24 replies to this topic

[Lazarus Long]

Wehave a new kid on the block folks, China, as has long been expeted is preparing to put men in orbit by the end of the year. Maybe they will make reservations at the Orbital Hotel Cosmos Internacional?

I say good luck and glad to have the company. Lets wish them well.

LL/kxs

China to Launch Crewed Spacecraft in 2003
1 hour, 32 minutes ago


BEIJING (Reuters) - China is expected to launch a crewed spacecraft in the second half of this year, state media said on Thursday, describing a move that would make the country the third to put people in space.

Preparation for the first crewed spacecraft has entered the overall assembly and testing phase, the official China Daily newspaper quoted Yuan Jie, director of the Shanghai aerospace center, as saying. He gave no further details.

China has already launched spacecraft designed to accommodate people but they have not had anyone aboard. The fourth such launch took place on Monday in what is probably a final test before China sends its first astronaut into orbit around earth.

Shenzhou IV, or "Divine Ship," has already settled into its course around earth, state media said. All experiments carried on Shenzhou IV has been running well, the newspaper quoted the Beijing Aerospace Command and Control Center as saying.

The vessel, which boasts a complete system needed for human space flight, will orbit for a few days before landing, state media have said. Like its predecessors, the spacecraft will circle the earth once every 90 minutes.

China's space program is a test of national pride as the country, long mired in poverty but growing fast after two decades of market-oriented reforms, seeks a place on the world stage alongside great powers.

China aims to become the third nation in the world capable of putting people in space. The Soviet Union first accomplished the feat in 1961, with the United States following the next year.

Chinese astronauts -- dubbed "taikonauts," taken from "taikong," the Chinese word for space -- had fighter pilot backgrounds and were absolutely capable of making their first voyages to outer space, the official Xinhua news agency said, quoting an official for the crewed flight program.

Shenzhou I, the first spacecraft designed to carry people, was launched empty in 1999.

[immortalitysystems.com]

Space is were the next step in human evolution well take place.
Let's hope that China will have a permanent setlements in orbit soon. Nothing is better then competition to drive the advancement of science. I am looking forward to having not castles, but villages in the sky (orbit) were we can use "Gene Engineering" in the pursuit of Immortality without beeing restricted by the laws of "Earth". Just imagine what would be possible if we could make war against death instead of poverty.

[Lazarus Long]

Project Capture

On December 14th a new comet was discovered and we can all be proud of the great number of new objects, in particular "Near Earth Objects" that now are counted in the text books as discovered in 2002.

Perhaps it is now time to reassess our objectives when determining the course of future endeavor. Perhaps it is time to set aside the methodical plans of the last decades and realize that new facts, materials, and propulsion technologies imply it is time to create new models for exploration.

1. These models should integrate robot and manned exploration.

2. Open up a discussion on the application and utilization of Nuclear Reactors for deep Space development.

3. We should be working toward capture and development of Asteroids and comets as not only an alternative and achievable goal but one that could leap frog over many obstacles that are preventing viable off world colonization. This would also have the ancillary and not insignificant reward of creating a technology that would eliminate the threat of extinction from the single greatest source we face apart from ourselves, an Asteroid or Cometary impact.

4. This approach should be make as a global one, a Transnationally Private enterprise. It should incorporate elements of Arc Technology to insure the preservation of genetic strains in an off world bio-bank the goal of which is a permanent Solar Orbital Habitat functioning as a way station shuttle for a steady stream of future colonists. A trading post, a Cruise Liner, and an Independent Solar Citadel City/State.

5. These would also be both the beginning of true off world mining operations and fabrication facilities. It is time to create profitable business motives for moving off world.

By the way, getting gravity onto one of these asteroids isn't as hard as you might think, rotation could be established using solar sail and mining out a spiralled chamber would give a large area internally for habitat and reaction mass as well as product for fabrication purposes.

The comet capture is for the water, a key ingredient that is too costly to ship off world. But the asteroid could be steered to the comet and the two joined for artificial habitat formation. Once the ice is processed it can be stored in the chambered nautilus of the Sun Ship. In the outer hull it would contribute to radiation shielding and thermal stabilization. In the center hull, it is recycled into ecologically stable hydroponic tanks producing fish, algae, and many other products for habitat support.

The ice stored on the shielded surface can be sold to various Space programs at significant profit. But waste water would be recycled through solar furnaces for turbine energy and converted into distilled water for cleansing, waste sludge wuod be recycled in various methods from organc products for food production to mes and plastics. The key is to design diversity and simplicity simultaneously.

Which is more precious to a man in the desert, gold he must carry or water he doesn't have?

If we build an oasis they will come.

Well folks, what do you think?

Comments aren't just welcome they are a requisite of a dynamic dialogue.

Welcome to the New Age,

Happy New Year and Millennium too.

[Lazarus Long]

Here is a wonderful candidate for a Translunar Shuttle facility that can loop close enough to Earth to be practical. It would also be a great platform to test Terraforming technologies for the larger scale operation and a means to stage the approach to the deeper space operation with this nicely situated stepping stone.

Like a game of tag. We can begin with testing robot hardware that can be Shuttle Bay launched at the rock to not only tag it with a MEM transponder and measuring device, we could offer some nano assay testing and boring MEM designs that can accurately map not only the surface of the Asteroid but also use sonar and passive radiation scanning for mapping out the core.

Lets Rock [!] [!]

LL/kxs

Cat-And-Mouse Asteroid Pulls Close to Earth
Fri Jan 3,11:22 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An asteroid playing a cat-and-mouse game with Earth will pull to its closest point in almost a century on Monday before swinging away for another 95 years, NASA (news - web sites) said in a statement.

Asteroid 2002 AA29 is like a mouse teasing a cat, approaching Earth first on one side and then on another, without ever making contact or actually passing our planet as the two bodies circle the sun, the astronomers said on Thursday.

At just 200 feet, the tiny asteroid will get within 3.7 million miles on Monday.

This particular asteroid is the first ever found to orbit the sun in nearly the same path as Earth, but never manages to pass it, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said.

"In some ways, the Earth and this asteroid are like two race cars on a circular track," said Paul Chodas of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "Right now the asteroid is on a slightly slower track just outside Earth's, and our planet is catching up."

"The combined gravitational effects of the Earth and sun will nudge the asteroid onto a slightly faster track just inside Earth's, and it will begin to pull ahead," he said.

In 95 years, the asteroid will have advanced all the way around to where it is catching up to the Earth from behind. A similar interaction with gravity from both the Earth and sun will then push the asteroid back onto a slower outside track, and the pattern will repeat.

To an observer moving with the Earth, the asteroid appears to trace out a horse-shoe pattern, NASA said.

"There's no possibility that this asteroid could hit Earth, because Earth's gravity rebuffs its periodic advances and keeps it at bay," said Don Yeomans of JPL in Pasadena, California. "The asteroid and Earth take turns sneaking up on each other, but they never get too close."

In about 600 years, though, the little asteroid could start looping around Earth like a distant mini-moon for about 40 years before returning to its cat-and-mouse ways, the astronomers said. [>]

[>] not if we catch up to it first ... [ph34r]

[Avatar Polymorph]

I'm not sure this is the right section, feel free to move it if necessary.

From Wired March 2002

StratSat airship launched (www.airship.com)

Advanced Technologies Group offers a helium airship fuelled by gas and solar power hovering 12 miles above Earth maintaining position within half a mile for three to five years. Can carry one tonne of transmitting equipment and cover 72 miles – Photron (Malaysia) is testing the system with an eye to buy. Photo of airship shows it to be normal size (looks longer than 10 metres in length at a guess).

