Former Moon Engine Burns Bright Once More

The RS-18 engine has been resurrected and re-purposed to test fuel mixtures for the new Constellation program.

I will take this opportunity to drop in a classic clip of the Apollo 11 launch:

Flying Cars, Jetpacks and Rocket Racers, Oh My!

The Experimental Aircraft Association Annual AirVenture Show in Oshkosh Wisconsin.  Which includes exactly what the title of the Popular Science video says it does.  Flying cars  (although we don't see it fly), jetpacks (although its actually a prop-pack not jet and it only "flies" 15 feet and under control of two guys on the ground)

The Rocket Racer section sounds pretty cool and they had one up in the air screaming along on it's rocket.  And the PR guy looked a little like another PR guy I know, talking about the business plan and the consumer.

As a very interesting side note:  The Experimental Aircraft Association's site has been partially pwned!  At there very same time as one of your peaks of popularity.  An article in Pop-Sci, linked via Instapundit.  They just need to remove the index.html file from their server, it's not the default document so this is a rookie pwn.

...in retrospect after a bit of researching, this is in fact a fail!  The hacker thought he knew what he was doing but his weak skillz are exposed.  He didn't replace the default document.  Only index.html (not even default.html)

Screenshot.

Rookie.

So this goes down as one of those "if-you-can-think-of-it, someone-has-already-made-a-website-for-it" things on the Internet.

I wanted to put together a blog entry detailing all the locations of all the space launch facilities in the world and well wouldn't you know it someone has already done so.

Check out this link.

It's pretty cool.  Every Lat|Long listed is linked to a google map (I woulda used maps.live.com but no big deal).

Look! In the Sky. It’s a Rocket Racer.

eh...what?  It wasn't you?  Oh it must of been one of the other many daredevil astronaut/test-pilot types that read the rivet.  It's one of our core demographics you know...the astronaut.

Racers in rocket-powered aircraft will fly four laps around a five-mile “track” at anywhere from 150 feet to 1,500 feet above the ground. The planes, designed to fly at 340 miles an hour, will start side by side, two at a time. The pilots include professional test pilots who received their training in the military and a former astronaut.

This is a great idea...

Red Bull Air Race already has a competition with acrobatic prop planes.  I guess that isn't hairy enough.  I mean 240+ miles an hour, doing flips and stuff...not enough.

Add rockets.

Race 'em together.

50% faster.  100% louder.  100% more dangerous...what's not to like.

Turn it up.

They've been too busy to update the website since August.  And by busy I mean BUSY!

Report from Elon Musk.

Among the many items listed, all of them impressive, is this one that caught my eye.

A few months ago, NASA approved the critical design review (CDR) for the initial flight of our Dragon spacecraft on the Falcon 9 rocket booster. F9/Dragon is intended to provide crew and cargo service to the International Space Station after the Space Shuttle retires in 2010, so passing this review was no small matter. Apart from the flight itself, this was arguably the most important mark of progress in the NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program.

SpaceX is in a unique position.  A place and time in space exploration that is unlikely to come again.  They have a project plan that aligns with a demand from NASA that no-one else will be able to meet.  If they can stay on schedule or near schedule SpaceX could become one of the if not THE private space launch company for the U.S.

Wow!

Overall, the Falcon 9 program remains on track for demonstration of cargo delivery to the International Space Station by the end of 2009.

Go read the whole thing.

Carnival of Space #31

Cool roundup of space news, go check it out.

So interplanetary travel...cool yes?

How do we do it?

Shane Ross gives a compelling speech about the use of LaGrange points as entry and exit points into orbits of planetary bodies. The Interplanetary Transport Network

Essentially there are low energy paths that lead from Earth orbit to L1 or L2.  There are then low energy paths that lead from L1 to the Earth-Sun LaGrange point called E1 or E2.  And from there more low energy paths to the LaGrange points around other bodies in the solar system.

He uses the Genesis project as an example of very low energy orbits.  The Genesis project used these low energy pathways to make its way from Earth to L2 and from there to E2 where it stayed and sampled the solar winds for 2 years.

It then used the reverse of those paths to make its way back to Earth again.

Genesis was able to do all this travel while using "...five hundredths of 1% of the fuel that it takes to get a rocket into Earth orbit."  That is remarkable.

The major point of this whole speech was summed up early: Once you reach Earth's orbit you are halfway to anywhere.

Here is a little lighthearted graphic from the speech defining the low energy pathways as a Metro map.

Transit stop

Professor Ross argues that the Lunar L1 location become a gateway station. 

It's the best location for a manned space station because: travel time is a matter of days from the Earth, launching craft and maintaining craft from that location is cheap, launching from L1 up to E1 or E2 is cheap and therefore exiting the local Earth system to head to other planets is cheap as well.

It becomes the closest rest stop on the interplanetary highway.

Can we get into orbit cheaply?

So then the remaining hurdle is getting into Earth orbit.  If we can make that cheap then the entire process of interplanetary travel becomes inexpensive. 

What technology are we working on right now that might lower the cost of getting payloads into orbit?

Space Elevator.

Does it feel like we are on the cusp of a convergence here?  If we are able to tie these two sciences together, the engineering feat of a space elevator with the comprehensive knowledge of how to navigate the solar system's "currents", what will the bounds of our exploration be?

