Posted on by Fraser Cain

NASA Loans Out Columbia Debris

Image credit: CAIB
The first pieces of Space Shuttle Columbia debris, loaned to a non-governmental agency for testing and research, are on their way from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Fla., to The Aerospace Corporation in El Segundo, Calif.

The Aerospace Corporation requested and will receive graphite/epoxy honeycomb skins from an Orbital Maneuvering System pod, Main Propulsion System Helium tanks, a Reaction Control System Helium tank and a Power Reactant Storage Distribution system tank. The company will use the parts to study re-entry effects on composite materials. NASA notified the Columbia crew’s families about the loan before releasing the items for study.

Earlier this year, Dr. Gary Steckel, senior scientist in the Materials Science Department in the Space Materials Laboratory at The Aerospace Corporation, viewed the items. “We believe these items are representative of the structural composite materials flown on Columbia. They will enable us to successfully meet our objective of calibrating analytical models for predicting reentry behavior of composite structures,” Steckel said.

Researchers believe the testing will show how materials are expected to respond to various heating and loads’ environments. The findings will help calibrate tools and models used to predict hazards to people and property from reentering hardware. The Aerospace Corporation will have the debris for one year to perform analyses to estimate maximum temperatures during reentry based upon the geometry and mass of the recovered composite.

“NASA’s mission includes the development of technologies that improve the safety and reliability of access to space,” said NASA’s Deputy Administrator Fred Gregory. “By allowing the scientific community to study Columbia debris, researchers will have the opportunity to gain unprecedented knowledge about the effects of reentry.”

The request from The Aerospace Corporation was one of several “Request for Information” applications NASA received to study Columbia debris. The eight pieces of hardware were inventoried inside the KSC Vehicle Assembly Building, where Columbia’s debris is stored and prepared for shipment.

“The idea of studying pieces of Columbia came to me in the debris hangar soon after the accident,” said Shuttle Launch Director Mike Leinbach. “It was clear to me we could learn a lot from it, and that we shouldn’t bury the debris as we did with Challenger’s.”

“To see the plan come together is personally rewarding,” Leinbach said. “I hope the technical community will learn as much as possible and put that knowledge to use to improve spacecraft and flight crew system designs in the future,” he said.

For information about NASA and return to flight efforts on the Internet, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/returntoflight

For information about The Aerospace Corporation on the Internet, visit:
http://www.aero.org/home.html

Original Source: NASA News Release

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Cosmic Hurricane in Starburst Galaxy

Image credit: U WISC
Combining images from orbiting and ground-based telescopes, an international team of astronomers has located the eye of a cosmic hurricane: the source of the 1 million mile-per-hour winds that shower intergalactic space from the galaxy M82.

Situated 10 million light years from our own galaxy, the Milky Way, M82 is one of the most studied objects in the sky. Known as a starburst galaxy for the intense, bright clusters of young stars at its heart, M82 is also characterized by massive jets of hot gas — tens of thousands of light years long — that blast into intergalactic space perpendicular to the starry plane of the galaxy.

Using images combined from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and the WIYN Telescope on Kitt Peak, Ariz., a team of astronomers from University College London and the University of Wisconsin-Madison has traced the origin of the galaxy’s “superwind” into the starburst heart of M82. The work shows that the wind is not a single entity, but is made up of multiple gas streams that expand at different rates to form a “cosmic shower” of hot gas expelled from the starburst.

The galaxy’s mighty winds, the astronomers say, were sparked by a near-miss collision with the neighboring giant spiral galaxy M81. That close encounter, according to University College London astronomer Linda Smith, set off an explosive burst of star formation.

“M82 shows intense star formation packed into dense clusters,” says Smith. “This powers plumes of hot gas that extend for tens of thousands of light years above and below the disk of the galaxy. The jets of gas from this pulsating cosmic shower are traveling at more than a million miles an hour into intergalactic space.”

The emphasis of the new work, according to UW-Madison astronomer Jay Gallagher, was on the powerful high-temperature winds of M82 and using the Hubble and WIYN observations in combination to view the galaxy in a new way. “The Hubble and the WIYN data give us a new overall view of the M82 superwind stretching from deep within the starburst into intergalactic space.”