Yet another addition to what is going to be a very large range of permanently flying objects (robotic). I'd imagine airforces will be keen to have to have more advanced versions of the Afghanistant/Israel-tested remote surveillance type with attached missiles in permanent circling patterns around cities. I'm not sure I'm so keen myself. Anyhow like many things the peaceful version is pretty funky. May be augmented by gun-launched low orbit micro satellite systems in the future.

[Lazarus Long]

It sure is the right spot, Its got all the ingredients of the "Right Stuff".

In fact I have one that I am building in my shop. I designed this principle 25 years ago along with the subsystems to make it go orbital.

I am building a proof of type for patent purposes but I am much more interested in flying the Solar Hybrids as I call them. Wait till you see the biomimetic Angel Suits I have designed. I don't just write about this stuff I build it too. But my shop is overwhelmed at the moment by critial mass. I just got done moving my work from two counries and three cities into the same small place and I am in need of a fifth dimensional displacement, a tartus would do just fine. You do know who? Right Dr.?



By the way could you comment on the above proposal for 'Roid Mining Avatar?

My problem is that I am a rogue, I refuse to work for the war machine and they are who has the money, in fact they are virtually the only game in town at the moment. So I prefer they think I am just mad. [ph34r]

At least I ám not the one who has forgotten comlpetely how to laugh though it does get harder in the face of all the collateral damage.

Good Site by the way. Airship are the wave of the future. Would you be interested in working on the prototype of the negetive pressure balloon?

[Lazarus Long]

By the way, I have gone to the Advanced Technologies GroupUK before. They are specialists in transport and telecommunications technology features its designs for Group Airships, Blimps, and Skycats.

www.airship.com
BUt it seems that therte is some trouble getting that link to come up now here in the States, do you have other links to them that go to back door aspects of their portal?

[Lazarus Long]

Here is a report on the Militarization of space that is a must read whether you agree or disagree with its basic premises. It overlaps the Star Wars debate in Politics and Sociology but I feel that because it is becoming a reality of how funding and R&D will trend for at least this Administration that it belongs here under technical aspects of Space Programs.

LL/kxs

http://story.news.ya...the_high_ground

Military Space: Securing the High Ground
Wed Apr 2, 9:35 AM ET Add Science - Space.com to My Yahoo!
By Leonard David
Senior Space Writer, SPACE.com

GRAND FORKS, NORTH DAKOTA – To secure and own the realm of space – the ultimate high ground.

That desire is driving U.S. military strategists to blueprint new and novel approaches to using space, including protecting orbiting assets that provide critical warning, intelligence, communications and navigation to the warfighter on Earth.

There is growing military advantage to utilizing space, along with civilian dependency on a variety of satellites. This being the case, a worry is that enemy nations may well challenge America’s superpower status in space.

Such anxiety was underscored in the 2001 report of the Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management and Organization.

"An attack on elements of U.S. space systems during a crisis or conflict should not be considered an improbable act. If the U.S. is to avoid a ‘Space Pearl Harbor,’ it needs to take seriously the possibility of an attack on U.S. space systems," the Commission warned.


Space surge

Barbara Wilson, Chief Technologist at the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio has been busy of late working with future thinkers to identify long-term challenges in space science and technology – and how best to turn those possibilities into realities.

Speaking at the Space Technology & Applications International Forum (STAIF-2003), held in February in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Wilson outlined a far-ranging stratagem for U.S. military mastery of space.

A key to space dominance works its way from the ground up.

An essential element for the military space tactician is on-demand "space surge," Wilson said. What’s essential is the ability to launch or move space platforms on demand to where they are needed in less than two hours. That means moving into and through space with aircraft-like precision and operations. Having that ability means military space forces could place assets rapidly anywhere they are needed in the near-Earth aerospace domain, Wilson said.


Nervous system

Another potent possibility is linking space, air and ground assets into an intelligent sensor web - an extension of our nervous system. By freely zooming between the "large picture" to narrowly focused views, then the space warfighter can sense and react as a coherent organism, making use of every piece of information, Wilson said.

In order to put fewer warfighters in harm’s way, the battlefield itself would be one where autonomous robots -- on the ground and airborne -- could execute a war. The dawn of the virtual warfighter is not too distant, Wilson speculated.

While it may not be advisable to fool around with Mother Nature, Air Force space thinkers are studying ways to "harness the immense powers of the environment" for military purposes. Putting a yoke on lightning, wind and rain to turning tornadoes on a dime can keep in check, slow down, and even halt an enemy’s operations on the battlefield.


Shields up

Wilson outlined an "aerospace power network", the ability to collect or generate large quantities of energy on orbit. Power beaming to space or in space is vital to military space planners who need power "wherever and whenever" it is needed for true global presence, she said.

The Star Trek cry of "shields up" is not too far-fetched, Wilson said. Making space a sanctuary for military hardware requires that they are invulnerable to attack – perhaps using something best described as "electronic armor". If space vehicles are attacked, there is need to rapidly recover, reconfigure and replenish assets.

Performing autonomous on-orbit servicing of space assets is central to "owning the realm of space," Wilson reported.

Discreet and secret

One U.S. agency has been quietly building a lean and mean military space prowess. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, Virginia is aggressively working on discreet pieces of a much larger space enterprise.

DARPA is not widely known and rarely discussed in the mainstream media -– and they seem to like it that way. In fact, the ability for you to read this article on the Internet comes compliments of DARPA’s pioneering work in computer networking.

DARPA began as a space agency, when the beeping tones of the Soviet Union’s Sputnik 1 in 1957 caught many Americans asleep at the switch. Those transmissions from the first satellite of Earth also signaled to many that the United States’ Cold War adversary had seized "the ultimate high ground."

DARPA is now investing time, talent and money into the space arena.

Unhindered access

In Fiscal Year 2002, the Secretary of Defense directed DARPA to begin an aggressive effort to ensure that the U.S. military retains its pre-eminence in space by maintaining "unhindered U.S. access to space" and "protecting U.S. space assets" from attack.

DARPA is focusing its efforts on five thrusts:

A: Access and Infrastructure: rapid and affordable access to space.

B: Situational Awareness: Knowing what else is in space and what it is doing.

C: Space Mission Protection: Protecting U.S. assets in space from harm.

D: Space Mission Denial: Preventing adversaries from using space to harm the U.S. or its allies.

E: Space-Based Engagement: Sensing, communications, and navigation to support military operations down on Earth.
RASCAL to the rescue

Three out-in-the-open DARPA space programs – several projects surely remain highly classified -- are RASCAL, short for Responsive Access, Small Cargo, Affordable Launch; Orbital Express; and the Space Surveillance Telescope (SST).

RASCAL is designed to place small payloads in orbit on a moment’s notice by launching them from a high-speed, high-altitude aircraft that eliminates a large and expensive first stage booster. In mid-March, DARPA picked Space Launch Corporation of Irvine, California to design, develop and reduce the risk of critical RASCAL technology.

The hope is for RASCAL to offer mission turn-around within 24 hours of payload arrival. Recurring launch costs for the RASCAL would be $750,000 per launch for a 165-pound (75-kilogram) payload tossed into a high Earth orbit. If the program remains on track, the launch system would first hurl two demonstration payloads into space in fiscal year 2006.

Refuel, upgrade, and extend

Another DARPA space endeavor is Orbital Express. This project will demonstrate the feasibility of using automated spacecraft to refuel, upgrade, and extend the life of on-orbit spacecraft. Doing so lowers the cost of doing business in space and will provide radical new capabilities for military spacecraft.

Spacecraft that are highly maneuverable makes them more difficult to track and to evade). Orbital Express permits satellites to be reconfigured to keep pace with changing military missions or as technology advances.

Lastly, DARPA is developing a ground-based, wide-aperture, deep field-of-view optical telescope. This telescope will search for very faint objects in geosynchronous orbit. That makes it perfect to keep an eye on new and unidentified objects that suddenly appear with unknown purpose or intent.

