Posted on by Jason Rhian

Book Review: Martian Summer

Martian Summer is an outsider's inside perspective of the Mars Phoenix Lander mission to the red planet's North Pole. Photo Credit: Pegasus Books

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The Mars Phoenix Lander has long since gone quiet on the frigid, dusty plains of Mars. Its legacy however remains. It will go down as the first mission to land in the Martian Polar Regions, the first to be led primarily by a University.

The University of Arizona took the lead on the mission with Peter Smith being the Mars Phoenix lander’s Principle Investigator or “PI.” Andrew Kessler was brought onto the Phoenix team to help promote Phoenix to the public. It was a controversial decision.

The media, by-and-large tends to focus on accidents, explosions or other failures. Given that Phoenix accomplished its objectives with nary a wrinkle – it is not hard to understand why the media paid it little attention. One need only look at the lander’s cousin, the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity – who has been largely forgotten by the press – despite the fact that it has been working on the red planet for the past seven years (even though it was only slated to last 90 days).

The Mars Phoenix Lander thundered off of Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Space Launch Complex 17 in the summer of 2007. About nine months later - it landed on the surface of Mars. Image Credit: NASA/JPL

One of the things that no media outlet wants to see is one of their employees repeatedly make what are known as “fact errors.” These can be as large as gross misrepresentations, or in this case, as small as not knowing the correcting spelling or pronunciation of an individual’s name. In this case, it was someone well-known in “space” circles, Keith Cowing — not “Cowling” as the author repeatedly states – even in the book’s index. Kessler could have easily verified the correct spelling by going to NASAWatch.com or by picking up a copy of New Moon Rising. Apparently he did neither.

The importance of this is simple. If he got something this simple wrong, what about the larger topics the book discusses? The author was sure to mention that his work has appeared on The Discovery Channel and The New York Times. One would think such respectable media outlets would ensure journalists made sure their work was free of fact-errors, especially since a portion of the book is spent assailing the work of other journalists.

Phoenix became the first spacecraft to be imaged in the process of landing on another world. This picture clearly captures the lander, still in its aeroshell, under parachute and on its way to the ground. This picture was taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's HiRISE camera. Photo Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

One might ask, “Why so harsh?” Simply put, Kessler has massive potential. His writing style is easy to read and is perfectly suited for the general public. Kessler is a great writer and makes a complex subject accessible to all. He also makes it interesting, adding personal reflections and witticisms that other authors don’t. But glaring errors has the reader wondering about the author’s veracity.

But in Martian Summer, Kessler does provide a behind-the-scenes glimpse of what was going on during his time with the Mars Phoenix Lander project. It highlights the difficulties involved with mastering numerous skills required to reach another world. More importantly, it opens the door to the sheer wonder of it all.

Mars Phoenix Lander's landing site at the Martian North Pole. The inset image was taken by MRO some time after the lander fell silent. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Martian Summer is published by Pegasus Books and it weighs in at 352 pages (with 16 of them filled with color images). It details how Phoenix rose up out of the ashes that was the Mars Polar Lander and would go on to discover what may be an ocean of ice under the Martian North Pole. Phoenix was the first spacecraft to be imaged as it landed on the surface of another world. In all, it was an amazing mission that was supposed to last for 90 Martian “sols” – but went on to work for 155 sols.

Kessler works to remind us of the magic of spaceflight and exploration in a manner we can all understand. If you want an accurate scientific description – you won’t find it here (Kessler says so himself in the Author’s Note). What you will find is a peek behind the curtain at what makes a mission to Mars work – in all of its quirky glory.

NASA is currently planning to launch the next mission to Mars, the Mars Science Laboratory or MSL, next week on Nov. 25 at 10:21 a.m. EDT. Image Credit: NASA/JPL
Posted on by Tammy Plotner

The Way Cool Clouds Of The Carina Nebula

The APEX observations, made with its LABOCA camera, are shown here in orange tones, combined with a visible light image from the Curtis Schmidt telescope at the Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory. The result is a dramatic, wide-field picture that provides a spectacular view of Carina’s star formation sites. The nebula contains stars equivalent to over 25 000 Suns, and the total mass of gas and dust clouds is that of about 140 000 Suns.

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It’s beautiful…. But it’s cold. By utilizing the submillimetre-wavelength of light, the 12 meter APEX telescope has imaged the frigid, dusty clouds of star formation in the Carina Nebula. Here, some 7500 light-years away, unrestrained stellar creation produces some of the most massive stars known to our galaxy… a picturesque petri dish in which we can monitor the interaction between the neophyte suns and their spawning molecular clouds.

By examining the region in submillimetre light through the eyes of the LABOCA camera on the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) telescope on the plateau of Chajnantor in the Chilean Andes, a team of astronomers led by Thomas Preibisch (Universitäts–Sternwarte München, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Germany), in close cooperation with Karl Menten and Frederic Schuller (Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, Bonn, Germany), have been able to pick apart the faint heat signature of cosmic dust grains. These tiny particles are cold – about minus 250 degrees C – and can only be detected at these extreme, long wavelengths. The APEX LABOCA observations are shown here in orange tones, combined with a visible light image from the Curtis Schmidt telescope at the Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory.

This amalgamate image reveals the Carina nebula in all its glory. Here we see stars with mass exceeding 25,000 sun-like stars embedded in dust clouds with six times more mass. The yellow star in the upper left of the image – Eta Carinae – is 100 times the mass of the Sun and the most luminous star known. It is estimated that within the next million years or so, it will go supernova, taking its neighbors with it. But for all the tension in this region, only a small part of the gas in the Carina Nebula is dense enough to trigger more star formation. What’s the cause? The reason may be the massive stars themselves…

With an average life expectancy of just a few million years, high-mass stars have a huge impact on their environment. While initially forming, their intense stellar winds and radiation sculpt the gaseous regions surrounding them and may sufficiently compress the gas enough to trigger star birth. As their time closes, they become unstable – shedding off material until the time of supernova. When this intense release of energy impacts the molecular gas clouds, it will tear them apart at short range, but may trigger star-formation at the periphery – where the shock wave has a lesser impact. The supernovae could also spawn short-lived radioactive atoms which could become incorporated into the collapsing clouds that could eventually produce a planet-forming solar nebula.

Then things will really heat up!

Original Story Source: ESO News Release.

Posted on by Ken Kremer

Shenzhou-8 lands after China’s 1st Space Docking propelling Ambitious Human Spaceflight Agenda

The re-entry capsule of the Shenzhou-8 spacecraft is found at a landing site located

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China’s historic first docking mission in space ended in a complete success today (Nov. 17) following the safe landing of the unmanned Shenzhou-8 in Inner Mongolia. Today’s landing will robustly propel China’s space program forward and sets the stage for an ambitious agenda of human spaceflight missions in 2012 to the Tiangong-1 Space Lab and eventually to a hefty 100 ton Earth orbiting Space Station to be assembled by 2020.

Shenzhou-8 was launched to low Earth orbit on Nov. 1 atop a Long March 2F booster from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert and successfully conducted China’s first ever rendezvous and docking mission in space with the nation’s Tiangong-1 Space Lab module on Nov. 3 while orbiting some 343 kilometers in altitude above Earth.

Gen. Chang Wanquan, the Commander in Chief of China’s human spaceflight program said, “The Shenzhou-8 capsule has safely returned to the main landing site at Inner Mongolia and the Tiangong-1/Shenzhou-8 rendezvous and docking mission has achieved full success!”

The re-entry capsule of Shenzhou-8 spacecraft after landing in Inner Mongolia on Nov. 17,2011.

