X Prize’s Peter Diamandis and SpaceX’s Elon Musk discuss space tourism, commercialization and Mars.
Cargo spaceship meets the catcher in the sky
NewScientist
If the first launch of Japan’s new heavy-lifting rocket passes without incident this month, the residents of the International Space Station will soon be taking delivery of food, water, some spanking new laptops, a robot arm and a couple of Earth-observing experiments. Business as usual, you might think, except that the way this particular cargo gets to its destination is subtly different to its predecessors.
Bright idea or sci-fi?
The Star
It sounds like something out of a sci-fi novel. Solar power plants orbiting the planet, each the size of 700 Canadian football fields, beaming clean energy down to Earth 24 hours a day so we can run our factories, charge our gadgets and keep our home appliances humming.
But for the scientists and engineers attending the International Symposium on Solar Energy from Space, a three-day conference this week in Toronto, there’s nothing fictional about it. In their view, building massive space-based solar power systems represents, over the long term, one of the most effective ways of tackling the double menace of global warming and peak oil.
Expert sees space tourists, businesses, hotels in area
Delmarvanow
Rick Tumlinson envisions humans launched into space from Wallops Island in the not-too-distant future.
Tumlinson is the man who signed up Dennis Tito, the world’s first space tourist, who spent over a week in orbit in 2001 and reportedly paid up to $20 million for the trip on a Russian rocket.
Flagsuit transforms NASA gloves into pressure suit business
MHT: The Journal of New England Technology
In 2007, Peter Homer developed a pair of gloves for a NASA contest — and won $200,000 for his effort. He has since launched Flagsuit LLC, a Southwest Harbor, Maine-based startup developing pressure suits for astronauts that also has application as a medical device.
International Space Station
Can vaccine breakthrough help cure NASA’s ills?
Space Flight Now
A vaccine to protect people against Salmonella, a deadly bacteria that often contaminates food processing operations, is headed for human testing following commercial development in zero gravity on the space shuttle and International Space Station.
NASA Ames Visitor’s Center Mountain View, Cailf.
Unless the U.S. government can come up with an extra $3 billion annually to spend on NASA, the image of Altair on the lunar surface will remain an artist's conception.
In looking at the Augustine Commission’s report, the key findings are at the very end:
- Human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit is not viable under the FY 2010 budget guideline.
- Meaningful human exploration is possible under a less constrained budget, ramping to approximately $3 billion per year above the FY 2010 guidance in total resources.
- Funding at the increased level would allow either an exploration program to explore Moon First or one that follows a Flexible Path of exploration. Either could produce results in a reasonable time frame.
SpaceX's Falcon 1 rocket
SPACEX PRESS RELEASE
Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and Astrium announce a contract for a SpaceX Falcon 1e to launch an Earth observation satellite designed by Astrium or its recently acquired subsidiary Surrey Satellite Technology (SSTL).
The Augustine Commission’s Summary Report is now available.
Summary of Key Findings
The Committee summarizes its key findings below. Additional findings are included in the body of the report.
JAXA PRESS RELEASE
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has decided to hire another astronaut candidate who is on the list of the back-up candidate. The candidate is Norishige Kanai, M.D.
Kanai will join Yui Kimiya and Takuya Onishi, who had been hired in April this year, in the training together. Therefore, the three will train for two years in the astronaut candidate training course and will be certified as astronaut upon completion of the training.
Will Ares live? Or be terminated? The Augustine Commission’s report will have a lot to say about that. It will be sent to the White House today.