Canada marks 50 years of space exploration

From the Globe and Mail:  Canada marks 50 years of space exploration

Canada's history of participating in space exploration can be traced back to 1839 with the establishment of the first magnetic observatory, to study the northern lights. Today, Canada enjoys its role as a leader in space robotics and satellite communications.

For instance, did you know that with the launch of the Anik A-1 satellite in 1972, Canada became the first country with a domestic communications satellite in geostationary orbit? Much later, in 1982, Anik C-3 was deployed - the first direct

 

Planets Found in a Cluster of Buzzing Stars

From Universe Today: Planets Found in a Cluster of Buzzing Stars

There’s a classic science fiction story called Nightfall, written by the late-great Isaac Asimov. It’s the tale of a world with six suns that fill the sky with such brightness that the inhabitants have no concept of night. And then one day, a once-in-a-thousand-years alignment causes all the stars to set at once; and everyone goes crazy!
In another case of science following science fiction, NASA-funded astronomers have discovered planets orbiting within a dense cluster of stars called the Beehive Cluster; a collection of 1,000 stars collected around a common center of gravity – Nightfall worlds?!

Well, not so fast. These worlds are “hot Jupiters;” massive, boiling hot planets that orbit their parent star closer than Mercury in our own Solar System. The two new planets have been designated Pr0201b and Pr0211b after “Praesepe”, another name for the Beehive Cluster. Although they aren’t habitable, the view from those planets in a dense cluster of stars would be awe inspiring, with hundreds of stars within a radius of 12 light-years.
Astronomers had long predicted that planets should be common in star clusters. Consider that our own Solar System probably formed within a star forming complex like the Orion Nebula. Then the individual stars drifted away from each other over time, taking their planets with them. The evolution of the Beehive cluster was different, though, with the mutual gravity of the 1,000+ stars holding themselves together over hundreds of millions of years.

“We are detecting more and more planets that can thrive in diverse and extreme environments like these nearby clusters,” said Mario R. Perez, the NASA astrophysics program scientist in the Origins of Solar Systems Program. “Our galaxy contains more than 1,000 of these open clusters, which potentially can present the physical conditions for harboring many more of these giant planets.”

Until now, only two planets had been uncovered around massive stars in star clusters, but none around sun-like stars within these clusters. So the possibility of life was out of the question. These super-jupiters aren’t habitable either, but it’s possible that smaller planets will turn up in time as well.

Beehive Cluster. Image credit: Tom Bash and John Fox/Adam Block/NOAO/AURA/NSF

The planets were discovered by using the 1.5-meter Tillinghast telescope at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory near Amado, Arizona to measure the slight gravitational wobble the orbiting planets induce upon their host stars.

This discovery might help astronomers with another mystery that has been puzzling them for a few years: how can hot Jupiters form? How can a massive planet form so close to their parent star? Instead of forming close, it’s possible that the constant gravitational interactions among stars in young clusters push planets back and forth. Some are spun out into space as rogue planets, while others spiral inward and settle into these tight orbits.
Could there be life on Earth-sized worlds within these clusters? Are there civilizations out there who have never known the concept of night?
Probably not.
According to other researchers who released their findings just a week before the Tillinghast study, planets within star clusters like the Beehive probably aren’t habitable. In a paper titled, Can habitable planets form in clustered environments?, a team of European astronomers considered the environmental effects of star clusters on the formation and evolution of planetary systems. According to their simulations, there are just too many dynamic gravitational encounters with other stars in the cluster for any planet to remain long in the habitable zone.
Source: NASA News Release

Pinoy project manager at NASA at the front of space exploration

From GMA News:  Pinoy project manager at NASA at the front of space exploration

In 1969, it was said that “America conquered the moon, but the Philippines conquered the Universe.”

 

That was the same year Apollo 11 with three American astronauts from NASA —Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, and Michael Collin— successfully landed on the moon. The moon landing coincided with the Philippines’ first Miss Universe crown won by Gloria Diaz.

 

But more than 40 years later, Filipinos are moving to conquer the universe for real —through space exploration and research at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Pinoy pioneers
 

In fact, one of the engineers who worked on the Mars rover Curiosity is Filipino-American Gregory Villar III, who went to high school at St. Louis University in Baguio City.

 

There's also Lloyd Manglapus, a former student of the University of Santo Tomas. He is Curiosity's flight software technical lead.

 

And now, here's yet another Filipino leading the way in space research: Dr. Ralph Basilio, the lead person behind NASA’s research on carbon dioxide in space.
 

^{Dr. Ralph Basilio (Photo: NASA)}

 

Carbon dioxide in space

 

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is one of building blocks of life on Earth.

 

On the NASA website, the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 Project (OCO-2) is the “first Earth-dedicated remote sensing satellite to study atmospheric carbon dioxide from space.”

 

Talking about the importance of the project, Basilio said in an email interview, “Over the last 60 years or so, scientists have determined that only about one-half of the carbon emitted into the atmosphere stays in the atmosphere.  Where is the other one-half going?  Is it being absorbed, for example, by the southern oceans?”

 

Other than OCO-2 Project, Basilio also handles OCO-3 mission of Opportunity. OCO-3, on the other hand, intends to investigate about the “distribution of carbon dioxide on Earth in relation to its growing population and changing patterns of fuel combustion.” It is set to be launched on 2014.

 

Typical day(s) at NASA

 

Because Basilio’s responsibility extends from technical to administrative aspects, he believes there is not really a “typical” day at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he holds office.

 

“Some days I spend attending to technical challenges, some days I work on evaluating budget and schedule performance, and some days I do advanced planning,” said Basilio.

 

Previous works

 

Basilio worked for other NASA projects, such as the Mars Pathfinder where they landed a small remote-controlled robot on The Red Planet, Deep Space 1 where they were able to demonstrate advanced technologies in space, and on CloudSat, where they operated a radar system to analyze the structure of clouds for climate and weather forecasting.

 

“Each of these projects allowed me the opportunity to work in relatively small teams and to take on increasing roles on responsibilities that helped me to eventually become a project manager,” said Basilio.

 

Basilio was also able to get his hands on the Space Shuttle Program while working for Rockwell International, a major American manufacturer of aircrafts and space vehicle components.

 

On that, Basilio said, “I enjoyed working on the manned space program and meeting the astronauts.”

 

Truly Filipino

 

Basilio migrated to the United States with his parents and brother when he was three years old. Basilio’s dad was an accountant and his mother, an optometrist. His parents are now retired, and are still happily staying in the US.

 

“I think the greatest Fil-Am trait that has allowed me to succeed is hard-work and perseverance.  I may not be the most brilliant engineer/scientist, but no one has a better work ethic,” shared Basilio.

 

His father hails from Tacloban City, Leyte, and his mother from Lamitan, Basilan.

“I credit my parents and our culture…. They brought with them from the Philippines the Filipino culture and our Catholic faith,” added Basilio.

 

Basilio took up Aerospace Engineering at the California State Polytechnic University. After that, he took up his Master’s and PhD from the University of Southern California.

 

Basilio said his work ethic helped him obtain his PhD on a part-time basis over seven years. He was also proud to say that his Filipino traits helped him to be able to attain a deputy position at NASA, and now project-manage while in his 40s.

 

Since migrating to the United States, he had only been back to the Philippines thrice.

 

“I definitely wanted to return,” Basilio said.

 

Posts resume Sept 24 2012

My mom, who is 75, wants to go up to teeny tiny town near Rapid City, to see her sister, who is 80. They live in a house in the boonies and have no internet.

I'll be back online on Monday the 24th and promise not to miss another day.

Please bear with me, your patience is appreciated!

NASA on track for sending humans to Mars, but cost a concern

From Florida Today:  NASA on track for sending humans to Mars, but cost a concern

WASHINGTON — A top NASA official told lawmakers Wednesday the agency is on track with its next crewed mission into deep space: A trip to an asteroid and then to Mars.
But lawmakers and outside experts raised concerns during the congressional hearing about the program’s cost, particularly the $30 billion price tag connected to the “heavy lift” rocket, and the relatively few test flights planned before embarking on a key deep space mission.
“We wish you luck,” said Rep. Dana Rohrbacher, R-Calif. “We want you to succeed. (But) we’ve been through a number of these in the past where we have budget problems on this end and we end up losing billions of dollars.”

Dan Dumbacher, NASA’s deputy associate administrator for Exploration Systems Development, told members of a House Science, Space and Technology subcommittee that NASA and its team of private contractors are “making excellent progress” toward launching an unmanned test flight in 2017 in preparation for the real mission by 2025.
Tests measuring water impact, acoustics, vibrations and parachute landings of the Orion crew vehicle are either under way or nearly complete, and the manufacturing of its heat shield has begun, he said. Design work is under way on the $30 billion “heavy lift” rocket known as the Space Launch System that will carry Orion, Dumbacher said.
His comments Wednesday came nearly a year after NASA unveiled the design of the rocket, which is billed as the most powerful U.S. rocket since the Saturn V that took Apollo astronauts to the moon in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
If the timeline holds, a manned test flight of the Space Launch System and Orion capsule will take place in 2021. If that’s successful, an asteroid landing would be targeted by 2025, followed by a landing on Mars sometime in the 2030s.
A 20-year wait to reach Earth’s neighbor sounds agonizingly distant given the successful Mars landing earlier this year by Curiosity, a car-sized science lab currently roving the Martian surface for clues to life.
But space exploration remains delicate and expensive, and NASA has had to navigate the priorities of changing administrations. President Barack Obama called for the manned Mars mission after scrapping a moon mission sought by President George W. Bush.
Even if the engineering goes well, there’s a question of money. At a time when Congress is contemplating deep cuts in discretionary programs such as space exploration, NASA might not have the budget it needs over time to sustain the program as currently designed.
The project’s requested fiscal 2013 budget alone is nearly $2.8 billion: $969 million for Orion, $1.3 billion for the Space Launch System, and $405 million for Kennedy Space Center to prepare for the eventual launch.
“That’s a lot of money,” Rohrbacher said.
He suggested NASA explore cheaper rockets — or risk making the mission too pricey for future congressional support.

NASA funds research into self-building spaceships

From Yahoo News:  NASA funds research into self-building spaceships

Considering the difficulties of getting even relatively small spacecraft like the SpaceX Dragon into orbit, the idea of launching larger interplanetary craft from Earth's surface seems especially daunting. To address this, NASA thinks that future spacefaring vehicles could actually construct themselves after they've launched using onboard 3D printers, eventually transforming into ships much larger and more complex than anything that could ever be built on the planet.

The space agency recently awarded $100,000 to a project called SpiderFab that aims to study this concept and ultimately produce designs for such a craft. In theory, a small vehicle could launch in a rocket carrying the raw materials needed by an onboard 3D printer. Unlike fully-assembled craft, it wouldn't need to be designed to fold up or built to withstand the extreme forces involved in liftoff and ascent into space.

NASA thinks the concept could also be expanded to create a spaceship that would find its own raw materials once in space, such as metal from asteroids or even spare parts from defunct satellites. In addition to building vehicles, the technology could be used to construct massive radio telescopes and other hardware of a scale and complexity that could never be launched from Earth.

Just imagine a space station that could "print" itself, without the need for astronauts or multiple, expensive trips to bring loads of components into orbit. Or maybe just a giant space baby like the one seen in "2001: A Space Odyssey."

 

NASA's Huge New Rocket May Cost $500 Million Per Launch

From YahooNews:  NASA's Huge New Rocket May Cost $500 Million Per Launch

The giant rocket NASA is building to carry astronauts to Mars and other destinations in deep space may cost $500 million per launch when it's flying regularly, space agency officials said Tuesday (Sept. 11).

NASA is eyeing $500 million as a target right now for the Space Launch System (SLS) when it begins making roughly one flight per year, which could begin happening after 2023. But things could change as the SLS program — which was just announced in September 2011 — matures, officials said.

"We've estimated somewhere around the $500 million number is what an average cost per flight is," SLS deputy project manager Jody Singer, of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., said Tuesday during a presentation at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ SPACE 2012 conference in Pasadena, Calif.

"But again, I'd caution you, because we still are working on our contracts and where we're going," Singer added. "Plus we're in the development phase, and you really have to have a little bit more of a steady-state flight launch to be able to get the more efficient launch rate. But that's the number we're using right now."

NASA's next big rocket
NASA unveiled the SLS just two months after the last flight of its venerable space shuttle program, which was grounded in July 2011 after 30 years of orbital service.
But the giant rocket and the capsule it will loft — known as the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle — are not a replacement for the space shuttle. That space-taxi role will be filled by private American spaceships, which NASA is grooming to be ready to carry astronauts to and from low-Earth orbit by 2017.
The SLS-Orion combo, on the other hand, is a deep space transportation system. In 2010, President Barack Obama charged NASA with getting astronauts to a near-Earth asteroid by 2025 and then on to the vicinity of Mars by the mid-2030s, and SLS-Orion is how NASA will try to make that happen.
The first test flight of the SLS is slated for 2017, and NASA hopes the rocket will begin lofting astronauts in 2021.

If the SLS is able to meet the $500 million target, it would end up being cheaper to fly than the space shuttle. The shuttle program cost about $209 billion (in 2010 dollars) over its lifetime and made a total of 135 flights, yielding an average cost per launch of more than $1.5 billion.


Two or three flights per year
In its initial incarnation, the SLS will be capable of lifting 70 metric tons of payload. But NASA eventually plans to build several variants of the rocket, allowing it to carry 105 tons in one configuration and 130 tons in another.

"We can move from one configuration to the other configuration with not a lot of cost," Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for human exploration and operations, said Tuesday at the SPACE 2012 conference.

"It's clear for the Mars missions that we talk about, we're going to need the 130 metric ton capability," Gerstenmaier added. "For a lot of other missions — from the science missions, et cetera — they can really be supported well with the 105 metric ton capability rocket."

NASA is also aiming to launch the SLS-Orion combo two or three times per year eventually, Gerstenmaier said. That rate should be sufficient to take care of the agency's human spaceflight business beyond Earth orbit, and it will help keep costs down.

"We don't want to build a huge infrastructure that supprts a very high flight rate — then it'd cost us a lot if we're at substantially less than that flight rate," Gerstenmaier said.