Should Families Be Trained For Space?

With all of the problems that could go wrong in space, nothing is more serious, more threatening towards human settlement in the cosmos than humans themselves.

Despite intense training physically and mentally, long term isolation may be more than most humans can bare, with irritation, boredom or the "need to breed" causing unnecessary conflict to arise. Usually frequent contact with ones family, alongside of random gifts are enough to keep a person in check mentally, but it may be unreasonable to expect someone to remain sane while separated from kin for years.

One way to resolve this issue would be to enlist families of future colonists to travel alongside their loved ones in order to not only reduce stress, but also help settle foreign worlds. Despite the fact that raising a families millions of miles away from Earth may sound risky (especially if parents have young children), the experience may serve to inform our race whether or not we will be able to call hostile worlds our own.

Some organizations seem to have envisioned colonists raising their families off world, most notably on the red planet. 4Frontiers, a company dedicated towards colonizing the Moon, Mars and eventually the asteroids themselves seems to have envisioned this concept which they frequently portray in their stories of kids growing up on the Martian landscape.

Raising a family off world may prove to be more difficult than on Earth, with the hazards of space, technology and supplies being major hurdles to overcome. But families seem to have a stronger group bond than strangers which may enable humanity to overcome many of the problems of isolation, enabling us to call distant worlds like Mars our own.

Life Imitates Star Trek: NASA Pursues Life Scanner

With scientists attempting to build technology to locate life on other worlds, they may be constructing a useful device to locate lost future travelers hiking on foreign soils.

(Red Orbit) NASA-funded researchers are refining a tool that could not only check for the faintest traces of life's molecular building blocks on Mars, but could also determine whether they have been produced by anything alive. [...]

"Urey will be able to detect key molecules associated with life at a sensitivity roughly a million times greater than previous instrumentation," said Dr. Jeffrey Bada of Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. Bada is the principal investigator for an international team of scientists and engineers working on various components of the device.

Despite the fact it may be a century before we find any signs of life on Mars (although we may have settled the planet by then), this life scanner could prove to be quite useful not only on planets, but for detecting life aboard dying space craft as well (an advanced version for rescuers that is).

NASA Finally Considers Inflatable Space Bases

(Hat Tip: Space Scan)

Despite the fact that Bigelow Aerospace is already developing inflatable lunar bases (not to mention space stations), NASA seems to have caught the vision that perhaps its easier, cheaper and (hopefully) safer to inflate our lunar homes rather than haul them pre-assembled on the Moon.

(Physorg.com) "Inflatables can be used as connectors or tunnels between crew quarters and can provide radiation shelter if covered with lunar regolith (soil)," said Chris Moore, Exploration Technology Development Program program executive at NASA Headquarters.

As a starting point, ILC Dover has delivered a 12-foot (3.65 meter) diameter inflatable structure made of multilayer fabric to Langley for ground-based evaluation of emerging technologies such as flexible structural health monitoring systems, self-healing materials and radiation protective materials. Attached to the structure is a smaller inflatable structure that serves as a demonstration airlock. Both are essentially pressurized cylinders, connected by an airtight door.

Although they may look very "goofy," inflatable space bases may prove to be more useful than their metallic and glass cousins. With the ever present danger of space rocks raining down from above, an inflatable space base may prove to be more expendable and easier to replace than the previous vision of a lunar base.

Despite being less glamorous than glass and steel, inflatable space bases may help lower the overall cost to settle human colonies off world. With cheaper access to space, we may one day find our decendents grumbling how boring it is living off world inside an inflatable habitat and wishing for the opportunity to settle back on our home planet.

Video: Is Virgin Galatic Becoming Profitable?

(Hat Tip: Space Pragmatism)

Despite receiving more than its fair share of spot light in the private space industry, Virgin Galactic seems to be doing fairly well despite the fact that its market is quickly becoming filled with competitors.

While other space tourism companies remain silent on how many customers they have, Virgin Galactic does not feel shy revealing how many space tourism clients they have signed up.

(MSNBC) At present, Virgin Galactic has $20 million in deposits, said Will Whitehorn, the company’s president. "We just surpassed the 200-customer level in terms of people who have actually made a financial commitment, put their money down and signed their contracts," Whitehorn said.

Space travel registrations on the Virgin Galactic Web site number about 82,000 expressions of interest, Whitehorn said. "Those registrations are genuine...with quite a number prepared to sign in the next three or four years. But they do want to see a finished spaceship before they are prepared to commit. I don't blame them for that. We're hoping to have a working spaceship that's actually commencing spaceflight in its test mode by the middle of 2008."

With the private sector gaining respect in the media, private space flights should help "whet the appetite" for the cosmos, helping to make space a reality for the general population.

Virgin Galactic is offering rides to the final frontier for around $200,000, and they have released a video highlighting why that money would be better spent in the heavens than on earth.

Can Bigelow Aerospace Bring Us To The Stars?

Bigelow Aerospace, known for their unique approach towards orbital space stations may have concrete plans for establishing lunar colonies on a world all too familiar to the space industry.

(Cosmic Log) But by 2012, the focus could start shifting from low Earth orbit, or LEO, farther out into space. One of the key places in Bigelow's plan is a point about 200,000 miles (323,000 kilometers) out from Earth in the moon's direction, where the pulls of terrestrial and lunar gravity balance each other.

Bigelow would turn that region of space, called L1, into a construction zone. Inflatable modules would be linked up with propulsion/power systems and support structures, and then the completed base would be lowered down to the moon's surface, all in one piece.

Once the moon base has been set down, dirt would be piled on top, using a technique that Bigelow plans to start testing later this year at his Las Vegas headquarters. The moon dirt, more technically known as regolith, would serve to shield the base's occupants from the harsh radiation hitting the lunar surface.

If Bigelow can successfully launch, assemble, transport and land their inflatable colonies on the Moon by 2010, this will be a significant achievement for not only the private space sector, but humanity as a whole.

Although some will simply brush this off as another lunar attempt, many people have to realize that previously it took an entire nation (backed by billions of dollars) in order to land someone on the moon over 50 years ago.

For a company this size to accomplish a similar goal (at a fraction of the cost) is not merely incredible, but unparalleled.

Note: If Bigelow is able to do this, would this put NASA's Vision for Space Exploration out of business, along with make the International Space Station irrelevant?

Is It Man Or Machine? Michael Laine Enlightens

(Hat Tip: LiftPort, Plus video below)

It seems no matter who you talk to within the space community you will generally find two arguments for going into space--one side is all about science revealing our place in the Universe (via robots) while the other is about populating the Universe (via humans) and charting our own destiny.

Michael Laine from LiftPort seems to have answered this question after being interviewed by Radio Open Source (listen to the audio over here)

Well, one of the things that is at the heart of the man verses robotics question is [...] Is it moon verses Mars? Is it man verses robotics?

It doesn't have to be a one verses the other. [...] If you've got--and thats Elon's goal, and thats my goal, thats everybody in the space communities goal--if you have cheap reliable safe access to space, it doesn't have to be one or against the other.

[W]hat we're looking to do is [...] get [a] better bang for your buck so you don't have to choose.

Humanity owes a huge debt to our robots who have definitely increased our knowledge of the cosmos (not to mention locating valuable resources and notable hazards, all the while snapping beautiful photos).

However, if humanity simply uses robots to explore the universe then our space program will continue to lose interest among the youth which can easily result in its early demise. Adding humans to the mix may not only prove to be quite productive, but actually encourage the public to invest more (or at least justify the expense) into space.

After all, since when was the last time a robot convinced you of the value of exploring the final frontier?

(Video Hat Tip: NASA Watch)

Detecting Radiation In All The Wrong Places

With all of the potential for our race for exploring, colonizing and conquering future worlds, the biggest show stopper to our activities is radiation. Unless our race discovers a unique way to combat this threat, we may find ourselves living underground like the mole people.

Fortunately it seems a scientist is taking this research seriously and is developing a radiation detection device to warn astronauts when it is unsafe to stroll outside.

(SpaceRef.com) Pisacane, along with other faculty and midshipmen of the USNA, is developing a radiation detection and assessment system, called a microdosimeter, in partnership with NSBRI. The instrument will measure radiation doses on the cellular level and help determine regulatory dose limits for scientific and medical purposes.

"In space, we can't predict when radiation events occur nor their severity, so it's crucial to develop a rugged, light-weight, portable system that can make real-time measurements of radiation environments," said Pisacane, R.A. Heinlein Professor of Aerospace Engineering in USNA's Aerospace Engineering Department. "Spacesuits and spacecrafts integrated with microdosimeter sensors can help assess risk, provide warning at the onset of enhanced radiation so astronauts can take protective action, and help crews determine safe locations during these periods."

Although both the Moon and Mars lack a global magnetic field, their fields have enough strength to provide certain zones of protection, respectively.

Unless humanity can figure out a way to create an artificial magnetic field for a planet (or enhance the world's current field), humanity may have to resort to living within shielded biospheres indefinitely.