China's moon base control of USA -- USA must control space but libs can't figure it out!

Kurt Miller Really? Let China build a permanent colony on the Moon, and the first thing they will do is turn it into a military base. From there, China will use mass drivers to launch boulders at Earth, transforming them into artificial meteorites capable of vaporizing entire cities. Let China have the Moon, and we'll all be speaking Mandarin within a generation.
China has always dreamed of a world empire, and a military base on the Moon would give it to them.

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Re unfinished business piece---- Getting shuttle like capabilities BACK--- hell seems everybody has given up!!!

I can not believe the large number of people who don't get it------ we need shuttle like capabilities------ you can do all the rest exploration, etc WITH SHUTTLE like capabilities!



From space review---

With less than 18 months left in the current Presidential administration, some argue there's little chance of major new space initiatives from the White House in that time. However, Vid Beldavs, in an open letter to the President, asks him to support a new emphasis on lunar exploration in cooperation with international and commercial partners.

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Fwd: 30 Years Since the Dramatic Rescue of Mission 51I

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Begin forwarded message:

From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: August 30, 2015 at 7:35:04 PM CDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: 30 Years Since the Dramatic Rescue of Mission 51I

 

AmericaSpace

For a nation that explores
August 29th, 2015

'Winging It': 30 Years Since the Dramatic Rescue of Mission 51I (Part 1)

By Ben Evans

 

In a triumphant ending to a triumphant space salvage, James "Ox" van Hoften strikes a Charles Atlas pose on the end of the shuttle's RMS mechanical arm, seemingly hoisting the world on his shoulders. Photo Credit: NASA

When Discovery touched down at the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida on 19 April 1985—suffering seized brakes and a burst tire in the process—she left a spot of unfinished business in low-Earth orbit. A few days earlier, her 51D crew had deployed an important U.S. Navy communications satellite, called Leasat-3, whose antenna had stubbornly refused to unfurl and whose Perigee Kick Motor (PKM) had failed to ignite. Despite sterling efforts on the part of the crew and Mission Control to fashion a makeshift "flyswatter" and sending astronauts Jeff Hoffman and Dave Griggs on a contingency EVA, the crippled satellite lingered in an orbit far lower than its intended 22,600 miles (35,700 km). Within days of the incident, NASA's bulletproof, pre-Challenger attitude prompted mutterings of a shuttle mission to recover, repair, and reboost Leasat-3 to its operational geostationary location. Thirty years ago, this week, Mission 51I succeeded spectacularly and amply demonstrated the shuttle's myriad capabilities.

For Mission Specialist James "Ox" van Hoften, however, it did not begin with much excitement. When the crew—Commander Joe Engle, Pilot Dick Covey, and Mission Specialists Jim Buchli, Mike Lounge, and Bill Fisher—were named to Mission 51C in December 1983, they were slated to deploy a Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) in the late fall of the following year. Later, as the shuttle manifest writhed and contorted over the following year, they ended up training to retrieve a NASA payload known as the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF). In the meantime, Buchli was named to another mission and van Hoften took his place on 51I. "Stale, pale, and male," was Lounge's summary of the crew and its cargo, "but we had a great time."

Lounge and van Hoften shared similar backgrounds. They had both served as reservists in the Air National Guard after periods of active military duty, and one night in April 1985, whilst training for 51I, they were on alert status at Ellington Field in Houston, Texas. Midway through their duty, the two men heard about the Leasat-3 malfunction and started exchanging ideas about how to resolve it. They even roped in Engle for his opinion. "Back then," van Hoften said in his NASA oral history, "there was a much more can-do spirit at NASA and everyone felt like, hey, you can do anything." Armed with the relevant data on Leasat-3—its size, mass properties, and angular momentum—the men sat down with Engle and Covey, accompanied by a few pieces of paper and some push-button calculator watches, to hash out a plan.

For Joe Engle (front left), James "Ox" van Hoften (back left), and Bill Fisher (back right), 51I would be their final space mission. For the other two crew members, Mike Lounge (centre) and Dick Covey (front right), their next voyage together would be aboard Discovery's very next flight … but after the destruction of Challenger the shuttle as a vehicle would have changed beyond recognition. Photo Credit: NASA

Their first idea, to bring the satellite back to Earth, quickly became unrealistic, since it was filled with volatile hydrazine station-keeping fuel. At length, the plan crystallized into a complex affair, whereby Leasat-3 would be recovered and redeployed into space using the shuttle's Canadian-built Remote Manipulator System (RMS) mechanical arm. A method was devised to bypass the satellite's faulty deploy switch and provide power to the electrical buses from the batteries using external test ports and NASA management was sufficiently enthused to send the astronauts to Hughes Aerospace—Leasat-3's prime contractor—in Los Angeles, Calif. In the auditorium, despite a bout of laryngitis which had left him almost hoarse, van Hoften outlined the plan to around a thousand engineers and managers.

After van Hoften's speech came the questions:

"Can we stop the rotation of the spacecraft?"

"Oh, yeah," replied the astronaut. "It's only going to take … ", and he demonstrated, "this much force to stop the rotation. That's not an issue."

"Did anybody think that we could have a person stop the rotation?"

"Well," van Hoften replied, with a twinkle in his eye, "here's me!"

He sketched himself next to Leasat-3 and reminded the gathered engineers that a few months earlier, in November 1984, "Little Joe" Allen had managed to grab the errant Palapa-B2 communications satellite. It should therefore be equally possible for the much larger van Hoften to grab the much larger Leasat-3. In all seriousness, though, van Hoften had already performed two EVAs in April 1984 to retrieve and repair NASA's Solar Max observatory, and he knew his own capabilities and those of the RMS.

Hughes' president was so impressed that he took van Hoften to one side and immediately called NASA Administrator James Beggs to invest $5 million in the Leasat-3 salvage effort. When the go-ahead finally came from NASA management, Engle, Covey, and Space Shuttle Program Manager Glynn Lunney were at the home of 51I Lead Flight Director Jay Greene. The four men promptly drained a bottle of Old Overholt, Greene's favourite whisky. "We drank that bottle," Covey related in NASA oral history, "celebrating the fact that we had hoodwinked the whole system into letting us think that we could go do this. It would not happen today!"

Despite the seat-of-the-pants approach to the salvage effort, as the crew plunged into training, there were many aspects for which they could not effectively prepare. Instead, they had to hone their skills, rather than specific tasks, because there were no assurances for how well or badly the mission would go. The Solar Max repair had been choreographed down to the finest detail, but Leasat-3 was different: by their own admission, the 51I astronauts were "winging it."

At one stage, it seemed likely that Joe Engle might launch on his 53rd birthday, as launch slipped into the third week of August 1985. The first attempt on the 24th was scrubbed due to local rain showers; although there were no thunderstorms in the area, the conditions were sufficiently poor to violate Launch Commit Criteria (LCC). Discovery had only a couple of days available in which to achieve her rendezvous "window" with Leasat-3, and launch was quickly recycled for the 25th. That attempt also came to nothing when a failure in the shuttle's backup flight software was experienced. A two-day delay pushed the next attempt past Engle's birthday and on to the 27th. (To celebrate, the astronauts unstowed his birthday cake from a middeck locker and presented it to him in crew quarters.)

Dick Covey was not alone in his frustration. "I can't believe we scrubbed for those two little showers out there," he remarked. "Anybody with half a lick of sense would have said: Let's go. This could be a lot worse." However, Chief Astronaut John Young told them bluntly that they could not make calls on the weather, as their knowledge was limited to the view from inside the orbiter. They should focus on the mission, he said, and leave others to worry about the weather.

The official crew patch for the astronauts of Mission 51I: Commander Joe Engle, Pilot Dick Covey, and Mission Specialists Mike Lounge, James "Ox" van Hoften, and Bill Fisher. Image Credit: NASA

The morning of the third launch attempt, 27 August, was even more dismal, and the astronauts were clad in yellow raincoats over their flight suits as KSC suffered a torrential downpour. After being strapped into their seats, Lounge and van Hoften—certain that the weather was too appalling for NASA to give them the green light to go—released their harnesses and took a nap. From his perch on the right-hand side of the cabin, Covey was amazed as they moved smoothly and crisply through the built-in holds and was even more amazed when he was given the go-ahead to start Discovery's Auxiliary Power Units (APUs), with five minutes to go in the countdown. As he flipped the switches, he could see sprinkles of rain on the forward flight deck windows. "The reason," Joe Engle explained, "was that they had one more day delay before they had to de-tank [the External Tank] and that would have been two more days and the weather forecast was not good for the next day, anyway." Downstairs, on the middeck, the hum of the APUs startled Bill Fisher.

"What's that noise?"

"We're crankin' APUs," came the response from the pilots. "Let's go."

"Yeah, sure. We're not going anywhere today. Why are you starting APUs?"

"Damn it, Fisher, we're going! We're going to launch! Get back in your seat and get strapped in."

The final seconds progressed, as the NASA commentator reeled off the milestones and Discovery's internal systems rumbled to life, in harmony, it seemed, with the rumble of the inclement weather.

"And we have a Go for autosequence start," came the call at T-31 seconds, as Discovery's flight computers assumed primary command of vehicle critical functions. "T-15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, nine … we have a Go for Main Engine Start … " as Discovery's three liquid-fueled engines flared to life, displaying a trio of Mach diamonds in the gloom of a pre-dawn darkness, " … four, three, two, one … ignition … and LIFTOFF … Liftoff of the 51I and the commercial deploy and repair mission … and it has cleared the tower!" Launch occurred on the very cusp of daybreak, at 6:58 a.m. EDT, with the shuttle's engines and the twin Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) blazing brilliantly as the 20th mission of the reusable fleet of orbiters spread its wings and took flight.

It is interesting to view launches from this era, particularly the images from within Mission Control, and understand the "Go" fever associated with each event. "It turned out we launched right through the eye of a hurricane," van Hoften told the NASA oral historian. "It coalesced into a hurricane and then we spent the whole time looking down at this major hurricane, going around wiping out Florida." He was referring to what became Hurricane Elena, which originated as a gigantic tropical wave off the coast of East Africa on 23 August and progressed weakly westwards, running parallel to northern Cuba, becoming a tropical storm on the 28th and a hurricane on the 29th. From orbit, the crew took several stunning images, which showed it expanding across the entire Gulf of Mexico and with winds peaking at more than 100 mph (160 km/h) on 1 September. It steadily weakened as it headed north and finally made landfall in Biloxi, Miss. In its few days of mayhem, Elena wreaked $1.2 billion of damage, but, miraculously, caused no direct fatalities.

From the flight engineer's seat, Mike Lounge had crafted himself a small Mylar "mirror" and fixed it to the back of his checklist, hoping to watch the reflected launch through the overhead window, just over his left shoulder. "If you hold this mirror, right in your lap," he said, "you get this great view as the orbiter lifts up and rolls. You're looking through that window, right down at the pad and this huge billow of smoke and flame…and the pad gets smaller and smaller." There was little time to be a spectator, of course, as Lounge paged through his checklist, mentally ticking off each of the major milestones: Negative return, Single-engine TAL, and the call which had caused his predecessors, the crew of Mission 51F, great anxiety: Abort to Orbit. After what seemed like an age, the moment of Main Engine Cutoff (MECO) occurred and the sensation of weightlessness was felt through a gentle rising against the straps and the quirkiness of the checklist, floating, in front of his eyes. That comical sight was arrested very soon by a sight of unimaginable grandeur: Africa, looming large and spectacular in Discovery's windows.

They were in orbit.

Ahead of them lay three satellite deployments … and then Leasat. 

 

Copyright © 2015 AmericaSpace - All Rights Reserved

 

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AmericaSpace

For a nation that explores
August 30th, 2015

'A Heck of a Push': 30 Years Since the Dramatic Rescue of Mission 51I (Part 2)

By Ben Evans

The sheer size of the 15,000-pound (6,800-kg) Leasat-3 satellite is illustrated in this view of James "Ox" van Hoften manhandling it into space on Mission 51I. Photo Credit: NASA

For Dick Covey, the instant Space Shuttle Discovery broke the shackles of Earth on the cusp of daybreak on 27 August 1985 had been a long time coming. In fact, he was the last of his 35-strong astronaut class, chosen seven years earlier, to reach space. "I got that distinction," he told the NASA oral historian, "and that was hard to take." At the time of his assignment to what was then listed as "Mission 51C" in December 1983, Covey knew that he would not fly until at least the end of the following year. "At the time, I didn't realize I was going to be the very last one," he said, "but I knew I was going to be somewhere down there." However, it was not to be a disappointing mission. As described in yesterday's AmericaSpace history article, the flight which morphed into Mission 51I was tasked with three satellite deployments and the rescue, repair, and reboost of the crippled Leasat-3 communications satellite for the U.S. Navy. Thirty years ago, this week, the five astronauts of Mission 51I—Commander Joe Engle, Pilot Dick Covey, and Mission Specialists James "Ox" van Hoften, Mike Lounge, and Bill Fisher—accomplished one of the most spectacular satellite rescues ever completed in the shuttle program's history.

For Discovery's astronauts, their first day in orbit turned out to be particularly busy, because they were the first shuttle mission to perform two satellite deployments in those first few hours in orbit. Originally, the first satellite, the American Satellite Company's ASC-1, was to be deployed 9.5 hours after launch, followed by Australia's Aussat-1 exactly a day into the mission and Leasat-4 early on 29 August.

However, a little more than two hours after launch, Aussat's Pacman-like sunshield was commanded open to perform routine health checks … and its port-side clamshell door only partially unfurled. "It was believed," read NASA's post-flight mission report, "that the clamshell structure had been deformed and was believed to be binding on the omni antenna bracket, located on the top of the Aussat." Years later, Mike Lounge would blame himself, and a last-minute change to the flight plan, for how this deformation to the sunshield happened. A couple of weeks before launch, he had been assigned the task to activate a payload bay camera to inspect the sunshield. "I did that," he explained, "then I commanded the sunshield open and I had failed to stow the camera. If it had been Day Two, instead of Day One, I would have been more aware of it. On Day One, you're just kind of overwhelmed and you're just down doing the steps … but that was an example of why you don't change things at the last minute and why you don't do things you haven't simulated—because we'd never simulated that."

The crew was advised to uncradle the shuttle's Remote Manipulator System (RMS) in an effort to push the sunshield door open, but unfortunately the Canadian-built mechanical arm was suffering its own problems: a failure of its elbow joint meant that Lounge had to command it in a "single-joint" mode. "Instead of some co-ordinated motion," he said, it was "a little awkward and took a while." Joe Engle remembered Lounge having the incredibly difficult and intricate job of manually operating electrical switches, selecting each RMS joint in turn, then moving them one at a time to position the arm correctly. "That became a concern," Engle reflected in his NASA oral history, "as to how much that was going to slow us down in the grapple and the capture and then the redeployment of the failed [Leasat] that we were going to go repair."

The American Satellite Company's ASC-1 communications satellite spins out of Discovery's payload bay, early in the 51I mission. Note the Pacman-like jaws of the satellite's protective sunshield. Photo Credit: NASA

The RMS was uncradled from the port-side sill, and, at 11:15 a.m. EDT—barely four hours into the flight—Lounge successfully pushed Aussat's clamshell door fully open. Due to fears of imposing excessive thermal stress on both Aussat and its attached booster, NASA decided not to wait until Day Two to deploy it. Under the supervision of Bill Fisher, Aussat-1 was duly released at 1:33 p.m. EDT on the descending node of Discovery's fifth orbit, whilst ASC-1's deployment was delayed by a couple of hours from the seventh to the eighth orbit. It was sent spinning out of the payload bay by Lounge at 6:07 p.m. "We scrambled to get that done," remembered Dick Covey, "so we could get that one that didn't have the protection done, plus the one that we had already planned on. It made for a very, very busy first day for a bunch of new guys up there!" The third payload, the U.S. Navy's Leasat-4, was deployed under the supervision of van Hoften at 6:48 a.m. EDT on 29 August.

Unlike its ill-fated predecessor, Leasat-3, launched in April 1985, the omni-directional antenna unfolded without incident, the spacecraft spun-up without incident, and its integral Perigee Kick Motor (PKM) ignited without incident, transferring it perfectly into a 22,600-mile (35,700-km) geosynchronous orbit. Testing got underway on 4 September, but trouble was in store, for Leasat-4 suffered a failure of a transmission cable between its Ultra-High-Frequency (UHF) multiplexer and transmitter and ground controllers lost contact with it. Unlike Leasat-3, nothing could be done to save Leasat-4, since it was far beyond the reach of even the shuttle.

When Dick Covey was named to fly at Joe Engle's side on Mission 51I, it was an excitement and an honor, for Engle's experience spanned several decades and encompassed not only the shuttle, but the Apollo Lunar Module (LM) and the X-15 rocket-propelled aircraft. More than that, however, he was delighted when Engle assigned him the task of performing the rendezvous with Leasat-3. This was completed in spectacular fashion on 31 August. Early in training, they agreed that Covey would perform the "phasing" maneuvers and precise Reaction Control System (RCS) thruster firings to approach to about 1,000 feet (330 meters), whereupon Engle would take over and maneuver to position the fully-suited van Hoften, his feet secured in a restraint on the end of the RMS, close enough to the satellite to manually grapple it. "When he had completed the rendezvous maneuver and had stabilized," said Engle, "I looked up and kind of expected to see [Leasat] somewhere in the field of view in the window, but he had flown that rendezvous and perfectly nailed it, so the satellite was right … in the centre of the [crosshairs]."

In addition to serving as the primary RMS operator, Mike Lounge was responsible for helping van Hoften and Fisher into their space suits and into the airlock. It was then time for him to head up to the flight deck, whilst the two spacewalkers ventured outside for an EVA that would last seven hours and 20 minutes. Van Hoften installed a foot restraint on the end of the arm and secured himself. By his own admission, the biggest challenge was that "I had to go literally up there and get hold of this thing, somehow, until we could get hold of it and get the arm on it, because I had to attach a [capture] bar to it … It was every bit as tricky as I thought it would be." The massive Leasat, which weighed over 15,000 pounds (6,800 kg), was rotating very slowly. He fell behind schedule when the capture bar refused to fit, but he persevered. The situation was hampered by a lack of continuous communication with Mission Control, since in 1985 the full network of geosynchronous-orbiting Tracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRS) had yet to be established, and Lounge found that the RMS difficulties meant he had to be very deliberate with each motion.

His feet secured in a portable restraint, Bill Fisher is photographed by crewmate James "Ox" van Hoften during the Leasat-3 salvage effort. Note the open external airlock hatch, leading into the payload bay. Photo Credit: NASA

Eventually, after the installation of the capture bar, Lounge was able to maneuver van Hoften and Leasat toward Fisher in the payload bay, who fitted a second "handling" mechanism. Van Hoften then attached an RMS grapple fixture. The two men safed the satellite with grounding plugs, then fitted a bypass cable harness to work around the faulty deploy switch. Leasat-3's batteries had not frozen, and the repair showed its first sign of success when the omni-directional antenna popped open. For Fisher, a physician with a background in emergency medicine, it represented something totally new: microsurgery on perhaps the biggest patient he had even worked upon.

Van Hoften has described his relationship with Fisher as not nearly as good as George "Pinky" Nelson, with whom he had done two EVAs a year earlier to repair Solar Max. "Bill's very competent," he admitted in his NASA oral history, "but he was obsessed with strength. He had gone out and done lots and lots of bodybuilding before we went on this. For some reason, he thought this was important in a spacewalk and I kept telling him that it wasn't." As Fisher built mass and muscle, van Hoften worried that he might outgrow his carefully sized space suit.

The second EVA, which occurred on 1 September and lasted 4.5 hours, involved the two men installing an instrumented cover over Leasat's apogee kick motor nozzle and arming it. The enormous size of the satellite almost caused it to collide with the orbiter—the spacewalkers could not see each other from their positions on opposing sides of the payload bay—and van Hoften resolved that, "if something happens and I'm about to lose it," he would give it "a heck of a push and bail out!" At length, they managed to control its motions and van Hoften manually spun it up to three revolutions per minute and released it. The satellite went on to perform its maneuvers just as planned.

With the successful deployment of Leasat-3, the mission had effectively completed its objectives. From time to time, over the next day or so, the sounds of Willie Nelson echoed through Discovery, thanks to Mike Lounge's penchant for country music. On 3 September the astronauts prepared for their return to Earth. Re-entry was mostly in darkness, as Discovery headed across the slumbering Pacific toward the California coastline and, further inland, deep in the Mojave Desert toward Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.

From the flight engineer's seat, Lounge took a handful of photographs of the dazzling plasma wake trailing behind the shuttle, whilst Dick Covey remembered that it "crawled," like fiery fingers, along the bottom of his window. "Then, as you get into the thickest, hottest regions," he continued, it turned "into this complete sheath of white over the windows." Touchdown on Runway 23 at 6:16 a.m. PDT (9:16 a.m. EDT) concluded a mission of just over seven days. Rising from his seat, Lounge felt heavy—he could feel his weight and it required a conscious effort to keep his head up—and he remembered that walking and taking corners was awkward, tentative even, at first. It did not last. Just as he had adapted to weightlessness, within a day Lounge was once more adapted to life on Earth.

Mission 51I had been spectacularly successful, but would represent the last shuttle spectacular of its kind in the pre-Challenger era. Only one other commercial satellite salvage operation would be performed, on the maiden voyage of Endeavour in May 1992, a mission which one senior NASA manager described harking back to "the good ol' days." Some observers have looked back on those days long ago as times of foolhardiness, in which a mistaken sense of being bulletproof prevailed and a protective hand of God forever sheltered the shuttle and her astronauts. Others have regarded them for what they were: a spectacular demonstration of human beings accomplishing tasks of profound complexity, against all the odds. Yet the loss of Challenger, just a few months after Mission 51I, provided a healthy dose of the reality that space exploration carried extreme risk. When Dick Covey and Mike Lounge next flew into orbit together, in September 1988, the "picnic" atmosphere of launch parties would be gone, friends would have been lost, a sense of innocence destroyed, and the shuttle would never be the same again.

 

Copyright © 2015 AmericaSpace - All Rights Reserved

 

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Obama chose not to keep shuttle

Regardless of what you read, Bho chose to retire shuttle over the recommendations of most experts.

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Obama Trashes Space Program, Blames Congress | Frontpage Mag

http://www.frontpagemag.com/point/259956/obama-trashes-space-program-blames-congress-daniel-greenfield


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Fwd: Russia will start testing the world's first carbon fiber command module for spacecraft in 2016.

Sent from my iPad

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: August 25, 2015 at 11:49:22 AM CDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: Russia will start testing the world's first carbon fiber command module for spacecraft in 2016.

 

 

 

Russia to Test World's First Carbon Fiber Spacecraft Command Module in 2016

© Photo: Youtube/kystovs

 

10:02 25.08.2015(updated 10:35 25.08.2015) 

 

MAKS-2015 International Air Show in Russia (12)

2960160

Russia will start testing the world's first carbon fiber command module for spacecraft in 2016.

ZHUKOVSKY (Sputnik) — The testing of the world's first carbon fiber command module for Russia's new generation piloted spacecraft will begin in 2016, head of RSC Energia Vladimir Solntsev said Tuesday.

"Spacecraft consisting of nearly 80 percent carbon fiber are not being developed anywhere in the world. At MAKS-2015, we present, for the first time, a command module, and in 2016, RSC Energia plans to begin its durability testing."

