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Private Space Taxi Builders Ponder Future Beyond NASA

Image: Dragon and Falcon 9 Second Stage, post Second Stage Separation Credit: NASA

Side Note: I think spaceflight companies ought to take SpaceX as a shining example of where their heads ought to be in commercial space flights. It’d be smarter to go about it this way and look for funding outside of NASA considering our government’s space agency does not get as much support or budget raises compared to other organizations and defense budget in the U.S. Looking for outside help, commercializing a large portion of space exploration and incorporating a lot of research into the preparation and actual flights seems more feasible when you consider the severe lack of funding in NASA.

The private spaceflight company SpaceX is poised to launch a robotic capsule toward the International Space Station Saturday (May 19) on a test flight that, if successful, could be a watershed moment for the commercial space industry.

But while SpaceX has a NASA contract to provide cargo deliveries to the space station, the company and other private spaceship developers are looking to a future beyond NASA funding.

The Hawthorne, Calif.-based SpaceX is one of several aerospace firms who are competing for NASA funding under the third and final phase of NASA’s commercial crew development program. Proposals for this stage of the competition, called Commercial Crew integrated Capability(CCiCap), require companies to present a complete launch system — rocket and vehicle — for consideration.

SpaceX intends to use a version of its current cargo ship, the robotic Dragon capsule,to fly up to seven passengers to the International Space Station and other destinations in low-Earth orbit. The spacecraft will launch atop the company’s own Falcon 9 rocket from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

Private spaceships of tomorrow

SpaceX isn’t alone in the private spaceship game. The company is facing some stiff competition from other aerospace firms, including Boeing and Sierra Nevada Corp. NASA is expected to announce at least two recipients for CCiCap funding awards in August.

Some of the contenders have said they intend to forge ahead with the development of their spacecraft regardless of whether they receive NASA funding or not.

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Monster Sunspot Fires Off Powerful Solar Flares

A huge sunspot that dwarfs the Earth is unleashing a series of powerful solar flares as it moves across the surface of the sun, NASA scientists say.

The sunspot AR 1476 was detected by space telescopes on May 5. The huge sunspot is 60,000 miles (100,000 kilometers) across, so large that when it was first seen in views from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft, mission scientists dubbed it a “monster sunspot.”

Earlier this week, space weather scientists predicted the sunspot would erupt with powerful solar flares, and those predictions have since come true. So far, the sunspot has fired off several flares, including a strong solar storm early Thursday (May 10).

“Solar activity has been at high levels for the past 24 hours with multiple M-class solar flares observed,” stated an update Thursday from the Space Weather Prediction Center, a joint service of NOAA and the National Weather Service. Sunspot region AR 1476 was responsible for nearly all of the sun’s storm activity, center officials said.

On Thursday, sunspot AR 1476 unleashed a powerful flare at 12:18 a.m. EDT (0418 GMT) that registered as a class M5.7 eruption. M-class solar flares are medium-strength sun storms that can still unleash powerful blasts of radiation and magnetic solar plasma. So far, the sunspot has not triggered huge explosions from the sun, which scientists call coronal mass ejections.

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Light from Alien Super-Earth Seen for 1st Time

Light from an alien “super-Earth” twice the size of our own Earth has been detected by a NASA space telescope for the first time in what astronomers are calling a historic achievement.

NASA’s infrared Spitzer Space Telescope spotted light from the alien planet 55 Cancri e, which orbits a star 41 light-years from Earth. A day on the extrasolar planet lasts just 18 hours.

The planet 55 Cancri e was first discovered in 2004 and is not a habitable world. Instead, it is known as a super-Earth because of its size: The world is about twice the width of Earth and is super-dense, with about eight times the mass of Earth.

But until now, scientists have never managed to detect the infrared light from the super-Earth world.

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curiositycounts:

Another absolutely gorgeous film by NASA: The Pursuit of Light.

In the Center of the Omega Nebula

Image Credit: NASA, H. Ford (JHU), G. Illingworth (UCSC/LO), M.Clampin (STScI), G. Hartig (STScI), ACS Science Team, and ESA

In the depths of the dark clouds of dust and molecular gas known as the Omega Nebula, stars continue to form.

The above image from the Hubble Space Telescope’s Advanced Camera for Surveys shows exquisite detail in the famous star-forming region.

The dark dust filaments that lace the center of Omega Nebula were created in the atmospheres of cool giant stars and in the debris from supernova explosions. The red and blue hues arise from glowing gas heated by the radiation of massive nearby stars.

The points of light are the young stars themselves, some brighter than 100 Suns. Dark globules mark even younger systems, clouds of gas and dust just now condensing to form stars and planets. The Omega Nebula lies about 5000 light years away toward the constellation of Sagittarius. The region shown spans about 3000 times the diameter of our Solar System.

Hubble to Watch Historic Venus Transit, Using Moon as Mirror

Scientists are planning to use NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to observe next month’s historic transit of Venus across the sun’s face.

But there’s a twist. Researchers can’t point Hubble anywhere near the sun, because our star’s bright light could damage the telescope’s super-sensitive instruments. So Hubble will watch the June 5-6 Venus transit by using the moon as a mirror.

The goal is to see if Hubble can determine the makeup of Venus’ atmosphere by studying sunlight that has poured through it. Astronomers already know a great deal about Venus’ air, so next month’s observations are a test run to see if the technique could be used to determine the atmospheric composition of faraway alien planets, researchers said.

Scientists hope the method can help them find an “alien Earth,” a habitable planet much like our own, orbiting a distant star. Venus is an excellent proxy for this search because it’s nearly the same size and mass as Earth, researchers said.

Strange Objects Punching Holes Through Saturn’s Outer Ring

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has revealed mysterious kilometer-sized objects that punch through Saturn’s chaotic and ever-changing F ring, leaving trails of ice behind them.

The objects pierce the planet’s thin ring at a gentle speed of just two meters per second, and then drag glittering ice particles out into space. The trails are typically 40 to 180 kilometers long. Astronomers are calling the ice trails “mini-jets.”

The Tale Continues..

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

The brightly reflective moon Enceladus appears before Saturn’s rings while the larger moon Titan looms in the distance.

Jets of water ice and vapor emanating from the south pole of Enceladus (hinting at subsurface sea rich in organics), and liquid hydrocarbons ponding on the surface on the surface of Titan make these two of the most fascinating moons in the Saturnian system. See A Tale of Two Moons to learn more about these fascinating moons.

fuckyeahspaceexploration:

This gimballing rig was designed to test astronauts’ ability to right a tumbling aircraft. It’s formally called MASTIF or Multiple Axis Space Test Inertia Facility and it’s pictured operating in the Altitude Wind Tunnel at the (then) Lewis Research Center.

It was designed as part of the Mercury program.

STS-1: First Shuttle Launch

How NASA Moves Space Shuttles: The Ultimate Piggyback Ride

NASA’s space shuttles are gearing up to make their final voyages — this time flying piggyback a special Boeing 747 jet on the way to museum retirement homes.

The space shuttle Discovery, which flew its last mission in March 2011, has been undergoing prep for museum life at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Cape Canaveral, Fla. If weather permits, on Tuesday (April 17), Discovery will fly atop a modified Boeing jet to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Stephen F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va., where it will spend the rest of its days.

After Discovery arrives at the Smithsonian, the museum’s current orbiter on display, the prototype shuttle Enterprise, will be loaded onto the same carrier aircraft to be ferried to its new home: the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York City.

The transportation of shuttles is a complicated affair, involving giant cranes and rejiggered Boeing jets. And in addition to a slew of complex equipment, the maneuver requires significant manpower.

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Fox Fur, a Unicorn, and a Christmas Tree

Image Credit: Rolf Geissinger

What do the following things have in common: a cone, the fur of a fox, and a Christmas tree? Answer: they all occur in the constellation of the unicorn (Monoceros).

Pictured above as a star forming region cataloged as NGC 2264, the complex jumble of cosmic gas and dust is about 2,700 light-years distant and mixes reddish emission nebulae excited by energetic light from newborn stars with dark interstellar dust clouds.

Mysterious Geologic Structure Seen from Space

Imaged Above: Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers snapped this photo of a lava crater in Mauritania from the International Space Station. Credit: ESA/NASA

A huge, copper-toned formation in West Africa dominates a mesmerizing photo taken by an astronaut aboard the International Space Station.

Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers snapped this hypnotic image of the so-called Richat structure in Mauritania, as the space station flew over the Sahara Desert on the Atlantic Coast of West Africa. Erosion of the various rock layers created the ring-like features that make up the sprawling structure, but the origin of the Richat structure remains somewhat mysterious, geologists have said.

The photo shows Kuipers’ unique vantage point from the orbiting complex, which flies approximately 240 miles (386 kilometers) above the surface of the Earth. The image was taken on March 7 using a Nikon D2Xs camera, officials at the European Space Agency said in a statement.

NGC 2683

Image: NASA/ HST

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has spotted a UFO — well, the UFO Galaxy, to be precise.

NGC 2683 is a spiral galaxy seen almost edge-on, giving it the shape of a classic science fiction spaceship. This is why the astronomers at the Astronaut Memorial Planetarium and Observatory gave it this attention-grabbing nickname.

Filigree & Shadow at Cygnus Loop

Image Credit: NASA IOTD

Wispy tendrils of hot dust and gas glow brightly in this ultraviolet image of the Cygnus Loop Nebula, taken by NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer.

The nebula lies about 1,500 light-years away, and is a supernova remnant, left over from a massive stellar explosion that occurred 5,000-8,000 years ago. The Cygnus Loop extends more than three times the size of the full moon in the night sky, and is tucked next to one of the ‘swan’s wings’ in the constellation of Cygnus.

The filaments of gas and dust visible here in ultraviolet light were heated by the shockwave from the supernova, which is still spreading outward from the original explosion. The original supernova would have been bright enough to be seen clearly from Earth with the naked eye.