Russian company to build 'space hotel' with home comforts

one day...

by Staff Writers
Moscow (AFP) Sept 29, 2010
A Russian company on Wednesday announced plans to launch a comfortable space hotel for tourists who up to now have shared cramped accommodation with astronauts, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.

The company, Orbital Technologies, plans to launch the first module of the hotel in 2015-16, its chief executive Sergei Kostenko told RIA Novosti at a presentation.

A cosy fit, the first module will measure just 20 cubic metres (706 cubic feet) and have four cabins, designed for up to seven passengers, who would go into orbit using the Soyuz shuttle, Kostenko said.

Up to now space tourists, who have included the Canadian founder of the Cirque du Soleil, Guy Laliberte, have squeezed into the International Space Station (ISS) along with cosmonauts and animal life including fruit flies.

The new hotel will offer more comforts than the ISS, Kostenko said.

"Our planned module inside will not remind you of the ISS. A hotel should be comfortable inside, and it will be possible to look at the Earth through large portholes," Kostenko said, calling it a "cosmic hotel".

The space hotel will be aimed at wealthy individuals and people working for private companies who want to do research in space, Kostenko said.

The space tourism programme was halted earlier this year as the crew numbers on the ISS increased, leaving no room for extra passengers.

Kostenko said that the project has "found Russian and American investors, and we are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars", without elaborating.

"At the moment, the project is already at the design stage," he said.

The space hotel would be built by Russian spacecraft manufacturer Energia, the company's website says. It would follow the same orbit as the ISS.

Kostenko told RIA Novosti that "a number of agreements on partnership have already been signed" with Energia and the Russian space agency.

The company's website cites the deputy head of Russian space agency Roskosmos, Vitaly Davydov, as saying that "the suggested project is extremely interesting".

www.space-travel.com

Peculiar Phenomena During Northern Spring On Mars

(a) Simulation of katabatic (downhill) winds. Color bar: friction velocity from 0.1 to 0.6 m/s. (b) Localization of regions where early disappearances (blue) and sudden reappearances (orange) of the carbon dioxide ice signature are observed.

by Staff Writers

Scientists may have solved the mystery of the carbon dioxide

ice disappearance early in the Northern Martian springs followed later by its sudden reappearance, revealing a very active water cycle on the planet. Dr. Bernard Schmitt and Mr. Thomas Appere are reporting their results at the European Planetary Science Congress in Rome this week through Friday 24th September.

Seasonal ice deposits are one of the most important Martian meteorological processes, playing a major role in the water cycle of the planet. Every Martian year, alternatively during northern and southern winter, a significant part of the atmosphere condenses on the surface in the form of frost and snow.

These seasonal ice deposits, which can be up to one meter thick, are mainly composed of carbon dioxide with minor amounts of water and dust. During spring, the deposits sublimate (vaporize), becoming a substantial source of water vapor, in particular in the northern hemisphere of the planet.

Dr. Schmitt and his colleagues Thomas Appere and Dr. Sylvain Doute at the Laboratoire de Planetologie de Grenoble, France, have analyzed data taken with the OMEGA instrument onboard Mars Express, for two northern Martian regions.

Before the Mars Express mission (ESA), the evolution of the seasonal deposits has been monitored by the albedo (reflectivity) and temperature changes of the surface, as the ice deposits appear much brighter and are colder than the surrounding defrosted terrains.

"But we couldn't resolve their exact composition and how they were distributed on the planet. Near-infrared observations, such as the OMEGA data, are much better for detecting strong signatures of water and carbon dioxide ice," says Mr. Appere.

The first Martian region that the scientists observed is located on Gemina Lingula, a Northern plateau, where peculiar evolution of the carbon dioxide ice deposits was observed.

"During spring the ice signature disappeared from our data, but the surface temperature was still cold enough to sustain plenty of CO2 ice. We concluded that a thick layer of something else, either dust or water ice, was overlaid. If it was dust then it would also hide water ice and the surface of the planet would become darker. None of these happened so we concluded that a layer of water ice was hiding the CO2 ice. We had to wait until the weather gets warm enough on Mars for the water to vaporize as well, and then the carbon dioxide signatures re-appeared in our data," explains Dr. Schmitt.

Soon after spring sunrise, the solar radiation hitting the surface of Mars warms enough the CO2 ice lying on the top layer to cause it to vaporize. But the water ice needs higher temperatures to sublimate, so a fine grained layer of water ice gradually forms hiding the carbon dioxide ice still lying beneath it.

"A layer only 2 tenths of a millimeter thick is enough to completely hide the CO2 ice. Also some water that has been vaporized at lower, warmer, Martian latitudes condenses as it moves northward and may be cold trapped on top of the CO2 ice," says Mr. Appere.

The second region analyzed by the team is located in the spiral troughs structure of the North permanent cap. A similar situation was observed but the carbon dioxide ice re-appeared very quickly here after its initial disappearance.

"This hide-and-seek game didn't make much sense to us. It wasn't cold enough for CO2 ice to condense again, neither warm enough for water ice to sublimate," explains Dr. Schmitt.

"We concluded that somehow the water ice layer was removed. The topography of the North permanent Martian cap is well-suited to entail the formation of strong katabatic (downhill) winds. Dr. Aymeric Spiga used a model from the Laboratoire de Meteorologie Dynamique du CNRS to simulate those winds and he indeed confirmed the sudden re-appearances of CO2 ice where strong katabatic winds blow," says Mr. Appere.

Dr. Schmitt concludes: "To decipher the present and past water cycles on Mars and improve our weather models on the planet, one needs to have a good understanding of the seasonal ice deposits dynamics, how they change in space and time. We are confident that our results will make a significant contribution in this direction".

marsdaily.com

New Views Of Saturn's Aurora

This false-color composite image shows the glow of auroras streaking out about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) from the cloud tops of Saturn's south polar region. Image credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona/University of Leicester. Please go here to view video.

by Staff Writers

A new movie and images showing Saturn's shimmering aurora over a two-day period are helping scientists understand what drives some of the solar system's most impressive light shows.

The movie and images are part of a new study that, for the first time, extracts auroral information from the entire catalogue of Saturn images taken by the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer instrument (VIMS) aboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft. These images and preliminary results are being presented by Tom Stallard, lead scientist on a joint VIMS and Cassini magnetometer collaboration, at the European Planetary Science Congress in Rome.

In the movie, the aurora phenomenon clearly varies significantly over the course of a Saturnian day, which lasts around 10 hours 47 minutes. On the noon and midnight sides (left and right sides of the images, respectively), the aurora can be seen to brighten significantly for periods of several hours, suggesting the brightening is connected with the angle of the sun.

Other features can be seen to rotate with the planet, reappearing at the same time and the same place on the second day, suggesting that these are directly controlled by the orientation of Saturn's magnetic field.

"Saturn's auroras are very complex and we are only just beginning to understand all the factors involved," Stallard said. "This study will provide a broader view of the wide variety of different auroral features that can be seen, and will allow us to better understand what controls these changes in appearance."

Auroras on Saturn occur in a process similar to Earth's northern and southern lights. Particles from the solar wind are channeled by Saturn's magnetic field toward the planet's poles, where they interact with electrically charged gas (plasma) in the upper atmosphere and emit light.

At Saturn, however, auroral features can also be caused by electromagnetic waves generated when the planet's moons move through the plasma that fills Saturn's magnetosphere.

Previous data from Cassini have contributed to a number of detailed snapshots of the aurora. But understanding the overall nature of the auroral region requires a huge number of observations, which can be difficult because Cassini observation time close to Saturn is in high demand, Stallard said.

However, VIMS observations of numerous other scientific targets also include auroral information. Sometimes the aurora can be clearly seen, but sometimes Stallard and colleagues add multiple images together to produce a signal.

This wide set of observations allows Cassini scientists to understand the aurora in general, rather than the beautiful specific cases that dedicated auroral observations allow, Stallard said.

Stallard and his colleagues have investigated about 1,000 images from the 7,000 that VIMS has taken to date of Saturn's auroral region.

The new, false-color images show Saturn's aurora glowing in green around the planet's south pole. The auroral information in the two images was extracted from VIMS data taken on May 24, 2007, and Nov. 1, 2008. The video covers about 20 Earth hours of VIMS observations, from Sept. 22 and 23, 2007.

"Detailed studies like this of Saturn's aurora help us understand how they are generated on Earth and the nature of the interactions between the magnetosphere and the uppermost regions of Saturn's atmosphere," said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist, based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

spacedaily.com

International Partners Discuss ISS Extension And Use

File image.

by Staff Writers
Washington DC (SPX) Sep 24, 2010
The International Space Station partner agencies met Tuesday, Sept. 21, by videoconference to discuss continuation of space station operations into the next decade and its use as a research laboratory.

The Multilateral Coordination Board (MCB) meeting included senior representatives from NASA, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), the European Space Agency (ESA), the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), and the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). The MCB meets periodically to ensure coordination of station operations and activities among the partners.

The MCB was pleased to learn that the government of Japan has approved continuing space station operations beyond 2016. Coupled with the approval of the government of the Russian Federation for continuation to 2020, this progress is indicative of the strength of the station partnership and the successful use of station.

ESA and CSA are working with their respective governments to reach consensus about the continuation of the station. NASA also is continuing to work with the U.S. Congress to complete the necessary procedures to extend station operations consistent with the presidential budget request.

The MCB also noted the benefits to future exploration beyond low-Earth orbit through enhanced station research, technology development and other opportunities.

Each partner agency reaffirmed its commitment to gaining the maximum return from station with increasing the operational efficiency. On-going research with potential societal impacts includes:

+ NASA and the National Institutes of Health recently announced three new biomedical experiments using the station's unique microgravity facilities to improve human health on Earth. The experiments will use the station to study how bones and the immune system weaken in space as part of NIH's new BioMed-ISS program.

+ CSA will focus its life science research program on mitigating health risks associated with spaceflight. More specifically, these health experiments and activities will monitor crew health and deliver health care on space missions, develop exercise, etc.

+ ESA just started a fluid physics experiment in the Microgravity Science Glovebox onboard the station's Columbus module that is of high interest to material scientists. The experiment uses advanced optical diagnostics to investigate the transformation of particles to aggregates due to density fluctuations in a mixture. The ESA experiment demonstrates a new capability to reverse and fine-tune the aggregation process; such control may yield a significant potential impact on fabrication of micro-structured materials such as photonic crystals.

+ Roscosmos continues experimental programs aimed at human's adaptation to future long-term expeditions. Effects of the flight conditions on the cardiovascular system, the respiratory system and bones are being carefully investigated in dedicated medical experiments. Other research being conducted includes plantation of wheat and vegetables followed by genetic, microbiological and biochemical tests of plants.

+ Japan's externally mounted X-Ray camera monitors more than 1,000 X-ray sources in space, including black holes and neutron stars. The instrument scans the entire sky in X-ray wavelengths and downlinks data to be distributed through the Internet to research groups around the world. Since last October, it has issued more than 50 alerts for the X-ray transient phenomena.

All of the partners also recognize the key role of the space station in inspiring students around the world to learn about science, technology, engineering and mathematics. More than 30 million students have participated in human spaceflight though communications downlinks and interactive experiments with station astronauts.

www.space-travel.com

Avoid Swimming In Interplanetary Lakes

The chemical processes on Titan are different than those on Earth because there is no water vapor in Titan's air, leading to hydrocarbon-based lakes unlike those seen on our planet. Because of this, the frequent claims that Titan could be a laboratory for the investigation of life's emergence on Earth are unfounded.

by Staff Writers

Tel Aviv, Israel (SPX) Sep 23, 2010

Titan, one of Saturn's moons, is the only moon in the solar system with an atmosphere - ten times denser than the atmosphere of Earth. Five years ago, the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn, a collaboration between the European Space Agency and NASA, sent a probe through Titan's atmosphere, revealing that Titan is home to a landscape that includes hills, valleys and most notably lakes.

A researcher involved with the mission, Prof. Akiva Bar-Nun of Tel Aviv University's Department of Geophysics and Planetary Sciences, has now determined the composition of these lakes. Taking into account the chemical components of Titan's atmosphere, he has demonstrated that the lakes are not composed of water but contain liquid hydrocarbons like ethane and methane, which are also found in oil and gas wells on Earth.

His in-depth analysis of the chemical composition of Titan's atmosphere and lakes was recently published in the Journal of Geophysical Research - Planets.

Gases turned to rain

"Titan's unique atmosphere does not include nitrogen and oxygen like Earth's, but rather nitrogen and methane," Prof. Bar-Nun says. Solar irradiation of the methane in Titan's atmosphere produces a variety of hydrocarbon gases, which condense in the atmosphere and fall to the surface of Saturn's moon.

"Upon reaching the cold surface, they liquefy, raining down, flowing through the gullies and accumulating into lakes - but you wouldn't want to jump into them on a summer holiday," he continues. Further solar irradiation of these hydrocarbons in the atmosphere also produces tiny globules of polymers, or aerosols, which give Titan its famed orange glow.

The chemical processes on Titan are different than those on Earth because there is no water vapor in Titan's air, leading to hydrocarbon-based lakes unlike those seen on our planet. Because of this, the frequent claims that Titan could be a laboratory for the investigation of life's emergence on Earth are unfounded, he says.

From Titan to Siberia?

Prof. Bar-Nun says that these recent findings confirm predictions that he made in 1979, when he first developed the theory that there were lakes on Titan. Upon falling to the moon's surface, he theorized, the hydrocarbons in the atmosphere would form lakes with a depth of approximately 43 meters had they been covering the entire surface of Titan. In addition, he hypothesized that the same elements would form aerosols in the atmosphere.

The Cassini-Huygens mission also confirmed a prediction that Prof. Bar-Nun and his fellow researchers made in 1999 regarding the height of mountains on Titan. Titan's water-ice crust, he explains, has similar properties to the permafrost found in Siberia. Being partly fluid, permafrost permits hills and mountains to rise no higher than 1,900 meters, or approximately 6,200 feet. And indeed, no hill or mountain on Titan's surface exceeds that height, the researchers found.

.spacedaily.com

Bringing Grace To Earth Mass And Water Movements

Global present-day trends in the transport of water mass around Earth, as determined using data from GRACE, surface measurements and an ocean model. Darker areas represent greater loss of mass. Image credit: NASA-JPL/-Caltech.

NASA and European researchers have conducted a novel study to simultaneously measure, for the first time, trends in how water is transported across Earth's surface and how the solid Earth responds to the retreat of glaciers following the last major Ice Age, including the shifting of Earth's center of mass.

To calculate the changes, scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.; Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands; and the Netherlands Institute for Space Research, Utrecht, Netherlands, combined gravity data from the NASA/German Aerospace Center Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellites with direct measurements of global surface movements from GPS and other sources and a JPL-developed model that estimates the mass of Earth's ocean above any point on the ocean floor. Results are reported in the September issue of Nature Geoscience.

Using the new methodology, the researchers, led by Xiaoping Wu of JPL, calculated new estimates of ice loss in Greenland and Antarctica that are significantly smaller than previous estimates.

According to the team's estimates, mass losses between 2002 and 2008 measured 104 (plus or minus 23) gigatonnes a year in Greenland, 101 (plus or minus 23) gigatonnes a year in Alaska/Yukon, and 64 (plus or minus 32) gigatonnes a year in West Antarctica.

A gigatonne is one billion metric tons, or more than 2.2 trillion pounds. The smaller but significant ice loss estimates reflect the revised role that post-glacial rebound was found to play in relation to current ice mass loss in Greenland and Antarctica.

Post-glacial rebound (known as glacial isostatic adjustment) is the response of the solid Earth to the retreat of glaciers following the last Ice Age. After the weight of ice from the land surface was removed, the land under the ice rose and continues to slowly rise.

In addition, the team found that the shift of water mass around the globe, combined with the post-glacial rebound of Earth's surface, is shifting Earth's surface relative to its center of mass by 0.88 millimeters (.035 inches) a year toward the North Pole. The estimate of the shift due to rebound-0.72 millimeters (.028 inches) per year--is believed to be the first estimate based on actual data, rather than a model prediction.

