NASA and Human Spaceflight News
Tuesday – Feb. 17, 2015
HEADLINES AND LEADS
Soyuz U lofts Progress M-26M on fast track mission to ISS
The latest Russian Progress cargo vehicle was launched on a fast rendezvous, six hour "launch-to-dock", mission to the International Space Station (ISS) on Tuesday. Progress M-26M (58P) was lofted uphill via a Soyuz-U launch vehicle from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 11:00 UTC, ahead of an expected docking to the aft port of Zvezda six hours later.
Lessons From Shuttle Can Help Commercial Crew
Shuttle experience on reusability, survivability guides commercial crew
Frank Morring, Jr. - Aviation Week & Space Technology
Most of the companies building next-generation commercial spaceflight vehicles to carry humans to space are drawing on the rich and sometimes sensitive database generated by NASA's 30-year history flying the space shuttle, with the expectation that it will help them save money and lives as they build reusable spacecraft for a marketplace in low Earth orbit and beyond.
Discoveries or inventions: the case for industrial property in space
Kamil Muzyka – The Space Review
Patents and industrial property has been around probably since the dawn of human inventiveness. Such property rights can be tracked down to ancient Greece, while the actual patents and monopolies have flourished since the 15th century. The invention had to be a technical solution to an existing problem that would be applicable without any further modifications for it to function properly. One may not, however, apply for a patent for a scientific discovery. But when do we distinguish discovery from invention, and where does that line actually blur?
The stratosphere and suborbit: shirtsleeves or pressure suits?
Anthony Young – The Space Review
On October 31, 2014, Virgin Galactic experienced the aerospace equivalent of a black swan event. The phrase was coined by author Nassim Taleb, who wrote a book about unanticipated financial events that have sweeping and often dramatic global consequences. It is a metaphor drawn from the common belief that all swans are white, until one encounters a rare black swan that upends that belief.
100 finalists have been chosen for a one-way trip to Mars
Jessica Contrera – The Washington Post
Dutch nonprofit Mars One has named 100 people who will remain in the running for a one-way trip to Mars, expected to leave Earth in 2024. Out of more than 200,000 people who applied, 24 will be trained for the mission and four will take the first trip, if all goes according to plan.
How much would you sacrifice to be the first person on Mars?
Joshua Barajas - PBS NewsHour
Michael McDonnell has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. He has a physics degree. He's worked in hazardous environments. He hopes these qualifications will convince a selection committee that he's the perfect candidate for the first human voyage to Mars.
Beach native eliminated from Mars colony project
Aaron Applegate - The Virginian Pilot
A Hampton Roads native with dreams of being among the first humans to colonize Mars has been eliminated as a candidate.
Super Crawler CT-2 preparing for a test run to Pad 39B
NASA's Crawler Transporter -2 (CT-2) is scheduled to be taken for a "quick" spin to Pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) this week, testing its latest modifications ahead of an active role with the Space Launch System (SLS). Both of NASA's iconic Crawlers are being re-purposed for SLS, following their previous roles with the Saturn rocket and the Space Shuttle.
Editorial | NASA's Groundhog Day Budget Foreshadows More Stalemate
Warren Ferster – Space News
It was fitting that the release of the White House's federal budget request for 2016 coincided with Groundhog Day, the annual event where, according to folklore, a large rodent foreshadows winter's duration. Just as Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow Feb. 2, indicating that six more weeks of cold weather are in store, President Barack Obama's budget blueprint for NASA foretells an indefinite continuation of the impasse that has gripped the agency for the past several years.
Op-Ed | 10 Reasons Why an Asteroid Redirect Mission Is Worth Doing
Jonathan Goff – Space News
Full Disclosure: My space startup, Altius Space Machines, is being paid under the Asteroid Redirect Mission Broad Agency Announcement to do a study contract on one possible way to do the Option B mission. Even though we're not dependent on follow-on work, I figured it was worth stating my potential biases — Jonathan Goff
I'm not sure I've ever seen a major NASA program as nearly universally disliked as the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM).
Mystery cloud-like blobs over Mars baffle astronomers
Jacob Aron - New Scientist
For space watchers, Mars is like a second home. Astronomers have been studying the Red Planet for centuries – the first map of the Martian surface was sketched 500 years ago. Since then, it has become the most surveyed planet in the solar system, besides Earth. We have sent over 50 robot explorers to patrol its surface and watch it from orbit, seven of which are operational on and around the Red Planet right this minute. It's not for nothing that space aficionados quip that Mars is the only planet known to be inhabited solely by robots.
COMPLETE STORIES
Soyuz U lofts Progress M-26M on fast track mission to ISS
The latest Russian Progress cargo vehicle was launched on a fast rendezvous, six hour "launch-to-dock", mission to the International Space Station (ISS) on Tuesday. Progress M-26M (58P) was lofted uphill via a Soyuz-U launch vehicle from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 11:00 UTC, ahead of an expected docking to the aft port of Zvezda six hours later.
Progress Mission:
The latest Progress rode to orbit on the Soyuz-U carrier rocket, designated 11A511U Soyuz-U (142), following launch from the PU-5 LC1 'Gagarinskiy Start' (17P32-5) launch complex at the famous Cosmodrome.
The previous Progress was lofted on a Soyuz 2-1A for the first time.
The Soyuz-U was developed as a standardized launch system, to replace the Voskhod and Soyuz and provide commonality with the Molniya-M.
It first flew in May 1973, and in 1976 the original Soyuz, Soyuz-M and Voskhod were all retired, with subsequent launches of their payloads being conducted by Soyuz-U rockets.
The Soyuz-U2 configuration, which was optimized to use synthetic propellant allowing it to carry more payload, was introduced in 1982, and used for around 90 launches before being retired in 1995.
With around 750 flights, the Soyuz-U is the most-flown orbital launch system ever developed.
It remains in service, and in the last few years it has mostly been used to launch Progress missions, as well as occasional military payloads.
Once orbital insertion was achieved, the race to hook up with the ISS, in just six hours, required two engine burns on the vehicle's initial orbit of the Earth. The requirements were already be onboard the Progress' computers.
With all going to plan, the second orbit required the assistance of ground controllers, with actual orbital parameters uplinked from a Russian Ground Site (RGS), allowing for a further eight rendezvous burns to be performed over the next five hours of flight.
This fast rendezvous technique has been successfully employed on a number of Progress and Soyuz flights lately.
However, there was a problem during the "Dv3″ burn on the Soyuz TMA-12 mission – which resulted in mission controllers opting to move to a new flight profile that allowed for Soyuz to arrive in the previously used two day rendezvous profile.
It was later revealed by sources that the 24 second DV3 burn did not occur due to an attitude problem with the Soyuz that lofted it into orbit – an error of just one degree.
This was apparently related to an over-performance of the Soyuz FG rocket – resulting in Soyuz being in a higher orbit that planned. As such, the TMA-12M's flight computer provided an automated "no burn" command, due to the incorrect attitude of the vehicle.
Controllers opted to move to the back up plan of a two day rendezvous, with all burns relating to this flight profile conducted without issue. The Soyuz – with its three member crew – successfully docked with the MRM-2 port two days later.
For Progress M-24M's arrival, the usual requirement involves the bidding farewell to a previously docked Progress.
However, for Progress M-26M's arrival, the aft Zvezda port was vacated by ATV-5, the final ESA Automated Transfer Vehicle to complete an ISS mission.
The undocking was conducted on Saturday, ahead of a bitter-sweet destructive re-entry the following day.
The original plan was for the ATV-5 to spend a few weeks on orbit, ahead of a shallow dive return, allowing for additional data on the forces involved with entry. However, this was cancelled due to a loss of redundancy on the ATV systems.
Taking its place on the Station, Progress M-26M will deliver an estimated 2370 kg of food, fuel and supplies to the Station, which is part of the vital run of supplies required by the ISS, especially during this post-Shuttle era and not least because the United States is currently down to just one available Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) spacecraft – SpaceX's Dragon.
Orbital's Cygnus spacecraft awaits a return to operations atop ULA's Atlas V, following the loss of the CRS-3 vehicle during the Antares mishap.
Docking of the Progress is expected at around 16:59 UTC, give or take a few minutes.
Lessons From Shuttle Can Help Commercial Crew
Shuttle experience on reusability, survivability guides commercial crew
Frank Morring, Jr. - Aviation Week & Space Technology
Most of the companies building next-generation commercial spaceflight vehicles to carry humans to space are drawing on the rich and sometimes sensitive database generated by NASA's 30-year history flying the space shuttle, with the expectation that it will help them save money and lives as they build reusable spacecraft for a marketplace in low Earth orbit and beyond.
All of the engineering teams developing human-spaceflight vehicles except the one at Blue Origin have discussed forensic evidence on crew survivability garnered from the Columbia accident investigation, according to one of the physician/astronauts who studied exactly what killed the orbiter's seven crewmembers.
Lessons from that 2003 accident, the loss of Challenger in 1986, and from flying and reflying the space shuttle through all 135 of its missions can help those developing reusable spacecraft avoid some of the mistakes their predecessors made when they designed the orbital spaceplane in the 1970s, says an experienced shuttle mission director and program manager who is helping apply them to the new vehicles.
