Teleportation of Energy Is Possible

This is the kind of discovery that takes a while to percolate before useful technologies come from it. The implications of teleporting information and/or energy are enormous. Imagine living on Mars with all the connectivity we enjoy in one of Earth's major cities.

Physicists Prove Teleportation of Energy Is Possible | Popular Science
"Over five years ago, scientists succeeded in teleporting information. Unfortunately, the advance failed to bring us any closer to the Star Trek future we all dream of. Now, researchers in Japan have used the same principles to prove that energy can be teleported in the same fashion as information. Rather than just hastening the dawn of quantum computing, this development could lead to practical, significant changes in energy distribution."

More success in private space ventures

With NASA's current problems, our leadership in space technology is in the hands of industry - private & public firms. Fortunately, quite a bit of activity is occurring in this area . . .

Xoie Claims $1 Million Lunar Lander Prize | Autopia | Wired.com:
"Leaving it to the last minute, the team from Masten Space Systems has made a come-from-behind effort to win the $1 million prize after successfully flying its lunar lander last week. The team flew a new ship, called Xoie, to qualify for level 2 of the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge.

After looking at the qualifying teams, Masten Space Systems and Armadillo Aerospace, the competition came down to inches.

In order to qualify for the level 2 of challenge, each participating team’s rocket had to autonomously make a round trip between two separate launch pads, flying to an altitude of at least 164 feet and remain aloft for at least 180 seconds. Armadillo Aerospace successfully met the requirements back in September. Their lander, Scorpius, had an average landing accuracy of about 35 inches.

When the team from Masten flew Friday, one day before the end of the competition, they managed to make the round trip with an average landing accuracy of about 7.5 inches. John Carmack’s Armadillo Aerospace team lost the million dollar prize by a little more than two feet."

Augustine Commission has harsh conclussions for NASA

The entire article is worth reading, but this quote summarizes many of the issues for me:

Full Augustine Commission Report - Surprises from the Full Review of Human Spaceflight - Popular Mechanics:
"6) NASA is handicapped by rules that limit the way it does business.
Unlike other federal departments, NASA's relationship with the industrial world is antiquated, discourages innovation and suffers from inflexible bureaucracy."

NASA unveils rocket for shuttle's replacement

Things seem to happen slowly at NASA, but at least some things are still happening . . .

Ares1X rollout - NASA unveils shuttle's replacement:
"NASA's pristine white Ares I-X rocket rolled out of the enormous Vehicle Assembly Building just after 1:30 a.m. Tuesday. Reporters and space center employees joined program engineers and executives for the grand unveiling which took place under bright white spotlights.

>> Photos of the rollout

“This is really the first chance we've had to see it in all its glory,” offered John Cowart, deputy manager for the Ares test flight. “Not since about 1975 has something this large come out of the VAB.”

The Ares I-X is 327 feet tall – much taller than the space shuttles that usually make the slow roll to the launch pads. But it's primarily built from a space shuttle solid rocket booster, and is meant to test the flight characteristics of NASA's planned shuttle replacements.

“It's a different shape than what people are used to. It's that tallest rocket in the world, it's very thin for its height. But we're very confident it's going to work and we've done all that we can possibly do,” Cowart continued.

The two-minute flight, planned for next week, should give engineers plenty of data about rotation, vibration, and even parachute deployment before the rocket splashes down in the Atlantic. It's taking place early enough in the design process that lessons learned from this flight can be applied to the final design."

Little drama, but lots of data from NASA's LCROSS mission

Listening to mission control, it was evident that the NASA folks were engaged & excited by this mission. We're developing the information required to support a permanent station on the Moon. There's no law that says the language spoken in space will be American English - this data will be in the public domain for whichever nation has the nerve to become explorers again. The benefits of living & working in space may be unimaginable, but based on past performance, they'll far exceed the invest made to get there.

No plume, but a firehose of data from NASA moon bombing - Ars Technica:
"Regardless of the public expectations, LCROSS clearly performed as planned. It recently separated from the Centaur stage that helped bring it to lunar orbit, and both of the spacecraft were directed towards the Cabeus crater at the Moon's south pole. The Centaur vehicle went first, creating an impact that could be observed from instruments on LCROSS, which followed it in. Less than four minutes later, LCROSS itself struck the lunar surface. The impacts were observed with a variety of telescopes on Earth and in Earth orbit, although the actual site of the impact was obscured by the Cabeus crater walls.

