It's time for the US to partner with China in space

The future of America's space program is at a critical point in time; decisions are being made that will affect our ability to successfully maintain our leadership in human space flight, our national security and our capability to successfully compete with the international community in the commercial use of space.

What does the future hold for U.S. human spaceflight? The United States had been the undisputed leader in space exploration for several decades, until recently.

With the completion of its last flight in July of 2011, the space shuttle has been arbitrarily retired. And today, Russia is the only partner in the International Space Station program that is able to transport astronauts and cosmonauts to and from low Earth orbit (LEO).

The space shuttle amassed an impressive record of achievement during its lifetime, culminating in the very successful assembly of the space station. It was a very versatile spacecraft that allowed the crews to perform extravehicular activities (EVAs), assemble structures in space, repair satellites and perform spacecraft retrieval missions.

In addition, the shuttle was also a superb research platform, especially when equipped with a Spacelab or Spacehab module. It could carry a cargo of 60,000 pounds (27,000 kilograms) to orbit or return a cargo of equal weight to Earth.

In its place the U.S. is developing Orion, referred to as a Multipurpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV). Orion returns the nation to flying capsules that return to Earth via parachutes using technology from the 1960s. It has no capability to carry cargo, support EVAs, do structural assembly in space, accomplish satellite repair or retrieval missions. It returns to Earth by parachute, landing in the water, as Orion is too heavy to be recovered on land.

The MPCV is supposedly being developed for exploration missions beyond Earth orbit but it provides no protection from space radiation for the crew. The first planned human flight is currently scheduled for 2021. That date is dependent upon the availability of a new Space Launch System (SLS) rocket that is yet to be developed.

Currently, only funds for research, development and risk mitigation have been awarded for SLS, which raises the question of whether or not the launch system will ever be developed at all.

NASA is also providing funding to three commercial space endeavors. Some impressive achievements have been made. Most notably SpaceX having succeeded in its first operational cargo delivery mission in October 2012. These commercial enterprises, with one exception, also employ 60s technology capsules returning by parachute to water landings. These programs at best are several years away from Initial Operational Capability (IOC) for manned flights. And they are all currently dependent on being funded by the government.

Thus, we can expect that "The Gap" in U.S. human spaceflight capability that started with the end of the last space shuttle mission in July 2011 will likely last another five years or longer. In the meantime, fortunately, Russia continues to fly and support the flights of American astronauts to space.

When considering the future direction of NASA one point is quite clear. The construction of the ISS is now complete and the United States should maximize the utilization of the station. Research aboard ISS will help answer the questions and provide solutions that will enable future long duration flights out of Earth orbit.

One of the primary reasons for bringing the Russians into the station program was the desire to have dual access to the station. The dual access provided by the space shuttle and the Russian Soyuz is the only reason we have a space station flying today. The shuttle was able to fulfill a need when Russia experienced launch vehicle problems, and the Soyuz, in a similar fashion, fulfilled a need when the space shuttle was unable to fly.

Dual access is critical to ensure the maximum utilization of the space station.

This year China demonstrated manned rendezvous and docking, flying a crew of three (which included China's first female astronaut) to their crew-tended Tiangong-1 orbital vehicle. China plans to launch the larger Tiangong-2 in 2013 and Tiangong-3, a Zvezda-class core module in 2020.

The U.S. is at a decision point. On its present course, the United States will lose at least the perceived leadership role in human space exploration. But there is an alternate path and one that would again provide for dual access to the space station.

The U.S. could lead the way to bring China into the ISS program, and lead the work to adapt the Shenzhou spacecraft to be compatible with the ISS. The U.S. would continue funding the three commercial space endeavors to supplement and support the logistic needs of the station.

This path would allow the U.S. to retain its leadership position in the current human spaceflight program (on the ISS) while it re-evaluates the real needs of an optimized exploration program. A program that would transition the ISS partnership, with all its capabilities, to a beyond-LEO program with the United States remaining as the lead partner.

Thomas Reiter of the European Space Agency has already stated that ESA plans to hold a series of meetings with the China National Space Administration and explore closer cooperation in the areas of astronaut training, spacecraft docking and developing life support systems. ESA would also like China to become a member of the ISS program if U.S. objections can be overcome.

When Canada hosted the ISS Heads of Agencies Meeting on March 1 in Quebec City, Canada, Jean-Jacques Dordain, director-general of the ESA, told reporters, "I am in favor of seeing how we can work together with China. It will take some steps, but it will come, I am sure."

Vladimir Popovkin, head of the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, also said the day will come when China and India will work together with the five current partners — the United States, Russia, Canada, Japan and the ESA. "We are not a closed club," he said. "Our doors are wide open."

A partnership with China could be developed along the same lines as was done with integrating the Russian space program into the ISS partnership. Using this model, no military-sensitive technology would be transferred. China's economy would allow for it to fully fund its own efforts. Thus there would be little increased expense to the United States for developing this advantageous relationship.

As Joan Johnson-Freese, a professor of national security affairs at the Naval War College and author of numerous books on space, including "Heavenly Ambitions: America's Quest to Dominate Space" (University of Pennsylvania Press), told CNN on June 20, prohibiting NASA by law from working with China makes no sense:

"If one believes that China and the United States are not inherently enemies, then working together on space projects — with technology transfer controls — will benefit both countries. If one believes that China is inherently a threat to the United States, then the adage "keep your friends close and your enemies closer" comes to mind. The script for U.S.-China relations — and space relations in particular — is constantly evolving. The United States can influence the direction, but only if we engage and persuade the Chinese to engage with us. It's one way of preventing a scenario of a galactic Wild West in which China has become the world's leader in space."

It is clear the United States' international partners see the benefits of working with the Chinese on the space station; it is time for the United States to provide the leadership to make it a reality.

George W.S. Abbey is the Baker Botts Senior Fellow in Space Policy at the Baker Institute, at Rice University. From 1996 to 2001, he served as the director of NASA Johnson Space Center. His NASA career spanned the US human spaceflight program from Gemini and Apollo, through the space shuttle and International Space Station programs.

Dr. Leroy Chiao is a former NASA astronaut and ISS commander. He served as a member of the 2009 Review of U.S. Human Spaceflight Plans Committee, and is the special adviser for human spaceflight to the Space Foundation. He holds appointments at Baylor College of Medicine and Rice University.

© 2012 Discovery Channel

Msn.com

Are there Higgs bosons in space?

Rather than using a 17-mile-long collider, can't we just find them out there?

Physicists at the Large Hadron Collider, a particle accelerator near Geneva, Switzerland, report that they're hot on the trail of an elusive elementary particle known as the Higgs boson. It's only a matter of time before they'll have the infamous "God particle" in handcuffs, they say. But after years of particle- and head-bashing at the LHC, one burning question is whether there's an easier way to do this. Instead of constructing an 17-mile-long, high-energy collider to generate a Higgs particle from scratch, couldn't we just go look for one in nature?

And if so, where in space might it be?

John Gunion, first author of "The Higgs Hunter's Guide" (Basic Books, 1990) and a professor of physics at the University of California, Davis, said Higgs bosons regularly pop into existence all over space., 

Quantum fluctuations — momentary bursts of energy from nowhere that are permitted by the rules of quantum mechanics — cause pairs of the particles to spontaneously arise out of the vacuum, then annihilate each other an instant later.

Because these freebie Higgs have extremely high energies, the rules of quantum mechanics dictate that they don't get to stick around for as long as lesser particles would. So, if you're a Higgs hunter, how much time do you have to catch these bosons before they disappear? "Shorter than 1-trillionth-of-1-trillionth of a second," Gunion said.

Gordon Kane, a professor of physics at the University of Michigan and co-author of "The Higgs Hunter's Guide," said that a quantum fluctuation is rare in any one place. "But there are lots of places it can happen (all of space), so altogether it happens pretty often, but you aren't there to see it."

Aside from strange quantum effects, there are several other events in space that produce Higgs bosons, the physicists said.

"Black holes give off pairs of Higgs bosons, among many other things," Gunion said. "They produce these Higgs particles at their horizons, and if you put a detector there, you would see them. But the detector would be gobbled up pretty quick by the black hole."

Unfortunately we can't just aim our earthbound telescopes at black holes and hope to glimpse a Higgs, because the particle will have decayed long before getting here, he added. 

Supernovas, the explosions of dying stars, produce bursts of particles that are moving fast enough to create Higgs bosons when they collide. (Imagine the particle collisions at the LHC, but in space.)

However, getting a close look at a Higgs from a supernova is just as tricky as peering at one from a black hole: Your detector would have to be sitting next to the supernova aimed at exactly the right place at exactly the right time to see the Higgs before it decays. And then, of course, the detector would get destroyed by the stellar explosion.

Lastly, perhaps the deepest question of all is why Higgs bosons — which draw so much attention from scientists because they are the particles that imbue all other particles with their mass — don't exist everywhere all the time. In short, if there's no Higgs in me, why do I not weigh zero pounds?

"That's a complicated question," said Craig Blocker, a Higgs-hunting physicist at Brandeis University. "It has to do with quantum mechanics. In quantum theory, all particles correspond to what we call fields. For example, electromagnetic fields are what photons (particles of light) correspond to, and the Higgs particle corresponds to the Higgs field. Each particle has its own field, and most fields are everywhere all the time. But you have to get enough energy to excite those fields so that it looks like a particle to us. Otherwise we don't know the field is there."

Quantum fluctuations, black holes and supernovas all have what it takes to make the Higgs field look like a Higgs particle. However, because these events happen too far away and for too short a time, it seems that the LHC is our best bet.

Msn.com

New operating system for space: High-tech tycoons

 SEATTLE (AP) — The tycoons of cyberspace are looking to bankroll America's resurgence in outer space, reviving "Star Trek" dreams that first interested them in science.

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen made the latest step Tuesday, unveiling plans for a new commercial spaceship that, instead of blasting off a launch pad, would be carried high into the atmosphere by the widest plane ever built before it fires its rockets.

He joins Silicon Valley powerhouses Elon Musk of PayPal and Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com Inc. in a new private space race that attempts to fill the gap left when the U.S. government ended the space shuttle program.

Musk, whose Space Exploration Technologies will send its Dragon capsule to dock with the International Space Station in February, will provide the capsule and booster rocket for Allen's venture, which is called Stratolaunch. Bezos is building a rival private spaceship.

Allen is working with aerospace pioneer Burt Rutan, who collaborated with the tycoon in 2004 to win a $10 million prize for the first flight of a private spaceship that went into space but not orbit.

Allen says his enormous airplane and spaceship system will go to "the next big step: a private orbital space platform business."

The new system is "a radical change" in how people can get to space, and it will "keep America at the forefront of space exploration," Allen said.

Their plane will have a 380-foot wingspan — longer than a football field and wider than the biggest aircraft ever, Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose.

It will launch a space capsule equipped with a booster rocket, which will send the spacecraft into orbit. This method saves money by not using rocket fuel to get off the ground. The spaceship may hold as many as six people.

"When I was growing up, America's space program was the symbol of aspiration," said Allen, who mentioned his love of science fiction and early human spaceflights. "For me, the fascination with space never ended. I never stopped dreaming what might be possible."

For those attracted to difficult technical challenges, space is the ultimate challenge, Allen said.

"It's also the ultimate adventure. We all grew up devouring science fiction and watching Mercury and Gemini, Apollo and the space shuttle. And now we are able to be involved in moving things to the next level," he said, adding that he admires people like his former Microsoft colleague Charles Simonyi who have gone into space to experience it.

Allen is not alone in having such dreams, and the money to gamble on making them come true.

Bezos set up the secretive private space company Blue Origin, which has received $3.7 million in NASA startup funds to develop a rocket to carry astronauts. Its August flight test ended in failure.

"Space was the inspiration that got people into high-tech ... at least individuals in their 40s and 50s," said Peter Diamandis, who created the space prize Allen won earlier and is a high-tech mogul-turned space business leader himself. "Now they're coming full circle."

Diamandis helped found a company that sends tourists to space for at least $25 million a ride, and seven of the eight rides involved high-tech executives living out their space dreams. Simonyi paid at least $20 million apiece for two rides into orbit and attended Allen's Tuesday news conference, saying he wouldn't mind a third flight.

"Space has a draw for humanity," not just high-tech billionaires, Simonyi said, but he acknowledged that most people don't have the cash to take that trip.

Space experts welcome the burst of high-tech interest in a technology that 50 years ago spurred the development of computers.

"Space travel the way we used to do it has a '50s and '60s ring to it," said retired George Washington University space policy professor John Logsdon. "These guys have a vision of revitalizing a sector that makes it 21st century."

But Logsdon said the size of the capsule and rocket going to space seemed kind of small to him, only carrying 13,000 pounds. It didn't seem like a game-changer, he said.

Stratolaunch's air-launch method is already used by an older rocket company, Orbital Sciences Corp., to launch satellites. It's also the same method used by the first plane to break the sound barrier more than 50 years ago.

Stratolaunch, to be based in Huntsville, Ala., bills its method of getting to space as "any orbit, any time." Rutan will build the carrier aircraft, which will use six 747 engines. The first unmanned test flight is tentatively scheduled for 2016.

NASA, in a statement, welcomed Allen to the space business, saying his plan "has the potential to make future access to low-Earth orbit more competitive, timely, and less expensive."

Unlike its competitors, Allen's company isn't relying on startup money from NASA, which is encouraging private companies to take the load of hauling cargo and astronauts to low Earth orbit and the International Space Station. The space agency, which retired the space shuttle fleet earlier this year, plans to leave that more routine work to private companies and concentrate on deep space human exploration of an asteroid, the moon and even Mars.

Allen said his interest comes not just because of the end of the shuttle program or changes in government funding for space, but he does see an incredible opportunity right now for the private sector to move the needle on space travel.

Allen's company is looking at making money from tourists and launching small communications satellites, as well as from NASA and the Defense Department, said former NASA Administrator Michael Griffin, a Stratolaunch board member who spoke at a Tuesday news conference.

Just three months ago, Griffin was testifying before Congress that he thought the Obama administration's reliance on private companies for space travel "does not withstand a conventional business case analysis."

This is different because it's private money, with no help or dependence on government dollars, said Griffin, who served under President George W. Bush.

Allen and Rutan collaborated on 2004's SpaceShipOne, which was also launched in the air from a special aircraft in back-to-back flights. Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic licensed the technology and is developing SpaceShipTwo to carry tourists to space. But Allen's first efforts were more a hobby, while this would be more a business, Logsdon said.

SpaceShipOne cost $28 million, but this will cost much more, officials said.

Allen left Microsoft Corp. in 1983, and has pursued many varied interests since then. He's the owner of the Seattle Seahawks football team as well as the NBA's Portland Trailblazers. He also founded a Seattle museum that emphasizes science fiction.

Allen said this venture fits with his technology bent.

"I'm a huge fan of anything to push the boundaries of science," Allen said.

Ap.org

Smartphones Take The Battle To Space

Apple iPhone 4 and a few Samsung Nexus S go aboard space shuttle Atlantis.

Smartphones have now taken their battle into space, or so it seems. NASA's space shuttle Atlantis lifted off on Friday, with two iPhone 4's and a few Samsung Nexus S with the aim of assisting astronauts in carrying out a few experiments.
A special app called SpaceLab for iOS is installed on the iPhones. This app will use the special features of the iPhone 4 such as the accelerometer, camera, e gyro, and chip, to help astronauts conduct four experiments namely: Limb Tracker, Sensor Cal, State Acq, and LFI. Apple has made the app available on its iTunes Store for anyone to try and get a sense of what the astronauts will be doing. However, this app will compensate for the Earth's gravity to simulate the weightless environment in space.

The Samsung Nexus S phones will be doing something even more important because they will be used to boost the computing power of several experimental remote-controlled robots called SPHERES (Synchronised Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites). SPHERES are bowling-ball sized spherical satellites used inside the space station to test a set of well-defined instructions for spacecraft performing autonomous rendezvous and docking manoeuvres. Each of these is self-contained with power, propulsion, computers, and navigation equipment. These will perform routine mundane tasks such as inventory handling, thus allowing astronauts to concentrate on more important things.

Lead Engineer of NASA's Intelligent Robotics Group, D. W. Wheeler said, "By connecting a smartphone, we can immediately make SPHERES more intelligent. With a smartphone, the SPHERES will have a built-in camera to take pictures and video, sensors to help conduct inspections, a powerful computing unit to make calculations, and a Wi-Fi connection that we will use to transfer data in real-time to the space station and mission control". The SPHERES would therefore act as remotely operated robots via the smartphones.

Techtree.com

Sun and planets constructed differently, analysis from NASA mission suggests

The sun and the solar system's rocky inner planets, including the Earth, may have formed differently than previously thought, according to UCLA scientists and colleagues analyzing samples returned by NASA's Genesis mission.
The data from Genesis, which collected material from the solar wind blowing from the sun, reveal differences between the sun and planets with regard to oxygen and nitrogen, two of the most abundant elements in our solar system, the researchers report in two studies in the June 24 issue of the journal Science. And although the differences are slight, the research could help determine how our solar system evolved.

"We want to understand how rocky planets form, particularly our rocky planet," said Genesis co-investigator and UCLA professor of Earth and space sciences Kevin McKeegan, who was the lead author of the Science study on oxygen. "To understand that, we need to understand how the isotope composition of the most abundant element in the Earth came to be what it is."

