Balls Out In Space

The next big thing is small

 From NASA

Satellites that can fit in a backpack are shrinking technology, reframing satellite science, and providing valuable mission training and experience to the next generation of engineers.

They come in sizes small, micro, nano, and pico, with masses ranging from 500 kg (small) to 1 kg (pico). Over the past two years, global interest has grown rapidly in satellites that are a fraction of the size of Sputnik-1 (a beach ball weighing about 80 kg), ushering in a new era of missions and engineering opportunities.

Nanosats are not replacements for their larger counterparts—rather, they offer another approach to space flight. “People started saying, ‘Wait a minute, what else can I do with this?’” said Puig-Suari. “And it was just a chain reaction at that point.”

Third series of 100 tickets for suborbital flight almost sold out

Galactic Journeys has already booked 200 people for a suborbital flight on Virgin Galactic's Space Station 2, at $200K a ticket, and claims to have almost sold out the third set of 100.

 

Google Lunar X PRIZE

 The Google Lunar X PRIZE is a $30 million international competition to safely land a robot on the surface of the Moon, travel 500 meters over the lunar surface, and send images and data back to the Earth. 

500 meters is 547 yards -- about 5 1/2 football fields. It's .3107 miles -- slightly less than 1/3 mile.

Teams must be at least 90% privately funded and must be registered to compete by December 31, 2010. 

The first team to land on the Moon and complete the mission objectives will be awarded $20 million; the full first prize is available until December 31, 2012. After that date, the first prize will drop to $15 million. The second team to do so will be awarded $5 million. Another $5 million will awarded in bonus prizes. The final deadline for winning the prize is December 31, 2014.

Read about the 20 plus teams which have already registered.

Gizmodo: Obama to kill Ares I, authorize heavy lift rocket for 2018

Gizmodo says Obama will kill the Ares I program, but give NASA $1B per year to continue earth observations and develop a heavy lift rocket for 2018, while Europe, Japan, and Canada would develop a lunar lander and moon base modules with their own billions.

NASA has said it needs $3B per year to proceed with its plans for a manned landing on Mars around 2030. From this, it sounds like that will NOT be funded. We'll see what the official NASA announcements say.

I never did care for the pencil-looking Ares I design. I like my rockets fat at the bottom, like the Saturn V. But had to assume NASA knew what it was doing in going with that design. We'll see if it changes designs now, or proceeds with the Ares V.

From Gizmodo

 

For anyone not familiar, here's an exploded view of the Ares 1 and Orion as envisioned for the Constellation program:

Mid-Atlantic snow as seen from space

From NASA

For about a dozen years, I lived on the short (four-mile) river off the east side the Chesapeake Bay near the top, just south of the C&D canal which passed through Chesapeake City, MD on its way to the Delaware River to the east.

NORAD tracks Santa

Follow the countdown and trajectory at the website, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

 

NASA needs to be revamped

 By CHRIS BRONK and TORY GATTIS in the HOUSTON CHRONICLE

NASA must engage in a comprehensive overhaul of its processes and business culture for the challenges of the new decade

NASA's brightest potential future is one where it serves as an enabler, standards-setter and coordinating body for the more entrepreneurial activity needed to bring the cost of spaceflight down. Still needed is a “Moore's Law of Space Travel” in which a clear trend for capability in spaceflight at constant cost may be projected out. The big idea here is to work toward a balance between agile, entrepreneurial models found in the technology sector with the requirements of NASA's future programs. This will mean a gross revision of how the agency does its business. As NASA transitions to a new, younger workforce in the next decade, let us hope it begins rewriting its rules to inspire these individuals to achieve the sort of successes the X Prize winners are achieving at a fraction of the cost of those working in government.

Bronk is the fellow in technology, society and public policy at Rice University's James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy; Gattis is the CEO of Open Teams, a Web 2.0 collaboration software company, and blogs at Houston Strategies.

Watch a Soyuz launch on NASA TV beginning 4pm Sunday

 From NASA

On Sunday at 4:52 p.m. EST, three new crew members will launch aboard the TMA-17 to join the Expedition 22 crew after docking to the International Space Station. They dock to the International Space Station Tuesday. 

Watch NASA TV for coverage of the launch, which begins Sunday at 4 p.m. 

NASA astronaut T.J. Creamer, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kotov and Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi will expand Expedition 22 to five crew members. Residing onboard the station since Oct. 2 are Commander Jeff Williams and Flight Engineer Maxim Suraev. 

Space, Inc. - The private players entering 2010

From Jan/2010 Popular Science

Subscribe to Pop Sci online at Zinio.com for only 10 bucks - 83% off the newstand price - and see it exactly as you'd see it in your hands.

Here are the major players and their business goals entering 2010:

Virgin Galactic suborbital space passenger plane

From PopSci

Under a night sky in the Mojave Desert, Sir Richard Branson and designer Burt Rutan uveiled SpaceShipTwo – now dubbed "Enterprise" – that should begin ferrying passengers to sub-orbital space (about 380K ft or 72 miles up) in as few as 18 months.

 

Balls Out in Space [BOIS]