Universe Today

If you've ever dreamed of exploring Mars, but are worried about all that pesky radiation exposure and being cramped in a capsule for the two-year flight – or about never coming back – then your dream may be realized with NASA's "Be a Martian" web site. In the spirit of other citizen scientist collaborations such as Galazy Zoo and Stardust@Home, NASA has created a site that allows you to view and categorize images to help map the Martian surface from the safety of your own home here on Earth.

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The United States and China have agreed to discuss expanded cooperation in space exploration and science. According to a joint statement released in Beijing on Tuesday, the two counties will start a "dialogue" on human space flight and exploration, and both nations looked forward to reciprocal visits by the NASA administrator and appropriate Chinese space leaders in 2010. NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden, currently in Japan, said cooperation on the high frontier could pay dividends for both countries.
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Astronaut Bob Crippen, along with John Young, made history on April 12, 1981 when they launched on one of the riskiest test flights ever, STS-1 on space shuttle Columbia. Crippen also commanded three other space shuttle missions (STS-7, STS-41C, STS-41G), and was the former director of the Kennedy Space Center and former President of Thiokol Propulsion. Crippen has always been a straight shooter — telling it like it is — and a strong supporter of human spaceflight. Personally, I will never forget the moving speech he gave after the Columbia accident, eulogizing the spacecraft itself. I had the chance to talk with Crippen today following the launch of STS-129.
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If you don't quite have the right stuff, but always thought being an astronaut would be cool, here's a way for you to contribute to the US space program. Go to bed. With NASA. "I would absolutely recommend it. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life," said Heather Archuletta, who has participated in three different studies for the Human Test Subject Facility (HTSF) at the Johnson Space Center. These ongoing studies use long-term bed rest to simulate the effects of micro-gravity an astronaut would experience during extended space flight. "This is a great opportunity for the general public to help NASA with their scientific research," said John Foster, who works for Solitaire Creative Services, a company that promotes the studies.
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NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have officially agreed to combine their efforts in the exploration and study of Mars. The heads of both agencies, NASA administrator Charles Boden and ESA director-general Jean-Jacques Dordain signed an agreement that officially binds the two agencies together for upcoming orbiter and rover missions. Discussions of this cooperation began in December of 2008, and culminated in a meeting in June 2009, out of which came the official agreement signed last week. Read more…

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NASA Administrator Charles Bolden has restructured the NASA Advisory Council (NAC), adding several new committees in key areas of importance to the agency's future, including Education and Public Outreach, led by former CNN anchor Miles O'Brien and a Commercial Space, Information Technology Infrastructure committee led by Brett Alexander, the executive director of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. "I consider the NASA Advisory Council to be an extremely important external advisory group, one that is uniquely capable to advise me and the entire NASA senior leadership team on some of the important decisions our agency will face in the coming months and years," Bolden said. "I am confident that this new structure will serve as an effective forum to stimulate meaningful advice to me and the rest of NASA's leadership."
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When it comes to exploring the hostile environment of space, robots have done a lot (if not most) of the exploring. The only other planet besides Earth that humans have set foot on is the Moon. Robotic explorers, however, have set down on the Moon, Mars, Venus, Titan and Jupiter, as well as a few comets and asteroids. Robotic missions can travel further and faster, and can return more scientific data than missions that include humans. There is much debate on whether the future of space exploration should rely solely on robots, or whether humans should have a role.

As contentious as this issue is, there is no doubt that robots have and will continue to contribute to our understanding of the Universe. Here's a short list of past, current, and future robotic missions that have done or will do much in the way of exploration of our cosmos.

• The most famous robots in space have to be the series of orbiters, rovers and landers that have been sent to Mars. The first orbiter was Mariner 4, which flew past Mars on July 14, 1965 and took the first close up photos of another planet. The first landers were the Viking landers. Viking 1 landed July 20, 1976, and Viking 2 on September 3, 1976. Both landers were accompanied by orbiters that took photos and scientific data from above the planet. The landers included instruments to detect for life on the surface of Mars, but the data they returned is somewhat ambiguous, and the question of whether there is life on Mars still requires an answer. Currently, Spirit and Opportunity are roving away on the Martian surface, well past their expected mission lifetime, and the Phoenix lander returned a wealth of information about our neighbor. For more about the entire series of Mars missions, go to NASA's Mars Exploration Program website. Of course, NASA isn't the only space organization represented at Mars – the European Space Agency currently has Mars Express orbiting the planet, and has the first webcam of another planet available!

