NASA funds commercial space travel

by Chris Owen on

Space shuttle Endeavour is ready to fly it’s 25th and final mission on April 29th. That brings us one step closer to the end of the U.S. space program as we know it and one step closer to the future of space travel. In preparation for that future NASA recently awarded $millions to several private contractors for the construction of space taxi’s able to fly to the International Space Station after the shuttles have been retired.

Called the Commercial Crew Development Program, NASA’s goal in this second round of grants is “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.

This week, NASA awarded between $22 million and $92.3 million to four different companies for work on commercial crew space transportation system concepts to include the design and development of elements of their systems.

“We’re committed to safely transporting U.S. astronauts on American-made spacecraft and ending the outsourcing of this work to foreign governments,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. “These agreements are significant milestones in NASA’s plans to take advantage of American ingenuity to get to low-Earth orbit, so we can concentrate our resources on deep space exploration.”

The lions share, $92 million, will go 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 will carry up to seven people or a combination of people and cargo and is compatible with a variety of existing expendable launch vehicles. Another company, SpaceX will work on that concept too, their version called Dragon.

Meanwhile, Sierra Nevada works on a winged and piloted spacecraft called the Dream Chaser Orbital System. This one will launch on an Atlas V rocket, and will have on-board propulsion utilizing their hybrid rocket motor technology.

Finally, Blue Origin, the Washington-based firm founded by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, is working on a reusable suborbital ship known as New Shepard. This one blasts off from their launch site in Texas where it will take-off vertically and accelerate for about two and a half minutes before shutting off its rocket engines and coasting into space. In space, the Crew Capsule will separate from the PM and the two will reenter and land separately for re-use.

NASA photo

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Orion spacecraft key to future space travel

by Chris Owen on

Lockheed Martin’s Orion space craft, designed to take astronauts to the moon, may first be used as an emergency escape vehicle for the international space station. By 2016, NASA wants to run multiple, deep-space missions to the moon and much farther destinations, making the Orion spacecraft key to future space travel.

“Orion was designed from inception to fly multiple, deep-space missions,” John Karas, vice president and general manager for Lockheed Martin’s Human Space Flight programs told Computerworld.com.

The Orion spacecraft was first part of NASA’s Constellation program, slated to bring humans back to the moon by 2020 but budget cuts and behind-schedule, over-budget construction caused a refocus of the program. Now, the goal is sending astronauts to Mars and further into the solar system.

“The spacecraft is an incredibly robust, technically advanced vehicle capable of safely transporting humans to asteroids, Lagrange Points and other deep space destinations that will put us on an affordable and sustainable path to Mars” said Karas.

When the Space shuttle fleet is fully retired at the end of the year, Orion may be used as a means to evacuate astronauts from the International space station. The Orion spacecraft includes a crew module, a cargo transport, a service module for propulsion, electric power, fluids storage and a spacecraft adapter for securing it to the launch vehicle.

In 2009, Gadling reported on a NASA focused on commercial space travel with a plan to spend $50 million of economic stimulus cash from the feds into putting the average traveler into space. While the topic comes up from time to time, commercial space travel seems to be not much more than a dream. But if the Commercial Spaceflight Federation has anything to say about it, that dream will be a reality soon.

In a letter sent to Congress earlier this month, the federation notes:

“We are writing to urge you to fully fund NASA’s plan to use commercial companies to carry crew to the Space Station because it is critical to the health of the Nation’s human spaceflight efforts.”

They may just get their wish. With the space shuttle program coming to an end shortly, there are few alternatives to take man or supplies into space and an International Space Station up there that will need both.

Flickr photo by Bernt Rostad

Spacewalk today for Discovery astronauts

by Chris Owen on

Today marks the first of a series of spacewalks on this, the last flight for space shuttle Discovery after 39 missions spread over 26 years.

On today’s spacewalk, astronauts Stephen Bowen and Drew will move a broken ammonia pump to a better storage area on the outside of the International Space Station and install an extension power cable.

The cable extension is needed to enable the installation of an Italian-built chamber full of supplies that will be mounted permanently on the orbiting lab. The chamber will serve as an extra closet.

Astronaut Bowen was just recently added to the mission. He joined the crew last month, replacing lead spacewalker Timothy Kopra, who was hurt in a bicycle crash.

The shuttle will be retired when it returns to Earth and sent to the Smithsonian. Two launches remain until the end of the space shuttle program, Endeavour scheduled for April and Atlantas in June.

NASA photo



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Underwater suburbia planned in “Aquatica”

by Jon Bowermaster on

Dreamers have been imagining human life undersea for centuries. The most successful in turning that dream into reality have come up with musty, mobile-home-like contraptions tethered to barges or hooked by massive hoses to land where committed marine biologists toil for a week or two.

Aquanaut and bioengineer Dennis Chamberland hopes to expand upon those successes by building the equivalent of suburbs on the sea floor, a region where there is admittedly unlimited space for expansion.

With thirty years at NASA under his helmet, Chamberland’s big-picture vision is dubbed “Aquatica” and he imagines it as the first underwater settlement for “permanent human colonization.”

He’s got the credentials (Mission Commander of seven NASA underwater missions) and is credited with successfully using the ocean as a testing ground for life in space. His Advanced Space Life Support Systems, built for NASA, created safe-living underwater environments for anyone living “off-planet.”

But they were small picture settlements, home to just two to four people.His goal for the past couple decades – while writing science books and sci-fi novels in his spare time – has been to figure out how communities can successfully live underwater for long extended time.

To prove the viability of his beliefs he’s already overseen the growing of crops in controlled settings on the ocean floor and built a two man undersea “habitat” set on the ocean floor off Key Largo, Florida, which has been visited by, among other, James Cameron.

His big hopes are to see the first children born undersea and thus imagines “Aquatica” being home to schools and hospitals as well as a place for ocean research.

He also imagines that if people are living undersea they’ll be better protectors of it, essentially creating “a human colony whose primary purpose is to monitor and protect this most essential of the earth’s biomass.”

There’s got to be a first step to suburban living undersea, of course, which is expected to be launched sometime next year with the lowering to the seabed an underwater house he’s dubbed “Leviathan” … which will initially be home to four people.

Read more from Jon Bowermaster’s Adventures here.

[Flickr image via sindhi]

Cruise Port Update: Grand Turk gets NASA exhibit

by Chris Owen on

It’s not all sandy beaches, shore excursions and shopping in Grand Turk these days. A unique exhibit commemorating the National Aeronautics & Space Administration’s (NASA) Mercury space program and the historic 1962 splashdown of the Friendship 7 capsule off the coast of Grand Turk is now open at the Grand Turk Cruise Center.

“Splashdown Grand Turk” is a 3,500-square-foot attraction celebrating the unique relationship of the American human spaceflight mission which has special significance to the island’s history.

“We believe that having this great exhibit at the Grand Turk Cruise Center not only pays homage to the remarkable history of the NASA space program, but also shows the historical richness of the island,” said David Candib, director of business development for Carnival Corporation & plc, which operates the Grand Turk Cruise Center built in 2006.

Part of the Grand Turk Cruise Center, the free exhibit features a history of the Mercury space program, including replicas of an Atlas rocket model, astronaut John Glenn in a spacesuit, and the Friendship 7 capsule.

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Storyboards at the exhibit depict the accomplishments of the NASA space program and detail the differences in space equipment of yesterday and today while offering an overview of the current space program and future plans.

Grand Turk is part of the Turks and Calicos island chain, located North of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The Grand Turk Cruise Center is a beach front cruise facility where guests can swim in the ocean or in one of the largest swimming pools in the Caribbean.

Photo courtesy Carnival Corporation