The PTScientist team’s Alina lander and Audi Quattro rover are on display at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. (PTScientists Photo via Twitter)
Can you hear me now, on the moon? Not yet, but Nokia has just signed onto a team that aims to extend 4G coverage to the lunar surface as early as next year.
Even though PTScientists couldn’t make the deadline to go for the prize, it’s still working on a plan to send its Alina lander and two Audi Quattro rovers to the lunar surface. The team has a contract with Seattle-based Spaceflight to ride on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket or an alternative by as early as 2019.
“This moment here, with the shift to the moon, is what we’ve waited 10 years for,” John Thornton, CEO of Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic, told Geekwire. Astrobotic has been working on a series of private-sector lunar landing missions and is now looking forward to heightened interest from NASA.
Over the next few years, hundreds of millions of dollars would be set aside for private-sector moon missions and for commercial ventures in low Earth orbit — either by putting private ventures in charge of the U.S. segment of the International Space Station, or by establishing new orbital platforms.
Not everyone is thrilled by the budget proposal, in part because it calls for phasing out federal funding for the space station by 2025. The critics include leading members of Congress who will have to fine-tune and approve the budget proposed today.
The International Space Station has been continuously occupied since 2000. (NASA photo)
The White House’s proposed five-year budget plan would provide a bigger boost to commercial space efforts, including a potential handover of operations on the International Space Station by 2025 and private-sector moon landings.
It also calls for zeroing out funding for some high-profile Earth science missions, such as the Earth-watching DSCOVR satellite and the next Orbiting Carbon Observatory.
NASA’s $8.8 billion James Webb Space Telescope is still go for launch next year, and the budget supports the launch of a mission in the 2020s to study Europa, a moon of Jupiter that’s thought to harbor a subsurface ocean and perhaps life. But the next-next-generation WFIRST space telescope would be canceled.
During a “State of NASA” address delivered at Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, acting administrator Robert Lightfoot said eliminating WFIRST was one of the “hard decisions” that had to be made. He said the space agency would be “taking those resources and redirecting them to other agency priorities.”
Lightfoot said another hard decision would result in the elimination of NASA’s Office of Education.
Overall, NASA would receive $19.9 billion for the fiscal year beginning in October, thanks to a prior budget agreement already passed by Congress. That’s $400 million above current levels, with more than half of that money set aside for exploration programs aimed at the moon and eventually Mars.
A total lunar eclipse gives the full moon a reddish tinge in 2015. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Lisota)
Geographically speaking, the Pacific Northwest is one of the best places in America to see tonight’s super-hyped total lunar eclipse. Meteorologically speaking? Not so much.
Seattleites might have to go as far east as Ellensburg to get a clear view of what’s touted as a “super blue blood moon.” And in reality, the moon won’t be bloody, or blue, or even all that super.
Before we go into full sour-grapes mode, let’s acknowledge that if there’s a chance of seeing the full moon fade to red between 4:51 a.m. and 6:07 a.m. PT Jan. 31, it’s definitely worth getting out of bed.
“Set your alarm early and go out and take a look,” NASA’s Gordon Johnson says in the space agency’s preview of the eclipse.
A prototype moon rover makes an appearance at the 2007 kickoff of the Google Lunar XPRIZE competition. (XPRIZE Photo)
The organizers for the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize competition acknowledged today that the award for a commercially funded lunar landing will go unwon, despite a decade’s worth of work.
But the California-based XPRIZE foundation’s top executives said they were looking for ways to keep a spotlight on the contest, even after Google’s prize money goes away on March 31.
“This may include finding a new title sponsor to provide a prize purse following in the footsteps of Google’s generosity, or continuing the Lunar XPRIZE as a non-cash competition where we will follow and promote the teams and help celebrate their achievements,” executive chairman Peter Diamandis and CEO Marcus Shingles said in their statement.
An artist’s conception shows Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lunar lander. (Blue Origin Illustration)
Who’s going to the moon? The prospects are looking dimmer for any commercial lunar landings in the short term — but Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture today used a milestone in space history to spotlight its longer-term lunar aspirations.
The bad news is that none of the remaining five contenders for the Google Lunar X Prize is likely to get to the moon in time to win a $20 million award in March.
Eclipse watchers turned Aug. 21’s event into a party at Kerry Park in Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser)
The first total solar eclipse to go across America from coast to coast in 99 years has to rank as the top space story of 2017. But where do you go from there?
Would you believe the moon?
The moon was a supporting player in this year’s brush with totality. After all, you can’t have a solar eclipse unless the new moon gets in the way. And it certainly held center stage for a phenomenon witnessed by an estimated 215 million. That’s abigger audience than the Super Bowl gets on TV.
But in 2018, the moon really gets its day in the sun, figuratively speaking. It starts next month with a New Year’s Day supermoon, followed by a total lunar eclipse on Jan. 31.
We lay out other reasons to moon over the moon in our annual roundup of the five top space stories from the year that’s ending, plus five trends to watch in the year ahead.
Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt gives an astronaut figurine to President Donald Trump after the signing of Space Policy Directive 1. Among the onlookers at far right are Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin and NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, who holds the U.S. record for cumulative time spent in space. A sample of lunar rock collected during Apollo 17 sits on Trump’s table. (White House via YouTube)
President Donald Trump today signed a space policy directive that calls on NASA to establish an outpost on the moon and send astronauts onward to Mars and beyond, but leaves the “how” and the “how much” for later.
Trump invoked the legacy of the Apollo space program during the Oval Office signing ceremony. And to emphasize that connection, the White House brought in Harrison “Jack” Schmitt, the former senator and astronaut who was part of the last Apollo mission in 1972.
“Today, we pledge that he will not be the last, and I suspect we’ll be finding other places to land in addition to the moon,” Trump said. “What do you think, Jack?”
“Yes, we should,” Schmitt replied. “Learn from the moon.”
An image of the moon taken by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is shown in two halves to illustrate the difference between the apparent size of a supermoon (left) and a “micromoon” (right).
Supermoon Sunday is at hand, and although some may scoff, the supermoon concept provides a good excuse to take a close look at a celestial sight we often take for granted.
By some measures, Dec. 3’s full moon is the only supermoon of 2017. The liberal definition would be a full or new moon that’s at or near its closest approach to Earth in its orbit. My definition is stricter: There’s only one supermoon in a given year, reserved for the full moon with the biggest apparent size.
Sci-fi author Andy Weir (“The Martian,” “Artemis”) makes a point while Neal Stephenson (“Seveneves,” “The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.”) looks on. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)
What could be better than hearing a science fiction writer talk about how to create whole new worlds? How about doubling that to two science fiction writers?
That was the case for a Seattle-area appearance by Andy Weir — the author of “The Martian” and “Artemis,” a just-released novel set on a moon colony in the 2080s.
When he showed up at Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park on Nov. 30, he brought along Seattle’s own Neal Stephenson, the author of science-fiction novels ranging from “Snow Crash” to “Seveneves” to “The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.”
A standing-room-only crowd of 600 or so heard Weir and Stephenson hold forth on the writing racket. Here are some gems from the conversation:
