Space Exploration Archives

April 11, 2019April 12, 2019 by Matt Williams

Voyager and Pioneer’s Grand Tour of the Milky Way

An artist's concept of Voyager 1's view of the Solar System. Voyager 1 is one of our first interstellar probes, though it's an inadvertent one. It has no particular destination. Credit: NASA, ESA, and J. Zachary and S. Redfield (Wesleyan University); Artist's Illustration Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI).

During the early 1990s, NASA’s Pioneer 10 and 11 probes became the first robotic missions to venture beyond Neptune. In 2012 and 2018, the Voyager 1 and 2 missions went even farther by crossing the heliopause and entering interstellar space. Eventually, these probes may reach another star system, where their special cargo (the Pioneer Plaques and the Golden Records) could find their way into the hands of another species.

Which raises an important question: where might these spacecraft eventually wander? To address this, Coryn Bailer-Jones of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy and Davide Farnocchia of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory recently conducted a study that examined which star systems the Voyager and Pioneer probes will likely encounter as they drift through the Milky Way over the next few million years…

April 11, 2019April 11, 2019 by Evan Gough

Beresheet Crashed.

The Israeli Beresheet spacecraft has crashed into the Moon. The craft, whose name is Hebrew for “in the beginning” made its descent to the Moon but failed to stick its landing. If it had been successful, it would have put Israel in elite company, and made them only the fourth country to have a soft landing on the Moon, joining the USA, China, and the former Soviet Union.

March 13, 2019March 13, 2019 by Matt Williams

Using Black Holes to Conquer Space: The Halo Drive!

Close-up of star near a supermassive black hole (artist’s impression). Credit: ESA/Hubble, ESO, M. Kornmesser

The idea of one day traveling to another star system and seeing what is there has been the fevered dream of people long before the first rockets and astronauts were sent to space. But despite all the progress we have made since the beginning of the Space Age, interstellar travel remains just that – a fevered dream. While theoretical concepts have been proposed, the issues of cost, travel time and fuel remain highly problematic.

A lot of hopes currently hinge on the use of directed energy and lightsails to push tiny spacecrafts to relativistic speeds. But what if there was a way to make larger spacecraft fast enough to conduct interstellar voyages? According to Prof. David Kipping – the leader of Columbia University’s Cool Worlds lab – future spacecraft could rely on a Halo Drive, which uses the gravitational force of a black hole to reach incredible speeds.

March 8, 2019March 8, 2019 by Evan Gough

Ho-Hum. More Boring Success for SpaceX as Crew Dragon Splashes Down

The SpaceX Crew Dragon about to splash down in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida. Image Credit: NASA/SpaceX

A few hours ago, the SpaceX Crew Dragon splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean, about 200 miles off the coast of Florida. The splashdown is the last act in what has been a successful first flight for the Crew Dragon. The flight, called Demo-1, was launched on March 2nd and spent five days at the International Space Station (ISS).

February 5, 2019November 25, 2021 by Matt Williams

How Big Would a Generation Ship Need to be to Keep a Crew of 500 Alive for the Journey to Another Star?

Interior view of an O'Neill Cylinder. There are alternating strips of livable surface and "windows" to let light in. Image: Rick Guidice, NASA Ames Research Center

There’s no two ways about it, the Universe is an extremely big place! And thanks to the limitations placed upon us by Special Relativity, traveling to even the closest star systems could take millennia. As we addressed in a previous article, the estimated travel time to the nearest star system (Alpha Centauri) could take anywhere from 19,000 to 81,000 years using conventional methods.

For this reason, many theorists have recommended that humanity should rely on generation ships to spread the seed of humanity among the stars. Naturally, such a project presents many challenges, not the least of which is how large a spacecraft would need to be to sustain a multi-generational crew. In a new study, a team of international scientists addressed this very question and determined that a lot of interior space would be needed!

January 21, 2019January 21, 2019 by Matt Williams

Steam-Powered Spacecraft Could Explore the Asteroid Belt Forever, Refueling Itself in Space

Artist's impression of a Near-Earth Asteroid passing by Earth. Credit: ESA

The era of renewed space exploration has led to some rather ambitious proposals. While many have been on the books for decades, it has only been in recent years that some of these plans have become technologically feasible. A good example is asteroid mining, where robotic spacecraft would travel to Near-Earth Asteroids and the Main Asteroid Belt to harvest minerals and other resources.

At the moment, one of the main challenges is how these craft would be able to get around and refuel once they are in space. To address this, the New York-based company Honeybee Robotics has teemed up with the University of Central Florida (UFC) to develop a steam-powered robotic spacecraft. The company recently released a demonstration video that shows their prototype World is Not Enough (WINE) “steam hopper” in action.

December 4, 2018December 4, 2018 by nextbigfuture

Building Gas Stations and McMurdo Scale Outposts on the Moon

When you go on a camping trip, when is it really tough? When are you really roughing it?

It is really tough if there is no supply store and no facilities at the place you are going. If you have to bring everything with you in your car then that makes it tougher.

If there is a gas station, running water and cabins for rent, then it becomes more like a rest stop on the highway.

The moon is a continent-sized place that is cold and difficult. The Moon has frozen ice. What do we do when we seriously want to research a remote continent-sized place that is cold and difficult. The example of that is Antarctica. Antarctica has McMurdo Station and dozens of other research stations.

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November 16, 2018 by Evan Gough

Lunar Outpost Shows off their New Rover that will Crawl the Moon, Searching for Resources

The space technology start-up Lunar Outpost has unveiled their Lunar Prospector rover, which is designed to explore the Moon for resources. Image: Lunar Outpost

Space technology company Lunar Outpost has unveiled their new Lunar Prospector rover that will explore the surface of the Moon to search for and map resources. The Lunar Prospector is designed to drill for and analyze sub-surface samples. The first of the smallish robots was recently demonstrated on simulated Lunar regolith at the Colorado School of Mines.
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November 15, 2018 by nextbigfuture

Going 1 Million Miles per Hour With Advanced Propulsion

Advanced propulsion breakthroughs are near. Spacecraft have been stuck at slow chemical rocket speeds for years and weak ion drive for decades. However, speeds over one million miles per hour before 2050 are possible. There are surprising new innovations with technically feasible projects.

NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) is funding two high potential concepts. New ion drives could have ten times better in terms of ISP and power levels ten thousand times higher. Antimatter propulsion and multi-megawatt ion drives are being developed.

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October 25, 2018October 25, 2018 by Evan Gough

Here You Go, It’s Official: Space Force. Seriously Though, Why Couldn’t they have Called it Star Fleet?

Members of the National Space Council are seen during the council's first meeting, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017 at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

Space Force is here. For real. The President said he was going to create it, and now the White House has released some details on this new branch of the US armed forces.

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