On Earth, the air contains three kinds, or isotopes, of oxygen atoms, which differ in the number of neutrons they contain. All three have eight protons, and almost all have eight neutrons (O-16), but a small proportion of isotopes contain nine neutrons (O-17) or 10 neutrons (O-18). Although isotopes of an element behave similarly, there are subtle differences in reaction rates according to the isotopic mass, McKeegan said.
"We found that the Earth and moon, as well as Martian and other meteorites, which are samples of asteroids, have a lower concentration of the O-16 than does the sun," McKeegan said. "The implication is that we did not form out of the same solar nebula materials that created the sun. Just how and why remains to be discovered."
McKeegan and his colleagues measured, for the first time, the isotopic composition of oxygen in the solar wind. They found that the sun has about 6 percent more O-16 — relative to both of the minor oxygen isotopes — than the Earth does. Because the sun represents the "starting composition of the entire solar system," these findings are surprising, McKeegan said.
"It's the most abundant element in the Earth, and it is isotopically anomalous," he said, adding that something chemically unusual happened to the material that eventually formed the Earth and other rocky planets some 4.6 billion years ago, after the sun had already formed.
"The present composition of the rocky planets is quite different from the starting composition in a way we do not fully understand," he said, "but it must have involved interesting chemistry before the planets formed in the gaseous nebula that produced the sun and planets."
The data were obtained from an analysis of material ejected from the outer portion of the sun. That material can be thought of as a "fossil of our nebula" because scientific evidence suggests that the sun's outer layer has not changed measurably in billions of years. The sample of solar material collected by Genesis was small, but there was enough to be analyzed using UCLA's MegaSIMS (secondary ion mass spectrometer).
"This is the first time the heavy elements in the sun have had their isotope composition determined with precision, directly from solar material," McKeegan said. "The Genesis mission was a success. The mission has achieved its highest priority objectives. We are learning how planets form."

Analyses of meteorites from Mars indicate that oxygen on Mars is very similar to oxygen on Earth, but not identical, McKeegan said.
Genesis launched in August 2001. The spacecraft traveled to the L1 Lagrange Point, about 1 million miles from the Earth, where it remained for 886 days between 2001 and 2004, passively collecting solar wind samples.
On Sept. 8, 2004, the spacecraft released a sample return capsule that entered the Earth's atmosphere. Although the capsule made a hard landing — the result of a failed parachute — in the Utah Test and Training Range in Dugway, Utah, it marked NASA's first sample return since the final Apollo lunar mission in 1972 and the first material collected beyond the moon.
Co-authors of the oxygen study included Veronika Heber, a UCLA research scientist in the Department of Earth and Space Sciences; George Jarzebinski, senior electronics engineer at UCLA; Chris Coath, a former UCLA researcher who designed the ion optics of the MegaSIMS; Peter Mao, a former UCLA researcher who is currently an astrophysicist at the California Institute of Technology; Antti Kallio, a former UCLA postdoctoral scholar who acquired much of the solar wind data; Takaya Kunihiro, a former UCLA postdoctoral scholar currently at Japan's Okayama University; and Don Burnett, a professor at the California Institute of Technology, who was Genesis' principal investigator. A team from Los Alamos National Laboratory led by Roger Wiens built a device on the Genesis spacecraft for the analysis of oxygen and nitrogen from the solar wind. Wiens and his colleagues are also co-authors of the study. NASA funded the research.
"The sun houses more than 99 percent of the material currently in our solar system, so it's a good idea to get to know it better," Burnett said.
A second paper in Science by different researchers details differences between the sun and planets with regard to the element nitrogen. Like oxygen, nitrogen has one isotope (N-14) that makes up nearly 100 percent of the nitrogen atoms in the solar system, but there is also a tiny amount of N-15.
Researchers studying the same Genesis samples found that compared to the Earth's atmosphere, nitrogen in the sun and Jupiter had slightly more N-14 — but 40 percent less N-15. The sun and Jupiter appear to have the same nitrogen composition, but as with oxygen, the nitrogen composition of the Earth and the rest of the inner solar system is very different.
"These findings show that all solar system objects, including the terrestrial planets, meteorites and comets, are anomalous compared to the initial composition of the nebula from which the solar system formed," said Bernard Marty, a Genesis co-investigator from the Centre de Recherches Pétrographiques et Géochimiques in France and lead author of the second Science study. "Understanding the cause of such a heterogeneity will impact our view on the formation of the solar system."
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., managed the Genesis mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, D.C. Genesis was part of the Discovery Program managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver developed and operated the spacecraft. Analysis at the Centre de Recherches Pétrographiques et Géochimiques was supported by the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, both in Paris.
For more information on the Genesis mission, visit http://genesismission.jpl.nasa.gov/.
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