Cap'n Bob & the Damsel

Aerospace

Moondust and Gunpowder?

This is from the third installment of Science@NASA’s Apollo Chronicles.

NASA – Apollo Chronicles: The Smell of Moondust

January 30, 2006: Moondust. “I wish I could send you some,” says Apollo 17 astronaut Gene Cernan. Just a thimbleful scooped fresh off the lunar surface. “It’s amazing stuff.”

Feel it—it’s soft like snow, yet strangely abrasive.

Taste it—”not half bad,” according to Apollo 16 astronaut John Young.

Sniff it—”it smells like spent gunpowder,” says Cernan.

How do you sniff moondust?

Right: At the end of a long day on the moon, Apollo 17 astronaut Gene cernan rests inside the lunar module Challenger. Note the smudges of dust on his longjohns and forehead. Photo credit: Jack Schmitt.

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02 Feb 2006 by Aerospace Rocket Science

B-2 Spirit at Edwards AFB

Damsel and I have had the privilege of visiting the B2 production facility at Palmdale, CA, Air Force Plant 42 during an open house. After the factory walk-through, we went out on the tarmac for a presentation ceremony. At the conclusion of the presentation, we were treated to a low-altitude flyby of the Spirit of California. It was truly a breathtaking experience for us. Unfortunately, we didn’t get any pictures since cameras weren’t allowed on that part of the base. But not to worry – Richard Seaman (a friend of a friend of a friend, etc.), was at the 2005 Edwards Air Show and took some pictures and put them on his website. He also provides lots of informative comments as you scroll through the pictures. There are some useful links at the bottom of the page as well. Just awesome! Go look at the B-2 Spirit

Hat tip to our friend Dr. Dave for sending this link.

01 Feb 2006 by Aerospace Military Photography

SuitSat

This is just plain weird science.

NASA – SuitSat

January 26, 2006: One of the strangest satellites in the history of the space age is about to go into orbit. Launch date: Feb. 3rd. That’s when astronauts onboard the International Space Station (ISS) will hurl an empty spacesuit overboard.

The spacesuit is the satellite — “SuitSat” for short.

“SuitSat is a Russian brainstorm,” explains Frank Bauer of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “Some of our Russian partners in the ISS program, mainly a group led by Sergey Samburov, had an idea: Maybe we can turn old spacesuits into useful satellites.” SuitSat is a first test of that idea.

Image: ISS astronaut Mike Finke spacewalks in a Russian Orlan spacesuit in 2004. SuitSat will have no one inside.

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This must be the Russians’ idea of a publicity stunt. I liked the space lottery idea better.

Russian brainstorm – bah – brainfart is more like it.

See suitsat.org for pass times and details if you’re into this.

27 Jan 2006 by Aerospace Rocket Science

Space Lottery

Lottery: a tax on mathematically-challenged people.

I found this concept to be interesting. From SPACE.com:

A Space Lottery: An Idea Whose Time Has Come

I suggest a National Space Lottery as a new way of funding space flight systems, promoting space tourism and paying for the tickets of those who would fly. Many have spoken of our goals in space, but few offer ways to pay for them. The following proposal offers a possible solution.

The National Space Society should promote creation of a National Space Lottery. Ideally, this might become an International Space Lottery, and would offer the possibility of space flight, as a prize, to every man, woman and child on earth.

A Space Lottery would generate enormous worldwide publicity, a new fascination with space. Prizewinners would be followed like those of modern “Reality TV” shows. An International Space Lottery would be ideal. People all over the world, rich and poor, would share in the possibility of a ride into space. Space tourism could soon become a reality. Men, women and children everywhere sense that the destiny of humanity is elsewhere, and want to be part of the dream.

23 Jan 2006 by Aerospace Culture Rocket Science

New Horizons off to Pluto

Today, the New Horizons spacecraft was launched from the Cape Canaveral Launch Complex. It looked spectacular on NASA’s streaming video!

From NASA:

NASA – New Horizons

After launch aboard a Lockheed-Martin Atlas V rocket, the New Horizons spacecraft set out on a journey to the edge of the solar system. Liftoff occurred Jan. 19, 2006 at 2:00:00 p.m. EST from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. New Horizons is headed for a distant rendezvous with the mysterious planet Pluto almost a decade from now.

Space artist Dan Durda was commissioned to do artist’s renditions for the project and thinks that New Horizons could encounter this view of Pluto and Charon while looking back toward the Sun when it arrives in a decade:

19 Jan 2006 by Aerospace Astronomy Rocket Science

SOHO Marks 10th Year

One of my top 10 things to be thankful for is technology, which gives mankind insights into the unknown. One of these technological wonders is SOHO, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory Satellite located at Earth’s inner Lagrangian point.

From SpaceWeather.com:

10 YEARS OF SOHO: Where would we be without SOHO? The orbiting Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) keeps a ’round-the-clock eye on the sun and is crucial to space weather forecasting. Thousands of our readers have witnessed auroras only because SOHO spotted an incoming CME [coronal mass ejection] in time for us to issue an alert.

So it is with pleasure and appreciation that we wish a happy 10th anniversary to the SOHO team, whose spacecraft was launched on Dec. 2nd, 1995. Originally planned as a two year mission, SOHO is now entering its second decade. Amazing.

And an article from Astronomy Picture of the Day indicates that operations are planned to continue until 2007, at which time SOHO will have been in position to observe a complete 11-year solar cycle (which, as we all know, is responsible for climate change and other phenomena – not the puny efforts of mankind who the moonbat left blame for the mythical global warming).

01 Dec 2005 by Aerospace Astronomy Environment Global Warming Rocket Science

Private Sector Lunar Plan to Compete with NASA

From SPACE.com — Private Sector, Low-Cost Lunar Plan Unveiled

A newly released study has focused on how best to return people to the Moon, reporting that future lunar missions can be done for under $10 billion – far less than a NASA price tag.

The multi-phased three-year study was done by a private space firm, SpaceDev of Poway, California, and concluded that safe, lower cost missions can be completed by the private sector using existing technology or innovative new technology expected to be available in time to support human exploration of the Moon in the near-future.

Artist rendition of the “rocket chair,” designed to lower people and equipment onto the lunar surface. credit: Spacedev

Fraction of time/cost

NASA has tallied its future lunar mission costs, projecting a figure of $104 billion over 13 years.

According to SpaceDev’s chief, Jim Benson, the private group has found that a more comprehensive series of missions could be completed in a fraction of the time and for one-tenth of the cost of the NASA estimate.

Each mission, as envisioned by SpaceDev, would position a habitat module in lunar orbit or on the moon’s surface. The habitat modules would remain in place after each mission and could be re-provisioned and re-used, thus building a complex of habitats at one or more lunar locations over time, according to a press statement on the study findings.

Benson also noted: “We are not surprised by the significant cost savings that our study concludes can be achieved without sacrificing safety and mission support.”

So – just what does NASA attribute the extra costs to?

22 Nov 2005 by Aerospace Rocket Science

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