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interplanetarypodcast · 7 years

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Podcast 25

Happy Birthday

Quote sent in by Mary Valiakas

”You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, “Look at that, you son of a bitch.”

— Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 astronaut

An exclusive look at Jeff Bezos’s plan to set up Amazon-like delivery for ‘future human settlement’ of the moon

“Blue Origin has been circulating a seven-page white paper to NASA leadership and President Trump's transition team about the company's interest in developing a lunar spacecraft with a lander that would touch down near a crater at the south pole where there is water and nearly continuous sunlight for solar energy.”

The memo urges the space agency to back an Amazon-like shipment service for the moon that would deliver gear for experiments, cargo and habitats by mid-2020, helping to enable “future human settlement” of the moon. (Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, owns The Washington Post.)

“It is time for America to return to the Moon — this time to stay,” Bezos said in response to emailed questions from The Post. “A permanently inhabited lunar settlement is a difficult and worthy objective. I sense a lot of people are excited about this.”

So SpaceX, NASA (although they insist that it’s just a feasibility study) but also;

ULA

Tory Bruno, the ULA chief executive. ��This administration, near as we can tell, feels a sense of urgency to go out and make things happen, and to have high-profile demonstrations that are along the road map to accomplish these broad goals. … There is an opportunity to begin building that infrastructure right now — within the next four years.”

Bigelow Aerospace

Robert Bigelow, maker of BEAM, said his company could create a depot that could orbit the moon by 2020, housing supplies and medical facilities, as well as humans.. “Mars is premature at this time. The moon is not,” he said. “We have the technology. We have the ability, and the potential for a terrific business case.”

Bezos added "I think that if you go to the moon first, and make the moon your home, then you can get to Mars more easily."

Water is vital not just for human survival, but also because hydrogen and oxygen in water could be transformed into rocket fuel. The moon, then, is seen as a massive gas station in space.

“Blue Moon is all about cost-effective delivery of mass to the surface of the Moon,” Bezos wrote. “Any credible first lunar settlement will require that capability.”

NASA’s Kepler provides new data on TRAPPIST-1

Last month, researchers announced that TRAPPIST-1, an ultra-cool dwarf star approximately 40 light-years from Earth, hosts seven planets that are probably rocky, including three in the habitable zone. The discovery was made by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope in combination with ground-based telescopes. TRAPPIST-1 has also been under observation by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope since December 2016. On Wednesday, March 8, NASA released new data from Kepler’s investigations of the dwarf star to the scientific community.

The Kepler spacecraft, now operating as the K2 mission, collected data on the star’s small changes in brightness due to transiting planets during the period between December 15, 2016, and March 4, 2017. These new observations are expected to help scientists to refine previous measurements of six of the planets, pin down the orbital period and mass of TRAPPIST-h – the seventh and farthest planet – and learn more about the host star’s magnetic activity.

Observations of TRAPPIST-1 weren’t always planned for Campaign 12. The initial coordinates of the patch of sky to be observed during Campaign 12 were set during October 2015 before the planets orbiting TRAPPIST-1 were known to exist.

When the discovery of three of TRAPPIST-1’s planets was announced in May 2016, teams at NASA and Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. reworked the calculations and rewrote and tested commands that would be programmed into the spacecraft’s operating system to make a slight pointing adjustment for Campaign 12. By October 2016, Kepler was ready to observe TRAPPIST-1.

“We were lucky that the K2 mission was able to observe TRAPPIST-1,” said Michael Haas, science office director for the Kepler and K2 missions at Ames. “The observing field for Campaign 12 was set when the discovery of the first planets orbiting TRAPPIST-1 was announced, and the science community had already submitted proposals for specific targets of interest in that field. The unexpected opportunity to further study the TRAPPIST-1 system was quickly recognised and the agility of the K2 team and science community prevailed once again.”

Could fast radio bursts be powering alien probes?

The search for extraterrestrial intelligence has looked for many different signs of alien life, from radio broadcasts to laser flashes, without success. However, newly published research suggests that mysterious phenomena called fast radio bursts could be evidence of advanced alien technology. Specifically, these bursts might be leakage from planet-sized transmitters powering interstellar probes in distant galaxies.

"Fast radio bursts are exceedingly bright given their short duration and origin at great distances, and we haven't identified a possible natural source with any confidence," said theorist Avi Loeb of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. "An artificial origin is worth contemplating and checking."

As the name implies, fast radio bursts are millisecond-long flashes of radio emission. First discovered in 2007, fewer than two dozen have been detected by gigantic radio telescopes like the Parkes Observatory in Australia or the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. They are inferred to originate from distant galaxies, billions of light-years away.

Loeb and his co-author Manasvi Lingam (Harvard University) examined the feasibility of creating a radio transmitter strong enough for it to be detectable across such immense distances. They found that, if the transmitter were solar powered, the sunlight falling on an area of a planet twice the size of the Earth would be enough to generate the needed energy. Such a vast construction project is well beyond our technology, but within the realm of possibility according to the laws of physics.

Lingam and Loeb also considered whether such a transmitter would be viable from an engineering perspective, or whether the tremendous energies involved would melt any underlying structure. Again, they found that a water-cooled device twice the size of Earth could withstand the heat.

They then asked, why build such an instrument in the first place? They argue that the most plausible use of such power is driving interstellar light sails. The amount of power involved would be sufficient to push a payload of a million tons, or about 20 times the largest cruise ships on Earth.

"That's big enough to carry living passengers across interstellar or even intergalactic distances," added Lingam.

To power a light sail, the transmitter would need to focus a beam on it continuously. Observers on Earth would see a brief flash because the sail and its host planet, star and galaxy are all moving relative to us. As a result, the beam sweeps across the sky and only points in our direction for a moment. Repeated appearances of the beam, which were observed but cannot be explained by cataclysmic astrophysical events, might provide important clues about its artificial origin.

Loeb admits that this work is speculative. When asked whether he really believes that any fast radio bursts are due to aliens, he replied, "Science isn't a matter of belief, it's a matter of evidence. Deciding what's likely ahead of time limits the possibilities. It's worth putting ideas out there and letting the data be the judge."

The paper reporting this work has been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letters and is available online.

NASA Seeks Information on Commercial Mars Payload Services

The agency issued a request for information (RFI) Feb. 27 seeking information on private ventures planning to send spacecraft to Mars in 2020 and beyond that would be willing to accommodate NASA instruments and other payloads on their missions. Responses are due March 28.

“Furthering NASA’s human deep space exploration goals will require a significant amount of scientific research, and opportunities to collect data on Mars have been rare,” NASA said in a statement announcing the RFI. “Evolving capabilities in the private sector have opened the possibility for NASA to take advantage of commercial opportunities to land scientific payloads on the surface of the Red Planet.”

Organizations planning such missions should provide “details of your planned mission, including payload accommodation locations on your transportation vehicle, estimated mass and volume that may be available, and your schedule for the Mars mission,” the RFI states. “Provide information to aid in understanding the probability of success for your planned Mars mission.”

FRIED EGG? FLYING SAUCER? NOPE. JUST COOL NEW CLOSEUPS OF SATURN’S MOON PAN

Closeup photos taken by the Cassini probe of the the planet’s second-innermost moon, Pan, on March 7 reveal remarkable new details

side view of Pan better shows its thin and wavy ridge likely built up through the accumulation of particles grabbed from Saturn’s rings. The ridge is between 0.9 and 2.5 miles (1-4 km)

There’s good reason to believe that Pan was once part of a larger satellite that broke up near Saturn long ago. Much of the material flattened out to form Saturn’s rings while large shards like Pan and another ravioli lookalike, Atlas, orbited within or near the rings, sweeping up ring particles about their middles. Tellingly, the ridges are about as thick as the vertical distances each satellite travels in its orbit about the planet.

Today, Pan orbits within and clears the narrow Encke Gap in Saturn’s outer A-ring of debris. It also helps create and shape the narrow ringlets that appear in the gap It’s lookalike cousin Atlas orbits just outside the A-ring.

Neil Armstrong Biopic 'First Man' Gets 2018 Release Date

"First Man," the upcoming biographical film on the life of Neil Armstrong, has a release date: Oct. 12, 2018, according to Deadline.

Based on the book "First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong" by James Hansen, "First Man" will chronicle the life and career of the first person to walk on the moon. Actor Ryan Gosling ("La La Land") will portray Armstrong in the Universal film, which will be directed by Damien Chazelle ("La La Land"). Hansen's book is being adapted for screen by Oscar winner Josh Singer ("Spotlight")

talking of movies

Spuds on Mars: Potatoes Can Sprout in Red Planet Environment, Study Suggests

Potatoes may be able to feed real-life Red Planet explorers, just as they sustained fictional astronaut Mark Watney in the book and movie "The Martian," an ongoing experiment suggests.

On Feb. 14, 2016, researchers at the International Potato Center in Peru (known as CIP, its Spanish acronym) planted a potato tuber in a cubesat-size container that mimics Martian temperatures and atmospheric conditions. The potato sprouted, as you can see in this time-lapse video.

CIP scientists characterized these preliminary results as "positive" and said they plan to perform more experiments. [How Will a Human Mars Base Work? NASA's Vision in Images]

"If the crops can tolerate the extreme conditions that we are exposing them to in our cubesat, they have a good chance to grow on Mars," Julio Valdivia-Silva, a research associate with the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute in California who works at the University of Engineering and Technology in Lima, said in a statement.

Time Crystals Created, Suspending Laws of Physics

NASA Mission Named 'Europa Clipper'

NASA's upcoming mission to investigate the habitability of Jupiter's icy moon Europa now has a formal name: Europa Clipper.

The moniker harkens back to the clipper ships that sailed across the oceans of Earth in the 19th century. Clipper ships were streamlined, three-masted sailing vessels renowned for their grace and swiftness. These ships rapidly shuttled tea and other goods back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean and around globe. (Cutty Sark)

In the grand tradition of these classic ships, the Europa Clipper spacecraft would sail past Europa at a rapid cadence, as frequently as every two weeks, providing many opportunities to investigate the moon up close. The prime mission plan includes 40 to 45 flybys, during which the spacecraft would image the moon's icy surface at high resolution and investigate its composition and the structure of its interior and icy shell.

Europa has long been a high priority for exploration because it holds a salty liquid water ocean beneath its icy crust. The ultimate aim of Europa Clipper is to determine if Europa is habitable, possessing all three of the ingredients necessary for life: liquid water, chemical ingredients, and energy sources sufficient to enable biology.

"During each orbit, the spacecraft spends only a short time within the challenging radiation environment near Europa. It speeds past, gathers a huge amount of science data, then sails on out of there," said Robert Pappalardo, Europa Clipper project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Previously, when the mission was still in the conceptual phase, it was sometimes informally called Europa Clipper, but NASA has now adopted that name as the formal title for the mission.

The mission is being planned for launch in the 2020s, arriving in the Jupiter system after a journey of several years.

JPL manages the mission for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

Launches

Song sent in by Chris Carney

Spaaaace X From Electric Cars to Massive Rockets Spaaaace X Moon Missions, Mars Ambitions Spaaaace X Elon Musk, Launch Date Busk Spaaaaace X Recycled Boosters, Heavy Falcons Spaaaaace X Sounds like a Strip Club in Star Trek.

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