Ad Astra Downlink – August 18, 2018 |
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Update on the 2018 August Home District Blitz/Fall Fury!
By Dale Skran, Chair, Policy Committee
If you don’t already know, August Blitz/Fall Fury is an Alliance for Space Development/NSS/SFF sponsored event which takes place in your home state. Like other congressional visits, you’ll have the opportunity to meet with your Representative/Senators and their staff. Meetings will be scheduled around your availability. This event is perfect for those couldn’t make it to the DC events.
Meetings start in August, and this year will continue into the fall (hence, "Fall Fury") until all key targets have been visited. All the information you need can be found at: http://space.nss.org/nss-legislative-and-grassroots-action-center/, including the talking points slides, training slides, and instructions on how to use the new electronic report form process. The three objectives are commercial space stations in LEO, supporting cislunar development, and planetary defense focused on JPL NEOCAM.
I am pleased to announce that the first meeting has been held with Marco Rubio in Florida thanks to Paul Corda. Three more meetings - two in Florida and one in NJ - are scheduled for later in August.
The August Blitz/Fall Fury is just getting started. We need your help – whatever state you may be in. We have organizers standing by to help you get started, but we need at least one volunteer in a district/state to schedule a meeting.
People from all over the country are invited to join, whether NSS members or not. Feel free to invite co-workers, fellow students, family and anyone passionate about space!
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Space Ambassadors’ New Digs
By Loretta Hall
The NSS Space Ambassadors program has a new “office.” Our website is now part of the main NSS website. If you’re interested in becoming a Space Ambassador, please visit our pages to learn more about the role and how you can become one. Phase 1 of the Space Ambassadors program, which concluded at ISDC 2016, was highly successful, with 900 volunteers from 150 countries speaking to 31,000 people during an eight-year period. Phase 2 of the program is starting fresh with new guidelines and support for participants. Find out more by visiting the new landing page.
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NSS Initiatives: Planners for the Student Space Health Competition Reach to Rescue “The Frog” from the Heating Stew
By Bill Gardiner, Chair, NSS Space Health and Medicine Committee
Planning continues and new participants are joining the NSS to design a Student Contest to address the Effects of Long Duration Human Spaceflight, and are responding to more news about the increasing death rate among our young people. Mars Academy USA director Susan Jewell and NSS leaders are discussing sharing resources of their Mars Analog Missions in exchange for NSS resources successfully deployed to garner widespread participation in Student Space Settlement contests. Jon Zaikowski, a bioethicist at Columbia University, has brought attention to a new NASA program centered at Baylor Medical School defining the “red risks” of spaceflight with an appeal to address these issues. Jeff Willey in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Wake Forest School of Medicine is educating us about the radiation risks of spaceflight and some of the promising physiological countermeasures. The goals of the Committee is to prepare a pilot student competition that will give graduate level students a shot at entering their own research proposals. Awards will be announced at next year's ISDC June 6-9.
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13th Annual Reach for the Stars ~ National Rocket Competition is Underway
By Jack & Kathy Colpas
The only thing more exciting than a rocket launch is a rocket competition. Get your kids (ages 10 to 18) involved in the 13th Reach for the Stars ~ National Rocket Competition. It is a great way to attract them in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math) careers. The RFTS Competition is safe, easy-to-run, fun and affordable. It is run at your location so there is no travel hassle or expense. No experience necessary. On-line videos guide you through rocket construction and launch. Competitors build and launch their own solid-fuel powered rocket. They adjust for wind and altitude so the rocket parachute lands as close as possible to an on-field target. National winners are invited to celebrate at Space Camp / U. S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
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Use this link to access the survey:
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Gateway to Space 2018: Destination Moon
By Christine Nobbe
President St. Louis Space Frontier
Please register for Gateway to Space 2018 by August 25th, or better yet, do it now so you don’t miss out! You can register at this Eventbrite Link: https://gatewaytospace2018.eventbrite.com. A part of the mini-conference will be take place in the Destination Moon exhibit which contains the Apollo 11 command module and several more exciting artifacts. For many readers, the St. Louis Science Center (and Gateway to Space) is the closest place to see this exhibit! Hope to see you on September 1st for Gateway to Space!
Photo: This rare artifact is definitely better viewed close up! This is the pen that got Buzz and Neil off the Moon! On display for the first time. Photo taken by Christine.
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Dr. Anita Sengupta Visits St. Louis
By Judy Tippett
In August, the St. Louis Space Frontier hosted Dr. Anita Sengupta for two events. On Thursday, August 9 at Venture Cafe she transfixed people with a talk entitled Engineering at the Speed of Light. A fascinating subject and fascinating speaker! On Friday morning she engaged students, ranging in age from 4-14, with her talk, The Future of Mars Exploration. Following both presentations, students raised lots of excellent questions. Dr. Anita Sengupta is an aerospace engineer and veteran of the space program where, for the past 20 years, her transformational engineering projects included her PhD research on developing the ion propulsion system for the Dawn Mission in 2007 (currently in the main asteroid belt), the supersonic parachute that landed the Curiosity rover on Mars in 2012, and the Cold Atom Laboratory, an atomic physics facility recently launched to the International Space Station in 2018. Her next venture is the design of a magnetically levitating, electromagnetically propelled, passenger vehicle in a vacuum tube, known as the hyperloop. She is Senior Vice President of Engineering Systems at Virgin Hyperloop and a professor at the University of Southern California. Here are the St Louis Space Frontier members celebrating with our honored guest, Dr. Anita Sengupta.
