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Here's to a (second) restart on this blog...

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Red Dragon 2.0

Elon Musk has announced that SpaceX is considering a manned mission to Mars as soon as 2024.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2016/06/02/elon-musk-hopes-spacex-will-send-humans-to-mars-in-2024/

A Rocket's-Eye View

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[Please stand by.]

A Brief Interlude

This blog will take a few posts to write about Biosphere 2 and related topics... because the author is heading that way for a few days.  :)

Another Landing

The most recent landing by a SpaceX rocket was after launching a payload on a geosynchronous transfer orbit, which resulted in the rocket coming back in much faster than from a mission to low Earth orbit.  The result, however, was again a successful landing at sea.

Terrae Novae

The tetrahedron of settlement includes three aspects entirely within the scope of people to develop (technology, techniques, and culture) and one without: the environment.  Naturally, one of the biggest questions, and perhaps the biggest, is where to go, with some arguing for the Moon, or for Mars, or for some other location.  For the Homesteader's Guide, the answer is "all of the above."

A national space program may have to make a decision between pursuing the goal of the Moon and the goal of Mars, but if the frontier is opened, then different groups of people will of course make different decisions about where to go, and the solar system offers many options, each with its own advantages and disadvantages.

The many worlds of the solar system may be classified into certain groups, some with a sole example and some with a great multitude.  And while all are challenging, some are more challenging than others.

One classification of the solar system would be as follows: Mercury & the Moon (the hard-rock worlds), Venus (the terrestrial world with the hellish atmosphere), Mars (the terrestrial world with the cold, thin atmosphere), the minor bodies (asteroids & comets), the icy dwarf planets (including the icy moons), the gas giants (or at least the three without the crushing gravity of Jupiter), and Io (for those who want an especial challenge).

The Tetrahedron

In discussions about the manned exploration and settlement of the solar system, the focus is often primarily on the technology to get to the location, and secondarily on the technology to survive in the location, but technology alone is insufficient.  For example, the typical person dropped in the Arctic with all of the traditional technology of the native peoples wouldn't be likely to survive in the long-term (and maybe not even in the short term).  Beyond the necessary technology are the necessities of the appropriate techniques and the requisite culture.

The inter-related nature of the location's environment and the technology, techniques, and culture needed to thrive in that environment may be represented by a tetrahedron, in which each of the four elements is connected to and affected by each of the other three.  An apt expression, then, might be that it's not just rocket science...

The Bottleneck

While one might hear that "getting there is half the fun," another version of the saying is that "getting there is half the battle," and such is certainly true with manned space exploration (and the settlement of the solar system to follow).  Getting off of Earth and to another destination is a bottleneck, not only technologically, but also economically, politically, and otherwise.  The foundation that SpaceX (and others) are starting to build will hopefully lead to a bottleneck that is less and less constricting as time goes by - but it's important to remember that a bottleneck is a potential chokepoint, and so the initial settlements would do well to pursue self-sufficiency as soon as possible.

Building a Foundation

Although more commonly referred to as SpaceX, the full name of Space Exploration Technologies gives a better idea of the company's purpose, which is seen throughout the SpaceX family of technology:

• reusuable rockets reduce cost, increase access, and pave the way for landing large rockets propulsively on other worlds
• the Falcon 9 rocket system provides the foundation for the Falcon Heavy system, simplifying the development of a heavy-lift vehicle
• the development of a methane engine looks forward to rockets being refueled and relaunched from the surface of Mars
• the integrated launch escape system doubles as a propulsive landing system, allowing for landings on any surface in the solar syste
• the cargo version of the Dragon was designed to also serve as a manned vehicle from the start

At every point, the SpaceX designs are superfluous for the satellite-launching and ISS-servicing missions - but all of these designs are looking forward to a greater purpose, and laying a foundation for the first manned space exploration program since Apollo.

Red Dragon

SpaceX just announced that it plans to launch an unmanned Red Dragon mission to Mars in 2018.

An early guess: Mojave Crater.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/04/27/spacex-says-it-will-fly-a-spacecraft-to-mars-as-soon-as-2018/

http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/27/11514844/spacex-mars-mission-date-red-dragon-rocket-elon-musk

Circles and Lines

Human exploration of the solar system has stagnated since the last Apollo mission to the moon, and with no sailors straying far from shore, no ships have been built toward those ends; rather than a starship Enterprise (or at least a step in that direction), there was a shuttle Enterprise - a spaceship that never went into space.

