, at the White House, declared at the Humans to Mars Summit in Washington: I think we can all say with confidence that we are closer to Mars today than we have ever been.

The second man to walk on the moon laid out his longstanding vision of cycler spacecraft that, by 2039 or earlier, could carry astronauts on the three-month trip to Mars every two years. This commute, based on gravity-assisted trajectories and with refuelling done in Earth orbit, would be more cost-efficient than launching rockets from Earth every time, he argued.

Evidently aware of political imperatives, Aldrin suggested that one of the cyclers could be designed and tested before the first term of the president is out.

He told delegates at George Washington University: I think we can send a very early version to an asteroid. They dont get back until after the election of 2020, but at least there is an achievement of sorts that can be demonstrated.

The 87-year-old added: A fly-by of Venus can be done before 2024.

Eventually, the cyclers could send people to Mars to build a permanent settlement. We will be achieving continued occupation on Mars with international crews and this will require a presidential commitment, said Aldrin. I believe this nation within two decades will lead international crews to Mars to occupy; not to visit and come back and leave it empty, but to occupy before coming back.

Although grand ambitions of reaching Mars first may seem to chime with Trumps brand of nationalism and conjure images of the stars and stripes being planted on the red planet, Aldrin and other experts agree it must involve international cooperation.

A US-led coalition would include Europe, Russia, India, Japan and China, as well as emerging space nations the United Arab Emirates, South Korea and Saudi Arabia, Aldrin added. We can afford to go to Mars but we must have fiscal discipline. We must focus our limited resources on only those things that are really necessary to get to Mars. In my view, we are currently spending over $6bn on programmes we do not need to get to Mars. We need reusability, every element of the system.

Aldrin began and ended his speech with the phrases No flags or footprints this time and Get your ass to Mars! the latter a quote from the 1990 sci-fi film Total Recall. But his plan would require a massive concentration of money to build technologies and vehicles that do not yet exist.

Nasa is currently building its most powerful ever rocket, the Space Launch System, due for test flight in 2019. The agency is aiming for a 2033 launch of a crewed mission to orbit but not land on Mars. Similarly, the Apollo missions of half a century ago circled the moon before Apollo 11 allowed Aldrin and Neil Armstrong to walk on the lunar surface.

Aware of how John F Kennedys presidency is still associated with his vision of putting a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s, Trump may be alive to the political symbolism of pushing back frontiers in space. Hes much more proactive, said Jeff Bingham, a space industry veteran and retired US Senate staffer. His comments are more positive than the last administration.

Last month, during a video call with an astronaut aboard the International Space Station, Trump raised the issue of sending humans to Mars and said: Well, we want to try and do it during my first term or, at worst, during my second term, so well have to speed that up a little bit, OK?

Pascal Lee, chairman of the Mars Institute and director of the Nasa Haughton-Mars Project, said: The rumour I hear is that the president is wanting to do something thats going to be exciting in space, and the filter seems to have been: can it be done in his first term or second term? None of this that were talking about here, Mars, is really doable in that short of a time frame, although going into Mars orbit is potentially something that could be pulled off before the end of a second term.

But at the same theres no new administrator named yet. In that sense, were still in limbo, if not chaos. So where theres chaos, theres opportunity. This is why I think theres a sense of optimism here because were now overtly talking about going to Mars, but at the same time theres no clear commitment to going.

In last months bill, Trump and Congress retained most of Nasas funding, at about $19.5bn, although it slashed $200m for climate science, education programmes and an asteroid mission that it was hoped would pave the way to Mars.

The mood at the annual Humans to Mars Summit was upbeat. Chris Carberry, chief executive and co-founder of Explore Mars, a nonprofit organisation promoting the cause, welcomed Trumps positive words and said: Were not going to have an Apollo-like moment, or Kennedy-like moment, but I dont think we want to. That proved not to be sustainable after we beat the Soviet Union to the moon we had no reason to continue. There are many reasons why we should explore and thats what were trying to highlight.

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To Mars, and beyond: Buzz Aldrin describes vision for space exploration - The Guardian

If you follow Chinas bold ambition to join the great space powers, it will eventually lead you here, to the neglected eastern edge of steamy Hainan island, in a speck of a village that doesnt appear on most maps.

Rocket replicas and signs for Wi-Fi welcome visitors past coconut trees and peppers grown from seeds bred in space. Guide maps show what this hamlet of about 50 residents might become, though the blacktop still looks fresh and most of the noise comes from the chicken coop. A robot in astronaut attire zips around an empty restaurant.

Local officials envision Haosheng as the start of a thriving tourist destination tied to nearby Wenchang Satellite Launch Center, much in the way Floridas Space Coast draws visitors interested in Cape Canaveral. Chinas newest spaceport opened for tours last year and just sent the countrys first cargo spacecraft into orbit.

Chinese officials have realized much as the U.S. did in the 1960s that a popular space program can serve as a rallying point for national pride, a notion key to President Xi Jinpings quest for national rejuvenation. The latest efforts help recast a clandestine military-led program into an entertaining, tourist-friendly initiative as China demonstrates its ascent and tests U.S. supremacy in space.