Satellite-guided drones

DARPA is working with the Army, Navy, and Air Force toward a vision of filling the battlespace skies with robotic systems that are networked with piloted systems. According to a recently released DARPA plan, the idea is not simply to replace people with machines, but to team people with robots to create a more capable, agile, and cost-effective force that lowers the risk of U.S. casualties.

The increased use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle’s (UAVs), particular in Afghanistan (news - web sites) and now Iraq (news - web sites), has shown that these satellite-guided drones can conduct a range of duties, from snooping on enemy positions to dropping weapons.

First there was E-mail. Now enter delivery of the E-bomb. Thanks to Global Positioning System (news - web sites) (GPS) satellites, automated aerial craft can sweep over a target, then emit a huge burst of electrical energy into the atmosphere. This pulse of electromagnetic energy acts like a lightning bolt, frying an enemy’s computers, radios, telephones, and critical communications devices.

Military space technologists and leading aerospace firms are jointly developing the Common Aero Vehicle (CAV). An aerodynamically designed re-entry vehicle, CAV would be capable of maneuvering in Earth’s atmosphere for increased range and accuracy. The CAV will be able to hold multiple targets at risk including deeply buried, hard, and mobile targets. Delivery of CAVs could be one task of a future military space plane.

A military space plane could carry several CAVs, each containing multiple submunitions. Payloads under consideration for the CAV include small smart bombs, numbers of Low Cost Autonomous Attack System munitions, as well as a hard and deeply buried target penetrator. Also, a CAV could let loose above enemy territory an unmanned aerial vehicle, equipped with a special "hunter/killer" package.

Ready-to-go rocketry

Expansive military use of space will demand ready-to-go rocketry. A yearlong U.S. Air Force study was started last month tagged the Operationally Responsive Spacelift Analysis of Alternatives.

Numbers of ways to quickly hurl payloads into space are being reviewed by military space planners, from air-launched boosters to multi-staged fully reusable, as well as toss-away or partly reusable spacelifters.

There is no doubt that quick reaction rocketry would yield a major military space advantage.

"If truly low cost, responsive access to space becomes a reality, the military use of space will greatly expand and it will contribute dramatically more than it has thus far to both conflict and avoiding conflict," said James Wertz, President of Microcosm, Inc. in El Segundo, California.

"The use of responsive, low cost space assets has the potential to provide vital information that is quicker, better, and lower cost than more traditional methods," Wertz said. "Unfortunately, space today is neither responsive nor low cost," he said.

Cyber-warfare

Military space assets have become so common place that their use during war has become routine in ways that most did not expect, said Roger Handberg, a military and civilian space expert in the Department of Political Science at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.

"That means their importance becomes even more central which heightens insecurities about their vulnerability to enemy attack," Handberg said. "Therefore, logically, even more effort will go into the issue of space control and counterforce application in order to preserve assets."

Handberg said that actual placement of weapons in space doesn’t seem to be in the cards quite yet, "but the logic drives one in that direction...although the most likely means of attack are electronic."

"Cyber warfare will become an absolute priority for the Strategic Command in order to protect assets," Handberg said.

High on the agenda for military space strategists is a space bomber. But such a craft is not likely to carry a crew.

Handberg said that justifications for human military spaceflight have to be much stronger than they are presently. Modernizing and expanding the more traditional forces now absorbs the Pentagon (news - web sites) budget, he noted.

"There is no mission presently for the military that can’t be accomplished by using robotic vehicles. In fact, humans make the missions more difficult and shorter in duration," Handberg said.

Gaining trust

Be it 21st century military or civilian space progress, lowering the cost of access to space remains paramount – and that is tied to having far greater trust in launchers.

That’s the view of Stephen Johnson, associate professor here in the Space Studies program at the University of North Dakota.

"The reason that we drive cars and fly airplanes without tremendous costs is that the operators trust that the vehicles are going to work the vast majority of the time. And when they are going to break down, they show observable and predictable symptoms," Johnson told SPACE.com.

"With launchers, we have no such experience. We do not trust them and so we test every component of every launcher every flight," Johnson said.

Frequent flights

How do we gain such trust? Only by having frequent flights, Johnson added. "In today's space environment, there is simply not enough demand to achieve this trust. There are not enough payloads to fly into space," he said.

Johnson proposes that the government change its procurement strategy by concentrating on the creation of hundreds of small satellites, each of which must be individually launched, and then purchasing rides from industry for the ride.

"New technologies make this strategy possible, even for things like reconnaissance satellites, which could now be designed as constellations of microsats instead of one huge satellite. Once the government leads, others will follow," Johnson concluded.

Edited by Lazarus Long, 02 April 2003 - 06:44 PM.

[Lazarus Long]

One step closer to Project Capture and more news too good to pass up.
[!] [alien] [ggg] [!]
LL/kxs

Full Text and Links

NASA Needs New Vision for Human Spaceflight, Asteroid Protection, Experts Say
Wed Apr 9, 9:38 AM ET By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer, SPACE.com

A group of 30 scientists has formally urged NASA (news - web sites) to use the International Space Station (news - web sites) (ISS) as part of an expanded program of human and robotic missions to learn more about asteroids and how to deflect one that might one day threaten Earth. The suggested effort would lead to human missions to asteroids, a stepping stone for a crewed trip to Mars.

In a letter to NASA, asteroid experts and other researchers inside and outside the space agency suggest it seek to emerge from the Shuttle Columbia tragedy with a fresh vision for integrating human and robotic space exploration. That vision should incorporate the space station in an effort to investigate asteroid compositions and to understand how innovative propulsion systems might be used to visit them or even to nudge an incoming asteroid off course. Learning how to destroy an asteroid might also be a goal.

The letter was signed by two former astronauts and 28 astronomers and scientists at universities and space industry companies, as well as institutions closely tied to or largely funded by NASA. The space station could be used to test in microgravity conditions machinery that would be used to examine an asteroid, said former astronaut Thomas Jones, who is also a planetary scientist and a consultant for space exploration efforts beyond the space station. Eventually, material brought back from an asteroid might be examined aboard the station, again taking advantage of microgravity.


Robots, then humans

"If you're going to send people to follow up your robots … then the ISS is an essential stepping stone," Jones, one of the signatories, said in a telephone interview.

Asteroid experts around the world have in recent years prodded their governments to spend more on asteroid search programs, deflection schemes and basic research of comets and asteroids. NASA outspends all other agencies and countries in this undertaking, investing about $3.5 million each year in the search. Basic study of asteroid composition is not accounted for separately but includes robotic missions to asteroids, ground-based observations and theoretical studies.

Almost nothing is spent on investigating how to deflect or properly pulverize a threatening space rock. Before scientists can figure out how to do this, more information is needed about the diversity of relatively nearby objects and the contents of their deep interiors.

The letter suggests that various forms of nuclear propulsion -- stated development goals in the agency's 2004 budget -- could be useful in the effort to travel to space rocks. "A cogent new goal is needed for human space flight and significant investments and experimentation are required to develop in-flight power and propulsion systems for future solar system exploration," the letter states. "In addition, a new program needs to be started at NASA to create an adequate scientific basis for a future mitigation system and, simultaneously, to learn how to apply future collision mitigation technologies."

Mitigation is a catchall term applied to the possible destruction or deflection of space rocks as well as possible evacuation plans that would be needed in the event an impact were deemed inevitable and imminent.

The letter was dated April 4 and sent to NASA Space Architect Gary Martin at the agency's headquarters in Washington, D.C. Martin is seen as an official who has a view of the overall scope of missions and programs needed to tackle the perceived problem.

Among the signatories are Donald Yeomans, an asteroid expert at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Apollo 9 astronaut Russell Schweickart and the University of Maryland's Michael A'Hearn, who leads NASA's Deep Impact Mission to slam into a comet in 2005. The letter was drafted primarily by Michael Belton, president of Belton Space Exploration Initiatives in Tucson, AZ.

