Data from an experiment on Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has confirmed that light plastics can provide sufficient protection for humans against radiation.

Data from an experiment on Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has confirmed that light plastics can provide sufficient protection for humans against radiation.

This is very good news indeed. Combined with the data from Curiosity, which indicated that the radiation levels in interplanetary space were less intense that expected, it appears that radiation will not be a serious obstacle to interplanetary travel.

Now we just have to get the bone loss and vision problems solved.

The red tape of the space bureaucracy

“An article in the Economist today has some chilling conclusions about the difficulties faced by the new commercial space companies.

Although the cost of developing new space vehicles, products and services is high, just as much of a burden can be imposed by such intangible expenses as regulatory compliance, legal fees and insurance premiums.

The article points out the heavy cost to these new space companies caused by insurance requirements and government regulation, including the ITAR regulations that restrict technology transfers to foreign countries. However, this paragraph stood out to me as most significant:

Then there is the question of vehicle certification. The first private astronauts and space tourists may soon take to the skies in new launch vehicles, and the FAA has initially agreed to license commercial spacecraft without certifying, as it does for aircraft, that the vehicles are safe to carry humans. The idea is that specific safety criteria will become apparent only once the rockets are flying and (though it is rarely admitted) an accident eventually happens. This learning period will keep costs down for makers of the new spacecraft, even if significant compliance expenses are likely when it is over. The exemption was meant to have expired last year and was extended to the end of 2015. Commercial space companies are understandably keen for it to be extended again. “In the dawn of aviation, planes had 20 to 30 years before significant legislation applied,” says George Whitesides, the boss of Virgin Galactic.

Back in 2004 I noted in a UPI column the problems caused by these regulations, even as they were being written. (I had also done something at the time that few reporters ever do: I actually read the law that Congress was passing.) Then I said,
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Sierra Nevada has begun the testing program of Dream Chaser’s engines.

The competition heats up: Sierra Nevada has begun the testing program of Dream Chaser’s engines.

These tests were to verify that the engine test stand will function properly when they begin testing the engines themselves. Note also that Sierra Nevada provided the engines for SpaceShipTwo, and that Dream Chaser’s engines appear to be some variant of that hybrid engine design.

The repairs to the cracks in the first Orion capsule have withstood static stress tests.

I’m so glad: The repairs to the cracks in the first Orion capsule have withstood static stress tests.

In addition to the various loads it sustained, the Orion crew module also was pressurized to simulate the effect of the vacuum in space. This simulation allowed engineers to confirm it would hold its pressurization in a vacuum and verify repairs made to superficial cracks in the vehicle’s rear bulkhead caused by previous pressure testing in November.

The November test revealed insufficient margin in an area of the bulkhead that was unable to withstand the stress of pressurization. Armed with data from that test, engineers were able to reinforce the design to ensure structural integrity and validate the fix during this week’s test. [emphasis mine]

I love how this NASA press release describes the cracking of the capsule bulkhead during the November testing, indicated in bold. “Insufficient margin”, eh?

Normally I am very forgiving when things fail during engineering tests, but for the bulkhead of this capsule to crack during these tests was actually pretty shameful, considering the decades of engineering work previously done in the building of space capsules and submarines. Things can certainly go wrong when you build something new, but I don’t see anything particularly revolutionary about Orion’s design. Lots of things might fail, but making sure the bulkhead could withstand the normal and well known stresses of spaceflight should not have been one of those things. The bulkhead failure suggests to me some sloppy engineering work took place in Orion’s initial design.

Stratolaunch officially announced today that Orbital Sciences will build the system’s second stage rocket.

The competition heats up: Stratolaunch officially announced today that Orbital Sciences will build the system’s second stage rocket.

The rocket that Orbital will build for Stratolaunch will launch from the air, the first stage being a giant airplane which will carry that rocket aloft, much like Virgin Galactic’s WhiteKnightTwo and Orbital’s Pegasus rocket. Clark Lindsey at the same website also notes that the efforts of SpaceX (and to my mind Stratolaunch) to make the first stage reusable will likely revolutionize the rocket industry.

Russia’s Proton rocket successfully launched a commercial satellite today.

The competition heats up: Russia’s Proton rocket today successfully launched another commercial communications satellite.

The troublesome Briz-M upper stage still has to get the satellite to its proper orbit, so stay tuned. Nonetheless, this launch, only a few weeks after their last commercial Proton launch, suggests they were serious about launching nine more commercial launches this year.

Meanwhile, we wait for SpaceX’s first commercial launch by the Falcon 9 rocket. Their launch manifest still claims there will be three such launches before the next Falcon 9/Dragon mission to ISS later this year, but two of those launches were supposed to have occurred already. The non-occurrence of the March MDA/Cassiope launch out of Vandenberg is especially puzzling, as there are few scheduling conflicts at that rarely used spaceport.

The Falcon 9 delays at this point are beginning to be worrisome, and suggest the skepticism of some about SpaceX’s ability to compete might have merit. SpaceX has got to launch a commercial satellite soon in order to quell those doubts.

Data collected by a radiation sensor inside Curiosity during its journey to Mars suggest that it will be possible to build ships with sufficient shielding to protect humans on such a voyage.

Data collected by a radiation sensor inside Curiosity during its journey to Mars suggest that it will be possible to build ships with sufficient shielding to protect humans on such a voyage.

Zeitlin and his colleagues analysed the radiation recorded by a small detector on board the craft that was active during most of the 253-day cruise to Mars. Although the craft was not uniformly protected from exposure to Galactic cosmic rays and charged particles from the Sun, the MSL’s shielding on average approximated that of human space-flight missions. ….

At NASA Langley, Thibeault and her colleagues are testing new types of shielding that consist of hydrogenated materials. Hydrogen offers protection because it breaks apart heavy charged particles without creating secondary particles that add to the radiation dose, she notes. One of the materials under investigation, hydrogen-filled boron nitride nanotubes, looks particularly promising because it is robust and lightweight enough to double as both the skin of a spacecraft and its shield. Using separate materials to build and shield a craft would add too much weight to a Mars-bound mission, Thibeault notes.

Thibeault says that she is heartened by the new study because she had feared that the radiation dose might be considerably higher. The results suggest “that this is a problem we can solve”, she adds.

The asteroid is coming! The asteroid is coming!

The asteroid is coming! The asteroid is coming!

The fly-by of the large asteroid 1998 QE2 tomorrow at about 5 pm (Eastern) is causing a lot of hype. It is interesting, but hardly the big news event NASA and others want to make it. The scientists will like it because they get another close look at an asteroid. Others are using it to hype up the threat of asteroids, though that threat is not changed in any way by this fly-by.

Planetary Resources today announced a Kickstarter fund-raising campaign for its space telescope Arkyd.

Planetary Resources today announced a Kickstarter fund-raising campaign for its space telescope Arkyd.

Forgive me if I am less than enthusiastic about this. Supposedly Planetary Resources had big money backing from a lot of wealthy people, including some Silicon Valley Google billionaires. Why then do they need this campaign? It makes me suspect that the company is an emperor with no clothes.

Japan has decided to develop its first new rocket in two decades and use the private-sector to reduce costs.

The competition heats up: Japan has decided to develop its first new rocket in two decades and use the private-sector to reduce costs.

The article is very vague about how Japan will shift design and construction to the private sector. They need to do this, however, if they want to compete, as their space agency has been very inefficient at accomplishing anything cheaply or quickly.

Sunjammer, NASA’s next solar sail experiment.

Sunjammer, NASA’s next solar sail experiment.

Though the article headline focuses on the addition of space weather instruments to this solar sail, the article says very little about those instruments. One, Swan, is described as a “wind instrument”, which probably means it would study the solar wind. The other instrument would study the Earth’s magnetic field. Both instruments are needed to track the effect of the Sun on local space weather, since the one satellite we have to do this, Ace, is now more than a decade past its expiration date.

Solar Impulse has completed the second leg of its journey to fly across the United States powered only by the sun.

Solar Impulse has completed the second leg of its journey to fly across the United States powered only by the sun.

The Solar Impulse has broken its own record for the longest distance flight of a solar-powered aircraft following the second leg of its journey across the USA. Solar Impulse touched down in Texas at 1:08 a.m. local time after a flight of 18 hours 21 minutes having covered at least 868 miles (1,397 km). Two different distances have been reported for the flight. The Solar Impulse website says the flight “amounted” to 868 miles (1,397 km). However, according to a Phys.org report, Solar Impulse covered a distance of 1,541 km (which it rounds to 950 miles, though this is not the precise conversion).

It is thought the two distances exist because the plane actually lost ground during part of its flight due to headwinds.

The Russian deputy prime minister told students at the Moscow Aviation Institute on Thursday that they expect their first launch from their new spaceport in Vostochny to occur in November 2015.

The competition heats up: The Russian deputy prime minister told students at the Moscow Aviation Institute on Thursday that they expect their first launch from their new spaceport in Vostochny to occur in November 2015.

He also said that they want to name the new town they are building at the site after Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.

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