Move over Virgin Galactic, here comes Space Adventures. OK, there are more than two firms trying to be the first commercial space tourism firms to actually put tourists into space on their own equipment (a few people have flown on Russian government flights). Good luck gentlemen. The question is if you can get enough people to pay a million dollars to have a suborbital fight that it will fund the development and develop the confidence so that you can offer orbital flight for $100,000.
Posts Tagged spaceflight
Up Up and Away
Feb 20
Science News has a really neat article about the real minimum energy transfer between planets. No, not the Hohmann transfer orbits I learned about in Orbital Mechanics class, but a solution to the three body problem. It uses gravity to do most of the work, and so while it takes a lot longer to get somewhere, it’s eyepoppingly low energy – one mission only took 4% of total mass.
Pictures from Another Planet
Jan 15
I know Titan is technically a moon, but I still consider that the Huygens Probe landed on another planet and sent back images that to my untrained eye look a lot like Mars, only with more atmosphere.
The probe’s mission was another fine scientific joint venture between the USA and Europe. Back when I was a rocket scientist, I worked on the launches of IRAS, which was another spectacular joint venture, and on EXOSAT, which was all European except for the launch, which was switched to Delta (which is what I worked on) from Ariane at the last minute because of an Ariane launch failure. I had a great time working with the Europeans on EXOSAT, and it just goes to show that in those endevors where Europe can pull its own weight (or more!) they make fine partners.
Science Trio
Jan 12
I saw three interesting science stories today, and amazingly, they had nothing to do with intestinal bacteria!
First up is the launch of Deep Impact, which isn’t a movie but a satellite designed to rendezvous with the comet Temple1 and launch an “impactor” spacecraft designed to use kinetic energy to blow a big hole in the comet, allowing the mothership to take pictures and analyze the material ejected during the impact. That way we’ll know what comets are really made of — dirty snowballs, or something else below the surface. In the interest of full disclosure, I didn’t take $250,000 to report this, but I used to work on the Delta program in my long lost youth. The fireworks are scheduled for, when else, the Fourth of July
Hopefully, Greenpeace etc. won’t protest this major destruction of comet habitat in the name of science.
Secondly, it isn’t a story about a large wooden badger, but a giant dinosaur eating badger. Yes, you heard me right, fossils have been discovered in China of large badger like mammals that ate dinosaurs — they found the fossilized dino in the belly of the fossil badger. In the words of one of the scientists, it was a “short-legged but powerful animal with fearsome teeth.” Perhaps he meant big pointy teeth. I mean, the finding does competely overturn the view of mamals from that time as being small cuddly cuties that wouldn’t hurt a fly (if there were any).
And lastly, Scientists now believe that the Universe isn’t made of string, but is a giant flat bell. OK, I’m inflating things abit. Alright, enough cosmological humor. Scientists have confirmed that the early Universe rang with sound and the sound waves influenced the structure – galaxies etc. – of the universe. The good news is that the Universe is flat but wavy; the bad news is that the expansion of the universe isn’t stopping; what began with a bang won’t end at all.
Whither NASA?
Feb 11
The demise of the Space Shuttle Columbia with seven astronauts onboard has raised important issues about NASA and space exploration. I once worked designing launch trajectories for Delta – I worked on the launches for IRAS, EXOSAT, and LANDSAT-D’ before moving on to smaller, more deadly aeronautical programs. I almost went to work at Rockwell in their Shuttle Ascent group.
Rand Simberg (among others) at Transterrestial Musings has made many important points about space exploration. The space shuttle has been an engineering failure – it hasn’t achieved, and will never achieve, it’s cost, turnaround, and safety goals. The problem is, the replacement programs, such as X-33 (VentureStar) have been even worse failures. The problems with the shuttle date back to decisions made from the dawn of the program, both in terms of engineering and cost. Columbia wasn’t destroyed by lack of near-term safety funding, of failure to pay heed to safety guru’s demanding more money, but by the inherently risky nature of space travel and design decisions made thirty years ago.
And he’s right to say we need to go back to first principles when it comes to space exploration. The problem has been we’ve never really had any, and so as time has gone on, we’ve tended to let the programs drive the goals, rather than goals drive programs. So the proper response should be to figure out what we want to do, assign priorities, realistically figure up the cost, and go to it. Will that happen? I doubt it. But here are a few of my ideas anyway.
The space program should do the following:
(1) Provide a permanent human presence in space,
(2) Explore the cosmos, and
(3) Exploit the unique environments beyond earth.
We need humans in space. But that doesn’t mean we need to put humans in space when we don’t need them. Before Challenger blew up, NASA made Space Shuttle it’s only launch vehicle, eliminating expendable rockets, in an attempt to reach cost goals for the shuttle. So we were risking people to put up satellites, which we don’t need to do. And we were also putting all our launch eggs in one basket, which blew up in our face. I think there will always be a place for unmanned launch vehicles — they’ll be cheaper because the safety requirements will not have to be as stringent.
Which brings us to safety and risk. One of the safety problems with the shuttle is that it represented a bunch of new technology. We now risk humans on the beta version of technology (sadly 30 years out of date now). Frankly, that’s not acceptable from a safety standpoint. People shouldn’t be risking their lives until we’ve tried out the technology on an unmanned vehicle, learned from the inevitable mistakes, and made improvements. While 100% safety is impossible, certainly we can use some common sense.
NASA has done a pretty good job when it comes to exploring the cosmos, but a lousy job when it comes to providing a permanent human presence and exploiting the unique environments beyond earth. There are many who seem to feel that NASA is standing in the way of these goals, and if they would just somehow get out of the way, private initiative would take care of them. I’m not so sure. The example of civil aviation is often cited, but while I think it provides a great notional roadmap, too many of the details don’t match. NASA should develop the technology that can be transitioned to private industry, just as it did for civil aviation, but is the technology mature? A lot of aviation pioneers died from accidents; society has become much more intolerant of fatal accidents. Capital costs are orders of magnitude greater as well, with uncertain payoffs. There is no denying that aviation technology received huge boosts from military investments in the world wars, but there hasn’t been any military interest in humans in space since MOL (Manned Orbiting Laboratory) was canceled in 1969. A couple modestly successful businessmen (AKA the Wright Brothers) could fund the development, design, construction, and test flights of the first aircraft. Can the same be said of launch vehicles, let alone space stations? That leaves tourism, so far the only money maker in manned space efforts. Is Disney ready to spend the billions required when the risks are large and the return uncertain? Is any company with the pockets deep enough ready to roll the dice on space? In short no. NASA needs to make the eventual privatization of space a goal (OK, make it number 4 up above) so that it’s programs support that goal, but I don’t think we’re there yet.
It’s sad, but the thrill of space exploration seems to have departed from the world. We’re building a space station in cooperation with the Russians, astronauts are living there now, and, well, the response is ho hum. I hate to admit it, but when I read this article, I was surprised that the space station was crewed (OK, PC of me, but there it is). And the explosion of a Soyuz once would have been a big deal. When I was a kid, I remember watching the Apollo launches on TV in my elementary school gym. Now, I doubt my kids even know we have a space program. The crowd that once would have been happy that we’re cooperating with the Russians on endeavors designed to help all humanity have moved on to protesting “globalization”, whatever that is, or warning against the horrors of a new Vietnam with more fervor than a Baptist minister warning against the horrors of fire and brimstone, although in similar terms.