The researchers recommend the following new goal for NASA:

Show how humans and robots can work together on small objects in near-Earth interplanetary space to:

1) accomplish new fundamental science on planetary objects;

2) aspire to previously unimaginable technical achievements on objects in interplanetary space; and,

3) protect the Earth from the future possibility of a catastrophic collision with a hazardous object from space.

"Since these activities would allow human spaceflight to cross the threshold into interplanetary space, they could also be thought of as a precursor activity to provide the essential technical and medical experience for that more distant, but even more challenging, goal -- a human exploratory mission to Mars," the letter states.

Post-Columbia concerns

The scientists seek to avoid a divisive debate about the utility of the space station as a science outpost as politicians, the public and NASA officials sort out the role of human spaceflight in the post-Columbia era.

"As space scientists, we believe [the divisiveness] can be avoided by adding a new, exciting, and affordable goal for human spaceflight and the use of the space station," they wrote.

The letter was an outgrowth of a new roadmap for attaining "Scientific Requirements for Mitigation of Hazardous Comets and Asteroids," which was developed at a workshop of international researchers directed by NASA's Office of Space Science.

Jones, the former astronaut, said the feeling behind the letter is that the effort to learn how to mitigate potentially threatening asteroids "is being underserved and underfunded given the potential seriousness of that problem."

No asteroid is known to be on a collision course with Earth. But experts agree that an impact, which might level a city or even cause widespread regional damage, is inevitable unless thwarted by technological intervention. Such an impact could occur this year or not for thousands of years. Researchers would likely have months or years of warning, but possibly not enough time to mount the research effort being proposed in the letter.

Meanwhile, a NASA-led search program designed to find large asteroids in the vicinity of Earth -- those that could cause global devastation -- has discovered more than half of the estimated 1,100 such rocks larger than 1 kilometer (0.62 miles). Smaller asteroids, of which there could be hundreds of thousands that might pose local or regional dangers, are not yet part of any coordinated search effort.

Edited by Lazarus Long, 09 April 2003 - 09:36 PM.

[galtsgulch]

Passenger-Carrying Spaceship Makes Desert Debut
By Leonard David
Senior Space Writer
posted: 07:35 pm ET
18 April 2003


story first posted 1 p.m., EDT, April 18, 2003

MOJAVE, Calif. -- What has been billed as the "First Private Manned Space Program" and a new, never-seen spaceship, was unveiled today by noted design wizard Burt Rutan and his company, Scaled Composites, Inc.

Aggressive work on a passenger-carrying sub-orbital craft has been active and hidden from public view for two years.

Labeled as the SpaceShipOne Project, the unveiling took place here about 80 miles north of Los Angeles before a large crowd of journalists and invited guests.

The company plans to use the craft to compete for the X Prize, a $10 million cash prize that will be awarded to the first team that successfully launches three people to an altitude of 62.5 miles (100 kilometers) returns the safely to Earth and then repeat that feat with the same vehicle within two weeks

In a lengthy briefing for the media, Rutan declined to answer a number of questions about technical specifications of the spacecraft, including its weight. SpaceShipOne will be air launched from a twin turbojet research aircraft with an 82-foot wingspan that was developed by Scaled Composites. The first flight of that aircraft, called the White Knight, took place on Aug. 1, 2002.

Rutan said he could not estimate when he could make the first launch attempt. He did say that before going for the X Prize qualifying altitude there will several flight tests that begin with gradual expansion of the flight envelope, captive carry and drop tests.

High-altitude launch

Over the last few years, considerable effort has been secretly underway at the company's desert site. Experts at Scaled Composites are confident they've designed a system that supports suborbital flight - drawing from earlier aircraft design work, particularly the high-altitude Proteus vehicle.

From behind closed hangar doors their stealthy product was rolled out today.

"The event is not about dreams, predictions or mockups," Rutan explained in a pre-debut statement. "We will show actual flight hardware: an aircraft for high-altitude airborne launch, a flight-ready manned spaceship, a new, ground-tested rocket propulsion system and much more. This is not just the development of another research aircraft, but a complete manned space program with all its support elements," he said.

Rutan makes it clear that the unveiling is not a marketing event.

"We are not seeking funding and are not selling anything. We are in the middle of an important research program…to see if manned space access can be done by other than the expensive government programs," Rutan explained.

Rutan said that after today, plans call for his group to go "back into hiding," to complete the flight tests and conduct the space flights.

Point and shoot

While details of the project are being revealed today, in past years some aspects of the direction Rutan and his fellow rocketeers were headed were openly discussed.

Using a derivative of Proteus, space-launch operations are made possible. By changing out aircraft sections and configuring the vehicle to carry large external payloads, both suborbital and orbital booster operations could be carried out.

As example, in October of 2000, the Proteus set several world records for performance in its weight class, one being flight up to 62,786 feet toting a 2,200-pound (1,000-kilogram) payload.

Vehicles launched from Proteus could take advantage of a "point and shoot" capability. This requires the carrier aircraft to be positioned to a select attitude -- including vertical for suborbital sounding rockets and astronaut flights -- before booster separation and ignition.

According to earlier thinking, this approach would allow lofting a three-person single-stage fully reusable spaceship up to 112 miles (180 kilometers), giving those onboard some five minutes of microgravity. In addition, two-stage expendable boosters could be lobbed skyward from the aircraft, placing micro-satellite payloads of up to 80 pounds (36 kilograms) into low Earth orbit.

Initially, operating cost goals for the Proteus system, including booster, were pegged at less than less than $50,000 per seat for astronauts and $500,000 per launch for micro-satellites.

Hybrid rocket propulsion

Scaled Composites has been working with SpaceDev of Poway, California to evaluate use of a hybrid rocket propulsion system for the SpaceShipOne program.

Jim Benson, founding chairman and chief executive of SpaceDev, told SPACE.com that hybrid rocket propulsion is a safe and low-cost capability. Work on an advanced hybrid rocket motor has resulted in successful test firings, he said.

Benson said the company's motor design is thought to be the largest of its type in the world. It uses clean and inexpensive propellants, namely Nitrous Oxide (Laughing Gas) and HTPB (tire rubber).

For sub-orbital manned vehicles, Benson said, hybrid is ideal, not only for reaching the desired altitude, but due to propulsion system safety features. They far outweigh the higher performance of dangerous liquid or solid rocket motors, he said, which, unlike hybrids, can explode.

Hybrid rockets are non-explosive, and their responsiveness, affordability and simplicity of operation make them ideal for high-reliability manned or unmanned, orbital or sub-orbital applications, Benson said.

Eyes on the prize

One clear ambition of Rutan is to snag the X Prize purse of $10 million. The competition is patterned from the more than 100 aviation prizes offered in the early 20th Century. Those purses kick-started today's $300 billion-dollar commercial air transport industry.

The most significant of these prizes was the Orteig Prize, won by Charles Lindbergh for his 1927 flight from New York to Paris.

The goal of the St. Louis, Missouri-based X Prize Foundation is to make space travel frequent and affordable for the general public.

Rutan would not disclose the cost of the project, but said it would exceed the $10 million award for the winner of the X-Prize.
Rutan said the development program began three and half years ago. With a few exceptions, he added, all of the SpaceShip 1 hardware unveiled at the rollout has been tested for use in space. One exception is the rocket's actual flight nozzle.

Based on an earlier statement, Rutan has clearly been keeping his eyes on the prize, not for monetary reasons, but for its power to inspire.

"It would not be an understatement to say that the X Prize has already had an effect on me. I have never been as creative as I have been in the past few months," Rutan explains on the X Prize web site.

