The Space Review

[Orionid]

46/XI 2020 [216-220]

216) Review: Spacepower Ascendant
by Jeff Foust Monday, November 23, 2020



Spacepower Ascendant: Space Development Theory and a New Space Strategy
By Joshua P. Carlson
independently published, 2020
paperback, 257 pp., illus.
ISBN 979-8655659230
US$19.99
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B08BWGPR8V/spaceviews

This week’s launch of China’s Chang’e-5 lunar sample return mission will doubtless reinvigorate claims of a space race between the US and China, including those who believe the US is falling behind China in such a competition. The Chinese effort will likely be depicted as part of a grand strategy by China to harness the resources of the Moon (water, rare earth elements, helium-3, etc.), if not seize the Moon itself, to become the dominant power in space and therefore on Earth. If America does not respond, they argue, it risks ultimately being subservient to China.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4072/1

217) In the new spectrum of space law, will Biden favor the Moon Treaty?
by Dennis O’Brien Monday, November 23, 2020


President-elect Joe Biden has said little about space, but his views on the Convention on the Law of the Seas from his time in the Senate could shape plans for the Artemis Accords and space resources. (credit: Adam Schultz/Biden for President)

The full spectrum of space law, from nationalist to internationalist, was on display at the Moon Village Association’s annual symposium earlier this month. But the question on everyone’s mind was, what will be the effect of Joe Biden’s election as the next President of the United States? He has already declared his intent to rejoin the Paris Climate Accords and the World Health Organization. A look at his Senate record gives us a hint concerning his space policy.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4073/1

218) The space resources debate pivots from asteroids to the Moon
by Jeff Foust Monday, November 23, 2020


Over the last five years, the issue of using space resources has shifted from asteroid mining to lunar exploration. (credit: ESA)

Five years ago this week, President Obama signed into law the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act (CSLCA) of 2015. The bill, as its name suggests, primarily dealt with commercial launch issues, such as extending the indemnification regime for commercial launch liability and establishing a class of spaceflight participants known as “government astronauts” who would be treated differently than their commercial counterparts.

The CSLCA, though, is best known for a section that was once a standalone bill, the Space Resource Exploration and Utilization Act of 2015. That section stated that any US company that extracted resources from asteroids or other celestial bodies beyond Earth would be entitled to them, “including to possess, own, transport, use, and sell the asteroid resource or space resource obtained in accordance with applicable law.”
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4074/1

219) An iconic observatory faces its demise
by Jeff Foust Monday, November 23, 2020


A satellite image of Arecibo taken November 17, showing the damage to the giant dish caused by two broken cables that support the platform suspended over it. (credit: Satellite image ©2020 Maxar Technologies)

A few astronomical observatories are iconic, in the sense they are distinctive enough to be recognized in the broader culture. The Arecibo Observatory certainly qualifies, with its 305-meter main dish nestled in the terrain of Puerto Rico and a platform hosting receivers suspended above it, connected by cables to three towers. Few people might know much about the astronomy done at Arecibo (beyond, perhaps, its supporting role in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence), but it became famous in movies like Contact and GoldenEye.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4075/1

220) We were heroes once: National Geographic’s “The Right Stuff” and the deflation of the astronaut
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, November 23, 2020


Actor Sam Shepard as Chuck Yeager in the 1983 movie The Right Stuff, an exploration of themes of American masculinity and heroism.

Several years ago, National Geographic ventured out beyond documentaries to start producing scripted dramas. So far none of them have hit a high mark—nothing on the order of “Mad Men,” “Breaking Bad,” “Fargo,” or other prestige television. Most recently they produced “The Right Stuff,” based on Tom Wolfe’s famous book and currently streaming on Disney+. But whereas Wolfe’s book was an exploration of the qualities required of men in a new and highly dangerous job, exploring space, the series is focused on depicting the Mercury astronauts as a bunch of back-biting, egotistical, insecure, argumentative jerks. The differences may be explained by the needs of a multi-episode series, and our changing cultural views of heroism, but the result is unfortunately mediocre.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4076/1

[Orionid]

47/XI 2020 [221-225]

221) Review: Black Hole Survival Guide
by Jeff Foust Monday, November 30, 2020



Black Hole Survival Guide
by Janna Levin
Knopf, 2020
hardcover, 160 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-0-525-65822-1
US$20.95
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/052565822X/spaceviews

So, how did you survive Black Hole Friday? That’s right, Black Hole Friday. A few years ago, NASA tried to coopt the post-Thanksgiving shopping “holiday” of Black Friday into an educational event online about black holes, complete with a hashtag: #BlackHoleFriday. It did so again this year, with various social media posts offering facts about black holes. It’s not clear many people paid attention, though, as they negotiated the Black Friday sales online or feasted on Thanksgiving leftovers.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4077/1

222) Chesley Bonestell and his vision of the future
by Jeff Foust Monday, November 30, 2020



Chesley Bonestell: A Brush with the Future
directed by Douglass M. Stewart Jr.
2018, 96 minutes
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7343526/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_2

Most people with even a fleeting familiarity of the early Space Age are familiar with the work of artist Chesley Bonestell, even if they don’t recognize the name. Long before the launch of Sputnik and Explorer 1, let alone the flights of Yuri Gagarin and John Glenn or the footsteps of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, Bonestell painted dramatic landscapes of the Moon and other worlds in our solar system, as well as the rockets and spacecraft that would take people to them. His artwork, along with the words of Willy Ley and the visions of Wernher von Braun, televised by Walt Disney, would shape American perceptions of space at the dawn of the Space Age.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4078/1

223) A 4G network on the Moon is bad news for radio astronomy
by Emma Alexander Monday, November 30, 2020


Radio telescopes like the Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank Observatory face threats of radiofrequency interference on Earth, and now from space. (credit: Jodrell Bank Obs./Anthony Holloway)

As you drive down the road leading to Jodrell Bank Observatory, a sign asks visitors to turn off their mobile phones, stating that the Lovell telescope is so powerful it could detect a phone signal on Mars.

Radio telescopes are designed to be incredibly sensitive. To quote the legendary astronomer Carl Sagan, “The total amount of energy from outside the solar system ever received by all the radio telescopes on the planet Earth is less than the energy of a single snowflake striking the ground.”
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4079/1

224) The case for Apophis
by Jeff Foust Monday, November 30, 2020


NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, depicted here at the asteroid Bennu, could have an extended mission visiting another near Earth asteroid, Apophis, when it flies by Earth in 2029. (credit: NASA/GSFC)

On April 13, 2029—a Friday the 13th—the asteroid Apophis will pass remarkably close to the Earth, coming within 31,000 kilometers of the Earth’s surface, or closer than satellites in geostationary orbit. In late 2004, shortly after its discovery, astronomers projected at one point a 1-in-37 chance of a collision in 2029, but additional observations soon ruled out any impact. A small risk of an impact in April 2036 lingered for a few years, particularly if the asteroid passed through a narrow “keyhole” of space near Earth during its 2029 flyby (see “Sounding an alarm, cautiously”, The Space Review, May 31, 2005), but that, too, has since been ruled out.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4080/1

225) Rolling the dice on Apollo: Prospects for US-Soviet cooperation in the Moon program
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, November 30, 2020


President John F. Kennedy viewing the Saturn I launch pad in 1963. NASA Administrator James Webb is at center. (credit: Cecil Stoughton, White House photographer)

On September 20, 1963, President John F. Kennedy gave a speech in front of the United Nations in New York City where he proposed a joint mission to the Moon with the Soviet Union. One year after the two countries had been to the brink of nuclear war, Kennedy wanted to cooperate with the Soviet Union on a major space project. The proposal was a surprise to many, seeming to come out of nowhere, and prompted backlash among Kennedy’s supporters in Congress, who worried that Apollo’s goals were being undermined.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4081/1

[Orionid]

48/XII 2020 [226-230]

226) Review: Operation Moonglow
by Jeff Foust Monday, December 7, 2020



Operation Moonglow: A Political History of Project Apollo
by Teasel Muir-Harmony
Basic Books, 2020
hardcover, 384 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-1-5416-9987-8
US$32
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1541699874/spaceviews

In July 1962, huge crowds converged on a Tokyo department store for a special event. Over the course of four days, more than 500,000 people stood in long lines—going up nine flights of stairs, zigzagging across the store’s roof, and then going back down nine flights of stairs. What attracted so many people? Not a sale, or a celebrity, but a spacecraft: Friendship 7, the Mercury capsule that John Glenn flew in the first American orbital spaceflight five months earlier, and now on a round-the-world tour.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4082/1

227) Review: The Art of NASA
by Christopher Cokinos Monday, December 7, 2020



The Art of NASA: The Illustrations that Sold the Missions
by Piers Bizony
Motorbooks, 2020
hardcover, 192 pages, illus.
ISBN 978-0-7603-6807-7
US$50
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0760368074/spaceviews

Piers Bizony’s The Art of NASA: The Illustrations that Sold the Missions is an eye-popping, sumptuous coffee table book of full-color art—mostly vintage government and corporate work—that spans the early days of the American crewed space program all the way to present conceptions of orbital and planetary futures. The Art of NASA is a gorgeous, well-designed ode to visions of space flight, focusing on graphic illustrative art that appeared in brochures, newspapers, magazines, and, of late, on the web.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4083/1

228) Learning from Chandrayaan 2 for India
by Ajay P. Kothari Monday, December 7, 2020


An illustration of India’s Vikram lander making its descent to the lunar surface. The spacecraft crashed attempting a landing in September 2019. (credit: ISRO)

Given the recent astounding success (so far) of Chang’e-5, as well as other missions by China and Japan, it might seem harsh to compare them to India’s Chandryaan 2 lunar mission launched last year. But this is not meant as a criticism, only a constructive conjecture. Yes, many aspects of Chandrayaan 2 were successful, for which India and its space agency, ISRO, should be proud. However, it is also apt to learn from what did not work, admit it and improve.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4084/1

229) The cloth of doom: The weird, doomed ride of Ariane Flight 36
by Francis Castanos Monday, December 7, 2020


A version of the Ariane 4 rocket similar to the one lost in a 1990 launch failure caused by a “cloth of doom”. (credit: ESA)

This is a companion piece of sorts to Wayne Eleazer’s excellent series on rocket launch failures, and why they happened. It is a story involving rockets, satellites, an earthquake, and a couple of kitchen accessories. And a lot of bad luck. It all started with a natural disaster, which led to two further disasters, man-made this time.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4085/1

230) The future of Mars exploration, from sample return to human missions
by Jeff Foust Monday, December 7, 2020


An illustration of a Mars Ascent Vehicle, containing samples collected by the Mars 2020 mission, launching into Martian orbit for later return to Earth. (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

When an Atlas V lifted off from Cape Canaveral July 30, NASA heralded it as the beginning of a new era of Mars exploration. The rocket was launching NASA’s Mars 2020 mission, which will land the rover Perseverance on the surface of Mars in February. That rover will collect samples for later return to Earth, a long-running goal of scientists.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4086/1

[Orionid]

49/XII 2020 [231-235]

231) Review: How to Astronaut
by Jeff Foust Monday, December 14, 2020



How to Astronaut: An Insider’s Guide to Leaving Planet Earth
by Terry Virts
Workman Publishing Co., 2020
hardcover, 320 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-1-5235-0961-4
US$27.95
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1523509619/spaceviews

Most astronaut memoirs describe an unconventional career in a conventional way. They often follow a chronological approach—sometimes flashing back or forward—to describe the career path that person took to becoming an astronaut, the experience of training for and flying missions, and finally how the experience changed them. A few diverge from that path, like Chris Hadfield’s An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth, which used his experience to offer lessons on, as he put it, “how to live better and more happily here on Earth.” (See “Review: An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth”, November 18, 2013.)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4087/1

232) More space on the ground: trendy analogues vs. an unpleasant reality
by Ilaria Cinelli Monday, December 14, 2020


Analogue missions are intended to prepare for future human missions to places like the Moon and Mars, but depending on how they are designed may not be that useful.

The astronaut job is probably the only one that is at the same time both the most wanted job in the space sector and one of the silliest expectations someone may have as a career goal. Still, it is a job! There are high hopes for upcoming human spaceflights, and the commercial astronaut job is slowly opening the door to new types of astronauts. However, such a “silly expectation” drives people to find new opportunities to become astronauts no matter what. Thus, the boom of analogue astronauts has started!
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4088/1

233) Beyond Apollo: guiding the next Moon landing
by Alan Campbell Monday, December 14, 2020


The lunar lander under development by the Blue Origin-led “National Team” that includes Draper, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. (credit: Blue Origin)

The Apollo Moon landing is familiar to many. Neil Armstrong looks out the window of the lunar module, adjusts his descent to avoid craters and boulders while keeping an eye on his dwindling fuel supply, and maneuvers to the surface for the first time. While the scene is destined to be repeated, experts agree the next Moon landing will be far different affair.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4089/1

234) Starship contradictions
by Jeff Foust Monday, December 14, 2020


SpaceX’s Starship SN8 vehicle lifts off from the company’s South Texas test site December 9. (credit: SpaceX)

Can a launch that ends in a spectacular explosion be considered a success? Can a company be hailed for being open when it is also far from transparent about its work? Can a development program be described as proceeding at breakneck speed while also being well behind schedule?
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4090/1

235) Big bird, little bird: chasing Soviet anti-ballistic missile radars in the 1960s
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, December 14, 2020


Declassified image of the MABELI signals intelligence satellite launched in January 1972 to search for and characterize Soviet anti-ballistic missile radars. MABELI was the latest in a sequence of satellites and special payloads used by the United States to try to determine the extent of the Soviet ABM program. (credit: NRO)

The second bus-sized HEXAGON photo-reconnaissance satellite roared off its California launch pad in January 1972. Inside of its payload shroud atop the Titan III rocket, the HEXAGON looked somewhat like a train locomotive, and tucked along one of its slab sides was a small rectangular box about the size of a suitcase. After the HEXAGON reached its proper orbit and stabilized itself, circling the Earth over its poles, the box detached, pushed off by springs. It started spinning, and then fired a small rocket motor that boosted its orbit a bit higher than the big bird that had delivered it into space. The small satellite began unfolding like an origami crane spreading out, deploying solar panels and numerous antennas, most of them pointed down at the Earth.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4091/1

[Orionid]

50/XII 2020 [236-240]

236) Review: Cosmic Odyssey by Jeff Foust
Monday, December 21, 2020



Cosmic Odyssey: How Intrepid Astronomers at Palomar Observatory Changed our View of the Universe
by Linda Schweizer
MIT Press, 2020
hardcover, 312 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-0-262-04429-5
US$39.95
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262044293/spaceviews

Asked today what is the most influential astronomical observatory, many might say the Hubble Space Telescope, or perhaps the Keck Observatory in Hawaii or the Very Large Telescope in Chile. For most of the latter half of the 20th century, though, the likely response would have been the Palomar Observatory, home to the 200-inch (five-meter) telescope that for decades was the largest in the world. It allowed astronomers to peer deeper into the universe than ever before.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4092/1

237) Creating an inspector “mascot” satellite for JWST
by Philip Horzempa Monday, December 21, 2020


The James Webb Space Telescope recently completed the last deployment test of its sunshield before its October 2021 launch. (credit: NASA/Chris Gunn)

The James Webb Space Telescope has a heritage that stretches back at least half a century. It is a very complex spacecraft that will require numerous deployments to achieve its operational configuration. These will be monitored by instrumentation on the spacecraft, but given that each operation must proceed without error, it would be prudent to send a “Mascot” to monitor them. This would take the form of a cubesat that would ride with JWST after being launched as a secondary payload on the Ariane 5 that launches JWST. (...)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4093/1

238) Candy CORN: analyzing the CORONA concrete crosses myth
by Joseph T. Page II Monday, December 21, 2020


Present-day Concrete Cross. Courtesy of Google Maps.

A few years ago, NPR Morning Edition released a story about spy satellites that caught my attention during a morning commute to work. Reporter Danny Hajek covered a story about mysterious 60-foot-long (18-meter-long) concrete crosses found in the Arizona desert titled, “Decades-Old Mystery Put to Rest: Why Are There X’s in the Desert?” The NPR story details how two adventurers, Chuck Penson and Pez Owen, spotted mysterious crosses while flying cross-country in Owen’s Cessna. The crosses spotted by Penson and Owen were just a handful of targets laid out over a 16-by-16-mile (26-by-26-kilometer) grid across the desert near Casa Grande, Arizona. Wondering what the crosses were for, the pair reached out to the US Army Corps of Engineers, since one of the bronze positioning markers at the center of one crosses stated “Army Map Service” with a date of 1966. According to the story, the US Army Corps of Engineers response made the connection between the concrete crosses and the CORONA program. [1]
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4094/1

239) Twilight for Trump space policy
by Jeff Foust Monday, December 21, 2020


Vice President Mike Pence speaking at the December 9 National Space Council meeting. (credit: White House)

On December 9, the National Space Council met for the eighth and last time in the Trump Administration at the Kennedy Space Center. The event, held in the Apollo/Saturn V Center there, with that rocket above attendees’ heads, was something of a season finale for the council. Cabinet secretaries and other officials spent about an hour recounting the work they had done in space policy in the last four years, from the establishment of the Space Force to commercial space regulatory reforms.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4095/1

240) From TACSAT to JUMPSEAT: Hughes and the top secret Gyrostat satellite gamble
by Dwayne A. Day and Nicholas W. Watkins Monday, December 21, 2020


Photo of Hughes’ HS-308 TACSAT (left) in May 1968 next to their proposal for Intelsat IV based on the HS 312 bus. These are mockups. Intelsat IV had a different antenna farm at top. This basic design led to the JUMPSEAT and Satellite Data System satellites for the National Reconnaissance Office. (credit: Hughes)

Starting in August 1968, the secretive National Reconnaissance Office began launching new intelligence satellites into much higher orbits to accomplish their missions. The first was the CANYON series of communications intelligence satellites, followed in 1970 by the first of the RHYOLITE telemetry interception satellites. In spring 1971, the NRO launched a new and enigmatic satellite named JUMPSEAT, which has remained perhaps the most mysterious of these high-orbit satellites. Each of these satellites pushed the state of the art in terms of payloads, antennas, and satellite design. But JUMPSEAT represented a concerted effort by a civil and commercial satellite designer to break into the top-secret world of satellite intelligence by leveraging a new technology and a military contract to demonstrate that it could perform the mission of both detecting signals from the ground, and spotting missile launches with an infrared telescope.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4096/1

(Editor’s Note: The Space Review will not publish the week of December 28. Our next issue will be January 4, 2021. Happy holidays!)

[Orionid]

Pick an agency, any agency
by Jeff Foust Monday, August 31, 2020


A report commissioned by Congress affirmed the administration’s choice of the Office of Space Commerce within the Department of Commerce as the lead agency for civil space traffic management. (credit: ESA)

When President Trump appeared at a meeting of the National Space Council at the White House in June 2018, the highlight was his announcement that the administration would seek to establish a Space Force as a separate military branch. It overshadowed his signing of Space Policy Directive (SPD) 3, which focused on space traffic management and assigned responsibilities to the Commerce Department (see “Managing space traffic expectations”, The Space Review, June 25, 2018). (...)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4016/1

[Orionid]

Review: The Smallest Lights in the Universe
by Jeff Foust Tuesday, September 8, 2020



The Smallest Lights in the Universe: A Memoir
by Sara Seager
Crown, 2020
hardcover, 320 pp.
ISBN 978-0-525-57625-9
US$28.00
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0525576258/spaceviews

Science is done by scientists. That may seem like an obvious statement, but it’s something often forgotten in the announcements of discoveries, including in astronomy and related space sciences. Discoveries are often attributed—particularly in news headlines—to the spacecraft or observatories used to make them. But those discoveries are made not by spacecraft and instruments, but by people who operate them and analyze the data they produce. Those researchers, like the rest of us, are people with their own motivations to do such work, and struggles to overcome to achieve those discoveries. (...)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4017/1

[Orionid]

Walking through the doors of history: unlocking a space tradition
by Kirby Kahler Tuesday, September 8, 2020


The shuttle mission stickers above the double doors at the O&C. (credit: K. Kahler)
In July 2019, I had the unique opportunity to revisit the astronaut walkout doors at the Neil Armstrong Operations & Checkout Building (O&C) at the Kennedy Space Center for the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11. Fifty years ago, I was one of more than 3,500 journalists trying to get the “money shot” of the Apollo 11 astronaut walkout. (...)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4018/1

[Orionid]

The Artemis Accords: a shared framework for space exploration
by Paul Stimers and Abby Dinegar Tuesday, September 8, 2020


NASA plans to seek international partners for the Artemis lunar exploration program, making an agreement like the Artemis Accords critical. (credit: NASA)

President Trump has made quite a mark on US space policy by announcing the Artemis program to send the first woman and the next man to the Moon in 2024 and creating the Space Force. The recent developments continue the role America has always played in space: a leader and partner in peaceful, cooperative international efforts. This is the spirit that has led to 20 years of continuous human presence in space aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and that sent American astronauts to the Moon a half century ago, not to claim territory, but “in peace for all mankind.” President Trump’s initiatives build carefully and squarely atop a foundation of policy that stretches across decades of bipartisan leadership. (...)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4019/1

[Orionid]

Making the transition from the ISS
by Jeff Foust Tuesday, September 8, 2020


Axiom Space won a NASA award early this year to add commercial modules to the International Space Station, but NASA has put on hold a similar competition to support a free-flyer commercial station. (credit: Axiom Space)

In less than two months, the International Space Station will reach a milestone. On November 2, 2000, the Soyuz TM-31 spacecraft carrying Russian cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev, and American astronaut Bill Shepherd, docked with the Zvezda module of the International Space Station. Since that day the station has been continuously occupied, meaning that, barring a calamity of some kind in the coming weeks, the station will soon surpass 20 years with people on board. That is a major accomplishment for a program that struggled for years to get off the drawing boards and into orbit. (...)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4020/1

[Orionid]

The future on hold: America’s need to redefine its space paradigm
by Stephen Kostes Tuesday, September 8, 2020


Constructing a cislunar infrastructure will drive renewed investment in education and training, and it will re-direct investment back into the historical drivers of job creation and economic growth.

A powerful school of economic thought today, led by economists such as Robert Gordon, suggests that, during the 1970s, the focus of technological innovation changed and, as a result, economic growth started to decline and wealth inequality began to rise. While there are many factors involved, it is interesting to note that this coincides with the end of the Apollo era. Along with severe budget cuts, this limited scope of innovation certainly took its toll on the space program. However, it also seems to have short-circuited our economy as well. (...)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4021/1

[Orionid]

Review: Space Dogs
by Jeff Foust Monday, September 14, 2020



Space Dogs
Directed by Elsa Kremser and Levin Peter
Icarus Films, 2019
91 mins.
https://www.raumzeitfilm.com/spacedogs-kino

Most readers are familiar with the tale of Laika, the first animal in space. A stray picked up off the streets of Moscow, Laika was flown on the second Sputnik satellite in November 1957, claiming yet another first for the Soviet space program. The flight was a one-way mission from the beginning, since Sputnik 2 has no capability to survive reentry. Laika, as later historical research revealed, likely died from overheating just a few hours after launch. (...)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4022/1

[Orionid]

The West needs bold, sustainable, and inclusive space programs and visions, or else
by Giulio Prisco Monday, September 14, 2020


A Chinese concept for a lunar base. China’s long-term vision for space exploration and utilization poses a challenge to the US and its partners. (credit: CAST)

China is planning an International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) in the lunar south pole region, and recently revealed that it is seeking international partners.

I hope there’ll be international ILRS partners, but I guess they’ll play only a token role. Since I’m not too optimistic on the US Artemis lunar program (I’ll come to that), going to the Moon as guests of the Chinese may become the only plausible option for aspiring astronauts in the rest of the world. But of course, foreigners will be kept far from the really important things that China wants. (...)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4023/1

[Orionid]

Star children: can humans be fruitful and multiply off-planet?
by Fred Nadis Monday, September 14, 2020


A Dutch startup, SpaceLife Origin, proposed a series of missions leading up to a baby being born in orbit, before backing off last year. (credit: SpaceLife Origin)

From his home in Cape Canaveral, Air Force pilot Alex Layendecker explained how he had been drawn to the study of sex and reproduction in space. “I had been immersed in the space environment in the Air Force, assigned to launch duty, and was simultaneously pursuing an M.A. in public health, and then at the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality, and I was looking for a dissertation topic,” he recalled. “I decided that sex and reproduction in space had not received the attention they deserved—if we’re serious about discussions of colonization, having babies in microgravity—on Mars or other outposts of the Earth, then more needs to be learned.” His general recommendation was that because of the squeamishness of NASA to study sex in space, a private nonprofit organization, or Astrosexological Research Institute, should be founded for this research critical to human settlement of outer space. (...)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4024/1

[Orionid]

Launch failures: fill ’er up?
by Wayne Eleazer Monday, September 14, 2020


A Proton launch in 2010 failed not because it ran out of propellant but instead because it had too much on board. (credit: Roscosmos)

One of the most common causes of airplane accidents is a pilot sitting there and letting the thing run out of gas. This type of mishap is much less common with space launches, but early propulsion system shutdowns due to the vehicle running out of propellant have occurred in some noteworthy cases.

The majority of liquid propellant space boosters ever launched have lacked a system with even as little sophistication as a bewildered pilot staring at a dropping fuel gauge. The engines were tested, the performance noted, and the required amounts of fuel and oxidizer calculated using simple formulas. For vehicles using liquid oxygen (LOX) as the oxidizer, that tank was topped off: a necessity since it kept boiling off until mere seconds before liftoff, when the vent valve was closed. The fuel was loaded based on the calculations, with a bit extra added to provide some margin. Thor, Titan, and Delta all used this approach, as did most foreign vehicles. (...)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4025/1