Rocket Science for the Rest of Us

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Walt's Watching the Space Race will continue December 27 and 30th.  In the meantime, I thought you'd enjoy some retro Christmas cards made in Russia during the Space Race Era.  You can find more here. 

The early Pioneer program, whether attempting to put up a lunar orbiter, solar orbiter, or lunar flyby, was a reasonably consistent string of disasters, marred only by its single success. As one English friend put it, “I think it just shows the sheer bloody-mindedness of you Yanks.” (I prefer to think of it as being “firm and steadfast of purpose.”) The “Pioneer” name would later be resurrected for a wildly successful series of interplanetary probes that would launch between 1965 and 1978.

When it came to colonizing the New World, the governments of Europe had a big role in support, but when it came down to it, it was the commercial businesses and private citizens that ensures a permanent presence.  If we're going to have the same kind of success in space, we need to have the same kind of participation, but it seems many people have forgotten that.  Thus, let me present three reasons I see why we cannot leave space exploration to the government:

#1  The government has other priorities.  Let's face it, the government has gone waaay beyond what the founding fathers intended, and we have a huge deficit and a lot of conflict as a result.    What's the government's job in space, then?  I'd suggest it's pretty much the same as it is on Earth--protecting the rights and freedoms of its citizens.  Step one is establishing a presence in space--a permanent, sustainable presence.  Just like with colonization of the New World, that doesn't mean only government employees or government-funded exhibitions, however.  It does mean being ready to support even defend its citizens who go fare beyond the Earth.  (Sorry, Space is for Peace supporters--I want space to be peaceful, too, but not every nation is going to support that, and if they challenge our presence, we'll need government presence to defend us.  And that can be diplomatic as well as military.)  However, government role is support of space endeavors and the rights of its citizens in space--not taking on the whole manned space program itself.

#2  Governments are more swayed or stymied by public opinion.  Sure, commercial companies need to have a good image, but frankly, as long as they are pleasing their customers, the rest of the world can take their business elsewhere.  Governments, unless they're totalitarian and can do what they please, thank you very much, can be swayed by opinions like this one:  End Space Exploration Now.  And in fact, our government HAS been swayed by opinions like this, which is why the space program has had such rocky fits and starts.  Unless space exploration can directly "feed the hungry children" or cut unemployment by several percentages (I don't think they'd be satisfied with anything less) or solve the deficit or whatever the political crisis du jour is, it will not get a gung-ho kind of support we got when first putting a man on the Moon.  Without gung-ho support that crosses political parties, we're not going to get a long-lasting coherent government space program.

#3  Governments aren't big on innovation.  Yes, I know it's one of NASAs missions to promote new technology, but as a counter, may I present a space shuttle that had to be decommissioned because they couldn't find parts, a bomber fleet in which today's pilots are literally flying their grandfathers' airplanes, a fighter program that might be canceled because Congress won't fund it...  Or let's talk cost overruns because of the way the contracting system works in the government.   Or maybe how a new administration can kill a program media res and replace it with his own great idea...which may or may not survive the next election.

The fact is, the government isn't interested in profit or product the way a commercial industry has to be.  So when it comes to technological programs, they are looking as much at will it make jobs and promote themselves or their party as will it create a product that will get the job done--and then how to create the next one to do it cheaper, easier or more safely.  I'm not trying to put down NASA or government contractors like Lockheed Martin, but they are at the mercy of the political system, which really is more conducive to road repair than rocket building.

Government has a role in space exploration.  It can do some things commercial industries, especially fledgling ones, can't.  However, if we want a real, sustained presence outside the atmosphere, it will take more than the government.

Hooray!  SpaceX has a launch date for the Dragon  Feb 7!  The NASA Press release is here, but here are the highlights:

*  The Dragon will first do a fly-by at about 2 miles away from the station in order to check its sensors and other systems needed for a safe docking.
*  When the Dragon docks, the ISS will use its robotic arm to assist.  (It doesn't say why that is so.  I had thought from the videos that it would dock on its own.)
*  SpaceX is, of course, the first commercial craft to dock with the International Space Station, so this is history in the making.
*  SpaceX has completed 36 of 40 of the milestones disctated to it under the COTS agreement, for which it will receive a total of 288 million dollars.  (To compare, the space shuttle Endeavor cost 1.7 billion dollars.)

