The Space Review

[Orionid]

Review: Apollo 11: Quarantine
by Christopher Cokinos Monday, March 1, 2021



Apollo 11: Quarantine
Directed by Todd Douglas Miller
2021, 23 minutes
Available on streaming services from $3.99
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B08VDTS7VM/spaceviews

Todd Douglas Miller’s restored found-footage film Apollo 11 was rightly hailed as a masterpiece and it was one of the highlights of the 2019 50th anniversary celebration of the first human landing on the Moon (see “Review: Apollo 11”, The Space Review, March 4, 2019). It was even short-listed for an Oscar.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4131/1

[Orionid]

India’s foray into the commercial space market
by Ajey Lele
Monday, March 1, 2021


An Indian PSLV on the pad before its February 28 launch carrying a Brazilian satellite and 18 secondary payloads. (credit: ISRO)

On Sunday, the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) successfully placed Brazil’s Amazônia-1 satellite, weighing 637 kilograms, into its desired orbit. This is the first Earth observation satellite developed entirely by Brazil. The PSLV also carried 18 secondary payloads placed a different orbit, including two from India. Satish Dhawan Sat (SD SAT) was developed by Space Kidz India to study space weather and radiation, while UNITYsat was the combination of three satellites by students from engineering and technology institutes. (A third Indian satellite, SinduNetra, was launched through a separate commercial arrangement, along with the SAI-1 NanoConnect-2 and 12 SpaceBEE satellites from the US on the rocket.)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4132/1

[Orionid]

Don’t move US Space Command
by Matthew Jenkins Monday, March 1, 2021


US Space Command, formally reestablished in 2019, is temporarily headquartered in Colorado, but the Air Force announced in January plans to move the headquarters to Alabama. (credit: DoD photo by Lisa Ferdinando)

On January 13, the United States Air Force selected Huntsville, Alabama, as the new home for the space domain combatant command, United States Space Command. You would not be alone if you misidentified this as the organize, train, and equip entity, the United States Space Force, but that, like all the other services, is led from the halls of the Pentagon. Space Command was re-established in August 2019. While initially established in 1988, it was deactivated in 2002 and merged with United States Strategic Command, the unified combatant command responsible for the United States nuclear triad’s employment, among other things.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4133/1

[Orionid]

Waiting is the hardest part
by Jeff Foust Monday, March 1, 2021


Virgin Galactic pilots prepare for a SpaceShipTwo test flight. The company announced last week it was delaying the next powered flight of the vehicle until May to address an electromagnetic interference issue, the latest delay for that program. (credit: Quinn Tucker for Virgin Galactic)

There is one thing that nearly every space-related program has in common, be it launch vehicle or satellite, government or commercial, aerospace giant or young startup. It will run late.

That was made abundantly clear last week when three different programs announced delays, ranging from weeks to a year or more. That difficulty to adhere to schedule is at one level remarkable, and at another hardly surprising.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4134/1

[Orionid]

Review: First Light
by Jeff Foust Monday, March 8, 2021



First Light: Switching on Stars at the Dawn of Time
by Emma Chapman
Bloomsbury Sigma, 2021
hardcover, 304 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-1-4729-6292-8
US$28
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1472962923/spaceviews

Astrophysics specializes in some of the most profound, but also puzzling questions. How did the universe form? How will it end? Just what is the universe made of? The simplicity of these questions belies the difficulty scientists have faced answering them, and the implications the answer to one has for others.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4135/1

[Orionid]

The enduring fantasy of space hotels
by A.J. Mackenzie Monday, March 8, 2021


Voyager Space Station will start accepting gusts for luxury stays starting in 2027, assuming its developer can raise tens of billions of dollars and develop the giant space station on a rushed schedule. Good luck! (credit: Orbital Assembly Corp.)

You probably saw something in the last week about a new space hotel project by a company called Orbital Assembly Corporation. Most of that coverage was in tabloids and blogs, but it also made it to the Washington Post and CNN. That company says it will launch its first space hotel, a massive circular structure 200 meters across, and start hosting tourists there in 2027. Yes, 2027.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4136/1

[Orionid]

The new era of private human orbital spaceflight
by Jeff Foust Monday, March 8, 2021


A Crew Dragon spacecraft like this one currently docked to the ISS will be used for both an Axiom Space mission to the station next year and the Inspiration4 free-flight mission launching this fall. (credit: NASA)

Back about 15 years ago or so, one might have expected commercial human spaceflight to be relatively commonplace by now. The Ansari X PRIZE had been won, and promised to open a new era of suborbital spaceflight, while tourists were flying regularly on Soyuz mission to the International Space Station. Surely by the early 2020s thousands of people would be flying to space, at least suborbitally, on an annual basis.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4137/1

[Orionid]

Putting the SpaceX-FAA dispute in context
by Wayne Eleazer Monday, March 8, 2021


The SpaceX Starship SN10 prototype coming in for a landing during a flight March 3 at Boca Chica, Texas. (credit: SpaceX)

On January 25, 1957, the first Thor IRBM launch occurred from Launch Complex 17 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The objectives of that first-ever Thor launch operation were modest: to proceed down through the countdown, load the liquid oxygen, and start the engine. Anything useful that occurred after that was pure gravy. As it turned out, contamination in the liquid oxygen led to a valve failure and Thor 101 barely rose off the launch pad before the engine quit and the vehicle fell back down, creating a massive explosion and damaging the launch pad. Nonetheless, since the objectives of the operation were all met, it was a “success.”
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4138/1

[Orionid]

Review: Three Sigma Leadership
by Jeff Foust Monday, March 15, 2021



Three Sigma Leadership: Or, the Way of the Chief Engineer
by Steven R. Hirshorn
NASA, 2019
ebook
free
https://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/three-sigma-leadership_detail

NASA engages in some of the most technically challenging projects, from building and operating the International Space Station to landing a one-ton rover on Mars. For all the complaints about those projects that run behind schedule or run over budget, not to mention to occasional failed mission, what is remarkable is that most of those projects are successful, often far beyond their original expectations. The ISS, for example, has been continuously crewed for more than two decades, and Perseverance is now rolling across the terrain of Jezero Crater on Mars.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4139/1

[Orionid]

Mobility and surface access lessons for the Artemis lunar lander
by Philip Horzempa Monday, March 15, 2021


A Lockheed Martin concept from the mid-2000s for a Centaur-derived lunar lander.

NASA will soon choose the company or companies that will develop crewed lunar landers for the Artemis program. Mobility and ease of surface access should be key design goals for these new spacecraft. In 2006, Lockheed Martin proposed a lander, based on their veteran Centaur upper stage, which addressed how those goals could be achieved. I will review that concept and highlight some of its advantages. This is not meant to advocate for Lockheed’s specific proposal but, rather, these “concepts are intended to illustrate different design features and provoke further thought.”[1]
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4140/1

[Orionid]

The case for scrapping the Space Launch System
by Ajay Kothari Monday, March 15, 2021


The Space Launch System has been the subject of heated debates, but what’s the alternative for going to the Moon, Mars, and beyond? (credit: NASA)

Several days after the editorial board of Bloomberg recommended that the Biden Administration cancel the Space Launch System (SLS), Loren Thompson published a rebuttal in Forbes. But I respectfully, if strongly, disagree with Thompson. The future of the SLS is of immense importance to NASA and the country, and thus to the taxpayers, and hence we need to attempt as soon as possible to set the record straight.

Thompson says, “The editorial board at Bloomberg News launched a nonsensical attack on NASA’s human spaceflight program last week. It was full of dubious assertions about alternatives to the Space Launch System.” And yet it is his attack that seems motivated for self-centered reasons, and is full of questionable assertions.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4141/1

[Orionid]

Spaceport traffic management
by Jeff Foust Monday, March 15, 2021


A Falcon 9 stands on the pad at LC-39A last month as another Falcon 9 lifts off from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral, a sign of the increasing cadence of launches from the Eastern Range. (credit: SpaceX)

Early Sunday morning, just a few hours after clocks sprung ahead to daylight saving time, a Falcon 9 lifted off from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. An hour and five minutes later, it deployed its payload of 60 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit.

Those watching the launch could be excused for feeling a sense of déjà vu. Nearly 74 hours earlier, another Falcon 9 lifted off from nearby Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, carrying another set of Starlink satellites, again deployed 65 minutes after liftoff.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4142/1

[Orionid]

Review: Star Settlers
by Jeff Foust Monday, March 22, 2021



Star Settlers: The Billionaires, Geniuses, and Crazed Visionaries Out to Conquer the Universe
by Fred Nadis
Pegasus Books, 2020
hardcover, 288 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-1-64313-448-2
US$27.95
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1643134485/spaceviews

Many industries have visionaries who predict how their companies and technologies will revolutionize life, but space seems to take that to a whole new level. Take, for example, Elon Musk, one of the world’s richest men, who has long talked about making humanity multiplanetary by settling Mars, and soon. Musk, replying Sunday to a tweet describing an architectural firm’s proposal to start building a Mars settlement in 2054, said, “Hopefully will happen this decade.” Then there’s Jeff Bezos, currently the world’s richest man, who many not have the same schedule or destination as Musk, but still talks about a goal of millions of people living and working in space.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4143/1

[Orionid]

The politics of settling space
by Gregory Anderson Monday, March 22, 2021


A SpaceX vision for a future Mars settlement. Politics will guide when and how settlements beyond Earth develop. (credit: SpaceX)

Around 100,000 years ago, people we refer to as modern humans because they were physically like us began to move out of their African home and into the wider world. Those few humans and their descendants had much to learn, but they learned well enough, and quickly enough, to survive, and multiply, and prosper, not just for a few generations, but to the present day. Intelligence capable of grappling with the cosmos may or may not exist elsewhere, but it exists here, partly because those few people decided to roam.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4144/1

[Orionid]

This woman’s work: “For All Mankind” and women’s pain
by Emily Carney Monday, March 22, 2021


Danielle Poole contemplates her next step while visiting her old Apollo spacecraft. (credit: AppleTV+)

In February, Apple TV+’s “For All Mankind” debuted its second season (see “It is very cold in space: Season 2 of ‘For All Mankind’”, The Space Review, February 8, 2021), and caught up with the women characters we’ve grown acquainted with during the show’s first season. Perhaps the most notable and unique characteristic of “For All Mankind” is how it depicts its women—astronauts, ground support crew, and wives/mothers—as real people with real issues, similar to how the AMC show “Mad Men” turned the image of the well-coiffed, lipsticked 1960s woman inside out during its seven seasons. In the new episodes of “For All Mankind”, its cadre of women are again front and center, and are all experiencing deep emotional and/or physical pain as the events of the 1980s unfold. “For All Mankind’s” women deny the presence of pain at all, or reveal it only after it’s shoved vividly into the forefront. (Note: this piece contains spoilers of “For All Mankind” Season 1, and the first four episodes of Season 2.)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4145/1