Private Manned Moon Program Announced:

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2012/12/golden-spike-phase-a-commercial-lunar-landing-missions/

people involved in this company:
Concept art:

Quote :

"Golden Spike announce Phase A for commercial lunar landing missions December 6th, 2012 by Chris Bergin The Golden Spike Company team have revealed their initial work to create commercial lunar expeditions to the surface of the Moon. Led by a heavyweight board of directors, the company is currently in Phase A of their evaluations into the hardware that will enable crewed landings on the Moon as early as 2020."

[Edited on December 6, 2012 at 2:21 PM. Reason : ]

12/6/2012 2:19:49 PM

Quote :

"Golden Spike: The company, formed in 2010, has an impressive board of directors, led by Board Chair Gerry Griffin – a former Director of Johnson Space Center and Apollo Flight Director – and President/CEO Alan Stern, the well-known Planetary scientist, and former head of all NASA science missions. The board includes former NASA engineers, astronauts and managers – including the highly respected former Space Shuttle Program (SSP) manager Wayne Hale, along with commercial space notables, such as former SpaceX program manager for the Dragon spacecraft, Max Vozoff. The company’s board of advisors also includes Newt Gingrich, former US Speaker of the House of Representatives, who cited his interest in a lunar base during his campaign as a US presidential candidate. Via comments provided via interview to NASASpaceFlight.com by Golden Spike’s leadership ahead of the announcement, the initial drive behind setting up the company was conceived out of the failing Constellation Program (CxP) – the NASA roadmap built from the Vision for Space Exploration (VSE) that aimed to send NASA astronauts on lunar surface sorties ahead of crewed missions to Mars. By early 2010, Mr Stern had set up a study group, to evaluate a commercial approach to sending people to the moon, with the findings portraying that it was “clearly possible” that the private sector could enable crewed lunar missions. By the fall of 2010, Mr Stern and Mr Griffin – along with members of the study group and others – formed the Golden Spike Company to push their ambitions forward. For the last two years, the company has been building a business model and conducting technical studies into the lunar architecture they are currently pursuing. Realizing their goal – to the point they successfully carry out their first crewed lunar surface mission – will cost between $7 and $8 billion. While no specific details into current funding are likely to be revealed during this initial period, the company has said it will be mainly relying on funding via sales revenue, generated via contracts they expect to be signed by customers for actual lunar flights. As far as the vehicles that will be used to transport paying crewmembers to the Moon, the company has not yet selected a rocket of preference. Golden Spike has, however, conducted feasibility studies into several launch vehicle and capsule options, fostering multiple options and numerous technical solutions. It is understood that the main options include SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy and United Space Alliance’s Atlas V. Notional graphics created by Golden Spike appear to show a crewed spacecraft married with a dual engine Upper Stage – potentially a Centaur. The company has confirmed they will be taking a very different approach to that created by NASA’s defunct Constellation Program, which relied on “clean sheet” hardware. Golden Spike will be championing what they call a “maximally pragmatic” strategy. “By adopting (this) strategy, Golden Spike has found a suite of lunar exploration architectures that can enable our company’s first human lunar expedition for a cost of only about $7-8B dollars, including all required systems development and integration, a careful multi-mission flight test series, and a healthy level of project reserves,” noted Mr Stern in the company’s briefing materials. “What makes this lower cost possible is the direct result of our plan to use existing launch vehicles and crew capsules already in development. We only plan to develop new systems – such as an expedition lander and surface suits – where no existing system exists or is in development. “Such a system architecture, which we call a ‘head start architecture,’ may not be as elegant as a ‘clean sheet of paper’ approach that develops all new flight systems, but it offers enormous cost, schedule, and reliability advantages.” By using this approach, the company believes they will reduce the schedule and cost concerns that usually blight a new vehicle’s development, while also reducing associated risks. Also, the actual development costs to build the hardware will already be paid for by the hardware’s parent company. Other options include adapting existing hardware to enable their lunar aspirations, leaving