• Mars isn't the only place to go in the Solar System, though. Both the U.S. and the Russians sent numerous missions to Venus, with a lot of successes and failures. For a complete list of the many missions to Venus visit the Planetary Society. The most notable firsts are: Mariner 2 was the first successful Venus flyby on December 14, 1962, and the Russian lander Venera 7 was the first human-made vehicle to successfully land on another planet and transmit data back to Earth on December 14, 1962.
• Sputnik 1, of course, was  the first robot in space, and was launched October 4th, 1957 by the USSR.
• The Voyager missions are notable for the milestone of having a robot leave the Solar System. Voyager 1 and 2 were launched in 1977 are still making their way out of the Solar System, and have entered the heliopause, where the solar wind starts to drop off, and the interstellar wind picks up. To keep up with their status, visit the weekly status page.
• Dextre, a robotic arm developed by the Canadian Space Association, is a very cool robot aboard the International Space Station. Dexter allows for delicate manipulation of objects outside the station, reducing the number of space walks and increasing the ability of the ISS crew to maintain and upgrade the station.
• There are many, many future robotic missions in the works and still in the "dreaming" stage. For example, submarines may one day explore Europa, landers may crawl on the Moon, and spacecraft will orbit comets.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of the enormous number of robotic space missions. To learn a lot, lot more check out the Astronomy Cast episode on Robots in Space, the ESA robotics page, NASA missions page, and the Planetary Society missions page.

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NASA announced last week they had developed the first iPhone application geared specifically for keeping track of all things NASA. I don't have an iPhone, so I didn't look into it, but the iPhone users I know seem to be very excited about it. So here's all the info you should need to hook up with NASA via your iPhone:

The NASA App is available free of charge on the App Store from Apple directly to the iPhone and iPod Touch or within iTunes.

What does it do?
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The Augustine Commission released their final report today, and while they didn't offer specific recommendations for NASA's human space flight program, they laid out five possible options, highlighting a flexible plan that allows for several destinations out of low Earth orbit. The report also encouraged commercial space ventures to handle trips to the International Space Station. "The different options speak for themselves," said head of the commission, Norman Augustine at a press briefing today following the release of the report. "We believe Mars is clear goal of the human spaceflight program, but for safety reason we ruled out going directly there. We've offered programs that are alternatives for building a heavy lift launch capability, as we believe that to be extremely important for the human space program, and we believe this is the time to create a commercial market to transport humans to Earth orbit."

But the strongest point the committee made is that NASA needs additional funds of $3 billion a year in order to accomplish much of anything.
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NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden has asked for an evaluation of alternative heavy lift rockets, including DIRECT’s Jupiter launch vehicle. The evaluation is a “top priority,” according to NASASpaceflight.com, and a special team from the Marshall Space Flight Center has been commissioned to conduct the study, with the directive to have a report ready by the end of November. Looking at alternatives to the Constellation program is an apparent reaction to the final Augustine Commission report, which will be made public on Thursday.
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"The Stick" made it out to launchpad 39B without falling over. I have to admit, NASA's new rocket looked tall, super-skinny and pointy (as Dr. Brian Cox described it), as it rolled out on the crawler transporter. Somehow, it seems the Ares I-X should be wider. It's definitely tall — at 100 meters (327 feet,) it is 43 meters (143 feet) taller than the space shuttle. But appearances aside, this is an historic occasion. For the first time in more than a quarter century, a new vehicle is sitting out at the launchpad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

More pictures below:
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It was a busy weekend in the world of space flight — both present and future — and so we'll try to fit it all in one article, and include a couple of videos to help tell the stories. Before that, however, just a reminder that the Ares-I-X is slated to roll out to launchpad 39-B early Tuesday morning at 12:01 am EDT, to begin preparations for the scheduled Oct. 27 first test launch. If you're an early bird, (or a night owl) watch the six-hour trip on NASA TV.

And now on to this weekend's launch story:
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Apollo 18 was one of three missions that were canceled by NASA due to budgetary constraints. Apollo 19 and Apollo 20 were the other two. Apollo 18 was originally scheduled to be a "J" mission, meaning that it would include a three day stay on the Moon and the use of the lunar rover and and extended number of scientific experiments.

The Apollo space missions were originally broken down into several types: A thru G with H,I and J added later.

• A – Unmanned Command Service Module (CSM) test
• B – Unmanned Lunar Module (LM) test
• C – Manned CSM in low Earth orbit
• D – Manned CSM and LM in low Earth orbit
• E – Manned CSM and LM in an elliptical Earth orbit with an apogee of 7400 km
• F – Manned CSM and LM in lunar orbit
• G-Manned lunar landing

The H missions were short missions that would have two extra vehicular activities (EVA's). The J missions were meant to have a longer stay on the lunar surface and three EVA's. Lunar Orbital Survey Missions were conceived that would have seen a long duration orbital mission of the Moon using a Service Module bay loaded with scientific equipment. These were called the I missions, but all of them were canceled when it became clear that the budget was going to be cut. Instead NASA incorporated the equipment into the J missions and trailed it from the CSM.

