Daily Archives: September 8, 2021

The rise of commercial space travel is here, and for the vast majority who cannot afford its millions-plus price tag, streaming platforms are here to capture it. Starting this week, Netflix will air the first two installments of Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space, its first docuseries to cover an event SpaceXs launch of its first all-civilian crew on a three-day trip circling Earth in near real time. Subsequent episodes will document the four astronauts preparation for the 15 September launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Episodes three and four will air just two days prior; a feature-length finale film of the mission itself will air in late September.

The series, directed by veteran sports documentarian Jason Hehir, best known for The Last Dance, promises to take audiences behind the scenes of the Inspiration4 mission, from the astronaut selection to the training and eventual takeoff. Netflix, as well as the passengers and SpaceX figures introduced in the first two episodes, are billing the trip as a paradigm shift in space exploration: an aperture in commercial space travel, a small but significant advancement toward the proliferation of rocket transportation, and a new frontier for reality television.

Inspiration4 is just a really small step along that journey toward a Jetsons world where everyones going to jump in their spacecraft and journey in the worlds beyond ours, Jared Isaacman, the 38-year-old billionaire chief executive of Shift4 Payments and longtime flight enthusiast who will be the missions commander, told the Guardian. I dont think its just going to be a few people for a long time, he added, comparing space travel now, executed by private companies such as Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic with exorbitant price tags, to the early days of experimental aviation. This is starting with a few, for sure, but this going to open up to the many.

Until then, commercial space travel remains an ultra-expensive, ultra-exclusive club predominantly spurred by the mega-rich, with live streams for everyone else. In July, Blue Origin livestreamed its launch of Jeff Bezos on a 11-minute suborbital space journey on its YouTube channel and on Amazon Prime; Virgin Galactic also streamed founder Richard Bransons 59-minute space flight on YouTube, and recruited a popular science TikTok star for a future trip. Its a given, as the environmentally questionable business of space tourism continues to expand, that reality TV will ride along in April, Nasa signed a Space Act Agreement with the production company Space Hero to [facilitate] initial cooperation and information sharing for a competition show that would send the winner on an expensive trip to the International Space Station as early as 2023.

Theres a gameshow undercurrent to Countdown, the Netflix series, whose first two episodes predominantly serve to introduce viewers to the civilian astronauts, selected by a Willy Wonka-like arbitrary process tied to four core mission values.

Besides Isaacman (Leadership), who declined to specify the amount paid to participate in the mission (but did say proceeds raised for the pediatric cancer specialists at St Judes childrens research hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, would exceed the cost of the mission), the group includes Hayley Arceneaux, a 29-year-old pediatric cancer survivor and physician assistant at St Judes, which nominated her to symbolize the value of Hope; Sian Proctor, 51, of Phoenix, Arizona, a geology professor who won a spot on Inspiration4 through a competition assessing entrepreneurial spirit and the ability to go semi-viral (Prosperity); and Chris Sembrowski, 42, a data engineer and air force veteran from Everett, Washington, selected off a list of donors to St Judes as part of Inspiration4s Superbowl campaign (Generosity).

All are new to astrodynamics, ordinary figures unused to cameras and spotlight. Its a far cry from Hehirs mission on The Last Dance, in which his team endeavored to de-iconize a celebrity as ubiquitous and iconic as Michael Jordan. Though Countdown will build, in real time, the iconography of Inspiration4, Hehir assures that the project is not acting as gauzy PR for the company I didnt see it as our role to aggrandize SpaceX, he told the Guardian. I thought it was necessary to outline what their mission is, why are we doing this because one of the first questions is always that its another billionaire going to space, whats the point? The point is ambition, seeing what else is out there, and the point in a charitable sense is raising $200m for St Judes.

This is the most common criticism levied at SpaceX, and private space travel in general, one Hehir floats midway through the first episode why send, or care about, billionaires going to space when theres an abundance of earthbound issues that need addressing, most pressingly the climate emergency. Asked his response to such backlash, Isaacman echoed his answer in the first episode of the series: We absolutely believe in balance here, he said. Its been right from the start, from the creation of Inspiration4, that weve said: we have to address some of the problems of today to earn the right to make progress for tomorrow, pointing to the fundraising effort for St Judes.

