General

Here are more details about the upcoming docudrama series from National Geographic and Ron Howard about the first missions to start the settlement of Mars: Inside Nat Geo’s Incredible Documentary Mission to Mars | WIRED.

(See also the earlier posting here with the first two trailers.)

In this video, Andy Weir (author of The Martian) and others talk about the challenges of just getting to Mars:

The mission architecture as described in the TV program shares many aspects of the architecture for Mars settlement laid out recently by Elon Musk of SpaceX:

Rockets, Space Models

Modeling the Antares rocket and Cygnus spacecraft

October 18, 2016 TopSpacer

You can make your own model of the Orbital ATK Antares rocket and Cygnus cargo spacecraft that launched Monday night to the ISS: New Antares 230 OA-5 papermodel | AXM Paper Space Scale Models Blog –

Events, Rockets

Video: Launch of the Antares rocket from Virginia

October 17, 2016 TopSpacer 1 Comment

Orbital ATK plans to launch the company’s Antares rocket tonight at 7:40 pm EDT from Wallops Island, Virginia. It will send a Cygnus cargo spacecraft to orbit and the Cygnus will proceed to a rendezvous and docking with the International Space Station on Sunday. (Has to wait for a Soyuz that will launch from Russia [on Wednesday morning at 4:05 am EDT. 0805 GMT] with a crew of three to dock with the ISS first.)

Update: Here is a video of the NASA TV webcast of the launch:

Update 2: Here is the post-launch briefing:

Activism, Space Policy, SpaceCasts

The Space Show this week – Oct.17.2016

October 17, 2016 TopSpacer

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

1. Monday, Oct. 17, 2016: 2-3:30 pm PDT (5-6:30 pm EDT, 4-5:30 pm CDT): We welcome back Eric Berger of Ars Technica to discuss space news events and many of his latest blog posts.

2. Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2016: 7-8:30 pm PDT, 10-11:30 pm EDT, 9-10:30 pm CDT: Dr. Moriba K. Jah of the University of Arizona on space object behavior and more.

3. Friday, Oct. 21, 2016: 9:30-11 am PDT; (12:30-2 pm EDT; 11:30 AM – 1 pm CDT) We welcome Johannes Torpe from Denmark, fresh back from the Personal Spaceflight Symposium in Las Cruces, NM.

4. Sunday, Oct. 23, 2016: 12-1:30 pm PDT (3-4:30 pm EDT, 2-3:30 pm CDT): We welcome Vera Mulyani and Dr. Madhu Thangalevu regarding the Mars City Design Competition.

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

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