TO THE MOON, MARS, AND BEYOND

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

Wednesday, July 03, 2013

Welcome to NASA Ames Research Center

Time passes quickly and it has been a number of years since I supported some of the missions that were happening at the NASA Ames Research Center and I thought I would see what the World Wide Web might show was going on now.

NASA missions and budgets have changed over the years and the various centers have had to adjust their priorities. 

Back in 2005 when I was still copying Pioneer 10 Master Data Records for another look at the Pioneer Anomaly, the hall posters had changed with many of the Pioneer Mission photos already removed. There seemed to be a hollow echo to my steps.
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A STUDY OF THE PIONEER ANOMALY: NEW DATA AND OBJECTIVES FOR NEW INVESTIGATION
Read More: http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0218271806008218
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What is Ames doing today, here in 2013?
- LRK -

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Welcome to NASA Ames Research Center

Maps

Poster Presentations

Volunteer Internship Program

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Wikipedia has quick summary of Ames history. 

What was may not be what is now. Some Wind tunnels have shut down and some on going missions have had management responsibilities adjusted. 

A look at the public-private partner relationships will give a hint as to what other adjustments are being made. The Navy and Air Force are gone so no more military exchange and McDonald's is now McMoons. :-)

Google is there and so is their Boeing 767-200.
- LRK - 

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Ames Research Center

The Ames Research Center (ARC), is a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) major research center in Moffett Field in California's Silicon Valley. Named after Joseph Sweetman Ames and founded on December 20, 1939 as the second National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) laboratory, ARC became part of NASA in 1958 as part of the turnover from the dissolutionof NACA, having now (at the last estimate) over $3.0 billion in capital equipment, 2,300 research personnel and a $600 million annual budget.
Ames was founded to engage in wind-tunnel research on the aerodynamics of propeller-driven aircraft; however its role has developed to encompass spaceflight and information technology. Ames plays a role in many of NASA missions in support of America's space and aeronautics programs. It provides leadership in astrobiology; small satellites; robotic lunar exploration; the search for habitable planets;supercomputing; intelligent/adaptive systems; advanced thermal protection; and airborne astronomy. Ames also develops tools for a safer, more efficient national airspace and unique partnerships benefiting NASA’s mission. The center's director is Dr. Simon P. "Pete" Worden (Brigadier General, USAF retired).
The organisation is mission center for several key current missions ( Kepler Mission, the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission, Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA)) and a major contributor to the '"new exploration focus'"[1] as a participant in the Orion crew exploration vehicle and Ares I crew launch vehicle projects
Contents
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NASA Ames on YouTube.
- LRK -

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NASA Ames Research Center
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The New Look for Ames at the NASA Gov portal.
- LRK -

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Ames Research Center
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Areas of Ames Ingenuity

Entry systems: Safely delivering spacecraft to Earth & other celestial bodies
Supercomputing: Enabling NASA's advanced modeling and simulation
NextGen air transportation: Transforming the way we fly
Airborne science: Examining our own world & beyond from the sky
Low-cost missions: Enabling high value science to low Earth orbit & the moon
Biology & astrobiology: Understanding life on Earth -- and in space
Exoplanets: Finding worlds beyond our own
Autonomy & robotics: Complementing humans in space
Lunar science: Rediscovering our moon
Human factors: Advancing human-technology interaction for NASA missions
Wind tunnels: Testing on the ground before you take to the sky

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Another big change is the NASA Research Park which is under development.
- LRK -

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NASA Research Park

History of NASA Research Park
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Following the closure of Moffett Field as a military base in 1994, NASA Ames acquired stewardship for the navy property. NASA Ames, with the nearby communities of Mountain View and Sunnyvale, developed an award winning re-use plan to transform part of the former Naval Air Station into a world class R & D center dedicated to serving the goals of the nation's space program.

In 2002 NASA Research Park began collaborative partnerships with academia, industry and non-profits to stimulate innovation and education in science and research disciplines critical to space exploration. NASA Ames strategic partnering in key areas, including astrobiology, information technology, biotechnology and nanotechnology, will create a dynamic, integrated research community that provides R&D leadership into the 21st century.
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While I was at Ames I sometimes wondered what would be the company name on my badge. Bendix Field Engineering was bought by Allied/Signal while supporting the Pioneer Missions. A brief break at the end of Pioneer and back with Orbital Sciences Corp. for Lunar Prospector mission. Then support of SOFIA with Orbital and Lockheed/Martin and wearing Lockeed badge but paid by Orbital. Then there were rumors that we might be Stanford University, or De Anza College, or, ..., but money was tight and just laid off. No problem, just come in on a visitor pass to complete MDR copying. :-)

There are those at Ames that are still interested in sending robots to the Moon and some are competing for the Google Lunar X Prize.
The Google Lunar X PRIZE at five: can it still be won?
Moon Express Hires Veteran Space Industry Team

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IRIS 

Thanks for joining us. Please visit www.nasa.gov for the IRIS Launch
6 days ago by NASAtelevision
Ames Research Center is NASA's center in Silicon Valley, California. We enable exploration through selected development of innovative technologies and interdisciplinary scientific discovery.
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -

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Monday, July 01, 2013

Solve for X

In looking at some of the URLs from an earlier post it slowly sunk in that some of these ideas were told at the Google Solve for X  conventions and that you might find some of the other ideas of interest if you have not already looked at them.

- LRK -
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Solve for X is a think tank project launched by Google[1] to incite collaboration to solve global issues, "X" representing a remedy.[2] The project kicked off on February 1, 2012 at a three-day convention at CordeValle Resort in San Martin, California. Solve for X talks were presented to 50 people, hosted by Google executives Eric Schmidt, Astro Teller, and Megan Smith.[3] The conventions are expected to occur "a few times a year".[4] The website inaugurated on February 6, 2012.[5]
Solve for X has been likened to TED talks[1][6] since both projects host seminars by innovators, which can be viewed by others "vicariously" through the projects' respective websites. European director Bruno Giussani stated regarding Google's endeavor: "The world needs more ideas, not fewer and more commitment to sharing them freely and openly so that collectively we can test-run them and turn them into reality ... Google being at the origin of this, obviously technology and engineering will play a big role in Solve For X".[4]
Solve for X was initially believed to be linked to the Google X Lab working on new technology such as web-connected appliances, driverless cars, and space elevators,[1][6] but eWeekreported that Google X is wed to more realistic undertakings, not the "moonshot" solutions Solve for X was created to pursue.[7]
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Some links for you to try.  You will see that it is possible for you to submit ideas as well.
- LRK -

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Solve For X is a place to hear about and discuss radical technology ideas for solving global problems. Radical in the sense that the solutions could help millions or billions of people. Radical in the sense that the audacity of the proposals makes them sound like science fiction. And radical in the sense that there is some real technology breakthrough on the horizon indicating that these ideas could really be brought to life

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What is Moonshots?

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Moonshots live in the gray area between audacious projects and pure science fiction; instead of mere 10% gains, they aim for 10x improvements. The combination of a huge problem, a radical solution, and the breakthrough technology that might just make that solution possible is the essence of a Moonshot.
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Become part of the Equation.
- LRK -

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What is your ?
What is your ? What are you passionate about solving for in your lifetime? What do you think needs to be improved about the world? Create a profile and declare your .

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Solve For X: Charles Chase On Energy For Everyone

Thorium: An Energy Solution - THORIUM REMIX 2011

Breaking The Wall To Control Fusion Power
Thanks for looking up with me.
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The Fusion Driven Rocket: Nuclear Propulsion through Direct Conversion of Fusion Energy
John Sloug

slough summary chart

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Development of Aneutronic Fusion Power for Spacecraft Applications

1. This document is a justification for other than full and open competition prepared by 
the NASA, Johnson Space Center.

2. The nature and/or description of the action being approved: 
This justification provides the rationale for contracting by other than full and open competition 
for the development of aneutronic fusion power for spacecraft applications.

3. Description of the supplies or services required (including the estimated value):
The services being procured are for a continuation of analytical and consulting tasks that
support the development of aneutronic fusion power for spacecraft applications currently being 
conducted at the NASA Johnson Space Center. Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) 
personnel have provided consulting and research services for the past year and a half for this 
research project. Through their previous consulting services, EPRI personnel developed a large 
portion of the knowledge NASA now possesses in the aneutronic fusion field.

The estimated value for this acquisition is approximately $450,000.

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

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Star light, Star bright, wish to fly there tonight.

First a quick note before getting to the topic nuclear fusion generators.  

NASA.gov website has had a change that threw me for a loop and I should have expected it but I guess a slow learner. 

I got my NASA Headquarters list server email that said welcome aboard and then a follow up email telling me I was not on a new list but just a name change.  Then while trying to find some information on fusion engines at http://www.nasa.gov/ thought I was at some different place.  Expect some links to be broken.
- LRK -

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[NASA HQ News] Follow up: New listserve for NASA News Releases
NASA News Releases <hqnews@newsletters.nasa.gov> via newsletters.nasawestprime.com
Subscribers to the email list for NASA News Releases may have received an email this weekend welcoming them to the list:
This is not a new list, merely a new return address. Over the weekend, NASA migrated most of its web services, including some of the agency's email lists. Users have not been subscribed to any new lists, and they will continue to receive one copy of each news release.
Despite the wording of the original announcement, members of this list cannot send messages to be distributed via this list, nor is its membership public. 
To unsubscribe from the list, send a message with the word "unsubscribe" (without quotes) to hqnews-request@newsletters.nasa.gov.
For more information on the changeover in web services, visit:
Brian Dunbar
Internet Services Manager
NASA Office of Communications
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What the Heck Happened to NASA.gov?
June 29, 2013

Notice anything different?

To start with, we've got a refreshed look, lightening the site's color palette. We hope this will address some of the complaints we've had about clutter and the page being hard to navigate visually. But that's just the beginning.

You've no doubt noticed that the navigation buttons are gone from the NASA Home Page. The topics are still there in the "Popular Topics" drop-down menu to the right of the main news stories. We moved them there to make more space for live events. When we solicited feedback on what people wanted from NASA.gov, the most-popular idea (among those we could actually implement) was to make live events more prominent. So here is where we'll be putting links to launches, major press conferences and speeches, planetary encounters and anything else we want to draw your attention to.

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You may have already viewed the video at The Objective Standard link from the Lockheed/Martin Skunk Works presentation.
I found TOS Blog informative as well and got me thinking about fusion generation in general.
- LRK -

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Monday, March 11, 2013

Skunk Works to Deliver “Energy for Everyone”

Posted by Howard Roerig at 4:08 pm ET
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At anther link, the lead scientist, Tom McGuire's PHD thesis was mentioned in the comments, and I have been reading.  My math is not that great but our 6 year old granddaughter was finding numbers and letters in the many equations. I had put it down and the next day started again.  I asked her where we left off and she told me "30", that is, page 30.  Right on.

Even though I don' fully understand the math, Tom passes on a lot of historical information and tells an interesting story of his thesis work.  It was a long road an in his acknowledgements he mentions, "I’d like to thank my advisor Ray Sedwick for supporting me through the years (7.5, but I’m not counting)."

If you didn't check out the file before I think you will find it an interesting read. (which I am still trying to digest)
- LRK -
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The lead scientist Tom McGuire mentioned in the presentation did his Phd on “Inertial Electrostatic Confinement Fusion Devices” – you can read all 250+ pages of it at http://ssl.mit.edu/publications/theses/PhD-2007-McGuireThomas.pdf

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If you want to fly missions to far away places in the solar system it would be helpful to have some kind of continuous thrust that could be used to provide acceleration for half the journey and continuous thrust to slow down if you want to orbit the celestial body. Such missions have been proposed and a nuclear power source would be handy. 

Lack of money and opposition to launching nuclear power sources can get in the way of success. Then there is the problem that present nuclear power sources are often massive. Deciding whether to include humans adds to the mix of problems that need to be overcome. You can read about the proposed Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) mission or Project Prometheus to get a feel for the politics involved.

You can get a lot of heat from nuclear fission (atomic bomb, splitting apart heavy elements) or nuclear fusion (hydrogen bomb, putting light elements together).  Generally speaking, bombs don't make for good sound bites to the general public, although throwing bombs out behind a pusher shield have been suggested.

So many creative ideas that make for good science fiction but are hard to achieve in the here and now.  I live over a hill fromLawrence Livermore National Laboratory that is noted for its work with powerful lasers and have some really fast computers.  Their job also has to do with monitoring our nuclear stock pile and finding ways to ensure a nuclear device would work if called on to do so but no more blowing up the real thing. 

Creating a nuclear fusion generator using their lasers to help in ignition at the National Ignition Facility, that then might be used to generate electrical power, makes for good sound bites.  Taking a long time to have success and costing a lot of money, doesn't play well with the budget watchers. Playing your national defence card may not work either.
Nuclear fusion research funding in U.S. on thin ice

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Funding Disappears for Nuclear Fusion Following Poor Progress
By James Burgess | Wed, 26 June 2013 21:35

Over the past 50 years or so tens of billions of dollars have been spent on nuclear fusion research, yet just as some projects are beginning to get into their stride doubts are growing and funding is under threat; especially from the US.

After failing to achieve break-even last year, the fusion reactor being developed at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's National Ignition Facility (NIF), is now under threat of having its funding cut, and congress is also reconsidering the contribution that it had promised to the international ITER fusion project in France.

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OK, back to reading, 
by 
Thomas J. McGuire

Thanks for looking up with me.
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The World Nuclear Association (WNA) is the international organization that promotes nuclear power and supports the many companies that comprise the global nuclear industry. Its members come from all parts of the nuclear fuel cycle, including uranium mining, uranium conversion, uranium enrichment, nuclear fuel fabrication, plant manufacture, transport, and the disposition of used nuclear fuel as well aselectricity generation itself [1].
Together, WNA members are responsible for 95% of the world's nuclear power outside of the U.S. [2] as well as the vast majority of world uranium, conversion and enrichment production.[3]
The WNA says it aims to fulfill a dual role for its members: Facilitating their interaction on technical, commercial and policy matters and promoting wider public understanding of nuclear technology. [4]
Accredited to the United Nations, the WNA is an independent, non-profit organization, funded primarily by membership subscriptions.
The WNA was founded in 2001 on the basis of the Uranium Institute, itself founded in 1975.
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On a daily basis World Nuclear News provides free and accurate public information on the subject of nuclear power.  
The goal of WNN is use plain English to place comprehensive coverage of nuclear power in context using background information, expert commentary and links to relevant authoritative sources. Because they are researched from original source and written in-house by experienced journalists, WNN stories may be freely reproduced under certain licence conditions. 
The WNN service is supported administratively and with technical advice by the World Nuclear Association and is based within its London Secretariat. It draws on the WNA's global network of contacts in industry, academia, research institutes and intergovernmental agencies that includes key personnel in enterprises that account for virtually all of the world's uranium mining, nuclear fuel manufacture, equipment production and nuclear power generation.
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -

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