The Moon
Zoo citizen science program seeks members
of the public
to study the lunar surface in unprecedented
detail. Thanks to the help of the Moon
Zoo community we have already visually
classified 3,492,841 images from NASA's
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).
The Virtual SpaceTV 3D shows are created by BINARY
SPACE (www.binary-space.com)
with story content from HobbySpace.com.
These videos are intended as demonstrations of an experimental
technique for generating animated presentations. The
show was generated autonomously by software according
to a text script. The project is described in the Virtual
Producer whitepaper (pdf). For further information
contact info@binary-space.com.
Here are the preceding two shows in the Virtual SpaceTV
3D series:
Inspiration Mars Aims to
Send a Couple around Mars and Back
In April of 2001, Dennis
Tito became the first person to pay
his own way to space when he rode a Soyuz
capsule to the International
Space Station, where he spent a week
in orbit. On February 27th, Tito announced
the goal for another major milestone in
private spaceflight: a two person
flyby mission of Mars with liftoff in 2018.
The non-profit project is called Inspiration
Mars (IM) and has the goal of inspiring
the US public, particularly young people,
to be excited about space, science, and
engineering. The team includes leaders in
those fields and they believe the 501 day
mission is doable.
A schematic of the Inspiration Mars transport
system shows the conical crew capsule
in the middle, propulsion and service module
to the left, solar panels top and bottom,
and an expandable habitation model to the
right.
About every 15 years there is an alignment
that allows for the shortest trajectory
to and from Mars for a single engine boost.
The next opportunity for this opens in January
2018. The IM spacecraft would fire its engines
to leave low earth orbit and need no further
major propulsion firings to reach Mars,
fly within 160 km of the surface and return
to earth.
The hardware configuration is not yet settled
but the generic plan involves a launch of
the SpaceX
Falcon Heavy rocket with an upgraded
SpaceX
Dragon capsule, a propulsion and service
module, plus an expandable Bigelow
Aerospace type of habitat for the living
quarters.
The hardware looks to be the most straightforward
aspect of the plan. SpaceX currently gives
a price of $80M for a FH launch of 53 metric
tons to low earth orbit. (It will be the
lowest cost per kg launcher ever developed.)
SpaceX expects to fly crews on a Dragon
by 2015 as part of NASA Commercial Crew
Program. The return speed into the earth's
atmosphere would be considerably higher
than for the Apollo missions but current
thermal protection technology look sufficient
to protect the crew during reentry.
The most difficult aspect of the mission
involves crew health issues (also referred
to as human factors). The crew needs food
and water for 501 days. They must be protected
from solar and cosmic radiation. They must
maintain their physical health in microgravity.
And the crew must deal with the psychological
stress of being in a small volume together
for such a long time.
The press briefing in fact focused on human
factors and, besides Tito, included Jane
Poynter and Taber MacCallum of Paragon
Space Development Corporation, which
makes life support systems (LSS), and Dr.
Jonathan B. Clark, a well respected
expert in spaceflight medicine. They believe
a robust and reliable LSS can be provided
for the trip, that exercise regimes developed
on the ISS will maintain the bones and muscles
of the crew, and that using water, food,
waste, and other materials to surround the
living quarters can provide enough shielding
to allow for an acceptable level of radiation
exposure.
The plan is to recruit a middle aged couple
as the crew. They will have shown themselves
to be very comparable with each other and
able to deal with the stresses of a long
difficult mission.
Inspiration Mars would be one of the greatest
achievements in space history if not human
history. Tito strongly believes it is doable.
He also believes it is affordable by combining
his own money with contributions from other
private individuals and organizations.
Here is a video of the IM debut press briefing:
..
Find more about the Inspiration
Mars project in these documents:
Run the Satellite
Tracking Tool from BINARY
SPACE right here at HobbySpace
in your browser. The program allows you to track a large
set of satellites in both low earth and geostationary
orbits. (Note: the program requires Microsoft
Silverlight, Version 5 or higher, as well as the latest
version of your browser. Currently the program works on
the Microsoft® Windows® platform only.) The Satellite
Observing section provides additional information
and web resources about the hobby of satellite tracking
and watching.
Real-Time
Space Viewers
Earth
Weather maps, remote sensing
and spysat images.
Space
Weather
Sun, solar wind, aurora images
and the latest data