Let’s start with the apologies. I’m very sorry for the prolonged absence of late, and I trust that people actually noticed I haven’t been around 😉 But both my day and my side job have both been very busy and have left me mentally and physically taxed by the end of the day. However, I do have things to show for it, mainly in the form of a new list of articles that were recently published on both Universe Today and HeroX.
I’ve taken to posting the new entries on their respective pages (over on the right there). However, if you’re like me, you don’t bother to check these out much and would rather be notified if something new is happening. And the way I see it, a post now and again that contains the links to all the latest is something people won’t mind hearing about (as opposed to being notified every time one does!)
So here they are, in order of publication:
Small Spacecraft Ejected from ISS Will Provide Same-Day, On-Demand Delivery – Basically, the ISS is getting a small fleet of return vehicles that will allow them to deliver samples back to Earth in less than 24 hours. This will help research and experiments quite a bit, and could also open the way for commercial use of the ISS’s National Lab.
Make a Deal for Land on the Moon – This one was not only fun to write, it contains a cautionary tale worth sharing. No matter what some realtors may tell you, there’s absolutely no way to buy land on the Moon… yet! However, given the way that commercial aerospace and space industries are heating up, this may soon change.
HeroX News: The Promise of Solar Power – This is probably the longest article I’ve written for either publication of late. It deals with recent innovations that are causing solar power to break its own the efficiency limits and usher in an age of renewable energy. And none too soon either!
Hey all! Just wanted to let people know, my first article for Universe Today just went public. The subject of the article was the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, a new type of space habitat that is being shipped to the ISS next year. Researching and writing the article itself was not unusual for me. It’s pretty much what I do here every single day. However, the real fun came in speaking to NASA and Bigelow Aerospace themselves via phone and email.
Interviewing the people behind big ideas and technological innovation is something a humble blogger like myself doesn’t get to do! While I’ve really enjoyed talking to luminaries like Andraka and Makosinski in the past, this was a first for me. Looking forward to doing more of it in the near future!
In any case, follow the link below to check it out and don’t forget to comment and Like us on Facebook… no pressure 😉
In recent years, the International Space Station has become more and more media savvy, thanks to the efforts of astronauts to connect with Earthbound audiences via social media and Youtube. However, the communications setup, which until now relied on 1960’s vintage radio-wave transmissions, was a little outdated for this task. However, that has since changed with the addition of the Optical Payload for Lasercom Science (OPALS) laser communication system.
Developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, OPALS is designed to test the effectiveness of lasers as a higher-bandwidth substitute for radio waves and deal with substantially larger information packages. As Matt Abrahamson, OPALS mission manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a recent video statement:
We collect an enormous amount of data out in space, and we need to get it all to the ground. This is an alternative that’s much faster than our traditional radio waves that we use to communicate back down to the ground.
The OPALS laser communication system was delivered to the ISS on April 20 by a SpaceX unmanned Dragon space freighter and is currently undergoing a 90-day test. For this test, the crew used the OPALS to transmit the “Hello, World” video from the ISS to a ground station on Earth. This was no simple task, since the station orbits Earth at an altitude of about 418 km (260 mi) at travels at a speed of 28,000 km/h (17,500 mph). The result is that the target is sliding across the laser’s field of view at an incredibly fast rate.
According to Bogdan Oaida, the OPALS systems engineer at JPL, this task was pretty unprecedented:
It’s like trying to use a laser to point to an area that’s the diameter of a human hair from 20-to-30 feet away while moving at half-a-foot per second. It’s all about the pointing.
However, the test went off without a hitch, with the 37 second-long video taking 3.5 seconds to transmit – much faster than previous downlink methods. Abrahamson said that the video, which is a lively montage of various communication methods, got its title as an homage to the first message output by standard computer programs.
The OPALS system sought out and locked onto a laser beacon from the Optical Communications Telescope Laboratory ground station at the Table Mountain Observatory in Wrightwood, California. It then transmitted its own 2.5-watt, 1,550-nanometer laser and modulated it to send the video at a peak rate of 50 megabits per second. According to NASA, OPALS transmitted the video in 3.5 seconds instead of the 10 minutes that conventional radio would have required.
Needless to say, the astronauts who contribute to the ISS’s ongoing research programs are pretty stoked about getting this upgrade. With a system that is capable of transmitting exponentially more information at a faster rate, they will now be able to communicate with the ground more easily and efficiently. Not only that, but educational videos produced in orbit will be much easier to send. What’s more, the ISS will have a much easier time communicating with deep space missions in the future.
This puts the ISS in a good position to oversea future missions to Mars, Europa, the Asteroid Belt, and far, far beyond! As Abrahamson put it in the course of the video statement:
It’s incredible to see this magnificent beam of light arriving from our tiny payload on the space station. We look forward to experimenting with OPALS over the coming months in hopes that our findings will lead to optical communications capabilities for future deep space exploration missions.
And in the meantime, check out the video from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, showing the “Hello World” video and explaining the groundbreaking implications of the new system:
Jupiter’s moon of Europa has been the subject of much speculation and intrigue ever since it was first discovered by Galileo in 1610. In addition to having visible sources of (frozen) surface water and a tenuous oxygen atmosphere, it is also believed to boast interior oceans that could very well support life. As evidence for this mounts, plans to explore Europa using robot landers, miners, submersibles, or even manned missions have been floated by various sources.
However, it was this past December when astronomers announced that water plumes erupting 161 kilometers (100 miles) high from the moon’s icy south pole that things really took a turn. It was the best evidence to date that Europa, heated internally by the powerful tidal forces generated by Jupiter’s gravity, has a deep subsurface ocean. In part because of this, NASA recently issued a Request for Information (RFI) to science and engineering communities for ideas for a mission to the enigmatic moon. Any ideas need to address fundamental questions about the subsurface ocean and the search for life beyond Earth.
This is not the first time that NASA has toyed with the idea of investigating the Jovian moon for signs of life. Last summer, an article by NASA scientists was published in the peer-reviewed journal Astrobiology, which was entitled “Science Potential from a Europa Lander“. This article set out their research goals in more detail, and speculated how they might be practically achieved. At the time, the article indicated NASA’s ongoing interest, but this latest call for public participation shows that the idea is being taken more seriously.
This is positive news considering that NASA’s planned JIMO mission – Jupiter Icy Moon Orbiter, which was cancelled in 2005 – would be taking place by this time next year. Originally slated for launch between May and January of 2015/16, the mission involved sending a probe to Jupiter by 2021, which would then deploy landers to Callisto, Ganymede, Io and Europa for a series of 30 day studies. At the end of the mission in 2025, the vehicle would be parked in a stable orbit around Europa.
John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, had the following to say in a recent press release:
This is an opportunity to hear from those creative teams that have ideas on how we can achieve the most science at minimum cost… Europa is one of the most interesting sites in our solar system in the search for life beyond Earth. The drive to explore Europa has stimulated not only scientific interest but also the ingenuity of engineers and scientists with innovative concepts.
By opening the mission up to public input, it also appears that NASA is acknowledging the nature of space travel in the modern age. As has demonstrated with Chris Hadfield’s mission aboard the ISS, the Curiosity rover, as well as private ventures such as Mars One, Inspiration Mars, and Objective Europa – the future of space exploration and scientific study will involve a degree of social media and public participation never before seen.
The RFI’s focus is for concepts for a mission that costs less than $1 billion, but will cover five key scientific objectives that are necessary to improve our understanding of this potentially habitable moon. Primarily, the mission will need to:
Characterize the extent of the ocean and its relation to the deeper interior
Characterize the ice shell and any subsurface water, including their heterogeneity, and the nature of surface-ice-ocean exchange
Determine global surface, compositions and chemistry, especially as related to habitability
Understand the formation of surface features, including sites of recent or current activity, identify and characterize candidate sites for future detailed exploration
Understand Europa’s space environment and interaction with the magnetosphere.
Although Europa has been visited by spacecraft and imaged distantly by Hubble, more detailed research is necessary to understand the complexities of this moon and its potential for life. NASA’s Galileo spacecraft, launched in 1989 was the only mission to visit Europa, passing close by the moon fewer than a dozen times. Ergo, if we’re ever to determine conclusively whether or not life exists there, we’re going to have to put boots (robotic or human) onto the surface and start digging!
To read the full Decadal Survey report on NASA’s website, click here.
Earlier this month, Industry Minister James Moore announced that Canada’s new space plan will be made public in early in the new year. The announcement came on Monday Dec. 2nd at an aerospace forum in Montreal which also brought together leaders of Canada’s space industry. Emphasizing the achievements of Canada’s space industry, he also went on to claim that next year’s goals would reach beyond these traditional areas:
Our companies are leaders in optics, in robotics, radar imagery and satellite communications, but we will not stop at this success… The industry has spoken up, has worked collaboratively, has given the government advice on how to proceed (and) we’ve taken the advice and we’re putting it into action.
A background paper provided by Moore outlined the government’s strategic goals for its space activities, which include jobs and growth, sovereignty, security and the advancement of knowledge. Moore also told the space industry executives assembled that the government will examine all opportunities to work with the private sector and Canada’s international partners to encourage innovation in the country’s space activities.
Following up on the Emerson report’s recommendations, Moore announced various actions, including the establishment of a space advisory board composed of industry leaders and chaired by Walt Natynczyk, head of the Canadian Space Agency.
This framework will provide the foundation for the next phase of our government’s space program. It will be based on the principles of partnership with other countries and the private sector, catering to our strengths and inspiring Canadians.
The industry minister also said the government will double current support for its space technologies development program to $20 million annually by 2015-2016:
This will bring the kind of predictability and stability of funding that you asked for. And (it) will help develop more groundbreaking space technologies that Canadian space companies are so recognized for.
Beyond these stated objectives, its not quite clear what in store’s for the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). After Hadfield’s high-profile tour as the mission commander aboard the ISS, it is safe to say that interest in this field is growing. And with our nation’s ongoing commitment to providing new robotic arms (aka. Canadarm’s) for the ISS, parts and technical workers and astronauts for manned missions, any increase in public interest is likely to have positive results.
What’s more, with the Obama government dedicated to pursuing some extremely ambitious objectives – towing an asteroid to Near-Earth Orbit, a manned mission to Mars, establishing an outpost on the Moon – it would seem obvious that one of their greatest colleagues in space exploration and research would want to get on board.
Two High-Definition cameras designed to stream detailed views of Earth from the International Space Station blasted off into space yesterday. The cameras are the work of UrtheCast, a Vancouver-based company that distributes operational software for publicly accessibly HD cameras and broadcasts. Once installed, they will provide a view of Earth that is usually reserved for astronauts.
The cameras – one still and one video camera – launched at 3:52 p.m. ET from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazahkstan on an unmanned Russian Progress spacecraft aboard a Soyuz rocket. The two cameras will be attached to a platform on the underside of the space station that was brought up by a previous Progress flight in July and installed by Russian cosmonauts during a spacewalk.
The cameras will be able to view a large band of the Earth between the latitudes of 51 degrees north and 51 degrees south, covering everything from the Canadian Prairies and the southern tip of Chile and Argentina. What’s more, their resolution will be high enough that people will be able to see things as small as cars, boats, their own homes, and even small groups of people.
The company stressed though that individual people would not be discernible as the resolution is simply not high enough to make out facial features. The fixed, still camera will take a continuous video panorama of Earth 50 kilometres wide as the space station orbits Earth 16 times each day. Meanwhile, the other camera will be pointable and able to be directed at specific points on the globe.
And while many of the images they take will be available free online just a few hours after they were captured, customers will also have access to specific footage captured by the second, pointed camera. So for a small fee, people will be able to take part in what the company likes to call the “world’s first near-live HD video feed of Earth.”
The company expects customers to include governments, non-governmental organizations and corporations that would like particular types of live and archival images for purposes such as monitoring the environment. As Chris Carter, director of wealth management for ScotiaMcLeod and CBC Radio’s Vancouver business columnist, claims that this expectation is valid since UrtheCast’s business model allows it avoid a major hurdle.
Basically, the greatest impediment to providing space-based footage of the Earth is the astronomical (no pun!) cost of getting cameras into space. UrtheCast has gotten around this hurdle by partnering with Roscosmos, the Russian Space Agency, who transported their cameras in exchange for free access to images that it might otherwise have to pay for.
According to a statement made by the company earlier this month, as of Sept. 30, the company – which trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange – had annual purchase commitments worth $21 million:
Although these purchase commitments cannot be considered binding prior to the cameras being installed on the ISS, UrtheCast has already begun the process of converting these purchase commitments into binding commercial agreements.
The democratic space age is looming, people. Between regular updates on social media and webcasts from NASA rovers and space satellites, to live feeds from publicly-accessible cameras, we are entering an age where exploration and research are accessible like never before. Add to this the dream of telexploration, and we could be looking at a future where astronauts do NOT get to have all the fun!
3-D Printing has proven itself quite useful when it comes to creating components, toys, and models. But when it comes to assembling complicated parts, or full-on products, other machines are often necessary. That’s where the Microfactory comes in, a veritable “multi-tool” machine that merges the best of 3-D printing and machining.
Being touted as “a machine shop in a box”, the creators of the device (the Mebotics company) were inspired to create this multi-tool kit after collaborating at the Boston-area Artisans Asylum. Artisans Asylum is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting hobbyists, artisans, fabricators and entrepreneurs through a series of open maker space presentations.
In addition, the team was also inspired by the fact that most manufacturing systems suffer from two major downfalls: noise and mess. By “closing the system”, as they put it, they eliminated both hassles while still ensuring that their device is capable of both producing tailor-made objects and altering them to order.
The Microfactory dramatically expands the range of products a person with no other equipment could make. It is basically able to 3-D print in four colors, out of multiple materials, and also etch, and mill the final products. This process, which combines machining and printing, is what the makers refer to as “hybrid manufacturing.”
As Co-founder of Mebotics, Jeremy Fryer-Biggs, explains:
I wanted to have a machine that was capable of making parts for all the crazy stuff people people would ask me [to make]. I wanted a tool that would allow me to do a whole wide range of things.
As Fryer-Biggs and the team envision it, the Microfactory could also offer users the ability to create devices and components where they are needed, regardless of the location. With a fully-functional computer incorporated to provide the blueprints, they foresee some extreme scenarios where objects could be created and finished where no stores are available:
You’re at base camp in the Himalayas, you’re in the middle of Afghanistan and you wanna make a part. So you connect this thing to a Wi-Fi hotspot–if you have a Wi-Fi card in the machine that you put in. You can then download from the server whatever the replacement part is you need, and in the middle of nowhere, get your replacement.
This vision is in keeping with what many scientific organizations – such as NASA, the ESA, and other space agencies – are foreseeing. Already, such devices are being considered for use on the International Space Station and on future space missions, where astronauts will always be in need of specialized tools and may not have the ability to have them shipped out to them.
The team currently has several working prototypes but is planning to bring the project to market by raising $1 million through Kickstarter. MicroFactory units are being pre-sold for between $4,000 and $10,000 in several models. Though the team admits that the price is high, the science fiction appeal alone is well worth it! As Marie Staver, a project manager on the team, put it: “The science fiction future is officially here.”
Couldn’t agree more. And in the meantime, check out this video of the Microfactory in action:
Virtual Reality, which was once the stuff of a cyberpunk wet dream, has grown somewhat stagnant in recent years. Large, bulky headsets, heavy cables, and graphics which were low definition and two-dimensional just didn’t seem to capture the essence of the concept. However, thanks to the Oculus Rift, the technology known as Virtual Reality has been getting a new lease on life.
Though it is still in the development phase, the makers of the Oculus Rift has mounted some impressive demos. Though still somewhat limited – using it with a mouse is counter-intuitive, and using it with a keyboard prevents using your body to scan virtual environments – the potential is certainly there and the only question at this point is how to expand on it and give users the ability to do more.
One group that is determined to explore its uses is NASA, who used it in combination with an Omni treadmill to simulate walking on Mars. Already, the combination of these two technologies has allowed gamers to do some pretty impressive things, like pretend they are in an immersive environment, move, and interact with it (mainly shooting and blowing things up), which is what VR is meant to allow.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, however, went a step beyond this by combining the Omni and a stereoscopic 360-degree panorama of Mars to create a walking-on-Mars simulator. The NASA JPL team was able to give depth to the image so users could walk around an image of the Martian landscape. This is perhaps the closest normal folks will ever get to walking around on a “real” alien planet.
Along with the Martian terrain, JPL created a demo wherein the user could wander around the International Space Station. The JPL team also found that for all the sophisticated imagery beamed back to Earth, it is no substitute for being immersed in an environment. Using a rig similar to the Rift and Omni could help researchers better orient themselves with alien terrain, thus being able to better plan missions and experiments.
Looking to the long run, this kind of technology could be a means for creating “telexploration” (or Immersive Space Exploration) – a process where astronauts would be able to explore alien environments by connecting to rover’s or satellites camera feed and controlling their movements. In a way that is similar to teleconferencing, people would be able to conduct true research on an alien environment while feeling like they were actually in there.
Already, scientists at the Mars Science Laboratory have been doing just that with Curiosity and Opportunity, but the potential to bring this immersive experience to others is something many NASA and other space scientists want to see in the near future. What’s more, it is a cheap alternative to actually sending manned mission to other planets and star systems.
By simply beaming images back and allowing users to remotely control the robotic platform that is sending them, the best of both worlds can be had at a fraction of the cost. Whats more, it will allow people other than astronauts to witness and feel involved in the process of exploration, something that social media and live broadcasts from space is already allowing.
As usual, it seems that the age of open and democratic space travel is on its way, my friends. And as usual, there’s a video clip of the Oculus Rift and the Omni treadmill bringing a walk on Mars to life. Check it out:
Elon Musk just can’t get enough of the spotlight lately! But that’s the price you pay for being a billionaire, innovator, genius-type person! And barely a week after announcing his idea for the Hyperloop high-speed train, it now seems that SpaceX is once again making the news, thanks to its latest test of the Grasshopper reusable rocket system as well as their planned launch of the Falcon Heavy rocket.
For those unfamiliar with the Grasshopper, this is a proposed reusable rocket system that Musk and SpaceX created with the hopes of bringing the costs associated with space launches down considerably. Since September 2012, the rocket has been put through successive tests, reaching higher and higher altitudes and safely making it back to the ground.
In this latest test, the rocket successfully performed a “lateral divert test”. In all previous tests, the rocket lifted off vertically from a launch pad and then used its Merlin-1D engine to ease itself back down to the pad. However, in actual launch situations, the rocket wont simply be traveling up and down. When it comes time to land, a considerable amount of lateral steering will be necessary to line it back up with the launch site.
This is what the test, which took place on Tuesday, August 13th, amounted to. It began with the Grasshopper reaching its previously-achieved altitude of 250 meters, but then continued with the rocket moving an additional 100 m (328 ft) to one side. It was subsequently still able to land safely back at the center of the launch pad, compensating for its lateral diversion.
According to SpaceX: “The test demonstrated the vehicle’s ability to perform more aggressive steering maneuvers than have been attempted in previous flights.” What’s more, it places the company that much closer to the realization of a truly reusable rocket system, something which will drastically cut costs for future space missions.
And of course, they were sure to catch the entire test on video:
But equally important for this rising company that seeks to privatize space travel was the announcement that they have are moving ahead with plans to launch their Falcon Heavy rocket system by late 2013 or early 2014. At present, the Falcon is the most power rocket system in the world, overshadowed only by the now retired – but soon to be reserviced – Saturn V booster that put the Apollo astronauts into space and on the Moon.
As Musk himself said of the rocket:
Falcon Heavy will carry more payload to orbit or escape velocity than any vehicle in history, apart from the Saturn V moon rocket, which was decommissioned after the Apollo program. This opens a new world of capability for both government and commercial space missions.
Fully loaded, the Falcon Heavy will be able to carry payloads of 53 metric tons (117,000 pounds or 53,070 kg) into orbit, and is made up of two engine stages. The first stage consists of a Falcon 9 rocket, with a nine-engine cores, followed by two additional nine-engine cores attached to either side. In addition, the Merlin engines have been upgraded to handle the additional weight, and are being tested at SpaceX’s facility in McGregor, Texas.
At liftoff the 69.2m (227 ft) long Falcon Heavy will generate 3.8 million pounds of thrust, which is equivalent to the thrust of fifteen Boeing 747’s taking off at the same time. SpaceX claims that this gives the Falcon Heavy more than twice the performance of the next most powerful vehicle – the Delta IV Heavy operated by the Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture United Launch Alliance.
SpaceX also says that with more than twice the payload of the Delta IV but at one third the cost, the Falcon Heavy sets a new world record in terms of economy at approximately US$1,000 per pound to orbit. This is in keeping with Musk’s promise to bring the associated costs of space travel and exploration down, hopefully one day to his goal of $500 per pound.
With the ability to carry satellites or interplanetary spacecraft to orbit, SpaceX is offering the Falcon Heavy on the commercial market for US$80–$125 million, which compares to the $435 million per launch the U.S. Air Force has budgeted for four launches in 2012. So in effect, Musk’s company is offering a money-saving alternative to both the public and private sector.
For those fascinated by the long-term potential of space travel, this is certainly exciting news. By cutting the costs of placing satellites, supplies and people in orbit, many things are being made feasible that were previously impossible. This includes conducting more research in orbit, the ability to create space-based solar arrays (a very cool solution to our current power problems and the limitations of Earth-based solar power) and perhaps even begin work on a Moon settlement.
Beyond that, there are the growing possibilities of commercial space travel, space tourism, and even setting our sights father afield with manned missions to the Moon, prospecting missions to the asteroid belt, and surveying probes to Jupiter’s Moons and to the very edge of the Solar System. Possibly even beyond…
Exciting times we live in, when the impossible is slowly becoming possible!
Placing things into orbit is something humanity has been doing since the 1940’s, beginning with Germany’s V2 Rockets, then giving way to artificial satellites like Sputnik in the 1950’s. These efforts really came into their own during the 1960’s and since, when manned missions reached high orbit and even the Moon. But despite all these milestones, little has been done to address the problems of cost.
Ever since space travel began in earnest, the only way to send satellites, supplies and shuttle craft into orbit has been with rockets. Even at its cheapest, a space launch can still cost an estimated $2000 per pound per mission, due to the fact that the rockets employed are either destroyed or rendered unusable once they’ve completed their mission.
Attempts to create reusable launch systems, like the SpaceX Grasshopper, is one solution. But another involves “slinging” payloads into orbit, rather than launching them. That’s what HyperV Technologies Corp. of Chantilly, Virginia is hoping to achieve with their design for a “mechanical hypervelocity mass accelerator”, otherwise known as a “slingatron”.
Invented by Derek Tidman in the 1990s, the slingatron replaces rockets with a more sophisticated version of the sling. However, the principle differs somewhat in that the device uses something far more sophisticated than circumferential force. In the end, the name cyclotron might be more apt, which is a very simple particle accelerator.
Utilizing a vacuum tube and a series of magnetic/electostatic plates of opposing charges, an atomic particle (such as a proton) is introduced and sent back and forth as the polarity of the plates are flipped. As the frequency of the flipping is increased, the proton moved faster and faster in a series of spirals until it reaches the rim and shoots out a window at extremely high velocity.
The slingatron achieves the same result, but instead uses a spiral tube which gyrate on a series of flywheels along its length. As the slingatron gyrates, a projectile is introduced and the centripetal force pulls the projectile along. As the projectile slides through larger and larger turns of the spiral, the centripetal forces increase until the projectile shoots out the muzzle, traveling at several kilometers per second.
Ultimately, the goal here is to build a slingatron big enough to fire a projectile at velocities exceeding 7 km/s (25,000 km/h, 15,600 mph) to put it into orbit. With rapid turnarounds and thousands of launches per year while all of the launch system remains on Earth, the developers claim that the slingatron will offer lower costs for getting payloads into orbit.
However, there are weaknesses to this idea as well. For starters, any projectile going into space will also need to be fitted a small set of rockets for final orbit insertion and corrections. In addition, the G-forces involved in such launches would be tremendous – up to 60,000 times the force of gravity – which means it would be useless for sending up manned missions.
In the end, only the most solid state and hardened of satellites would have a chance of survival. The developers say that a larger slingatron would reduce the forces, but even with a reduction by a factor of 10,000, it would still be restricted to very robust cargoes. This makes it an attractive options for sending supplies into space, but not much else.
Still, given the costs associated with keeping the ISS supplied, and ensuring that future settlements in space have all the goods and equipment they need, a series of slingatrons may be a very viable solution in the not-to-distant future. Combined with concepts like the space penetrator, which fired bullet-like spaceships into space, the cost associated with space travel may be dropping substantially in coming decades.
All of this could add up to a great deal more space traffic coming to and from Earth in the not-too-distant future as well. I hope we have the foresight to construct some “space lanes” and keep them open! And in the meantime, enjoy this video interview of Dr. F. Douglas Witherspoon explaining the concept of the slingatron:
Let’s start with the apologies. I’m very sorry for the prolonged absence of late, and I trust that people actually noticed I haven’t been around 😉 But both my day and my side job have both been very busy and have left me mentally and physically taxed by the end of the day. However, I do have things to show for it, mainly in the form of a new list of articles that were recently published on both Universe Today and HeroX.
The OPALS system sought out and locked onto a laser beacon from the Optical Communications Telescope Laboratory ground station at the Table Mountain Observatory in Wrightwood, California. It then transmitted its own 2.5-watt, 1,550-nanometer laser and modulated it to send the video at a peak rate of 50 megabits per second. According to NASA, OPALS transmitted the video in 3.5 seconds instead of the 10 minutes that conventional radio would have required.
Stories by Williams 