The challenge of the new observations lay in visualizing data covering enormous distances and a huge range in brightness, says Mark Westmoquette, a graduate student at University College London.

“We solved this by overlaying the sharp images from Hubble that cover the inner galaxy, where resolving key details is critical, on top of WIYN data that show the extended wind,” Westmoquette explains. “This approach allowed us to connect inner and outer features with specific sites of star formation.”

Westmoquette likened the exercise to tracing widely dispersed plumes of industrial smoke back to the smokestack from which it originated.

“Just as in the terrestrial case, understanding the flow of chemically enriched matter from galaxies into diffuse intergalactic space requires maps extending from the source to where the plume is lost,” Westmoquette says. “It is a challenge for astronomers.”

In addition to NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, data for the group’s observations were obtained from the 3.5-meter WIYN Telescope at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona. The observatory is supported by the National Science Foundation and a consortium of American universities, including UW-Madison.

Original Source: UW-Madison

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Closest Asteroid to the Sun Found

Image credit: NASA/JPL
The ongoing search for near-Earth asteroids at Lowell Observatory has yielded another interesting object. Designated 2004 JG6, this asteroid was found in the course of LONEOS (the Lowell Observatory Near-Earth Object Search) on the evening of May 10 by observer Brian Skiff.

“I immediately noticed the unusual motion,” said Skiff, “so it was certain that it was of more than ordinary interest.” He quickly reported it to the Minor Planet Center (MPC) in Cambridge MA, which acts as an international clearinghouse for asteroid and comet discoveries. The MPC then posted it on a Web page for verification by astronomers worldwide. It happened that all the initial follow up observations, however, were obtained by amateur and professional observers in the Southwest US. The additional sky positions measured in the ensuing few days allowed an orbit to be calculated.

The official discovery announcement and preliminary orbit were published by the MPC on May 13. This showed that the object was located between Earth and Venus (presently the very bright “evening star” in the western sky). In addition, 2004 JG6 goes around the Sun in just six months, making it the asteroid with the shortest known orbital period. Ordinary asteroids are located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, roughly two to four times farther from the Sun than Earth, taking several years to go around the Sun.

Instead, 2004 JG6 orbits entirely within Earth’s orbit, only the second object so far found to do so. “What makes this asteroid unique is that, on average, it is the second closest solar system object orbiting the Sun,” said Edward Bowell, LONEOS Director. Only planet Mercury orbits closer to the Sun.

As shown in the included diagram, JG6 crosses the orbits of Venus and Mercury, passing less than 30 million miles from the Sun every six months. The approximate average orbital speed of this asteroid is more than 30 km/sec, or 67,000 miles per hour. Depending on their locations, the asteroid may pass as close as 3.5 million miles from Earth and about 2 million miles from planet Mercury. In the coming weeks 2004 JG6 will pass between Earth and the Sun, just inside Earth’s orbit. It will move through the constellations Cancer and Canis Minor low in the western sky at dusk. Because of the near-exact six-month period, the asteroid should be observable again in nearly the same spot in the sky next May, having gone around the Sun twice while Earth will have made only one circuit.

From present estimates, 2004 JG6 is probably between 500 meters and 1 km in diameter. Despite its proximity, the object poses no danger of colliding with Earth.

Asteroids with orbits entirely within the Earth?s orbit have been informally called “Apoheles,” from the Hawaiian word for orbit. Apohele also has Greek roots: “apo” for outside, and “heli” for Sun. Objects orbiting entirely within Earth?s orbit are thought by dynamicist William F. Bottke of Southwest Research Institute and colleagues to comprise just two percent of the total near-Earth object population, making them rare as well as difficult to discover. This is because they stay in the daylight sky almost all of the time. There may exist about 50 Apoheles of comparable size to or larger than 2004 JG6, but many of them are certain to be unobservable from the ground.

The first asteroid found entirely inside Earth?s orbit was 2003 CP20, found just over a year ago by the NASA-funded Lincoln Laboratory Near-Earth Asteroid Research project, which observes near Socorro, New Mexico. Although larger than 2004 JG6, 2003 CP20 is a little more distant from the Sun.

