Podcast: Solar Sailing to the Stars

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): NEA Scout sail fully deployed. (NASA)

On a recent episode of the Clear + Vivid podcast, Alan Alda interviewed NASA engineer Les Johnson about his efforts to develop a solar sail that can take us to the stars. He is the Principal Investigator for the NEA Scout, which was launched into space during the Artemis I mission and is now heading towards a near-Earth asteroid via solar sails (see above).

During the interview, Mr. Johnson discussed the NEA Scout as well as his hopes for future human travel to the stars using solar sails, noting that while slow, the sails can outperform modern rocket engines in the long-run. He also pointed out that a solar sail may be able to get us to Proxima Centauri, the closest neighboring star, in hundreds of years versus the 70,000 years it will take the Voyager spacecraft to travel that same distance. I like how he puts such a mission in perspective, pointing out it took hundreds of years to build some of the great cathedrals.

Messrs. Alda and Johnson also discussed the ethics of space travel considering astronauts will be spending generations in space with many humans never seeing either the Earth or the destination in their lifetime. Mr. Johnson said space lasers may be another option for interstellar travel at some point in the future, reducing the travel time to Proxima Centauri to 40-50 years. Given the time spans, he said it may make sense to initially send robots into space first.

Finally, the podcast covered missions closer to Earth, such as mining asteroids for water and minerals, as well as 3D printing to create what we need in space. It sounded a lot like the situation in find in the science fiction TV series The Expanse.

Overall, it was a great conversation worth a few minutes of your day. Check it out.

Extra: Mr. Johnson is also the author of several books, including the co-authored Saving Proxima. Here is a quick summary of that tale:

2072. At the lunar farside radio observatory, an old-school radio broadcast is detected, similar to those broadcast on Earth in the 1940s, but in an unknown language, coming from an impossible source—Proxima Centauri. While the nations of Earth debate making first contact, they learn that the Proximans are facing an extinction-level disaster, forcing a decision: will Earth send a ship on a multiyear trip to render aid? 

Interstellar travel is not easy, and by traveling at the speeds required to arrive before disaster strikes at Proxima, humans will learn firsthand the time-dilating effects of Einstein’s Special Relativity and be forced to ponder ultimate questions: What does it mean to be human? What will it take to share the stars with another form of life? What if I return younger than my own children? The answers are far from academic, for they may determine the fate of not one, but two, civilizations.

Credit: Baen Publishers

Rocket Lab’s Electron Launches from MARS

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): The Electron rocket on the launchpad. (Rocket Lab)

Rocket Lab has big plans for the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) where tomorrow it will launch the first of its U.S. based Electron rockets. The December 18th mission from the Virginia spaceport will depart from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility. While Rocket Lab has been launching the Electron from New Zealand, it is starting up operations in Virginia and may become a big presence on the mid-atlantic coast.

The Electron, a 60-foot rocket, is intended for short turnaround of smaller loads. This sounds ideal to the customer base for satellites in Washington, DC just up the road. If all goes well, the larger Neutron rocket will also be launched from MARS in the near future. Ultimately, the VA facility may host monthly Rocket Lab launches.

In an earlier press release, Rocket Lab noted its going potential with both Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand and the new Launch Complex 2 in Virginia:

While “Virginia Is For Launch Lovers” will be Electron’s first launch from the U.S., Rocket Lab has already conducted 32 Electron missions from Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand, delivering 152 satellites to orbit for customers including NASA, the National Reconnaissance Office, DARPA, the U.S. Space Force and a range of commercial constellation operators. Electron is already the most frequently launched small orbital rocket globally and now with the capacity of the pads at Launch Complex 1 and 2 combined, Rocket Lab has more than 130 Electron launch opportunities every year. 

Tomorrow’s launch will be an important test of the company’s new approach. If all goes well, it is good news for the Virginia economy as well as the U.S. commercial space industry.

Update: The launch has been delayed due to weather until Monday, December 19th.

Second Update: The Monday launch was delayed again due to weather. Stay tuned for a new launch date.

Gift Ideas: Popular Astronomy Books

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: Ballantine Books

If you are looking for another gift idea for the holidays, maybe you should consider one of the many popular astronomy books. Here are the 10 most popular from Goodreads:

  1. Cosmos, by Carl Sagan
  2. A Brief History of Time, by Stephen Hawking
  3. Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, by Carl Sagan
  4. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, by Carl Sagan
  5. The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory, by Brian Greene
  6. The Universe in a Nutshell, by Stephen Hawking
  7. A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson
  8. The Grand Design, by Stephen Hawking
  9. Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium, by Carl Sagan
  10. Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries, by Neil deGrasse Tyson 

It’s great to see that Carl Sagan is still educating the public so many years after his death. As with the Voyager spacecraft, his words and contributions are traveling far and wide.

Pic of the Week: The Hunter’s Sword

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): The Orion Nebula. (NASA / ESA / JPL-Caltech)

This week’s image is from NASA’s now retired Spitzer Space Telescope as well as the agency’s Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), now called NEOWISE. Here is a little more from the Sci.News story:

Also known as NGC 1976, Messier 42 (M42), LBN 974, or Sharpless 281, the Orion Nebula is a diffuse nebula in the constellation of Orion. It spans about 24 light-years and is located approximately 1,630 light-years away from Earth. It can be seen with the naked eye as a fuzzy patch surrounding the star Theta Orionis in the Hunter’s Sword, below Orion’s belt. At only 2 million years old, the Orion Nebula is an ideal laboratory for studying young stars and stars that are still forming. It offers a glimpse of what might have happened when the Sun was born 4.6 billion years ago.

A Day in Astronomy: The Last Lunar Footprint

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Official emblem of the Apollo 17 lunar landing mission. (NASA)

On this day in 1972, Apollo 17 commander Eugene Cernan was the last human to be on the Moon. He was the eleventh human to ever step on the Moon.

Here is the full crew of Apollo 17:

  • Eugene A. Cernan, Commander
  • Harrison H. Schmitt, Lunar Module Pilot
  • Ronald E. Evans, Command Module Pilot

Mr. Cernan, who passed away in 2017, was also part of the Apollo 10 mission that orbited the moon without landing (similar to the upcoming Artemis II mission).

With the successful orbit of the Orion spacecraft around the Moon this month, let’s hope the 50 year dryspell is finally over and the United States can again be the nation putting humans back on the lunar surface. Of course, we will be followed by others, including the Chinese. Yet it’s important the first space-faring nation get back in the game and restart the human exploration of the Moon, and then Mars soon thereafter.