The Refined Geek

It really never fails to suprise me how much meddling the American congress does in NASA’s affairs, given the fact that their budget takes up a whopping 0.58% of total US government spending. The past 3 decades have seen many of NASA’s great ideas turned on their heads either due to horrible design by committee or from being given directives from people who have absolutlely zero aerospace knowledge. More recently though I grew to apperciate the new direction that Obama had laid out for NASA because, unlike Bush’s vision for space exploration, it was achievable and would lay the groundwork for future missions that would reach further into space than ever before. It seems however that NASA is still struggling to shrug off some of the pork barrel politics that had plagued it in the past and which are now threatening to ruin NASA’s future completely.

Specifically there’s a recent piece of news that tells us that the senate sub-committee in charge of NASA oversight is preparing a bill to derail Obama’s new vision for space:

Though the bill effectively cancels the delayed and over-budget Constellation moon-rocket program — as Obama requested in his NASA budget — it would repurpose that money to build a new heavy-lift rocket while largely ignoring the president’s call to fund new space-faring technology and commercial rockets that would send humans into space.

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But his dramatic overhaul of the human-spaceflight program has faced fierce resistance on Capitol Hill, especially from lawmakers in states with other NASA centers or with big NASA contracts like Utah, where the solid-rocket motor that would have powered Constellation’s Ares rockets is manufactured.

The Senate bill, which if passed would lay out the direction of the space program for the next three years, would revive the fortunes of Utah’s solid-rocket maker, ATK, by requiring NASA to keep using its solid-rocket motors for a new heavy-lift rocket.

Alright I can understand that it would be hard for any congress critter to not fight for the jobs of his constituents but realistically the writing has been on the wall for sometime for these folk. The retirement of the shuttles and the infrastructure they rely on was announced over 5 years ago but of course due to the fact that the end date was well outside the current election term there was little resistance to it then. Now that we’re halfway through the current term (with the scheduled end looking to be occuring just a year before the next election) dropping all those jobs that the shuttle program supports doesn’t look too good and they’re fighting it by any means necessary.

Realistically though it’s just an exercise in pork barrel politics. If you take a look at the shuttle’s components you’ll notice that they’re not all made in the same area. That’s fair enough, sometimes you just don’t have the infrastructure. However the reason behind it was pure politics as all of the districts surrounding the Kennedy Space Center wanted a piece of the shuttle pie. As a result the external tanks are made in New Orleans, SRBs in Utah and the Space Shuttle Main Engines in California¹ with each component having to be shipped over to be assembled at the KSC. It spreads the pork around a fair bit but the efficency of the NASA program suffers as a result.

There are of course those who are taking this as a signal that congress supports an alternative vision that a group of NASA engineers have proposed, called DIRECT. Now I’ve always cast a skeptical eye over the DIRECT proposal as whilst it does take advantage of a lot of current infrastructure and reduces the launch gap considerably (on paper) it’s never really got any official traction. Additionally it keeps NASA in the business of designing rockets to use for the rather rudimentary activities that are now being taken over by private space organisations. Thus whilst there might be significant cost savings in comparison to the Ares series of rockets they still pale in comparison to commerical offerings. I still support the idea of NASA developing a new heavy lift launch system solely because it has no current commerical application, but while DIRECT does give this as an option it fails to get away from the inefficencies that plague the shuttle program (namely the giant standing army of people).

Hopefully this proposal doesn’t get any traction as it would just ruin the solid plan that Obama had laid down for the future of humanity in space. It’s time for NASA to break the chains that have been holding it back for so long handing over some of its capabilities to those who can do it cheaper, safer and faster. Only then can NASA hope to return to the days of being a pioneer in space rather than languishing as the glorified taxi service to the ISS, as many would have it be.

¹I can’t 100% guarantee the build location of the SSMEs as Rocketdyne has several locations and I can’t seem to find an official source for their build location. As far as I can tell however, they’re built somewhere different again from New Orleans or Utah.

Late last night space shuttle Atlantis streaked across the night sky in a brilliant blaze of firey glory on its way back down to earth. After writing about the mission just over a week ago I’d been dreading this moment for quite some time as it meant that it would be the first shuttle to enter official retirement. Still we can’t dwell on the negatives for too long as space shuttle Atlantis has served humanity well running 32 missions, travelling over 180 million kilometers and spending a total of 282 days in space. So what else is there to say about the first of our iconic spacecraft to hit retirement? Well there is the fact that it might not be its last flight at all.

Readers of this blog will more than likely remember me detailing some of the standard operating procedures of a shuttle flight. One of those is that should the shuttle sustain enough damage to make returning to earth too risky they must have somewhere to stay whilst a rescue mission is planned. Traditionally they can take refuge as the ISS as it is more than capable of handling the extra load for a month or so whilst they roll out another shuttle. Now this doesn’t mean that NASA can just whip up an entire shuttle mission within a month, far from it. In fact all rescue missions are planned well in advance with many of the critical components ready to go, including things like the external fuel tank and SRBs. For our soon to be retired friend Atlantis this means that whilst it’s completed its final official mission, its job is far from over.

STS-134 is the last planned flight for any space shuttle and that means should Endeavour not be able to return to earth the astronauts will be trapped at the ISS. Whilst we could ferry them down in Soyuz craft it would take an extremely long time and would tax the resources of both Russia and the USA considerably. As such they’ve designated a special Launch on Need (LON) mission called STS-335 that will be launched to rescue them should Endeavour be stranded in space. This mission has Atlantis as the designated craft for the mission and this has lead to an interesting proposition:

“We need to go through the normal de-servicing steps, obviously, after the orbiter comes home…We have to prepare Atlantis and the stack as if we’re going to fly again because it is (launch-on-need) mission,” said shuttle launch director Mike Leinbach.

“We’ll be processing her as if it’s a real flight to begin with. Somewhere along the line we expect to hear whether we’re going to launch or not, and at that point in time either press on or stop that processing. But in order to support that, obviously, we have press on when she gets home.”

But with long odds that a rescue would really be required, there’s a notion to fly Atlantis crewed by just four astronauts on a regular mission and a large logistics module to service the International Space Station with supplies and more science equipment.

Designing such a mission, getting the cargo pulled together and training a crew would take many months, so the clock is ticking for a “go” or “no go” decision.

In essence we’d have a shuttle that was fully flight ready, all it would be missing is a payload. The crew would intentionally be kept small in order to ensure that in the event of an emergency they could all return aboard the attached Soyuz craft, which would also limit what kind of payload you could send up there. Still having a shuttle tricked out and ready to fly is not something you’ll have the opportunity to do again and this is what has got tongues wagging about whether or not NASA should in fact fly Atlantis one last time.

There’s no denying that any flight into space has an enormous amount of value. Whilst every precaution is taken to ensure that the ISS has everything it needs there’s no harm in bringing up extras for it. Even with the reduced crew there’s still the opportunity to fly up some additional hardware like some of cancelled ISS modules (a few of which were partially built). Still if such a mission were to go it would more than likely be a strict logistics mission as anything else would require extensive amounts of planning, something that I’m not quite sure congress would be willing to approve (flying Atlantis just for logistics would be costly enough).

So whilst the great Atlantis might have been the first to return to earth on its final official flight there’s still a chance that we’ll see this bird fly once again. I might lament the fact if it does ever fly (making my trip to the US to see the last shuttle flight moot) it would still make my heart soar to see it lifting into the sky one more time. Such is the awesome beauty that is the space shuttle.

For almost the past 2 decades NASA, and by association every other space faring nation, has been treading water when it comes to pioneering new space technologies. Granted we have not been without achievement, far from it, however the blazing progress that once propelled NASA and its constituents forward is a distant memory. The benefits from the first space race are still being felt today (it’s likely you’re viewing this blog post on one of them) so you can see why there are so many lofty space enthusiasts like myself who look back at a time when science and inspiration went hand in hand to achieve something that was considered impossible only a decade previously. The future is looking a lot brighter as of late because of the private space industry finally coming up to speed with NASA’s achievements, but this morning it looked positively blinding.

Just on 3 months ago President Obama announced a new vision for the future of NASA. My initial reactions to it were mostly negative but after considering the place NASA holds in our world, that of a pioneer in space, I came to see that it wasn’t a fall from what they currently are and more it was a return to what they should be. It appears that the next step has been taken towards the ultimate goal of accomplishing this with the announcement of the Flagship Technology Demonstrations:

The latest in a series of requests for information (RFIs) from NASA under its proposed Fiscal 2011 budget lists six “flagship” space testbeds costing $400 million to $1 billion each that would push technologies needed for exploration beyond low Earth orbit.

The first would be launched by 2014, with three more to go by 2016 and one every 12 to 18 months after that. Technologies include in-space fuel depots; advanced solar-electric propulsion; lightweight modules, including inflatables; aerocapture and/or landing at asteroids and larger bodies; automated rendezvous and docking; and closed-loop life support systems.

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• Concepts for spacecraft buses that could use NASA’s NEXT ion propulsion system and an advanced solar array for a 30-kilowatt solar-electric propulsion stage, and which would be scalable to higher power levels.• Flight architecture suggestions for on-orbit cryogenic fuel storage and transfer within a single vehicle and between separate vehicles, with a list of detailed questions to be answered.

• Inflatable-module concepts that would follow earlier in-house work at NASA, with an inflatable shell opening around a central core that would be pressurized at launch.

• Mission concepts using inflatable or deployable aeroshells for aerocapture at Mars and return to Earth of 10-ton vehicles, as well as precision landing on “both low-G and high-G worlds.”

• Concepts for demonstrating closed-loop life support in a module on the International Space Station (ISS), and perhaps on an inflatable module flown under a separate flagship demonstration.

• Concepts for using the ISS as a target for automated rendezvous and docking missions, accomplishing the docking with the low-impact docking system under development at Johnson Space Center.

All of these points echo the original vision as previously laid out by Obama. This is fantastic news and the aggressive timeline for debuting these technologies means that NASA will be once again at the forefront of space exploration. To give you an idea of just how revolutionary these ideas are I’ll give you a run down of how each of them will change the way we explore space.

The first point hints at what would be a high powered ion drive something which would be of high value for long duration flights. If you think you’ve heard this before you’d be right as VASIMIR (which is not of NASA origin) is a very similar concept that is scheduled to be flown to the ISS either next year or the year after. Such propulsion systems allow for very efficient use of propellant which, to use the ISS as an example, could reduce post-orbit fuel required by up to 90%. Reducing the mass you take with you to orbit is always one of the goals when taking things into space, and developing this kind of technology is one of the best ways to accomplish that.

On orbit fuel stations are something that are going to be a must for any long duration space flight, including those missions with us squishy humans. Right now many craft are limited in their payload due to the fact that they have to carry up substantial amounts of fuel with them. With on-orbit fuel stations they can be made to be quite a lot lighter, thereby increasing their effective payload significantly. Couple this wit the high efficiency ion drives and you’ve got yourself a recipe for much cheaper and infinitely more productive missions, helping us push the boundaries of human exploration once again.

One of the decisions from the United States congress was the banning of any further development of the TransHab inflatable module design back in 2000. The idea was that you could launch the module deflated and then inflate it on orbit, letting you keep the payload size down whilst giving you an enormous amount of space once deployed. Compare the largest module on the ISS currently, the Kibo laboratory at 4.2m long and 4.4m in diameter, to the TransHabs ginormous 7.0m long and 8.2 in diameter and you can see what I mean, that thing is massive. So whilst it’s taken a decade for them to come full circle and realise that the tech has some real potential (we’ve got Mr Bigelow to thank for that) we may soon see such modules attached to the ISS or its successor. I think current and future astronauts would welcome the additional space.

The aeroshell idea is nothing new but the weight of the craft they’re planning to use with it is. The most famous example of the aeroshell design would be the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity. These little guys only weigh in at a total of 180kg and the idea of anything larger using this design has, for the most part, been laughed off. The most recent expedition to Mars, the Phoenix Lander,  was around 350kg and instead used rockets to perform the landing. Scaling up the design to larger payloads would enable much larger missions to planets that contained significant atmosphere, as well as paving the way for future astronauts to land on such places.

The final two points are merely an extension of on-going activities. Many of the life support systems that are currently aboard the ISS are squarely aimed at making it more self sufficient with things like the water recovery system which was flown up last year. Many of the Russian vehicles that visit the ISS use automated docking facilities already and Europe has demonstrated that it is capable of such feats to when the Jules Verne ATV docked last year. This would more than likely end up with a few modifications to the US parts of the ISS, but nothing too drastic.

All in all, these are some damned good goals to be shooting for and they really can’t come any faster. Whilst we won’t have any flag planting moments for a while to come I can see that shortly after we achieve all these goals I can see them coming thick and fast afterwards. It might not look like the plan we had a decade ago but its one that we’ll need to stick to if we want the future of space to look as bright as it did over 40 years ago.

There’s both a joy and a sadness that accompanies every shuttle launch. I still get a little thrill every time I wake up in the morning to the Australian news showing pictures and video of our iconic spacecraft’s trips into space but from this flight on I know that each of the launches will be the last for that shuttle in question. That leaves me with a bittersweet feeling, knowing that we’re less than 6 months away from never seeing them launch again, but the promise of a new breed of space pioneers never fails to make my spirits soar once again.

I’m a bit late to the party on this particular shuttle launch thanks mostly to a too-good-to-resist story I had to cover last Friday but also partly because I’m a lazy bastard when it comes to blogging on weekends . STS-132 launched at 4am Saturday our time, signalling the final time we would see space shuttle Atlantis lifting off from Cape Carnaveral and the 3rd last shuttle flight of all time.

As usual the space world is all a flutter with Atlantis’ last mission and rightly so. Whilst this isn’t the most spectacular mission by any stretch of the imagination it does show that NASA is planning for an upcoming lull in their ability to get people and cargo up to the International Space Station. Whilst the ATV and HTV both have flights planned towards the end of this year/early next year (fun fact: the ATV is human rated, I’ll have to do another post on that some other time) I haven’t yet heard anything further about them. It is then up to NASA to ensure that their parts of the ISS are equipped for the duration where the US won’t have the kind of access their used to, and STS-132 is just one such mission.

Probably the biggest part of this mission will be the delivery of Rassvet or the Mini Research Module 1 (MRM1). As the name would imply this is actually a module of Russian construction which would make you wonder why it’s being berthed aboard the space shuttle. This is especially strange considering that the Russian Proton rockets are considered amongst the most successful heavy lift launches in the world, having been in use for 45 years and have launched all of the previous Russian components of the ISS. Turns out the US is under contract to deliver the MRM1 and if I had to hazard a guess as to why it’s probably because the total weight of the craft is about 8 tons which, if launched on a Proton, would be a waste since they’re capable of delivering a whopping 20 tons into LEO. With many shuttles launching without their payload bays full (mostly because of the risks involved, see the launch pad damage caused by the heaviest payload ever, Kibo) it makes sense to have them deliver it.

The MRM1 is part science vessel and part docking port, as with the installation of the Tranquility module this left the ISS with only 3 docking ports. This poses a problem as the Soyuz, Progress (cargo version of Soyuz) and ATV missions overlap in their time frames. Couple that with the fact that at least 2 Soyuz craft need to be docked to serve as lifeboats back to earth (thanks to the expanded crew of 6) that would leave only 1 docking port available for any visiting resupply crafts. The MRM1 solves this problem by providing another docking port, making up for the one it uses. In fact you might remember a post from long ago about a very similar craft called Poisk. As it turns out these are both MRMs and their purpose is identical, a bit of extra space and another parking spot.

As I alluded to earlier the other half of this mission is dedicated to gearing up the ISS for the launch gap that the US is about to find themselves in. As such they’ve flown the Integrated Cargo Carrier-Vertical Light Deployable (ICC-VLD) which is basically a large cargo pallet. The payload on the ICC-VLD is mostly replacement parts and all 3 of the spacewalks planned are dedicated to getting them installed on the ISS. Additionally some of the parts that were removed will be reloaded back onto the ICC-VLD for return back to earth.

There’s also a lot of memorabilia that’s being flown on STS-132. The first is a CD that contains digital copies of all entries to NASA’s Commemorative Patch Contest, which was held to honor the end of the space shuttle era. STS-132 also flies a collection of 17 hand crafted beads from the Beads of Courage organisation, who strive to bring hope to children suffering from serious illnesses. Additionally Atlantis carries with it a piece of the the apple tree that inspired Isaac Newton to formulate his theory of gravity, as well as a flag of Clarkson university of which the lead shuttle flight direction Michale Sarafin, is an alumnus of. Each of these objects represents something greater than their physical manifestations and I know those involved understand what an honor it is to have them flown on the last flight of Atlantis.

The entire mission has that air to it that signals the end of an era for human space flight and with anything ending it brings with it a touch of sadness. However we know that the human spirit will not stand idly by and the end of one era signals in the beginning of the next. So whilst we might be in the twilight year of the shuttle we can all look forward to the future which is staggeringly bring with the hope of the private space industry and NASA’s return to pushing the limits of the final frontier.

With the retirement of the Shuttle looming over our heads, even though it’s been moved back a couple months (ARGH!), organisations with an interest in space have been looking for alternatives to ensure they still have access once the iconic crafts roll back into their hangars for the last time. Whilst supply missions are more than aptly handled by the European ATV, Japanese HTV or Russian Progress and the ferrying of people handled by the Russian Soyuz it seems that military, who really didn’t get as much of the face time they wanted when it came to the Shuttle, have gone ahead and developed their own purpose built craft and boy does it ever look familiar:

That my friends is the X-37B, an orbital test prototype of the X-37 series of spacecraft.  Don’t let the NASA badging on that plane fool you though as whilst the project was initially started in the hands of NASA it is now completely in the hands of the Department of Defense with NASA only having a small informal involvement in the project. Last week saw this craft successfully make its maiden flight into orbit but not to the usual fanfare that a new craft attracts and for good reason, everything about it is super secret.

About 10 years ago NASA began the X-37 project and invested quite a bit of cash into the development of the vehicle. Even back then the purpose of the craft was somewhat of a mystery as the primary function of this craft would be the launch and retrieval of payloads into space. Realistically this capability was already covered off by the space Shuttle (and indeed this craft was going to be launched in the Shuttle’s payload bay until they figured out that would be a waste of money) and even that had been usurped by the fact that it’s cheaper to deorbit and launch a new satellite than it is to bring an old one down for repairs and send it back up again. In 2004 the X-37 project was transferred to DARPA and the project became classified.

Usually that would mean the project would forever be surrounded in the mystery that accompanied its birth but the acquisition by the Department of Defense clarified its purpose. The Shuttle owes its current massive girth and plane like design due to the military’s involvement. Back then satellites were still expensive and the idea was that the Shuttle should be able to capture and retrieve broken military satellites (hence the large payload bay). Additionally there were some mission profiles which required the shuttle to launch into polar orbits, complete one orbit and then return to where it had launched from. Because of this the Shuttle had to have very large wings in order to be able to glide back to its original position, as the earth would have moved about 2000KM in the time it took them to complete such a maneuver.

Looking at this diminutive cousin of the Shuttle you can see such the characteristics of such missions profiles are very prevalent, such as the large wings and payload bay. The differences begin when you look under the hood and find that it’s fully robotic, capable of completing almost every task without human intervention. Additionally it carries with it a large solar array which allows it to stay in orbit for 270 days which is an eternity when compared to the Shuttle’s measly 2 weeks. Additionally unlike the Shuttle which is in essence its own rocket (those 2 SRBs strapped to the side of it are just to get it started, most of the work is done by the main 3 engine cluster on the back) the X-37 craft launches atop an ATLAS V rocket. The engine you see on the back is used for maneuvering on orbit and nothing else.

Overall its a pretty nifty little ship and really it should’ve been designed at the same time as the Shuttle. This craft serves the purpose of being a reusable transport to space that’s design to deliver and retrieve cargo and the lack of a crew makes it that much more efficient at doing its job. Had such a craft been designed around then you can bet that the Shuttle would look nothing like it does today and, more importantly, it wouldn’t be the huge cash drain that it has been for NASA over the past decade. Still there’s not much reason to dwell on that fact since it will soon be replaced by those upstarts in the private space sector which, in my opinion, can’t come any sooner. Hopefully since the military now has its own craft for performing its super secret missions they’ll keep their noses out of NASA’s business and we’ll avoid the whole design by committee debacle that was the Shuttle’s design process with future craft.

You would think that with all the competition that is starting to appear for access to low earth orbit that prices would be falling through the floor, so to speak. Taking a quick look over what the going rate might be for say a Dragon capsule with a Falcon 9 underneath it you find yourself paying a cool $100 million or so and you can take yourself and 6 friends into LEO, or just shy of $17 million a pop. If we use that as a benchmark for the cheapest form of travel that is, as of yet, unproven then NASA’s previous costs of about $26 million per astronaut when using the Russian Soyuz craft seem quite reasonable.

Unfortunately that price relies on a couple of factors that are going to change once the Shuttle is retired, and it seems that Russia is no slouch when it comes to pricing those factors in:

WASHINGTON – The price for American astronauts to hitch a ride on a Russian spaceship is going sky high.

NASA on Tuesday signed a contract to pay $55.8 million per astronaut for six Americans to fly into space on Russian Soyuz capsules in 2013 and 2014. NASA needs to get rides on Russian rockets to the International Space Station because it plans to retire the space shuttle fleet later this year.

NASA now pays half as much, about $26.3 million per astronaut, when it uses Russian ships. NASA spokesman John Yembrick said the cost is going up because Russia has to build more capsules for the extra flights. NASA had already agreed to pay as much as $51 million a seat for flights in 2011 and 2012, before the latest increase.

Really it comes as little suprise that the price jumped significantly once NASA started asking for a serious number of seats. Soyuz spacecraft really aren’t that big (see here for a scale drawing vs the Shuttle, it could fit a couple Soyuz in its payload bay) and can only take 3 space faring humans at a time. Energia,  the company that builds the Soyuz capsules and rockets, is currently producing 5 full launch systems a year which gives Russia 15 seats a year to play with. Considering NASA launches around 4~5 Shuttles per year with up to 7 astronauts in each you can see that if they’re planning to launch even half that many people on Russian crafts they’re going to need to build a fair few more launch systems to cope. It doesn’t really help that Energia will need to build some new infrastructure to increase their production capacity as their current 5 per year is pretty much the maximum they can build.

This should put it into perspective just how much of a blow to the United States losing the Shuttle is. Whilst I can still appreciate some of the work they did (Ares V was set to be an absolute monster of a rocket) the launch gap they’ve put themselves into is incomprehensible. Many years ago when they began talks of retiring the Shuttle fleet there really wasn’t any alternative but to buy Russian rides and even then they knew that their capabilities can’t support both Russia and the US. Couple that with the fact that they could’ve spent some of the money they had for constellation on say man rating the ATLAS V (which Bigelow intends to do, but NASA rejected as it was too “high risk” to reach the deadline of 2011) they could’ve avoided this situation entirely.

