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Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

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"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News


The first cubesat launched using wood for its side panelling

One piece of cargo carried by the cargo Dragon to ISS earlier this week is the first cubesat ever to use wood for its side panelling.

Made by researchers in Japan, the tiny satellite weighing just 900g is heading for the International Space Station on a SpaceX mission. It will then be released into orbit above the Earth. Named LignoSat, after the Latin word for wood, its panels have been built from a type of magnolia tree, using a traditional technique without screws or glue.

Researchers at Kyoto University who developed it hope it may be possible in the future to replace some metals used in space exploration with wood. “Wood is more durable in space than on Earth because there’s no water or oxygen that would rot or inflame it,” Kyoto University forest science professor Koji Murata told Reuters news agency. “Early 1900s airplanes were made of wood,” Prof Murata said. “A wooden satellite should be feasible, too.”

The satellite’s frame is still metal, but by using wood for its side panelling the engineers hope to test the feasibility of wood as a in-space construction material.

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6 comments

  • David M. Cook

    While there is no water or oxygen in space to rot the wood, the sun‘s unfiltered rays will rapidly cause the wood to deteriorate, something that won‘t happen to metals.

  • wayne

    David–
    I’m just a psychology major but….
    yeah, cursory search yields all manner of research concerning “radiation induced degradation of cellulose.”

  • David Eastman

    There are certainly coatings you could apply, I remember reading an article a few years back regarding a push to use wood for medium-rise office buildings and what would be required for long-term stability in the rain, sun, etc. But I can’t find anything that states what, if any, treatments have been applied to the wood on this satellite. Since this satellite is designed to last for six months and is explicitly purposed to see how wood reacts in space, it may be that it’s untreated.

  • J Fincannon

    As a nerd of an engineer, I would like to point out the first wood satellite:
    “The first attempts to perform a Moon landing took place in 1962 during the Rangers 3, 4 and 5 missions flown by the United States. All three Block II missions basic vehicles were 3.1 m high and consisted of a lunar capsule covered with a balsa wood impact-limiter, 650 mm in diameter, a mono-propellant mid-course motor, a retrorocket with a thrust of 5080 pound-force (22.6 kN),[11] and a gold- and chrome-plated hexagonal base 1.5 m in diameter. This lander (code-named Tonto) was designed to provide impact cushioning using an exterior blanket of crushable balsa wood and an interior filled with incompressible liquid freon. A 42 kg (56 pounds) 30-centimetre-diameter (0.98 ft) metal payload sphere floated and was free to rotate in a liquid freon reservoir contained in the landing sphere.”

    “A capsule, carrying the seismometer and a telemetry system, will separate from the “bus” at a predetermined altitude (measured by a radar altimeter) and brake itself by means of a retrorocket to allow a hard survival landing at a speed of approximately 200 mph- a shock equivalent to a deceleration of about 3000 g’s.”

    It appears Ranger 4’s capsule impacted along with the rest of the faulty vehicle (it had not been released to land alone since the spacecraft ran out of power due to failing to release its solar arrays early in the mission.. yeah blame power). The other two Rangers with the balsa sphere missed the Moon altogether.”

    So, at least 2 Rangers with balsa “panelling” are somewhere in the great void.

  • pzatchok

    With four to 6 possible sides to use I would think this is not just a test of the wood but it could have been a better test of the coatings to protect the wood.Each side could have has a bare wood section and three other section each with a different coating.

    12 to 18 test sections.

    The cube sat could have just hovered close to the station and been recovered in a year.

  • Jeff Wright

    I think Uncle Sam had whole birch forests just for SLBM spikes or something…

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