Spaceward ho!

Innovations in space exploration--let's have a thread for it!NASA recently funded support for private development of vessels to service the International Space Station. Today's news: the agency is now doing something similar to service moon bases.

X Prize Cup to Host NASA's Lunar Lander Challenge
by Leonard David
2006.9.22

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NASA's hope is that the prize will spur the design and fabrication of quick turnaround vertical take-off, vertical landing vehicles. That ability can help cultivate the commercial launch procurement market - not only for future operations on the Moon but here on Earth too.

Here's a link to the page for NASA's Constellation Program_Edited by Archer Opterix, : HTML.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

More news on the development of the Orion spacecraft--mainly the interior space. It may look like Apollo on the outside, but it's looking more like Star Trek on the inside. They are aiming for clean, versatile control panel design.Project Orion: NASA's Next Spaceship Takes Shape | Space_

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

holmes asks: A very interesting question.Until now all our manned spacecraft were designed in a pre-computer age, wouldn't you say? That requires lots of switches and control services in very limited space. Now a variety of tasks can be handled with a few touch screens.The matter of aesthetics--naturally linked to issues of ergonomics--is now getting more attention. We're looking at some long expeditions now. The more time people spend in a habitat, of course, the more it affects them. They will be more productive if they find the place appealing. To do this it needs to reflect something human back at them.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

In this case NASA, Congress, and Bush (no head for science, but an MBA) were determined to avoid the boom-and-bust cycle of space funding. There are many good reasons to want to do this, of course, but one that especially interested the government types was keeping qualified people reliably employed at NASA. This prevents the agency from constantly having to go hunt up qualified people it laid off five years earlier. Even more importnat: it encourages the international 'brain drain' to keep draining in America's direction. There are other space agencies.You'll notice how the Vision document gives more emphasis to funding than similar NASA documents for projects in the past. It shows steady progress and steady money. The deal is that NASA lives within a certain amount of means and it can count on the means. Leaders in both parties who serve on the relevant Congressional committees have approved the plans and signed onto this.The result is a program that pushes forward in definite stages but with flexible deadlines. (The moon landing deadline is 'between 2015 and 2020' rather than 'before his decade is out'). The program uses proven technology: shuttle rockets and Saturn J-2 the Ares boosters, tried-and-true heat shield technology for Orion. Big goals with proven technology. This not only means greater safety, it allows more accurate estimates of cost. The ocntinuity in technology also allows everyone to keep working as the shuttle is phased out and Orion starts up. Minimal down time.One can spot some negative lessons learned. The approach NASA is taking in this new initiative is the complete opposite of everything the agency did in planning the shuttle in the late 70s. Then you had a big leap in technology but modest goals. Nothing flew for several years before the shuttle was ready, when it arrived overdue and over budget. Other projects got axed to fund it (additional Skylab missions, unmanned boosters). And, as we all know, it turned out to be a risky, labor-intensive, and expensive way to loft anything into orbit. The shuttle was never the cheap, reliable 'space truck' NASA said it would be.NASA is making a much better start this time around. I look forward to it.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Me: holmes: How does this contradict what I said? You are making my point for me.I said 'there are other space agencies.' And yes, China's is one. Europe and Japan also have increasingly ambitious space programs. Talented engineers from China or India or the UAE--or from Taiwan--have choices now. NASA's not the only game in town.NASA has a great history, but if it continued much longer just bopping around in low earth-orbit with a last-century spaceplane that has already killed 14 people, well... let's just say there are more inspiring projects for smart young scientists beginning careers.A turning point was reached, too, with the Columbia disaster. It forced decisions about the shuttle. Originally NASA expected to fly the shuttles much longer. I think calling it quits for the shuttle after the ISS is completed is exactly the right idea. Anything extension of the shuttle program beyond that is just begging for trouble.There's another pressure, too, that NASA's new administrators feel keenly. The generation that went to the moon is passing on in larger numbers. Had they delayed making plans for a return trip any longer, an untold amount of experience would be lost. That experience is an asset that is priceless, and it is uniquely America's. What NASA project are you thinking of that had 'primarily religious significance'?_Edited by Archer Opterix, : Typo repair.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

holmes: Ok. Got it now.I concur with this. It seems China's space program administered the clue-by-four that made Bush teachable on this issue. Until then it seemed like the ISS project got scaled back further each day. Around the same time I noticed a heightened federal interest in the health of higher education as well. This was long overdue.The US has a tendency, when state and federal governments 'get serious about education', to 'get serious' about K-12 at the expense of America's colleges and universities. But those colleges and universities are one of America's most important exports, if you will. They draw people from all around the world. Once in your country, many of those people are willing to stay and work. (This goes to the tenth power for students from China. They smile and say everything Big Brother wants to hear about the virtues of their home country--but none of them intend to return.)The US has benefited spectacularly from this 'brain drain' over the years. Many advantages it enjoys militarily and technologically spring from it. It would be a blunder of lasting proportions to let that atrophy.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

holmes: One Eisenhower Administration guy, when told Sputnik had been launched, reportedly said 'Damn! We captured the wrong Germans!'_

NASA has the go-ahead to launch the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, a powerful infrared telescope. 'Wise' will be able to spot brown dwarfs in nearby regions of space (some of them closer than Proxima Centauri) and give us a window on early galaxies 11.5 billion light years distant.NASA's Wise Satellite Moves Ahead - Universe TodayWise is slated for launch in 2009.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

The prospect of finding water ice at the lunar poles just took a hit.New Images Dampen Hope for Water Ice on Moon | SpaceLack of H2O as a resource complicates the building of moon bases, though the elements can still be processed from lunar soil..

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ArcherAll species are transitional.