Mars One is having no trouble attracting applications for their plan to establish a settlement on the Red Planet. Three applicants explain why they would consider going to Mars even if there will be no chance of returning to earth: Why sign up for a one-way Mars trip? Three applicants explain the appeal – Cosmic Log.
Category Archives: Living in Space
NSS to present a roadmap to space settlement
The NSS will rollout its Roadmap to Space Settlement this month in association with the International Space Development Conference (ISDC 2013) in San Diego, California, May 23-27:
National Space Society Presents
Milestones to Space Settlement: An NSS Roadmap
When:
May 24, 2013, 10:00 am (Programming follows 11:00 am to 4:50 pm)
Where:
International Space Development Conference
San Diego, California, at the Hyatt Regency La Jolla at Aventine
What:
A Press Conference featuring the National Space Society’s (NSS) Roadmap to Space Settlement will be presented to the world. A panel of space experts and NSS members will discuss the path towards humankind’s future in space. The press conference will also highlight previews of some of the afternoon’s talks, a visually stunning Luncheon Presentation, and a programming track that covers some of the exciting topics in (and evolved from) the Roadmap. Previously, only NSS members and Ad Astra magazine subscribers have been told about the Roadmap. Now, the world will know!
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A space logistics base with a docking truss is assembled in Low Mars Orbit. Art: Anna Nesterova
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With the impending breakthroughs in launch costs, attention is once more shifting to actual operations in space. We can now begin to dream big dreams again. The Roadmap Track will cover the future diverse paths to space development and the common and practical foundations for our impending economic breakout into space. The NSS Roadmap, approved by the NSS Board of Directors, attempts to lay out many of the space goals and identify Milestones and Barriers to those goals.
Track presentations will cover some legal issues surrounding space development, how space development can improve life on Earth, how you actually can build a two kilometer space colony with essentially current level technology, progress in the development of reusable launch systems, why a cis-lunar space transportation and logistics system is vital to reaching all of our space goals and destinations, how to achieve the ability to build space colonies, and how space settlement design competitions can augment and assist planning for future space colonies.
Roadmap text and images can be found here.
In addition to the presentations directly in the Roadmap track itself, many of the other tracks at the ISDC cover material directly related to the Roadmap, such as the Lunar, Mars and the Space Based Solar Power Tracks.
Featured Speakers:
- Derek Weber: Director: SpacePort Associates
- Howard Bloom: Author & Member: NSS Board of Directors
- Stan Rosen: Vice Chairman, NSS Board of Directors
- Bruce Pittman: NSS Senior Vice President/Senior Operating Officer
- Anita Gale: Member: NSS Board of Directors
- Mark Hopkins: Chairman NSS Executive Committee
- Jeff Liss: Member: NSS Board of Directors
- John Strickland: Member: NSS Board of Directors, Track Chair
- Al Globus: Member: NSS Board of Directors
Roadmap Track Sessions schedule:
- 10:00 am – Roadmap Rollout – MEDIA PRESS CONFERENCE with panel
- 11:00 am – Jeff Liss – Legal Issues of and Barriers to Roadmap Milestones
- 11:20 am – Stan Rosen – Applications of Space Technology on and for Earth
- 12:00 am – Howard Bloom – Space Visual Manifesto (LUNCH talk) invited speaker
- 2:00 pm – John Strickland – How Does a Jig Factory Build a Space Colony?
- 3:00 pm – Bruce Pittman – Economic & Technical Realities of Reusable Launch Systems
- 3:15 pm – Al Globus – Paths to Space Settlement
- 4:00 pm – Derek Webber – An Architecture for Survival
- 4:25 pm – Anita Gale – Design Competition Scenarios: Ambitious Future Space Roadmap
NASA Lunabotics Mining Competition on May 20-24 at KSC
NASA posts an update on the Lunabotics Mining Competition for students:
NASA Invites Media to Annual Lunabotics Mining Competition
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Fifty teams of undergraduate and graduate students from around the world will demonstrate their lunar excavator robots May 20 – 24 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Practice sessions for the fourth annual Lunabotics Mining Competition will take place May 20 – 21, followed by the official competition. Media representatives are invited to cover the event on Wednesday, May 22 from 12 – 4 p.m. EDT, at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. For access to the facility, journalists should contact Catherine Segar at 321-449-4273 or csegar@dncinc.com. Requests for interviews with NASA representatives must be submitted to Tracy Young at 321-867-2468 or tracy.g.young@nasa.gov.
