Has Science Taken A Back Seat When It Comes To Lunar Exploration?

50 years after NASA managed to land men on the Moon, has science always taken the proverbial “back seat” when it comes to lunar exploration?

By: Ringo Bones

As humanity celebrates the 50^th Anniversary of the Moon landing, it seems that – then and now – science has always taken the proverbial “back seat” when it comes for reasons for the multi-billion dollar lunar exploration missions. With NASA and the powers that be at Capitol Hill already has serious plans for returning to the Moon, it seems that the “science part” of the upcoming missions – like checking out those water deposits that were spotted by visiting unmanned robotic spacecraft during the past few years are usually mentioned last during a typical press interview. Though it is quite refreshing that during a somewhat “misogynistic” U.S. administration that there has been emphasis on sending the first woman astronaut to the Moon as part of the team who will be landing there as soon as 2024, when it comes to the science part of the mission, the intrepid researcher has typically has to “Google deeply” or check out books that were first published back in 1970.

During my elementary and high school days back in the late 1970s and the 1980s, the “scientific instruments” bought by the first trio of NASA astronauts to the Moon – i.e. Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins – were not quite general knowledge. It wasn’t until one delves deeply in their local library to find out that the first trio of astronauts did carry a tinfoil made shade to capture “solar wind” particles, a portable seismograph to test for “Moon quakes” and a quartz laser retro-reflector to measure the distance between the Earth and the Moon to an accuracy of less than 1 centimeter. The first trio of astronauts who land on the lunar surface may not be “professional scientists” but their mission is for all intents and purposes is a “scientific mission” that’s shrouded in Cold War era politics.

Can Commercial Space Tourism Fund NASA’s Return To The Moon?

Given that NASA now opens the International Space Station to tourists by 2020, is it enough to fund their manned mission to the moon by 2024?

By: Ringo Bones

Unbeknown to most people, the International Space Station does not belong to NASA, it was built with the help of Russia back in 1998 with the help of other space travel capable countries in order to participate in the mission and send up astronauts. The ISS have hosted space tourists with enough cash to spare before, like U.S. businessman Dennis Tito who back in 2001 had paid Russia around 20-million USD for the trip. Others followed his footsteps, the last being Cirque Du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte back in 2009. But this time, it would be different because the proceeds will be used by NASA to fund its return to the moon and as a means for the cash-strapped government funded space agency to financially disengage itself from the orbiting research lab. Given that the International Space Station has a projected lifetime of 40 years and it is already around half that, maybe the money earned and saved by NASA could also be used to build another space station 20 years from now.

Back in Friday, June 7, 2019, NASA’s chief financial officer Jeff DeWitt announced that it will open up the ISS to business ventures including space tourism by 2020. There will be two short private astronaut missions per year, said Robyn Gatens, deputy director of the ISS. The missions will be for stays of up to 30 days. As many as a dozen private astronauts could visit the ISS per year, NASA said.

Even though the rate for staying at the International Space Station is 35.000 USD a night – there are way more expensive honeymoon suites in Dubai with a going rate of 400,000 USD a night by the way – but the round trip bill via Soyuz launch system will cost you around 58-million USD. Expensive the trip may be but the view is literally out of this world.

Space tourism will not be the only way for NASA to make fiscal sense of the rather costly endeavor of space exploration. This would include startups developing techniques for building materials in conditions of weightlessness in which experiments conducted on early NASA Space Shuttle missions have proved to be of vital importance – i.e. ultra strong and yet lightweight metal alloys and protein crystals that can only be fabricated in weightless conditions. Also fiber optic cables can be of extraordinary quality when manufactured at weightless conditions. In terms of space commercialization that makes actual fiscal sense, it seems that space based industries have the potential to earn way more money than space tourism.

Stratolaunch: A Newfangled Satellite Launch System?

Despite the delays since it was announced back in 2011, is Scaled Composites’ Stratolaunch now the largest aircraft by wingspan to ever take flight and a unique satellite launch system to boot?

By: Ringo Bones

Stratolaunch finally took its successful maiden flight back in Saturday, April 13, 2019 10:00 AM local time from California’s Mojave Air and Space Port, which now makes it the world’s largest aircraft to ever take flight. Its 385-foor wingspan beats out Howard Hughes Spruce Goose by a significant margin and its primary purpose is to launch satellites into space at a much reduced cost than existing launch methods.

Originally designed by Silicon Valley billionaire Paul Allen and its construction was made possible by the Northrop Grumman subsidiary called Scaled Composites and the plane’s completion was first announced back in 2011. Unfortunately, Stratolaunch remained on the ground far beyond its originally planned first test flight date back in 2016. Paul Allen died near the end of 2018 of complications related to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, though the project continued in his stead.

Despite being made almost entirely of carbon fiber material and related lightweight composites, Stratolaunch weighs in at 500,000 pounds. Much of it is due to the plane’s twin fuselage design and to further reduce costs, the plane uses six Pratt & Whitney jet engines similar to ones used on the iconic Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet and also the plane’s 28-wheel landing gear is also similar to the one used on the Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet.

Only a handful of twin-fuselage planes have been developed in the past few decades and Stratolaunch will primarily be used for spaceflight – as in a satellite launch system for launching payloads into space. Even though it only attained a speed of 189 miles per hour during its maiden flight, the plane is still very capable of reaching 35,000 to 40,000 feet at such relatively low speeds because launching payloads into space at such heights provides significant rocket fuel savings compared to existing launch methods of using static rockets on ground-based launch pads. Not only satellites, but Stratolaunch can also be used as a basis of a low-cost system to launch manned spacecraft into low Earth orbit and en route into the International Space Station.

Launching payloads at such altitude also minimizes complications from bad weather as the plane can simply fly over storm systems and further fuel savings can be made by flying Stratolaunch over the Earth’s equator and launch satellites there. The plane is capable of launching up to three of Northrop Grumman’s Pegasus XL rockets. Sadly, due to the aircraft’s rather “unique” shape, there are still delays on the plane’s certification by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, not to mention additional more test flights before it can start launching payloads off the planet. And Stratolaunch is also facing competition from Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit – a satellite launch system that’s based on a modified Boeing 747-400 aircraft and due to Branson’s plane having a “more conventional profile” compared to Stratolaunch, Virgin Orbit could get FAA approval much sooner than the twin-fuselage Stratolaunch.

Was Israel’s First Lunar Landing Mission A Total Failure?

Slated to perform a series of scientific experiments on the Sea of Serenity, was Israel’s first ever lunar mission a total failure?

By: Ringo Bones

The dishwasher-sized robotic spacecraft was called Beresheet – a Biblical reference that means “in the beginning” – attempted Israel’s first ever privately-funded lunar landing on the night (7:23 PM Israel local time) of Thursday, April 11, 2019, but a failure of its main engine put an end to that. The 600-kilogram four-legged space probe was designed and built by an Israeli nonprofit firm called SpaceIL and with a total cost of about 95-million US dollars, including launch, Beresheet was a bargain-basement spacecraft. Had the mission been successful, it would have made Israel the fourth nation ever (together with the United States, Russia / the then USSR, and The People’s Republic of China) to have an unmanned spacecraft survive a lunar-landing attempt. Nonetheless, Israel’s Beresheet lunar lander managed to transmit one final “photo”, a kind of the unmanned spacecraft’s own selfie, about 23-kilometers above the lunar surface before its main engine failure.

The planned landing site for the Beresheet spacecraft was Mare Serenitatis, or the “Sea of Serenity” in the northern hemisphere of the Moon – a dark lava-covered site of ancient volcanic eruptions and a long-source of magnetic and gravitational anomalies of every unmanned lunar orbital spacecraft that flew above the site. As seen from planet Earth’s surface, the Sea of Serenity is the famed “left eye” of the Man in the Moon.

Beresheet was designed to take measurements of the Moon’s magnetic field using an instrument supplied by the University of California, Los Angeles. If the craft had landed safely, SpaceIL would have shared the spacecraft’s data with NASA and other space agencies and “hop” Beresheet to another location using its thrusters. Bersheet not only spent seven weeks in space but also closed the 3.7-million kilometer gap between planet Earth and the Moon and then entered into lunar orbit – making Israel the seventh country ever to do so – and successfully completed a series of engine burns to poise it for a landing attempt. Due to its low cost, the mission was far from a total failure because the underwriters of the first ever Israel lunar landing mission still has a budget for a second attempt.

NASA Now Paying 19-Thousand USD To Volunteers To Stay In Bed For Two Months?

Does NASA’s recent “laziness experiment” an actual analog for replicating prolonged weightlessness?

By: Ringo Bones

I think it was around the middle of the 1990s when I first heard of NASA’s aviation medicine specialists stating in a press interview that the bone loss experienced by astronauts in prolonged weightlessness is physiologically similar to anyone who’s lying in bed for prolonged periods. Does this make bedsores now the so-called “final frontier” when it comes to tackling one of current space travel’s thorniest problems?

NASA and two other space agencies are asking for 24 volunteers to lie in bed for two months as part of a study, which will pay them about 19,000-US dollars. And the venue of the study will be the European Space Agency’s astronaut training facilities in Germany because part of the requirement of the study is that the volunteers must also possess a working knowledge of the German language. NASA and ESA officials say that “We are looking for test persons to take part in a bed rest study from September to December 2019 in Cologne, Germany and spend 60 days lying down.”

The point of the study is to “research how the body changes in weightlessness. Bed rest simulates this condition.” Based on the study results, scientists will develop techniques to reduce the negative effects of prolonged weightlessness on astronauts. During the two months, the volunteers will live in a single room, but will be divided into two groups. One group will be rotated around in a centrifuge, similar to an artificial gravity chamber, which will force blood back to their extremities. The second group will not be moved. And when they say you’ll do everything lying down, they aren’t kidding. The volunteers must eat, exercise, get dressed and even shower while lying flat on their beds. Another catch, the participants’ beds are tilted slightly downward to encourage fluids to pool in their upper body to mimic as close as possible weightless conditions experienced by astronauts in space.

Did India’s Anti-Satellite Missile Test Endanger The International Space Station?

Even though the target satellite was in an orbit lower than that of the International Space Station did last week’s Project Shakti test generated enough debris to endanger the ISS?

By: Ringo Bones

Last week’s Project Shakti anti-satellite missile test had definitely bolstered India’s space and national defense standing in the world, not to mention Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s poll numbers. But more recently, an announcement by NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine claims that India’s recent anti-satellite test could endanger other satellites and objects in space – including the International Space Station.

The target of India’s Project Shakti anti-satellite missile last week was believed to be its own spy satellite Microsat-R that was launched a few months ago. The resulting kinetic impact that destroyed the spy satellite created a field of satellite debris at that orbital altitude. The debris now poses a problem because a significant number of it was kicked-up into the same orbital altitude as the International Space Station. In a worse-case scenario, some of the debris could impact the ISS creating a scenario akin to that in the movie Gravity. Some of those pieces are currently too small for NASA to reliably track, meaning we’ll have no way of predicting an impact beforehand. NASA Administrator Bridenstine announced on Monday, April 1, 2019, that “What we are tracking right now, objects big enough to track – we’re talking about 10-cm (4-inches) or bigger – about 60 pieces have been tracked”.

India deliberately targeted a satellite that had a lower orbital altitude than that of the International Space Station to prevent this very sort of situation, but a significant number of the debris appears to have been flung to a higher orbital altitude. Of those 60 debris and objects tracked by NASA, Bridenstine says 24 of them are now at the same altitude as the ISS or higher.

The nature of the region of space in low Earth orbit means that even debris residing above the ISS’ orbit could still pose a threat. Satellites and debris are gradually slowed down by the very thin atmosphere that exists there. The International Space Station, for instance, must routinely fire its booster rockets in order to maintain its orbital altitude and counter the residual atmospheric drag.

Over time, the resulting debris of the recent Indian anti-satellite test would lose altitude and eventually burn up when it hits the denser parts of the Earth’s atmosphere, but the higher altitude debris will have to come down first to within the orbital altitude of the International Space Station posing danger of an impact. The danger of debris impact could still happen months after the test. Even Mainland China’s anti-satellite missile test back in January 11, 2007 still has free-floating debris that could potentially endanger the crew of the ISS.

India Successfully Tests An Anti-Satellite Missile: A Prelude To A Gene Roddenberry Style Sino-Indian War?

With Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement of a successful ant-satellite missile test as an “anti-China measure”, will this be a prelude to a Gene Roddenberry style Sino-Indian War?

By: Ringo Bones

During his national address back in Wednesday, March 28, 2019, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the country has successfully shot down its own low-orbit satellite with a missile that now puts India in the league of global “space powers”. Prime Minister Modi said India had achieved a “historic feat” by shooting down its own low-orbit satellite with a ground-to-space missile in three minutes. Historic feat indeed because when the United States successfully tested the ASM-135 Anti-Satellite Missile back in September 13, 1985, it took over 20 years to perform the same feat – i.e. The People’s Republic of China when they successfully tested their own anti-satellite missile system back in January 11, 2007 and Russia only recently succeeded in doing the same back in November 18, 2015.

The test comes two weeks before polling begins in general elections and Prime Minister Modi is seeking a second term in power after a landslide victory in 2014. The test was largely termed as an ant-China measure according to Bharat Karnad, a security expert with the Indian think tank the Center of Policy Research. And given that almost all of Pakistan’s latest military satellites are launched with technical assistance from The People’s Republic of China, it seems that India’s latest successful ant-satellite missile test could be perceived as payback for the country’s defeat during the 1962 Sino-Indian War.

Even though India already possess missiles capable of downing satellites in low-Earth orbit since 2012, the recent success of Mission Shakti – Shakti stands for power in Hindi – as India’s foremost anti-satellite weapons system would defend the country’s interest in space. India’s latest space capabilities seem inevitable because the country’s space program has grown substantially over the past decade. In 2014, the nation managed to put a satellite into orbit around the planet Mars and the Indian Space Organization has announced that it will send a manned mission into space in the next three years.

Should US Vice President Mike Pence’s Fast-tracked Manned Lunar Mission Be Taken Seriously?

Given that he is a staunch Creationist – i.e. believes that the whole Universe is only 6,000 years old and planet Earth is the center of the Universe – should US Vice President Mike Pence’s fast-tracked manned lunar mission be taken seriously?

By: Ringo Bones    

                                                                              

Thanks to Donald trump’s base of Moon landing hoax conspiracy theorists and far-right Christian extremists, America had been reduced into the world’s intellectual laughingstock. But on March 26, 2019, US Vice President Mike Pence called for a greater urgency at NASA to send “American Astronauts to the Moon before the end of 2024 by any means necessary”. Although on how the Trump Administration intends to accomplish an ambitious Moon landing was not clear. Worse still, the Trump Administration just recently slashed funding for the National Science Foundation by more than a billion dollars, supposedly to fund Trump’s Wall.

Remember back in 1989 when then US President George H.W. Bush’s announcement of a 400 plus –billion US dollar manned mission to Mars was “coolly” received? Well, NASA’s top brass will probably had a tougher time reasoning with a task-master who genuinely believes that the whole Universe is only 6,000 years old and planet Earth is flat and is the center of the Universe. Add to that the urgency of “by any means necessary” not to mention the climate change denial policy could prove just another reason why the United States had become the world’s intellectual laughingstock under the Trump Administration.

First All Female Spacewalk Cancelled Due To The Ultimate Wardrobe Malfunction?

Although the exploration of humanity’s final frontier has been made as inclusive as possible, is there a lingering sexism that exists when it comes to space exploration?

By: Ringo Bones

The scheduled Extra-Vehicular-Activity was never planned as a historic mission, although it would have been a historic moment: as in the first ever all-female spacewalk. Sadly, that historic moment would have to wait, as NASA said back in Monday, March 25, 2019, because of a somewhat mundane issue – lack of appropriate spacesuit sizes. The two astronauts who were scheduled to walk together in space back in Friday, March 22, 2019 – Anne C. McClain and Christina H. Koch – would both need to wear a medium-size torso component (as in a medium-sized spacesuit), but only one was readily available at the International Space Station at the time. That Friday, the two woman astronauts would have ventured outside of the ISS on a six-hour mission to install massive lithium-ion batteries that will help power the research laboratory. Unfortunately, it will be rescheduled this Friday, March 29, with Christina Koch along with her fellow astronaut Nick Hague as Anne McClain already performed her scheduled EVA last week.

Even though Anne McClain had performed a previous EVA wearing a large-size torso spacesuit, on her last EVA on March 22 she wore a medium-size torso and learned that it fit her better. Christina Koch also uses a medium-size torso spacesuit. A proper fitting spacesuit for EVA missions is very important because these missions could last from 6 to 8 and sometimes extended to 12 hours. And there’s pre-breathing involved before any astronaut an go on an EVA because current NASA spacesuit technology aren’t strong and flexible enough to work with a oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere pressurized to the same level of the interior of the International Space Station which is equivalent of standing on 8,000 feet above sea level here on Earth – which is around 11.3 pounds per square inch. A typical NASA spacesuit, in order to maintain flexibility and safety, can only be pressurized by up to around 2 to 3 pounds per square inch – which is akin to breathing pure oxygen while staying 40,000 feet above sea level here on Earth. This means lengthy pure oxygen pre-breathing time (17 to 20 minutes?) before an EVA mission to flush out excess nitrogen from the astronauts system.

Even though it is seldom mentioned in the mainstream press, the powers-that-be in charge of access to space since the 1960 can be quite sexist in comparison to our “post hash-tag me too movement” world. Even though the then Soviet Union were the first to sent the first woman in space, as in Valentina Tereshkova back in June 16, 1963, it took the then Soviet Union almost twenty years later to send the world’s second woman in space – Svetlana Savitskaya – in 1982, citing that women can be bad luck for the male cosmonauts. And as recently as April 18, 2008, the Russian space agency blamed Peggy Whitson for sending the Soyuz spacecraft 450 kilometers off course during the team’s return from the International Space Station. Even though many have said NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson should have been commended for her quick thinking by avoiding the Soyuz from landing in a Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan back then.

Is Space Herpes For Real?

Although it seems like a plot from a bad science fiction movie, does the latest studies from NASA already shows that prolonged space travel could trigger a so-called “space herpes” epidemic?

By: Ringo Bones

No, it is not a plot from a bad Star Trek episode although there was an episode in Star Trek Voyager that explains why the rulebook on the Prime Directive is over two inches thick and despite Stephen Colbert and other late night show hosts recently poking fun at it, it seems that NASA researchers have recently uncovered that prolonged spaceflight is triggering viruses such as herpes, chickenpox and shingles in astronauts. As part of the study on the impact of space travel has on viruses, NASA researchers analyzed blood, urine and saliva samples from astronauts before, during and after Space Shuttle flights and International Space Station missions.

The findings were recently published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology show an increase in shedding or reactivation of these viruses while in space. Lead study author Satish K. Mehta from Johnson Space Center said “to date, 47 out of 89 (53 percent) NASA astronauts on short Space Shuttle flights and 14 out of 23 (61 percent) on longer International Space Station missions shed herpes viruses in their saliva or urine samples. These frequencies – as well as the quantity – of viral shedding are markedly higher than samples from before or after flight, or from matched healthy controls.”

According to researchers, the reactivation of the dormant viruses was found to be caused by stress – the same factor that awakens them here on Earth. So being exposed to prolonged periods of weightlessness are not turning these viruses into superbugs? Although bathroom breaks in the weightless conditions of space – to me at least – can be quite a stressful experience in comparison to going here on the sensation of the Earth’s normal pull of gravity. In addition to being confined in small spaces and separated from family and friends for extended periods of time, astronauts also undergo stress during takeoff and re-entry, the most dangerous phases of space travel. Add to that exposure to weightless conditions and increased doses of cosmic radiation.

The study also found that four of the eight human herpes viruses were detected, including oral, genital, shingles and chicken pox, however, although the viruses were found to “wake up”, most of the astronauts did not display symptoms. According to Mehta “Only six astronauts developed any symptoms due to viral reaction, all were minor.” In addition to the increased possibility of infecting others, the reactivation of the herpes virus raises concerns regarding future long-term missions to the planet Mars. According to Mehta “The magnitude, frequency and duration of viral shedding all increase with length of spaceflight. The ideal countermeasure is vaccination for astronauts – but this is so far available only against chickenpox.” Researchers are currently looking for methods of combating the reactivation of the virus – which would also benefit those here on Earth.

SpaceX Dragon: Viable Replacement Of The NASA Space Shuttle?

Given that the NASA Space Shuttle has been retired since 2011, will Elon Musk’s SpaceX Dragon spacecraft the most viable American made replacement of the Space Shuttle?

By: Ringo Bones

Since NASA retired its Space Shuttle program back in 2011, the search has been on for a cheaper, safer alternative transport that can take American astronauts to the International Space Station. Unfortunately, the “safest” and “cheapest” existing alternative so far has been the Russian Soyuz spacecraft despite dating from the 1960s, this Soviet era Korolev Design Bureau, now RKK Energia run, spacecraft has been the only way for astronauts to reach the International Space Station. It wasn’t until March 3, 2019 that Elon Musk’s SpaceX Dragon’s successful test flight to the ISS that America finally has a home-grown replacement for the Space Shuttle.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk named it after the Peter, Paul and Mary song Puff The Magic Dragon, the Dragon spacecraft achieved its maiden flight back in December 2010 and was originally designed as a vehicle for paying space tourists to reach into low Earth orbit. After the NASA Space Shuttle was retired back in 2011 due to safety and reliability issues – as in no comparable spacecraft with a 21^st Century era computer was offered as a viable replacement, every astronaut going to the ISS were hitching a ride instead into the Soyuz.

With a successful test back in March 3, 2019 with a sensor filled dummy named Ripley – named after Lt. Ellen Ripley from the Alien move franchise – the computer guided SpaceX Dragon successfully docked with the International Space Station after it was launched atop the Falcon 9 two stage to orbit launch vehicle. With computer control, the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft safely survived the reentry stage to return safely to the Earth. With the recent successful test, NASA already considers manned tests of the Dragon spacecraft as soon as July 2019. Although Boeing has a similar spacecraft and NASA had been working on its own Space Launch System before the Space Shuttle was retired, it seems that Elon Musk’s SpaceX Dragon could become a very viable Space Shuttle replacement when it comes to ferrying astronauts into the International Space Station.