TO THE MOON, MARS, AND BEYOND

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

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

China's Chang'e 3 - 2013 and USA Moon Express - 2014 - to the Moon - someones listening

I need to back off on my comment about no one in the USA listening to wanting to go back to the Moon. 

David Schrunk, of "THE MOON - Resources, Future Development, and Settlement" book, let me know that the ILOA (International Lunar Observatory Association), headed by Steve Durst (Palo Alto and Big Island, Hawaii), has an agreement with the Chinese Academy of Sciences to use the Chang'e-3's UV telescope to conduct astronomical observations from the lunar surface.  

I see that the ILOA also has an agreement with the Moon Express to use their telescope data when they go to the Moon.

See more information below.
- LRK -

---------------------------------------------
Larry,
You might be interested to know that the ILOA (International Lunar Observatory Association), headed by Steve Durst (Palo Alto and Big Island, Hawaii), has an agreement with the Chinese Academy of Sciences to use the Chang'e-3's UV telescope to conduct astronomical observations from the lunar surface.
(FYI - see www.iloa.org:  In September 2012, ILOA signed a MoU with the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC-CAS) allowing ILOA scientists to conduct Galaxy Observations with the UV telescope set to fly on the Chang’e-3 lunar lander in 2013.) 
Thanks,
David

---------------------------------------------

Some links from ILOA. See website for more information.
- LRK -

---------------------------------------------

snip
snip
---------------------------------------------

The Moon Express Inc. is Headquartered in the 
NASA Ames Research Park in Mountain View, CA,
- LRK -

---------------------------------------------

Me Lander Transparency

Moon Express Inc. is a privately funded lunar transportation and data services company created to establish new avenues for commercial space activities beyond Earth orbit. Commonly referred to as Moon Ex, the company was founded by Dr. Bob Richards, Naveen Jain, and Dr. Barney Pell in August 2010 and officially entered the Google Lunar X Prize Competition (GLXP) in October of that same year. Headquartered in the NASA Ames Research Park in Mountain View, CA, Moon Express combines Silicon Valley lean start-up principles with expertise in aerospace engineering and planetary sciences. Selected by Forbes as one of the 'Names You Should Know' in 2011, Moon Express plans to send a series of robotic spacecraft to the Moon for ongoing exploration and commercial development focused on benefits to Earth and has signed a partnership agreement with NASA for the development of its lunar lander system..

snip
---------------------------------------------

I enjoyed the skateboard tour of Ames having worked there for 20 years. 
A bit sad to see my old Golden Bay Credit Union building empty,
but if Moon Express uses it, won't complain.
- LRK -

---------------------------------------------
Rocket pioneer Tim Pickens joins Moon Express as Chief Propulsion Engineer and Establishes Huntsville Office
Legendary rocket designer Tim Pickens joins Moon Express in pursuit of the $30 Million Google Lunar X PRIZE more
Feb 14, 2013
snip

Meet Brad and Jason and get a sneak peak inside the new Moon Express headquarters building at the NASA Ames Research Park in Silicon Valley, California.
------
Published on Sep 29, 2012

Moon Express is a rapidly growing commercial space company developing a robotic lunar lander system to provide low cost frequent access to the lunar surface for science and commerce. The company currently has ~25 people and will reach 40-50 in the coming year as its lunar flight programs accelerate toward services beginning in 2014/15.

While delivering a suite of scientific and commercial payloads on its inaugural mission, Moon Express will also attempt to win the $30M Google Lunar X PRIZE competition.
------
snip
---------------------------------------------

Moon Ex has plans for a number of missions.  http://www.moonexpress.com/missions.html
Wish them success.
- LRK -

The best made plans do not always work out but maybe the time is right.
- LRK -

--------------------------------------------
snip
LunaCorp, founded in 1989 by David Gump, promoted a private robotic rover mission to the Moon, to be funded by the entertainment value of having customers driving the rover around the Moon, plus commercial broadcast rights by the mass media of this copyrighted video, plus selling research data from any probes on the rover, plus supported by various sponsors who wanted their brand associated with the project.
The project actually made a lot of progress, but the company was surprisingly dissolved in 2003, not long after some high profile publicity.
Dr. Buzz Aldrin, the Apollo 11 astronaut and second man on the Moon, was a prominent advisor, and there were some highly reputable people doing actual work on the project.
The heart of the robotics work, however, became a rover named Nomad, designed and built by the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University, led by Dr. Red Whittaker.
Nomad was tested under extreme conditions in the Canadian Arctic in 2001, after $1 million of support was offered by NASA. Later, Nomad was also tested in the Atacama Desert in Chile, as well as in Antarctica.
The two main issues of the rover were dealing with the extreme temperatures of the Moon, and energy storage for nights.
snip
--------------------------------------------

So an interest in going to the Moon and Moon Ex tours Buzz Aldrin
Nice YouTube with Buzz to the tune "Rocket Experience"

Watch the full version of Buzz Aldrin's song "Rocket Experience" here.

And now to get back to reading about graphics software as I thought it might help present a future lunar base, but even here there are folks that have been listening, so a look at what is at CET.
- LRK -

--------------------------------------------
MoonWorld
Investigating Teaching and Learning in Virtual Worlds
Findings and Project Wrapup

The best way to learn is to do, but that is difficult if you want to understand the geologic evolution of the Moon which started evolving 4.5 billion years ago. The NASA-sponsored Classroom of the Future at Wheeling Jesuit University created a virtual lunar landscape in the virtual worlds Second Life and in OpenSim to provide everyone a chance to don a spacesuit and lope across the surface of the Moon. MoonWorld was a research project, funded by NASA, that is no longer active. This website describes MoonWorld and the lessons learned from its development and testing.

snip
© 1999 - 2012 by Wheeling Jesuit University / Center for Educational Technologies ®.
316 Washington Ave., Wheeling, WV 26003-6243. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

MoonWorld was developed by The Classroom of the Future at Wheeling Jesuit University with funding from NASA
(Dr. Robert Starr, contract monitor).
--------------------------------------------

Thanks for looking up with me.  
- LRK -
Next SpaceX Dragon Flight Prepares to Resupply Space Station

In what soon may come to be considered routine, SpaceX will launch its Dragon spacecraft on another resupply mission to the International Space Station.  NASA and its international partners are targeting Friday, March 1, as the launch date.

snip
============================================================== 

CyGaMEs’ Selene II: A Lunar Construction Game

Would Young People Learn Science Better if it Were Packaged in a Videogame?

WHEELING, W.V. — That’s the question at the heart of the Selene project. Originally funded by NASA and now carried on through a four-year grant from the National Science Foundation, Selene studies videogame learning and the ways researchers can assess how effectively that learning takes place.

The Center for Educational Technologies® at Wheeling Jesuit University created the Selene online game to see how organizations like NASA could best use videogames to introduce important science concepts.
snip

A NASA Education EdLine Video featured CyGaMEs’ Selene I and MoonWorld
2012 International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge

The Selene videogame created by the CyGaMEs project at the Center for Educational Technologies at Wheeling Jesuit University has earned top honors in the games and apps category of the International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge.
snip
==============================================================

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

==============================================================
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , ,

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Go China, go China, go China's Chang'E 3 - To The Moon

I might say go USA - NASA, but I am not sure anyone is listening.
The following link has a number of images and a video clip.
- LRK -

---------------------------------------------
The Chang'e 3 lunar lander and rover, expected to launch late this year

Posted By Emily Lakdawalla

2013/01/09 03:46 CST

One of the missions planned for launch this year is China's Chang'E 3. I had never paid any attention to Chang'E 3 until this week, so I had no idea how large or ambitious it is. Chang'E 3 is a 1200-kilogram, RTG-powered lunar soft lander with a 1-year nominal mission lifetime. On top of that, it includes a 100-kilogram rover equipped with cameras and APXS. The rover has a nominal lifetime of 3 months and range of 10 kilometers. Wow. Here's a cool artist's concept that Glen Nagle put together. Enjoy it -- this is the first time it's been published!
Artist's concept of Chang'e 3 rover on the Moon
Glen Nagle
Artist's concept of Chang'e 3 rover on the Moon

I find that the best place on the Internet to find information and links about Asian missions is NASAspaceflight.com. Following is a summary of information from links posted within the NASAspaceflight Chang'E 3 forum. Many thanks to all the participants in that forum for sharing all this helpful information! I've collected all the photos of Chang'E 3 that I could find there and put them into a single Flickr album:

snip
---------------------------------------------

And from DRAGON IN SPACE
- LRK -

---------------------------------------------
Chang'e 3

Chang’e 3 is the third robotic lunar probe mission of the China Lunar Exploration Programme (CLEP). Scheduled to be launched in 2013~14, the probe will soft-land on the Moon surface and deploy an unmanned Lunar Rover to explore the areas surrounding the landing spot. The mission is heded by the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence (SASTIND) and the primary contractor for the probe is the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) of the China Aerospace Science & Technology Corporation (SASC).

