Asteroids & Comets, Space participation, Space Science

Send your name to the Bennu asteroid

January 17, 2014 TopSpacer

NASA offers you an opportunity to send your name to an asteroid:

NASA Invites Public to Send Names on an Asteroid Mission and Beyond

ASA is inviting people around the world to submit their names to be etched on a microchip aboard a spacecraft headed to the asteroid Bennu in 2016.

The “Messages to Bennu!” microchip will travel to the asteroid aboard the agency’s Origins-Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft. The robotic mission will spend more than two years at the 1,760-foot (500-meter)-wide asteroid. The spacecraft will collect a sample of Bennu’s surface and return it to Earth in a sample return capsule.

This is an artist’s concept of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft preparing
to take a sample from asteroid Bennu.

Image Credit: NASA/Goddard/Chris Meaney

“We’re thrilled to be able to share the OSIRIS-REx adventure with people across the Earth, to Bennu and back,” said Dante Lauretta, principal investigator of the OSIRIS-REx mission from the University of Arizona in Tucson. “It’s a great opportunity for people to get engaged with the mission early and join us as we prepare for launch.”

Those wishing to participate in “Messages to Bennu!” should submit their name online no later than Sept. 30 at: planetary.org/bennu

After a person submits their name, they will be able to download and print a certificate documenting their participation in the OSIRIS-REx mission.

“You’ll be part of humankind’s exploration of the solar system –How cool is that?” said Bill Nye, chief executive officer of The Planetary Society, the organization collecting and processing the entries.

Participants who “follow” or “like” the mission on Facebook will receive updates on the location of their name in space from launch time until the asteroid samples return to Earth in 2023. Facebook fans also will be kept apprised of mission progress and late-breaking news through regular status updates.

The OSIRIS-REx mission goal is to address basic questions about the composition of the very early solar system, the source of organic materials and water that made life possible on Earth, and to better predict the orbits of asteroids that represent collision threats to the Earth. It will collect a minimum of 2 ounces (60 grams) of surface material.

Once the sample return capsule deploys, the spacecraft will be placed into a long-term solar orbit around the sun, along with the microchip and every name on it.

“It is exciting to consider the possibility that some of the people who register to send their names to Bennu could one day be a part of the team that analyzes the samples from the asteroid 10 years from now,” said Jason Dworkin, mission project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

This mission will assist the agency in its efforts to identify the population of potentially hazardous near-Earth objects, as well as those suitable for asteroid exploration missions. The asteroid initiative brings together the best of NASA’s science, technology and human exploration efforts to achieve President Obama’s goal of sending humans to an asteroid by 2025.

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., will provide overall mission management, systems engineering, and safety and mission assurance for OSIRIS-REx. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver will build the spacecraft. OSIRIS-REx is the third mission in NASA’s New Frontiers Program. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages New Frontiers for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

For more information about the OSIRIS-REx mission, visit: www.nasa.gov/osiris-rex and osiris-rex.lpl.arizona.edu

Asteroids & Comets, In Space Infrastructure, Space Systems

FISO: Exploring earth’s minimoons

January 16, 2014 TopSpacer

The latest presentation to the Future In-Space Operations (FISO) study group is now posted in the FISO Working Group Presentations Archive. There are slides and a video in a zip file plus an audio file (mp3) available for the talk, Minimoons: New Prospective Targets for Human Exploration, Bill Bottke, SWRI Boulder – Jan.15.14

Occasionally, near earth asteroids are captured temporarily in orbits around earth. Bottke calls these Minimoons:

TheEarth-Sun Lagrange points minimum areas are of particular interest.

The objects can last for just one simple orbit –

Or for many complex orbits:

Lifetimes in the earth region can span many years:

They estimate a couple of dozen such Minimoons are in orbit around earth at any given time:

Bottke goes on to discuss ideas for improving the detection of Minimoons and for targeting them for exploratory missions, including human missions.

Space Policy

Space policy roundup – Jan.16.14 [Updated]

January 16, 2014 TopSpacer

Space policy/politics related links today:

A couple of space policy related webcasts:

Update:

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Space Policy

Space policy roundup – Jan.15.14

January 15, 2014 TopSpacer

Today’s selection of space policy/politics related links

Bolden, Stakeholders Pleased with How NASA Fares in 2014 Omnibus Spending Bill – SpaceNews.com
- Charlie Bolden Has His Head In The Sand Again – NASA Watch
- The big problem with the “big win” for NASA’s exploration program budget – SciGuy
Spending bill holds ‘a big win’ for NASA projects – Florida Today
DARPA Chief Says Space Programs Are Too Slow and Costly – SpaceNews.com
Interview with Andrew Nelson of XCOR – Space Trade Magazine – mostly about spaceflight regulations
Coincidence or counteroffensive? NASA broadens Space Launch System defense (video) – Huntsville Times
- So NASA is now trying to sell the space science community on the marvelous notion that the SLS can carry giant space science spacecraft.”With SLS, you can design a spacecraft even larger than the space shuttle that carried Hubble. It’s going to open up an entirely new way of thinking about how we plan and design planetary science missions.”Where the money to pay for such giant missions and for the giant cost of launching them on the SLS launches is not explained. Such an entirely new way of thinking has a name – Insanity.
Manned Mission to Mars By 2030s Is Really Possible, Experts Say – Space.com

Update:

The NASA Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel once again shows that it judges the safety of a human spaceflight development program according to the degree that it looks like previous such programs at NASA. If it is not a top-down agency managed program with cost-plus subcontracting and ever escalating costs, then it simply must be less safe.

