Tag: Moon

Categories
GeekWire

Your guide to the super blue blood moon eclipse

Lunar eclipse
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.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

 

Categories
GeekWire

XPRIZE confirms no one will win moon race

Moon rover
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.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Moon ambitions get a reality check — and a boost

Blue Moon lander
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.

Google has repeatedly extended the deadline for doing a lunar landing, but CNBC quoted the company as saying there’d be no more extensions beyond March 31.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Year in Space: From a black sun to a brighter moon

Eclipse watchers
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.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

To the moon! Trump puts his spin on space policy

Trump and space policy directive
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.”

The memorandum known as Space Policy Directive 1 codifies the moon as NASA’s next big target for human spaceflight. That policy reverses President Barack Obama’s 2010 decision to focus on visiting a near-Earth asteroid, and is more in line with the back-to-the-moon vision that President George W. Bush laid out in 2004.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

‘Tis the season … for a holiday supermoon

Supermoon
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.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Science fiction duo looks at life after ‘The Martian’

Neal Stephenson and Andy Weir
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:

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Moon vs. Mars: Space experts debate destinations

"New Space Age" debate
Moon Express chairman Naveen Jain gestures during a debate with Planetary Resources’ Chris Lewicki and space policy analyst John Logsdon, at right. The Economist’s deputy editor, Tom Standage, stands in as moderator at left. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

SpaceX founder Elon Musk has famously said he’d like to die on Mars — “just not on impact.” But where will humans live in space? That was the focus of a good-natured debate that took place at this week’s “New Space Age” conference at Seattle’s Museum of Flight.

Chris Lewicki, president and CEO of Redmond, Wash.-based Planetary Resources, took up the case for going to asteroids and Mars. Seattle-area entrepreneur Naveen Jain, co-founder and chairman of Florida-based Moon Express, spoke for the moon.

And John Logsdon, retired director of George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute, argued for the null hypothesis: that humans would, by and large, stick with Earth for the foreseeable future.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Scientists seek treaty to save famous space places

Apollo 11 landing site
Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin sets up scientific experiments on the surface of the moon during the historic 1969 mission. (NASA Photo / Neil Armstrong)

What’s the best way to preserve the Apollo footprints on the moon, the Face on Mars, or the mysterious “white spots” on the dwarf planet Ceres? A pair of researchers argue that there ought to be an international treaty.

They say the Antarctic Treaty, which sets aside that icy continent and its mineral resources as a natural preserve, could serve as a model for what they call the Exogeoconservation Treaty.

“It is better if we do it ahead of the interest in space rather than after the fact,” Jack Matthews, a geologist at Memorial University of Newfoundland, told GeekWire on Sunday.

But an expert on space law said the prospects for such a treaty are dim, particularly in light of rising interest in commercial activities on the moon.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Bigelow and ULA plan outpost in lunar orbit

Lunar depot
An artist’s conception shows a Bigelow B330 expandable module in lunar orbit, with United Launch Alliance’s ACES propulsion stage attached. (Bigelow Aerospace Illustration)

NASA is shifting its attention to the moon, and so are Bigelow Aerospace and United Launch Alliance: Today the two companies said they’d work together to put an outpost in orbit around the moon by as soon as 2022.

The plan builds on the companies’ earlier partnership to send one of Bigelow’s B330 expandable space modules into Earth orbit.

Now the idea is to launch a B330 into low Earth orbit on ULA’s Vulcan launch vehicle, get it outfitted as a platform for lunar-orbit operations and send up 70 tons of propellant on two Vulcans. Then ULA’s Advanced Cryogenic Evolved Stage would fuel up, attach itself to the B330 and push onward to the moon.

Billionaire Robert Bigelow, president of Bigelow Aerospace, said the lunar station could play a role in NASA’s plans to establish a moon base and move on to Mars.

Get the full story on GeekWire.