"The X Prize competition, more than anything else on this Earth, has the ability to help make private spaceflight and space tourism a reality. By creating the X Prize, the St. Louis leaders have taken an important page from aviation history and created an opportunity for a modern day Orteig to step forward and open the door to a whole new industry," Rutan said.

Bruce Smith reporting from Mojave, Calif., contributed to this report.

[Lazarus Long]

Thanks. [!] I saw this report on Rutan this morning and I am glad he has thrown his hat intot he ring. I think the project has a good shot at winning the X-Prize.

[Lazarus Long]

http://www.nytimes.c...ion/11SUN2.html registration required

The Rickety Ladder to Space
NYTimes Opinion

The fragile underpinnings of human spaceflight were spotlighted last week when an investigating board described how the shuttle Columbia disintegrated, and a Russian space capsule carrying three crew members back from the International Space Station landed 300 miles short of its target. With the American shuttle fleet temporarily grounded and the Russians unsure what caused their Soyuz capsule to plunge off course, the way into space looks increasingly uncertain. Some difficult decisions will have to be made in coming months as to whether the aging shuttle fleet can be resuscitated quickly at a bearable cost or whether some newer means of vaulting into space should be pursued more aggressively.

The investigation of the Columbia accident reached an important milestone when an independent board headed by Harold Gehman, a retired admiral, issued a "working scenario" of how the accident might have happened. Accumulating evidence suggests that a chunk of insulating foam broke off the external fuel tank during ascent and struck the front edge of the left wing. Superheated gas then entered through a small hole and melted the wing from the inside out, ultimately causing the shuttle to spin out of control. The key missing link is the lack of definitive proof that the chunk of foam punched the fatal hole. That leaves the disturbing possibility that investigators may never determine conclusively what caused the accident, making it impossible to be certain that all critical flaws are fixed before the shuttle fleet resumes flying.

Even so, there will be enormous pressure to get the shuttles back into service because they are indispensable for completing construction of the hugely expensive, half-finished space station now circling uselessly overhead, manned by a bare-bones crew of two. The Russian space vehicles — the Soyuz for ferrying people and the Progress for carrying cargo — seem more durable and reliable than the shuttle but cannot carry the large structural elements and sizable crews needed for full use of the station.

Once the investigating board issues its final report, possibly in August or September, it should become clear whether the shuttles can be made safe to fly with some relatively quick, easy fixes. These might include more rigorous inspections, replacement of aging wing protection panels, cameras for viewing damage in space, and methods to keep the foam insulation from flying off. If the fleet can be repaired for a reasonable cost, measured in hundreds of millions of dollars, it clearly should be. The station is too far along, and involves too many international partners with modules ready to launch, to be lightly abandoned. No replacement for the shuttles could possibly be ready for many years.

However, should the investigating board recommend shuttle improvements that would cost many billions and take two or three years to complete, the nation would be faced with a more difficult choice. In that case, it might be wiser to live with a scaled-down space station served by Russia's space vehicles and move much more aggressively to develop a new generation of American spacecraft.

[Lazarus Long]

Cassanova referenced this program and despite its problems as I noted in his thread it should be included as a concept here.
LL/kxs

http://www.cyberg8t....cape/intro.html

SPACE ISLANDS



This summer Congress is drafting powerful tax credit legislation to encourage the private construction of huge, commercially-operated, ring-shaped space stations built from the space shuttle's orange, 747-sized External Tank (ET). Each of these enormous, 1/3-mile round, 3-deck stations will house hundreds of people under cruiseship-like conditions. Since they'll be able to grow their own food, recycle their air and water and have built-in shuttle guidance engines to change orbits, entire stations will be able to fly to the moon or Mars, with smaller landing craft eventually taking passengers down to the surface.

Because 95% of the components for these station have already been built and tested by NASA's shuttle program, the first habitable ET could be up within a year and the first ring could be under construction by 2000. But the near-term commercial possibilities of these stations could begin this summer.

This Space Islands Project TM Home Page explains how these extraordinary structures could benefit the entertainment, computer, medical, automotive, travel and especially the advertising industries, how this futuristic program could become the pivotal issue of the 1996 presidential campaign, how the stations could solve many of the nation's educational, environmental and employment problems, and what you as a private individual can do to make sure this all happens.

http://www.cyberg8t....scape/info.html

[Lazarus Long]

It was a good reminder for me to include this one I have been meaning to for weeks.

http://www.nature.co...7/030527-3.html

NASA aims high with orbital transport system
Hi-tech ropes may replace rocket boosters.
29 May 2003
TONY REICHHARDT


In the swing: rotating tethers could grab satellites and toss them into higher orbits.
© Tethers Unlimited Inc.

If it works, it could revolutionize space transportation. So NASA last week made a small but significant investment in a controversial technique for moving satellites around in orbit using slingshot-like tethers.

The technology works in two stages. First, satellites are boosted into higher orbits using a tether, perhaps 100 km or longer, that is rotating around an orbiting mass. A grapple mechanism at one end of the tether captures the satellite at the low point of the tether's rotation, then flings it into a higher orbit.

The transfer of momentum from the tether to the satellite leaves the tether in a lower orbit. So the second stage of the process uses a power source on the central mass to run an electric current through the tether. Once the current is flowing, the tether experiences a force that results from its movement through Earth's magnetic field. This pushes it back into its original orbit.

NASA doesn't expect to see this kind of tether system demonstrated before 2010, but has awarded $4 million to four teams working on it, as part of a programme designed to foster innovative propulsion concepts. The technology, known as Momentum-Exchange/Electrodynamic-Reboost, will be evaluated over two years using computer simulations and other basic research.

The idea of tether propulsion is an old one but it has yet to prove itself, says Enrico Lorenzini, head of a space-tethers research group at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who has received one of the NASA grants. NASA, the US Department of Defense, student researchers and small companies have all flown tether experiments in space with limited success. A pair of US–Italian tethers that were unfurled from the space shuttle in 1992 and 1996 proved that tethers could produce current when dragged through the Earth's upper atmosphere, but hardware problems cut both experiments short

A NASA-funded tether experiment, known as the Propulsive Small Expendable Deployer System or ProSEDS, was to have been launched this spring. The system would have been deployed from the spent stage of the Delta rocket that launched it. By interacting with the Earth's magnetic field, the tether would have dragged the rocket back and released it into the atmosphere, where it would have burned up.

The experiment was intended to show that tethers can be used to clear space junk without using rocket fuel. But after the accident involving the space shuttle Columbia, NASA rescheduled the launch for next February. The agency was worried that if something went wrong, the space station would have to use precious manoeuvring fuel to avoid a wayward tether.

Lorenzini and other researchers in the field see the mission as a key milestone in winning confidence that tethers are safe and practical. If the experiment is successful, they believe that other applications will follow. Pioneers in the field say that last week's grant also shows a new level of space-agency support for more advanced tether-propulsion ideas

Robert Hoyt of Tethers Unlimited in Lynnwood, Washington, is another of the researchers who has been given a grant by NASA. "It's the first time what I would call real NASA money has been spent on the concept," he says.


© Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2003

[Lazarus Long]

X Prize Rejects Gravity Control Rocket Group
Mon Jun 16, 9:19 AM ET Space.com
By Leonard David
Senior Space Writer, SPACE.com
http://story.news.ya...trolrocketgroup

It was a weighty decision, not taken lightly, but X Prize officials voted last week to bar a group attempting to harness gravity from entering the contest aimed at promoting space tourism.

The X Prize Foundation notified Gravity Control Technologies (GCT) of Budapest, Hungary that its application to become an X Prize team had not been accepted.

GCT was founded in 1999 and is a privately held aerospace research firm delving into superconductivity and Zero Point Energy Field physics in the hopes of achieving one-hundred percent propellant-less propulsion technology for flight.

