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March 30th, 2015

NASA Announces New Partnerships with U.S. Industry for Key Deep-Space Capabilities

Building on the success of NASA’s partnerships with commercial industry to date, NASA has selected 12 Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP) to advance concept studies and technology development projects in the areas of advanced propulsion, habitation and small satellites.

Through these public-private partnerships, selected companies will partner with NASA to develop the exploration capabilities necessary to enable commercial endeavors in space and human exploration to deep-space destinations such as the proving ground of space around the moon, known as cis-lunar space, and Mars.

Selected advanced electric propulsion projects will develop propulsion technology systems in the 50- to 300-kilowatt range to meet the needs of a variety of deep space mission concepts. State-of-the-art electric propulsion technology currently employed by NASA generates less than five kilowatts, and systems being developed for the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) Broad Area Announcement (BAA) are in the 40-kilowatt range.

Habitation systems selections will help define the architecture and subsystems of a modular habitation capability to enable extended missions in deep space. Orion is the first component of human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit and will be capable of sustaining a crew of four for 21 days in deep space and returning them safely to Earth.

These selections are intended to augment the Orion capsule with the development of capabilities to initially sustain a crew of four for up to 60 days in cis-lunar space with the ability to scale up to transit habitation capabilities for future Mars missions. The selected projects will address concepts and, in some cases, provide advancement in technologies related to habitation and operations, or environmental control and life support capabilities of a habitation system.

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Posted by tourdemars to: Budget, Humans To Mars, Technology

March 27th, 2015

NASA’s longest-running and most successful Mars rover may be brought to a halt by budget cuts Business Insider

It’s been a long time coming, but this week NASA’s Mars Opportunity rovercompleted the first-ever Martian marathon. After landing on the Red Planet in January 2004 on a mission originally planned to only last 90 days, Opportunity has instead endured for more than a decade, and has taken eleven years and two months to travel the marathon-standard 42.195 kilometers. On average, that’s only about ten meters per day—slower even than a snail’s pace.

“This is the first time any human enterprise has exceeded the distance of a marathon on the surface of another world,” says John Callas, Opportunity’s project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “A first time happens only once.”

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Posted by tourdemars to: Budget, Mars Exploration Rovers

February 18th, 2015

How Science Fiction Will Help Us Go to Mars

While the technology for a manned mission is decades away, our imagination is not. Countless science-fiction books and movies take us to the red planet, often with fantastical results. Andy Weir’s novel The Martian is a twist on those tales, offering a near-future account of humanity’s third visit to Mars, with an unfortunate accident stranding an astronaut there. Weir blends real science into the adventure, depicting in exquisite detail how astronaut Mark Watney would survive using engineering and ingenuity. The result is an uplifting tale with a generational hero who unites and captivates people across the world. It’s currently being adapted into a film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon.

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Posted by tourdemars to: Budget, Entertainment, Humans To Mars

February 3rd, 2015

With an eye on Mars, White House seeks to boost NASA funding The Christian Science Monitor

The White House budget proposal for NASA in 2016 calls for a $500 million boost over the 2015 enacted budget and would keep NASA on its path to Mars, NASA chief Charles Bolden says.
The $18.5 billion budget request, presented by Bolden today (Feb. 2), includes funding for developing a mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa, and the agency’s asteroid redirect mission (ARM). Officials think ARM could help pave the way for crewed missions to the Red Planet by the 2030s.
“NASA is firmly on a journey to Mars,” Bolden said. “Make no mistake, this journey will help guide and define our generation.”

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Posted by tourdemars to: Budget, Humans To Mars, Mars Exploration Rovers

February 2nd, 2015

Reach for New Heights

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Posted by tourdemars to: Budget, Humans To Mars

November 21st, 2014

How NASA Plans to Land Humans on Mars The Planetary Society

Mars lander concept
On the surface, NASA’s humans to Mars plans seem vague and disjointed. For instance, it’s difficult to see how visiting a captured asteroid in lunar orbit fits into a bigger picture. But if you combine Gerst’s speech with two days of symposium panels and a day of interviews at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, the full breadth of what the agency is trying to do begins to makes sense. There is indeed a plan to put humans on Mars. Vague? Yes. Hard to see? Absolutely. But that’s because Gerst and NASA are playing the long game. And right now, it may be the only game they can play. There are three big reasons NASA can’t lay out a comprehensive Mars plan: flat budgets, a perilous political landscape, and the sheer scale of a 20-plus-years program. Thus far, NASA’s most audacious human exploration program kicked off in 1961, when John F. Kennedy declared Americans would walk on the moon by the end of the decade. The nine-year program was a success, but it was bolstered by a strong political mandate and more than double the funding NASA receives today. The agency’s budget peaked in 1966 at $43.5 billion (in 2014 dollars). Today, NASA gets about $18 billion. There’s not much political will to go to Mars, and no indication that NASA’s budget will change significantly. In fact, NASA doesn’t even have a fiscal year 2015 budget yet, as it operates under a stopgap continuing resolution.

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Posted by tourdemars to: Budget, Humans To Mars, Inflatables, Technology

November 14th, 2014

‘Get your ass to Mars’: Buzz Aldrin wants humans to permanently occupy Mars Yahoo!

The second man to walk on the Moon, Buzz Aldrin, said he wants humans to permanently occupy the planet Mars.
Speaking to the BBC, while wearing a “Get Your Ass to Mars” t-shirt, he said funding for space exploration by the US needs to be at least doubled if humans are going to land on Mars by 2035.

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Posted by tourdemars to: Budget, Humans To Mars

August 31st, 2014

Space Launch System approved, we’re going to Mars Nerd Reactor

Hey, want to go to Mars? Well, in a few years you can…kind of. The Space Launch System is the most powerful rocket we’ve built yet. The spacecraft needed approval from the SPAR agency before putting it to test. On August 27th, they gave us the okay and now, we are officially going to try and bring humans to Mars. Isn’t that crazy?
In 2018, which isn’t too far away if you think about it, we’re going to send the Space Launch System carrying the Orion spacecraft up into orbit. The SLS will be configured with a 70-metric-ton lift capacity. The final version of the SLS will be able to carry 130 metric tons.

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Posted by tourdemars to: Budget, Humans To Mars, Technology

July 14th, 2014

Spinning to Mars The Space Review

Thirty years ago today a group of scientists, grad students, and all around Mars enthusiasts wrapped up the four-day Case for Mars conference in Boulder, Colorado. While there, they drafted plans for a human Mars spacecraft that became enshrined—at least for a little while—in popular culture. A large spinning vessel consisting of three nearly identical ships and their landing craft, it was a serious attempt at defining a human mission to Mars. By the early 1990s, one of the Case for Mars participants, Carter Emmart, produced a beautifully detailed model of the spinning spacecraft that was placed on display in the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. Now, after a long absence, that model is back in public view.

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Posted by tourdemars to: Budget, Humans To Mars, Technology

July 8th, 2014

NASA finalizes contract to build the most powerful rocket ever Los Angeles Times

SA has reached a milestone in its development of the Space Launch System, or SLS, which is set to be the most powerful rocket ever and may one day take astronauts to Mars.
After completing a critical design review, Boeing Co. has finalized a $2.8-billion contract with the space agency. The deal allows full production on the rocket to begin. “Our teams have dedicated themselves to ensuring that the SLS – the largest ever — will be built safely, affordably and on time,” Virginia Barnes, Boeing’s Space Launch System vice president and program manager, said in a statement.
The last time NASA’s completed a critical design review of a deep-space human rocket was 1961, when the space agency assessed the mighty Saturn V, which ultimately took man to the moon.
Work on the 321-foot Space Launch System is spread throughout Southern California, including Boeing’s avionics team in Huntington Beach. The rocket’s core stage will get its power from four RS-25 engines for former space shuttle main engines built by Aerojet Rocketdyne of Canoga Park.

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Posted by tourdemars to: Budget, Crew Exploration Vehicle, Humans To Mars