Of course, the next step for the Dragon and SpaceX is to finish the modifications that make it manned-approved.  SpaceX has suggested that the Dragon is manned capable.  However, there are certain modifications, like an escape system, that NASA is requiring.  (Not a bad idea considering the Shuttle disasters.)

Forbes Magazine says that in light of the problems that the Russians have been having with their program lately, getting commercial flights going.  Considering the latest report on how they were working on Phobos-Grunt, including soldering it while full of highly explosive rocket fuel, I'm even more glad to see us making progress toward domestic services. I had been seeing reports that the Dragon's maiden flight might get pushed off as far as April.  I wonder, did the Phobos-Grunt failure (and subsequent revelations) perhaps nudge someone in the bureaucracy to accelerate the schedule? 

According to NASA, SpaceX has really put their nose to the grindstone to fix problems NASA pointed out:  "SpaceX has made incredible progress over the last several months preparing Dragon for its mission to the space station," said William Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate. There's oddly nothing on SpaceX's website about this yet.  I wonder if their web guru is on vacation, or if the small company had just been putting its efforts elsewhere.  Whichever, congrats to SpaceX and Happy Flynig!

While the IGY was wildly successful with such discoveries as the Van Allen Belt, the corpuscular nature of radiation from the solar wind, and the non-space related evidence for the theory of Continental Drift provided by the discovery of the mid-ocean ridges, one question still stumped the American people--the why of an 18 month year eluded just about everyone not actually involved. Even the characters of Walt Kelly's popular comic strip, “Pogo,” seemed equally bemused, as Howland Owl and Churchy the turtle wonder if it meant the imposition of the ten-and-a-half-day week. I think my father summed up the feelings of many when, having just watched several heavy-hitters of science trying to explain it to “Today Show” host Dave Garroway, he quietly remarked, “I'm not totally sure some of those folks are from this planet.”

For more information:  http://www.nationalacademies.org/history/igy/

Today, I present to you some fun space links to see what's happening right now:

See what the International Space Station Sees:  Live link at http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/iss_ustream.html

Hey!  I can see my house from here!

Want to see the moon as well?  Check out this site:  http://www.fourmilab.ch/earthview/

Remember the Voyager probes?  We're still discovering stuff from them!  They're in the heliosheath (the outer part of the heliosphere where solar wind is slowed by pressure from interstellar gasses--about 80 times the distance from the sun that the earth is!  You can exactly how far they've traveled here:  http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/where/index.html

Can you hear me now?

Explore Mars!  This site optimistically assumes we will be at Mars by 2019. (Gasp, choke, and heave a sigh.)  However, it's given a great interactive look at what a Martian colony (by us, not little green men) would look like based on current science and engineering (as of 2009, but it's still awesome):  http://www.exploremarsnow.org/

No, John Carter is not your tour guide.

If touring about isn't for you, you can play at space engineering here:  http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/classroom/jason/a1_yd.html

Sadly, it didn't let me design this. Sigh.

Serioiusly!  NASA has opened up applications for astronauts.  Get the details here:  http://astronauts.nasa.gov/.

You have until January 27, so brush up those resume's now.

There's no guarantee that as an astronaut, you'll actually go into space.  Instead, you get to go around doing PR work for NASA, along with lots of ground-based work.  In fact, do you know what they call astronauts who never get off the Earth?
Incidentally, people will be applying via the military as well.  Rob's already getting the forms from the manpower folks. He wants to be the next Fabian in Space.

Not a penguin.

Me, I'm fine on terra firma.

by Walt Staples

Curiosity is on its way, with the mission of analyzing rocks along the Gale crater for signs of organic (carbon-based) compounds. It’s unique in that it’s a change from NASA’s usual Mars missions, which usually sought water or evidence of water.

We’re starting to find lots of evidence of water on other celestial bodies, from Mars to the moons of Jupiter to far-off planets. This is promising if we ever want to reach beyond our own planet, much less the solar system. But just what’s the big deal about water?

Most obviously, we need water in order to survive—to drink, to cook, to wash. It’s both a universal solvent and a catalyst for a lot of chemical reactions, so it’s important for experiments as well as daily living. Water is also useful as rocket fuel—seriously!
Quote

Driven by a need to use a fuel that can be produced on water-bearing planets and pressured by environmentalists, researchers are working to develop a new type of rocket fuel, made of a frozen mixture of water and “nanoscale aluminum” powder with the thickness of 80 nanometers, that could be easily manufactured on the moon, Mars or any other planet having water on it.

The aluminum powder, aka ALICE, can be used to launch the rockets into their orbit, fuel long-distance space missions and generate hydrogen for the fuel cells, says Steven Son, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University, who is working with NASA, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and Pennsylvania State University to develop ALICE, used earlier this year to launch a 9-foot-tall rocket.

“ALICE might one day replace some liquid or solid propellants, and, when perfected, might have a higher performance than conventional propellants,” said Timothee Pourpoint, a research assistant professor in the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics. It’s also extremely safe while frozen because it is difficult to accidentally ignite,” he added.

Unfortunately, it’s also bulky and heavy—important factors when thinking about launching things into space. Right now, we do everything we can to reduce the amount of water we carry off the Earth into space—from the space shuttle’s creation of water as a byproduct of making electricity to recycling all water on the International Space Station—right down to the urine and sweat in the air. Even the moisture in your fellow astronaut’s bad breath gets captured, collected and cleansed for you to drink later. (All good arguments for finding other sources, if you ask me.)


A much longer term concern is removing water from this planet to service life on other planets.I think Douglas Adams summed up the problem best in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

After a while, the style settles down a bit, and it starts telling you things you actually need to know, like the fact that the fabulously beautiful planet of Bethselamin is now so worried about the cumulative erosion caused by over 10 billion visiting tourists a year that any net imbalance between the amount you eat and the amount you excrete whilst on the planet is surgically removed from your body weight when you leave. So every time you go to the lavatory there, it's vitally important to get a receipt.

The Earth's atmosphere keeps water locked into a continuous system—remember fourth grade science? Other planets with less atmosphere don’t have that. In fact, there’s a theory that part of the reason Mars no longer has surface water is that it all sublimated into space. So we have to be careful, even with the water we find, to make sure we don’t lose it. (Which goes back to the recycling. Don’t think about where the water’s been.)

Naturally, water is also one of the primary indicators of biological life, and while we might not find little green men, we are more likely to find little green microbes and other small life that can live in extreme conditions. (Called Extremophile life, and you can find it on earth, too—even in nuclear waste!) This could be a boon, if we can find and cultivate native food sources, or a bomb, if we come across something dangerous to humans. (Remember the Andromeda Strain? The trailer is hokey, but I saw it again last week while doing research. Still a freaky movie worth watching, even fourty years later!)


So finding indigenous sources of water is another vital step toward establishing a manned presence off the earth.  That we have found it is a promising sign.  Now, we need to figure out how to best to harvest, protect and use it.

In the meantime, I'm thirsty.  Time to get a drink.

As I'm sure most of you know, NASA had a successful launch of the Mars Rover, Curiosity, and it is on its way to the Red Planet.  It's a bit of bright news in light of the troubled launch of the Russian probe, Phobos-Grunt, which was supposed to check out one of the moons.  (They were able to briefly contact the probe from an Australia station last week, though, and have hopes of getting it moving again.  Incidentally, Russia is now thinking that maybe they could hitch a ride with us or Europe next time.  Let's hope we'd give them good luck and not get their bad.)

Curiosity will land on August 5 or 6, 2012, and have a Martian-year-long mission, about 98 Earth weeks.  It's main purpose is the look for life or the possibility of life--either indigenous or supporting human colonization.  It has 10 instruments to study the land and the atmosphere, with four objectives (taken from the NASA press package):

The mission has four primary science objectives to meet NASA’s overall habitability assessment goal:

• Assess the biological potential of at least one target environment by determining the nature and inventory of organic carbon compounds, searching for the chemical building blocks of life and identifying features that may record the actions of biologically
relevant processes.

• Characterize the geology of the rover’s field site at all appropriate spatial scales by investigating the chemical, isotopic and mineralogical composition of surface and near-surface materials and interpreting the processes that have formed rocks and soils.

• Investigate planetary processes of relevance to past habitability (including the role of water) by assessing the long timescale atmospheric evolution and determining the present state, distribution and cycling of water and carbon dioxide.

• Characterize the broad spectrum of surface radiation, including galactic cosmic radiation, solar proton events and secondary neutrons.

Curiosity will not be looking for life itself.  It's not equipped to detect biological processes or to analyze (or recognize) fossils.  (Though I imagine that if it were to photograph some, there'll be some people screaming about it at NASA/JPL!)

Curiosity will be tooling around the Gale Crater, which was chosen after looking at over 30 different sites and years of debate.  This video gives the reasons why they selected it.

Congratulations, NASA and good luck, Curiosity!

For more reading:  http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/press_kits/MSLLaunch.pdf
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/fact_sheets/mars-science-laboratory.pdf

This is tagged as Vanguard 2.  Couldn't find Vanguard 1 photo. --Karina

Human exploration has sometimes had lofty goals: spreading the Word of God, forging a better life for oneself or others.  But when it comes down to it, the biggest drive for getting on a ship and sailing into the great unknown, where there may be dragons, is the thought that there might be some treasure along with the dragons.

Me indica el dinero!

Most of us living in the New World today are here because the gamble paid off.  The Spanish found gold.  The English, tobacco and other crops.  There was money in the New World, not easy to get, but enough to make it worth the time, hassle and expense.  Governments, then individuals, followed the money and were rewarded for their efforts.

That's been one of the reasons the exploration and colonization of space has been so frustratingly slow.  We're not finding the money.

The thrilling space race of the '50s and '60s was in many ways fueled by fear and national pride, as Walt notes in his Saturday blog about Sputnik.  However, once, we achieved our goal of making it to the moon first, and finding nothing of great economic value, American interest turned back to itself.  Imagine if Columbus had only come back with a few interesting rocks and the promise of nothing more.

We've gotten a lot of terrific spin off technologies from the space program--from drink powder to water purification, airplane de-icing to artificial limbs.  However, these are the result of our quest for space, not what we've found there.  In Colonial terms, it's like justifying New World exploration because we're building better ships.  Looked this way, it's probably not a big surprise the NASA can't seem to hold onto a coherent plan of action for manned space for more than a few years.  The government wants them to encourage technologies and provide jobs as much (or more) than actually getting us outside the atmosphere.

Parliament has canceled construction on the Elenor-class ships, which critics say, is not only fraught with cost overruns, but  uses technology from not later than the 1630s...

 Here's the conundrum, though: unlike colonization on earth, even if we find some gold/tobacco equivalent in space, it could end up costing more to bring home that we'd get in profit.  So what do we do?

* Seek alternate means of financing our efforts. One of those is Space Tourism.  Virgin Galactic is already tapping into this market and has 400 customers signed up and waiting for their suborbital rides on Spaceship Two--$200,000 for a week of training and FOUR MINUTES at zero gravity.  Even the government has made use of tourists: in 2001, millionaire Dennis Tito paid $20 million to be the first space tourist on the International Space Station, and there have been several others since.  Much as the OWS people hate it, the people in the world with gobs of cash to burn on "frivolous" pursuits are often the ones that support programs that further mankind.

* Make space cheaper.  That's one of the driving reasons for encouraging private space industry, IMHO.  Companies that are not government dependent need to learn to do things effectively and inexpensively in order to stay afloat.  SpaceX, for example, says their Falcon Heavy will launch packages 30 times cheaper than the Delta IV, and an independent study by NASA and the Air Force said that if NASA were to have built the Falcon 9, it would have cost three times what it cost SpaceX.

*  Find the Money! Asteroid mining.  Space real estate. Biomedical engineering might be a source...but not if we get rid of privatized medicine, alas.  Even spinoffs, but they can't be the main focus.  Columbus discovered the New World on three little ships, not the top of the line.  The Space Shuttle ran for 30 years, until NASA was finding spare parts on ebay.  Perhaps if we hadn't kept scrapping the programs for its replacement in order to update the technology, we might not be depending on Soyuz right now.