any new build requirements to be specific to hardware that simply does not yet exist. While Golden Spike stressed that no contracts have yet been signed with any companies on either the launcher or spacecraft side of the plan, they are using Thursday’s announcement to reveal contracts to begin work on the design of the lunar lander, via studies by multiple companies, along with lunar space suit designs and lunar surface experiment package design. Unlike the launcher options, these three hardware elements are currently not available. A list of partners on the Lunar Lander Systems (LLS) hardware elements – notionally depicted in Golden Spike’s own materials as small surface lander – have been revealed by the company, namely: Armadillo Aerospace, International Lunar Observatory Association, Masten Space Systems, Moon Express, Paragon Space Development Corp, Southwest Research Institute, Space Florida, United Launch Alliance, and Zero Point Frontiers Corp. These companies are likely to be involved in a wider set of hardware, such as habitats and surface support systems. Flying to the Moon by 2020: Noting a comprehensive plan – one that is likely to be refined as the company moves forward – Golden Spike is aiming to utilize the team’s vast experience in space flight. As such, the company is currently in “Phase A”, which they note allows them to still make substantial refinements to their plans. However, Golden Spike revealed they are targetting their fourth lunar mission to land a crew on the surface of the Moon, allowing for three test flights – the first of which is believed to be tentatively scheduled for 2017. With the target of a 2020 flight to debut their lunar landing capability, the company cited a two-launch architecture for each mission, allowing for a hybrid combination of the EOR and LOR architectures studied for project Apollo. “Golden Spike’s basic lunar mission architecture requires two launches of two sets existing launch vehicles for each surface expedition. The first pair of launches allows us to pre-position a lander in low lunar orbit. The second pair of launches then sends a crew vehicle with two people in it – the expedition crew – to meet the lander in lunar orbit,” Mr Stern added in the company’s materials. “For each of these two vehicles that we need to get to lunar orbit, the existing launchers will require help from a propulsion module attached to the payload. Once in lunar orbit, the crew travels to the surface to explore with capabilities like early Apollo landed expeditions, then ascends back to lunar orbit and returns home to Earth in the crew capsule they launched in.” As to where the first lunar mission will land, no decisions have been taken at this time. Regardless, the company noted they will have access to large areas of the near side of the Moon via their initial capability, with specific destinations to be customer-driven. The company believes they have an addressable market of 15 to 25 customers for lunar surface missions between 2020 and 2030. NASA’s own lunar ambitions continue to relate only to the fly-by missions of Exploration Mission -1 and -2 (EM-1, EM-2). NASA managers have since taken stock in renewed interest in missions to the surface, listed as a Lunar Surface Sortie (LSS) missions via the Exploration Systems Development Division (ESD) Concept Of Operations (Con Ops) document (L2), allowing it to become a Design Reference Mission (DRM) alternative, potentially at the expense of a mission to an asteroid, in the early to mid 2020s. Lunar surface mission options could also be enabled via the EML2 Gateway option, although that remains outside of the current plan within the Agency. Per associations Golden Spike’s own associations with NASA, the company does not have any current plans of cooperation on lunar surface missions, although they did conduct a private briefing with the Agency’s leadership last week. They also confirmed they will be ITAR compliant and will work within the regulatory regime. Thursday’s announcement will be treated with both excitement and skepticism within the space flight community, although Golden Spike have stressed they are a start-up company and their ambitions are currently termed as a vision. “Our vision is to create a reliable and affordable US-based commercial human lunar transportation system that enables the exploration of the Moon by humans from virtually any nation, corporation, or individual wishing to accomplish objectives on the Moon – including activities based around science, around business, around national prestige, and personal accomplishment,” added Mr Griffin. “We further plan to create and monetize wide-scale participatory involvement in Golden Spike lunar expeditions, something we will have more to say about later. These are big goals worthy of a new century and an American space industry that has led the world for 50 years.” Further articles will follow as the company develops its roadmap."