It doesn’t help that people keep throwing fuel on the fire by suggesting that the Shuttle be extended past its current end date. Sure it would help close the gap in launch capability but they would’ve had to had that extension in a couple years ago so that critical infrastructure, such as the external tank construction plants, wouldn’t have been shut down. Couple that with the fact that the Shuttle program costs $2.4 billion just to keep it alive (regardless of how many Shuttles are launched) you’re looking at huge costs that will net a very minimal  benefit and will likely kill off many other projects due to NASA’s budget constraints. There’s really little sense in trying to revive something when you’ve already relegated yourself to letting it go.

The huge cost of the Shuttle is nothing new either, but it would seem a lot better if the shuttle was used as it was designed to be. Despite its design by committee the Shuttle was designed to be launched often, up to 12 times a year (that’s 1 per month folks). If we were launching that often then the costs of the standing army would seem a lot more feasible as instead of some $400~$600 million costs  you’d be much closer to $200 million, a sizable cut. That goal was never reached unfortunately although NASA did manage to get 9 launches done in 1985, which seems almost impossible now.

It is really unfortunate that it’s too late to do much about the manned flight situation in the US, but there is hope on the horizon. With the Falcon 9 hopefully blasting into orbit sometime this or next month we’re not too far away from a private company resupplying the ISS, and from there its only a small step for astronauts to start hitching rides up there to. Maybe NASA needed to lose its capability in order to rethink what they’re doing, and hopefully they take this opportunity to do so.

You know something’s up when a space nut like myself misses some juicy blog fodder such as the latest Shuttle launch. Whilst I’ve been off slandering the iPad and its fans the good folks at NASA have been hard at work with STS-131 launching into space early in the morning just three days ago. It’s also a sign of the media’s waning interest in the Shuttle program as usually a few news outlets pick up on it and I’ll be treated to some wonderful Shuttle imagery over my morning coffee. That unfortunately wasn’t to be this time around.

STS-131 is the fourth last of the currently planned Shuttle missions and the second last mission for the space Shuttle Discovery. Additionally this will be the last mission to take up a full compliment of 7 astronauts and the last mission that any first time astronauts will be riding the Shuttle into space. Couple this with the mission’s payload (more on that below) it’s a sign that the Shuttle program is well on its way to retirement at the end of this year. All that’s left to do is gear the International Space Station up as much as we can whilst NASA sorts out what its next transport solution will be.

The biggest part of STS-131 is the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM) called Leonardo. The MPLMs (there are three of them) are pressurized containers used to transport cargo to and from the ISS. It is currently full to the brim with extra equipment for the ISS that includes:

• Minus Eighty Degree Laboratory Freezer for ISS (basically a fridge for experiments, the third of such devices aboard the ISS)
• Window Orbital Research Facility (a giant window used for Earth facing observation and remote payload operations)
• One Crew Quarters Rack
• Muscle Atrophy Resistive Exercise (yet another exercise machine, can’t have enough of them!)
• Resupply Stowage Racks
• Resupply Stowage Platforms

As well as the usual compliment of food and supplies for the various experiments currently residing aboard the ISS. There’s nothing really amazing or spectacular about the payload of this mission apart from the fact that this won’t be the last visit to the ISS that MPLM Leonardo will make, albeit in a different form.

In their current form the MPLMs aren’t suited for long duration flights connected to the ISS. They lack appropriate shielding and interconnects with the various systems aboard the ISS that would enable them to become a permanent fixture, which is why they’re always carried back down at the end of the mission. A while back the European Space Agency (ESA) suggested that in order to reduce the number of resupply missions needed the MPLM Donatello should be upgraded (it would then be called a Pressurized Multipurpose Module) to serve as a permanent storage module on the ISS. Initially the idea was rejected due to costs but the plan is going to go ahead using the Leonardo MPLM instead. So after it is brought back to earth after this mission Leonardo will undergo extensive upgrades and will then be launched back up on the last mission STS-133.

As we near that final end date of September 16, 2010 every shuttle launch I see is always accompanied by a small twinge of sadness. Whilst this isn’t the final flight for Discovery it still marks one of the very last missions that the Shuttle will ever fly. Much like seeing an old friend off on a long trip overseas you know that you’ll see them again, but you still can’t help but feel sad for their departure.

Everytime I think I’m losing my interest in space something always comes along to bring me right back into that almost dream like state I first had when I decided that leaving this blue marble was my lifetime goal. Whether it be pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope, a few readings from the Mars Exploration Rovers or even a discovery that might one day lead us faster than light travel I can’t doubt myself for more than a day before I reminded of the beautiful, complex and ever changing universe that we live in. It is my fervent hope that I can one day instill such passion in a wide majority of the world, and the beginnings of that are contained in this blog.

