Last week, Britain released its new 'UK Civil Space Strategy: 2008-2012 and beyond' and stated that they are revisiting a 1986 decision not to train British astronauts.

Although a member state of the European Space Agency, Britain has long abstained from supporting ESA's human spaceflight missions. That is why ESA never trains or flies British astronauts. (Three Brits with dual citizenship have trained and flown with NASA, and UK citizen Helen Sharman won a contest to fly to Mir in 1991).

The new strategy document recognizes the £7 billion that space puts into the British economy and calls for the opening of an international space facility in Harwell, Oxfordshire to focus on climate change, robotic space exploration and space applications, and closer involvement in international exploration of the moon, Mars and beyond -- a promising development for British human space exploration hopefuls.

Continue reading "British Astronauts? Austin Powers Says "Yeah, Baby!"" »

For the last several years, scientists have been discovering new planets elsewhere in the universe at an astonishing rate. Now a group of researchers who have surveyed a large group of stars similar to our own Sun say that potentially life-supporting rocky planets may in fact be extremely common in the Milky Way, circling anywhere from 20 percent to 60 percent of Sun-like stars.

Using the Spitzer Space Telescope, the researchers looked for signs of hot dust at distances plausible for planet formation around various stars, categorized by age.

They found that warm dust at that distance was relatively common around stars that were 10 million to 20 million years old, but that it fell off almost entirely by the time stars were about 300 million years old.

Continue reading "Researchers: Stars with Rocky Planets May Be Common" »

Yesterday the Pentagon held a press conference revealing plans to "shoot down" the non-responsive US spy satellite that will be crashing back down to Earth at the end of February or early March.

Why? The Pentagon is saying that the on board hydrazine (a commonly used rocket fuel) would endanger anyone within two football fields of where the satellite crashes and the satellite must be destroyed for "safety" reasons. Seems fair enough, but there is enough about this to raise a few eyebrows.

First, the Space Shuttle Columbia, and many other disabled satellites, reentered the atmosphere carrying hydrazine and didn't cause a problem. Hydrazine is nasty stuff, but like ammonia you have to be near it and breathing it in to get hurt. It is not like Chernobyl. The release from the government last month claimed that there was very little risk from the falling satellite. Why the change of story now? The odds of it hitting ocean which is under 70% of its track haven't changed.

Is this just "chest beating," letting China know that we have anti-satellite (ASAT) capabillities too? Or is it a chance for the military to get in a controversial ASAT test at an opportune time (turning the failed spy satellite "lemon" into ASAT test "lemonade" for the pro-space weapons community)?

Continue reading "United States To Use Falling Satellite for Target Practice" »

Twitter feeds, Second Life based attendees, and post Apollo birthdates were the norm at a unique NASA Ames hosted conference this week.

For many of the young rocket scientists, engineers and scientists, often older than those who ran the Apollo Mission Control Center, it was their first time not being the youngest person in the room.

The speakers included Buzz Aldrin, second man to walk on the moon; Doug Comstock of NASA Headquarters; Taber McCallum, of Paragon Space Development Corporation; Bob Richards of the Google Lunar X Prize Team, Odyssey Moon; and NASA Astronauts Pam Melroy and Scott Parazynski.

Continue reading "NASA Hosts Next Generation Exploration Conference" »

You've heard of astronaut ice cream. But here's real proof of the globalization of space exploration: South Korean food researchers have developed a space-friendly kimchi for the country's first astronaut, who is slated to launch later this year.

Ko San, a 30-year-old computer science engineer, will be part of a Russian Soyuz mission scheduled for April, and will spend about a week on the International Space Station, doing various experiments. So naturally, the country's food scientists got to work on supplies.

Kimchi (which is a very spicy pickled cabbage dish, and a Korean culinary staple) normally contains lactic acid bacteria for the fermentation process. But researchers were concerned that the bacteria could prove to be a health risk in space, since other bacterias have proved to be more virulent in zero-gravity conditions.

Continue reading "Koreans Develop Space-Safe Kimchi For First Astronaut" »

Before we get too excited here, let's remember. There's still an energy problem. Global warming, too. Nobody's going to be importing oil substitutes from Titan anytime soon.

That said, data from the Cassini probe orbiting Saturn has shown that the ringed planet's moon has "hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth," according to research reported in the Geophysical Research Letters. The stuff is literally falling from the sky.

Lakes are scattered across the moon, with each of several dozen holding more hydrocarbon liquid – largely in the form of methane and ethane -- than all of Earth's oil and gas reserves.

Continue reading "Titan's Organic Hydrocarbons Dwarf Earth's Oil Reserves" »

Mission Specialist Leland Melvin, a former NFL football player, picked up the European Columbus lab out of the Space Shuttle cargo bay and maneuvered it on its two hour journey to dock on the right side of the Harmony connecting node Monday.

A lot of people breathed a sigh of relief when the module was finally safely in place.

That wasn't the first time Melvin had come through in a pinch. At his high school homecoming football game a recruiter from the University of Richmond watched as Melvin let a long pass slip through his fingers in the end zone. Melvin's coach who believed in him said, "let's run the play again."

The recruiter, who was leaving the stadium, heard the crowd cheering and turned to see Melvin in the end zone having just caught the game winning touchdown. The recruiter said, "Wow, he was able to come back from such a horrific failure in front of all his friends. He was able to overcome that." Melvin got the scholarship and graduated from the University of Richmond with a degree in chemistry.

Continue reading "Only NFL Astronaut Scores Touchdown on Rookie Flight" »

Astronauts opened the hatch on the newly installed, European-supplied Columbus laboratory module on the International Space Station this morning. After being delayed many years, including the recovery time after Columbia, the European Space Agency (ESA) finally got their own on orbit real estate.

French astronaut Leopold Eyharts was the first to enter the lab after ISS Commander Peggy Whitson opened the hatch. An initial check out showed that all systems were 'go.' "Tomorrow morning, we get the electricians and the plumbers in to hook us up," Alan Thirkettle, station program manager for ESA joked.

How would you celebrate a brand new lab space? By scheduling time to get more astronauts on board!  Plans are for the International Space Station crews to go from three to six crew members starting in May 2009 when Belgian astronaut Frank De Winne, Canadian astronaut Robert Thirsk Frisk and cosmonaut Yuri Lonchakov launch on a Soyuz and meet up with Expedition 19.

Continue reading "Columbus Space Station Lab, Open for Business" »

No surprise here, but it’s still worth watching: At a disarmament conference in Geneva today, Russian and Chinese diplomats proposed a new draft treaty that would ban the deployment of space-based weapons.

The two countries have been pushing for talks on this issue since the beginning of the decade, largely against resistance from the United States. Which is a shame.

Sure, it’s true that the United States has a technological lead that could allow it to dominate this field for some time. Our potential rivals want to mute this lead. But what if this isn't such a bad idea after all?

Continue reading "Russia, China Propose Space Arms Treaty" »

According to this BBC article, European space officials are redesigning their planned ExoMars mission, hoping to substantially increase the planned capabilities. But that means nearly doubling the cost of the mission, an idea that has yet to be officially submitted to Europe's finance ministers.

The original concept for the ExoMars mission was to develop a rover that could roll across the Martian surface looking for signs of past or present biological life, and help researchers draw conclusions about the possibility of life developing on other planets. The data returned would complement that being gathered by the NASA rovers currently on the surface.

But over three years of development, it has become clear that the scientific goals for the project have expanded. Officials now say it is essentially a different mission altogether, and thus needs a new name, and a new budget. Here's European Space Agency head Jean Jacques Dordain, as quoted by the BBC:

Continue reading "Europe's Mars Mission Being Rethought, Renamed" »

How's this for a travel itinerary: First stop, Lake Mendota in Wisconsin. Then a little trip under a frozen Antarctic lake, and finally a blowout finish under the icy seas of the Jovian moon Europa.

That's roughly the plan for the Environmentally Non-Disturbing Under-ice Robotic Antarctic Explorer (ENDURANCE) probe, a NASA-funded project designed to make 3D maps of underwater environments, take microbial samples and gather other data on difficult-to-reach depths.

Beginning tomorrow, the researchers are running four days of tests in a cold lake on the University of Wisconsin, Madison's campus, making sure the little probe actually performs as designed underwater. They'll then send the robotic submarine to the permanently ice-covered West Lake Bonney, in the Antarctic McMurdo Dry Valleys.

Continue reading "Underwater Robot Test is Practice for Jovian Moon" »

European astronaut Hans Schlegel had to take a sick day while the Space Shuttle was docked to the International Space Station. Schlegel was scheduled to do the first EVA spacewalk but instead is helping crew mate Stanley Love suit up and do the EVA in his place. The EVA slipped 24 hours due to the medical issue and is now scheduled to begin at 9:35 EST Monday February 11th.

This is Schlegel's third flight on the Space Shuttle and this is the first time I have heard of an EVA being slipped for medical reasons (does anyone know of a previous time?). The European Space Agency put out a short note on the situation yesterday.

The EVA will prepare the European laboratory module Columbus for mating with the Space Station. Schlegel is still expected to be well enough to perform his second EVA as scheduled.

Continue reading "European Lab Makes It To Space, European Astronaut Not Feeling Well" »

Bigelow is nearing an agreement with Lockheed Martin to buy launch services on a to-be-human-rated Atlas V 401 launch vehicle. It is a very reliable rocket, lacking the added complication of solid rocket boosters of the larger Atlas V's. The smallest Atlas V, the 401 is capable of lifting 12,500 kg to low Earth orbit.

For comparison, the Gemini capsule, which held two people, weighed 3,400 kg and the new NASA Orion capsule design, which can carry six people, will weigh at least 18,500 kg when fully tricked out for the moon. (think 1968 Beetle vs. Cadillac Escalade...)

The Atlas V 401 has had five successful launches since its first launch in 2002, including the NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the New Horizons mission.

This means there are three parallel, funded development paths for human orbital transportation in the United States: Atlas V, Falcon 9 (SpaceX) and the Ares I (NASA). Bigelow's release claims the human rated Atlas V will begin operations in 2012.

According to a New Scientist article, experts say there are no major technical or bureaucratic hurdles to human rating the Atlas V 401.

Continue reading "Bigelow Working With Lockheed to Human Rate the Atlas V" »

It's true, there's been a spate of NASA marketing advice here lately, but this time the agency is actually asking for help.

The agency is calling for the public to submit names for a new space-based gamma-ray telescope that will be launched in mid-2008. For now it's known as the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, or GLAST, which don't get me wrong, is plenty catchy, but surely you all can do better.

Mission leaders are hoping a good name will help raise the mission's profile. Here's Alan Stern, associate administrator for science at NASA's Washington headquarters:

"We're looking for name suggestions that will capture the excitement of GLAST’s mission and call attention to gamma-ray and high-energy astronomy ... We hope someone will come up with a name that is catchy, easy to say and will help make the satellite and its mission a topic of dinner table and classroom discussion."

Continue reading "NASA Wants You to Name Its New Telescope" »

State investigators in California say Scaled Composites, the commercial spaceflight company responsible for building the X-Prize winning SpaceShipOne, and Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, is at fault for the fatalities that occurred in a construction site explosion last year.

The explosion took place last July, during tests of a new nitrous oxide-based engine for Virgin's planned rocket plane. Three people were killed, and three others critically injured.

According to an investigation by the California Department of Industrial Relations, the company did not take adequate precautions in training workers and supervisors on the dangers of nitrous oxide.

Continue reading "State Faults SpaceShipTwo Builder for Blast Fatalities" »

At long last, almost two months after initially scheduled, the Atlantis space shuttle lifted off today, as part of an 11-day mission that will bring the European Columbus science lab to the International Space Station.

NASA officials had feared that the same storms that sent tornadoes twisting through the southern United States would stall over Florida today, delaying the launch further. But in fact, conditions proved to be acceptable for launch.

The shuttle will reach the ISS on Saturday, followed by three separate spacewalks that will let astronauts connect the Columbus module. The lab will host a variety of experiments requiring either zero gravity, or vacuum conditions.

Continue reading "After Long Delays, Atlantis Shuttle Launches" »

German researchers published a new theory that helps explain observations of water vapor and ice being shot hundreds of kilometers into space by cryo- volcanoes on the surface of the tiny Saturnian moon of Enceladus.

What was troubling about the observations was that the ice crystals ejected from the volcanoes were traveling "far slower" than the water vapor. The new model postulates that the heavier ice crystals are losing momentum due to friction with the sides of the funnels as they are pushed to the surface. The lighter water vapor breezes through undeterred...

The surface temperature of Enceladus is
-193 degrees C and the stripes are -133 degrees C, which supports the theory that the water is being heated in the subsurface due to tidal heating (variable gravitational pushing and pulling) from Saturn as well as nearby moons Janus and Dione.

Continue reading "Case Builds for Water on Saturnian Moon of Enceladus" »

Can someone please give this shuttle launch a break? Forecasters are saying the storms that have spawned tornadoes across the U.S. south will hit Florida tomorrow, the day the Atlantis shuttle is finally supposed to take off.

Chances of rain, clouds or lightning delaying the launch were raised from 60 percent to 70 percent this morning, NASA said.

The shuttle was supposed to launch early last December, carrying the European Columbus science module to the International Space Station, but a series of faulty fuel gauges kept the craft on the ground.

Conditions look better later in the week, with a 60 percent chance of acceptable weather on Friday, and a 70 percent chance of launch-friendly skies on Saturday.

The good news, the agency says, is that the shuttle itself shows no technical issues this time around, and liftoff preparation is continuing as normal.

Continue reading "Storms Threaten Long-Delayed Shuttle Launch" »

Yesterday, the White House released their 2009 NASA budget that Congress will amend, rework and hopefully pass by the end of the 2008 fiscal year. You can see some responsiveness to the science and environmental communities with increased dollars for the science directorate and two additional climate change monitoring missions added in.

In Washington DC, rather than watch the groundhog in February to see what the future holds, we watch what the President sends to Congress for NASA's budget...

Funding for the human lunar missions, the COTS program (which invests lightly in alternative commercial paths to Low Earth Orbit), and fulfilling our international commitments remained intact.

Continue reading "2009 NASA Budget: Moon Missions on Track with Science and Climate Change Thrown In" »

The Associated Press reports that Iran has opened a new space center, and launched a rocket that – at least according to the country's state TV – has reached space.

What that means remains a matter for some debate. A similar rocket launched by Iran last April didn't make orbital height. Iranian State TV reported today that the Explorer-1 rocket was "launched into space," and that the country has thus "joined the world's top 11 countries possessing space technology to build satellites, and launch rockets into space." 

Continue reading "Iran Launches Rocket, Claims Seat In Spacefaring-Nations Club" »