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More space tourism

A billionaire e-commerce executive and three less-wealthy private citizens chosen to join him blasted off from Florida on Wednesday aboard a SpaceX rocket ship and soared into orbit, the first all-civilian crew ever to circle the Earth from space.

Within three hours the capsule had reached its final cruising orbital altitude of just over 363 miles (585 km) - higher than the International Space Station or Hubble Space Telescope, and the furthest any human has flown from Earth since NASA's Apollo moon program ended in 1972, according to SpaceX.

Reuters

Video of the Inspiration4 launch

 

Oh and btw the tourists on this space vehicle have the coolest view from the cupola, when they go to the toilet. 

Photo Credit Space 

Martian rock sample

NASA’s Perseverance rover today completed the collection of the first sample of Martian rock, a core from Jezero Crater slightly thicker than a pencil. Mission controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California received data that confirmed the historic milestone.

The core is now enclosed in an airtight titanium sample tube, making it available for retrieval in the future. Through the Mars Sample Return campaign, NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) are planning a series of future missions to return the rover’s sample tubes to Earth for closer study. These samples would be the first set of scientifically identified and selected materials returned to our planet from another.

NASA

 

New experiments on the ISS

Wired discusses some of the experiments planned on the International Space Station as we plan a return to moon and beyond. They were sent on the Grumman CRS-16 mission on August 10. 

"Made in Space sent the first 3D printer into orbit aboard the ISS five years ago. Now, Redwire (which acquired Made in Space last year) is sending hardware and ingredients to try printing slabs of building material made from a simulated lunar sediment called JSC-1A. Its printer head is roughly the size of a sourdough loaf, and it attaches to the existing printer, a wide metal box that opens from the front like a futuristic microwave oven. Black cylindrical pellets of fake regolith, made of volcanic basalt, feed the printer, which will extrude (presumably) tough slabs. Redwire engineers know their machine can heat, bind, and squeeze out the simulant on Earth. But they have never tested its performance in microgravity."

and

"There are currently no FDA-approved drugs to treat sarcopenia, but Huang wants to accelerate the process of finding one. Her team developed an experiment that simulates the muscle atrophy seen in sarcopenia faster by using muscle cells that are stunted by microgravity. That speed is key, she says, to more quickly screen drugs for their efficacy treating the condition—it’d be like hitting fast forward on a test of whether a fertilizer helps a tree grow in poor soil. In their experiment, first, they’ll be confirming that microgravity stymies muscle cells. Then, they’ll test whether two chemicals that have been shown to aid muscle formation in previous lab studies can counteract that effect."

The early innings of the space tourism game

Space tourism has suddenly become a hot topic as Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos went last month on their respective flights to the edge of space. Frank Scavo shared with me the graphs below of their two mission profiles. SpaceX and Boeing are poised to take civilians even further to the International Space Station.

But as this McKinsey graph summarizes, space tourism has actually been evolving for a couple of decades - click to enlarge

and it is accelerating. As McKinsey says

"The space industry saw record-breaking growth in 2020 as investors, undeterred by the COVID-19 pandemic, poured almost $9 billion into private companies. While some of these businesses are simply providing parts and services to government agencies like NASA, others want to venture into space with their own crew and rockets. One ambitious goal, which several companies are now pursuing, involves space tourism for any private citizen willing to pay a hefty fee."

The Bezos/Branson flights led to a number of snarky comments about playgrounds for the wealthy. Not sure they realize some of the benefits Elon Musk is already bringing to earthlings in the form of internet access for remote locations. Or if they have listened to Bezos's sweeping vision for man in space.

Besides, here is the market reality. Man has always looked up to the stars, and modern man has grown increasingly intrigued with space travel thanks to Hollywood's long string of space movies. 

Yes, the price today for space tourism is lofty, but many other industries which initially looked to be destined to be niche markets for the wealthy - aviation, mobile phones among them - grew exponentially as price points dropped and convenience and reliability improved. Chinese, Indian and other global efforts will only accelerate the competition. 

