India’s Mission to Mars: The Sino-Indian Space Race to Mars?

With an ambition to be full-fledged space faring nation with a space program that only costs 1 billion US dollars a year, is India’s latest mission to Mars a blatant attempt to beat Mainland China to the red planet? 

By: Ringo Bones 

Critics and detractors might be pointing to the fact that for a country that can even hardly lift a significant portion of its citizens living less than 3 US dollars a day and mired in poverty shouldn’t be involving themselves in space exploration, but India’s latest mission to Mars is set to prove the detractors of its fledging space program wrong – as the recent interview with Kopillil Radhakrishnan, head of India’s Space Research Organization aims to prove that India’s poverty related problems can be solved with the science learned from the country’s ongoing endeavor. With a long term goal to solve the country’s chronic food, potable water and other vital resource shortage via its latest space exploration and related science and technology endeavors, India is indeed taking whatever advantage to be a both a technologically advanced nation and one that is capable of meeting the vital needs of its own citizens. 

At a budget of 1 billion US dollars a year – India spends around 1/60^th a year less than NASA spends annually in space exploration. And the 74-million US dollar (4.5 billion rupee) Mangalyaan (Mars craft in Hindi) spacecraft costs about one-tenth of a typical Mars bound spacecraft that NASA has been sending to the red planet since the late 1990s. If all goes to plan, India’s Mars probe should be orbiting around the red planet by September 2014 – making India the fourth space faring nation / conglomerate to send a space-probe to the Mars – i.e. The United States, Russia (former Soviet Union) and the European Union. Even though Mainland China had been sending manned craft to orbit for about a decade now, the Beijing government seems to have no plans at the moment to send a space-probe to Mars. Could an Indian astronaut beat the People’s Republic of China in the Sino-Indian Space Race to Mars?    

Space For Sale?

After given US Congressional approval, are historic Apollo mission memorabilia really worth the money? 

By: Ringo Bones 

Unlike the Soviet era cosmonaut space memorabilia that had been on the auction block as far back as 1992, the US Congress has just given the green light on the sale of historically significant Apollo mission memorabilia. The items reached the New York auction house Bonhams back in Monday, March 18, 2013 and they truly represent a treasure trove of America’s glory days of manned space exploration during the late 1960s and the early 1970s. 

The most famed item on auction is the “Space Magna Carta” a 1975 printed certificate marking the symbolic end of the space race between the United States and the then Soviet Union that was valued at 100,000 US dollars that supposedly set on paper the end of the American and Soviet space exploration rivalry when the Soviet era Soyuz capsule docked with an American Apollo spacecraft. And also, two sheets of the Apollo 11 manual on how to get back to Earth from the Moon is also expected to go for 90,000 US dollars. 

The now iconic checklist of the Apollo 13 emergency procedure annotated by astronaut Jim Lovell was also offered. And one of the esoteric items offered was an uneaten “space meal” potato soup packet brought on the Apollo 13 mission. If you have the requisite money, there are also space suit gloves and other Apollo era related memorabilia – and most of them could cost, for starters, as much as a high-end sports car or as much as a million US dollars for more iconic items offered. 

One Small Step For Multi-Millionaire: One Giant Leap For Mankind?

With multi-millionaire and first ever space tourist Dennis Tito’s slated private fundraising to send a trained couple for a round-trip to Mars represent a one giant leap for all of us? 

By: Ringo Bones 

The planned endeavor is expected to cost by as much as 1 billion US dollars using current rocket technology and is slated to be given the go ahead by the year 2018, such challenges aside it hasn’t yet discouraged American multi-millionaire and pioneering space tourist Dennis Tito to establish a private fundraising campaign to send a trained middle-aged male and female couple on a 500 day round trip to Mars. Though the planned mission saves by as much as 19 billion US dollars by merely orbiting Mars instead of landing on the red planet’s surface, it does still exposes the prospective couple’s to still largely unknown risks of a long-duration spaceflight – namely, solar radiation exposure since the mission involves venturing away from the Earth’s protective magnetic field and the detrimental health effects of long-term weightlessness. This is why the prospective couple that will be chosen for the mission should be a little over past their child-bearing ages to minimize the risks of bearing genetically mutated children due to exposure to unfiltered solar and cosmic radiation. 

The 2018 date was not just chosen arbitrarily, it is one of the few “auspicious” years in a century where Mars gets closest to the Earth – about as close as 36 million miles. And such rare planetary alignment allows the spacecraft to use the gravity of Mars to whip it back to Earth at 25,000 miles per hour, thus saving the cost of precious rocket fuel to be used in the overall mission. 

Dennis Tito’s “altruism” behind such complex and pricey endeavor is to inspire the current generation of schoolchildren to be more enthusiastic about math and science subjects that are indispensible in the aerospace industry and space exploration. Sadly, since the Bush era “War on Terror”, the math and science knowledge of America had been mostly applied in the militarization of the aerospace industry – i.e. unmanned military drones. With Tito’s privately funded space exploration initiative, the math and science knowledge of the United States will now be used for more peaceful means, 

Dennis Tito first gained fame in the field of space exploration when he used his own money – a little over 20 million US dollars – to allow him to went into a 2-week “working vacation” on the International Space Station a few years ago. Thus making him the first ever space tourist who used his own money. 

Are There Space Travel Superstitions?

Given that space travel is largely a result of scientific and technological endeavors, are there any space travel superstitions still practiced by our space-faring brethren in this day and age? 

By: Ringo Bones 

For all its armored veneer of fact-based science and technology that made all of it a technical possibility, it seems that from day one and even this day and age, there had been since-established space travel superstitions that had been practiced from the Cold War era on both sides of the Iron Curtain that had been carried on until the present day. But what are these space travel superstitions that had since became de rigueur whenever the U.S. government or any other nation state who can afford to practices before being launched into low-Earth orbit? 

In America, the US government has since bowed down to the “religious pressures” of the Evangelical conservative community. And since they are a significant taxpaying portion of the U.S. citizenry, the practice of jettisoning those so-called “Children's Letters to God” since the start of U.S. manned space flight. Given that the “Christian God” supposedly lives in “Heaven” and “Heaven” is supposedly located up there, the “Letters to God” are probably usually jettisoned somewhere between the Armstrong Line and the Kármán Line whenever a U.S. government owned rocket or the NASA Space Shuttle goes to orbit. 

While in Russia, their “space travel superstitious practices” were probably established back in the days when their first space travel pioneer, Yuri Gagarin, was still in training in lieu to explore what was back then the still largely unknown region of low-Earth orbit. Until this day, male Russian cosmonauts on their way to the launch sites in the Baikonur Cosmodrome “relieve” themselves on the wheels of the bus that transports them to the launch pad. Given that the then Soviet Union was the first to send the first woman to space i.e. Valentina Tereshkova - most of their cosmonauts are still largely men. And since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russian Orthodox blessings have since become de rigueur on every scheduled spaceflight. Well, a Russian Orthodox blessing is deemed as “superstitious” to those Russians still harboring secular humanist viewpoints.   

Extremely High Altitude Skydiving: Newfangled Space Tourism?

As Red Bull sponsored stuntman Felix Baumgartner successfully managed to fall faster than the speed of sound, will extremely high altitude skydiving become a space tourism staple in the near future?

By: Ringo Bones

For an Austrian whose day-job is a commercial helicopter pilot, Red Bull sponsored stuntman Felix Baumgartner’s successful attempt at falling faster than the speed of sound while also successfully performing the highest skydive to date from a balloon-born gondola floating 39 kilometers above the earth is no mean feat indeed. With mentoring from the former high altitude skydiving record holder Joseph W. Kittinger, Baumgartner managed to immortalize his name on the record books on Sunday, October 14, 2012 over the skies of Roswell, New Mexico as his descent peaked at a little over 1,700 kilometers an hour for a record-setting skydive. So will his stunt be the beginnings of the new sport of extremely high altitude skydiving as part of the fledging space tourism trend?

 Though preparations for Baumgartner’s record-breaking stunt was several years in the making – even as far back as 2005 – the attempt was scrubbed a few days before Sunday’s attempt due to the inclement weather over Roswell. And even though critics of his stunt question the lasting value of his “bravado”, Baumgartner’s survival gear that he used in his record-breaking feat can provide very valuable aerospace medicine data on bailing out form high-performance aircraft and spacecraft from extreme altitudes. Remember the Space Shuttle Columbia’s tragic reentry accident? NASA would in the near future start equipping their spacecrafts with escape systems and pressure suits modeled after the one Baumgartner used in his record breaking high altitude jump. So the benefits and potential commercial applications of Felix Baumgartner’s record breaking stunt could benefit more than extreme sports enthusiasts and space tourists.    

Even though there are still only a handful of people who had bailed out and made a parachute jump above the famed “Armstrong Line” – i.e. a region in the earth’s atmosphere above 63,000 feet where the prevailing atmospheric pressure is so low that water, and this means water in your blood, boils at room temperature – they had managed to blaze a trail that both inspired and guided Felix Baumgartner in his recent extremely high altitude skydiving and supersonic freefall attempt. Balloon flights had often spearheaded important developments in aerospace medicine. Among the outstanding was the November 11, 1935 balloon ascent of O.A. Anderson and A.W. Stevens, then sponsored by the National Geographic Society and the U.S. Army Air Corps that reached an altitude of 72,395 feet; Though Anderson and Stevens could not have survived if they bailed out at that altitude because a working pressure suit that could work at such altitudes is yet to be invented.

On August 19, 1957, the then Major David G. Simons – a U.S. Air Force physician – ascended to an altitude of 101,516 feet in a sealed cabin gondola and remained at high altitude for 32 hours and 10 minutes. On August 16, 1960 then Captain Joseph W. Kittinger, Jr. – who mentored Felix Baumgartner’s recent record breaking attempt – ascended to an altitude of 102,800 feet and bailed out, free falling some 6,000 feet before a small stabilization parachute opened at about 96,000 feet. At a level above 90,000 feet, Kittinger reached a peak speed of 614 miles per hour – just a few notches shy of falling supersonic. At 16,500 feet, Kittinger’s 28-foot parachute canopy opened for his final descent. Kittinger’s free fall had taken 4 minutes 38 seconds and his total elapsed time from bail-out to ground was 13 minutes and 45 seconds. Around the time of Major Simons’ and Captain Kittinger’s then record breaking jump, pressure suits and helmets that allowed them to survive their record breaking attempts as well as the automatic parachute-opening devices were already invented due to developments in aviation medicine and associated sciences during that time. 

Remembering Neil Armstrong

Even though President Obama called him the hero of all time, will Neil Armstrong be the greatest astronaut who ever lived for the foreseeable future? 

By: Ringo Bones 

 

Given that NASA’s budget has been slashed so much that they can’t afford a manned mission to the Moon anytime soon, it looks like Neil Armstrong will serve as our greatest astronaut for awhile. Sadly, Neil Armstrong passed away back in Saturday, August 25, 2012, aged 82 after complications following heart surgery. And yet he will forever be remembered for uttering the iconic phrase: “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind when he became the first man to walk on the Moon’s surface. 

It was 10:56 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, July 20, 1969 when Neil Armstrong – serving as the commander of the Apollo 11 mission - became the first man to set foot on the Moon. At the time, he had the biggest audience ever to see any event. But what the TV watchers from all across the globe didn’t know then was how narrowly disaster had been averted during the landing six hours earlier. The flimsy Lunar Module named Eagle was being directed to touchdown by the craft’s computer / automatic pilot which, unseeing, aimed the craft straight into a rock-filled crater. With only seconds to spare, Armstrong seized control of the craft and piloted Eagle to a safe spot in a dramatic demonstration of the human role in space exploration. 