Sometimes, people romanticize the exploration of space as the next colonization move for man.  However, if it's going to work, we have to follow a lesson of the past and follow the money.

The new budget for NASA has significantly cut commercial space...and our chance to spend American dollars on American space industries and get our-ownselves into space.

No, I'm not frustrated. Why do you ask?

According to reports, Congress is still funding $5 billion to its new heavy launch space program, with the goal of Mars, but has cut the commercial flight program to get us to the ISS to $406 million, less than half of what was asked.  That's going to put a serious crimp in the progress of companies like SpaceX and Orbital, who are well into developing craft to get us to the ISS and beyond.  In fact, one report says this will push these programs back years.  Isn't that the equivalent of denying a man with injured legs crutches he needs to walk because you want to buy him expensive running shoes?

You don't want these!

Trust me: These are going to do you good later.

While I personally feel they will eventually need to get away from depending on government funding, the simple fact of the matter is, the ISS is the only game in town...unless we want to market to the Chinese, and I think they're feeling pretty happy about doing it themselves.  (Their re-entry capsule landed safely Nov 17 after a successful docking.)

The re-entry capsule of Shenzhou-. Congrats to the Chinese.  祝贺

But looking beyond that, let's consider what it will cost the US to keep sending astronauts to the ISS on the Soyuz:  just $47 million a seat.   Remember SpaceX believes they can do it for $20 million.  Even if they have cost overruns, they'll be cheaper.  But not if we don't get there.

So, the question is, will NASA delay programs in hopes of getting better budgets later, cut out some of the competition and concentrate on the companies that are closest to success, or do a "peanut-butter spread" cut and make all the programs suffer.  Or maybe Congress will make a bill to give special funding later.  I've not found anything yet, so stay tuned.

On Monday, the Chinese announced another successful docking maneuvers with their own space station, which they launched in October.  They have two spacecraft in orbit right now, and are working on docking them.  They had their first successful dock on Nov 2 and another on Nov. 14.  This is important since they not only need to perfect docking in order to supply and man the station (both ships are unmanned right now), but also to build the station itself.

This is big news, and a potential game changer in the space race.  After all, the ISS was the combined effort of five nations and is only supposed to operate until 2015, although it's been extended to 2020. That doesn't mean the station is falling part, necessarily, but it is getting older; meanwhile, the Chinese have a brand-spanking new one, built on the lessons we've been learning.  Also, while we have to work with upwards of fifteen other nations who all have a stake in what goes on, China is going solo.  That's gotta cut the bureaucracy between wanting to do something and actually doing it.  Of course, that also means that if something fails, they are on their own.

We have a fairly strict policy about sharing technology with China, but there's a move within the Obama Administration to loosen that up.   On the one side are those who say we can get some useful scientific information, including orbital debris telemetry, according to NASA.  (Of course, while having China's help in might be nice, we have agreements with Australia for tracking, but nothing is build yet.  On the third hand, while other nations have tracking radars, we don't use their data, either, even that of our allies.  Why, then, trust China's?)  On the other side is the reminder that China is a Communist nation with a history of human rights violations.  Do we really want to do anything to help that nation continue if we don't have to?

What would happen if we did increase our technological exchange--will we support their station, purposefully or inadvertently?  Will we coax them into a second ISS?  (Must say, sounds like they are pretty proud of going on their own.)

Regardless, low earth orbit looks to get a little more interesting.  It's a big orbit out there, but imagine if their efforts start a new space race?  Will our astronauts need to start learning Chinese?

If so, I'd like to recommend episodes of Firefly as a start. And here's a handy Mandarin phrase guide from the Firefly Wiki.

Reader Walt Staples likes to send me articles he gets on his phone.  Got to LOVE having well-read friends!  Anyway, when he sent this one about Russia sending a probe to Phobos, I decided to write on it, especially since I discovered Sunday night that I actually have people in Russia reading this blog.  (Also Croatia, Brazil, the Netherlands, Canada, the UK, Germany, France and Italy.  So...приветствовать, dobrodošli, Welkom, Welcome, begrüßen, accueillir, and Benvenuto, and I hope those are all correct because I'm using an online translator.)

Big Dreams:  A Zenit rocket with Phobos-Grunt awaits its historic liftoff shortly after its rollout to the launch pad Sunday. photo from RussianSpaceWeb.com.

