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Today’s CSExtra offers the latest reporting and commentary on space related activities from across the globe. Apollo 11’s Buzz Aldrin defends Mars settlement strategy at MIT gathering. Virtual experiences seem promising escape for Mars voyagers. Russian space spending to rise three-fold. China launches trail blazing lunar mission. Cold plasma: What interplanetary microbe could survive? Thursday’s partial solar eclipse yields first photos. Images of Comet Siding Spring flow from Mars. NASA’s IG notes obstacles to the Kennedy Space Center’s transition to a multi-user spaceport. Science experiments launch suborbital from Las Cruces, N.M.
Human Deep Space Exploration
Buzz Aldrin says one-way trips to Mars could actually work
Space.com (10/23): Apollo 11 moon walker Buzz Aldrin endorses efforts by Dutch nonprofit Mars One to settle Mars with humans in the mid-2020s. Aldrin was part of a panel at MIT on the topic. Not all of the participants agreed. “It [will] cost the world and the U.S. billions and billions of dollars to put these people there, and you’re going to bring them back?” Aldrin asked.
How Oculus Rift could make grueling trips to Mars more tolerable
Washington Post (10/23): Medical researchers turn to Oculus Rift and combinations of virtual experiences to address how astronauts might cope with isolation during a long journey to Mars. The work is being directed by the National Space Biomedical Research Institute.
Russia to spend around $50 billion on space program in 2016-2025
Itar Tass, of Russia (10/24): The $50 billion identified by Roscosmos, the Russian federal space agency, does not include $6 billion in anticipated contributions from commercial space enterprises and other sources. Altogether, the estimated expenditures represent a three-fold increase over the period from 2006 to 2015, according to Itar Tass. Most of the spending will go toward research and development. Increases at the top level include spending on human lunar activities.
Unmanned Deep Space Exploration
China launches flyby mission to the moon
CBS News (10/23): China launched a trailblazing spacecraft Thursday on a trajectory around the moon. With a successful return to the Earth and descent, China will be prepared to launch a robotic 2017 robotic mission that will land on the moon, gather soil and rock samples and return them to Earth.
China’s dash to moon a dress rehearsal for sample return
Science Insider (10/23): China’s new lunar mission is considered part of more ambitious goals.
Method could rid spacecraft of tough microbial cling-ons
Discovery.com (10/23): Low temperature plasma could be an antidote to transmitting life on Earth to other planetary bodies, enabling experts to determine whether indigenous biological activity is present.
Partial solar eclipse of Oct. 23: See the first photos
Space.com (10/23): Check out early imagery of Thursday’s partial solar eclipse. The event was observable across much of North America, weather permitting.
Spacecraft observe Comet Siding Spring
Sky & Telescope: (10/24): Martian spacecraft report back on their Oct. 19 close encounter with the comet Siding Spring with great pictures.
Commercial to Low Earth Orbit
Report: KSC must do more to succeed as spaceport
Florida Today (10/23): NASA’s inspector general outlines obstacles to the Kennedy Space Center’s transition from a federal to a multi-user spaceport. Barriers to commercial use include clear criteria for the selection of commercial tenants, restricted access for personnel and difficulties obtaining services, including rocket propellants, the IG reports.
Suborbital
Spaceport America Launch deemed a success
Las Cruces Sun-News (10/23): Denver-based UP Aerospace launches successful suborbital mission from Las Cruces, N.M. Four NASA funded science payloads were on board.
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