A Stimulating Development?: NASA Assigns $50 Million in Stimulus Funds for Commercial Orbital Passenger Service August 10, 2009
Posted by Nick Azer in : economy, Obama, Paragon, private sector, Space Shuttle, SpaceX , 1 comment so far
In an interesting economic development, NASA said today that $50 million in economic stimulus funds will be going towards developing commercial passenger service to orbit (to replace the retired Space Shuttle and to avoid pricey seats on the Russian Soyuz).
Private company SpaceX won one of two cargo contracts for the ISS back in January, and the Dragon craft they are using is designed to be modifiable to a human-passenger mode. NASA is holding a workshop this Thursday for SpaceX and other interested firms (quoted by the Reuters article as Ball Aerospace, Airborne Systems, Boeing, Tether Applications, Retro Aerospace, Emergent Space Technologies, Davidson Technologies, and Paragon Space Development Corp., many of whom appear specialized for certain systems).
Obama’s campaign space plan had hinted at this in the past—the idea of private U.S. space industry as stimulus. Frontiers do have a way of pushing economies along, so this could to be a road to developments much like the railroad projects of old. Considering the potential, Obama’s campaign plan, and certain past Obama decisions, there could be a lot more of this to come, and soon…
Robots in the Garden: Odyssey Moon Partnering With Paragon To Put Greenhouses On the Moon March 23, 2009
Posted by Nick Azer in : lunar plantlife, Odyssey Moon, Paragon , 3comments
Leonard David (a space reporting vet who often has insider tidbits at various locales), over at the Coalition for Space Exploration‘s blog, reports that leading Google Lunar X Prize contender Odyssey Moon and space development corporation Paragon will announce this week that they have teamed up for one giant leap for plantkind: delivering a biological greenhouse to the Moon’s surface.
“Growing the first plant on another world has enormous symbolic importance as well as important scientific research value for creating self-contained lunar outposts and eventual settlements, notes Odyssey Moon founder, Bob Richards.” -”Moon Partnership: Green Thumbs Up“, Leonard David, Spacecoalition.com
Paragon is a company with a long list of projects, many thermal and biological, for NASA; SpaceX‘s groundbreaking Dragon capsule; and others.
This is one of the first Odyssey Moon missions to become public besides their Google Lunar X PRIZE effort, “MoonOne“; “MoonTwo”, a mission delivering an International Lunar Observatory to the moon, was announced last July.
The Artemis Project has a solid essay on the subject of lunar greenhouses. Being able to generate oxygen and food on the Moon will be a big boon; the concept seems like an inevitable one as part of lunar development, and to get started now makes a lot of sense. A greenhouse could be cared for robotically, and getting a headstart will help the technology be ready by the time colonists arrive around 2020-2024.
Robots growing plants on a world with no humans… now there’s an interesting existential concept for ya.