Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: space – Page 994

For the first time, scientists have detected evidence of a magnetic field that’s associated with the vast intergalactic ‘bridge’ that links our two nearest galactic neighbours.

Known as the Magellanic Bridge, the bridge is a huge stream of neutral gas that stretches some 75,000 light-years between our two neighbouring galaxies, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (LMC and SMC). Although researchers had predicted it was there, this is the first observation of its magnetic field, and it could help us understand how these vast bridges come to be.

“There were hints that this magnetic field might exist, but no one had observed it until now,” said lead researcher, Jane Kaczmarek from the University of Sydney.

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Nearly a half-century has passed since the earliest rotational artificial gravity testing was performed, such as at the Rockwell Rotational Test Facility and the NASA Langley Rotating Space Station Simulator. Periodically over the decades since then a few experiments have taken place, and proposals have been made for government-sponsored rotating artificial gravity test facilities, both on the ground and in orbit.1,2 And yet no such project has been started since those early government programs.

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Al Globus and Joe Strout have an analysis that space settlements in low (~500 km) Earth equatorial orbits may not require any radiation shielding at all. This is based on a careful analysis of requirements and extensive simulation of radiation effects. This radically reduces system mass and has profound implications for space settlement, as extraterrestrial mining and manufacturing are no longer on the critical path to the first settlements, although they will be essential in later stages. It also means the first settlements can evolve from space stations, hotels, and retirement communities in relatively small steps.

This huge reduction in total mass compensates for the greater energetic difficulty of launching materials from Earth to ELEO as opposed to launching from the Moon to L5, the design location of the Stanford Torus. In the early studies, the Earth­Moon L5 point was chosen as the location of a settlement for the energetic advantage of launching materials from the Moon. Going from the Moon to L5 requires a delta­-v 3 of 2.3 km/sec, and going from Earth to 500 km ELEO is 10 km/sec [Cassell 2015]. Using the velocity squared as our energy measure, Earth to ELEO requires 19 times more energy per unit mass. Analysis suggests that at least 19 times less mass is needed if no radiation shielding is required. Thus, the energetic advantage to launching the mass of a settlement with deep space radiation shielding from the Moon to L5 is balanced by launching far less mass from Earth if no radiation shielding is necessary.

A 500 km circular ELEO using polyethylene shielding was analyzed. Even at 10 kg/m2 shielding, the equivalent of which is very likely to be provided by any reasonable hull, the 20 mSv/yr and 6.6 mGy/yr are met. Indeed, with no shielding at all the general population limit is met and the pregnancy limit is very nearly met. This has an interesting consequence: spacewalks in ELEO may be safe enough from a radiation point of view to be a significant recreational activity.

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A new update to the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array radio telescope will let scientists see the universe as it was 13 billion years ago.

While we are used to much of our tech getting smaller, telescopes seem to be embracing the philosophy of bigger is better. The HERA (Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array) radio telescope is among those massive arrays peeking not only to far distances, but also through billions of years.

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