"Pay me now or pay me later," says Wayne Hale, now director of human spaceflight at Special Aerospace Services, a Boulder, Colorado, engineering consultancy. "You can skimp on the tests up front. You can skimp on what it needs to be to make that first flight certification, to make a design that will get you off the ground the first time, at a lower cost, maybe, and then pay for it over the life of your vehicle. If you want to use it twice, you can maybe get away with it. If you want to use it 10 times, you can wind up costing yourself a lot more."
There is no way the Columbia crew could have survived the breakup of their orbiter after it lost its left wing to a crack in the thermal protection system caused by falling foam debris on ascent two weeks earlier. But forensic analysis after the catastrophe revealed "survival gaps" in cabin and crew-equipment designs that could give space travelers a better chance in accidents if they are fixed, according to Dr. Michael Barratt, a flight surgeon/astronaut in the NASA Human Research Program Office.
"This is really the only source of high-altitude hypersonic breakup information we have with regard to human response to it," Barratt says. "It's incredibly valuable, and it's obviously information that came to us at a very high price, and something we are obligated to process."
The data show all but one of the crewmembers died of blunt force trauma, and the nature of their injuries indicated their shoulder harnesses did not lock as the failing shuttle spun slowly in the thin upper atmosphere. That, and head injuries suffered inside the non-conformal helmets all but one of the crew were wearing during reentry, suggested redesigns of both the crew safety constraints and helmets.
None of the crew was able to close a helmet visor. The cabin decompression killed one of them outright, and the rest lost consciousness, which led to a requirement that crews on the remaining shuttle flights practice sealing their suits, Barratt told the annual FAA Commercial Space Transportation Conference in Washington Feb. 5.
The forensic results, originally redacted from the Columbia Accident Investigation Board's report, were released in a separate NASA publication—Loss of Signal: Aeromedical Lessons Learned from the STS-107 Columbia Space Shuttle Mishap—published last year. That material has formed the basis for ongoing discussions between the agency and the teams developing new human spacecraft.
"Until recently we've been pretty frustrated because people haven't gone out looking for the information, which is fairly well established," Barratt says. "We understand this world fairly well. That has changed in the last year, I'm happy to report, and with the exception of Blue Origin—not because it's in arrears or anything; we just haven't had the opportunity—all of the other spacecraft providers we've been having a very healthy dialogue with, and I think they are understanding our role now much better than they have in the past."
In a separate presentation to the FAA conference, Hale described a number of unanticipated engineering difficulties in reflight preparations for the shuttle, which was originally intended as a low-maintenance "space truck" able to operate with rapid turnaround times. Cabin windows, for example, regularly returned to Earth pitted by small micromeoteroid and orbital debris (MMOD) strikes. Shuttle-processing engineers eventually concluded it was easier to replace the 2-in.-thick windows, which also played a thermal protection role, after each flight, than to find and polish out the tiny MMOD craters.
The cryogenic space shuttle main engines probably remain the most advanced rocket engines ever developed. They are able to generate 512,300 lb. thrust at operating temperatures ranging from -423F to +6,000F, according to Aerojet Rocketdyne, which manufactured the engine and is developing a throw-away version for the heavy-lift Space Launch System. But they require careful inspection with a borescope after each use, and that necessitates a major processing delay.
"You couldn't get access while the engines are installed on the orbiter, so we came to a requirement to pull the engines off every flight, which is not a small job," says Hale (see photo). "You have to take off a bunch of stuff to get to the engines, and once you've got the engines open, and they're off in the engine shop getting their inspections, you say, 'you know, since we've got the engines out, and we've got time, there are a lot of things we can do.' So we had a lot of engineering creep, and a lot of things that were good things to do, we did, because, why not?"
The result, he says, was more than 5,000 man-hours per flight spent in the aft compartment where the main engines operated, only about one-quarter of which involved the inspections and other mandatory tests.
Another lesson involved the mechanical loads imparted by the huge tracked crawler that moved shuttle stacks to the launch pad. At its top speed of 3 mph, Hale says, the orbiter's vertical tail was swinging back and forth in a 3-ft. arc, "potentially causing more damage in ground handling than in flight." The problem eased when the crawler was held back to 1 mph, but at the hurricane-prone Florida launch complex that was not always an option.
"Early in your design process, you need to understand your vehicle environments very well," he says.
At present there are seven human-spaceflight vehicles under development in the U.S., all but one of them—the Lockheed Martin Orion—private ventures aimed at commercial service. Hale's company is making his expertise and its other assets available for hire to commercial spacecraft companies, and NASA is working through Space Act agreements and other mechanisms to feed the lessons it has learned to the industry it is trying to nurture.
"During the [Certification Products Contract] phase of the commercial crew program, all the potential providers had to develop their certification and verification plans, and NASA had to give their thumbs up or thumbs down and grade those plans," Hale says of the ongoing competition that has selected the Boeing CST-100 and SpaceX Crew Dragon for flight testing and operations (AW&ST Sept. 22, 2014, p. 24). "So everybody has been working on that. Everybody's been thinking about that. I think that the story's not completely told."
Discoveries or inventions: the case for industrial property in space
Kamil Muzyka – The Space Review
Patents and industrial property has been around probably since the dawn of human inventiveness. Such property rights can be tracked down to ancient Greece, while the actual patents and monopolies have flourished since the 15th century. The invention had to be a technical solution to an existing problem that would be applicable without any further modifications for it to function properly. One may not, however, apply for a patent for a scientific discovery. But when do we distinguish discovery from invention, and where does that line actually blur?
A scientific discovery in legal terms is physical phenomena or process that occurs naturally under certain circumstances. As opposed to an invention, a discovery hasn't been artificially created by an inventor. An invention, however, can harness or artificially recreate such phenomena, and thus, such an invention can be patented.
But the case of space-based patents is far more complicated. For example, do we treat the outer space and zero-g environment as natural in this context? The low or zero gravity environments can be viewed as natural, though it is difficult to say that they are natural environments for an organism aboard a spaceship or a manufacturing space station.
In legal terms, the invention is described as "any new and useful art, process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement in any art, process machine, manufacture, or composition of matter." But is getting a plant to a zero-g environment a process? Although both plants and zero-g environments are present in the universe, especially on Earth and in the solar system, there are no natural plants living in outer space. And if we treat the changes occurring in vegetation, fungi, and other living organisms placed in this kind of environment as merely a discovery, what could be then treated as an invention?
If, for example, someone discovered that in certain environments there is a particular process occurring that wasn't foreseen prior to the placement procedure, what could be patented: the process, the method of artificially reproducing the process, the product of the process? In the case of European patent law, which differs from its US counterpart, an invention would be the application of the effect, or method of altering the effect, but not the effect itself.
This, however, is based on the assumption that the effect of placing a living organism in an organism in certain non-native environments will be treated as a discovery. Discoveries are not regarded as inventions in European patent law. However, one could follow the path of the WIPO patent filings WO2001023595A2, titled "Reduced gravity transformation process and product," and WO2009137135A2, titled "On-orbit procedures for adapting plants and animals to hostile environments," and treat the process of placement itself as an invention.
In this case, from the European standpoint, one could apply for a patent for the method of placing and organism in the non-native environment, with alterable artificial gravity, as well as any products of such procedure, for the organism has been artificially placed in an non-native environment, and as with artificially placing altered genes into an organism, such procedure also falls under the category of biotech patents.
In Diamond v. Chakrabarty, the United States Supreme Court held that living matter is patentable if it is created by man. The Court explained that a genetically engineered bacterium is not a natural phenomenon but a non-naturally occurring product of human ingenuity. In AMP v. Myriad Genetics, the Court was again asked to draw a line between discovery and invention and ruled that isolated genomic DNA (gDNA) is not patentable but complementary DNA (cDNA) is. The Court reasoned that genomic DNA, consisting of exons and introns, is a product of nature that has been merely isolated from a living organism by removal and separation from its natural environment. A strand of cDNA, on the other hand, is synthetically created and contains the same exons found in natural DNA but lacks introns.
The issue of non-biotech inventions is much simpler in this case, for there is no perquisite for isolating the organism from the environment and applying changes to it. However, they still require a degree of inventive step and non-obviousness. The method of producing space-manufactured materials that gain certain quality or properties that couldn't been achieved in any terrestrial environment is also subject to patent, as would be a variation of a screw conveyor designed to transport ore drilled from an asteroid to the ships cargo hold in asteroid mining.
The only problem with space-based materials would be the question of occurrence in a "natural environment." One can patent certain novel alloys and polymers that came to being only by the means of artificial creation. While still theoretical, the metallic hydrogen that scientists believe exists under certain pressures and temperatures within gas giants like Jupiter or Saturn cannot be patented. Yet, the methods of applying metastable metallic hydrogen to fue lcells or artificial means of producing it are surely subject to patents.
The same analogy could be drawn for existing organic compounds or any supposed microbial extraterrestial life, if any such would have been found. One might not patent an extraterrestrial microbe. However, isolated gene sequences that could be transferred to terrestrial organisms for them to gain certain new abilities or properties, or the means of applying the traits of such organisms in improving any branch of industry, like waste scrubbing or geoengineering, can be viewed as subjectable matter.
In conclusion, the issue of scientific discovery and genuine invention lies on the matter of artificial creation. Thus, artificially transporting an organism to a low-gravity or weightless environment, or creating such environment, as well as the novel, non-obvious product of such procedures can all be viewed as subjectable matter for patents. One might not apply for a patent for an existing substance or organism, but only on its inventive application or an artificially modified variety.
Kamil Muzyka is a doctoral student with the Polish Academy of Sciences and a lawyer specializing in AI law, European industrial property, and space law. He is a founding member of the Polish Transhumanist Association and space law advisor for T.R.E.D Reseach Laboratories.
The stratosphere and suborbit: shirtsleeves or pressure suits?
Anthony Young – The Space Review
On October 31, 2014, Virgin Galactic experienced the aerospace equivalent of a black swan event. The phrase was coined by author Nassim Taleb, who wrote a book about unanticipated financial events that have sweeping and often dramatic global consequences. It is a metaphor drawn from the common belief that all swans are white, until one encounters a rare black swan that upends that belief.
There was considerable speculation in the media over the cause of the SpaceShipTwo accident before the facts could be collected. This event became the first commercial human spacecraft accident investigation led by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). The NTSB issued several preliminary statements in the week following the crash. A full investigation report, though, will not be released for many months.
It was soon established the feathering system, designed to deploy to slow the aerodynamic reentry from suborbit, deployed prematurely. The spacecraft was at an altitude of about 15,000 meters and traveling at roughly Mach 1 when this occurred. The extreme aerodynamic forces induced structural failure and explosive decompression of the crew cabin.
Pilot Peter Siebold told the NTSB that the spacecraft broke apart around him. Both pilots were wearing conventional flight helmets with oxygen masks, but not pressurized flight suits. Siebold was immediate exposed to a temperature of –57°C, an atmospheric pressure of just 15 percent of sea level, and had less than ten seconds before experiencing hypoxia—oxygen starvation. While he was still conscious and physically able, he unbuckled his seatbelt and fell clear of the still disintegrating spacecraft. His co-pilot, Michael Alsbury, did not survive the disaster.
"I can't imagine the forces he must have experienced being thrown out of the aircraft," Jeff Sventek, executive director of the Aerospace Medical Association told Bloomberg News. He described Siebold's survival in such brutal conditions as "extremely remarkable."
It is believed Siebold was unconscious as he fell and that a sensor automatically deployed his parachute a lower altitude. He regained consciousness and was alert when he landed, but sustained injuries.
Ever since the historic suborbital flight of SpaceShipOne in 2004, the pilots and co-pilots of these cutting-edge spacecraft have never worn pressure suits. They have worn a casual, one-piece Air Force flight uniform of comfortable fabric, with the requisite zippered pockets from shoulder to calf that practically shouted "pilot." With a pressurized cabin, it was thought a pressure suit was unnecessary for trips into the stratosphere.
U-2, X-15, and Mercury astronaut flight suits
The stratosphere begins at an altitude of roughly 10 kilometers and extends to 50 kilometers. For over half a century, this has been the flight domain of the U-2 reconnaissance aircraft. It is a little known fact that this able aircraft is still operated today by the 9th Reconnaissance Wing at Beale Air Force Base, California, with an active force of 22 aircraft. The U-2 is employed for all-weather surveillance, reconnaissance, and signal intelligence anywhere in the world in support of the United States and allies.
The U-2 has an operational ceiling above 21,000 meters. The pilots of this aircraft have always worn pressure suits and helmets manufactured by David Clark Company of Worcester, Massachusetts. This company is America's premier flight suit manufacturer for pilots and astronauts. David Clark also made the suit for Felix Baumgartner's free-fall jump from over 39 kilometers.
The U-2 flight suit is built up from four separate layers. The suits undergo thorough inspection by technicians prior to the pilot suiting up, a task which typically requires the assistance to two technicians. These suits provide not only oxygen but proper temperature and dehumidification. They are completely capable of protecting the pilot in the event of a bailout at 21,000 meters.
The X-15 was the US Air Force and NASA's hypersonic research vehicle between 1959 and 1968. (see "Review: The X-15 Rocketplane", The Space Review, July 22, 2013). It was built by North American Aviation and was powered by a Reaction Motors rocket engine. It was carried aloft by a modified B-52 bomber, and released at an altitude of around 13,500 meters.
The X-15 pilots executed a very specific profile for each flight, but in every case the cockpit became pressurized at about 10,700 meters and the pressure suit supplied oxygen for the pilot. Thirteen test flights exceeded 82 kilometers. Two flights by pilot Joseph A. Walker in 1963 exceeded 100 kilometers, which the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale considers to be the threshold of space. The X-15 operated at speeds in excess of 5,500 kilometers per hour. William Knight's flight in October 1967 achieved a speed of more than 7,200 kilometers per hour.
The X-15 suit was multilayered with a distinctive silver outer layer. The X-15 had an ejection seat but this was never used during the program, not even during the fatal flight of Michael Adams in November 1967. This accident is fully described in the book cited above.
Mercury astronauts wore a pressure suit that was similar in appearance to the X-15 suit but constructed differently. The first two Mercury flights were suborbital. A Redstone rocket launched Alan Shepard on May 5, 1961, and his capsule reached an altitude of 187 kilometers. That July, Gus Grissom flew a second suborbital flight, also lasting 15 minutes.
The suborbital flights of SpaceShipTwo were significantly higher than those of the U-2 aircraft, about the same as the X-15, but significantly lower than the Mercury suborbital flights. Neither the Air Force nor NASA considered attempting human flight in these environments without a pressurized flight suit. Virgin Galactic has consistently maintained that pressure suits will be unnecessary on their suborbital flights.
"We have always been clear that a shirt-sleeve environment was part of the baseline design," said Virgin's Stephen Attenborough in a 2013 magazine article. "However, safety remains the priority, and should any new factors emerge that mean we should change that or any other element, then of course we will do so."
Just two weeks before the crash of SpaceShipTwo, Virgin Galactic's president and CEO George Whitesides told the British newspaper The Telegraph, "We think the safest thing is to not have people in pressure suits but to have them in flight suits and then in a cabin which protects them and allows them the freedom of microgravity because these people will be able to get out of their seats and float around the cabin."
Virgin Galactic has a significant, real-world precedent to point to in support of this view.
Counterpoint: the Concorde supersonic transport
The supersonic commercial passenger jet Concorde was flown by British Airways and Air France from 1976 to 2003. It had an operational ceiling of 18,300 meters, somewhat lower than the U-2, and flew at Mach 2. It used conventional cabin pressure equivalent to roughly 2,000 meters above sea level. The passenger windows were smaller than those on a conventional passenger jet, but the loss of a single window would still have resulted in complete loss of cabin pressure. Professional aerospace journals state that at that altitude, passengers would only have a period of useful consciousness of no more than fifteen seconds, emergency oxygen masks notwithstanding.
In this situation, the Concorde pilots would have initiated a rapid descent, but this would have required more time than that for standard jets flying at half the altitude. However, in more than 25 years of operation, Concorde never experienced a rapid decompression. The passengers were permitted to move about the narrow cabin during most of the flight. Of course, pressure suits as worn by the U-2 and X-15 pilots are primarily used in the event of the need to eject. In the event of a decompression event on the Concorde, the passengers would have had to endure the predictable consequences of hypoxia.
Ever since the International Space Station (ISS) has supported crews, the world has seen video of the men and women insides wearing shirtsleeves and shorts or pants. We saw similar images televised from the Space Shuttle. Going even further back, one can see astronauts aboard Skylab performing somersaults and other whimsical feats in nothing more than T-shirts and shorts. These images all reinforce the public perception that space travel is safe, belying the fact that a very hostile and dangerous environment exists just centimeters away.
There are very reliable safeguards and protective protocols for astronauts aboard the ISS that permit them the comfort of casual attire. They are too lengthy to list here, but crews know how to respond quickly and safely in an emergency.
There has always been another risk involved in flight at high altitudes, known as ebullism. This results from the combination of subfreezing temperatures and lowered boiling point of water at these altitudes. Body volume rapidly expands, moisture in the respiratory system freezes, and this causes paralysis in about thirty seconds. It is a horrific form of death.
Comparing commercial spaceplanes
How does Virgin Galactic's take on crew and passenger protection compare to XCOR Aerospace's Lynx Mark II and Sierra Nevada Corporation's Dream Chaser?
The XCOR Lynx Mark II, the commercial variant of the current test vehicle under construction, will have a pressurized cabin, but both the pilot and the one spaceflight participant on board will wear pressure suits. The XCOR website states the following:
Lynx will have a pressurized cabin; however, pilot and participant will wear full pressure suits during flight for safety in case of an emergency. The pressure suit will be custom designed for XCOR by one of the leading manufacturers of pressure suits such as David Clark Company or Orbital Outfitters.
The Dream Chaser spacecraft is moving forward despite Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) losing a NASA competition provide commercial crew transport to and from the ISS. Dream Chaser is the product of a military contractor, so it comes as no surprise that the crew will wear pressure suits. This was the original intent when the company was competing for the commercial crew contract and it remains so today. SNC is also looking at a scaled-down version of Dream Chaser, about 75 percent the size of the original, which could be launched from the massive Stratolaunch carrier craft.
