Category Archives: Space Exploration

Artist and engineer Xin Liu put herself out there for her Living Distance project literally. The New York- and Beijing-based artist packed up her wisdom tooth and sent it into outer space in a custom machine built from robotics materials. The tooth launched from Van Horn, Texas, in May 2019 aboard an early iteration of Blue Origins New Shepard rocket. In zero gravity, the machine and the tooth floated around, freely, inside the rocket.

Wait, what?

Its all in the name of art. The tooth is part of the sculptural installation Synthetic Wilderness, on view at Culver Citys Honor Fraser Gallery through Dec. 18. The three-artist show, which includes L.A.-based Nancy Baker Cahill and New York-based LaJun McMillian, blends digital media with more traditional art forms. It toggles between augmented reality, performance, immersive drawings, and video and digital photography, among other areas. The exhibit occupies a hybrid space, both analog and digital, meant to reflect the new terrain, as exhibition curator Jesse Damiani puts it, that is the 2020s a tumultuous and uncertain period marked by trauma, pronounced bewilderment and rapid change.

Liu who is arts curator of the MIT Media Lab Space Exploration Initiative and an advisor to the Art + Technology Lab at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art used the launch of her tooth as a springboard for other works in Synthetic Wilderness. Theres also a two-channel video documenting the making of her tooth sculpture; a digital photograph of the sculptures disassembled parts, forming what looks like a scientific cross-section; and a more than 1,000-page, accordion-style book, made of rice paper, featuring Lius sequenced X chromosome from her DNA data.

Xin Lius A Book of Mine.

(Xin Liu / Honor Fraser Gallery)

The work explores geographic and phenomenological boundaries between the self and the other, between Earth and outer space and it asks what it means to have part of me leaving, so far away, and how to give birth to another being? as Liu explains in this edited conversation.

Why launch your tooth into space and whats the larger Living Distance project about?

Living Distance is both a personal fantasy and a serious space mission. A wisdom tooth is sent to outer space and back down to Earth again. Carried by the crystalline robotic sculpture, the tooth becomes a newborn entity in outer space.

The material and the texture of the tooth seem to be a perfect fit to me. It is essentially a bone (quite hard, like ceramic) but also visually so fragile. It is part of my body but also a separate piece itself.

Did you remove your tooth for the piece or you already had it? And how did you arrange for its journey into space?

I had it already at the time. I had an impacted tooth and had to have it pulled out.

I was and am still working with MIT Media Lab Space Exploration Initiative. The initiative has various mission opportunities that students and researchers can apply for. I applied for this suborbital launch opportunity to test my spider-mimicking locomotion technique something I incorporate into performance in actual outer space. The opportunity I got was for technical innovation, not for my artistic vision. I had just graduated from MIT then, and there was no way a young artist like me would have had such support for an art project.

How is the piece a continuation of your previous performance work related to space exploration?

In 2017 I did a performance work, Orbit Weaver, in a zero-gravity flight in Florida with a company called zero-G. I was performing like a spider woman moving around and trying to connect with the surroundings using threads. In that performance, I feel that I was in a simulated outer space, and in this one, it was reversed: I created a simulated me, an avatar of myself, and performed in the real outer space.

How does the work, conceptually, explore the idea of boundaries, passage and ceremony?

In many ways, the distance created geographically or physically is a metaphor and is reflected in the emotional and spiritual experience. I think that the desire to leave and the destiny to return echoes with my personal journey. I was born in Xinjiang, China, and moved to Beijing when I was 18 and I moved to the U.S. in 2013. Hopefully it speaks to the shared history and experience of many people.

The action of sending a tooth to outer space is very much a ceremony and a performance for me. It is not a fiction, its an act that I am conducting as Im thinking about the questions mentioned above.

Xin Lius Living Distance Exploded, a digital photograph of the sculptures parts.

(Xin Liu / Make Room L.A.)

Can you tell us about other works in the show?

The photography of the sculpture is to show how its parts are designed, the details inside. It is a very elaborate electromechanical system. The book is the X chromosome of my DNA. I printed out the whole X chromosome sequence on Japanese rice paper. Then I handmade (folding, cutting, gluing) this accordion book of mine. These two works are very much connected as they both ask the question about what were made of and what we will become.

DNA is the source code of all creatures on Earth. But as we set sights on outer space, this organic body isnt the most suitable of forms anymore. Our body isnt made for the extreme environments out there. So, as we are longing for the departure, leaving Earth, arent we also abandoning ourselves, our body? Perhaps the humanity that finally leaves Earth isnt human anymore. How do we feel about that? Is there a point where we shall return?

