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MSNBC | XCOR Congratulates President Bush
mysan.de, Germany - 23 /PRNewswire/ -- XCOR Aerospace thanked and congratulated President Bush on signing HR 5382, "The Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act of 2004," into law ... XCOR Congratulates President Bush Private-spaceflight bill signed into law |
| GUEST EDITORIAL: Regulation vs. innovation
Desert Dispatch, CA - In a reasonably sane world there would have been no perceived need for HR 5382, the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act of 2004, which passed the Senate ... |
| Commercial Space Bill Wins Final Approval form Congress
Space Ref - ... adjourning, the Senate last night gave final approval to the House Science Committee's Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act of 2004 (HR 5382), sending the ... |
The Space Review | Getting into the act
The Space Review, MD - HR 5382 passed the Senate last week and is expected to be signed by the President. ... HR 5382 may be the key to sparking investment in suborbital ventures. ... |
The Space Review | Is 2004 the breakout year for space entrepreneurship?
The Space Review, MD - ... While that bill—HR 3752, later replaced by HR 5382—won early broad support in the House, it became bogged down in the Senate over debates regarding the ... |
| Space Foundation applauds Congress for passing suborbital launch ...
Space Ref - ... President and Chief Executive Officer Elliot G. Pulham applauded Congress for approving the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act (HR 5382) that provides a ... |
The Space Review | Thinking big at Bigelow Aerospace
The Space Review, MD - ... s “Suborbital spaceflight: a road to orbit or a dead end?”, The Space Review, December 15, 2003) But with the passage of HR 5382 potentially easing testing ... |
My technological preferences as a boy started with trains and locomotives and then moved to aeroplanes. An old fabric-covered biplane, a de Haviland Dragon, took me into the air for the first time and aviation seemed to be the closest to heaven that a boy could get. Spaceflight just seemed frightening after having seen the science fiction movie "Destination Moon" where the space travelers experience all sorts of horrifying adventures in their travel to the Moon. But, history had something different in store for my generation. My first "hands-on" contact with space technology came in the summers of 1962-64 when I worked as a rocket assembly technician during the sounding rocket launchings from Northern Sweden in cooperation with NASA to investigate the so-called noctilucent clouds. This was a great experience for a teenager, but it ended when Sweden joined the European Space Research Organization and the makeshift summer rocket base manned by grammar school and university students was abandoned in favor of professional operations at ESRO:s new base in Kiruna in the northernmost corner of Sweden. In October 1964 I started studying for my Masters degree at the School of Engineering Physics at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. I was longing for a new "hands-on" connection with space technology.
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[Read on - LRK -]
The radio system was designed by deputy chief designer of the NII-885 (Scientific Research Institute of Radio Instrument Building, established 1938), Yevgeniy Boguslavskiy at NII-885 and it provided trajectory measurements, telemetry and command and command verification functions. Boguslavskiy and Boris Chertok (1) (deputy chief designer at Korolev's OKB-1) preferred pulsed systems for telemetry and ranging ever since the 1940's when Boguslavskiy had criticized the German use of carrier based radio systems in their missiles. However for E-2A Boguslavskiy surprised everyone by designing a continuous carrier system. The explanation was that tried and true methods were quicker and safer to develop under a rushed schedule. Boguslavskiy later explained that the lack of contrast in the pictures from Luna-3 was caused by lack of onboard transmitter power. The low contrast of the Luna-3 images is partly due to the fact that the Moon was illuminated from above. There isn't much contrast in a full moon. The electronics of Luna-3 was transistorized, an innovation that was regarded as risky.
Boguslavskiy and the NII-885 was also responsible for setting up the ground station at Kochka mountain near Simeiz in the Crimea in cooperation with the military unit 32103. The station was placed on the southern slope of a mountain facing the Black Sea. It was formally a part of NII-4 under general Sokolev (1). The location probably had something to do with the fact that the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory and the Physical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences was, and is, located at Simeiz. The ground station and control center had been in operation since 23 September 1958, i.e the same day that the very first Soviet attempt to reach the moon was made (14)
Russian probes returned the first images of the Lunar far side and the first images from the Lunar surface. While a manned landing was never accomplished, the final phase of Soviet exploration included a number of impressive robotic missions, returning samples and roving the surface. (Click on images to see full-sized versions)
Soviet engineers pioneered the use of cameras on spacecraft, obtaining the first images of the far side of the Moon and the first images from the surface of the Moon and Venus. Soviet planetary spacecraft used cycloramic and swept linear photometers rather than vidicon television cameras. On later American missions, the Viking lander's panoramic camera and the Mars Odyssey linear pushbroom camera hark back to Soviet camera designs.
| Donald Savage/Gretchen Cook-Anderson
Headquarters, Washington (Phone: 202/358-1727/0836) | Dec. 22, 2004 |
| RELEASE: 04-407
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The U.S. Moon probe is the first spacecraft to be built as part of the Vision for Space Exploration, put into motion earlier this year by U.S. President George W. Bush. LRO is slated for a liftoff in the fall of 2008, under the auspices of NASA’s Robotic Lunar Exploration Program.
The LRO underpins NASA’s interest in replanting human footprints on the Moon. President Bush has called for the space agency to conduct the first extended human expedition to the lunar surface as early as 2015, but no later than the year 2020.
Not only will LRO characterize future robotic and human landing spots, the spacecraft will be equipped to inventory possible resources for human crews to “live off the land” -- in this case what’s available on the crater-pocked Moon. Another key duty of the LRO is to characterize the lunar radiation environment and its impact on humans.
| NASA Ames Research Center
65 Years of Innovation | 11.30.04
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| On December 20, 2004, the NASA Ames Research Center will celebrate the 65th anniversary of its founding. The public is invited to a FREE day at the Ames Exploration Center, to enjoy displays about Ames' history and showings of an Ames history video prepared by the Ames Public Affairs Division in cooperation with the Ames History Office. Public lectures will highlight Ames' contributions to the Cassini-Huygens mission, as well as research in robotics, information technology, aeronautics and space science. Scott Hubbard, NASA Ames center director, will discuss what to expect during the next 65 years of Ames history.
It was on December 20, 1939, that Russell Robinson led a National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NASA) work crew in turning the first shovel of dirt on the corner of Moffett Field that would become the NACA Ames Aeronautical Laboratory. In January 1940, the first NACA engineers began to arrive at Ames to plan and construct the world's greatest collection of wind tunnels. At an age when many people might expect to retire, NASA Ames as a center is working and moving forward, stronger than ever. | |
Introduction
As we start this new century, we note that many of our successful business models are based on greed and are excessively competitive, often to the exclusion of basic human needs and a reasonable distribution of resources. Although they usually operate within the law, these actual businesses do not always value their moral and ethical responsibilities to the consumers, let alone the public in general. In the not-too-distant future, expanding our economy to LEO and the Moon will begin a new era of industrialization in space. Many questions remain as to what this LEO-and-beyond economy will look like, especially the lunar and Martian settlements which are sure to follow. One of the most important concerns that we can resolve before this era of space industrialization is in full swing involves the standards that our LEO |
Conclusion
Our future generations will be in space, on the Moon, Mars, and even beyond. The initial space residents and pioneers will be from Earth, but as future generations are born in space and on the Moon, their own identity will evolve over time. What springs forth from the seeds that we plant is something that we should all be concerned with today. We must come to understand that we do not own the Moon, space, planets, and celestial bodies. We are not guaranteed these entities. They are not ours for the taking just because we can take it. In "Travelogue for Exiles," a poem by Karl Jay Shapiro, the relationship with space is explained in a way that appropriately summarizes the need for moral and ethical business practices in space.
Look and remember. Look upon this sky;
Look deep and deep in the sea-clean air,
The unconfined, the terminus of prayer.
Speak now and speak into the hallow dome.
What do you hear? What does the sky reply?
The heavens are taken; this is not your home.
We can use space and prosper from it, but as the poem says, the heavens are already taken and they are not our home. Capturing space without regard to ethical considerations will surely breed significant problems, some of which may be with us for centuries. With sufficient forethought, we can make living and working in space beneficial for all concerned. When we do this, we will find the heavens inviting us in as treasured and most welcomed guests, and perhaps over time we will have earned the right to call the heavens our extended home.
The Space Review is a new online publication devoted to in-depth articles, commentary, and reviews regarding all aspects of space exploration: science, technology, policy, business, and more. more info
The Vision for Space Exploration has been burdened with a number of myths and misunderstandings since its announcement in January. Dwayne Day finds that while the myth of a trillion-dollar cost for the program has faded, another myth lives on.
Monday, December 6, 2004
HR 5382 passed the Senate unanimously at the last minute. Sam Dinkin analyzes this long-sought legislation supporting space adventure travel.
Monday, December 6, 2004
Hawaiian Senator Daniel Inouye will become the ranking Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee in January. Taylor Dinerman wonders if Inouye will use that position to push some of the visions for space exploration espoused by a former Hawaiian senator.
Monday, December 6, 2004
The Vision for Space Exploration has focused on sending humans to the Moon rather than Mars. Donald Barker argues that, for reasons that extend beyond science and education to the future of the US itself, the nation should focus on Mars exploration.
Monday, December 6, 2004
November 16, 2004
Release: 04-59
NASA's X-43A research vehicle screamed into the record books again Tuesday, demonstrating an air-breathing engine can fly at nearly 10 times the speed of sound. Preliminary data from the scramjet-powered research vehicle show its revolutionary engine worked successfully at nearly Mach 9.8, or 7,000 mph, as it flew at about 110,000 feet.
"As long as we're here...":
October 22, 2004: Gazing out of their space capsules, Apollo astronauts witnessed sights that humans had never before seen. They saw the breathtaking view of the Earth's bright blue disc against the inky black of space. They saw the far side of the Moon. They also saw strange flashes of light inside their eyeballs!
Since then, astronauts aboard Skylab, the Shuttle, Mir, and the International Space Station have all reported seeing these flashes. No need to call Agents Mulder and Scully of The X Files, though: what the astronauts are experiencing is space radiation zipping through their eyes like subatomic bullets. When a "bullet" strikes the retina, it triggers a false signal that the brain interprets as a flash of light.
Watching satellites in Earth orbit has proven to be a popular and easy pastime. It may not be appreciated these days that it was possible to observe the Apollo spacecraft during transits between Earth and Moon. Many of these reports exist only in printed form, from a time before most electronic indexing has reached. This page begins to document telescopic observations of the Apollo lunar missions. It remains a work in progress, and I welcome further contributions and references. Small thumbnail images link to larger versions.
The first sightings of each mission were of course the launches, watched by hundreds of thousands of people lining the Florida beaches. I start the fun with these two images, which I took at age 13 before and during the launch of Apollo 15.Acknowledgements. The following people have provided pictures, pointers, or permissions for this material, and I am happy to publicly thank them: Geoff Chester, Mike Drake, Brian Fenerty, Terry Galloway, Maurice Gavin. Elaine Halbedel, M.J. Hendrie, Sally MacGillivray, Paul Maley, Joe Miller, Jeff Pier, Oscar Rodriguez, Elizabeth Roemer, Jonathan Silverlight, Dan Weedman, Ron Welch, and Jim Young.
The Web contains some marvelous resources with enormous detail about the Apollo program, many of them labors of love by a few individuals. Some especially useful ones are:
In more tangible media, there is a vast array of material in Apogee Books' collection of NASA Mission Reports and Spacecraft Films' newly compiled DVD sets. If I can find these locally in Alabama, and outside of Huntsville, they're not that hard to locate...
(ostentatious throat-clearing) "The views, opinions, and conclusions expressed in this page are those of the author and not necessarily those of The University of Alabama or its officers and trustees. The content of this page has not been reviewed or approved by The University of Alabama, and the author is solely responsible for its content. "
keel@bildad.astr.ua.eduLast changes: May 2004