Work is now underway, however, to again send humans beyond low Earth orbit, to send human explorers out into the solar system.  Whereas the last 40+ years have been spent going in circles, the next 40+ years offer the promise of heading out into the frontier - and this time, to stay.

(Beyond) Earth Day

There is an oft-repeated argument against the settlement of the solar system which goes something to the effect of, "we should take care of this planet first."  But settlement of the solar system is not an enemy to caring for Earth's environment, for just as the settlement of the New World did not mean the abandonment of the Old World, so also it would be with humanity's expansion into many new worlds from this one.

The Final Frontier

"Space... the final frontier..."

This line is true in the sense of the frontier (or, rather, frontiers) of space being farther off than any of the frontiers of Earth, but in looking at the effectively unlimited nature of space, the word "final" seems ill-suited, as each subsequent frontier reached is but a stepping stone to many more that lay beyond.

The Chicken and the Egg

In many areas of technology, it's easy to see how investment leads to development and development leads to greater investment, in a system of positive feedback.  Early investments in cell phone technology, for instance, led to the development of better cell phones, which led to wider adoption, which in turn led to increased investment in cell phone technology.  Since the end of the Apollo program, however, this process has been fairly stunted in terms of space-related technology, but there are signs that the industry (or, at least, some elements of the space industry) may be turning a corner, and cheaper access to space (see: reusable rockets) may help to drive expanding investment and development on a rapidly increasing scale.

Twelve Years

Just twelve years separated the launch of Sputnik 1 and the Apollo 11 moon landing.  Based on that rate of development, some then speculated that first manned mission to Mars was only about the same distance off - but instead of a Mars mission in 1981, there was the space shuttle.  Another dozen years later, in 1993, and the big news in space was the cancellation of the Space Station Freedom project and its replacement with the International Space Station project.  A dozen years after that, in 2005, and the highlights of the American manned space program were the return to flight for the shuttle program and the fifth anniversary of the ISS being regularly manned.  And next year will mark another twelve years - a total of 48 years since Apollo 11, and 45 years since the last manned mission to the moon, in 1972, and in those 45 years, no one has been beyond low earth orbit.

Breakthrough Starshot

Yuri Milner, along with Stephen Hawking and Mark Zuckerberg, announced just yesterday the launch of a project known as Breakthrough Starshot, which intends to launch a fleet of small probes toward the Alpha Centauri system within 20 years, with the probes traveling at a fifth of light-speed, to arrive in another 20 years.

Such a project, if successful, would not only allow humanity to explore the Alpha Centauri system (along with other nearby stars), but would also greatly increase our ability to explore this solar system.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/13/science/alpha-centauri-breakthrough-starshot-yuri-milner-stephen-hawking.html

http://breakthroughinitiatives.org/Initiative/3

The Best-Laid Plan

The Homesteader's Guide to the Solar System intends to publish on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

But the Surgeon General advises against holding your breath on that.

Try #5

The Homesteader's Guide

Howdy.

The Homesteader's Guide to the Solar System blog started back in 2011, and it has been an off & on project since then (with most of the past posts currently relegated to the virtually dusty archives).  But as the good prince Harry once said (or was said to have said), "Once more unto the breach, dear friends."

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Planet Nine

Today, Mike Brown & his team from CalTech announced the discovery of a ninth major planet, which is just the third such discovery since the planets known from antiquity.

Just last year, we saw Ceres & Pluto up close for the first time, and it seemed like we maybe had the book on the solar system fairly well filled in - but now that book needs to be replaced with a new edition.  And before we get close up pictures of Minerva (or whatever the ninth planet ends up being called), we'll probably need several, even many, new editions.

It might take five years to spot this new world; another 10 or more to decide to send a probe (perhaps many more, but here's hoping); perhaps 20 years to design a fast-enough probe that can communicate from such great distances; and maybe 40 years of travel time, for a total of 75 or more years to get that first picture.

So today's a good day to start thinking about it.  :)

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/21/science/space/ninth-planet-solar-system-beyond-pluto.html