Cheap Planetary Travel

It would no longer require huge chemical rockets to get from Earth to Mars or Jupiter or anywhere for that matter.  It would be like nudging a stick out into a stream and watching it float on down to the next stop.  Only you would be able to nudge the stick back upstream as well, whenever you wanted.

Download and watch the video it's compelling.

In honor of the launch of discovery today and marking the first time in history that a woman has commanded both the space shuttle and the international space station at the same time, here is a great video of a shuttle launch from the viewpoint of the cockpit.

Wow.  The rockin' and rollin' inside the cockpit is freaky.  I also think it is interesting how you can hear it get quieter right after they pass through Max Q (maximum air pressure during launch).

Great video.

Ok so it's only for three people, but Bigelow Aerospace is committed to having their Sundancer module launched before 2010.

This is private enterprise at its best.  Let's review.

Paul Allen is involved with Space Ship One / Scaled composites.
Richard Branson also.
...and Northrop Grumman buys the company.

Elon Musk is working hard with SpaceX on the Falcon project.  Successfully launching a Falcon earlier this year.  Impressive in most accounts.  He has revenue coming in from scheduled launches of satellites (whether that covers his costs is unlikely).

And now we have the ambitious plan of Bigelow Aerospace.  This is an unprecedented influx of private industry into the space exploration realm.

The design of the Bigelow modules are very innovative...they inflate once in space.  As long as the interior is sufficiently safe, this is a very cool evolution.  Space stations cubic interior space would no longer be limited by the carrying volume of the launch spacecraft. 

If it is scalable, it would make vastly bigger constructs possible in space.

More info: [cosmic blog ]

So this comes up in sci fi a lot, beginning with "2001: a space Odyssey". In that movie Dave has to jump from the pod to the emergency airlock without a helmet.

He does it and it takes some seconds, approximately 10 or so..

It happens in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy wherein Arthur and Ford are thrown off the Vogon Constructor Fleet ship and are rescue 29 seconds later by Zaphod in the Heart of Gold.

Total Recall had it where Quaid and Melina were exposed to the partial atmoshpere of Mars for awhile until the atmosphere kicked in.

It's in the new movie Sunshine too.

So how long can a human actually survive in the vacuum of space?

Turns out we actually have an incident, where the astronaut survived.

At NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center (now renamed Johnson Space Center) we had a test subject accidentally exposed to a near vacuum (less than 1 psi) in an incident involving a leaking space suit in a vacuum chamber back in '65. He remained conscious for about 14 seconds, which is about the time it takes for O2 deprived blood to go from the lungs to the brain. The suit probably did not reach a hard vacuum, and we began repressurizing the chamber within 15 seconds. The subject regained consciousness at around 15,000 feet equivalent altitude. The subject later reported that he could feel and hear the air leaking out, and his last conscious memory was of the water on his tongue beginning to boil.

[linky]

Bottom line: you have about 15 seconds until you pass out...and that will result in you...um...dying.

It's a nasty ride, you're blood boils, your skin blisters, you lungs might explode if you try to hold your breath...icky, icky.

SpaceX has just posted its review of its latest launch. The key parts of the review is the impressive job of "Rapid response capability – launched within 70 minutes after hot launch abort". And lower in the anomalies wherein it discusses the upper stage control anomaly. It appears that was due to Liquid Oxygen sloshing in its tank.

Upper Stage Control Anomaly
An oscillation appeared in the upper stage control system approximately 90 seconds into the burn. This instability grew in pitch and yaw axes initially and after about 30 seconds also induced a noticeable roll torque. This roll torque eventually overcame the 2nd stage’s roll control thrusters and centrifuged the propellants, causing flame-out of the Kestrel engine. There is high confidence that LOX slosh was the primary contributor to this instability. This conclusion has been verified by third party industry experts that have reviewed the flight telemetry.

Falcon 1 did not use slosh baffles in the second stage tanks, as simulations done prior to flight indicated the slosh instability was a low risk. Given that in space there are no gust or buffet effects, the simulations did not take into account a perturbation, as occurred due to the hard slew maneuver after stage separation. Extensive 2nd stage slosh baffles will be included in all future flights, as is currently the case with the 1st stage.

Installing baffles will increase weight though...

Go go Elon.

How fast was the Blackbird? oh yeah...that fast.

heh: Good joke: The King of Speed.

"Los Angeles Center, Aspen 20, can you give us a ground speed check?"

There was no hesitation, and the reply came as if was an everyday request:

"Aspen 20, I show you at one thousand eight hundred and forty-two knots, across the ground."

Gimme a second heh for that one

SpaceX had a successful launch yesterday [linky] of their Falcon 1. This is an extraordinary acheivement. We are truly seeing the comercial private space launch programs take off.

All in all, this test has flight proven 95+ percent of the Falcon 1 systems, which bodes really well for our upcoming flights of Falcon 1 and Falcon 9, which uses similar hardware. We do not expect any significant delay in the upcoming flights at this point. The Dept of Defense satellite launch is currently scheduled for late Summer and the Malaysian satellite for the Fall.

SpaceX is the less sexy, more practical private rocketship competitor to Spaceship One. These gyus are serious: Q3 2009 - 3 days - Full cargo mission profile including mate to ISS, with empty capsule , woah, docking with the ISS. Sa-weet! Space tourism here we come.