tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5910671511037898432024-02-19T08:13:02.224-08:00Strait of MagellanA small blog for marine navigation, astronomy, space exploration, Project Orion (DARPA's "100-year starship"), meteorology, boating and matters pertaining to maritime education and the maritime industry.
I am a USCG licensed captain, and an instructor at a number of maritime schools in the Seattle area.Captain Robert Reederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14500768952960978516noreply@blogger.comBlogger370125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-591067151103789843.post-74215015941420891582020-12-09T16:54:00.001-08:002020-12-09T16:54:24.728-08:00Fly like an Eagle...but don't land like oneSpaceX Starship prototype SN8 had a (mostly) very successful first high-altitude test flight today, on (mostly) three engines.<br>Because most of the press today is a bit fixated on the final few seconds of the flight, I'm instead posting a photo from when it was still flying nominally. It was, in all, a very good test flight. And yes, in future flights, SpaceX will certainly improve on the final few seconds of flight as well, because they're also super important. <br><br><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFB5JcKwcTZbEZkUXESA5yxrBqLrTZJbPj1b9bBLTmNQPY-YuaiEJLc8kRlmbQvjRmgZsvBtkAxaYLCNGPB-Uq8p8L5x779HkkMqGNeXeAIZLVqLoy-omFDYtjgIPqBdCWshE5PJYcAJk/s639/LBeRemdNEPJc4F9fzVwBk7-1200-80.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="639" data-original-width="529" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFB5JcKwcTZbEZkUXESA5yxrBqLrTZJbPj1b9bBLTmNQPY-YuaiEJLc8kRlmbQvjRmgZsvBtkAxaYLCNGPB-Uq8p8L5x779HkkMqGNeXeAIZLVqLoy-omFDYtjgIPqBdCWshE5PJYcAJk/s320/LBeRemdNEPJc4F9fzVwBk7-1200-80.jpg"/></a></div>Captain Robert Reederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14500768952960978516noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-591067151103789843.post-7976476825021918272020-12-05T23:24:00.000-08:002020-12-05T23:24:09.491-08:00Hayabusa2 ReturnsJapan's JAXA Hayabusa2 spacecraft has returned with pristine surface samples from the asteroid Ryugu. A cannister from the spacecraft parachuted to southern Australia earlier today.<br><br><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1WHG0tM9vr6Zvh_8cgbA7P-HmDq4pvJj1aKGaL3f-PFwNh5J92wwXxy1h8M-vax1nhxRbj9w2yCn2W-PDHu20nAzzKI8xTzgeL9G7BSX_4ABKbU-5HdXXUjcm1KIHqNwyI4APrcPBr6c/s921/ryugu.bmp" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="571" data-original-width="921" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1WHG0tM9vr6Zvh_8cgbA7P-HmDq4pvJj1aKGaL3f-PFwNh5J92wwXxy1h8M-vax1nhxRbj9w2yCn2W-PDHu20nAzzKI8xTzgeL9G7BSX_4ABKbU-5HdXXUjcm1KIHqNwyI4APrcPBr6c/s320/ryugu.bmp"/></a></div>Captain Robert Reederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14500768952960978516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-591067151103789843.post-88922604000581336612020-12-03T22:13:00.000-08:002020-12-03T22:13:28.354-08:00Rock On, Chang'eAt 7:10am PST today, China's Chang'e 5 lander lifted off from the moon, bringing back 2 kilograms of rock samples from Oceanus Procellarum. This is the first lunar sample return since the Soviet Luna 24 mission to Mare Crisium in 1976. <br><br><br><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuguIPCPeMfnk_mYAKp1hwrjmJ_oqd_2RznXZodqi1FKdof68MUpWlUZCGyRaG_6VGNO605kWUdjCkmgKsV1TUvl7iFaKdKmhAG8JV7srSGL_LI6XDtW0tKf-fitR3TaBKkx1THwcS1KY/s656/chang+e.bmp" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="408" data-original-width="656" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuguIPCPeMfnk_mYAKp1hwrjmJ_oqd_2RznXZodqi1FKdof68MUpWlUZCGyRaG_6VGNO605kWUdjCkmgKsV1TUvl7iFaKdKmhAG8JV7srSGL_LI6XDtW0tKf-fitR3TaBKkx1THwcS1KY/s320/chang+e.bmp"/></a></div>Captain Robert Reederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14500768952960978516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-591067151103789843.post-91046165450717564612020-12-01T21:37:00.006-08:002020-12-01T21:41:34.334-08:00Arecibo Telescope, 1963-2020<br>57 years. A pretty good run. <br><br><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8QgHksVWQgWhQSuHlUtdT51E8oKPqQ2aDrN1kLdcLrWZPprSidQ5M02NEWvyHxCzodgABSkXWxRkiopc486J2kifSZfKbDOIck9xXry3foAWEg3iSuAYJojMsx591QO_SmzICadhuOFg/s1030/111920_LG_arecibo_feat.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="580" data-original-width="1030" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8QgHksVWQgWhQSuHlUtdT51E8oKPqQ2aDrN1kLdcLrWZPprSidQ5M02NEWvyHxCzodgABSkXWxRkiopc486J2kifSZfKbDOIck9xXry3foAWEg3iSuAYJojMsx591QO_SmzICadhuOFg/s320/111920_LG_arecibo_feat.jpg"/></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjABGvufCiBoH8OwMmbenNJ_QV6el4g89JEqlG4hiFlyEZcglYaXGezh7Piqe4HgvHVB2agBemb0qOYoiYJwgdy88xKawEXdBD2WtPn6nOxYLEN9MkFsTuaoX0wg-IZWVNq-UiuJ8LeIXs/s640/R3isUwMTZYtsmDL6E5ar9E-970-80.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjABGvufCiBoH8OwMmbenNJ_QV6el4g89JEqlG4hiFlyEZcglYaXGezh7Piqe4HgvHVB2agBemb0qOYoiYJwgdy88xKawEXdBD2WtPn6nOxYLEN9MkFsTuaoX0wg-IZWVNq-UiuJ8LeIXs/s320/R3isUwMTZYtsmDL6E5ar9E-970-80.jpg"/></a></div><br><br>Captain Robert Reederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14500768952960978516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-591067151103789843.post-11756540545334590802020-11-30T18:53:00.001-08:002020-11-30T21:28:40.613-08:00Rip van WinkleWow. It's been five years since I posted anything here. Did I miss anything?<br>
Yeah, apparently. Crew Dragon has successfully gotten astronauts to the International Space Station and back, the US Navy has confirmed the existence of UFOs, and we went through an entire presidency. And there's a pandemic?<br>
Okay, well, let me get some coffee going, and see where we go from here.Captain Robert Reederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14500768952960978516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-591067151103789843.post-23938152272740019492015-08-24T22:08:00.001-07:002015-08-24T22:12:01.591-07:00The Darkest PlaceThe European Space Agency has for about a decade researched the concept of a "hyper telescope," under the name Exo Earth Imager. EEI would be a fleet of 150 orbital 3-meter mirrors, spread across about 8,000 square kilometers of space, and synchronized to reflect and magnify the image of an earth-sized planet in orbit around a distant star, with high enough resolution to discern oceans, continents, forests, deserts and even major river basins. Maintaining the mirrors in their relative orbits with the level of precision needed would be challenging at least. Not insurmountably so, but certainly not trivial.
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A possible solution for this is to instead mount the mirrors on a fixed surface. There have already been proposals for building large telescopes on the far side of the moon, shielded from terrestrial radio interference. NASA has even demonstrated that large astronomy-grade mirrors can be constructed in-situ from lunar regolith. A telescope of this scale would have many applications and purposes besides viewing exoplanets, but this would be its primary purpose.
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I would like to propose that instead of the lunar far-side, a better location for an optical (and maybe radio as well) telescope would be inside the basin of Peary crater. I've discussed the unique properties of Peary in this blog previously, in the context of human colonization. But briefly, Peary crater, by virtue of being situated on the north pole, has the triple virtue of a basin which is constantly in darkness and protected from solar radiation, a rim that is in constant sunlight for solar power, and a substantial amount of water ice on the floor of the basin. Shackleton crater on the lunar south pole is similar in many respects, and would similarly be an excellent site for this; however Peary is about 80 km in diameter and Shackleton is only about 20 km, so Peary would afford space for a much larger telescope.
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2ilzPt5AT15ZDmXC3YOv-Ow-TJX_sOjDjT4kQTuSB_PRYnB2QOXOnf7jfhyphenhyphen1OqAw_fOSQdxTwc2-MxQmatIk42UdCCjvGjx43p_Uouw_ZvsHaNrRVLOo3DQ7r0b7FTuPINQdlvMJOHmE/s1600/Peary_%2528LOLA%2529.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2ilzPt5AT15ZDmXC3YOv-Ow-TJX_sOjDjT4kQTuSB_PRYnB2QOXOnf7jfhyphenhyphen1OqAw_fOSQdxTwc2-MxQmatIk42UdCCjvGjx43p_Uouw_ZvsHaNrRVLOo3DQ7r0b7FTuPINQdlvMJOHmE/s400/Peary_%2528LOLA%2529.png" /></a></div>
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Because the basin is always "aimed" at the moon's northern sky, and the same part of the sky is always visible throughout the month and throughout the year, very detailed long-term observations could be made unhindered of this part of the sky. Yes it would be limited to only this part of the sky; however, many space-based telescopes, including NASA's Kepler Space Telescope, have similarly limited fields of view.
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And yes, a small astronomical observation outpost and research facility could provide the seed of a human colony in Peary crater as well. In later posts we'll be discussing the advantages of establishing a lunar colony over either Mars, Venus or orbital stations; a moon-based space telescope (at whatever location) could be a very good beginning to a robust lunar city. Captain Robert Reederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14500768952960978516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-591067151103789843.post-1386167752616678412015-07-13T23:31:00.000-07:002015-07-13T23:33:14.911-07:00Pluto Day!!!
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp0vmi8TzirbHnjlwLJq5zyy9vA9-D5yoiAnsanxGpHuCS7-VJ-fvvWaocQu6bkL4SXMmxHx_l90Oshys6RfMueiRm-Id7AAqt4svQC8fya-Ncv90OjjNCu8RYBgIQ9L4-qRWoL3pANOI/s1600/nh-color-pluto-charon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp0vmi8TzirbHnjlwLJq5zyy9vA9-D5yoiAnsanxGpHuCS7-VJ-fvvWaocQu6bkL4SXMmxHx_l90Oshys6RfMueiRm-Id7AAqt4svQC8fya-Ncv90OjjNCu8RYBgIQ9L4-qRWoL3pANOI/s320/nh-color-pluto-charon.jpg" /></a></div>
Some of us have been waiting a really long time for the New Horizons flyby of Pluto (it launched almost a decade ago). However, what we are going to see today is basically NOTHING, other than an endless string of NASA press conferences about how they don't have anything to tell or show us.
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New Horizons must first be aimed at Pluto (and it's companion planet Charon; apparently NASA has officially stopped calling it a "moon") in order to get photographs and other data during the flyby. Closest point of approach to Pluto will be at 4:49am pdt, but it will continue photographing and collecting data on Pluto for at least several hours after the flyby. Then New Horizons will realign itself to aim its antenna back toward earth. It will first send a short ping to tell the mission team that the spacecraft made it through the Pluto system without mishap, and that the data was collected and is safely in NH's memory banks. This ping will take about four and a half hours to travel from Pluto back to Earth at the speed of light.
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Then New Horizons will begin transmitting its preliminary data package. These will include low resolution (about the quality of a JPEG) images of Pluto and Charon during the flyby. Due to the highly attenuated signal crossing some three billion kilometers of interplanetary space, the baud rate of the transmissions will be maddeningly slow. Once received on earth they must be processed and analyzed.
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Wednesday (15 July) at noon pdt, NASA will hold a press conference and release the first series of low resolution photos. This is the first new NASA press conference for this mission that will have any real information in it. High resolution photos are forthcoming, but will take about nine months to arrive.Captain Robert Reederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14500768952960978516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-591067151103789843.post-30363313344804901142015-06-28T17:53:00.000-07:002015-06-28T17:53:21.969-07:00Childhood's End<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsHtNJlfy8nPfWQI01DviK5wxK_sw3koD-nFrYK-7hra3-G6zcZQtgLijjKqB-PyMdklvkUGX8c1y0k5hlw-DT-RoXrzFZ_y_gS5eOoPw5M412bqdzGeC265GoebW_Lb9H9ZEOyK9iVwU/s1600/falcon+9+explosion+28june2015.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsHtNJlfy8nPfWQI01DviK5wxK_sw3koD-nFrYK-7hra3-G6zcZQtgLijjKqB-PyMdklvkUGX8c1y0k5hlw-DT-RoXrzFZ_y_gS5eOoPw5M412bqdzGeC265GoebW_Lb9H9ZEOyK9iVwU/s320/falcon+9+explosion+28june2015.png" /></a></div>
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There's a lot going on right now in the realm of space exploration. The Dawn mission to Ceres is getting very interesting, the New Horizons mission will reach Pluto and Charon in two weeks; this is all huge, and I haven't posted anything here at all about any of it for a couple of months, due mostly to simple writer's block. Sad about that, and hoping to do better.
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So, this morning the SpaceX CRS-7 Dragon/Falcon 9 cargo mission to the International Space Station failed. Notably it was the third failure of a cargo vessel to the ISS in the past eight months, after the Orbital ATK Antares back in October and the Russian Progress 59 in April. In the scheme of such things, this really is not a big deal. The ISS crew have enough provisions until October, and there's another Progress flight scheduled for this Friday. Nobody was hurt, and out of nineteen total Falcon 9 launches since 2010, one catastrophic failure is right at the 5% failure rate which is the rough median for orbital launches.
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So, why does this feel like such a monumental blow to the commercial space program, and to spaceflight in general? Rockets explode, it's one of the things they do. When the Antares exploded, spectacularly, last fall, it made the news of course, and people speculated about whether or not Orbital would survive. But nobody speculated about whether or not spaceflight itself would survive. That would have been crazy. But today I've seen that speculation in the media, in chat rooms and other online forums, in all kinds of places that are populated by people who actually understand spaceflight. In the NASA press briefing this morning you could feel that current as well, even though they did a very good job of presenting the rational analysis of this being just another rocket explosion. You could even see it in Charlie Bolden's demeanor this morning. I felt it too.
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The difference is not in the scope or magnitude of the loss of the Falcon 9 rocket. We lose rockets. The difference is that this is SpaceX.
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For several years now there has grown an idea that the brilliant Elon Musk was doing what no other entity had ever been able to do before. That the founder of Pay Pal was somehow smarter than all of the engineers at NASA, Roscosmos, ESA, Boeing or Lockheed, and had figured out how to make spaceflight safe and affordable when all of the others had failed. With each successful Falcon 9 flight this became easier to believe, largely because we really wanted to believe it. Even Musk's competitors watched him to see if they could emulate his success.
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Underlying this was sometimes a sense that SpaceX didn't know what they didn't know, and that through trial and error they would eventually come to look more like Boeing, Lockheed and other "old space" companies. But, we wanted this to not be true. We wanted spaceflight to be as easy, safe and affordable as Musk believed it to be.
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Today we learned that Tsiolkovsky doesn't play favorites. And in many ways, today SpaceX finally became a real, grown-up rocket company. And we who follow spaceflight have had to grow up a bit as well.
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Ad astra.Captain Robert Reederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14500768952960978516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-591067151103789843.post-4402256566425790922014-12-24T21:42:00.001-08:002015-05-08T20:41:33.742-07:00BespinThis is HAVOC, NASA's new proposal for utilizing lighter than air craft to explore and colonize Venus. This is an enormous paradigm shift for them. For years the common wisdom has been that Venus was utterly uninhabitable, with surface atmospheric pressures 92 times that of earth (about the equivalent of one kilometer under water on earth), and surface temperatures above 500° C. But of course, if we were to explore an earth-analog planet with oceans like ours, we would probably not begin exploring that at one kilometer down, either. By the simple physics of adiabatic lapse rate (the higher you go in the atmosphere, the colder and less dense it becomes), at some altitude above the surface of Venus the atmosphere is of terrestrial densities and temperatures. There are issues; sulfuric acid, for example, falls as rain there. But life support in this environment would be trivial compared to the Martian surface.
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The transit times for a mission to the atmosphere of Venus and back to earth are much, much less than for trip to and from the surface of Mars. The Delta V budget to the Venusian atmosphere is higher than a landing on Mars (25 km/sec vs 19 km/sec), but this penalty may well be outweighed by the smaller amount of hardware needed to survive above Venus. This has very, very serious potential to be the first human exploration and colonization of another planet.
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Captain Robert Reederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14500768952960978516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-591067151103789843.post-18715814415100827302014-12-05T22:53:00.000-08:002014-12-05T22:54:14.829-08:00Orion Rising<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Flawless launch, flight, re-entry and splash down. Nicely done, NASA. Welcome home. We've missed you.<br />
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And, a huge shout-out to United Launch Alliance as well. Captain Robert Reederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14500768952960978516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-591067151103789843.post-84686516627602444412014-12-03T22:14:00.003-08:002014-12-03T22:15:35.774-08:00Orion Flight Test Profile<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8t2DZMRgHJknlzmQQF17Fa4IemwobNZ5_PYVdzIQbIHymBD0q9MmR15IGnGbmGnCzISniXaGEi0hg8o5De8p-ucK3xeLOzGTIoDXz-ncMbrd9VSghJ0I3lCr82MEMRgMB-eUrdSCJlpo/s1600/Orionflightestprofile.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8t2DZMRgHJknlzmQQF17Fa4IemwobNZ5_PYVdzIQbIHymBD0q9MmR15IGnGbmGnCzISniXaGEi0hg8o5De8p-ucK3xeLOzGTIoDXz-ncMbrd9VSghJ0I3lCr82MEMRgMB-eUrdSCJlpo/s1600/Orionflightestprofile.jpg" height="400" width="380" /></a></div>
<br />Captain Robert Reederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14500768952960978516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-591067151103789843.post-44581765919227212372014-12-03T22:12:00.007-08:002014-12-03T22:12:55.926-08:00Pole Position<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaGpJ8cUxFgfAIIEGJUHU-Uc_AIwVCGuw9zCW7UPtCwFbEDZDYB-EnpaUFdzodHUQWfoKbvbkEhyphenhyphenUmGWD1yeVGdJ8i-e18OahRJGomZVQV3hvLo7Q1rk-wTz6rnsyt5pTrWoCk6-CsYw4/s1600/MST_moved_2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaGpJ8cUxFgfAIIEGJUHU-Uc_AIwVCGuw9zCW7UPtCwFbEDZDYB-EnpaUFdzodHUQWfoKbvbkEhyphenhyphenUmGWD1yeVGdJ8i-e18OahRJGomZVQV3hvLo7Q1rk-wTz6rnsyt5pTrWoCk6-CsYw4/s1600/MST_moved_2.jpeg" height="640" width="480" /> </a></div>
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Orion EFT-1 on top of Delta IV Heavy, launch time 4:05am pst.</div>
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Captain Robert Reederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14500768952960978516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-591067151103789843.post-48969252731774881562014-11-20T22:20:00.001-08:002014-11-20T22:20:18.441-08:00Day late and a dollar short<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Last week the ESA's Rosetta mission successfully landed the Philae probe onto the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Philae bounced several times before finally landing on the side of a cliff. A gentle reminder that for more critical missions which require landing, there is real virtue in having an actual human pilot at the controls. <br />
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The total number of bodies in the solar system we have successfully landed anything on intact now stands at seven; the Moon, Venus, Mars, Titan, the asteroids Eros and Itokawa, and comet Chury-Gery. We have returned samples only from the Moon, and asteroid Itokawa.<br />
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The next big robotic exploration destination will be when the Dawn spacecraft reaches Ceres next spring. I'm inclined to think that the Dawn Ceres data will be a game-changer in how we prioritize our upcoming human space exploration missions. As such, we'll be following it closely, here.<br />
Captain Robert Reederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14500768952960978516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-591067151103789843.post-83059632075526770722014-11-14T15:37:00.001-08:002014-11-14T15:38:07.492-08:00SCE to AUX45 years ago today, this happened. Apollo 12, 37 seconds after liftoff, was struck by lightning, which wiped out all of its onboard electronics. The day was saved, the mission went on successfully. And "SCE to AUX" became t-shirt code for "I am the biggest geek in the room."
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<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/eWQIryll8y8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Captain Robert Reederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14500768952960978516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-591067151103789843.post-91750906148657532842014-11-14T15:11:00.001-08:002014-11-14T15:45:51.273-08:00Ice CastlesApparently this is still so classified that it cannot be read by a blogspot embed code, but the URL here is good.<br />
<p><br />
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This is a previously classified video about the US Army's nuclear powered under-ice facility in Greenland, called Camp Century. It didn't work very well, because the Greenland ice sheets were far more mobile than had been previously understood. But the techniques used here could be adapted to Ceres, Europa, or Enceladus. Note however the enormous logistics that were required to make this happen.<br />
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www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ujx_pND9wg<br />
Captain Robert Reederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14500768952960978516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-591067151103789843.post-56898328496427879722014-11-09T00:45:00.001-08:002014-11-09T10:37:27.167-08:00Kung FuIf I wanted to fly to London from Seattle, it would cost me about $1300 round trip on a Boeing 747-8. On the other hand, if I needed to purchase a Boeing 747-8 for myself to get to London, that would cost me around $370,000,000. If I had to purchase my own Boeing 747-8 to fly to London, but I could only fly it one time and one way, and would need to buy a second 747-8 (which could also be used only one time) in order to get back to Seattle, now we're looking at almost 3/4 of a billion dollars just in aircraft alone, for a single round-trip flight to London. I like London, it's an amazing city, but not for that price. Divide $740,000,000 by 470 passengers and that comes down to about a million and a half dollars per person; still pricey but I personally know people who could do it, if they sold all of their stuff. If, instead of only using the aircraft for a single one-way trip we could use it over and over, in only six hundred trips at $1300 a seat we will have paid for the aircraft.
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So, if I translate this for a colonization mission to Mars, in order to build any permanent colony of any size at all (on Mars, or the moon, or really anywhere) then I need my rockets to leave earth, land on Mars, leave Mars and then land back on earth, in more or less the same configuration it took off in. This is reasonable, but unfortunately this is not, to date, the way spaceflight has been able to work.
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If we look at the Apollo/Saturn V moon landings as a baseline of the physics needed to send and return humans to and from another world, it is apparent that in order to reach space and return from it, a spacecraft must almost continually shed excess weight. Saturn V stood some two million kilograms on the launch pad, whereas the Apollo command module which ultimately splashed down weighed maybe a thousand kilograms. This is sloppy, expensive and wasteful, but it is the only way to get a payload of this size into space with current technology.
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Tsiolkovsky's rocket equation;
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMIp2NipFXRtwMCcXWu7MvTMJlew6FQERKYY00F9jfhtF7D_pBYSTu9Rk67JQLJzeTg51WioFo0BzxZfzBqdy8gYrfoVxiEUpIafiRClQffEoeoV1f1EaZZFufOlSFFgg1PWkm1PoJsZ8/s1600/tsiolkovsky.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMIp2NipFXRtwMCcXWu7MvTMJlew6FQERKYY00F9jfhtF7D_pBYSTu9Rk67JQLJzeTg51WioFo0BzxZfzBqdy8gYrfoVxiEUpIafiRClQffEoeoV1f1EaZZFufOlSFFgg1PWkm1PoJsZ8/s320/tsiolkovsky.png" /></a></div>
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in which the weight of the rocket and fuel at the beginning of the launch and at the end of the launch must not exceed the effective exhaust velocity of the rocket. With existing propellants, it is nearly impossible to lift a payload of any real size even to low earth orbit with only a single rocket stage.
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So, almost certainly, the first spacecraft to land humans on Mars will be of this Saturn V-type design, either SLS/Orion, or something very much like it. For exploration missions, this is fine, albeit expensive. The advantage is, we already know how to do this. For a colonization mission, the spacecraft are going to need to be much more like a 747, as far as re-useability. Elon Musk is going to want his rockets back, so he can use them again. Simply piling up hardware on the Martian surface, or at the bottom of the Atlantic, is a lousy business model.
<p>
SpaceX has already developed a vertical takeoff and landing rocket prototype, called Grasshopper. It is elegant, but burns lots and lots of heavy propellant to be able to control its landings. It is noteworthy that to date, no SpaceX cargo rocket to the ISS has actually utilized this technology, opting instead for multistage rockets and parachute descents. Adding the fuel weight for a Martian descent and surface escape launch, and still having the delta-v to reach orbit, is challenging at best. But necessary, if Martian colonization is going to be available to anybody but the very, very wealthy.
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Captain Robert Reederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14500768952960978516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-591067151103789843.post-82451837697727567122014-11-04T22:47:00.001-08:002014-11-07T23:12:05.730-08:00To Europa, by Bush-PilotIn retrospect, probably the single biggest flaw in the space shuttle concept was creating a spacecraft to carry crews and cargo at the same time. No other method of transportation typically works this way. Whether you're talking about aircraft, trains, ships or whatever, passenger vessels carry passengers and cargo vessels carry cargo. Yes, a large passenger vessel might incidentally take very small amounts of cargo, and once upon a time cargo ships might take a handful of passengers, but nobody was going to mistake a passenger vessel for a cargo vessel. Except, you know, Alaskan Airlines flights inside Alaska. NASA seems to be steering its SLS rocket in the direction of alternating flights between crews and very high-dollar cargoes, rather than trying to accommodate both in a single flight. It's a subtle but important next step in mainstreaming spaceflight into the transportation industry as a whole.
<p>
According to Chris Bergin at nasaspaceflight.com (probably the best free space blog in the world, and its attendant pay site L2 is without parallel) NASA has padded its newest internal manifest for SLS with flagship robotic missions to Mars and Europa, and single-launch space stations interspersed with Orion crewed missions, in order to boost the launch rate to at least one per year. Taking advantage of SLS's enormous speed for robotic missions to the outer solar system seems a very logical extension of this, and further integrates crewed and uncrewed space exploration into a single, more unified program. For deeper space exploration, the payload capacity to carry space telescopes which could dwarf the James Webb has interesting potential as well. This program is evolving into a deep-space workhorse, analogous to what the space shuttle was supposed to be for Low Earth Orbit. Interesting times.
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_gxdARDbJ2BA68LEYQ5GcFvVD_sWbii7OasS1FUXSYy9bZgwWpARWRcoqvoFyXfOjrONpE1qXwh1lLCPk-nl8CzI9QxUWqwWan4K-j2ZzG4wzhpIx0EiKpYV_vNfsRbE1M-VlDj41unw/s1600/sls_70t-launch-from-top.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_gxdARDbJ2BA68LEYQ5GcFvVD_sWbii7OasS1FUXSYy9bZgwWpARWRcoqvoFyXfOjrONpE1qXwh1lLCPk-nl8CzI9QxUWqwWan4K-j2ZzG4wzhpIx0EiKpYV_vNfsRbE1M-VlDj41unw/s640/sls_70t-launch-from-top.jpg" /></a></div>
Captain Robert Reederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14500768952960978516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-591067151103789843.post-88489830870121416622014-10-31T14:40:00.002-07:002014-10-31T14:40:44.612-07:00Through footless halls of air<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJt5Lu6jxkSM7FX5mmmgM_VEDPU8rx2SGeVpK2bh_HO9GIptlDvOomztK2lLdYK6TMRpv2L-Le7rH4cJA-JJ4OhlrvylqKo7WnIOJxzGExKkkni2Aenno06IyFXbQOz1Ymkb-IHnDF2R4/s1600/0000+virgin-galactic-spaceshiptwo-fourth-powered-test-takeoff+pre+crash.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJt5Lu6jxkSM7FX5mmmgM_VEDPU8rx2SGeVpK2bh_HO9GIptlDvOomztK2lLdYK6TMRpv2L-Le7rH4cJA-JJ4OhlrvylqKo7WnIOJxzGExKkkni2Aenno06IyFXbQOz1Ymkb-IHnDF2R4/s400/0000+virgin-galactic-spaceshiptwo-fourth-powered-test-takeoff+pre+crash.jpg" /></a></div>
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Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo failed today under rocket power, killing one astronaut and seriously injuring another. This is three independent commercial flight failures under rocket power in a month and a half, SpaceX, Orbital and now Virgin. Really, we need to find a better and safer means of getting into space. And now, the pressure on NASA's Orion/EFT-1 flight next month has become enormous.
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The test pilot who was killed today has not yet been named in the press, but may he or she rest in peace. Captain Robert Reederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14500768952960978516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-591067151103789843.post-35067703560895129402014-10-30T23:58:00.000-07:002014-10-30T23:58:48.971-07:00Orion Rising<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-vtW9XOSI2uTCqebtDw45FrGmOG7Yx9XASHAoZaQV4cyKJLd0XaOtjO5A6su2_C8PiBVXyTe9y27Fjf1evPrP424-qDD97wBcY35IuvXRONFIlz4U3DH_wWmvs1jX-15OmR94pRWPzUg/s1600/USA+large.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-vtW9XOSI2uTCqebtDw45FrGmOG7Yx9XASHAoZaQV4cyKJLd0XaOtjO5A6su2_C8PiBVXyTe9y27Fjf1evPrP424-qDD97wBcY35IuvXRONFIlz4U3DH_wWmvs1jX-15OmR94pRWPzUg/s400/USA+large.png" /></a></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVuZOjeqxpQT13wPyCfcS3P2i9-eEgA_d8DVjO_RuJ0QAgkNsQaH5jYNoB258-CiL3ToBIYpU4TnERe1dp_izKTviYiYoDnnacS4UuyViI5x-ttyRo5ypZ9L8yFnqvqfAoJKzmmWZdUtE/s1600/orion+complete+m14-183a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVuZOjeqxpQT13wPyCfcS3P2i9-eEgA_d8DVjO_RuJ0QAgkNsQaH5jYNoB258-CiL3ToBIYpU4TnERe1dp_izKTviYiYoDnnacS4UuyViI5x-ttyRo5ypZ9L8yFnqvqfAoJKzmmWZdUtE/s640/orion+complete+m14-183a.jpg" /></a></div>
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The first Orion space capsule is complete, today. The United States of America once again is in possession of a crew-rated spacecraft, the first since the retirement of the space shuttles. In the words of Joe Biden, this is a BFD.Captain Robert Reederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14500768952960978516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-591067151103789843.post-20235302138731742662014-10-30T23:39:00.004-07:002014-10-30T23:39:53.794-07:00Russian Roulette<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVN5r1qtS-kCw8_u42qyOJjVWBwcVjyCPKSVOrSh8teKWTRBgrbZeDn6ogntDD_NIppfuCGloHM1uEtKv5Y2zkAlkVvgxuSM_HLcfsZqSf77JW5VcU6uSRQgoC3svNy2vXzCb2Gs7OLKU/s1600/antares+explosion+14-229_0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVN5r1qtS-kCw8_u42qyOJjVWBwcVjyCPKSVOrSh8teKWTRBgrbZeDn6ogntDD_NIppfuCGloHM1uEtKv5Y2zkAlkVvgxuSM_HLcfsZqSf77JW5VcU6uSRQgoC3svNy2vXzCb2Gs7OLKU/s400/antares+explosion+14-229_0.jpg" /></a></div>
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The malfunction and then detonation of the Antares/Cygnus cargo spacecraft at Wallops on Tuesday is now being tied to the use of refurbished 1960s Soviet vintage AJ26 rocket engines. I'm not going to speculate on whether or not this is the case; I suspect that the age of the engines had very little to to do with the accident, but I have no evidence to back this up either way.
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What is more conclusive is that chemical rockets remain A) the only means we have of launching any payload into low earth orbit and beyond and b) dangerous as hell.
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A little bit of sloppy number crunching, looking just at the space shuttle program. Five orbiters totaling some 130 launches, two of which failed catastrophically. That's about a 1.5% failure rate. Scaled up to commercial aircraft, that's about 20 major airline disasters every single day. At Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. By itself.
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This is a serious problem for true commercial spaceflight. If the ground crew cheered every time a Boeing 737 took off or landed safely, nobody in their right mind would fly in Boeing 737s. For routine commercial spaceflight to be feasible, we need something which works reliably every time it flies. Highly volatile chemical rockets probably are not the answer.
<p>
One possible answer floating around (sorry) is lighter than air craft. The idea of riding a dirigible into space, at first glance, seems a little absurd. But John Powell of JP Aerospace has demonstrated how a hypersonic dirigible could reach the International Space Station, and beyond. Another possibility is using less volatile hybrid (HTPB/N2O "rubber and laughing-gas") rockets, but these have yet to reach the 100 km Kármán line, much less low earth orbit. But better propellants and/or oxidants may be found, which are still reasonably stable. Until then, what we have looks less like science than theology. And if part of your routine flight-plan includes "pray real hard," you're not yet ready to fly grandma to the moon. Captain Robert Reederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14500768952960978516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-591067151103789843.post-65348379584627058562014-10-16T18:27:00.000-07:002014-10-17T17:12:16.519-07:00Mars One: Bouncing the Reality Check<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd5UqQb6nCjv-lzmFAlgbVVdVula0AndipgTNnGEqAqZtTKy-JIz8myLRAZNpskUF9pez0pBwmhS9jhNNMjOBEJBgJ27sHNKpr7EQ6lm2bkHs1ULKboMxLBaLeYN7JHBo7Vr_Z8N3Upe0/s1600/Netherlands.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd5UqQb6nCjv-lzmFAlgbVVdVula0AndipgTNnGEqAqZtTKy-JIz8myLRAZNpskUF9pez0pBwmhS9jhNNMjOBEJBgJ27sHNKpr7EQ6lm2bkHs1ULKboMxLBaLeYN7JHBo7Vr_Z8N3Upe0/s400/Netherlands.png" /></a></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFIDUnYN8iahFVWo2mP9SNmpb8uK-VJFpY8zNHq3AbhqyqJQPTnrJ9qNBsrAWDo3SNiMIpxs6mXhuwl8LCYDIfWaleNw4J4lbXGlJjx6mpOJpaLNOzZHVkORvbmVe3-mo14pxjswDx_Po/s1600/the-mars-one-mission-narrows-its-contestants-down-to-1-058.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFIDUnYN8iahFVWo2mP9SNmpb8uK-VJFpY8zNHq3AbhqyqJQPTnrJ9qNBsrAWDo3SNiMIpxs6mXhuwl8LCYDIfWaleNw4J4lbXGlJjx6mpOJpaLNOzZHVkORvbmVe3-mo14pxjswDx_Po/s400/the-mars-one-mission-narrows-its-contestants-down-to-1-058.jpg" /></a></div>
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Today a group of engineering students from MIT published a very well-researched feasibility study about Mars One, the Dutch plan to put a human colony on Mars by 2024, for a reality TV series.
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The study is good, and solid. It basically comes down to "they don't know what they don't know" (the news.com.au headline about the study was "Humans on Mars One mission would start dying in 68 days" which sums it up pretty well). You can read all of the MIT feasibility study here, it's a pretty interesting read.
<p>
<a href="http://http://web.mit.edu/sydneydo/Public/Mars%20One%20Feasibility%20Analysis%20IAC14.pdf"></a>
<p>
http://web.mit.edu/sydneydo/Public/Mars%20One%20Feasibility%20Analysis%20IAC14.pdf
<p>
The elephant in the ballroom here is that Mars One, to date, has raised a grand total of about $600,000 worldwide. With that, they can buy one pretty nice brand-new single engine Cessna, and maybe fuel, a bag of donuts and a thermos of coffee for the flight to wherever a Cessna 172 can get to from Amsterdam. Captain Robert Reederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14500768952960978516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-591067151103789843.post-89138983605632537682014-10-14T16:48:00.000-07:002014-10-14T17:21:28.052-07:00Snowballing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSHTHDzW9RTG2G5Ogo32tqXFL2jOaG6u7FBVYgY0FBf1uy0qHYoleWpzZdamT2No_h9yR7JBvWdT4jUUut5svuHRnfDMrWMWDVLGYNs6JpbHenUyXX0AjEUoKlTmtC9XyOviL8g1jp1to/s1600/Comet-Siding-Spring-Trajectory-Mars-br2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSHTHDzW9RTG2G5Ogo32tqXFL2jOaG6u7FBVYgY0FBf1uy0qHYoleWpzZdamT2No_h9yR7JBvWdT4jUUut5svuHRnfDMrWMWDVLGYNs6JpbHenUyXX0AjEUoKlTmtC9XyOviL8g1jp1to/s400/Comet-Siding-Spring-Trajectory-Mars-br2.jpg" /></a></div>
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This Sunday the Oort Cloud comet Siding Spring (also called Comet C/2013 A1) will pass within 140,000 kilometers of Mars. This is about half the distance from the earth to the moon, and much, much closer than any known comet fly-by of earth. It will be observed by rovers on Mars and spacecraft in Mars orbit, as well as terrestrial land-based and space-baced telescopes. Currently orbiting Mars are the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), MAVEN, Mars Odyssey, the ESA Mars Express, and India's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM). It is only by blind, dumb luck that this one-in-a-million flyby is happening at a time when we are actively surveying Mars for eventual human colonization. This should be a very interesting week. Captain Robert Reederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14500768952960978516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-591067151103789843.post-66466262023600344522014-10-03T21:42:00.001-07:002014-10-03T21:43:07.871-07:00Cargo to Crew
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This is the ULA Delta IV Heavy that will launch the Orion spacecraft on its uncrewed maiden voyage this December.
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This raises the issue of the difference between rockets for cargo flights into low earth orbit versus crewed flights to the same destinations, and specifically why we can't just use the same rockets for what is nearly the same job. It turns out that modifying an existing cargo rocket for crewed flight is a fairly involved exercise.
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The reason is safety, mostly. Rockets have an unhappy propensity for exploding, so any crewed vehicle must be able to safely escape an explosion. Part of the solution is a Launch Escape System, which is simply a small rocket on top of the spacecraft to pull it away from the main engines and fuel tanks in the event of a catastrophic failure. Here is an example, with an Apollo space capsule.
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv5WKAiWFKifp8df8YUqQyt5tD0kVqm5ITTuVOdV9ItpilUEX_E9lPk_j94emzJgRrTvwJPnzdATe0p06eyUn4WnvKJSo2kvvDxX9wyDUFZJFzargxCGf_34Q2n0WKS89cax44NAdbuCQ/s1600/Apollo_Pad_Abort_Test_-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv5WKAiWFKifp8df8YUqQyt5tD0kVqm5ITTuVOdV9ItpilUEX_E9lPk_j94emzJgRrTvwJPnzdATe0p06eyUn4WnvKJSo2kvvDxX9wyDUFZJFzargxCGf_34Q2n0WKS89cax44NAdbuCQ/s400/Apollo_Pad_Abort_Test_-2.jpg" /></a></div>
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Cargo rockets take the shortest, fastest and simplest (hence closest to vertical) route to orbit that their engines allow, with little consideration for the massive changes in g-forces that the cargo is subjected to. Humans need a slower and gentler ascent. Also, cargo rockets maximize the distance they coast upward unpowered between stages, and by launching essentially vertically the exhaust remains below them. Neither of these are problematical so long as the launch proceeds normally. However, if the LES needed to deploy at certain parts of the launch trajectory (such as at the top of one stage's coasting before the stage above it ignited, or the first few seconds of a launch when the huge exhaust fireball is below the rocket), the LES would be unable to safely extract the spacecraft. These time intervals in which the LES cannot launch the crew safely away from an exploding rocket are called "black zones." Every crewed rocket has some, but the goal is to minimize both the amount and duration of these. One method for accomplishing this, for example, is to launch the rocket in a lower parabola so that for most of its flight to orbit, the spacecraft does not have its own exhaust gasses below it.
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The currently used Delta IV, Atlas V and SpaceX Falcon rockets are all presently being modified for commercial crewed flights. Each of these rockets will be discussed here in greater detail, as this series progresses.
Captain Robert Reederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14500768952960978516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-591067151103789843.post-73805688994278293792014-09-29T22:52:00.003-07:002014-09-29T22:52:44.907-07:00Orion Promo #7<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqsAqtglzLvV4ja2P-5C7VVcRY96quzQA_NVPnTr_oZ8yogYT8xXf0VpssOkwhq_0hRcTwP_ocquYx9dcYQ9ZINgc4HFEF9htKORwwVD34iYpma_3pRkYYC8tAd0M3CJ1nIBT8HFqZjEk/s1600/USA+small.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqsAqtglzLvV4ja2P-5C7VVcRY96quzQA_NVPnTr_oZ8yogYT8xXf0VpssOkwhq_0hRcTwP_ocquYx9dcYQ9ZINgc4HFEF9htKORwwVD34iYpma_3pRkYYC8tAd0M3CJ1nIBT8HFqZjEk/s320/USA+small.png" /></a></div>
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Just two months to go before the maiden flight of the Orion spacecraft, on 4 December 2014. Yes, I'm shamelessly reposting NASA propaganda videos here. Because, you know, rockets!
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/Xzz9bWwcg3g" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Captain Robert Reederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14500768952960978516noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-591067151103789843.post-84425769380302986542014-09-29T13:28:00.001-07:002014-10-03T22:08:45.415-07:00Churchill Downs<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiGKIV6U30Ub96vjCrEy3O307iPK5ZZ71bIIAPuh5Z1X7_E9q74F1zEfOx3RuLUlAkdPRuHEVfKvoFOWFrmlasKA0VnzhbCLhO7684H7KDbprKH78A8fYITx9UVhLDrLYQJ1folZZduXw/s1600/earth+moon+mars.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiGKIV6U30Ub96vjCrEy3O307iPK5ZZ71bIIAPuh5Z1X7_E9q74F1zEfOx3RuLUlAkdPRuHEVfKvoFOWFrmlasKA0VnzhbCLhO7684H7KDbprKH78A8fYITx9UVhLDrLYQJ1folZZduXw/s400/earth+moon+mars.jpg" /></a></div>
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Ok, so, if we're going to have a "Space Race," we need to define the racetrack.
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There are two really important things to understand about the immediate future (next couple of decades, say) of human spaceflight. One, space flight is really difficult. Two, the main reason space flight is really difficult is that the places we want to go are really far away.
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There are only a few destinations worth realistic consideration between now and 2040, and hence part of what I would consider the current Space Race; Near Earth Orbit, the moon and lunar orbit (and the earth/moon Langrangian orbits), near-earth asteroids and comets, and Mars and its moons. That's it, that's as far as humans will possibly get in the next quarter century, if we're very ambitious and very lucky. The one possible addition to this is that if the Dawn spacecraft proves that Ceres is a helluva lot more interesting than currently assumed, it could be prioritized into the mix, but I consider that highly unlikely. The moons of Jupiter and Saturn, tantalizing though they are, are going to have to wait for later generations. Hopefully we will land robot probes there much sooner.
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I'm going to talk a bit about linear, point-to-point distances, as a vacuum-packed crow might fly. Spacecraft don't fly in straight lines, a fact I'll be discussing in greater detail at a later point, but the distance ratios for comparison are relatively the same regardless.
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Low Earth Orbit, meaning the altitude of the International Space Station, is about 425 km above the earth. That's about the driving distance from Seattle to Spokane, or Chicago to St Louis. To date, only NASA, Roscosmos and China's single Shenzhou 5 mission have successfully put humans here. Only NASA has ever put humans any higher than this.
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The moon (and environs) are about 400,000 km away, some 940 times the distance to the ISS. Which is why nobody has been back there in almost 43 years.
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At the very closest point in its orbit, Mars is about 100,000,000 km away from earth. That's 250 times the distance to the moon, or
about 235,000 times the distance to the ISS. Which, again, is the farthest distance humans have traveled since 1972.
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I had intended to create a drawing which accurately depicted these scales, and figured out that I couldn't. The disparity of scale is simply too great. And maybe that illustrates the point as well as any drawing could.
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Captain Robert Reederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14500768952960978516noreply@blogger.com0