CCP Spotlight on Development Via NASA NASA’s International Space Station Program (ISS) Program is gearing up for a review early this month about the docking system spacecraft could use for future missions to the space station, including the companies working with the agency’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP). Plans call for the NASA Docking System (NDS) design to be made available to all U.S.-based crew-carrying spacecraft docking with the space station […]
AUTHOR
Doug Messier
This week on The Space Show with David Livingston…. 1. Monday, April 8, 2013, 2-3:30 PM PST (5-6:30 PM EST, 4-5:30 PM CST): We welcome DR. PHILIP METZGER of NASA KSC. Dr. Metzger will be discussing starting industry in space as he leads NASA’s lab that develops space mining robotics and resource utilization technologies. You can read the abstract of his paper on the subject at https://ascelibrary.org/doi/abs/10.1061/(ASCE)AS.1943-5525.0000236. 2. Tuesday, April […]
Astrobotic’s Polaris lunar rover. (Credit: Astrobotic Technology)
NASA has selected Astrobotic Technology for a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I award worth up to $125,000 for the development of technology that will allow lunar prospecting rovers to search for ice and other volatiles in the extreme conditions of polar craters.
“Current planetary rover planning technologies are not designed for these environments and have avoided them altogether, operating only in mid-latitudes,” according to a summary of the project, which focuses on allowing the rovers to operate with a degree of autonomy.
Cylon resurrection is not nearly as much fun as it sounds. And, in any event, humanity is still quite far away from being able to back up itself.
Lately, there’s been a meme going around about the need to backup humanity by establishing new colonies in space and on other worlds. Although this has a lot of appeal in light of the recent meteor explosion over Russia, the nuclear saber rattling by North Korea, and the myriad of other ways we could destroy ourselves, the concept is deeply flawed. One problem is technical, the others political.
Humanity is not a hard drive. In computing, you can make exact copies of whatever data are on you computer and put them elsewhere in case the hard drive fails. Humans don’t work that way. Until we can develop a Cylon-like ability to download our consciousnesses into identical bodies, backing up the human race won’t work very well. Or, at the very least, it will have limited utility.
The Sweet Smell of Success I can still recall the exact words of the Unilever executives when we first met at the London offices of their global creative company BBH almost a year ago: “Make no mistake about it, if we’re going to do this together, there will be nobody in those parts of the world where they have television, that will not have heard of SXC”. And boy, was […]
ORBITEC Vision rocket engine. (Credit: ORBITEC)
NASA has selected Orbital Technologies Corporation (ORBITEC) of Madison, Wisc., for four Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I awards.
Two of the awards, worth up to $125,000 apiece, focus on technologies designed to improve in-space propulsion. The other two awards, worth up to $200,000 apiece, will help develop technologies for use aboard the International Space Station.
The four proposals selected include:
- Integrated Composite Nozzle Extension — In-Space Propulsion Systems
- Acoustic Resonance Reaction Control Thruster (ARCTIC) — In-Space Propulsion Systems
- Rapid Multiplex Microbial Detector — International Space Station Utilization
- Zero G Mass Measurement Device (ZGMMD) — International Space Station Utilization.
Ventions LLC of San Francisco has been selected for a NASA Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) worth up to $200,000 to develop an engine for a new launch vehicle capable of delivering nano- and micro-satellites into low Earth orbit.
The goal is to produce a new low-cost rocket capable of launching these satellites into orbit as primary payloads. Currently, these tiny satellites are launched as secondary payloads on much larger vehicles, limiting the number that can be placed in space and requiring much longer wait times.
SpaceShipTwo’s rocket motor kicks up a little dust during a hot fire on March 30, 2013. (Credit: Virgin Galactic)
The rumor mill in Mojave has it that we will be seeing the first powered test flight of Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo by the end of this month. One specific date that has been rumored is April 22, which would have marked the 69th birthday of the late businessman and adventurer Steve Fossett.
Antares is rolled out to its launch pad in the pre-dawn hours. (Credit: NASA)
Orbital Sciences rolls out its new Antares launch vehicle in anticipation of its maiden flight, which is scheduled for April 17 to 19.
UPDATE: A press release from Orbital:
Early this morning, Orbital Sciences Corporation (NYSE: ORB) rolled out the first fully integrated Antares rocket from its assembly building at NASAs Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) in eastern Virginia in preparation for its inaugural flight that is scheduled for April 17 at approximately 5:00 p.m. (EDT).
Illustration of an asteroid retrieval spacecraft in the process of capturing a 7-m, 500-ton asteroid. (Image Credit: Rick Sternbach / KISS)
By Douglas Messier
Parabolic Arc Managing Editor
Media reports are indicating that President Barack Obama’s budget will propose that NASA spend $105 million next year to begin a program to capture an asteroid and bring it back to a Lagrangian point near Earth where astronauts would be able to visit it using the Orion spacecraft beginning in 2021.