Monthly Archives: May 2015

Activism, Education, Events

Kickstarter to fund 5 New SpaceUps in 2015

A SpaceUp event is a space unconference

where participants decide the topics, schedule, and structure of the event. Unconferences have been held about technology, science, transit, and even cupcakes, but this is the first one focused on space exploration.

SpaceUp is your unconference

Everyone who attends SpaceUp is encouraged to give a talk, moderate a panel, or start a discussion. Sessions are proposed and scheduled on the day they’re given, which means the usual “hallway conversations” turn into full-fledged topics.

Since the first SpaceUp in San Diego in 2010, there have been dozens of SpaceUp events around the world. See the list of past and future SpaceUp events here: SpaceUp Near You – SpaceUp

To encourage the organization of even more SpaceUp meetings, the SpaceUp Foundation has been formed to provide advice and some initial funding to help organizers get an event off the ground.

The SpaceUp Foundation is holding a crowdfunding campaign to support five events this year: Sci-Five: 5 New SpaceUps for 2015 by SpaceUp Foundation — Kickstarter

Astronomy

ESO: The Dreadful Beauty of Medusa

A new finding from the ESO (European Southern Observatory):

The Dreadful Beauty of Medusa

Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile have captured the most detailed image ever taken of the Medusa Nebula. As the star at the heart of this nebula made its transition into retirement, it shed its outer layers into space, forming this colourful cloud. The image foreshadows the final fate of the Sun, which will eventually also become an object of this kind.

ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile has captured the most detailed image ever taken of the Medusa Nebula (also known Abell 21 and Sharpless 2-274). As the star at the heart of this nebula made its final transition into retirement, it shed its outer layers into space, forming this colourful cloud. The image foreshadows the final fate of the Sun, which will eventually also become an object of this kind.

ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile has captured the most detailed image ever taken of the Medusa Nebula (also known Abell 21 and Sharpless 2-274). As the star at the heart of this nebula made its final transition into retirement, it shed its outer layers into space, forming this colourful cloud. The image foreshadows the final fate of the Sun, which will eventually also become an object of this kind. Credit ESO.

This beautiful planetary nebula is named after a dreadful creature from Greek mythology — the Gorgon Medusa. It is also known as Sharpless 2-274 and is located in the constellation of Gemini (The Twins). The Medusa Nebula spans approximately four light-years and lies at a distance of about 1500 light-years. Despite its size it is extremely dim and hard to observe.

Medusa was a hideous creature with snakes in place of hair. These snakes are represented by the serpentine filaments of glowing gas in this nebula. The red glow from hydrogen and the fainter green emission from oxygen gas extends well beyond this frame, forming a crescent shape in the sky. The ejection of mass from stars at this stage of their evolution is often intermittent, which can result in fascinating structures within planetary nebulae.

For tens of thousands of years  the stellar cores of planetary nebulae are surrounded by these spectacularly colourful clouds of gas [1]. Over a further few thousand years the gas slowly disperses into its surroundings. This is the last phase in the transformation of stars like the Sun before ending their active lives as white dwarfs. The planetary nebula stage in the life of a star is a tiny fraction of its total life span — just as the time a child takes to blow a soap bubble and see it drift away is a brief instant compared to a full human life span.

Harsh ultraviolet radiation from the very hot star at the core of the nebula causes atoms in the outward-moving gas to lose their electrons, leaving behind ionised gas. The characteristic colours of this glowing gas can be used to identify objects. In particular, the presence of the green glow from doubly ionised oxygen ([O III]) is used as a tool for spotting planetary nebulae. By applying appropriate filters, astronomers can isolate the radiation from the glowing gas and make the dim nebulae appear more pronounced against a darker background.

When the green [O III] emission from nebulae was first observed, astronomers thought they had discovered a new element that they dubbed nebulium. They later realised that it was simply a rare wavelength of radiation [2] from an ionised form of the familiar element oxygen.

The nebula is also referred to as Abell 21 (more formally PN A66 21), after the American astronomer George O. Abell, who discovered this object in 1955. For some time scientists debated whether the cloud could be the remnant of a supernova explosion. In the 1970s, however, researchers were able to measure the movement and other properties of the material in the cloud and clearly identify it as a planetary nebula [3].

This image uses data from the FOcal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrograph (FORS) instrument attached to the VLT, which were acquired as part of the ESO Cosmic Gems programme [4].

This wide-field view shows the sky around the large but faint planetary nebula known as the Medusa Nebula. The full extent of the object can be seen, as well as many faint stars and, far beyond them, numerous distant galaxies.This picture was created from images forming part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2.