The X Prize is a $10 million prize to jumpstart the space tourism industry through competition between entrepreneurs and rocket experts around the world. The purse is to be awarded to the first team that privately finances, builds and launches a spaceship able to carry three people to 62.5 miles (100 kilometers) altitude, then returns safely to Earth, repeating the launch with the same ship within two weeks.


Open/closed door decision

GCT is on a quest to prove the existence of an underlying sea of energy at every point in the universe predicted by Quantum physics. This sea of energy is different from the cosmic microwave background and is also referred to as the electromagnetic quantum vacuum, since it is the lowest state of otherwise empty space.

By utilizing a zero point field energy/superconductor-based propulsion system, GCT contends the door to space travel can truly be opened.

But in an X Prize Foundation letter to GCT, the rationale for closing the door on the group's X Prize team status is up-front.

"In light of the novel and untried technology you propose, the Committee has a concern of the credibility of this technology. The X Prize Foundation strongly encourages the use of all technologies for the X Prize competition. However, over the past years, we’ve been besieged by a variety of groups making technological claims that weren’t real," explains Ken Davidian, Director of Operations for the St. Louis, Missouri-based X Prize Foundation, in the letter to GCT.

"We will be happy to reconsider your application when provided with evidence of the feasibility of your proposed technology. We strongly encourage GCT to continue with its research and keep us posted as developments warrant our attention," the letter states.


Gravity of the situation

Asked to comment on the GCT situation, Gregg Maryniak, Executive Director of the X Prize Foundation told SPACE.com:

"Our policy is that we do not discuss pending applications. We only discuss them when they are approved," Maryniak said. "We have not accepted their [GCT's] application…and we haven't foreclosed the possibility of accepting their application," he said.

At present, there are 24 teams in seven countries that are officially registered as X Prize teams -- all vying for the $10 million purse, Maryniak said. "I'm ready to issue that check to somebody that actually does it."

Victor Rozsnyay, GCT's Founder and Chief Executive Officer, told SPACE.com he's not surprised by the X Prize Foundation decision and return of the $1,000 X Prize application fee.

"Since Gravity Control Technologies is working on developing propulsion systems capable of controlling gravity for flight -- a 180 degree departure from what is currently accepted as feasible -- it was likely that our application would not be approved. All other X Prize teams are developing variations of rocket technology, including some ingenious designs," Rozsnyay said.

Rozsnyay said that rocketry has been around for over half a century. That technology is tested and proven, he said. "Gravity control on the other hand does not -- and could not -- even exist according to traditional science," he explained.


Credibility level

One of the primarily goals of GCT research aims at introducing affordable, commercial scale space tourism vessels. A craft dubbed the "Space Tourist" would be capable of non-stop space excursions, carrying over a thousand people on each 8-hour flight.

Preliminary design specifications call for a triple deck craft equipped with "Hull Wide Propulsion Assembly" technology. Seating will be provided for 1004 passengers, 25 flight attendants, and operated by a three-person crew.

Given appropriate funding, GCT envisions flying an initial prototype of the Space Tourist around 2012.

"We feel that the X Prize committee acted in the best interest of the Foundation when rejecting our application," Rozsnyay said. "A certain level of credibility must be met for such a widely visible and respected organization. In the opinion of the X Prize Team Registration Committee, in its current stage of development, gravity control does not meet that credibility level."

Rozsnyay said the X Prize letter offers to review another GCT application - as long as the group shows evidence for the feasibility of their propulsion idea. "We will continue to work toward this goal, and when successful, resubmit our application," he said.

Rozsnyay said he thanks the X Prize for considering GCT's work and wished all the other teams in the race continued success.

"May the best one win the prize," Rozsnyay said.

[Lazarus Long]

Tether Technology: A New Spin on Space Propulsion
Wed Jun 18,10:20 AM ET Science - Space.com
By Leonard David
Senior Space Writer, SPACE.com

In the near future, revolutionary space hardware could put an exciting spin on spaceflight.

NASA is putting money into Momentum-eXchange/Electrodynamic Reboost tether technology -- MXER for short -- an innovative concept that if implemented would station miles and miles of cart-wheeling cable in orbit around the Earth. Then, rotating like a giant sling, the cable would swoop down and pick up spacecraft in low orbits, then hurl them to higher orbits or even lob them onward to other planets.

MXER is part space technology, part celestial square dancing - the ultimate dos-à-dos swing machine. The hope is to harness momentum while dramatically lowering the cost of launching space missions.


Working on the railroad

Last month, NASA picked over a dozen industry, government and academic groups to tackle novel propulsion ideas that could transform exploration and scientific study of the solar system.

Under the auspices of the In-Space Propulsion (ISP) Program, NASA is footing the bill on five research areas: aerocapture; advanced chemical propulsion; solar electric propulsion; solar sail technologies; and space-based tether propulsion. The program is managed in the Office of Space Sciences at NASA Headquarters.

"The MXER Tether System will serve as a fully-reusable transportation hub in orbit. It's like a 'space railroad'," said Robert Hoyt, President and Chief Scientist for Tethers Unlimited, Inc./ScienceOps. TUI was awarded funds to look into a MXER tether system based on deployment of a 62-mile (100-kilometer) long cable in orbit around the Earth.

A tether pick-up service for Earth-launched payloads offers cost-cutting pluses.

By eliminating the need to launch an upper-stage rocket along with each satellite, Hoyt said that the MXER Tether System means satellites can be boosted into space atop smaller, less expensive rockets. Propulsion costs for space missions would drop by a factor of ten or more, he said.


Failsafe survival

TUI is based in Lynnwood, Washington and is actively working on tether concepts for NASA, the U.S. Department of Defense (news - web sites), and commercial customers. TUI's ScienceOps Division provides scientific computing services, including development, validation, and optimization of scientific software and algorithms.

Hoyt said that over the next two years the group's strong focus is on developing a high-strength tether suitable for MXER applications. In addition, special TetherSim computer code will be upgraded to enable in-depth simulation of the rendezvous and capture problems of handling payloads with a MXER tether.

TUI is collaborating with the Air Force Research Laboratory's Materials Laboratory to further earlier progress on a patented "Hoytether". That work centers on creating a failsafe, multi-line tether structure. All the better to survive many years of exposure to the space environment and any nasty run in with debris.

"It's sort-of like a one-hundred kilometer long fish-net stocking in space, only it's incredibly strong, and it can withstand many years of bombardment by orbital debris," Hoyt said.


Hard work ahead

Along with Tethers Unlimited, NASA has also awarded MXER tether technology contracts to the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as well as Lockheed Martin in Denver, Colorado and Tennessee Technological University (TTU) in Cookeville, Tennessee.

Work on MXER is rapidly moving ahead. For example, TTU faculty and students are readying a tether momentum exchange experiment - but it won't leave Earth. A scaled model is being devised to exhibit how to capture and release a payload with a rotating tether in a microgravity environment.

The tether research will occur inside a KC-135 aircraft under the guidance of NASA through the Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program.

How soon MXER could be up and running in space is another matter.

"Realistically, I believe it will take about 7-10 years of hard work to get a MXER flight demonstration into orbit," Hoyt told SPACE.com. Under the new In-Space Propulsion contracts, research teams will be busy over the next couple of years using simulations and ground tests to show that the technical challenges of MXER tethers can be solved, he said.

"If those efforts are successful, I expect that it would take about 5 years to get a flight program off the ground," Hoyt senses.


High risk, high payoff

MXER tethers are considered by NASA to be "high risk with high payoff," said Les Johnson, Manager, In-Space Propulsion Technology Projects at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Efforts at this time are geared to examining the technologies that will make or break MXER for use as an in-space transportation system, Johnson told SPACE.com.

