Tag: Moon

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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.

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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.

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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.

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NASA could go back to the future for a moon base

Moon base
An artist’s conception from 2007 shows astronauts walking up to an early lunar habitat. (NASA Illustration)

In the wake of the National Space Council’s first meeting, NASA says it has been told to draw up plans to send humans to the moon “for long-term exploration and utilization,” followed by trips to Mars and other interplanetary destinations.

That means moon bases are back in style.

But what kind of moon base? NASA’s current vision for space exploration goes only so far as to consider putting a Deep Space Gateway in lunar orbit. It’s basically a space station that could serve as a platform for monitoring robotic operations on the lunar surface, or for sending astronauts onward to Mars.

During the Obama administration, NASA saw lunar settlement as the purview of commercial ventures and international partners. The European Space Agency, for example, has its own vision for a “Moon Village,” and Bigelow Aerospace has floated the idea of putting expandable commercial habitats on the moon.

Now NASA will include moon base concepts in its own blueprint for beyond-Earth exploration. Fortunately, this isn’t virgin territory: NASA could turn to the work it was doing a decade ago, the last time moon bases were in style.

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National Space Council hears calls for moon trips

Mike Pence and Discovery
Vice President Mike Pence delivers opening remarks at the National Space Council’s inaugural meeting, conducted at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia. The shuttle Discovery looms in the background. (NASA Photo / Joel Kowsky)

The Trump administration plans to send astronauts and robots back to the moon in as little as five years’ time, as a prelude to Mars missions.

That’s one of the calls to action emerging from today’s first meeting of the reconstituted National Space Council under the leadership of Vice President Mike Pence.

“We will return American astronauts to the moon,” Pence declared, “not only to leave behind footprints and flags, but to build the foundation we need to send Americans to Mars and beyond.”

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Elon Musk has big rocket plans for … Earth?

BFR on moon
An artist’s conception shows the SpaceX vision for “Moon Base Alpha.” (Elon Musk via Instagram)

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has added moon missions to his grand plan for Mars, in a bid to capitalize on what’s expected to be the Trump administration’s shift in space policy.

Lunar operations at “Moon Base Alpha” are among the big updates that Musk unveiled today before a packed house at the International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide, Australia.

The rocket being planned for missions to the moon and Mars — nicknamed the BFR, for “Big Frickin’ Rocket” — could also come into play for trips to the International Space Station, satellite launches and travel between spaceports on Earth.

Today’s presentation followed up on last year’s big reveal at the IAC meeting in Mexico, during which Musk laid out a plan to build a monster rocket and send thousands upon thousands of settlers to the Red Planet starting as early as 2024.

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Blue Origin makes its pitch for moonshots

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

Blue Origin, the space venture founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, joined other companies today in laying out plans for commercial missions to the moon during a congressional hearing on Capitol Hill.

“It’s time for America to return to the moon, this time to stay,” Brett Alexander, Blue Origin’s director of business development and strategy, told members of the House Subcommittee on Space. That declaration echoed Bezos’ oft-used phrase, virtually word for word.

Blue Origin has already been testing a suborbital space vehicle called New Shepard, with an eye toward taking on passengers as early as next year. It’s also developing a more powerful orbital-class rocket called New Glenn, which could be used as part of a lunar mission architecture known as Blue Moon.

Today Alexander said the Blue Moon lunar lander would be optimized to fly on NASA’s Space Launch System, a heavy-lift rocket that’s due for its first test flight in 2019. When paired with the SLS, Blue Moon could deliver more than 5 tons of cargo to the lunar surface. Smaller payloads could be delivered using New Glenn or other rockets.

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XPRIZE teams get more time for moonshots

Moon rover
A prototype moon rover makes an appearance at the 2007 kickoff of the Google Lunar XPRIZE competition. (XPRIZE Photo)

The Google Lunar XPRIZE finalists now have $4.75 million more to shoot for with the moon missions they’re planning, and more time to shoot for the moon as well.

The competition was set up a decade ago to encourage commercial moon exploration, with Google donating the prize money and the nonprofit XPRIZE organization handling the logistics.

A grand prize of $20 million was set aside to the first privately funded team to land a probe on the moon, get it to move at least 500 meters (yards) on the surface, and have it send back high-definition video and images. The second team to accomplish the feat could win $5 million.

As many as 25 teams vied for the prize over the years, but in January the field was whittled down to five: Hakuto, Moon Express, SpaceIL, Synergy Moon and TeamIndus.

The teams were facing a launch deadline of Dec, 31, 2017 – and although all five teams have been saying they could make that deadline, it was shaping up to be a close thing.

Today XPRIZE said the deadline has been reworked, giving teams until March 31, 2018, to complete their missions. The 2017 launch deadline no longer applies, XPRIZE spokesman Eric Desatnik told GeekWire via email.

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Moon Express unveils its lunar roadmap

Moon Express lander
Moon Express’ MX-1E settles onto the lunar surface. (Moon Express Illustration)

Moon Express has laid out the plan it intends to follow to send probes to the surface of the moon and start bringing lunar samples back to Earth by 2020.

The plan calls for completing work on Moon Express’ MX-1E lander and its 3-D-printed PECO rocket engine, setting it on Rocket Lab’s Electron launch vehicle and sending it to the moon by the end of this year.

At least two more missions would follow, heading for the moon’s south polar region in 2019 and 2020.

The Florida-based company’s lunar exploration architecture was unveiled today at a Capitol Hill news conference in Washington, D.C.

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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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