LONEOS is one of five programs funded by NASA to search for asteroids and comets that may approach our planet closely. The NASA program?s current goal is to discover 90 percent of near-Earth asteroids larger than 1 km in diameter by 2008. There are thought to be about 1,100 such asteroids.

Original Source: Lowell Observatory News Release

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Asteroids Change Colour With Age

Image credit: NASA
In an article published today in the journal Nature, a team led by Robert Jedicke of the University of Hawaii?s Institute for Astronomy provides convincing evidence that asteroids change color as they age.

David Nesvorny, a team member from the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, CO, used a variety of methods to estimate asteroid ages that range from 6 million up to 3 billion years. Accurate color measurements for over 100,000 asteroids were obtained by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), and catalogued by team members Zeljko Ivezic from the University of Washington and Mario Juric from Princeton University.

Robert Whiteley, a team member from the USAF Space and Missile Systems Center in Los Angeles, points out that ?the age-color correlation we found explains a long-standing discrepancy between the colors of the most numerous meteorites known as ordinary chondrites (OC) and their presumed asteroid progenitors.? Meteorites are chips of asteroids and comets that have fallen to Earth?s surface.

According to Jedicke, ?If you were given a piece of rock from the Grand Canyon, you might expect that it would be red, like the colorful pictures in travel magazines. You?d be forgiven for questioning its origin if the rock had a bluish color. But if you were then told that the rocks turn from blue to Grand Canyon red because of the effects of weather, then everything might make sense. Your gift is simply a fresh piece of exposed rock, whereas the pictures you?ve seen show weathered cliff faces millions of years old.?

Nesvorny explains that this is similar to the situation experienced by asteroid astronomers. ?The meteorites are gifts of the solar system to scientists on Earth?pieces of asteroids delivered to their own backyard. The mystery is that the OC meteorites have a bluish color relative to the reddish color of the asteroids from which they were supposedly released.? Jedicke asks, ?How could they possibly be related??

About thirty years ago, a ?space weathering? effect was proposed to explain the color change. Meteorites, whose surface is affected by their fall through Earth?s atmosphere, are usually studied in laboratories by observing their freshly cut and exposed interiors. Billions of years of exposure of the same material on the surface of an asteroid to solar and cosmic radiation and the heating effect of impacts of tiny asteroids might alter the surface color of asteroids in exactly the manner required to match the color of asteroids.

Jedicke said that they found that ?asteroids get more red with time in exactly the right manner and at the right rate to explain the mystery of the color difference between them and OC meteorites.? He added, ?Even though we have found a link between the two types of objects, we still don?t know what causes space weathering.?

Once these researchers refine their analysis by obtaining more colors of the youngest-known asteroid surfaces, it will be possible to determine the age of any asteroid from its surface color. They are currently searching for a space weathering effect on other types of asteroids in the solar system.

The Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii conducts research into galaxies, cosmology, stars, planets, and the sun. Its faculty and staff are also involved in astronomy education, deep space missions, and in the development and management of the observatories on Haleakala and Mauna Kea. Refer to http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/ for more information about the Institute.

Funding for the creation and distribution of the SDSS Archive has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Participating Institutions, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, the Japanese Monbukagakusho, and the Max Planck Society. The SDSS Web site is http://www.sdss.org/.

The SDSS is managed by the Astrophysical Research Consortium (ARC) for the Participating Institutions. The Participating Institutions are The University of Chicago, Fermilab, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Japan Participation Group, The Johns Hopkins University, Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Max-Planck-Institute for Astronomy (MPIA), the Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics (MPA), New Mexico State University, University of Pittsburgh, Princeton University, the United States Naval Observatory, and the University of Washington.

Original Source: University of Hawaii News Release

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Japanese Spacecraft Images Earth and Moon on Flyby

Image credit: JAXA
The Space Engineering Spacecraft “Hayabusa” (MUSES-C) launched on May 9, 2003, by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has been flying smoothly in a heliocentric orbit for about a year using its ion engines.
On May 19, Hayabusa came close to the Earth, and successfully carried out an earth swing-by to place it in a new elliptical orbit toward the asteroid “ITOKAWA”.