The game is starting to get exciting. As the title says - we are merely in the early innings. To infinity - and beyond! Starting with edge of space, ISS and the Moon.

Photo Credit above - FT

 

Enter Paris 2024

As part of the Closing Ceremony to the Tokyo Olympics, there was a pretty impressive handoff to the next host city, Paris - from iconic locations across Paris, in the sky over Paris and even from space

On the International Space Shuttle, Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide did his personal handoff to French astronaut Thomas Pesquet

The French anthem, La Marseillaise was played live by Orchestre National de France from Radio France studios. Silvia Careddu played notes on her flute from the roof of Stade de France which will host some of the events in 2024. There was a marimba performance at the Louvre, a string ensemble played at the Square du Vert-Galant, a piano performance at La Recyclerie, previously a train station and percussion from the Diderot Skatepark. Astronaut Thomas Pesquet also shows up in this on his sax.

In my favorite part, BMX rider Estelle Majal took us on a ride sequence (to music by Woodkid titled Prologue) across the rooftops of Paris including icons like the Musee D'Orsay, Grand Palais, Place de la Concorde and more. (btw The video ends with a giant (90 x 60 meter) flag flying around the Eiffel Tower - that had to be a CGI version. Due to weather they had to scrap the live version.)

Finally the Patrouille de France flew over the Paris sky and left contrails of blue, white and red smoke – the colors of the French flag

More details of the artists and locales at the Paris 2024 site 

Asteroid Bennu

NASA's asteroid-chaser Osiris-Rex completed a key part of its mission this week by managing to nab some rocks from the surface of the potentially hazardous asteroid Bennu, NASA reported Friday.

The spacecraft traveled over 200 million miles and four years to briefly bump into Bennu, blast it with compressed gas and collect bits of its surface. The space agency on Wednesday shared the first batch of images from the daring operation, revealing a delicate-yet-explosive moment between rock and robot.

CNET

Where WiFi is illegal

“The signals we detect from space are extremely faint,” says Harshal Gupta, the National Science Foundation program officer for the Green Bank Observatory. “A source of close-by, man-made radio frequency can completely overwhelm these very faint signals from space.” Meaning, any radio frequency interference (RFI) could corrupt that research.

In order to limit RFI, the Federal Communications Commission in 1958 established the National Radio Quiet Zone (NRQZ) covering approximately 13,000 square miles and parts of both Virginia and West Virginia. In the mid-20th century, this meant no radio towers, television antennas, or heavy machinery could be installed unless they met very restrictive guidelines set forth by the FCC (like highly directional antennas and reduced power).

Popular Mechanics

 

 

SpaceX Starlink

SpaceX said Starlink, its nascent satellite internet service, has already seen “extraordinary demand” from potential customers, with “nearly 700,000 individuals” across the United States indicating they are interested in the company’s coming service.

Starlink is the company’s ambitious plan to build an interconnected network of about 12,000 small satellites, to beam high-speed internet anywhere in the world. To date, SpaceX has launched more than 500 Starlink satellites. In addition to getting the satellites in orbit, SpaceX will need to build a vast system of ground stations and affordable user terminals if it is going to connect consumers directly to its network.

CNBC

 

Reality Show from Space

Tom Cruise, ever the dare devil, is scheduled to hitch a SpaceX ride to the ISS next October. But a mere mortal may get a chance in 2023

"A television production company, Space Hero LLC, announced Sept. 17 that it was planning a “global, unscripted casting show” called “Space Hero” that would send the winner to the ISS in 2023.

The cost of sending a person to the ISS would likely exceed $50 million, a figure that doesn’t include the costs of training or production of the show itself."

SpaceNews

Hubble's Art

Many colorful stars are packed close together in this image of the globular cluster NGC 1805, taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

The striking difference in star colors is illustrated beautifully in this image, which combines different types of light: blue stars, shining brightest in near-ultraviolet light, and red stars, illuminated in red and near-infrared. Space telescopes like Hubble can observe in the ultraviolet because they are positioned above Earth’s atmosphere, which absorbs most ultraviolet light, making it inaccessible to ground-based facilities.

NASA