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Grab Your Mai Tai and Helmet, We’re Flying into Space… from Hawaii!

Coming to a tropical island near you (NASA, edited by Ian O'Neill)

Hawaii state officials are seriously considering applying to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for a spaceport licence. According to local media, Hawaii has been approached by four space tourism companies wanting to launch their spaceplanes from the Pacific islands. I’m assuming that includes Rocketship Global (as their promo video was being used in the report), XCOR (as their Lynx would be more than capable of using existing runways) and possibly Virgin Galactic? Richard Branson is making moves to launch passengers through the Aurora Borealis from the Swedish town of Kiruna, why not launch passengers from a tropical location too? Makes perfect sense.

At first, I was a little sceptical about this possibility, after all who really wants spaceplanes blasting into suborbital space from one of the most beautiful locations on the planet? I’ve visited Maui and Oahu, and I would hate to see any (more) damage done to the place. However, these commercial spaceplanes aren’t exactly huge polluters (no more than your average airliner that lands at Honolulu International in any case) and the launches would be a great source of revenue for the islands in the form of taxes (as will be the case in New Mexico) and tourism. And then there’s the possibility of accessing Hawaii via suborbital flightpaths from California and Japan. Flight-time from Hawaii to mainland US will be slashed from five hours to 90 minutes. If that means I can leave my house and be on Waikiki in about two hours… who am I to stand in the way of progress?

Unfortunately a lot of misplaced hope and optimism is placed on commercial spaceflight, so we’ll have to see how the Hawaii Spaceport idea develops before we go getting too excited…

For more, check out Space Tourist Suborbital Flight from Hawaii?…

The MSL is Too Expensive? Who Cares! We’re Searching For Life!

$2.2 billion eggs. One basket. The MSL "Skycrane" lowers the 850kg rover to the Martian surface (NASA) — $2.2 billion eggs. One basket. The MSL Skycrane lowers the 850kg rover to the Martian surface (NASA)

Don’t get me wrong, I am incredibly excited about any planetary mission, no matter how much it costs. However, there is something about the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) that makes me uneasy. The project may be delayed (the MSL is scheduled for a 2011 launch) and it may be costing more than NASA projected, but it’s not these factors I’m worried about.

The MSL is built on a “bigger and better” mentality; it dwarfs both of the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity, plus it is packing a rather impressive suite of 10 complex scientific instruments to carry out an unprecedented campaign in the Martian dirt. Oh, and did I mention it will be powered by radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs), a complete departure from the tried and tested solar panelled rovers? Oh hold on, as the MSL weighs nearly a tonne, a brand new method of landing the thing is required (simply parachuting, air bag bouncing or rocket thruster powered landings are now passé). The “Skycrane” that looks like one of those hoverboards from Back to the Future II has been invented to gently lower the MSL (pictured above).

Still, I’m not too concerned, NASA has proven itself countless times at overcoming technological challenges. That’s why NASA is there, to research and develop new technologies and science. But what if the MSL has gone too far? What if the technology is too untried and untested? Unfortunately, it looks like the recent turn of events have taken even the MSL program manager by surprise…
Continue reading “The MSL is Too Expensive? Who Cares! We’re Searching For Life!”

Sci-Fi Romance and the Carnival of Space Love

WALL-E, the best animated-sci-fi-robot-romantic-comedy of all time (yep, I teared up at the end) — WALL-E, the best animated-sci-fi-robot-romantic-comedy-adventure of all time (yep, I even teared up at the end).

I couldn’t resist. As it is the day of romance, love and *pinging* cash registers, I thought I’d post a special Astroengine commentary of Valentines Day. Everyone is doing it; the Google logo is loved up, the news websites are buzzing about it, even the blogs seem to be obsessed with relating their craft with the desire for some romance (even this week’s Carnival of Space over at 21st Century Waves is “doing it”), so here’s some random Valentine’s Day paraphernalia for your reading pleasure…
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A Windy Day on Mars Gives Spirit an Energy Boost

On Mars, there are no car washes, no windscreen wipers, no rain, no fans... you get the picture... (NASA) — On Mars, there are no car washes, no windscreen wipers, no rain, no fans... you get the picture. (NASA)

By far the biggest difficulty for robotic operations on the Martian surface are Sun-blocking dust storms. Not only do red-tinted dust clouds block the Sun from penetrating the atmosphere, the dust grains fall on solar panels, creating a layer of dusty sunscreen, reducing the amount of light falling on the photovoltaic cells. This is a special problem for long-term missions on the Red Planet. The rovers Spirit and Opportunity have been pottering around in the Martian regolith for over five years, mission planners had little idea their tough explorers would live much beyond their designed 3 month lifespan; long-term accumulation of dust was of no concern… until now.
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“FAR” (the 365 Days of Astronomy Theme Tune) by George Hrab

It is very rare that I come across someone with star quality. Having said that, I have stumbled across a few stars in LA, such as Harrison Ford (great), Clint Eastwood (awesome) and Brittany Murphy (nice) because I’m only 20 minutes away from the city. These things happen in a place where its main (only?) industry is celebrity and film. Oh yes, I’ve also had dinner with Billy Dee Williams, stood in a queue with Jerry O’Connell (he was buying dog food) and tripped over Nicole Richie (she is rather tiny after all). However, when it comes to meeting somebody before they became famous… I draw blanks. Hardly surprising really, I’m no talent scout and I spend most of my time typing, indoors. I need to get out more.