Chang leads the China Manned Space Engineering (CMSE) Project, the nation’s human spaceflight program. He is the Commanding Officer of the Tiangong-1/Shenzhou-8 Rendezvous and Docking Mission Headquarters, and director of the PLA (Peoples Liberation Army) General Armaments Department. The People Liberation Army directs China’s human spaceflight program.

Shenzhou-8 landed today at 7:30 pm. Beijing time in central Asia after flying nearly 17 days in earth orbit. Recovery crews reached the capsule within a few minutes of the parachute assisted touchdown.

Most of the flight was spent linked up to the Tiangong-1 Space Lab module – China’s first prototype space station.

Graphic shows the procedure of rendezvous and docking of Shenzhou-8 spacecraft and Tiangong-1 space lab module. Credit: Xinhua/Lu Zhe

After 12 days of joint orbital operations, Shenzhou-8 carried out a 2nd docking test to enable Chinese space engineers and mission controllers to gain further practice and experience in mastering the complex techniques involved in rendezvous and docking in space.

Shenzhou-8 disengaged from Tiangong-1 on Nov. 14, backed off to a distance of 140 meters (460 ft) and then carried out a re-docking about 30 minutes later. Controllers at the Beijing Aerospace Control Center monitored systems as Shenzhou-8 automatically re-approached Tiangong-1 for the second link up.

The main purpose of the second docking test was to confirm the performance of the rendezvous and docking procedures and hardware on Shenzhou-8 and Tiangong-1 under conditions of the glare of sunlight which are different compared to nighttime conditions of the first docking attempt.

Although the Shenzhou-8 flew unmanned during this flight, the capsule was fully human rated – even food and water are stored on board to simulate the presence of a human crew.

Today’s success sets the stage for possibly two Chinese manned missions to follow in 2012, namely Shenzhou-9 and Shenzhou-10.

Each Shenzhou can carry two or three astronauts. One of the missions is highly likely to include the first female Chinese astronaut.

China's unmanned spacecraft Shenzhou-8 landed by parachute in north China Thursday evening, Nov. 17

Read Ken’s features about Shenzhou-8 & Tiangong-1
China completes 2nd Docking to Space Lab and sets Path to Manned flights in 2012
China Technology Surges Forward with Spectacular First Docking in Space
China launches Shenzhou-8 bound for Historic 1st Docking in Space
Shenzhou-8 rolled out for Blastoff to China’s 1st Space Station on November 1
Bizarre Video: China’s Tiangong 1 Space Lab Animation set to ‘America the Beautiful’ Soundtrack
China Blasts First Space Lab Tiangong 1 to Orbit
China set to ‘Leap Forward in Space’ as Tiangong 1 Rolls to Launch Pad

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

It’s Been a Stormy Year on Saturn (and Cassini’s been there to watch!)

Saturn's northern storm marches through the planet's atmosphere in the top right of this false-color mosaic from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

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Nearly a year ago a small, bright white storm emerged on Saturn’s northern hemisphere. This storm has now wrapped around the planet, creating a colossal atmospheric disturbance that has become the largest storm seen on the planet since 1990. And the Cassini spacecraft has been there to see it all.

“It is the singular distinction of being in orbit, and able to turn a scrutinizing eye wherever it is needed, that has allowed us to be present to witness this extraordinary phenomenon,” said Carolyn Porco, the Cassini Imaging Team Leader. “The storm has spread to become a planet-encircling colossus, a wide kaleidoscopic band of commingled waves, vortices, and eddies, all in continuous swirling motion …. a mesmerizing display of snaking, sensuous, churning, turning, chaotic, roiling atmospheric turmoil.”

If Porco sounds like she’s waxing poetic, she has good reason. The images put out by the Cassini imaging team today are a “sublime visual extravaganza,” and both true and false color images are gorgeous to behold.

This is nearly true-color view by Cassini of the storm. Credit: Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

The huge storm extends around Saturn’s northern hemisphere and from north to south spread approximately 9,000 miles, or 15,000 kilometers. It has become the largest observed on Saturn in the past 21 years, and the largest by far ever observed on the planet from an interplanetary spacecraft. What timing for Cassini to be there!

“Seven years of chasing such opportunities across the solar system’s most magnificent planetary system have already made Cassini one of the most scientifically productive planetary missions ever flown,” said Porco on the CICLOPS website. “And with any luck, there’ll be a great deal more to come.”

These false-color mosaics from NASA's Cassini spacecraft chronicle the changing appearance of the huge storm that developed from a small spot in Saturn's northern hemisphere. Here Cassini captures the changes over the short time span of one Saturn day; the two images were taken 11 hours apart. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Cassini has taken hundreds of images of this storm as part of the imaging team’s “Saturn Storm Watch” campaign. Cassini has been able to take quick looks at the storm in between other scheduled observations, of either Saturn or its rings and moons.

Other instruments on Cassini have detected the storm’s electrical activity and revealed it to be a convective thunderstorm. Its active convecting phase ended in late June, but the turbulent clouds it created linger in the atmosphere today.

“The Saturn storm is more like a volcano than a terrestrial weather system,” said Andrew Ingersoll, a Cassini imaging team member at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif. “The pressure builds up for many years before the storm erupts. The mystery is that’s there’s no rock to resist the pressure – to delay the eruption for so many years.”

This storm’s 200-day active period makes it the longest-lasting planet-encircling storm ever seen on Saturn. The previous record holder was an outburst sighted in 1903 which lingered for 150 days. The large disturbance imaged 21 years ago by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope was comparable in size to the current storm. That 1990 storm lasted for only 55 days.

This series of images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft shows the development of the largest storm seen on the planet since 1990. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institut

See more images and animations of the storm at the CICLOPS imaging website.

Sources: CICLOPS, NASA

Posted on by Jason Major

MRO Spots Martian Dunes in Motion

The dark sand of this barchan dune changes position between June 15, 2008 and May 21, 2010. (Click to play.)

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The benefit of long-term observations from orbit became evident today with the release of images from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter showing the subtly shifting motion of large sand dunes on the red planet, proving that the surface of Mars is much more dynamic than previously believed!

The atmosphere of Mars is extremely thin – only 1% as dense as Earth’s. This means that Martian winds would seem barely perceptible to a human, and has to blow at high speeds to move even the smallest particles on its surface.

Although scientists have known that Mars contains many dunes and vast expanses of sandy regions it has been assumed that these features must move very slowly – if at all – due to the thin air.

“We used to think of the sand on Mars as relatively immobile, so these new observations are changing our whole perspective.”

– Nathan Bridges, lead author

A rippled dune near Herschel crater undulates in the thin Martian wind. (Click to play.)

Now, images taken at different intervals by the MRO’s HiRISE camera have been seen to clearly show the shifting motion of several large sand dune features (called bedforms) in various locations on Mars.

“Mars either has more gusts of wind than we knew about before, or the winds are capable of transporting more sand,” said Nathan Bridges, planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory and lead author of a paper published online in the journal Geology. “We used to think of the sand on Mars as relatively immobile, so these new observations are changing our whole perspective.”

Sandy particles on Earth that could be moved by a 10 mph breeze would require an 80 mph gust of Martian wind. Weather data and climate models have shown that such winds should be rare on Mars; these recent findings by MRO indicate that either high-speed winds are more common than once thought or else they are more capable of moving sand around… or a combination of both!

Not all of Mars’ dunes are so restless, though. The study showed that there are regions that show no movement.

“The sand dunes where we didn’t see movement today could have larger grains, or perhaps their surface layers are cemented together,” Bridges said. “These studies show the benefit of long-term monitoring at high resolution.”

Ten years ago the belief was that dunes on Mars are either static or move too slowly to detect. Thanks to MRO and the HiRISE team – and the authors of this new paper – we now know that idea is all just dust in the wind.