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Why artist and engineer Xin Liu sent her wisdom tooth into outer space - Los Angeles Times

On July 20, not long after Amazon founder Jeff Bezos returned to earth after an 11-minute space flight aboard one of the rockets his Blue Origin space exploration company had manufactured, he faced the cameras, still wearing his blue spacesuit but now sporting a cowboy hat, to make a surprise announcement. He was inaugurating a Courage and Civility awardWe need unifiers and not vilifiers, he saidand the first winners were celebrity chef Jos Andrs and TV news analyst Van Jones, each of whom would get $100 million.

Andrs and Jones were understandably ecstatic, but among philanthropy analysts, the gifts reception was mixed. Sure, $200 million is a lot of money (though perhaps not to a centi-billionaire), but some commentators (myself included) noted that the post-flight charity announcement had a slapdash quality to it. It appeared to be a hastily contrived PR move to address the grumbling that the worlds richest man wasnt focusing his philanthropic attention on problems confronting the planet he currently inhabits. Still others interpreted Bezoss celebration of civility as pushback against mounting critiques of Amazons corporate practices.

General Photographic Agency

Then there was the unconditional nature of the donations. No bureaucracy. No committees. They just do what they want, Bezos said. On the one hand, this no-strings-attached approach to large scale giving is now widely applauded by nonprofit advocates. Yet its most prominent recent champion has been MacKenzie Scott, Bezoss ex-wife, who has given away some $8.6 billion over the last year, to widespread acclaim. Much of the coverage of Scotts torrent of giving has hinted that it compares favorably with her ex-husbands. MacKenzie Scotts generosity puts to shame Jeff Bezoss billions, the New York Daily News trumpeted last December. So Bezoss own no-strings gifts raised the question: Was this the sincerest form of flattery, or flex to an ex-turned-philanthropic rival?

In a sense, the same tangle of competitive impulses and high-minded ideals characterized the billionaire space race more broadly, which pitted Bezos against Virgin Atlantics Richard Branson and SpaceXs Elon Musk. Bezos, Branson, and Musk often described in grand, stratospheric terms what was ultimately an effort to catalyze the high-end space tourism business. Talking to reporters after he had become the first of the three billionaires to take a space trip himself, Branson celebrated Virgin Galactic as an instrument of egalitarianism. Imagine a world where people of all ages, all backgrounds, from anywhere, of any gender, of any ethnicity have equal access to space. And they will, in turn, I think, inspire us back here on Earth. Back in February, Musk had announced that his Inspiration4, which launched in September, would carry with it a humanitarian message of possibility.

Bettmann

Yet all this high rhetoric was drawn back down to earth by the unmistakable sense that the three moguls were driven as much by the compulsion to go first and farthest as by any humanitarian ideal. Competitive machismo can be powerful rocket fuel. Branson had moved up the launch of his SpaceShipTwo by several months, seemingly to beat Bezoss planned departure. And the run-up to the launch of Bransons ship brought with it a kind of aeronautical trash-talking on social media, with Blue Origin mocking Bransons airplane-size windows via Twitter and pointing out that, unlike Bezoss craft, Bransons would not actually fly to outer space, per one conventional marker. None of our astronauts have an asterisk next to their name, the company sniffed.

So it turns out you can ask questions about the motives that drove Bezos into space similar to the ones you could ask about what fueled his philanthropy once he returned: How important is competition as a goad to good acts? And how should the fact that a philanthropic mission or gesture might have been spurred by competition with a rival shape our assessment of the deed itself?

"How important is competition as a goad to good acts?"

The history of large scale philanthropy provides some answers. Its full of selfless givers and donors who disdained attention and cared little for the recognition their gifts received. But that history is also marked by the spirit of competition, by donors whose need for distinction and honor fueled their generosity. Indeed, for millennia, elites have turned to philanthropy as a means of securing and affirming social status and distinguishing themselves from their peers. In ancient Greece that competition led to the funding of lavish public banquets, grand civic works, and spectacular gladiatorial contests. During the Middle Ages it led to the construction of cathedrals and religious houses.

In the United States, the Gilded Age was the first major high-water mark of philanthropic competition. This was the case for two interrelated reasons. First, those decades saw the creation of gigantic industrial and financial fortunes, which generated a wave of philanthropy that established or endowed a bumper crop of colleges, universities, museums, and hospitals.

Second, the public began to pay attention to these giftstracking them, scrutinizing them, praising them, and sometimes criticizing them. Some of the most notable philanthropists, such as Standard Oil founder John D. Rockefeller, sought to resist this philanthropic publicity, preferring that his giving be conducted in a realm of privacy and discretion. But the publics demand for information about the nations leading benefactors was too powerful, and even Rockefeller ultimately succumbed, releasing data on his giving to inquiring reporters.