Once suited up and out on the Moon, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin quickly disproved fears that conditions on the Moon would interfere with their work. “I say the rocks are rather slippery.” Aldrin radioed back to Earth. “About to loose my balance in one direction but recovery is quite natural and very easy.” The low Lunar gravity – one sixth that of Earth  - turned out to be an advantage and the astronauts soon delighted television watchers with long, graceful leaps, made possible by their reduced body weight, as they carried out their serious scientific work. 

After spending 21 hours on the Moon with their mission accomplished, Armstrong and Aldrin blasted off on the upper half of the LEM to rendezvous with Michael Collins piloting the Earth-return vehicle, leaving behind two instruments, a heap of abandoned gear and a stainless steel plaque inscribed: “We came in peace for all mankind.” 

Before becoming an astronaut, Neil Armstrong flew 78 combat missions on an F-86 Saber during the Korean War. Then he went on to become a test pilot for NASA and even managed to fly one of the X-15 rocket planes before being accepted into the Apollo program. 

After the success of the Apollo mission, Armstrong more or less lived on quietly as a tenured professor at the Cincinnati University. And back in July 20, 2009 during the 40^th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing, he and fellow astronauts, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins were invited by President Obama to the White House. 

Rockoons: A More Economical Way To Launch Payloads Into Space?

Given that it was successfully tested as far back as 1952, should private aerospace firms be considering using “rockoons” as an economical way to launch payloads into Earth orbit? 

By: Ringo Bones 

As far back as the end of World War II, every well-informed rocketeer / aerospace engineer knows that it takes 100-lb. of fuel to put 1-lb. of payload into Earth orbit. And rocket fuel didn’t get any cheaper since the years when the U.S. government desperately wants to send the first artificial satellite into orbit. Fast forward to the second decade of the 21^st Century where it is now economically viable for privately-owned aerospace firms to play the role as contractors to send payloads to earth orbit – as into the International Space Station – in an economically viable manner. Does this mean that “aerospace contractors” should be considering a technique from the 1950s to “cheaply” launch payloads into Earth orbit via “rockoons” or balloon-born rockets? 

Back in the early 1950s where the U.S. government was very desperate to beat the then Soviet Union to be the first to launch the first artificial satellite, various payload launching techniques from the whimsical to the sublime, were considered. Among the many experimental rocket techniques tried by the scientists who worked at White Sands at the time was the adaptation of a proposal long discussed by rocket pioneers but never before tested. Dr. James A. Van Allen revived the idea and proposed for actually testing it. Dr. Van Allen proposed using a balloon to carry a rocket – or a rocket-type launch vehicle – into the thin upper atmosphere, and launching the missile from there. A rocket so fired would be spared the difficult flight through the dense part of the atmosphere, and would therefore achieve a much greater altitude. Dr. Van Allen assigned the name “rockoon” to this device.

Then in 1952, a test launch was performed that performed extremely well and scaled-up rockets up to 13 feet long were launched in this fashion. In fact it was so successful that for a time scientists seriously considered using balloons to carry large three-stage rockets aloft for the purpose of putting a satellite into orbit. By 1955, tenured “rocketeers” even proposed a rockoon system that carried a 13,500-pound rocket to 15 miles via balloon before firing the first-stage engines. The first stage would drive the payload to 20 miles, the second to 200 and the third would put a 30-pound payload into orbit. Sadly, the idea was dropped when better rocket boosters were developed several years later. But does this mean that the concept is flawed form an economic standpoint? 

The two most iconic aircraft of historical significance in the annals of aviation were carried to the upper atmosphere to lessen their burden of achieving the speed records they are pursuing. The first aircraft to break the sound barrier – the Bell X-1 – was dropped from a B-29 mother ship at 35, 000-feet before it can achieve the feat of flying faster than the speed of sound; as with the X-15 which was carried to 35,000 feet by its B-52 mother ship to 35,000 feet before it can achieve a speed record of flying six times the speed of sound. So launching rocket-propelled payloads from the vantage point of the upper atmosphere does make sense from both an engineering and economical standpoint.