Space Geeks!

krou writes "According to the Guardian, the Augustine panel is going to declare that there is simply no money to go back to the moon, and the next-generation Ares I rocket is likely to be scrapped unless there is more funding. The $81B Constellation Program’s long-term goal of putting a human on Mars is almost certainly not going to be possible by the middle of the century. The options outlined by the panel for the future of NASA ‘are to extend the working life of the aging space shuttle fleet beyond next year’s scheduled retirement until 2015, while developing a cheaper transport to the moon; pressing ahead with Constellation as quickly as existing funding allows; or creating a new, larger rocket that would allow exploration of the solar system while bypassing the moon.’ All of this means that NASA won’t be back on the moon before the end of the next decade as hoped, ‘or even leaving lower Earth orbit for at least another two decades.’ Another result of the monetary black hole is that they don’t have the ‘$300m to expand a network of telescopes and meet the government’s target of identifying, by 2020, at least 90% of the giant space rocks that pose a threat to Earth.’"
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Al writes "NASA recently finished testing a miniature nuclear reactor that would provide power for an astronaut base on the Moon or Mars. The reactor combines a small fission system with a Stirling engine to make a ’safe, reliable, and efficient’ way to produce electricity. The system being tested at NASA’s Glenn Research Center can produce 2.3 kilowatts and could be ready for launch by 2020, NASA officials say. The reactor ought to provide much more power than solar panels but could prove controversial with the public concerned about launching a nuclear power source and placing it on the Moon or another planet."
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The Bad Astronomer writes about a new discovery by the Spitzer Space Telescope, which detected signs of an interplanetary smashup only 100 light-years from here, and only a few thousand years ago. There’s a NASA-produced animation of the collision between a Mercury-sized planet and a moon-sized impactor. The collision’s aftermath was detected by the presence of what are essentially glass shards in orbit around the star. Here’s NASA’s writeup.
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NASA plans on using million in stimulus funds to seed development of a commercial passenger transportation service to space. Potential space taxi inventors have 45 days to submit their proposals. The proposals will be competitively evaluated and the winners will be announced by the end of September. It is unclear what other Commodore 64 games NASA plans on making a reality, but I hope Arkanoid makes the short list.
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An anonymous reader writes "Inhabitants of the planet Gliese 581d will need a radio receiver and the ability to interpret binary code if they are to understand a series of text messages to be sent from Australia. Hello from Earth will collect the messages over the next 12 days and transmit them to the closest Earth-like planet that has the potential to harbor life. All the messages will be collected and exported as a text file and sent to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, where it will be encoded into binary code, packaged and tested before transmission."
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carstene writes "Qualification rounds for the NASA Centennial Challenge Power beaming contest are underway at the Dryden Flight Research Center. The contest uses a scale model of a space elevator as a race track. Entrants must build a robot to climb a cable, suspended by helicopter, 1 km into the sky without any on board energy storage. The teams are using high power laser beams to transmit power from ground stations to photovoltaic arrays on the robots. If a team can accomplish this at 5 meters per second average speed then they could win up to 2 million dollars. One day this technology could be used to power rovers in shadowed areas of the moon or to recharge electric UAV’s in-flight or even a space elevator in the far future. A blog of the event can be found here. Full disclosure: I’m a member of the LaserMotive team that you can follow on twitter, or or via blog."
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BearRanger writes "Calibration of new systems in the Hubble Space Telescope (installed in May by Shuttle Atlantis astronauts) were interrupted to take pictures of the new ’scar’ near the south pole of Jupiter. The scar is believed to have been caused by the impact of an asteroid or small comet with the gas giant, which we discussed last Sunday. Hubble’s return to service will be delayed by this interruption, but NASA says that rare events such as this warrant the delay. This is only the second recorded impact of an object with Jupiter."
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Smart grid technology is a hot issue on Capitol Hill, but some are raising questions about the idea. In recent days we’ve discussed the smart grid’s potential exposure to worm attacks, consumers’ unreadiness for the idea, and whether the whole concept may need a rethink. A Congressional hearing on Thursday surfaced another reason for caution: the smart grid’s vulnerability to EMP. "Electromagnetic Pulse" refers to the damage caused in electrical circuits and systems when a nuclear explosive goes off nearby. The electric grid as it’s currently constituted is vulnerable to EMP; the further down the road we go towards a smart grid, the more vulnerable it will become. "It makes a great equalizer for small nations looking to stand up to military Goliaths, argues Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (Rep.-Md.), a former research scientist and engineer who has worked in the past on projects for NASA and the military. All one needs to wreak some serious EMP damage, he charges, is a sea-worthy steamer, 0,000 to buy a scud-missile launcher, and a crude nuclear weapon. Then fling the device high into the air and detonate its warhead. Such a system might not paralyze the entire United States, he concedes. ‘But you could shut down all of New England. And if you missed by 100 miles, it’s as good as a bulls eye.’"
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coondoggie writes to mention that NASA’s Green Flight Challenge is offering up to .5 million for an aircraft that can hit 200 passenger miles per gallon while maintaining 100 mph on a 200 mile flight. “The Challenge is intended to bring about the development and convergence of new technologies and innovations that can improve the community acceptance, efficiency, door-to-door speed, utility, environmental-friendliness, affordability and safety of future air vehicles, CAFÉ stated. Such technologies and innovations include, but are not limited to, bio-fueled propulsion, breakthroughs in batteries, motors, fuel-cells and ultra-capacitors that enable electric-powered flight, advanced high lift technologies for very short takeoff and landing distances, ultra-quiet propellers, enhanced structural efficiency by advances in material science and nano-technology and safety features such as vehicle parachutes and air-bags.”
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xp65 writes "Today NASA released information regarding its intention to invest million in commercial crew concepts. This new program, known as the Commercial Crew Development or ‘CCDev,’ represents a new milestone in the development of an orbital commercial human spaceflight sector. By maturing ‘the design and development of commercial crew spaceflight concepts and associated enabling technologies and capabilities,’ the program will allow several companies to move a few steps forward towards the ultimate goal of full demonstration of commercial human spaceflight to orbit."
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celticryan writes "NASA’s new telescope has made a promising discovery. ‘As NASA’s first exoplanets mission, Kepler has made a dramatic entrance on the planet-hunting scene,’ said Jon Morse, director of the Science Mission Directorate’s Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. ‘Detecting this planet’s atmosphere in just the first 10 days of data is only a taste of things to come. The planet hunt is on!’"
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Every 15 Earth years, Saturn has its equinox — the time during which its rotational axis is perpendicular to the rays from the sun, so that the sun is always directly “overhead” of Saturn’s equator. This is significant because Saturn’s rings orbit over the equator, so during the equinox, light from the sun hits them edge-on. This means that any objects wider than the rings, or orbiting above or below them, cast long shadows and are much easier to see. For the first time, we’re able to get detailed images of these objects, thanks to Cassini. A moonlet, perhaps 1,300 feet in diameter, has been discovered in the B-ring, and the Bad Astronomy blog points out another object that seems to be bursting through the F-ring. Quoting: “The upward-angled structure is definitely real, as witnessed by the shadow it’s casting on the ring material to the lower left. And what’s with the bright patch right where this object seems to have slammed into the rings? Did it shatter millions of icy particles, revealing their shinier interior material, making them brighter? Clearly, something awesome and amazing happened here.
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An anonymous reader writes "Kudos to NASA and the Japanese trade ministry for mapping 99% of the Earth’s surface, surpassing their previous effort, with which the new data will be amalgamated. Apparently, the data will be free to download and use."
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eric.brasseur writes "The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has entered lunar orbit in perfect shape. From a height of 50 km, it will image the Moon in high resolution. The hardware left by the Apollo missions will be clearly visible. The Soviet automatic probes will also be photographed. Previous best images were made by the Japanese probe Kaguya and showed a white patch where the dust had been blown away by the blast of the LM engine."