12/6/2012 2:20:42 PM

What's going on here?

12/6/2012 3:54:59 PM

Just got back onto TWW after being out of country for a while and glad to see all this news about space flight!

12/6/2012 4:49:08 PM

I am sure 2020 won't happen although I hope it does. Virgin Galactic was supposed to be up and running by now I believe.

12/6/2012 6:06:49 PM

ha... another person involved as an advisor to the board...

Quote :

"Mike Okuda - Advisor Hollywood graphic and set designer (“Star Trek”)"

12/6/2012 10:51:04 PM

After reading about this "Golden Spike" company and it's plans, I'm less optimistic than I was when I had previously heard about them before this announcement. It was hinted that there were already billions backing this program, but it turns out there are "potential" billions in "projected" fees paid by "future" customers, none of which have committed 100%.

12/7/2012 10:48:33 AM

^^Hiring a guy that's widely known for building fake spaceships isn't exactly good PR for a spaceflight startup seeking investors.

12/10/2012 5:00:27 PM

Moving again.

12/12/2012 9:06:29 AM

http://lightyears.blogs.cnn.com/2012/12/13/moon-probes-to-be-blown-apart-in-monday-mountain-crash/

12/13/2012 6:20:16 PM

I'm assuming that it mostly has to do with cost but I have to wonder why they didnt try to find some other use for those probes after they were done with their primary mission. Just simply crashing them into the moon seems silly. Even just sending them off into space towards something else to take some pictures or something. Just seems like a waste to simply crash em into the moon.

12/14/2012 11:09:49 AM

I doubt that they could leave orbit.

12/14/2012 11:10:54 AM

Yeah I mean obviously they werent designed to hence why I assume it was just they were trying to get one thing done cheaply. I dont know the in's and out's of costs on these sorta things but even if it was simply to add solar panels to keep the thing with power for much longer just orbiting the moon and snapping some nice pictures or anything really. I'm just assuming in the end it came down to this is what we want to do what is the absolutely cheapest way we can get it done and this was the result.

[Edited on December 14, 2012 at 11:17 AM. Reason : o]

12/14/2012 11:15:15 AM

I would assume at least part of the reason is that they want to be able to de-orbit the probes before they lose the ability to maneuver and they are stuck in orbit, junking up cis-lunar space.

12/14/2012 12:25:10 PM

Quote :

"Yellowknife Bay is within a different type of terrain from what the rover has traversed since landing inside Mars' Gale Crater on Aug. 5, PDT (Aug. 6, UTC). The terrain Curiosity has entered is one of three types that intersect at a location dubbed "Glenelg," chosen as an interim destination about two weeks after the landing. "

So as I understand it, the rover is now in a new type of geology? I wonder if it's ever going to fully climb the mountain and if it'll be different there.

Then again, apparently the crater is like 300 km in diameter. So this is nothing but pennies.

lol...



So yeah, not very far...

[Edited on December 19, 2012 at 3:01 PM. Reason : ]

12/19/2012 3:00:41 PM

http://www.howmanypeopleareinspacerightnow.com/

new crew heading to the ISS.

12/20/2012 10:42:02 AM

12/20/2012 10:59:46 AM

To infinity and beyond!

12/21/2012 11:11:17 AM

Health and safety...you don't want our astronauts to get hit in traffic do you?

12/21/2012 12:39:01 PM

looks like most of the holidays was spent taking panoramas. Mostly repetitive to look at in the raw image site. I wonder why they took them like that... maybe for time lapse of the horizon?

taken on 28th

1/2/2013 3:52:28 PM

http://www.geekologie.com/2013/01/youre-nuts-plan-to-kidnap-a-moon-for-our.php

1/3/2013 8:39:58 PM

Aliens.

1/7/2013 2:54:14 PM

Alien larva:

1/7/2013 2:57:59 PM

Those are some interesting pictures

1/7/2013 3:04:24 PM

They released a color version of their latest panorama.
It's hard to appreciate without a giant printout canvasing an entire wall, so I spliced it out.

First, the entire thing, hard to see detail


Now, here are small portions of that picture









[Edited on January 7, 2013 at 3:13 PM. Reason : ]

1/7/2013 3:11:08 PM

I think it's supposed to drill soon. Look forward to that.

1/14/2013 10:30:52 AM

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2013/jan/HQ_M13-011_NASA-Bigelow_Event.html

Quote :

"NASA, Bigelow Officials to Discuss Space Station Expandable Module WASHINGTON -- NASA has awarded a $17.8 million contract to Bigelow Aerospace to provide a new addition to the International Space Station. The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module will demonstrate the benefits of this space habitat technology for future exploration and commercial space endeavors. "

I think it would be really exciting if this happened... although I still don't think it will. $17.8 M is no where near the cost of an ISS module.

1/14/2013 4:56:56 PM

i read that it should happen in 2 years... the deal has been signed.

here's a pretty good write-up about it:
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2013/01/expanding-on-bigelows-inflatable-module-iss/

BEAM me up?

1/14/2013 6:16:42 PM

^ If it's going to happen, then why isn't it on the Wikipedia ISS page

In other news, the drill targets for Curiosity were selected
these are them:



It has not used the drill yet. It has cooked stuff, laser beamed stuff, and other things. But "the drill" might be the only instrument they have not broken out yet.

And they found evidence of water in the past. Apparently they didn't expect to make that discovery so early in the mission. But it seems like everything NASA announces is "evidence for water".

1/16/2013 10:40:36 AM

I mean just simply looking at some of those pictures its really hard to imagine there not having been water or at least liquid something there at one time.

1/16/2013 1:27:31 PM

1/16/2013 2:27:20 PM

this is my own speculation, but I think this is a part of the pics they're taking for the case they're trying to build of water erosion I mentioned

1/17/2013 2:00:53 AM

the ESA is officially taking over the service module of the Orion capsule, and are basing it on their ATV craft that has resupplied the space station a few times. The new notional art makes it look very X-wingish.

Good in a way because it promotes international cooperation, responsible budgeting, etc, but it could reduce the number of American jobs associated with it (no, nasa isn't a jobs program)




http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2013/01/orions-atv-deal-esa-astro-em-2-mission/

This has been talked about for a few months (or longer), but it is pretty certain now.

1/17/2013 1:11:06 PM

I think that White House Death Star proposal just got new life...




Also, today's Mars porn, a broken rock. NASA says they broke it by driving over it with a 1 ton rover. I prefer to think they used the force.

1/18/2013 8:21:10 AM

1/18/2013 8:55:33 AM

Mars looks eerily similar to some deserts on Earth. Crazy to think that it's a separate planet millions of miles away and the entire planet looks like that. Are there any plans to send a rover to the ice caps on Mars?

1/18/2013 9:33:07 AM

If my understanding is correct, Mars only temporarily has ice caps.

1/18/2013 11:02:44 AM

i'm pretty sure they expand and contract seasonally, but they are always there. The dry ice varies a lot more than the water ice.

1/18/2013 11:12:34 AM

They're going to recycle the MSL infrastructure for another rover, so you could put in your 2 cents to lobby for the ice caps, I don't see it happening though.

I have no idea where they'll go next. The Gale Crater was pretty much the best site on the planet by a long shot, and Curiosity's range was perfectly sui
ted for it. I thinks it would be more exciting if they could increase the speed of the next rover. If they could get it to travel 1 km in a day instead of a month that would open up a new kind of mission.

1/18/2013 11:35:09 AM

a new space mining venture...

http://www.space.com/19368-asteroid-mining-deep-space-industries.html

1/22/2013 1:42:23 PM

^I'll believe it when I see it.

