Category Archives: Space

Space, Space Science

Water, Water, Everywhere

22 Comments

I’ve been wondering what Paul Spudis would have to say about yesterday’s press conference. Well, we need wonder no more:

What’s surprising about this new data is not the presence of water, but its pervasiveness. The published image (above) shows this water to be present from the poles down to about 60° latitude. This area subtends over 10 million square kilometers, or about one-third the surface area of the entire Moon! Although the water appears to be present only in the upper few millimeters of the surface, its total mass could be enormous, greatly exceeding the several hundred million tones estimated to be present as ice in the dark areas of the poles.

As always with good science, the new results raise many more questions than they answer. In part, this is a “chicken or egg” issue – do the newly discovered deposits result from surface alteration by water derived from the polar ice, or do they serve as a source for such deposits? How does water form, move, get destroyed or get cold-trapped on the Moon? What are rates of water deposition and removal? What and where are the ice deposits and how pure might they be? Right now we can only dimly perceive the beginnings of a whole new sub-discipline of lunar studies: polar geoscience.

Lunar geoscience. I guess the battle is lost…

Political Commentary, Space

“Thrust Oscillation May Be Less Than Feared”

6 Comments

Then again, it may not be:

…there were early claims by engineers and Ares I supporters that the test proved that that the Ares I rocket won’t shake violently during its ascent to orbit — as had been predicted — and that the shaking problem, called thrust oscillation, is no longer an issue for NASA.

But as the data is studied further, engineers and managers for NASA and ATK say those early conclusions are overstated.

NASA’s associate administrator for space operations, Bill Gerstenmaier, told NASA officials and contractors not to repeat the claims, especially to members of Congress, because, “That is not what the test showed.”

Picky, picky, picky. That mean old Gerst is such a party pooper.

Guys, it’s not possible to know how a motor will perform dynamically in free flight from a horizontal hold-down test. At best, they got some valid data to plug into the dynamics models, the latter of which they may or may not have confidence in (though the Ares I-X test will help to validate — or invalidate — them).

[Update a few minutes later]

“Rocketman” has similar thoughts:

Drawing good news conclusions from one test, pinned to the ground, is folly. Proposing Ares 1 as a tech development program for Ares V is also folly. And taking a crap shoot like Ares 1X is desperate folly. But, these are the kind of fool’s games that will be played from here to cancellation.

It will continue until the administration comes up with a policy. But like Afghanistan, it seems determined to continue to kick the can down the road for now. I don’t envy Administrator Bolden right now.

Business, Economics, Space

The Solar Power Satellite Business

66 Comments

Alan Boyle has a good rundown on the current state of play. I wonder, though about the assumptions underlying this comment:

To be competitive with other power sources, Maness figures that the powersat system’s launch costs would have to be around $100 per pound – which is roughly one-hundredth of the current asking price. Launch costs may be heading downward, thanks in part to the rise of SpaceX’s Falcon rockets, but Maness can’t yet predict when the charts tracing cost and benefit will cross into the profitable zone.

Launch costs to where? They’re that high to GEO, but not to LEO, and it doesn’t say where the satellite constellation will live. It’s going to be a long time before it’s a hundred bucks a pound to GEO, though though a robust market for LEO propellant depots will be a help in that regard. But we’re not far from having a thousand bucks a pound to LEO. Anyway, it would be nice to see more details on these things.

The bottom line, though, and the reason that I’m not that sanguine on the business prospects for SBSP, at least for base load, is this:

In addition to potential environmental concerns, large-scale solar farms can’t generate a steady flow of electricity at night, or during cloudy weather. But if engineers ever figure out a way to store up the intermittent energy generated by solar cells or wind turbines, at levels high enough to keep utilities flush with power, Maness thinks that would deal a heavy blow to his powersat dreams.

“At that point, I take my marbles and go home,” he said.

Yup. It’s not the technical risk of the space hardware and launch costs, but the risk of terrestrial competition as technology evolves, that is the biggest risk of all.

Business, Space

Masten LLC Attempts

4 Comments

Start today. Clark Lindsey has links. Best of luck (and skill) to them.

Another reason to wish that I was already back in CA. I expect to hit the road this morning, but I have to pack the car still, which will be an interesting puzzle.

[Update a few minutes later]

Shutting down the machine now so I can load it. I may check in tonight, if I have wireless in the motel. Be good in comments, and don’t expect anything with links to be approved today.

[Late evening update]

I’m still on Eastern time, but just barely, about 10:30 PM. I’m also still in Florida, in Talahassee, but it hasn’t seemed like it since north of Tampa, when the country went from flat and swampy to rolling with woods and pastures. I drove across from Ocala to here through beautiful horse country. This is a Florida that I could like, but it’s more like southern Georgia.