Space is noticeably short on gas stations, requiring spacecraft to carry huge reserves of expensive and cumbersome propellant which limits their range. But with NASA’s newest Sun-powered propulsion concept, future astronauts could sail to the stars on solar winds. More »
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The World’s Biggest Solar Sail Launches Next Year
Asteroid-mining company Deep Space Industries has just announced plans to launch a fleet of “FireFly” spacecraft as soon as 2015. Their mission? Find asteroids, rich with valuable metals, that could aid in humanity’s colonization of space. More »
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“FireFly” spaceships to begin exploring asteroids in 2015
The Bad Astronomer writes “A new study finds that there may be 100 billion alien planets in the Milky Way alone, with 17 billion of them the size of Earth. Announcements like this have been made before, but this new research is more robust than previous studies, using data from the Kepler planet-hunting spacecraft over a longer period and analyzing it in a more statistically solid way. They also found that smaller planets are not as picky about their host stars, with terrestrial planets forming around stars like the Sun or as small as tiny, cool red dwarfs with equal ease.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Study Estimates 100 Billion Planets In the Milky Way Galaxy
sciencehabit writes “Astronomers have discovered what may be five planets orbiting Tau Ceti, the closest single star beyond our solar system whose temperature and luminosity nearly match the sun’s. If the planets are there, one of them is about the right distance from the star to sport mild temperatures, oceans of liquid water, and even life (paper).” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Possible Habitable Planet Just 12 Light Years Away
Apollo 17: Last on the Moon. Photo: NASA . An announcement of note this morning about The Golden Spike Company, a new private space travel venture, backed by private investors. Their tag line? “Extend Your Reach.” Snip from today’s press release: On the eve of the 40th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 17, the last human exploration of the Moon, Former Apollo Flight Director and NASA Johnson Space Center Director, Gerry Griffin, and planetary scientist and former NASA science chief, Dr. Alan Stern, today unveiled “The Golden Spike Company” – the first company planning to offer routine exploration expeditions to the surface of the Moon. At the National Press Club announcement this afternoon, Dr. Stern, Golden Spike’s President and CEO, and Mr. Griffin, chairman of Golden Spike’s board of directors, introduced other members of Golden Spike’s leadership team and detailed the company’s intentions to make complete lunar surface expeditions available by the end of the decade. Their board of directors (PDF) is an interesting hodgepodge, and includes Newt Gingrich, Esther Dyson, and the set designer for the movie Star Trek. The company says it plans to “maximize use of existing rockets” and market the resulting system to “nations, individuals, and corporations with lunar exploration objectives and ambitions,” promising “prices that are a fraction of any lunar program ever conceived until now.” A tall order, to be certain. Those I’ve spoken to in the space biz are skeptical, but of the mind that the more entrepreneurial efforts and private sector innovation we see in the Space space, the better. More background on the company in a Wired News article from a few days ago, and from this New Scientist piece back in November. The company is registered as a business in Colorado, where medical marijuana was just made legal. COINCIDENCE? I THINK NOT. Here’s more from today’s press release from Golden Spike: This approach, capitalizing on available rockets and emerging commercial-crew spacecraft, dramatically lowers costs to create a market for human lunar exploration. Golden Spike estimates the cost for a two-person lunar surface mission will start at $1.4 billion. This price point enables human lunar expeditions at similar cost as what some national space programs are already spending on robotic science at the Moon. Dr. Stern and Mr. Griffin described Golden Spike’s “head start” architecture that has been two years in the making and vetted by teams of experts, including former space shuttle commander Jeffrey Ashby, former Space Shuttle Program Manager Wayne Hale, and Peter Banks, a member of the National Academy of Engineering. It has also been accepted for publication in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ (AIAA) Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, a leading aerospace technical journal. All of this will be available on Golden Spike’s website , launching sometime today. From 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. (EST) today, Thursday, December 6, 2012, company executives will host a press conference in DC at the National Press Club.
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Golden Spike Company announces plan for commercial lunar space expeditions
When we do eventually reduce the Earth to an uninhabitable wasteland through our careless consumption of natural resources and inevitable nuclear wars, we’ll need someplace else to go. We haven’t picked a successor yet, but a new candidate has been identified a mere 44 light years away, orbiting dwarf star HD 40307. The super-Earth orbits its host star right at the edge of the so-called habitable zone , where a stable atmosphere and liquid water are possible. We don’t know for sure the planet is, in fact, capable of supporting life, but there’s at least a chance. And given that it’s roughly seven-times the mass of Earth, it shouldn’t have much trouble playing host to our exploding population. Filed under: Science , Alt Potentially inhabitable super-Earth discovered in 6 planet solar system originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 08 Nov 2012 10:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink | Astrobiology Magazine | Email this | Comments
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Potentially inhabitable super-Earth discovered in 6 planet solar system
astroengine writes “The family of planets circling a relatively close dwarf star has grown to six, including a potential rocky world at least seven times more massive than Earth that is properly located for liquid water to exist on its surface, a condition believed to be necessary for life. Scientists added three new planets to three discovered in 2008 orbiting an orange star called HD 40307, which is roughly three-quarters as massive as the sun and located about 42 light-years away in the constellation Pictor. Of particular interest is the outermost planet, which is believed to fly around its parent star over 320 days, a distance that places it within HD 40307’s so-called “habitable zone.”” Read more of this story at Slashdot.