Clearly, a lot of people were hoping that dropping hardware onto the lunar surface would create a spray of debris that would rise above the crater walls, and be visible to the Earth-based observatories. Unfortunately, from the perspective of the Earth, LCROSS struck not with a bang, but a whimper, as if it had landed on a comfy pillow."

Water on the Moon

Water is essential to life. So far, we've had to carry adequate water with us during space travel. This discovery means we can probably provide enough water for workers on the Moon without having to lift it our of Earth's huge gravity well. This makes settlements on the Moon more likely in our foreseeable future.

SPACE.com -- It's Official: Water Found on the Moon:
"Since man first touched the moon and brought pieces of it back to Earth, scientists have thought that the lunar surface was bone dry. But new observations from three different spacecraft have put this notion to rest with what has been called 'unambiguous evidence' of water across the surface of the moon.

The new findings, detailed in the Sept. 25 issue of the journal Science, come in the wake of further evidence of lunar polar water ice by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and just weeks before the planned lunar impact of NASA's LCROSS satellite, which will hit one of the permanently shadowed craters at the moon's south pole in hope of churning up evidence of water ice deposits in the debris field.

. . .

Finding water on the moon would be a boon to possible future lunar bases, acting as a potential source of drinking water and fuel.

. . .

The moon rocks were analyzed for signs of water bound to minerals present in the rocks; while trace amounts of water were detected, these were assumed to be contamination from Earth, because the containers the rocks came back in had leaked.

"The isotopes of oxygen that exist on the moon are the same as those that exist on Earth, so it was difficult if not impossible to tell the difference between water from the moon and water from Earth, . . . "

. . .

The rocks and regolith that make up the lunar surface are about 45 percent oxygen (combined with other elements as mostly silicate minerals). The solar wind — the constant stream of charged particles emitted by the sun — are mostly protons, or positively charged hydrogen atoms.

If the charged hydrogens, which are traveling at one-third the speed of light, hit the lunar surface with enough force, they break apart oxygen bonds in soil materials, Taylor, the M3 team member suspects. Where free oxygen and hydrogen exist, there is a high chance that trace amounts of water will form.

The various study researchers also suggest that the daily dehydration and rehydration of the trace water across the surface could lead to the migration of hydroxyl and hydrogen towards the poles where it can accumulate in the cold traps of the permanently shadowed regions."

Space Debris Removal coming

Here we go - if this ends up being a commercial project, access to space might just become affordable. I'm thinking of robots that can sling nets over the debris and then toss the net down into the atmosphere to burn up. I would love to return the junk and sell it as souvenirs, but that approach is probably still too costly.

Pentagon Wants ‘Space Junk’ Cleaner | Danger Room | Wired.com:
"The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency put out a notice yesterday requesting information on possible solutions to the infamous space debris problem.

“Since the advent of the space-age over five decades ago, more than thirty-five thousand man-made objects have been cataloged by the U.S. Space Surveillance Network,” the agency notes. “Nearly twenty-thousand of those objects remain in orbit today, ninety-four percent of which are non-functioning orbital debris.”

These figures do not even include the objects too small to count. There are estimated to be hundreds of thousands of these smaller objects, and as debris hits other debris, it creates even more small pieces, exponentially increasing the amount of objects that could threaten satellites and spacecraft."

Refurbished Hubble - Stunning Images

Pretty amazing pictures. I'm sure the scientists are learning a lot also.

Newly Refurbished Hubble Sends Back Stunning First Images | Popular Science:
"We always like to look forward to bigger and better tech, but NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, though it's been around the block, still holds a special place in every geek's heart. Now the freshly repaired and upgraded telescope has resumed churning out enough images of cosmic glory to turn anyone's head."

Armadillo wins $1M Lunar Lander Challenge

A prize this size isn't enough to pay for their engineering effort, but obviously it is enough to keep engineers enthused and their financiers involved. There won't be a profit this quarter or this year, but fortunatley some people are looking further into the future. People like these are a big reason that life in general keeps getting better, generation after generation.

Armadillo Aerospace's Scorpius Craft Finally Bags $1 Million Lunar Lander Challenge | Popular Science:
"A future trip to the moon could use a commercial vehicle, if Armadillo Aerospace has anything to say about it. The company's rocket-powered craft pulled off a mock lunar landing on Saturday to qualify for a $1 million purse from NASA's Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge.

The vehicle rose 164 feet into the air and flew 164 feet away to land on a rocky surface, before returning to the starting spot for a round trip flight time of 180 seconds. That accomplishment made Armadillo the first team to complete Level 2 requirements of the Lunar Lander Challenge, where the minimum flight time simulates a trip from lunar orbit down to the moon."

Laser Propulsion Finally Maturing?

At some point (soon?) we'll find a way to access space from Earth without setting small packages on top of huge piles of explosives (rockets). This article discuses one potential solution:

SPACE.com -- Laser Propulsion: Wild Idea May Finally Shine:
"New laser propulsion experiments are throwing light on how to build future hypersonic aircraft and beam spacecraft into Earth orbit.

Indeed, a "Lightcraft revolution" could replace today's commercial jet travel. Passengers would be whisked from one side of the planet to the other in less than an hour - just enough time to get those impenetrable bags of peanuts open. Furthermore, beamed energy propulsion can make flight to orbit easy, instead of tenuous and dangerous.

That's the belief of Leik Myrabo an aerospace engineering professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. He's an expert in directed energy applications, aerospace systems, space prime power, and advanced propulsion.

For the past three decades, Myrabo's burning desire has been to create and demonstrate viable concepts for non-chemical propulsion of future flight vehicles through his research and company Lightcraft Technologies, Inc., of Bennington, Vt.

"Typically, a new propulsion technology takes 25 years to mature...to the point where you can actually field it. Well, that time is now," Myrabo told SPACE.com.

. . .

"In the lab we're doing full-size engine segment tests for vehicles that will revolutionize access to space," Myrabo emphasized. "It's real hardware. It's real physics. We're getting real data...and it's not paper studies."

"Right now, we're chasing the data," Myrabo said. "When you fire into the engine, it's a real wallop. It sounds like a shotgun going off inside the lab. It's really loud."

The laser propulsion experiments, Myrabo added, are also relevant to launching nanosatellites (weighing 1 to 10 kilograms) and microsatellites (10 to 100 kilograms) into low Earth orbit."

Next stop before Mars? Perhaps L2?

Astronauts and technicians working and living at Lagrange points will develop the technologies needed to change the Mars mission from a visit into a colony. There is immediate, profitable work to be done at L2. Industry and people will always follow profits, and in this case civilization benefits enormously.

Why future astronauts may be sent to 'gravity holes' - space - 29 August 2009 - New Scientist:
". . .
Lagrange, or Lagrangian, points are great swathes of space where the gravitational acceleration from the Earth and the sun are exactly equal, letting objects stick there with very little effort.

Because they're far from warm stars and planets, they make useful havens for ultra-cold telescopes that measure fluctuations in the temperature of deep space.

The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), which measures radiation from the big bang, lives at a Lagrange point called L2 more than 1 million kilometres away. The successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, the massive James Webb Space Telescope, will also be sent to the spot, which lies in line with the sun and Earth . . .
. . .

But what would humans do there? One useful task is repairing and upgrading the new telescopes, like astronauts have done five times with Hubble.

"Hubble is probably the most productive scientific facility ever developed in the history of science, and it's largely because every four or five years, we take out the old instruments ... and go up with brand-new instruments that address different questions and embrace the latest technology," Lester says. "If we want to have humans having anything to do with these new telescopes, we really have to think about Lagrange points."

. . .

It takes surprisingly little energy to travel between these points. That's because massive bodies like the sun and planets have gravitational fields that resemble mountains and hills, but Lagrange points are all at gravitational lowlands. Once set on the right path, spacecraft can coast along the gravitational contours of space between these lowlands, as if travelling on an interplanetary superhighway.

"Going back and forth between Earth-sun Lagrange points and Earth-moon Lagrange points is pretty much a matter of giving the thing a swift kick," Lester told New Scientist.

Future astronauts could repair telescopes at a staging area at the nearest Earth-moon Lagrange point and send them sailing back to L2 when they're done. They could also assemble large telescopes or spaceships at the staging area and then send them out to farther-flung destinations.
. . .

Others see Lagrange points as stepping stones on the way to places like Mars.

"It's a convenient crossroads on the way to a place you really want to visit," says Lou Friedman, founder and executive director of the Planetary Society, a space advocacy group that supports sending astronauts to Mars.

"The place we all want to go is Mars. Stepping out into interplanetary space, Lagrange points present the nearest milestone to Earth that's still beyond the moon," Friedman told New Scientist.

Going to L2 would take about a month and communications from Earth would take about four seconds to arrive at L2, while a trip to Mars would take at least six months and would involve communications delays of about 20 minutes."

L5 Society - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
"The name comes from the L4 and L5 Lagrangian points in the Earth-Moon system proposed as locations for the huge rotating space habitats that Dr. O'Neill envisioned. L4 and L5 are points of stable gravitational equilibrium located along the path of the moon's orbit, 60 degrees ahead or behind it.

An object placed in orbit around L5 (or L4) will remain there indefinitely without having to expend fuel to keep its position, whereas an object placed at L1, L2 or L3 (all points of unstable equilibrium) may have to expend fuel if it drifts off the point."

Private Spaceflight a boon to Scientists

History is happening around us.. Despite the problems in our world, we can see great progress in the frontiers that will eventually free humanity from this lonely single rock.

Scientists go suborbital - Cosmic Log - msnbc.com:
"The killer app for private spaceflight, at least once the millionaires and celebrities have had their turn, may well be scientific research.

'You spark this industry with tourists, but I predict in the next decade the research market is going to be bigger than the tourist market,' says Alan Stern, a planetary scientist at the Colorado-based Southwest Research Institute who is heading up a committee to link up researchers with future suborbital spaceflights.

Until recently, suborbital space trips were marketed primarily as the penultimate high for well-heeled thrill-seekers.
. . .
Virtually all the major players in the still-gestating suborbital industry now realize that research flights could make the difference in their drive to profitability.

One of the clearest signs of that came last month, when an Arab investment group bought a $280 million stake in British billionaire Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic venture, putting special emphasis on the capability to fly scientific experiments and deploy small satellites.

. . .

There are other options for space research, of course, ranging from zero-G airplane flights to suborbital sounding rockets to unmanned orbital and deep-space flights to space station experiments. So why would researchers, and even NASA, opt for rides on private spaceships that have yet to be built?

Cost is just one reason, Stern told me. A $200,000 ticket for a space ride may sound expensive for a tourist, but it's peanuts compared to the $2 million or more charged for the launch of a NASA sounding rocket, he said.

. . .

"If you could go at [an experiment] every day of the year and see the atmosphere changing, how powerful would that be?" Stern said. "This becomes a laboratory-like experience."

Piloted spaceships are also likely to provide a more robust environment for research. Scientists would be more likely to get their experiment back and less likely to lose it in a hard landing.

. . .

Experimenters could also fly along with their experiments - not just once, but multiple times. "Graduate students will be doing their own Ph.D.s in these vehicles," Stern predicted.

. . .

"This is so cheap, and the applications are so good, that I expect NIH, NSF, DOD, DOE, a whole slew of federal agencies will have space efforts, just like federal agencies have boats and airplanes that they use," he said. "Literally, Aruba could afford to have a spaceflight program. ... Every country that wants to have their own space program with astronauts can go.""

Bigelow Proposes "Orion Lite" Spaceship

We can purchase over 300 discrete models of cars, trucks, and SUVs, so maybe at least 2 different space vehicles isn't a bad idea . . .

Space Hotel Visionary Proposes Modified "Orion Lite" Spaceship for NASA | Popular Science:
"Future space hotel moguls can get nervous when NASA's next-generation spaceship plans begin to founder. So one company has come up with a modified 'Lite' design of the planned Orion vehicle to carry astronauts and paying passengers into orbit.