Johnson said that MXER contract awards are focused on rendezvous and capture techniques, stability of the tether, as well as strength and survivability of the cable as it speeds through space.

"We are years away from a system-level space demonstration, though not as far as many might naively think. If these key issues can be worked, as we believe they can, MXER tethers might be a viable candidate for use in space by the middle of the next decade," Johnson said.

Sketchy past

Hoyt said that the beauty of the MXER tether is in its reusability. Once the first system is up, fully functional and swinging away, that early hardware can be used to recoup the initial investment on developing the technology.

No doubt, given a somewhat sketchy past, a MXER tether needs a solid shakeout in space.

NASA has had a couple of high-profile setbacks with tether experiments over the years. But Hoyt counters that at least 17 tether trials have been conducted on-orbit so far. The majority of them have been highly successful, he said.

"Even the ones that didn't go perfectly taught us a great deal. The failures that did happen were more the result of human error and our imperfect understanding of complex technologies rather than any fundamental problem with the technology," Hoyt said. Furthermore, look at how many rockets the early astronauts watched blow up before they rode them into the sky, he added.

Building trust

To help build space community trust in tethers, Hoyt said that several low-cost flight experiments could be flown by late 2004 or early 2005.

The first such confidence-builder is the "Multi-Application Survivable Tether", or MAST experiment.

This NASA-funded work couples Tethers Unlimited with students and faculty at Stanford University. The project entails deployment of three tiny spacecraft along a lengthy tether. The MAST experiment would show off numerous key technologies, such as tether designs that can survive in space and momentum-exchange propulsion.

"We hope to build upon that experience to fly a very cool mission a couple of years later that will demonstrate electrodynamic tether orbit-raising, and then graduate to a full MXER tether flight demonstration at the end of the decade," Hoyt said.

Space tethers have such a huge potential payoff for lowering the cost of space missions, Hoyt believes. "It's inevitable that people will keep trying them until they get it right."

[Lazarus Long]

http://news.bbc.co.u...ech/3053319.stm
ION PROPULSION

- Uses electrical power provided by solar panels to accelerate a propellant to high velocity
- Smart 1 uses the propellant xenon, a colourless gas
- Electrons trapped inside a chamber by a magnetic field collide with xenon gas creating xenon ions and more electrons
- The resulting ion beam pushes the space craft forward
- The thrust produced is the same as the pressure exerted by a sheet of paper held in the palm of a hand
- Over long periods, it can make a space craft travel faster

Green light for Moon launch
By Helen Briggs
BBC News Online science reporter

Europe's first mission to the Moon has been given the green light for launch on 28 August.

We'll do great science
Prof Manuel Grande

The move was rubber stamped on Wednesday at a flight review at the European Space Agency's research centre in the Netherlands (Estec).

Smart 1 is currently in storage there but will be flown to the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana in the next few days.

"This is the go-ahead to pack the whole thing in a crate and send it to the launch site," says Manuel Grande, the leading British scientist on the project.

"All we have to do now is go to Kourou and light the blue touch paper."

Launch delay

The lunar probe should have left Earth in March but its take-off was put back following a failed rocket launch last December.

The incident led to a shake-up of the Ariane 5 rocket programme and several Esa space missions were put on hold.

Smart 1 will be the first high-profile Ariane 5 launch since then. It will mark the beginning of a voyage to explore the cratered world we see every day from Earth.

The probe will map the composition of the Moon in an attempt to solve the mystery of how it was born.

It will also pave the way for travelling faster and further into deep space.

Smart 1 is using an innovative form of propulsion - an ion thruster - that will take it on a 15-month journey to the Moon.

The technology has been used only once before on an interplanetary mission by the US space agency (Nasa).

"This is Europe's first solar-powered space craft - it uses solar power instead of rocket fuel to get to the Moon," says Professor Grande, of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire.

Faster, cheaper

Much of the technology used on Smart 1 will find its way on to Europe's Bepi-Colombo mission to Mercury which should launch at the end of this decade.

Once in orbit around the Earth's natural satellite, the craft will produce an X-ray map in an attempt to deduce precisely how the Moon was made.

One idea is that a Mars-sized object smashed into the juvenile Earth, flinging up debris which later merged to form the Moon.

If this actually happened, the Moon should contain less iron than the Earth, compared to lighter elements such as magnesium and aluminium.

By measuring the absolute amounts of these chemical elements comprehensively for the first time, Smart 1 should provide the answer.

[Lazarus Long]

Long over due and long heralded as a better way here comes a practical test.

Also on a separate but related issue; GO RUTAN!!!! [!]

Scaled Composites "Space Ship One" entry into the X-prize has passed its first flight test.
http://story.news.ya...aceshiponeflies


Riding the Sun: Maiden Flight Looms for Solar Sail Satellite
Wed Aug 6,11:30 AM ET Science - Space.com
By Tariq Malik
Staff Writer, SPACE.com
http://story.news.ya...arsailsatellite

Before the year's end, a team of civilians united by a passion for space travel will launch a spacecraft into orbit to test a new space-traveling technology.

The mission, which will use a solar sail to carry a spacecraft ever farther from Earth, is the first use of a propulsion technology that may pave the way for interstellar flights.

"Our job is just to prove this technology," project director Louis Friedman told SPACE.com. "If our craft goes just 10 kilometers on the solar sail, then it's a success." Friedman is also executive director of the Pasadena-based Planetary Society.

The spacecraft, called Cosmos 1, is the product of three years of cooperation between the Planetary Society, the American media company Cosmos Studios and Russia's Babakin Space Center in Moscow. A launch is expected sometime this fall, despite the failed test of a suborbital version two years ago.

"I frankly don't know if this will work," said Friedman. "But our spacecraft is really coming together."

Setting sail with Cosmos 1

Cosmos 1 is being built at the Babakin Space Center, where engineers are incorporating the small, three-foot (one-meter) wide spacecraft into the nosecone of a Volna rocket originally developed as a submarine-launched intercontinental ballistic missile.

Ann Druyan, Cosmos 1 program director and CEO of Cosmos Studios, said the conversion of a weapon of mass destruction into a tool of science is an added benefit of the solar sail mission.

"For us, the solar sail represents a baby step into the cosmic community," she told SPACE.com. "This is an opportunity to stretch the human horizon."

The Planetary Society, founded by Druyan's late-husband Carl Sagan, Friedman and planetary scientist Bruce Murray, consists of about 100,000 members, many of whom helped contributed donations - ranging from the $100,000s to just $5 - to raise the $4 million necessary for Cosmos 1.

The Cosmos 1 rocket will be loaded into the Russian nuclear submarine, transported out to the Barents Sea, where and launched into a 497-mile (800-kilometer) Earth orbit. After a few days of spacecraft checkout time, the eight-bladed solar sail will open up like a giant space flower.

Each of the sail's petals is 47 feet (about 14 meters) long, composed of thin mylar and rolled into a space the size of a coffee can before launch. Cosmos 1 ground controllers plan to open the sail, four blades at a time, by inflating hollow tubes that run along the sides each blade with nitrogen gas. Each blade can also be rotated to present either its full face or just an edge toward the Sun, allowing researchers to control the amount of force striking the sail.

"So when you're in Earth orbit, it's kind of like you're tacking in a harbor," said Jim Cantrell, a consultant for the Cosmos 1 mission. A mechanical engineer by training, Cantrell added that if Cosmos 1 always presented a full face toward the Sun, it would never gain any positive velocity.

For example, the kick Cosmos 1 would get as it orbited away from the Sun, with photons pushing the sail from behind, would be cancelled out as it rounded Earth and photons began to strike the front of sail.

"It's an added complexity when you're in travelling in orbit," said Cantrell. "In open space it wouldn't be a problem."

Riding the Sun

The propelling force behind solar sails stems from photons of light, not the solar wind of charged particles blowing outward from the Sun.