The major philanthropic rivalry of the first Gilded Age was between Rockefeller and steel magnate Andrew Carnegie. The two were polar opposites in temperament and mien: Rockefeller tall, angular, and taciturn; Carnegie, short, cherubic, and garrulous. Plus, they didnt like each other much; in private Carnegie referred to Rockefeller as Wreckafellow, while Rockefeller considered Carnegie a publicity-mad blowhard, so their competition carried an extra edge. As the two emerged as the wealthiest individuals of the age, and as the leading philanthropists, newspapers began to offer running tallies of their gifts, like the baseball box scores featured in local papers, noting who had given more. Cartoonists depicted the two industrialists as racers in a millionaire marathon, with coins spilling from their pocketsand with a crowd presumably watching.

"And how should competition shape our assessment of the deed itself?"

The implication of such depictions was clear: Philanthropy had become a spectator sport. And this highlighted an important dimension of philanthropic competition. Yes, giving provided a way for the wealthy to burnish their egos and boost their status. But it also provided some framework for public accountability.

This has certainly been the case at the turn of the 21st century, during which our Second Gilded Age has generated its own colossal private fortunes and its own surge of large scale philanthropy. Even more than in the last century, megagiving is now a spectator sport, conducted before a scrutinizing public. And so the field is once again set for philanthropic competition.

Two developments have made the terrain especially fertile. The first is the more sophisticated means of tracking, analyzing, and ranking philanthropic gifts that journalists who focus on philanthropy have adopted. One of these is giving lists, those annual tallies of the largest donations and the most generous benefactors. A small handful of such lists appeared during the first Gilded Age, but they were rudimentary and irregularly tabulated. Giving lists became a fixture of the analytic landscape only in the past few decades. Their rise can be traced to an interview New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd conducted with CNN co-founder Ted Turner in August 1996. The media mogul admitted that when he had recently made several $100 million donations, what worried him most was not that the money would be spent ineffectively but that the gifts would take such a chunk out of his total net worth that he would plummet down the Forbes 400 roster of the nations wealthiest men and women. Extrapolating from his own experience, Turner suggested that similar concerns among the nations billionaires might be preventing them from giving big.

His remedy wasnt to repudiate status consciousness but to channel it in a more constructive direction by calling for the creation of an alternative ranking system, one that would spotlight the biggest givers. This list would harness the self-regard and competitive nature of the wealthy in service to the greater good. Turner even suggested that Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, at the time the two richest men in the U.S., had let him know that if there were a list of who did the giving rather than the having, they might be inclined to give more.

Bobby Bank

Soon after the publication of the interview, Fortune took up Turners call and released what it declared the most rigorous and comprehensive philanthropy list yet created, ranking the top 25 gift-givers of 1996. Over the next several years, other publications developed giving lists of their own. The top donors often cooperate only grudgingly with the researchers who compile these lists, but many of them are deeply invested in their positions in the rankings. At the very least, these lists help legitimize and draw attention to philanthropic competition.

The second development encouraging philanthropic competition has been the spread of peer pressure to promote large scale giving among high-net-worth individuals. The most famous example of this is the Giving Pledge, the campaign begun in 2010, led by Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett, to convince the worlds billionaires to give at least half their wealth to charity. (As of the beginning of 2021, the pledge has 216 signatories from 27 countries.) One of the most significant elements of the pledge is its evangelical aspect: Signatories are asked to make a public statement of their reasons for signing, and this is meant to encourage their wealthy peers to join them. As at least one of the signers acknowledged in his pledge letter, by fostering this sort of public spectacle, the pledge also sets the stage for competition. Directing the same competitive instincts that these driven people employed to achieve the pinnacle of financial and social success, noted real estate tycoon Sylvan Adams, the Giving Pledge is encouraging us to outdo one another in giving our wealth away. Brilliant!!!

Adam Berry

Of course, very few donors would ever publicly acknowledge the extent to which they are driven by the spirit of competition. But sometimes they cant help themselves. In a recently published book on Facebooks battle for domination, for instance, the authors include a telling scene in which Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg complains to his advisers that the philanthropy he established with his wife Priscilla Chan, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and to which he pledged 99 percent of his Facebook wealth, hasnt received enough positive attention. Why dont people think of me the same way as Bill Gates? he huffs to Sheryl Sandberg, Facebooks COO.

The outburst wasnt one of Zuckerbergs finest moments, but when it comes to assessing his giving, should it matter? Should the public care whether a donor is driven by a desire for social status and recognition, alongside whatever purer humanitarian motives are compelling him or her?

The competitive philanthropic drive can certainly lead to showy, meretricious donations. But the history of philanthropy demonstrates that it can lead to worthy ones, as well. That history is a good reminder that the philanthropic endeavors of the rich and powerful has long been a tangle of the highest elements of human nature and the meanest, the principled and the petty, the stuff of the heavens and of more earthy materials.

This story appears in the November 2021 issue of Town & Country. SUBSCRIBE NOW

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History of Competitive Philanthropy From Carnegie to Mackenzie Bezos, Bill Gates, & Warren Buffett - TownandCountrymag.com

While OGS-2 was developed specifically for the LCRD mission, OGS-1 is based at JPLs Optical Communications Telescope Laboratory, which prior to LCRD was used for previous laser communications demonstrations. To get OGS-1 ready for LCRD support, engineers had to upgrade the ground station, modifying the system to bring it up to a higher standard. One such upgrade involved replacing the mirrors to have better reflectivity and higher laser thresholds so that the telescope can receive and send laser signals to and from LCRD.

Prior to mission support, LCRD will spend about two years conducting tests and experiments. During this time, OGS-1 and OGS-2 will act as simulated users, sending data from one station to LCRD then down to the next. These tests will allow the aerospace community to learn from LCRD and further refine the technology for future implementation of laser communications systems.

After the experimental phase, LCRD will support in-space missions. Missions, like a terminal on the International Space Station, will send data to LCRD, which will then beam it to OGS-1 or OGS-2.

LCRD is a hosted payload on the Department of Defenses Space Test Program Satellite-6 (STPSat-6). While LCRD is a laser communications payload, the spacecraft will still have a radio frequency connection to the ground. The Payload to Ground Link Terminal (PGLT) located at the White Sands Complex near Las Cruces, New Mexico, will communicate tracking, telemetry, and command data to the spacecraft over radio waves.

NASA manages LCRDs ground elements OGS-1, OGS-2, and PGLT out of LCRDs mission operations center at White Sands.

The mission operations center is the central brains of the LCRD system, said Miriam Wennersten, LCRDs ground segment manager of NASA Goddard. It coordinates the configuration of the payload and all three ground stations at the same time, scheduling the various optical services and links.

Without ground infrastructure, extraordinary science and exploration data would not make it to researchers on Earth. LCRDs ground segment will be critical to the success of the mission, providing engineers with the opportunity to test and refine laser communications. In turn, LCRD will usher in a new era of laser communications, where missions will have unprecedented access to insights gleaned from satellites and probes in space.

More About the Mission

STPSat-6, part of the Space Test Program 3 (STP-3) mission, will launch on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 551 rocket from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida no earlier than November 22, 2021. STP is managed by the United States Space Forces Space Systems Command.

LCRD is led by NASA Goddard and in partnership with JPL and the MIT Lincoln Laboratory. LCRD is funded through NASAs Technology Demonstration Missions program, part of the Space Technology Mission Directorate, and the Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program at NASA Headquarters. NASA Goddard manages OGS-2, while JPL manages OGS-1.

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Getting NASA Data to the Ground With Lasers - NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Blue Origin Media.

Artist's conception of Orbital Reef.

A global group of companies and universities has announced plans to develop an "office park in space" to open by the end of the decade.

Arizona State University will play a leadership role in the enterprise, which includes Blue Origin, Sierra Space and Boeing along with Redwire Space and Genesis Engineering Solutions.

Orbital Reef is a commercial space station to be built in low Earth orbit for research, governmental, industrial and travel uses.

ASU will lead the advisory council of 14 universities that will provide public outreach and research guidance: Colorado School of Mines, International Space University, Oxford University, Purdue University, Southwest Research Institute, Stanford University, University of Central Florida, University of Colorado at Boulder, University of Florida, University of Michigan, University of Texas at El Paso and University of Texas Medical.

"The inspirational aspects of space exploration are huge for society, and we want everyone in the world who wants to participate to be able to participate," saidLindy Elkins-Tanton, vice president of ASU's Interplanetary Initiative.

The consortium plans to apply innovations from commercial space and the International Space Station to lower barriers for small businesses, modest research projects and nations without their own space programs.

"The growth in interest and the growth in the space economy and the growth in the private sector has been so profound that we're at this tipping point now where we can go into space as a society instead of just as a government agency," said Elkins-Tanton, who also leads theNASA Psyche mission to study a nickel-iron asteroid that might be the core of a failed planet.

Blue Origin will provide large modules and transportation via its reusable heavy-lift New Glenn rocket. Sierra Space will supply its inflatable Large Integrated Flexible Environment modules and transport crew and cargo via its Dream Chaser spaceplane, which can land on standard runways.Boeing will deliver a science module and its Starliner crew spacecraft, and will oversee station operations and maintenance engineering.

Redwire Space will provide research, development and manufacturing in space, including payload operations and deployable structures.

Genesis Engineering Solutions is developing a small, person-sized craft that will allow routine operations and tourist excursions without a spacesuit.

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ASU will help build an 'office park' space station | KJZZ - KJZZ

Elba Serrano, Regents Professor of biology at NMSU, has been appointed to serve on the Steering Committee for the Decadal Survey on Biological and Physical Sciences Research in Space 2023-2032 by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM).

The committee is tasked to review the state of knowledge in the current and emerging areas of space-related biological and physical sciences research and to generateconsensus recommendations for a comprehensive vision and strategy for a decade of science at the frontiers of biological and physical sciences research in space.

Dr. Serrano is a visionary who has led many cutting-edge programs at NMSU, and she is an outstanding role model for our faculty and graduate students, said Enrico Pontelli, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. With decades of leadership in research and mentorship, her expertise will be an important asset to this committee.

The committees website describes the study report as helping NASA define and align biological and physical sciences research to uniquely advance scientific knowledge, meet human and robotic exploration mission needs and provide terrestrial benefit.

Elbas work with the committee will contribute toward a comprehensive vision and strategy for the next 10 years and will push the frontiers of space research, said Paulo Oemig, director of the New Mexico Space Grant Consortium and NASAs Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research at NMSU. Elbas experience and tremendous capacity to work with a broad coalition of researchers, staff and administrators places her at the forefront for charting the course that will assist NASA with meeting the needs of human missions in space.

Oemig and Patricia Hynes, NMSU professor emerita and director of the Federal Aviation Administration Center of Excellence for Commercial Space Transportation in New Mexico, supported Serranos appointment.

Dr. Serrano is one of the finest colleagues I had the privilege of working with, Hynes said. She is an excellent mentor to the students in her research labs and a tireless member of the faculty, in and out of the classroom. Her appointment is another opportunity for people to meet a selfless collaborator with a voice for detail, integrity and accuracy. She always adds excellence to any program.

Serrano thanked Oemig and Hynes for supporting her NASA-relevant research, calling them inspirational leaders and tireless champions for faculty and students and excellence in research.My work on the steering committee will be informed by my experiences as a research scientist and educator at a Hispanic-serving, land-grant institution in a southwestern state where space exploration is a burgeoning economic driver, Serrano said.

Author: Minerva Baumann

For more information on NMSU, Click Here | For our complete coverage Click Here

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NMSU professor appointed to national committee to guide future space research - El Paso Herald Post - El Paso Herald-Post

This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use. (Image: Nanoracks>With the rise in commercial space exploration comes a new intergalactic destination: a private space station called Starlab. Its being developed via a partnership between Voyager Space, Nanoracks, and Lockheed Martin, and they announced late last week that theyre planning on having Starlab operational by 2027. Starlab will be the first free-flying commercial space station.

The purpose behind Starlab is twofold. To start, it would serve as a low earth orbit (LEO) tourist destination, which is the next step in the development of a rapidly-expanding industry that seeks to commercialize space. This facet of Starlabs endgame depends on an inflatable 340-cubic meter habitat developed by Lockheed Martin. As Starlabs ideation has only just begun, its currently unclear what it will look like for space tourists to pay a visit to the station (or how much it will cost).

Starlabs second purpose is to eventually replace the International Space Station, given that the ISS is set to retire by 2030 due to its $4 billion annual operation cost The core of the outpost, called the George Washington Carver Science Park, will feature four operational departments: a biology lab, plant habitation lab, physical science and materials research lab, and an open workbench area, where up to four astronauts will be able to conduct research at a time. Though Starlab wont be nearly as roomy as the ISS, NASAs director of commercial spaceflight, Phil McAlister, says researchers will not need anything near as big and as capable as the ISS moving forward. Nanoracks website claims Starlab will incur significantly lower construction and operational costs than its predecessor, offering benefits to both taxpayers and commercial partners.

Other elements of Starlabs construction will include a metallic docking node, a 60kW power and propulsion element, and a robotic arm intended to service cargo and payloads. It will also have a payload capacity of 22 cubic meters, equivalent to that of the ISS.

Were excited to be part of such an innovative and capable teamone that allows each company to leverage their core strengths, said Lisa Callahan, Vice President and General Manager of Commercial Civil Space at Lockheed Martin in the press release. Lockheed Martins extensive experience in building complex spacecraft and systems, coupled with Nanoracks commercial business innovation and Voyagers financial expertise allows our team to create a customer-focused space station that will fuel our future vision. We have invested significantly in habitat technology which enables us to propose a cost-effective, mission-driven spacecraft design for Starlab.

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Meet Starlab, a Private Space Station That Could Fly by 2027 - ExtremeTech

Representational Image

According to experts at NASA, investing more in nuclear-powered spacecraft can help the US stay ahead of the competition with nations like China.

At a recent government hearing, experts from US space agency NASA and the aerospace industry deliberated where the country stood when stacked against other nations developing new nuclear propulsion technology. They suggested the US needs to move quickly if it wants to keep up, Space.com reported.