Wu said the shift of Earth's surface is due primarily to the melted Laurentide ice sheet, which blanketed most of Canada and a part of the northern United States around 21,000 years ago. "The new estimate of shift is much larger than previous model estimates of 0.48 millimeters [.019 inches] per year," said Wu.

"This suggests that either Earth's lower mantle must be much more viscous than previously believed, or that the history of Earth's deglaciation needs to be significantly revised."

Wu said previous GRACE-based estimates of the movement of mass at Earth's surface have been calculated by correcting the data using a post-glacial rebound model, while estimates of post-glacial rebound itself have been estimated using a hydrological model.

These models are not as precise as the geodetic data, however, and contain unknown and potentially large errors that will throw off estimates of the other process.

GRACE project scientist Michael Watkins of JPL, who was not an author on the paper, said that although some of the new results, such as those for Greenland, are surprising, they are not due to a reanalysis of GRACE or GPS data alone.

Rather, they are a result of the simultaneous use of GRACE, GPS and other geodetic measurements to help objectively sort out the relative sizes of post-glacial rebound and present-day ice mass loss.

"Both the GPS and gravity measurements are accurate on their own, but untangling the relative contributions of the two processes as observed by satellites is difficult. This technique provides a first global attempt at doing that," Watkins said.

"The Earth system is so complex that measuring and understanding it requires scientists to combine observations from as many satellites and ground-based measurements as possible," Watkins added.

"With each new study like this one, we learn more and more about how to conduct future studies and interpret their data. The more data, and different types of data we collect, the better we'll be able to answer fundamental questions about how our planet works.

spacedaily.com

Data Clippers Set Sail To Enhance Future Planetary Missions

Recent advances in technology mean that spacecraft propelled by solar sails, which use radiation pressure from photons emitted by the Sun, or electric sails, which harness the momentum of the solar wind, can now be envisaged for mid-term missions. The Japanese Space Agency, JAXA, is currently testing a solar sail mission, IKAROS. Credit: Thales Alenia Space

by Staff Writers

Paris, France (SPX) Sep 21, 2010

A new golden age of sailing may be about to begin - in space. Future missions to explore the outer planets could employ fleets of 'data-clippers', maneuverable spacecraft equipped with solar sails, to ship vast quantities of scientific data to back Earth.

According to Joel Poncy of Thales Alenia Space, the technology could be ready in time to support mid-term missions to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Poncy will be presenting an assessment of data clippers at the European Planetary Science Congress in Rome on Monday 20th September.

"Space-rated flash memories will soon be able to store the huge quantities of data needed for the global mapping of planetary bodies in high resolution. But a full high-res map of, say, Europa or Titan, would take several decades to download from a traditional orbiter, even using very large antennae.

Downloading data is the major design driver for interplanetary missions. We think that data clippers would be a very efficient way of overcoming this bottleneck," said Poncy.

Poncy and his team at Thales Alenia Space have carried out a preliminary assessment for a data clipper mission. Their concept is for a clipper to fly close to a planetary orbiter, upload its data and fly by Earth, at which point terabytes of data could be downloaded to the ground station.

A fleet of data clippers cruising around the Solar System could provide support for an entire suite of planetary missions.

"We have looked at the challenges of a data clipper mission and we think that it could be ready for a launch in the late 2020s. This means that the technology should be included now in the roadmap for future missions, and this is why we are presenting this study at EPSC," said Poncy.

Poncy's team have assessed the communications systems and trackingdevices that a data clipper would need, as well as the flyby conditions and pointing accuracy required for the massive data transfers.

Recent advances in technology mean that spacecraft propelled by solar sails, which use radiation pressure from photons emitted by the Sun, or electric sails, which harness the momentum of the solar wind, can now be envisaged for mid-term missions.

The Japanese Space Agency, JAXA, is currently testing a solar sail mission, IKAROS.

"Using the Sun as a propulsion source has the considerable advantage of requiring no propellant on board. As long as the hardware doesn't age too much and the spacecraft is maneuverable, the duration of the mission can be very long. The use of data clippers could lead to a valuable downsizing of exploration missions and lower ground operation costs - combined with a huge science return.

"The orbiting spacecraft would still download some samples of their data directly to Earth to enable real-time discoveries and interactive mission operations. But the bulk of the data is less urgent and is often processed by scientists much later. Data clippers could provide an economy delivery service from the outer Solar System, over and over again," said Poncy.

.space-travel.com

Building A Tower To The Stars

The attraction of the Space Elevator concept is not only how environmentally friendly it would be, but also how cheap it would be compared with current rocket technologies

by Tony Healey
London, UK (SPX) Sep 20, 2010
In his 1979 novel 'The Fountains of Paradise' Science Fiction author Arthur C Clarke imagined a not-too-distant future where technology would have progressed so far as to allow us to engineer a material strong enough to be used as a cable connecting an orbiting satellite with the ground - a concept commonly referred to as 'The Space Elevator' or 'Tether'.

It involves having a satellite in near-Earth orbit, with one tether stretched out into space, attached to a heavy object acting as a counter weight, against a line that is dropped to Earth from the satellite and secured to the ground.

The satellite remains fixed in synchronous orbit, and the counter weight would keep the line held taut.

A vehicle would be used to go up and down this line, much like an elevator, moving with relative ease to and from Earth orbit. As Clarke notes in his book, perhaps it is easier to think of the Space Elevator as being something stretching not upward toward the stars, but outward... that is, 35,000 kilometers outward.

The idea is not originally Clarke's however, although he certainly brought it to widespread attention in 1979 with the publication of his novel; the Space Elevator it has its roots more in science fact than science fiction.

The key idea behind it dates back to 1895, when a Soviet Rocket Scientist named Konstantin Tsiolkovsky - inspired by the Eiffel Tower - proposed an idea for building a solid free-standing tower from Earth's surface, reaching up 35,000 kilometers into space. He proposed that from the top of this tower, objects could be launched into space with relative ease into orbit.

However the lack of a material strong enough to support its own weight at such a height proved the concept beyond human capability. Still, the underlying idea of simply connecting ground and sky, as opposed to travelling from ground to sky, stuck.

Later, in 1959, leading Soviet Engineer called Yuri Artsustanov followed on from Tsiolkovsky's work when he conceived of the Space Elevator as we think of it today.

It is worth mentioning that Artsustanov drew on not just one but two concepts of Tsiolkovsky's - the huge tower reaching up into space, and the geostationary satellite, theorized by Tsiolkovsky in his 1903 work 'The Exploration of Cosmic Space by Means of Reaction Devices'.

This concept was further developed by Clarke himself in 1945, as an idea for communication satellites in geostationary orbits. This led to the obvious: the Satellite Television, GPS, etc, that we all take for granted today.

The extent of the impact Tsiolkovsky's work had on the early thinkers of the twentieth century is obvious - the most famous example of his influence might well have been the successful launching of Sputnik into space; showing that a geostationary orbit could be sustained by a man-made object. This allowed Artsustanov to base his concept of a Space Elevator in known truth - making it a more viable idea.

The attraction of the Space Elevator concept is not only how environmentally friendly it would be, but also how cheap it would be compared with current rocket technologies with the cost of sending anything up into space at roughly $20,000 per lb. Using the Space Elevator technology would be many times less than that.

Another factor is the level of public interest. People need something new to get excited about. Since the heydays of the Space Race in the 50's and 60's, public interest in leaving our planet has waned severely.

Perhaps that is partly due to the fact that we stopped heading to the moon and seemed more content remaining within Earth's orbit.

It could be because of the amount of time it takes to plan, and implement each separate mission; losing public interest in the waiting. And surely the reality of how much each mission into space currently costs is a factor also.

With the Space Elevator, we could travel from a point on Earth's surface into space, without the need for rockets, and at a dramatically lower cost. It would also be safer; removing the danger involved in riding an over-sized firework.

We could ferry supplies to an orbiting Space Station such as the ISS with ease. Even the ability to launch Satellites and Space Probes without the need of a rocket would be money well saved. Indeed the uses of the Space Elevator concept, and the opportunities that it opens to us, are immense. The technology would have a profound effect on not only the way that we reach space, but on what we do next.

Imagine a Space Elevator not only on Earth, but on the Moon as well, helping us to establish and maintain a Moon Base on the lunar surface. Perhaps even ferrying processed lunar ore to awaiting transports to bring back to Earth. And what of Mars?

The problem with a manned mission to Mars is the difficulty of establishing a base on Mars, and the logistics of getting back off of the surface. With a Space Elevator on Mars, a single ship could be sent to Mars and left in orbit whilst the surface is explored. The astronauts could then return to the ship via the Elevator, and head back to Earth.

The other proposed use of the Space Elevator concept, is in using the tethers to slingshot objects away from Earth into space. With the counter weight at one end of the tether, and for example a space probe at the other, the tether would transfer momentum to the probe, throwing it away from Earth at great speed.

This would not only negate the need for a probe to circle the Earth continuously until it had picked up enough speed to break away from Earth's gravity, but it might also mean that a probe's journey into deep space might be that much quicker, given the kick start.

There are several drawbacks to building a Space Elevator, the biggest of which is the production of a material that is suitable to be stretched tight over tens of thousands of kilometers, and endure great weights and strains from various forces. The other is the immense cost of actually getting such a 'construction' built.

However, there has recently been a resurgence of interest in the concept, and amongst several ongoing projects to build a Space Elevator is a recent announcement by Shuichi Ono, Chairman of the Japan Space Elevator Association, of their intent to build a Space Elevator with a trillion yen price tag.

Only the future will tell if such grand plans come to see fruition.

It is very clear that if we want to go back into space, and send people like you and I there, then we need to make travelling to space as cheap and as easy as possible. We cannot continue to rely on rocket technology, which is hundreds of years old, and far too expensive (the average cost sending the Space Shuttle into space is around about $450 Million).

We need to use technologies that can get Mankind to and from Space cheaply, quickly, and regularly. The development of new, strong materials that will allow us to build things like the Space Elevator will be a major factor in allowing us to do that. Surely the key to getting Mankind back into space is to make space a tourist attraction and allow companies to make money by taking them there.

In much the same way that airlines and jets offer to us the prospect of travelling anywhere on the globe, in the future they must be able to offer trips into space, the moon, and perhaps other planets. And they will not do this by using rockets.

A rich elite may be able to afford such trips in rocket-powered craft, but not the everyday men and women who have spent their lives looking up at the night sky and wishing they could reach out and touch it.

To open space to the masses, travel to it must be cheap and safe, and we must be able to send one trip after another. Links from the surface to the stars, and the advances in Science and Engineering that will make them possible, will help make going into space a realistic dream that will not be confined to only the super rich.

In the near future, perhaps within our own lifetimes, such trips might be as simple as riding a train... they might even be just as cheap.

www.spacedaily.com

Cyborgs Needed For Escape From Earth

The image shows an artist's rendition of a future base on Mars. A manned-Mars mission would take require astronauts being in space for more than a year. Currently, there isn't enough research to know what long-term deep space travel would do to astronaut health. Credit: John J. Olson

by Anuradha K. Herath
for Astrobiology Magazine
Moffett Field CA (SPX) Sep 17, 2010
Scientists have warned for decades that humans are straining the Earth. The global population is increasing, economies are expanding and consumption doesn't appear to be slowing.

While save-the-planet campaigns are asking people to save energy, conserve water, recycle and even go vegetarian, some scientists are thinking literally out of this world by suggesting that humans may eventually have to consider leaving Earth if they are to survive as a species.

In the September issue of Endeavour, senior curator at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Roger Launius takes a look at the historical debate surrounding human colonization of the solar system and how human biology will have to adapt to such extreme space environments.

Colonizing the Solar System
Experiments have shown that certain life forms can survive in space. Recently, British scientists found that bacteria living on rocks taken from Britain's Beer village were able to survive 553 days in space, on the exterior of the International Space Station (ISS). The microbes returned to Earth alive, proving they could withstand the harsh environment.