ASAP cannot, of course, specify any actual technical shortcomings in the commercial systems being developed. It can only point to superficial differences in the way the commercial crew program is configured and the fact that its costs are low.

I see nothing in the report about the fact that the rockets used for the commercial crew spacecraft will have flown many times unmanned prior to crew flights and will continue to fly unmanned payloads in parallel with the crew program. ASAP had shown no reluctance to have NASA astronauts fly on an Ares I after just one test flight and they appear to have no qualms in crew flights on the SLS/Orion after just one test flight. Apparently, real world flight hardware experience is trivial to ASAP compared to stacks of paper studies and proper FAR procurement procedures.

Mars One: crowd-funding campaign update

January 15, 2014 TopSpacer

Mars One urges participation in their Indiegogo crowd-funding campaign. They are currently at $172,533 towards their goal of $400,000 with 11 days left in the campaign.

Space Exploration for Everyone

Amersfoort, 15th January 2014 – For the first time in the history of humankind, economical participation in space exploration is a reality. With Mars One’s recent launch of a crowdfunding campaign, it’s now possible to send a personal item to distances far beyond your wildest dreams. For many, the Mars One mission is the gateway to a new era in man’s historic reach for the stars.

For about 50 years, government organizations have been funding and managing space exploration across the globe. Government run exploration, funded by public monies, has provided limited access to most citizens of those countries. In the last few years, private organizations such as Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Eric Anderson’s Space Adventures have made space exploration possible for the mega-rich. A flight with Virgin Galactic 68 miles above Earth goes for a cool $250,000 while the potential 2017 flight to the moon from Space Adventures is rumored to cost an astronomical $150 million. There are others in between, but none as accessible as Mars One. Bas Lansdorp, co-founder of Mars One, has set his sights on involving the everyday man and woman in space exploration.

In April 2013, Mars One opened the doors to the masses by providing an open application process for the potential crew that will fly to Mars in 2025 to establish the human settlement. The response was overwhelming, with more than 200,000 people world-wide applying. Lansdorp is not shy about future promises to continue the trend. “From the beginning, this has always been humankind’s mission to Mars!”

The Mars One Foundation took another step toward this goal on December 10th, when they launched a crowdfunding campaign. The campaign, hosted by non-profit crowdfunding leader Indiegogo, is aimed at bringing Mars One and their goal of human settlement on Mars to the masses. Crowdfunding campaigns provide any person a chance to contribute financially to an organization’s fundraising efforts in exchange for what are called perks, or gifts created by the campaign owner. The perks included by Mars One provide what Lansdorp calls, “the first steps to affordable and accessible space exploration.”

http://youtu.be/icN29cdmw_s

The ‘crowd’ is invited to participate in Mars One first unmanned mission that will be launched in 2018. On the 10th of December 2013, Mars One announced that Lockheed Martin and SSTL were selected to perform the mission concept studies for the two spacecraft that will fly to Mars in 2018.

As an example, for just $25, you can send your electronic picture to Mars. In 2019, the Mars One communications satellite will pull up an image of your picture while in orbit and snap a shot of it with Mars in the background. Another popular perk provides any person the ability to create a personal message to be printed directly on the parachute which will be used to land the first Mars One spacecraft in 2019. “The Parachute Message to Mars is one of my personal favorites,” says Lansdorp. “Sending your physical message to Mars, all for just $95, seems outrageous. Think about it. Many times, that’s less than sending a package from Europe to the United States via FedEx or UPS!” These perks, plus others, will be offered until January 25th, when the campaign comes to a close.

About Mars One
Mars One is a not-for-profit foundation that will establish permanent human life on Mars. Human settlement on Mars is possible today with existing technologies. Mars One’s mission plan integrates components that are well tested and readily available from industry leaders worldwide. The first footprint on Mars and lives of the crew thereon will captivate and inspire generations. It is this public interest that will help finance this human mission to Mars.

Mars One’s Indiegogo Crowdfunding campaign can be found at: www.indiegogo.com/projects/mars-one-first-private-mars-mission-in-2018

Mars One team members and Ed Sedivy of Lockheed Martin comment on the 2018 Lander in this movie: http://youtu.be/icN29cdmw_s