Monthly Archives: August 2021

With Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson both flying to space in craft made by their own private companies, July 2021 was perhaps the highest-profile month for space in years. But these events have been met with a mix of opinion.

I am an associate professor of public relations and study how opinions on topics like politics, entertainment and even space launches vary between different groups of people. I worked with colleagues at The Harris Poll to find out what U.S. residents think of these launches and the broader topic of private spaceflight.

The poll found that most U.S. residents are interested in and have a positive attitude toward the private space industry. One outlier was younger people, who are less hopeful about the benefits of galactic journeys. Overall though and rather interestingly these positive feelings are widely held across political and demographic lines. Its rare to see such agreement on any issue these days, so the results suggest space may be a unifying topic in future years.

A total of 2,011 U.S. residents responded to the survey questions between July 23 and July 25, 2021, just a couple weeks after Branson and Bezos went to space. The survey asked people to agree or disagree with a number of statements about the potential value of these launches, the motivation behind the launches and who will have access to space. In response to every question, people were supportive of space travel and the technological developments that come from it. Yet, respondents also viewed these events as ego trips generally limited to rich people.

To understand whether people think these endeavors are important, one statement was: Space travel and research are important for the future development of humanity. Seventy-four percent of respondents agreed, with similar results across all political parties. Similarly, over twothirds of people agreed with the idea The recent space launches by Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic are important for the future development of space travel and technology.

Despite this support, results also reflected recent chatter about space being the playground of the super-rich. In response to the statement The launches make me believe that one day soon ordinary people will be able to go to space, 58% of people agreed. Yet about 80% felt The launches make me believe that only rich people will be able to go to space anytime soon, as well as agreed with the statement The recent space launches by Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic were billionaire ego trips.

Finally, about 3 in 4 felt Money spent on space could better be spent addressing todays issues on Earth, though partisan divides were a bit higher here.

According to Rob Jekielek, managing director at The Harris Poll, Space travel has captured our imagination about the future of humanity, but people are concerned about taking resources away from addressing todays pressing challenges. This feeling was mirrored across most demographics and political parties a rare thing in an age when partisanship on most issues is quite high.

While the survey found a lot of agreement across partisan lines, there were higher levels of disagreement between age groups young people in particular stood out.

Respondents 18 to 24 years old were less supportive when it came to believing that spending money on space or on Earth would have as much of a positive effect.

Of the youngest group, 59% said space travel is important for humanity, and only 63% thought the money could be better spent on Earth. Meanwhile, 78% of people aged 41 to 56 thought space travel is important for humanity, and 80% think money spent on space travel could be better spent on Earth. Young peoples lower trust in the ability of money to solve problems compared to older groups is not new, though. Younger Americans tend to have less faith in political systems in general.

Another demographic difference of note was between those willing to get a COVID-19 vaccine versus those who were not. Of people interested in vaccines, 79% think space travel is important versus 60% of those opposed to vaccines. While both groups still agree that space travel is important, the gap was one of the largest in the sample. I believe this could reflect differing views on science in general.

Despite the mix of headlines and tweets alternatively bashing or praising Bezos, Branson and Elon Musk, this survey shows that, for now, U.S. residents are generally in agreement that space is still an exciting frontier. The future of space includes satellite internet, missions to Mars and space tourism, but it also involves high costs, the problems of space junk and climate concerns.

It will be interesting to see if this broad support continues or if partisanship and the less optimistic views of the younger generations take hold.

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Space travel for billionaires is the surprise topic with bipartisan American support but not from Gen Z - The Conversation US

Its just as well that Valentina Tereshkova was not around to get her hands on a copy of the June 17, 1963 edition of The New York Times. Tereshkova would not likely have been able to read the Times no matter what, since Western papers didnt much circulate in the Soviet Unionor anywhere else in the Eastern bloc for that matter. But even if they had, Tereshkova would have missed that Times edition: Just the day before, she had lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in what is today the nation of Kazakhstan, aboard her Vostok 6 spacecraft, becoming the 12th personand the first femalein space.

SOVIET ORBITS WOMAN ASTRONAUT, the Times headline read, respectfully enough. The first paragraph maintained the businesslike tone, identifying her as a Junior Lieutenant in the Soviet Air Force. So did the next paragraph, describing how Tereshkova was communicating by radio with fellow cosmonaut Valery Bykovsky, who was also aloft in his Vostok 5 spacecraft. But then things turned sour.

Sovfoto/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

There was the reference to her in the third paragraph as a heavyset parachutist. There was that business later on about the elegant blue linen dress and stiletto heels she wore when she met the Soviet presswith no corresponding mention of Bykovskys ensemble. There were the quotes from everyday New Yorkers who were asked to respond to Tereshkovas accomplishment.

It only proves one thingthat you cant get away from women no matter where you go, said one passengerglamorously described as an air travelerat New York International Airport, in the days before it was JFK.

They shouldnt send a woman up there alone, said one woman in Times Square. She should have a man with her.

David Pollack/Corbis via Getty Images

History would note that Tereshkova very much did not need a man to circle the Earth 28 times in her own spacecraft, remaining aloft for nearly three days. But that didnt stop tongues from wagging and people from disapproving of the whole idea of a lady astronaut. History would note too that it would be another 20 years, almost to the day, before the U.S. would follow the lead of the U.S.S.R., when Sally Ride became the first American woman in space.

But that was then and this is nowsort of. Just shy of 600 human beings have flown in space, but as of this spring, only 65 of them have been women, according to NASA. Thats not nothing. Women have commanded the space shuttle, commanded the space station; in 2020, astronauts Jessica Meir and Christina Koch conducted the first all-female spacewalk. Whats more, NASAs Artemis lunar program is very explicit in its goal to land the first woman and the next man on the moon by the mid-2020s. And if NASA knows whats smartand NASA usually does know whats smartthe betting here is that that woman will also command the mission.

Sergei Savostyanov

While space explorations past has been largely a male enterpriseespecially in the earliest days, defined by rocket-jock test pilots with their sports cars and groupies and taste for hard-drinkingthe future is likely to be female. NASA tapped 18 astronauts as candidates for the Artemis program and took care to divide them evenly between nine men and nine women. Some of the best-known astronauts of the shuttle and space station era have been women: Americas Peggy Whitsonwho has accumulated 665 days in space over the course of her three missions, the equivalent of a round-trip to Mars; Chiaki Mukai, the first Japanese woman in space; Yi So-yeon, the first Korean woman; Mae Jemison, the first African American woman.

It ought not have to be saidthough in some quarters it is perhaps a necessary reminderthat these and the other five dozen women in space are every bit the cosmic equivalent of their male counterparts. But might they in some ways be better? Might they bring qualities men lack?

Twenty-four men have seen the moon up close and came back to tell us about it. What different perspective might a woman have carried home?

Space Frontiers

I thought so (and still think so) when I was writing my new novel Holdout, about Walli Beckwith, an American astronaut who refuses to come home from the International Space Station when an emergency forces her crewmates to evacuate. Beckwith risks her careerand her lifeto make a stand in space in order to right a grievous wrong taking place on Earth. For the first chapter of the book, Walli was Wally, she was a he. But when I finished writing that chapter I felt oddly dissatisfied, oddly limited; my lead character wanted to be a womanneeded to be a woman, I felt.

I wanted a character who reminded me of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, Eleanor Roosevelt, women who stood up for human rightsand did so without the structural advantages of access to power and influence that men have historically enjoyed. When Wally became Walli, she became richer, more complex, more nuanced, more humane. Her defiant stand became bravermade, as it was, against a system that remains far more patriarchal than matriarchal. And I foundfair or notthat her relationships with the other characters became more layered.

AFP

These same traits might even make women a better choice for long-duration space missions than men are. Emotional intelligence is not the exclusive province of females, but it is often expressed more fully, more consistently by them than it is by men. And thats a quality that will be in deep need as humans try the hard and collaborative business of homesteading the moon or, even more remotely and challengingly, Mars.

There is a certain kind of reverse bias in framing women as the more compassionate, intuitive, interpersonally adept gender. There are obtuse women and empathic men; selfish women and selfless men. There is cowardice in both genders and courage in both. And all of this is just assigned-at-birth gender. None of it even takes into consideration the rainbow of traits found across the arc of more fluid genders.

Still, as with so many other things, space has been an overwhelmingly mens game long enough. It was a mens game this summer in the bro-billionaire competition between Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos to be the first to make their suborbital jaunts. It was a mans game when space was a proxy war between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., fighting for the celestial high ground. It was a mans game in the decades after. Neil Armstrong, bless him, gave us his historic but stilted One small step statement. Might there have been something more lyrical from a woman? Twenty-four men have seen the moon up close and came back to tell us about it. What different perspectiveabout the nature of humanity, the imperative to exploremight a woman have carried home with her?

Were finding out slowly, and well find out more as ever greater numbers of women take their place inand stake their claim tospace. From my small earthbound perspective, I can only say Im glad I made Wally a Walli. I had more to give the character than I otherwise would haveand I learned more from her, too.

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Women Are the Future of Space Travel - ELLE.com

A mission to Mars is just one of the many out-of-this-world pit stops for USC Roski School of Art and Design alum Richelle Gribble.

I am an expeditionary artist, and my art is my passport, she said. I travel to far-reaching and unassuming places to reflect where humanity, technology and the environment collide.

Gribble was one of a select group of people chosen to experience the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation, or HI-SEAS. Its an analog habitat for human spaceflight to Mars that is located in an isolated area near the Mauna Loa volcano on the island of Hawaii. The area has Mars-like features and resides at an elevation of approximately 8,200 feet above sea level.

USC Roski alum Richelle Gribble on her mission to Mars. (Photo/Courtesy of Richelle Gribble)

As soon as the crew arrives at the habitat and the airlock door is shut behind us, the Mars analog simulation begins, Gribble said. I was the vice commander and creative research specialist on a crew with five other women.

The first HI-SEAS study was in 2013, and NASAs Human Research Program continues to fund and sponsor follow-up studies. The missions are of extended duration from four months to a year and replicate isolated and confined environments, such as Mars500, Concordia and the International Space Station.

The purpose of the missions is to determine whats required to keep a spaceflight crew physically and mentally sound while on extended missions. The simulated Mars missions conduct research into food, crew dynamics, performance and other aspects of space flight. In addition, the HI-SEAS researchers carry out studies through a variety of daily activities.

Gribbles work, a convergence of art and science, is the type of solutions-based endeavor USC Roski School Dean Haven Lin-Kirk sees as a result of artists unique insight.

Artists tend to have a great deal of empathy and understanding of the human spirit, she said. I am immensely proud of how far our former artists and designers have gone and to see the tremendous impact they provide to society on Earth and perhaps beyond.

The HI-SEAS analog habitat location is surrounded by red, rocky terrain much like the iron oxide dust and regolith of Mars as well as a network of caves where the crew can carry out research during their simulated spacewalks, as seen in a video diary by Gribble and her all-female crew.

Our days are quite busy with packed schedules and a lot to be done in a short amount of time, mimicking the experience of astronauts in the International Space Station, Gribble said. We wear a full body spacesuit with a built-in communication system and oxygen machine. We cook with all dehydrated ingredients and track our food and water supply to correlate with the missions duration. We undergo daily exercise, sleep in small enclosures, have access to a science research laboratory, grow plants under grow lights, track daily medical reports and pursue both individual and team research and projects.

In addition, the HI-SEAS study by NASA is trying to understand crew dynamics such as morale, stress management and problem-solving. While working together as a group, each crew member is assigned a specific task to aid in the overall success of the mission.

Together, we delegate tasks to maintain the health and well-being of each other as well as oversee the systems and operations of the habitat, Gribble said. We each have daily activities and reports that are submitted each night, complete with a 20-minute communications delay, like Mars to our Mission Control.

Gribble said she wanted to join the HI-SEAS simulated mission to Mars as part of a multiyear voyage to broaden her artistic perspective by witnessing different places firsthand.

It led me to make art in unassuming yet far-reaching places, Gribble said. Ive traveled atop glaciers near the North Pole, in a traditional Japanese paper mill in rural Japan, underwater and within the Amazon jungle, in the Biosphere 2 in Arizona and inside a habitat on an analog Mars mission with NASA.

Gribble is currently developing an entire collection of art inspired by her journey to Mars. Works of art that stemmed from the HI-SEAS Mars simulation include the following:

Animated paintings of Martian rocks

(Images/Courtesy of Richelle Gribble)

Cave Paintings of the 21st Century

(Images/Courtesy of Richelle Gribble)

Eco-Footprints

(Images/Courtesy of Richelle Gribble)

To Space, From Earth: A space art DNA time capsule

(Images/Courtesy of Richelle Gribble)

Living Light

(Images/Courtesy of Richelle Gribble)

Crew members selected to take part in the HI-SEAS study are chosen based on the research projects proposed as well as the position for habitat operations and systems.

I encourage people from all backgrounds and disciplines to attend a space analog mission, especially as we extend our reach through commercial space travel, Gribble said. My hope is that analog missions can help accelerate our understanding of our social and environmental responsibilities on Earth and in the greater cosmos.

More stories about: Alumni, Roski School of Art and Design, Visual Arts

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From artist to astronaut, this USC alum is on a mission to Mars - USC News

A space capsule with a hole in it. A rocket that failed 31 miles over Earths surface. An orbital lab with misfiring thrusters.

