Sorting out the latest new thing takes some catching up to do. This past September 2014 NASA announced the two winning candidates for a space taxi to resume US launched flights to the space station above. Boeing to build the CST-100 with a maximum capacity of seven astronauts, replacing our Russian partner's Soyuz hitch-hiking since the end of our shuttle program. CST be launched by the Atlas 5 rocket with a five year success history of 26 lift-offs. We should've kept one orbiter available in this gap, but President Obama put 7,000 out of work, ending STS as well as the proposed Ares plans; we even had a successful launch of the Ares 1 in 2009-10. The other space taxi contractor is Space X, short for Space Exploration Technologies; their capsule Dragon is already being used as a cargo ship, lifted by their Falcon 9 rocket. Recently the ESA, European agency completed a space plane mission in earth orbit, unmanned. They also put Philae, released by Rosetta, onto a comet called 67P after a 10 year transit around the inner solar system, a remarkable triumph.
Other attempts in this new commercial crew program include the Orbital Sciences Corporation's recent failure of their Antares rocket vehicle carrying the Cygnus payload; allegedly the Russian- made engine failed on launch and was destroyed over the pad at Wallop's Island VA. Within a week a second setback occurred over the Mojave Desert as the SpaceShipTwo tourist thrill ride by Virgin Galactic broke apart after the tail feathers were deployed prematurely before apogee and descent, killing one; the other test pilot survived.
As for the Russians their space agency called Roscosmos completed a ground experiment called Mars 500 whereby a crew quarantined themselves for 519 days. Russia of course uses Progress cargo ships and the Soyuz to bring crews to the ISS, and home again. The current contract with them calls for 6 US replacements to go up with Russia in 2016, returning them in June 2017. By then we hope to be independent of Russia for space station transportation. Russia has plans for updating, extending their spaceports and cosmodromes; launching a Mars vehicle 120-150 ton capacity, a Liquidator satellite that cleans up space junk in a geostationary orbit, a meteorological Meteo, other high tech satellites at $9.7 billion, and a moon base by 2040 utilizing cranes & mining hardware!
China is in space now having succeeded in landing a rover on the moon, as well as docking with a laboratory in earth orbit with their Shenzhou 10 spacecraft. I believe India has done some unmanned launches as well. North Korea has also put something up amidst their saber rattling propaganda. I would like to see NASA and ESA work with China, welcoming them to the club!
On December 4, 2014 America hopes to test fly the Orion atop a Delta IV Heavy in a four hour unmanned trip through the radioactive Van Allen Belts at 3600 miles up, then re-entering earth's atmosphere at 20,000 mph to test the ablative honeycomb heat shield made by Textron in Wilmington MA. The drogue chute to slow the craft to 175 mph with main chute splashdown at 20 mph if all goes well. The contractor for the Delta IV is United Launch Alliance, partnered with Lockheed Martin, a Colorado company. Boulder's Ball Aerospace is also involved.
The SLS, Space Launch System replaces the Ares program for the heavy lifting to Mars. I can't conceive an Orion crew going to Mars with a single rocket for all the cargo, supplies and a lander needed, therefore I presume another SLS launch vehicle will provide these inherent essentials! The first SLS test comes in 2018 if we don't delay; it also is to be built by ULA/ Lockheed Martin, making both these rockets a cousin, descendent to the old Titan.
So that's the plan. I submitted an interest in the Orion "boarding pass" offer and my number will ride with it, J2M000001082691, that last one is me! The longer we delay the longer it'll take to reach our goals.
More compiled data: The Orion test flight last December 5 was a huge success. I watched all four hours, following the launch in a spectacular fiery orange lift off, the Delta IV separations, fairing and escape tower jettisoning. The second stage re-ignited pushing the craft up to 3600 miles above Earth with fantastic blue pictures of our world the curvature the size of a basketball. The heat shield did its job as the drogue & main chutes gently set Orion onto the water 600 miles south of San Diego with the Navy in the recovery zone.
March 28 of the new year the launch date for Soyuz to bring Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko up to the International Space Station for their one year duration flight. The Kelly twin brothers are to be featured in TIME magazine, Scott on the cover. The longest record for an American in space will take 5,920 orbits in the station the size of a 747 jumbo jet with 14 modules, 358' length, or about the size of a 4 bedroom house. Time spent will consist of science, health monitoring/ exercise and maintenance. They'll be joined and left behind by other expedition groups of astronauts. Books, movies and TV show requests will be available with their e mail/astronomical/photographic pastimes.
I've learned the Boeing space taxi CST-100 will be using four "pusher" thrusters at the capsule's base for a newly-advanced emergency escape system, instead of the tower configuration Mercury, Apollo and Orion had. The Space X Dragon also will use this new plan.
The Webb Telescope consists of an infrared camera to look at the first stars and galaxies, seeing further back into time than Hubble. These heavenly bodies are so far away their light can only be seen by detection of red shift in the spectrum; it takes millions of years for the Creation to reach us!
Venus? I read an article about a notion to send two astronauts in a spacecraft that would land on high ground, then inflate for habitat module; a 30 day orbital mission would be called the High Altitude Venus Operational Concept. The premise Venus tempertures are only 17 degrees higher than the hottest on Earth at an altitude of 50 kilometers or 30 miles up! Venus is somewhat closer to Earth with a 440 day round trip, compared to Mars at 650-900 days round trip. Isn't that something?!
July 11: NASA announced the names of four military/ astronaut veterans to begin the commercial crew missions to the ISS, probably in 2017 or after. Following the recent Space X cargo rocket launch failure it'll take more money & testing for the CST-100 "space taxi"to be man-rated for flight by both Space X and Boeing. The astronauts picked for the first flight are Navy Capt. Sunita Williams with 322 days in space, holding the space walk record at 50 hours, 40 minutes combined; F-22 test pilot Robert Behnken USAF with two shuttle missions, USAF Colonel Eric Boe of 55 Southern Watch Europe-Mideast sorties/ two shuttle trips and Douglas Hurley USMC also two shuttle trips. I believe the most days in space for a woman is now held by ESA Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti recently returned to Earth.
The exciting news occurs in deep space as the New Horizons probe fast approaches Pluto for a fly by through the Kuiper Belt at 7:49 am July 14, 2015! From early appearances Pluto looks red-similar to Mars except methane gas mixes with sunlight giving this far out dwarf planet its icy red hue.
Scott Kelly has just passed over 100 days in the space station so far, about 1/3 into his one year mission. He has been on Twitter showing strange algae in the waters, landforms, as well as photos of Boston, London and other points of interest below him!
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