SpaceXs billionaire founder, Elon Musk, appears in the first episode for brief overviews on the mission of Inspiration4 (civilian orbital space flight) and the company at large (colonization of Mars). It was necessary to have [Musk] in it, Hehir said, because he is the face of that company and I felt that we owe it to our viewers for him to do two things. One, to articulate what the companys mission is, and then two, to address the criticism that is so pervasive these days, of billionaires going into space and the privilege of wealth. (Musks answer to the billionaire-critique is that 99%-plus of our economy should be dedicated to solving problems on Earth but a multi-planet, space-bearing civilization is an exciting, inspiring future.)

I had no interest in mythologizing that company or making it out that theyre saviors of the world, Hehir said. But I do think its important if youre going to understand the ambition of the mission, to understand the ambition of the company itself.

If all goes according to plan, the final episode, turned around on a snap days-long production timeline, will capture the Inspiration4s crew successful return to Earth. The first two episodes find each weighing the inherent risk of space travel; Proctor, in particular, remembers watching the Challenger disaster when a shuttle exploded on live television in 1986, killing all seven crew on board (captured on camera: the shock and grief of Grace and Edward Corrigan, whose daughter Christa McAuliffe, a schoolteacher from New Hampshire, was to be the first American civilian in space).

I understand what calculated risk is and what the reward is, she told the Guardian, and the reward of human space flight far exceeds the risk.

Proctor, who was born in Guam, where her father worked for Nasa at an Apollo tracking station, will be only the fourth black American woman ever to travel to space (to date, only about 600 people have made the journey). Bubbling with a Ms Frizzle-esque enthusiasm for space exploration, Proctor is using to her spot aboard Inspiration4 to highlight black womens long-overlooked role in American space travel. Were opening up the door for people who normally would have thought of being an astronaut or going to space, giving them the insight into how were doing it, and how times are changing, she said of participating in the first all-civilian space flight.

Old space was exclusive and you had to be the best of the best, you had to fit certain criteria. This is new space thats emerging, that enables us to open up who gets to go and participate and write the narrative of human space flight, she added, mapping out what she called a Jedi space Just, Equitable, Diverse and Inclusive.

It remains to be seen if that narrative of a more democratic space will come to pass and if Inspiration4 will push past skepticism of ultra-expensive, privately funded space flight. Regardless, the mission, and the messaging attached to it, will be televised, bringing the vast frontier to your personal screen.

Read more:

The point is ambition: are we ready to follow Netflix into space? - The Guardian

To Foundation for the Future cofounder Tim Chrisman, space travel isnt boring enough yet.

In the midst of writing his book, Humanity in Space, Chrisman told Technical.ly he realized that while he had high hopes for the future of space travel, it still didnt seem fathomable that he himself would be able to go someday. While there was plenty of innovation for astronauts and space for the Jeff Bezoses of the world to take the journey, the former CIA agent said there was still plenty missing when it came to regular people making the trip. Foundation for the Future, his nonprofit that focuses on infrastructure for space travel, was born.

Kids like to think, Im going to be an astronaut, Im going to go to space. Parents pat them on their head and are like, yeah, of course, when you own a unicorn, Chrisman said. Thats the sense space still has even though its expanding, more people are going. So were trying to put, or at least design, those boring, background things that need to be in place to make it a normal place.

The Merrifield, Virginia-based organization currently has 10 employees, and he anticipates growing to 15-20 over the next year.

Almost a year after its founding, the organization centers its efforts on the behind-the-scenes potential for space travel. In out-of-this-world development, that includes things like mineral and power reserves in outer space, wireless power transmission and space-based solar power. The Foundation, Chrisman said, works on anything from long-term financing vehicles to expanding the space workforce to policy design and advocacy in politics.

The big thing is, if we do it here, we need it there, Chrisman said. [It means] thinking about ways that whatever it is that youre using in a technological capacity here, how can that be adapted to a harsher environment?