However, it all changed last month, when I met George Hrab. I’ve known about George for a while, but I only knew of his writing on Geo-Logic and that he was a musician. I had only heard the first couple of the 365 Days of Astronomy podcasts and I noted that they had one hell of a catchy theme tune. However, I didn’t give it any thought until I was introduced to George Hrab at the AAS in Long Beach last month. Ahhh, that George Hrab!

In the short time I spent with George between the AAS presentations and (free) beer, I realised this guy has star quality. This was confirmed when he performed live at the grand opening of the International Year of Astronomy 2009. And what did he perform? His signature theme tune, “Far” for the 365 Days of Astronomy podcast, only this time with audience participation. Needless to say, George did a superb job, he has great talent and he’s a genuinely nice guy. Plus, he’s a skeptical thinker and embraces space, science and logical thinking. My prediction is that George Hrab really will go FAR (uber-far)…

Watch the video above, or you can download the full mp3 from George’s blog. Enjoy!

Visualizing the Iridium 33 and Cosmos 2251 Collision (Update: Video Added)

Less than a day after news of the unprecedented in-orbit collision between the active Iridium communications and defunct Russian satellites, the software company AGI has already carried out an analysis of the event. A detailed animation has been released depicting the velocity, angle of impact and statistical distribution of debris. Although the CGI is missing (I would have liked to have seen at least an explosion, shockwave and shards of twisted smoking metal. Come on guys, have a little fun!), it is a great visual aid for us to get a grip of what happened up there. To be honest I’m still blown away that this happened at all. There might be a lot of junk up there, but the statistical likelihood of this happening is still low.

You can also download the full-resolution AGI animation of the incident at their website…

Here are some visualizations of the impact in full 3D glory. All images courtesy of Analytical Graphics, Inc. (www.agi.com):

A frame from the 3D visualization of the collision event. Image courtesy of Analytical Graphics, Inc. (www.agi.com)

Predicted distribution of satellite debris shortly after impact.

After 3 hours. Collision debris (red dots) and ambiant space objects (green).

A special thanks to Stefanie Claypoole at AGI for notifying me about this material.

It’s Not One-Way Traffic: Satellites Collide at 790 km

On Tuesday, at approximately 5pm GMT, two satellites made history. They became the first artificial satellites ever to collide accidentally in low-Earth orbit. The event happened between a defunct Russian satellite (Cosmos 2251, launched in 1993) and an active commercial Iridium communications satellite (Iridium 33, launched in 1997), destroying the pair. Now there’s a mess up there, pieces of debris threatening other satellites, possibly even the International Space Station…
Continue reading “It’s Not One-Way Traffic: Satellites Collide at 790 km”

Astroengine Live Now Available on iTunes (Oh Yes!)

Astroengine Live, listed with some tough astrology competition on iTunes

It’s a big day for Astroengine Live! My radio show is now available as an iTunes podcast! I’d like to say that there was some tough competition and my show won through on its scientific merits and entertainment value… but I’d be lying. I submitted the Astroengine Live podcast feed to iTunes, and they listed it. Oh well, I think it’s cool nonetheless, at least now my listeners can tune in whenever they like in all their iPod (iTunes only supports Apple products, right?).

If for some reason you are unable to access iTunes (perhaps because you don’t conform to Apple’s marketing strategy), you can subscribe to the podcast feed directly from the Black Vault Radio Network (BVRN) podcast feed.

Tune in!

Assuming you have iTunes installed on your computer, simply start up the program and type “astroengine” into the search box in the iTunes Store. You’ll then find Astroengine Live in the search results (either listed with an episode number or prefixed with “Black Vault Radio Network”). Ironically, a vastly more popular astrology podcast appears in the search results too (I had a private giggle about that). Don’t mistaken Astroengine with astrology! Be warned, they just aren’t the same…

Apologies for having to run an old Astroengine Live recording today, unfortunately I’m currently in a hotel with a patchy Internet connection… Next week’s episode will therefore be excellent²!

Pictures from the Red Dwarf Set

Robert Llewellyn (Kryton), Chris Barrie (Rimmer) and Danny John-Jules (The Cat) on the set of Coronation Street (Dave)

Behind the scene pictures of the forthcoming mini-series of the UK space comedy, Red Dwarf, have just been released by the Dave channel. TV comedies are out of the remit of Astroengine, but Red Dwarf will always have a special Astroengine.com VIP Pass. Why? Because it’s awesome.

The pictures above were taken on the Coronation Street set (a UK soap, that I also miss terribly) during the making of the upcoming Easter pair of episodes in April. For me, seeing the cast back together, after nearly a decade apart, is great. I loved each series (although the original four seasons were probably the best in my opinion) and I can’t wait to see how these new episodes turn out.

Smegging fantastic!

For more, check out “They’re (Not) Dead Dave…” – Red Dwarf Returns!

Source: Dave