JacksMars

Since I was a young child Mars held a special fascination for me. It was so close and yet so faraway. I have never doubted that it once had advanced life and still has remnants of that life now. I am a dedicated member of the Mars Society,Norcal Mars Society National Space Society, Planetary Society, And the SETI Institute. I am a supporter of Explore Mars, Inc. I'm a great admirer of Elon Musk and SpaceX. I have a strong feeling that Space X will send a human to Mars first.

Tuesday, August 5, 2025

Science At NASA?

exoplanet Artist Impression of planet Proxima B orbiting the red dwarf Proxima Centauri. It is in its star’s “Goldilocks Zone”. (credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser; CC BY-SA 4.0) Why science at NASA? by Ajay Kothari Monday, August 4, 2025 One hopes that the Congressional restoration of a large chunk of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) budget will occur when all is said and done. But the attempt to cut NASA’s budget, especially that of SMD, has brought forth the importance of it, not just for the country or even humanity, but for life on Earth. This is not hyperbole: it is closer factually than would be apparent. This demands that we not stay just in the “rocket lane,” in NASA lane, but make a case to all humanity, at least to all Americans at this juncture, and make it as soon as possible so that SMD would not face the same fate again and again. But the attempt to cut NASA’s budget, especially that of SMD, has brought forth the importance of it, not just for the country or even humanity, but for life on Earth. Why pursue space exploration? Why should we as humanity pick up this baton and run with it? The reasons go beyond practical benefits like new technologies, economic competition, or securing resources. It’s a profound undertaking that reflects our curiosity about the universe, highlighted by concepts such as the Drake Equation and Fermi Paradox, and addresses deeper questions about humanity’s place in the cosmos. Earth is about 4.5 billion years old, with multicellular life appearing roughly a billion years ago. Since then, there have been four to five major mass extinctions: Ordovician-Silurian (approx. 440 million years ago), Permian-Triassic (approx. 253 million years ago), Triassic-Jurassic (approx. 201 million years ago), and K-Pg or Cretaceous (approx. 66 million years ago, wiping out 75% of species). Yet, Earth consistently gave rise to new life. Now let us look at the Drake Equation, attributed to Dr. Frank Drake, who passed away a few years ago: N = R_* f_P * n_e * f_l * f_i * f_c * L By assigning estimated values to each term, the resulting N ranges from several thousand to several million. This calculation applies only to the Milky Way galaxy, while the Universe contains trillions of other galaxies. In the summer of 1950, at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, Enrico Fermi engaged in a lunchtime discussion with colleagues Emil Konopinski, Edward Teller, and Herbert York. During the conversation, Fermi abruptly posed the now-famous question, “But where is everybody?” This query highlights the absence of observable extraterrestrial life, despite significant advancements in our ability to observe the universe, such as those made possible by the Hubble and Webb telescopes. The central question persists: “Where is everybody?” So, whether the Fermi paradox holds or not, we have been granted a huge responsibility: by God for the believers among us and by happenstance for the atheists. If the Fermi Paradox does hold—which appears to be the case at least in the nearby neighborhood within the sphere of ten light years or even 100 light years with possibly 10,000 stars—we are extremely unique and need to be an excellent steward of the precious cargo of all lifeforms. If the Fermi Paradox does not hold, we need to be ready to protect us all, just in case. In either case the answer is the same. We need to be aware of this responsibility. And NASA, specifically SMD, and space agencies of various countries too, need to take this on. It is not just about going there, it is also about a realization, about finding out. stars Nearby universe: stars in a 12.5-light-year sphere centered on the Sun. This doesn’t mean humans are superior to other species, but that we have a unique responsibility in the universe to foster evolution as we move into space. So far, we have evolved only in two dimensions, with wars, expeditions, and expansions, on Earth’s surface. Now another dimension has opened up. Let us pay attention to that. We should care not just for Earth, but for all life forms—including those as small as ants and insects—as the DNA of each may be uniquely valuable. If the Fermi Paradox does hold, we are extremely unique and need to be an excellent steward of the precious cargo of all lifeforms. This then becomes the responsibility not just of rocket scientists or even scientists, but all other humans too. Shepherding all life forms is not just my responsibility but that of all Earthlings. This is a lot higher calling than others, like climate change or even human species survival. This is why devaluing appreciation of merit for other causes may hurt us as Earthlings in future. A huge effort is needed, an intellectual effort. This includes merit in myriads of fields, from art to literature to science to space to sports and others. This is why what NASA is doing, and the space efforts of other countries, are extremely important. Not just to us or even just humanity but also to the entirety of life forms in this reachable part of the observable universe, whether the Fermi Paradox holds or not! Art produces visions and it assuages. They touch the “not-yet-imagined” part of this equation that we scientists need, to fulfil the entirety of progress. We will need help of many strata of society, artists, writers, poets, philosophers, thinkers, and scientists to realize the next step. We should care for the truly unfortunates, truly downtrodden but should not lose sight of the above which applies to us all. exoplanet First Human on Mars: Must Go Gingerly “The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of the art and true science” – Albert Einstein. Dr. Ajay Kothari is President and Founder of Astrox Corporation, an aerospace R&D company located in suburban Washington, DC. His PhD and MS in Aerospace Engineering are from the University of Maryland and BSc in Physics from Bombay University. He is an Associate Fellow of AIAA and member of the AIAA Aerospace Power Technical Committee. He has over 40 professional publications and has been PI on more than 35 NASA and DOD contracts. He can be reached at a.p.kothari@astrox.com.

Commercial Space At The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum

NASM The renovated Milestones of Flight Hall at the National Air and Space Museum features many of the same exhibits as before, but with a more spacious layout. (credit: J. Foust) Commercial space at the National Air and Space Museum by Jeff Foust Monday, August 4, 2025 The National Air and Space Museum is in danger of losing its biggest space artifact. A provision of the budget reconciliation bill signed into law a month ago includes $85 million for NASA set aside for what it calls a “Space Vehicle Transfer.” The “space vehicle” in question, according to the bill, is one that that has flown in space with astronauts. The “transfer” is to a NASA center “involved with the administration of the Commercial Crew program” with the vehicle put on public display at an entity in the same metropolitan area as that center. The language is vague (deliberately so to pass muster with Senate parliamentarians) but the intent is clear: the provision is designed to move the Space Shuttle Discovery, currently on display at the National Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles Airport, to Space Center Houston, adjacent to the Johnson Space Center. “Houston has long been the cornerstone of our nation’s human space exploration program, and it’s long overdue for Space City to receive the recognition it deserves by bringing the Space Shuttle Discovery home,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), who worked with fellow Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz to include the provision in the budget reconciliation bill, after the Senate passed that bill. It includes both familiar objects in new settings and new space artifacts, reflecting the greater role of the private sector in spaceflight. Whether and how Discovery might be moved to Houston is uncertain. The Smithsonian has argued that Discovery no longer belongs to NASA: ownership of the orbiter, it says, was formally transferred to the Smithsonian when Discovery arrived at the museum in 2012. Getting the orbiter from Northern Virginia to Houston is also a problem, with the aircraft previously used to transport the shuttles long since decommissioned (one, ironically, is on display at Space Center Houston, with a replica shuttle mounted on it.) The bill sets aside at least $5 million of the $85 million for transporting Discovery, but a recent Congressional Research Service report found estimates for transportation ranging from $8 million to $55 million, with the cost of a new facility for hosting the orbiter reaching $325 million. That debate overshadows more positive developments at the museum’s flagship location on the National Mall. Last week, the museum opened a section that just completed renovations, joining a section opened in the fall of 2022 (see “Screens and spaceships: inside the renovated National Air and Space Museum,” The Space Review, October 24, 2022). It includes both familiar objects in new settings and new space artifacts, reflecting the greater role of the private sector in spaceflight. With the renovations still in progress, the museum has closed its entrance on Independence Avenue and opened the one on the other side of the building, facing the Mall. (It still requires visitors to obtain free timed entry tickets in advance; on a Thursday afternoon all the hourly time slots for the upcoming Sunday were available, as were nearly all for Saturday.) This means that visitors now enter directly into the museum’s centerpiece, the Milestones of Flight Hall. People who visited the hall before the renovations will find it both familiar and refreshed. Yes, there’s the Apollo LEM standing in one corner, with John Glenn’s Mercury capsule, Friendship 7, along with Gemini 4 nearby. Overhead are the X-1, X-15, and SpaceShipOne, just like before. NASM A ground-level view of the Milestones of Flight Hall with the museum logo and a pattern of lines—an homage to the Pioneer plaques—extending from it. (credit: J. Foust) The biggest change one immediately notices is that hall seems much more spacious. The artifacts that once crowded the hall have been moved to the sides, or out of the hall entirely, creating a large open space. The Apollo 11 command module, once at the center of the hall, was moved upstairs to the Destination Moon gallery in the first phase of renovations, and remains there today. The museum’s logo takes its place in the floor of the hall, with a series of dashed lines emanating from it: an homage to the pulsar map etched on the Pioneer 10 and 11 plaques. It’s an interesting touch, best appreciated when viewing the hall from the second floor, but may be too subtle for many visitors to notice. Thematically, it may make sense to include the Apollo 11 module in the Destination Moon exhibit; the museum also moved Lindbergh’s The Spirit of St. Louis airplane, which once hung from the ceiling of the Milestones of Flight Hall, to the Barron Hilton Pioneers of Flight Hall nearby. But the Destination Moon hall is crowded and a bit dark, and the capsule often loses the battle for visitors’ attention to adjacent screens showing a history of the ’60s. Might it gain more attention back in the Milestones of Flight Hall, as one of the museum’s most prominent milestones of flight? NASM The “Why Go to Space” exhibit includes items ranging from toys and posters to t-shirts and a SpaceX Crew Dragon pressure suit worn by private astronaut Sian Proctor. (credit: J. Foust) The other new gallery of interest for space enthusiasts is “Futures in Space”. The museum describes it as taking on several questions: “Who decides who goes to space? Why do we go? And what will we do when we get there?” It includes an eclectic collection of artifacts, from flight hardware to cultural items, to address those questions. One wall in the gallery includes a grab bag of such items under a sign “Why Go To Space?” stating that they represented “the most common motivations.” They range from toys and model rockets to a poster for the Chinese sci-fi movie The Wandering Earth and an Atari 2600 “Asteroids” video game cartridge. There was also a SpaceX “Occupy Mars” t-shirt alongside a ‘TFNG We Delivered” t-shirt owned by Sally Ride, a reference to her 1978 astronaut class. Another part of the exhibit is devoted to concepts for Mars missions and settlements, including a portion in the corner intended to look like a 3D-printed Mars habitat. Inside, a brief film is projected on screens on three sides about the experiences of Mars analog astronauts discussing the psychological challenges astronauts on future long-duration Mars missions will face. NASM The hybrid rocket motor used by Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo on its first suborbital spaceflight in 2018 is on display. (credit: J. Foust) Perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of the exhibit, though, is the collection of commercial space artifacts. For much of the early history of the museum nearly all the space artifacts came from NASA or other government space programs, a reflection of the lack of commercial activity. That has gradually changed, with SpaceShipOne installed 20 years ago and the “One World Connected” exhibit, next to Destination Moon, including several commercial spacecraft, like a Dove cubesat from Planet and a flight spare of a Sirius Satellite Radio spacecraft built by Space Systems Loral. Futures in Space, though, features a mix of models and flight hardware from several companies. Astrobotic provided a full-scale model of its Peregrine lunar lander, which malfunctioned on its way to the Moon last year, while Blue Origin gave a full-scale model of the crew capsule of its New Shepard suborbital vehicle. Flight hardware includes a Falcon 9 grid fin, the hybrid rocket motor Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo used on its first suborbital spaceflight in 2018, and the pressure suit worn by private astronaut Sian Proctor on the Inspiration4 mission in 2021. NASM A portion of the gallery that includes rocket engines, a Falcon 9 grid fin, a commercial space station model, and… stills from science-fiction shows. (credit: J. Foust) In another display case, a pressure suit worn by Yuri Gagarin during training for his historic 1961 orbital flight is placed next to the blue flight suit worn by Katya Echazarreta, who went on a New Shepard suborbital flight in 2022. Between them is a set of commercial astronaut wings awarded by the FAA to Virgin Galactic’s Beth Moses. Anecdotal evidence from a visit to the gallery suggests people were fascinated with those commercial items: one person stared at the Falcon 9 grid fin, hand over mouth, perhaps contemplating the scale of the rocket that fin is from. But people were also excited by the replica of R2-D2 in the gallery, next to the Peregrine lander. That mix of sci and sci-fi was a little confusing at times: it was not clear why there were images from Dune, Star Trek, and The Expanse illustrating different forms of governance from science fiction next to models of rocket engines from Rocket Lab and SpaceX. NASM A pressure suit worn by Yuri Gagarin in training, next to a flight suit worn by commercial astronaut Katya Echazarreta. Between the two are FAA commercial spaceflight wings awarded to Virgin Galactic’s Beth Moses. (credit: J. Foust) The gallery is, perhaps, a work in progress, like the rest of the museum: the eastern end is still closed off for renovations. When it opens next year, for the museum’s 50th anniversary, it will include new galleries on “Discovering the Universe” and “Living in Space” among others. The Skylab flight spare on display there is clearly visible behind the barricades, waiting for visitors to return. And if efforts to transfer Discovery to Texas succeed, commercial space might come to the rescue of the Udvar-Hazy Center: one can imagine putting spacecraft, rocket stages, and more in the hangar that hosts the shuttle, representing the growth of commercial space capabilities. Even that might have some limits, though: getting a Starship to the museum might be as difficult as transporting a shuttle from it. Jeff Foust (jeff@thespacereview.com) is the editor and publisher of The Space Review, and a senior staff writer with SpaceNews. He also operates the Spacetoday.net web site. Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone.