Space & Tech News

[W!nston]

The first asteroid we've seen from outside our Solar System is totally bizarre

Totally a spaceship.

Astronomers have confirmed that an object that recently passed by our planet is from outside our Solar System — the first interstellar asteroid that’s ever been observed. And it doesn’t look like any object we’ve ever seen in our cosmic neighborhood before.

Follow-up observations, detailed today in Nature, have found that the asteroid is dark and reddish, similar to the objects in the outer Solar System. It doesn’t have any gas or dust surrounding it, like comets do, and it’s stretched long and skinny, looking a bit like an oddly shaped pen. It’s thought to be about a quarter-mile long, and about 10 times longer than it is wide. That makes it unlike any asteroids seen in our Solar System, none of which are so elongated.

Source

 

[waistingmytime]

This could tun out to be an interesting thread....Space photos can be awesome too !

 

[waistingmytime]

Europa: In Depth

Saw this on NASA​

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These images show the trailing hemisphere of Jupiter's moon Europa taken by the Galileo spacecraft at a distance of about 677,000 km. The left image shows Europa in approximately true color and the right image shows Europa in enhanced color to bring out details.
Jupiter's moon Europa is slightly smaller than Earth's moon. Its surface is smooth and bright, consisting of water ice crisscrossed by long, linear fractures. Like our planet, Europa is thought to have an iron core, a rocky mantle and an ocean of salty water beneath its ice crust. Unlike Earth, however, this ocean would be deep enough to extend from the moon's surface to the top of its rocky mantle. Being far from the sun, the ocean's surface would be globally frozen over. While evidence for this internal ocean is quite strong, its presence awaits confirmation by a future mission.

Europa orbits Jupiter every 3.5 days and is locked by gravity to Jupiter such that the same hemisphere of the moon always faces the planet. Because Europa's orbit is slightly stretched out from circular, or elliptical, its distance from Jupiter varies, creating tides that stretch and relax its surface. The tides occur because Jupiter's gravity is just slightly stronger on the near side of the moon than on the far side, and the magnitude of this difference changes as Europa orbits. Flexing from the tides supplies energy to the moon's icy shell, creating the linear fractures across its surface. If Europa's ocean exists, the tides might also create volcanic or hydrothermal activity on the seafloor, supplying nutrients that could make the ocean suitable for living things.

Based on the small number of craters observed, the surface of this moon appears to be no more than 40 to 90 million years old, which is quite youthful in geologic terms. Along Europa's many fractures, and in splotchy patterns across its surface, is a reddish-brown material whose composition is not known, but may hold clues to the moon's potential as a habitable world.

NASA's Galileo mission, which explored the Jupiter system from 1995 to 2003, made numerous flybys of Europa. It obtained the closest images to date of the moon's fractured surface, revealing strange pits and domes that suggested the ice could be slowly turning over, or convecting, due to heat from below. Also of particular interest were regions of "chaos terrain," which contained broken, blocky landscapes covered in the mysterious reddish material. Scientists think that chaos regions represent places where geologic activity has disrupted the otherwise smooth surface. In 2011, scientists studying Galileo mission data announced the intriguing idea that chaos terrains are places where the surface has collapsed above lens-shaped lakes perched within the ice.

In 2013, NASA announced startling evidence from researchers using the Hubble Space Telescope that Europa might be actively venting plumes of water into space. The finding generated considerable excitement among scientists, as it provided evidence that the moon is geologically active in the present day. If confirmed by follow-up observations, the plumes could be investigated by future missions in similar fashion to the Cassini spacecraft's flights through plumes of Enceladus.

Europa is special among the bodies of our solar system in having a potentially enormous volume of liquid water, along with geologic activity that could promote the exchange of chemicals from the surface with the watery environment beneath the ice. Indeed, it could be the most promising place in the solar system to search for signs of present-day life.

Evidence for an Ocean

One of the most important measurements made by the Galileo mission showed how Jupiter's magnetic field was disrupted in the space around Europa. This measurement strongly implied that a special type of magnetic field is being created (induced) within Europa by a deep layer of some electrically conductive fluid beneath the surface. Based on Europa's icy composition, scientists think the most likely material to create this magnetic signature is a global ocean of salty water.

Future missions to Europa will likely seek to confirm the presence of its ocean. For example, measurements of the amount of flexing due to the tides are one important indicator -- if the ocean exists, the tides should deform the surface by about 30 m (100 feet); if the moon is frozen through, the tides should stretch the surface by only one meter (3 feet). Also of great interest will be the composition of the reddish material on the surface. Scientists would like to know if this material holds clues to the composition of the ocean and whether material is cycling between the surface and the interior.

Discovery:
Europa was discovered on 8 January 1610 by Galileo Galilei. The discovery, along with three other Jovian moons, was the first time a moon was discovered orbiting a planet other than Earth. The discovery of the four Galilean satellites strengthened the view that planets in our solar system orbit the sun, instead of Earth. Galileo apparently had observed Europa on 7 January 1610, but had been unable to differentiate it from Io until the next night.

How Europa Got its Name:
Galileo originally called Jupiter's moons the Medicean planets, after the Medici family and referred to the individual moons numerically as I, II, III, and IV. Galileo's naming system would be used for a couple of centuries.

The names Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto were officially adopted after it became apparent that naming moons by number would be very confusing as new additional moons were being discovered.

Europa was originally designated Jupiter II by Galileo because it was the second satellite of Jupiter. Europa is named for the daughter of Agenor, in ancient Greek mythology. Europa was abducted by Zeus (the Greek equivalent of the Roman god Jupiter), who had taken the shape of a spotless white bull. Europa was so delighted by the gentle beast that she decked it with flowers and rode upon its back. Seizing his opportunity, Zeus rode away with her into the ocean to the island of Crete, where he transformed back into his true shape. Europa bore Zeus many children, including Minos.

 

[W!nston]

Europa is fascinating to say the least.

I wonder where Europa's oceans got enough salt to make her oceans salty?

I thought, and i could be wrong about this, earth's oceans are salty due to minerals from eroded rock and soil deposited the salts in the oceans. Does that mean Europa has land masses under the ice with the oceans? Every answer brings up more questions.

 

[W!nston]

Lockheed to Air Force: We'll Put a Laser on a Fighter Jet By 2021

Lockheed to Air Force: We'll Put a Laser on a Fighter Jet By 2021
Motley Fool | Rich Smith | Nov 26, 2017 at 10:13AM

Spaceplane firing a laser

STAR WARS-LIKE LASERS ON FIGHTERS? COMING SOON TO A REALITY NEAR YOU.​

The U.S. Air Force wants to put laser guns on fighter jets.

Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT) builds fighter jets -- including one, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, that boasts an engine big enough to power the biggest laser cannons the Pentagon has yet developed.

If this sounds like a match made in heaven to you...well, Lockheed Martin thinks so, too. That's why when the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) announced it was looking for a defense contractor to build it a high-powered fiber laser, powerful and accurate enough to shoot down hostile missiles in flight but small enough to mount on a fighter jet, Lockheed Martin was first in line to volunteer its services.

STAR WARS-LIKE LASERS ON FIGHTERS? COMING SOON TO A REALITY NEAR YOU. IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES.

Nothing is free

"Volunteering" is a bit of an exaggeration, of course. In fact, as we learned earlier this month, AFRL will pay Lockheed Martin $26.3 million to design, develop, and produce a prototype Self-protect High Energy Laser Demonstrator (SHiELD) for installation aboard Air Force fighter jets by 2021.

As Lockheed explains, it has already succeeded in doubling the power output of its ATHENA high energy laser to create a "60 kW-class laser" for the Army. However, the Army only requires that one to fit on a truck bed, making its size and shape less of a constraint. "To get a laser system into a smaller, airborne test platform," says Lockheed, will be a challenge -- but a challenge Lockheed is up to.

Already, Lockheed Martin has committed to building a 5,000-pound, 200-kilowatt offensive laser cannon for mounting aboard Air Force large AC-130 gunships. The defensive SHiELD laser needed for fighter jets will be both smaller and able to take advantage of the F-35 stealth fighter's powerful engines, which are capable of producing 20 megawatts of power -- more than enough to power a laser cannon without compromising the airplane's own power needs.

Agents of SHiELD

The Pentagon has been working on airborne laser weapons since at least as far back as 2004 when Lockheed teamed up with Boeing (NYSE:BA), Raytheon (NYSE:RTN), and Northrop Grumman (NYSE:NOC) to build the experimental Airborne Laser, or ABL. More recently, DARPA hired Lockheed Martin in 2014 to develop an Aero-Adaptive/Aero-Optic Beam Control ("ABC" for short) that can "counteract the effects of turbulence caused by the protrusion of a turret from an aircraft's fuselage" -- in other words, shoot straight in flight.

On the SHiELD project, in particular, Lockheed gets a second role. As LockMart noted in its press release, the SHiELD program actually comprises three main parts -- and most of the members of the original ABL team:

• the high energy laser itself, titled Laser Advancements for Next-generation Compact Environments, or "LANCE," which Lockheed will build;
• a beam control system to aim the laser, dubbed SHiELD Turret Research in Aero Effects or "STRAFE"; Northrop Grumman has the contract on this one; and
• and a "Laser Pod" to house the entire apparatus and power it -- Boeing's job.

With this wealth of experience from proven laser experts behind it, defensive lasers on fighter jets could really become a "thing" within the next few years. At the rate the technology is progressing -- remember, Lockheed has doubled its power output in just the past two years -- one imagines offensive laser weapons on fighter jets won't be far behind. And given the cost and logistical advantages of laser weaponry over projectiles, lasers could become the de facto standard for military aircraft soon thereafter.

Next up: Lasers on drones?

One final note before we sign off for today. If you think putting laser cannons on fighter jets is a big development, then hold onto your jump seats, because the Pentagon is also looking to mount lasers on even smaller aircraft -- drones.

In twin contracts announced on October 5 and November 6 worth $9.4 million and $8.9 million respectively, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency announced it had awarded contracts to both Lockheed Martin and privately owned General Atomics to conduct Phase 1 work on a drone-carried Low Power Laser Demonstrator (LPLD) that will be used to shoot down hostile missiles.

Laser guns on drones? Yep, that's a thing now, too.

This is amazing. It's hard to believe actually. Most experts back in Reagan's time said this would be impossible to do. Just goes to show what the so-called 'experts' know, lol.

 

[waistingmytime]

Thanks for the thread Have you seen or heard anything lately about when the first planned man mission to Mars might actually be attempted ?

 

[W!nston]

NASA is gearing up a new rover for a mission to find evidence of life on Mars
TechCrunch | Jonathan Shieber | November 29, 2017

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NASA is already gearing up for its next mission to Mars with a more tricked-out, updated version of the Curiosity Mars rover, the agency announced recently.

New hardware for the Mars 2020 mission includes seven new instruments, new wheels, a new drill to capture rock cores and a caching system with a miniature robotic arm to store the samples.

The new gear is currently under development at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

Other new features on the rover will include a new cruise stage to fly the rover out to Mars and new descent-stage technology for landing -- including something that JPL is calling a "sky crane" to lower the rover onto the planet's surface.

Still, the Rover looks roughly the same because it is roughly the same; around 85 percent of the hardware on the new rover is based on (or is) heritage hardware. The use of so many similar components will keep the cost of the mission down, according to common sense... and Jim Watzin, director of NASA's Mars Exploration Program. "It saves us money, time and most of all, reduces risk."

The look may be similar, but the new rover has a very different mission from its predecessor, the folks at JPL said. Instrumentation on Mars 2020 is designed to look for ancient life signs on the Red Planet by studying terrain that's now unlivable, but once had lakes and rivers on it (at least it did 3.5 billion years ago).

Like the starship Enterprise, the rover will be looking for signs of life -- but will be looking on a microbial scale. The rover is kitted out with an x-ray spectrometer that can target spots as small as a grain of salt, and a UV laser that can detect what NASA calls the "glow" of excited rings of carbon atoms. Ground-penetrating radar will also be on the rover to give scientists a peak under the Martian crust -- to look at layers of rock, water and ice up to 30 feet deep.

That's the new hardware, but the rover part two electric boogaloo is also getting upgrades to gear ported over from Curiosity, including: color cameras, a zoom lens and a laser that can vaporize rocks and soil for chemical analysis.

"Our next instruments will build on the success of MSL, which was a proving ground for new technology," said George Tahu, NASA's Mars 2020 program executive. "These will gather science data in ways that weren't possible before."

NASA scientists are hoping the rover will be able to drill at least 20, and up to 40 rock, cores for later collection and analysis by future missions.

"Whether life ever existed beyond Earth is one of the grand questions humans seek to answer," said Ken Farley of JPL, Mars 2020's project scientist. "What we learn from the samples collected during this mission has the potential to address whether we're alone in the universe."

Beyond the rover technology updates and new features, JPL also is working on new types of landing technologies that can automatically find safe landing sites based on pre-loaded terrain maps. This "terrain-relative navigation" will guide the descent stage to the optimal sites for its mission.

A range trigger is also going to be used in the new mission, which will enable scientists to more accurately drop the rover in an ideal location.

"Terrain-relative navigation enables us to go to sites that were ruled too risky for Curiosity to explore," said Al Chen of JPL, the Mars 2020 entry, descent and landing lead. "The range trigger lets us land closer to areas of scientific interest, shaving miles -- potentially as much as a year -- off a rover's journey."

All of this is being done with an eye toward focusing future Mars missions on sites that seem most likely to have been habitable. They include a lake bed called the Jezero Crater; Northeast Syrtis, which once held warm waters that could have reacted with sub-surface rocks; and possible hot springs in the prosaically named Columbia Hills.

 

[W!nston]

Thanks for the thread Have you seen or heard anything lately about when the first planned man mission to Mars might actually be attempted ?

Elon Musk's highly optimistic date is 2024. The actual date SpaceX will land humans on Mars is likely to be within 4 years of that. So before 2030 and probably much before 2030 I would guess.

This short video is interesting:

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[waistingmytime]

Thanks for the info I requested
I'm back at work (which is where I'm going back to now) and have not really had time to look into it myself ....

 

[W!nston]

Elon Musk is putting his personal Tesla into Mars’ orbit
TechCrunch | by Jon Russell | December 1, 2017

SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, its most powerful reusable rocket to date, might have its first launch before the end of the year after all — and it’s going to include Elon Musk’s very own Tesla.

