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NASA Chief Mike Griffin's Interesting 50th Anniversary Comments October 8, 2008

Posted by Nick Azer in : Apollo, Constellation, cooperation, Fusion Power, Helium-3, McCain, NASA, Obama, Space Shuttle , add a comment

Recently, Michael Griffin (Administrator, a.k.a the chief, of NASA) made some interesting comments to the Agency France-Presse (AFP) when discussing the 50th anniversary of NASA and NASA’s current state:

“[Christopher Columbus] travelled for months and spent a few weeks in the Americas and returned home. He could hardly have said to have explored the New World. So we have just begun to touch other worlds.”

-Mike Griffin, referring to Apollo 11‘s first walk on the Moon

Mr. Griffin went on to talk about how the explorers of the 15th century set out not knowing exactly what they’d find, and what value it would have. Griffin stated, “We can’t prove today that we can exploit what we find to the benefit of humankind”, though personally I beg to differ (and so do others more significant than me).

Griffin also expresses support for international cooperation, a subject that was a key contrast between the Obama and McCain space plans (with Obama’s plan mentioning it often and McCain’s plan never mentioning it).

“The space station is much bigger and better and more impressive and more productive as a result of the partnership with Canada, Russia, Europe, and Japan, than it would have been if we had done it ourselves.”
-Mike Griffin

For some more interesting Mike Griffin interviews, check out this Popular Mechanics ’10 tough questions’ from 2007, and a Space.com grilling from about a month ago on the space shuttle program, changes to it, and the potential impact of that on Constellation. Seems like Mr. Griffin gets some tough gigs with these interviews, haha.

(Note: I think that 8.8mb portrait from NASA of Mr. Griffin is one of the largest images I have ever seen uploaded to the internet.)

Picture of the Week: Pinch Us September 20, 2008

Posted by Nick Azer in : Bush, Constellation, economy, funding, NASA, Obama, Picture of the Week, private sector , add a comment

Yes, the Moon Colonization Picture of the Week is of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, President George W. Bush, Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson, and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Christopher Cox. This might not seem on-topic at first, but unfortunately, it very much could be.

The event pictured is the announcement of the financial rescue package being put into place to stabilize the struggling American economy.

This package could potentially become extremely relevant (and rather ominous) to NASA, as this rescue could end up costing the government upwards of a trillion dollars, which in turn could then end up limiting government spending for some time. This crisis, as a result, could then become an eventual bane to NASA’s rather large amount of funding (and the particularly pricey Constellation program).

Luckily, there’s still other nations and plenty of private enterprise rolling along towards the Moon, so even if NASA takes a hit, the lunar surface should be plenty busy for some time to come. And as a matter of fact, Barack Obama’s space plan suggests he may attempt to utilize the private space sector as a way to spur the economy back out of this slump, and so in the end, the American space focus may simply shift, rather than slump; as any slack lost by a NASA spending decline could be readily picked right back up by American private enterprise.

It will be interesting to see how the unfolding of this rescue package ends up shifting America’s impact on the base race and the future of development on the Moon.

NASA abandons accelerated Orion 2013 plan (News) August 12, 2008

Posted by Nick Azer in : Altair, Ares I, Ares V, Constellation, Current News, NASA, Orion (craft), Space Shuttle , add a comment
Yesterday, it was announced that NASA was abandoning its idea for an ambitious, accelerated launch of its next-gen Orion spacecraft, pushing back the date a year. While the announced launch date is March of 2015, they were hoping to get the craft up and launched as soon as 2013; now they are looking an an internal date of 2014 (with the ‘announced’ launch date still sitting pretty on 2015).

The Orion craft seats 4-6 astronauts (with the current Space Shuttle typically carrying 7), and is the craft planned to carry NASA’s astronauts to the Moon (with Orion being launched by the Ares rockets, subsequent to a seperate launch of the lunar lander, Altair; both craft have been spotlighted here recently). Meanwhile, other nations have their own equivalents brewing…

Magnetic Attraction July 22, 2008

Posted by Nick Azer in : Constellation, Helium-3, hoax theories, Lunar Reconaissance Orbiter, radiation, Vision for Space Exploration , add a comment

One concern that gets voiced about lunar colonization is the levels of radiation colonists could be exposed to, and how much of a threat that is (and whether there is sufficient methods of protection against it).

“We really need to know more about the radiation environment on the Moon, especially if people will be staying there for more than just a few days.”
-Harlan Spence, astronomy professor at Boston University

Mapping out and investigating the levels of radiation is one the central goals of NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission, the first tentpole mission of the landmark Vision for Space Exploration/Constellation era.

Various remedies and shields have been suggested, including isolated magnetic fields (like Reiner Gamma, pictured above; these are speculated to be a result of crater- and other ejecta), spherical man-made shields (pictured below), and even the Earth itself.

I personally trust in human ingenuity to come up with something, and the lack of effects on the Apollo astronauts seems promising (though many seem to think that indicates the whole Apollo landing was actually a hoax). At the very least, the commercial motivation for a company to come up with something that could enable colonization (and therefore utilization of groundbreaking resources) could eventually (or very quickly) become too strong to be ignored.

To cap, here’s a segment on the subject from a NASA video (Destination Tomorrow), courtesy of Youtube:

McCain voices support for Constellation program! (Huge News) June 7, 2008

Posted by Nick Azer in : Constellation, Current News, McCain, Obama , add a comment

On Thursday (the 5th of june), Sen. John McCain (a candidate that some feared would look to cut back NASA’s Constellation program as President, which includes their Lunar and Martian base efforts; McCain has mentioned a potential freeze on all domestic discretionary funding) voiced support for NASA’s efforts to get a man on Mars, stating that he “would be willing to spend more taxpayer’s dollars” essentially as long as NASA ‘did a better job of inspiring the public’.

“‘I am intrigued by a man on Mars and I think that it would excite the imagination of the American people if we can say, ‘Hey, here’s what it looks like,’ he said.
‘We know that now, and here’s what may be there and let’s all join in that project. I think Americans would be very willing to do that.’ ”
-Sen. John McCain

McCain’s signature thumbs-up now applies to Mars colonization.

Sen. Barack Obama‘s Education plan includes delaying Constellation by five years in order to fund education, though he has stated:

“I grew up on Star Trek…I believe in the final frontier.”
-Sen. Barack Obama

A big part of NASA’s Constellation program is to inspire the public, and one of Obama’s biggest crutches in the campaign so far as been hope and inspiration, so one could speculate Constellation’s mission is solidly within his style.

But, for now, we have confirmation that the less likely supporter of the program (McCain) is entirely for it, which means that no matter who wins in November, Constellation will continue (even if a little delayed) and should go strong for many years.

The 2008 Presidential Candidates+NASA's future April 25, 2008

Posted by Nick Azer in : Base Race, Constellation, McCain, Obama , add a comment

Just came across a brand-new and interesting article from Popular Mechanics about the stance of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain on NASA and America’s space future.

Providing a roundup of each, Rand Simberg’s analysis ends up with it looking like a McCain presidency in particular could spell delays for NASA (as his plan for reducing the federal deficit includes a potential freeze on all domestic discretionary spending), while Clinton is fairly positive and Obama sounds the most seriously interested in the topic (which is not surprising, considering his style of soaring rhetoric and big dreams), despite his education plan including a bit about cutting back or delaying the Constellation program to pay for education.

With the baby boomer generation retiring and the economy generally in a crunch in the first place, the future of the momentum of the Constellation program looks potentially grim. Of course, the Constellation program is far from the only one out there; both foreign efforts and commercial projects are international enough by their nature to be removed from the woes of America. The Moon can move on without us Americans, in other words, and humanity might not skip much of a beat.

Still, things look pretty good for the American effort. We should at least be a part of the Base Race, though this time, we probably won’t finish first.

You never know, though; there’s still room for the Emperor of the Moon as a dark horse…

CBS 60 Minutes Feature: "Towns on the Moon" (New!) April 7, 2008

Posted by Nick Azer in : Constellation, Current News , add a comment

Right smack in the middle of the Yahoo! start page today was a link to a brand new 60 Minutes feature, courtesy of CBS News, that they just ran about the new NASA space program (Constellation). Constellation (which is replacing the “boring” Space Shuttle program, as NASA themselves put it), includes their efforts towards moon colonization, which NASA Exploration Chief Rick Gilbrecht describes in the video below as “Towns on the Moon”, with habitats that are “short-sleeve environments”:

http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=3996816n (11 minutes 18 seconds)

Some great, great stuff in there. And a ‘Woot’ for massive, mainstream PR for the subject :)

One particular nugget, besides the exciting concept of entire towns, is the rovers that can roam 10 times farther from the base than the Apollo program’s did (60 miles versus 6 miles); I believe this means 120 miles total, with 60 there and 60 back. Nice. For reference, the circumference of the moon is 6, 790 miles, versus Earth’s 24,859.

Freeways on the moon?… :)