Thats the short list of the most dramatic mishaps involving the International Space Station in the last three years. The missteps have one thing in common: They all involve Russian spacecraft traveling to, or already attached to, the stationor station modules that recently arrived from Earth.

There was a time, 60 years ago, when the Soviet Union was the worlds indisputable leader in space. The USSR had the first space probes, the most ingenious manned spacecraft, and the luckiest astronautser, cosmonauts.

Today, the Soviet Union is no more. Russia inherited most of the old Soviet space infrastructureincluding what became the Roscosmos space agencybut Moscow has struggled to maintain it.

Far from being a leader in space, Russia is quickly becoming a liability, several experts told The Daily Beast.

That has serious implications not just for an increasingly isolated, militaristic Russia, but also for all the countries that work with Russia in orbit, especially on the International Space Station. The United States, for one, might cut Roscosmos loose as it organizes ambitious new manned missions to the moon and maybe eventually Mars.

The Russians have a worse record than any other major space power, David Burbach, a space expert at the U.S. Naval War College in Rhode Island, told The Daily Beast. China landed a rover on Mars on its first try, while every Russian attempt to reach Mars since 1990 has failed.

With every year that passes, NASA has more options for productive and safe space partnerships. With every year that passes, it needsand probably trustsRoscosmos less and less.

The competition has become much strongerSpaceX, but also other Western firms and Chinas improving rocketsand Russia seems likely to keep losing market share if it cant improve its product, Burbach said.

The most recent Russian space mishap was arguably the most dramatic. On July 29, a Russian Proton rocket blasted off from Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan, a new science lab attached to its top.

The long overdue Nauka labthats Russian for sciencesafely docked with the International Space Station. For a while, everything seemed fine aboard the 22-year-old station, which currently houses seven crew: three Americans, two Russians, and one member each from the European and Japanese space agencies.

Generally speaking, the NASA astronauts command the ISS and conduct science experiments. The visiting Europeans and Japanese are usually scientists. Roscosmos meanwhile sends skilled cosmonauts to maintain the stations hardware.

There are actually two separate neighborhoods in the ISS. One for the Russians. Another for everyone else.

A few hours after docking last week, Nauka abruptlyand totally on its ownfired its maneuvering rockets. The malfunction set the 356-foot station spinning around its axis, 250 miles above Earth. NASA controllers on the ground in Houston were powerless to intervene. Only controllers in Russia had access to Naukas remote controls.

But the radio link required a direct line of sight. It was half an hour before the ISSs orbit took it over Russia, and Roscosmos could turn off the thrusters. Yeehaw! tweeted Zebulon Scoville, the flight director in Houston. That. Was. A. Day.

NASA at first announced that the ISS spun just 45 degrees before the Russians regained control. Five days later, NASA admitted it was wrong. In fact, in its half-hour spin, the thin-skinned stationwhich is festooned with modules, solar panels, and heat-venting radiatorsrotated 540 degrees, in essence turning around one and a half times.

To restore the station to its normal position, NASA turned on thrusters for another half-turn. Station is in good shape and operating normally, NASA tweeted. The space agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

NASA told Space.com the ISS crew was never in danger. But Scoville tweeted that hed never been so happy to see all solar arrays and radiators still attached.

Maybe the ISS was in no danger of disintegrating. But NASA and Roscosmos are lucky the station didnt suffer extensiveand expensivedamage to vital systems. Roscosmos did not respond to a request for comment.

Worse, the July mishap is just the most recent screwup for Roscosmos. Most famously, back in August 2018, a Russian Soyuz capsule,which helps shuttle people and supplies to the station,somehow escaped the attention of Roscosmos quality-controls and arrived at the ISS with a 2-millimeter-diameter hole in it.

Once the Soyuz docked with the ISS, it began sharing the ISSs breathable atmosphere and started slowly venting that atmosphere into space.

Controllers in Houston and Moscow eventually noticed the drop in air pressure and sent the station crew on a hunt for the source. The crew patched the capsule and sent it back down to Earth.

Inspections turned up chilling details. There were several attempts at drilling, Dmitry Rogozin, the controversial head of Roscosmos space agency, said in televised comments. What is this: a production defect or some premeditated actions?

A separate Soyuz was involved in another close call two months later. A sensor malfunctioned on the rocket boosting two ISS crewan American and a Russiantoward the station. The rocket failed. The capsule containing the passengers ejected at an altitude of 31 miles and parachuted safely back down to Kazakhstan.