Read more on the NASA MRO news release.

 

Image credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Ariz./JHUAPL

Posted on by Tammy Plotner

Do Galaxies Recycle Their Material?

Distant quasars shine through the gas-rich "fog" of hot plasma encircling galaxies. At ultraviolet wavelengths, Hubble's Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) is sensitive to absorption from many ionized heavy elements, such as nitrogen, oxygen, and neon. COS's high sensitivity allows many galaxies that happen to lie in front of the much more distant quasars. The ionized heavy elements serve as proxies for estimating how much mass is in a galaxy's halo. (Credit: NASA; ESA; A. Feild, STScI)

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It’s a great question that’s now been validated by the Hubble Space Telescope. Recent observations have shown how galaxies are able to recycle huge amounts of hydrogen gas and heavy elements within themselves. In a process which begins at initial star formation and lasts for billions of years, galaxies renew their own energy sources.

Thanks to the HST’s Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS), scientists have now been able to investigate the Milky Way’s halo region along with forty other galaxies. The combined data includes instruments from large ground-based telescopes in Hawaii, Arizona and Chile whose goal was determine galaxy properties. In this colorful instance, the shape and spectra of each individual galaxy would appear to be influenced by gas flow through the halo in a type of “gas-recycling phenomenon”. The results are being published in three papers in the November 18 issue of Science magazine. The leaders of the three studies are Nicolas Lehner of the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind.; Jason Tumlinson of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md.; and Todd Tripp of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

The focus of the research centered on distant stars whose spectra illuminated influxing gas clouds as they pass through the galactic halo. This is the basis of continual star formation, where huge pockets of hydrogen contain enough fuel to ignite a hundred million stars. But not all of this gas is just “there”. A substantial portion is recycled by both novae and supernovae events – as well as star formation itself. It not only creates, but “replenishes”.

The color and shape of a galaxy is largely controlled by gas flowing through an extended halo around it. All modern simulations of galaxy formation find that they cannot explain the observed properties of galaxies without modeling the complex accretion and "feedback" processes by which galaxies acquire gas and then later expel it after chemical processing by stars. Hubble spectroscopic observations show that galaxies like our Milky Way recycle gas while galaxies undergoing a rapid starburst of activity will lose gas into intergalactic space and become "red and dead." (Credit: NASA; ESA; A. Feild, STScI)

However, this process isn’t unique to the Milky Way. Hubble’s COS observations have recorded these recycling halos around energetic star-forming galaxies, too. These heavy metal halos are reaching out to distances of up to 450,000 light years outside the visible portions of their galactic disks. To capture such far-reaching evidence of galactic recycling wasn’t an expected result. According to the Hubble Press Release, COS measured 10 million solar masses of oxygen in a galaxy’s halo, which corresponds to about one billion solar masses of gas – as much as in the entire space between stars in a galaxy’s disk.

So what did the research find and how was it done? In galaxies with rapid star formation, the gases are expelled outward at speed of up to two million miles per hour – fast enough to be ejected to the point of no return – and with it goes mass. This confirms the theories of how a spiral galaxy could eventually evolve into an elliptical. Since the light from this hot plasma isn’t within the visible spectrum, the COS used quasars to reveal the spectral properties of the halo gases. Its extremely sensitive equipment was able to detect the presence of heavy elements, such as nitrogen, oxygen, and neon – indicators of mass of a galaxy’s halo.

So what happens when a galaxy isn’t “green”? According to these new observations, galaxies which have ceased star formation no longer have gas. Apparently, once the recycling process stops, stars will only continue to form for as long as they have fuel. And once it’s gone?

It’s gone forever…

Original Story Source: Hubble Space Telescope News Release.

Posted on by Tammy Plotner

Cosmic Particle Accelerators – Let’s Dance!

Depicted in the composition are: a bow shock around the very young star, LL Ori, in the Great Orion Nebula (upper row, left image); shock waves around the Red Spider Nebula, a warm planetary nebula (upper row, central image); very thin shocks on the edge of the expanding supernova remnant SN 1006 (central row, left image); artist's impressions of the bow shock created by the Solar System as it moves through the interstellar medium of the Milky Way (upper row, right image) and of Earth's bow shock, formed by the solar wind as it encounters our planet's magnetic field (central row, right image); shock-heated shells of hot gas on the edge of the lobes of the radio galaxy Cygnus A (lower row, left image); a bow shock in the hot gas in the merging galaxy cluster 1E 0657-56, also known as the 'Bullet Cluster'.

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Are you ready to dance with a new discovery? ESA’s Cluster satellites are playing the tune of cosmic particle acceleration – and it’s more efficient than speculated. Now we’re taking a look at the beginnings of universal motion. By embracing a wide variety of astronomical targetry, the images are revealing shock waves where supersonic flows of plasma encounter everything from a slow flow to an irresistible force.

What sets things in motion? When it comes to particle accelerators, something needs to set it off. Here on Earth, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) located at Cern uses a bank of smaller machines for giving rise to the charged particles before introducing them into the mainstream. In space, cosmic rays act as this “mainstream”, but they aren’t very efficient at setting the particles going initially. Now the ESA Cluster mission has revealed what could be ” natural particle accelerators of space”.

While cruising through a magnetic shock wave, the four Cluster satellites found themselves perfectly lined up with the magnetic field. This perfect chance alignment was a revelation – allowing the mission to sample the event with incredible accuracy on a very short timescale – one of 250 milliseconds or less. What surfaced from the investigation was the realization that the electrons heated rapidly, a state which contributes to acceleration on a greater scale. While this type of action had been speculated before, it hadn’t been observed or proved. No one really knew about the process or the size of the shock layers. With this new data, Steven J. Schwartz of the Imperial College London, and his colleagues were able to estimate the thickness of the shock layer – a significant advancement in understanding, because a thinner layer means faster acceleration.

“With these observations, we found that the shock layer is about as thin as it can possibly be,” says Professor Schwartz.

So just how skinny is this dance partner? Scientists had originally estimated the shock layers above Earth to be no more than 100 km, but the satellite information showed them to be about 17 km… a very fine detail!

Artist's impression of the four Cluster spacecraft flying through the thin layer of Earth's bow shock. The crossing, which took place on 9 January 2005, showed that the shock's width was only about 17 kilometres across.

This type of knowledge is significant simply because shocks exists universally – originating virtually everywhere a flow encounters an obstacle or another flow. For example, here in the Solar System the Sun generates a speedy, electrically charged stellar wind. When it runs headlong into a magnetic field – such as generated by Earth – it creates a shock wave located in front of the planet. Through the Cluster mission studies, we can apply what we learn here at home and extrapolate it on a grander scale – such as those created by supernovae events, black holes and galaxies. It might even reveal the origin of cosmic rays!

“This new result reveals the size of the proverbial ‘black box’, constraining the possible mechanisms within it involved in accelerating particles,” says Matt Taylor, ESA Cluster project scientist. “Yet again, Cluster has provided us with a clear insight into a physical process that occurs throughout the Universe.”

Come on, baby. Let’s dance…

Original Story Source: ESA News Release.

Posted on by Jason Rhian

Massive Motion – NASA’s Mobile Launcher Moves to Launch Pad

NASA's Mobile Launcher (ML) begins its long (and slow) trek to Launch Complex-39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Photo Credit: Alan Walters/awaltersphoto.com

Video of Mobile Launcher on its move out to Launch Complex 39B courtesy of Alan Walters/awaltersphoto.com

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla – NASA decided that its Mobile Launcher (ML) needed a bit of a shakedown cruise – so it took it on a trip to Launch Complex – 39B (LC-39B). Along the way it stopped and reviewed data as to how the massive tower fared as it lumbered along at the blistering pace of a mile-an-hour. This does not make for riveting must-see video – unless you speed it up.