The earth swing-by is a technique to significantly change direction of an orbit and/or speed by using the Earth’s gravity without consuming onboard propellant. Hayabusa came closest to the Earth at 3:22 p.m. on May 19 (Japan Standard Time) at an altitude of approximately 3700 km.

The combination of acceleration by the ion engines and the earth swing-by performed this time was the first technological verification in the world, both in the sense of plot and implementation.
After its precise orbit is determined in a week, Hayabusa will restart its ion engines to fly toward “ITOKAWA”.
Hayabusa acquired earth images using its onboard optical navigation camera (which is for detecting a relative position to an asteroid and for scientific observations) as it neared the Earth. You can find these images at the following websites:

Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS)
http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/e/index.shtml

Original Source: JAXA News Release

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Atlas II Launches AMC-11 Satellite

Image credit: ILS
International Launch Services (ILS) marked another successful mission tonight, after its Atlas IIAS rocket placed the AMC-11 satellite into orbit for SES AMERICOM.

Both the rocket and the satellite were built by Lockheed Martin Corp. (NYSE:LMT), which is also a partner in the ILS joint venture. This was the fifth launch for ILS in 2004, four of which have been on Atlas rockets. This also was the 72nd consecutive successful launch for the Atlas vehicle family.

The Atlas IIAS rocket lifted of from Cape Canaveral?s Launch Complex 36B at 6:22 p.m. EDT (2222 GMT). The satellite, an A2100 model, was injected into a transfer orbit 28 minutes later. The AMC-11 spacecraft is a twin to AMC-10, launched in February, and together they form SES AMERICOM?s premier cable neighborhood and the platform for its HD-PRIME service.

?We?re proud to deliver another satellite on target for SES AMERICOM,? said ILS President Mark Albrecht. ?We look forward to the same success with our two Proton launches this summer with WORLDSAT 2 and AMC-15, and the AMC-16 mission scheduled for an Atlas V at the end of this year. You could say SES AMERICOM is an ILS Frequent Flyer.?

Albrecht noted the long-standing relationship shared by ILS, SES AMERICOM and its parent company, SES GLOBAL. To date ILS has launched 16 satellites for companies affiliated with SES GLOBAL, including seven for the SES AMERICOM fleet. Last month, the companies announced that three additional satellites for SES AMERICOM and SES ASTRA will be launched on ILS vehicles.

Dean Olmstead, president and CEO of SES AMERICOM, said: ?We have great confidence in ILS, as evidenced by our recent experience with the Atlas IIAS and Proton launch vehicles. We are optimistic that the two Proton launches scheduled for August and October, as well as our first Atlas V launch in December, will be just as flawless as tonight?s AMC-11 Atlas IIAS launch.?

ILS has established itself as the indisputable leader of launch services worldwide and offers the industry’s two best launch systems: Atlas and Proton. With a remarkable launch rate of 63 missions during the past three years, the Atlas and Proton launch vehicles have consistently demonstrated the reliability and flexibility that have made them the vehicles of choice. Further demonstrating ILS as the industry leader, ILS has signed more new contracts than its competitors combined over the same three-year period. By any measure, ILS is truly the global leader.

ILS is a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Russian rocket builder Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center. ILS markets and manages the missions on the Atlas rocket in the United States and on the Proton rocket at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan. ILS was formed in 1995, and is based in McLean, Va., a suburb of Washington, D.C.

Original Source: ILS News Release

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Cassini Gets Another Look at Titan

Image credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science
Cassini continues its ground-breaking observations of Saturn’s mysterious moon Titan, stealing another early peek at its haze-enshrouded surface.

The spacecraft was 29.3 million kilometers (18.2 million miles) from Titan on May 5, 2004 when the image on the left was taken through one of the narrow angle camera’s spectral filters (centered at 938 nanometers) specifically designed to penetrate the moon’s thick atmosphere. The image scale is 176 kilometers (109 miles) per pixel, an improvement in resolution of 30% over the images released on May 6. Cassini’s view of Titan now surpasses Earth-based observations in its ability to show detail.

The image has been magnified 10 times using a procedure which smoothly interpolates between pixels to create intermediate pixel values, and has been enhanced in contrast to bring out details. The mottled pattern is an artifact of the processing. The larger scale brightness variations are real. No further processing to remove the effects of the overlying atmosphere has been performed.

The superimposed coordinate system grid in the accompanying image on the right illustrates the geographical regions of the moon that are illuminated and visible, as well as the orientation of Titan — north is up and rotated 25 degrees to the left. The yellow curve marks the position of the boundary between day and night on Titan.

This image shows about one quarter of Titan’s surface, from 180 to 250 degrees West longitude, and overlaps part of the surface shown in the previous Cassini image release (PIA 05390). (That release also included a map of relative surface brightness variations on Titan as measured from images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope.) The dark northwest-southeast trending southern hemisphere feature extending from 210 degrees to 250 degrees West longitude, and the bright region to the east (right) and southeast of it at -50 degrees latitude and 180 to 230 degrees West longitude on the Hubble map, are visible again in today’s release.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA’s Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colorado.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and the Cassini imaging team home page, http://ciclops.org.

Original Source: CICLOPS News Release

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Second Interim Return to Flight Report Released

Image credit: NASA
2004-0519shuttle-sm.jpg view insert

Image credit: NASA
There have been several significant changes in NASA?s Space Shuttle return to flight effort since the last plenary meeting of the Return to Flight Task Group (RTF TG) in December. First, and most immediately, the schedule for the next launch was moved from September 2004 to March-April 2005. See Figure 1 below. This schedule change was prompted by three developments:

1. additional testing of the susceptibility of the Thermal Protection System (TPS), especially the Reinforced Carbon-Carbon, coupled with advanced analysis of the airflows around the Orbiter, External Tank (ET) and Solid Rocket Boosters indicated that the foam on a larger area of the ET should be stripped and reapplied;

2. some rudder speed brake actuators were discovered to have been incorrectly assembled during the original assembly over 20 years ago. Further, the gears in the actuators have generally suffered some damage with use and time. Therefore, all the actuators are being replaced or refurbished; and

3. design and building of a new camera/laser boom that would be used by the Space Shuttle?s robotic arm to help inspect for possible damage while in orbit.

This change in schedule means that NASA will have additional time to implement the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) return to flight recommendations before return to flight. In many cases this change also allows expected plans to be at least partially implemented. For example, the CAIB called for a detailed plan to, among other things, establish an Independent Technical Engineering Authority?it is expected those plans will now be implemented, at least for the Office of Space Flight, before next year.

The expanded time before the next launch also allows NASA additional time to select and perfect methods of, for example, inspecting the TPS for damage. Since the loss of Columbia, NASA has been engaged in a wide-ranging search for corrective and preventive measures of all types. In some cases, the time is approaching when decisions must be made as to the most promising alternatives and resources focused on this smaller set of possibilities?the garden must be thinned. In this sense, the additional time until launch can be seductive and leadership will need to be exercised to sort the many options under consideration.

The second major change since December is the announcement of President Bush?s initiative, or vision, for the future of human space flight. The President proposed to utilize the Space Shuttle to finish the International Space Station (ISS) and then retire the Shuttle. In its place would be continued reliance on international partners to service the ISS as well as the possibility of private sector development of launch vehicles. During the next decade, NASA would also begin to develop the capability to return astronauts to the moon, establish a presence, and move on to explore Mars within the next 20 years.

While the President?s vision has obvious implications for the long-run use of the Shuttle, its effects on the return to flight efforts have not been fully examined. However, no matter how long the Shuttle is used in the future, it must first be safely returned to flight. Therefore, except for potential competition for human resources, the new program should have minimal impact on the actual return to flight activities and the implementation of CAIB recommendations. Third, the Task Group determined that the contingency of utilizing the ISS as a shelter for Shuttle Crew Contingency Support in the event of potentially catastrophic damage on the next flight, is becoming increasingly important in NASA?s decision making for return to flight. Therefore, the Task Group formally notified NASA of its intent to assess this capability much as if it were a CAIB recommendation.

