Sunday, May 5, 2013

Beyond Earth's Atmosphere: Energy Needs For Space Colonization

Beyond Earth's Atmosphere: Energy Needs For Space Colonization:

Beyond Earth's Atmosphere: Energy Needs For Space Colonization
Beyond Earth's Atmosphere: Energy Needs For Space Colonization
Conceptual view of a space elevator using a 22,000 mile-long cable held by an asteriod counterweight in geosynchronous orbit (click on the Chapter 9 link below). This is amazingly doable for such a bizarre concept. From Hoagland (2005) with permission.
We are going to return to the Moon. No question. And long-term human settlement will follow at some point, mainly to development mineral and energy resources available on the Moon, but also to emplace protective systems aimed at avoiding large asteroid impacts of the type we were all recently made aware with that grazing meteor strike in Chelyabinsk and the simultaneous near-miss by big-rock DA14.
Growing shortages of key inorganic elements, such as rare earth elements for all our electronic gadgets and renewable energy systems, platinum and other related metals, and even helium for medical equipment (yes, and balloons!), suggest that we may need more non-renwable resources than Earth can provide (He shortage; REE shortage).
So it is with perfect timing that a long-awaited Special Publication from the Energy Minerals Division of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists has been published.  And it has to do with outer space – AAPG Memoir 101: Energy Resources for Human Settlement in the Solar System and Earth’s Future in Space (full disclosure, I am an author on one of the chapters).
Off-world settlements will provide fuel and life support materials for space missions and planetary operations, and for return of goods to Earth. In the U.S., such dreams are being pursued by entrepreneurs and private entities working both independently and with NASA (Elon Musk is the best example of that). In other countries, they are still nationalized, but the industry will eventually emerge on its own.
Energy resources that can be harvested in space for the benefit of Earth include helium-3 that occurs in abundance on both the Moon and asteroids and is ideal for new small fusion plants, as well as solar energy that can be collected and transmitted in concentrated form to Earth.
Hydrocarbons, helium, hydrogen, and volatiles in the solar system are important for human exploration and habitation because they will provide essential high-energy, high-density fuels and feedstock for off-world manufactured goods and materials for construction.
Metals, platinum-group elements, rare earth elements, and other volatiles, like H, H2O, and carbon compounds, are abundant on asteroids, many of which are relatively accessible from Earth. We could even use the asteroids that come too close as a way to remove them as dangers since we’re going to have to deal with them anyway.
Lest you think this is science fiction and that no one would ever fund this from a business standpoint, consider the Class M asteroid pictured below. Class M asteroids are chunks of old planetary cores left over from the Late heavy Bombardment period in the Solar System’s early days when the thousands of small planets that were accreting fought it out for who would survive the orbiting slugfest (Space Invaders).
Class M asteroids are composed of iron with large amounts of nickel, cobalt, and platinum group metals. The asteroid 3554 Amun-NEA pictured here is about 1.3 mi (~2 km) in diameter, similar in size to typical metallic ore bodies on Earth. Its ore zone mass is about 30 billion tons, and with 20 oz/ton of nickel, contains almost 17 million tons of nickel alone (34 billion pounds) and is worth US$600 billion in today’s market.
Beyond Earth's Atmosphere: Energy Needs For Space Colonization
Beyond Earth's Atmosphere: Energy Needs For Space Colonization
A small class M asteroid named 3554 Amun-NEA containing over 17 million tons of nickel, about $600 billion in today’s market. Similarly for cobalt and platinum group elements (click on the Chapter 9 link below). Courtesy of William Ambrose and Astronaut Jack Schmitt.
Together with the need to protect sensitive environments on Earth from mining operations, this will eventually become a reasonable alternative to digging up the Earth to extract every last ounce of precious metal in our own crust.
Memoir 101 is an integrated review of energy resources in the Solar System and of technologies that can be used to implement them, like the Space Elevator, megasolar reflectors, or the lunar He-3 nuclear reactor.
Solar energy presents a good example of how systems in space differ from the same ones on Earth. One of the chapters offers a case for developing space-based solar energy from a lunar array. Although the Earth intercepts 175,000 terawatts (TW) of solar power continually, it is impractical and costly to gather high-yield solar power on Earth because of adsorption from the atmosphere and reflection from clouds back to space. Even the biosphere captures only a small fraction (<0.03%) in the form of atmospheric carbon and the oxygen separated from water.
Currently, a stand-alone solar array on Earth provides an average energy output of 3W per square meter (W/m2) of ground area. Earthbound power storage, conversion systems, and long-distance transmission lines greatly decrease the effective output of solar cells or concentrators. For example, 20 TW of Earth-based electric power requires approximately 2.7 million square miles (7 million km2) of collector area, representing approximately 5% of the landmass of Earth. This is unlikely to change in this century.
On the Moon, which has no atmosphere, a lunar solar-power (LSP) system can capture hundreds of times the energy per area than on Earth. An LSP system can economically gather solar power and convert it into streams of electromagnetic waves that are designed to dependably and safely deliver power efficiently to inexpensive receivers (rectennas) on Earth when power is needed.
Operating at 2.5 GHz to pass through Earth’s clouds and atmosphere, 20 TW from lunar-based electric power requires only 40,000 square miles (100,000 km2) of rectenna area on Earth. Moreover, materials for the collection of solar energy can be manufactured in situ on the Moon for less than on Earth. The economics are weirdly advantageous, even with technologies existing today, and can be bootstrapped without huge initial costs. The environmental savings to the Earth cannot be overstated.
Beyond Earth's Atmosphere: Energy Needs For Space Colonization
Beyond Earth's Atmosphere: Energy Needs For Space Colonization
Concept of a nuclear-powered robotic gravity tractor moving an asteroid into a new orbit, either to mine or to remove from impacting earth (click on the Chapter 9 link in the text). Image courtesy of Dan Durda and the B612 Foundation.
Therefore, any long-range program of human exploration and settlement of the solar system must consider in situ resource utilization and the vital role that extraterrestrial energy minerals and related resources will play to support human habitation of near-Earth Space as well as on the nearby worlds of the Moon, Mars and the near-Earth Asteroids.
A good example of the memoir’s content, and of most interest to this readership, can be seen in the final chapter, authored by members of the Division’s Uranium and Nuclear Minerals Committee (UCOM): Nuclear Power and Associated Environmental Issues in the Transition of Exploration and Mining on Earth to the Development of Off-World Natural Resources in the 21st Century (Chapter 9). This chapter delves into the nuclear energy and environmental radiation aspects of living off-world.
Of course, adverse health effects from low levels of radiation are front and center in any future colony or long space flight, and the ugly beast of the Linear No-Threshold dose hypothesis (LNT) raises its head again. Beyond Earth’s atmosphere, the background levels of radiation are significantly higher than the average on Earth. But some areas on Earth have similar levels and astronauts have safely worked in space for years with no adverse health effects (Space Invaders).
Throughout our history, the dangers of a New World don’t seem to deter humans very much from venturing out to make whatever future they can in whatever environment there is. And in this one, there isn’t even any other people to fight or ecosystems to destroy in order to get there.
I say we go for it.

Friday, May 3, 2013

The White House Releases a Report on Space Weather

The White House Releases a Report on Space Weather:
A long, magnetic filament burst out from the Sun after a C-cladd flare on(Aug. 31, 2012 (NASA/SDO/AIA)
The White House Releases a Report on Space Weather
A long, magnetic filament burst out from the Sun after a C-class flare on Aug. 31, 2012 (NASA/SDO/AIA)
We live on a planet dominated by weather. But not just the kind that comes in the form of wind, rain, and snow — we are also under the influence of space weather, generated by the incredible power of our home star a “mere” 93 million miles away. As we orbit the Sun our planet is, in effect, inside its outer atmosphere, and as such is subject to the constantly-flowing wind of charged particles and occasional outbursts of radiation and material that it releases. Although it may sound like something from science fiction, space weather is very real… and the more we rely on sensitive electronics and satellites in orbit, the more we’ll need to have accurate weather reports.
Fortunately, the reality of space weather has not gone unnoticed by the U.S. Federal Government.
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© Jason Major for Universe Today, 2013. |
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Experts Urge Removal of Space Debris From Orbit

Experts Urge Removal of Space Debris From Orbit:
Space debris has been identified as a growing risk for satellites and other space infrastructure. Credit: NASA
Experts Urge Removal of Space Debris From Orbit
Space debris has been identified as a growing risk for satellites and other space infrastructure. Credit: NASA
Action is needed soon to remove the largest pieces of space debris from orbit before the amount of junk destroys massive amounts of critical space infrastructure, according to a panel at the Sixth European Conference on Space Debris.
“Whatever we are going to do, whatever we have to do, is an expensive solution,” said Heiner Klinkrad, head of the European Space Agency space debris office, in a panel this week that was broadcast on ESA’s website.
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© Elizabeth Howell for Universe Today, 2013. |
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Herschel Space Telescope Closes Its Eyes on the Universe

Herschel Space Telescope Closes Its Eyes on the Universe:
ESA’s Herschel space observatory set against a background image of the Vela C star-forming region. Copyright ESA/PACS & SPIRE Consortia, T. Hill, F. Motte, Laboratoire AIM Paris-Saclay, CEA/IRFU – CNRS/INSU – Uni. Paris Diderot, HOBYS Key Programme Consortium.
Herschel Space Telescope Closes Its Eyes on the Universe
ESA’s Herschel space observatory set against a background image of the Vela C star-forming region. Copyright ESA/PACS & SPIRE Consortia, T. Hill, F. Motte, Laboratoire AIM Paris-Saclay, CEA/IRFU – CNRS/INSU – Uni. Paris Diderot, HOBYS Key Programme Consortium.
Sadly – though as expected – the most powerful far-infrared orbital telescope put in orbit has ended mission. The Herschel space observatory has now run out of liquid helium coolant, ending more than three years of pioneering observations of the cool Universe.
The spacecraft needs to be at temperatures as low as 0.3 Kelvin, or minus 459 degrees Fahrenheit to make its observations, and mission scientists and engineers knew since Herschel’s launch on May 14, 2009 that the 2,300 liters of liquid helium would slowly evaporate away.
The Herschel team sent out a notice that the helium was finally exhausted today, noted at the beginning of the spacecraft’s daily communication session with its ground station in Western Australia. The data showed a clear rise in temperatures measured in all of Herschel’s instruments.

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Saturn Storm’s ‘Suck Zone’ Shown In Spectacular Cassini Shots

Saturn Storm’s ‘Suck Zone’ Shown In Spectacular Cassini Shots:
A false-color image, taken by the Cassini spacecraft, of a huge hurricane at Saturn's north pole. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI
Saturn Storm’s ‘Suck Zone’ Shown In Spectacular Cassini Shots
A false-color image, taken by the Cassini spacecraft, of a huge hurricane at Saturn’s north pole. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI
Checking out the above pictures of a Saturn hurricane, one can’t help but wonder: how close was the Cassini spacecraft to spiralling down into gassy nothingness?
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© Elizabeth Howell for Universe Today, 2013. |
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An Awesome Look at Enceladus, the Jet-Powered Moon

An Awesome Look at Enceladus, the Jet-Powered Moon:
Plumes from Enceladus' geysers are illuminated by reflected light from Saturn. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech, Space Science Institute.
An Awesome Look at Enceladus, the Jet-Powered Moon
Plumes from Enceladus’ geysers are illuminated by reflected light from Saturn. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech, Space Science Institute.
According to planetary scientist and Cassini imaging team leader Carolyn Porco, about 98 geyser jets of all sizes near Enceladus’s south pole are spraying water vapor, icy particles, and organic compounds out into space. The spray from those geysers are evident in this new image from Cassini, showing a big, beautiful plume, illuminated by light reflected off of Saturn. Look closely to see that the plume is as large as the moon itself.

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Gigantic Hot Gas Cloud Sheaths Colliding Galaxies

NGC 6240: Gigantic Hot Gas Cloud Sheaths Colliding Galaxies:
Credit: X-ray (NASA/CXC/SAO/E.Nardini et al); Optical (NASA/STScI)
Gigantic Hot Gas Cloud Sheaths Colliding Galaxies
Credit: X-ray (NASA/CXC/SAO/E.Nardini et al); Optical (NASA/STScI)
Looking almost like a cosmic hyacinth, this image is anything but a cool, Spring flower… it’s a portrait of an enormous gas cloud radiating at more than seven million degrees Kelvin and enveloping two merging spiral galaxies. This combined image glows in purple from the Chandra X-ray information and is embellished with optical sets from the Hubble Space Telescope. It flows across 300,000 light years of space and contains the mass of ten billion Suns. Where did it come from? Researchers theorize it was caused by a rush of star formation which may have lasted as long as 200 million years. (...)
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How the Fermi Spacecraft Almost Got Taken Out by a Relic of the Cold War

How the Fermi Spacecraft Almost Got Taken Out by a Relic of the Cold War:
Artist concept of the Fermi Space Telescope. Credit: NASA.
How the Fermi Spacecraft Almost Got Taken Out by a Relic of the Cold War
Artist concept of the Fermi Space Telescope. Credit: NASA.
As a space telescope scientist or satellite operator, the last thing you want to hear is that your expensive and possibly one-of-a kind — maybe irreplaceable — spacecraft is in danger of colliding with a piece of space junk. On March 29, 2012, scientists from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope were notified that their spacecraft was at risk from a collision. And the object heading towards the Fermi spacecraft at a relative speed of 44,000 km/h (27,000 mph) wasn’t just a fleck of paint or tiny bolt.
Fermi was facing a possible direct hit by a 1,400 kg (3,100-pound) defunct Russian spy satellite dating back to the Cold War, named Cosmos 1805. If the two satellites met in orbit, the collision would release as much energy as two and a half tons of high explosives, destroying both spacecraft and creating more pieces of space junk in the process.

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The Sun Burps Out a Gigantic Rolling Wave

The Sun Burps Out a Gigantic Rolling Wave:

Just in time for May Day, the Sun blasted out a coronal mass ejection (CME) from just around the limb earlier today, May 1, 2013. In a gigantic rolling wave, this CME shot out about a billion tons of particles into space, traveling at over a million miles per hour. This CME is not headed toward Earth. The video, taken in extreme ultraviolet light by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), covers about two and a half hours of elapsed time.

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PHOTO : Will Antimatter Obey Gravity’s Pull ?

Will Antimatter Obey Gravity’s Pull?:
What matter and antimatter might look like annihilating one another. Credit: NASA/CXC/M. Weiss
Will Antimatter Obey Gravity’s Pull?
What matter and antimatter might look like annihilating one another. Credit: NASA/CXC/M. Weiss
What goes up must always come down, right? Well, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN) wants to test if that principle applies to antimatter.

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Anarchic Star Formation Found In Dust Cloud

Anarchic Star Formation Found In Dust Cloud:
The Danish 1.54-metre telescope located at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile has captured a striking image of NGC 6559, an object that showcases the anarchy that reigns when stars form inside an interstellar cloud.  Credit: ESO
The Danish 1.54-metre telescope located at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile has captured a striking image of NGC 6559, an object that showcases the anarchy that reigns when stars form inside an interstellar cloud. Credit: ESO
If you think that breaking all the rules is cool, then you’ll appreciate one of the latest observations submitted by the Danish 1.54 meter telescope housed at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile. In this thought-provoking image, you’ll see what kind of mayhem occurs when stars are forged within an interstellar nebula. (...)
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What If the Earth Had No Moon?

Into Oblivion: What If the Earth Had No Moon?:
A shattered Luna as depicted in the summer blockbuster Oblivion. (Credit: Universal Pictures).
A shattered Luna as depicted in the summer blockbuster Oblivion. (Credit: Universal Pictures).
AVAST gentle reader: mild SPOILER(S) and graphic depictions of shattered satellites ahead!
We recently had a chance to catch Oblivion, the first summer blockbuster of the season. The flick delivers on the fast-paced Sci-Fi action as Tom Cruise saves the planet from an invasion of Tom Cruise clones.
But the movie does pose an interesting astronomical question: what if the Earth had no large moon? In the movie, aliens destroy the Earth’s moon, presumably to throw our planet into chaos. You’d think we’d already be outclassed by the very definition of a species that could accomplish such a feat, but there you go.
Would the elimination of the Moon throw our planet into immediate chaos as depicted in the film? What if we never had a large moon in the first place? And what has our nearest natural neighbor in space done for us lately, anyway?

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Across The Universe : A New View of Comet ISON

A New View of Comet ISON:
View of Comet ISON on May 2, 2013. Credit: Ernesto Guido & Nick Howes, Remanzacco Observatory.
View of Comet ISON on May 2, 2013. Credit: Ernesto Guido & Nick Howes, Remanzacco Observatory.
Update: Here’s a brand new image of Comet C/2012 S1 ISON, as seen on May 2, 2013 by Ernesto Guido and Nick Howes of the Remanzacco Observatory (their image from May 1, which we featured earlier, is below.) For this latest image, they used the 2-meter Ritchey-Chretien Liverpool Telescope. Via Facebook, Howes said they have been able to identify the same tail structure which was seen in the Hubble Space Telescope images of this comet from April 10.
From the May 1 observations, their initial approximation of the tail length is around 28 arcseconds, which Howes told Universe Today is bigger than some recent reports from smaller scopes.
Below is their image from May 1, using the 2 meter La Palma Telescope:

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