Humans, on the other hand, are unable to survive beyond about a minute and a half in space without significant technological assistance. Other than some quick trips to the moon and the ISS, astronauts haven't spent too much time too far away from Earth. Scientists don't know enough yet about the dangers of long-distance space travel on human biological systems.

A one-way trip to Mars, for example, would take approximately six months. That means astronauts will be in deep space for more than a year with potentially life-threatening consequences.

"If it's about exploration, we're doing that very effectively with robots," Launius said. "If it's about humans going somewhere, then I think the only purpose for it is to get off this planet and become a multi-planetary species."

Launius isn't the only person who envisions humans leaving Earth. Acclaimed British physicist Stephen Hawking recently discussed his own thoughts on how the human race would survive.

"I believe that the long-term future of the human race must be in space," Hawking told the Big Think website in August. "It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster on planet Earth in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand, or million. The human race shouldn't have all its eggs in one basket, or on one planet."

If humans are to colonize other planets, Launius said it could well require the "next state of human evolution" to create a separate human presence where families will live and die on that planet. In other words, it wouldn't really be Homo sapien sapiens that would be living in the colonies, it could be cyborgs-a living organism with a mixture of organic and electromechanical parts-or in simpler terms, part human, part machine.

To Be a Cyborg
By definition, cyborgs are not a thing of the future, but very much a thing of the present. Launius classifies himself as a cyborg because he relies on medical technology to sustain and enhance his life.

"There are cyborgs walking about us," Launius said. "There are individuals who have been technologically enhanced with things such as pacemakers and cochlea ear implants that allow those people to have fuller lives. I would not be alive without technological advances."

The possibility of using cyborgs for space travel has been the subject of research for at least half a century. An influential article published in 1960 by Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline titled "Cyborgs and Space" changed the debate.

According to them, there was a better alternative to recreating the Earth's environment in space, the predominant thinking during that time. The two scientists compared that approach to "a fish taking a small quantity of water along with him to live on land." They felt that humans should be willing to partially adapt to the environment to which they would be traveling.

"Altering man's bodily functions to meet the requirements of extraterrestrial environments would be more logical than providing an earthly environment for him in space," Clynes and Kline wrote.

Even though it may be both logically and technologically possible, the ethical question is whether it should be done.

"It does raise profound ethical, moral and perhaps even religious questions that haven't been seriously addressed," Launius said. "We have a ways to go before that happens."

Grant Gillett, a professor of medical ethics at the Otago Bioethics Center of the University of Otago Medical School in New Zealand said addressing the ethical issue is really about justifying the need for such an approach, the need for altering humans so significantly that they end up not entirely human in the end.

"(Whether we) should do it largely depends on if it's important enough for humanity in general," Gillett said. "To some extent, that's the justification."

The greater concern, according to Gillett, is that the cyborgs will likely only have a simulation of human behavior. What is important, he said, is not what the cyborgs are made up of but what types of moral sensibilities and intuitions are built in. And there is really no way of knowing for sure or even of making reasonable guesses without doing a lot more work on the moral nature of humans.

"I think the danger is that we might end up producing a psychopath because we don't quite understand the nature of cyborgs," Gillett said.

The Future of Cyborgs
At first, as Launius points out in his article, NASA did support this field of research, but that interest lasted for less than a decade. By the late 1960s, the agency had distanced itself from the topic. For one, the technology was not available at that time. However, some scientists think the problem was more about public image.

Would the American public of that decade-one that was arguably obsessed with the space program and idolized astronauts-have accepted the "cyborgization of (the) astronaut corps"?

NASA still isn't focusing much research on how to improve human biological systems for space exploration. Instead, its Human Research Program is focused on risk reduction: risks of fatigue, inadequate nutrition, health problems and radiation.

While financial and ethical concerns may have held back cyborg research, Launius believes that society may have to engage in the cyborg debate again when space programs get closer to launching long-term deep space exploration missions.

"If our objective is to become space-faring people, it's probably going to force you to reconsider how to reengineer humans,' Launius said.

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