Future Of Space Travel Is Here, Next Month Anyway

by Chris Owen on

If all goes according to plan, privately owned, space travel company SpaceX will send an unmanned capsule, launched from its own Falcon rocket, to dock with the International Space Station on April 30. It will be the first time a privately owned spaceship docks with a space station in orbit and it will mark a new era of private, manned space travel.

Under the watchful eye of NASA, the program might quickly get the United States back in space, while being mindful of budgetary concerns.

“NASA‘s International Space Station program, along with our international partners, will take a look at the readiness of both the station and SpaceX for the mission,” NASA officials said, according to an article in Forbes. “If all is go, then SpaceX will be given a green light for an April 30 launch.”

Called the Commercial Crew Development Program, NASA’s goal in a round of grants last year was “to accelerate the availability of U.S. commercial crew transportation capabilities and reduce the gap in American human spaceflight capability. Through this activity, NASA also may be able to spur economic growth as potential new space markets are created,” the space agency said in a press release at the time.The lion’s share of those grants, $92 million, went to Boeing for development of their front-runner CST-100 spacecraft that uses existing materials and technology that is safe and affordable. The CST-100 is planned to carry up to seven people or a combination of people and cargo and is to be compatible with a variety of existing expendable launch vehicles. That vehicle is slated to fly in 2015, following two test flights earlier that year.

SpaceX began work on that concept too. Their version, called Dragon, is slated to fly next month.

The seven-seat Dragon spaceship will be unmanned for April’s operation, but the next goal for SpaceX is to send a crew to the International Space Station so NASA does not have to rely on Russian technology, currently priced at about $400 million per ride. Dragon costs about $115 million.

“My vision is for a fully reusable rocket transport system between Earth and Mars that is able to re-fuel on Mars – this is very important – so you don’t have to carry the return fuel when you go there,” SpaceX (and PayPal) founder Elon Musk told the BBC.


Flickr photo by mr.skeleton

Space traveler brain scans bring troubling results to NASA

by Chris Owen on

Space travel appears to have taken its toll on NASA astronauts. Those in space for more than a month have shown unexpected symptoms that could set back plans for longer deep-space missions.

Researchers scanned the eyes and brains of 27 astronauts who had spent an average of 108 days in space, either on space shuttle missions or aboard the International Space Station. In many of the astronauts, they found symptoms consistent with intracranial hypertension, a potentially serious condition that happens when pressure builds within the skull.

“NASA has placed this problem high on its list of human risks, has initiated a comprehensive program to study its mechanisms and implications, and will continue to closely monitor the situation,” Dr. William Tarver, chief of the flight medicine clinic at NASA’s Johnson Space Center told Fox News in a recent article.

A symptom of excess cerebral-spinal fluid around the optic nerve was found in 33 percent of the astronauts and a flattening of the back of the eyeball was found in 20 percent.

“The MRI findings revealed various combinations of abnormalities following both short and long-term cumulative exposure to microgravity also seen with idiopathic intracranial hypertension,” said Professor Larry Kramer, lead author of the study.

Odds are the study will have no effect on Virgin Galactic‘s plan to begin suborbital commercial flights this year.

Flickr photo by cobra.creations

Presidential hopeful promises travel to the Moon, Mars

by Chris Owen on

Renewed interest in travel to the Moon and Mars? It was just the song that Florida voters wanted to hear. After a virtual grounding of the U.S. space program not long ago, the promise yesterday by republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich to bring multiple daily launches to Florida was music to their ears. A permanent base on the Moon and new technology that would enable quick flights to Mars sweetened the deal.

“By the end of my second term, we will have the first permanent base on the moon, and it will be American,” said Gingrich at a rally in Cocoa on Florida’s Spacecoast reports Spaceflight Now.

To pay for that and more, Gingrich suggested setting aside 10 percent of NASA’s budget (about $1 billion) for prize incentives aimed at the commercial space sector with a focus on developing new technology (warp drive?) to make flight faster.

Continuing his grandiose plan, Gingrich added “We will have commercial near-Earth activities that include science, tourism and manufacturing and are designed to create a robust industry precisely on the model of the development of the airlines in the 1930s because it is in our interest to acquire so much experience in space that we clearly have a capacity that the Chinese and Russians will never come anywhere close to matching.”If that plan happens, there is no shortage of commercial operations that might be in line for that cash. But the space community, operating in the real world, has been headed in a different direction, already funding commercial space ventures.

In preparation for the future, NASA has awarded $millions to several private contractors in the last few years for the construction of space taxi’s able to fly to the International Space Station now that the shuttles have been retired.

Called the Commercial Crew Development Program, NASA’s goal in 2011’s round of grants was “to accelerate the availability of U.S. commercial crew transportation capabilities and reduce the gap in American human spaceflight capability. Through this activity, NASA also may be able to spur economic growth as potential new space markets are created,” the space agency said in a press release at the time.

One such new market already has a player. Space Adventures already has experience as the only company to have booked and offered commercial space travel, delivering astronauts to the International Space Station for a round-trip price of $150 million.

“The moon holds a special place in all of our hearts. It’s a symbol of the space future that humanity wishes for, a symbol of our curiosity, and something that we see every night. When the private moon mission launches, the eyes of the world will truly be upon those people, and it will truly be an extraordinary event,” Eric Anderson of Space Adventures told International Business News.

Tapping that special place in our hearts, election year politics or a viable plan, fans of space travel liked what he had to say.

“I’m prepared to invest the prestige of the presidency in communicating and building a nationwide movement in favor of space,” Gingrich said at a meeting of aerospace executives and community leaders after the rally.

“If we do it right, it’ll be wild and it will be just the most fun you’ve ever seen,” he said.



Flickr photo by Gage Skidmore

Space Tourists: a cinematic journey to the ISS (w/ Audio Interview)

by Stephen Greenwood on

Space Tourists airs tonight on the Documentary Channel at 8pm & 11pm


When Anousheh Ansari boarded the International Space Station on September 20th, 2006, she became the first self-funded female, the first Iranian citizen, and the fourth human overall to enter the Earth’s orbit as a coveted ‘space tourist’.

After building and selling a large telecom business, Ansari had decided that she would pay over $20 million USD to take a ride on the Russian Soyuz TMA-9 and orbit Earth as a crew member of the International Space Station for 8 days. While training as a backup for Daisuke Enomoto, who failed to meet the required medical qualifications, Ansari was notified that her lifelong dream would be fulfilled – with only one month remaining before liftoff.

Meanwhile, without Ansari’s knowledge, a charismatic Swiss filmmaker had begun to collect material for a documentary that explored the peculiar circumstances of the Russian space tourism industry. Gathering footage at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia and at the Baikonur Cosmodrome (the Soyuz’s launch facility), filmmaker Christian Frei began to lay the foundation for what would become the first documentary to uncover a highly exclusive and secretive world.

The finished product, Space Tourists, debuted in the US at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. Thought it never had an overwhelming reception in North America, it is arguably one of the most fascinating travel-themed documentaries to have been produced in recent years and a must-see for anyone with a sense of adventure or a distant dream of venturing to space.

Frei’s film uncovers many facets of the Russian space tourism program that are especially compelling to watch unfold on the big screen.

From the pre-launch rituals at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, to the group of men that make a living by hunting down and recovering the enormous scrap metal that falls to Earth from every Soyuz launch; Frei’s film captures an incredible spectrum of physical environments, people/cultures, and brilliantly contrasts the magnificence of spaceflight in direct contrast with the trivial hardships of life on Earth.

It’s a film that’s both visually arresting and offers to bring the viewer on a journey with each of the characters that it follows – from training to touchdown and everywhere in between.

Space Tourists is currently being featured on the Documentary Channel airing tonight at 8pm and 11pm, or available on DVD via the Documentary Channel online store.

Click below for an exclusive, uncut interview with Anousheh Ansari & filmmaker Christian Frei:

Video of the Day – Flying over Earth on the ISS

by Stephen Greenwood on

If you haven’t seen this video since its emergence on the internet in the past two days, stop whatever you’re doing, plug in your best headphones, quit your other applications (so you can watch in silky smooth HD), and full-screen this amazing compilation of moving images.

Edited by Michael König, this time-lapse was created by stitching together a series of still images shot by astronauts Ron Garan, Satoshi Furukawa, and the crews of expeditions 28 & 29 onboard the International Space Station. Shot from an altitude of 350km between August and October 2011, the images were captured at 4K resolution with NASA’s Super-Sensitive High Definition TV system.

The imaging system picks up much more light than a normal HD camera is capable of, thus capturing a vivid look at the surface of the Earth and aurora borealis that’s unlike anything humanity has seen before.

Assuming that you don’t have $1 million to book an entire Virgin Galactic flight exclusively for your family, this video should be a pleasant placeholder until you get your finances in order. Until then, leave us a comment with a link to your favorite shots from the ground! It could be our next Photo/Video of the Day.