"Strategic competitors including China are aggressively investing in a wide range of space technologies, including nuclear power and propulsion," said Bhavya Lal, NASA's senior advisor for budget and finance, at the congressional committee hearing, called "Accelerating deep space travel with space nuclear propulsion".

"The United States needs to move at a fast pace to stay competitive and to remain a leader in the global space community," she added.

NASA has previously discussed how nuclear propulsion technology could allow the agency to send humans to Mars more quickly than traditional chemical rockets.

As per the experts at the hearing, time is of the essence if NASA wants to get to Mars soon.

"If the United States is serious about leading a human mission to Mars, we have no time to lose," US Rep Don Beyer (D-Va.), who chairs the committee, said.

Beyer added that over the past several years, Congress has continued to fund nuclear space technology development at NASA "with the goal of conducting a future in-space flight test".

While nuclear electric propulsion has many benefits, there are also risks involved with developing and using the technology.

"The risks associated with (nuclear propulsion) are a fundamental materials challenge that we think is quite likely solvable," Roger M. Myers, the co-chair of the Committee on Space Nuclear Propulsion Technologies, said during the hearing.

Myers added that the materials challenge includes developing or finding materials that can handle exposure to heat and other extreme elements associated with space, the report said.

This hearing took place following a report and claims alleging that China tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic weapon in August. China has, however, denied these claims, the report said.

**

The above article has been published from a wire agency with minimal modifications to the headline and text.

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NASA Needs to Invest in Nuclear-Powered Spacecraft to Stay Ahead in Future Space Exploration: Experts | The Weather Channel - Articles from The...

Last week an important milestone was achieved for the lunar landing system which the German space technology group OHB is preparing together with its partner Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI):

Representatives of the Israeli company Helios and representatives of OHB signed a Memorandum of Understanding for Helios hardware to fly on the first three LSAS (Lunar Surface Access Service) missions to the lunar surface.

Helios is an Israeli company founded in 2018, and backed by the Israeli Space Agency, Israeli Ministry of Energy and Israeli Innovation Authority. The companys vision is to enable sustainable human life on Earth and beyond. Among its core developments are reactors to produce oxygen on the lunar surface and reactors to produce iron and silicon on Earth with zero carbon emissions. project-helios.space

Looking forward to joint missions to the Moon (L to R) Dr Timo Stuffler Christiane Bergemann Sverine Jacquet (all OHB) and CEO Jonathan Geifman and CTO Dr Linoam Eliad from Helios

A key to dramatically reducing the cost of space explorationOxygen

Editors note: Important forms of space travel and exploration require burning rocket fuel with oxygen to escape gravity and fly payloads. However, there is no air and no oxygen in space. Therefor space rockets have to launch heavy oxygen canisters into space for space travel. The moon does not have air, nor free oxygen. However, the moon does have oxygen compounds in its rocks and soil. Helios has developed Israeli technology to produce oxygen from the moons rocks and soils.

Israeli Jonathan Geifman, CEO of Helios explains: Production of oxygen on the lunar surface is key to enable the expansion of humanity beyond Earth and to dramatically reduce the cost of space exploration. Oxygen is going to be the most sought after consumable in space as it makes up over 60% of the mass of any fully loaded space vehicle designated for lunar missions and beyond Helios lunar mission with OHB serves to mature its oxygen production technology under real lunar environment, and is a significant step to realize the upcoming cislunar industry.

Israeli Uri Oron (Brigadier General reserve duty) is Director General of the Israel Space Agency. He says: Returning and establishing a permanent base on the Moon requires international cooperation and the creation of partnerships between space agencies and privately-held companies. Helios, an Israeli startup supported by the Israel Space Agency, is an example of a company that will become a key player in the efforts to return to the moon. The Israeli Space Agency welcomes the cooperation between OHB SE, Helios and Israel Aerospace Industries. This cooperation demonstrates the strong, long-lasting relationship between Germany and Israel, and the contribution this partnership can yield to the space industry.

Helios technology for extracting oxygen from lunar soil and rocks

Utilizing resources on the moon

OHB will provide European and international customers from the scientific and business communities timely access to the Moon. In the development of the lunar economic market, we intend to fill a gap with LSAS as the first European lunar shuttle service, since according to current plans, an institutional European moon lander will be available in 2029 at the earliest, says Dr. Lutz Bertling, member of the OHB SE Management Board. When payloads for lunar missions are tendered in the near future, we want to be ready with our LSAS lunar landing service.

With this memorandum of understanding, Helios is taking an important step towards being able to test hardware for in-situ resource utilization on the Moon at an early stage, says Dr. Timo Stuffler, Head of Business Development at OHB.

