SpaceX’s plans land it near trouble.
Musk Reads #252
Category: space travel – Page 237
NASA’s Return to Venus
Posted in space travel
In case you missed today’s # StateOfNASA announcement: we’re returning to the planet Venus! Two new NASA Solar System Exploration missions, DAVINCI+ and VERITAS, will help us better understand how Venus became an inferno-like world: https://go.nasa.gov/3yXGEkQ
The SLS moon rocket for Artemis 1 is all stacked up.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA is one step closer to the moon. The space agency’s next megarocket, the Space Launch System (SLS) is coming together ahead of its first planned launch later this year.
The behemoth’s core stage arrived at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, via barge on April 27, before rolling into the massive Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), its home until launch.
SAN BENITO — Willie Rosales Jr. grew up in San Benito, and he never imagined the Valley would become a hub for space travel.
Inspired by all the SpaceX rocket activity near Boca Chica Beach, along with Elon Musk’s vision for the area, Rosales decided to turn his home into a tribute.
“My intentions are for travelers to visit San Benito, and I wanted to pay homage to Elon Musk,” he said.
One of my favorite science fiction authors is/was Isaac Asimov (should we use the past tense since he is no longer with us, or the present tense because we still enjoy his writings?). In many ways Asimov was a futurist, but — like all who attempt to foretell what is to come — he occasionally managed to miss the mark.
Take his classic Foundation Trilogy, for example (before he added the two prequels and two sequels). On the one hand we have a Galactic Empire that spans the Milky Way with millions of inhabited worlds and quadrillions of people. Also, we have mighty space vessels equipped with hyperdrives that can convey people from one side of the galaxy to the other while they are still young enough to enjoy the experience.
On the other hand, in Foundation and Empire, when a message arrives at a spaceship via hyperwave for the attention of General Bel Riose, it’s transcribed onto a metal spool that’s placed in a message capsule that will open only to his thumbprint. Asimov simply never conceived of things like today’s wireless networks and tablet computers and suchlike.
SpaceX is gearing up for the most ambitious test flight yet of its Starship Mars rocket.
For those not in the loop, the Kardashev Scale is a system of measurement invented by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev in 1964. It quantifies how advanced a civilization is according to how much energy they’re able to harness.
Type 1 civilizations have harnessed 100% of the accessible energy of their own planet. Type 2 has harnessed 100% of the accessible energy in their solar system. Type 3 has harnessed 100% of the accessible energy in their galaxy. There is no official Type 4 but it is conceivable that eventually a civilization could harness 100% of the accessible energy in the universe, and Type 5, which has harnessed all the accessible energy in the multiverse.
That’s some heavy stuff, well beyond the scope of this article. The public’s focus on near term manned spaceflight efforts these days belies a problem with our priorities. Grand, ambitious projects like settling the Moon and Mars grab our attention, while there’s still much left to be done on Earth.
The Crew-3 Dragon mission will now launch Oct. 31.
Heavy traffic at the International Space Station has pushed SpaceX’s next crewed launch to the orbiting lab for NASA back a week.