A sampling of links to recent space policy, politics, and government (US and international) related space news and resource items that I found of interest:
** The Emerging Space Environment, Hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Aviation and Space, May 14, 2019
** Amending the Budget to Support Humans on the Moon in 2024 – This Week @NASA – May 17, 2019
** Will $1.6 billion Let NASA’s New Artemis Program Become Reality? – Scott Manley
** Sun, 05/19/2019 – Emily Carney talked about Space Hipsters, which she co-founded, “and lots more regarding space programs, education, outreach, policy, and getting young women interested in space”.
1. Monday, May 20, 2019; 2-3:30 pm PDT (4-5:30 pm CDT, 5-6:30 pm EDT): No show for today. Monday is for special and timely programs only.
2. Tuesday, May 21, 2019; 7-8:30 pm PDT (9-10:30 pm CDT, 10-11:30 pm EDT): We welcome back Dr. Philip Metzger on a variety of exciting space topics. Metzger is a planetary scientist at the University of Central Florida. When he was at NASA he co-founded the KSC Swamp Works laboratory that develops technologies to use resources found in space.
3. Wednesday, May 22 2019: 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.
5. Sunday, May 26, 2019; 12-1:30 pm PDT (3-4:30 pm EDT, 2-3:30 pm CDT): No show today due to the Memorial Day Holiday Weekend.
Some recent shows:
** Sun, 05/19/2019 – Emily Carney talked about Space Hipsters, which she co-founded, “and lots more regarding space programs, education, outreach, policy, and getting young women interested in space”.
** Fri, 05/17/2019 – Dr. Linda Spilker spoke about the latest findings from the Cassini Mission data, “new information on Saturn’s ring system, Titan, Enceladus, liquid methane oceans, life, NASA missions and more”.
** Mon, 05/13/2019 – John Jossy, Kim Holder, and Rick Kwan reported on the innovative and cutting edge NewSpace technologies presented and discussed at Space Access 2019. This includes the exciting innovation going on in the commercial space entrepreneurial community.
Schematic of the HyTI nanosatellite. Credit: HyTI, UH Mānoa.
A satellite designed and developed by researchers and engineers at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa is among 16 small research satellites from 10 states that NASA has selected to fly as auxiliary payloads aboard space missions planned to launch in the next three years.
Currently, 12 UH Mānoa team members, nine of whom received degrees at UH Mānoa, are working to ready the HyTI for launch. Once in orbit, the satellite will scan Earth with specialized cameras and detectors that collect information about how much thermal radiation Earth’s surface and atmosphere emits at a variety of wavelengths. From this data, researchers will map irrigated and rain-fed cropland, and measure volcanic gases from space.
Mat Kaplan visits Cal Poly San Luis Obispo for a last, clean room visit with LightSail 2, the Planetary Society’s solar sailing cubesat. While there, Mat also talked to attendees at the Cubesat Developers Workshop, including the creator of the tiny “Pocket Rocket” engine for small spacecraft. LightSail2 is now at the Air Force Research Lab for launch preparation, as we hear from Bruce Betts in this week’s What’s Up.
The Kyrgyz Space Programme was started in March 2018 and has around ten full-time members who meet several times a week to study programming and physics, contact space experts and launch providers and practice soldering. Their aim is to construct and launch a small CubeSat satellite into space by 2021.
The Kyrgyz Space Programme’s members are aged between 17 to 25 and training is led by 19-year-old Alina Anisimova, who started teaching herself engineering skills by dismantling computers at the age of six and following online tutorials. “You can teach yourself anything you want, and you can be whoever you want,” says Anisimova, who started teaching herself English online three months ago.
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Currently the Kyrgyz Space Programme is financed through a crowdfunding page aiming to raise around $150,000. Its goal is to build a CubeSat that can send and receive messages, include a camera and monitor the earth’s environment. They would like to launch their satellite from the ISS, as part of the payload of a rocket, and at this stage are still in talks with launch providers.
“The first satellite will be simple but in the future we hope to build more complex satellites and empower civil society and journalists with whatever satellites can offer them,” Iskender says. “As a long term expectation, we hope that our space programme will actually turn into something serious.”
Here is this week’s episode of NASA’s Space to Ground report on activities related to the International Space Station:
** NASA Rocket Ranch podcast discusses the proposed Gateway lunar orbit habitat:
** Expedition 59 Education Event with Mobius Science Center – May 15, 2019
Aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 59 Flight Engineer Anne McClain of NASA, a native of Spokane, Washington, discussed life and research on the complex with students gathered at the Mobius Science Center in Spokane. McClain, who arrived at the orbital laboratory in December, is the fifth month of a planned six-and-a-half- month mission on the orbiting laboratory.
** The Big Bang Juxtaposition: A Live Q&A with JPL and Caltech Scientists and Engineers
Bazinga! Watch this panel featuring real life scientists and engineers from JPL and Caltech the same night as The Big Bang Theory series finale, live from Pasadena, California. Featuring:
• Moderator: Bobak Ferdowsi, JPL systems engineer
• Varoujan Gorjian, JPL scientist and Caltech alum
• Jessie Christiansen, Caltech/IPAC staff scientist
• Vandana Desai, Caltech/IPAC astronomer
