Today’s Deep Space Extra offers the latest reporting and commentary on space related activities from across the globe. An Earth bound, yearlong Mars mission simulation raises a question: What will I miss most? Astronomers not ready to give up to very distant Planet X. SETI astrobiologist Nathalie Cabrol pursues multi-disciplinary approach to question of life on Mars. U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven Lab cooks up primordial goo. NASA finding promise in laser communications. Russian Soyuz spacecraft delivers Russian, Danish and Kazakh cosmonauts and astronauts to the International Space Station. NASA’s Kennedy Space Center hosts grand opening for Boeing’s new Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility. Florida lawmaker characterizes Shiloh as off limits for near term commercial space development. Ballantine sees market for space whiskey sipping device.
Human Deep Space Exploration
I’m leaving behind friends and family for a year on NASA’s simulated Mars
The Huffington Post (9/3): Minutes from isolation on a Hawaii mountain top to simulate a long duration mission to Mars with five others can start one thinking about what she will miss the most. It’s a little bit of everything for Sheyna Gifford, M.D., the chief medical officer for the yearlong simulation.
Unmanned Deep Space Exploration
Is there a Planet X, a ‘massive perturber,’ hidden beyond Pluto?
Washington Post (9/3): Astronomers have not given up on the possibility the Kuiper Belt beyond distant Pluto is home to a large undiscovered planet comprised of ice and rock. Some of the evidence appears to reside with the orbital track followed by other bodies in the Kuiper Belt that suggests the presence of a “great disturber.”
Seat’s top astrobiologist has a plan to find life on Mars
Wired.com (9/3): SETI Institute astrobiologist Nathalie Cabrol is optimistic that answers to whether there is life beyond the Earth and how it evolved could be preserved on Mars. Both the Earth and Mars formed in the same epoch, but the terrain of Earth has changed drastically by plate techtonics. Scientists are just beginning to study the red planet’s surface chemistry and processes with robotic probes. Cabrol was named head of the Institute’s Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe last month.
Particle collider spits out tiny drops of primordial goo
Discovery.com (9/3): Physicists believe they’ve created a small amount of the matter that emerged from the big bang at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York. Tiny droplets of quark-gluon plasma emerge from high energy collisions of helium-3 nuclei with gold ions.
NASA’s laser-communication tech for spacecraft zaps forward
Space.com (9/3): NASA will wait patiently for 16 months as data from the New Horizons Pluto fly by probe transmits imagery and other data back to Earth. There’s something faster coming than traditional communications with radio waves in deep space — laser communications. The technology received a try out on the International Space Station with encouraging results.
Low Earth Orbit
Crowded house! International crew arrives at Space Station
Space.com (9/4): Russia’s Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft docked with the International Space Station early Friday, delivering veteran cosmonaut Sergey Volkov, of Russia, and first time space travelers, Andreas Mogensen, of the European Space Agency, and Aidyn Aimbetov, of Kazakhstan. The Space Station will support the activities of nine U.S., Russian, European and Japanese astronauts for the next week.
Commercial to Low Earth Orbit
KSC on the cusp of launching astronauts
Orlando Sentinel (9/4): In an op-ed, Bob Cabana, director of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, marks the grand opening of Boeing’s new Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility, a former space shuttle hangar and one of more than 50 facilities at the Florida launch site that has been converted for commercial use since the flight of the final shuttle mission four years ago. Cabana also notes work to transition Launch Pad 39A to SpaceX, which along with Boeing is partnered with NASA for the Commercial Crew Program. Boeing and SpaceX are working to launch astronauts to the space station by the end of 2017. Meanwhile, Kennedy is working to support launches of the Orion crew exploration vehicle and the Space Launch System on new missions of human deep space exploration.
Sen. Nelson says no near-term need for Shiloh spaceport
Florida Today (9/3): In remarks in Daytona Beach, Fla., U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson says there is no near term need to develop a commercial spaceport at Shiloh an environmentally significant region of the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, a development that state economic development officials have been pursuing.
A glass for enjoying a sip of whisky while floating in space
New York Times (9/4): Ballantine, makers of a blended Scotch, looks to the future — that day when tourists rise to space ready to sip a liquor that also rises to the occasion. The container has a 3-D printed component.