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Standing: Charles, Zach, Judy, Ron, Christine, Philip, and Frank. Sitting: Bryce, Anita, Colleen, and Mike.
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DC-L5 Videos Migrating to YouTube
By Claire McMurray, NSS Chapters Reporter
For years, the DC-L5 chapter has been interviewing interesting people on space-related topics for their Around Space small-station broadcast. The interview videos were marginally available on a hard-to-find website. Now they are slowly being migrated to an NSS playlist. When the migration is complete, those original files can be deleted. As of Friday August 3rd, 21 videos had been moved to YouTube. The topics include telescopes, asteroid mining, NASA’s mission to Pluto, ESA’s Moon Village, astronautical artist David Robinson’s solar system art, and even songs about Kids in Space. See them at www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLaBObyQHLzmpr_riOo3Vdx6XeUttFNINt
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August 18th NSS Phoenix Meeting to Feature Dr Troy Howe on Radioisotope Power Sources for Deep Space Missions
by Phillis Redhair with Claire McMurray
The August 18th meeting of the Phoenix Chapters of the National Space Society and the Moon Society will be held at our usual time (11 am) and location at the Humanist Community Center in Mesa (627 W. Rio Salado Blvd (formerly 8th St.), Mesa, AZ. Dr Troy Howe will speak about the radioisotope power sources used by deep space missions to provide electrical power when solar is too weak to help. He’ll review current and past RTGs as well as share with us some of his work with radioisotope thermo-photovoltaics.
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Clear Lake Summer Social, August 18th, 2018!
by Claire McMurray, NSS Chapters Editor, with anonymous Clear Lake news editor
The Clear Lake Area National Space Society and Moon Society Chapter will be hosting the annual Summer Social at the home of Anita Gale on Saturday, August 18th, 2018 from 1 pm to 7 pm. This will be a cookout with burgers and hot dogs: contributions of veggies and side dishes welcome. The swimming pool will be open; feel free to take a dip! There is no charge to attend, but voluntary cash contributions will be accepted with our thanks. We would appreciate an RSVP email for planning purposes. Y’all come! NOTE: If conditions are questionable, check our web site for the official word. Our regular chapter meeting will be held in the conference room of the Bay Area Community Center at Clear Lake Park starting at 7 pm Monday, August 20th!
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NSS Book Reviews
By David Brandt-Erichsen
Space books keep us informed, stimulate our imaginations of the future of human space travel, and make excellent gifts. Your purchases through the NSS link to Amazon (of books or anything else!) also provide a credit to NSS to use for our educational programs, at no cost to you. Check out these new titles at NSS Reading Space
Nonfiction Book: The High Frontier: An Easier Way (July 2018), by Tom Marotta and Al Globus, reviewed by David Brandt-Erichsen. This book can be considered a worthy update to Gerard K. O’Neill’s seminal 1977 book The High Frontier, and the authors should be commended on making a major contribution to the subject. This book provides new ideas on a stepwise approach that can help bridge the gap between where we are now and the first orbital space settlements. I highly recommend this book as it contains new information and has an engaging style. There are human-interest profiles of some of the people who are making this happen, from Konstantin Tsiolkovsky to NSS Secretary Anita Gale. Don't forget to check the archives for books you may have missed, including some classics. Check the links at NSS Reading Space to read over 350 reviews, listed alphabetically and by author, of nonfiction, fiction, and children's space books.
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From the NSS Roadmap to Space Settlement
The third edition of our Roadmap to Space Settlement reflects recent advances. Our new feature highlights each milestone on the road to space settlement.
As of 2017, the space tourism industry has accomplished nine flights to the ISS. Companies are building suborbital tourist vehicles; envisioning trips to private space stations; and planning a trip around the Moon. Space tourism is price sensitive. Dropping the price significantly expands the market. Tourism can reduce the cost of vehicle and habitat development and the increase in the this market can lead to economies of scale which will further drop the price and stimulate the demand. Rocket engines and new large boosters are also under development, enabling the orbiting of much larger and more massive single payloads. Such high mass space operations will allow for the creation of larger, safer and more luxurious designs for orbital passenger vehicles and space hotels.
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Space hotel. Image: Bigelow Aerospace. |
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What famous people (and some not famous) have said
about why humankind must expand into space
"It is the hope of those who work toward the breakout from planet Earth that the establishment of permanent, self-sustaining colonies of humans off-Earth will ... make human life forever unkillable, removing it from the endangered species list, where it now stands on a fragile Earth overarmed with nuclear weapons. Second, the opening of virtually unlimited new land areas in space will reduce territorial pressures and therefore diminish warfare on Earth itself." - Gerard O'Neill, Foreword to The Overview Effect by Frank White, 1981
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