Today’s Deep Space Extra offers the latest reporting and commentary on space related activities from across the globe. Engineers from MIT challenge Mars One red planet settlement plans in open debate. NASA’s Aerospace Advisory Panel notes Space Launch System exploration rocket progress in addressing development challenges. Five decades of seeking signs of extraterrestrial intelligence get a boost from a Russian billionaire. Though aging, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will play a critical role in future exploration of the red planet. India’s Mars Orbiter Mission captures images of the red planet’s Grand Canyon. China’s Long March 5 rocket clears pre-flight ground test. International Space Station cameras capture Northern Lights and red sprites. NASA astronaut Scott Kelly urges U.S. policy makers to back the agency’s Commercial Crew Program with sufficient funding. U.S. Patent Office recognizes Canadian high altitude space launch concept. Japanese sports drink may debut lunar advertising. Are commercial spaceports synched to the spaceflight market?
Human Deep Space Exploration
Red planet rumble
The Space Review (8/17): At a Washington gathering of the Mars Society last week, Mars One, the Dutch nonprofit with a vision of establishing a human settlement on Mars in the late 2020s, shared the stage with MIT skeptics. Essayist Dwayne Day explains the conflicts over technical readiness, financing and overall program management.
ASAP evaluates status on SLS and Orion red risks
NASAspaceflight.com (8/17): NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel finds NASA’s Space Launch System exploration rocket as well as the Orion crew vehicle and associated ground launch systems making progress as they address development risks. Those risks appear “to be going down, although they have not yet been eliminated,” according to the ASAP’s latest assessment. The current SLS track has avoided issues that confronted NASA’s previous efforts to develop a heavy lift rocket for human deep space exploration, Constellation, according to the review. Constellation, part of a human lunar exploration strategy, was cancelled in 2010.
Unmanned Deep Space Exploration
A funding breakthrough for SETI
The Space Review (8/17): Russian billionaire Yuri Milner’s enthusiasm for the search for extraterrestrial life has generated a pledge to accelerate the work with $100 million. Optical as well as radio telescopes will be included in the effort. Less certain is whether the SETI Institute, the U.S. organization that initiated the pursuit, as well as the world’s largest radio telescope — Arecibo, in Puerto Rico — will play a role. Milner’s initiative includes a collaboration on an outbound message as well, though not a commitment to transmit.
NASA to rely on Mars program’s silent workhorse for years to come
Spaceflightnow.com (8/17): NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has been circling the red planet since 2006, providing high resolution images of the rugged and subtly changing terrain. Mission managers expect the orbiter to continue on for another decade, providing imagery that will help to guide the selection of landing sites for NASA’s Mars 2020 rover, the European Space Agency’s ExoMars rover and perhaps for a future human mission.
Indian Mars orbiter shoots spectacular new images of sheer canyon and Curiosity’s crater
Universe Today (8/17): India’s Mars Orbital Mission impresses with spectacular images of the rugged Martian surface. Some of the imagery from India’s first mission to the red planet features the Grand Canyon of Mars.
China tests carrier rocket’s power system
Xinhuanet (8/17): China’s Long March 5 space launch vehicle clears a successful ground propulsion test. The first space launch is planned for next year. The Long March 5 figures in China’s lunar exploration plans.
Low Earth Orbit
NASA astronaut captured footage of the northern lights from the International Space Station
Quartz (8/17): Aboard the International Space Station, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly is photographing, sharing the sights of Earth. Of late, much of his photography has been directed at the glow of the Northern Lights.
Enormous and beautiful red sprite seen from space
Discovery.com (8/17): An International Space Station photo of southern Mexico reveals a red sprite, a type of high altitude lightning first photographed in 1989.
Commercial to Low Earth Orbit
NASA’s Scott Kelly urges full funding for commercial crew ships
CBS News (8/17): U.S. astronaut Scott Kelly, in the midst of a near year-long mission aboard the International Space Station, urges bipartisan support for full funding of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program and efforts to establish Boeing and SpaceX contracted transportation for astronauts to and from the six person orbiting science laboratory.
Wild inflatable space elevator idea could lift people 12 miles up
Space.com (8/17): Canada’s Troth Technology proposes a space elevator, a towering structure that rises a dozen miles above the Earth’s surface with a runway or a launch pad atop for use by reusable rockets and space planes. The plan receives a U.S. patent.
Get ready for ads on the moon
USA Today (8/17): Japan’s makers of Pocari Sweat, a sports drink, are prepared to initiated a new era of lunar advertising. A private space mission planned for late 2016 could make it happen with a commercial rover.
Suborbital
Do commercial spaceports have a future?
CNN (8/17): In the U.S., the FAA recently licensed its 10th commercial spaceport to Houston. Is that too many, given the current market and status of passenger spaceflight development?