Activism, DIY space, Space Systems

Planetary Society’s LightSail to launch on Atlas V – Kickstarter raising funds

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A solar sail prototype called the LightSail, built by the Planetary Society, will be one of secondary payloads on an Atlas V rocket set to be launched on Wednesday. The primary payload is one of the US Air Force’s reusble X-37B spaceplanes. The sail is packed into a tiny CubeSat. The sail unfurls from the CubeSat as shown in this Vine:

The LighSail CubeSat will be deployed with 9 other CubeSats. Here is a factsheet about the cubesats on the rocket: Atlas V AFSPC-5ULTRASat CubeSat descriptions (pdf). It includes this nicely made graphic showing how the cubesats are installed and deployed from the Atlas V‘s Centaur upper stage:

DeploymentFromCentaur

Her are some recent posts from the Planetary Society about the project and the launch:

To watch the launch, which will happen during windows 11:05-11:15 a.m. and 12:42-12:52 p.m. EDT, you can watch the webcasts at:

This prototype will not actually achieve any acceleration from the solar light pressure. The orbit will be so low that the drag from the residual atmosphere will overwhelm the tiny force of solar light. This flight is only to test the deployment mechanism and other systems.

A second LightSail to be flown  as a secondary on a launch of a SpaceX Falcon Heavy in 2016 should reach a high enough altitude where the residual atmosphere will be insignificant and light pressure will be able to move the sail.

To support this project, the Planetary Society has a Kickstarter underway at LightSail: A Revolutionary Solar Sailing Spacecraft by Bill Nye, CEO, The Planetary Society — Kickstarter.

The target was $200,000 but they have already reached nearly $600,000 with 37 days to go. So they are shooting for a million dollars and several stretch goals.

Contests and Games, Space Settlement, Space Systems

NASA opens the 3D Printed Habitat Challenge competition

NASA announces the 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge:

15-093[1]

NASA Challenges Designers to Build
Deep Space Exploration Habitat

NASA and the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute, known as America Makes, are holding a new $2.25 million competition to design and build a 3-D printed habitat for deep space exploration, including the agency’s journey to Mars.

The multi-phase 3-D Printed Habitat Challenge, part of NASA’s Centennial Challenges program, is designed to advance the additive construction technology needed to create sustainable housing solutions for Earth and beyond.

Shelter is among the most basic and crucial human needs, but packing enough materials and equipment to build a habitat on a distant planet would take up valuable cargo space that could be used for other life-sustaining provisions. The ability to manufacture a habitat using indigenous materials, combined with material that would otherwise be waste from the spacecraft, would be invaluable.

The first phase of the competition, announced Saturday at the Bay Area Maker Faire in San Mateo, California, runs through Sept. 27. This phase, a design competition, calls on participants to develop state-of-the-art architectural concepts that take advantage of the unique capabilities 3-D printing offers. The top 30 submissions will be judged and a prize purse of $50,000 will be awarded at the 2015 World Maker Faire in New York.

“The future possibilities for 3-D printing are inspiring, and the technology is extremely important to deep space exploration,” said Sam Ortega, Centennial Challenges program manager. “This challenge definitely raises the bar from what we are currently capable of, and we are excited to see what the maker community does with it.”

The second phase of the competition is divided into two levels. The Structural Member Competition (Level 1) focuses on the fabrication technologies needed to manufacture structural components from a combination of indigenous materials and recyclables, or indigenous materials alone. The On-Site Habitat Competition (Level 2) challenges competitors to fabricate full-scale habitats using indigenous materials or indigenous materials combined with recyclables. Both levels open for registration Sept. 26, and each carries a $1.1 million prize.

Winning concepts and products will help NASA build the technical expertise to send habitat-manufacturing machines to distant destinations, such as Mars, to build shelters for the human explorers who follow. On Earth, these capabilities may be used one day to construct affordable housing in remote locations with limited access to conventional building materials.

“America Makes is honored to be a partner in this potentially revolutionary competition,” said Ralph Resnick, founding director of America Makes. “We believe that 3D printing/Additive Manufacturing has the power to fundamentally change the way people approach design and construction for habitats, both on earth and off, and we are excitedly awaiting submissions from all types of competitors.”

America Makes is a public/private partnership of organizations focused on accelerating the capabilities and adoption of additive manufacturing technology.

The Centennial Challenges Program is managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama for the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate in Washington.

For more information about the 3-D-Printed Habitat Challenge, visit: AmericaMakes.us/Challenge and www.nasa.gov/3DPHab

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Key Dates

  • May 16, 2015: Registration Opens
  • July 15, 2015: Deadline To Submit Registration Package
  • August 3, 2015: Deadline to Submit Design Entry
  • September 26 & 27: NYC Maker Faire
Science and Technology

Sci-Tech: Latest view of the Tesla Gigafactory + Hyperloop test track project

Here’s a recent drone view of Tesla Motors‘ giant Gigafactory battery plant under construction in Nevada.

[ Update: Elon says this is just a fraction of the ultimate size of the facility – Elon Musk on Twitter:

This is not the full Gigafactory, it is just the pilot plant (1/4 size)

]

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Another of Elon Musk’s concepts is being moved forward by Hyperloop Technologies Inc, which will begin building a five mile (8 km) long Hyperloop test track in 2016: Hyperloop Glides toward Reality in California – Navigant Research.

Elon has also proposed a test track in Texas.

See previous posts about the Hyperloop here, here and here.