In the roughly minute-long video the ML moves along at a (somewhat) faster pace. The ML is part of the space agency’s plans to return NASA to the business of space exploration once again. If all goes according to plan, the ML will be the platform used to launch NASA’s Space Launch System or SLS.

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As with so many aspects of space exploration, there is a type of art that flows from even the least aesthetic blocky components that are used to lift Heaven and Earth. For those with the right eye, even a metallic tower has a beauty all its own.

That is exactly what aerospace photographer Alan Walters does – find the path to let an object’s inner beauty shine through. The burly photographer has an artist’s eye and loves sharing the awe of all manners of space flight and spacecraft processing.

On Wednesday one of the most emotional aspects of the journey to the launch pad – was the resemblance of some of the images – to those shot during the Apollo era. This imagery could well be prescient as NASA is passing the responsibility of delivering crew and cargo to the International Space Station to commercial space firms as it turns its focus on launching crews to points beyond low-Earth-orbit.

In an image that is eerily similar to shots taken during the moonshots of the late 1960s and early 1970s NASA's Mobile Launcher moves out to Launch Complex-39B on Nov. 16, 2011. Photo Credit: Alan walters/awaltersphoto.com

The ML moved from next to Kennedy Space Center’s (KSC) Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) to LC-39B to collect data from structural and functional engineering tests. Any relevant data that is gleaned from the journey will be used to modify the ML. The 355-foot-tall ML is being developed to support NASA’s exploration objectives.

“To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from the move,” Walters said. “After the thing got moving, I began having Apollo flashbacks and I got more and more into photographing and getting video of this event. It made me hopeful about what we might be seeing fly out of Kennedy (Space Center) in the years to come.”

Spiraling upward into the sky, the Mobile Launcher rises some 355 feet into the air and could one day be the platform from which astronauts launch to visit other worlds. Photo Credit: Alan Walters/awaltersphoto.com
Posted on by Daniel Sims

Could We Soon See the End of ITAR’s Chokehold on Space Exploration?

GPS Satellite
According to a new proposal, GPS satellites may be the key to finding dark matter. Credit: NASA

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Jeff Foust of The Space Review may have said it best when he claimed that ITAR, a set of trade regulations regarding defense-related trade, was “an acronym that has become figuratively and literally a four-letter word in the industry given the costs, delays, and general uncertainty involved in dealing with those regulations.” No matter where you are on the political spectrum or no matter where you stand on the debate about what’s next in space, you will find people who hate the ITAR’s (International Trade Arms Regulations International Traffic in Arms Regulations) influence on space commerce. Even in this time of great partisanship, Rep. Howard Berman [D-CA28] along with six Democrats and four Republicans have joined forces to craft a sword that, once given to the president will eliminate ITAR’s influence on space commercial enterprise.

The Safeguarding United States Satellite Leadership and Security Act of 2011 is the name of the bill. Also named HR 3288, the act removes spacecraft and related components from the United States Munitions List which is a list of items which are controlled by ITAR. China, Cuba, Iran, Sudan, Syria, and North Korea have restricted access to US spacecraft merchants, easing fears that US technology would fall into the wrong hands.

HR 3288 has created much excitement in the space industry.

“Congress has the opportunity to dramatically improve the competitiveness of the U.S. satellite and space industries and ensure an innovative and thriving U.S. space industrial base,” said Patricia Cooper, the president of the Satellite Industry Association, in a press release. She added that they would be jumping for joy if it weren’t for the “outmoded and overly-restrictive regulation” they say they are under.

Why so much joy? Mitchell Baroody, political analyst, advocate, speaker and told Universe Today that “while ITAR may have some positive effects on National Security, the detrimental effects of these ‘red tape-laced’ regulations cannot be ignored.”

