There will be a debate today between
Alex Hall [Google Lunar X PRIZE] and Paul Bunje [Oceans at X PRIZE] at the Social Good Summit. Alex and Paul will be going head-to-head on “The Ocean vs. Space: Which is Really the Final Frontier?” debating the merits of investing in the exploration of their respective areas.
Livestream: http://new.livestream.com/Mashable/sgs2013
Time: Tuesday, September 24, 2013 at 10:26 a.m. PDT (1:26 EDT)
Copenhagen Suborbitals begins building the first of the big HEAT 1600 LE rocket vehicles:
http://youtu.be/eHe3IkzHr04
Caption:
Copenhagen Suborbitals department of oversize rocket power :o) have started work on the HEAT 1600 rocket booster. With 260 kN thrust, it out powers a V2 missile, and with 12 tons of LOX / ethanol water mixture rocket fuel it can burn longer than than a V2.
Like the V2, and like all other large liquid propellant rockets, it rely on turbine pumps for pressurizing the propellants and delivering then at very high rate to the hungry combustion chamber at the back end. This makes the rockets structure very light, because it does not have to handle the full feed pressure of the engines. Other videos on this channel shows static tests of the turbine pumps, and the manufacture of the T-stoff or hydrogen peroxide that power them.
This must be the most powerful amateur build rocket ever devised. Yet, as the video shows we can build it, and we cn test it on the ground and ultimately launch it.
Therefore we must do it.
Like its little sister, the HEAT 2X also seen in the video – HEAT 1600 has a redundant flight termination system, and like the 2X, it will be launched at sea, where we have the very best range safety conditions that any rocket launch site can offer.
WE can build it. WE will do so and use it to launch a human into space. The “why” is best answered by others:
I will let the late president John F. Kennedy end this:
“Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it.
He said, “Because it is there.”
Well, space is there, and we’re going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God’s blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.
Thank you”
That´s quite simply why.
Peter Madsen / Copenhagen Suborbitals.
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Here’s a design sketch of the HEAT-1600:
The sun continues to stay in a mellow mood : The Sun That Did Not Roar – NYTimes.com.
Be sure to check on the state of our home star and the local space weather by regularly visiting the HobbySpace Sun & Space Weather page, which holds a long array of real or near real time images and graphs from satellites and other instruments.
The video below is of a SETI Institute Google Hangout devoted to a discussion of
the potential for the WISE telescope to detect extraterrestrial super-civilizations that acquired a large energy supply by building a mega-structure to harvest the energy of their star (“Dyson sphere“) or their entire galaxy.
The participants include
SETI Institute researchers Jill Tarter and Franck Marchis (host & moderator) will hangout with Jason Wright, professor of astronomy at Penn State, Matt Povich, professor of astronomy at Cal Poly Pomona and Freeman Dyson, theoretical physicist and mathematician at the Institute for Advance Study.
– Searching for Kardashev Type II and III Civilizations with WISE – SETI Institute
Joel Achenbach writes about the search for life off earth and the recent measurement by the Curiosity Mars rover (see earlier post) that found no significant level of methane in the atmosphere : On Mars, no proof yet, but scientists’ search for extraterrestrial life continues – The Washington Post.
The lack of methane does not mean there cannot be subterranean life on Mars. Just that it is not the sort of bacteria that generates methane. The previous indications of methane were exciting because it would have been a fairly strong signal for life: Mars Science Laboratory | Mars rover gives negative result on Mars methane – Spaceflight Now.