** A paean to the Falcon Heavy from Time Dodd, the Everyday Astronaut, on the occasion of the recent one year anniversary of the launch system’s first flight: “27 Merlins” Music composed to Falcon Heavy’s sequence of events:
This presentations schedule represents 90% of the final SA2019 three-day program. Things have evolved toward our having three major focus areas over the three days of the program: On Thursday, we feature the current Entrepreneurial Revolution in Smallsat Launch. On Friday, the near-future transition to Reusable-Rocket Transport Networks in Cislunar Space. And on Saturday, the eventual transition to Getting There Faster: Advanced High-Energy Space Propulsion. Stay tuned for minor schedule tweaks, more detail on presentations start-time & duration, and a few final program additions in the coming weeks.
Space Access 2019 will be the next round of Space Access Society’s conference on the technology, business, and politics of radically cheaper space transportation, brought to you this year in cooperation with the Bay Area’s own Experimental Rocket Propulsion Society.
And it’s coming up fast! Five weeks from this Thursday SA2019 gets underway. The Marriott is ten miles from the San Jose Airport, 24 from Oakland – book your flights soon before fares go up. And there’s no guarantee the Marriott will honor our special $130 room rates after March 26th – our rate block is already sold out for Wednesday night, and Thursday-Saturday are going fast, so book your room soon also! Conference Registration also goes up after the 26th, from the current $180 advance rate for Regular membership to $220, other rates also rising. Register now, and join us!
1. Monday, March 11, 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, March 12, 2019; 7-8:30 pm PDT (9-10:30 pm CDT, 10-11:30 pm EDT): We welcome Chris Blackerby, COO of Astroscale, to discuss space debris removal.
3. Wednesday, March 13, 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.
4. Friday, March 15, 2019; 9:30-11 am PDT (11:30 am-1 pm CDT, 12:30-2 PM EDT): We welcome David Shayler, author and space historian, to talk about the British Interplanetary Society (BIS), human spaceflight, Skylab, the Russian and Chinese space programs, and more.
5. Sunday, March 17, 2019;, 12-1:30 pm PDT (3-4:30 pm EDT, 2-3:30 pm CDT): We welcome Dr. Rachel Seidler to the show to discuss her research into the effects of microgravity on neuromotor behavior. See www.seidlerlab.com.
Some Recent shows:
** Fri, 03/08/2019 – Jose Ocasio-Christian discussed talked about “Caelus Partners and The Caelus Foundation’s Community in Space Campaign, their upcoming opening dialog workshop with China on commercializing space and much more”.
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:
With missions like Chang’e 4 on the far side of the Moon, China has firmly established itself as a leader in space exploration. Space journalist Andrew Jones helps us explore the nation’s ambitious near and long-term plans. Emily Lakdawalla says Mars lander InSight’s Mole has hit an obstacle, while Jason Davis shows us how Japan’s Hayabusa2 has blasted asteroid Ryugu for a sample and celebrates the success of the SpaceX Crew Dragon demo mission. Chief Scientist Bruce Betts gets a polite dressing down from an impeccable source.
** Dennis Ray Wingo recently talked “at NASA Ames for the Commercial Space Telecon, on March 6th, 2019. It encapsulates my thoughts to date on our direction and steps to the Industrialization of the Moon”.
A team of Old Dominion University students took a giant leap toward space as they joined two other Virginia universities in delivering their CubeSats to NanoRacks in Houston on Feb. 26. The nano-sized cube satellites were successfully integrated into the company’s commercially developed NanoRacks CubeSat Deployer (NRCSD) in preparation for launch on Northrop Grumman’s Antares to the International Space Station. The launch is scheduled for April 17 from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility.
Kimberly Wright, a graduate student in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, serves as student mission manager for ODU. She was accompanied by her teammates, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering master’s student Westin Messer and Electrical Engineering master’s student Anthony Cappiello, as well as their faculty advisor, associate professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Dimitrie Popescu. Wright was thrilled to finally hand off ODU’s CubeSat for this critical step in a multiyear journey.
** The Alabama CubeSat Initiative will involve about 100 students and faculty from colleges around the state in the developing of CubeSats for deep space missions:
“There have been many student-developed CubeSats previously; to the best of my knowledge, there has never been a student-developed CubeSat to fly outside LEO,” says Dr. Dale Thomas, ASGC director, UAH professor and the eminent scholar in systems engineering. “I think that’s a pretty big deal. And it will be exceptionally challenging.”
On Oct. 16, the Alabama Space Authority passed a resolution supporting the Alabama CubeSat Initiative. The intent of the initiative is to ramp up a system by which ASGC members will eventually fly one collaborative CubeSat per year.
A $5,000 donation from LogiCore Corporation, a logistics and engineering services company in Huntsville Alabama is helping the Alabama Space Grant Consortium (ASGC) to design and build the first in a planned series of statewide collaborative cube satellites (CubeSats).
A recent workshop about the project, which will carry a gamma-ray burst (GRB) detector to be placed in the vicinity of the moon to detect short gamma-ray bursts, was partially sponsored by the LogiCore donation.
The Training Centre for CubeSats, Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles and their Applications (CUAVA) is currently developing two CubeSats to test the uses for cheaper, smaller satellites in the Australian context while developing local expertise in the field.
‘CUAVA-1’ is set to be the first satellite launched later this year, and will be laden with remote sensing, GPS, and communications equipment, along with sensors to monitor the environment in space.
Space BD, who is also a commercial service provider with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, will provide end-to-end launch and deployment services for CUAVA.
** Latest on KickSat-2, which has over 100 tiny ChipSats on board: