Space Stories: Threats to Artemis, Two Saudis Visit the ISS, and Signs of the Japanese Lunar Crash

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): The Moon and the Washington Monument. (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Here are some recent stories of interest.

—Axios: “NASA Return to the Moon Could be Imperiled by Politics“

Efforts to insulate Artemis from possible cuts, delays and cancellation are facing a major test with the current budget fight on Capitol Hill. If NASA’s funding is stalled at the 2022 enacted level or reduced, agency administrator Bill Nelson has warned Artemis II and Artemis III could be delayed. The current launch dates are 2024 for Artemis II and 2025 for Artemis III.

—Al Jazeera: “SpaceX Sends Saudi Astronauts, Including First Arab Woman, to ISS“

A private rocket carrying the first Arab woman astronaut has blasted off on a mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Rayyanah Barnawi, a breast cancer researcher from Saudi Arabia, was joined on Sunday’s mission by fellow Saudi Ali al-Qarni, a fighter pilot. The pair are the first Saudi astronauts to voyage into space in decades.

—Quartz: “NASA Found the Japanese Moon Lander that Crashed into the Moon“

ispace’s attempt to become the first private company to safely land a robot on the Moon left a mark: A NASA space telescope orbiting Earth’s nearest neighbor in space spotted the impact of the vehicle on the lunar surface…NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has been circling the Moon since 2009, carefully mapping its surface. Today, it released the first images of the impact site, which required scientists at the Goddard Space Flight Center and Arizona State University to carefully hunt for changes to the lunar surface.

Podcast/Book Review: Jesuits Find an Exoplanet to Explore

Posted on by onespaceman2000

If you are looking for a new podcast as well as a new book, the two come together via the podcast Alienating the Audience. Comedian Andrew Heaton and his buddies have plenty of fun poking various science fiction topics, including Star Wars and Star Trek.

One of the recent episodes discussed a new book, The Sparrow, by author Mary Doria Russell. The story is about a group of Jesuits exploring a new planet with all of the mayhem that follows.

Here is a quick summary from the book itself:

A visionary work that combines speculative fiction with deep philosophical inquiry, The Sparrow tells the story of a charismatic Jesuit priest and linguist, Emilio Sandoz, who leads a scientific mission entrusted with a profound task: to make first contact with intelligent extraterrestrial life. The mission begins in faith, hope, and beauty, but a series of small misunderstandings brings it to a catastrophic end.

You can listen for yourself to this episode here at Jesuits in Space. But be careful, because there are a number of spoilers. You can always start with the book first, which is part of a series.

Credit: Ballantine Books

In Case You Missed It/Television: JWST on 60 Minutes

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Scott Pelley on 60 Minutes discussing JWST. (CBS)

Last month 60 Minutes had a piece on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), titled The Origin of Everything, that provided viewers with more amazing images. I recommend the episode. I also plan to watch a few more times myself.

For a taste of the episode, here is Matt Mountain, who heads up JWST’s operations as president of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, discussing the speckled images captured at the very start as engineers used a star to align the telescope’s 18 mirrors.

Matt Mountain: These were not artifacts from the detector. These were not strange stars. The whole of the sky was filled with galaxies. There was no empty sky. And that’s when I went, “This telescope’s going to be phenomenal.”

Scott Pelley: No empty sky? What do you mean by that?

Matt Mountain: On almost every image we’re taking now, we see galaxies everywhere. I mean, we took a simple picture of a planet in our own system, Neptune. You know, it was this beautiful orb just sitting there and we saw some rings. In the background are galaxies again. It tells us that our universe is filled with galaxies. We knew this theoretically but when you go out to the night sky, we’re used to saying, “Well, look up at the night sky, we see those stars.” We can no longer say that. We now have to say, “Look up at the night sky and there are galaxies everywhere.”

Scott Pelley: We call it space because we thought there was nothing out there.

Matt Mountain: There is no empty sky with James Webb. That is what we have discovered.

You can watch the episode here.

Disney Drops Out of the Star Wars Hotel Business

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Promotional photo for Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser. (Disney)

Earlier I wrote about the high cost of attending a new Star Wars-themed hotel at Disney World in Florida. Well, the experiment has run its course and the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser experience will officially end September 30, 2023. You still have time to blow a bundle of money on this should that be your thing.

Who knew that there was a limited number of American families willing to pay up to $6,000 for an immersive Star Wars experience? Of course, it seemed a little extreme from day one.

I remember attending the Star Trek experience in Las Vegas at the Hilton hotel many years ago. The show was less than an hour, but it was also an immersive experience that ended with dinner at Quark’s Bar. You could have fund without taking a second mortgage on the house.

Sometimes simple can be better.

Note: I would not be surprised to see a version of this Star Wars hotel opens in Saudi Arabia or Dubai in the near future. They seem like a more appropriate locations for an over-the-top hotel bill.

Blue Origin is Now Part of the Artemis Mission

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Artist’s rending of the Blue Origin lander on the Moon’s surface. (Blue Origin).

While SpaceX is building the lunar lander for the Artemis III mission, Blue Origin is back in the game building the next lunar lander for a follow-up human landing at the Moon’s southern polar region as part of Artemis V. The NASA contract with Blue Origin for this second mission is $3.4 billion.

Blue Origin’s partners in this venture include Lockheed Martin, Draper, Boeing, Astrobotic, and Honeybee Robotics.  All of this is good news for the space program in that its expands the knowledge and risk related to a lunar landing among even more companies. Such redundancy will increase resilience.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson welcomed Blue Origin to the team with this statement:

Today we are excited to announce Blue Origin will build a human landing system as NASA’s second provider to deliver Artemis astronauts to the lunar surface…We are in a golden age of human spaceflight, which is made possible by NASA’s commercial and international partnerships. Together, we are making an investment in the infrastructure that will pave the way to land the first astronauts on Mars.

Note: I am glad to hear that Mr. Bezos is still plugging away with his space company Blue Origin and not spending all of his money on play things, such as his $500 million yacht. The commercial space industry is party one run by billionaire playboys, which may not be the most stable foundation. Yet all the same, if part of their money is going to public projects, that is a good thing. Just as Andrew Carnegie invested in public libraries and Bill Gates fighting disease and poverty in Africa, we can all benefit from the money going into the space arena. Mind you, it is not charity, but it is starter funds for critical projects to keep the US in the space race.