Category Archives: Living in Space

In Space Infrastructure, Living in Space, Space Systems

Video: NASA’s robotic refueling program

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.

Living in Space, Mars, Space TV

Reality TV shows proposed for Mars One and Mars Society projects

The plan by the Mars-One project has always held media, especially reality TV shows, as the key to funding their effort to put a human settlement on the Red Planet. It appears that one television production company, Lions Gate is the first to give it a try: Mission To Colonize Mars To Become Reality TV Series – Deadline.com.

For the next several years, the series would be covering the different stages of preparation for the mission, starting with participant selection and the finalists — called candidates — undergoing an 8-year training protocol. The series’ cast will evolve as candidates in the mission drop out and new ones are brought in. “This is a social experiment that focuses on the people that would sign for something like this — they have to agree to participate and be willing to go on a one-way mission, knowing that if you go, you can never come back,” said Roy Bank, who is producing the project as part of his overall deal with Lionsgate TV.

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Robert Zubrin, co-founder of the Mars Society, was recently on The Space Show and he discussed Mars Arctic 365. MA365 involves putting a “crew” on the Mars Society’s Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station (FMARS) at Devon Island for a full year rather than just a few months as in previous expeditions. Dr. Robert Zubrin, Thursday, 3-13-14 – Thespaceshow’s Blog

There might be a reality TV show based on this project as well: Mars Exploration Reality Series Shopped By Thinkfactory Media – Deadline.com.

The production company ThinkFactory Media has been developing

an unscripted TV project that would document Mars Society’s year-long Mars simulation in the Canadian Arctic. Thinkfactory had been working with the Mars Society on the project for the past four months. It took the series out to networks last week, with two outlets interested and currently in discussion with the production company. Tentatively titled Mission To Mars, the series is one of two Mars colonization reality projects in the marketplace, along with Lionsgate TV’s untitled series done in collaboration with Lansdorp’s Mars One, the international Mars mission backed by Dutch billionaire entrepreneur Bas Lansdorp.

In Space Infrastructure, Living in Space, Spaceflight & Parabolic Flight

‘Skinsuit’ to be tested on ISS

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.’

Living in Space, Space Systems, SpaceCasts

“Live from Space” – Nat. Geo. to broadcast Friday from the ISS

This Friday (8 p.m. EDT/5 p.m. PDT) the National Geographic Channel will broadcast Live From Space –

National Geographic Channel is taking viewers around the world—literally—in this spectacular two-hour television event broadcasting LIVE from the International Space Station (ISS) and Mission Control in Houston, Texas.

Made in collaboration with NASA, we’ll go into orbit with astronauts Rick Mastracchioand Koichi Wakata as they fly at 17,500 mph nearly 250 miles above the earth’s surface on the International Space Station, while astronaut Mike Massimino joins host Soledad O’Brien on the ground at Mission Control in Houston.

From space, Mastracchio and Wakata will give viewers a fully guided tour, showing us how they live for months in microgravity. They’ll conduct never-before-broadcast experiments that demonstrate the real-world value of the science conducted on the floating laboratory.

Plus get ready for stunning shots of Earth, from sunset and sunrise, to city lights and green aurora, to lightning storms and shooting stars. You’ve never seen our planet like this before.

Two items about the show: