“If you block cooperation with us, who will save the ISS from uncontrolled deorbiting and falling on US or European territory?”
–Dmitry Olegovich Rogozin, Director General of Roscosmos, commenting on US sanctions against Russia’s aerospace industry resulting from that country’s invasion of Ukraine this week. The ISS is expected to stay aloft until 2031, assuming everyone cooperates.
As we await peace or war between Russia and Ukraine, US astronaut Leroy Chiao shared his thoughts about his cooperation with Russians at the International Space Station (ISS). He served as the copilot of a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the ISS as well as the commander during Expedition 10. In his CNN editorial, he emphasizes the importance of continued cooperation at the station even when partners are on opposing sides during ongoing conflicts:
In the early 2000s, a few years after the Kosovo war, I started training for my ISS mission in Star City, outside of Moscow. Not long after I started training in Russia there were conflicts in and around the Balkans and I remember times when we would hear heavy Russian transport aircraft taking off all night from the air base next to us, bringing troops and materiel to the conflict zones. We Americans discussed these issues with our Russian friends in the training program and I learned one of the wonderful things about living in other worlds is you develop perspective. You don’t necessarily agree, but you can appreciate the viewpoints of the other side.
Let’s hope the two-nation relationship is not tested further in the weeks to come. I like the idea of international cooperation as well as maintaining healthy competition in the realm of space endeavors.
I guess once was not enough. Billionaire Jared Isaacman wants to spend even more money sending private citizens into space aboard SpaceX spacecraft. He funded his first private flight last September, called Inspiration 4, and now wants to do three more of these flights. The first one raised funds for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, whereas it is not clear whether these other voyages also relate to charitable causes.
Space tourism is all the rage these days, with Captain Kirk going up on Blue Origin’s capsule and Virgin Galactic sending Sir Richard Branson into space in preparation of paying customers in the near future. SpaceX always seemed to have more serious goals, but I suppose a buck is a buck.
The first of these three new flights is planned for later this year and will include a spacewalk and science experiments. The second will involve SpaceX’s Dragon, which is currently used for trips to the International Space Station (ISS). The third will involve SpaceX’s Starship created for lunar missions under NASA’s Artemis program.
Apparently, these new missions are expected to “…serve a bigger purpose of opening up space for everyone and making humankind a multiplanetary species, and ideally, have a benefit for the things we’re trying to accomplish back here on Earth.” Once might ask whether this bigger purpose, such as space walks and science experiments, can already be performed by professional astronauts aboard the ISS. It is hard to believe these new vanity missions are critical. And maybe dangerous stunts on such missions should only be performed by a professional team, but Mr. Isaacman wants to command the mission. I cannot see how having an accident on one of these flights will benefit SpaceX. I can still remember the blow-back after sending (and losing) the first teacher to space.
Space is still a dangerous place. Maybe money should not trump everything, including common sense. This seems more like a bored corporate executive spending $500,000 on a new fire truck, setting a few old buildings on fire, and then going in with an inexperienced crew to have fun putting out the blaze while claiming he is advancing the science of firefighting. I am not convinced.
NBC news reports that a privately-funding space probe could visit Venus as early as next year as phase one of a three-part mission. The goal of the Venus Life Finder Mission, involving MIT alumni and Rocket Lab, is to search for signs of life or microbial-type life. This effort is another encouraging sign of increased interest in scientific missions throughout the solar system.
An earlier press release on the Venus Life Finder site stated:
The Venus Life Finder Missions are a series of focused astrobiology mission concepts to search for habitability, signs of life, and life itself in the Venus atmosphere. While people have speculated on life in the Venus clouds for decades, we are now able to act with cost-effective and highly-focused missions. A major motivation are unexplained atmospheric chemical anomalies, including the “mysterious UV-absorber”, tens of ppm O2, SO2 and H2O vertical abundance profiles, the possible presence of PH3 and NH3, and the unknown composition of Mode 3 cloud particles. These anomalies, which have lingered for decades, might be tied to habitability and life’s activities or be indicative of unknown chemistry itself worth exploring. Our proposed series of VLF missions aim to study Venus’ cloud particles and to continue where the pioneering in situ probe missions from nearly four decades ago left off. The world is poised on the brink of a revolution in space science. Our goal is not to supplant any other efforts but to take advantage of an opportunity for high-risk, high-reward science, which stands to possibly answer one of the greatest scientific mysteries of all, and in the process pioneer a new model of private/public partnership in space exploration.
It has been more than a decade since a government has sent a mission to Venus. The last US mission to Venus was the Magellan launched in May 1989, which started to orbit Venus in 1990 and continued to do so for four years. The European Space Agency sent the Venus Express to the planet in November 2005, while Japan sent the Akatsuki in May 2010.
Interest continues among government parties. For example, just last year NASA announced two new missions to Venus:
— DAVINCI+ (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging) to measure the composition of Venus’ atmosphere to understand how it formed and evolved, as well as determine whether the planet ever had an ocean. The mission consists of a descent sphere that will plunge through the planet’s thick atmosphere, making precise measurements of noble gases and other elements to understand why Venus’ atmosphere is a runaway hothouse compared the Earth’s. It will also will return the first high resolution pictures of the unique geological features on Venus known as “tesserae,” which may be comparable to Earth’s continents, suggesting that Venus has plate tectonics.
— VERITAS (Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy) to map Venus’ surface to determine the planet’s geologic history and understand why it developed so differently than Earth. In addition, it will map infrared emissions from Venus’ surface to map its rock type, which is largely unknown, and determine whether active volcanoes are releasing water vapor into the atmosphere.
In an earlier posting, I pointed out that both China and Russia have left debris in orbit after conducting anti-satellite tests. To be fair, they are not alone. Back in March 2019, India also blew up one of its satellites with a ground-based missile, spreading debris and jeopardizing its own space program as well as that of others. Luckily, the explosion happened at a height that does not threaten the International Space Station or the majority of satellites in orbit. Moreover, most of the pieces of debris were expected to burn up and disappear quickly.
There have been other such anti-satellite missions as well, with the U.S, Russia, and China in the lead. So who started all of this, you may ask. The same Forbes story cited above makes it clear that the U.S. began this space arms race more than 60 years ago:
The U.S. tested its first anti-satellite missile in 1959, when the space lanes were mostly empty. Russia followed suit in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but after the end of the Cold War, space warfare mostly fell off the defense policy radar.
The radar is active again given the continuing series of destructive anti-satellite missions in Earth’s orbit. You can add to this the various other secret spacecraft believed to already be in orbit to enhance each nation’s ability to kill another nation’s satellites. Things are pretty ugly on the ground these days, and the heavens above seem to be fair game as well.
Our Awesome Universe 