KySat

Big hopes, big goals for Space-X and Falcon 1

Carrying the hopes for the future of low-cost access to orbit, Space-X's Falcon 1 is scheduled for lift off sometime after July 29, according to Smithsonian's Air&Space.

Unlike the previous tries, which were billed as demonstrations, this is not a test. Flight 003, as SpaceX calls it, carries cargo belonging to paying customers: an Air Force satellite called Jumpstart that’s meant to show that small satellites can be built and launched quickly; a test ring adapter for the Malaysian space agency ATSB (a future SpaceX client); and two breadbox-size NASA experiments, one of which aims to be the first solar sail deployed in space.

Fourteen such launches are scheduled through 2011 if all goes well. But Musk has much bigger goals in mind for Space-X and the nascent commercial space transportation sector - sending humans to Mars.

In a speech delivered earlier this month to the Royal Aeronautical Society in London, he said, 'For the first time in the four-billion-year history of Earth, there exists the possibility of extending life beyond Earth to other planets…. It is difficult to predict how long that window will remain open.

'Commercial space transport companies, including possibly SpaceX, are needed to make this happen, as the commercial sector is best suited to optimizing both the cost and reliability of access to space, just as the commercial air and ground transport companies did in their sectors. I believe we will need at least an order (perhaps two orders) of magnitude reduction in present-day space launch costs and flight failures to achieve the goal of becoming a multi-planetary species.'

Rob Coppinger has the ten minute speech here.

Wayne

A Great Flick: Apollo's Orphans

Editor's note: Jeffrey Manber is an adviser to Kentucky Space.

I had the pleasure of attending on Friday evening the premier of Apollo's Orphans at the New Space 2008 conference in Washington, DC. Apollo's Orphans finally brings to life the dramatic story  of how a group of dedicated Americans and Russian space officials came together to save the Russian space station Mir.

Watching the flick in the packed house was strange, as I'm interviewed in the documentary as well. The audience was clearly into the story, though they responded at times differently then me, and that was the strange part. Some incidents shown were more important to me than to them and some things the audience found funny I still just cringe. Riding in Walt Anderson's Gulfstream jet to Moscow to lease the space station while playing the board game Risk; just thinking about that makes me cringe.  But none the less, producer Michael Potter has created a solid piece of journalism. Some really good guys are not in the story, such as Gert Weyers, who held together the office, and James Dunstan, our legal guru who pulled together the lease language in just a few weeks. But other than that, Michael has all the players who were MirCorp. Check his site.

There was also a question and answer session afterward hosted by Roger Lanius, the former historian for NASA. It was all taped, though I'm not sure who has control and when we will be able to watch. Maybe someone from New Space and The Space Frontier can let us know.

What happened with MirCorp has been overlooked by many. Few realize we signed Dennis Tito to his launch contract; few realize we sent two humans into space to inspect the station, the only time in history a private company has launched a space expedition.

MirCorp was a critical signpost in the journey to outer space. The venture was proof positive that commercial entrepreneurs could create a sustainable model for building a commercial outpost.

Reporters laughed at the thought that people would pay millions to visit the Mir space station, until we signed Dennis Tito. And then we signed Mark Burnett of Survivor and NBC to do a game show on the Mir, and we were working with  others, including movie director James Cameron, when the Mir was de-orbited.

MirCorp showed, and the film reminds us, that there was an alternative to the space status quo. And funny enough that alternative is now becoming the heart and soul of our program, when entrepreneurs like Bigelow and Musk and Bezos are building both launch vehicles and manned stations.

Documentaries about failed efforts are sometimes not that relevant. Apollo's Orphans is different. It is the timely story of how close we came to bringing about a revolution in space activities almost a decade ago. For me, it was a great chance to see old friends, and not look back but forward to an even more exciting future for space exploration.

Jeffrey

Taking a hammer to KySat

Members of the KySat team conducted hammer tests of the cube yesterday on the campus of UK. As Tyler explains at the bottom of this post, collecting this data and comparing it with the known vibration profile of the rocket will tell the team whether any dampening needs to be added to protect the satellite during launch.

The "test pod," which simulates the P-POD system that will physically deploy the satellite, is pictured below right. The cube is inside.

The hammer tests are part of a complete testing regime that will ensure that the cube survives launch and carries out its educational mission once it is in the cold vacuum of space.

Wayne

Nanosat Prize founder interviewed

The Space Fellowship has published an interview with Dr. Paul Dear, who has sponsored the N-Prize or "nanosat prize." He clearly has a different take on space. From the interview:

Why a Space Prize?