Sir Richard Branson is one of the most successful and colorful entrepreneurs in the world. The success of his many companies in the Virgin Group has made him a multi-billionaire. When he launched Virgin Atlantic Airways in 1984, he did not have to be concerned with the reliability or safety of the aircraft. Commercial jet transportation had a proven technological history spanning three decades. He only had to concern himself with superior customer service and routes.
When Branson announced Virgin Galactic, many in the financial community saw it merely as an extension of his existing transportation empire. However, Branson was now confronted with a completely new and unproven form of commercial transportation, one that would take years to develop and prove safe. He doesn't only see the company performing suborbital flights from and back to the same site. He wants to eventually develop vehicles to perform intercontinental flights. After the crash of his spacecraft and death of one of its pilots, there are certainly some issues to reconsider.
Relative to commercial passenger jets, the cubic volume of the suborbital spacecraft currently under development is quite small: less than 35 cubic meters. A mere one-centimeter hole in the wall of the cabin would give passengers and crew less than 50 seconds before they were incapacitated by hypoxia. Even if the pilot and co-pilot remained conscious, it would take a suborbital vehicle many minutes to return to Earth and to an adequate atmospheric environment.
Michelle La Vone, writing about Peter Siebold's harrowing survival for Space Safety Magazine in December, stated:
What we do know is that even if Siebold did not experience ebullism, future space tourists—in the event of a cabin depressurization or spacecraft breakup—could. That's because the space industry has defined the 'outer edges of space' as 62 miles, or nearly 100 km, well past the Armstrong limit (the point at which water boils at 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, the temperature of the human body). The possibility of ebullism (and other pressure-related elements) drives home the need for all passengers to don pressure spacesuits and oxygen masks, not T-shirts and shorts like some idealized visions of consumer space travel.
Branson wants to make national and international suborbital spaceflight a successful long-term business reality. Making it safer than it currently is will be a challenge, but not an impossible one. At the same time, Virgin Galactic doesn't want to see their passengers tethered to their seats with oxygen hoses and restricted by bulky pressure suits. Richard Branson and those at Virgin Galactic are sure to be giving the best solution a great deal of thought.
Anthony Young has been a contributor to The Space Review since 2004. He is the president of Personal Spaceflight Advisors LLC and the author of The Saturn V F-1 Engine – Powering Apollo into History, published by Springer-Praxis. He can be reached at anthonyhyoung@gmail.com. 100 finalists have been chosen for a one-way trip to Mars
Jessica Contrera – The Washington Post
Dutch nonprofit Mars One has named 100 people who will remain in the running for a one-way trip to Mars, expected to leave Earth in 2024. Out of more than 200,000 people who applied, 24 will be trained for the mission and four will take the first trip, if all goes according to plan.
If this is the first you're hearing of a one-way trip to Mars, check out our story on the organization and the people who signed up to die on Mars:
This round of eliminations was made after Norbert Kraft, Mars One's chief medical officer, interviewed 660 candidates who said they were ready to leave everything behind to venture to Mars. The applications were open to anyone over age 18, because the organization believes its greatest need is not to find the smartest or most-skilled people, but rather the people most dedicated to the cause.
Even the astronauts on the International Space Station switch out every couple of months and go back home to family," Kraft said in an interview with The Post in January. "In our case, the astronauts will live together in a group for the rest of their lives."
Of the 50 men and 50 women selected for the next cut, 38 reside in the U.S. The next-most represented countries are Canada and Australia, both with seven. Two of the candidates were 18 when they applied in 2013; the oldest, Reginald George Foulds of Toronto, was 60.
By education, the group breaks down as: 19 with no degree, two with associates, 27 bachelors, 30 masters, one law degree, four medical degrees and seven PhDs. Thirteen of the candidates are currently in school, 81 are employed and six are not working.
Of the 16 candidates who live in D.C., Maryland and Virginia, 10 were eliminated, including a married couple. Those who remain are:
- Daniel Max Carey, 52, a data architect who lives in Annandale, Va. Here you can read about what Carey's family thinks of him potentially leaving the planet.
- Oscar Mathews, 32, of Suffolk, Va., a nuclear engineer and Navy reservist.
- Michael Joseph McDonnell, 50, of Fairfax, Va.
- Laura Maxine Smith-Velazquez, 38, a human factors and systems engineer in Owings Mills, Md.
- Sonia Nicole Van Meter, 36, a political consultant who recently moved from Austin, Tex., to Alexandria, Va.
- Leila Rowland Zucker, 46, an emergency room doctor at Howard University Hospital in D.C. We wrote about Zucker, her husband, Ron, and their little blue row house.
Here's how Mars One describes what comes next for these candidates:
"The following selection rounds will focus on composing teams that can endure all the hardships of a permanent settlement on Mars. The candidates will receive their first shot at training in the copy of the Mars Outpost on Earth and will demonstrate their suitability to perform well in a team."
To fund the estimated $6 billion trip (for just the first four people), Mars One will be televising the remainder of the competition to narrow the group down to 24. Those 24 people will be divided into six teams of four that will compete to determine which group is most prepared to leave for Mars in 2024.
Mars One released a trailer for that broadcast, but no air date is set.
How much would you sacrifice to be the first person on Mars?
Joshua Barajas - PBS NewsHour
Michael McDonnell has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. He has a physics degree. He's worked in hazardous environments. He hopes these qualifications will convince a selection committee that he's the perfect candidate for the first human voyage to Mars.
So far, it has. He is among the final 100 candidates — 50 men and 50 women — chosen by the nonprofit Mars One, narrowed down from an initial candidate pool of 200,000.
McDonnell is prepared to spend seven months in a space station the size of a small kitchen with three other people, no toilet and no shower. And he's prepared to part ways with his wife, Michelle, despite one difficult detail about the trip: If chosen to go to Mars, he would never return. Ever.
But McDonnell recognizes the sacrifice he's making. "There is that human factor. You can't touch that person again," he said earlier this week, with his wife still in orbit.
The privately-funded Mars One mission is the brainchild of Bas Lansdorp, a Dutch engineer who co-founded the project in 2011. The organization aims to land the first four-person team on the Red Planet, an honor that has for decades belonged to rovers.
And even then, half of those unmanned missions have failed.
Lansdorp said the goal isn't to select the smartest people in the pool. A plumber has just as much chance as a university-trained engineer, he said.
But applicants must embrace the challenges involved in establishing humankind's first foothold on Mars, including the drastically reduced provisions available to them. The organization's website, for example, reminds readers that only so much storable Earth food can be transported before astronauts have to start incorporating algae and insects into their Mars diet.
What gets only brief mentions on the Mars One website are the many ways the mission might fail. Humans would need access to water, oxygen to grow food and building materials. Exposure to radiation in deep space could be harmful to the astronauts. Dust storms could interfere with solar panels designed to generate energy for the settlement's life support systems.
There's the psychological stress that long-term spaceflight inflicts. Plus, bone and muscle mass deteriorate in space, a difficult problem to solve. Current studies only grasp how weightlessness can affect an astronaut's body after about six months. Anything longer is uncharted territory.
NASA, which has no partnership with the Mars One mission, has said that it won't send any of its astronauts to Mars until the space agency is confident it can ensure their safe return to Earth.
In March, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko will embark on a yearlong mission on the International Space Station to help researchers better understand how humans can endure in a hostile extraterrestrial environment.
Lansdorp, however, has hammered home the fact that "Mars is home." He tells skeptics that the crew's lives will continue as they build a settlement on Martian soil.
"What Mars One is doing would never have been possible without all the things NASA has done," he said. "We are building on the technologies that NASA has developed."
This includes using the same third-party manufacturers like Lockheed Martin. The defense industry giant is slated to launch a lander in 2018 whose design mirrors NASA's 2007 Phoenix spacecraft.
"The mission will provide proof of concept for some of the technologies that are important for a permanent human settlement on Mars," the statement announcing the partnership said.
Another massive obstacle: Mars One has money — a lot of money — still to raise.
Mars One estimates that the first manned mission will cost $6 billion with each additional mission requiring another $4 billion. NASA's estimates are much more daunting: as much as $100 billion over 20 years.
Mars One hopes to offset the costs through a reality television show that follows the final candidates through their training and preparation for launch.
"There's a lot of people who say we can't do it, that it's impossible," Lansdorp said. "[But] they all hope that we will succeed. And that's one of the big strengths of Mars One."
For now, the top 100 candidates will be divided into 25 teams of four and enter a training phase. Physically and mentally healthy applicants will be judged on their ability to learn critical skills. These include treating minor medical problems, extracting water from soil, operating unfamiliar equipment, and producing their own crops to prepare for growing food on the rocky, barren Mars wasteland.
At least six groups of four will train for eight years on Earth, testing the teams' capacity for extreme isolation, among other conditions, in cramped quarters.
According to Mars One's website, the first team will "organize themselves politically" as they gradually travel out of earshot of mission control. Then, following the first launch, the plan calls for another group of four to make the 225-million-mile trek across space every two years to expand the human settlement on Mars.
Despite the organization's astronomical goals, Dr. Norbert Kraft, the chief medical officer for Mars One, acted as the consummate HR representative perusing online job applications. Anyone who didn't treat the process professionally was automatically disqualified.
"You don't go to an interview in pajamas," Kraft said. One guy was naked in his video submission. Several others laid in bed.
"We put all kinds of things in the application process that made it hard, a lot of work, and annoying," Lansdorp said, "so that we only had to look at the ones who were really motivated to finish their profile."
Kraft, who has worked for several international space agencies, including NASA, was the man tasked with sifting through the applications. Kraft said it was relatively easy to weed out the applicants who didn't take it seriously. Some didn't fully answer the questions; others thought the mission was aiming for the moon.
Mars One also requested a physical. The organization didn't want to take the risk of sending a person with high blood pressure or a body mass index greater than 30 to Mars.
Kenya Armbrister, a 36-year-old California native and traveler, who has devoted her life to social causes in faraway places, also made the latest cut.
Armbrister said she's lived out of a suitcase all her life. And, with no children, Mars not only satisfies her wanderlust, but also represents to her a clean slate for humanity, a sentiment shared with Lansdorp.
"The real solution is not trying to establish world peace and not trying to fight world hunger," he said. "It's doing something that can inspire us to think differently, to think big and to cooperate."
Armbrister found out she was a finalist Friday morning at work.
"I closed my office door and had a freak out," she said. "There were some tears, some excitement and some trembling. It was exciting news."
More than anything, Armbrister said she wants to plant the first seeds in a Martian garden, a Herculean task that requires the team to grow food on a planet with a protective atmospheric layer that's one percent the thickness of Earth's. The radioactive exposure could prove detrimental to the plants and the humans, if not properly shielded. The carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere is also unfit for human lungs.
McDonnell waited until after work on Friday to open his email from Mars One. He wanted to be sure Michelle was present.
I braced myself for disappointment," he said in an email. But then he saw the first words of the email: "Congratulations … You are one step closer to launching the dawn of a new era — human life on Mars."
"It hasn't fully sunk in," McDonnell said, "I'm really nervous about what's coming. I'm anticipating the challenges ahead, whether they be mental or physical."
Lansdorp, for his part, will remain Earthbound. On top of not wanting to leave his 1-year-old son, Lansdorp said he is "completely unqualified" to be on the first couple of missions.
"I'm a real entrepreneur, so I have some of the good entrepreneurial qualities like impatience and stubbornness," which are good for business, but wouldn't make an ideal candidate for Mars, he said.
Beach native eliminated from Mars colony project
Aaron Applegate - The Virginian Pilot
A Hampton Roads native with dreams of being among the first humans to colonize Mars has been eliminated as a candidate.
Heidi Beemer, a 2007 graduate of Ocean Lakes High School Math and Science Academy in Virginia Beach, did not make it to the next round of the international Mars One project.
"I will continue to pursue my dreams through NASA and other opportunities that present themselves in the future," she wrote Monday on her Facebook page. "I truly believe all things happen for a reason. Being a Mars One candidate did not define who I am, but one day going to Mars does!"
Mars One is a Netherlands-based nonprofit hoping to establish a permanent human colony on Mars in 2025. The trip would be one-way.
Beemer, a first lieutenant and chemical officer in the Army based at Fort Campbell, Ky., was one of 660 people from around the world to make it to the second round of the contest.
She's wanted to go to Mars since she was a child, inspired by the Sojourner rover's landing on the planet in 1997.
"Seeing the images ignited a passion inside," she wrote in an essay for CNN last year. "For most people, perhaps the desolate landscape of Mars is uninviting; for me, it was the future - the next frontier. I remember telling myself then that the only way we will find the answers locked inside our solar system would be to send humans to Mars; and I wanted to go."
Super Crawler CT-2 preparing for a test run to Pad 39B
NASA's Crawler Transporter -2 (CT-2) is scheduled to be taken for a "quick" spin to Pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) this week, testing its latest modifications ahead of an active role with the Space Launch System (SLS). Both of NASA's iconic Crawlers are being re-purposed for SLS, following their previous roles with the Saturn rocket and the Space Shuttle.
Crawler Transports – The New Era:
The CTs have been part of the space program since the the 1960s, with fabrication of the behemoth machine's parts initiated in 1963 at their birth site in Ohio.
Contractor Marion completed 90 percent of the design and began to ship parts of the vehicle in March 1964. This allowed assembly of the first CT at Merritt Island, which was completed in November of that year.
Live testing began in 1965, with the first Crawler put through its paces that summer, moving the Launch Umbilical Tower (LUT) one mile along two short stretches of road to test how the CT would perform on different surfaces.
The first Saturn V rocket transported to the pad by the CT was the "Facilities Checkout Vehicle" AS-500F, ahead of the unmanned Apollo 4 mission, with the CT transporting the Saturn Vs for all of the Moon missions.
The final Saturn to be transported to Complex 39 was the Saturn IB for the ASTP mission in 1975, ahead of the transition towards the Space Shuttle Program (SSP).
Now the CTs would find themselves transporting the Mobile Launch Platform (MLP) – complete with the Shuttle orbiter, her External Tank and Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) – to the pads.
The CT opened its Shuttle career by rolling Enterprise to launch pad 39A on 1 May 1979 for testing.
During rollout, Enterprise was driven at various speeds to measure and note the various vibration strains on the fully-mated Shuttle stack. This was used to determine an optimal rollout speed for operational Space Shuttle missions.
Once at the pad, Enterprise helped validate launch pad procedures.
With vital data already at hand from the Enterprise roll to 39A, Columbia and the STS-1 stack were rolled out to the same pad by the CT on December 29, 1980. STS-1's launch kicked off the Shuttle era the following year.
The CTs took it in turns to rollout all of the Shuttle stacks for their missions, an always-impressive sight, not least STS-6, as the CT rolled its superstar passenger of Shuttle Challenger out in fog bank over the crawler way at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in March, 1983.
Modifications were made throughout the lifetime of the CTs, including ahead of Return To Flight when replacement work was carried out on large amounts of the vehicle, including the huge shoes that make up the tracks on the Crawlers – a massive feat considering the CT has eight tracks, two on each corner, with each track consisting of 57 shoes, each shoe weighing in at 1,984 pounds (900 kg).
While the CTs continued their role with Shuttle, the opening task with the Constellation Program (CxP) involved the rollout of the Ares I-X vehicle to Pad 39B for its October, 2009 test flight.
CT-2 paid its first visit to the Ares Mobile Launcher (ML) – not involved with the Ares I-X launch – in 2010, relocating the newly built structure to its parksite home. However, this was during an uncertain time, with the Constellation Program being closed down.
The CTs found themselves being re-purposed yet again, this time with the the Space Launch System (SLS).
With the Crawlerway tested to show it could handle the massive weight of the Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle (HLV), a test run of the CT with the former Ares ML – since designated to host SLS vehicles – was conducted in November, 2011.
The trip to 39B was taken at a very steady pace, allowing for critical measurements to be taken during the 4.2 mile journey.
The CT conducted the roll of the large structure without issue, prior to returning it to near the VAB after pad testing was completed.
However, it will be a much heavier stack to carry once the SLS is integrated on the ML inside the VAB – with the heaviest SLS rollout weight, including the ML, estimated to be over 14 million pounds.
As such, CT-2 received approval for modifications, to modernize and beef up its capability almost immediately after completing the ML roll testing.
CT-2's upgrades began with JEL (Jacking, Equalizing, and Leveling) valve replacement.
The upgrades included the Alco E1 & E2 Engine Panel upgrades, Parking/Service Brakes improvements, Cabin replacement/modifications and the installation of two new massive 1500KW Generator sets.
Classed as a 20 year life extension effort under NASA's Ground Systems Development and Operations Program (GSDO) effort, 45 areas were worked on – right down to new carpets in the cabins – with a test roll down the Crawlerway from the VAB conducted in 2012.
CT-2 returned to the VAB to take up residency inside the giant building's High Bay 2 (HB-2) for the next set of modifications, focusing on the modification work on the roller bearings.
It was soon joined by CT-1 in High Bay 3 (HB-3), as it too began upgrades, opening with asbestos abatement/removal tasks ahead of the engine control room modifications.
CT-1 completed modifications in line with those already conducted on CT-2, along with being the test bed for new JEL Cylinder Prototype testing.
CT-1 was then used as the test article for a complete generator load bank test.
"The Test confirmed the max power output for each generator. Also, the test served as the baseline for Temperature and Airflow around locations of the MPPU's and the MPPU Porch," per L2's CT upgrade section.
"The Porch is slated to be installed on End 3 of CT-2 in a year or two."
CT-1 was recently seen at the old Saturn Mobile Service Structure (MSS) park site at the A/B Crawlerway spilt, keeping Mobile Launch Platform -2 (MLP-2) company.
Meanwhile, CT-2 – with a fresh set of bearings – moved out of HB-2 for a short trip before returning to the VAB, allowing for lubrication checks and testing last year.
The CT was taken on a test run around the VAB to a point just behind OPF 1.
The test – according to L2's CT upgrade section – helped evaluate the CT's new rollers, bearings and shafts on the vehicle's A and C corners, along with a new Strain and Temperature System.
The CT then made another move, this time to its CT yard – a familiar port of call for the Crawlers.
CT-2 then rolled to the east side of the VAB through the curves and then back to the SRM Road, twice.
It then returned to the CT Yard for a refuel and some maintenance.
After a brief CT yard stay, CT-2 was moved back to the VAB for continuation of Phase II modifications.
All of the modifications to CT-2 are expected to be completed by early 2016.
"Crawler Transporter (CT) Team received the refurbished CT gear-box components," added L2's CT Upgrade Section.
"Two of the shafts have been successfully installed and the remainder will be installed as part of the gear-box project.
"Prior to shoe installation a spin test will take place to check for proper installation in preparation for a planned rollout.
Those upgrades have since been completed, with a test run of CT-2 to Pad 39B scheduled for this week. L2 schedule information shows – pending acceptable weather – this move will take place at 8am on Wednesday.
"VAB CT Move: CT-2 will move from VAB, Hi-Bay 2 to Pad 39B on 2/18/15 at 0800 Eastern," per L2's CT Upgrade section.
CT-2's destination – Pad 39B – is now deep into its transition to become a "clean pad". It was recently announced it will receive a new Flame Deflector and associated Flame Trench, required to help the pad deal with the immense thrust of the SLS.
Everything remains on track for CT-2 is to carry out its first operational role by picking up the Mobile Launcher (ML) – which is continuing conversion work for SLS – before carrying it inside the VAB, all likely taking place in late 2017 or early 2018.
This will be a key part of the build up to Exploration Mission -1 (EM-1), with the first Space Launch System (SLS) expected to be stacked on the ML for a roll to Pad 39B.
The first rollout is expected to test all of the systems, along with pad fit checks.
The stack will likely roll back to the protection of the VAB ahead of launch preparations for the first mission rollout of the Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle (HLV) with Orion, for the Exploration Mission -1 (EM-1) pad flow to lift-off, culminating in the first mission of the new era in mid-2018.
Editorial | NASA's Groundhog Day Budget Foreshadows More Stalemate
Warren Ferster – Space News
It was fitting that the release of the White House's federal budget request for 2016 coincided with Groundhog Day, the annual event where, according to folklore, a large rodent foreshadows winter's duration. Just as Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow Feb. 2, indicating that six more weeks of cold weather are in store, President Barack Obama's budget blueprint for NASA foretells an indefinite continuation of the impasse that has gripped the agency for the past several years.
To be fair, the $18.53 billion request, representing a $519 million increase over 2015, has positives, notably a 50 percent increase for a commercial crew program that is entering full-scale development and the start of a Sustainable Land Imaging program that hopefully lives up to its title.
Beyond that, however, the request is uninspired, providing no clarity on the proposed Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), where NASA is weighing two options, and teeing up once again the all-too-familiar battles with Congress over the agency's direction.
If there were any lingering hope, however slim, that this White House and Congress would ever come to some semblance of accord on NASA's human spaceflight program, traditionally its biggest and most expensive, it went out the door once and for all with this budget.
That's not entirely the administration's fault, of course. Congress for the past several years has pursued its own human spaceflight agenda, which by all appearances is driven less by a compelling and achievable vision than by narrow parochial interests.
In a prelude of what's to come, House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) reacted to the budget by complaining that it contains too much funding for Earth science and too little for the Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket and Orion deep-space crew capsule, two massively expensive programs still in search of a consensus destination.
In other words, Congress likely will seek more funding for SLS and Orion, which under the president's budget would receive very meaty allocations of $1.36 billion and $1.1 billion, respectively. NASA says these sums will be sufficient to keep both vehicles on track for a planned uncrewed test flight — it would be the first launch of SLS — in 2018, even if they represent small decreases from what Congress appropriated for this year.
To pay for SLS and Orion increases, Congress might be tempted to raid the commercial crew account, as it has in past years, perhaps using the argument that the agency should down-select to a single provider of astronaut taxi services to and from the International Space Station.
That would be the absolute wrong thing to do at this stage of the game. If there were any lingering hope, however slim, that this White House and Congress would ever come to some semblance of accord on NASA's human spaceflight program, traditionally its biggest and most expensive, it went out the door once and for all with this budget.
Whether or not it makes sense to field — and then have to sustain — two commercial crew services was a legitimate debate at an earlier stage of the program. But NASA is now contractually committed to see both the Boeing and SpaceX taxi concepts through development and an initial round of flights. To significantly trim NASA's $1.24 billion request for the program would force the agency to renegotiate those contracts and guarantee an extension of U.S. dependence on Russia for space station crew transport.
Another tempting bill payer for SLS/Orion increases might be ARM, which is even less popular on Capitol Hill than it is with the scientific community. But there's not much there to raid: The White House, in what might be a tacit admission that ARM has little chance of getting any real traction, is seeking $220 million for various projects associated with the mission, including asteroid detection and solar electric propulsion technology.
Meanwhile, NASA has yet to settle on which of two ARM options to pursue: the original plan to nudge a small asteroid into an orbit near the moon for closer inspection, or — even more farfetched — chipping off a piece of a larger asteroid and hauling that to the same place. That means NASA won't be able to get started in earnest on ARM until 2017 at the earliest, by which time its proponent in chief will be halfway out of the White House door.
If there is an area of the NASA budget that could use a little shoring up, it might be planetary science. As it stands, NASA is planning to pull the plug next year on two missions that independent scientists say are still doing meaningful work: the Opportunity Mars rover and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. The request does include $30 million for a new start on a mission to Jupiter's moon, Europa. It's not clear that boosting that funding level — lawmakers appropriated $100 million for Europa studies this year — would allow NASA to accelerate or widen the scope of the mission, but those questions are certainly worth asking.
That said, any increase for planetary science should not come at the expense of the Earth science program, which in addition to helping scientists understand the high-impact changes occurring on our planet serves as a critical incubator for weather satellite sensor technology. A better choice of bill payer would be SLS or Orion, as any resulting schedule slips would be of little to no consequence in the grand scheme of things.
Turning back to that, it is taken for granted by many that what NASA needs above all else is a balanced program, and the president's proposed budget would more or less achieve that. But in the absence of consensus on NASA's purpose, balance is just another word for stalemate. That's been the case for several years now, and there's nothing in the request to suggest that will change.
Op-Ed | 10 Reasons Why an Asteroid Redirect Mission Is Worth Doing
Jonathan Goff – Space News
Full Disclosure: My space startup, Altius Space Machines, is being paid under the Asteroid Redirect Mission Broad Agency Announcement to do a study contract on one possible way to do the Option B mission. Even though we're not dependent on follow-on work, I figured it was worth stating my potential biases — Jonathan Goff
I'm not sure I've ever seen a major NASA program as nearly universally disliked as the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM).
Some people dislike it for ad hominem reasons like the fact that the Obama administration has been pushing it, or the supposition that former Deputy Administrator Lori Garver came up with the concept, which some people narrow-mindedly feel automatically justifies opposition.
I've also heard a few anti-Space Launch System/Orion people refer to it as a "wasteful attempt to re-engineer the solar system to make it accessible for SLS and Orion," or to come up with a mission for SLS and Orion that is more inspiring than endless Apollo 8 rehashes (but without imminent landing missions to follow this time around).
Some scientists seem to hate it because they see it coming from the human spaceflight side of NASA, and think the whole thing could be done better without humans involved.
All told, lots of people have found reasons to hate this mission.
But here are 10 reasons why a mission like ARM might be worthwhile:
1. Adding a new, even more accessible "moon" to the Earth-moon system. A lot of people fixate on the fact that we're going to spend all of this money for a couple of astronauts to go out to a rock in lunar orbit, climb over it for a few days, and bring some samples back. What they conveniently ignore is that more than 99.5 percent of the material brought back to the Earth-moon system will still be there, orbiting the moon for the next several hundred years, in a fashion that is easily revisitable for a long time.
2. Providing an ideal testbed for asteroid in situ resource utilization (ISRU) development. Many people see asteroids as the premier source of vast quantities of off-world resources. But while there is no shortage of low-technology-readiness-level concepts for how to extract resources from asteroids, actually testing those out isn't going to be easy. I think testing will be much easier when you have the ability to send people and robots, when you're close enough to Earth that teleoperation of robotics is a viable option, when you have frequent repeat visit opportunities where you can try new approaches, and when you can do your testing in a microgravity or near-microgravity environment, like you would have at an asteroid. Prospective asteroid miners like Deep Space Industries and Planetary Resources probably wouldn't complain about having one or more easy-to-access testbeds to work with.
3. Providing a much larger sample quantity to work with than other existing or proposed missions. While scientists may be happy spending $800 million to return 60 grams of material from an asteroid (Osiris-Rex) and can likely tease out all sorts of information from that two tablespoons' worth of material, ISRU development needs a lot more material to work with. Even the smallest of concepts I've seen for Option B (in which a robotic spacecraft would grab a boulder from an asteroid and move it into lunar orbit) would bring back tens of metric tons of material, both rocky and regolith, which should be plenty of material to work with for ISRU development.
