Many folks would like to see us back on the Moon and developing its resources.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

NASA Probe Sees Solar Wind Decline

We are still getting reports from the Voyager spacecraft.
http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/weekly-reports/index.htm

and we see recent report from Voyager 1 being reported.
- LRK -

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http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-415
NASA Probe Sees Solar Wind Decline

December 13, 2010
PASADENA, Calif. – The 33-year odyssey of NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has reached a distant point at the edge of our solar system where there is no outward motion of solar wind.


Now hurtling toward interstellar space some 17.4 billion kilometers (10.8 billion miles) from the sun, Voyager 1 has crossed into an area where the velocity of the hot ionized gas, or plasma, emanating directly outward from the sun has slowed to zero. Scientists suspect the solar wind has been turned sideways by the pressure from the interstellar wind in the region between stars.


The event is a major milestone in Voyager 1's passage through the heliosheath, the turbulent outer shell of the sun's sphere of influence, and the spacecraft's upcoming departure from our solar system.


"The solar wind has turned the corner," said Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist based at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif. "Voyager 1 is getting close to interstellar space."
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And of course at NASA.
- LRK -

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http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/dec/HQ_10-334_Voyager_Voyages.html
RELEASE : 10-334
 
NASA Probe Sees Solar Wind Decline En Route To Interstellar Space
PASADENA, Calif. -- The 33-year odyssey of NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has reached a distant point at the edge of our solar system where there is no outward motion of solar wind.


Now hurtling toward interstellar space some 10.8 billion miles from the sun, Voyager 1 has crossed into an area where the velocity of the hot ionized gas, or plasma, emanating directly outward from the sun has slowed to zero. Scientists suspect the solar wind has been turned sideways by the pressure from the interstellar wind in the region between stars.


The event is a major milestone in Voyager 1's passage through the heliosheath, the turbulent outer shell of the sun's sphere of influence, and the spacecraft's upcoming departure from our solar system.


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The Voyagers' mission.
- LRK -

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http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/mission.html


The twin Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft continue exploring where nothing from Earth has flown before. In the 33rd year after their 1977 launches, they each are much farther away from Earth and the Sun than Pluto. Voyager 1 and 2 are now in the "Heliosheath" - the outermost layer of the heliosphere where the solar wind is slowed by the pressure of interstellar gas. Both spacecraft are still sending scientific information about their surroundings through the Deep Space Network (DSN).

http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/images/bow_shock2_s.jpg

The primary mission was the exploration of Jupiter and Saturn. After making a string of discoveries there -- such as active volcanoes on Jupiter's moon Io and intricacies of Saturn's rings -- the mission was extended. Voyager 2 went on to explore Uranus and Neptune, and is still the only spacecraft to have visited those outer planets. The adventurers' current mission, the Voyager Interstellar Mission (VIM), will explore the outermost edge of the Sun's domain. And beyond.


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Budget cuts can put these long lasting missions in jeopardy so we are lucky to still be hearing from the Voyagers.
You may remember back in 2005 when we wanted to go the Moon, the Voyager mission came under the threat of being terminated because there wasn't enough money to do everything.
- LRK -


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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23500-2005Apr3.html
Historic Voyager Mission May Lose Its Funding
By Guy Gugliotta
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 4, 2005; Page A08



In a cost-cutting move prompted by President Bush's moon-Mars initiative, NASA could summarily put an end to Voyager, the legendary 28-year mission that has sent a spacecraft farther from Earth than any object ever made by humans.
The probable October shutdown of a program that currently costs $4.2 million a year has caused consternation among scientists who have shepherded the twin Voyager probes on flybys of four planets and an epic journey to the frontier of interstellar space.
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Political history tends to repeat itself, yes.  Don't have the money to go to the Moon so off with its head.
So will there ever be a business plan that will make it profitable to go to space further than LEO?
- LRK -


Will be watching to see what happens in the new year of 2011.


Thanks for looking up with me.
- LRK -


Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
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Space Studies Institute

SM 14 Archives

Posted on November 22, 2010 by admin
Presentations delivered at the conference are collected at Archives of Space Manufacturing 14.
Video archives at SSI-TV on USTREAM.

Thanks for SM14

Posted on November 10, 2010 by admin
Thanks to everyone who contributed to the success of Space Manufacturing 14: Critical Technologies for Space Settlement.
Sponsor
http://ssi.org/2010/mojavelogo-ssi2010.jpg

Special thanks to NASA Ames Conference Center and NASA Ames Research Center.
Excellent content developed by conference chairs John Lewis and Lee Valentine, and session chairs Gary Hudson, Michael A’Hearn, Taber MacCallum, Red Whittaker, Peter Schubert, Philip Chapman and Brad Blair.
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK


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