DailyDirt: Going Up Into Space Soon

Mon, Feb 25th 2013 5:00pm

Filed Under:
astronauts, elon musk, mars, mir, phobos, space, space exploration, spacecraft, valery polyakov

Companies:
inspiration mars foundation, spacex

DailyDirt: Going To Mars

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Space travel is inherently risky, so it shouldn't be too surprising that spacecraft missions to Mars haven't all been successful. Sending people inside metal cans aimed at Mars isn't an easy task -- especially if those people want to return to Earth alive. But as more and more space programs target Mars as a destination, it looks increasingly likely that humans will make it there someday. Here are just a few milestones on the road to Mars.

The Inspiration Mars Foundation is planning a roundtrip manned mission to Mars (non-stop, so no landing) that would last about 501 days, launching in 2018. A press conference to announce the details will be held on Feb 27th. [url]
When the Phobos-Grunt mission failed to reach Mars orbit, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev suggested some severe punishments (but no death penalty!) for whoever was to blame. The mission had planned to return soil samples from Phobos (one of Mars' moons), but the spacecraft never left Earth orbit due to a computer programming error. [url]
Valery V. Polyakov spent 438 continuous days in space aboard Mir and returned to Earth in 1995. That is the longest anyone has stayed in space in a single trip (others have been in space for more time, but over multiple trips), and it demonstrates that it's possible to survive in microgravity for the approximate amount of time it might take to go to Mars. [url]
Elon Musk has a vision of a public-private joint venture to establish a human colony on Mars. Musk is obviously promoting the SpaceX brand with this kind of public statement, but he also says that a viable Mars mission would need about $36 billion to get off the ground. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

9 Comments

Tue, Feb 5th 2013 5:00pm

Filed Under:
ashton kutcher, astronauts, coco brown, space, taikonaut

Companies:
axe, spacexc, virgin galactic

DailyDirt: Ready For A Trip To Space Yet?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The opportunities to hitch a ride to space are growing by leaps and bounds now. Just a few years ago, you needed to be a multi-millionaire with the right stuff to buy your way on a rocketship to space. Now, you just need to be some kind of marketing phenomenon that can help with a marketing campaign (or have a few hundred thousand bucks to spare). Here are some examples of some ordinary folks who will be going up in space (suborbital) in the near future.

In case you missed it, an Axe marketing campaign during the Super Bowl is looking for people willing to sign away their publicity rights for a chance to ride on a sub-orbital spaceplane. The marketing is aimed at men, but women can apply, too. Ultimately, who ever wins this competition will have to pass all of the physical training and tests before going. [url]
Coco Brown, an American porn actress, is spending $100,000 to get on a SpaceXC commercial flight. She'll be the first porn star in space, if she completes the training, and expects to go up in 2014. [url]
Ashton Kutcher has been promised the 500th seat on Virgin Galactic's spaceplane service. Virgin tickets usually cost about $200,000 -- so if you want to buy the 501st seat next to Ashton.... [url]
Becoming a female taikonaut has two additional requirements that men don't have: being a wife and mother. Chinese astronauts have a pretty long list of disqualifiers, including: bad breath, cavities, a thick regional accent, scars, snoring, etc, etc. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

4 Comments

Fri, Jan 25th 2013 5:00pm

Filed Under:
ads, food, m&ms, space, sponsorship

Companies:
coca-cola, mars, pepsi, red bull

DailyDirt: Promotional Space Food

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Red Bull made a huge advertising event out of Felix Baumgartner's record-breaking free-fall from the edge of space. But it's not the only food/drink maker to sponsor a space-related promotion. Maybe it's a bit disconcerting that food companies have enough dough in their advertising budgets to fund crazy stunts, or maybe it's awesome that advertising/marketing budgets are being used to fund incredibly cool projects.... Either way, here are a few other examples of sponsored space foods.

