Welcome to
HobbySpace. the site that will prove
to you that everyone can participate
in space exploration and development in one way
or another.
November 2006
Recent
Features
X
Prize Cup 2006 - Review The annual celebration
of space and rocketry took place October 21-22,
2006 in Las Cruces, New Mexico. HobbySpace
provides links to weblog entries, articles,
photos, and videos from the event.
NewSpace
- Introduction & Resources An overview of the
NewSpace (or alt.space) entrepreneurial
space movement. NewSpace promises far lower
costs and wider participation in space development.
The section provides historical info, web
resources, news, and more.
Interview:
Glenn Reynolds An exchange with the
Instapundit,
Professor of Law, author, and long time space
activist about issues of space law and space
politics, and about space development using
armies of Davids.
The HobbySpace
movie section provides resources for films
and documentaries that deal with near future,
solar system based space themes. It gives
a chronology of such films starting from the silent
movie era and continuing up to current releases.
Le
Voyage dans la lune
(A Trip to the Moon - 1902)
Pioneering French director Georges Méliès essentially
created the special effects sci-fi movie with
this fanciful depiction of a voyage to the Moon.
Amazon: USUK
Things
to Come
(1936)
This ambitious film gives H. G. Wells' pre-WWII
vision of a future that begins with a long period
of war and catastrophe followed by the rebuilding
of civilization and culminating in space travel.
Amazon: USUK
Destination
Moon
(1950)
One of the first sci-fi films to strive for technical
realism, the movie, based on a Robert Heinlein
script, shows a privately financed mission to
the Moon. Chesley Bonestell did the artwork.
Amazon: USUK
2001:
A Space Odyssey
(1968)
This groundbreaking movie is listed as one the ten
best ever made by most critics. It explores profound
themes of evolution, technological development,
artificial intelligence, and the first encounter
with alien life.
Amazon: USUK
Marooned
(1969)
Returning to earth after a stay on a space station,
three US astronauts become stranded in their capsule
when their de-orbiting engine fails. With the oxygen
supply depleting, things look desperate.
Amazon: USUK
Silent
Running
(1972)
This movie combines environmental gloom and space
travel. Bruce Dern gives a good performance as the
custodian of the last remnants of wildlife stored
in orbit.
Amazon: USUK
The
Right Stuff
(1983)
A great rendering in film of the famous book by
Tom Wolfe about the Mercury 7 astronauts and the
test pilot culture from which most of them came.
Amazon: USUK
Apollo
13
(1995)
Despite the audience knowing the ending, Ron Howard
still manages to imbue this film with a intense
sense of danger and doom for the crew as they try
to overcome an explosion on their spacecraft. A
great depiction of the teamwork, imagination, and
bravery that saved them.
Amazon: USUK
The
Dish
(2001)
A very endearing movie based loosely on a true
story about the Austrialian radio observatories
that received transmissions from Apollo 11 during
its mission to the Moon.
Amazon: USUK
It's
a Whole New Outer Space Out There
A Private Mission Around
the Moon
Private individuals are now able to pay for trips
to space to stay at the International Space
Station (ISS) for week long visits. Such commercial
excursions into orbit were considered wild science
fiction fantasy just a decade or so ago.
Today a space tourist trip to the Moon seems
like a wild sci-fi fantasy. Surprisingly, however,
two US companies have set forth plans to offer
commercial flights around the Moon using Russian
spacecraft. The price would be in the $100M range
versus the $20M for an ISS visit. There are obviously
only a few thousand people in the world who could
afford such a ticket price and it isn't clear
that any of them will go to the Moon. However,
the fact that such a private sector mission is
feasible at all shows the rapid progress that
is being made in commercial human spaceflight.
As space transport prices decrease, we will see
the prices of such trips fall as well.
The Lunar Express- Constellation Services
Constellations
Services International (CSI) proposed in 2004
a commercial lunar flyby system based on the Russian
Soyuz spacecraft currently used to take crews
to the ISS. In their Lunar
Express architecture (see above diagram),
a slightly modified Soyuz (e.g. a thicker thermal
protection system) would dock with the ISS as
usual. Later, a second launch vehicle would bring
the lunar tourists in a second Soyuz plus a booster
with a logistics carrier (LC). After the crew
transfered to the first Soyuz, it would dock with
the LC/booster combo. The booster would then fire
and send the LC/Soyuz combination on a trip around
the Moon. The Soyuz would detach from the LC and
re-enter the atmosphere.
In 2005 the company Space
Adventures, which arranges for the tourist
flights to the ISS, announced
a plan in cooperation with the Russian RSC Energia
company to provide a system to fly a private crew
around the Moon. The website DeepSpaceExpeditions.com
provides a video animation of such a mission.
Their architecture is similar to that of CSI's
except their lunar Soyuz does not dock with the
ISS but instead goes into orbit for just a few
days until a second launch brings a "high-energy
upper stage called Block DM" into orbit.
The Soyuz docks with the this upper stage booster
and it fires to send the Soyuz on its trip around
the Moon.
Real-Time Space Viewers
Earth
Weather maps, remote sensing
and spysat images.
Space
Weather
Sun, solar wind, aurora images
and the latest data