Although it was originally concentrated around infrastructure, Chrisman said the foundation has since expanded to include efforts around workforce development for space travel. Its since partnered with organizations like a space finance firm trade association, which helps fund projects, and it has a bill pending introduction in the House of Representatives that looks to add several million jobs in the space sector, in both technology and in blue-collar building jobs. Its also taking part in a grant program with NASA to help add more education options and allow more schools across the country to develop curriculums for space builds and development.

Realistically, if you can weld a plane, you can weld a rocket, he said. If you can be a pipefitter for an oil and gas well, then you can do that for a fuel system for spacecraft.

Although rides to space by everyday people might need a bit more time to become commonplace, he foresees several thousand people eventually living in space semi-permanently, in the same way that there are scientific encampments in remote parts of Alaska and Antarctica. The International Space Station, he said, has hosted at least four-to-five humans each year for over two decades, and he expects that to double annually starting in the next few years.

Having [space] as another place that these technological things can be adapted to is really the main shift, Chrisman said. Sure, theres going to be a lot of new innovation that comes out, but most of the progress is going to be people smarter than me doing things that are exciting here on the ground and realizing: I can shoot this into space too.

Link:

This Falls Church founder wants to build out infrastructure in space - Technical.ly DC

The ability to predict the weather on planets, such as Mars, and on Saturns moon Titan could help ensure the safety of space missions, both manned and unmanned.

Elizabeth Watson 10:57 pm, Sep 06, 2021

Contributing Reporter

Creative Commons

A recent Yale study conducted by two members of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences could have crucial implications for the future of space travel.

The study, authored by postdoctoral associate J. Michael Battalio and Juan Lora, assistant professor of earth and planetary sciences, focuses on the use of annular modes variabilities in the climate that are disparate from the seasonal cycle on other planets to predict weather. Their research provides evidence that these annular modes could play a role in the weather patterns of planets.

Battalios inspiration for this study stemmed from his previous research studying Martian dust storms. He realized that the dust storms had a cyclical nature that was not consistent with the shorter periodicity of the atmospheric waves that caused the storms.

I didnt know when I discovered this periodicity what was going on, but I remembered some of my previous reading of literature for Earth that annular modes on Earth had a periodicity of about 20 days, and theyre connected to these waves that had this other periodicity, Battalio said. I figured if Mars has waves like Earth and this climate feature, these annular modes then it makes sense to look for these modes on Mars and see if their periodicity can explain the dust storms.

Battalio joined Loras research group at Yale in 2019, and they had plans to research the existence of annular modes on other planets. In addition to Mars, the pair also observed a similar phenomenon on Titan, Saturns largest moon, using the Titan Atmospheric Model, a simulation of the moons climate that Lora developed during his doctoral dissertation.

To their surprise, Battalio and Lora discovered that the impact of annular modes is even greater on Mars and Titan than on Earth.

Were trying to understand whether these types of structures of variability occur in other terrestrial planetary atmospheres, and we have the tools to do that on Mars for the first time, Lora said. The idea is to try to see if theres some sort of regular variability in the atmospheres of these two places, which then if its there, we can characterize and understand it. Maybe that paves the way for weather predictions down the line, and thats where the implications and future work are.

In 2018, NASAs solar-powered Opportunity rover, which had been collecting data on Mars surface for over a decade, ceased functioning as a result of a planet-wide dust storm.

Using annular modes to monitor the planets climate could allow scientists to better predict the arrival of such weather events on Mars and prevent similar destruction on future missions.

People on the surface are going to have to rely on solar-generated electricity, Battalio said. If we cannot warn people, if we cannot forecast these dust events reliably the way we do for Earth, if one of these dust events sneaks up on them and they dont have enough energy stored in battery backups, it could make life very difficult for people on the surface.

Pedram Hassanzadeh, an assistant professor in Rice Universitys Department of Mechanical Engineering and Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences, described having accurate weather forecasting in places like Mars as a matter of life and death.

He believes that annular modes could play a valuable part in addressing this issue, especially since the infrastructure for predicting weather on Earth does not exist on Mars.

We are probably not going to have this infrastructure on Mars if we want to go there and stay there, so I think building a statistical model using machine learning can be an interesting step in something that even a small computer, small laptop or even an iPad could do the computation to give you some rough estimate, Hassanzadeh said. For that kind of work, using annular modes, that is perhaps our best shot.

Istvan Szunyogh, professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, emphasized the importance of Lora and Battalios discovery.

He explained how the paper suggests that these annular modes are likely a common feature for planets similar to Earth, which is a significant advancement in understanding for the field.

Its not trivial that these modes exist because some of the changes, like changes in the seasons for example, are expected because they really depend on the amount of energy that comes from the sun, but as [Lora and Battalio] are describing in the paper, these are internal variabilities, Szunyogh said.

Battalio and Lora hope to expand their research to other planets, such as Venus and Jupiter.

See the original post:

Yale researchers discover potential key for space travel on Mars and Titan - Yale Daily News

SpaceXCEO Elon Musk is not shy about sharing his thoughts on life in outer space or space travel, and now he has someone who is readyto hear more and over tea:Russian space chief Dmitriy Rogozin.

On Tuesday, Rogozin, the head of Russias space agency Roscosmos, gave his first interview with a Western news outlet. Speaking to CNN, Rogozin marveled at the recent flights to outer space by billionaires Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson. He said it was his hope that Russian millionaires, who he described as havingmore interest in yachts than spaceships,will one day follow and invest more in outer space travel.

Branson was the first of the two to undergo a space flight as a passenger onboard Virgin Galactic Unity 22 on July 11. Nine days later, Bezos Blue Origin NS-16 took off from a West Texas launch site and remained at a suborbital level for about 10 minutes.

For all his praise of Bezos and Branson, Rogozin saved his highest regard for Musk for achieving a dream his country was delayed from claiming.

"Mr. Elon Musk realizes many of the ideas and thoughts that we wanted to realize, but did not get to because, after the breakup of the Soviet Union, our space program halted for some time," Rogozin said on CNN. "We respect him as an organizer of the space industry and as an inventor, who is not afraid to take risk."

The SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour as it approached the International Space Station after launching from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 24, 2021 Photo: NASA / Handout

Rogozin took a moment to invite Musk to visit him in Russia and be a guest of my family. That way, he hoped to discuss further "exploring the universe, extraterrestrial life, and how we can use space to preserve life on Earth."

This is not the first time an international official has passed an invitation on to Musk. Last August, Musk tweeted "Aliens built the pyramids obv," earning him hundreds of thousands of likes as well as attention from Egypt where the great pyramids stand.Rania A. Al Mashat, Egypt's minister of international cooperation, tweeted after Musk made his remark that she follows his work "with a lot of admiration" and that her country has its door open for him to visit.

"Mr. Musk, we are waiting for you," she said.

Rogozin's invitation, however, does carry a few complications. Since 2014, Rogozin has been under U.S. sanctions from his tenure as Russias deputy defense minister as a consequence ofannexing the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine. This complicated cooperation on outer space, especially given the U.S. reliance on Russia for facilities and rockets to launch astronauts into orbit. Muskpraised the Russians for their rocket engineering and technology.

Musk and Rogozin also have something of a personal rivalry that has been on full display on Twitter. After coming under U.S. sanctions, Rogozin said that it would need a trampoline to get its astronauts into space as a result. Five years later, Musk, whose SpaceX company has worked together with NASA on developing new rockets, remarked at a conference that the trampoline works.

Last December, Rogozin teased SpaceX by posting a photo of a launch site from the Siberian province of Yakutia. He captioned the photo in Russian with questioning on whether or not SpaceX engineers could work like Roscosmosunder sub-zero temperatures.

Asked about these online spats, CNNs Kristin Fisher said Rogozin considered them playful, normal, healthy competition between engineers.