Pizza Hut delivered the first pizza to the International Space Station in 2001, which Russian cosmonaut Yuri Usachov ate as a $1 million promotional stunt. Salami instead of pepperoni was used as a topping, and extra salt and spices were added to adjust for the deadened taste buds of a long-term space inhabitant. [url]
Commemorative M&Ms celebrated SpaceShipOne's successful sub-orbital flight and its Ansari X Prize win. M&Ms were also used on a test flight to demonstrate weightlessness to spectators watching a remote video stream. [url]
M&Ms have been taken aboard numerous NASA missions for about 30 years. However, NASA has generally been coy about calling the space-worthy candies M&Ms. [url]
Specially-designed cans of Coke and Pepsi have been on a space shuttle mission during the Cola Wars. The beverages weren't that refreshing for astronauts due to a lack of refrigeration and messiness. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

3 Comments

Fri, Jan 18th 2013 5:00pm

Filed Under:
astronauts, emeril, food, meals, rachel ray, skylab, space, tang

Companies:
nasa

DailyDirt: Space Food For Thought

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

With more manned space missions planned (both governmental and commercial), the menus for astronauts could be expanding -- especially for passengers of Virgin Galactic flights who might expect more than a bag of peanuts for their tickets. Here are just a few items that have already made it onto space menus.

Somewhat unexpected foods have been eaten in space -- such as sushi, smuggled communion wafers, and a secretly-stashed corned beef sandwich. Emeril Lagasse and Rachel Ray have also prepared a few recipes for space meals. [url]
About 9 months prior to a mission, NASA astronauts start picking out what they'll eat while they're up in space. Tang wasn't designed for any space program, but its powdered formula is a convenient way to store flavored beverages for spaceflights. NASA-approved beverages include coffee, tea, apple cider, orange juice and lemonade. [url]
NASA has published several fact sheets on what astronauts eat in space. Random factoid: SkyLab was apparently the only spacecraft that offered both a freezer and fridge for food storage. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

4 Comments

Thu, Jan 3rd 2013 5:00pm

Filed Under:
apollo, astronauts, long march 9, lunar x prize, ppts, rockets, soyuz, space, spacecraft

Companies:
google, nasa

DailyDirt: Fly Me To The Moon...

Apollo 17 launched in December 1972, and it was the last time a human being went to the moon -- or even traveled beyond low Earth orbit. Since then, there have been several plans to return to the moon (or to skip it and go straight to Mars). Plenty of other countries (and even corporations) are now looking to land spacecraft on the moon again, and here are just a few of these competitors in the post-Apollo space race.

Speculation on China's rocket technology suggests the country's Long March 9 rocket will be more than capable for sending astronauts to the moon, Mars, and perhaps other distant destinations within our solar system. The Long March 9 is expected to be in service around 2020-2025. [url]
Google's Lunar X Prize is closed to new participants, but there are about 25 teams still competing for rewards totaling $30 million -- for these privately funded teams to send robots to the moon. The deadline for these teams is the end of 2015. Hopefully at least one team will succeed in its mission, and we'll have mini moon bases sending back all kinds of data before the end of the decade. [url]
The Soyuz spacecraft has been a workhorse for decades, but Russia has recently announced plans for its next generation spaceship design that could be used for manned missions to the moon (or possibly Mars). Test flights are scheduled to begin in 2017, and this Prospective Piloted Transport System (PPTS) could also service the International Space Station (creating another backup solution to supply the ISS). [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

2 Comments

Thu, Dec 20th 2012 5:00pm

Filed Under:
astronomy, atlast, et, exobiology, exoplanet, kepler space telescope, space, super-earth, tau ceti

DailyDirt: Exoplanets Everywhere!

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

There are about 700 confirmed exoplanets that astronomers have indirectly observed. The Kepler Space Telescope has gathered a vast amount of data, and it suggests that there are probably planets orbiting nearly every star. Now that we know about all these planets, it's fun to speculate about how much life could exist on them. So here are just a few links for those of you who want to know where our alien neighbors might be.

In just our galaxy, there could be 10 billion other planets that are similar to our own Earth. Gas giant exoplanets the size of Jupiter are easier to find, but they might not be as common as small rocky planets like ours. [url]
The Habitable Exoplanets Catalog has a list of 7 planets that might support life, and this list has only just started to be compiled. A lot of these exoplanets are "super-Earth" sized, and it's tough to know much about their atmospheres with current telescopes. [url]
Tau Ceti is a star system just 12 light years away that seems to have similar characteristics to our solar system. Astronomers are guessing that there may be 5 rocky planets in orbit around Tau Ceti, and that star is about twice as old as our Sun, so there would have been plenty of time for life to arise (but also to perish). [url]
ATLAST is a space-based telescope specifically designed to look for signs of life on other planets, but it's only in the concept stage -- with vague plans to launch sometime before 2032. Directly observing exoplanets and their atmospheres could tell us more about how unique our Earth is and how lonely we might be in the universe. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

8 Comments

Tue, Nov 20th 2012 5:00pm

Filed Under:
astronomy, cassini, geochronometer, mars, saturn, solar system, space, sun, titan, water

Companies:
nasa

DailyDirt: Exploring Our Solar System

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Our solar system is a pretty big place, and we haven't really seen that much of it. But as we send out more and more probes and get fancier telescopes, we're learning about a ton of interesting phenomena that occur beyond our own planet. Here are just a few fascinating factoids and links on how we're exploring space without sending astronauts anywhere (yet).

While the Earth and other rocky objects in our solar systems aren't perfectly round, our Sun is remarkably spherical... almost too spherical. The Sun isn't perfectly spherical, but it's actually one of the roundest objects humans have ever measured, and it's a bit puzzling why it should be so round. [url]
NASA's Cassini spacecraft has discovered that Saturn's moon Titan could hold bodies of liquid water under its crust. This could mean there's yet another place in our solar system with water that could possibly sustain life. [url]
A geochronometer is an instrument that could help determine how old various things in our solar system are. Portable geochronometers could be sent to other planets (like Mars) to improve our estimates of how long it takes for certain planetary features to develop. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

7 Comments

Mon, Nov 12th 2012 5:00pm

Filed Under:
exploration, lagrangian point, mars, moon, morpheus, solar system, space, venus

Companies:
nasa

DailyDirt: Space Race 2.0

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Space exploration is starting a new era. With more and more commercial ventures taking over low earth orbit missions, government space programs can focus on more long-term missions to increasingly distant places in our solar system. Unfortunately, there don't seem to be many collaborative international efforts for missions to other planets, so it's looking like a new nationalistic space race is emerging. Here are just a few space projects aimed beyond our planet.

NASA is about to announce ambitious plans for manned space outposts on the moon and at a Lagrangian point. There are only a handful of Earth-moon Lagrangian points, so if NASA gets to the better ones first, the US will occupy some of the best space real estate. [url]
China is planning to land a probe on the moon sometime in 2013. China ultimately wants to have a manned mission to the moon, but it hasn't set a timeframe for that goal. [url]
If you want to keep score, the Soviets have landed spacecraft on two other planets (Venus and Mars), while the US has only landed equipment on Mars. But if we're counting quality, not quantity, then the US has gathered far more information on Mars than any other space program. [url]
NASA's Morpheus lander is designed to touch down on other planets, moons and even asteroids. Morpheus runs on methane and oxygen so that it could potentially re-fuel on extra-terrestrial bodies, and it could handle a variety of payloads such as robots, laboratories and even astronauts. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

18 Comments

by Joyce Hung

Tue, Sep 18th 2012 5:00pm

Filed Under:
100yss, darpa, exploration, interstellar travel, propulsion, space, star trek, starships

Companies:
icarus interstellar, nasa