1/23/2013 9:31:20 AM

ditto.

1/23/2013 2:15:41 PM

Opportunity rover took that picture for it's 9th anniversary. I guess we can't call it a birthday since it was functional before we ever launched it.

Just think about it, for the majority of those nine years, it was the only moving thing on the planet.

Also, the orbiter took a picture that is supposed to show evidence of water

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/?ImageID=5043

You know NASA, I think we all get it by now. We believe you that Mars once had water. After so many times we see "evidence" for it, it's not really evidence anymore. Is evidence for something you already knew really evidence?

^^ No matter, you can't take away the awesomeness of that picture no matter what you do.

1/23/2013 2:35:05 PM

Google Mars with the path of the rover. I've wanted to see something like this. This one delivers.

http://curiosityrover.com/tracking/drivetrack.php?drivenum=41

1/23/2013 2:52:47 PM

Quote :

"Opportunity rover took that picture for it's 9th anniversary. I guess we can't call it a birthday since it was functional before we ever launched it. Just think about it, for the majority of those nine years, it was the only moving thing on the planet."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_rover

[Edited on January 23, 2013 at 3:42 PM. Reason : ]

1/23/2013 3:42:33 PM

Here are some more images from this space mining deal... (from space.com)
This illustration depicts Deep Space Industries' small Firefly class Archimedes spacecraft for asteroid exploration. The small, nimble probes are designed for one-way trips to investigate asteroid targets

http://i.space.com/images/i/000/025/335/original/deep-space-industries-archimedes-concept.jpg

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

An artist's concept of Deep Space Idustries' Dragonfly picker to capture asteroids for mining operations

http://i.space.com/images/i/000/025/334/original/deep-space-industries-dragonfly-picker.jpg

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

An artist's concept of Deep Space Idustries' Dragonfly spacecraft to capture and return asteroid samples for return to Earth orbit for mining operations.

http://i.space.com/images/i/000/025/333/original/deep-space-industries-dragonfly-concept.jpg

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This illustration depicts Deep Space Industries' Fuel Processor class spacecraft for asteroid mining.

http://i.space.com/images/i/000/025/336/original/deep-space-industries-fuel-harvester-concept.jpg

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This illustration depicts Deep Space Industries' Harvestor class spacecraft for asteroid mining.

http://i.space.com/images/i/000/025/338/original/deep-space-industries-archimedes-concept-3.jpg

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This illustration depicts Deep Space Industries' Harvestor class spacecraft for asteroid mining

http://i.space.com/images/i/000/025/337/original/deep-space-industries-archimedes-concept-2.jpg

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

An artist's concept of a Deep Space Industries foundry for extracting minerals and resources from an asteroid under microgravity conditions.

http://i.space.com/images/i/000/025/340/original/deep-space-industries-microgravity-foundry.jpg

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

An artist's concept of a wheel habitat under construction at an asteroid, a vision of space settlement by the asteroid-mining company Deep Space Industries

http://i.space.com/images/i/000/025/341/original/deep-space-industries-wheel-construction.jpg

1/23/2013 3:57:13 PM

Quote :

"Firefly class"

1/23/2013 4:36:16 PM

I was thinking to myself:

Won't we someday put big data centers into low Earth orbit? The materials part is difficult for several reasons, but the major important components could be high-value and low weight.

The main motivation would be the temperature. If you rigged up a good enough radiation management system, you could approach the temperature of space and allow for superconducting computers with only passive cooling, which could never be done on Earth.

Seems more economic than mining asteroids for rare metals.

1/23/2013 5:55:26 PM

land a supercomputer on Titan. pretty cold there

1/23/2013 5:57:35 PM

Finally some more development in nuclear propulsion!

http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-begins-development-nuclear-thermal-rocket-deep-space-173600485.html

1/23/2013 6:08:37 PM