4. Providing a good way of testing out a man-tended deep-space habitat. One of the ideas NASA is looking at incorporating into ARM is attaching a prototype deep-space habitat. This would allow visits of up to 60-day duration by crews of up to four. While there are other ways you could test something like this (such as Lagrangian point L1/L2 gateways), testing it in an operational environment would be useful, as would demonstrating the ability to do long-term habitation in close proximity to an asteroid.
5. Demonstrating large-scale solar electric propulsion (SEP) systems. This is one of NASA's main interests in the ARM mission — in the land of expensive launch vehicles, very high specific impulse propulsion, like you can get with SEPs, can make many missions a lot more affordable. Even with low-cost Earth-to-orbit transportation, SEPs probably make sense for a wide range of missions. Demonstrating the ability to use large-scale SEPs for tugging huge objects in heliocentric space, performing precision injection maneuvers, etc., might be very useful.
6. Demonstrating planetary defense techniques. If something similar to ARM Option B is selected, NASA is interested in using it to demonstrate the "gravity tractor" method for deflecting the parent asteroid. Learning how to deflect potentially hazardous asteroids is probably one of the more worthwhile things NASA could be spending money on right now, and providing a way of getting real hands-on experience applying those techniques would be very useful.
7. Developing technologies for a Phobos/Deimos large sample return. One of the keys to affordable exploration and settlement of Mars will be determining if Phobos and/or Deimos have water in them, and if so, how to extract it efficiently. Having a large source of propellant feedstocks available in Mars orbit (for supersonic retropropulsion on landing, hydrogen feedstock for surface ISRU, and Earth-return propellant) could significantly reduce the amount of propellant needed for both round-trip and one-way Mars missions. If Option B is selected, and if it is designed properly, it would be possible to use the same hardware to capture and return a decent-sized sample — more than 1 metric ton — to lunar distant retrograde orbit (DRO) for evaluation and hopefully ISRU process development/debugging.
8. Providing the beginnings of a lunar gateway. It turns out that getting to and from lunar DRO, and to the lunar surface from a lunar DRO, isn't massively different from getting to and from Earth-moon L1 or L2. The orbital dynamics are a bit more complex but the propellant and travel times are relatively similar. And some lunar DROs can be long-term stable without active station-keeping. If we were ready to go straight to the moon, L1 or L2 might be slightly preferable to a lunar DRO as a location for a lunar gateway, but if we did something like ARM, with the habitat module, you'd already have a de facto start to a lunar gateway — one that likely would be set up (by NASA or follow-on efforts) with ISRU hardware and include at least rudimentary rocket fuel storage and handling capabilities.
9. Providing more experience with on-asteroid operations. If the Rosetta/Philae mission should tell us anything, it's that there's still a lot to learn, from an engineering standpoint, about how to operate successfully on the surface of large, low-gravity objects like asteroids or comets. While we'll continue to get some small-scale experience using other robotic missions, and while a manned mission to a "free-range" asteroid will also provide a good way to get more data, ARM will likely extend our knowledge about how to do operations like these safely with large objects, increasing the likelihood of success of future manned missions to free-range asteroids.
10. Leaving something permanent. One of the saddest things about the Apollo missions is that they didn't leave anything permanent that made future missions any easier. When Apollo was canceled, all that was left were museum pieces, pictures and a few hundred kilograms of rocks. But the nice thing about ARM is that once the asteroid sample has returned to lunar DRO, it's there. It doesn't require continued expenditures from NASA for it to stay there. Until we've mined every last bit of it, it's going to be there orbiting the moon, close enough that almost any spacefaring country or business in the world can reach it if they want to. It doesn't need an ongoing "standing army" that can be defunded. It doesn't need a mission control to watch over it 24/7. It doesn't need a sustaining engineering contract that's going to suck up significant portions of NASA's limited human spaceflight budget on an ongoing basis. It's just there. Having something that accessible and permanent out there is worth something, at least to me.
Mystery cloud-like blobs over Mars baffle astronomers
Jacob Aron - New Scientist
For space watchers, Mars is like a second home. Astronomers have been studying the Red Planet for centuries – the first map of the Martian surface was sketched 500 years ago. Since then, it has become the most surveyed planet in the solar system, besides Earth. We have sent over 50 robot explorers to patrol its surface and watch it from orbit, seven of which are operational on and around the Red Planet right this minute. It's not for nothing that space aficionados quip that Mars is the only planet known to be inhabited solely by robots.
So it was that much more surprising when, on 12 March 2012, amateur astronomers around the world noticed a strange blob rising out of the planet's southern hemisphere, soaring to 250 kilometres above the surface.
They watched for 11 days as it grew to around 1000 kilometres across, even stretching a "finger" out into space. "I was really quite amazed that it was sticking out the side of the planet quite prominently," says Damian Peach, who lives in Selsey, UK, and was one of the first to spot it.
Poor weather and other issues meant no one had their eye on Mars the following week, and by 2 April it seemed to have disappeared. Then on 6 April a second object of the same type emerged from the same spot and lasted another 10 days. It, too, has not been seen since.
Nearly three years later, the sighting still defies explanation. In an attempt to pin down the blobs' origins, Agustin Sánchez-Lavega of the University of the Basque Country, Spain, and colleagues, including Peach, sought out images of Mars from that period. They wound up collecting pictures from 18 observers equipped with a variety of small telescopes. The team also searched through old images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and identified a similar object in 1997.
Exotic theories
The team considered several possible explanations, each more exotic than the last. Despite their best efforts, though, they couldn't come up with any that were consistent with known processes – and neither can anyone else. "Frankly, I'm puzzled by the observations," says Bruce Jakosky of the University of Colorado, Boulder, who leads NASA's Mars-atmosphere-observing MAVEN mission. "I don't understand how material can get that high and stay there for so long."
One clue is that the blobs seemed to appear at Mars's terminator, the fuzzy line where night turns into day. That suggests a change in atmospheric temperature due to the morning sun may be responsible. The team's best guess is that the object is a cloud of frozen carbon dioxide and water particles condensing in the upper atmosphere.
If that's the case, it would be unlike any cloud seen anywhere on Mars, or on Earth. Clouds on both planets are only ever seen at altitudes below 100 kilometres, which on Earth is the accepted height for the beginning of outer space. "If the phenomenon is a cloud, then the most similar phenomena on Earth will be the mesospheric clouds that form at 80 kilometres altitude on polar regions," says Sánchez-Lavega.
Auroras
With that in mind, thoughts have turned to other potential explanations. Charged particles from the sun interact with the Earth's magnetic field to make the upper atmosphere glow – the phenomenon we call auroras. Mars's magnetic field is weak and patchy in comparison, meaning auroras were only seen there for the first time in 2005. That sighting was over a region tantalising close to the unexplained blobs.
The team calculate that the blobs could be auroras, but only if it is more than 1000 times brighter than Earth's. That seems unlikely, especially since the sun wasn't particularly active in March 2012. "The fact that you might see a visible aurora is not completely out of the realm of possibility," says Nicholas Heavens of Hampton University in Virginia. "But they don't really come to visible brightness anywhere near what this thing would be."
What about something like a massive volcano pumping material into the atmosphere? The blobs seemed to extend upwards from the surface of Mars, though it's hard to determine this exactly given the quality of the images we have. But that wouldn't explain why the blobs have only appeared in the morning says Sánchez-Lavega, and in any case we don't know of any active volcanoes on Mars.
"You would think that something large enough to dump that much vapour in the atmosphere would be picked up," says Heavens. A massive dust storm is also ruled out, as they normally don't reach above 60 kilometres and the blob doesn't carry Mars's signature dusty red.
Aliens at work?
OK, now we're getting desperate. Could the explanation be biological? Whether there is life on Mars is one of the planet's major mysteries (see box), but any alien hunters excited by the blobs should calm down, says Sánchez-Lavega: "No life past or present [has been] detected so far on Mars, so it cannot be." Heavens says there isn't really enough data to rule either way, but it's better to be cautious. "If there is no positive evidence, you should probably exclude something biological."
It seems that all we can do is wait and hope the object turns up again, although Peach thinks that the favourable conditions that occurred in 2012 may not happen for some time. "The season on Mars is very cloudy around that time of year, and that just happened to occur at opposition," he says, referring to when Mars and Earth are aligned on the same side of the sun. That particular combination won't happen again for over a decade, he says.
Perhaps instead it will be observed by one of our robot minions. MAVEN is on an orbit that would have allowed it to fly through the blob, but the probe only reached Mars last year
. "MAVEN should see something like this very easily if it occurred again, if we were at the right place at the right time," says Jakosky. "I've given a heads-up to our science team, so they'll be keeping an eye out for it."
END
| | JSC TODAY CATEGORIES - Headlines
- ISS Welcomes Arrival of Progress 58 Today
- New NASA@work Challenge! - Organizations/Social
- JSC Expected Behaviors
- Starport Boot Camp is Back! Registration Now Open
- Leadership Development Opportunity: JSAT Officer
- 2015 INCOSE Kickoff Meeting Feb. 19
- New Rec Program:LIFT(Ladies in Fitness Training)
- Co-Labs Presents ODG's Smart Glasses - Jobs and Training
- APPEL - Communicating Technical Issues
- Job Opportunities
- Driving Innovation at JSC Feb 24-25, 2015
- CGE Travel System Live Lab, Feb. 18
- New Tool to Find Lateral Job Opportunities: NETS |  |
| Headlines - ISS Welcomes Arrival of Progress 58 Today
With the ATV's undocking, the aft port of Zvezda will be opened up for the arrival of the next resupply craft to the station --- the Russian ISS Progress 58 ship. Filled with more than 3 tons of food, fuel and supplies for the station residents, Progress will launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Tuesday, Feb. 17 at 5 a.m. NASA TV coverage of the ISS Progress 58 spacecraft launch will begin at 4:45 a.m. Six hours later, Progress will arrive at the station for a docking at 10:58 a.m. NASA TV coverage of docking will begin at 10:30 a.m. The event can be viewed on JSC cable TV channel 2 (analog), channel 51-2 (digital high definition) or Omni 45. JSC, Ellington Field, Sonny Carter Training Facility and White Sands Test Facility employees with wired computer network connections can view the event using the JSC EZTV IP Network TV System on channel 402 (standard definition). Please note: EZTV currently requires using Internet Explorer on a Windows PC connected to the JSC computer network with a wired connection. Mobile devices, Wi-Fi connections and newer MAC computers are currently not supported by EZTV. If you are having problems viewing the video using these systems, contact the Information Resources Directorate Customer Support Center at x46367. JSC External Relations, Office of Communications and Public Affairs, x35111
[top] - New NASA@work Challenge!
Are you new to NASA@work? NASA@work is an agency-wide, collaborative problem-solving platform that connects the collective knowledge of experts (like YOU) from all centers across NASA. Challenge Owners post problems and members of the NASA@work community participate by responding with their solutions to posted problems. Anyone can participate! Visit NASA@work for more information. Organizations/Social - JSC Expected Behaviors
The NASA values consist of Safety, Teamwork and Integrity in support of mission success. We commit without compromise to embodying these values in all that we do. To realize these values, we have defined a set of supporting behaviors that contractors and civil servants should demonstrate every day. The fourth is to: Be Open Minded - Be receptive. We seek knowledge that will strengthen our team and ourselves. Ask yourself: - Do I look for innovative ways to address challenges?
- Do I look inward for areas of improvement?
- Do I actively seek honest discussion and feedback, particularly if a situation is unfolding?
- Do I help others to learn and improve?
- Do I offer constructive alternatives, observations, and dissention?
Effective communication is a crucial ingredient for practicing these behaviors daily. Communication is a two-way process that requires us to listen and understand at least as much as we speak. We openly share information and knowledge, focusing on quality, not quantity.
[top]
- Starport Boot Camp is Back! Registration Now Open
Starport's boot camp is back and registration is open and filling fast. Don't miss a chance to be part of Starport's incredibly popular program. The class will fill up, so register now! Early registration (ends, Feb. 27) - $90 per person (just $5 per class)
Regular registration (Feb. 28 - Mar. 2): - $110 per person
The workouts begin on Monday, Mar. 2 Are you ready for 18 hours of intense workouts with an amazing personal trainer to get you to your fitness goal? Don't wait! Sign up today! Register now online or at the Gilruth Center information desk. - Leadership Development Opportunity: JSAT Officer
The JSC Safety and Health Action Team (JSAT) provides an opportunity for involvement in the JSC safety program through an employee-centered assembly of peers who strive to prevent injury, illness and loss or damage of property through the resolution of issues, education and awareness. Any JSC employee may attend and participate in the JSAT. The JSAT is soliciting nominations for two co-chair positions for the term Apr. 2015 to Jun. 2016. Co-chairs share in the performance of their duties with the assistance of an appointed secretary. The annual election will be held on Apr. 2 at the monthly JSAT meeting. For more information or to submit your name for nomination, please contact JSAT Secretary Reese Squires. Want to know more about the JSAT? Come see how we roll! The next JSAT meeting is Thursday, Mar. 5, at 10 a.m. in Building 1, Room 966. Visitors are always welcome! - 2015 INCOSE Kickoff Meeting Feb. 19
The Texas Gulf Coast Chapter of the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) Kicks off 2015 with perspective from the INCOSE America's Sector President on how to maximize your INCOSE experience, as well as an update on INCOSE's Certification program, from Courtney Wright, INCOSE Certification Program Manager. Please join us at the ISS Conference Center, 1800 Space Park Drive, Ste. 100, on Feb. 19 at 5:30 p.m. Please RSVP here. - New Rec Program:LIFT(Ladies in Fitness Training)
Starport is pleased to present LIFT (Ladies in Fitness Training)! LIFT is a women-focused, semi-private training program that provides fun, challenging, rewarding workouts designed specifically to help women LIFT their health and fitness goals to new levels! Dates: - Mar. 2 - 25
- Mar. 30 - Apr. 22
- Apr. 27 - May 20
LIFT Program details: - Where: NASA Gilruth Center - Outer Space Gym
- Days: Mondays & Wednesdays
- Times: 6 to 7 p.m.
- Spring Sessions: 4 weeks in length (*more to be announced!)
Cost: - 1 session commitment: from Mar. 2 - 25 ONLY
- $125 ($15.62/class) = (4 consecutive weeks/8 classes)
- 3 session commitment: from Mar. 2 to May 20
- $99/session ($12.38/class) = (12 consecutive weeks/24 classes)
Sign-up: click on the link below! Class size is limited so don't delay and register today! - Co-Labs Presents ODG's Smart Glasses
Please join us for a very special presentation by Ralph Osterhout CEO of ODG discuss their new augmented reality glasses and the collaboration partnership with the Engineering Directorate. ODG's Smart Glasses are designed to be the hands-free computer of tomorrow: fully-integrated, untethered devices that have the power to redefine what can be done on the go. Some come hear about this exciting new technology and explore/brainstorm the possibilities of uses here at JSC. More information will be posted on our Google+ site, just search JSC Co-Labs. Date: Wednesday, Feb. 18 Time: 10:45-11:30 a.m. Location: B2 StudioB Hope to see you all there!!!! Jobs and Training - APPEL - Communicating Technical Issues
This two-day workshop provides the foundation for communicating technical information to a varied audience and demonstrates effective methods and strategies for presenting technical issues. This course is designed for NASA's technical workforce, including systems engineers and project personnel working on or leading project teams. This course is available for self-registration in SATERN until Tuesday, Feb. 24, and is open to civil servants and contractors. Dates: Tuesday to Wednesday, March 31 to April 1 Location: Building 12, Room 134 - Job Opportunities
Where do I find job opportunities? To help you navigate to JSC vacancies, use the filter drop-down menu and select "JSC HR." The "Jobs" link will direct you to the USAJOBS website for the complete announcement and the ability to apply online. Lateral reassignment and rotation opportunities are posted in the Workforce Transition Tool. To access, click: HR Portal > Employees > Workforce Transition > Workforce Transition Tool. These opportunities do not possess known promotion potential; therefore, employees can only see positions at or below their current grade level. If you have questions about any JSC job vacancies or reassignment opportunities, please call your HR representative. - Driving Innovation at JSC Feb 24-25, 2015
Join Dr. Joel Sercel in this engaging course about achieving breakthrough performance and creating successful systems for the future. You will gain the capability to help position your organization for sustainment, growth and adaptation to new technologies, business models and missions. - CGE Travel System Live Lab, Feb. 18
Do you need some hands-on, personal help with the Concur Government Edition (CGE Travel System)? Join the Business Systems and Process Improvement Office for a CGE Travel System Live Lab tomorrow, Feb. 18, any time between 9 a.m. and noon in Building 12, Room 142. Our help desk representatives will be available to help you work through your travel processes and learn more about using the CGE Travel System during this informal workshop. Please feel free to bring any travel documents to be worked. This is real time help, not a training class. Please click on the direct SATERN link below to register and receive SATERN credit. For additional information, please contact Judy Seier at x32771. - New Tool to Find Lateral Job Opportunities: NETS
JSC HR is proud to announce the release of the NASA Employee Talent Search (NETS) tool, an improved way for managers to post and employees to search and apply to lateral job opportunities including non-promotional reassignments, details, and project teams. (This is replacing the Workforce Transition Tool/JOB Tool). To apply to a position: - Visit the site
- Click on "Search Opportunities"
- View "All Lateral Opportunities"
- Select a position listed as "Open"
- Review the position
- Follow the prompts to apply
Live Labs for Managers, AOs, Budget Reps and HR: - Feb. 18 @ 03:30-05:30 p.m. - B12/144
- Feb. 23 @ 03:30-05:30 p.m. - B12/144
- Feb. 24 @ 08:00-10:30 a.m. - B12/138
- Mar. 3 @ 08:00-10:30 a.m. - B12/138
Brown Bags for anyone: - Feb. 19 @ 12:00-01:00 p.m. - B30/Auditorium
- Feb. 24 @ 12:00-01:00 p.m. - B30/Auditorium
- Feb. 25 @ 10:00-11:00 a.m. - B30/Auditorium
All promotional opportunities can still be found on usajobs.gov. | |
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| JSC Today is compiled periodically as a service to JSC employees on an as-submitted basis. Any JSC organization or employee may submit articles. Disclaimer: Accuracy and content of these notes are the responsibility of the submitters. |
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