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Could the Tumbleweed Rover Dominate Mars?
By Ian O'Neill Thu Mar 4, 2010 08:22 PM ET
http://news.discovery.com/space/could-the-tumbleweed-rover-dominate-mars.html?print=true
Tumbleweed probes exploring the Dao Vallis region of Mars. The inhospitable terrain is un-passable using conventional rovers, whereas a wind-blown Tumbleweed could traverse the gullies and debris to look for water and life (NASA LaRC/Case Western University/NASA Planetary Data System)

Before Mars can become the next great frontier for human exploration, we need to send more robotic missions to gather as much information as possible about our planetary neighbor. But what kind of robot has the right combination of weight, cost and range, while still being able to carry out groundbreaking science?

Cue the Tumbleweed Mars rover, an ingenious concept vying for attention in the hope of becoming an entirely different method to explore vast regions of the Martian surface, one that rolls across the surface instead of six-wheeling.

Orbiters, Landers, Rovers and... Tumbleweeds?

The robotic exploration of Mars has come in three shapes so far. First and foremost are the orbiters; satellites inserted in various Martian orbits, viewing the planetary surface with ever increasing resolution from hundreds of miles in altitude. Although they can't do science in situ, they can gain a global perspective on the Martian geography.

Then there are the landers; stationary probes carrying a suite of instruments to dig and analyze the local Martian dirt. They might be stuck on the spot, but they can do a lot of science.


A comparison of dust cover on NASA's Mars Expedition Rover Spirit's solar panels (NASA/JPL).And then there's the rover; a balance between mobility and scientific payload. Although there have only been three successful rover missions to date (two of which are still reporting for duty) and two more are planned for launch in the coming years, this is arguably the best way to trundle across the Martian surface. But even rovers have their limitations.

Complex moving parts (such as wheels and joints) get clogged or jammed, solar panels often get coated in dust and although their range can be impressive for an extraterrestrial robot, they can't really explore vast regions of Mars' surface. Opportunity is doing well, notching up kilometers on the odometer. Although Spirit is still soldiering on, the rover is firmly stuck in a sand trap in Gusev Crater.

(The upcoming Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity bypasses the solar array dust problem by using a radioisotope thermoelectric generator -- or RTG for short -- to power it. This car-sized rover will be able to dominate the Martian surface day, night and during the worst dust storms.)


A Short History of the Tumbleweed

So, before humans can explore where only robots have dared to tread, we need more reconnaissance missions with the ability to explore greater areas of the Martian landscape. This would be hugely beneficial for the continuing search for Martian life, as so far we've been restricted to only exploring tiny patches of Mars.

The robotic Tumbleweed could be the mission to fulfill these aims.

The idea of sending a spherical, wind-propelled vehicle (or "Mars Ball") to the Red Planet was originally conceived in 1977 by Jacques Blamont of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the University of Paris. This was shortly after the Mars Viking Landers discovered that the Martian atmosphere consisted mainly of carbon dioxide and had relatively strong winds. However, the modern incarnation of the Tumbleweed was inspired by accident.


The inflatable Mars Tumbleweed concept during tests in Antarctica in 2004 (Alberto Behar/NASA JPL)In 2000, another JPL team headed by Jack Jones was testing a three-wheeled inflatable rover in the Mojave Desert, Calif., when one of the "wheels" broke off and was blown over the sand dunes.

This inflatable ball bounced over boulders, sped up steep slopes and traveled over coarse vegetation with ease. As Jones' team chased after the oversized beach ball (measuring 1.5 meters in diameter), the idea was born: An independent ball that acts like a tumbleweed could have the potential to explore Mars, propelled only by the Martian winds.

HowStuffWorks: The Mars Tumbleweed gained its inspiration from its natural terrestrial counterpart, but how do tumbleweeds work?


To Rove or Roll?

But could this fascinating concept supersede the Mars rover as planetary exploration vehicle of choice? Let's face it, NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers have outlived their planned mission lifetimes by six years (they were designed to last five months). Why would we want to deviate from such a successful means of exploring this alien landscape?

"Spirit and Opportunity have been nothing short of spectacular. However, they have very limited mobility, which is often dictated by the terrain," Dr. Kim Kuhlman, Senior Research Scientist of the Planetary Science Institute, told Discovery News.

Kuhlman is one of the Tumbleweed scientists heading this effort to communicate the science behind this unique vehicle. She is scheduled to present the Mars Tumbleweed proposal at the Earth and Space 2010 conference in Hawaii on March 16.

"A fleet of Tumbleweeds could cover a much greater area using the wind for propulsion," she added. "Some of them may get stuck and become stationary platforms similar to Spirit's current situation, but the majority would perform a 'random-walk' survey of an area orders of magnitude greater than that of a rover."


The inflatable Tumbleweed concept being propelled by the Mars wind (NASA LaRC/Case Western University/NASA Planetary Data System) [Watch the video]But before this plan can advance beyond the concept phase, more funding is needed to develop the miniaturized instrumentation that would need to be carried aboard the Tumbleweeds. If researchers can get the funds, the physical size of scientific experiments could be shrunk, making them easier for the spherical probes to tote.

The Tumbleweeds are intended to track atmospheric conditions, geographical location, communicate with orbiters (to relay data back to Earth), and even probe the chemistry of Martian soil, so the smaller the better. They could even generate their own power by harnessing the kinetic energy their motion generates.

There's also the tantalizing possibility that a fleet of Tumbleweeds -- each with different instruments on board -- could "swarm" and act as one unit to carry out a sophisticated array of measurements.

"The instrumentation is constantly being miniaturized and some components could actually come off the shelf. The real constraining factor as to how many and which instruments are deployed is the amount of power that can be incorporated. Batteries add mass, which slows down the Tumbleweed. One can certainly envision a fleet of Tumbleweeds that have various configurations of instruments and the capability to swarm if one Tumbleweed finds something of great interest. This would, of course, require a means of controlling the direction of movement of the Tumbleweeds. This technology is not very mature because funding has not been available." -- Kim Kuhlman.

They Come in All Shapes and Sizes

If the project is given the go-ahead, NASA will need to decide what configuration of Tumbleweed would be most efficient and/or practical.

For example, the inflatable Tumbleweed concept is a tried and tested vehicle, having undergone extensive field tests in Greenland and Antarctica in 2003 and 2004. The inflatable Tumbleweed traversed hundreds of miles while continually relaying atmospheric measurements and location data.


Miniature sensor platforms could be dropped by the Tumbleweed to further investigate a location of special interest while the Tumbleweed continues on its way (NASA LaRC/Case Western University/NASA Planetary Data System)
[Watch the video]It is also hoped the inflatable design could be commanded to deflate at locations of interest, causing it to "sit down" and stop rolling. As the underside will be in greater contact with the ground, perhaps analysis tools can be lowered into the cavity beneath, sampling any gases vented from the ground. (Watch the video to see the inflatable Tumbleweed in action.)

Another prominent Tumbleweed design is a ridged "box kite" type. Although this technique is less mature than the inflatable design, the sail-like paddles have a better drag coefficient. This means they will use the available Mars winds more efficiently, perhaps traveling further and faster.

To aid control over the Tumbleweed, an offset weight housed in the center of the sphere could be commanded to alter position, shifting the Tumbleweed's center of mass and essentially steering it that way.

These concepts, along with others -- namely the Dandelion, Eggbeater, and Tumble-cup configurations -- have been tested and developed by a collaboration of research institutions including NASA Langley Research Center, North Carolina State University, Texas Tech University, the Biorobotics Laboratory at Case Western Reserve University and Planetary Science Institute.


Ready to Roll?

Although we probably won't see a fleet of Tumbleweeds bouncing across the Martian surface any time soon, it is certainly a novel approach to planetary exploration. However, Kuhlman will have her work cut out to convince the world that this paradigm shift in robotic exploration is a viable one.

"I've actually had a very influential scientist in astrobiology call the idea "loopy" to my face," she added.

But critics be warned, the Tumbleweed scientists have been working on this project for a decade and Kuhlman is lead author of a chapter titled "Tumbleweed: A New Paradigm for Surveying the Surface of Mars for In-situ Resources" of the book Mars: Prospective Energy and Material Resources.

FOX News:

At a press conference Wednesday, Silicon Valley startup Bloom Energy showed off its new, heavily hyped technology, which harnesses chemical reactions to create energy. The company’s mission: to revolutionize the world’s fuel sources.

Bloom’s main product is the Bloom Energy Server, a generator based around a smart new fuel cell technology. Fuel cells rely upon chemical reactions to generate energy rather than fossil fuels, and as such are considered cleaner, more affordable, and more reliable than the traditional energy sources.

Fuel cell technology has been under development for decades, primarily concentrating on chemical reactions using hydrogen — an element that can be volatile and difficult to store. Bloom’s fuel cell technology is fundamentally different, running on a wide range of renewable or traditional fuels.

The technology has roots in NASA’s Mars space program, where Dr. KR Sridhar, principal co-founder and CEO of Bloom Energy, was charged with building technology to help sustain life on Mars. His mandate: Use solar energy and water to produce air to breath and fuel for transportation.

Sridhar’s invention converts air and nearly any fuel source — ranging from natural gas to a wide range of biogases — into electricity via a clean electrochemical process, rather than dirty combustion.

Even running on a fossil fuel, the systems are approximately 67% cleaner than a typical coal-fired power plant, explains Bloom. When powered by a renewable fuel, the company’s Energy Server can be 100% cleaner. Each Energy Server consists of thousands of Bloom’s fuel cells, flat, solid ceramic squares made from a common sand-like “powder.”

Bloom Energy states that to date, Bloom Energy Servers, currently in deployment for several Fortune 500 companies, have produced more than 11 million kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity, with CO2 reductions estimated at 14 million pounds.

The technology industry breathlessly watched and waited for Wednesday’s unveiling. John Doerr, a partner at investment firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Bloom Energy board member, shared in the hype.

“For years, there have been promises of new energy solutions that are clean, distributed, affordable, and reliable; today we learn that Bloom, formerly in stealth, has actually delivered,” he said. “Americans want clean, affordable, energy, 24×7 — and all the jobs that go with it. Bloom’s boxes are a breakthrough, serving energy, serving demanding customers, and serving our country.”

The company’s customers seem to echo Doerr’s enthusiasm, many of which are leading businesses. Coca-Cola, Cox, eBay, FedEx, Google, Staples, and more have been running the Energy Servers.

Coke’s 500kW installation at its Odwalla plant in Dinuba, CA, will run on re-directed biogas and is expected to provide 30% of the plant’s power needs while reducing its carbon footprint by an estimated 35%.

“This new fuel cell technology has great promise and represents an important step for Coca-Cola in continuing to grow our business without growing the carbon footprint,” said Brian Kelley, President and General Manager, Coca-Cola North America. He noted that the Bloom Servers can help the company reduce carbon emissions while improving efficiency and using cleaner forms of energy.”

In a video shown at the event, California Senator Dianne Feinstein, Cypress Semiconductor CEO T.J. Rogers, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and others raved about the new innovation.

Mayor Bloomberg said he was excited from the first time he saw the technology in action: “My first reaction was this was a company guaranteed for greatness.”

“When we look at Bloom Energy,” he added, “we are looking at the future of business, at the future of the economy, at the future of America.”

Humans are no strangers to ravaging the land, but the stars have proven a good deal more elusive. So far, our ethical concerns have remained limited to the contamination of extraterrestrial environments, but what will the future bring?

Last night I attended a lecture by Jesuit Brother Guy J. Consolmagno, a U.S. research astronomer and planetary scientist at the Vatican Observatory. He gave a very engaging talk about the ethics of exploration and planetary astronomy, touching on two particularly noteworthy items:

Asteroid Mining
Can you put a price tag on an asteroid? Sure you can. We know of roughly 750 S-class asteroids with a diameter of at least 1 kilometer. Many of these pass as near to the Earth as our own moon -- close enough to reach via spacecraft. As a typical asteroid is 10 percent metal, Brother Consolmango estimates that such an asteroid would contain 1 billion metric tons of iron. That's as much as we mine out of the globe every year, a supply worth trillions and trillions of dollars. Subtract the tens of billions it would cost to exploit such a rock, and you still have a serious profit on your hands.

But is this ethical? Brother Consolmango asked us to ponder whether such an asteroid harvest would drastically disrupt the economies of resource-exporting nations. What would happen to most of Africa? What would it do to the cost of iron ore? And what about refining and manufacturing? If we spend the money to harvest iron in space, why not outsource the other related processes as well? Imagine a future in which solar-powered robots toil in lunar or orbital factories.

"On the one hand, it's great," Brother Consolmango said. "You've now taken all of this dirty industry off the surface of the Earth. On the other hand, you've put a whole lot of people out of work. If you've got a robot doing the mining, why not another robot doing the manufacturing? And now you've just put all of China out of work. What are the ethical implications of this kind of major shift?"

Brother Consolmango also stressed that we have the technology to begin such a shift today; we'd just need the economic and political will to do it. Will our priorities change as Earth-bound resources become more and more scarce?

Terraforming
Most of our planetary colonization dreams revolve around changing the environments of other worlds to cater to our own astronomically particular needs. Seriously, imagine if the Smoking Gun posted humanity's tour rider for visiting other worlds. What utter divas we are! As the alternative of changing ourselves to inhabit other worlds is largely unexplored, we have to ponder the far-future ethics of terraforming another planet.

Specifically, Brother Consolmango mentioned the idea of taking material from a c-class asteroid or a Martian moon and spreading it over Mars' pole caps. In theory, this feat would create the sort of drastic global warming we're hoping to avoid on Earth. Coated with dust, the poles would then absorb even more solar radiation than before, causing them to heat up and release carbon dioxide. Atmospheric pressure would increase. The resulting greenhouse effect could possibly raise temperatures to facilitate stabilized liquid water. This could lead to lakes, oxygen and a successful seeding of plant life. Eventually, Arnold Schwarzenegger would be able to take his space helmet off without his eyeballs exploding.

But what are the ethics of this (the terraforming, not the eyeball thing)? What if Mars already contains hidden life? Might the origins of life on Earth trail back to the red planet as well? Thoroughly contaminate everything and we might erase all trace of what was. And the past isn't the only thing potentially at stake.

"Here's a deeper question," Brother Consolmango said. "What if there is no life on Mars or Titan or some other place we're going to go to, but all the ingredients are there, such that at some future time life could exist. The potentiality of life is there and, by terraforming it, we're aborting that possibility. Under what circumstances is that an ethical thing to do?"

What do you think?

In addition to covering these topics, Brother Consolmango also touched base on the issues of light pollution, meteorite collecting and the coexistence of science and religion. On the meteorite issue, I was pleased to hear him hit all the points I made in my recent post on the matter.

And you can read Robert Lamb's HowStuffWorks.com blog post
Can science and religion coexist?
for more on the religion/science issue.

Either way, feel free to spill your thoughts on the ethics of planetary exploration
and colonization.
Learn to exploit some space at HowStuffWorks.com:
How Asteroid Mining Will Work
How Iron and Steel Work
How Mars Works
How Terraforming Mars Will Work
How Light Pollution Works

Carl Sagan with a mock-up of a Viking Lander


A Short History of Life on Mars
February 15, 2010

The idea of “Men from Mars” has been with us for more than a century now, thanks to writers like H.G. Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs. And movies like “Mars Attacks” and “War of the Worlds” are good fun. But what’s the real story of the search for life on Mars? Today we tell the tale of the search for life on the Red Planet…

In the 17th and 18th centuries, early telescopic astronomers glimpsed polar caps– much like Earth’s– that grew and shrank with the Martian seasons. The Martian day turned out to be about the same length as Earth’s. The axial tilt was similar to Earth, too, which meant Mars has seasons much as we do. And those strange dark surface markings… were they water? Or vegetation?

Then in the mid-1800’s, the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli claimed to see long, thin lines on the surface of Mars. He called them canals, and he mapped them meticulously.

American astronomer Percival Lowell saw the canals too and loudly claimed they were irrigation structures built by an advanced Martian civilization. Inspired by Lowell’s claim, H.G. Wells wrote “War of the Worlds”, which has been re-purposed into radio events and movies over the decades. The possibility of “Men from Mars” stoked the imagination of science fiction writers and readers through the first half of the 20th century.

But as telescopes improved, few other astronomers could see the canals which were– correctly– dismissed as an optical illusion. Some denounced Lowell as a crank. And the existence of life on Mars remained tantalizing, but unproven.

Then, in 1965, space probes were dispatched to Mars to get a better view.

In 1965, the Mariner 4 space probe flew past Mars and snapped 22 black-and-white images of a tiny part of the Martian surface. The images showed craters– big ones– which suggested Mars was more like our moon than the Earth. So no Martian forests, or canals, or cities. The New York Times wrote a feature article declaring Mars “a dead world”. Later, Mariners 6 and 7 showed more craters, and many planetary scientists gave up hope of finding life on Mars.

But one scientist thought this conclusion was premature. Carl Sagan, along with a few colleagues, suggested the coverage and resolution of the early Mariner images were too poor to confirm the absence of life.

Then NASA sent Mariner 9.

In 1971, this probe became the first to orbit Mars. At first, the images showed only the white polar caps and a featureless surface. That’s because the probe arrived during a planet-wide dust storm which lasted weeks. As the dust cleared, the images revealed a startling display of surface features including immense volcanoes, canyons, and river beds that suggested the one-time presence of liquid water. The atmospheric pressure on Mars is too low to sustain liquid water now. But where did the water go? Underground? Frozen in the polar caps? If so, maybe there was still hope to find life elsewhere on the planet. The chase for life on Mars was on again.

Five years later, NASA landed the two Viking probes on the surface of Mars. They sent back thousands of pictures of a dry, rusty, rocky surface. And they grabbed samples of the Martian soil and conducted on-site chemistry experiments to look for the telltale signs of life.

The results?

At first, they looked promising. But after a little thought, most scientists concluded there was no definitive evidence for life on the surface of Mars.

Sadly, other surface probes since Viking, right up to the current Phoenix Lander, have found no evidence for life. No palm trees or hubcaps, no bacteria or organic molecules. More missions are planned in the coming years, including the European ExoMars mission which will dig two meters into the surface to look for signatures of life.

One more strange thing…

In 1984, a meteorite was found in Antarctica. Scientists were certain the meteorite came from Mars. It was likely knocked of by a volcanic eruption or asteroid impact, and its chemical composition was the same as the surface of Mars. In 1996, a group of scientists suggested they found fossilized evidence of bacteria in this Martian meteorite. But these results have been in dispute on and off ever since; no strong conclusions one way or the other have been declared. Though late last year, the same scientists concluded once again that this meteorite contains evidence of life on Mars.

So no one’s found clear-cut evidence of life on Mars, but we’ve only examined a tiny part of the surface. Upcoming missions may yet lead to the most startling scientific conclusion ever made… that life exists somewhere other than Earth.

Stay tuned…

Space: The Final Frontier of Profit?
A debate on the pros and cons of commercializing the cosmos; valuing asteroids at $20 trillion each. Peter Diamandis makes a case for private space.

By PETER DIAMANDIS

Government agencies have dominated space exploration for three decades. But in a new plan unveiled in President Barack Obama's 2011 budget earlier this month, a new player has taken center stage: American capitalism and entrepreneurship. The plan lays the foundation for the future Google, Cisco and Apple of space to be born, drive job creation and open the cosmos for the rest of us.

Two fundamental realities now exist that will drive space exploration forward. First, private capital is seeing space as a good investment, willing to fund individuals who are passionate about exploring space, for adventure as well as profit. What was once affordable only by nations can now be lucrative, public-private partnerships.

Second, companies and investors are realizing that everything we hold of value—metals, minerals, energy and real estate—are in near-infinite quantities in space. As space transportation and operations become more affordable, what was once seen as a wasteland will become the next gold rush. Alaska serves as an excellent analogy. Once thought of as "Seward's Folly" (Secretary of State William Seward was criticized for overpaying the sum of $7.2 million to the Russians for the territory in 1867), Alaska has since become a billion-dollar economy.

The same will hold true for space. For example, there are millions of asteroids of different sizes and composition flying throughout space. One category, known as S-type, is composed of iron, magnesium silicates and a variety of other metals, including cobalt and platinum. An average half-kilometer S-type asteroid is worth more than $20 trillion.

Technology is reaching a critical point. Moore's Law has given us exponential growth in computing technology, which has led to exponential growth in nearly every other technological industry. Breakthroughs in rocket propulsion will allow us to go farther, faster and more safely into space.

View Interactive
See a timeline of American space exploration.
.
Perhaps the most important factor is the empowerment of youth over the graybeards now running the show. The average age of the engineers who built Apollo was 28; the average age in the aerospace workforce is now over 50. Young doers have less to risk when proposing bold solutions.

This is not to say that the government will have no role in the next 50 years in space. Governments will retain the critical work of pure science, and of answering some of the biggest unknowns: Is there life on Mars, or around other stars? Governments will play the important role of big customer as they get out of the operations business. Private industry routinely takes technologies pioneered by the government—like air mail, computers and the Internet—and turns them into affordable, reliable and robust industries.

The challenge faced by all space-related ventures is the high cost of launching into orbit. When the U.S. space shuttle stands down later this year, NASA will need to send American astronauts to launch aboard the Russian Soyuz at a price of more than $50 million per person. The space shuttle, on the other hand, costs between $750 million to $2 billion per flight (for up to seven astronauts) depending on the number of launches each year. Most people don't realize that the major cost of a launch is labor. Fuel is less than 2%, while the standing army of people and infrastructure is well over 80%. The annual expense NASA bears for the shuttle is roughly $4 billion, whatever the number of launches.

The government's new vision will mean the development of multiple operators, providing the U.S. redundancy as well as a competitive market that will drive down the cost of getting you and me to orbit. One of the companies I co-founded, Space Adventures, has already brokered the flight of eight private citizens to orbit, at a cost of roughly $50 million per person. In the next five years we hope to drive the price below $20 million, and eventually below $5 million.

Within the next several decades, privately financed research outposts will be a common sight in the night sky. The first one-way missions to Mars will be launched. Mining operations will spring up on the moon. More opportunities we have yet to even comprehend will come out of the frontier. One thing is certain: The next 50 years will be the period when we establish ourselves as a space-faring civilization.

As the generation that has never known a world without "Star Wars" and "Star Trek" matures, it will not be content to watch only government astronauts walk and work on the moon. A "let's just go do it" mentality is emerging, and it is that attitude that will bring the human race off this planet and open the final frontier.

—Peter Diamandis is chief executive of the X Prize Foundation, a nonprofit that conducts incentivized competitions. He is also CEO of Zero Gravity, which offers weightless flights; and chairman of the Rocket Racing League, an interactive entertainment company.

=== CON ===
The Other Argument
The Case Against Private Space
.
.By TAYLOR DINERMAN
President Barack Obama's proposed plan for NASA bets that the private sector—small, entrepreneurial firms as well as traditional aerospace companies—can safely carry the burden of flying U.S. astronauts into space at a fraction of the former price. The main idea: to spend $6 billion over the next five years to help develop new commercial spacecraft capable of carrying humans.

The private sector simply is not up for the job. For one, NASA will have to establish a system to certify commercial orbital vehicles as safe for human transport, and with government bureaucracy, that will take years. Never mind the challenges of obtaining insurance.

Entrepreneurial companies have consistently overpromised and under-delivered. Over the past 30 years, over a dozen start-ups have tried to break into the launch business. The only one to make the transition into a respectably sized space company is Orbital Sciences of Dulles, Va. Building vehicles capable of going into orbit is not for the fainthearted or the undercapitalized.

The companies that have survived have done so mostly by relying on U.S. government Small Business Innovation Research contracts, one or more angel investors, or both. Big aerospace firms tempted to join NASA's new projects will remember the public-private partnership fiasco when Lockheed Martin's X-33 design was chosen to replace the space shuttle in 1996. Before it was canceled in 2001 this program cost the government $912 million and Lockheed Martin $357 million.

Of the smaller failures, there was Rotary Rocket in California, which promised to revolutionize space travel with a combination helicopter and rocket and closed down in 2001. In 1997, Texas banker Andrew Beal announced that his firm, Beal Aerospace, was going to build a new large rocket. He shut it down in 2000.

In the 1990s, Kistler Aerospace designed a reusable launcher using reconditioned Russian engines. In 2006, reorganized as Rocketplane Kistler, it won a share in a NASA program designed to deliver cargo to the International Space Station. When the company did not meet a financial milestone the following year, NASA withdrew financing.

View Interactive

See a timeline of American space exploration.
.Blue Origin, a secretive spacecraft development firm owned by Amazon.com Chief Executive Jeff Bezos, is interesting because it uses concepts and technology for reusable vehicles originally developed by the Reagan-era Strategic Defense Initiative Organization. In the early 1990s, the organization set up the DC-X program, and its suborbital test vehicle flew 12 times before it was destroyed in a landing accident.

The Clinton administration saw the DC-X as a Reagan/Bush legacy program, and was happy to cancel it after the accident. The sad lesson of the DC-X is that some politicians won't keep their predecessors' programs going, no matter how promising. To turn the DC-X into a space launch vehicle would have taken at least a couple of decades and a few billion in investments. Yet the total cost might not have been much more than the amount the government has spent on other failed launch vehicle development programs over the past 20 years.

Recent history shows that development programs take a long time to mature, but when they do they can produce excellent results. Since it was given the go-ahead in 1984, the space station has faced delays, cost overruns and an unceasing barrage of criticism. Yet NASA kept at it. With the full-time six-person crew now operational, the range of technological and scientific work being done has increased dramatically, from fluid physics experiments to tests on the effects of microgravity on human physiology.

George W. Bush's promising Constellation human spaceflight program—which would be killed under Mr. Obama's plan—has already cost $9 billion since 2004. It is hard to imagine how the private sector can build a replacement for the spacecraft and booster rockets of Constellation, let alone a program to get America back to the moon, with the relatively paltry sum of $6 billion and the scattershot funding approach that NASA's leaders are proposing.

The Augustine Commission's recent report to the White House was entitled "Seeking a Human Spaceflight Program Worthy of a Great Nation." The space entrepreneurs may claim that they can send people into space for a fraction of the previous cost, but they have not yet proved it. NASA's policy is neither bold nor new; it is yet another exercise in budget-driven program cancellation. Until the American government can bring itself to choose a path and stick to it for more than a single administration, its claim to be worthy of a great nation will be in doubt.

—Taylor Dinerman writes a regular column for thespacereview.com and is a member of the board of advisers of Space Energy, a company working on space-solar-power concepts

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page W3

New Delhi, India (CNN) -- Indian researchers have announced plans to send their astronauts to space in 2016.The cost of the proposed mission is estimated at $4.8 billion, said S. Satish, spokesman for the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).

Studies have begun on the design of the crew capsules that will be used to put a pair of astronauts 300 kilometers aloft for seven days, he said. The project budget has been sent for federal approval, he added.

A training facility for astronauts will also be built in southern India as part of the program, which Satish said would be solely Indian.

In 1984, Rakesh Sharma became the first Indian to explore space in what was a joint mission with the then Soviet Union.

In 2008, India launched its first unmanned mission -- Chandrayaan-1 -- to the moon that dropped a probe onto the lunar surface.

In 312 days, Chandrayaan-1, meaning moon craft, completed more than 3,400 orbits and met most of its scientific objectives before vanishing off the radars abruptly last year, according to the space agency.

The craft carried payloads from the United States, the European Union and Bulgaria. One of its aims was to search for evidence of water or ice and identify the chemical composition of certain lunar rocks.
The Chandrayaan-1 mission came to be seen as the 21st century, Asian version of the space race between the United States and the USSR -- but this time involving India and China.

Satish said the agency was also planning to send a second version of Chandrayaan in 2012.

India held its first rocket launch from a fishing village in southern India in 1963.

Now, the South Asian nation lists more than 60 events as "milestones" in its space program, which includes the successful use of polar and geosynchronous satellite launch vehicles.

Indian scientists say their country has the world's largest constellation of remote-sensing satellites.

These satellites, according to the Vikram Sarabhai Space Center, capture images of the Earth used in a range of applications -- agriculture, water resources, urban development, mineral prospecting, environment, forestry, drought and flood forecasting, ocean resources and disaster management.
Another major system, or INSAT, is used for communication, television and meteorology.

India, however, maintains competition does not drive its space ambitions.

Mars fans unite tonight
By Luke Money/ Rodney Haas/Arizona Daily Wildcat

This 3D scale model of the surface of Mars is a part of the Flandrau Science Center's exhibit of Mars. The science center is teaming up with the Mt. Lemmon Sky Center and Biosphere 2 to show off Mars’ latest.

Mars is the closest it has been to Earth since 2003, so members of the UA faculty are attempting to bring the red planet a little bit closer to Tucson with a special event. “Mars: A Celebration of the Red Planet,” a collaborative effort between the UA Flandrau Science Center, Biosphere 2, and the Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter, will take place at all three affiliated institutions today.

Life on Mars

The presentation at the Flandrau center will focus primarily on the rapidly changing scientific views of Mars; particularly in the wake of recent research opportunities presented by both the Phoenix Mars Lander and the HiRISE imager aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

“Recently, there has been sort of a revolution in studying Mars,” said Shane Byrne, an assistant professor of planetary sciences. “The difference between what we were able to do 10 years ago and what we can do now is literally night and day.”

Byrne’s presentation will focus on the formation and modification of polar ice deposits on Mars. He is studying how they might relate to processes such as glacial movement and tectonic activity occurring on the planet.

“Scientists had a long-standing belief that Mars was nothing more than a dry, static, desert-like planet,” Byrne said. “But recent research has indicated that as much as half the planet may be covered with ice just below the surface.”

These assertions are based on a series of images from HiRISE, which shows, among other things, ice at the bottom of impact craters.

The real discovery is not necessarily the ice, Byrne says, but its implications, particularly from a biological perspective.

“The application of these discoveries to the ongoing research of life on Mars are clear,” Byrne said. “If the climate of Mars was warmer or more humid in the past and water was able to exist in stable liquid form on the surface, then the potential of there having been life is greater.”

Both Byrne and Michael Terenzoni, the astronomy director at the Flandrau center, will be presenting from 6 to 10 p.m. at Flandrau.


Biosphere 3: the Red Planet

Simultaneously, Vic Baker, a UA regents’ professor, will be hosting a presentation at Biosphere 2. Baker’s primary focus is the geophysical and hydrological implications of various landforms on Mars, particularly channels and valleys that appear to have been cut by running water that once existed on the surface.

Of course, Baker does not shy away from the correlation between water and the potential for life on the red planet.

“There are certain conditions that are associated with life,” Baker said. “And recent indicators, everything from chemical effects measured from orbit to soil samples taken on the surface, seem to suggest that at one point these conditions were, in fact, present on Mars, including on the surface.”

Baker’s presentation will address the evidence which exists in support of theories for life on Mars, both in the past and today.

In fact, Baker said, occurrences as trivial as excess methane emissions could be indicative of primitive life, even though it is difficult to prove.

“That’s the hard part about trying to study a topic of this nature on another planet,” Baker says. “On Earth, we can just send out a couple of geologists to look around for a while. On Mars, we have to plan for years to send a couple of robots.”

Baker will also address some of the inherent issues with trying to compare Mars to Earth in this regard.

“Even if we can pinpoint a location where the environment is conducive to supporting life, there’s still no guarantee that there is life there or that there ever has been,” Baker said. “Even things like methane emissions are tricky because we can’t be entirely sure if those emissions are coming from biological, inorganic, or geologic processes.”

Vic Baker will be presenting at Biosphere 2 from 6:30 to 10:00 p.m.


SkyCenter Mars Night

The third program is taking place at the Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter, where Public Observing Programs Coordinator Adam Block will be hosting a hands-on program about Mars.

Taking advantage of the relative proximity of Mars to Earth, Block’s program will allow participants to scan the skies both with pairs of binoculars and the SkyCenter 24-inch telescope.

“Our program gives people a rare opportunity,” Block said. “Not many research institutions will let you walk right up and use their equipment the way we do.”

Block’s program will begin with a quick tour of the SkyCenter itself, accompanied by a brief discussion of their current research. Participants will then be given access to star charts, binoculars and even the telescope.

“This event is really just a variation of a regular program we offer up here called SkyNights,” Block said. “We give people the opportunity to come up here and use the telescope pretty much on a nightly basis, but, with this program, we will look a lot at Mars.”

Those unable to make it up Mt. Lemmon to see Block’s presentation will have the opportunity to see it live via video link at both the Flandrau Science Center and Biosphere 2.

This will give everyone who attends any one of these three programs the opportunity to see the images from Block’s presentation.

Despite the differences in tone and topic of all three presentations, all will address and acknowledge one important thing: the current interest in studying Mars and the undeniable leadership position which the UA has taken in studying Earth’s enigmatic neighbor.


What: Flandrau Science Presentation
Where: Flandrau: The University of Arizona Science Center
When: 6:30 to 10 p.m.
Cost: $7.50 for adults, $5 children ages 4-15, Children under 4 are free. Two dollars off tickets with CatCard.

What: Biosphere 2 Presentation
Where: Biosphere 2
When: 6:30-10 p.m.
Cost: $25 per person

What: SkyCenter Presentation
Where: Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter
When: 3:30-9:30 p.m.
Cost: $48 per person, $25 dollars per youth
Reservations Required, (520) 626-8122



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