SYNERGY MOON TEAM ENTERS GOOGLE LUNAR X PRIZE

A snip of what Charles Radley posted to the space-renaissance-initiative
group.
http://groups.google.com/group/space-renaissance-initiative?hl=en

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Congratulations to our colleagues Kevin Myrick and Nebojsa Stanojevic.
Here is the press release:

Media & Sponsorships Contact:
Randa Milliron, Interorbital Systems
661.965.0771, ios@interorbital.com <mailto:ios@interorbital.com>

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SYNERGY MOON TEAM ENTERS GOOGLE LUNAR X PRIZE

MOJAVE, Calif. (February XX, 2009) --The ambitious dream of returning
to the Moon - this time to stay - is alive and well in a magnificently
diverse team of space enthusiasts, artists, engineers, students, and
explorers jointly called SYNERGY MOON, the latest entrant in the X
PRIZE Foundation’s Google Lunar X PRIZE. The team, comprised of 48
members from 15 countries across the globe, is sponsored by
eSpaceTickets.com, the world’s oldest space tourism contest
organization. SYNERGY MOON has also partnered with rocket manufacturer
Interorbital Systems (IOS), which competed in the historic 2004 ANSARI
X PRIZE $10 MM Race to Space.
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Just one more indication that there is an interest in going to the Moon
to stay.
You might be interested in checking out the mission of the Space
Renaissance Initiative.
More information below.
- LRK -

Thanks for looking up with me.

Larry Kellogg

Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/
RSS link: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Newsletter: https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update
==============================================================
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=47570694477

Space Renaissance is a new, global philosophy, having its basic ground
on Earth, and its natural development in the extraterrestrial space.
Our founding concepts are New Humanism and Astro Humanism. We look at
the past Renaissance (1500) as an inspiration for mecenatism and
capability to aim high, and to make great projects by means of good will
and mutual cooperation.
Among our scopes:
- to give birth to a Foundation
- to build a great school for graduates and post-graduate doctorates and
masters
- to build the philosophy and the culture of the Space Age, to help the
New Renaissance of Humanity in Space

The statute is in progress, and will be soon submitted to all the good
willing Terrestrians.

See also
http://www.spacerenaissance.org/
http://www.tdf.it/
http://www.spacefuture.com/

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http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/lunar/teams/synergy-moon
SYNERGY MOON

InterPlanetary Ventures, the Human Synergy Project, and Interorbital
Systems have joined forces to become SYNERGY MOON, the newest team to
enter the Google Lunar X PRIZE race to the Moon. With working groups in
15 countries, the SYNERGY MOON team actively promotes international
cooperation in space exploration and development. SYNERGY MOON will use
a lunar-direct launch of an Interorbital Systems’ modular NEPTUNE rocket
to carry a lunar lander and at least one rover to the surface of the
Moon before the end of 2012. That rover will, at a minimum, travel 500
meters across the lunar surface, and transmit video, images, and data
back to Earth. SYNERGY MOON will prove that an international,
private-sector team can do what has never been done before: move private
enterprise into space beyond Earth orbit.



California Space Authority Board Member Celeste Volz Ford commented on
the link between science and the humanities, "For the space enterprise
community to maintain its edge in the global space market, our future
workforce is going to consist of engineers who think like artists and
artists who think like engineers.” Speaking on the future of space
exploration, Nicolas Peter, a research fellow at the European Space
Policy Institute, commented “This adventure will be driven primarily by
a quest for knowledge, involving not only the hard sciences, but arts
and humanities as well.” The SYNERGY MOON team is unique in that its
members personify an eccentric, electrifying merge of the arts and sciences

Read more about team SYNERGY MOON
<http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/lunar/teams/synergy-moon/about>

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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK

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Up, up, and away -- ping, ping, thunk, thud -- and I thought rush hour traffic was bad.

Recently we had an airline plane downed by bird strikes to both engines and a successful landing in the Hudson River.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/01/15/new.york.plane.crash/

For a rocket launching a satellite to space, things in your flight path can make for a bad day as well.
We think about going to the Moon with astronauts again and setting up shop on the Moon.
When that happens the number of launches to space will increase and the concern for where the latest space debris is will be on their minds.

Gunjan reports that India is still on track to put humans in orbit with their first manned spaceship around 2015.
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/090211-india-manned-spaceship.html

China has orbited their astronauts with their third space mission in September 2008.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4333158.stm
http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE48O9VL20080926

Pings on a satellite can be expensive and be a cause for more space debris.
Pings on a spaceship with humans aboard is even more concern.

We have had a few satellites break up and just recently two satellites collided.
This is not good and will add to the risk of launching to space.
Who keeps track of where our man made junk orbits?
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/state/orl-spacejunk0809feb08,0,7720847.story

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16584-satellite-collision-creates-copious-space-junk.html
Satellite collision creates copious space junk

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123438921888374497.html
FEBRUARY 12, 2009
Andy Pasztor in the WSJ online says:
"The accident could have implications for U.S. space budgets and policy, partly because it comes amid a Pentagon campaign to increase spending on systems to protect U.S. high-tech space hardware by keeping better track of the thousands of pieces of debris and other satellites circling the Earth."

Thanks for looking up with me.

Larry Kellogg

Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/
RSS link: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Newsletter: https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update
==============================================================
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16584-satellite-collision-creates-copious-space-junk.html
Satellite collision creates copious space junk

Two space satellites smashed into each other on Tuesday in an unprecedented orbital accident. Government agencies are still assessing the aftermath, but early radar measurements have detected hundreds of pieces of debris that could pose a risk to other spacecraft.

As first reported by CBS News, a defunct Russian Cosmos satellite and a communication satellite owned by the US firm Iridium collided some 790 kilometres above northern Siberia on Tuesday.

"This is the first time that two intact spacecraft have accidentally run into each other," says Nicholas Johnson, chief scientist of NASA's Orbital Debris Program Office in Houston, Texas.

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http://www.orlandosentinel.com/services/newspaper/printedition/thursday/orl-boom1209feb12,0,5890449.story
Satellites collide for first time ever in orbit
The Associated Press
February 12, 2009

CAPE CANAVERAL - Two communications satellites have collided in the first-known crash of two intact spacecraft in orbit, NASA said Wednesday.

The collision occurred Tuesday nearly 500 miles over Siberia. The crash produced a pair of massive debris clouds, and the situation's magnitude won't be known for weeks at least, NASA spokesman Kelly Humphries said.

But any risk to the international space station, which orbits below the collision course, is thought to be low. There also should be no danger to the upcoming shuttle flight, targeted for liftoff no earlier than Feb. 22, "but they're continuing to analyze any possible risk," Humphries said.

The collision involved an Iridium commercial satellite, which was launched in 1997, and a Russian satellite launched in 1993 and thought to be nonfunctioning.

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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK

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Mars Technology Helps Create Inauguration Mega-picture - 2.02.2009

Warning: links not suggested for cell phone viewing or those with slow
Internet connections.
My apologies, still, hopefully we will get some of this kind of action
when we go back to the Moon.
- LRK -

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NASA Science News for February 2, 2009

A private photographer has used NASA's Mars technology to create a
1,474 megapixel panoramic photo of President Obama's inauguration. The
interactive mega-snapshot has become an international sensation,
viewed by more than two million people in 186 countries. Today's story
from Science@NASA presents the photo and tells how it was made.

FULL STORY at
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/02feb_gigapan.htm?list965414

Check out our RSS feed at http://science.nasa.gov/rss.xml!

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If you have the bandwidth then more info - LRK -
http://gigapan.org/

The inspiration for the above came from the Mars Rover's Pan-Cam.
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/spacecraft_instru_pancam.html

Thanks for looking up with me.

Larry Kellogg

Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/
RSS link: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Newsletter: https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update

==============================================================
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/02feb_gigapan.htm?list965414

February 2, 2009: When a new president is inaugurated, it's a big
event, and it calls for a big picture.

To be precise, 1,474 megapixels.

Using the same NASA technology that Mars rovers routinely use to image
the Red Planet, photographer David Bergman created an unprecedented
1,474 megapixel panoramic photo of President Obama's inauguration.
(For comparison, an ordinary digital photo contains less than 10
megapixels.) Click on the image below to pan around the rotunda and
zoom in on some of the two million people. The detail is amazing. You
can see Hilary Clinton's white earrings, Barbara Bush's fuzzy black
earmuffs, the word "Obama" stitched on spectators' winter hats, Yo-Yo
Ma taking a picture with his iPhone, and much more:

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http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~globalconn/gigapan.html
Global Connection Project

The Gigapan camera is a simple robotic platform for capturing very
high-resolution (gigapixel and up) panoramic images from a standard
digital camera. Sponsored by Google, CMU and the NASA Ames Intelligent
Robotics Group, the Global Connection Project has also developed
software which places you inside the panorama and lets you explore.

An earlier version of this imaging technology was developed for the
Mars Exploration Rovers; the panoramas created from Mars enabled a
simulated experience of being on another planet. The Gigapan project
aims to create a similar experience, but for exploration of Earth.

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http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/spacecraft_instru_pancam.html
The Panoramic Camera (Pancam)

Pancam is a high-resolution color stereo pair of CCD cameras used to
image the surface and sky of Mars. The cameras are located on a
"camera bar" that sits on top of the mast of the rover.

The Pancam Mast Assembly (PMA) allows the cameras to rotate a full
360° to obtain a panoramic view of the martian landscape. The camera
bar itself can swing up or down through 180° of elevation. Scientists
use Pancam to scan the horizon of Mars for landforms that may indicate
a past history of water. They also use the instrument to create a map
of the area where the rover lands, as well as search for interesting
rocks and soils to study.

The Pancam cameras are small enough to fit in the palm of your hand
(270 grams or about 9 ounces), but can generate panoramic image
mosaics as large as 4,000 pixels high and 24,000 pixels around. Pancam
detectors are CCDs (charge coupled devices). These devices form the
image, just as film does in a film camera.

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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK

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