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destinyland writes "’We’re going to have to do extensive robotic exploration,’ says the director of NASA’s Ames Research Center, suggesting nanotechnology to build self-replicating robots on Mars. Genetically engineering extraction and construction microbes could ‘grow’ electrical components, and eventually convert carbon dioxide on Mars into oxygen. ‘If we really want to settle Mars, and we don’t want to have to carry millions of tons of equipment with us to duplicate the way we live on Earth, these technologies will be key.’ This interview with Peter Worden, the director of NASA’s Ames Research Center, was just featured in the summer issue of H+ magazine, and he also argues that robots will be necessary to first survey Mars for underground microbes and protect the unique Martian biosphere, since it may contain clues about earth’s own first life forms. In fact, given the water and carbon that’s been discovered on Mars, the possibility of underground microbes is still considered real, and Worden argues that Mars ‘may already be supporting life.’"
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JerryQ sends in a story at New Scientist about the criticism NASA is taking for deciding to use Imperial units in the development of the Constellation program, their project to replace the space shuttle. “The sticking point is that Ares is a shuttle-derived design — it uses solid rocket boosters whose dimensions and technology are based on those currently strapped to either side of the shuttle’s giant liquid fuel tank. And the shuttle’s 30-year-old specifications, design drawings and software are rooted in pounds and feet rather than newtons and meters. … NASA recently calculated that converting the relevant drawings, software and documentation to the ‘International System’ of units (SI) would cost a total of $370 million — almost half the cost of a 2009 shuttle launch, which costs a total of $759 million. ‘We found the cost of converting to SI would exceed what we can afford,’ says [NASA spokesman Grey Hautaluoma].”
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FleaPlus writes "Apollo 11 astronaut (and MIT Astronautics Sc.D.) Buzz Aldrin suggests a bolder plan for NASA (while still remaining within its budget), which he will present to the White House’s Augustine Commission; he sees NASA heading down the wrong path with a ‘rehash of what we did 40 years ago’ which could derail future exploration and settlement. For the short-term, Aldrin suggests canceling NASA’s troubled and increasingly costly Ares I, instead launching manned capsules on commercial Delta IV, Atlas V, and/or SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets. In the medium-term, NASA should return to the moon with an international consortium, with the ultimate goal of commercial lunar exploitation in mind. Aldrin’s long term plan includes a 2018 comet flyby, a 2019 manned trip to a near-earth asteroid, a 2025 trip to the Martian moon Phobos, and one-way trips to colonize Mars."
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Dusty writes "After several false alarms, the Ulysses Mission is finally ending. According to the Spacecraft Operations Manager’s latest status report, the last track will be on 30th June 2009 from 15:25 until 20:20 UTC. ‘We’ve tried to bolster our dwindling tracking allocation with some success by grabbing antenna time released on short notice (mostly by the Spitzer Project). However, weekly data return figures are now typically 10% or less. And soon, even 512 bps from 70m antennas will be a thing of the past.’ Further details about Ulysses’ 18-year mission are available from NASA and the ESA. We discussed the failing spacecraft last summer when it looked like its fuel was going to freeze, but through clever engineering, experts managed to squeeze out another year.
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jra writes “For over 5 years, various people both inside and retired from NASA have been engaged in a quest. They were looking for the long-lost original slow-scan video tapes from the Apollo 11 moon landing, which went missing in a record-keeping snafu, covered in unreasonable detail in a Wired article a couple years ago. Well now, according to the UK’s Sunday Express newspaper, some tapes may or may not have been found which may or may not be the Apollo video. Apparently — I love the British press — the NASA boffins are a bit put out that it leaked; they were hoping to blow everyone’s minds with the scoop themselves.”
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DynaSoar writes "NASA is soliciting ideas from the public on how best to catalog and digitize the collected notes of Wernher von Braun. ‘We’re looking for creative ways to get it out to the public,’ said project manager Jason Crusan. ‘We don’t always do the best with putting out large sets of data like this.’ The PDF notes are those of rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, the first director of NASA’s Marshall Spaceflight Center in Huntsville, Alabama and are typed with copious hand written notes in the margin. According to the official request for information, NASA needs ideas on what format to use (PDF), how to index the notes and how to create a useful database. The unique nature and historical value of the data, literally discovered in boxes six months ago, is what motivated NASA to ask the public for ideas."
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