tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-221559522024-03-18T20:37:35.486-07:00Freeluna - Lunar Colonization BlogSpace colonization offers the best possible future for mankind, and the colonization of the moon is our best first step.billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05007923913646456077noreply@blogger.comBlogger136125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22155952.post-87647509185221326852017-09-04T14:59:00.004-07:002017-09-04T14:59:56.720-07:002017 Total Solar Eclipse
I wanted to try to capture my experience of witnessing the solar eclipse of 2017. My in-laws, wife, and I headed up to Eastern Oregon in order to check out the eclipse. Up until this point, I had never witnessed a total solar eclipse (plenty of partial eclipses, but never a total eclipse). One hears about these things, but never gets a chance to see them, as they usually seem to pass over billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05007923913646456077noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22155952.post-34818782799801229812015-12-22T14:27:00.001-08:002015-12-22T14:27:29.658-08:00Falcon 9 and Blue Origin Booster Landings:Compared and Contrasted
Obviously there is big excitement around the space community today as SpaceX has finally demonstrated a Falcon 9 booster landing during a flight to orbit mission. SpaceX is no stranger to landing boosters, but landing them successfully from an orbital launch has eluded them so far, with two attempts at barge landings turning in less than stellar results. Last night, however, they stuck the billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05007923913646456077noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22155952.post-56998024364060026532015-07-20T12:36:00.003-07:002015-07-20T12:50:20.102-07:00Happy Moon Landing Day! (Apollo 11 lunar landing: July 20, 1969)
It was 46 years ago today that the Apollo 11 Lunar Excursion Module touched down onto the lunar surface in the Sea of Tranquility. A few hours afterwards, Neil Armstrong became the first human ever to step down onto the surface of another world. Buzz Aldrin followed a few minutes later. In the history of the Earth, only 10 other people have ever had the chance to accomplish that feat. billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05007923913646456077noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22155952.post-36894498424527405902015-07-15T13:06:00.002-07:002015-07-15T13:24:16.254-07:00Pluto Painstakingly Probed Perfectly!
First images sent back from the New Horizons spacecraft have given planetary scientists much to think about. Images were first shown during a NASA news conference that was held on July 15th at 3PM EDT. Alan Stern was happy to report that photos of the surface of Pluto seem to match up nicely with the teams predicted models. Vertical cliffs are an indicator that much of the surface of Pluto isbillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05007923913646456077noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22155952.post-29924940175511788132015-07-14T14:19:00.000-07:002015-07-14T14:19:07.843-07:00..and now we wait.So the New Horizons spacecraft passed Pluto and now has begun to send back pictures to the ground team. The transmitter data rate is down to 2000 bits per second, and they can only achieve that by using the spacecrafts two transmitters. The amount of data being sent back is pretty huge, and will take upwards of a year to get all of the data from the fly-by sent down from the spacecraft, billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05007923913646456077noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22155952.post-9999081421344176212015-07-13T14:54:00.000-07:002015-07-13T14:54:04.637-07:00Fly-By of Pluto Mere Hours Away
The New Horizons Spacecraft is expected to make it's closest approach to Pluto in less than 14 hours from now. Thus the craft's nearly 9 and a half year journey to Pluto will be complete (although the mission itself will continue on past Pluto for some time). A sample of the ashes of Clyde Tombaugh, the discoverer of the (dwarf) planet Pluto, are on board the New Horizons spacecraft, so after billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05007923913646456077noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22155952.post-60018012900617105702015-06-29T11:48:00.000-07:002015-06-29T11:56:26.640-07:00CRS-7 News so FarNASA held a morning news conference to discuss the SpaceX CRS-7 "Anomoly" or "RUD" or explosion, depending on how you want to spin the issue. So far there seems to have been an overpressure event in the second stage's LOX tank -- the exact cause isn't know -- but that seems to be where SpaceX is focusing their attention. The FAA is overseeing the investigation that SpaceX is performing, with billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05007923913646456077noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22155952.post-14362787486916280132015-06-28T07:28:00.000-07:002015-06-28T07:28:14.695-07:00Ouch OuchLooks like today's Dragon launch resulted in a "rapid unscheduled disassembly". It's possible it had gone off course, but there was a fair amount of out-gassing prior to break-up. Damn it!billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05007923913646456077noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22155952.post-23271370864816707512015-04-30T14:34:00.001-07:002015-04-30T14:34:42.031-07:00News for the Month: CRS-6 LEO, Turkmenistan/Thales GEO, Blue Origin Sub-Orbital, and a Lack of Progress A lot has happened in the last month. The month started up with SpaceX's CRS-6 launch and attempted booster recovery. The good news is that launch and ISS station arrival were flawless, the not so good news is that the booster recovery didn't work out quite as well. Great video of the attempt, though. Elon said he was going to get himself an volcanic lair should the booster landing succeed.billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05007923913646456077noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22155952.post-32976933274489559232015-04-13T13:42:00.003-07:002015-04-13T13:42:18.779-07:00Oh Well. Trying Again at around 4:20 PM EDT Tomorrow
Not much to say. The weather turned bad, so they decided not to launch. Just 3 minutes to go. Damn!
Still.. Getting hit by a lightning bolt on your way up isn't recommended, and I think it only happened one time before. I will post any updates on the launch time tomorrow as they come in.
billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05007923913646456077noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22155952.post-9835461814254354142015-04-13T12:53:00.000-07:002015-04-13T12:53:01.696-07:00Space-X CRS-6 Launch and Recovery Today
Space-X is launching CRS-6 today with another attempt at landing the booster stage on the self-guided barge "Just Read the Instructions". Yes, that's the barge's name, and is a nod to British Sci-Fi author Iain M Banks, who passed in 2013. As of 12:45 PST, the Falcon is about 45 minutes away from launch, which will take place at around 4:30 PM EDT or 1:30 PM PDT. You can watch the launch herebillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05007923913646456077noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22155952.post-9290692624096700502015-03-12T16:41:00.001-07:002015-03-12T16:41:51.316-07:00The Importance of Dog Bones and Doughnuts: Revisiting the Freeluna Space Program
Given the success of SpaceX and Elon Musk's and Mars One's intent to colonize Mars, I think it's high time to revisit the notion of a rotating space station in low earth orbit, and eventually using said station (or something like it) to transport people to Mars. Before we go colonizing other planets, we really need to find out if humans can stay healthy in a partial gravity (less than 1 g but billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05007923913646456077noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22155952.post-59705408932844184442015-03-06T18:21:00.001-08:002015-03-06T18:21:36.014-08:00Dawn Spacecraft is Ceres-ly Orbiting a Dwarf Planet
It has been announced that the Dawn Spacecraft has successfully transitioned to orbiting around the dwarf planet Ceres. Someone thought it amusing to label this accomplishment as a first, as Dawn is now orbiting a dwarf planet, rather than orbiting some other type of celestial rock, which we have orbited before. But seriously, it wasn't until 2006 that Ceres was even referred to as a dwarf billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05007923913646456077noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22155952.post-71871321226572558682015-02-27T13:30:00.003-08:002015-02-27T13:30:47.217-08:00Spock: End of an Era 2015
My son called me with the saddest news this morning. Leonard Nimoy, directory, artist, and actor indelibly linked to the character Spock, from Star Trek the original series, has died. He was 83 and suffering from end-stage Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (emphysema) when he was taken to the hospital on the 19th of February with chest pains. On the 23rd, he tweeted, "A life is like a billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05007923913646456077noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22155952.post-68822271087589946762015-01-08T19:09:00.000-08:002015-01-08T19:09:52.372-08:00SpaceX Redux on Saturday One Dark Thirty
"What?!?" you exclaim, as SpaceX scrubs the launch at 3AM PST last Tuesday, "can't Space-X get anything right?"
Why yes, they can. This would've been the 13th Falcon 9 launch, had everything gone off without a hitch, but hitches happen, especially when the vehicle in question has only flown only a hand full of times. To me it's far better to abort a launch and delay the next launch attempt billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05007923913646456077noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22155952.post-68336437516124090722015-01-05T16:02:00.000-08:002015-01-05T16:02:02.972-08:00Space-X CRS-5 to Barge Its Way into History
Space-X plans to launch it's 6th visit to the ISS tomorrow morning starting at 6AM EST/3AM PST. The launch can be viewed live on Livestream.com. If all goes well, this launch will be followed shortly by an attempt to land the first stage of the Falcon-9 onto a ocean-going barge parked out in the Atlantic Ocean. Space-X has been incrementally gearing up for this goal over the course of a billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05007923913646456077noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22155952.post-65831275756948049662014-12-19T18:24:00.002-08:002014-12-19T18:24:27.293-08:00Nifty Video of Orion Re-entry from Inside Orion
Not much news today related to space, but this video of the Orion spacecraft re-entering was pretty cool. In other news, Sony corporation demonstrated a complete lack of spine in their decision to forego release of "The Interview". I am profoundly bummed. "The Interview" and "The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies" were my two must-see holiday movies.
billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05007923913646456077noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22155952.post-70929416639012286532014-12-10T18:06:00.000-08:002014-12-10T18:06:06.462-08:00Congratulations to NASA on Orion EFT-1 Mission Success
I'd like to congratulate NASA for a successful flight of the Orion capsule. The Delta IV Heavy launched from Cape Kennedy at 12:05 UTC on December 5th (4:05 Pacific Time/7:05 Eastern), did two orbits around the Earth, and then splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off of the coast of Baja California. On the second orbit, the capsule was boosted to 3700 miles above the Earth prior to re-entry to billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05007923913646456077noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22155952.post-25500260620894559442014-11-17T18:06:00.002-08:002014-11-17T18:15:36.361-08:00Securing Our Future Water NeedsLast night, CBS 60 minutes had a story about the loss of water the Western US is experiencing due to a drought we've experienced over the last 9 years or thereabouts. The story centered around a study that came about in part thanks to the NASA GRACE Satellite Mission. GRACE stands for Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment, and has used the Earth's local gravitational pull on the satellite to billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05007923913646456077noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22155952.post-47513677900982223952014-11-14T14:52:00.000-08:002014-11-14T14:52:59.462-08:00Philae takes P67 Surface Pic
So here's a picture from the surface. What science we'll be able to collect is somewhat problematic as the probe landed in a place where sunlight only gets to the solar panels for about one and a half hours a day. This is a bit too little to maintain battery life, so there is a limited window to collect data before the 30 hours of battery life in the probe come to an end. Hopefully some goodbillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05007923913646456077noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22155952.post-58870625693095205072014-11-12T15:03:00.001-08:002014-11-12T15:03:33.416-08:00Another Rosetta Milestone: The Philae Lander is on the Comet
So the big news this November 12th was the first landing of a craft onto the surface of a comet. The ESA's Rosetta mission was launched ten years ago in order to rendezvous with a comet and drop a landing craft called Philae onto its surface. Comet 67P or Churyumov–Gerasimenko, is a short period comet, which has an orbit that ranges from a distance between Mars and Earth at perihelion to a bitbillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05007923913646456077noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22155952.post-22420834680961654872014-11-11T12:46:00.002-08:002014-11-11T12:46:46.453-08:00JPL Scientists Planning to Probe Uranus
I was doing some browsing today on the Falcon 9 Heavy and comparing it to NASA's SLS heavy lift launcher, when I came across this tidbit on proposed future missions enabled by the SLS. FWIW, Falcon 9 heavy will be capable of placing 53 metric tons into orbit, while NASA's SLS should be able to lift between 70 and 130 metric tons to orbit. Clearly SLS has a much greater capacity, but one might billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05007923913646456077noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22155952.post-70270785682638980462014-11-10T14:47:00.001-08:002014-11-10T14:47:38.340-08:00Rick Tumlinson: On "Interstellar" and the Virgin Galactic AccidentRick Tumlinson, one of the founders of the Space Frontier Foundation wrote a brilliant piece in Huffington Post about both the risks and the hopes of space exploration and colonization, highlighted using the disasters of Cygnus/Antares launch failure and the Virgin Galactic accident and a glowing review of the movie "Interstellar".
Rick oozes the spirit of the space advocacy movement. His billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05007923913646456077noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22155952.post-16277267920750990352014-11-07T17:58:00.000-08:002014-11-07T17:58:00.481-08:00Sad Happenings in MojaveImage courtesy Guardian Media
By now everyone has heard about the tragic crash of Virgin Galactic's Spaceship II in Mojave, California. One pilot died and one pilot was severely injured in the accident. They were both test pilots, so they knew there was risk in what they were doing. Still, it was a terrible loss for Scaled Composites and for the Mojave Aerospace Community. The Mike Alsbury billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05007923913646456077noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22155952.post-12547767496338161532014-10-30T13:37:00.003-07:002014-10-30T13:37:34.258-07:00Cygnus Antaries "Anomaly" Update: It Was No Accident!
Apparently the explosion of the Antares-Cygnus spacecraft was no accident. Either ground control or on-board flight termination software noticed the flight was not going well and terminated (blew-up) the Antares launch vehicle. It's too bad Cygnus wasn't designed with a launch escape system to save the cargo in this unlikely case. Many earthworms died premature deaths and many school billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05007923913646456077noreply@blogger.com0