snip
---------------------------------------------

Chang'e 3 at Wikipedia
- LRK -

---------------------------------------------
Chang'e 3 is a lunar exploration mission operated by China National Space Administration, incorporating a robotic lander and a rover. Chang'e 3 is scheduled for launch in late 2013 as part of the second phase of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program.[1][5] It will be China's first lunar rover, and the first spacecraft to make a soft landing on the Moon since the Soviet Luna 24 mission in 1976.[6] It is named after Chang'e, the Chinese goddess of the Moon, and is a follow-up to the Chang'e 1 and Chang'e 2 lunar orbiters.

snip
---------------------------------------------

At NASA WATCH
- LRK -

---------------------------------------------

If Chang'e-3 Lands, Google Lunar X Prize Drops by 25%

By Keith Cowing on November 14, 2012 2:40 PM

Summary of Rules and Requirements, Google Lunar X Prize
"The competition's grand prize is worth $20 million. To provide an extra incentive for teams to work quickly, the grand prize value will change to $15 million whenever a government-funded mission successfully explores the lunar surface, currently projected to occur in 2013."
"Ma said the Chang'e-3 would probe and explore the lunar surface, and carry out various environmental and space technology related tests. It will spend 15 days on the moon to lay the foundations of what he called, further deep space exploration."
snip
---------------------------------------------

This could be an interesting year so I will just say - GO, GO, GO to the MOON - ANYONE !!! - START A GOLD RUSH.

Thanks for looking up with me.  
- LRK -
China's Nuclear Rover Will Sample the Moon

There are rumblings around the Internets that China is getting ready to join the elite club of nations with rovers on other worlds. Yes, China is headed for the Moon.
China’s Chang'E 3 spacecraft is a nuclear powered lander that will carry a small rover to the lunar surface. And while details are a little scarce for the time being, it looks like the mission could launch by the end of the year. 
After launching on one of the nation’s Long March rockets and a three-day transit, Chang'E 3 will reach the Moon and enter into a 62 mile orbit. Once settled, the 2,645 pound lander will separate from the roughly 8,200 pound spacecraft and descend into a highly elliptical orbit 62 by 9.5 miles above the surface.
snip
Read more: http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/chinas-nuclear-rover-will-sample-the-moon#ixzz2LE4m2bbX
Follow us: @motherboard on Twitter | motherboardtv on Facebook
snip
============================================================== 
NASAspaceflight

Latest Articles

snip
==============================================================

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

==============================================================
Posted by at No comments:
Labels:

Meteor and asteroid events give new focus for the Sentinel telescope

Well how interesting.  We waited for an asteroid flyby and we get the added attraction of a light show and big boom from a meteor.
I bet you didn't think we had many sightings but: http://lunarmeteoritehunters.blogspot.com/
Something like, I bet you didn't think we have many Earthquakes but that is another subject.

What if you would like to know about possible encounters BEFORE they happen?
- LRK -

---------------------------------------------

Meteor and asteroid events give new focus for our vital Sentinel telescope

A meteor strike in Russia and an asteroid near-miss graphically reveal the risks facing planet Earth. But we're not powerless

Rusty Schweickart
guardian.co.uk, Friday 15 February 2013 11.40 EST

An asteroid plunges towards the Earth … relax. It (probably) won't actually happen.
On 15 February 2013 a meteor exploded over Siberia and an asteroid is expected to pass 17,100 miles above the earth. Photograph: Getty Images

Spaceship Earth just took two celestial shots across its bow as, first, ameteor struck Russia, showering the Chelyabinsk region with fragments and reportedly injuring several hundred people, and second, as Asteroid 2012 DA14 whizzed past on 15 February. Traditionally, a torpedo across the bow is fired as a warning to change one's behavior – and this coincidence of events should be a warning to humanity that meteors are not always as benign as "shooting stars" and that the next asteroid might not miss! Will we, the crew of SS Earth heed this warning?
We can look at asteroid 2012 DA14 (or DA14 for short), which will have missed the Earth by a mere 17,000 miles, in two ways. DA14 can be seen as one of about 10,000 near-Earth asteroids that have been discovered in the past 15 years that pass close to our planet, threatening an impact. However, since we have seen these asteroids and are currently tracking them, we can predict any upcoming impacts. Happily, none of those we've found to date pose any substantial threat of impact.
Nevertheless, the Earth is hit by one of these relatively small DA14-sized asteroids about once every 300 years, on average. And "small" is far, far from insignificant. The DA14-like asteroid that hit Earth in 1908 did so in a remote region of Siberia, where the explosion (the equivalent of about 250 Hiroshima nuclear bombs going off at one time) destroyed over 800 square miles of the countryside. This disaster zone, superimposed on any city in the world, would have wiped it and all its residents from the face of the Earth. I refer you, as a graphic reminder of the power of such explosions, to the post-facto Hiroshima bomb pictures readily found online.
snip
---------------------------------------------

The B612 Foundation is trying help us find those in bound rocks before they get to us.
- LRK -

---------------------------------------------
The B612 Foundation is a private foundation dedicated to protecting the Earth from asteroid strikes. Their immediate goal is to "significantly alter the orbit of an asteroid in a controlled manner by 2015".[1]
The B612 project grew out of a one-day workshop on asteroid deflection organized by Piet Hut and Ed Lu at NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas, on October 20, 2001. Participants Rusty Schweickart, Clark Chapman, Piet Hut, and Ed Lu established the B612 Foundation on October 7, 2002.[2]
Schweickart, who is the chairman of the board, is the public face of the foundation.[3] The board of directors is rounded out by Chapman, Hut, Lu, Daniel David Durda (eponym of 6141 Durda and another participant of the October 2001 workshop) and Geoffrey Baehr (former chief networking officer at Sun Microsystems and former partner at U.S. Venture Partners).[4]
The foundation is named for the home asteroid of the eponymous hero of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince.[5] Also inspired by The Little Prince is an asteroid discovered in 1993, though not identified as posing any threat to Earth impact, named 46610 Bésixdouze: The numerical part is the hexadecimal number 'B612' translated to decimal, while the textual part is French for "B six twelve".

snip
---------------------------------------------

B612 Foundation.
- LRK -

---------------------------------------------
How did B612 come about? Why are we hunting asteroids? Read the back story on this critical mission.
Official statement, February 15, 2013: The recent meteor explosion over Chelyabinsk is a wake-up call to Earth….Continue Reading
The B612 Foundation believes we should find threatening asteroids before they find us. Today’s meteor explosion over Chelyabinsk is a wake-up call that the Earth orbits the Sun in a shooting gallery of asteroids, and that these asteroids sometimes hit the Earth. Later today, a separate and larger asteroid, 2012 DA14, narrowly missed the Earth passing beneath the orbits of our communications satellites. We have the technology to deflect asteroids, but we cannot do anything about the objects we don’t know exist. To date, less than 1% of asteroids larger than the one that leveled Tunguska in 1908 have been tracked. The B612 Foundation Sentinel Space Telescope, to be launched in 2018, will provide a comprehensive map of the locations and trajectories of threatening asteroids and will give humanity the decades of warning needed to prevent asteroid impacts with existing technology. By the end of its planned lifetime, Sentinel will have discovered well over 90% of the asteroids that could destroy entire regions of Earth on impact (those larger than 350ft in diameter) and more than 50% of the currently unknown DA14-like near-Earth asteroids.

snip
---------------------------------------------

The B612 Foundation needs you to help them look up.

Thanks for looking up with me.  
- LRK -
B612 Foundation blog
snip
The B612 Foundation has undertaken this Sentinel project as a non-governmental initiative, somewhat akin to a growing number of private space ventures originated in the past few years. The foundation, however, is not undertaking this project for profit; we are a non-profit corporation. Our motivation is strictly to ensure the survival of life on Earth – all of it. And while NASA is cooperating with us by providing certain communication and analytic services, we are excited, as a private venture, to welcome the participation of all the crew of Spaceship Earth in this great endeavor.
snip
============================================================== 
B612 Foundation Google+
We're hearing that infrasound measurements of the Chelyabinsk event show that it had an energy of several hundred kilotons of TNT!  If confirmed, this asteroid impact energy was several tens of times larger than the atomic bomb used on Hiroshima!  Good thing it didn't explode at low altitude.  
snip
==============================================================

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

==============================================================
Posted by at No comments:
Labels:

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

To space, where, when, why? Maybe to the Moon, Mars, or an asteroid.


As I have been looking at road maps for going to space and wondering how you reach more viewers I received a Kickstarter request from the National Space Society (NSS) to raise money to make a short movie about our future in space.

The NSS would have you learn how to live in space and they have a road map as well.

Which reminded me I should update my website on colonies and the contest at NASA Ames for students to design habitats for space living. This took me back to the NSS site for their space oriented library.

I get The Space Review news letter which is now 10 years old. Right in-line with my wondering how you get the word out about what is happening to promote the use of spce is an article about Future In-Space Operations (FISO).A

---------------------------------------------
Future In-Space Operations (FISO): a working group and community engagement

by Harley Thronson and Dan Lester
Monday, February 11, 2013

Long-duration human capabilities beyond low Earth orbit (LEO), either in support of or as an alternative to lunar surface operations, have been assessed at least since the late 1960s. Over the next few months, we will present short histories of concepts for long-duration, free-space human habitation beyond LEO from the end of the Apollo program to the Decadal Planning Team (DPT)/NASA Exploration Team (NExT), which was active in 1999–2000 (see “Forging a vision: NASA’s Decadal Planning Team and the origins of the Vision for Space Exploration”, The Space Review, December 19, 2005). Here we summarize the brief existence of the Future In-Space Operations (FISO) working group in 2005–2006 and its successor, a telecon-based colloquium series, which we co-moderate.
snip
The FISOWG itself, which used to be a dozen or so people with NASA-funded tasks, continues to expand somewhat organically to include what we refer to as “qualified participants,” colleagues who have been working professionally in the topics covered by the telecons. This philosophy parallels that of academic colloquia where the audience is drawn from individuals with relevant expertise and interests. Our email notification list now numbers more than 350. People get on the invitation list simply by asking the co-chairs.
Understanding that these presentations are valuable to people who cannot participate at the scheduled time, we long ago put the slides from the presentations in a public archive. We note, for example, that Clark Lindsey, in his excellent and widely read HobbySpace blog has been reporting on these FISO presentations for some time, and directing people to our public archive.
snip
---------------------------------------------

The comments about HobbySpace led me to take another look at the home page and I found a fun space news video from a Virtual Amanda Bush.  A lot of other information there as well.
- LRK -

---------------------------------------------
snip
Space News from Virtual Amanda Bush
In the first Virtual SpaceTV 3D show of 2013, Amanda Bush returns to report on the flyby of the asteroid Toutatis, first results of Mars soil analysis by the Curiosity rover, and the debut of the Golden Spike commercial manned lunar exploration venture. :


Other Virtual SpaceTV 3D shows are available on the HobbySpace Youtube Channel.
The Virtual SpaceTV 3D shows are created by BINARY SPACE (www.binary-space.com) with story content fromHobbySpace.com. These videos are intended as demonstrations of an experimental technique for generating animated presentations. The show was generated autonomously by software according to a text script. The project is described in theVirtual Producer whitepaper (pdf). For further information contact info@binary-space.com.
snip
---------------------------------------------

More YouTube videos for HobbySpace uploaded by Clark Lindsey.
- LRK -

---------------------------------------------
Clark Lindsey
Uploaded Videos

snip
---------------------------------------------

Dennis Wingo blog - see also MOON VIEWS
- LRK -

---------------------------------------------

Space Abhors a Policy Vacuum; The NRC Report and The Need for a Broad National Space Policy

Space Abhors a Policy Vacuum; Part II, Expanding the Vision, Developing a Consensus

snip
---------------------------------------------

More to read, pass it on.  Thanks for looking up with me.  
- LRK -
 
The colonization of the Moon is the proposed establishment of permanent human communities or robot industries[1] on theMoon.
Recent indication that water might be present in noteworthy quantities at the Lunar poles has increased interest in the Moon. Polar colonies could also avoid the problem of long Lunar nights - about 354 hours,[2] a little more than two weeks - and take advantage of the sun continuously, at least during the local summer (there is no data for the winter yet).[3]
Permanent human habitation on a planetary body other than the Earth is one of science fiction's most prevalent themes. As technology has advanced, and concerns about the future of humanity on Earth have increased, the argument that space colonization is an achievable and worthwhile goal has gained momentum.[4][5] Because of its proximity to Earth, the Moonhas been seen as the most obvious natural expansion after Earth.

snip
============================================================== 
Online Space Settlement Books

snip
==============================================================

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

==============================================================
Posted by at No comments:
Labels:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

Moon and Mars - Videos

Loading...
Loading...