However I understand that we don’t live in a world that is governed solely by one man’s desires and hopes. In this world that is ruled by politics, economics and raw resources we have work within these constructs in order to achieve the goals we set for ourselves. Unfortunately in the case of NASA these rules have led from it being a source of inspiration for humanity worldwide to a struggling organisation who can barely make the headlines. Whilst some might say that this is because there are bigger problems to solve here on terra firma I and many others would disagree:

Tyson echos a sentiment I’ve held for quite a while now. Born well after the initial space race and in the remote location of Australia I was cut off from the world of space for a very long time. My earliest memory of having anything to do with space was a night of astronomy when I was about 8 years old, seeing a bright red dot through a large contraption I had no understanding of. It would be another 4 years before my next brief experience of space when I saw Mission to Mir on the IMAX screen in Sydney. After then I can not think of one experience I had with space until a couple years back, when I discovered my passion for space and all things to do with it.

After the dizzying heights that were reached when NASA was formed to win the space race it has taken a slow downhill course to irrelevance. No longer are they charged with pushing the boundaries of what we are capable in space, more they are responsible for a very expensive transport business with a small dabbling of science on the side. This is why they are no longer the inspiration they once were, every they do is routine. For decades now NASA has been in a position to cast off its routine duties and begin clawing at the edges of space, just like it did so long ago. We have the chance to do so much yet such a comparatively small cost is too great for those who have the ability to pay for it.

Maybe I’m just nostalgic for a time that I didn’t live through, but after going so long not knowing about the tremendous benefits that NASA and its projects brought to our world and then finally discovering them I can’t help but feel that the everyman is in the same situation. As a species we seem so focused on the immediate problems of our world that we tend to forego looking up and seeing the direction we should be moving in, leaving us only to tread the paths we’ve been down before. It would seem that collectively we’re incapable of drastic change over a prolonged period of time.

The point remains however that should NASA axe its human space program that it will become irrelevant in the public’s eye. Whilst we have had a tremendous amount of success with robotic exploration missions they fail to grab the attention of the everyman as they can not identify with them. Whilst I lament the idea of flag planting missions they serve to inspire the generation of their time to achieve such lofty goals which, if continued over an extended period of time, leads to a feedback loop of epic proportions. Had NASA continued along the same path as it did when it was first created there’s no telling where we would be today, but there’s no use dwelling on the past.

Despite this we are on the cusp of another revolution in space which the fledgling private space industry is responsible for. We have so many companies that are now willing to do the job that only NASA was capable of just a decade ago that soon NASA will have no choice but to give way to them. Once they have done this they can refocus their efforts on pushing the limits of technology like they once did and hopefully see them return to their rightful spot as the most inspirational government organisation mankind has ever seen. Just that thought alone is enough to keep a dreamer like myself going even when NASA seems to be going through the darkest times.

My thanks go out to my friend Glen for linking the video that inspired this post.

Life is a tricky thing to get right. As far as we know right now we’re a completely unique in this universe and the conditions that led to us being here are both mysterious and endlessly intriguing. Whilst I won’t dive into the debate on science vs religion here (I’ve already done that) my own personal views are ones of abiogenesis, or more simply the idea that the complex life that we know and love today arose from a long chain of events that started with just the basic elements of the universe. Whilst there’s still a lack of consensus around the actual mechanisms that would have led to this happening the basic idea remains the same.

This is mostly due to the lack of another point of data, I.E. us encountering life that arose on another planet. So instead we start looking around our own earth to find examples of how life got started and where it exists. We’re discovering more and more that environments that we thought were completely incompatible with life are actually teaming with creatures that seem almost impossible to us. From complex curiosities like the Yeti Crab and the Flashlight Fish to bacteria that thrive on the heat radiated from black smokers it seems that once conditions are favourable to life you’ll end up finding it pretty much anywhere.

Still there are some places you just don’t expect to find life, like 185 meters below an ice sheet:

Researchers in Antarctica got a surprise visit from a creature in a borehole 185 meters (600 feet) below the Antarctic ice, where there is usually no light. A Lyssianasid amphipod, a shrimp-like creature can be seen swimming in this video. A NASA team had lowered a small video camera to get the first-ever photograph of the underside of an ice shelf when the curious little 7 cm (3- inch) shrimp stopped by to check out the equipment. Scientists say this could challenge the idea of where and how forms of life can survive. Anyone else thinking Europa?

To say that little shrimp was completely unexpected would be putting it lightly as for all we knew there was absolutely nothing down there capable of supporting life any larger than simple bacteria. They also found what appears to be the tentacle of a jellyfish tangle around the cord of the camera suggesting there’s not only life but also some amount of diversity down there. So whilst this might be cool and all why is everyone asking about Europa?

For those of you not in the know Europa is a moon of the planet Jupiter and is only a bit smaller than our very own Moon. It’s quite a striking thing to look at as it’s surface looks like a round ice cube that’s covered in dust, very different to our closest neighbour who’s an even shade of dull gray. When we get up and close to it we see it’s covered in these long lines which look scarily similar to ice sheets on earth. As it turns out Europa’s crust is actually a solid layer of ice that’s a few kilometers thick and under that is an internal ocean that, as our best guess goes, is tens of kilometers deep. The lines on the surface are cracks that opened up to the internal ocean below where upon water from below swelled up to fill the gap.

What the scientists’ unexpected visitor tells us is that there is the possibility for complex life to evolve in places where light cannot reach it, and that means that there’s a chance that life evolved in the sea under Europa.

You may be wondering how life could evolve in a place that’s covered by kilometers of ice in a frigid sea so far from the sun. Well as it turns out thanks to its giant parent planet and slightly non-circular orbit Europa is constantly being squeezed and pulled every time it completes one round trip. This has the effect of creating an extreme amount of internal heat that not only serves to keep the internal ocean liquid but could also serve to generate the volcanism that some theories believe is required to create life. Out of all the other places in the solar system this is probably the only other place where life could potentially exist based on the evidence we’ve gathered here on earth.

It’s discoveries like this that get me all excited about the infinite possibilities of the universe. Whilst there’s no evidence that there are any other intelligent life forms out there the evidence is getting stronger and stronger that it’s there, we just have to go and find it. I know that one day we’ll send a probe to Europa to see what is really under that thick ice blanket and should we find life there you can bet your bottom dollar that it will change how we view ourselves and our place in the universe forever.

There’s really nothing quite like the Space Shuttle. Every part of it has been subjected to countless hours of engineering with the culmination being one of the most complex and powerful objects that man has ever created. All that being said however it’s getting on a bit at 29 years old and the revolutions in technology since its inception have set the stage for it to be succeeded by the next big thing. It will still remain firmly in our heads for a long time to come as the icon that heralded in the new space industry but the time has come for the Shuttle to retire to greener pastures.

Obama seems to support this vision with a new plan that focuses on what NASA does best: pioneering technologies and that are risk heavy and lack the current commercialization opportunity that would make them attractive to private industry. Following on from this idea it would then be preferable for NASA to delegate the routine tasks to private industry where possible, saving them an appreciable amount in research and operational costs. This is why I supported the closing down of the Shuttle program as whilst it is something that I and the wider world will miss the time has come for private industry to take over some of the mundane aspects of space travel so that NASA can return to the innovators they’re meant to be.

It seems however that some just can’t let the status quo go:

NASA currently plans to retire the space shuttle fleet in the fall after flying the last of four final shuttle missions remaining for this year. The next shuttle to fly is Discovery, which is poised to blast off on April 5 to deliver vital supplies and spare parts to the International Space Station.

The fleet’s retirement would end more than 29 years of U.S. space shuttle flights and leave NASA without a dedicated American spacecraft for launching astronauts into orbit.

Some U.S. senators and members of Congress have expressed support for extending the shuttle program, with Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) filing a bill last week formally seeking a reprieve for NASA’s space shuttle fleet.

Whilst I can appreciate Hutchison’s concern for keeping the Shuttle going I can’t help but feel that it’s done only to win some political points with her constituents. Texas is home to the Johnson Space Center which employs around 3,200 public servants and well over 15,000 contracting staff. All of these are dedicated to the manned space flight programs which will suffer under Obama’s proposed plan for NASA. Other supporters of the bill are from the state of Florida, home to the Kennedy Space Center which is the current host to the shuttles and the majority of America’s launch facilities. It would then be advantageous to them to continue the Shuttle program as long as they could to keep the loyalty of their constituents, but it comes at the cost of revolutionizing NASA. Something which I believe it is desperately in need of.

The bill also calls for some form of heavy lift launcher to be ready to transport crew and cargo to the International Space Station by 2013. The earliest scheduled date for a Ares-I launch was sometime in 2014 with more recent estimates pegging it around 2017. The only way that NASA will get such a capability will be to buy it off private companies such as SpaceX, who’s Falcon 9 is much more likely to reach that deadline date than anything NASA comes up with. I can’t seem to track down if there’s any additional funding included in the bill to support this more aggressive timeline but needless to say it would be needed if they wanted to meet it.

As much as I’d love the Shuttle to continue on I know that it’s not the right path if we want to go further into the solar system and beyond. Obama’s plan for NASA showed a great deal of strategic focus with creating a real and sustainable space infrastructure that could support future astronauts in their endeavours outside our atmosphere. Introducing a bill like this one just to score a few cheap political points is what has been keeping NASA back for decades and it’s only now that we have an opportunity to let NASA shine again.