"All the carbon fiber being used is domestically produced. We are preparing this spacecraft for testing and subsequent launches on the new Angara carrier rocket," Solntsev told RIA Novosti. 

 

 

© 2015 Sputnik All rights reserved. 

 

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USA in danger without shuttle like capabilities!

This site has hundreds of posts re the shuttle's unique capabilities. The need for these should be obvious just as the need for strong police forces, controlling border, energy independence, strong military, & controlling the national debt.

Both parties can not see the obvious. People better wake up before it is too late!

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Fwd: Uranus, Neptune in NASA’s sights for new robotic mission

Sent from my iPad

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: August 26, 2015 at 12:15:56 PM CDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: Uranus, Neptune in NASA's sights for new robotic mission

 

Uranus, Neptune in NASA's sights for new robotic mission

August 25, 2015 by Stephen Clark

NASA's Voyager 2 mission captured this image of Uranus during its January 1986 flyby, the only encounter with the distant ice giant. Credit: NASA

NASA has asked scientists to assess how to design and fly robotic space probes to Uranus and Neptune, the last of the solar system's classical planets yet to be orbited, likely ensuring the huge icy worlds are near the top of the space agency's to-do list in the coming decades.

Led the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the study will look at ideas for orbiters that could be dispatched Uranus and Neptune in the late 2020s or early 2030s and study the giant planet's structures, composition and extensive moon systems.

One focus of the study will be designing a common spacecraft platform that could be developed in two copies and launched to Uranus and Neptune for about $2 billion each, according to Jim Green, head of NASA's planetary science division.

But Green said scientists should look at scaled-back concepts that could be developed at less cost.

"We want to identify potential concepts across a spectrum of price points," Green said Monday in a meeting of a NASA-sponsored science working group devoted to outer planets research. "One of our (impediments) to make missions happen is the huge price tag it takes in order to be able to get out to the outer solar system."

The study is the first bureaucratic step in a multi-year effort involving independent cost and technical assessments, scientific peer review and federal budgeting before a mission to one of the icy giant planets goes from the drawing board to reality, Green said.

Results from the study will be presented to a panel of scientists seated by the National Research Council in the early 2020s. The NRC committee meets once per decade to map out the top priorities for the next 10 years of planetary science research, producing a report that ranks mission concepts for consideration by NASA decision-makers.

The space agency's policy is to follow the decadal survey's recommendations.

A mission to Uranus or Neptune will likely be a multibillion-dollar flagship-class mission in the mold of NASA's Cassini orbiter flying around Saturn and a recently-approved probe to repeatedly fly by Jupiter's icy moon Europa.

NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft encountered Neptune in August 1989. Credit: NASA

NASA's budget for planetary science can only support development of one such costly mission at a time, so only low-level work on a follow-up flagship project is affordable until after the Europa mission departs Earth in 2022.

"Obviously, it's not going to be easy to be able, even after we get Europa under our belt, to actually execute on the next large mission, but we need to make progress to understand our science priorities and look at this in a way that will prepare us for the next decade, but also utilize new technologies and capabilities that have come up (since the last decadal survey)," Green said Monday.

The last decadal survey report issued in 2011 set NASA's foremost planetary science objectives as a Mars sample return mission and a probe to Europa.

NASA's next Mars rover set for launch in 2020 will collect and store rock specimens for retrieval and return to Earth by a future mission, fulfilling the first step in a multi-mission odyssey to bring back samples from the red planet's surface. And NASA formally approved the Europa flyby probe earlier this year to assess the icy moon's habitability.

A Uranus orbiter was third in line in the 2011 decadal survey, but NASA's budget will keep the mission grounded until at least the late 2020s. That means NASA's ultimate approval of the mission depends on it faring well in the next decadal assessment by the National Research Council.

It is likely to be up against strong backing for a robotic mission dedicated to Saturn's moon Titan, which has seas and rivers of liquid hydrocarbons like methane, and another flagship mission to Mars to pick up the samples collected by the 2020 rover.

A lander or rover mission to Venus may also gain support in the next decadal report. The surface of the sweltering cloud-shrouded world has not been explored since Soviet-era lander missions in the 1980s.

NASA is expected to request similar conceptual studies on other leading contenders for future flagship missions heading into the next decadal survey, but Uranus and Neptune are first in the lot.

A concept for a Uranus orbiter and atmospheric entry probe was evaluated during the last decadal survey report released in 2011. Credit: NASA/NRC Decadal Survey

Orbiters for Uranus and Neptune will almost certainly rely on nuclear batteries powered by plutonium, and U.S. government funding of additional production of space-grade plutonium ensures such projects will have the power resources they need, Green said.

Engineers pack pellets of plutonium-238, the isotope tailored for electricity in space, into radioisotope generators. The natural decay of plutonium-238 produces heat, which is transferred through thermoelectric couples to generate electricity.

"It would be after 2023, as we get into the next decade that we would consider using radioisotope power for those missions, if they survive the decadal process, which I'm sure they will," Green said Monday.

Nuclear power is required for probes in the far reaches of the solar system, where sunlight is insufficient for solar arrays. NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto, the Cassini mission at Saturn and the Curiosity rover on Mars currently rely on plutonium power sources.

Uranus orbits about 1.8 billion miles from the sun, more than three times farther than Jupiter, and Neptune is positioned 2.8 billion miles away.

Other objectives of the JPL study include assessing how Uranus and Neptune research probes could benefit from advanced sensor technologies, such as compact instrumentation and high-resolution cameras. Green said the study will also examine how NASA's powerful Space Launch System, which is being considered for the launch of the Europa mission in 2022, could allow for bigger, more capable and less risky missions to Uranus and Neptune that could make the trip in a fraction of the time feasible if the probes used a smaller rocket.

"There is this underground sentiment that we do need to get back to the outer solar system, but it's just so hard," said Heidi Hammel, a planetary astronomer who is executive vice president of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy. "We're working on technology to make it not so hard and so expensive."

Neptune and its largest moon Triton are pictured in this view from NASA's Voyager 2 mission in 1989. Credit: NASA

NASA also tasked JPL to identify ways international partners could participate in the missions and to establish a science definition team for Uranus and Neptune.

Some scientists view Uranus and Neptune as the logical next step in the strategic exploration of the solar system, and orbiters to one or both of the huge planets could arrive about a half-century after their first encounters by NASA's Voyager 2 probe.

"The planetary decadal puts a Uranus mission very high," Green told reporters in July in a briefing during the New Horizons flyby of Pluto. "Even though those are giant planets — Uranus and Neptune — they have a lot of major compositional differences from the big gas giants — that are primarily hydrogen and helium — which is Saturn and Jupiter. We call those — Uranus and Neptune — ice giants because they have a lot of ammonia and other material."

Scientists believe Uranus and Neptune are composed mostly of rock and ice, with a dense, layered atmosphere. Researchers are not sure where they got so much ice, but some experts believe Uranus and Neptune were bombarded with frozen primordial objects from the Kuiper Belt, a ring of frigid proto-worlds beyond Neptune that contains Pluto and dozens more nation-sized dwarf planets.

Surprising discoveries by the New Horizons flyby of Pluto, revealing the diminutive icy world to show signs of apparent glacial flows and ongoing geologic activity, have renewed attention on the mostly unexplored far edges of the solar system, such as the Kuiper Belt.

"Our new frontier is the outer part of the solar system," Green said.

At least some of the outer giant planets' moons, such as Neptune's Triton, are likely intact remnants from the ancient Kuiper Belt that were captured billions of years ago.

"If we want to go back to a Kuiper Belt Object (after New Horizons), we may not have to go into the Kuiper Belt to get it," Green said in July. "We may want to go to Neptune to visit Triton, which is closer. Although Neptune is a heck of a distance away, it's still not as far as some of the Kuiper Belt Objects."

NASA created this size comparison chart for the solar system's giant outer planets based in imagery from the Voyager missions. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

"I think the science case for a future mission to one — or both — of the ice giants is strong, and I do expect them to be well placed in the next decadal survey," said Mark Hofstadter, a planetary scientist who led studies for a Uranus mission in the late 2000s.

"The announcement yesterday from Jim Green means that the next decadal will be better positioned to identify a realistic and capable mission, and its cost," Hofstadter told Spaceflight Now.

For William McKinnon, a planetary geologist at Washington University in St. Louis, another visit to Uranus or Neptune would be fascinating, he tells Spaceflight Now.

But McKinnon, who currently analyzes fresh data on Pluto from New Horizons, brings up an often-overlooked concern among scientists working on probes to faraway destinations: It takes decades to design, build and fly such a mission, followed by more years of data crunching.

"An ice giant mission, presumably an orbiter, is, alas, over the horizon as far as my lifespan is concerned, so I salute those who will live to see it!"

© 2015 Spaceflight Now Inc.

 

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NASA To Study Uranus, Neptune Orbiters

by Dan Leone — August 25, 2015

NASA has initiated preliminary studies of missions to either Uranus or Neptune, Jim Green (above), the agency's planetary science director, said Aug. 24. Credit: NASA

LAUREL, MD. — NASA began an early feasibility study for missions to the distant, mostly ignored ice-giants Uranus and Neptune, a senior agency official said here Aug. 24.

"I've asked [the Jet Propulsion Laboratory] to initiate an ice giant study," Jim Green, NASA's director of planetary science, said during a presentation to the agency-chartered Outer Planets Assessment Group, which met at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory here.

A closeup of Uranus — from about 1 million kilometers away. Credit: NASA/Voyager 2

The study will run "at least a year" once JPL, Pasadena, California, stands up what is known as a science definition team, Green said. He advised scientists here who are interested in participating on the team to watch for a formal announcement NASA will publish "soon."

Green assigned a cost cap of $2 billion in fiscal year 2015 dollars to either orbiter mission.

The study is a long way from a NASA commitment to send a probe to either Uranus or Neptune: Largely unexplored bodies planetary scientists have long desired to observe more closely.

Storms on Neptune, last seen up close by Voyager 2 nearly three decades ago. Credit: NASA/Voyager 2.

No NASA mission to the ice-giants would launch until the late 2020s or 2030s; the JPL-led study is intended to inform the planetary science community as it prepares to write its next 10-year science roadmap, or decadal survey, that will be published by the National Research Council around 2022, Green said.

Green said the JPL team will answer very preliminary questions: A mission's addressable science objectives; required technology development; and whether the objectives are realistic given NASA's budget outlook and short supply of nuclear power systems. Green said a nuclear power source would be needed for any Uranus or Neptune mission.

Before NASA mounts a mission to either planet, Uranus and Neptune will again have to receive the planetary science community's endorsement as top destinations in the 2022 decadal.

"I'm sure they will," Green said. "They're very worthy."

NASA's Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft ever to get anywhere near Uranus and Neptune. The spacecraft snapped closeups of Uranus in 1986, and of Neptune in 1989.

 

 © 2015 SpaceNews, Inc. All rights reserved.

 

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Fwd: Self-healing material could plug life-threatening holes in spacecraft

Sent from my iPad

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: August 27, 2015 at 6:39:28 PM CDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: Self-healing material could plug life-threatening holes in spacecraft

 

26-Aug-2015

Self-healing material could plug life-threatening holes in spacecraft (video)

American Chemical Society

 

For astronauts living in space with objects zooming around them at 22,000 miles per hour like rogue super-bullets, it's good to have a backup plan. Although shields and fancy maneuvers could help protect space structures, scientists have to prepare for the possibility that debris could pierce a vessel. In the journal ACS Macro Letters, one team reports on a new material that heals itself within seconds and could prevent structural penetration from being catastrophic.

ACS Macro Letters

 

 

 

 

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ACS News Service Weekly PressPac: August 26, 2015

Self-healing material could plug life-threatening holes in spacecraft (video)

"Rapid, Puncture-Initiated Healing via Oxygen-Mediated Polymerization"
ACS Macro Letters

For astronauts living in space with objects zooming around them at 22,000 miles per hour like rogue super-bullets, it's good to have a backup plan. Although shields and fancy maneuvers could help protect space structures, scientists have to prepare for the possibility that debris could pierce a vessel. In the journal ACS Macro Letters, one team reports on a new material that heals itself within seconds and could prevent structural penetration from being catastrophic.

It's hard to imagine a place more inhospitable to life than space. Yet humans have managed to travel and live there thanks to meticulous engineering. The International Space Station, equipped with "bumpers" that vaporize debris before it can hit the station walls, is the most heavily-shielded spacecraft ever flown, according to NASA. But should the bumpers fail, a wall breach would allow life-sustaining air to gush out of astronauts' living quarters. Timothy F. Scott and colleagues wanted to develop a backup defense.

The researchers made a new kind of self-healing material by sandwiching a reactive liquid in between two layers of a solid polymer. When they shot a bullet through it, the liquid quickly reacted with oxygen from the air to form a solid plug in under a second. The researchers say the technology could also apply to other more earthly structures including automobiles.

The authors acknowledge funding from NASA.

Watch the material heal itself following a bullet puncture.

Youtube ID: JVWFvKxrcLg

In case debris penetrates a spacecraft or station, a new material that can quickly repair itself could save astronauts' lives.

 

 

Copyright © 2015 American Chemical Society

 

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So if the Country has " The Greatest Vehicle ever Made" per fmr KSC Director, & you spent Billions & thousands of man-years & most experts tell you to keep it until you had a replacement!

Now , wouldn't you think a three time shuttle cmdr & a decorated Marine Pilot rather than saying "time to move on" , you would expect him to speak to Congress strongly recommending the vehicle be kept operational until a replacement operational!

Hell, the Russians were very surprised & now there is talk they may get their shuttle flying.

The whole deal is totally lacking of any logic. As time passes without manned operations , the bigger the price the USA will pay!

Sent from my iPad

TIME to MOVE ON, this is the Bolden comment when asked about flying shuttle commercially!!

So here we are, still years from flying the inadequate capsules which are inadequately funded by a liberal congress who is anti manned spaceflight. Most all experts said keep one shuttle, but we threw it all away & WILL not even consider the Boeing X37C which as x37 B is operational & could put the USA back in the business of manned spaceflight.

But the Liberal Congress is not interested. We need a change of leadership in nasa & congress.!

Sent from my iPad

So you think our three time shuttle cmdr, NASA adm DOES NOT understand the loss of this capability!!! Better THINK AGAIN!!!

Fwd: Orion Parachute System Withstands Failure Test

Sent from my iPad

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: August 27, 2015 at 9:16:53 AM CDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: Orion Parachute System Withstands Failure Test

 

 

 

Aug. 26, 2015

Orion Parachute System Withstands Failure Test

A test version of NASA's Orion spacecraft successfully landed under two main parachutes in the Arizona desert Aug. 26. At the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Ground, engineers tested a failure scenario in which one of the spacecraft's two drogue parachutes and one of its three main parachutes did not deploy. The test is helping to ensure the parachute system can safely land future astronauts returning from deep space missions even if something with the parachute does not go as planned.

NASA successfully completed a dramatic test of the Orion spacecraft's parachute system and its ability to perform in the event of a partial deployment on re-entry. On Wednesday, Aug. 26, a test version of Orion touched down in the Arizona desert after engineers intentionally failed two different parachutes used in the sequence that stabilizes and slows the spacecraft for landing.

During the test, a C-17 aircraft dropped a representative Orion capsule from its cargo bay at an altitude of 35,000 feet, or more than 6.5 miles, in the skies above the U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground in Yuma, Arizona. The engineering model capsule then began its parachute deployment sequence. The model has a mass similar to that of the Orion capsule being developed for deep space missions, and similar interfaces with its parachute system. Engineers purposefully simulated a failure scenario in which one of the two drogue parachutes, used to slow and stabilize Orion at high altitude, and one of its three main parachutes, used to slow the crew module to landing speed, did not deploy.

"We test Orion's parachutes to the extremes to ensure we have a safe system for bringing crews back to Earth on future flights, even if something goes wrong," says CJ Johnson, project manager for Orion's parachute system. "Orion's parachute performance is difficult to model with computers, so putting them to the test in the air helps us better evaluate and predict how the system works."

As part of the test, engineers also evaluated a change to the risers, which connect the parachutes to the vehicle from steel to a textile material as well as the use of lighter weight suspension lines for several of the parachutes. Both changes reduce overall mass and volume of the system.

Orion's parachute system is a critical part of returning future crews who will travel to an asteroid, on toward Mars and return to Earth in the spacecraft. The first parachutes deploy when the crew module is traveling more than 300 mph, and in a matter of minutes, the entire parachute system enables it to touch down in the ocean at about 20 mph.

That system is composed of 11 total parachutes that deploy in a precise sequence. Three parachutes pull off Orion's forward bay cover, which protects the top of the crew module -- where the packed parachutes reside -- from the heat of reentry through Earth's atmosphere. Two drogues then deploy to slow the capsule and steady it. Three pilot parachutes then pull out the three orange and white mains, on which Orion rides for the final approximately 8,000 feet of its descent. Orion's main parachutes are densely packed and sit on the top part of the spacecraft. Once fully inflated, they could cover almost an entire football field.

During Orion's flight test in space in 2014, the parachute system performed flawlessly, enabling the spacecraft to descend through the Earth's atmosphere and splash down in the Pacific Ocean after traveling about 3,600 miles into space.

