The past couple of weeks have seen several interesting news items related to manned space flight so I thought today would be a good day to catch up on Space News.
First off last week both Space X corp and the Russians succeeded in launching resupply missions to the International Space Station (ISS) with Space X also successfully landing the first stage of their Falcon rocket after it had placed the Dragon capsule into orbit. These resupply missions are becoming routine and that’s a good thing! It means we are finally building the infrastructure the space which will enable us to concentrate on new missions going further into space.
Speaking of going further into space, Space X announced last week that they are preparing a mission to take two paying customers out to, but not landing on, the Moon. This mission has tentatively scheduled for late next year (2018). Along with NASA’s announcement last month that the first mission of their Space Launch System / Orion spacecraft might now be manned (see my post of 22Feb for that news) this means that there could be two independent missions to Lunar orbit next year (actually I bet they’ll both end up in 2019 but still that’s progress!) If you’d like to read Space X’s official announcement click on the link below.
Now, for the fashion conscious among us (certainly not me) there was a press release for a company called StemRad based in Israel. StemRad already has a reputation for designing and manufacturing radiation protective gear for workers in nuclear power plants now they’re working on gear for astronauts. StemRad called the press release to show off the new radiation vest that they had developed and which they called the AstroRad. The vest is intended to protect human tissue from the effects of the radiation encountered on deep space missions such as to the Moon or Mars. NASA will be testing the vest on their planned Lunar missions.
The vests are form fitting and tailor made for each astronaut. The picture below shows the vests being worn by two of StemRad’s employees.
If you’d like to read more about the AstroRad vest click on the link below.
Finally the space company Blue Origen released an animation of how their soon to be completed Glenn rocket will be recovered after launching a payload into orbit. The critics are all saying that it looks awfully familiar and that Space X doesn’t need animations since they have actual footage of them landing one of their rockets! Still, more companies competing against each other should help bring down the cost of space travel. If you’d like to see the animation click on the link below.
Before I go I have an announcement of my own to make! If you look over at the right hand side of the page you’ll see that I have now started a bookmarks section where I will be providing links to other web sites devoted to Science and Science Fiction. Even better you’ll see that this blog has been chosen by Feedspot Blog Directory as one of their Top 100 science blogs. In fact Science and Science Fiction debuted at #73 on their list which includes such well known sites as Scientific American, Discover Magazine, National Geographic and Popular Science. O’k they’re all in the single digits while I’m 73 but still it’s cool just being on the same list! And remember, this blog is only 6 months old!