Take me to the moon to be launched in 2025

OHB and partner IAI (Israeli Aerospace Industries) are making every effort to bring scientific and commercial payloads to the lunar surface with the LSAS lunar transfer as of 2025. In all, customers payloads may have a total mass of between 80 110 kilograms [175 lbs -240 lbs], depending on the mission type. We are pleased that more than 100 interested parties from science and industry have already contacted us, says Sverine Jacquet, who is the first point of contact for potential customers on OHB side.

Partnership with ambitious goals

OHB SE is managing and coordinating the LSAS project and the individual missions to the Moon. This is from the selection of the payloads, to their integration on the moon lander, all the way up to the launch and mission operations. OHB is also responsible for marketing the opportunities to fly to the Earth satellite. The Israeli partner IAI (Israeli Aerospace Industries), with which OHB has been working for more than three years, is contributing the experience gained from its own earlier moon mission.

[Based on OHB press release.]

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Revolutionary Space Tech from Israel to the Moon - Israel Today

This is the first time the UN has selected a winner for an opportunity to access space in partnership with a private sector company.

The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and Airbus Defence and Space have selected the winner of their joint opportunity for a free one year mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The climate mission supporting the UNs Sustainable Development Goals will fly on Bartolomeo, the Airbus external payload hosting platform.

The winning ClimCam team consists of specialists from different fields and symbolises the power of international cooperation, bringing together researchers from three institutions: the Egyptian Space Agency, the Kenyan Space Agency, and the Uganda National Space Programme within the Ugandan Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation.

Jointly, the team will develop a remote sensing camera system to monitor weather, floods, and impacts of climate change in East Africa. The three institutions have agreed to an open data policy, sharing information and images acquired from the project to guide climate change mitigation efforts across the entire region. In addition to its direct goals, the project will also demonstrate space technology developments made in Africa, inspiring African engineers and scientists.

UNOOSA Director Simonetta Di Pippo said: Together with Airbus, and thanks to the ingenuity of the brilliant selected researchers, we are making it possible for this module made in Africa to fly onboard the ISS. This project will acquire precious insights for the East African region to address pressing challenges such as droughts and floods and increase the resilience of its agricultural sector, potentially saving many lives and helping to build a better future. It will also be an important inspiration for talent in Africa to join the space sector. We are extremely proud to have played a role in making this happen, and we look forward to seeing the project take flight.

Andreas Hammer, Head of Space Exploration at Airbus Defence and Space, added: We are very pleased to welcome this UNOOSA-backed team with their African climate mission as a passenger on the Bartolomeo platform. Of course, we are offering them our Bartolomeo All-in-One Space Mission Service, meaning that our own experienced Space experts will take care of all aspects of this Space mission preparatory formalities, payload launch and installation, operations and data transfer. This way, the team can fully concentrate on the development and exploitation of their environmental monitoring payload, without having to worry about anything else. This is one of the fundamental benefits of the Bartolomeo Service we make access to space easier than ever before.

Ayman Ahmed, Team leader at the Egyptian Space agency and ClimCam project coordinator, commented: We are very happy to win this opportunity in such a world-class competition, the team would like to introduce gratitude to the UNOOSA and Airbus for this opportunity. Of course, we understand that challenges exist in our region; climate change is having a growing impact on Africa, especially in the most vulnerable hardest, and contributing to food insecurity, and stress on water resources in east Africa as well. Having an imaging system at ISS allows us to monitor and see that effect in our home countries. We do realise the challenge of developing such a device to operate onboard the ISS with very critical and challenging design constraints. The competition was very hard, but being awarded this opportunity is just the beginning for our team to learn more and acquire great experience in the field of space technology and its application.

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An artists concept of a hot Jupiter extrasolar planet. Credit: NASA, ESA, and L. Hustak (STScI)

An international team of scientists, using the ground-based Gemini Observatory telescope in Chile, is the first to directly measure the amount of both water and carbon monoxide in the atmosphere of a planet in another solar system roughly 340 light-years away.

The team is led by Assistant Professor Michael Line of Arizona State UniversitysSchool of Earth and Space Exploration, and the results were published today (October 27, 2021) in the journal Nature.

There are thousands of known planets outside of our own solar system (called exoplanets). Scientists use both space telescopes and ground-based telescopes to examine how these exoplanets form and how they are different from the planets in our own solar system.

For this study, Line and his team focused on planet WASP-77Ab, a type of exoplanet called a hot Jupiter because they are like our solar systems Jupiter, but with a temperature upwards of 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

They then focused on measuring the composition of its atmosphere to determine what elements are present, compared with the star it orbits.

Because of their sizes and temperatures, hot Jupiters are excellent laboratories for measuring atmospheric gases and testing our planet-formation theories, Line said.

