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VP vows return to moon and ‘boots on Mars’

Mike Pence at KSC
Vice President Mike Pence addresses a gathering at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida with a prototype Orion spaceship as a backdrop. (NASA via YouTube)

Vice President Mike Pence, the newly minted chairman of a revived National Space Council, said today that President Donald Trump is committed to a return to the moon and a push onward to Mars.

Pence laid out the broad strokes of the Trump administration’s aspirations for space exploration during a visit to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

“Here from this bridge to space, our nation will return to the moon, and we will put American boots on the face of Mars,” Pence declared.

He cast last week’s revitalization of the National Space Council, which was disbanded by the Clinton administration in 1993, as a signal that space policy would be given a higher profile.

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Mars rover’s roll echoes moonshot stroll

Opportunity view of Mars crater
NASA’s Opportunity rover snapped a picture of its own tread marks as it passed by Orion Crater on Mars. (NASA / JPL-Caltech / Cornell / ASU)

Forty-five years after the astronauts of Apollo 16 rode out on a rover to look over a crater on the moon, NASA’s Opportunity rover looked over a crater on Mars – and sparked a chain of coincidences.

To mark the linkage, Opportunity’s science team named the feature on Mars “Orion Crater.” That pays tribute to the Apollo 16 astronauts, who named their lunar module Orion. It’s also the name of the future NASA spaceship that may help astronauts get to Mars someday.

Orion Crater is about 90 feet wide and thought to be no more than 10 million years old.

“It turns out that Orion Crater is almost exactly the same size as Plum Crater on the moon, which John Young and Charles Duke explored on their first of three moonwalks taken while investigating the lunar surface using their lunar rover,” the Planetary Science Institute’s Jim Rice, a member of Opportunity’s science team, said in a NASA image advisory issued today.

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5 revelations from ‘Artemis’ moon tale

The writer who made such a splash with “The Martian,” Andy Weir, is sharing the first chapter from “Artemis,” a crime caper set on the moon – and the thrills start hopping on the very first page.

You can get up to speed with the exploits of twentysomething porter Jasmine “Jazz” Bashara, thanks to an excerpt posted to the “Read It Forward” website. The story is set decades from now, when “Star Trek” is studied as intensely as Shakespeare.

To whet your appetite, here are five features of the future moon you’ll find out about in the excerpt.

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Jeff Bezos lays out vision for city on the moon

Blue Moon lander
Artist’s concept shows Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lander on the lunar surface. (Blue Origin Illustration)

SpaceX billionaire Elon Musk may have his heart set on building a city on Mars, but Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ space vision looks closer to home. He’s gazing at the moon.

“I think we should build a permanent human settlement on one of the poles of the moon,” Bezos said today during a Q&A with kids at Seattle’s Museum of Flight. “It’s time to go back to the moon, but this time to stay.”

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Get a peek at Blue Origin’s lunar lander

Blue Moon lander
Blue Origip President Rob Meyerson shows off a concept for the Blue Moon lunar lander during a session at the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. Other panelists include Jonathan Arenberg, chief systems engineer for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope; former astronaut John Grunsfeld; and Mary Lynne Dittmar of the Coalition for Deep Space Exploration. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – Blue Origin, the space venture backed by Amazon billionaire CEO Jeff Bezos, is providing a first look at the design for the Blue Moon lander it wants to use for deliveries to the lunar surface in the 2020s.

It’s been more than a month since Blue Origin’s plan for sending payloads to the moon for a permanent settlement came to light – but the company’s president, Rob Meyerson, lifted a veil a bit higher by showing off an artist’s conception of the lander here at the 33rd Space Symposium.

As the four-legged lander design was displayed on screen, Meyerson told the crowd that the spacecraft could be launched on NASA’s own heavy-lift Space Launch System rocket, or SLS, which is currently under development. It could also go on United Launch Alliance’s existing Atlas 5 rocket, or on Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket – which is due to start flying by 2020.

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NASA sets its sights on Deep Space Gateway

Deep Space Gateway
An artist’s conception shows the Deep Space Gateway in the vicinity of the moon, with an Orion crew vehicle nearby. (NASA Illustration)

President Donald Trump hasn’t yet revealed his choice for NASA administrator, but the space agency is already shifting the focus of its exploration program to a way station known as the Deep Space Gateway.

The concept for a habitable platform in the vicinity of the moon, known as cislunar space, was fleshed out this week on NASA’s website, and during meetings of the NASA Advisory Council in Washington, D.C.

Payloads and astronauts could be sent to the gateway starting in the 2020s using the heavy-lift Space Launch System rocket and the Orion crew vehicle, both of which are still under development.

The gateway would be a crew-tended spaceport with a high-power electric propulsion system.

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Billionaire Charles Simonyi muses about moon

Charles Simonyi
Software billionaire Charles Simonyi chats with GeekWire’s Alan Boyle at a 50th-anniversary celebration for the University of Washington’s computer science and engineering program. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Lisota)

Charles Simonyi, the billionaire software executive who’s flown to space twice, says he doesn’t know who’s on SpaceX’s passenger list for a flight beyond the moon and back. But he knows at least one potential customer who’s not on it: himself.

Simonyi might seem to be in the sweet spot for the space adventure, which SpaceX billionaire founder Elon Musk says is in the works for as early as 2018.

The Hungarian-born computer scientist bought not just one, but two multimillion-dollar trips to the International Space Station, in 2007 and 2009. The Soyuz capsule he rode in 2009 is on display in the Charles Simonyi Space Gallery at Seattle’s Museum of Flight. And thanks in part to his role as the architect for Microsoft Word, his estimated net worth amounts to almost $2 billion.

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Why go to the moon? Playing the Trump card

Bigelow lunar depot
An artist’s conception shows Bigelow Aerospace’s lunar depot in orbit. (Bigelow Aerospace)

Nearly 55 years ago, President John F. Kennedy said America chose to go to the moon and take on other challenges “not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” Now it’s commercial space ventures that are choosing to go to the moon.

Back in the 1960s, the moon effort was aimed at demonstrating America’s greatness. A similar motivation is at work this time around: to demonstrate that President Donald Trump is making America great again.

Trump has given nods to the space effort in his two big speeches: In his inauguration address, he said America was “ready to unlock the mysteries of space.” And in his address to this week’s joint session of Congress, he said seeing American footprints on distant worlds was “not too big a dream.”

So far, however, specifics have been in short supply – no doubt because Trump has other priorities on his mind right now, and because a new administrator for NASA hasn’t yet been named.

That has left commercial players such as Blue Origin, SpaceX and Bigelow Aerospace free to fill in the gaps, adapting their goals in space to fit a first-term time frame.

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Blue Origin proposes moon delivery in 2020

Image: Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin
Jeff Bezos shows off the concept for Blue Origin’s launch system during a 2015 news conference in Florida. The rocket could reportedly be adapted for moon missions. (Blue Origin photo)

Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture has reportedly proposed sending a robotic lander to the moon’s south polar region by 2020, as an initial step toward an “Amazon-like” lunar delivery system and eventually a permanently inhabited moon base.

Blue Origin’s white paper is described in a report from The Washington Post, which is owned by Bezos.

The Post says the company’s seven-page proposal, dated Jan. 4, has been circulating among NASA’s leadership and President Donald Trump’s transition team. It’s only one of several proposals aimed at turning the focus of exploration beyond Earth orbit to the moon and its environs during Trump’s term.

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SpaceX reveals plan for round-the-moon trip

SpaceX Crew Dragon
An artist’s conception shows SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule. (Credit: SpaceX)

SpaceX says it’s making plans to send two private citizens around the moon late next year – using its yet-to-be-flown Falcon Heavy rocket and its crew-capable Dragon capsule, which is still under development.

The would-be fliers have not been identified, but they have already paid a “significant deposit” for the trip, SpaceX said today in its announcement of the mission.

The Falcon Heavy would lift off from SpaceX’s launch pad at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and put the Dragon spacecraft on a free-return trajectory that would loop far beyond the moon and then come back to Earth without any attempt at a lunar landing.

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