Bigelow Aerospace has long envisioned launching inflatable space station called Sundancer, and so improving passenger access to low Earth-orbit has remained a priority."

Lots of interesting links in this article . . .

NASA Finally Tests a New Rocket

Wow - talk about Jimmie Carter's "malaise" - a quarter of a century has slipped by since NASA last tested a new rocket design!

NASA Builds First New Test Rocket in 25 Years - Gearlog:
"The new Ares I rockets will eventually take humans back to the moon; this first one will launch on October 31st in a maiden test flight designed to show that the rocket is capable of carrying astronauts inside an Orion spacecraft into orbit. Ares I is a two-stage rocket that consists of a solid-fueled first stage and a larger, liquid-fueled upper stage,"

We had developed the technology to establish a small colony on the Moon by the late 1970's. How much wealth could we have created for Earth by mining our solar system since then? Working & living in space isn't just about scientific research - it has real benefits to everyone living here.

Dealing with hazardous space debris

As I've written before, trash collection is space has the potential to be a profitable business for some bright entrepreneurs.

Building an Electronic Fence to Track Space Junk | Popular Science:
"Thousands of manmade pieces of space junk orbit the Earth, threatening astronauts and unmanned missions alike. Now the U.S. Air Force Space Command wants an electronic 'space fence' that could track any orbital object larger than two inches in width.

Such a surveillance system would require a global network of sensitive S-band radar stations that operate in the gigahertz range of the electromagnetic spectrum. The U.S. Air Force currently relies on a system dating back to 1961, which only covers the continental United States, and can only track objects 20 inches in width or larger.

The growing cloud of space debris in Earth orbit includes more than 16,000 pieces of debris larger than four inches in width. And that only seems likely to grow . . . "

Beyond tracking the debris, some folks are coming up with a variety of methods to destroy or collect it. I'm in favor of collecting the debris to sell as souvenirs, but that technology may be too pricey.

Taking Out the Space Trash | Popular Science:
"Scientists at NASA and private companies have devised several ways for clearing the sky. Although some methods are admittedly outlandish, says Nicholas Johnson, the chief scientist for orbital debris at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, a few are possible with today’s technology.

One early idea was to have robotic trash collectors shove large pieces of junk through the atmosphere so that they mostly burn up before hitting the ground. But the fuel costs for destroying a significant amount of debris with such craft has quashed this approach.

A more feasible plan is to attach miles-long “electrodynamic tethers,” wound on a spool, to all new satellites. Once a satellite ends its mission, it would deploy the cable and Earth’s magnetic field would induce an electric current in it. This interaction imparts a force on the craft that pushes it through the atmosphere until most of it burns up harmlessly,"

Real time recreation - trip to the Moon

Celebrating this month - the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11's trip to the Moon.

On my monitor, some of this site's text is a bit hard to read - gray on black, but lots of interesting Apollo things here & there. As I type this, it is mostly spacecraft based white noise - still pretty different than what I would be playing on a normal day :-)

I imagine this site is best enjoyed on a separate monitor - as my home system only has 1 monitor attached right now, I put it up on full screen when I'm not using the system for other things.

Things to Do on the Way to the Moon | GeekDad | Wired.com:
"If you’re following the 40th anniversary recreation of the Apollo 11 mission on We Choose the Moon (a you-are-there, moment-by-moment immersion in the first lunar mission) you know that the mighty Saturn V rocket lifted off its pad at the Kennedy Space Center on July 16th. Twelve minutes later, the astronauts were in orbit around the earth, docked the command module with the lunar lander, and are now on their way to the moon.

You can follow the progress of the mission at the website, or on Twitter:
Capcom transmissions
Spacecraft transmissions
(and eventually the landing craft -) Eagle transmissions"

The Smithsonian is also following the mission on Twitter.

Hubble serviced for last time

One of NASA's successes (eventually) - the Hubble Telescope has changed humanity's understanding of the universe.