The cancellation of Apollo 18 left some surplus equipment laying around. Instead of wasting the money and scraping the rocket and modules NASA used some of the parts on other missions and as historical displays at various locations around the United States.

There is a nice article about the Apollo 18 mission here. Here on Universe Today we have a great article about all of the Apollo missions in general. One of the greatest challenges to the Apollo program was to overcome the atmospheric conditions of the Moon. Astronomy Cast offers a great episode about the different atmospheres around the galaxy.

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Apollo 17 was the last Apollo mission to land men on the Moon. It carried the only trained geologist to walk on the lunar surface, lunar module pilot Harrison Schmitt. Compared to previous Apollo missions, Apollo 17 astronauts traversed the greatest distance using the lunar rover and returned the greatest amount of rock and soil samples. Eugene Cernan, commander of Apollo 17, still holds the distinction of being the last man to walk on the Moon, as no humans have visited the Moon since December 14, 1972. The mission was also the first night launch of a manned space mission.

The Apollo 17 landing site was on the southeastern rim of the Mare Serenitatis, in the southwestern Montes Taurus. This was a dark mantle between three high, steep massifs, in an area known as the Taurus-Littrow region. Pre-mission photographs showed boulders deposited along the bases of the mountains, which could provide bedrock samples. The area also contained a landslide, several impact craters, and some dark craters which could be volcanic.

Apollo 17 was a J-class mission meaning that the crew used a lunar rover and conducted three lunar surface excursions, lasting 7.2, 7.6 and 7.3 hours. The mission returned 50.1 kg of samples from the Moon. Schmitt and Cernan collected a record 49 kg of rocks during three moonwalks. The crew roamed for 34 km through the Taurus-Littrow valley in their rover, discovered orange-colored soil, and left the most comprehensive set of instruments in the ALSEP on the lunar surface. Their mission was the last in the Apollo lunar landing missions. The last 4 Apollo craft were used for the three Skylab missions and the ASTP mission in 1975.

Even though it was the last mission to the Moon, NASA is hoping to change that in the near future. Here on Universe Today we have a great article on the Moon's molten core. Here is the NASA page on the the Apollo 17 mission. This is another good article on the mission. Astronomy Cast offers a good episode on the planned missions to the Moon.

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The Apollo 8 mission captured many firsts in spaceflight. It was the first manned mission to achieve a velocity sufficient to allow escape from the gravitational field of planet Earth; the first to be captured by and escape from the gravitational field of another celestial body; and the first crewed voyage to return to planet Earth from another celestial body: the Moon. The crew became the first humans to see the far side of the Moon with their own eyes, as well as the first humans to see planet Earth from beyond low Earth orbit. The mission was accomplished with the first manned launch of a Saturn V rocket.

It took Apollo 8 three days to travel to the Moon. The crew orbited the Moon 10 times over a 20 hour period. During their time in orbit, the crew made a Christmas Eve television broadcast. They read the first 10 verses of the Book of Genesis. This reading was timed to coincide with a full view of planet Earth hanging in the empty blackness of space while clearly showing the rich diversity of the living planet as indicated in Earth's colors, seas, landforms, and weather patterns, rising over the dull gray horizon of the lifeless Moon.

Apollo 8 had to overcome all of the problems that Apollo 6 had encountered; especially the pogo oscillations. Other problems that had to be overcome were first stage, two second stage engine failures, and a third stage that failed to reignite in orbit. Without assurances that these problems had been rectified, NASA administrators could not justify risking a manned mission until additional unmanned test flights proved that the Saturn V was ready. Teams from the Marshall Space Flight Center(MSFC) went to work on the problems. The pogo oscillations would not only hamper engine performance, but could exert significant g-forces on a crew. A task force of contractors, NASA agency representatives, and MSFC researchers concluded that the engines vibrated at a frequency similar to the frequency at which the spacecraft itself vibrated, causing a resonance effect that induced oscillations in the rocket. A system using helium gas to absorb some of these vibrations was installed. It was quickly determined that a leaking hydrogen fuel line ruptured when exposed to vacuum, causing a loss of fuel pressure in engine two. When an automatic shutoff attempted to close the liquid hydrogen valve and shut down engine two, it accidentally shut down engine three's liquid oxygen due to an incorrectly wired connection. This caused engine three to fail within one second of engine two's shutdown. Further investigation revealed the same problem for the third-stage engine. There were faulty igniter lines all around. The team modified the igniter lines and fuel conduits, hoping to avoid similar problems on future launches.

Apollo 8 was able to overcome all of the issues found during the Apollo 6 mission to become a successful mission. There is a very extensive article on the Apollo 8 mission here. Here on Universe Today there is an article about the thoughts of one of the Apollo 8 mission crew. Astronomy Cast offers a good episode about the exploration of the Moon.

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