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 (find previous space policy roundups here):
** 10 Years of Planned Satellites – Spacecast Ep28
Visualization of 57,000 satellites planned for launch in the next 10 years, based on data from Dan Oltrogge and Sal Alfano of AGI’s research arm, the Center for Space Standards and Innovation. Discussion with Dr. T.S. Kelso (CelesTrak), Anthony Colangelo (Main Engine Cut Off Podcast), and Josh (AGI). Data based on radio frequency spectrum applications submitted to the FCC and ITU. The data and visualization are notional and do not contain precise launch dates or tracks. Business and technical issues may reduce the actual number and timing of planned satellites. Learn more: http://celestrak.com, http://centerforspace.com, http://mainenginecutoff.com.
This image shows one of the gas halos newly observed with the MUSE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope superimposed to an older image of a galaxy merger obtained with ALMA. The large-scale halo of hydrogen gas is shown in blue, while the ALMA data is shown in orange. The halo is bound to the galaxy, which contains a quasar at its centre. The faint, glowing hydrogen gas in the halo provides the perfect food source for the supermassive black hole at the centre of the quasar. The objects in this image are located at redshift 6.2, meaning they are being seen as they were 12.8 billion years ago. While quasars are bright, the gas reservoirs around them are much harder to observe. But MUSE could detect the faint glow of the hydrogen gas in the halos, allowing astronomers to finally reveal the food stashes that power supermassive black holes in the early Universe.
Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope have observed reservoirs of cool gas around some of the earliest galaxies in the Universe. These gas halos are the perfect food for supermassive black holes at the centre of these galaxies, which are now seen as they were over 12.5 billion years ago. This food storage might explain how these cosmic monsters grew so fast during a period in the Universe’s history known as the Cosmic Dawn.
“We are now able to demonstrate, for the first time, that primordial galaxies do have enough food in their environments to sustain both the growth of supermassive black holes and vigorous star formation,”
says Emanuele Paolo Farina, of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, who led the research published today in The Astrophysical Journal.
“This adds a fundamental piece to the puzzle that astronomers are building to picture how cosmic structures formed more than 12 billion years ago.”
Astronomers have wondered how supermassive black holes were able to grow so large so early on in the history of the Universe.
“The presence of these early monsters, with masses several billion times the mass of our Sun, is a big mystery,”
says Farina, who is also affiliated with the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching bei München.
It means that the first black holes, which might have formed from the collapse of the first stars, must have grown very fast. But, until now, astronomers had not spotted ‘black hole food’ — gas and dust — in large enough quantities to explain this rapid growth.
To complicate matters further, previous observations with ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, revealed a lot of dust and gas in these early galaxies that fuelled rapid star formation. These ALMA observations suggested that there could be little left over to feed a black hole.
This illustration depicts a gas halo surrounding a quasar in the early Universe. The quasar, in orange, has two powerful jets and a supermassive black hole at its centre, which is surrounded by a dusty disc. The gas halo of glowing hydrogen gas is represented in blue. A team of astronomers surveyed 31 distant quasars, seeing them as they were more than 12.5 billion years ago, at a time when the Universe was still an infant, only about 870 million years old. They found that 12 quasars were surrounded by enormous gas reservoirs: halos of cool, dense hydrogen gas extending 100 000 light years from the central black holes and with billions of times the mass of the Sun. These gas stashes provide the perfect food source to sustain the growth of supermassive black holes in the early Universe.
To solve this mystery, Farina and his colleagues used the MUSE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in the Chilean Atacama Desert to study quasars — extremely bright objects powered by supermassive black holes which lie at the centre of massive galaxies. The study surveyed 31 quasars that are seen as they were more than 12.5 billion years ago, at a time when the Universe was still an infant, only about 870 million years old. This is one of the largest samples of quasars from this early on in the history of the Universe to be surveyed.
The astronomers found that 12 quasars were surrounded by enormous gas reservoirs: halos of cool, dense hydrogen gas extending 100 000 light years from the central black holes and with billions of times the mass of the Sun. The team, from Germany, the US, Italy and Chile, also found that these gas halos were tightly bound to the galaxies, providing the perfect food source to sustain both the growth of supermassive black holes and vigorous star formation.
The research was possible thanks to the superb sensitivity of MUSE, the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer, on ESO’s VLT, which Farina says was “a game changer” in the study of quasars.
“In a matter of a few hours per target, we were able to delve into the surroundings of the most massive and voracious black holes present in the young Universe,”
he adds. While quasars are bright, the gas reservoirs around them are much harder to observe. But MUSE could detect the faint glow of the hydrogen gas in the halos, allowing astronomers to finally reveal the food stashes that power supermassive black holes in the early Universe.
In the future, ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) will help scientists reveal even more details about galaxies and supermassive black holes in the first couple of billion years after the Big Bang.
“With the power of the ELT, we will be able to delve even deeper into the early Universe to find many more such gas nebulae,”
Dr. Courtney Dressing of the University of California at Berkeley gives a public lecture on exoplanets:
The NASA Kepler mission revealed that our Galaxy is teeming with planetary systems and that Earth-sized planets are common. However, most of the planets detected by Kepler orbit stars too faint to permit detailed study. The NASA Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS,) launched in 2018, is now finding hundreds of small planets orbiting stars that are much closer and brighter. Dr. Dressing discusses how we find exoplanets, describes the TESS mission, and explains how it (and future projects) will help our understanding of what planets are out there and how they form.
The lecture is one in the Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures series organized and moderated by Foothill’s astronomy instructor Andrew Fraknoi and jointly sponsored by the Foothill College Astronomy Department, NASA’s Ames Research Center, the SETI Institute, and the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.
“This rainbow-colored map shows underground water ice on Mars. Cool colors are closer to the surface than warm colors; black zones indicate areas where a spacecraft would sink into fine dust; the outlined box represents the ideal region to send astronauts for them to dig up water ice. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU”
A new paper published in Geophysical Research Letters will help [select landing spots on Mars] by providing a map of water ice believed to be as little as an inch (2.5 centimeters) below the surface.
Water ice will be a key consideration for any potential landing site. With little room to spare aboard a spacecraft, any human missions to Mars will have to harvest what’s already available for drinking water and making rocket fuel.
NASA calls this concept “in situ resource utilization,” and it’s an important factor in selecting human landing sites on Mars. Satellites orbiting Mars are essential in helping scientists determine the best places for building the first Martian research station. The authors of the new paper make use of data from two of those spacecraft, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and Mars Odyssey orbiter, to locate water ice that could potentially be within reach of astronauts on the Red Planet.
“You wouldn’t need a backhoe to dig up this ice. You could use a shovel,” said the paper’s lead author, Sylvain Piqueux of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “We’re continuing to collect data on buried ice on Mars, zeroing in on the best places for astronauts to land.”
** Recent interviews on The Space Show dealing with space settlement:
**** Fri, 12/13/2019 – Morgan Irons discussed “space farming and agriculture, closed and quasi-closed loop life support, food security and lots more”.
**** Thu, 12/05/2019 – Al Globus discussed”new information and an implementation program for his ELEO space habitat” concepts.
**** Tue, 12/03/2019 – Bryce Meyer discussed “space farms, growing food in space, lunar agriculture, food on Mars, recycling human waste, space farm energy needs and TRL’s”.
Before we get too far into this, it is important to clearly differentiate between “space settlement” and “a space settlement.” Space settlement is the general process of developing and settling space. A space settlement is a specific place in space where people live, work, and raise families.
Let’s start with a relevant dictionary definition of settlement—“the settling of persons in a new place.” This definition is almost immediately self-referential, as it refers to “settling of persons.” When we look at “settle” the verb, we see definitions that include “to migrate to and organize (an area, territory, etc); colonize,” “to cause to take up residence,” and “to furnish (a place) with inhabitants or settlers.”
All these definitions revolve around people living in a new place—“colonizing,” “taking up residence,” etc. This is very important—“taking up residence” implies permanence, family life, a job, and so on. A soldier being assigned to a base for a year is not “colonizing” or “taking up residence”—instead they are “being deployed.” A scientist might be “assigned” to work at a base in Antarctica for a period of time, but they are not “colonizing” Antarctica.
Thus, I propose that a “space settlement” is a group of people (men, women, children) who move to some specific location in space (Moon, Mars, an asteroid, orbital free space, etc.) to take up permanent residence there. This implies that they will raise their children in this “space settlement,” work in or near the “space settlement,” and in all probability die and have their remains disposed of there as well.
Skan concludes with
To summarize, the space settlements we are working to establish have the following characteristics:
Families live in them on a permanent basis
The settlements engage in commercial activity that generates the wealth needed to sustain them, and are not dependant on infusions of government funds.
They are large enough and diverse enough to be, at least potentially, both economically and biologically self-sustaining.
They may have a variety of organizational forms, including kibbutz style common ownership of the settlement, systems based on private property, company towns, or religious communities.
To say that OffWorld’s dream is an ambitious one is to put it mildly. The company envisions a future in which millions of smart robots work together using swarm intelligence “on and offworld” to build the infrastructure of tomorrow. Long term, they even imagine the possibility of using the robots to mine for materials which could be used to build new chips “with zero reliance on terrestrial supply.”
** A video of “Olympus”, Bigelow’s largest expandable habitat design:
Featuring a simple cut-away view of the B2100 “Olympus” to show the interior, this video is a compilation of previously uploaded Bigelow habitat clips as well as some new ones. Enjoy!
B330 and B2100 models by fragomatik. ISS model by NASA, adapted for use within IMAGINE v2.19 by fragomatik.
** Space based solar power has been failed to reach orbit despite decades of proposals and advocacy. Perhaps big drops in launch costs and cheaper SBSP system designs will finally make it practical, especially for powering remote sites: How to Get Solar Power on a Rainy Day? Beam It From Space | WIRED
In October, the Air Force Research Lab announced a $100 million program to develop hardware for a solar power satellite. It’s an important first step toward the first demonstration of space solar power in orbit, and [long time SBSP proponent John Mankins] says it could help solve what he sees as space solar power’s biggest problem: public perception. The technology has always seemed like a pie-in-the-sky idea, and the cost of setting up a solar array on Earth is plummeting. But space solar power has unique benefits, chief among them the availability of solar energy around the clock regardless of the weather or time of day.
It can also provide renewable energy to remote locations, such as forward operating bases for the military. And at a time when wildfires have forced the utility PG&E to kill power for thousands of California residents on multiple occasions, having a way to provide renewable energy through the clouds and smoke doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. (Ironically enough, PG&E entered a first-of-its-kind agreement to buy space solar power from a company called Solaren back in 2009; the system was supposed to start operating in 2016 but never came to fruition.)
“Illustration of One Version of the SPS-ALPHA Concept”. Credits: SPS-ALPHA NIAC study
The NASA Haughton-Mars Project (HMP) and collaborating organizations SETI Institute, Mars Institute, NASA Ames Research Center, Collins Aerospace, and Ntention are announcing the successful field test of an “astronaut smart glove” for future human exploration of the Moon, Mars, and beyond. The smart glove is a prototype for a human-machine interface (HuMI) that would allow astronauts to wirelessly operate a wide array of robotic assets, including drones, via simple single-hand gestures.
Here is a video about the project:
Haughton-Mars Project (HMP) video showing the first field test of a prototype “Astronaut Smart Glove”, a human-machine interface (HuMI) and augmented reality (AR) spacesuit system for future Moon and Mars exploration. Filmed at Haughton Crater, Devon Island, High Arctic. Collaborating organizations: Mars Institute, SETI Institute, NASA Ames Research Center, Collins Aerospace, and Ntention.
A sampling of recent articles, press releases, etc. related to student and amateur CubeSat / SmallSat projects and programs (find previous smallsat roundups here):
** Indian rocket orbits Duchifat-3 CubeSat built by Israeli high school students:
Duchifat 3 is the third in the series of Israeli student-made satellites.
Jointly built by Herzliya Science Center and Sha’ar HaNegev High School students, the satellite is designed to serve children from across the country to “observe the Earth”.
“It is a photo satellite used for ecological research of Earth from space. The size of the satellite is 10x10x30 cm (3U) and it weighs 2.3 kg. The students worked for almost two and a half years to build it. The satellite will be of good help to agriculturists,” one of the donors for the project and head of ICA Foundation Zeev Miller told PTI.
Bolsonaro also said in his tweet that besides the CBERS-4A, nano-satellite Floripast (cubeSat) would also be launched, a project developed by students of bachelor, master and doctorate courses in Electrical Engineering, Automation and Mechanical Engineering of the Federal University of Santa Catarina, in partnership with the Uniespaço programme of the Brazilian Space Agency.
In 2013, Alfeeli moved to the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Science, where he has worked ever since. Orbital Space takes up his evenings and weekends, as he manages several initiatives in parallel. He has set up a basic ground station called Um Alaish 4, after its predecessor, to receive signals from CubeSats. Orbital Space is also involved in building the country’s first CubeSat, with a group of around 15 Kuwaiti volunteers. The Kuwaiti engineer initiated the CubeSat project as a tool to attract space enthusiasts.
“The idea is to create a platform to bring together a community of space enthusiasts in Kuwait. There is interest from the young generation, but there is no project that engages them to create that critical mass. I figured we needed a hub where people can come together and do that. So Orbital Space has now created that opportunity and is open to anyone who wants to join us to promote space in Kuwait,” Alfeeli says.
By creating greater awareness through public talks on the history of the ground station in Kuwait and hands-on workshops on CubeSats for kids, he hopes to plant the seeds of a space programme in Kuwait. In addition to all the other initiatives, Orbital Space has also launched a competition for high-school students and undergraduate students in partnership with US-headquartered space commercialisation company Nanoracks, with the winning experiment to be sent to the International Space Station (ISS).