Wednesday's airdrop test was the penultimate evaluation as part of an engineering series before tests begin next year to qualify the parachute system for crewed flights. The qualification series will include eight airdrops over a three- year period that will put the final design through extreme conditions to ensure a safe return for the astronauts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad9UW_oVq9Y

NASA's successfully completed Aug. 26 a risky test of the Orion spacecraft's parachute system. A test version of Orion touched down in the Arizona desert after a planned failure of two of its parachutes used to stabilize and slow the spacecraft for landing. During the test, a C-17 aircraft dropped a representative Orion capsule from its cargo bay at an altitude of 35,000 feet, or more than 6.5 miles, in the skies above the U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground in Yuma, Arizona. The engineering model, which has a similar mass and interfaces with the parachute system as the Orion being developed for deep space missions, then began its parachute deployment sequence. Engineers purposefully simulated the failure of one of its two drogue parachutes, used to slow stabilize Orion in the air, and one of its three main parachutes, used to slow the crew module to landing speed, did not deploy. The airdrop test was the penultimate evaluation as part of an engineering series before tests begin next year to qualify the parachute system for crewed flights.

Last Updated: Aug. 26, 2015

Editor: Mark Garcia 

 

 

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Orion parachutes pass failure test

Orion's parachute system passed the test, landing safely on the desert soil of the U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground.

By Brooks Hays   |   Aug. 26, 2015 at 2:35 PM

YUMA, Ariz., Aug. 26 (UPI) -- The Orion space capsule's parachute system passed its latest test on Wednesday, in which engineers simulated a mechanical failure.

Similar to previous tests, the Orion prototype was dropped from the upper reaches of the atmosphere -- by a C-17 aircraft instead of a balloon -- and allowed to free fall toward Earth's surface. Only this time, the craft's parachutes were programmed by NASA engineers to only partially deploy.

Orion's braking system boasts two sets of parachutes. The initial two "drogue" parachutes are deployed at high altitude to stabilize the craft upon re-entry. A few second later in the approach, three main parachutes are inflated to slow the capsule to a safe landing speed.

During the most recent test, one of the two drogue parachutes was engineered to fail, as well one of the three main chutes. Orion's parachute system passed the test, landing safely on the desert soil of the U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground in Yuma, Ariz., after 6.5-mile trip through the atmosphere.

"We test Orion's parachutes to the extremes to ensure we have a safe system for bringing crews back to Earth on future flights, even if something goes wrong," C.J. Johnson, project manager for Orion's parachute system, said in a press release. "Orion's parachute performance is difficult to model with computers, so putting them to the test in the air helps us better evaluate and predict how the system works."

The test didn't feature the Orion capsule itself, but a model with the crew-carrying spacecraft's dimensions, weight and aerodynamics.

The real Orion craft and its now tried-and-tested parachute system will be reunited for a series of tests early next year. Beginning in 2016, the craft will undergo eight airdrops over a three-year period. If it passes those tests, it will be qualified for crewed flights.

NASA's Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, called Orion or Orion MPCV, for short, is being designed with long-distance space travel in mind. Though the four-man capsule may initially ferry astronauts to and from the space station, NASA hopes the craft will eventually spearhead missions to explore asteroids and, ultimately, Mars.

© 2015 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 

 

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Fwd: Chinese spy payload fired into orbit

Sent from my iPad

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: August 27, 2015 at 9:15:19 AM CDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: Chinese spy payload fired into orbit

 

Chinese spy payload fired into orbit

August 27, 2015 by Stephen Clark

The Long March 4C rocket and Yaogan 27 satellite lifted off at 0231 GMT Thursday (10:31 p.m. EDT Wednesday). Credit: Xinhua

China sent the next in a series of military-operated spy satellites into orbit Thursday aboard a Long March 4C rocket in an unannounced launch from the country's northeastern space center.

Fueled by a mixture of liquid hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide, the three-stage Long March 4C rocket lifted off at 0231 GMT Thursday (10:31 p.m. EDT) from the Taiyuan launch base in northeastern China's Shanxi province, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.

The blastoff occurred at 10:31 a.m. Beijing time and was not announced in advance by Chinese authorities, keeping with standard practice for Chinese military launches.

Xinhua reported the satellite will be used "for experiments, land surveys, crop yield estimates and disaster prevention."

But analysts believe the spacecraft is intended to operate as a military spy satellite.

Tracking data from the U.S. military's Space Surveillance Network shows the Long March rocket placed its payload, named Yaogan 27, into an orbit about 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) above Earth at an inclination of approximately 100 degrees.

Details of Thursday's launch match several previous flights with the same launch site, the same configuration of China's Long March rocket family and nearly identical orbits. The commonalities likely mean Yaogan 27 is the next in a sequence of optical reconnaissance satellites designed to supply high-resolution imagery to the Chinese military and intelligence agencies.

The launch of Yaogan 27 comes after similar flights to the same type of orbit in December 2009, May 2012, November 2013 and October 2014.

Other satellites under the Yaogan name may carry radar payloads for all-weather reconnaissance and maritime surveillance sensors to track ships around the world.

Thursday's launch was China's fourth space launch of the year, and the 17th flight of a Long March 4C rocket.

© 2015 Spaceflight Now Inc.

 

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Fwd: HTV supply ship glistens on approach to ISS

Sent from my iPad

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: August 27, 2015 at 9:14:30 AM CDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: HTV supply ship glistens on approach to ISS

 

 

 

Photos: HTV supply ship glistens on approach to ISS

August 26, 2015 by Stephen Clark

Photos captured by astronauts on the International Space Station show a Japanese cargo freighter, covered with reflective solar panels and golden insulation, on final approach to the 250-mile-high outpost.

The fifth HTV supply ship delivered more than 9,500 pounds of cargo to the space station Monday after a five-day trip from a Japanese launch pad, restocking the orbiting research lab's pantry after back-to-back cargo mission failures in April and June.

Space station crew members later began unpacking the HTV's pressurized cargo cabin, posing for photos with fresh fruit stowed aboard the supply

Photo credit: NASA

Photo credit: NASA

Photo credit: NASA

Photo credit: NASA

Photo credit: NASA

Photo credit: NASA

Photo credit: NASA

Photo credit: NASA

 

© 2015 Spaceflight Now Inc.

 

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