It brings together a lot of things that had been simmering in the back of my mind for long time. First, I’m a space enthusiast (which is very, very different from being an expert!). I have this half-memory of sitting in front of a big old black-and-white TV watching the moon landings, and it’s stuck with me since then. I think space exploration is just something we need to do because of the type of species we are – it’s as natural as wanting to see what’s over the next hill or across the ocean. Second, I get frustrated by how long everything takes, by how conservative we’ve become, by how risk-averse we are, and by how we always have to justify every pound or cent spent. We’ve regressed since the 60’s and 70’s, if not in our abilities then in the boldness of our ambitions. The N-Prize is a way to say 'Stop taking space so seriously – it’s not rocket science!', and to get people playing again. People become very creative when they play, and the N-Prize is an invitation to play.

The entire interview is here.

Wayne

Dates for 2008 Lunar Lander Challenge set

The X-Prize Foundation has set the dates for the 2008 Lunar Lander Challenge, according to th blog Beyond 62. The challenge, almost won last year, is designed "to accelerate commercial technological developments supporting the birth of a new generation of Lunar Landers capable of ferrying payloads or humans back and forth between lunar orbit and the lunar surface."

The official release is here.

Wayne

Top ten near-term space technologies

Next Big Future lists the top ten near-term technologies that will significantly boost existing space capabilities. The technological list includes dramatically lowered access to space, faster travel to Mars, inflatable structures and electric solar sails. It's an interesting collection of technologies that are close to reality. Check it out.

Wayne

First contact: Delphi C-3 team hears from its cube

When I first saw this video from the Delphi C³ team - thanks Tyler! - I thought of everyone on the KySpace CubeSat team. Here's to a similarly happy outcome when KySat flies!

Wayne

Romanian entrant in Google X-Prize: first to space?

It looks like ARCA, the Romanian entrant in the Google X-Prize Lunar Lander challenge, will make the first flight to space. Lofted to 18k by balloon, a mock up of the European Lunar Lander the team proposes to use will be taken the rest of the way to space by a booster. The team is looking to make the effort in the next three months.

Also newsworthy: four new entrants into the challenge have been announced.

Wayne

Google X-Prize on YouTube

Space Prizes provides a list of Google X-Prize videos on YouTube that haven't shown up on the official X-Prize Foundation web site.

Wayne

Space elevator competition: winner must go higher

The Space Elevator blog points out that the rulebook for the climb has been posted and the climb for the power-beaming event has been increased to one kilometer.

If you're not familiar with the idea of a space elevator, originally proposed by science fiction Arthur C. Clarke, check this out.

Wayne

Image: Wikipedia

Sizing up the subortibal competitors

Personal Spaceflight: Pulling no punches, Armadillo Aerospace's John Carmack sizes up the competitors in the suborbital space race.

Wayne

Spaceport funding approved

This may be the first and last time you read about a local tax issue in KySat, but the people of Sierra County, New Mexico have approved an increase in local gross receipts tax to support the construction of Spaceport America, the first built-from-scratch commercial spaceport in the United States.

Wayne

Academic "competitive launch program" envisioned

According to SpaceRef.com, The New Mexico Spaceport Authority (NMSA) is working on a new venture that would "create a competitive educational launch program for students in public schools and universities."

The effort would unite NMSA, the Air Force Research Lab Space Vehicles Directorate at Kirtland Air Force Base (AFRL), the X-Prize Foundation, the New Mexico Space Grant Consortium at New Mexico State University (NMSG), UP Aerospace and Microgravity Enterprises, Inc. (MEI).

The first "launch competition" is scheduled for the 2008 - 2009 academic year.

Wayne

Race rockets, go to space

Can participating in the new Rocket Racing League (Wired) lead to more durable motors for space access? Linking to an announcement that Armadillo Aerospace will participate in the new racing league, RLV and Space Transport makes just that suggestion:

You can't have low cost access to space without the economies of scale that come from a high flight rate. But you can't have a high flight rate without vehicles that can fly often (i.e. the vehicles must allow for a fast turnaround after each flight with only a small crew). Rocket racing certainly isn't spaceflight but it can contribute in an incremental way to lowering the cost of getting to space.

Wayne

Carnival of Space No. 50

My name is Wayne Hall and I work with the Kentucky space program. Huh? Kentucky what?!

Suffice it to say that a group of talented people are out to change the perception of what's possible in the commonwealth of Kentucky by doing hands-on space science. The very first project of this ambitious enterprise is a cooperative, student-led effort to design, build and fly a CubeSat that kids from the eastern mountains to the western Mississippi river shore can figuratively reach out and touch from classrooms all over the state. The first of many planned efforts, it will rocket to orbit sometime late this year or early next. And with that,

Welcome to the 50th edition of the Carnival of Space! From rocket racing to astronomy to particle physics to the search for intelligent life, this week features a wide variety of space-related topics. So let's dive right in.

New Frontiers has news about the Rocket Racing League and its announcement about upcoming exhibition race dates. Meanwhile, Space Transport News discusses Red Bull air races and the differences and similarities to rocket racing as well as taking some notes from the news conference.

At Altair VI, David S. F. Portree writes about the old NASA Office of Exploration Mars' and Moon vision for space exploration and has something to say about space tourism.

The Planetary Society's Emily Stewart Lakdawalla notes the stunning images of Phobos available from the Mars Express image catalog. A Babe in the Universe follows suit, pointing out that the crater Stickney is 9 km across on a moon only 22 km long. Speaking as a blogger who makes liberal use of CICLOPS and HiRISE images, the pictures coming from current robotic missions are spectacular. I'm looking forward to what MESSENGER and New Horizons might reveal.

Speaking of the planets, Stuart Atkinson at Cumbrian Sky reports on one suggestion to send monkeys to Mars. You read that right. He also provides some images of Pheonix's landing spot on the planet.

Fraser explains why Pluto is no longer a planet. Let's just say that the region beyond Neptune is awfully interesting.

Of the many satellites that dance around Sun, Neptune's Triton is probably not a world that tickles one's imagination when envisioning space colonization. But while it may be ignored as scientists chase after Mars and Titan, Neptune's Triton may in the distant future become a prime location at the edge of our solar system. Colony Worlds asks: Neptune's Triton: Is It Worth Billions, Or Trillions?

This week's Space Video at Space Feeds is the eighth episode of Firefly, Out of Gas.

At Next Big Future, Brian Wang asks whether a $153 million Thin Film Dome inflated over cities might protect against nuclear weapons or perhaps substitute for communication satellites. Russian inventor and researcher Alexander Bolonkin has developed an interesting technology that suggests all kinds of commercial possibilities.

Can Dark Matter be directly detected? Anticipating such an announcement, astrophysicist Ethan Siegel expresses his doubts at Starts with a Bang! It's a question I've also put to Star Stryder, Pamela Gay.

Astronomer Robert Simpson at Orbiting Frog contributes a post to the 50th carnival on Nebulae in 3D. He nominated another post about the late John Wheeler from Daniel Holz at the wonderful group blog Cosmic Variance. Holz movingly recalls his time with the physicist, who was conversant in biology, history and poetry. Please give it a read.

At Out of the Cradle, Ken Murphy continues his look at growing plants on the Moon with a review of the book "Lunar Base Agriculture" in part II of his article "Of a Garden on the Moon".

At Centauri Dreams, Paul Gilster, who is surely link-weary from the attention this blog has paid to him, posts a story about "Life as Rarity in the Cosmos," which looks at new research suggesting that we are living rather late in the history of Earth's biosphere. If so, it might have implications for the possibility of intelligent life elsewhere. Bottom line: we might find that life itself is rather common, but intelligent life? Not so much.

Do we have anything to worry about from the Large Hadron Collider? Ian O'Neill explains that "an Earth-eating black hole is pretty much impossible."

Ever-prepared, Scouts Canada describes a variety of methods for finding direction without a compass or GPS by using the sun, stars and moon. In practical fashion, Scouts blogger Mang also lends some context to astronomical distances - the discussion includes a scale overlay of the solar system on the City of Toronto using a standard marble for Earth - and writes about modeling a micro-satellite, the Microvariability & Oscillations of STars (MOST) satellite. The MOST team has opened target proposals to the public.

Space Cynics, meanwhile, wonders how prepared Gen-Y is to contribute to the national space program.

Tyler Nordgren is educating visitors about what they learn about the solar system and universe through what they can see for themselves in the dark starry skies above the parks, as well as on the ground around them in the wonderful geological processes and features the parks protect. The most recent entry from this week at Arches National Park is found here.

Finally, at Music of the Spheres, Bruce Irving asks Why Space?, a theme that the Martian Chronicles also picks up on this week, along with providing some great Cape Verde images as seen from everyone's favorite Martian rover.

Why explore indeed! And since it's THAT time again, perhaps it's appropriate that John Benac contribute a post about Political Action for Space, the first space political action committee.

It's been a blast to host the carnival at Kentucky's space program blog this week. KySat hopes to make its own news in the near future. So please come back and please visit all the great blogs and bloggers you see listed here!

Wayne

Armadillo engine firings and flight video montage

A nicely edited recap of Armadillo Aerospace's activities in the past year has been uploaded to YouTube.

Armadillo presented the video at the just concluded Space Access Conference.

If not for a bit of bad luck the outfit probably would have won the 2007 Lunar Lander Challenge.

The organization, which is extremely open about its work, will progress to high altitude flights as the year goes on, according to RLV and Space Transport.

Wayne   

The state of suborbital commercial flight

Jeff Foust takes a look at an increasingly crowded field of suborbital hopefuls in Space Review, leading with the just announced Lynx, pictured above, and listing Armadillo, Rocketplane Global, Virgin Galactic, XCOR and, potentially, Blue Origin as competing to offer paying passengers rides to the edge of space.

Wayne

Lynx: New suborbital rocketplane

Personal Spaceflight highlights a new entrant into the suborbital passenger business: Lynx. See this Lynx post as well.

A look at the XCOR Aerospace web site turned up this YouTube animation of the rocketplane, which will apparently feature a runway takeoff.

Wayne

Choosing a moon lander motor

What kinds of design decisions must be made when choosing a motor for a moon lander? The Southern California Selene Group, which is competing for the Google Lunar X Prize, has posted its take on some engineering and propulsion issues it's currently facing. The latest on the teams and news may be found here.

Wayne

Moon 'bot prototype

One of the teams participating in the Google Lunar X Prize challenge has posted this video of a robotic sphere, which as the team's blog entry also points out, has been the subject of a New York Times article.

Wayne

Odyssey Moon offering delivery

The very first official entrant in the Google Lunar X Prize, now one of ten, has announced a "Payload Flight Opportunity," the first of what it anticipates will be several such opportunities.

Odyssey Moon is making 15 to 25 kg of payload is available on the initial flight, planned for July 2011.

Wayne

New Mexico Spaceport "open for business"

The New Mexico Spaceport is open for business, according to Space.com.

Wayne

Falcon flights set to resume

Having finished some marathon testing on its Merlin engines, Space X will resume Falcon flights this spring.

Wayne

Blogging the Space Exploration Conference

At Hyperbola Rob Coppinger is live blogging the 3rd Space Exploration Conference in Denver.

Wayne

Armadillo space update + cool pic

Jeff Foust points out that Armadillo Aerospace, which has come close to wining the Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge on a couple of occasions, has updated its blog with some extensive information on recent motor testing. Also included is an image of a proposed single person sub-orbit vehicle, reproduced here. While Armadillo cautions against reading too much into a concept image, it certainly is fun to look at. Image is courtesy of Armadillo Aerospace.

Wayne

Google Lunar X Prize bonus for Florida launch

The winner of the Google Lunar X Prize can collect an additional $2 million just for launching from Florida.

Wayne

Stratofox: Tracking rockets

Stratofox, the high altitude tracking and recovery team for rocketry and balloon flights, has posted some slides (PDF) from a recent west coast Ham radio conference explaining what the group does. The group has provided tracking services for a variety of NewSpace initiatives and says "Our goal is to get invitations to 'all the cool launches' for our members and help the civilian entrepreneurial aerospace industry get off the ground." Now that sounds fun.

Wayne

Rocketry, Stratofox

Google Lunar X Prize team to land on site of Apollo 11

Space Prizes links to some recent news from one competitor for the Google Lunar X Prize, Carnegie Mellon. The student newspaper, The Tartan, which reported on a recent faculty and student presentation on the Google Lunar X Prize from Pathfinder veteran, Tony Spear, also reported this nugget about the team's plans:

  Due to the moon’s proximity to Earth, the robot will be able to transmit a high-bandwidth reciprocal interaction. Carnegie Mellon’s robot for the competition, which is currently under construction, will have multiple cameras attached to it to satisfy requirements of the competition to transmit video, photos, and information back to Earth.

  The moon rover will land on the site of Apollo 11, where Neil Armstrong first landed on the moon. The robot will transmit high-resolution photo and video images from the momentous site on the moon

A total of ten teams are listed on the competitors' page at the X Prize Foundation. Astrobotic is the CM entry.

Wayne

Google Lunar X Prize

Interorbital's "academic launch pricing"

From The Space Fellowship: Interorbital Systems has made public the design of its manned orbital launch vehicle, Neptune. It has also passed a major milestone by completing the propellant tank construction of its Sea Star MSLV (microsatellite launch vehicle). Here is the interesting part:

As Interorbital nears the completion of the Sea Star MSLV flight demonstrator construction, public and customer interest continues to rise. IOS is in discussion with three microsat producers who want to take advantage of the special academic launch pricing (under $500,000 for a 12-CubeSat, 50-lb payload to LEO) now in force for initial Sea Star launches, which translates to satellite launch for as little as $35,000 per single CubeSat. Interorbital Systems’ CEO Milliron stated, “We’re offering an open invitation to academic institutions who’ve, due to launch cost restraints, never thought it possible to consider building a satellite or conducting space-based science. We’re announcing that a new opportunity for affordable launch has emerged—and it’s called Sea Star.”

Wayne

Interorbital Systems

Michio Kaku on space elevators

The Space Elevator blog links to a video of Dr. Michio Kaku talking about the technology on the Discovery Channel Series 2057. His comparison of space elevators to the story of Jack and the Beanstalk is surprising, but apt.

Dr. Kaku also spoke at the IdeaFestival last September.

Wayne

White Knight: satellite platform?

Jeff Foust teases some interesting information from recent news stories about SpaceShipTwo and White Knight II, the two craft pioneering commercial spaceflight. Could they be used to get satellites into orbit?

Wayne

Odyssey Moon: "continued lunar commercial presence"

As mentioned the other day, the Space Show interviewed Dr. Robert (Bob) Richards of Odyssey Moon Ltd., the first official entrant into the Google Moon X Prize. The host, Dr. David Livingston, has since posted a recap of the show here. As you might imagine, the business of space featured prominently in the discussion. Dr. Livingston:

Bob began the discussions by explaining Odyssey Moon Ltd, its general business plan, their unwillingness to redevelop technology or hardware that they can buy commercially, and their plan for a continued lunar commercial presence.

Complete audio is here.

Wayne

London to Australia: half an hour?

Richard Branson discusses his vision for Virgin Galactic in this brief video interview from the London Telegraph. London to Australia in half an hour? Space hotels?

If you haven't already seen pictures of the craft from the media event yesterday, Hyperbola displays a number of high quality images of SpaceShipTwo and White Knight II on its site.

Hat tip: Universe Today.

Wayne

SpaceX progress report

While writing a post on Elon Musk I had briefly mentioned news that Falcon9, the heavy lift vehicle being developed by his company, SpaceX, had undergone hold-down firings. In addition to that news, SpaceX also provides a very comprehensive update on its entire program on the same page, which includes many, many high quality images of the motors, rockets, SpaceX facilities and Dragon, the capsule for human travelers. Check it out.

Wayne

New Google Lunar X Prize teams to debut soon?

Space Prizes links to a Will Pomerantz post at the X Prize Foundation, who covers a lot of ground related to the work of the X Prize Foundation. But he also drops this bit of news about the Google Lunar X Prize that I wanted to pass along.

With the new year, the Google Lunar X PRIZE is getting some new teams. We've received and gone over several applications already, and we've got some really exciting teams that will debut soon. I can't give away too much right now, but stay tuned.

The second moon race will award $35 million to the first team to put a privately funded craft on the moon,  travel at least 500 yards and return a "mooncast" of the mission from the lunar surface.

Wayne

Moon racer to be interviewed today

According to the International Space Fellowship, tonight at 10 ET, Dr. Robert Richards, who is the Founder and CEO of Odyssey Moon Limited, will appear on The Space Show. Odyssey Moon is a commercial lunar enterprise and the first official registrant in the $30M Google Lunar X PRIZE competition. It ought to be an interesting interview.

Much more information about Richards can be found using the first link above. Archived audio from the interview should be available in the next few days on The Space Show pages.

Wayne

New Mexico Spaceport groundbreaking delayed

The Las Cruces Sun-News reports that the groundbreaking ceremony for the New Mexico Spaceport has been delayed until 2008, but that the spaceport is still on track for a 2010 opening, about the time Virgin Galactic is expected to fly. Virgin Galactic will be the anchor tenant. The article also points out that UP Aerospace, which bills itself as "the world's premier supplier of low-cost space access," has recently conducted test launches from the site for an unnamed business customer.

Wayne