Sunday, October 9, 2016

SPACE EXPLORATION: A POLITICAL TOOL

Following the first lunar landing of Apollo 11 on July 20, 1969, James Arthur Lovell, the future commander of the famous Apollo 13 was credited with saying: “From now on, we live in a world where man has walked on the moon. It's not a miracle, we just decided to go.”[1] There is no doubt that, in the scope of human history there has been nothing like the moon landings achieved by Project Apollo in the late sixties. In the span of just a few years, humanity accomplished the landings not once, but six times. The technologic, economic and political development generated by this endeavor in such a short time changed humanity at its core. Today, there seems to be many people that cannot imagine life without a smartphone or the internet, without knowing both technologies are rooted in the moon missions more than many would imagine. But while the progress in science and technology cannot be doubted, the space program had more merit than meets the eye. Like any powerful endeavor of large magnitude, the national space program was created to serve as a strong political tool.

As historic as Commander Lovell’s words were in 1969, so were President Nixon’s words uttered in 1972 as Apollo 17 left the moon to return home. Nixon said: “this may be the last time in this century that men will walk on the moon.” [2] Nixon’s prediction was to become truer than anybody would have ever imagined: no man has ever returned to the moon since 1972. As soon as the goal to win the space race was accomplished, space exploration became politically secondary in importance. Nixon cancelled any plans for further lunar missions and a Mars landing, announcing the space shuttle program instead, a program aimed to explore the low earth orbit only. Funding decreased exponentially, and while each Administration continued to utilize space for its political purposes, the magnitude of the Apollo Project was never repeated again. Recalling the technological, economic, and political impact of Apollo on humanity, it is fair to claim that not repeating the episode is unfortunate and a step backwards for humanity. Living in a world where man has walked on the moon should infer the capability not only remained at hand, but it improved considerably. Given the Apollo accomplishments in less than a decade, there is no surprise that after the moon landings, people envisioned colonizing the moon, and then landing a man on Mars in a couple of decades. However, five decades after Apollo, the United States not only did not colonize the moon or land on Mars, but it has lost human spaceflight capabilities entirely. It currently depends on Russia to fly astronauts to the International Space Station.[3] What happened?

Recent history has demonstrated that the success of the U.S. civil national space program is seemingly dependent on political support. Since there is an alleged positive correlation between political support and funding the national space agency, politics must be the main factor taken into consideration when planning space missions. If the national space program is primarily a political tool, then its development depends on the political trends of the moment. Therefore, it is important to determine what makes the U.S. national space program, primarily its human spaceflight component politically important and what level of political support would be necessary to maintain and sustain a thriving space program.



[1] Tom Hanks, Apollo 13, Motion Picture, directed by Ron Howard (1995, Universal City, CA: Universal Pictures). 2002, DVD.
[2] Logsdon, John M. 2014. "Why did the United States Retreat from the Moon?" Space Policy 30, no. 1: 1-5. doi:10.1016/j.spacepol.2014.12.001 (accessed February 19, 2015), 1.
[3] Logsdon, John M. 2011. "A new US approach to human spaceflight?." Space Policy 27, no. 1: 15-19. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed February 19, 2015).

Friday, April 25, 2014

Neil Armstrong on Being a Nerd

Bone Metabolism and the Effects of Spaceflight on the Skeleton


Bone metabolism is an ongoing mechanism that facilitates the remodeling of bones by replacing older skeletal tissue with new skeletal tissue (Clément, 2005, p. 180).  This process needs a variety of minerals such as calcium for example to generate healthy new bones, and has three different steps in the following order: 1. Reabsorption of the old tissue by the osteoclasts; 2. Reversal of the tissue when new bone cells begin to form; 3. Formation of new bone tissue by osteoblasts to replace the old tissue that has been reabsorbed (Hadjidakis and Androulakis,  2007, n.d.). The repair of fractures is when bone metabolism is noticed in action. However, bone metabolism is also crucial to continuously maintain a healthy bone architecture by repairing small damages that occur during exercising or any sort of physical effort for example. Plasma calcium homeostasis is also maintained during the process of bone metabolism (Hadjidakis and Androulakis,  2007, n.d.).

Space flight does have a strong effect on bone metabolism, and the main reason behind it is that the process of bone remodeling in Earth creatures has been going on for millions of years in the environment of the planet’s gravity. Once in space, the skeletal system is exposed to microgravity, and can be affected just like other systems in the human body. Microgravity leads to a loss of almost two percent in bone minerals (Clément, 2005, p. 188). For example, calcium loss has been noticed in humans as well as animals that spent any time between one week and one year in space, and the loss progressed the longer the time spent in microgravity. A one year mission led to a loss of about 25 percent of the total calcium in the body (“Bone Metabolism,” n.d.). Bone loss has been noticed primarily in the lower body skeletal tissue, and the bones that take most of the body’s weight, which displayed a loss in collagenous matrix. Besides this it has been noticed that both the number and size of bone cells decrease in microgravity (“Bone Metabolism,” n.d.).
The current countermeasures available to the effects of microgravity on bone metabolism include nutritional supplements and exercising. Artificially created gravity could be a solution for future longer missions, but so far this method was not found to be practical from an economic and technical point of view for shorter trips (“Bone Metabolism,” n.d.).