For instance, according to The Space Review in 2006, U.S. Satellite Manufacturers have estimated losses from ‘$2.5 and $6.0 billion since 1999 due primarily to ITAR regulations.’

“When industries become over-regulated, this is what happens,” Barody said. “As a result of ITAR, even…‘friendly’ foreign countries are weary of dealing with the U.S.”

This makes it difficult for our allies because spacecraft are listed after deadly toxicological agents and before destructive nuclear weapons with all three under the same trade rules. Despite this hilarious position, spacecraft’s removal is still, according to Space Politics, “an uphill battle, as Congress awaits the administration’s export control reform proposals as well as delivery of a final version of a report looking at the national security implications of moving satellite export control reform.”

This uphill struggle against protectionism might not be so bad because over the overwhelming need to create jobs. Baroody acknowledged that there are “many who are advocating protectionist ideals, like Donald Trump advocating increased trade tariffs of 25% with China in April of 2011.”

However, Baroody said, there are many more who know that in the present American economy, people are looking for any feasible solution to export control that has economic benefits. “Unfortunately, becoming more protectionist could have some very negative economic implications for the American consumer,” he said.

Baroody does not foresee this bill being stopped by the protectionist movement. “HR 3288 does not, in any way, benefit the one country who has been treating us unfairly, China,” he said. “This bill should not face an obstacle, in reference to protectionism.”

To Baroody, the thought “that idealists tendencies, which are not accurate, can dominate and win over more jobs, more freedom for American business, and more money in the pockets of Americans is…sickening.”

Some could counter-claim saying national security is at risk, but Baroody thinks the US government has gone too far.

“Before the satellite industry was given such a devastating blow in 1999, it is fair to say there was not enough oversight. However, putting satellites on the munitions list went way too far,” he said. “Now, American Manufacturers are winning with HR 3288 and American security is being preserved because the malevolent nations are excluded from being sold these satellites and components.”

Drilling down to the mechanics of the law, this is the only route Congress can take to export reform as Baroody explains: “Title 22 USC § 2778 (The ITAR) gives Congress oversight in munitions list removal. The President has to present any removals to Congress and cannot remove anything until 30 days have passed upon notification of the Speaker and specific committees. They specifically authorized the President to have discretion in removal. In HR 3288, Congress authorizes the President to remove the satellites and related components only if this does not cause a threat to National security.” In other words, congress can’t remove the spacecraft from the munitions list themselves.”

The Safeguarding United States Satellite Leadership and Security Act of 2011 is not perfect. “The bill includes risk-mitigating licensing controls, procedures, and safeguards,” Baroody said. “Red-tape and regulations are always going to get in the way of commerce, regardless of whether it involves space or some other category of commerce. If you put aside the risk mitigating licensing controls, procedures, and safeguards and look at America’s tax system, the answer is obvious.”

“The red-tape a company has to go through to get a product to market, like a satellite, can also be just as bad as paying more for it,” Baroody continued. “Having to paddle through the exorbitant amount of regulations to ensure you are legally allowed to sell your product and your buyer is allowed to keep it, is detrimental to every business. We should have regulations, but they should be within reason and should make sense. Government should not babysit our industries but they should keep an eye on them to make sure no one is getting hurt and the American people are being reasonably protected”.

This bill even has international implications. In an interview for The Space Review Dennis Burnett, vice president of trade and export controls for EADS North America expressed that “You cannot build a big sophisticated satellite without US parts and components, you just cannot do it…Those components might comprise no more than five percent of the satellite, but still, it’s a very important five percent.”

Because of this international impact, the bill was referred to the Foreign Affairs Committee on November 1st. This so called ‘Congress of specialists’ will, if they give the bill their time, study the bill then report on it. If the committee doesn’t give the bill their time, it will die there. Only after the committee’s review will there be a vote on the elimination of the ITAR.