And we haven't been back in 35 years....

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Cool news on the spacesuit front.

L.Riofrio reported back on the 4th about rather exciting developments in the area of true skinsuits.

Now Clark Lindsay has some additional links.

"A current prototype of the suit consistently exerts pressures of about 20 kilopascals on its wearer but newer models have reached pressures of up to 25 to 30 kilopascals, which is about one-third that of the Earth's atmosphere and the target for spaceworthy BioSuit, researchers said. A fully functional suit could be made ready for spaceflight in about 10 years, they added.

At the heart of the BioSuit is mechanical counter pressure, which uses tightly wrapped layers of material that are both flexible and protective to the astronaut inside. The suit's layers are wrapped in a meticulous fashion -- based on three-dimensional maps of the human body in motion -- to provide structural support while maintaining mobility, researchers said."

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  Encyclopedia Astronautica has updated their women in space page to include the Mercury 13.   



Art by Glenn Andrian of Altiz Studios.

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Two of the Brickmuppets crack team of science babes point us to this very complete, neat and well organized space-centric linkfest by one Ferris  Valyn over at...
...The Daily Kos!?

Its a great post and looks like it will be an ongoing feature there. It is so good and generally pro-manned space and entrepreneurship that one wonders why he's a diarist at Kos....

...Oh.".BTW, a warning if you want to respond to Mark Whittington in the comments section - he is firmly of the belief that liberals/progressives/Democrats who support manned spaceflight, space development, and space colonization are freaks of nature, despite plenty of other evidence."

Ah...that explains it...total denial of the lessons of history.... :-P

Sorry Ferris,  Whittington is right...(another "end times moment")...you are a freak of nature. There is no evidence that liberals/progressives/Democrats (who BTW generally are none of the above) are good for space or tech progress in general. They are too interested in hurting the successful and funding their well intentioned but counterproductive Ponzi schemes.

The idea that "we must solve all problems on earth before we go into space" is very much a mainstream one in lefty circles, The Dems in general....with the single exception of Edwards...maybe...seem to really dislike manned spaceflight. This has been true since the Mondale wing of the party took over and began attacking Apollo. It applies doubly to nuclear power and irradiated and genetically modified food. The left is in no way the friend of technological progress. *

 Nevertheless, Ferris Valen,  you are a worthy and welcome aberration and I salute you!

Partisan snarking aside, this really is one of the better space linkfests I've seen. I even agree (shudder)with several of his editorial points, as such, this is heartening proof that people on the utter opposite sides of the political spectrum can actually find common ground about things more substantive than restaurants and TV shows.

That this is such a surprise is a sad commentary on our times. This is how a Republic is supposed to work.
 (A Democracy....not so much...but that's a post for a different time.)

*NOTE: As this blog leans to the right, there will, of course, be absolutely no mention of Leon Kass and and company.

Update: Kirk Sorensen points to another sign of the end times...a pro nuke Kossack......The end times are surely upon us... I must organize my MRE's and duct tape.

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Star Stryder is hosting the latest Carnival of Space. Lots of cool space related linky luv on topics ranging from Earthlike worlds, to space diving to the many uses for astronaut poo!
Go check it out!
 


Illo, is by the late, great Ed Emshwiller for Heinlein's Have Spacesuit Will Travel.

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Despite being just as busy as the Brickmuppet himself, one of the Brickmuppet's crack team of science babes finds time to send  us these quick space related links

EADS , a European aerospace company is jumping into the space tourism market.

TGV Rockets is touting its successful engine tests. These guys are fairly local and have a particularly neat concept based on minimum ground infrastructure.

Over at Tales of the Heliosphere....Useless Mars News! (Well, it's still cool news)

Colony Worlds reports on a group of private citizens trying to put together a manned Mars shot by...... 2014 ?!!

Though there was some disappointment at the lack of a big methane sea on Titan....the moon may yet have a sea of some sort...
There seems to be a subsurface ocean on Titan.

