Obama At KSC

President Obama went to the Kennedy Space Center yesterday to make the case for his new space policy. While returns are not yet fully in, and changes and compromises are presumably still possible, the President did fill in some details, especially regarding the future of NASA manned spaceflight, which seemed to be the major bone of contention.

He said, for example, that the Orion capsule will be developed as a crew rescue vehicle to be attached to ISS, but also with the capability to evolve into a moonship. He also said a heavy lift launcher will be pursued, to be ready to be built by 2015. Whether it would be built would depend on circumstances.

The President's critics often focused on the lack of a goal in his approach, so he gave them a few. He envisioned a manned flight to an asteroid relatively soon, for example-- an intriguing, exciting foray into deep space. He also said he expected to see American astronauts going to Mars in the 2030s, with a landing on Mars sometime later. While that sequence worked during Apollo with the Moon, it's not clear that sending a crew all the way to Mars and not attempting a landing makes much sense. After perhaps dozens of unmanned landings on Mars by then, we will know how to do it. So, if we risk a crew on a flight to Mars at all, going all the way probably makes more sense. An alternative might be establishing a manned base on one of the Martian moons, but that call is for the future.

BA To The Moon

Robert Bigelow, founder of Bigelow Aerospace, has said in an exclusive interview with SPACE.com that he foresees a private lunar base capable of supporting up to 18 astronauts and built using BA's inflatable structure technology fairly soon.

Before that can happen, however, the legal infrastructure to support and protect private investments and profits beyond Earth must be established. According to BA exec Mike Gold, the company is currently trying to deal with that by building a private consortium of "sovereign clients" to undertake projects in low Earth orbit. Once the legal precedent is established in LEO, so the theory goes, it can be extended to govern such projects on the Moon and beyond.

BA is also pursuing the development of a private, man-rated spacecraft-- with Boeing, no less-- that would get people to and from BA's orbital installations. The largest of those inflatable space stations currently being pursued would have living volumes equal to or greater than ISS, could be deployed more quickly at much less expense, and could be configured in a variety or ways, according to the needs of the client. Indeed, BA already foresees space hotels, laboratories, and possibly factories in low Earth orbit, using its technology, yet this decade.

It's a remarkable, exciting vision. We'll have to see whether BA and the governments and other private companies involved can actually turn that vision into reality.

The Commanders' Letter

According to NBC News, Neil Armstrong, commander of Apollo 11, James Lovell, commander of Apollo 13, and Eugene Cernan, commander of Apollo 17 and-- so far-- the last human to stand on the lunar surface, have jointly sent a letter to President Obama in which they argue NASA needs to have an ongoing human spaceflight program if the U. S. is to maintain its leadership in space.

It should also be noted that Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, lunar module pilot with Armstrong on Apollo 11 and a space activist for many years since, has publicly supported the Obama plan.

The letter is a response to the eminent ending of the space shuttle program and the cancellation of the Constellation program in favor of relying on so far unproven private space vehicles-- or the Russian Soyuz-- to carry U. S. astronauts to orbit and back. That approach would leave NASA with no means of flying manned missions on its own, and, the commanders argue in their letter, the experience and technical expertise developed in flying consistently is crucial to successfully executing missions with a margin of safety.

There is some indication the President will support continued development of a less capable Orion capsule. The new version would be used as a crew rescue vehicle attached to ISS-- a spacecraft, therefore, that would hopefully never be used-- instead of as a moonship. Such a craft would not answer the commanders' letter.

Searching For Earths

Astronomers searching for Earth-like exoplanets have tended to concentrate on looking around Sun-like stars. That's reasonable enough, but a group of researchers has recently added a time factor to that approach. To date, the search has focused on stars that are currently Sun-like, but we are confident, this group points out, that such stars end their lives as white dwarfs-- a class of star extremely common in the galaxy. The researchers argue, therefore, that white dwarfs should be studied to determine how many of their spectra contain elements heavier than helium. Those dwarfs that have heavier elements may also have planetary systems, possibly including rocky worlds like Earth.

A problem with that approach may be how stars get to be white dwarfs. The Sun, for example, will theoretically bloat into a red giant before collapsing into a white dwarf. During the red giant phase, Mercury, Venus, and possibly Earth will be destroyed. True, during that phase, the "life belt" around the Sun may make worlds like Mars and Saturn's Titan more hospitable to life, but that would not hold after the Sun becomes a tiny white dwarf.

Astrology

In our time of extraordinary scientific progress, astrology seems to maintain its appeal for millions. It's very strange. Even though modern astrologers use computer programs and insist they've updated their profession-- which would seem to mean early astrologers got the wrong results-- the star charts used haven't really changed. They focus on the few dozen stars in the zodiacal constellations of the ancient Middle Eastern or Mediterranean cultures. We now know, of course, that the universe is vastly larger and more complex than those ancients could have possibly imagined.

So why hasn't a belief in astrology faded away? Well, many people use astrology for entertainment; they do not take it seriously. Others use it as a way to connect with people, romantically or otherwise. Some, however, still take astrology seriously. They insist the personality types they see in the world match those described under the twelve astrological signs. Personalities are not shaped by genetic tendencies and upbringing, they insist, but by the mysterious influence emanating from huge balls of plasma many light years away chosen arbitrarily by a group of people thousands of years ago who had no idea what they were seeing.

It's very strange.

STS-131 Extended

The mission of STS-131 has been extended an extra day to allow NASA more time to study the orbiter's heat shield. A piece of debris struck Discovery during launch, and although NASA says it doesn't believe there's a problem, it has also obviously decided to be as sure as possible.

The extra day at ISS also gives the combined crews of Discovery and ISS more time to get cargo transferred from the shuttle to the station-- and to transfer trash from the station to the shuttle.

New Data On Venus

As if the surface of Venus wasn't hellish enough, new data from Europe's Venus Express probe suggests volcanoes might still be erupting there. Seeing the surface from orbit is not possible because of thick cloud layers in the dense atmosphere, but the probe can detect "hot spots" on the surface by noting thermal differences. Three such spots seem to correspond with three volcanoes already mapped.

Last year, a small bright spot was seen in Venus' atmosphere that some scientists interpreted as a volcanic eruption. Taken with this new data, if that spot can be related to a volcano on the surface, a strong case could be made that Venus is still a geologically active world. That would require a complete rethinking of how we view the planet, and perhaps spark new insights into Earth history, and even into the processes that lead to climate change.