Finally, the Task Group instituted a ?sub-panel? to examine the implications of the increased flow of data resulting from many of the CAIB recommendations and other return to flight initiatives.

The Task Group is encouraged by NASA?s progress since its last plenary in December. Throughout the organization, the people of NASA are engaged and dedicated to correcting the deficiencies that led to the demise of Columbia.

The RTF TG is conditionally closing out three CAIB recommendations. ?Closing out? a recommendation means that NASA has responded adequately to a specific CAIB return to flight recommendation. ?Conditionally? means that the close out is dependent on the delivery of final information and the assurance of NASA that it will keep the RTF TG up-to-date on any new developments pertaining to those recommendations. The three recommendations being conditionally closed out with this second interim report are:

3.3-1: Reinforced Carbon-Carbon Non-Destructive Inspection;
4.2-3: Closeout Inspection; and
6.3-2: NASA/National Imagery and Mapping Agency Memorandum of Agreement.

The Task Group will continue to monitor the implementation of these recommendations and NASA has agreed to notify the Task Group if there is any material change in status.

There has been substantial progress on virtually all of the 12 remaining return to flight recommendations. It is anticipated that several more recommendations will be substantially met by the time of the next RTF TG plenary in the summer.

One universal concern of the Task Group is the personnel requirements to meet the CAIB recommendations and return to flight. The various new organizations, from the NASA Engineering and Safety Center, to the Independent Technical Authority, to the Space Shuttle System Engineering and Integration Office all require talented staff drawn largely from the current NASA and contractor pool. At some point, the ability of the Space Shuttle Program to carry out its mission may be hampered by personnel shortages.

The most important work remains to be efforts to eliminate critical ascent debris. If it could be guaranteed that no critical debris would come from the ET, the immediate cause of the loss of Columbia would be rectified. But such a guarantee is impossible short of extensive testing in flight. Analytical and testing techniques will allow a level of comfort before launch and advances in Non-Destructive Inspection techniques may add to confidence. However, statistically significant results verifying ET debris conditions may not be accomplished even by the end of the Shuttle Program.

As such, on-orbit inspection and repair remain necessary to reduce the risk to future flights. Should one or both of these capabilities not be fully developed by the anticipated date of return to flight, the ability for the crew to await a rescue mission at the ISS will become an important consideration for the next launch.

Original Source: Stafford-Covey Second Interim Report (PDF)

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Japanese Celebrity Will Visit the Space Station

Image credit: Space Adventures
Space Adventures, Ltd., the world’s leading space experiences company, announced today it has begun working with Dentsu, the world’s largest advertising agency, to send a prominent Japanese figure to the International Space Station (ISS) within the next several years.

As part of the agreement with Dentsu, Space Adventures will dedicate one of the four seats the company has available on the Russian Soyuz TMA spacecraft. Space Adventures currently has a contract with the Federal Space Agency of Russia that provides them with the sole rights to transport the next four private space explorers to the ISS. The first of the four seats has already been contracted by American technology entrepreneur, Greg Olsen, Ph.D., who is currently training at the Yuri Gargarin Training Center in Star City, Russia. His expedition is currently planned for April 2005. With two of the four seats committed, Space Adventures has two seats remaining on the Soyuz.

“I welcome the opportunity to work with Dentsu. They are the world’s premier advertising agency and we are delighted to embark on such an exciting opportunity with them,” said Eric Anderson, president and CEO of Space Adventures. “As Dentsu has cultivated unique artistic designs and opportunities for advertising in today’s marketplace, we, at Space Adventures, are using the same enthusiasm and innovative techniques to open the space frontier to private citizens. Together, we will make history by sending the first Japanese private explorer to space.”

About Space Adventures: The world’s leading space flight experiences and space tourism company offers a wide range of programs from Zero-Gravity and Edge of Space flights, cosmonaut training and space flight qualification programs to reservations on future suborbital spacecraft. Headquartered in Arlington, Va., with an office in Moscow, Space Adventures is the only company to have successfully launched private individuals to the ISS. The company’s advisory board comprises Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin, shuttle astronauts Kathy Thornton, Robert (Hoot) Gibson, Charles Walker, Norm Thagard, Sam Durrance and Byron Lichtenberg and Skylab astronaut Owen Garriott.

