I LOVE the Earth. Especially the Oceans.

We absolutely need to take care of it. One trip down to your local river or pond will prove that we aren’t doing a very good job of it. We have an energy problem, and we throw plastic trash everywhere. And that’s just 2 of thousands of things we need to start getting right.

I’d like to leave.

Not because I think the Earth is a lost cause, but because I think it’s essential for saving it.

We live in a very narrow band of atmosphere on a fairly small planet, circling a fairly ordinary star. Trying to be creative in a small space is difficult and lately, it shows.

Staying put limits our thinking. Staying put limits our opportunities.

We have “inventors block”.

Have you ever had a creative block for days and gone for a walk? The change of scenery and input almost always triggers a flood of ideas. If you ever try this, bring a recording device. Really.

This would work for the problems we face here on Earth.

What if we “took a walk” as a species to cure our “inventors block”? Mars and Europa are waiting for us to stroll by.

Let’s go, and I’ll pack the recorder and the whiteboard.

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In the news we have…

Stuck knob on Atlantis

JAXA aims for SBSP

Ulysses is Dead

The most powerful band in the world calls up the ISS

LRO\'s 1st images from the Moon

NKOTB

STS-127 Cleared for Launch

Guinness wants you in space

Doug Messierover at Parabolic Arc had a post today about the transition from SpaceShipOne to SpaceShipTwo in which he postulates:

That’s a big leap – maybe too much of a leap. Scaling up a small experimental rocket plane — and its carrier aircraft, the WhiteKnightOne — seems to have proven to be a bigger challenge than they thought. Larger airframes, more powerful engines, stronger landing gear…it’s all very complicated — and expensive.

It’s important to note that Scaled Composites has not done any flight testing since 2004 and the next step in their evolution seems to be taking a very long time. Doug further notes that the impact of this delay are obvious:

You want to beat your rivals to market. You want to fly as many millionauts as possible to maximize your profits. And people paying 200 Gs for five minutes of zero G want to be able to float around, not stay strapped to their seats in a cramped cockpit.

Doug’s analysis of this point is right on. Whether they like it or not, by winning the X-Prize in 2004, Scaled Composites has become the thing we measure the progress of private space flight against.

Many people think if they can’t do it, no one can.

This assumption is wrong, and any competitors should note that this delay on their part, coupled with the poor global economy is the prime time to leapfrog them. Competition is what will drive this budding industry forward and it’s time you laid your cards on the table.

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The men who ran the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs were men of legend. Tough, chance taking heroes who would bet their lives on their skills rather than “err on the side of caution”.

They were “we’re doing this today, so I’m going to piss in my spacesuit rather than scrub the mission” kinda guys.

I was struck by the stark contrast to the present day representatives of our quest for space on Friday night. As we watched the Kepler launch on NASA TV, the whole time “White and Nerdy” by Weird Al Yankovic ran circles my head. I’m sure that the people covering the launch are really smart, and probably all have Ph D’s galore, but somehow they made something extremely cool downright boring.

I want to love it. I want this to be something I watch during prime time instead of 24 or Mythbusters. There should be launching parties going on across the US like we have Super Bowl parties. They need a Veronica Belmont or Patrick Norton or Molly Wood to go down there and spice things up. Maybe that girl who did the Large Hadron Collider Rap Youtube video is available.

To be fair, I don’t think most people over at NASA are content with our current situation. There are certainly cowboys all over that place, but I don’t hear any of those people saying anything. I watched a special on the Science Channel that same evening and I swear they found the LEAST socially aware people from NASA to be on the show.

I like nerdy people. Really I do, but I’m not sure we’re inspiring 10 year old boys to become astronauts by projecting the image of science and space that we currently are projecting.

They are launching the Shuttle Discovery tomorrow. If they want to get people to watch, to be interested, this is what they have to do:

There are scores of enthusiasts who trekked down to Florida to watch this launch. During the boring parts of the countdown (there are a lot of them) have someone young and vibrant take a handheld HD camera down to this crowd and hang out with them. Get their stories. They are huge fans and so excited that they showed up just to watch. Find the adventure seekers and chicks in bikinis. Talk to *them*.

You could call the segment “The spaceflight fan special” or “Girls with boobs like spaceships too”.

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At 22:51 UTC/GMT the GOES-O weather satellite lifted of from Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

If you launched a rocket directly east from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, (the white arrow) it would have an inclination of 28.6 degrees. The Hubble Space Telescope was launched nearly due east from KSC, and has an inclination of 28.5 degrees (not shown). If you launch due east from another latitude, the spacecraft will have the inclination of that launch pad. The inclination angle can be changed by changing the vector you launch at. If you decide to build the International Space Station (ISS), for example, and other countries are involved, you’ll want to have an inclination that the other countries can reach. The ISS has an inclination of 51.6 degrees (it goes to the northeast along the white path). Russia launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome (the red Arrow) in Kazakhstan. Baikonur is located at 46 degrees latitude, so They’d would have to launch towards the east-north-east at the right time to get to the ISS. Are you with me so far?

In order for all of these angles to really make sense, the map provided (thanks to www.heavens-above.com!) is similar to the one shown frequently on NASA TV during manned spaceflight missions. The reason the path doesn’t line up with itself is because Earth rotates underneath the orbiting spacecraft. When the launch facility is “in-plane”, or directly underneath the orbit of the craft, you have a short period of time to launch. With regards to the ISS, that launch window is about 10 minutes. The opportunities to launch vary day to day, because the ascending node is when the US prefers to launch and land. NASA never launched toward the ISS when it’s in the descending node because it takes extra energy to make up for that extra 28.6 degrees above the equator. The ascending and descending nodes may seem a bit confusing, but looking at the map, the ascending node is the path going to the northeast, and the descending node is going southeast. If you’re still confused, remember that it is rocket science, but it’s not too hard to figure out with a little patience!

If you’re still with me, I’ll explain a little bit more. If you go to www.heavens-above.com, http://spaceweather.com/flybys/ or http://science.nasa.gov/RealTime/jtrack/you’ll be able to see some of the satellites that are constantly whizzing overhead at 5 miles/second! I’ve personally seen the ISS and space shuttle, hundreds of “Iridium flares” and even the Hubble Space Telescope once in a while from here in Philadelphia, PA, in the US. It’s quite a treat to see the ISS and shuttle following each other before docking or after separation!! To explain why NASA only prefers to land on the ascending node is to minimize risk to those of us here on terra firma. If something like the Columbia tragedy were to happen again, NASA doesn’t want the pieces of debris from the spacecraft falling on populated areas. There is some toxic things aboard that are best left untouched, but that’s a subject for a later date.

Outside looking up with a smile,
-Jeph

This is the full 7 hour committee meeting of the Augustine Commission looking at a Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans. Each speaker is an individual video and you can jump around all 26 parts if you desire.

In the news SeaLaunch files for Chapter 11, Obama is being compared to Kenney and GUCP leak checks on Endeavour.

Main topic is Ares vs the side mounted shuttle (plan B) vs DIRECT.

And… NASA EDGE FAIL!

In this June 19th edition of Spacevidcast Live we have the return of the Mars Hoax, the alternate launch abort system for Constellation, the first Zero G wedding (sorta), the launch of LRO/LCROSS and the groundbreaking of Spaceport America!

On June 18th at 21:32 (although 1/10 of 1 second late) both the LRO and LCROSS payloads were launched aboard an Atlas V Rocket at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Launch Complex 41. This is from T-1 to MECO which is about 15 minutes. Check out the fairing separation, it is stunningly cool!

In the news we have Fire, ESA’s creativity, 12 minute EVA, S. Korea Space Center, JAXA Impact, Stairway to Heaven and STS-127! Woah!

Some linkage:
Voices from the Moon: Apollo Astronauts Describe Their Lunar Experiences
SpaceFlight Now’s live STS-127 coverage
NASA’s Live UStream page
Spacevidcast’t STS-127 Twitter Page
Commander Mark Polansky’s Twitter Page

On June 13th, 2009 the STS-127 launch with Space Shuttle Endeavour was postponed. This is the official NASA briefing.

The reason rockets go straight up at first is because the atmosphere is thick and doesn’t like it when things go too fast. So the rockets are launched straight up for a little while until the air thins a bit, and progressively lean over to gain speed. Once they get above about 60 or 65 miles, they are technically I space, but the atmosphere doesn’t know that. You’re above the majority of the air particles up there, and the few that reside there smash into the rocket and over time will bring everything back to earth. The traces of atmosphere can reach out to about 400 miles high. This is why some spacecraft (like the International Space Station) under that heights have to reboost their orbit every so often.

When you in a stable low earth orbit, gravity is still about 88% of what it is on earth. You don’t feel it because you’re in freefall. You do however, experience migrogravity, which is caused by the mass of the spacecraft you’re surrounded by, or near to. You don’t necessarily feel this effect, but anything with mass has gravity.

To change orbital altitude, as I mentioned earlier, you have to either speed up or slow down. As you orbit and change speed, if you want to make it circular, you have to fire the thrusters or engines again about 45 minutes later. If you’re in a given orbit and release or launch something from your spacecraft (like a tool bag, for example) the energy imparted on the object changes its orbit so it doesn’t fly along side the craft. It will stay roughly the same shaped orbit as the craft–if you discount the drag of the atmosphere– but the shape is just turned a bit and could come back later in the orbit and run into the spacecraft, unless you release the object directly in front of or behind the craft. If you have a baseball and you want to send it down to earth (discounting the effects of drag in orbit again), you’ll want to throw or launch it directly behind you relative to the direction of travel. To raise the apogee (the high point of orbit) you must throw the ball faster.

This is all there is to it for physics near planets and moons. It gets more complicated when traveling between objects, because while it may by a shorter distance to go in a straight line, it’s also less efficient. Escape velocity is when that ball you threw into orbit actually goes faster than earths gravity can pull it down.

I think I’ll end with this, because I would rather not get to the point of explaining in detail why we can’t do something like launching nuclear waste into the sun, but to touch briefly on it, if we were aiming a rocket full of radioactive material at the sun, we would need to slow down by about 55,000 or 60,000 mph. We orbit the sun at 70,000 mph. It takes a lot of energy to launch anything towards the sun.

-Jeph

Imagine sitting in the stands, seeing nearly a dozen shiny, oddly shaped planes on the runway, with people running around, and white vapors visible blowing across the tarmac with the sun backlighting the clouds. Suddenly, a few of the planes explode to life with a bright white flame and a deep hiss emating from beneath them as they zip down the runway and begin flying, racing each other in invisible paths at 300+ miles an hour. 

This is the Rocket Racing League! Powered by liquid oxygen and ethanol or kerosene, with enough propellant for a burn time of about 4 minutes, the racers will need fuel and energy management, gliding through large sections of the course, and restarting the engines to blast and power through turns and passing other racers through the expected hour long race. After about 10 or so minutes of flight, the pilots land, refuel, and take off again to jump back into the race.

The rocket planes cost less than 1 million USD each. The racers are a Velocity airframe, which is derived from a commercially-available kit plane similar to the Rutan Long-EZ, which has been modified to accept rocket power and custom avionics.

It’s expected that the racetrack will be 3 dimensional, 2 miles long, a mile wide and about a quarter mile or 1500 high at the base, and perhaps 2000 ft elevation at the top of the track. The pilots will see superimposed track guides that resemble the technology used in american football to mark scrimmage and down markers in their visors, and spectators will see the same guides superimposed on giant TV screens at the race (imagine the Red Bull Air Races without the toilet paper pylons). Each racer will have a separate track to follow but the courses will be close together to build the excitement. Viewers at home will be able to see the race and the virtual track guides as well, and through several camera angles, like on the wings, helmet mounted, and trackside views. There’s even a computer game is planned (an early version of this game is already available at www.rocketracingleague.com) which will interface with racer position data in real time over the internet, allowing players to virtually compete with the rocket pilots. How cool is that!?

The takeoffs will be staggered to keep constant action in the air. Pilots take off in pairs a few minutes apart, they will be competing against the clock but will maneuver around each other much like NASCAR. 

At time of posting, there are six teams competing in the first race; Rocket Star Racing, Team Extreme Rocket Racing, Canada-based Beyond Gravity Rocket Racing, Bridenstine Rocket Racing, Santa Fe Racing and Thunderhawk Rocket Racing. 

It’s expected that like NASCAR, the RRL will have a nationwide circuit, allowing more viewers to see the race. some esitmates suggest as many as 400,000+ people will be at these races. There’s no set date for the racing league to officially have its first season but I’ve heard that it may be as soon as 2009 or 2010. I’ve also heard that the only thing holding them back from going full tilt racing is the FAA certification on the rocket motors. Big surprise, right? Oh well, what do you expect? Regardless of when they fly, you can guarantee I’ll be cheering the fliers on!!

Wearing my propeller hat – Jeph

This is the long lost Space Media 2.0 panel at the 2009 International Space Development Conference. Both Cariann and I were on the panel with Ian Murphy moderating. The camera does not pan away for a while, but it eventually will allowing you to see the panel. Enjoy!

We have a planet as big as the star it rotates around, Canada is sending a clown to space, STS-127 is close to launching and a live interview with Fernando De La Pena of Mexico’s newly (almost) formed space agency, AEXA.

I can hardly believe that I haven’t written on here in months!  It certainly doesn’t feel that long!  Let’s see if we can catch up.

NASA EDGE’s Mission Madness is over and a balloon won.  STS-119 *and* STS-125 have  gone up and down successfully.  And we went to this little thing called ISDC.

Oh wait… ISDC was *huge*!  Let me tell you all about it:

YOU, our community helped us out a ton by donating just over $600!!  THANK YOU!  Not only was that such a help financially, but it really gave us the motivation to not let you guys down.  And so began the process of selling everything we own that is basically not tied down.  I will not claim to be an expert by any means, but I think I have a pretty good handle on eBay and Craig’s List by now!  The really big surprise came when our parents really came to our aid in the last moments.  See, our anniversary is in late June, and we were married at Disney.  So our family said since we are so close to Disney, why don’t we go?  Well… um… it’s not like we have the money to do that!  We really were just planing on hitting the free part of Disney and Universal… DownTown Disney and Universal’s CityWalk for some browsing and such.  Well they pooled together and found us enough money to go to the Disney Parks for a few *days*!!  WOW!  Considering that we haven’t been on a vacation in just over five years, that was heaven sent!  And by no small feat, I must add.  I know that there was some borrowing of money and selling of jewelry to make it all happen… but it’s so nice to know that we not only had support, but love from home!  Then, you wouldn’t even believe what happened next!  We did our homework and called a few friends and actually got tickets into KSC for free!!  Considering that Ben and I haven’t been to KSC in our adult lives, this was awesome.  We had enough time to look at everything and even take the tour that is included in the price of admission… INCLUDING the Blast Off Experience!  Some other friends of ours had actually given a number of gift certificates to us for Christmas and birthday’s that we had been saving for a special occasion… like an anniversary… and we figured out exactly where we could fit them into our trip.  Between that and reading EVERY Disney tip guide I could find online or in my library (admittedly, my local book store too, until they would kick me out) we got some nice tips and tricks to help us stretch our little budget as far as possible.  (Like, did you know that Disney gives you enough food that you can really just split every meal?  Although I think my favorite is getting the  $5 foot longs from Subway for lunch, and then saving half of them for dinner too!  And parking? No problem.  You can actually park in DownTown Disney for free and then ride a bus to a Disney hotel, then catch another one to the park of your choice. Which came with some good quality *hours* with the hubby, but I like him!)  All in all, it was a great trip and I’m so glad that we got to do everything that we did.  

So again, THANK YOU to all of you who donated!  And THANK YOU to all of you who have supported us even “just” with your kind words. (In quotes, because it’s not ONLY with your kind words, but usually great suggestions and general community help as well.)  You guys are the best and truly we would not be here and able to do all that we do if it were not for you.

This is the back half of the Elon Musk keynote presentation at the 2009 International Space Development Conference. The first half was lost due to technical problems, but we did get his video presentation put back in.

Buzz Aldrin, one of only 12 humans to ever step foot on the moon, gives this keynote presentation at the 2009 International Space Development Conference.

This is the keynote presentation from Richard Garriott at the ISDC 2009 lunch keynote. Richard is one of only a handful of citizen astronauts and one of only two second generation astronauts.

Tim Pickens presents on Greening the Aerospace Community at the 2009 International Space Development Conference.

Andrew Chaikin is the author of “A Man on the Moon” and gives this morning presentation at the 2009 International Space Development Conference

Robert Zubrin of The Mars Society talks about what it would take to stay comfortably on Mars.