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SPACE FROG
NASA/Wallops/Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport This frog launched into the air by the LADEE rocket will fill you with emotions you didn't know you could produce, is what I'm saying.
So: Space Frog. What can we say about this Space Frog? A quick eulogy perhaps, since this frog, which apparently got too close to the LADEE spacecraft launchpad last Friday, almost certainly went splat shortly after this photo was taken.
But also, it's hard not to laugh, because ha, Space Frog, right? A frog, launched into the air by a spacecraft on its way to the moon. Comedy.
Apparently the launchpad at Wallops/Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport uses a pool of water to blunt the sound of a rocket firing and prevent damage to the platform. Space Frog was there, perhaps, enjoying his evening, when the rocket launched, propelling him into the air.
But Space Frog will remain, permanently floating in this photograph, and forever in our hearts and minds. Godspeed, Space Frog. Godspeed.
[Universe Today via Deadspin]
Source: outer-space-guests.blogspot.com
You would think that by now humans would be growing tomatoes on the moon (we do have the means and technology to do it, given to us by those non-existent reptilians). Ok, so a few humans are growing tomatoes on the moon. But opening up the moon to a whole lot more people would solve all the problems humans have on earth. And I seriously mean all the problems. A few years back one of the presidential candidates stated that his priority as president (if elected) would include further explorations on the moon and incentives for private enterprise to get the ball rolling in that direction. The voters spoke and didn't show any interest and didn't vote the dude into office. That sent a surefire message to the space industry (humans are not ready for space tomatoes). But they are sooo tasty! Tomatoes are tasty...the space tomatoes.
Human politics is keeping humans from mindboggling economic jackpots in space, not the reptilians, who want humans up there...for terraforming and building domed habitats to live in and for growing more tomatoes, and to snack on the tasty primates (but only occasionally, and they promise appropriate compensation to the families). I say we go for it.
I think I was the only one who voted for that dude, his political stuff turned many people off. Unlike the one that got the vote and the jackpot, the white house!
Who needs space exploration when you got Hollywood, and Hollywood got you... and me and Bobbie Mcgee.
Space tomatoes messing with my head.
Lou Baldin
Sci-fi realities Mark Bult, CC BY-ND
By Ian Crawford", Birkbeck, University of London"
To date, all human economic activity has depended on the material and energy resources of a single planet; understandably, perhaps.
http://www.science20.com/the conversation/reasons to mine the moon-150130
It is conceivable though that future advances in space exploration could change this by opening our closed planetary economy to essentially unlimited external resources of energy and raw materials.
Look up at the Moon this evening, and you might be gazing at a solution. The Earth's closest celestial neighbor seems likely to play a major role and already a number of private companies have been created to explore the possibilities.
It is important to stress that even now, 40 years after the Apollo missions, we still don't have a complete picture of the Moon's economic potential, and obtaining one will require a more rigorous program of lunar exploration than has been undertaken to-date. In part, this is why proposed future lunar exploration missions (such as the recently announced Lunar Mission One) are so important.
Nevertheless, as a result of work over the past four decades, we do now know enough to make a first-order assessment of lunar resource potential. In doing so it is useful to distinguish between three possible future applications of such resources.
Digging deep
* We have the option of using lunar materials to facilitate continued exploration, and future economic development, of the Moon itself. The concept is usually referred to as In Situ Resource Utilization, or ISRU.
* We could make use of lunar resources to facilitate scientific and economic activity in the vicinity of both Earth and Moon (so-called cis-lunar space) as well as future exploration deeper into the Solar System
* We can consider the importation of lunar resources to the Earth's surface where they would contribute directly to the global economy.
Recent work - which I have summarized here - has shown that the Moon does possess materials suitable for ISRU. Most important in this respect is evidence for deposits of water ice and other volatiles trapped in cold (less than 100 Kelvin or minus 173 degrees Celsius) and permanently shadowed craters at the lunar poles. In addition to being required for human life support, water is also a ready source of oxygen (required for both life support and rocket fuel oxidizer) and hydrogen (a valuable rocket fuel).
In addition to possible ice deposits, it has been known since the early studies of the Apollo samples that the lunar soil contains volatiles, substances derived ultimately from the solar wind (e.g. hydrogen, helium, carbon, nitrogen, and at high latitudes, hydroxide and perhaps water), and these may also be exploitable for ISRU activities.
Although ISRU will undoubtedly benefit future scientific exploration, it is true that such activities will only make wider economic sense if further lunar exploration and development is able to yield net benefits to the global economy. It is here that the second of those three potential applications of lunar resources comes into play.
Fuel's gold
Our global civilization is already highly dependent on Earth-orbiting satellites for communications, navigation, weather forecasting and resource management, and this reliance is likely to increase. The high costs of these activities are largely dictated by high launch costs, and by the fact that failed satellites cannot currently be repaired or replenished in orbit.
The availability of resources obtained from the weaker gravity conditions of the Moon would help mitigate these obstacles to further economic development in Earth orbit. Near-term lunar exports to a cis-lunar infrastructure could include the supply of hydrogen and oxygen as rocket fuel/oxidizer.
In addition, lunar surface rocks and soils are rich in potentially useful but heavy (and thus expensive to launch from Earth) raw materials such as magnesium, aluminium, silicon, iron and titanium. Therefore, if a lunar industrial infrastructure is gradually built up, the Moon may be able to provide more sophisticated products to Earth-orbiting facilities.
Examples might include titanium and aluminium alloys for structural components, and silicon-based photovoltaic cells for solar power. The key business case for sourcing these materials on the Moon is simple. It takes about 20 times less energy to launch a given mass from the surface of the Moon into Earth orbit compared to launching it from the Earth's surface to Earth orbit.
Down to earth
This all seems pretty encouraging for any company or country considering drilling on the Moon, but opportunities for lunar resources to make a more direct contribution to the world economy by being imported to the Earth's surface are limited.
This is because the Earth already contains the same basic mix of chemical elements as does the Moon, many of them in higher localized concentrations (i.e. ores), and we have a well-developed infrastructure for extracting and refining terrestrial raw materials.
Helium 3's potential may be over-inflated warrenski, CC BY
The light isotope of helium (helium-3), which is implanted into lunar soils by the solar wind is often cited as an exception because it is perceived by some to be a potential fuel for future nuclear fusion reactors on Earth. However, sustainable nuclear fusion using helium-3 has yet to be shown to be practical, and even if it is, the concentration of helium-3 in lunar soils is so low (about ten parts-per-billion by mass) that strip mining and processing hundreds of square kilometers of the lunar surface would be required each year in order to make a significant contribution to Earth's future energy needs.
Other possible lunar materials which might conceivably be economically imported to the Earth include platinum group elements (currently valued at between 20,000 and 50,000 per kilo) extracted from iron meteorites that may have survived impact with the lunar surface, and materials (for example, economically valuable rare-earth elements which are known to be concentrated in some regions of the Moon) for which the environmental costs of terrestrial mining may one day make lunar sources more attractive.
Booster stages
When we pull together the evidence, it remains difficult to identify any single lunar resource that will be sufficiently valuable to drive a mining industry on its own. There is no simple solution. However, the Moon does possess abundant raw materials that are of potential economic interest.
We need to think of a hierarchy of future applications. This begins with the use of lunar materials to facilitate human activities on the Moon itself. We can then progress to the use of lunar resources to underpin a future industrial capability within the Earth-Moon system. In this way, gradually increasing access to lunar resources may help "bootstrap" a self-sustaining space-based economy from which the global economy will ultimately benefit.
"This article is based on an invited review paper on lunar resources that will be published by the journal "Progress in Physical Geography" in the New Year. A preprint of that paper, which contains references to the primary literature on which this essay is based, can be found here"
"Ian Crawford, Professor of Planetary Science and Astrobiology at Birkbeck, University of London, receives funding for lunar science and exploration (although not related to lunar resources specifically) from the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and The Leverhulme Trust. He is a scientific advisor to the Lunar Mission One project which aims to land a robotic probe on the south pole of the Moon in 2024. "
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the.
The LADEE spacecraft is now in Excessive revolve. LADEE burning its simple engine this sunrise (OCT. 6) at 6:57 a.m. EDT and proudly achieved lunar revolve. Tracking data confer on later event the evident parameters of the revolve, but based on telemetry of thruster program and accelerations, the LOI-1 (EXCESSIVE FIELD INSERTION WOUND 1) wound appears to be point to symbolic. The anticipated Excessive revolve has an revolve dialogue box of 23.1 hrs. The appearance anticipated push gently (EXCESSIVE APOSELENE TRICKERY 1, OR LAM1) is tedious for the 2nd aposelene, which would go down stridently 1.5 existence from now. For LOI-1 consequences point to symbolic, this push gently can be waived.
LOI-2 follows on Oct. 9 to fit LADEE happening a 4 hour revolve following a 250 km periselene turn.
Last but not least LOI-3 on Oct. 12 spaces LADEE happening a stridently leaflet 250 km revolve that initiates a 30 day commissioning generation as well as experiments through the on-board Excessive Laser Communications Check (LLCD) not later than the start of the missions science generation.
The 280 million Excessive Expose and Clean Personality Colonist launched Sept. 6 aboard a Minotaur 5 intensify from Wallops Island, Va., putting on a Friday night pyrotechnic sky show for observers down in the dumps the U.S. East Seashore.
The five-stage launcher put LADEE in a high-altitude stir revolve, and the bullet-shaped spacecraft conclude three loops about Nestle over the last month, through its intensify thrusters to shift itself leader to set up for an buttonhole following the moon's revolve Sunday.
"On the third hold spellbound, we're hanging out acquaint with in space right about everyplace the moon is departure to arise by," hypothetical Butler Hine, LADEE's project property owner at NASA's Ames Scrutinize Set of buildings, in a prelaunch press conference. "It swings by, whips us about taking into account it, and next following we arise out from taking into account the moon, we do a big braking wound following our simple engine. That braking wound is what captures us about the moon."
LADEE's simple engine, built by Beat Systems/Loral, burning approximately grow old in September to distress the probe's paw marks on the way to the moon. Sunday's lunar revolve vaccination push gently is the write down anticipated engine barrage of bullets in LADEE's brief.
The mission's commencement at the moon is not impacted by the tilted faint of the federal government, which furloughed 97 percent of NASA's considerate servant employees at the same time as Convention ruined to hold spellbound a cost-cutting measure for the new economic meeting.
LADEE's operations are not artificial by the faint at the same time as the brief is in a elevated generation, hypothetical Rachel Hoover, a representative at NASA's Ames Scrutinize Set of buildings, not later than the faint.
Sources hypothetical NASA had no policy to divulge the decree of LADEE's vaccination wound to the media or the party at the same time as the agency's party associations bond is not at work.
Credit: Astrogatorsguild.com, Spaceflightnow.com
Astrobotic Apparatus Inc. today announced it has signed a contract as well as SpaceX to set off Astrobotic's robotic payload to the Moon on a Falcon 9. The crossing life-force search for water and use payloads, as well as the robot narrating its jaunt in the function of giving out 3D video. The duty may well set off as at once as December 2013.The Falcon 9 higher platform life-force propel Astrobotic on a four-day crossing to the Moon. Astrobotic life-force subsequently spin the moon to situate for landing. The spacecraft life-force land peacefully, proper and soundly by the use of technologies pioneered by Carnegie Mellon Instructor for guiding unconstrained cars. The wanderer life-force vacate for three months, compel everlastingly happening the lunar days, and hibernate at some stage in the lunar nights. The lander life-force support payload operations as well as genial capacity and communications."The duty is the first of a regular run," whispered Dr. William "Red" Whittaker, chairman of Astrobotic Apparatus and planner of the university's Cable Robotics Headquarters. "Astrobotic's missions life-force track new reserves, use booming experiences, occasion new trade and up for grabs new markets. Spurred considerably by incentives, contracts, and the Google Astrophysical X-Prize, this is a spick and span control for new exploration.""The moon has pecuniary and expert resources that went undiscovered happening the Apollo era, and our robot explorers life-force spearhead this new lunar wire," whispered David Gump, lead of Astrobotic Apparatus. "The primary duty life-force get up up to 24 million in Google's Astrophysical X-Prize, Florida's 2 million set off and also, and NASA's 10 million landing contract in the function of delivering 240 pounds of payload for space agencies and custom marketers." [Further]