Soyuz-2 carrier rocket launch from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome on May 22, 2020. Photo: Roscosmos

Here is the original post:

Life In Outer Space? Elon Musk Invited To Talk 'Extraterrestrial Life' With Russian Space Chief - International Business Times

Sending back humans to the lunar surface via rockets does not come cheap. That is why scientists are looking for alternative ways of traveling 'to the moon and back,' which led them to the idea of building a lunar elevator. With a few billion dollars, they see it as a cost-effective and, probably, environment-friendly way for space travel.

However, could this idea be possible and feasible for future Moon travel? What is a lunar elevator, and how will scientists make this idea possible?

(Photo: Wikimedia Commons)A conceptual drawing of a space elevator lifting off.

A 2019 study titled "The Spaceline: a Practical Space Elevator Alternative Achievable With Current Technology," published in Semantic Scholar, suggests that a lunar elevator could be the answer to future Moon travel.

It describes a cable anchored to the lunar surface that stretchers 250,000 miles (400,000 kilometers), although it will not be directly attached to Earth because of the relative motions of both the planet and the Moon. Researchers of the study said that this project is doable with a few billion U.S. dollars.

AsScience Focusreported, the cable will be thinner than a pencil and weighs about 40 tons. The lunar elevator would not have to be connected to Earth, stopping shyly at the surface, unlike the space elevator.

Additionally, the cable could be made from existing materials, such as Kevlar, since the Moon has no atmosphere. That means there is no need for super-strong materials for the space elevator.

Moreover, China is also planning to build a Sky Ladderthat will send a spacecraft up on an elevator from the Earth's surface to a space station before flying off towards the Moon, where it will meet another elevator that will bring it down to the lunar surface.

ALSO READ: Disney's Space 220 Restaurant Set To Open in September: Take Space Elevator to Out-of-This-World Diner!

The idea of building space elevators has been around for more than a century, and it might be possible in the future to keep costs down and sky-high profits.

A NASA fact sheetsays that the high cost of space transportation coupled with unreliability limits the dreams of venturing space to realize a promise of a better life on Earth.

A paper titled "The Cost of Reaching Orbit: Ground-Based Launch Systems," published in Space Policy, estimates that getting materials or supplies from Earth's surface to the International Space Station would cost about $10,000 per pound ($20,000 per kilogram).

However, Business Insiderreported that experts estimated that a well-designed elevator would cut that cost to as low as $100 per kilogram. They calculated that even if it would cost around $1,000 per kilogram, that would only be roughly 5% of the current cost of sending supplies to space.

Furthermore, experts say that the space elevator can be built with existing technology and would considerably costs from $1 billion to almost $90 billion. More so, an analysis of three different designs showed that the lunar elevator could also be designed to make it environment-friendly.

RELATED ARTICLE:Company Gets Patent For Space Elevator

Check out more news and information on Space Elevatorin Science Times.

See the article here:

To the Moon and Back: Lunar Elevator Possible With Only a Few Billion Dollars; Experts Deem It Cheaper Than Rockets for Space Travel - Science Times

Leave Earth and its protective atmosphere along with its magnetic field and you will get bombarded with all sorts of cosmic raditions. These radiations are deadly and high exposure may even cause death. These radiations are a big factor that needs to be considered while designing spacecraft fit for human travel.

Mars is widely considered to be the next frontier after Moon as far as human space travel is concerned. But Martian surface is bombarded by cosmic and solar radiation as well. An astronaut may have to face these deadly rays while on the red planet.

But now we may have found a way to protect the astronauts by making use of geology of the Martian surface.

A new study has shed light on this. The study makes use of data from Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Curiosity. When MSL Curiosity landed on the surface of the Mars. It had an instrument called Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) on board.

MSL studied the Murray Buttes region on Mars. Curiosity was to study the geology of Mars there. However, there was another observation that was important. A drop in the amount of radiation was seen. The drop was about by 5 per cent.

Though the drop in radiation is not absolutely significant, this has opened the possibility of exploring geological features on the surface of Mars that possibly may shelter astronauts.

Continued here:

There may be a way to protect astronauts from radiation on Martian surface - WION