Following reports that time was up for the launch in 2017 — it had originally been schedule for November — SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has seemingly confirmed that it will take place sometime in December. And, in true Musk style, there is more.

Musk revealed that the payload inside the rocket will be his own Tesla Roadster (in midnight cherry color, no less) which launch while playing Space Oddity by David Bowie.

The planned destination is Mars and, all being well, Musk said his personal vehicle will be in the planet’s orbit for “a billion years.”

Musk’s tweets appear to contradict reports from earlier this week that the Falcon Heavy launch wouldn’t take place until early 2018.

SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell told Aviation Week that the company is planning a static test fire of its Falcon Heavy rocket, with all 27 Merlin engines used simultaneously, before the end of 2017. Should that proceed without any major issues, the full launch would happen weeks later.

Timing is tight, but Elon Musk is Elon Musk. It’s sure to be a fantastic spectacle.

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This would be epic if he can pull it off! Imagine his roadster in a space ship on a journey to another planet and then to park it in orbit! Amazing! What a showman he is! If I were super rich I would want to be Elon Musk!

 

[brmstn69]

Elon Musk is putting his personal Tesla into Mars’ orbit
TechCrunch | by Jon Russell | December 1, 2017

SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, its most powerful reusable rocket to date, might have its first launch before the end of the year after all — and it’s going to include Elon Musk’s very own Tesla.

Following reports that time was up for the launch in 2017 — it had originally been schedule for November — SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has seemingly confirmed that it will take place sometime in December. And, in true Musk style, there is more.

Musk revealed that the payload inside the rocket will be his own Tesla Roadster (in midnight cherry color, no less) which launch while playing Space Oddity by David Bowie.

The planned destination is Mars and, all being well, Musk said his personal vehicle will be in the planet’s orbit for “a billion years.”

Musk’s tweets appear to contradict reports from earlier this week that the Falcon Heavy launch wouldn’t take place until early 2018.

SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell told Aviation Week that the company is planning a static test fire of its Falcon Heavy rocket, with all 27 Merlin engines used simultaneously, before the end of 2017. Should that proceed without any major issues, the full launch would happen weeks later.

Timing is tight, but Elon Musk is Elon Musk. It’s sure to be a fantastic spectacle.

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This would be epic if he can pull it off! Imagine his roadster in a space ship on a journey to another planet and then to park it in orbit! Amazing! What a showman he is! If I were super rich I would want to be Elon Musk!

I'm just thinking that 10,000 years from now, after humanity has all but destroyed itself and started over, loosing most of our history in the process. When we're finally once again technologically advanced enough to explore space once more, scientist will find a Tesla Roadster orbiting Mars, and mistake it as proof of life...:duh:

 

[W!nston]

“Magnetic Sails” May be the Key to Interstellar Spacecraft

“Magnetic Sails” May be the Key to Interstellar Spacecraft
Futurism | By Matt Williams Universe Today | November 30, 2017

IN BRIEF

Researchers are searching for the next generation of spacecraft that will allow humanity to reach untold depths of the universe. One such proposal would see sails outfitted to slow speeding spacecraft to study far away celestial bodies.

The number of confirmed extra-solar planets has increased by leaps and bounds in recent years. With every new discovery, the question of when we might be able to explore these planets directly naturally arises. There have been several suggestions so far, ranging from laser-sail driven nanocraft that would travel to Alpha Centauri in just 20 years (Breakthrough Starshot) to slower-moving microcraft equipped with a gene laboratories (The Genesis Project).

But when it comes to braking these craft so that they can slow down and study distant stars and orbit planets, things become a bit more complicated. According to a recent study by the very man who conceived of The Genesis Project – Professor Claudius Gros of the Institute for Theoretical Physics Goethe University Frankfurt – special sails that rely on superconductors to generate magnetic fields could be used for just this purpose.

Starshot and Genesis are similar in that both concepts seek to leverage recent advancements in miniaturization. Today, engineers are able to create sensors, thrusters and cameras that are capable of carrying out computations and other functions, but are a fraction of the size of older instruments. And when it comes to propulsion, there are many options, ranging from conventional rockets and ion drives to laser-driven light sails.

Project Starshot, an initiative sponsored by the Breakthrough Foundation, is intended to be humanity’s first interstellar voyage
​

Slowing an interstellar mission down, however, has remained a more significant challenge because such a craft cannot be fitted with braking thrusters and fuel without increasing its weight. To address this, Professor Gros suggests using magnetic sails, which would present numerous advantages over other available methods. As Prof. Gros explained to Universe Today via email:

“Classically, you would equip the spacecraft with rocket engines. Normal rocket engines, as we are using them for launching satellites, can change the velocity only by 5-15 km/s. And even that only when using several stages. That is not enough to slow down a craft flying at 1000 km/s (0.3% c) or 100000 km/s (c/3). Fusion or antimatter drives would help a bit, but not substantially.”

The sail he envisions would consist of a massive superconducting loop that measures about 50 kilometers in diameter, which would create a magnetic field once a lossless current was induced. Once activated, the ionized hydrogen in the interstellar medium would be reflected off the sail’s magnetic field. This would have the effect of transferring the spacecraft’s momentum to the interstellar gas, gradually slowing it down.

According to Gros’ calculations, this would work for slow-travelling sails despite the extremely low particle density of interstellar space, which works out to 0.005 to 0.1 particles per cubic centimeter. “A magnetic sail trades energy consumption with time,” said Gros.”If you turn off the engine of your car and let it roll idle, it will slow down due to friction (air, tires). The magnetic sail does the same, where the friction comes from the interstellar gas.”

Artist concept of lightsail craft approaching the potentially habitable exoplanet Proxima b. ​

One of the advantages of this method is the fact that can be built using existing technology. The key technology behind the magnetic sail is a Biot Savart loop which, when paired with the same kind of superconducting coils used in high-energy physics, would create a powerful magnetic field. Using such a sail, even heavier spacecraft – those that weight up to 1,500 kilograms (1.5 metric tonnes; 3,307 lbs) – could be decelerated from an interstellar voyage.

The one big drawback is the time such a mission would take. Based on Gros’ own calculations, a high speed transit to Proxima Centauri that relied on magnetic momentum braking would require a ship that weighed about 1 million kg (1000 metric tonnes; 1102 tons). However, an interstellar mission involving a 1.5 metric tonne ship would be able to reach TRAPPIST-1 in about 12,000 years. As Gros concludes:

“It takes a long time (because the very low density of the interstellar media). That is bad if you want to see a return (scientific data, exciting pictures) in your lifetime. Magnetic sails work, but only when you are happy to take the (very) long perspective.”

In other words, such a system would not work for a nanocraft like that envisioned by Breakthrough Starshot. As Starshot’s own Dr. Abraham Loeb explained, the main goal of the project is to achieve the dream of interstellar travel within a generation of the ship’s departure. In addition to being the Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard University, Dr. Loeb is also the Chair of the Breakthrough Starshot Advisory Committee.

A phased laser array, perhaps in the high desert of Chile, propels sails on their journey. ​

As he explained to Universe Today via email:

“[Gros] concludes that breaking on the interstellar gas is feasible only at low speeds (less than a fraction of a percent of the speed of light) and even then one needs a sail that is tens of miles wide, weighting tons. The problem is that with such a low speed, the journey to the nearest stars will take over a thousand years.

“The Breakthrough Starshot initiative aims to launch a spacecraft at a fifth of the speed of light so that it will reach the nearest stars within a human lifetime. It is difficult to get people excited about a journey whose completion will not be witnessed by them. But there is a caveat. If the longevity of people could be extended to millennia by genetic engineering, then designs of the type considered by Gros would certainly be more appealing.”

But for missions like The Genesis Project, which Gros originally proposed in 2016, time is not a factor. Such a probe, which would carry single-celled organisms – either encoded in a gene factory or stored as cryogenically-frozen spores – a could take thousands of years to reach a neighboring star system. Once there, it would begin seeding planets that had been identified as “transiently habitable” with single-celled organisms.

For such a mission, travel time is not the all-important factor. What matters is the ability to slow down and establish orbit around a planet. That way, the spacecraft would be able to seed these nearby worlds with terrestrial organisms, which could have the effect of slowly terraforming it in advance of human explorers or settlers.

Given how long it would take for humans to reach even the nearest extra-solar planets, a mission that last a few hundred or a few thousand years is no big deal. In the end, which method we choose to conduct interstellar mission will come down to how much time we’re willing to invest. For the sake of exploration, expedience is the key factor, which means lightweight craft and incredibly high speeds.

But where long-term goals – such as seeding other worlds with life and even terraforming them for human settlement – are concerned, the slow and steady approach is best. One thing is for sure: when these types of missions move from the concept stage to realization, it sure will be exciting to witness!

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I believe we may be on the brink of discovering a propulsion drive that will open up our solar system to more rapid exploration and open exploration of exoplanets outside our solar system within a human lifespan. If we can avoid destroying ourselves I think the next 100 years will bring about interstellar travel for us.

 

[W!nston]

Boeing’s Muilenburg says he’ll beat SpaceX to Mars; Musk says ‘Do it’

Boeing’s Dennis Muilenburg says he’ll beat SpaceX to Mars; Elon Musk says ‘Do it’
GeekWire | BY ALAN BOYLE | December 7, 2017 at 10:53 am

An artist’s conception shows NASA’s Space Launch System in flight​

So what does SpaceX CEO Elon Musk think of Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg’s claim that the first people to set foot on Mars will arrive on a Boeing rocket? “Do it,” Musk tweeted, in one of many two-word comebacks that might have come to mind.