References:

“Bone Metabolism”. ASCI513 Presentation 5 Part 2. Retrieved from https://erau.blackboard.com/bbcswebdav/pid-14006343-dt-content-rid-2666676_4/institution/Worldwide_Online/ASCI_513/PDFs/Module_5b.pdf

Clément, G. (2005). Fundamentals of space medicine. Secaucus, NJ: Springer.


Hadjidakis D.J., Androulakis, I.I. (2007). Bone remodeling. Ann N. Y. Acad. Sci. 2006 Dec; DOI: 10.1196/annals.1365.035

Friday, November 29, 2013

Space Launch System

The NASA Authorization Act of 2010 approved the building of a heavy lifting vehicle under the name Space Launch System, using the hardware of the Ares rocket, and converting the Orion capsule into the MPVC - Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle. Today, the Space Launch System is developed in the idea of being the first NASA’s exploration-class vehicle since Saturn V, and the largest rocket ever built. Although applying the same old rocketry principles and chemical propulsion, the SLS will have a superior lift capability, and it could take the Orion capsule to deep space destinations such as the moon, an asteroid, and Mars (Harwood, 2011, n.d.). SLS will come in two configurations: the 77 tons rocket will have a lift capability of 154,000 pounds, while the 143 tons will be able to lift more than 286,000 pounds. The SLS’s lift-off capacity will therefore be much bigger than that of the space shuttle, which had a lift-off capacity of 50,000 pounds, as well as that of the Saturn V rocket that launched astronauts to the moon at 263,000 pounds of payload capabilities (Harwood, 2011, n.d.). The core stage and the avionics of the SLS will stand 200 feet tall, and will store the liquid fuel which will feed the four RS-25 engines of the rocket (NASA Marshall, 2012, n.d.). The SLS will also be equipped with two five-segment SRB’s.

To reduce cost and development, the SLS will be a blend of technology used by the Space Shuttle Program, and the technology planned for the Constellation Program. The engines used for developing this rocket will be three of the RS-25D/E shuttle main engines for the first stage, and an upgraded Apollo J-2 X engine for the second stage (NASA Marshall, 2012, n.d.).

The plan is that the first unmanned test flights would take place at the end of 2017. The cost of the first phase and test flight is expected to be $18 billion, and it would include the cost of the SLS, the MPVC, as well as the upgrades in the infrastructure of the Kennedy Space Center required for launch. Once operational, the SLS’s yearly cost will be in the range of $3 billion, while for the space shuttle alone NASA used to spend between $2 and $3 billion a year (“NASA Announces Design,” 2013, n.d.).

Some of the future planned missions of SLS are cis-lunar space exploration, near-Earth asteroids, Mars and its moons, as well as further deep space missions (“NASA Announces Design,” 2013, n.d.). The schedule of these missions is nearby asteroids by 2020s, and orbit and land on Mars in the 2030s capabilities (Harwood, 2011, n.d.).  This proposed timetable will be in accord with President Obama’s challenge that NASA would send astronauts to an asteroid by 2025, and to Mars by mid-2030s. 

The FY 2014 President’s NASA Budget Request included a budget of $1,384.9 million for the Space Launch Systems, of which $1,339.8 million for Launch Vehicle Development, and $45.1 million for SLS Program Integration & Support (“FY 2014 President’s Budget,” 2013, p. 8). Although the budget is about 100 million less than the actual budged of 2012 designated for SLS, if approved, the 2014 budget will allow a continuation in the development of the future manned launch system.

NASA will have to rely on Soyuz flights for transportation of U.S. astronauts to ISS for as long as no launch vehicle will be available. However, the SLS is more a deep space vehicle than a LEO vehicle. It will of course be capable to send astronauts to the ISS, but it would be unfortunate if that would be its main mission. The SLS will be the new Saturn V, designed to take astronauts to the moon, an asteroid, and Mars. For LEO the current plan involves relying on commercial space, hoping that perhaps ULA or SpaceX will soon provide a vehicle reliable enough to transport astronauts to the ISS. That is definitely SpaceX’s plan with the Dragon and Falcon Heavy, so one day these may be the means to replace Soyuz.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Bob Hope and Neil Armstrong


Neil Armstrong's appearances on television were with Bob Hope only.
They became pals on a tour of Vietnam in 1969.