Gearlog - Gadget Guide by Geeks for Geeks: "And that's a wrap: Space shuttle Atlantis crew member Megan McArthur used the shuttle's robotic arm to release the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit at 8:57 a.m. EST Tuesday, CNN reports. The mission marks the last time humans will touch the 19-year old telescope. Hubble has taken hundreds of thousands of high-resolution images--all free of the earth's murky atmosphere.

'With soft separation burn, Atlantis now is slowly backing away from the telescope,' NASA said in a statement. '"

Satellites Collide Scattering Debris In Space

The clutter in near-Earth orbit is becoming a business liability. I expect the next decade will see attempts at garbage collection in space for a fee, probably paid by communications companies or their insurers. Unmanned remotely piloted vehicles (RPVs) would likely be used to de-orbit big chunks so they burn up on reentry. As the technology evolves, we'll probably see large collections of smaller bits in nets or bags. If some company can inexpensivly return this debris to Earth, there will be a big market for it as souvenirs.

U.S.-Russian Satellite Collision Sends Debris Flying - NYTimes.com:
"For decades, space experts have warned of orbits around the planet growing so crowded that two satellites might one day slam into one another, producing swarms of treacherous debris.

It happened Tuesday. And the whirling fragments could pose a threat to the International Space Station, orbiting 215 miles up with three astronauts on board, though officials said the risk was now small.

“This is a first, unfortunately,” Nicholas L. Johnson, chief scientist for orbital debris at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said of the collision.

It happened some 490 miles above northern Siberia, at around noon Eastern time. Two communications satellites — one Russian, one American — cracked up in silent destruction. In the aftermath, military radars on the ground tracked large amounts of debris going into higher and lower orbits.

. . .
The American satellite was an Iridium, one of a constellation of 66 spacecraft. Liz DeCastro, corporate communications director of Iridium Satellite, based in Bethesda, Md., said that the satellite weighed about 1,200 pounds and that its body was more than 12 feet long, not including large solar arrays.

. . .
“There are actually debris from this event which we believe are going through space station altitude already,” he said. The risk to the station, Mr. Johnson added, “is going to be very, very small.” In the worst case, he said, “We’ll just dodge them if we have to. It’s the small things you can’t see that are the ones that can do you harm.”

In Houston, International Space Station controllers have often adjusted its orbit to get out of the way of speeding space debris, which can move so incredibly fast that even small pieces pack a destructive wallop."

We need new pioneers

NASA - Why Explore Space?:
" ... for the foreseeable future, space travel is going to be expensive, difficult and dangerous. But, for the United States, it is strategic. It is part of what makes us a great nation. And the report declared that if we are going to send humans into space, the goals ought to be worthy of the cost, the risk and the difficulty. A human spaceflight program with no plan to send people anywhere beyond the orbiting space station certainly did not meet that standard.

President Bush responded to the Columbia report. The administration looked at where we had been in space and concluded that we needed to do more, to go further. The result was the Vision for Space Exploration, announced nearly three years ago, which commits the United States to using the shuttle to complete the space station, then retiring the shuttle and building a new generation of spacecraft to venture out into the solar system. Congress has ratified that position with an overwhelming bipartisan majority, making the Vision for Space Exploration the law of the land. "

Permanent populations on the Moon, Mars, & in the asteroid belt will one day improve life on Earth. This can come in part by moving some industrial processes off planet, but it will come mostly from the application of new knowledge - lessons we'll never learn if we aren't out there trying things - being pioneers.

Space Station's Newest Module; Harmony

SPACE.com -- Spacewalkers Outfit Space Station's Newest Room:
"Spacewalking astronauts primed the International Space Station's (ISS) newest room for orbital flight Tuesday as they prepare to host a visiting NASA shuttle next month.

Expedition 16 commander Peggy Whitson and flight engineer Dan Tani spent more than seven hours wiring up about half of the power, heater and cooling lines needed to prepare the station's new Harmony connecting node for the planned Dec. 6 launch of a European-built lab. They will connect the other half during another spacewalk on Saturday. "

NASA isn't getting a great deal of news coverage for the great progress that has been made in assembling the ISS this year. Enthusiasts hear about it from sites such as at http://www.space.com/ & http://www.nasa.gov/, but I wonder if kids are hearing about it in school anymore. I hope so.