British Food: The Ideal Space Food?

Despite most Americans joking about Victorian Era British food as the “worst tasting gourmet food ever”, is British food the ideal provision for long-term space missions?

By: Ringo Bones

Most Americans might joke all they want behind the double-entendre of the iconic British pastry called spotted dick, but if British astronaut Major Timothy Peake gets his wishes, the “British Taste” could gain as much worldwide favor as the “British Sound” did in the global hi-fi world. UK Astronaut Timothy Peake has recently raised a competition among British middle-school students to improve his “space meals” for his deployment onto the International Space Station scheduled for 2015. In response to the challenge, the British students already had recently produced a number of potential “British space food” prototypes for Timothy Peake’s meals for the ISS next year.

According to Timothy Peake’s past experiences while training to become an astronaut in NASA, dehydrated food currently made my NASA currently consumed by astronauts working out their scientific experiments in the International Space Station are not exactly “gourmet tasting” – i.e. it tastes bland and seems to have a “life of its own” when it comes to texture. Were the provisions used on the British Antarctic Survey during the beginning of the 20^th Century tastes better than NASA’s current space food? Sadly, it is not just Major Timothy Peake that’s been complaining about NASA’s space food on the ISS.

Most astronauts that had served on the International Space Station – including the American ones – say that regular dehydrated freeze-dried food being served on the ISS isn’t as nice tasting as it should be. Given that one of the world’s greatest military geniuses, Napoleon Bonaparte, said that “an army marches on its stomach”, would there be eventually a space food revolution on the ISS? And this time, it was a Brit who fired the first shot?

Space Junk Cleaning Satellites, Anyone?

Given that space junk has now grown in number to threaten “commercial” activities in space, can a space junk clearing satellites provide a viable solution?

By: Ringo Bones

Since the launching of Sputnik and other related space faring satellites in the late 1950s, there are now about 12,000 objects in orbit that can be tracked by radar. Unfortunately objects 1 centimeter in diameter or smaller that can potentially damage commercial and manned spacecraft entering low earth orbit that can’t be tracked by ground based radar are believed to number around 750,000. Given these number of orbiting space debris or orbital space debris, it is now a statistical possibility that the International Space Station could experience a serious hull breaching collision by orbiting space junks once every 3 years. Would space junk capturing satellites be a viable solution of making the orbital space around our planet safer for both multi-million dollar commercial and scientific satellites – not to mention manned spacecraft?

The Clean Space family of satellites one prototype called Clean Space One had been developed and functional prototypes now exist. Designed by Herbert Shea and co designer Volter Grass of the Swiss Space Center uses an artificial muscle equipped robotic arm to grab non functioning satellites or satellites that have ended their service lives and drag them back down to lower orbit in order to burn up in the earth’s upper atmosphere. The main disadvantage of these satellites is that they are not reusable and they can “dispose” or clean up” only one satellite at a time – a single clean up mission could end up costing tens to hundreds of millions of dollars. Though improved prototypes based on the artificial muscle equipped robotic arm concept could someday clean up tiny debris with diameters of 1 centimeter or smaller that can be reusable by sending the recovered space junk to a manned mother-ship, as opposed to a burn-up reentry. Sadly, Ronald Reagan era "Star Wars" or Strategic Defense Initiative type laser based systems are still not powerful and reliable enough to clean up orbital space debris. 

Is NASA’s Terra Satellite Seeing Optical Illusions?

When the data of the sun-synchronous environmental research satellite showed that the Amazon Rain Forest was greener than it actually was during a drought proof that the NASA Terra satellite is plagued with an optical illusion? 

By: Ringo Bones

Ever since it was launched in Vandenberg Air force Base back in December 18, 1999, NASA’s Terra satellite was expected to be a warts-n’-all environmental science instruments that was expected to provide an “unbiased” environmental assessment of our planet’s most critically endangered ecosystems. But does the recently discovered “optical illusion” provided by the multi-million US dollar optics of the said satellite discovered by a team of scientists at Swansea University about to cast doubt the most recent scientific data about the extent of climate change and global warming? 

Professor Peter North of Swansea University in the UK was one of the consulted experts that checked out why NASA’s Terra satellite was seeing “optical illusions” given that it is an unbiased scientific instrument after providing data that the Amazon Rain Forest is greener than it actually does – even during times of recent prolonged unseasonable drought – despite scientists actually in the Amazon Rain Forest providing contradictory data “seen” by the Terra satellite. Professor North explains that it was due to the Terra satellite seeing the Amazon Rain Forest at a particular angle in its sun-synchronous orbit that made its advanced optics – despite of the satellite’s high-tech false color far infrared and deep ultraviolet capabilities - see as if the Amazon Rain Forest is greener than it actually is even in times of the recent prolonged drought that affected the environmentally sensitive region. 

Professor Danny McCarroll of Swansea University also states that the recent revelation that the Terra satellite is plagued by “optical illusions” could probably throw back all the research done so far on how “preventable” greenhouse gas emissions produced by our industrial activity thrown into the atmosphere affect our fragile climate. The Terra satellite data might be hijacked by climate change deniers who so far had resorted to conservative right-wing evangelical activism to disprove recent climate data supporting climate change and global warming. 

Olympic Torch in Space: A Prelude to Space Olympics?

With the Olympic Torch for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics in a six-hour sprint to the International Space Station, is this just a prelude for an eventual “Space Olympics”? 

By: Ringo Bones

After blasting off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, together with NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio and Koichi Wakata of Japan will be carrying the Olympic Torch slated for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics up to the low-Earth orbit of the International Space Station for a first-ever space-walk with the Olympic Torch in a literally out-of-this world venue. Even though the Olympic Torch will be tethered for safety reasons to whomever be carrying it for an EVA (extra-vehicular activity – i.e. space-walk) this Saturday, it would be the first time ever in the history of the Olympic Games that the torch has taken an “out-of-this –world-route” en route to its venue for the opening ceremonies of the next year’s Winter Olympic Games. But will it also signal for a first ever “Space Olympics”? 

Imagine new legitimate Olympic events like “Weightless Rhythmic Gymnastics” of “Weightless Wrestling” or any other Olympic games performed in the weightless environment of low Earth orbit like that of the International Space Station. Would the launching of the Olympic torch for a space-walk eventually inspire the beginnings of the “Space Olympiad”? 

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.