The Space Review

[Orionid]

How to clarify human futures beyond Earth
by Joe Carroll Monday, December 6, 2021


Figure 1. Surface gravity clustering in our solar system

Figure 1 above shows a remarkable coincidence: clustering of surface gravity levels in our solar system. All bodies with 9% to 250% of Earth gravity cluster near Earth, Mars, or Moon gravity. Those 3 gravity levels seem like the only levels available for us to live in this solar system. I stumbled onto this only after 34 years in aerospace. [1]
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4295/1

[Orionid]

A Biden space policy take shape
by Jeff Foust Monday, December 6, 2021


Vice President Kamala Harris gives opening remarks at the National Space Council meeting December 1. (credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky)

Every presidential administration, through its actions (and, sometimes, inaction) puts its stamp on space policy. The Trump Administration directed NASA to return humans to the Moon in an accelerated fashion and supported the establishment of the Space Force. The Obama Administration cancelled the Constellation program but started the commercial crew program. So, what would the Biden Administration do?
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4296/1

[Orionid]

Review: The Apollo Murders
by Jeff Foust Monday, December 13, 2021



The Apollo Murders
by Chris Hadfield
Mulholland Books, 2021
hardcover, 480 pp.
ISBN 978-0-316-26453-2
US$28.00
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0316264539/spaceviews

It’s not uncommon for retired astronauts to take pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, and write a book. Most are memoirs about how they became astronauts and highlights of astronaut careers. Some turn their attention to other topics, like spaceflight or issues related to or inspired by it. A few even try their hand at fiction, like Buzz Aldrin, who teamed with John Barnes for the sci-fi novels Encounter with Tiber and The Return.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4297/1

[Orionid]

Who was missing at COP26 and why it’s a problem
by Layla Martin
Monday, December 13, 2021


Sustainable Cities winner: Net-zero Transition Photobioreactor, by Simone Tramonte, taken in ReykjanesbĂŚr, Iceland. A photobioreactor at Algalif’s facilities in Reykjanesbaer, Iceland, produces sustainable astaxanthin using clean geothermal energy. Featured at The New York Times Climate Hub, Glasgow (2021).

I attended the United Nations Climate Conference (COP26) this November in Glasgow and observed a lack of participation from the aerospace & defense (A&D) sector. I am in possession of the COP26 attendee list, which is 1,616 pages long. After cross-checking the attendee list, I was unable to confirm any representatives from The Boeing Company, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon Technologies, Virgin Orbit, and SpaceX in attendance at the climate summit. After individually reviewing the physical materials I gathered at the conference against the corporate sponsors, I was unable to confirm one of the preceding A&D companies sponsored COP26. If corporate sponsorship was considered “too green” by the board, why were employees with titles such as “Director of Sustainability” not listed on the roster at COP26?
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4298/1

[Orionid]

Private space stations are coming. Will they be better than their predecessors?
by Justin St. P. Walsh and Alice Gorman Monday, December 13, 2021


A Northrop Grumman concept for a commercial space station is one of three that won NASA funding for studies earlier this month. (credit: Northrop Grumman)

A new era of space stations is about to kick off. NASA has announced three commercial space station proposals for development, joining an earlier proposal by Axiom Space.

These proposals are the first attempts to create places for humans to live and work in space outside the framework of government space agencies. They’re part of what has been called “Space 4.0”, where space technology is driven by commercial opportunities. Many believe this is what it will take to get humans to Mars and beyond.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4299/1

[Orionid]

Private human spaceflight become more regular, but not routine
by Jeff Foust Monday, December 13, 2021


The crew capsule of Blue Origin’s New Shepard vehicle descends during the NS-19 mission December 11. (credit: Blue Origin)

In the end, the FAA decided to declare victory and go home.

On Friday, the FAA announced that it would retire its Commercial Astronaut Wings program at the end of this year. The program started in 2004 but, after awarding the first wings to SpaceShipOne pilots Mike Melvill and Brian Binnie that year, it was dormant until 2019, when five SpaceShipTwo crew members got wings for two suborbital flights of that vehicle.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4300/1

[Orionid]

Review: 50 Years of Solar System Exploration
by Jeff Foust Monday, December 20, 2021



50 Years of Solar System Exploration: Historical Perspectives
by Linda Billings (ed.)
NASA, 2021
ebook, 352 pp., illus.
NASA SP-2021-4705
Free
https://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/50-years-of-solar-system-exploration.html

Some projects take a while: ask those involved with the James Webb Space Telescope, finally launching later this week (barring any last-minute issues) after many years of delays. Even books about space projects can take time to complete. NASA released earlier this month 50 Years of Solar System Exploration, a collection of essays on various topics of NASA’s planetary science program. The book stems from a conference to mark the 50th anniversary of NASA’s first mission to another planet, the Mariner 2 flyby of Venus in 1962. That conference took place in 2012, or nine years ago. Next year will mark the 60th anniversary of that mission.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4301/1

[Orionid]

Growing the global space community: onboarding spacefaring nations
by Cody Knipfer Monday, December 20, 2021


England’s Spaceport Cornwall, located at Cornwall Airport Newquay, plans to start hosting Virgin Orbit LauncherOne missions as soon as 2022. (credit: Spaceport Cornwall)

The space sector is truly going global. The massive influx of private investment into the commercial space sector over the past decade is no longer centered on the United States space startups are now a common fixture of the space ecosystem in regions such as Europe and Asia. Recognizing the many benefits that space capabilities provide, more and more countries across the world are actively developing robust domestic space sectors of their own: standing up dedicated space agencies, crafting forward-looking space strategies, and initiating work on a variety of new space projects.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4302/1

[Orionid]

For JWST, the launch is only the beginning of the drama
by Jeff Foust Monday, December 20, 2021


The Ariane 5 payload fairing is lowered into position around the James Webb Space Telescope last week ahead of its Christmas Eve launch. (credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace)

It’s finally here. A wait once measured in years and months is now best calibrated in days, a moment many in the space community wondered would ever arrive.

On Friday morning—yes, Christmas Eve—at 7:20 am EST, an Ariane 5 is scheduled to lift off from Kourou, French Guiana, carrying the most valuable payload in that rocket’s quarter-century history, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). A $10 billion mission decades in the making, and delayed by many years, will get off the ground at last.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4303/1

[Orionid]

Dark side of the Moon: the lost Surveyor missions
by Dwayne Day Monday, December 20, 2021


NASA Administrator James Webb showing President Lyndon Johnson how Surveyor would be used in support of Apollo landings. After the initial Surveyor missions, NASA planned on using some Surveyor missions to certify specific sites as safe for the Lunar Module to land. Although 17 Surveyor missions were initially planned, only seven ultimately flew, with five successes. (credit: NASA)

It may happen as soon as next year: an American robotic spacecraft may once again set down on the surface of the Moon, for the first time in more than 50 years. The last time that happened was in January 1968, when Surveyor 7 touched down on the outer rim of the giant crater Tycho, the site of the mysterious monolith in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. If American scientists had gotten their wish, Surveyor 7 would have been followed by more robotic missions into the 1970s, some equipped to last much longer than a single lunar day, and some possibly carrying a small rover that could extend exploration efforts beyond the initial landing site. At one point, the Surveyor program planned to send 17 missions to the Moon. But Surveyor was dramatically pared back by the mid-1960s, and although some American scientists apparently held out hope of continued robotic exploration of the Moon after Apollo, those hopes did not flourish.[1] Surveyor had started out as a scientific spacecraft, but the race to the Moon changed its goals and ultimately determined its fate.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4304/1

Note: Happy Holidays! The Space Review will not publish next week. We will return on Monday, January 3, 2022.

[Orionid]

Review: Shatner in Space
by Jeff Foust Monday, January 3, 2022



Shatner in Space
Amazon Studios, 2021
46 mins, unrated
https://www.amazon.com/Shatner-in-Space/dp/B09NCH5D56/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=shatner+in+space&qid=1641199437&s=instant-video&sprefix=shatner%2Cinstant-video%2C93&sr=1-1

Last year was not only a pivotal year for commercial human spaceflight, but also for television programming regarding those missions. The flights of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo and Blue Origin’s New Shepard nine days apart in July got wall-to-wall coverage, as did the orbital Inspiration4 flight in September. The Inspiration4 flight was also the subject of a five-part Netflix documentary about the training for the flight and the mission itself (see “Review: Countdown”, The Space Review, October 4, 2021.) When former football player, now TV host, Michael Strahan flew on New Shepard last month, the flight got extensive coverage on ABC’s “Good Morning America” worth likely far more to Blue Origin than if it sold the seat to a paying customer.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4305/1

[Orionid]

China says Elon Musk’s Starlink is “phenomenal,” but what is the real message?
by Michelle Hanlon and Josh Smith Monday, January 3, 2022


China claimed it had to move its new space station twice last year to avoid close approaches by SpaceX Starlink satellites. (credit: CMSA)

On December 3, 2021, China used a diplomatic message known as a Note Verbale to inform the Secretary General of the United Nations of a “phenomena” they discovered in outer space that “could constitute a danger to the life or health of astronauts.” The perilous culprit was not a threatening alien spacecraft or even a hazardous field of space debris, as was created by Russia when it tested an anti-satellite weapon in November. No, this danger to life or health was Elon Musk.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4306/1

[Orionid]

Blackbirds and black satellites: the A-12 OXCART as a satellite launcher
by Dwayne Day Monday, January 3, 2022


The A-12 OXCART reconnaissance aircraft was capable of flying in excess of Mach 3. In 1962, Lockheed proposed using this aircraft to launch a rocket with a reconnaissance camera. The vehicle would have completed less than a single orbit around the globe before returning its exposed film for recovery and processing. (credit: CIA)

The history of American aerospace is littered with contractor proposals that never went anywhere. Sometimes these proposals were borderline crazy, often they were dubious: ideas that made little sense, met nonexistent needs, or would have required huge investments to make them work, assuming that they did not violate the laws of physics. But considering that the US Air Force provided extensive funding for ridiculous studies of nuclear-powered airplanes, you cannot blame aerospace contractors for at least trying to pitch every idea they came up with, no matter how unconventional. And if they had an aircraft that already accomplished amazing things, it wasn’t that outlandish for them to push it for other unusual missions.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4307/1

[Orionid]

Transfer of tension
by Jeff Foust Monday, January 3, 2022


The James Webb Space Telescope separating from the upper stage of the Ariane 5 after launch December 25. (credit: Arianespace)

Sure, the James Webb Space Telescope was launching on a rocket with an excellent track record, one that hadn’t suffered a catastrophic failure in nearly two decades. It didn’t mean people weren’t nervous when that rocket finally lifted off on Christmas morning.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4308/1

[Orionid]

Review: Flashes of Creation
by Jeff Foust Monday, January 10, 2022



Flashes of Creation: George Gamow, Fred Hoyle, and the Great Big Bang Debate
by Paul Halpern
Basic Books, 2021
hardcover, 304 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-1-5416-7359-5
US$30
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/154167359X/spaceviews

On Saturday, controllers completed the last of the major deployments of the James Webb Space Telescope when the second of two “wings” holding segments of its primary mirror swung into place. Months of work still lie ahead to align the telescope optics and commission the instruments, but astronomers were both relieved the deployments had gone so well and confident the telescope will fulfill its ambitious science goals. “The core science of this telescope was to see the very first light in the universe: the first galaxies that formed, perhaps even the first stars,” said Heidi Hammel, vice president for science at the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, during a press conference Saturday. “That’s why it was built the way it was built.”
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4309/1