Ion propulsion

The latest from Space.com on ion propulsion and the 200 successful days logged so far by Deep Space 1. The biggest problem with ion propulsion is the slow start up do to the light force generated when a xenon atom is stripped of an electron and the resultant ion zapped by energy from solar panels. The greatest benefit is it can generate larger acceleration pure fuel load, primarily due to the small size of the propellant The article shows a photo of the "eerie blue discharge".

China and the Moon

I've been reading some news about the Chinese Space program and difficulties they are having. I found this article about why the Chinese would like to land on the moon. The article mentions resource storage, technology attainment, solar energy, environmental monitoring. 2008 for the Moon Landing may be too soon, but it's an admirable target. The US plans to land in 2020, India also in the near future.

Probes--tool for investigating what we don't know

Lisa Chu-ThielbarScience Communications, SETI Institute SPACE.com , wrote an interesting article about Probing Planets: Can You Get There From Here? In this article she mentions a number of difficulties in dealing with the many places where the scientific community would like to probe in order to understand the origin of the universe and how our solar system works.

The top difficulty is expense because items are specialized. What we've learned about manufacturing is that a process that is able to produce an object many times will be less expensive. Most probes are manufactured specifically for an environment that is different from all the others visited before.

A secondary difficulty is using new untested technologies and getting them approved for launch.

She explained that there's an annual conference where issues about probes are discussed.

My thoughts--still gelling in my mind. More later.

Kennedy Space Center

Two years ago, my husband and I visited Kennedy Space Center. This is a picture of one of the launch platforms. With the changes coming in NASA's Space program and all the articles about communities building space fields, one must wonder how things will change. A scenario such as VirginSpace uses, doesn't need the huge support structure. We visited mockups of the computer laboratories--complete with the historic IBM mainframes. Spacefields should get smaller, more easily maintainable, less explosive and damaging to the environment, less fuel consuming. At least, that's my belief. Still, the Kennedy Space Center delivers a world of wonder for the young and provides them good information, good role models, and a fun outing--even if a little expensive. The wildlife was plentiful in the area showing that NASA is paying attention to our world, too. Good news.

Old Works Golf Course--Mining Issues

While in Montana, we played golf at the Old Works golf course, a wonderful four star course designed by Jack Nickolaus. The golf course is built on the grounds of the old Anaconda copper mine. This pictures shows the foundation of one of the mining operations buildings, plus the a portion of the huge amount of tailings piled up all over the valley. Old Works was a Superfund Clean Up site that worked to produce something safer, useful, and fun for a large number of people. But it raises questions about how we'll handle mining of minerals we find in the solar system and beyond. Will we drag huge asteroids to Earth to process? And how much added mass can the Earth take before balance is lost? And what will happen to the tailings? If we mine in space, won't we produce a bunch of small projectile meteorites that can cause damage to spacecraft and the other planets in the solar system? Who will control the environmental damage if mined in place?