U.K. wants commercial spaceport by 2018 | sen.com

Wow! Our own British Space Port by 2018. That's not small potatoes. Lets hope the government keeps on the ball with this one.

Click link below SEN (Space Exploration News)



U.K. wants commercial spaceport by 2018 | sen.com

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Distant Planet shows signs of potential for life in double stars

The search for planets in the Goldilocks zone of all star systems continues...

Cool planet hints at potential for life in double stars - space - 03 July 2014 - New Scientist

New Spacecraft for Pluto Article

This is an exciting article about a spacecraft called; New Horizon. It will take photos of Pluto from a closer range then any other craft so far.

New Horizons spacecraft will wake up today | sen.com

Frogs' Genes could help humanity voyage into space

Read this fascinating report in the Independent Newspaper about frogs genes helping humanity voyage in space.





Scientists say burrowing frogs' genes could help humanity voyage into space - Science - News - The Independent

Europe plans to build world's biggest X-ray telescope

This is from: SPACEFLIGHT NOW - an online magazine of current space exploration news

A half-year after the European Space Agency formally prioritized high-energy astrophysics for its next flagship-class science mission, officials announced Friday the selection of a European-led X-ray observatory named Athena for launch in 2028.

Artist's concept of the Athena spacecraft. Credit: Athena project team

 

The huge telescope will replace ESA's XMM-Newton mission and NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, collecting data on the interplay between matter and black holes, halos of enigmatic hot gas enveloping faraway galaxies, distant gamma-ray bursts, and other phenomena.

Athena will see objects fainter than XMM-Newton or Chandra, and it is the only X-ray telescope in its class slated for launch in the 2020s, ensuring high demand for Athena's data haul, according to scientists.

The telescope will launch on a heavy-lifting rocket, possibly Europe's Ariane 5, and fly to the gravity-stable L2 Lagrange point a million miles from Earth for a five-year mission.

Athena will weigh about five metric tons, or about 11,000 pounds, at launch. Its telescope will measure about 12 meters, or 39 feet, long with ultra-lightweight silicon pore optics, a new technology comprising stacks of silicon wafers to reflect high-energy X-ray light to the mission's two instruments.

Missions like Athena must launch into space to see the universe in X-rays, which are absorbed by Earth's atmosphere, rendering observations from the ground impossible.

Athena will look back in time to observe how galaxies and galactic clusters assembled a few billion years after the Big Bang, according to the mission's backers.

The telescope will also resolve the flows of matter falling into black holes, contribute to exoplanet research, and survey the wider universe to map large-scale cosmic structures.

"Athena will be a state-of-the-art observatory that will provide a significant leap forward in scientific capabilities compared with previous X-ray missions, and will address fundamental open questions in astrophysics," said Alvaro Gimenez, ESA's director of science and robotic exploration. "Its selection ensures that Europe's success in the field of X-ray astronomy is maintained far beyond the lifetime of our flagship observatory XMM-Newton."

Officials announced in November that the next two large-class missions in Europe's Cosmic Vision program would be an X-ray telescope and a mission to confirm the existence of gravitational waves.

The Cosmic Vision program is a strategic architecture for the selection of Europe's space science missions through a judicious process involving proposals, reviews and recommendations by the European research community.

But the November decision in favor of X-ray and gravity wave missions did not come with a selection of specific mission concepts.

For the first large-class, or L1, Cosmic Vision mission, ESA is working on an orbiter to be launched to Jupiter in June 2022.

ESA's Science Program Committee last week signed off on the Athena mission for the L2 opportunity, and an endorsement of a concept for the L3 gravity wave research mission will come in 2020, with launch to follow in 2034.

Athena was the only proposal submitted for consideration by the committee, officials said.

Next comes detailed study and definition phases to mature technologies required for the Athena mission.

ESA will also begin negotiations with potential partners, such as the United States and Japan, to contribute to the Athena mission. NASA officials have already stated their interest to provide components for Athena's scientific sensors.

European Space Agency officials will meet again around 2019 for formal adoption of the Athena mission, setting a budget, plan and other details before industry begins construction of the spacecraft and its instruments.

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.

NASA's Design for a New Warp Drive Monster - Star Trek Become a Reality.

I was spellbound by this piece from CNN news. I have pasted it here because there is so much info I would like to keep on the blog. This is a mega Wow!

(CNN) -- Thanks to a NASA physicist, the notion of warp speed might just travel out of sci-fi and into the real world.

NASA's Harold White has been working since 2010 to develop a warp drive that will allow spacecraft to travel at speeds faster than light -- 186,000 miles per second.

White, who heads NASA's Advanced Propulsion Team, spoke about his conceptual starship at a conference last fall. But interest in his project reached a new level this week when he unveiled images of what the craft might look like.

Created by artist Mark Rademaker, who based them on White's designs, the images show a technologically detailed spacecraft that wouldn't look out of place in a "Star Trek" movie. Rademaker says creating them took more than 1,600 hours.

For now, warp speed is only possible in TV and movies, with both "Star Trek" and "Star Wars" referencing an idea that was completely speculative at the time. White has fittingly named the concept spacecraft IXS Enterprise, for the starship famously piloted by Captain James T. Kirk in the "Star Trek" TV series and movies.

At the SpaceVision 2013 Space Conference last November in Phoenix, White talked about his design, the concepts behind it and the progress that's been made in warp-drive development over the decades. He discussed the the idea of a "space warp," a loophole in the theory of general relativity that would allow for massive distances to be travelled very quickly, reducing travel times from thousands of years to days.

In his speech, White described space warps as faraway galaxies that can bend light around them. They work on the principle of bending space both in front of and behind a spacecraft. This would essentially allow for the empty space behind the craft to expand, both pushing and pulling it forward at the same time. The concept is similar to that of an escalator or moving walkway.

"There's no speed limit on the expansion and contraction of space," White said at the conference. "You can actually find a way to get around what I like to call the 11th commandment: Thou shall not exceed the speed of light."

It's the idea of space warps that inspired physicist Miguel Alcubierre in 1994 to first theorizes a mathematical model of a warp drive that would be able to bend space and time. While studying Alcubierre's equations, White decided to design his own retooled version of the Alcubierre Drive. His recently unveiled design has much less empty space than the first concept model, increasing its efficiency.

The warp drive that White's team has been working on would literally transcend space, shortening the distance between two points and allowing the craft to break the speed of light. This would be a spaceship with no speed limit.

Because travel into space has been extremely limited due to existing means of propulsion, such technology could blow open the possibilities of space exploration. It could allow for the study of the farthest reaches of space, parts that scientists once considered unimaginable.

Although the technology to create the spacecraft or the warp the drive doesn't yet exist, the artistic renderings Rademaker created could potentially be a model of what's to come -- the first spacecraft to break the speed-of-light barrier and journey beyond our solar system.

In his design, White says he drew from Matthew Jeffries' 1965 sketches of the Enterprise from "Star Trek," saying parts of that the ship was mathematically correct. He worked with Rademaker and graphic designer Mike Okuda to update the math and produce what he believes to be a viable spacecraft.

According to NASA, there hasn't been any proof that a warp drive can exist, but the agency is experimenting nonetheless. Although the concept doesn't violate the laws of physics, that doesn't guarantee that it will work.

"We're starting to talk about what the next chapter for human space exploration going to be," White said at SpaceVision.

Orion - Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (The Next Adaptation of Manned Space Craft)

The Orion Multi-Purpose CrewVehicle is the new exciting project in manned space exploration. It is the next advancement from the space shuttle. This is so that crew and space vehicle can go beyond low orbit and further into space – much further. The ambitions for Mutli-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) are very exciting. With this new innovation astronauts will go beyond space stations orbiting Earth and travel to the Moon, explore asteroids and of course Mars - mankind’s new goal and next giant step.

There will be several of these special adapted space craft built. For NASA the Orion MPCV will be built by the famous Lockheed Martin group. For the European Space Agency, the MPCV will be constructed by a group called Astrium. Each spacecraft will carry four or more astronauts and various cargoes to deliver to space station construction sites or other more adventurous destinations as mentioned already.

The first flights are scheduled to launch aboard a Delta IV rocket for an exploration test journey in 2014 with the first manned mission in 2020.

Nuclear Rockets to Mars

Nuclear propelled rockets are being considered for human space travel to Mars. These new projects are just  the tip of the iceberg. As countries across the world begin to cooperate, new and more fantastic undertakings are beginning to emerge. The prospect of space travel will suddenly accelerate one day and the dawning of a new age will be with us. It is believed that these fusion rockets could get people from Earth to Mars in thirty days.

There are lots of things wrong with the idea at the moment because most of our population do not want to go along the lines of nuclear development. This is because of disasters like Chernobyl, Fukushima and of course the Nuclear bombs dropped upon Japan in World War II We fear a terrible dystopian future might come about if this goes wrong.

If we could get the equipment out into space and away from Earth's orbit, it could be possible to construct something about the Moon's orbit and already in space. The possibilities could be very apparent if we dare. Using fossil fuels all over the globe will add to the many causes of Eco-problems we already have. This nuclear alternative could be a long term benefit that could lessen all other forms of human need. We need to get out there and into space exploration somehow. It is our destiny to do so, and I believe in our nature.