Space exploration is a standard mark of whether the country is developed, said Wumei Ling, 23, who assists at the visitors center, a shed filled with pamphlets of cuddly alien mascots.

The distance between the U.S. and China is shortening. Im very proud.

China still lags far behind the U.S. but is investing millions amid uncertainty about Washingtons priorities. Its also vying against ambitious private companies like Hawthorne-based SpaceX that assist NASA and seek to dominate frontier markets.

Xi has tethered space power to the countrys rise. Last year for the first time, China launched more rockets than Russia. The nation also undertook its longest crewed mission and completed the worlds largest radio telescope. It aims to land a rover on the far side of the moon next year, a first for any country, and put a probe on Mars by 2020.

Just 10 or 20 years ago, you could not imagine China doing what its done or plans to do, said Zong Qiugang, an astrophysicist at Peking University in Beijing, who has worked with the U.S and Chinese space agencies.

South of Haosheng, launch towers jut into the horizon. The government embedded the three other spaceports deep in the interior. That makes this one located a half-hour drive from the coastal city of Wenchang in Chinas southernmost province the most accessible.

Hundreds of people climbed on top of buildings and lined up along the beach late last month to watch the cargo spacecraft shoot into the atmosphere. Even more gathered in June for the centers first launch, the test flight of a liquid-fueled carrier rocket.

Its a major shift from a program that was owned by the military and covered in secrecy to one that is more open to the rest of Chinese society and looking towards the outside, said Gregory Kulacki, China project manager for the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit science advocacy organization.

When the U.S. put a man on the moon in 1969, China was busy condemning capitalist devils and closing colleges as part of the Cultural Revolution. The nation put its first astronaut in space more than three decades later.

The latest launch puts China a step closer to the orbiting space station it plans to complete by 2022, around the time the International Space Station which is largely operated by the U.S. and bans the communist country winds down. This would make China the only nation with a permanent presence in space.

But the days of a Sputnik-style race have ended. Chinas space goals are as much about cultural prestige, diplomacy and economics as they are about geopolitical tactics.

Efforts like Haosheng underscore that strategy.

It would be a pity not to play the aerospace card, Wenchang Mayor Wang Xiaoqiao told state media in January when he announced Haoshengs transformation. He described a region prosperous from tech advancements and aerospace training.

The village only recently opened as a space tourism destination, and Ou Rongdong, who is starting an open-air restaurant topped with fake ivy, serves as its de facto greeter.

The jovial 39-year-old, clad in jeans and a T-shirt, calls himself an honorary citizen, because hes from the mainland. Ou detailed the new plans as he lunched on duck in soy sauce with the towns artistic re-creators. The gazebo behind the restaurant rang with the clink of hammers.

Ou counted at least 25 companies that will work in the village, which until now, he said, consisted of fewer than a dozen households, all with the surname Zheng. He predicted more job opportunities.

My generation or the next generation is very interested in space, Ou said. The satellite dream adds to the Chinese dream of imagination, originality and everything else.

Hainan, sometimes referred to as Chinas Hawaii, has always drawn tourists. It pulls northerners eager to flee choking smog and Russians escaping Siberian winters. Situated on the edge of the South China Sea, its also a key spot for the nations main submarine base.

Physics too plays a role. The Earth rotates fastest at the equator, giving rockets an extra push. And any debris from a launch will more likely hit water than land.

Hainan is incredibly militarized and hugely strategically vital, said Dean Cheng, who studies Chinas space program at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington think tank.

Foreigners cant tour the launch center. They can, however, pay a fee to sit in a chair near the ticket entrance and experience a simulated spaceflight.

And they can visit Haosheng.

Zheng Yugan recognizes the tourism drive is altering his community but consented to the local government payoff: 30 chickens and a renovated home.

After the change, its very beautiful, said Zheng, who, like others in the village, is an aging farmer. He shrugged at mentions of space and resumed his crouch near the new turquoise exercise equipment.

Wenchang officials may have dreamed a little too big. They laid the foundation stone for a theme park in 2010; it still hasnt opened. Empty, half-built condos stare out at fields leading to Haosheng. A planned business district has yet to develop.

Still, real estate ads line the highway. Banners spread across bus stops in downtown Wenchang remind citizens about food safety and show a small rocket blasting off in a corner. A March race billed itself as the Wenchang Space City International Half-Marathon.

Residents see possibility for a forgotten part of the island.

Holly Chen and her mother folded clothes one morning in their tiny shop near the race route.

More and more people will visit, said the 20-year-old, who recently graduated from college and returned to Hainan. To send a rocket to space, we as locals feel honored.

She went back to folding T-shirts, fresh with logos of the solar system.

Nicole Liu of The Times Beijing bureau contributed to this report from Hainan.

Meyers is a special correspondent.

Twitter: @jessicameyers

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Aerospace peppers and astronaut robots: A town's transformation reveals China's ambitions in space - Los Angeles Times

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Endless Space 2 Wants To Psych You Up For Space Exploration With This Latest Trailer - Bleeding Cool News