About Dentsu Inc.: Founded in 1901, Dentsu is the largest advertising agency brand and the fifth largest marketing and communications organization in the world. Based in Tokyo, Dentsu offers national, multinational and global clients the most comprehensive range of advertising and marketing services through its unique “Total Communications Services” approach. Dentsu has pioneered and set global standards for integrated communications, which in latter years have been adopted by a number of major international networks. The group has more than 6,000 clients and 14,245 full-time employees in both Japan and in its offices overseas. Consolidated billings (net sales) for fiscal term 03/04 were recorded at 1,749 billion yen. Dentsu is publicly quoted on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. For more information, please visit www.dentsu.com.

Original Source: Space Adventures News Release

Posted on by Fraser Cain

How to Avoid Space Madness

Image credit: Mars Society
Defiance, detachment, disagreement ? harmful emotions in any small group situation, but in Outer Space these feelings are particularly damaging and possibly life endangering.

ANU psychologists are preparing to gather unique insights into the duress of space travel as part of a ?Mars expedition? to be staged in the Australian desert later this year.

The way that small groups of astronauts interact in the extreme, unfamiliar and isolating conditions of space travel will be closely scrutinised by Dr Rachael Eggins, Dr Kate Reynolds and PhD student Mr Phill Krins, from the Psychology Department in the ANU Faculty of Science.

The researchers are set to record the interactions of participants of an expedition into the South Australian outback in August organised by the Mars Society of Australia. This follows on from an initial study of participants in a planetary simulation in the United States last year.

?The rigorous personality testing astronauts undergo in their relatively cosy, comfortable labs can not measure how their personality might change in a confined, socially stifling and unfamiliar space,? Dr Eggins says.

?In everyday life we are very socially dynamic and belong to a number of groups, such as family, work and friends. There are a number of psychological advantages to having such a dynamic social environment, which will be absent when people spend long periods of time in isolation.?

Mr Krins and Dr Steve Dawson, a research psychologist with the Mars Society of Australia, will travel into the desert with the expedition and ask participants ? who try and replicate as closely as possible what it would be like living and working on Mars ? to complete questionnaires designed to monitor social dynamics.

Participants will undergo a daily cortisol (a hormone produced by the body in reaction to stress) measurement test and cognitive testing to gauge stress and performance levels.

Mr Krins will also keep a daily journal to record important social events, such as leadership changes, likely to affect the social dynamics of the expedition.

?One thing we are interested in is the question of whether or not groups are good or bad for your health,? Dr Eggins says. ?We know that in cohesive groups people perform better, work harder and are more cooperative than in loose-knit groups.

?But do cohesive groups make us work too hard and what does that do to our stress levels??

There are also other issues relating to the wrong sort of cohesion in a group, and small sub-groups forming within larger groups.

?There is a danger groups may become too cohesive,? Mr Krins says.

?When this occurs there may be intense pressure for individual crew members to behave in accordance with ?group norms?. For example, if there is a group norm to not report safety breaches, this could put the entire crew in danger.?

Also, past research on groups (whether isolated or not) has shown that it is common for the larger group to splinter into smaller subgroups.

?A number of problems can occur when large groups split off into these smaller groups,? Dr Eggins says. ?Polarisation can lead to infighting and poor decision-making.

?But there are advantages ? subgroups can become an important source of creative new ideas benefiting the larger group. Subgroups are also an important source of identity and pride for people. They then work hard to achieve its goals, improving the mission as a whole.?

With unmanned Mars missions underway and intensifying research interest in the red planet, the ANU researchers believe the human element of space exploration should be taken just as seriously as the technological or scientific. The team?s research will focus on developing guiding principles to avoid problems associated with groups in such stressful circumstances.

?It is important that group differences are managed properly and don?t become a source of conflict or feelings of disenfranchisement,? Dr Eggins says.

?These principles will ensure that individuals maintain commitment to the whole, have avenues for input into decision making and follow leadership guidelines.?

Original Source: ANU News Release