Contests and Games, Space Systems, The Moon

“The Moon Race” – A lunar technologies competition

Airbus, Blue Origin, ESA, and some other heavyweight companies and organizations are backing a new technical competition program called The Moon Race:

The Moon Race competition is a global initiative founded by Airbus and international partners, aiming to boost the movement around Moon exploration and enable the demonstration of key technologies required for its sustainable exploration.

Some minor details such as exactly what technologies are to be demonstrated and the value of the prizes have yet to be determined: Blue Origin and Airbus back ‘The Moon Race’ – Alan Boyle/GeekWire

Organizers launched their effort at this week’s International Astronautical Congressin Bremen, Germany. They want teams to propose technological challenges for lunar surface operations in time for next year’s IAC meeting.

Suggestions could include constructing the first artifact made from lunar resources, extracting enough water from lunar soil to fill a standard-sized bottle, building a power-generating system capable of lighting up the lunar night, or operating the first lunar greenhouse.

The application period is due to open in early 2019. “Details on monetary prizes will be announced with the opening of the applications period,” the organizers say.

The competition is envisioned as a five year program starting from the 2019 starting line. The teams would be expected to “demonstrate proof-of-concept” in 2020, test the systems in a “lunar environment” in 2021, build working implementations in 2022-2023, and send them to the Moon in 2024.

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Chasing New Horizons: Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto

Activism, Space Policy, SpaceCasts

The Space Show this week – Oct.1.2018

The guests and topics of discussion on The Space Show this week:

1. Monday, Oct. 1, 2018; 2-3:30 pm PDT (4-5:30 pm CDT, 5-6:30 pm EDT): We welcomed Bjarke Gotfredsen of Cape Town to discuss STEM in South Africa and XinABox.

2. Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2018: 7-8:30 pm PDT; 9-10:30 pm CDT; 10-11:30 pm EDT: Welcome Dr. Christopher Morrison to the program to discuss space nuclear power with new ideas and projects.

3. Wednesday, Oct. 3, 2018: Hotel Mars. See Upcoming Show Menu and the website newsletter for details. Hotel Mars is pre-recorded by John Batchelor. It is archived on The Space Show site after John posts it on his website.

4. Friday, Oct. 5, 2018; 9:30 am -11 am PDT, (12:30 -2 pm EDT; 11:30 am -1 pm CDT): We welcome Dr. Jay Melosh by popular request. Dr. Melosh is at Purdue.

5. The Sunday, Oct. 7, 2018 program from 12-1:30 pm PDT, (3-4:30 pm EDT, 2-3:30 pm CDT): Open Lines. All callers welcome, especially first time callers. Talk about the topics you want to discuss.

See also:
* The Space Show on Vimeo – webinar videos
* The Space Show’s Blog – summaries of interviews.
* The Space Show Classroom Blog – tutorial programs

Recent programs:

  • 28 Sep 2018: Elizabeth Kennick spoke about “Teachers In Space programs, news and updates, 2019 possibilities, contests and activities”.
  • 26 Sep 2018: Hotel Mars with Jason Davis on “Hayabusa 2 landing & photos”.

The Space Show is a project of the One Giant Leap Foundation.

The Space Show - David Livingston
David Livingston

 

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Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8: The First Manned Mission to Another World

Astronomy

Videos: October 2018 night sky highlights

** NASA JPL posts this preview of highlights of the October night sky:

**  The Hubble Space Telescope Institute provides this October preview:

This October, look for Pegasus, the great winged horse of Greek mythology, prancing across the autumn night sky. Binoculars and small telescopes will reveal the glowing nucleus and spiral arms of the Andromeda Galaxy, and the Orionid meteor shower peaks on the night of October 21.

 

Space Music, Space Science

Space Music: The Planets at 100 + A new suite of Planets for 2018

On the 100th anniversary of the debut of Gustav Holst’s Planets Suite, Brian Cox compares the actual planets to their personas in the music: Brian Cox on Holst’s Planets then and now – The Guardian

When The Planets was completed in 1916, little was known about the physical nature of the worlds represented musically by Gustav Holst, and he didn’t care. His focus was on the planets as metaphors for different facets of the psyche; War, Peace, Jollity, Old Age, Messenger, Magician and Mystic. Indeed, Holst wrote parts of the work as stand-alone pieces and co-opted them later.

Today we have visited all the planets and our discoveries have replaced their ancient astrological characters. At first sight, this new knowledge might appear to jar with Holst’s work, but this would be a superficial conclusion to draw. The planets have histories far richer than Holst could have imagined and reality delivers more powerful metaphors than myth. Set against what we now know, Holst’s work catalyses new ideas and generates powerful intellectual challenges which enrich and inform important debates in progress today, as art with depth can and perhaps must do.

Here is one orchestral rendition of the Suite:

A review of each planet: ‘The Planets’ at 100: A listener’s guide to Holst’s solar system | MPR News

A music project has created a new 21st Century version of the Planets suite: The Planets 2018 – Ligeti Quartet – SOUND UK

The idea to reimagine The Planets using modern science came from the young British composer Samuel Bordoli who, along with producers Sound UK, paired up each musician with a planet and a mentor and asked them each to write a five-minute piece for string quartet. Titled The Planets 2018, the results are to be performed by the Ligeti Quartet in planetariums across the country from Saturday.

The timing is neat. Not only does the first concert mark 100 years to the day that Holst first debuted his Planets suite, but Greenwich – where the planetarium tour begins – is the location where astronomers conclusively disproved Lowell’s claim of a Martian army building waterways 33.5 million miles away.

 

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Chasing New Horizons: Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto

Space Collecting, Space industry and microgravity R&D, Space participation

Decron Club to sell space-flown collectible coins

The new company Decron Club will soon begin selling collectible coins made from metals flown in space:

Rocket Launch Flight SL-11 leads to the Launching of the Opportunity
to Touch Space with Your Own Hands

On the day when the world learned the name of the first private lunar passenger, who paid a hundred million dollars for the honor, new American startup Decron Club made a step realizing towards thousands of dreams “to touch Space for a dollar.”

SPACEPORT AMERICA, NM – On Monday, September 17th at 08:09 a.m. MT, Up Aerospace successfully launched the SL-11 sound rocket from launch pad #1 in the New Mexico desert.

Together with NASA’s experimental payloads aboard, Decron Club integrated it’s own precious metals ingots (1 kg Silver 999, 1 kg Copper, 2 Gold 999 ingots (200 grams), 3 Platinum 999 ingots (220 grams) in the nose cone sections of NC 1 and NC 2.

The flight surpassed the Karman line, the border between the Earth and space, reaching an altitude of 357,800 feet (109 km) at a speed of 6 times higher than the speed of sound – 2058 meters per second. After floating in zero gravity the payloads were safely returned back to the Earth.

“It’s the great conclusion of the flight. We’ve been working on this payload for NASA for a long time. It’s nice to finally get it flown. We look forward to getting all the data from NASA and posting our analysis”

– said Jerry Larson, the president of the UP Aerospace company.

The launching of flight SL-11 involves much more than the pride of a successful Up Aerospace program, as it also includes one giant leap for Decron Club company, who has diligently worked to produce products that only a few imagined possible. Decron Club is one step from mass production of unique coins. Also, scientific research is going to be conducted to see how the physical and chemical metal structure changes after being in space.

S-Series Gold Coin

With the help of Decron Club, people across the world will be able to grasp things in the palms of their hands that they wouldn’t otherwise have the opportunity. Decron Club works to deliver treasures from out of this world to you and your homes.

“The First Space Coin will become not a coin about space, but a part of it. Space is in its DNA. Today Decron Club became the first non-space company that made space affordable to thousands of people without paying a fortune for it”

– said Dennis Rudenko, CEO of Decron Club.

With these items paving the way into a new era in the evolution of collectible coins, products are expected to go fast as a result of the high demand to hold a piece of space in their hands.

Coin sales will start in October of 2018, with options consisting of platinum, gold and silver. For  pre-orders check updates on the company’s official website Decron Club. Decron Club also welcomes customers to follow its social media accounts on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Everyone can participate in space