|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 ASK THE EXPERT
Get your questions answered by
real space exploration experts. |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Before the end of the next decade, NASA astronauts will again explore the surface of the moon. And this time, we're going to stay, building outposts and paving the way for eventual journeys to Mars and beyond. There are echoes of the iconic images of the past, but it won't be your grandfather's moon shot.
This journey begins soon, with development of a new spaceship. Building on the best of Apollo and shuttle technology, NASA's creating a 21st century exploration system that will be affordable, reliable, versatile, and safe.
The centerpiece of this system is a new spacecraft designed to carry four astronauts to and from the moon, support up to six crewmembers on future missions to Mars, and deliver crew and supplies to the International Space Station.
The new crew vehicle will be shaped like an Apollo capsule, but it will be three times larger, allowing four astronauts to travel to the moon at a time. The new ship can be reused up to 10 times. After the craft parachutes to dry land (with a splashdown as a backup option), NASA can easily recover it, replace the heat shield and launch it again.
Coupled with the new lunar lander, the system sends twice as many astronauts to the surface as Apollo, and they can stay longer, with the initial missions lasting four to seven days. And while Apollo was limited to landings along the moon's equator, the new ship carries enough propellant to land anywhere on the moon's surface.
Once a lunar outpost is established, crews could remain on the lunar surface for up to six months. The spacecraft can also operate without a crew in lunar orbit, eliminating the need for one astronaut to stay behind while others explore the surface.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 24 Nov 2008-Buying More Rockets
|
| |
 From Florida Today
NASA likely would stage an extra Ares 1 test flight and accelerate a crucial engine-development project if President-elect Barack Obama makes good on a campaign promise to inject an extra $2 billion into the agency's budget.
The added test flight would blast off from Kennedy Space Center in 2012, enabling NASA to move up the debut of the nation's next-generation spacecraft to early 2014 -- a year ahead of schedule.
And that would significantly reduce the amount of time the United States would rely on Russia to fly American astronauts to and from the $100 billion International Space Station, an outpost largely built by U.S. taxpayers.
"We are ready to tackle head-on the task of narrowing the gap between shuttle retirement and Ares-Orion deployment -- if the newly elected nation's policymakers want us to do that," NASA Administrator Mike Griffin said.
NASA is operating under a presidential directive to complete station assembly and retire its aging shuttle fleet by Sept. 30, 2010.
The U.S. will rely on Russia to fly American astronauts until Ares 1 rockets and Apollo-style Orion crew capsules are ready to launch. The first piloted flight is targeted for March 2015.
But the Obama and John McCain campaigns both pledged to provide an extra $2 billion to speed development of Ares and Orion, a move that would minimize a five-year hiatus in U.S. human spaceflight. Both campaigns also signaled intentions to review retirement plans for the shuttle fleet.
In response, Griffin ordered two studies. One showed that it would cost about $2 billion a year to operate the shuttle fleet between 2010 and 2015. But the risk of losing a crew would increase from a statistical probability of 1 in 12 to 1 in 8.
Click here for more
|
|
|
14 Nov 2008-Oxygen from Moon Rocks - Hawaii-style
|
| |
Living off the land -- far away from homeland Earth -- will be critical as humans build up stay-time on the Moon.
NASA has just finished a nearly two-week shakeout of equipment dedicated to In Situ Resource Utilization, or ISRU for short. The effort demonstrated how people might make their own oxygen from lunar rocks and soil.
This testing was hosted by the Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems, known as PISCES. Based at the University of Hawaii, Hilo, PISCES is keen on showing how using volcanic soil here on Earth mimics the Moon's resource-rich soil.
The tests involved use of a Carnegie Mellon University of Pittsburgh rover, complete with a special drill that can penetrate the harsh lunar soil - ideal for exploiting possible water ice that could be present in permanently shadowed craters at the Moon's poles.
Lockheed Martin Space Systems evaluated an excavator that's part of their ROxygen and the Precursor ISRU Lunar Oxygen Testbed, or PILOT.
And just to make sure that this simulated lunar work is the "wheel deal" - a new lunar wheel was tested by specialists of Michelin North America of Greenville, South Carolina.
Additionally, the Northern Centre for Advanced Technology in Canada evaluated a NASA-Canadian Space Agency supported lunar sample coring drill. Testing of other gear from Canada and Germany took place during the near two-week project.
NASA interest in using analog sites, like in Hawaii, is useful to demonstrate equipment and techniques to sharpen our toolkit when humans next set their boots on the Moon - a part of NASA's Constellation Program.
-- Leonard David
|
|
|
11 Nov 2008-Looking for Lost Lunar Tapes
|
| |
 From Discovery News
A 1960s tape recorder the size of a household fridge could be the key to unlocking valuable information from NASA's Apollo missions to the moon.
An archiving error by NASA has meant 173 data tapes have sat in Perth for almost 40 years, holding information about lunar dust that could be vital in expanding science's understanding of the moon.
But after almost four decades, a donation from a Sydney computer society looks set to breathe fresh life into a long-neglected field of lunar science.
The Apollo 11, 12 and 14 missions of the late 1960s carried "dust detectors" that were invented by Perth physicist Brian O'Brien. This information was beamed back to Earth and recorded onto tapes.
O'Brien had access to the tapes at University of Sydney, but the scientific papers on moon dust he published with the preliminary findings failed to spark as much interest from the scientific community as he was hoping for.
Click here for more
|
|
|
04 Nov 2008-Cape Canaveral Lunar Declaration
|
| |
Some 200 international lunar explorers gathered in Florida on October 31 to approve a "Cape Canaveral Lunar Declaration 2008".
The gathering was, in part, co-sponsored by NASA and the International Lunar Exploration Working Group (ILEWG), held to review and coordinate next steps on the Moon.
Those attending reaffirmed their commitment to international lunar exploration, from the analysis and integration of current lunar orbiter data, to the development of lunar landers and rovers, the build-up of a global robotic village, as well as prepare for human settlements and international lunar bases.
ILEWG expert task groups have focused attention on several areas:
-- Science of, on, and from the Moon
-- Living and working on the Moon
-- Key technologies
-- Utilization of lunar resources
-- Infrastructures for lunar bases
-- Surface operations
-- Society, law, policy, and commerce
-- Public outreach, education, multicultural aspects
-- Further the work of Young Lunar Explorers
To read the entire Declaration, go to:
http://sci.esa.int/ilewg
-- Leonard David
|
|
|
03 Nov 2008-The Cost of Extending Shuttle Life
|
| |
From Florida Today
"NASA would need an extra $2 billion a year to keep the shuttle fleet flying between 2010 and 2015, but doing so would impact plans to begin launching Ares 5 moon rockets by 2018, officials said today.
With presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama both signaling a desire to keep the shuttle fleet flying beyond 2010, NASA over the past two months has been studying what it would take to do just that. Both have said they would add $2 billion to NASA's budget to minimize the gap between the last shuttle flight and the inaugural flights of Ares 1 rockets and Orion spacecraft.
NASA shuttle program manager John Shannon told reporters today that the agency studied two different scenarios. One would simply extend the shuttle program through 2012 by flying out all external tanks and other hardware NASA already intends to build. The other would call for NASA to keep the shuttle fleet flying three shuttle missions per year -- presumably to the International Space Station.
Shannon said the bottom line is that NASA would need $2 billion a year -- "money that is not currently in the budget," he said.
He added that shifting $2 billion a year to the shuttle program from Project Constellation -- NASA's effort to return U.S. astronauts to the moon by 2020 -- would be "disastrous."
Shannon made his comments during preflight briefings for the planned Nov. 14 launch of shuttle Endeavour on an International Space Station outfitting and repair mission. The briefings are being weebcast live here in The Flame Trench. Simply click the NASA TV box on the righthand side of the page to launch our NASA TV viewer and live coverage of the briefings.
NASA engineers identified a number of challenges that would crop up if the agency was directed to keep the shuttle fleet flying between 2010 and 2015 -- the gap now projected between the last shuttle mission and the first flight of the Ares 1 rocket and the Orion spacecraft."
Click here for more
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 SEND THIS PAGE TO A FRIEND |
|
 
   |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
