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NASA takes first step to develop Fhloston Paradise

NEWS – Are you tired of those “been there, done that” kind of vacations?  I mean, beaches are great, but water and sand can only go so far.  Skiing is fun, but after you’ve been to the mountains, it gets repetitive.  You can only look at so many ancient ruins, right? What is a world traveler to do?

Leave!

That’s right – for the low, low cost of $58,000,000 for the launch plus $35,000 per night, you can travel to the International Space Station (ISS) for that “nowhere in the world” kind of experience. And, unlike cut-rate airlines, you get to bring checked bags to the tune of up to 175 kg (about 385 lbs) of cargo. No word on the loyalty program, but I’d expect a ton of points for each night!

Seriously, this opportunity targeted at the commercial and scientific community. NASA is opening up the ISS to private interests as a means to provide a vehicle to science and industry that need a microgravity environment for research. NASA is trying to foster a sustainable low-Earth orbit economy.

So while it isn’t Fhloston Paradise, the idea of taking an extended vacation and being able to look down on this blue marble we call home is pretty exciting.  Now, I just need to come up with a viable and compelling microgravity experiment and get a GoFundMe set up.

For more information, visit NASA’s commercial opportunity website.

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NASA takes first step to develop Fhloston Paradise originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on June 9, 2019 at 8:00 am.

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Musk aiming to provide global internet with Starlink

NEWS – A while back, I wrote about Amazon’s Project Kuiper – a plan to launch over 3,000 satellites into low Earth orbit to provide broadband access to underserved areas. SpaceX, Elon Musk’s space venture is preparing to launch the first 60 of nearly 12,000 Starlink satellites.

The photo above shows the 60 satellites strategically packed into the faring of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. These are what Muck called “production design”, differing from a couple of test satellites that SpaceX tested last year. They are more of a demonstration of the concept than the first step in the ultimate constellation, but it is an important step in getting the ball rolling.

SpaceX will be facing competition from LeoSat, OneWeb, Telesat, and Amazon for this market. But so far, SpaceX looks like it will be first to market with space-bound broadband internet with this launch planned for May 15, 2019, from Cape Canaveral.  They have plans for two to six more launches this year.

Internet everywhere has long been a dream.  This week’s planned launch might signal that it will be coming more quickly than anyone anticipated.  Here’s hoping that costs are reasonable and there are no data caps!

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Musk aiming to provide global internet with Starlink originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on May 13, 2019 at 10:00 am.

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SpaceX sticks the landing – the world’s first triple booster landing

NEWS – April 11, 2019, I got to watch history – at least part of it, as SpaceX launched its second Falcon Heavy from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral.  I did this from my driveway – or more correctly, a friend’s driveway down the street, which is pretty darn cool.

Disclaimer – most photos are from February 2018’s Falcon Heavy launch, where I was in Titusville, Florida, much closer to the Cape.

The launch went off without a hitch and we were able to clearly see the launch from roughly 90 miles to the west.  The better part was that we could also clearly see the reentry burn on the two side boosters as they stabilized prior to their freefall back to the Cape This happened about eight minutes after launch.

The two side boosters travel relatively slowly when they separate, allowing them to return directly to the Cape.

The center booster travels too fast at separation to return to the Cape.  That booster is supposed to land on a drone platform out in the Atlantic ocean.  That was the plan last year as well, but the booster missed the platform and not only was lost but flooded and sunk the platform as well.  This time, all that changed as all three boosters worked exactly as designed and nailed perfect right-in-the-center landings.

This is from SpaceX’s twitter feed right after the landing, showing the main center booster on the drone platform.

The tech behind all this is staggering.  Think about controlling three objects, all weighing thousands of pounds, freefalling from space, and guiding them, essentially without a motor, and landing them all so softly that you can use them again.  That’s what SpaceX brought to the table tonight.

The mission continued, successfully launching the Arabsat-6A satellite into geosynchronous orbit. This means that SpaceX has completed its first commercial launch of the Falcon Heavy rocket.

It is an exciting time for the US space program.  Who knows how this tech will lead to other new developments?

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SpaceX sticks the landing – the world’s first triple booster landing originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on April 12, 2019 at 10:00 am.

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America returns to space – NASA and SpaceX

 

ARTICLE – When I was a kid, I loved space.  I couldn’t get enough of NASA and the Apollo program.  I was nine years old when Apollo 11 launched, and like most of the country, I was glued to the TV, fascinated by America’s space program. In fact, they told me I should become an astronaut because I was just taking up space in school, but I digress…

Ever since the end of the shuttle missions, America hasn’t really had much of a space program.  We have relied on the Russian space program to launch astronauts and supplies to the International Space Station (ISS). But that’s all about to change.

In this past month, NASA and SpaceX, Elon Musk’s space exploration company, successfully launched a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral, on Florida’s space coast, to the ISS. The rocket was topped with SpaceX’s new Crew Dragon capsule, designed to carry American astronauts into space. The capsule contained a human analog named Ripley – think MythBusters’ Buster – a heavily sensor-laden manikin, to measure forces and to help determine how humans would handle the flight.

This flight also introduced new tech to the program.  Usually, when a ship docks with the ISS, the crew on the ISS use the ISS’s robotic arm to help the ship dock.  On this flight, the Crew Dragon capsule docked fully autonomously, a first in ISS history.

The capsule returned home after its five-day mission, successfully splashing down in the Atlantic. Now that the capsule, and Ripley, are home, the data will be analyzed.  Another launch is planned with a designed abort, to test astronaut’s ability to survive in the event a flight has to be abandoned after the rocket has launched.  Assuming it all looks good, we could see US astronauts, launching from a US launch site on a US built rocket for the first time in years.

In February 2018, a month after moving to Florida, I made the drive about 90 minute east to Titusville, just across the water from NASA’s famed launchpad 39A.  I got to watch the NASA/SpaceX launch of the Falcon Heavy, essentially three Falcon 9s duct taped together. (OK, it’s a bit more complicated than that, but you get the gist…)

On top of that was a capsule containing Musk’s own Tesla Model S roadster, with another dummy, dubbed Starman, belted in for the ride.  The Falcon Heavy is designed to carry people and cargo, into space, potentially to Mars.

The bottom line here is that it is a very exciting time for the US space program – the most exciting time since the beginning of the space shuttle program. It would be great to get back to the heyday of space exploration when the entire country had space fever and we all looked to the skies with awe and excitement.

To learn more, check out NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.

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America returns to space – NASA and SpaceX originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on March 13, 2019 at 8:30 am.

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MARS season 2 premiers tonight on Nat Geo

NEWS – I just finished binge-watching the first season of MARS, a 6-episode docudrama streaming from NatGeo TV. If your eyes just glazed over when you read that MARS is a docudrama, please unglaze them right now because this series is really entertaining if you have any interest in sci-fi, space exploration, science, etc. The executive producers of the series are Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, so you know it’s going to be good. It follows the first manned (fictitious) mission to colonize Mars in the year 2033.

The scripted storyline is about how the astronauts survive the trip to the planet on a rocket named Daedalus. It takes us with them on the stressful landing, and onward. Short segments that provide info from a variety of speakers are injected into the episodes from people like Andy Weir author of Martian, Neil Degrasse Tyson, and Elon Musk CEO and lead designer of SpaceX whose mission is to make human life interplanetary, which is what the series MARS is all about.

The 2nd season of MARS picks up in 2042, 5 years after the end of the first season of the series. Six more episodes of the scripted drama and documentary hybrid series offer more stories about how the first explorers of the red planet will cope with the issues of human interaction, contamination, illness, death, natural disasters and even the first baby to be born on MARS.

The second season brings new comments from Elon Musk, Bill Nye, Ellen Stofan, Michio Kaku, and others to round out the 47-minute episodes. Like the first season, the second season is 6 episodes so they are easy to watch one at a time or one after another. I was given early access to the second season episodes and as more characters and storylines are added, the show gets better and better.

What I like most about MARS is that the scripted part of the series is compelling, exciting, and interesting, and the documentary part of the series is just as compelling and interesting. This series is entertaining AND educational in a fun way that will make you want to keep watching.

Check out MARS Season 2 starting November 12, 9/8c on Nat Geo.

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MARS season 2 premiers tonight on Nat Geo originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on November 12, 2018 at 4:10 pm.

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