NASA’s Asteroid Initiative to redirected a small asteroid into the Earth-Moon system has not quite gotten off the ground yet, at least in terms of broad political support. However, with the Kerbal Space Program you can now go retrieve an asteroid on your own: ‘Kerbal Space Program’ Launches NASA ‘Asteroid Redirect Mission’ Update – IBT
Development of an in-space infrastructure, which includes fuel depots, spacecraft refueling and repairs, etc., is essential for cost-effective space development. Here is a video about the Robotic Refueling Mission at NASA Goddard’s Satellite Servicing Capabilities Office:
Caption:
Goddard Space Flight Center’s Jill McGuire, the project manager for the Robotic Refueling Mission and Charles Bacon, Satellite Servicing Capabilities Office Systems Engineer explains the Robotic Refueling Mission. This is the weekly Payload Operations Integration Center segment from Marshall Space Flight Center and aired during Space Station Live on March 19, 2014.
A skin-tight body suit developed by a group at King’s College London led by Dr David Green will be tested on the International Space Station to see if it counter-acts some of the detrimental effects of weightlessness :
EAC’s crew medical support office is working with King’s College London and the MIT to test prototypes, and ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen will be the first to wear the suit in space during a mission in early 2015, where he will evaluate it from a functional perspective. If successful UK astronaut Tim Peake could potentially wear the skinsuit on his mission to the International Space Station later in 2015.
The skinsuit could also be used on Earth to counteract the effects of ageing on bone density and muscle mass.
Carvil added: ‘The space environment provides ideal conditions for studying ageing because of the acceleration of muscle and bone wastage in space. At King’s we’re conducting further tests to examine the practicality of wearing the skinsuit both in space and here on Earth as well as investigating further terrestrial applications.’
The latest presentation to the Future In-Space Operations (FISO) study group is now posted in the FISO Working Group Presentations Archive. Both slides and videos (zip) and audio (mp3) are available for the talk, Defending the Earth From Asteroids: Meeting the Challenges of Planetary Defense, by Bill Ailor of Aerospace Corp, March 12, 2014.
Ailor reviews what’s known about the asteroids and near earth objects, their threats to earth, how a NEO threat could be diverted, and legal/policy issues.
A sample of his slides:
The latest video report on activities aboard the Int. Space Station in the past week:
