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Category: space travel

Limitless Space Institute gave out nine interstellar space-related grants for about $1 million to 2 million each. Phil Lubin’s direct laser propulsion group received a grant and they will use to prove out their directed laser propulsion system at the 10–20 watt level. They are also working on components at the kilowatt to tens of kilowatt level. The plan would be to scale to tens of kilowatts and work towards power beaming to the moon for experiments. In 5–10 years, they hope to reach megawatt levels.

If they reach 500 megawatts then direct laser propulsion could be used for 30 day transit times to Mars. When the system scales to the gigawatt or tens of gigawatt level with a matching deceleration and launching system on Mars this would enable 2.5 day transit times between Earth and Mars. Increasing or decreasing mass by 10,000 times changes the speed by 10 times. A 100-gram package could sent ten times faster than a 1,000 kilogram package using the same size laser array and power system. You could send a 1,000 kilogram mission to Mars in 30 days or rapidly deliver an urgent package of 100 grams to Mars in about 3 days.

This system for urgent delivery of tiny packages with 1G acceleration and deceleration would be feasible in the 10–20 year time frame.

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SpaceX has begun building a launchpad for its Starship rockets in Florida, CEO Elon Musk announced on Friday, as the company looks to add another location to launch the mammoth rocket that is in development.

“Construction of Starship orbital launch pad at the Cape has begun,” Musk said in a tweet.

Starship is the massive, next-generation rocket SpaceX is developing to launch cargo and people on missions to the moon and Mars.

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Following October’s news that Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin spaceflight company planned to build its own commercial space station in low Earth orbit, NASA announced on Thursday it has selected the program for funding through a Space Act Agreement to further develop the station’s design. The funding is part of NASA’s Commercial LEO Development program, which aims to “develop a robust commercial space economy in LEO, including supporting the development of commercially owned and operated LEO destinations.”

“We are pleased that NASA supports the development of Orbital Reef, a revolutionary approach to making Earth orbit more accessible to diverse customers and industries,” Brent Sherwood, Senior Vice President of Advanced Development Programs for Blue Origin, said in a prepared statement. The station would be an orbital “mixed-use space business park” that would offer any number of turnkey services as well as reduced operational costs for burgeoning low-g industries “in addition to meeting the ISS partners’ needs.”

Blue Origin is partnering with Sierra Space in this project with the former focusing on the architecture and infrastructure of the station — everything from its design and construction to managing lift logistics using the New Glenn heavy launch system — while the latter is tasked with developing the station’s LIFE (Large Integrated Flexible Environment). Boeing is also helping out, designing the operations-maintenance-science module and leveraging its Starliner crew capsule. Genesis Engineering Solutions is involved as well. It’s working on a single person spacecraft that tourists and employees alike will be able to putter around in.

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https://youtube.com/watch?v=zJH6J7rKn9I

SpaceX launches, Tesla updates its terms and conditions, and Elon Musk sighs.

SpaceX launches NASA’s DART spacecraft with its Falcon 9 rocket, Tesla updates its terms and conditions for Full Self-Driving, and Elon Musk sighs about it.

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NASA and the U.S. Dept. of Energy have come together to solicit design proposals for a nuclear reactor that will power Lunar and Martian exploration!

Over the next fifteen years, multiple space agencies and their commercial partners intend to mount crewed missions to the Moon and Mars. In addition to placing “footprints and flags” on these celestial bodies, there are plans to establish the infrastructure to allow for a long-term human presence. To meet these mission requirements and ensure astronaut safety, several technologies are currently being researched and developed.

At their core, these technologies are all about achieving self-sufficiency in terms of resources, materials, and energy. To ensure that these missions have all the energy they need to conduct operations, NASA is developing a Fission Surface Power (FSP) system that will provide a safe, efficient, and reliable electricity supply. In conjunction with solar cells, batteries, and fuel cells, this technology will allow for long-term missions to the Moon and Mars in the near future.

For NASA, having fission reactors for lunar surface operations is a vital part of the Artemis Program, which aims to create a program of “sustained lunar exploration.” This means infrastructure is required, like the Lunar Gateway (where spacecraft will dock and resupply) and the Artemis Base Camp on the surface, where astronauts will eat, exercise, and sleep when not conducting extravehicular activities (EVAs) – i.e., surface operations.

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NASA’s Europa Clipper scientists are devising a variety of creative strategies to find active plumes when the spacecraft arrives at this moon of Jupiter in 2030, though they’re not relying on plumes to understand what’s going on inside Europa.

On Christmas Eve 1968, the first mission to the Moon changed how we view our home planet forever.

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On Christmas Eve, three days after its launch, Apollo 8 reached its destination, successfully carrying humans closer to the Moon than ever before. Finally, the US had beaten the Soviets to a major lunar milestone.

It would have been possible for the crew to simply loop around the Moon and come straight back to Earth. But since the mission was running smoothly (bar a case of space sickness on the part of Commander Frank Borman), the order was given to enter lunar orbit.

The crew now had to fire the service module’s engine for exactly the right amount of time.

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Elon Musk thinks SpaceX needs to ramp up production of its next-generation Raptor engine soon or face potentially dire consequences, according to media reports.

Raptors will power Starship, the huge, fully reusable vehicle that SpaceX is developing to take people and cargo to the moon, Mars and other distant destinations. Each Starship will need a lot of Raptors — 33 for the giant first-stage booster, called Super Heavy, and six for the upper-stage spacecraft, known as Starship.

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