A year later, Roscosmos had completed its investigation of the hole on the first Soyuz. But the Russians refused to say publicly what they found out. We know exactly what happened, but we will not tell you anything, Rogozin reportedly said at a science conference for kids in September 2019.

In the meantime, NASA and Roscosmos detected another slow air leak aboard the ISS. Efforts by the crew in late 2020 narrowed the location of the leak down to, you guessed it, one of two Russian-made modules.

If youre sensing a trend, youre not wrong.

When properly assembled and operated, the Soyuz is perhaps the safest spacecraft ever. But its not hard to conclude that Roscosmos cant be trusted to build and run the cone-shaped craft.

As for newer Russian space hardware such as Nauka its as often as not badly designed, badly built and badly run. The pattern of poor quality control in new hardware in the Russian space program has been around for many years, John Logsdon, a professor emeritus at George Washington Universitys Space Policy Institute, told The Daily Beast.

To be clear, space travel is hard and risky. NASA knows this all too well. The Space Shuttle, which NASA decommissioned back in 2011, was actually the most dangerous spacecraft ever. The bulky, fragile space-planes two fatal crashes in 1986 and 2003 accounted for 14 of the 19 fatalities that have occurred during space missions since 1961.

The worlds space agencies are eager to avoid adding to this grim figure, which helps to explain why relations between NASA and Roscosmos have gotten chillier.

The Russians used to enjoy a reputation for building old-fashioned, but rugged and safe, space tech. Today that tech is no less old-fashionedthe Soyuz capsule has been in use since 1966but a lot of its also looking less and less safe.

Pavel Luzin, an independent expert on the Russian military and space program, has a theory. There is a huge problem with human capital, he told The Daily Beast. Most people who worked during the Soviet and early post-Soviet times and knew how the Soviet technologies really workedwith all their pitfallsare retired.

The new generations of engineers and workers suffer from the personnel turnover, he added. Young professionals prefer not to stay too long within the Russian space industry because of over-regulation and lack of salaries. Even if they work according to all the instructions, they just dont know the pitfalls.

A lack of money is the toxic thread weaving through Roscosmoss problems. For a decade between the Space Shuttles retirement and the introduction of new American capsules, Roscosmos earned billions of dollars renting rides to the ISS on its Soyuz capsules.

The importance of those rentals belied the Russian space programs funding problems. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian space program has been chronically underfunded, Chris Impey, a University of Arizona astronomer, told The Daily Beast.

Its also possible Roscosmos, and specifically Rogozin, is a bit ... distracted. By movies, of all things.

In a surprise move in May 2020, NASA announced a plan to send actor Tom Cruise and director Doug Liman to the ISS to shoot a movie. We need popular media to inspire a new generation of engineers and scientists, tweeted Jim Bridenstine, the NASA administrator at the time.

But the Russians are determined to get there first with their own movie. Shortly after Bridenstines announcement, Rogozin threw together his own plan to send actress Yulia Peresild and director Klim Shepenko to the ISS to shoot a thriller that Rogozin would co-produce.

That production is scheduled to kick off in October, right before Cruise and Liman arrive. Rogozins fixation on making a movie in space, and doing it first, was reportedly the final straw for Sergei Krikalyov, a famous former cosmonaut who was working under Rogozin at Roscosmos but objected to his boss filmmaking ambitions.

So Rogozin demoted him, according to the newspaper Novaya Gazeta. If Rogozin is worried about the safety and reliability of his spacecraft, hes certainly not showing it. But if the reporting is accurate, hes not shy about punishing dissent.

NASA needs Roscosmos on the ISS. The Russians effectively own half of the station and still provide vital services to the other half. But the ISS wont last forever. The Biden administration wants to extend the aging station out to 2030 before turning it over to private operators.

After that, NASA plans to shift its attention to a new station, the Lunar Gateway, which would fly around the moon in a wide orbit that would allow it to both support a new generation of lunar explorers and function as a staging base for a possible future mission to Mars.

NASA is enlisting the usual foreign space agencies to help out with Lunar Gatewaywith one big possible exception. Its looking likelier that Roscosmos wont be aboard.

Its not that NASA wouldnt love to keep working with the Russians, all things being equal. Its one of the rare areas where Washington and Moscow arent rivals. We are partners in space, and I dont want that to cease, NASA administrator Bill Nelson said following a June meeting with Rogozin.

But the sad state of affairs at the Russian agency, and Rogozins refusal to admit there are problems and fix them, might force Nelsons hand. Going forward the stresses in the partnership suggest that it will not last in coming years, Logsdon said.

And even if the Russians do join the moon station, they wont occupy half of it like they do on the ISS. If Russian hardware isnt reliable, or even safe, that probably reduces their leverage, Burbach said.

Its not just that U.S.-Russian relations are fraying as Russia descends deeper into authoritarianism, invades its neighbors, and interferes in foreign elections. For the United States, breaking up with Russia in space is also a matter of safety.

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Inside the Dangerous Consequences of Russia's Space Screwups - The Daily Beast

Space tourism is human space travel for recreational, leisure, or business purposes. It provides an opportunity for non-astronauts to go to space.

Are you interested in travelling to space? Do outer space and its mysteries entice you? Then here's your golden chance to see the outer world from a very close distance. But then for this, you have to be prepared to shell outa hefty amount from your pocket. Space tourism is human space travel forrecreational, leisure, or business purposes.There are different types of space tourism, including orbital, suborbital, and lunar space tourism.The whole idea behind this is that those who are not astronauts but want to go to space for non-scientific purposes can get an opportunity to do so.

So to get a seat aboard one of Virgin Galactic's upcoming spaceflights you have to pay an enormous sum of USD450,000. However, it is still less than what a winning bidder paid for in June to fly with Amazon founder and billionaire Jeff Bezos inhis rocket ship, New Shepard. Through a winning bid of USD28 million, the bidder booked a seat for himself in therocket ship.Over 7,600 people had registered from 159 countries to bid for this seat. However, it did not go down too well with the common public and more than 50,000 people signed online petitions urging Bezos to not return to Earth after he took his space flight on July 20.

Earlier, Richard Branson, the billionaire owner of Virgin Galactic, himself reached the edge of space on July 11 along with three employees from his company who also boarded SpaceShipTwo. Apart from Virgin Galactic, companies including Virgin Atlantic, SpaceX, XCOR Aerospace, Blue Origin and Armadillo Aerospace are working on providing space tourism services to people.

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DNA Explainer: Want to become 'private astronaut' and try your hands on space travel, here's your chance - DNA India

Wally funk, who boarded the blue origin flight on july 20, was honored with a parade in her native grapevine, tx | image: blue origin

Shes a woman in space. Shes now the oldest person to ever go to space. Shes crossed two eras of space travel in a span of ten minutes. Shes a Grapevine local.

And now, shes being celebrated as a hometown hero.

Wally Funk, 82, boarded the New Shepard rocket from Blue Origin with Jeff Bezos and a crew of two other tourists (Mark Bezos and Oliver Daemen) to take off from Van Horn, TX for a ten-minute flight that the world watched on July 20.

Her native city Grapevine hosted a parade in her honor on August 7, 2021. Funk rode in a white convertible down Main Street lined by a few hundred observers seated with a mannequin in her Blue Origin flight suit. August 7th was hence proclaimed Wally Funk Day.

Surrounded my the businessmen (and the teenage son of a Dutch millionaire) aboard, Funk was the oddity of the crew in the best possible way. Besides being the only woman crew member, the oldest crew member, and the actual aviator of the group, she represented the embodiment of two eras converging. following her streak of meeting every you cant with an I can.

She got her pilots license at 17, and participated in Dr. William Lovelaces short-lived Women In Space program at NASA in the early 1960s, an initiative designed to test womens capabilities for space travel. Funk, at 23, was the youngest candidate among the 13 finalists of women who participated in the program (now known as the Mercury 13 or the FLATs: First Lady Astronaut Trainees).

None of those women ever made it to space, for being women and for not having engineering degrees.

Except now, 60 years later Wally Funk.

The whole thing was so fantastic, she said of the flight to the gathered crowd in Grapevine. She described small bump before she went up to float in space for three minutes.

I had done that in Russia for about 15-20 minutes, so I knew what to do when I was taking the Cosmonaut test. So that was pretty easy for me. But Ive been a lot of places, and this was the most fabulous thing of my life.

Click here to read about another local hero in space: Commander Victor Glover Jr.from Prosper, TX!

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Blue Origins Wally Funk honored with parade in Grapevine, TX - Local Profile

In looking back at the month of July, space milestones and events took center stage. Not only did July see the most important American accomplishment in space the Apollo XI landing on the Moon on July 20th, 1969 but it also saw the successful launch of two private industry human spaceflight operations

The first was the July 11suborbital spaceflight of the Virgin Galactic VSS Unity spaceplane, with Richard Branson and five other crew members. The second was the July 20 flight of the rocket-powered New Shepard spacecraft developed by Jeff Bezos company Blue Origin LLC carrying Bezos, his brother, Mary Wallace Wally Funk of the 1960s Mercury 13 Women in Space program and one paying passenger (his payment went to charity).

But this July commemorated another historically important, albeit somewhat bittersweet, space event as well it was the 10 year anniversary of the last U.S. Space Shuttle flight. On July 8, 2011, NASA launched STS-135, which took the shuttle Atlantis and her crew of four veteran astronauts Commander Chris Ferguson, Pilot Doug Hurley, and Mission Specialists Sandy Magnus and Rex Walheim on a routine trip to the International Space Station or as routine as any Shuttle flight could be. It was the 37th flight to dock at the space station, with the primary objective being to deliver supplies and spare parts to the International Space Station. After several days in orbit, Atlantis successfully returned to Earth on July 21, touching down at Kennedy Space Center for the last time.

STS-135 was the final tour of duty in what was NASAs 30 year shuttle program, which performed a wide range of unique and groundbreaking missions for the U.S. space program from 1981 to 2011. Over those three decades which also saw the tragic Columbia and Challenger disasters the shuttle kept Americans moving up into space and allowed us to secure new gains in scientific advancement, exploration and understanding. At the same time, the shuttle program served as an immense point of national pride and interest not only did legions of Americans tune in regularly to watch shuttle launches, but in the context of larger geopolitical events, the shuttle program stood as a highly visible reminder of Americas space leadership, technological acumen, and adventurous spirit. In fact, over the course of the shuttle programs lifetime, Americas dominance in space was virtually unmatched.

But that all ended with Atlantis last run in midsummer a decade ago. And in the 10 years since that last mission, we have learned and perhaps relearned some painful lessons regarding space. On one level, after STS-135, we would be completely without an American-owned and operated human spaceflight system. After the retirement of the shuttle, the Russian Soyuz served as the only mode of human space transport to reach the International Space Station literally leaving American astronauts, their safety, and our role in space at the hands of the Russians. This gap endured until the first flight of SpaceXs Crew Dragon Demo 2 in May of 2020. And while we are now, thankfully, moving seriously forward on reestablishing our own serious space transport system, having to seek favor from Russia seems compromising at best and lacks dignity at worst.

At the same time and on a more strategic level, the fact that the U.S. which had led the world in space for generations now had to rely on Russia for space access smacked as a real step backward. Maintaining and operating a successful, reliable and safe space program that can transport human beings beyond Earths atmosphere is the insignia of modern, leading world powers. Conversely, not being able to make that claim, even if only temporarily, gives adversaries a talking point. This is a lesson our pacing competitors particularly China understand and take very seriously.

And on a final level, terminating the shuttle program without a coherent, funded plan regarding a ready backup had the effect of further delaying and dragging out the process for a replacement. In the intervening years, efforts to establish U.S. human spaceflight options for reliable and ready access to space have been costly, disruptive and elusive, with several presidential administrations and congresses differing on approach and underfunding NASA and its programs. One could argue that without space-focused billionaires, we still wouldnt be there.

Of course, the reasons for retiring the shuttle seemed to make sense to many policymakers at the time. The expense of the program was deemed too significant and some of the initial visions of the program were never met. And, safety concerns loomed large after the Challenger disaster, and even more so following the loss of Columbia. But the criticism of killing the shuttle program from some corners was notable.

In fact, at the time, Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong commented in testimony before Congress that, We will have no American access to, and return from, low Earth orbit and the International Space Station for an unpredictable length of time in the futureFor a country that has invested so much for so long to achieve a leadership position in space exploration and exploitation, this condition is viewed by many as lamentably embarrassing and unacceptable.

Fast forward to the present, we are seeing what that half-generation gap in capability has brought. Fortunately, American efforts to get back to space on our terms, with our own technology look promising particularly with the private sector taking a significant lead to make American-driven human spaceflight a reality. But if the period after STS-135 is any reminder, a broad spectrum of complications, crises, funding concerns, or global distractions, could significantly challenge our ability to stay on track to reestablish and advance a human spaceflight program remember, even the private sector is reliant on NASA-paid demand. Congresss decision in late 2020 to cut funding for the Human Landing System is a perfect recent example.

So this year, as we marvel at the recent notable strides made by the private sector in moving humans back into space and which may help usher in a new era of interest in space and space travel we also need to reflect on what the last 10 years since STS-135 have meant. We also need to remember that last flight of Atlantis and what it represented as well as what the entire U.S. Space Shuttle program achieved and meant for our nation. In looking 10 years back on the last mission of July 2011, and at the lack of an American spaceflight option after STS-135, we need to learn our lesson. With peer competitors deadly serious about their roles and ambitions in space, it would serve us well to not leave any gaps for our adversaries to exploit whether to Earth orbit, to the moon or even to Mars.