(I'm on the home stretch on my active duty, but posting will  still be erratic until  until about Monday. )

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Over at  A Babe in the Universe is a link to this collection of photos and renderings of various bits of Project Constellation hardware.

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Clarke Lindsay, links to this post which has video of one the contenders for the Regolith Excavator Challenge.


   Simplicity is a virtue that is often forgotten. Space settlements will require very simple, robust systems.

    ....and a minimum of plywood.

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One of the Brickmuppets' crack team of science babes reports that the Carnival of Space is up!

Lots of cool articles but the one that caught my eye was this post over at Colony Worlds.

Read the whole thing!

The post concerns the moon Ganymede and its suitability for colonization. While "A Second Earth" is a bit too strong,  Ganymede does have a lot to recommend it even beyond its magnetic field.

Mars gets a lot of press as far as permanent settlements, but it has radiation issues and the dust problem is rather daunting.

An iceball like Ganymede might seem like a poor choice but the idea has more merit than one might think.

Ganymede has lots of water, possibly way more than Earth, and the moon could likely provide all the volatiles one would need, possibly some nitrogen and certainly oxygen (Ganymede actually has a pure oxygen atmosphere...albeit a very thin one). The gravity is quite low, but comparable to that of Luna so if we can populate Luna with no ill effects then Ganymede will be no problem. This is one of those big Ifs that require some looking into....with actual people....in space....on the moon.

On the down side, there is likely to be very little in the way of any metals at all. Also some rocky patches on the surface would be most useful. This is important because human settlements will generate heat, far more than Ganymede's cryogenic surface  has  encountered. There is the very real possibility that a settlement on Ganymede could weaken its own foundations just through warming and gasifying volatiles.

On the upside we do have some experience in dealing with structures on the ice though the experience in Antarctica points to the need to expect the unexpected. The recently built structures have benefited from all the lessons learned in previous buildings. Here is the new elevated structure that is replacing the old geodesic dome at the south pole....

...it's a cool pic of the Aurora Australis too! (HT Big Dead Place)

A structure on Ganymede or a comparable iceball might look similar, but it would, of course, be airtight. The light, Luna scale gravity would (in theory) assist in construction of larger....fairly non-claustrophobic structures.

Though it's a given that reactors, and most all metal would have to be imported and meticulously recycled, the magnetic field, ready availability of water (and thereby Oxygen) does make Ganymede a good candidate, assuming we can get there...Ganymede is in a pit in astrogation terms in that its in Jupiter's gravity well. Ganymede is also on the outskirts of the Hellish Jovian radiation belt. Note that its magnetic field will help protect surface dwellers, so a permanent human presence is not beyond the realm of possibility. In fact, NASA has worked the numbers, if not on colonization, at least getting there (OK, getting as far as Callisto). Briefly mentioned in this article, NASAs HOPE mission involved a manned mission to Callisto. I blogged about it on my old site here, and  a PDF of some of the spaceship concepts for that program is here. I recently turned up a far more detailed power point presentation of several of the concepts for the Callisto mission.It
 is here.
 

 Besides Ganymede there is Titan which, keeping in mind that I'm a complete layman in these matters, might be an even better fit despite its much greater distance.


      Titan has hydrocarbon deposits including lakes of liquid methane that could mitigate its probable paucity of metals by allowing production of plastics for construction. Its atmosphere is far thicker than earths providing a good shield from radiation and, even better is a nitrogen atmosphere like earths (it has almost the same proportion of Nitrogen but its 20% gas is methane rather than oxygen). No pressure suits would be required, an EVA on Titan could be done with regular  arctic dry suits! Like Ganymede, it has about the same gravity as the Earths main moon and being an iceball it is likely well stocked with water ice from which one could crack all the oxygen one would need. Saturn is much farther out, but both its Gravity well and Van Allen belts are far more benign than Jupiters. Its thick, but cold atmosphere would facilitate heat exchange and cooling, of machinery, which is a real issue in a near vacuum.



That picture from Huygens could be a photo of some prime real estate!

UPDATE: How could I forget to mention  THIS ?

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