Well, I promised an update on the Russian Phobos-Grunt Mars probe.  Looks like it might be a few weeks before the final verdict is in, so here's the scoop so far.

Russia has had a real love-hate relationship with Mars.  It seems to be mostly hate on Mars part, and frankly, the way it "eats" Russian missions, I'd have to wonder about any love on Russia's part.  All of the probes Russia has sent to Mars have failed, from blowing up on the pad to mysteriously disappearing miles form the Red Planet's surface. 
Here's a list of interplanetary flights from all (?) countries up to 2007, which I found on the Russian Space Web.


Then, well, the end of the Soviet Union put a bit of a kink in any deep space plans.  Whent eh Societ Union fell apart politically and economically, it split the Soviet Space industry infrastructure (which, according to this 1995 analysis by James Olberg) was never all that together anyway.  (Launch facilities are in Kazakistan, which was very nice when it was part of the USSR.)  Financially, the nation(s) have been on thin ice for a long time.  Governments had to well, FORM, then negotiate their cooperation with Russia, and much as we love deep space, I think they've had other priorities.  Ironically, Russian Space Web also blames "brain drain" and a downsizing of the nation's scientific institutions. 

Granted, that was 20 years ago.  (The USSR fell apart in 1991.)  But think of how technology has changed in that time.  Perhaps this is what they meant by "brain drain"?  At any rate, it has posed challenges:

"This is really a very difficult project, if not the most difficult interplanetary one to date," lead scientist Alexander Zakharov said from behind a mess of papers and a brain-sized model of pockmarked Phobos at Moscow's Space Research Institute.

"We haven't had a successful interplanetary expedition for over 15 years. In that time, the people, the technology, everything has changed. It's all new for us, in many ways we are working from scratch," he said.

Quotes from http://tvnz.co.nz/world-news/russia-back-in-space-race-mars-moon-lander-4509919.  Russia back in the 'Space Race' with Mars Moon Lander.

This is a big mission for Russia, but the Mars "curse" struck again.  Phobos-Grunt (Grunt means "earth, btw) launched successfully and made it into transfer orbit, but the main engines didn't fire to send it on its way to Mars.

from Russian Space Web's page on the  Phobos-Grunt mission

They are hoping the problem is one of software, but even that poses problems.  According to the Russian Space Web, the ground control and tracking antennas are not up to the task of talking to the satellite when it's in such a low, fast orbit.  (I'm not sure why they can't ask other tracking stations to send the commands for them.  There's also apparently some problems with the right people getting the information they need to point the antennas in the correct direction, if you can believe that.

Bozhe moi! Just give me coordinates!

Anyway, they haven't given up hope yet.  MSNBC said Monday evening:

"We estimate that the Phobos-Grunt will fly until January, and to make it perform its mission we still have time until the beginning of December," Ria Novosti quoted Vladimir Popovkin, head of Russia's Federal Space Agency (known as Roscosmos), as saying.

If the launch and landing go well, the Phobos-Grunt mission will do a few things:

• Carry China's first interplanetary spacecraft, the Yinghou-1 which will orbit Mars to study its atmosphere, ionosphere and magnetic field, as well as the surface of the Red Planet.
• Carry vials of bacteria suited for extreme environments to see how they react to space.  This is the first years-long study of microbes in space, according to Reuters.
• Collect soil samples from Phobos to study here on Earth.

Dust from Phobos, they say, will hold clues to the genesis of the solar system's planets and help clarify Mars' enduring mysteries, including whether it is or ever was suited for life, according to the TVNZ article.

Now I must admit, I'm not sure how that works.  Perhaps they are looking for signs of water or something that would support organic life?  But I wonder--did the dust from the moon give indications of what life on Earth would be like--or that Earth would have life at all?  If not, then why would Phobos be different? A quick Google search revealed nothing to explain this thought.  Any ideas?

Anyway, I'm rooting for them--and they did have one victory this week.  The Soyuz craft with the next ISS crew successfully launched from Kazakistan last night.  Good luck and Godspeed!



BTW, I'm asking Walt to join me in posting on this blog.  I can't keep up with his e-mails!