- Launch sends Rocket Lab to lead in global space competition
- Six satellites carried into low orbit from sheep farm launchCheap, quick access to space has officially arrived — and in some serious style.On a late Sunday afternoon in New Zealand, Rocket Lab successfully launched its third rocket. Dozens of employees gathered at the company’s headquarters in Auckland clad in Rocket Lab’s black-and-red colors and let out a series of primordial screams as the rocket took off, flew into space and dropped its satellite payload into orbit. Continue reading… “Rocket launch in New Zealand brings quick, cheap space access”
Is Colonizing Mars the most important project in human history?
The Red Planet is a freezing, faraway, uninhabitable desert. But protecting the human species from the end of life on Earth could save trillions of lives.
The Earth and Mars are a bit like fraternal twins that slowly grew apart. Four billion years ago, both planets were warm, sheathed by protective atmospheres, and carved with rivers and pools of liquid water. But today, Mars is an irradiated desert enveloped by a thick miasma of carbon dioxide, while its twin is a sensationally fertile orb and, for all we know, the universe’s cosmic jackpot of life.
These divergent stories make scientists immensely curious: Can we discover evidence of a fecund past in the Martian ground? We’re closer than ever to finding out. Ellen Stofan, the former chief scientist of nasa and current head of the National Air and Space Museum, has predicted that we will find evidence of past life on Mars in as little as a decade.
Continue reading… “Is Colonizing Mars the most important project in human history?”
Jeff Bezos predicts we’ll have 1 trillion humans in the solar system, and Blue Origin wants to help get us there
Blue Origin’s aim is to lower the cost of access to space, Jeff Bezos said during a surprise appearance at Wired’s 25th anniversary conference.
Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos provides the keynote address at the Air Force Association’s Annual Air, Space & Cyber Conference in Oxen Hill, MD, on September 19, 2018.
Blue Origin founder and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos predicts we’ll have 1 trillion humans in the solar system one day — and he laid out Monday how the rocket company plans to help get there.
“I won’t be alive to see the fulfillment of that long-term mission,” Bezos said at the Wired 25th anniversary summit in San Francisco. “We are starting to bump up against the absolute true fact that Earth is finite.”
Blue Origin’s aim is to lower the cost of access to space, Bezos said. He will spend a “little more” than $1 billion next year to support Blue Origin, he said.
This crazy ambitious timeline shows when and how Elon Musk and Space X plan to colonize Mars
Elon Musk is hell-bent on colonizing Mars.
That’s the spirit with which he founded SpaceX, his rocket company, in 2002. Musk was frustrated that NASA wasn’t doing more to get people to the red planet – and concerned a backup plan for humanity wasn’t being developed (for when Earth becomes an uninhabitable wasteland).
Since then, SpaceX has developed several impressive aerospace systems: Falcon 1, SpaceX’s first orbital rocket; Grasshopper, a small self-landing test rocket; Falcon 9, a reusable orbital-class launcher; Dragona, a spaceship for cargo and soon NASA astronauts; and Falcon Heavy, a super-heavy-lift launcher.
But Mars is a cold, unforgiving, and almost airless rock located some 140 million miles (225 million kilometres) from the Sun.
Japan just became the first country to deploy rovers on an asteroid
The Hayabusa 2 mission is visiting an asteroid 200 million miles from Earth to collect samples. The mission profile involves a lot of robots, bullets, and explosives.
In 2014, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched the Hayabusa 2 spacecraft on a four year journey to Ryugu, an asteroid nearly 200 million miles from Earth. The spacecraft has been in orbit around the asteroid since June and early Friday morning dispatched two rovers to the asteroid’s surface.
Continue reading… “Japan just became the first country to deploy rovers on an asteroid”
Elon Musk is building a spaceship that’s so ambitious that some experts are calling it ‘science fiction.’ Here’s what SpaceX and its engineers are up against.
Elon Musk plans to blast a tourist around the moon in a ship made by his rocket company, SpaceX.
The private lunar mission is meant to demonstrate a new two-part launch system called Big Falcon Rocket, which is designed to eventually bring humans to Mars.
Engineers are said to be building a prototype of the BFR’s spaceship primarily out of carbon-fiber composites.
Exactly how SpaceX is building that spaceship isn’t publicly known, but industry experts have some guesses.
A revolutionary new space launch idea: Introducing The Pythagoras Sling
The Pythagoras Sling uses a lengthy graphene string pulled via two hoops suspended from simple parachutes to rapidly accelerate a projectile into orbit. Graphene string will likely become widely available over the next two decades. If it works as expected, the Pythagoras Sling launch system could greatly reduce the cost of getting into space compared to any current rocket-based system and could help accelerate space development. Total cost of the fully reusable launch system could be as low as $1M for small and medium sized satellites so cost per kg could be two orders of magnitude cheaper than today. Apart for human spacecraft or more delicate satellites that need low g-forces, the system needs little or no fuel to achieve orbit, only ground electricity, so would be safer and more environmentally friendly as well as cheaper than current rocket-based approaches.
Continue reading… “A revolutionary new space launch idea: Introducing The Pythagoras Sling”
Can we get into space without big rockets?
Since humans began putting satellites into orbit in the 1950s, we’ve relied upon big, powerful rockets to escape Earth’s gravity and get into space. But big rockets have a major downside, in that they make space launches expensive. Case in point: NASA’s Space Launch System heavy lift rocket, which is scheduled for its maiden flight in December 2019, will cost an estimated $1 billion per launch, according to a 2017 report by NASA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG). Launch costs for SpaceX’s far more economical Falcon Heavy, which launched successfully from Kennedy Space Center in February 2018, still range between $90 million and $150 million for a fully expendable, maxed-out version, according to CNBC.
For decades, however, visionaries have looked for ways to get into space without relying — at least not primarily — upon rocket power.
Continue reading… “Can we get into space without big rockets?”
SpaceX: “Mr Steven” giant net tested at high speeds in stunning video
SpaceX’s component-catching ship has got an upgrade. Mr Steven, the vessel designed to catch the fairing from the Falcon 9 as it returns to Earth after launch, has been demonstrating its larger net around the port of Los Angeles. New images on Tuesday and a video earlier this week show the ship conducting sea trials at speeds of up to 20 knots, or 20 mph.
Images captured by Teslarati and video captured by YouTuber “Drone Dronester” show the ship conducting tests between July 12 and 15, with the crew and recovery technicians sending the ship out after a multi-week installation of the new net. The ship is what’s known as a “fast supply vessel,” meaning it’s ranked to move 400 metric tons of cargo at regular speeds of 23 knots, or 27 mph. The ship itself weighs almost 200,000 pounds and is around 200 feet long. The crew focused on sharp corners at high speed less than half an hour after setting sail, testing the stability with a net that’s four times bigger than its predecessor with an area of 0.9 acres.
Continue reading… “SpaceX: “Mr Steven” giant net tested at high speeds in stunning video”
The race to get tourists to suborbital space is heating up
SPACE: FINAL FRONTIER or ultimate tourist destination? Possibly both—provided you have the cash.
Already, you can buy tickets for (as-yet-unscheduled) flights aboard SpaceShipTwo, the crew vehicle developed by Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic. And at a NewSpace conference in Seattle last month, Blue Origin—helmed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos—announced that it has plans to sell tickets to wannabe space tourists as early as next year.
Both companies have solid plans to cash in on human space travel (and then, of course, there’s SpaceX, which will focus first on shuttling astronauts to and from the space station). Branson has said that Virgin Galactic is in a race with itself, not other companies, to achieve safe human space flight. But with Blue Origin aiming to start selling tickets next year, both companies could be competing for business sooner rather than later.
Continue reading… “The race to get tourists to suborbital space is heating up”
Jeff Bezos’Blue Origin will start selling tickets to space next year
Blue Origin, the space-tourism startup owned by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, says it will start selling passenger tickets for trips into space in 2019.
The timeline came from Blue Origin senior vice president Rob Meyerson, whose comments at an Amazon Web Services event were reported by Space News. Meyerson did not say how much the tickets would cost when they go on sale.
The company also plans to conduct crewed test flights of its New Shepard rocket “soon” — meaning Bezos’s company could, at least by one metric, get a jump on rival SpaceX.
Continue reading… “Jeff Bezos’Blue Origin will start selling tickets to space next year”
NASA is learning the best way to grow food in space
Can gardens help astronauts go farther?
“Our plants aren’t looking too good,” astronaut Scott Kelly tweeted from the International Space Station on December 27, 2015. He was right: The attached picture showed four baby zinnias bathed in magenta light. Three of the four leafy stalks were discolored and curling in on themselves. The station’s garden was struggling to recover from a mold problem. It’s an issue familiar to terrestrial gardeners. And while on Earth, the problem means a trip to the local nursery for replacements, in space you can’t do that.
Continue reading… “NASA is learning the best way to grow food in space”