The teams have designed and built remote controlled or autonomous robots that can excavate simulated lunar dirt. During the competition, the teams’ designs — known as lunabots — will go head-to-head to determine which machine can collect and move the most simulated lunar dirt within a specific amount of time.
The competition is a NASA Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate project designed to engage and retain students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields by expanding opportunities for student research and design. The project provides a competitive environment to foster innovative ideas and solutions that could potentially be applied to future NASA missions.
Although the competition is for college students, the event offers many opportunities for students of all ages. NASA is hosting a college recruitment fair for high school sophomores, juniors and seniors showcasing STEM education opportunities available at top colleges and universities across the nation.
For more information on Lunabotics 2013, associated activities and social media links to participate virtually, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/lunabotics
Video highlights of the practice and competition will air on the NASA Television Video File. For downlink information, schedules and links to streaming video, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv
For information about the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, visit: http://www.kennedyspacecenter.com
Space travel and the spin on the gravity of the situation
It always annoys me when some article or TV report says “space travel causes [some ailment]” when what they really mean is that prolonged weightlessness causes that ailment. We are, after all, traveling in space right now. We just happen to be traveling on a modest sized object that grips us to its surface with a level of gravity to which we have become accustom.
The Moon and Mars also have gravity and we don’t know yet if the levels of gravity on those bodies are sufficient to maintain good health for long stays.
In free space, we can rotate our habitat so as to create apparent gravity via the centrifugal effect. This is referred to as artificial gravity or spin gravity. So far, no space station has been constructed to do this. This is basically for two reasons: (1) The main goal of the stations was to use microgravity for a range of basic and applied research areas; (2) It was simpler and cheaper to build non-rotating stations.
Here’s an article that discusses this missing piece in our in-space infrastructure: Why Don’t We Have Artificial Gravity? – Popular Mechanics.
Eventually though, practical spacefaring will require the implementation of spin gravity and the sooner we start to develop ways to do it, the better.
Joe Carroll gave an informative online course on the Space Show in which he reviewed a wide range of issues involved in spin gravity: Lesson Three Presentation Material, 5-3-11 – The Space Show Classroom Blog
He is an expert on tethers and the first implementation of spin gravity will most likely involve connecting a habitat to a counter-weight via a long tether. The rotation rate of this “dumbbell” arrangement can be much lower for a given level of spin gravity compared to rotating a modest sized structure. It will be awhile before we can build a large wheel shaped station like that seen in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
You can use the online tool SpinCalc to vary values of spin gravity for different spin rates, radii and tangential velocities.
The Space Studies Institute is proposing the development of the orbital G-Lab to study the effects of long term exposure to fractional levels of earth’s gravity on lab animals:
- SSI Update April 2012 – Introduction to G-Lab -Space Studies Institute
- Video: SSI President Gary Hudson Discusses G-Lab – Space Studies Institute
- The Great Enterprise – SSI (pdf)
Update: A good review of many aspects of spin gravity: Gravity in the Elysium Space Station – Wired Science/Wired.com.
Mars settlement – not as far fetched as it used to be
Science writer Marc Kaufman writes about the growing realization that creating settlements on Mars and elsewhere in space in the not so distant future is not an impossible fiction but something that might actually be doable: Human mission to Mars is no longer just a sci-fi dream – The Washington Post.
There certainly will be no shortage of people wanting to go as discussed in this recent post about applicants for the Mars One settlement project. (See also this BBC report and video about Mars One and the flood of applicants: Prospect of one-way Mars trip captures the imagination – BBC)
By far the biggest challenge is lowering the cost of getting to space. Progress is being made on that front by new companies like SpaceX, which is aiming to develop a fully reusable rocket system that could lower the costs by as much as 100 times below today’s average space transport prices. The amazing video below shows a recent test of a prototype first stage booster that is demonstrating vertical takeoff and landing capabilities. (You can follow progress in new rocket vehicle development at NewSpace Watch, where I post daily on the latest developments.)
In the following video, Elon Musk, founder and chief of SpaceX, talks with Salman Khan of Khan Academy about a range of topics including lowering the cost of rockets and Mars settlements: