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Public Hearings Set for Moon to Mars Commission
Locations and dates for the public hearings are:
* March 3 and 4, Dayton, Ohio, Air Force Museum.
* March 24 and 25, Atlanta, Georgia, location to be announced.
* April 15 and 16, San Francisco, California, location to be announced.
* May 3 and 4, New York City, location to be announced.
The Russians are now talking about a partially reusable replacement for Soyuz.
Interesting, if they can actually make something of this effort. Koptev’s neener-neenering about our ability to put up the funds for Constellation are a bit surprising, considering the state of both the Russian economy and its space program. The U.S. actually has plenty of money to develop Constellation (political support is the questionable element) — where is he going to get the money to fund development of this new spacecraft, let alone the new Soyuz-derived launcher he mentions?
That aside, I wish them well. I half expect that they are proposing this precisely because they expect Constellation to come to naught, leaving us without it or Shuttle, and they plan to be there to offer us a ride.
[via Mark Whittington]
Taylor Dinerman takes a look at Bush’s Space Vision and America’s Future:
The core justification for this space program’s objectives is embodied in the idea that America will “extend human presence across the solar system.” This could be the charter for a new ‘spacefaring’ civilization. The ones we have here on Earth are either colliding with each other, collapsing from within, or doing both at the same time.
Western civilization is finding ever more creative ways to be decadent, while major parts of Islamic civilization bubble over with envy, rage and hate. China, a civilization unto itself, has for the moment integrated a capitalistic bubble economy within a one-party communist political system, which probably will not last for long.
I spoke on the topic of Mars over the weekend to a local SF fan group. Of all the things I said, I was quite surprised that, of all the reasons I listed for why we should settle Mars, the idea that we should be a “two-planet species” was the one that had the most impact.
It’s nice to see this idea gaining currency, and along with it the broader related notion that we should go to Mars to settle it, for human reasons, and not just for pure-science data gathering. I want humans to go to Mars to stay, to develop a new world, not to do field research on some hairsplittingly obscure aspect of some natural phenomenon or other for somebody’s next academic paper that nobody will ever read.
France gives priority to space research
‘The mastery of space is of the utmost strategic importance’ declared Jacques Chirac, the French President…’2004 is the year of our newfound ambition’ explained Yannick d’Escatha, president of CNES. ‘Once again the CNES is taking its destiny in its own hands. Our objective is to retain our position as European leader by putting our expertise at the service of the European space policy.’
ISRO has high ambitions for the future, including lunar and planetary science missions, larger launch vehicles, X-ray and ultraviolet observatories, and numerous advanced propulsion development programs.
But…stop me if you’ve heard this one before…
An Indian space shuttle? The Indian Space Research Organisation is working towards one ? only this version will be called a Reusable Launch Vehicle and should be ready after 2010.
As its name suggests, the Reusable Launch Vehicle can be used again and again like the shuttle unlike ordinary rockets that can be used only once.
While making one is expensive and involves high levels of technological inputs and costs, it is easier in the long run to have one. For the future, there is a two-stage orbit vehicle, slated for 2030, and a single-state orbit vehicle, slated for 2050, that could theoretically take off like a plane and go straight into space.
Note to ISRO: Just say “No”.
NASA Needs a Better Shuttle Plan, Auditor Says
A year after the shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas, killing all seven astronauts, NASA has not figured out how to upgrade the three remaining shuttles to make them safe and usable for the next 15 years and possibly longer, the General Accounting Office said.
…”The shuttle will now be needed for another two decades,” the GAO report reads.
“Efforts to upgrade the shuttle have been stymied by the agency’s inability to develop a long-term strategic investment plan to fly the shuttle safely and a systematic approach for defining the spacecraft’s requirements because its life expectancy and mission have continued to change from an original design of a 10-year life to the year 2020 and possibly beyond.”
While the article includes two sentences on the new plan at the end, it is only to vaguely suggest the “hoax” theory…no reference is made at all to the fact that the new policy explicitly calls for the termination of Shuttle flights in 2010.
I don’t know who is out of the loop on this one, Reuters or GAO.
UPDATE:
Jeff over at Space Politics went to the source, and explains that the report was actually completed in October 2003 and submitted to Congress on January 15…the day after the policy was announced, and too late to take it into account.
After discovering rapidly-shifting pockets of different-temperature air near the surface, MER scientists utilized the Mini-TES infrared spectrometer to measure these variations up to a three mile altitude. Now, they plan to use Opportunity and MGS in conjunction to take the first-ever temperature profile through the Martian atmosphere.
The Toronto Star takes a look at a couple of the logistical challenges facing manned missions to Mars.
At the risk of engaging in handwaving, I don’t see these two challenges as being all that…well…challenging.
Yes, we do need to find out where the sources of water are, so that we know what will be required to extract them, but with a large power supply it shouldn’t be all that difficult to obtain pure, useful, safe water — by filtration, by distillation, or even (if need be) by electrolysis/combustion. Some form of the latter option will probably be employed on Mars anyway, tainted water or no, to provide propellants for rovers and return vehicles.
As for the food issue, I was pleased to see the scientists cited at the end of the article working on genetically modified organisms to overcome the poor soil and low-light growing conditions on Mars. Though transgenic blue-green algae and veggies grown in untreated urine are not quite what I’d like to see on my menu, at the rate genetic research is progressing I wouldn’t be surprised to see the first astronauts on Mars feeding themselves on plants capable of growing in untreated regolith.
Forget Tang, Velcro, and Teflon: PCWorld has an example of real space technology spinoff in action.
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