MAIN ARTICLE: Christmas in the Heavens.
This is a special time aboard the International Space Station. Special space goodies that is.
Poll Results: Yesterday's poll "Should America create Commercial Astronaut Launch Services for NASA and fund COTS-D." had an interesting spin, scroll down to see the results, click subscribe to receive the latest in space news.
Star Trek: In the News. Anna Pickard of the Guardian speaks out on the new Star Trek movie.
Yesterday's Comments: "I would like to see space exploration and space travel kept out of the private sector" - good aint it vern
Today's Poll: If money was no object would you spend Xmas in Space?
(image-NASA)
Christmas in space in not a new tradition for American Astronauts. The first one was on an Apollo 8 mission back in 1968.
Christmas on ISS
"The Expedition 18 crew members aboard the International Space Station did more work Wednesday in the aftermath of Monday’s spacewalk.
Commander Mike Fincke and Flight Engineer Lonchakov removed the U.S. helmet lights and helmet camera that were installed onto the Russian Orlan spacesuits. They also dried the suits, recharged the batteries and stowed spacewalk equipment and tools.
Flight Engineer Sandra Magnus served as health officer for a routine health status evaluation of the spacewalkers.
Fincke and Lonchakov completed the 5-hour, 38-minute spacewalk at 1:29 a.m. EST Tuesday. The pair installed a probe on the outside of the Pirs docking compartment that will measure the plasma electric potential around the station, retrieved a Biorisk experiment for return to Earth, and mounted the Impulse experiment on the Zvezda service module's exterior."
No Shortage of Holiday Calories Aboard the International Space Station
"As the holidays pass aboard the International Space Station, the crew may make Christmas cookies, chocolate covered pecans and candied yams as they celebrate the season. Those items are available in the pantry for Expedition 18 Commander Mike Fincke and Flight Engineers Sandy Magnus and Yury Lonchakov.
Magnus made it a point to request that red, green, yellow, blue and white icing be among her foods to be used to decorate an assortment of cinammon, shortbread and butter cookies also carried aloft. The crew also has a variety of candies to continue the high-calorie traditions so common on Earth this time of year.
Along with the sweets, the crew's food may include smoked turkey, cornbread dressing and mashed potatoes. Fincke also has included asparagus, shrimp cocktail, dried blueberries, tropical fruit, wheat flat bread and brown rice"
Here is wishing all our Astronauts in Space a Merry Christmas and a joyous New Year.
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On December 8th the Main Article was on the new heavy lift launch vehicle the Ares V ( see below ) and the potential for a new Hubble Space Telescope. In the comments section I had mentioned a possible idea to increase the capability to spot exosolar planets. After weeks of searching I finally found the image.
Have you ever been outside in the bright sunshine and held your hand up to shield your eyes and it allows you to see better? That is the same idea here. Included is a couple links from that article.
The image on the right shows how the sun shield would cover the target star and allow the planet to be seen. In combination with a new 10 meter Space Telescope we could really start spotting exoplanets.
A Thread on Space - Talk had this: Ares V could launch really big telescopes
"Philip Stahl, an engineer at NASA's Marchall Space Flight Center thinks it should also be used to launch gigantic telescopes. How big? According to Stahl, Ares could loft a telescope with a primary mirror 8+ metres across. This would provide a telescope that could see objects 3 times sharper than Hubble, but more important, it could see objects 11 times fainter."
NASA: Thinking Big About Space Telescopes (07.05.07)
"How big? Consider the following: Ares V will be able to place almost 130,000 kg (284,000 lbs; 8% more than the Saturn V rocket of the 1960s) into low Earth orbit. Designed to deliver cargo to the Moon, the rocket would be large enough to carry primary mirrors 8+ meters wide. For comparison, Hubble's mirror measures 2.4 m."
Ares V
"The versatile, heavy-lifting Ares V is a two-stage, vertically stacked launch vehicle. It can carry nearly 414,000 pounds (188 metric tons) to low-Earth orbit. When working together with the Ares I crew launch vehicle to launch payloads into Earth orbit, Ares V can send nearly 157,000 pounds (71 metric tons) to the moon. "
This image shows how the sun shade would be parked in front of the space telescope blocking the direct light.
POLL RESULTS:
The poll yesterday had surprisingly different results then the last time a similar poll was offered.
"Should America create Commercial Astronaut Launch Services for NASA and fund COTS-D."
Last week more people had suggested let private enterprise fully fund it themselves (15%). This time no one voted for that option. It was either provide COTS-D funding (14%) or fly the new Ares I (22%). Only five percent wanted space spending to stay at what is currently budgeted for these programs.
STAR TREK: In the News.
Guardian - Anna Pickard
"If you live in a bucket, have always lived in a bucket and, what is more, lived in one of those old–fashioned buckets without access to television or the internet, then you may not know that there is a Star Trek movie being made. For the benefit of you, the bucket people, let me tell you something: there is. And here's the trailer to prove it."
YESTERDAY'S COMMENTS:
"I have a number of problems with that logic
- The investment is too risky at this point for almost anyone in the private sector to make, because the material gains from such an investment aren't clear. At some point that might change, but at this point the motive simply doesn't exist for a private company to invest in space.
- It would be cheaper & more efficient if the government maintained it's own infrastructure to put government employees in space, instead of paying for the infrastructure, and paying for someone else to make a profit for the government to use it (as would be necessary when working with a private contractor).
- Unregulated capitalism is a disaster, and it would be difficult to regulate corporations in space if the government doesn't have full domain over it first.
For all of those reasons I don't believe that privatising space is a good a idea now, nor will be for some time. When we find a safe, effective, and profitable way to use space that will change, but we're far from there yet, and if we halt space exploration until we get there, we never will." - Futuristic Dreamer
"Ahem
- The almost here is important. There are lots of people investing in it right now. Yes, they are all millionaires. What do you expect?
- So you think it would be cheaper for the air force or army to fly government employees from Washington to San Diego?
- The regulation/deregulation debate too often falls into a false dichotomy. regulation is neither 'good' nor 'bad'. Regulation is needed during some phases of a sector's growth, and it is emphatically not needed other times. At this point, the newspace industry does not need lots of regulation, just as internet businesses did not need lots of regulation when they were starting up. There needs to be a place for risk in new sectors.
3a. The government will never have full domain over activities in space.
No one is contemplating halting anything based on the success of newspace. It is simply another way to get there." - Be DIrect
TODAY'S POLL: