From larry.kellogg at gmail.com Mon Apr 2 02:21:58 2007 From: larry.kellogg at gmail.com (Larry Kellogg) Date: Sun, 01 Apr 2007 23:21:58 -0700 Subject: [lunar-update] A Science Vision report about living on the Moon - how it can be don(e) Message-ID: <4610A106.7000005@gmail.com> A Science Vision report about living on the Moon - how it can be don(e) On the "return_to_the_moon" group, http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/return_to_the_moon/ Niclas Jacobsz posted the following: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Many visionaries have designed and are still designing Moon bases and space stations around Earth, but, as is usual in many such presentations, ignore the basics of physics, engineering and specific conditions, often in ignorance, or with a wishful "no problem" attitude. Since the Apollo moon landings, we know quite a bit more about the conditions of the Moon's surface, but the artist-designers do not take these into account and are still in the science fiction phase, or rather, fiction only. As the engineer in electrics, mechanics and energy conversion systems that I am, I make in this e-book a more realistic analysis of what is possible and develop a program that can lead to establish the first bases and settlements on the Moon, showing designs of such structures and transport systems, with all the functions needed to live there and as can be done with today's technology. This is neither Science yet, nor is it Science Fiction. This is Science Vision instead, the vision of what is, or may be possible within known laws of physics and today's technology, but is yet to be done. You can download the first chapter FOR FREE here: http://www.draaisma.net/space-tourism/moon_base_landing.php ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You may like to take a look at the first chapter of his e-book and see what you think. The thoughts of large colonies on far away places paints pretty pictures but doesn't show how you got there. It looks like Niclas would like to show what is needed to get things started. He questions how secure one would be on the fine powder of the regolith and I think that has been answered by what the astronauts found with the outings with the rovers. I know that when you say, "powder", you may think of something soft like talcum powder but I believe the ground up regolith was more like ground up glass and compacted at a rather shallow depth. I down loaded a 30.5 file on the work that is being done on making Lunar Regolith Simulant Materials to see if my thinking was correct. If you have the time and space you might like to look at it. See the link below. - LRK - This big file is the result of a workshop on the same topic. Some links to the workshop as well with smaller files of interest. Hope we get some robots up there to bring back some samples in the selected landing places so that we know what we will be dealing with. 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://isru.msfc.nasa.gov/ WELCOME to In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) The In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) is a core component of the Vision for Space Exploration as implemented by the Science & Mission Systems (S&MS) Office. The ISRU works to establish, evaluate and assess the in situ resources available on the moon and Mars and the technologies needed to utilize and exploit these resources. These research and technology development areas will focus on technologies necessary to extract consumables (O2, H2O, N2, He, etc.) for human life-support system replenishment (ECLSS, EVA, etc.), source materials (feedstock) for In Situ Fabrication and Repair (ISFR) technologies, and source materials (composites, etc.) for radiation shielding and shelters from in situ resources (lunar regolith and Martian regolith & atmosphere). The transformation of in situ space resources into raw materials will be studied through fundamental and applied experimental research, theoretical modeling of processes, and technology development in the areas of extractive and reactive processing, materials purification, material transformation, materials shaping and handling, and characterization of these processes in low-gravity environments. *Lunar Regolith Simulant Materials Workshop* - January 24-26, 2005 Marshall Institute in Huntsville Alabama Snip ============================================================== http://isru.msfc.nasa.gov/lib/Documents/PDF%20Files/NASA_TP_2006_214605.pdf [30.5 MB PDF File, 142 pages] NASA/TP?2006?214605 Lunar Regolith Simulant Materials: Recommendations for Standardization, Production, and Usage EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Background Lunar regolith is a mixture of rock, mineral, and glass fragments transformed into a distinctive material by a unique combination of space weathering processes. Lunar regolith makes up the lunar soil that covers the surface of the Moon in thicknesses from centimeters to hundreds of meters; it reflects the geological differences observed in the lunar geography but also displays a remarkable uniformity in many physical characteristics. As NASA prepares to return humans to the lunar surface for a long-term presence, knowledge of the lunar materials and their environment has been multiplied by the careful study of the lunar samples returned by the Apollo missions that represent a diversity of geological materials and processes. That critical knowledge, while still limited, enables the definition of standard lunar regolith simulant (SLRS) materials that should be used as lunar soil analogs in hardware development and testing. The Apollo program developed a set of standard lunar soil simulants to test all surface systems in preparation for the lunar landings. This approach was highly successful despite the limited knowledge of the lunar surface at the time. These materials no longer exist and the library of documents describing their compositions is incomplete. Although a variety of simulant materials was used to test Apollo surface systems, astronauts and mission controllers encountered several challenging problems. Some of the problems encountered with the lunar regolith resulted in the following: ? Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) slippage and crew sinkage in steep slopes of loose regolith at crater edges. ? Inability and persisting difficulty of tools to penetrate lunar regolith beyond tens of centimeters (core drilling tube, anchoring rods, and severe abrasion during excavation). ? Lunar dust caused hardware failures, as follows: ? Failure of seals on all rock-boxes sealed in their original vacuum (10?12 Torr) on the Moon, resulting in no pristine lunar samples returned to Earth. ? Jamming of extension tool handles. ? Severe abrasion compromised the joints on extra vehicular activity (EVA) suits resulting in pressure degradation and reduction in mobility. ? Unforeseen accumulation on the LRV radiators required extensive astronaut time for unplanned cleaning tasks that proved ineffective. ? Accumulation of lunar soil particles on EVA suits resulted in dust invasion of the lunar module and problems with reassembly of suits for subsequent EVAs. ? Astronaut exposure to airborne dust causing physiological irritation. The Apollo experience demonstrated the need for extensive testing of surface systems with materials similar to the in situ lunar materials that will be encountered. The Mars rovers have experienced operational challenges in climbing slopes of loose soil that have required real-time problem simulation in a test-bed utilizing simulant material. As NASA considers a return to the Moon, the pressing need for SLRS materials is further compounded by the fact that the remaining lunar sample inventory currently available (?350 kg) is insufficient in quantity to support lunar technology projects and its scientific value is too great to be consumed by destructive studies. Every effort must be made to utilize simulants. Snip ============================================================== http://isru.msfc.nasa.gov/lib/workshops/lrsm2005.html Lunar Regolith Simulant Materials Workshop */Organized by Marshall Space Flight Center in collaboration with Johnson Space Center/* *Lunar Regolith Simulant Materials* - January 24-26, 2005 Marshall Institute in Huntsville Alabama /Dec 16, 2005/ - We have completed the Lunar Regolith Simulant Materials Workshop Report, now titled "Lunar Regolith Simulant Materials: Recommendations for Standardization, Production and Usage", and have posted the "pre-release" version to the publications area of this website. NASA publications will now take the document and place it in the standard format for a NASA technical publication. A downloadable version of the final release will be posted to the website as soon as it is available along with information as to how to obtain a hardcopy and/or CD of the document. Snip ============================================================== http://est.msfc.nasa.gov/workshops/lrsm2005_program.html Lunar Regolith Simulant Materials Workshop *Working Session Handouts* - Posted Feb 17, 2005 LRSM_Handouts_ws.pdf (File Size: 19.2 MB) *Workshop Program - Current Status Jan 19, 2005* LRSM_Program.pdf *Abstract Book - Current Status Jan 21, 2005* LRSM_Abstract_Book.pdf (File Size: 9.9 MB) *Presentations - Day 1* * Laurent Sibille - The Status of Lunar Simulant Materials, Workshop Overview and Objectives * Larry Taylor - Physical and Chemical Characteristics of Lunar Regolith: Considerations for Simulants * David McKay - Evolution of the Lunar Regolith * Larry Taylor - The Geotechnical Properties of the Lunar Regolith: From Equator to the Poles * Susan Batiste - Lunar Regolith Simulant MLS-1: Production and Engineering Properties * Paul Carpenter - Characterization Strategies and Requirements for Lunar Regolith Simulant Materials * Paul Carpenter - JSC Mars-1 Martian Soil Simulant:Melting Experimentsand Electron Microprobe Studies * Greg Meeker - Characterization of Chemical and Physical Properties of Proposed Simulant Materials * Steve Wilson - Development of Geochemical Reference Materials at the United States Geological Survey * Masami Nakagawa - The Moon as a Beach of Fine Powders * Russ Kerschmann - Biological Effects of Lunar Surface Mineral Particulates * James Gaier - The Effects of Lunar Dust on Advanced EVA Systems: Lessons from Apollo *Presentations - Day 2* * Gary Lofgren - Sintering, Melting, and Crystallization of Lunar Soil With An Experimental Petrologic Point of View * Donald Sadoway - Towards Lunar Simulants Possessing Properties Critical to Research & Development of Extractive Processes * Donald Sadoway - Extraction Processes in Supercritical Fluids (SCFs) * Ernest Berney - The In-Situ State: The Elusive Ingredient in Lunar Simulant * David Cole - Lunar Regolith Simulant Requirements: Mechanical Properties Considerations * Paul Lowman - Composition of the Lunar Highland Crust: A New Model * Jim Adams - Space Radiation and Lunar Regolith * Larry Taylor - Geologic Settings for Simulant * David Lynch - Presentation *Poster Presentations* * FARM - Fabrication, Assembly and Repair Module * In-Situ Resources UtilizationProcessing of Lunar Materials - Dr. Ramana Reddy * In Situ Fabrication and Repair - Solid Freeform Fabrication * Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) Technology Demo Concept for MSG Snip ============================================================== http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/28dec_truefake.htm True Fakes: Scientists make simulated lunar soil 12.28.2006 * Dec. 28 , 2006:* Life is tough for a humble grain of dirt on the surface of the Moon. It's peppered with cosmic rays, exposed to solar flares, and battered by micrometeorites--shattered, vaporized and re-condensed countless times over the billions of years. Adding insult to injury, Earthlings want to strip it down to oxygen and other elements for "in situ resource utilization," or ISRU, the process of living off the land when NASA returns to the Moon in the not-so-distant future. But, as Robert Heinlein famously observed, "the Moon is a harsh mistress." Living with moondust and striping it down may be trickier than anyone supposes. To find out how tricky, researchers would like to test their ideas for ISRU and their designs for lunar rovers on real lunar soil before astronauts return to the Moon. But there's a problem: "We don't have enough real moondust to go around," says Larry Taylor, director of Planetary Geosciences Institute at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. To run all the tests, "we need to make a well-qualified lunar simulant." And not just a few bags will do. "We need tons of it, mainly for working on technologies for diggers and wheels and machinery on the surface," adds David S. McKay, chief scientist for astrobiology at the Johnson Space Center (JSC). Snip ============================================================== WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK ============================================================== This is the lunar-update at news.altair.com https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update This list is a moderated list. The moderator is Larry Kellogg (larry.kellogg AT gmail.com) Please send suggestions for postings directly to Larry. ============================================================== From larry.kellogg at gmail.com Mon Apr 2 20:50:47 2007 From: larry.kellogg at gmail.com (Larry Kellogg) Date: Mon, 02 Apr 2007 17:50:47 -0700 Subject: [lunar-update] USGS Astrogeology - Hot Topics Message-ID: <4611A4E7.2020609@gmail.com> USGS Astrogeology - Hot Topics http://astrogeology.usgs.gov/HotTopics/ When you go on a trip it helps to have a map to tell you where to go when you come to a fork in the road. If you would like look at what is happening now on the road to space, check out the link above. - LRK - Various agencies publish maps around the World and in the USA the U.S. Geological Survey office has done that for some time. _____________________________________________________________________ http://www.usgs.gov/aboutusgs/ Our Mission and Vision Mission: The USGS serves the Nation by providing reliable scientific information to describe and understand the Earth; minimize loss of life and property from natural disasters; manage water, biological, energy, and mineral resources; and enhance and protect our quality of life. Vision: USGS has become a world leader in the natural sciences thanks to our scientific excellence and responsiveness to society's needs. Snip _____________________________________________________________________ Maps of mother Earth do not help you when you want to find a place to land on the Moon. Who would like to map the Moon? It often takes someone with a vision to push for change and show the chain of command that the project will work. Eugene M. Shoemaker was that kind of person. - LRK - _____________________________________________________________________ http://astrogeology.usgs.gov/About/AstroHistory/shoemaker.html Gene Shoemaker founded the Astrogeology Research Program in 1961 and was its first Chief Scientist. He established the Flagstaff Science Center in 1963, and retired from the USGS in 1993. He remained on Emeritus status with the USGS and maintained an affiliation with * Lowell Observatory * until his death in a car accident in Australia in 1997. Gene was involved in the Lunar Ranger and Surveyor programs and continued with the manned Apollo programs. He culminated his lunar studies in 1994 with new data on the Moon from * Project Clementine *, for which he was the science-team leader. Gene collaborated closely with his wife, Carolyn, a planetary astronomer. The discovery of Comet Shoemaker-Levy (which impacted Jupiter in 1994) with colleague David Levy, gained them world-wide fame. This was just one of Gene's many great accomplishments. For more on Gene Shoemaker, see the * Eugene M. Shoemaker * page. Snip _____________________________________________________________________ If you have never read about him, take a look at what the USGS has to say about him. - LRK - _____________________________________________________________________ http://astrogeology.usgs.gov/About/People/GeneShoemaker/ Eugene M. Shoemaker April 28, 1928 - July 18, 1997 Table of Contents * Biography * Photo Gallery * Additional Info * * Return to /About:People/ * Snip _____________________________________________________________________ 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://astrogeology.usgs.gov/About/AstroHistory/ The USGS Astrogeology Research Program has a rich history of participation in space exploration efforts and planetary mapping, starting in 1963 when the Flagstaff Science Center was established to provide lunar geologic mapping and assist in training astronauts destined for the Moon. Throughout the years, the Program has participated in processing and analyzing data from various missions to the planetary bodies in our solar system, assisting in finding potential landing sites for exploration vehicles, mapping our neighboring planets and their moons, and conducting research to better understand the origins, evolutions, and geologic processes operating on these bodies. Historical Tour * * Flagstaff Science Center:* How and why the Science Center was established * * Gene Shoemaker:* The Founder of the USGS Astrogeology Research Program * * Astronaut Training* : The role of Flagstaff and the USGS in astronaut training, equipment testing, and mission simulations * * Harrison H. Schmitt:* a USGS geologist goes to the Moon * * Recommended Reading:* Books and other resources about the history of the USGS Astrogeology Research Program and the role of scientists in the early days of the U.S. space program Snip ============================================================== http://astrogeology.usgs.gov/Projects/LunarAtlas/ The View From The Astronaut's Eyes Apollo Mission Lunar Exploration Media Gallery This gallery features interactive panoramas (or /virtual reality/ movies), photography, and maps from the various Apollo manned missions to explore the lunar surface. Snip Lunar Links! * *USGS Astro:* The Earth's Moon - links to lunar web pages right here at the USGS Astrogeology Research Program! * *NASA:* Apollo Lunar Surface Journal * *NASA NSSDC:* Lunar Exploration - Mission info and more * *NASA:* Welcome to the Planets - Earth (includes the Moon) http://www.lpi.usra.edu/research/apollo/ * *LPI:* Apollo Image Atlas * *SEDS:* The Nine Planets Tour - Earth's Moon * *SEDS:* Lunar Resources USGS Astrogeology Research Program Home The imagery and maps were prepared as part of a project by a USGS team under funding from the USGS Technology Transfer Program and NASA's Planetary Geology and Geophysics Program. Dr. Christopher D. Condit (U. Massachusetts) and Mr. Richard Kozak provided scientific and technical assistance. Contact Kenneth L Tanaka (ktanaka at usgs.gov ), Dennis McMacken (dmcmacke at usgs.gov ), or Glenn Bennett (gbennett at usgs.gov ), for additional information. Snip ============================================================== WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK ============================================================== This is the lunar-update at news.altair.com https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update This list is a moderated list. The moderator is Larry Kellogg (larry.kellogg AT gmail.com) Please send suggestions for postings directly to Larry. ============================================================== From larry.kellogg at gmail.com Fri Apr 6 20:53:59 2007 From: larry.kellogg at gmail.com (Larry Kellogg) Date: Fri, 06 Apr 2007 17:53:59 -0700 Subject: [lunar-update] =?utf-8?q?LOCAD-PTS_=28short_for_Lab-On-a-Chip_App?= =?utf-8?q?lication_Development=E2=80=93Portable_Test_System=29?= Message-ID: <4616EBA7.7020009@gmail.com> LOCAD-PTS (short for Lab-On-a-Chip Application Development?Portable Test System) Alright, it isn't a Trcorder yet, but a beginning just the same. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tricorder - LRK - _____________________________________________________________________ NASA Science News for April 6, 2007 A miniature biological laboratory important to the future of space exploration has just passed an important test onboard the International Space Station. FULL STORY at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2007/06apr_locad2.htm?list965414 Snip _____________________________________________________________________ *April 6, 2007:* "What a huge relief," says Norman Wainwright of the Charles River Laboratories in Charleston, SC. "The whole technical team was delighted that it worked so well." He's talking about a miniature biological laboratory just tested for the first time onboard the International Space Station. Called LOCAD-PTS (short for Lab-On-a-Chip Application Development?Portable Test System), the mini-lab detects the presence of bacteria or fungi on the surfaces of a spacecraft far more rapidly than standard methods of culturing. "The ability to monitor microorganisms would be especially important on long space voyages, not only to check the health of astronauts but also to monitor electronics and structural materials, which can be corroded or otherwise damaged by certain fungi and bacteria," says Wainwright, the experiment's principal investigator. LOCAD-PTS is designed so that "astronauts can do the analysis onboard with no need to return samples to laboratories on Earth." The device was launched last December 9th on board the space shuttle Discovery, and then stowed aboard ISS until its scheduled experiment time?which happened to be Saturday night, March 31, Marshall Space Flight Center time. (Remember that time!) Snip _____________________________________________________________________ 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://exploration.nasa.gov/programs/station/LOCAD-PTS.html Lab-on-a-Chip Application Development-Portable Test System (LOCAD-PTS) Brief Summary Lab-on-a-Chip Application Development-Portable Test System (LOCAD-PTS) is a handheld device for rapid detection of biological and chemical substances on board the space station. Astronauts will swab surfaces within the cabin, add swab material to the LOCAD-PTS, and within 15 minutes obtain results on a display screen. The study's purpose is to effectively provide an early warning system to enable crew members to take remedial measures if necessary to protect the health and safety of those on board the station. Principal Investigator Norman R. Wainwright, Ph.D., Charles River Endosafe, Charleston SC Co-Investigator(s) Jake Maule, Ph.D., Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, DC Payload Developer Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL Charles River Endosafe, Charleston, SC Sponsoring Agency National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Expeditions Assigned 14,15,16 Previous ISS Missions LOCAD-PTS is a new investigation for space research. Snip Research Summary LOCAD-PTS is a handheld device for rapid detection of biological onboard the International Space Station (ISS). LOCAD-PTS analysis is immediate. Effectively providing an early warning system to enable crew to take remedial measures if necessary to protect themselves on board ISS. Current testing focuses on detecting bacteria and fungi. Other sample cartridges can be developed to detect chemical substances of concern to crew safety on ISS (hydrazine, ammonia, etc.) and proteins in urine, saliva and blood for aiding medical diagnoses. Description The Lab-on-a-Chip Application Development ? Portable Test System (LOCAD-PTS) is a handheld device, enabling crew to perform complex laboratory tests on a thumb-sized cartridge with a press of a button. Every thumb-sized plastic cartridge has 4 channels and each channel contains a dried extract of horseshoe crab blood cells and colorless dye. In the presence of bacteria and fungi, the dried extract reacts strongly to turn the dye a green color. Therefore, the more green dye, the more microorganisms there are in the original sample. Tests by LOCAD-PTS will become increasingly specific with the advent of new cartridges. Current cartridges target bacteria and fungi. New cartridges, to be launched on subsequent flights, will target bacteria only, then groups of bacteria and eventually individual species or strains that pose a specific risk to crew health. Cartridges can also be adapted to detect chemical substances of concern to crew safety on ISS (e.g. hydrazine, ammonia and certain acids) and proteins in urine, saliva and blood of astronauts to provide added information for medical diagnosis. A phrase that summarizes this mode of operation is "same instrument, just change the cartridge". Snip ============================================================== http://www.aiaa.org/aerospace/images/articleimages/pdf/AA_Mar07_EN.pdf Primitive creatures aid healthy space travel. Snip The high-tech device relies on four enzymes extracted from the blood cells of one of Earth?s most ancient living creatures?the horseshoe crab. ?The horseshoe crab, a species that has survived some 300 million years, has a very primitive but sensitive immune system,? Wainwright explains. A single bacterium can be enough to trigger enzymes in the crab?s immune system, which clot the blood to seal off a wound. The enzymes? extraordinary sensitivity and rapid response make them widely useful in medical research to test the effectiveness of drugs and devices. Withdrawing a bit of blood annually from horseshoe crabs, which are then returned to the sea, does not injure the creatures. So far, there is no acceptable synthetic substitute. It is these horseshoe crab enzymes that allow LOCAD-PTS to be so small, sensitive, and fast. Snip ============================================================== Not all Tricorders were the same on Star Trek and other devices to aid us in exploring space are being considered as well. - LRK - _____________________________________________________________________ http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/technologies/nuggets.html NASA Develops a Nugget to Search for Life in Space 07.27.05 Astrobiologists, who search for evidence of life on other planets, may find a proposed Neutron/Gamma ray Geologic Tomography (NUGGET) instrument to be one of the most useful tools in their toolbelt As conceived by scientists at the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Greenbelt, Md., NUGGET would be able to generate three-dimensional images of fossils embedded in an outcrop of rock or beneath the soil of Mars or another planet. Tomography uses radiation or sound waves to look inside objects. NUGGET could help determine if primitive forms of life took root on Mars when the planet was awash in water eons ago. Similar to seismic tomography used by the oil industry to locate oil reserves beneath Earth?s surface, NUGGET would look instead for evidence of primitive algae and bacteria that fossilized along the edges of extinct rivers or oceans. As on Earth, these remains could lie just a few centimeters beneath the surface, compressed between layers of silt. If a mechanical rover that explores planet surfaces were equipped with an instrument like NUGGET ? capable of peering beneath the surface ? then it might be able to reveal evidence of life beyond Earth. Snip ============================================================== WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK ============================================================== This is the lunar-update at news.altair.com https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update This list is a moderated list. The moderator is Larry Kellogg (larry.kellogg AT gmail.com) Please send suggestions for postings directly to Larry. ============================================================== From larry.kellogg at gmail.com Tue Apr 10 20:48:20 2007 From: larry.kellogg at gmail.com (Larry Kellogg) Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2007 17:48:20 -0700 Subject: [lunar-update] NASA Targets June Launch for Space Shuttle Atlantis Message-ID: <461C3054.9070109@gmail.com> NASA Targets June Launch for Space Shuttle Atlantis http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html *04.10.07 - 7:45 p.m. EST* NASA is targeting June 8 as the next possible launch opportunity for space shuttle Atlantis' STS-117 mission to the International Space Station. Tuesday's decision by agency management followed a meeting that reviewed the progress in repairing insulating foam on the shuttle's external fuel tank, which was damaged during a sudden hail storm Feb. 26 at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla. That damage required engineers to repair approximately 2,660 sites on the tank. Snip ============================================================== I hope no more ice storms. I wonder what it will be like when you start making routine trips to the Moon. 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 ============================================================== April 10, 2007 Allard Beutel Headquarters, Washington 202-358-4769 Kyle Herring Johnson Space Center, Houston 281-483-5111 RELEASE: 07-83 NASA TARGETS JUNE LAUNCH FOR SPACE SHUTTLE ATLANTIS WASHINGTON - NASA is targeting June 8 as the next possible launch opportunity for space shuttle Atlantis' STS-117 mission to the International Space Station. Tuesday's decision by agency management followed a meeting that reviewed the progress in repairing insulating foam on the shuttle's external fuel tank, which was damaged during a sudden hail storm Feb. 26 at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla. That damage required engineers to repair approximately 2,660 sites on the tank. The meeting also included an assessment of using the repaired external tank for the STS-117 mission versus swapping to one that arrived last week from the manufacturing plant in New Orleans. Managers decided to finish repairs to Atlantis' current tank and use it for STS-117. The tank that arrived Friday will be prepared for space shuttle Endeavour's STS-118 mission to the space station and now is targeted for launch in August. "The workforce has done an amazing job of assessing and repairing the tank so far, but the sheer volume of repairs dictates moving the launch target to June," said Space Shuttle Program Manager Wayne Hale. June 8 is the opening of the next available launch window for Atlantis to go to the station. STS-117 Commander Rick Sturckow, Pilot Lee Archambault and mission specialists Jim Reilly, Patrick Forrester, Steven Swanson and John "Danny" Olivas will continue training at NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston. During the 11-day mission, the astronauts will work with the station crew and ground teams to install a new, girder-like truss segment, unfold a new set of solar arrays and retract one array on the starboard side of the station. For more information about the STS-117 crew and mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle -end- To subscribe to the list, send a message to: hqnews-subscribe at mediaservices.nasa.gov To remove your address from the list, send a message to: hqnews-unsubscribe at mediaservices.nasa.gov Snip ============================================================== WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK ============================================================== This is the lunar-update at news.altair.com https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update This list is a moderated list. The moderator is Larry Kellogg (larry.kellogg AT gmail.com) Please send suggestions for postings directly to Larry. ============================================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://news.altair.com/pipermail/lunar-update/attachments/20070410/4b725167/attachment.htm From larry.kellogg at gmail.com Fri Apr 13 18:28:58 2007 From: larry.kellogg at gmail.com (Larry Kellogg) Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2007 15:28:58 -0700 Subject: [lunar-update] Report Reveals Likely Causes of Mars Spacecraft Loss Message-ID: <4620042A.1060101@gmail.com> Report Reveals Likely Causes of Mars Spacecraft Loss http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mgs/ ------------------------------------------------------------ snip WASHINGTON - After studying Mars four times as long as originally planned, NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter appears to have succumbed to battery failure caused by a complex sequence of events involving the onboard computer memory and ground commands. snip ------------------------------------------------------------ I missed sending this in time for you to listen to the teleconference but copied the report below. - LRK - The Discovery News clip makes a more dramatic heading with "Human Error Caused Mars Surveyor Loss". It is easy to get a sun burn while laying on the beach. It is easy to overheat the shuttle if you can't open the cargo doors. It is easy to overheat a spacecraft if you don't allow for where the Sun is. When Pioneer 10 was launched it needed to make attitude adjustments to point the spin axis in the direction you needed to make a Jupiter encounter. Normally the big antenna dish would shadow the instrument compartment if the antenna was pointing towards Earth when far away from the Sun but in those first maneuvers after leaving earth you had thrust vector considerations as well as antenna pointing issues, and you did not want the instrument compartment and batteries getting blistered by the Sun. In a Pioneer/Jupiter News Letter issued on March 14, 1972, the title is "PIONEER 10 DRAWS A BEAD ON JUPITER". It mentions that on the 6th day of the mission the initial midcourse maneuver was performed. The objectives of this maneuver were to locate the encounter 3 radii from the center of Jupiter 14 degree below a parallel to the ecliptic through the planet's center and time the arrival within one of the daily 5 hour overlaps of tracking capabilities of the 64 meter antennas at Goldstone, Calif., and at Canberra, Australia. During reorientation of the spacecraft to earth alignment after injection, signal dropouts were experienced in the interference region between forward and aft (oppositely polarized) spacecraft antennas. This restricted the alignment to within 45 degrees of earth alignment. Also equipment compartment temperatures were near the upper design limits, so it was preferred not to turn the spacecraft backside towards the sun during the maneuver. They selected the maneuver strategy 48 hours after launch and was sustained by excellent performance of the propulsion system and JPL's measurements during calibration maneuvers during the next 15 hours. Sounds like fun, huh, where is Earth, where is Jupiter, where is the Sun, where is my coffee? Oh, Oh, where is Pioneer 10? Earth - Spacecraft Distance 8,789,2001 km Spacecraft - Jupiter Distance 817,799,413 km Even Lunar Prospector going to the Moon had to worry about where was the Sun to get power to the solar panels and don't get the Sun shining on the Alpha Particle Spectrometer bottom face as it may have gotten a wrinkle in its Sunglasses when the trans lunar injection module pushed itself away with its little nitrogen jets. You also had to worry about not flying down Earth's shadow from the Sun because it was a full Moon [Sun behind Earth, shadow looking out towards the Moon]. Want to fly a deep space mission? 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 ============================================================== April 13, 2007 Dwayne Brown Headquarters, Washington 202-358-1726 Guy Webster Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. 818-354-6278 RELEASE: 07-88 REPORT REVEALS LIKELY CAUSES OF MARS SPACECRAFT LOSS WASHINGTON - After studying Mars four times as long as originally planned, NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter appears to have succumbed to battery failure caused by a complex sequence of events involving the onboard computer memory and ground commands. The causes were released today in a preliminary report by an internal review board. The board was formed to look more in-depth into why NASA's Mars Global Surveyor went silent in November 2006 and recommend any processes or procedures that could increase safety for other spacecraft. Mars Global Surveyor last communicated with Earth on Nov. 2, 2006. Within 11 hours, depleted batteries likely left the spacecraft unable to control its orientation. "The loss of the spacecraft was the result of a series of events linked to a computer error made five months before the likely battery failure," said board Chairperson Dolly Perkins, deputy director-technical of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. On Nov. 2, after the spacecraft was ordered to perform a routine adjustment of its solar panels, the spacecraft reported a series of alarms, but indicated that it had stabilized. That was its final transmission. Subsequently, the spacecraft reoriented to an angle that exposed one of two batteries carried on the spacecraft to direct sunlight. This caused the battery to overheat and ultimately led to the depletion of both batteries. Incorrect antenna pointing prevented the orbiter from telling controllers its status, and its programmed safety response did not include making sure the spacecraft orientation was thermally safe. The board also concluded that the Mars Global Surveyor team followed existing procedures, but that procedures were insufficient to catch the errors that occurred. The board is finalizing recommendations to apply to other missions, such as conducting more thorough reviews of all non-routine changes to stored data before they are uploaded and to evaluate spacecraft contingency modes for risks of overheating. "We are making an end-to-end review of all our missions to be sure that we apply the lessons learned from Mars Global Surveyor to all our ongoing missions," said Fuk Li, Mars Exploration Program manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Mars Global Surveyor, launched in 1996, operated longer at Mars than any other spacecraft in history, and for more than four times as long as the prime mission originally planned. The spacecraft returned detailed information that has overhauled understanding about Mars. Major findings include dramatic evidence that water still flows in short bursts down hillside gullies, and identification of deposits of water-related minerals leading to selection of a Mars rover landing site. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages Mars Global Surveyor for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, developed and operates the spacecraft. Information about the Mars Global Surveyor mission, including the preliminary report from the process review board and a list of some important discoveries by the mission, is available on the Internet at: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mgs EDITORS NOTE: NASA will hold a media teleconference today at 3 p.m. EDT, to discuss the report. Reporters should call 1-888-398-6118 and use the pass code "Mars" to participate in the teleconference. International media should call 1-773-681-5826. Replays of the teleconference will be available by calling 866-369-3645. International media may call: 203-369-0243. Audio of the teleconference will stream live at: http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio -end- To subscribe to the list, send a message to: hqnews-subscribe at mediaservices.nasa.gov To remove your address from the list, send a message to: hqnews-unsubscribe at mediaservices.nasa.gov Snip ============================================================== http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/04/13/surveyor_spa.html?category=space&guid=20070413140000&dcitc=w19-502-ak-0000 Human Error Caused Mars Surveyor Loss Alicai Chang, Associated Press *April 13, 2007* ? Human error triggered a cascade of events that caused the battery to fail on the Mars Global Surveyor last year, according to a preliminary report released Friday. An internal NASA board determined that power loss likely doomed the spacecraft after a decade of meticulously mapping the Red Planet. But the problems actually began in 2005 when a routine technical update to onboard computers caused inconsistencies in the spacecraft's memory. The board concluded that engineers didn't catch the mistakes because the existing procedures to do so were inadequate. Scientists lost contact last November with the $154 million Global Surveyor. Launched in 1996, it was the oldest of six different active probes on the Martian surface or circling the planet. Snip ============================================================== WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK ============================================================== This is the lunar-update at news.altair.com https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update This list is a moderated list. The moderator is Larry Kellogg (larry.kellogg AT gmail.com) Please send suggestions for postings directly to Larry. ============================================================== From larry.kellogg at gmail.com Mon Apr 16 20:43:48 2007 From: larry.kellogg at gmail.com (Larry Kellogg) Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2007 17:43:48 -0700 Subject: [lunar-update] Moon Base - Google Alerts Message-ID: <46241844.30606@gmail.com> Google Blogs Alert for: *"Moon Base"* Well how interesting. I had set up a Google Blogs Alert for "Moon Base" to tell if something new had been posted and this just popped in. - LRK - ============================================================== Google Blogs Alert for: *"Moon Base"* Re: Aliens and Living in Space [by martianlunatic] Technically, we could have a *moon base* in 10 years and a mars base in 20. No guarentee on how good it would be or if it would be frought with horrible disasters, but it could happen. However politically the money is not there so it will *...* National Novel Writing Month :: Forum - http://www.nanowrimo.org/ ============================================================== "Moon Base" and Aliens in the same link leaves things wide open and I haven't seen any aliens or a Moon Base yet so I checked out the link. I was pleasantly surprised by the many comments from a group of folks that are commenting on a web site dedicated to writing a novel in a months time. If you like a challenge, this is to be done each year from November 1 to November 30. You need to sign up between October 1, 2007 and 11:59:59 pm GMT, November 30, 2007. - LRK - http://www.nanowrimo.org/ Home http://www.nanowrimo.org/modules/xoopsfaq/index.php?cat_id=1 FAQ Snip Is it true there's an official guidebook to NaNoWriMo? There is! Director Chris Baty compiled all of his tips, tricks, and caffeine-intake strategies in a book called /No Plot? No Problem!/ Along with Chris' long-winded ramblings, the book also contains eloquent, sage, and hilarious tips from NaNoWriMo veterans, who should probably know better by now. Snip http://www.nanowrimo.org/modules/cjaycontent/index.php?id=2 About We could probably use some novels about a Moon Base, what do you think? 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 ============================================================== * Sorted by relevance* Sort by date Re: Aliens and Living in Space [by martianlunatic] 2 hours ago Technically, we could have a *moon base* in 10 years and a mars base in 20. No guarentee on how good it would be or if it would be frought with horrible disasters, but it could happen. However politically the money is not there so it will *...* National Novel Writing Month :: Forum - http://www.nanowrimo.org/ NASA Airs Its Plan for a *Moon Base* by 2024 5 Dec 2006 NASA announces plans to build a *moon base* that would house a new generation of lunar explorers. The plan calls for a return to the moon by 2020, with a rudimentary base camp established by 2024. But the ambitious plan faces stiff *...* NPR People: Nell Boyce - http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4494969&ft=1&f=4494969 - References Bigelow to Build *Moon Base* 23 Feb 2007 by Dan Schrimpsher Robert Bigelow announced, in an interview with Alan Boyle, that Bigelow Aerospace will be using their inflatable modules to construct "space villages." According to Bigelow, after he launch of the first orbiting space hotel into low *...* Space Pragmatism - http://www.spacepragmatism.com/index.html NASA Considers Plans for Permanent *Moon Base* 3 Feb 2007 by Zonk el crowbar sent us a link to an MSNBC article detailing NASA's plans for a *moon base*. The permanently staffed structure could begin construction sometime in 2010, with six-month duty rotations the norm by 2025. *...* Slashdot: Generated for g051051 (71145) - http://slashdot.org/ - References Snip ============================================================== WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK ============================================================== This is the lunar-update at news.altair.com https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update This list is a moderated list. The moderator is Larry Kellogg (larry.kellogg AT gmail.com) Please send suggestions for postings directly to Larry. ============================================================== From larry.kellogg at gmail.com Wed Apr 18 18:55:38 2007 From: larry.kellogg at gmail.com (Larry Kellogg) Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2007 15:55:38 -0700 Subject: [lunar-update] Orbital Express Satellites Successfully Separate, Remate Message-ID: <4626A1EA.3090904@gmail.com> -- Orbital Express Satellites Successfully Separate, Remate Over the years folks have suggested that it would be good to have a space tug that could work in orbit to save satellites or do other jobs in space. Looks like we have the beginnings of some progress in at least a servicing test between two satellites. - LRK - ============================================================== -- Orbital Express Satellites Successfully Separate, Remate http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.nl.html?pid=22409 -- Boeing Orbital Express Conducts First Autonomous Spacecraft-to-Spacecraft Fluid and Component Transfer http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.nl.html?pid=22408 "The two Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Orbital Express spacecraft, launched March 8 in a mated configuration, yesterday successfully separated for the first time. .. In its first on-orbit demonstration 300 miles above the Earth, Boeing's Orbital Express system autonomously transferred propellant fuel and a battery from one spacecraft to another, marking industry firsts for the revolutionary system." ============================================================== Not an all purpose, positronic brain controlled robot tug, but a start. 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.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.nl.html?pid=22408* Boeing Orbital Express Conducts First Autonomous Spacecraft-to-Spacecraft Fluid and Component Transfer* *PRESS RELEASE* *Date Released:* Wednesday, April 18, 2007 Source: Boeing ST. LOUIS, April 17, 2007 -- In its first on-orbit demonstration 300 miles above the Earth, Boeing's [NYSE: BA] Orbital Express system autonomously transferred propellant fuel and a battery from one spacecraft to another, marking industry firsts for the revolutionary system. Snip ============================================================== http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0704/03orbitalexpress/ *Robotic satellite servicer rehearsal underway in orbit* *BY STEPHEN CLARK SPACEFLIGHT NOW* Posted: April 3, 2007 The concept of dispatching low-cost spacecraft to repair and refuel more expensive troubled satellites took a step closer to reality Sunday when two first-of-a-kind orbiting testbeds began operations to validate autonomous in-space servicing techniques. The two craft are part of the U.S. government's $300 million Orbital Express program, which is sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon's primary research and development arm. The Autonomous Space Transfer and Robotic Orbiter, or ASTRO, spacecraft serves as the active component in the mission, while the smaller NextSat plays both the role of a supply depot and of a client satellite to be serviced. Snip ============================================================== http://blogs.zdnet.com/emergingtech/?p=537 April 8th, 2007 Satellites mating via robotic arm Posted by Roland Piquepaille @ 10:18 am The launch of the Orbital Express mission, with its two satellites ASTRO and NextSat, the first one servicing the other, was widely covered a month ago. But what is happening in space now? In "Robotic satellite servicer rehearsal underway in orbit ," /Spaceflight Now/ reports about the progress done. A week ago, the two satellites were able to link to each other to operate the first transfer of hydrazine fuel from ASTRO's propellant tanks into NextSat. This weekend, ASTRO's ten-foot-long robotic arm is going to be used to move objects to NextSat. But what does it mean for international satellite operators when they need help with their space birds? Will they use a system designed for U.S.'s DARPA? We'll see. Before going further, below is an image showing how the robotic arm on ASTRO can transfer objects called Orbital Replacement Units, or ORUs, to another satellite ? NextSat in this case (Credit: Boeing). Snip ============================================================== WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK ============================================================== This is the lunar-update at news.altair.com https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update This list is a moderated list. The moderator is Larry Kellogg (larry.kellogg AT gmail.com) Please send suggestions for postings directly to Larry. ============================================================== From larry.kellogg at gmail.com Fri Apr 20 23:12:29 2007 From: larry.kellogg at gmail.com (Larry Kellogg) Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2007 20:12:29 -0700 Subject: [lunar-update] One more time - Earth Second Moon or "Other Moon" Message-ID: <4629811D.4060903@gmail.com> One more time - Earth Second Moon or "Other Moon" Well something like this has happened before. Remember the Apollo 12 booster stage that visited us? http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn2790 - LRK - ============================================================== http://skytonight.com/news/Earth_Second__Moon.html Earth's "Other Moon" April 17, 2007 by Roger W. Sinnott Last September, when a tiny asteroid drifted into Earth?s vicinity, our planet?s gravity captured it. The meter-size object, designated 6R10DB9, is now making its third wide swing around Earth. It was quite faint, magnitude 19.3, when discovered September 14th with the 0.68-meter (27-inch) Schmidt telescope of the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona, and it won?t get much brighter than that. ?Certainly 6R10DB9, with a geocentric eccentricity less than 1, is currently orbiting the Earth ,? says Gareth V. Williams of the Minor Planet Center , ?although it will leave the Earth-Moon system after next June?s perigee.? Williams?s calculations show that prior to capture 6R10DB9 was in a low-inclination orbit around the Sun with a period of about 11 months. That?s typical of the paths followed by spent rocket boosters left over from space missions of the 1960s and 70s. Snip When 6R10DB9 makes its final and closest pass in June, ?threading the needle? and dipping just inside the Moon?s orbit, astronomers will get their best view of it for years to come. Spectroscopic studies with large telescopes, for example, could help to reveal its true nature. Snip ============================================================== So that is at least two visitors that have been caught aah, ?threading the needle?. Check out the link and see the expected loop de loops. Then consider what one might be able to do if you could just do some slight vector adjustments and circularize the orbit and do some mining if this is an asteroid. Also consider what will happen to the booster stages of the upcoming lunar launches to the Moon. Put them into orbit around the Sun, crash them into the Moon, or let them fall back to Earth to burn up. Hmmmm, as a kid I shot an arrow into the air. Came back on our shingle roof. Dad wasn't happy. Hope we do a better job of shooting arrows into the air in the future. 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.ns?id=dn2790 Orbit shows "second Moon" may be Apollo junk * 16:10 12 September 2002 * NewScientist.com news service * Will Knight A mystery object recently found orbiting the Earth is more likely to be a used rocket booster from an Apollo spacecraft than a tiny second Moon. NASA scientists have now analysed the object's orbit, which "indicates that it could be a leftover Saturn V third stage from one of the Apollo missions, most likely the Apollo 12 mission, launched on 14 November 1969". The computer simulations were carried out by Donald Yeomans and Paul Chodas at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. They show that the object's orbit is consistent with a booster that circled the Earth in the 1960's or 1970's, was then captured by the Sun and finally returned to Earth orbit in April 2002. The object was spotted on 3 September by an astronomer in Arizona and was initially thought to be an asteroid passing the Earth. But further observations revealed that a 50-day Earth orbit at an altitude rising from 300,000 to 800,000 kilometres. Snip ============================================================== WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK ============================================================== This is the lunar-update at news.altair.com https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update This list is a moderated list. The moderator is Larry Kellogg (larry.kellogg AT gmail.com) Please send suggestions for postings directly to Larry. ============================================================== From larry.kellogg at gmail.com Sat Apr 21 19:18:43 2007 From: larry.kellogg at gmail.com (Larry Kellogg) Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2007 16:18:43 -0700 Subject: [lunar-update] AGC - Apollo Guidance Computer Message-ID: <462A9BD3.1030309@gmail.com> AGC - Apollo Guidance Computer A question was asked, "What is AGC?" Well having worked with communication equipment I probably would have answered, "Automatic Gain Control", but the question was in reference to the Apollo Moon Landings. A better answer would then be , "AGC - Apollo Guidance Computer." Pause...... What is an "Apollo Guidance Computer?" Something that warns you when it is overloaded with data from the RADAR Altimeter when you are trying to land on the Moon. - LRK - ---------------------------------------------------------- http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11tcdb.html* The Apollo 11 Technical Crew Debriefing July 31st 1969* Snip *Aldrin* There are no discrepancies noted in any of the systems that were checked throughout the first 4 minutes. The RCS was surprisingly high in its quantity indications. The supercritical did tend to rise a little bit after ignition and then it started back down again. I don't recall the maximum value that it reached. I guess the first indications that we had of anything going wrong was probably around 5 minutes, when we first started getting program alarm activities. *Armstrong* We probably ought to say that we did have one program alarm prior to this; sometime prior to ignition, that had the radar in the wrong spot. In any case, as I remember, we had a 500 series alarm that said that the radar was out of position, which I don't have any way of accounting for. Certainly the switches were in the right positions. They hadn't been changed since prelaunch. But we did, in fact, go to the descent position on the antenna and leave it there for a half a minute or so, and then go back to AUTO and that cleared the alarm. After 5 minutes into descent, we started getting this series of program alarms; generally of the series that indicated that the computer was being overloaded. Normally, in this time period, that is, from P64 onward, we'd be evaluating the landing site and checking our position and starting LPD activity. However, the concern here was not with the landing area we were going into, but rather whether we could continue at all. Consequently, our attention was directed toward clearing the program alarms, keeping the machine flying, and assuring ourselves that control was adequate to continue without requiring an abort. Most of the attention was directed inside the cockpit during this time period and in my view this would account for our inability to study the landing site in final landing location during final descent. It wasn't until we got below 2000 feet that we were actually able to look out and view the landing area. Snip ---------------------------------------------------------- Alright, that wasn't fare. Check out the information at Wikipedia link. - LRK - ---------------------------------------------------------- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer Apollo Guidance Computer From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The *Apollo Guidance Computer* (*AGC*) was the first recognizably modern embedded system , used in real-time by astronaut pilots to collect and provide flight information, and to automatically control all of the navigational functions of the Apollo spacecraft . It was developed for the Apollo program by the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory under Charles Stark Draper , with hardware design led by Eldon C. Hall . Based upon MIT documents, early architectural work seems to come from J.H. Laning Jr., Albert Hopkins , Ramon Alonso ,^[1] and Hugh Blair-Smith .^[2] The actual flight hardware was fabricated by Raytheon , whose Herb Thaler ^[3] was also on the architectural team. Snip Check the External links section near the bottom of the page as well. - LRK - ---------------------------------------------------------- I watched a show on TV this week where they showed the ladies doing the wiring on the computer modules. To hard-wire the logic, two ladies worked together, one person on the front, one at the back, with a tape controlled indexer that positioned a ring to put a needle through that pulled the wire through. After looping around the correct post the ring was indexed again for the lady on the receiving side to pass the needle back through the next spot to the person on the front side. After the wire lacing was done, the wires were stripped of insulation at the posts and spot welded. Then the whole module was run through a logic tester to check for the correct response. This was back at the beginning of integrated circuits with only a few transistors on each chip. I have module from a UNIVAC Digital Trainer I got to resurrect from surplus back in the early 70's and these little modules had only two NOR gates made from two transistors, some resisters and some diodes. Many of these modules were put in a line to make up a register for holding instruction words. I gave the trainer back to surplus when I left the training command but kept one of the modules. Will put a web shot up on the blog site. - LRK - http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/BRL64-u.html Example of an oldie. - 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://archive.computerhistory.org/search/ Search for "APG" or Apollo Guidance Computer. Should show some of the logic modules. - LRK - Snip ============================================================== http://www.computerhistory.org/corphist/view.php?s=refs&id=223&PHPSESSID=23990d493c9ac123ddc1b5ccd9aa65b2 *Title:* Fairchild Micrologic in the Apollo Guidance Computer *Author:* Eldon Hall, et al. *Created:* 1965 ca. *Publisher:* Various *Cataloguer:* *Copyright:* Snip *Reference:* The decision by MIT's Instrumentation Laboratory in 1962, to design the Apollo Guidance Computer using integrated circuit logic devices was critical to the AGC success and a key moment in the history of computing. Eldon Hall's book "Journey to the Moon" recounts this decision process: "Journey to the Moon:The History of the Apollo Guidance Computer" (1996) AIAA (American Institute of Aeronautics & Ast) ISBN:156347185X http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/156347185X/ref=sib_dp_pt/102-5159419-4410516#reader-link Snip ============================================================== http://www.klabs.org/history/history_docs/mit_docs/1716.pdf A Case History of the ACG Logic Integrated Circuits http://www.klabs.org/history/history_docs/mit_docs/1716.pdf This pdf is a case history of the integrated circuit used for the logic in the Apollo Guidance Circuit written by Eldon Hall in December 1965. Achieving the required goals of low weight, volume, and power coupled with extreme high reliability necessitated the use of one single, simple integrated circuit for all logic functions. A brief description of the evolution of the computer design is given along with a general discussion of some of the engineering and design problems which arise with the use of a standardized semiconductor monolithic integrated circuit. Note: The f i r s t prototype computer was operating in July 1963 with the Raytheon built flight computer operating in January 1964. The page notes that MIT/IL had placed an order with Texas Instruments for 64 ICs at $1000 each in 1959. They were the Kilby mesa process Solid Logic devices. That TI order was not delivered until late 1962. The document also shows copies of purchase orders placed with TI, Westinghouse, Transitron and Motorola for alternate source devices. Snip ============================================================== http://www.klabs.org/richcontent/Misc_Content/AGC_And_History/PartsAnalysis/PartsAnalysis.htm NASA Office of Logic Design A scientific study of the problems of digital engineering for space flight systems, with a view to their practical solution. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Apollo Guidance Computer Block 2 Parts Analysis Snip ============================================================== You may find reading the comments under this post interesting and informative. - LRK - --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.bautforum.com/showthread.php?t=1422 Bad Astronomy and Universe Today Forum Snip I was reading JayUtah's post (CosmicDaves 32 Questions) regarding AGC code, and in my desperate impatience to see some, did some Google work. I drummed up the following link: http://verdade.no.sapo.pt/moon/landing_hoax.html Lists some info regarding the AGC, and also has a (rather scruffy) Jpeg of a tiny portion of code. This appears to be part of a larger hoax site I've not seen before, and discusses other conspirasist (sp?) theories. Unfortunately I cant find a way back to a 'main' page [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_frown.gif[/img] Jay, please post any code you can! If anyone else has more info regarding the computer systems used, please post here also... Cheers, widoxm Snip ============================================================== WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK ============================================================== This is the lunar-update at news.altair.com https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update This list is a moderated list. The moderator is Larry Kellogg (larry.kellogg AT gmail.com) Please send suggestions for postings directly to Larry. ============================================================== From larry.kellogg at gmail.com Sun Apr 22 21:33:51 2007 From: larry.kellogg at gmail.com (Larry Kellogg) Date: Sun, 22 Apr 2007 18:33:51 -0700 Subject: [lunar-update] Abramovich's $300M Trip to Moon Message-ID: <462C0CFF.4000704@gmail.com> Abramovich's $300M Trip to Moon http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2007/04/23/015.html Have $300 million, want to go to the Moon? - LRK - Have $100 million, want to go to the Moon? Step right up, get your tickets now. Read more below. (maybe too much below, sorry, just didn't want you to miss the flight) 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.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2007/04/23/015.html Monday, April 23, 2007. Issue 3642. Page 4. Abramovich's $300M Trip to Moon The Moscow Times KOROLYOV, Moscow Region -- The Federal Space Agency is prepared to send Chukotka Governor Roman Abramovich on a trip into space for $300 million, Itar-Tass reported Saturday. Commenting on media reports that the billionaire governor was ready to pay $300 million for a trip around the moon, agency head Anatoly Perminov said: "It's a good sum; we like it. And if Mr. Abramovich agrees to pay, we'll send him," Itar-Tass reported. Perminov said his agency was "not considering a waiting list of tourists after 2009 for the time being" because the crew of the international space station was expected to be increased to six from that time. Many professional cosmonauts and astronauts will fly into space, and seats for tourists on Russian spaceships will be made available only if their trips do not disrupt the work of professional crews, Perminov said. ? Copyright 2006. The Moscow Times. All rights reserved. Snip ============================================================== http://www.dailypilot.com/articles/2007/04/22/news/dpt-astronaut22.txt Astronaut foresees a lunar future Man who has orbited Earth and been to the moon thinks we will someday live and work on the moon. By Amanda Pennington Reader Feedback - Currently 0 Comments NEWPORT BEACH ? John Young doesn't idly dream about living or working on the moon. The six-time space traveler thinks it's an imminent reality. Young spoke to about 60 people Saturday morning at the Radisson Newport Beach about not only his journeys to the moon and in Earth's orbit, but also the technologies that could allow people to live and work on the moon. His talk was in honor of Earth Day, but came on the heels of Jeffrey Roth's film "The Wonder of It All" screening at the Newport Beach Film Festival. In the film, Young and other astronauts share their experiences in space. "The moon is really important for the future of people on this planet," Young said as he showed the audience slides of his trip to the moon. Talk about extreme mixed-use zoning. Young said that with solar arrays, nuclear technology and terraforming ? a hypothetical process of creating an environment on other planets or the moon that would make it livable for humans ? power could be provided to Earth and to those who venture to be the first lunar residents. Earth and the moon could have "reliable, uninterrupted nuclear power at a lunar base," Young said. "You'd have all you need to live and work on the moon." But Young telling people about their lunar future wasn't cut and dry. Audience members often erupted in laughter at his tales of getting kicked out of meetings, solar rays making his nose glow in the dark, and driving on the surface of the moon. "It's like driving on ice," he said. "You know what saved us? There was nobody coming down the road the other way." Even if living or receiving power from the moon isn't happening tomorrow, the curiosity is there. A U.S. space tourist landed Saturday after spending two weeks in space at the Russian space station. Hungarian-born Charles Simonyi paid $25 million for preflight training and the flight, the Associated Press reported. But Orange County residents aren't necessarily ready to spend that kind of cash yet. "It's scary," La Habra resident Roy Kyle said Saturday after Young rushed off to catch a plane. "It may happen though. I hope it happens in our lifetimes." Kyle went Saturday to the event with his fiancee, Angela Bleackley, who quickly chimed in that if money wasn't a factor or if people were going to live on the moon, she'd be up for the adventure. After seeming uneasy about the notion of living in a place you'd need special suits for, Kyle gave in once he realized she'd be gung-ho about the trip. Since she was a little girl in rural Canada, Bleackley has had her eyes toward the stars. She found out about Young's speaking engagement through an e-mail list she's on. "He was hilarious, but he seemed really focused on the goal of living and working on the moon," she said. The only downside Young brought up? Once more than one lunar vehicle would be on the moon, there'd be the chance for the first lunar car wreck. Snip ============================================================== http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/1163 Magazine feature Children of Apollo Issue 12 of Cosmos, December 2006 by Wilson da Silva Inspired as children by the Moon missions, a new breed of entrepreneur is bringing the dreams of youth and business smarts to the next frontier. It was Christmas Eve 1968. Three men ? Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders ? were coasting 100 km above the Moon, the first astronauts to ever circle it. From inside their tiny Apollo 8 command capsule, they pointed a TV camera toward Earth, showing millions of viewers back home what no one had ever seen before. They snapped a famous picture ? Earthrise ? of our blue world ascending above the lunar horizon. And then they read aloud the story of creation according to the Book of Genesis. Back home, a record TV audience was watching. When transmission ended 17 minutes later, an announcer broke the reverie to breathlessly report that Juan Trippe, the founder of Pan American ? one of the world's largest airlines at the time ? had announced that Pan Am would start taking reservations for commercial passenger flights to the Moon. The next day, /The New York Times/ reported that Pan Am had been deluged with inquiries and had established a First Moon Flights Club ? effectively, a glorified waiting list for space tourists. Within days, Trans-World Airlines followed suit. It wasn't just Apollo fever, although there was a lot of that at the time. People took the news seriously because Trippe was a visionary ? he believed flying was to be enjoyed and did more than anyone else to make air travel affordable. He pioneered economy 'tourist class' seats in his planes, angering competitors and leading to Pan Am being banned from landing at many airports ? including all those in Great Britain. So, instead, he flew to other destinations, traffic boomed and, eventually, the airline cartel yielded. He introduced cut-price fares, like a US$275 ticket from New York to London, about half the going rate of the day (but still around A$2,260 in today's money ? which, given a one-way trip these days can be purchased for less than A$400, goes to show how much air travel has fallen in price). He convinced Boeing to design and build planes more than double the size of what was then the industry standard ? the 707. What we now know as 747 Jumbo Jets were built because Trippe believed volume would bring costs down. "If you build it, I'll buy it," Trippe told Boeing's chief executive, Bill Allen. "If you buy it," replied Allen, "I'll build it." "My kind of guys," wrote Richard Branson in a 1998 profile of Trippe for /Time/ magazine. These days the British billionaire is himself an airline tycoon, tweaking the nose of competitors with cut-price flights and eyebrow-raising on-board services like bars, beauty therapists and massages. He too was once captured by the excitement of Apollo and believed that the age of space travel for everyone would soon arrive. But the futuristic vision Trippe dangled in front of the young Branson and millions of other impressionable children of the 1960s didn't come to pass as they had anticipated. There were no Pan Am shuttles rocketing up to spinning space hotels orbiting the Earth (as envisaged in the film /2001: A Space Odyssey/), no vacations on the Moon with shiny spacesuits and lunar buggies. So, when Branson and his generation grew up, it was clear that, if they wanted to see a future of holidays in space, they would have to build it themselves. NOWHERE IS THE excitement at the prospect of 'space travel for everyone' more palpable today than in Silicon Valley. The 1980s tech boom and the 1990s Internet bubble spawned scores of freshly-minted billionaire geeks with stacks of money and big ambitions. Behind every billionaire are thousands of millionaires on the rise, themselves followed by ambitious computer engineers with stock options and hopes of riding the next tech boom to stupendous wealth. And a lot of them want their very own piece of space. "Apollo was never designed to open up space ? it was designed to make us look like the biggest, baddest kid on the block," thundered Rick Tumlinson, co-founder of the Space Frontier Foundation, to a packed audience of computer professionals at a San Diego conference in May 2006. "I grew up on the dream of Apollo, flipping on the TV and watching Captain Kirk [of /Star Trek/]," he reminisced. " I felt if he could do it, I could do it. You roll all of this together and you say, 'Wow ? I could be part of this!'" After his boisterous and lengthy address, trailed by a round of hearty applause, an attendee reached the microphone on the floor of the ballroom. "Mr Tumlinson, I salute you! And, we get it! There are a thousand scientists and engineers here, and they're all pushing the envelope and pushing electrons! Thank you for sharing the dream with us!" Another round of affirming applause. Tumlinson and his audience are in good company. The list of tech alumni turned space junkies includes Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, PayPal founder Elon Musk, and the creator of the Doom and Quake computer games, John Carmack, to name a few. Others, like motel property tycoon Robert Bigelow, see a new beachhead for business. All have sunk millions into creating start-up companies to exploit space as the next high frontier of commerce. The common element between them is that they were starry-eyed kids when the Moon landings were beamed live into their homes. They grew up with /Star Trek/ on television and 2001 in the cinemas. To them, Apollo was the beginning of a future they would own. But the dream faltered. No one has left Earth's orbit since 1972, when Watership Down was hitting the bookshelves, The /Godfather/ premiered in cinemas and Elvis was on tour. Since then, 'space travel' has mostly involved taking glorified rocket trucks like the shuttle for a swing around the planetary block. The once adventurous U.S. space agency NASA ? formed to prove that a creative, risk-taking capitalist democracy could beat lumbering socialist command economies like Russia and China ? has itself became a monolithic bureaucracy. "I want to go to the Moon in my lifetime," Burt Rutan, a maverick aircraft designer, told another conference of space enthusiasts in Los Angeles in May this year. "I want to see my grandchildren go to the more interesting moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Now, I'm 63 ? I've got another good 20 years in me. So we'd better hurry up!" Rutan has already fired the starting gun. With a reported US$20 million of Paul Allen's money, he has managed to do what only three other big state-funded national agencies have ever done: send a man into space. In 2004, three manned spaceflights were made from the Mojave Desert of California by his small aircraft company, Scaled Composites. The spacecraft used in these flights featured a radical new tilt-wing design that Rutan had developed, which allowed the craft to take off like a plane, rocket into space and then land on a runway. Known as /SpaceShipOne/ and capable of carrying three passengers, it became the first non-government spacecraft in history. It is now displayed in Washington's Smithsonian Air & Space Museum next to the Wright brothers' /Flyer I/ and the U.S. Air Force's /X-1/, the first plane to break the sound barrier. That's because its achievement is equally stupendous. Until that day in June 2004, there were only two ways of returning from space: using either heavy titanium heat shields to keep a capsule from burning up on re-entry, or lightweight ceramic tiles like those on the space shuttle. But Rutan had discovered something the multi-billion dollar space agencies of the United States, Russia and China had not in nearly 50 years of the space race: a cheap and completely aerodynamic solution to re-entry. He did it using a plastic spaceplane made of carbon-fibre-reinforced plastic ? a kind of souped-up surfboard fibreglass. This is where Richard Branson comes in. The long-haired school drop-out billionaire has bought the rights to Rutan's technology and established Virgin Galactic, a commercial spaceliner service that can make anyone an astronaut for less than the price of a second-hand 14-metre motor yacht. According to the company, at the time of writing some 38,000 people from 126 countries have put down deposits for a seat on one of the spaceliners, with more than 100 paying in advance to secure a ticket when flights begin in 2008 ? among them five Australians (including the author). The new craft will be based on SpaceShipOne but will be much bigger, capable of carrying six passengers and two pilots. It will be lifted into the air by a motherplane holding the spaceplane strapped underneath. Once at the right altitude ? around 17 km above Earth ? the spaceplane will detach, the on-board rocket engine will fire and, 90 seconds later, the spaceplane will be in zero gravity some 120 km above Earth. Wearing no spacesuits, passengers will drift around the cabin weightless, seeing the curvature of the Earth outside their windows; doing something very few in all of human history have done. After 14 minutes in space, the craft will begin re-entry, and passengers will briefly experience up to five times normal gravity before the craft lands like a plane on a runway. The spacecraft will not be capable of reaching Earth orbit ? it can only travel one-tenth of the speed needed to sustain an orbit (27,400 km/h) ? nor will it be able to reach the International Space Station, which is located at an altitude of 360 km. But both Branson and Rutan are keen to see if the technology can be stretched to intercontinental flights, allowing travel from New York to Tokyo or Sydney to London in a couple of hours. Although such flights would be prohibitively expensive for the average consumer, there may well be a niche market of super-charged executives with little time and somewhere else to be, or celebrities and supermodels looking for an ego trip. BRANSON HAD BEEN scouting to invest in a commercial space travel opportunity for years and registered the name 'Virgin Galactic' back in 1991. He has committed US$250 million to the space venture and ordered five spaceplanes and two airborne launchers from the company that Rutan and Allen have jointly established to design the spaceplanes. The U.S. state of New Mexico has committed a further US$225 million to build a spaceport north of Las Cruces. "We're about to embark on a wonderful adventure. We're going where no one has gone before," Branson told a press conference in New Mexico in December 2005. "There's no model to follow, nothing to copy." Another Internet entrepreneur to throw his hat into the ring is the Amazon.com billionaire Jeff Bezos, who has established Blue Origin in Seattle. The company is developing a sub-orbital vehicle that can take off and land vertically and carry three passengers into space, based on technology similar to that used for the experimental Delta Clipper DC-X, abandoned by NASA in 1996. Bezos is secretive about developments, but has said that unmanned test flights are expected in 2007. Bezos is also coy about his cash contribution to date, but there have been reports that his company has a 20-year plan to develop near-Earth space, not just with sub-orbital tourist flights but also hotels, cargo haulage and even space colonies. Bezos has long had a fascination with space, dreaming of travelling there ever since watching the Apollo missions. "The only reason I'm interested in space is because NASA inspired me when I was five years old," he admits. As a teenager, he won a trip to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Centre in Alabama by writing an essay on the effect of zero gravity on flies. As a high school graduate in 1982, he told /The Miami Herald/ that he hoped one day to put space hotels, amusement parks and yachts in orbit. His biographer Robert Spector believes Bezos' life goal is to "amass enough of a personal fortune to build his own space station". One big-time space investor who has been open about his cash commitment is Elon Musk, co-founder of the PayPal online billing system. He has poured US$100 million into his start-up, Space Exploration Technologies Corp (or SpaceX). Based in California, with a launch site in the Marshall Islands, SpaceX has developed a new class of expendable rockets and has already sold 11 commercial cargo launches to various clients. And in August 2006, SpaceX landed a US$278 million contract from NASA to develop a prototype cargo resupply vessel that can service the International Space Station. But Musk is also planning to build passenger spacecraft and has entered America's Space Prize, which is offering US$50 million to the first U.S. company to put five people into Earth orbit twice within 60 days. Such prizes have a history of spurring on innovation. In 1913, Britain's /Daily Mail/ offered ?10,000 to anyone who could fly across the Atlantic non-stop. British aviators John Alcock and Arthur Brown finally achieved this in June 1919, setting off from Newfoundland in Canada and landing in a bog in Ireland a day later. It took another seven years for someone to claim the US$25,000 Orteig Prize, which would go to the first person to fly non-stop from New York to Paris: Charles Lindbergh claimed it when he made the trip solo in his single-engine aircraft, the /Spirit of St Louis/. By then, there were hundreds of airlines flying routes around the world. Two of these were Australia's Qantas and the Dutch carrier KLM, which continue to operate today. In a similar way, Rutan's development of SpaceShipOne can be attributed, in part, to the US$10 million Ansari X-Prize, offered to anyone who could launch a vehicle that could carry three people into space twice within two weeks. With core funding from Allen, now a part-owner of the spaceplane technology, Rutan was able to devise a solution and carry off the bounty. Then there's Rocketplane Kistler of Oklahoma City, which is building a spaceplane that will offer sub-orbital flights in a converted Learjet with a rocket engine, giving passengers four minutes of weightlessness; it is scheduled to begin flights in 2008. Like SpaceX, the company also recently won a US$222 million NASA contract to develop a prototype cargo resupply vehicle for the space station by 2010. The two prototypes will compete for NASA's favour. The smallest rocket company is Armadillo Aerospace, a 10-person research team in Texas, which is in the process of developing a computer-controlled liquid oxygen/ethanol rocket that can take off and land vertically. Led and funded by John Carmack, the video games whiz, it has ambitions to build a safe and reliable craft capable of taking a payload of 90 kg to a 100 km altitude. FOR THOSE WHO cannot wait, and who just happen to have US$20 million to spare, there is the option of hiring government-run spacecraft. Since 2001, the cash-strapped Russian space agency Roskosmos has been offering flights to the International Space Station aboard its tried-and-true Soyuz capsules. No futuristic comfort though: passengers train like a real astronaut for six months and are then strapped into a tiny capsule atop a thunderous rocket. Not the most glamorous way to fly, but certainly reliable. On the up-side, you get to wear a spacesuit and spend a few days in zero gravity. The flights are offered by Space Adventures, a U.S. space travel company that has already sent four 'cosmonaut tourists' into space, the latest being the self-made Iranian-American communications entrepreneur Anousheh Ansari, who became the first female space tourist as well as the first Iranian in space. Ansari, together with her brother-in-law Amir, donated the money that helped establish the X-Prize won by Rutan. She's the founder of the U.S. company Telecom Technologies and recently formed a partnership with Space Adventures and Russia's Federal Space Agency to create a fleet of sub-orbital vehicles for commercial passenger travel. For its part, Space Adventures has added an extra package for the aspiring 'cashonauts': 90-minute spacewalks, using Russian spacesuits, for an extra US$15 million and an additional month's training.And for those with really large bank accounts, the company has begun offering the maximum tourist adventure: a six-day flight around the Moon. Using modified Russian technology, a passenger would experience what the three men aboard Apollo 8 did. The cost? A cool US$100 million. No takers so far. But for a lot less than that, in the not-so-distant future, you could spend a week in a zero-gravity hotel. Bigelow Aerospace of Las Vegas is pioneering an expandable orbital space station design that has experts sitting up and taking notice. With sole rights to commercialise NASA inflatable module technology (more durable than rigid modules), the company successfully launched a test module aboard a Russian rocket in July this year. Company founder Robert Bigalow, who also established the Budget Suites hotel chain, has reportedly set aside US$500 million to develop the venture. Most of the children of Apollo are focussing on joy flights because that's what other starry-eyed baby boomers ? like them, inspired by the Moon program ? really want to do. A study by an aerospace industry consulting firm, Futron, contracted by the New Mexico government, estimates that there will be more than 2,000 commercial space travellers a year by 2013. It estimates that commercial space flights could boost the state's economy by more than US$750 million a year by 2020, creating more than 3,500 new jobs, from aerospace manufacturing to tourism services. Branson is also bullish. Virgin Galactic estimates it could be launching between 7,000 and 15,000 passengers a year into sub-orbital jaunts ? which is why the company has ordered five spacecraft. It has calculated that it needs to fly only 5,000 passengers over a five-year period to be profitable, after which prices may start to come down. Currently, their starting price is US$200,000. But it's not just about joy flights and holidays in space. Today's space entrepreneurs see a huge market in launching satellites for communications and remote sensing. Then there's the opportunity to slowly take over the launch and space station resupply work of bureaucratic space agencies and large aerospace contractors, the latter having lost creative momentum and grown slow while living off fat government contracts. These lean and hungry start-ups see themselves 'doing space' faster, cheaper and more efficiently than ever before. Ultimately, the advances will trickle down to all of us and change air travel forever. One day, sub-orbital travel will be commonplace, and you will be able to board a flight that will take you from Sydney to London in two hours. It will take off from a runway like a regular plane, rise above the clouds, roar into sub-orbital space and, mere hours later, begin descending to land on a runway at Heathrow in London. It's a world that's probably closer than most people think. In the next 20 years, we are likely to see a boom in the development of the high frontier of space. And like the flowering of progress that gave birth to the airline industry in the 1920s, the age of commercial space travel will be created by the private sector. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wilson da Silva is the founding editor of COSMOS, and one of the first 100 passengers due to fly on Virgin Galactic?s sub-orbital spaceliner service in 2009. Snip ============================================================== WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK ============================================================== This is the lunar-update at news.altair.com https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update This list is a moderated list. The moderator is Larry Kellogg (larry.kellogg AT gmail.com) Please send suggestions for postings directly to Larry. ============================================================== From larry.kellogg at gmail.com Wed Apr 25 19:48:10 2007 From: larry.kellogg at gmail.com (Larry Kellogg) Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2007 16:48:10 -0700 Subject: [lunar-update] Public release of the Hayabusa data archives - April 24, 2007 (JST) Message-ID: <462FE8BA.9020107@gmail.com> Public release of the Hayabusa data archives http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2007/04/20070424_hayabusa_e.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- April 24, 2007 (JST) Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) The Hayabusa spacecraft, which was launched in May 2003, arrived at Asteroid Itokawa in September 2005, and it made observations of Itokawa and tried touch down in about three months. Hayabusa has four scientific instruments, that is Multi-Spectral Telescopic Imager (AMICA), Laser Altimeter (LIDAR), Near-Infrared Spectrometer (NIRS), and X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometer (XRS). The data obtained by these instruments were firstly analyzed by Hayabusa Science Team and some of the results have been published as scientific papers. At the same time, the science team was preparing to open them to the public and this work has almost been done. Therefore the science team release the data archives to public from April 24, 2007. All the scientific data that Hayabusa obtained are open to the public. The Hayabusa data archives can be accessed from the following web site: (URL) http://hayabusa.sci.isas.jaxa.jp/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Check out some of the links for the Hayabusa (MUSES-C) mission. http://hayabusa.sci.isas.jaxa.jp/index.php?frame=link Some say just go to an asteroid and do some mining. Not all that easy, but have to start somewhere. - LRK - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- http://hayabusa.sci.isas.jaxa.jp/index.php Snip The Hayabusa (the original code name was MUSES-C) engineering spacecraft was designed to acquire samples from the surface of near-Earth asteroid 25143 Itokawa (1998 SF36) and return them to Earth. The main objectives of the mission were to demonstrate the performance of various technical items such as ion engines, autonomous navigation, sampling of the asteroid's surface, and high-speed reentry into the Earth's atmosphere. In addition, important scientific results were expected from this mission. Snip ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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.muses-c.isas.ac.jp/ http://hayabusa.sci.isas.jaxa.jp/ http://www.hayabusa.isas.jaxa.jp/e/index.html Larry Klaes forwarded this from JAXA MAIL SERVICE - LRK - http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2007/04/20070424_hayabusa_e.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- *** JAXA MAIL SERVICE *** Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Public release of the Hayabusa data archives April 24, 2007 (JST) Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) The Hayabusa spacecraft, which was launched in May 2003, arrived at Asteroid Itokawa in September 2005, and it made observations of Itokawa and tried touch down in about three months. Hayabusa has four scientific instruments, that is Multi-Spectral Telescopic Imager (AMICA), Laser Altimeter (LIDAR), Near-Infrared Spectrometer (NIRS), and X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometer (XRS). The data obtained by these instruments were firstly analyzed by Hayabusa Science Team and some of the results have been published as scientific papers. At the same time, the science team was preparing to open them to the public and this work has almost been done. Therefore the science team release the data archives to public from April 24, 2007. All the scientific data that Hayabusa obtained are open to the public. The Hayabusa data archives can be accessed from the following web site: (URL) http://hayabusa.sci.isas.jaxa.jp/ The data in the archives are mainly for scientific use. The web site is written in English for the access of researchers in all over the world. Following data can be obtained: AMICA: More than 1600 images taken by using wide-band filters of visual, near-ultraviolet, and near-infrared. The image of whole Itokawa and close-up view of the surface of Itokawa as well as the earth and the moon at the earth swinby. NIRS: About 120,000 spectral data in the near infrared. Mainly the spectra of the reflected sun light from the surface of Itokawa, but also the spectra of the earth, the moon, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. LIDAR: The data of distance from Hayabusa to the surface of Itokawa obtained by using LASER light. About 1.7 million points data are available. XRS: about 15,000 spectral data in X-ray. The fluorescence X-ray emitted from the surface of Itokawa by the solar X-ray. SPICE: the position and attitude data of Hayabusa spacecraft Shape Model: Very precise shape model of Itokawa created by using the data obtained by Hayabusa The detailed things when the data is used are written in the Web site. We hope that the Hayabusa data archives are used for various kinds of research works. Notice: (1) All the level-1 data, which are close to the raw data, are opened to the public. (2) For some instruments, the level-2 data, calibrated and/or included additional information, are also available. We will add the level-2 data when they are ready. (3) The precise shape model, which is not level-1 and level-2 data, is released. (4) The detailed information related to these data will be uploaded when it is ready. Reference: Examples of images of AMICA in the Hayabusa data archives http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2007/04/20070424_hayabusa_e.html#ref01 This page URL: http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2007/04/20070424_hayabusa_e.html --------------------------------------------------------------------- Publisher : Public Affairs Department Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Marunouchi Kitaguchi Building, 1-6-5, Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-8260 Japan TEL:+81-3-6266-6400 JAXA WEB SITE : http://www.jaxa.jp/index_e.html Snip ============================================================== WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK ============================================================== This is the lunar-update at news.altair.com https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update This list is a moderated list. The moderator is Larry Kellogg (larry.kellogg AT gmail.com) Please send suggestions for postings directly to Larry. ============================================================== From larry.kellogg at gmail.com Thu Apr 26 20:49:30 2007 From: larry.kellogg at gmail.com (Larry Kellogg) Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2007 17:49:30 -0700 Subject: [lunar-update] Fusion energy breakthrough at Sandia Labs - SOFIA Test Flight successful - Professor Stephen Hawking Experiences Weightlessness Message-ID: <4631489A.2090301@gmail.com> Fusion energy breakthrough at Sandia Labs - SOFIA Test Flight successful - Professor Stephen Hawking Experiences Freedom of Weightlessness Aboard Zero-Gravity Flight Almost out of this world, the Russians help us with a fusion energy breakthrough, the SOFIA aircraft finally completes its first test flight, and Professor Stephen Hawking gets to experience weightlessness aboard a Zero-Gravity Flight. If we keep this up, we might even go back to the Moon. Check out some of the links below. thanks to you folks and SpaceRef. Nice to be remembered, Dr. Ann S. Dinger at NASA Ames gave me a heads up about the SOFIA flight test so went looking for other information. 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 ============================================================== Passed by Larry Klaes, Thanks, - LRK -. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fusion energy breakthrough at Sandia Labs KurzweilAI.net Apr. 25, 2007 ************************* An electrical circuit that should carry enough power to produce the long-sought goal of controlled high-yield nuclear fusion and do it every 10 seconds has undergone extensive preliminary experiments and computer simulations at Sandia National Laboratories. Circuits on an LTD device able to produce large electrical impulses rapidly and... http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=6722&m=25748 Snip ============================================================== http://www.sandia.gov/news/resources/releases/2007/rapid-fire-pulse.html FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 24, 2007 Rapid-fire pulse brings Sandia Z method closer to goal of high-yield fusion reactor Revolutionary circuit fires thousands of times without flaw ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. ? An electrical circuit that should carry enough power to produce the long-sought goal of controlled high-yield nuclear fusion and, equally important, do it every 10 seconds, has undergone extensive preliminary experiments and computer simulations at Sandia National Laboratories? Z machine facility. Z, when it fires, is already the largest producer of X-rays on Earth and has been used to produce fusion neutrons. But rapid bursts are necessary for future generating plants to produce electrical power from sea water. This had not been thought achievable till now. Sandia is a National Nuclear Security Administration laboratory. Snip But, unable to produce fusion except episodically, the method has been overshadowed by the technique called magnetic confinement ? a method that uses a magnetic field to enclose a continuous fusion reaction from which to draw power. The electrical circuit emerging from the technological hills may change the balance between these systems. Tagged as ?revolutionary? by ordinarily conservative researchers, it may close the gap between the two methods. The circuit is easily able to fire every 10.2 seconds in brief, powerful bursts. ?This is the most significant advance in primary power generation in many decades,? says Keith Matzen, director of Sandia?s Pulsed Power Center. The new system, called a linear transformer driver (LTD), was created by researchers at the Institute of High Current Electronics in Tomsk, Russia, in collaboration with colleagues at Sandia. Says Rick Stulen, Sandia Vice President for Science, Technology and Research Foundations, ?This new technology not only represents a remarkable technical advance but also demonstrates the strong engagement of Sandia's scientists and engineers in the international community.? Snip Image http://www.sandia.gov/news/resources/releases/2007/images/fowler_nr.jpg Caption: *From Siberia, not Area 51: Sandia researcher Bill Fowler tests circuits on an LTD device able to produce large electrical impulses rapidly and repeatedly. *(Photo by Randy Montoya) *Download 300dpi JPEG image, ?fowler.jpg,? 2.2MB * (Media are welcome to download/publish this image with related news stories.) Snip ============================================================== SOFIA aircraft with telescope flies. - LRK - http://www.l-3com.com/news-events/pressrelease.aspx?releaseID=991713 *PRESS RELEASE* Airborne Observatory Integrated by L-3 Communications Completes First Flight from Waco, Texas Modification Center - International Project Features 20-ton, German Telescope on NASA 747 Aircraft - NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 26, 2007--L-3 Communications (NYSE: LLL) announced today that NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) completed its first test flight following extensive aircraft modification and telescope integration at L-3 Integrated Systems in Waco, Texas. SOFIA is a Boeing 747SP, which was extensively modified to carry a 45,000-pound (20 metric ton), 98.4-inch (2.5-meter) diameter infrared telescope assembly provided by the German Aerospace Center, DLR. SOFIA maintains altitudes up to 45,000 feet (13.7 km), which is high above more than 99 percent of the Earth's water vapor - to capture infrared images and spectra that are not possible to capture using the largest ground-based telescopes. Snip >>> Also at SpaceRef link. - LRK - http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=22508 * NASA SOFIA Airborne Observatory Completes First Test Flight * *PRESS RELEASE* *Date Released:* Thursday, April 26, 2007 Source: L-3 Communications *International Project Features 20-ton, German Telescope on NASA 747 Aircraft* New York, NY ? L-3 Communications announced today that NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), completed its first test flight following extensive aircraft modification and telescope integration at the company's L-3 Integrated Systems (L-3 IS) Waco, Texas facility. SOFIA is a Boeing 747SP extensively modified to carry a 45,000-pound (20 metric ton), 98.4-inch (2.5-meter) diameter infrared telescope assembly provided by the German Aerospace Center, DLR. SOFIA will fly at altitudes up to 45,000 feet (13.7 km) - above more than 99 percent of the Earth's water vapor - to capture infrared images and spectra not possible by even the largest ground-based telescopes. Snip ============================================================== THE DAY IN SPACE __________________ In today's space news from SpaceRef: -- Satellite Feed Advisory: Professor Stephen Hawking Experiences Freedom of Weightlessness Aboard Zero-Gravity Flight http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.nl.html?pid=22501 -- Florida Science Student Stand-In for Professor Stephen Hawking During Test-Run Weightless Flight on April 25, 2007 http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.nl.html?pid=22500 "Zero Gravity Corporation, the provider of weightless flight experiences for the general public, hosted renowned British cosmologist and best-selling author, Professor Stephen Hawking, aboard a historic zero-gravity flight." -- Climate catastrophes in the Solar System http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.nl.html?pid=22502 "Earth sits between two worlds that have been devastated by climate catastrophes. In the effort to combat global warming, our neighbours can provide valuable insights into the way climate catastrophes affect planets". >>>> Also see at ESA - http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEM2EHMJC0F_index_0.html - LRK - -- First high quality wide field LOFAR image http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.nl.html?pid=22499 "LOFAR (Low Frequency Array) will be the largest radio telescope ever built, currently under construction by a consortium led by ASTRON, the Netherlands Foundation for Research in Astronomy. When finished, LOFAR will consist of 15,000 small antennas, distributed over 77 stations in the North East of the Netherlands and nearby parts of Germany." -- The X PRIZE Foundation and Holloman AFB Announce Partnership to Present World's Largest Air & Space Flight Demonstration http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.nl.html?pid=22505 "Today, the X PRIZE Foundation and Holloman Air Force Base (HAFB) announced a partnership intended to create the world's largest "Air & Space Flight Demonstration." This year's expanded Wirefly X PRIZE Cup activities are expected to result in an 8-fold increase in competing teams and crowds. The flights and ground events will be held in Las Cruces, N.M. and HAFB in Alamagordo from October 24 ? 28th, 2007." -- NASA HQ Mars Exploration Program Request For Information http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.nl.html?pid=24021 "The Government is seeking information regarding lightweight, low-cost technologies and techniques to provide safe entry and either low-g ("soft") or high-g ("hard") landing for these payloads. For purposes of this RFI, "soft" landing is defined as Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) loads that are less than the launch loads, and "hard" landing is considered EDL loads higher or significantly higher than launch loads (e.g., impactors or penetrators). In all cases, onboard instrumentation is expected to survive landing for operations for up to several Earth years on the Martian surface." Snip ============================================================== WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK ============================================================== This is the lunar-update at news.altair.com https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update This list is a moderated list. The moderator is Larry Kellogg (larry.kellogg AT gmail.com) Please send suggestions for postings directly to Larry. ============================================================== From larry.kellogg at gmail.com Fri Apr 27 17:58:31 2007 From: larry.kellogg at gmail.com (Larry Kellogg) Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2007 14:58:31 -0700 Subject: [lunar-update] NASA'S CENTENNIAL CHALLENGE FOR IMPROVED ASTRONAUT GLOVES SET Message-ID: <46327207.5040503@gmail.com> NASA'S CENTENNIAL CHALLENGE FOR IMPROVED ASTRONAUT GLOVES SET http://www.ipp.nasa.gov/cc/cc_challenges.htm#glove ============================================================== http://www.ipp.nasa.gov/cc/cc_challenges.htm The Astronaut Glove Challenge is designed to promote the development of glove joint technology, resulting in a highly dexterous and flexible glove that can be used by astronauts over long periods of time for space or planetary surface excursions. The Astronaut Glove Challenge will be conducted by Volanz Aerospace/Spaceflight America in a format that brings all competitors to a single location for a "head to head" competition. Each team will be required to perform a variety of tasks with their gloves and will be scored on the glove performance. Snip ============================================================== Back in July of 2005 a challenge was issued to design a better space glove. When you pressurize your space suit your gloves want to become balloons. Bending your fingers or extending them can wear on your fingernails and tire you out. Coming up we will see who might be a winner of this competition. We see in Science Fiction our space troopers wearing skin like exoskeletons that respond to your request for action. Maybe someone will come up with a smart glove that will curl and extend the fingers at the slightest urging. Would be nice to be able to hold onto your geologist hammer while picking at a nice lunar sample. It wasn't fun for Geologist-Astronaut Harrison H. Schmitt. ============================================================== http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/a12/a12.halo.html Snip /[The J-mission crews (Apollos 15, 16, and 17) each did three 7-hour EVAs and experienced not only fatigue and soreness in the hands and forearms but also varying degrees of abrasion and damage, particularly to the ends of the fingers and to the fingernails. Jack Schmitt and others, for example, had their fingernails lift off the quick as a result of repeated contact with the inside of the gloves as he pushed his fingers forward.] Snip /============================================================== Now where did I put my memory metal, muscle enhanced, smart gloves? 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.ipp.nasa.gov/cc/ April 27, 2007 David E. Steitz/Stephanie Schierholz Headquarters, Washington 202-358-1600 Alan Hayes Volanz Aerospace, Inc., Owings, Md. 202-498-6804 MEDIA ADVISORY: M07-43 Corrected NASA'S CENTENNIAL CHALLENGE FOR IMPROVED ASTRONAUT GLOVES SET WASHINGTON - On Wednesday and Thursday, May 2-3, teams from around the nation will compete for a total of $250,000 from NASA for an improved astronaut glove design. The Astronaut Glove Challenge, one of NASA's seven Centennial Challenges, will take place at the New England Air Museum at Bradley International Airport, Windsor Locks, Conn. The competition is free and open to media and the public. It begins May 2 from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. EDT and continues May 3 from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. NASA is offering a total of $200,000 for the team that can design and manufacture the best astronaut glove that exceeds minimum requirements. An additional $50,000 goes to the team that best demonstrates Mechanical Counter Pressure gloves. An astronaut's gloves are among the most critical pieces of the spacesuit. After an extended time of work using the current gloves, astronauts' hands have bled and been bruised, and fingernails have been damaged. This competition seeks new glove joint technologies that make the astronauts' jobs easier, more comfortable and safer with stronger gloves that increase flexibility and dexterity. At no cost to NASA, Volanz Aerospace, Inc., Owings, Md., is administering the challenge. Hamilton Sundstrand, Windsor Locks, Conn., and ILC Dover, Frederica, Del., are sponsors of the contest. Centennial Challenges, an element of NASA's Innovative Partnerships Program, promotes technical innovation through prize competitions to make revolutionary advances to support the Vision for Space Exploration and NASA goals. For more information about the Innovative Partnerships Program and Centennial Challenges, visit: http://www.ipp.nasa.gov/cc For more information about NASA and other agency programs, visit: http://www.nasa.gov -end- ============================================================== http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2005/jul/HQ_E05189_Astronaut_glove_challenge.html Michael Braukus/J.D. Harrington Headquarters, Washington (Phone: 202/358-1979/5241) Alan Hayes Volanz Aerospace Inc/Spaceflight America (Phone: 301/812-0450) July 22, 2005 RELEASE: 05-189 NASA Announces New Centennial Challenge NASA, in collaboration with the Volanz Aerospace Inc./Spaceflight America (Volanz), today announced a new Centennial Challenges prize competition. The Astronaut Glove Challenge award will go to the team that can design and manufacture the best performing glove within competition parameters. The $250,000 purse will be awarded at a competition scheduled for November 2006, when competing teams test their glove designs against each other. For the Challenge, teams must develop the bladder-restraint portion of an astronaut glove that is strong, easy on the hands, and gives the operator a high degree of dexterity. "Reducing space suit glove fatigue is a critical technological goal that, if successful, would have an important impact on astronaut performance and mission planning," said NASA's acting Associate Administrator for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, Douglas Cooke. Snip Snip ============================================================== WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK ============================================================== This is the lunar-update at news.altair.com https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update This list is a moderated list. The moderator is Larry Kellogg (larry.kellogg AT gmail.com) Please send suggestions for postings directly to Larry. ==============================================================