The latest round of media jousting started when CNBC’s Jim Cramer brought up Mars during an interview with Muilenburg. “Who’s going to get a man on Mars first, you or Elon Musk?” Cramer asked.

In response, Muilenburg touted the Space Launch System, the heavy-lift rocket that Boeing is helping NASA build for deep-space missions.

“We’re going to take a first test flight in 2019, and we’re going to do a slingshot mission around the moon,” he said. “Eventually, we’re going to go to Mars, and I firmly believe the first person that sets foot on Mars will get there on a Boeing rocket.”

Muilenburg said pretty much the same thing last year during an industry conference in Chicago, but since then, Musk has laid out a vision that calls for sending settlers to Mars on SpaceX’s yet-to-be-built monster spaceship starting in the 2020s.

If Musk and NASA stick to their current schedules, the first bootprints on the Martian surface would be left by folks arriving on a SpaceX rocket as much as a decade before the Space Launch System sends a spaceship there.

Is Musk’s response a dare? A space-race smackdown? Maybe. But the billionaire has always said his main goal in life is to help make humanity a multiplanet species by facilitating cities on Mars. Taken in that light, the “Do It” tweet may well be Musk’s way of saying that he’s glad for anyone else to be taking the move to Mars as seriously as he is.

That’s how John Gardi, an engineer and SpaceX fan who anticipated Musk’s hyperloop design in 2013, chooses to see the exchange. “You win either way, @elonmusk!” Gardi said in his tweeted response. “You can only lose if NOBODY goes to Mars!”

Meanwhile, Boeing and SpaceX are enmeshed in a shorter-term rivalry, to finish work on the space taxis that they’re building to transport NASA astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

The current schedules call for SpaceX to conduct a crewed demonstration flight with its Dragon capsule next August, while Boeing plans the first crewed flight of its Starliner space taxi in November 2018. But those schedules have been shifting to the right for years, so it’s too early to call the race.

The first to deliver astronauts to the space station will win a U.S. flag that was left aboard the outpost in 2011 by the last space shuttle crew. May the best team win? I prefer to look at it the way Gardi does: In this space race, may all teams win.

​

The Space-Race is heating up but this time in the private sector instead of international competitions. It's an exciting time to be alive. I, we, may live to see the day man takes his first steps on another planet which will open doors we haven't even imagined yet through technology and social issues.

It's a Brave New World we live in.

 

[W!nston]

Boeing only has lies and empty promises about Mars ...

Boeing only has lies and empty promises about Mars so NASA will not cut off $4 billion per year for SLS rocket
nextbigfuture | by brian wang | December 9, 2017

“We’re working on that next generation rocket right now with our NASA customers called ‘Space Launch System,’” Muilenburg said. “This is a rocket that’s about 36 stories tall, we’re in the final assembly right now, down near New Orleans. And we’re going to take a first test flight in 2019 and we’re going to do a slingshot mission around the moon.”

Space Launch System is getting about $4 billion per year from NASA. They have gotten $20 billion from NASA for this and $10 billion for the prior Constellation program. They have not launched anything despite getting about $30 billion and having had over ten years.

Boeing now only has bold promises and lies to try to desperately keep the money flowing.

SpaceX could begin its mission to Mars by 2022. Spacex is scheduled to launch its Falcon Heavy in January, 2018. The Falcon Heavy will have the payload capacity of the first Space Launch System configurations.

Spacex is devoting all development resources to a fully reusable BFR (Big Falcon Rocket) that would have 150 tons of payload capacity. This would be about 1.5 to 2 times more capacity than the future Space Launch System. Space Launch System will not be reusable.

The Space launch situation is flipped from twelve years ago when Spacex was not launching yet and Boeing with United Launch was launching.

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Are you kidding me? $30 billion in the last 10 years alone and nothing to show for it? Not a single launch? How can this be possible? Oh wait, that's right it's NASA!

Imagine what SpaceX might have accomplished with that money? We'd have colonies on the moon and on Mars by now.

I think we shouldn't give Boeing another dollar or award them another contract until they produce the goods they've already been paid for.

I think SpaceX is our best hope to become a space faring species and expand into the solar system and beyond. Not that I'm sure the universe is actually ready for us with all the baggage we will bring with us, lol.

 

[W!nston]

Japan will join u.s. Efforts to launch new space station

JAPAN WILL JOIN U.S. EFFORTS TO LAUNCH NEW SPACE STATION
Newsweek | BY JOSEPH FRANKEL | 12/13/17 AT 3:45 PM

The Japanese government will join a U.S. project to build a new space station that will orbit the moon, reports the Japan Times. The project, which is expected to be complete in the 2020s, may provide the chance for Japan to send one of its own astronauts to the surface of the moon for the first time in history. The Times reports that the plan was approved on Tuesday.

According to the South China Morning Post, the move might allow Japan to beat China at sending the country's first astronaut to the moon’s surface.

At a meeting of members of the Japanese government in charge of space policy, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the country would “accelerate discussions of international space exploration by strengthening cooperation with the U.S. and others,” according to the Times.

This announcement comes months after the Russian government announced that it would be joining the United States in building a new space station. At the time of that announcement in September, NASA wrote that “it plans to expand human presence into the solar system starting in the vicinity of the moon.”

The news about Japan comes just after President Donald Trump’s announcement on Monday that he would be directing NASA to once again send American astronauts to the moon. As Bloomberg reports, this directive changes the U.S.'s national space policy; the doent is available here. Former President Barack Obama had directed NASA to “set far-reaching exploration milestones,” including sending “crewed missions to the moon” by 2025 and then sending “humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth” by the mid-2030s.

As Bloomberg notes, Trump eliminated Obama’s established deadlines for achieving the milestones he has directed NASA to meet. There are also concerns that these directions will not come to fruition without allocating more money to NASA. “I don’t think simply an order to NASA is going to do anything unless it is accompanied by a notable increase of NASA’s budget, and by notable I mean a doubling or a tripling or a quadrupling of NASA’s budget,” Marco Caceres, a space analyst with the private firm the Teal Group, told Bloomberg.

*******************************************************​

The Lunar Space Station they're planning sounds like something from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

 

[brmstn69]

JAPAN WILL JOIN U.S. EFFORTS TO LAUNCH NEW SPACE STATION
Newsweek | BY JOSEPH FRANKEL | 12/13/17 AT 3:45 PM

The Japanese government will join a U.S. project to build a new space station that will orbit the moon, reports the Japan Times. The project, which is expected to be complete in the 2020s, may provide the chance for Japan to send one of its own astronauts to the surface of the moon for the first time in history. The Times reports that the plan was approved on Tuesday.

According to the South China Morning Post, the move might allow Japan to beat China at sending the country's first astronaut to the moon’s surface.

At a meeting of members of the Japanese government in charge of space policy, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the country would “accelerate discussions of international space exploration by strengthening cooperation with the U.S. and others,” according to the Times.

This announcement comes months after the Russian government announced that it would be joining the United States in building a new space station. At the time of that announcement in September, NASA wrote that “it plans to expand human presence into the solar system starting in the vicinity of the moon.”

The news about Japan comes just after President Donald Trump’s announcement on Monday that he would be directing NASA to once again send American astronauts to the moon. As Bloomberg reports, this directive changes the U.S.'s national space policy; the doent is available here. Former President Barack Obama had directed NASA to “set far-reaching exploration milestones,” including sending “crewed missions to the moon” by 2025 and then sending “humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth” by the mid-2030s.

As Bloomberg notes, Trump eliminated Obama’s established deadlines for achieving the milestones he has directed NASA to meet. There are also concerns that these directions will not come to fruition without allocating more money to NASA. “I don’t think simply an order to NASA is going to do anything unless it is accompanied by a notable increase of NASA’s budget, and by notable I mean a doubling or a tripling or a quadrupling of NASA’s budget,” Marco Caceres, a space analyst with the private firm the Teal Group, told Bloomberg.

*******************************************************​

The Lunar Space Station they're planning sounds like something from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Just great...
You mentioned 2001: A Space Odyssey and Trump in the same article, and now all I can hear is HAL 9000 saying "I can't do that Don" playing in my head on continuous loop...

 

[W!nston]

SpaceX Launch Creates Stunning Light Show Over L.A. 12 22 2017

Thanks SpaceX for legit making me think Earth was being invaded for like 10 minutes tonight!

​

 

[RefixnarcisM]

that's a huge sperm...

 

[W!nston]

Time Lapse Of Eerie Space-X Launch 12-22-2017

This Time-Lapse Video of That Eerie SpaceX Falcon 9 Launch is Mind-Blowing
Inverse | By Rae Paoletta | December 26, 2017

(It's way too short! Only 41 seconds long. Wish it was an IMAX Doc hehe)

​

On December 22, Elon Musk scared the ever-loving hell out of onlookers when SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 from the Vandenberg Air Force base in southern California. But a new time lapse from photographer Jesse Watson shows the scene in spectacular detail — and it’s worth watching again and again.

As Inverse previously reported, the Falcon 9 launched last Friday about 5:30 p.m. Pacific. The evening sky provided a perfect backdrop for the launch, causing the rocket’s exhaust to appear almost ghostly or alien-like to viewers across the southwestern U.S.

Watson viewed the launch from his hometown of Yuma, Arizona, and shot with a Nikon D810 and a wide-angle lens, according to photography website Fstoppers.

“The initial shoot comprised of 2,452 images which were then culled to 1,315 images for the final project and edited in Adobe After Effects and Adobe Premiere Pro,” the outlet reports. The result is nothing short of spectacular.

After streaking across the night sky, the Falcon 9 landed in the Pacific Ocean. According to SpaceflightNow, the rocket added “10 new satellites to Iridium’s upgraded communications network.”

Overall, the light show was a major success, marking SpaceX’s 18th launch of 2017. This was the aerospace company’s last mission for the year — but in early 2018, it’ll launch its much-anticipated Falcon Heavy.

For now, we can just stare in awe at this Falcon 9 video. I mean, seriously, it’s really that good.

 

[waistingmytime]

7 weird facts about black holes​

From Mother Nature Network

​

1. Black holes distort time and space around them.

If you happened to fly near a black hole, its extreme gravitational pull would increasingly slow down time and warp space. You’d be tugged ever closer, gradually joining an accretion disk of orbiting space material (stars, gases, dust, planets) spiraling inward toward the event horizon or “point of no return.” Once you crossed this boundary, gravity would overcome all chances of escape and you’d be super-stretched, or “spaghettified” as you plunged toward the singularity at the black hole’s center — an inconceivably small point with a monstrous mass where gravity and density theoretically approach infinity and space-time curves infinitely. In other words, you’d be gobbled up and annihilated in a place that utterly defies the laws of physics as we understand them.

2. Black holes come in miniature, middling and mammoth sizes.

Middling-sized stellar-mass black holes are the most common type. They form when a massive dying star, or supernova, explodes and the remaining core collapses from the weight of its own gravity. Eventually, it compresses into a tiny, infinitely dense singularity that forms the center. In truth, then, black holes aren’t really holes, but points of highly compacted matter with outsized gravitational footprints. Stellar-mass black holes typically weigh about 10 times more than our sun, though scientists have discovered a few that are significantly larger.

Supermassive black holes are the biggest in the universe, some with masses billions of times that of our sun. Scientists don’t fully understand how they form, but these enormous celestial mind-bogglers may have appeared shortly after the Big Bang and are believed to exist at the center of every galaxy, even the tiniest ones. Our own Milky Way galaxy spirals around Sagittarius A* (or Sgr A*), which contains the mass of about 4 million suns.

Researchers have also recently discovered stealth black holes that appear to devour material and gases at a slower rate, meaning fewer X-rays are emitted so they’re harder to detect. Astronomers also believe there are tiny primordial black holes formed in the seconds after the Big Bang. These mini-mysteries have yet to be observed, but the smallest may be more minuscule than an atom (but with the mass of an asteroid), and the universe may be swarming with them.

3. There are too many black holes to count.

The Milky Way galaxy alone is thought to harbor some 100 million stellar-mass black holes, plus supermassive Sgr A* at its heart. With 100 billion galaxies out there, each with 100 million stellar-mass black holes and a core supermassive monster (not to mention other types being discovered), it’s like trying to count grains of sand.

4. Black holes devour things — and regularly spit them out.

Rest-assured, black holes don’t roam the universe like hungry predators, stalking planets and other space prey for dinner. Rather, these heavenly beasts feast on material that orbits too close, like this unfortunate star that scientists have watched being swallowed for the last decade (the longest black-hole meal ever recorded). The good news is that Earth isn’t on a collision course with any known black holes.

But just because we’re unlikely to be slurped down, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t worry. That’s because Sgr A* (and presumably other supermassive behemoths) occasionally fling out planet-sized “spitballs” that could someday do us in.

How do spitballs escape a black hole’s clutches? They’re actually made of matter that slips from the accretion disk before passing the point of no return and coalesces into chunks. In the case of Sgr A*, these hefty pieces are spewed into our galaxy at up to 20 million miles per hour. Here’s hoping one never zooms too close to our solar system.

5. Supermassive black holes also give birth to stars and determine how many stars a galaxy gets.

In the same way that planet-sized fragments are expelled from the accretion disk, a recent discovery shows that behemoth black holes occasionally unloose enough material to form whole new stars. Even more remarkable, some even land in deep space, well beyond their galaxy of origin.

And a new study in the journal Nature, released in January, suggests that supermassive black holes not only create new stars, they control how many stars a galaxy gets by directly impacting how quickly the process of star formation turns off. Star formation, perhaps strangely, stops more quickly in galaxies with smaller — in a manner of speaking — black holes at the center.

6. It’s possible to stare into the abyss.

The new Event Horizon Telescope — powered by nine of the world’s highest-resolution telescopes — recently took first-time photos of the event horizons surrounding two black holes. One is our own Sgr A* and the other is a supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy Messier 87, 53 million light-years away. It may be 2018 before the images are fully developed, but the photo session should either confirm or refute predictions about what black holes look like and the mind-warping laws of physics that drive them.

7. Yet another black-hole head-scratcher

Astronomers in South Africa recently stumbled upon a region of distant space where supermassive black holes in several galaxies are aligned in the same direction. That is, their gas emissions all jet out as though they were synchronized by design. Current theories can’t explain how black holes up to 300 million light-years apart appear to be acting in concert. In fact, the only way it’s possible, say researchers, is if these black holes are spinning in the same direction — something that may have occurred during galaxy formation in the early universe.