Grant Anderson, P.E. is the president & CEO of Paragon Space Development Corp., a leader in life support and thermal control in extreme environments. He holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and an M.S. in Aeronautical & Astronautical Engineering from Stanford University.

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Op-ed | The Last Shuttle Flight A 10-Year Lesson - SpaceNews

Blue Origins successful launch and landing of New Shepard may be a step closer to fulfilling the promise of space for all, but who really benefits? Jeff Bezos does.

It has been pointed out that no taxpayer money was used to fund this launch, but although no direct taxpayer money was used, Jeff Bezos used his private wealth accumulated from Amazon to found Blue Origin, which he owns privately. I would argue that, because Amazon does not pay its fair share of taxes, the American taxpayer subsidized Amazons bottom line which, in turn, funded Jeff Bezos wealth, which he used to found Blue Origin. He even thanked his customers and (underpaid) employees. How about thanking the taxpayers?

Now I probably wont utilize space travel in my time, but do you know who will? The ultra wealthy (who cares) and Big Business. I watched an interview Mr. Bezos had with NBC in which he said We need to take heavy industry, polluting industry, and move it into space. I equate that with selling your home and moving to a new one because your current house is messy.

Friends, we need to learn how to clean up our messes before we move them into space. Its a new and exciting frontier, but lets remind our leaders in big business and government that most of the inhabitants of Earth will always live here. Its dangerous and naive to think that space industry wont affect our planet. Please tell Jeff Bezos.

Kelly MilewskiWestbrook

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Letter to the Editor: Only Bezos benefits when Bezos goes to space - pressherald.com

Gone are the days of Salman Khan-hosted Big Boss and Keeping Up With The Kardashians, reality television producers are eyeing the International Space station as the location for the hottest new shows. Word is that The Discovery Channel is considering Who Wants to be an Astronaut while a competitor, Space Hero is hoping to land somewhere else.

Who Wants to be an Astronaut relies on traditional reality television tropes, whereby contestants will vie for an all-expenses paid trip to live on the ISS for eight days. According to CNN, the as-yet unknown variety of extreme challenges are designed to determine which competitors have what it takes to be a real astronaut, and passage to space will be provided by Axiom Space.

The Discovery Channel on the other hand has enlisted former astronaut Mike Massiminos consulting services. Massimino, on a mission to repair the Hubble Telescope in 2019, had personally shot footage of the ISS for the Hubble documentary via a IMAX camera giving viewers a close-up and realistic look at what goes into the process of repairing the telescope. He predicts a future where more people with special, non-astronaut skills like filming, are trained for missions. Hopefully, well get better movies out of it, and better entertainment thats what Im hoping for.

However, Massiomino also highlights a challenge the ISS is narrow and cramped, and it wasnt built with big cameras in mind. You cant have a whole crew. You are not going to be able to launch 50 people to the space station. But advancements in camera technology and a reduction in barriers to space travel have broadened the scope of what is possible on the ISS.

The report says that Who Wants to be an Astronaut is entirely US-based, but Space Hero is attempting to bring a global component to the TV-in-space sector. Creators Deborah Sass and Thomas Reemer plan to make sure that space travel isnt limited to countries that already have a stake in ISS. Space Hero, which is privately-funded, plans to feature 24 contestants 12 men and 12 women from around the world. Twelve men and twelve women, twelve from underdeveloped countries and twelve from developed countries, says Sass. And they will be put into a Space Village, kind of like the Big Brother house, but with wearable technology and biometrics testing.

Also Read: Climate change will prove catastrophic for the world

In Space Hero house, activities and challenges will narrow down the list of candidates until only one person remains. The global audience, naturally, will be encouraged to vote for their favorite would-be astronaut. Reemer predicts that the demand for an astronaut from lesser-known countries is there. There is Nigeria with two hundred million inhabitants, never had an astronaut. Thats where the hunger comes from. India, the last astronaut from India was 1985it means something to be the first astronaut of your country.

The minds behind the global reality show have already started reaching across borders to foster relationships with other space agencies. Space Hero claims that multiple agreements have already been forged internationally. Furthermore, NASA is on board with the expansion of uses for the ISS. Who Wants to be an Astronaut is currently taking applications through its online portal and Space Hero will open on December 21, 2021.

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Reality television producers are eyeing the International Space Station. - Plunge Daily