"The sail is basically a giant mirror," said Friedman. The pressure of sunlight bouncing off the sail adds momentum and pushes the spacecraft.

The process is slow and may not be the right choice for jet setting around the Solar System. Cosmos 1, for example, would take a year and a half to reach the Moon, whereas a chemical rocket has done the job in a few days.

"The amount of force on a solar sail is about the equivalent of the weight of a postage stamp," said Hoppy Price, a senior engineer at NASA (news - web sites)'s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. "But it continues, day after day, month after month and year after year. A chemical rocket lasts only a few minutes."

In a space trip out to about 50 astronomical units (AU), which is 50 times the distance between the Earth and the Sun, a solar sail craft could reach speeds of about 100 kilometers a second. Lasers could also be launched ahead of time along the spacecraft's flight path to provide light boosts to the sail. Chemical rockets, on other hand, results in speeds of up to 15 to 20 kilometers per second.

Price told SPACE.com that NASA researchers are also busy developing their own solar sail methods, which should undergo deployment tests in 2005 and a possible flight test in 2007. Meanwhile researchers with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) have conducted ground tests of their own sail material.

The Cosmos 1 mission, however, will be the first solar sail to be unfurled in space, allowing researchers to study the effectiveness of the deployment process and ability to control the sail. The mission should also demonstrate the sail's ability to withstand micrometeorite impacts and other space hazards. Cosmos 1 scientists plan to make their findings public in the hopes of boosting solar sail research.

While the mylar material of Cosmos 1's sail isn't the best choice for an interplanetary mission, it should work fine in a proof of concept flight. "Mylar is a polyester," Price said. "It's lightweight, but it doesn't take high temperatures well, or radiation."

NASA missions for solar sails are expected to be long-duration flights requiring hardy material that can withstand intense heat as well as high radiation doses, he added.

Second time's a charm

The upcoming launch won't be the first for Cosmos 1 planners, but it will be the project's first complete flight.

In July 2001, project managers launched a suborbital version of Cosmos 1 that never opened its two-bladed sail. "It launched okay, went up just fine and we were all cheering," said Kent Gibson, Cosmos Studios president. But the spacecraft failed to separate from its third stage, but continued on its ballistic flight path toward the Kamchatka peninsula. It has not been recovered.

"We've had some tough times, and we'll certainly have more tough times," said Friedman. But Cosmos project designers are confident in their complete, eight-bladed solar sail.

And even if Cosmos 1 fails, Druyan added, mission scientists will still learn more from the launch than if they hadn't tried at all.

Cosmos 1 researchers said they hope to launch their spacecraft by October, although there will be blackout period when the submarine they plan to use will be unavailable due to the schedule of Russian naval exercises.

[David]

Hey Laz, I always enjoy reading your stuff, it has the right combination of facts, humor and entertainment to keep one interested. However, I looked on the Introductions page, and you aint there! It would be nice to know a little bit about you, your proffession, qualifications, you know, all the groovy stuff. I'm just curious......

David, the curiose one.

[Lazarus Long]

Point taken, I am as fiercely private as my namesake but I guess the time has come to balance that against the responsibility of being one of the biggest blabbermouths here. So I will go back and introduce myself again.

Actually I have interspersed some bio through a number of posts but that was a very long time ago now.

[JonesGuy]

Like I've said before, my main interest is in cryobiology. However, the dreamer in me would like to see man eventually reach the stars. Through the magic of following links in forum messages I found this site.

www.permanent.com

It's actually pretty good, presentation wise. I'm not too solid on the science, but I've certainly used it as a resource.

Mr. Prado's idea is to harvest asteroids for resources. His opinion is that, people will follow the money. If there's money to be made in space, the technology will develop.

Well, I can't do much about getting people into space. All my money and brains will be going into advancing biological knowledge. But, one of you might know someone who knows someone ... you know?

[Lazarus Long]

I have been examining and designing a uniquely different colonization approach that I have been using as the basis of a series of short stories and novels that I am crafting.

The approach is multifaceted but all based on conventional resources. One use that I don't think has been contemplated much is using converted asteroids to function as "Deep Space Colony Shuttles" with the capacity to deliver large quantities of personnel and material to Mars and the Jovian Moons and return with processed ore, water and other "products".

Why should they just be captured when some could be developed into the springboards for real off world development. I have outlined some of this in novel form and as general discussion. Comets for example also should be captured for their water because that is a crucial element for developing living off world colonies.

I tried the site and they are interesting but the site appears somewhat dormant for over a year and the feedback page didn't function well.

[Lazarus Long]

Since you reminded me about space programs here is todays news. The problem is the promses sound exactly the same as teh ones we heasrd "thirty years ago".

http://news.bbc.co.u...ech/3161695.stm

Tuesday, 19 August, 2003, 08:39 GMT 09:39 UK
Moon colony 'within 20 years'
By Helen Briggs
BBC News Online science reporter

Humans could be living on the Moon within 20 years, says a leading lunar scientist.

Daughter of Earth? The Moon was probably once part of our planet
According to Bernard Foing of the European Space Agency, the technology will soon exist to set up an outpost for visiting astronauts. However, political will is needed to inspire the public to support the initiative.

"We believe that technologically it's possible," the project scientist on Europe's first Moon mission, Smart-1, told BBC News Online.

"But it will depend in the end on the political will to go and establish a human base for preparing for colonisation of the Moon or to be used as a refuge for the human species."

Ion drive

The unmanned Smart-1 craft, which is due to be launched in early September, is flying to the Moon to demonstrate that Europe has the technology for future deep space science missions.

Its main form of propulsion is an ion engine powered by solar-electrical means rather than conventional chemical fuel. When it arrives at the Moon, after a 15-month voyage, it will search for water-ice in craters and determine the abundance of minerals on the surface. In the process, it will look for landing sites for future lunar exploration such as a sample return mission planned by the US space agency (Nasa) for 2009.

"The Moon could be used as a test bed for future human missions," says Sarah Dunkin, a leading British scientist on the Smart-1 project.

"To actually live on another world would be quite a test of technology as well as human physiology. We don't know what the long-term effects of living in a low gravity environment would be."

Any long term plans to set up a lunar base are bound to rely on international co-operation. They could include India and China, two nations which have recently pledged to send astronauts back to the Moon. However, under current policy, the UK would not be included because it does not support human space exploration.

[JonesGuy]

Oh, it's not really dormant ... it just kinda seems to be. They had a snafu with their forum, and lost all their old messages. I get the impression there were a bunch of participants, but because ...

NOBODY ACTUALLY EVER DOES ANYTHING (sorry, I'm a little tired of peoples' inactivity, active people excluded of course)

... nothing happened. I actually saw how the forum got erased. It was pretty sad, because there was quite a bit of discussion (albiet, rather slow).

But, it's a resource

PS (on a general note): another "small effort leads to results" is to actually click on the links that are provided. Your browser will then bring up the news page. See, news services are based on "hits". The more hits a story gets, the more money the news service gets. Popular topics get more articles. If "space" and "health" articles seem popular, then more articles will be written. The more that are written, the more the concept will be leaked into "the common man" and maybe trigger some political sympathy. My news service of choice is MSNBC (only because I like their website format). Every day, I leap through the Space section and bring up articles that seem to promote space exploration. It costs me little, but maybe the "butterfly effect" will help. Baby steps (as Kevin says), baby steps.

[Lazarus Long]

PS (on a general note): another "small effort leads to results" is to actually click on the links that are provided. Your browser will then bring up the news page.

I did this as a matter of fact and I did find many of the links interesting though I get news delivered directly to my personal pages it was nice to see the compendium of articles describing viable colony proposals.

Add this link to the long list of Space Watchers Favorites; "Mars Links U".
http://www.coseti.or...marslinks_u.htm