While we cannot yet send spacecraft to planets beyond our solar system, scientists can study the light from exoplanets with telescopes. The telescopes they use to observe this light can be either in space, like the Hubble Space Telescope, or from the ground, like the Gemini Observatory telescopes.

Line and his team had been extensively involved in measuring the atmospheric compositions of exoplanets using Hubble, but obtaining these measurements was challenging. Not only is there steep competition for telescope time, Hubbles instruments only measure water (or oxygen) and the team needed to also gather measurements of carbon monoxide (or carbon) as well.

This is where the team turned to the Gemini South telescope.

We needed to try something different to address our questions, Line said. And our analysis of the capabilities of Gemini South indicated that we could obtain ultra-precise atmospheric measurements.

Gemini South is an 8.1-meter diameter telescope located on a mountain in the Chilean Andes called Cerro Pachn, where very dry air and negligible cloud cover make it a prime telescope location. It is operated by the National Science Foundations NOIRLab (National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory).

Using the Gemini South telescope, with an instrument called the Immersion GRating INfrared Spectrometer (IGRINS), the team observed the thermal glow of the exoplanet as it orbited its host star. From this instrument, they gathered information on the presence and relative amounts of different gases in its atmosphere.

Like weather and climate satellites that are used to measure the amount of water vapor and carbon dioxide in Earths atmosphere, scientists can use spectrometers and telescopes, like IGRINS on Gemini South, to measure the amounts of different gases on other planets.

Trying to figure out the composition of planetary atmospheres is like trying to solve a crime with fingerprints, Line said. A smudged fingerprint doesnt really narrow it down too much, but a very nice, clean fingerprint provides a unique identifier to who committed the crime.

Where the Hubble Space Telescope provided the team with maybe one or two fuzzy fingerprints, IGRINS on Gemini South provided the team with a full set of perfectly clear fingerprints.

And with clear measurements of both water and carbon monoxide in the atmosphere of WASP-77Ab, the team was then able to estimate the relative amounts of oxygen and carbon in the exoplanets atmosphere.

By measuring the Doppler shift illustrated in the right column of this figure, scientists can reconstruct a planets orbital velocity in time toward or away from Earth. The strength of the planet signal as shown in the middle column, along the expected apparent velocity (navy dashed curve) of the planet as it orbits the star, contains information on the amounts of different gases in the atmosphere. Credit: P. Smith/M. Line/S. Selkirk/ASU

These amounts were in line with our expectations and are about the same as the host stars, Line said.

Obtaining ultra-precise gas abundances in exoplanet atmospheres is not only an important technical achievement, especially with a ground-based telescope, it may also help scientists look for life on other planets.

This work represents a pathfinder demonstration for how we will ultimately measure biosignature gases like oxygen and methane in potentially habitable worlds in the not-too-distant future, Line said.

What Line and the team expect to do next is repeat this analysis for many more planets and build up a sample of atmospheric measurements on at least 15 more planets.

We are now at the point where we can obtain comparable gas abundance precisions to those planets in our own solar system. Measuring the abundances of carbon and oxygen (and other elements) in the atmospheres of a larger sample of exoplanets provides much needed context for understanding the origins and evolution of our own gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn, Line said.

They also look forward to what future telescopes will be able to offer.

If we can do this with todays technology, think about what we will be able to do with the up-and-coming telescopes like the Giant Magellan Telescope, Line said. It is a real possibility that we can use this same method by the end of this decade to sniff out potential signatures of life, which also contain carbon and oxygen, on rocky Earth-like planets beyond our own solar system.

Reference: A solar C/O and sub-solar metallicity in a hot Jupiter atmosphere by Michael R. Line, Matteo Brogi, Jacob L. Bean, Siddharth Gandhi, Joseph Zalesky, Vivien Parmentier, Peter Smith, Gregory N. Mace, Megan Mansfield, Eliza M.-R. Kempton, Jonathan J. Fortney, Evgenya Shkolnik, Jennifer Patience, Emily Rauscher, Jean-Michel Dsert and Joost P. Wardenier, 27 October 2021, Nature.DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03912-6

In addition to Line, the research team includes Joseph Zalesky, Evgenya Shkolnik, Jennifer Patience, and Peter Smith of ASUs School of Earth and Space Exploration; Matteo Brogi and Siddharth Gandhi of the University of Warwick (UK); Jacob Bean and Megan Mansfield of the University of Chicago; Vivien Parmentier and Joost Wardenier of the University of Oxford (UK); Gregory Mace of the University of Texas at Austin; Eliza Kempton of the University of Maryland; Jonathan Fortney of the University of California, Santa Cruz; Emily Rauscher of the University of Michigan; and Jean-Michel Dsertof the University of Amsterdam.

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Scientists Measure the Atmosphere of a Planet in Another Solar System 340 Light-Years Away - SciTechDaily