Top Ten Space Stories of 2007

2007 has been a busy year in the space industry. Since this is the time of year for top-ten lists, I decided to put together this list of the top ten space stories for 2007. Your mileage may vary.

10. Charles Simonyi

On April 7, Charles Simonyi became the fifth space tourist. After training at Star City, the Microsoft executive launched aboard the Soyuz TMA-10, arrived at the ISS on April 9, and returned to earth on the Soyuz TMA-9 on April 21.

9. Scotty goes to space

The beloved actor James Doohan died in 2005. On April 28, 2007, a vial of his ashes, along with those of astronaut Gordon Cooper and about 200 others, was lofted into space on a suborbital flight aboard the UP Aerospace SpaceLoft XL. Mr. Scott's engines finally did have enough power, cap'n - and he didna do it on any United Federation of Planets spacecraft either, he went on a private spacecraft. With the expansion of the private space industry of late, pretty soon we're all going to be able to go, and not just our ashes.

8. Opportunity enters Victoria Crater

The Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity far exceeded their mission specifications years ago, and are still chuggin' away. On September 11, 2007, the rover Opportunity took its first tentative steps into Victoria Crater. Analysis of the layers of rock in the crater walls will provide a boon for planetary geologists, allowing them to peer further back into the history of Mars than ever before.

7. New Horizons reaches Jupiter

The New Horizons spacecraft is on its way to Pluto. Launched in January of 2006, it is the fastest object ever launched. But, it needed to go even faster than it could be launched. So, at the end of February of 2007, New Horizons used the gravity of Jupiter to provide it an additional boost. As the spacecraft approached the giant planet, it took some spectacular photos of the planet and its moons, including this amazing shot of the Galilean moons Europa and Io. Even though these moons look like they are side by side, they were actually separated by a distance of 790 thousand kilometers, roughly twice the distance between Earth and the Moon.

I posted some videos about New Horizons on my blog here.

6. Bigelow Aerospace launches its second private space station

Bigelow Aerospace launched its second space station into orbit on June 28, 2007. With that launch, Bigelow had done something that no government space program had ever done before, having two space stations in orbit at the same time. Granted, these stations are small and unmanned, however Genesis I and Genesis II are both still holding atmospheres inside without human intervention. Bigelow has decided not to launch the larger Galaxy stations due to rising launch costs. Instead they will test those stations on the ground, and then proceed with the even larger, human-habitable Sundancer space stations. By the way, Bigelow is hiring in 27 job categories. Space geeks, polish up your resumes!

5. the Wrong Stuff

Quick! Name even one of the astronauts who launched aboard space shuttle Discovery in November of this year. Unless you're related to or a close friend of an astronaut, or are working for NASA, chances are that you don't know a single name. It's quite a change from the "Right Stuff" days of the 60's, when every schoolkid knew the names of the astronauts. If you know that name of one astronaut who made the news in 2007, it's probably Lisa Nowak. In one ill-conceived cross-coutry road trip, Lisa Nowak blew the image of astronauts as swaggering Top Gun test pilots with nerves of steel, and showed that astronauts are just normal people with faults like the rest of us.




4. Gliese 581C

One of the most exciting stories of the past year has to be the discovery of Gliese 581C only 20.5 light years away. This is the smallest extrasolar planet found so far, only about 1.5 times the mass of the Earth. What makes Gliese 581C so interesting is that it is orbiting in the "Goldilocks zone" around its star, the red dwarf Gliese 581; it is close enough to the star for water to be liquid, but not so close that water would boil. Whenever we finally start travelling to other star systems, Gliese 581 would have to be at the very top of the list, if only to have a look at Gliese 581C.

3. Year of the Comets

2007 was a pretty good year for comets. In January, Comet McNaught put on a darn good show, mainly for those in the Southern hemisphere; McNaught was the brightest comet in over 30 years. Vidar Martinsen made this video (and composed the music too) of the comet from Norway:


Then on October 23-24, Comet 17P/Holmes outdid McNaught, brightening by a factor of over a half a million in the space of 42 hours. By November 9, the coma of the comet was so large that Holmes was briefly the largest object in the solar system, just slightly bigger than the sun itself.


2. Explosion at Scaled kills three

There is always an element of danger any time you are working with lots of energy being expended in a very short period of time. Rockets move via what amounts to a controlled explosion. This point was driven home on June 26, 2007 when a nitrous oxide flash explosion killed Glen May, Eric Blackwell, and Todd Ivens at Scaled Composites' test stand in Mojave, California. Those of us in the space business know how dangerous it is, and we do it anyway - and we're going to keep on doing it until, in the words of Dr. David Livingston, space becomes "like any other place we choose to visit, work in, or call our home. It should be just another destination, like Tahiti, Hawaii, or any place available to us right now on Earth".

1. Google Lunar X-Prize

On September 13, 2007, Google and the X-Prize foundation announced the $30 million Google Lunar X-Prize. The $20 million first prize will be awarded to the first private entity to launch a rover to the moon which travels at least 500 meters and returns video, images and data to the earth; the other ten million is in subsidiary prizes such as $5 million for second place, discovering water, imaging Apollo landing sites, and so on. Just as the Ansari X-Prize boosted research into suborbital flight and spawned several viable suborbital space companies, the Google Lunar X-Prize will further accelerate the private space industry. One company, Odyssey Moon, has already officially entered, and hundreds of other private companies and individuals (including me) have also expressed interest in the prize.

So, those are my choices for the top ten space stories for 2007. Happy New Year, and see you in 2008.

a thought experiment

What would the world be like today if, rather than merely shutting down Apollo in the 1970s, Richard Nixon had shut down all of NASA instead? Discuss in the comments.

Wonderful

I may have stopped posting space videos on this blog, but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop posting videos - particularly when I find a classic movie in the public domain, like this one. This is particularly appropriate for the Christmas season, so enjoy It's A Wonderful Life.

another space carnival

Rainer Gerhards has posted the 34th edition of the Carnival of Space; go check it out.

private property in space, redux

Recently in Reuters there was a rather tongue-in-cheek article about the increase in value of lunar property over the course of 2007. Mark Whittington posted (scroll down to December 18, 2007, 9:20 am; I can't make his permalinks work properly) that he was

...somewhat agog at the news that lunar land prices are booming. Mind, no one can actually own lunar land, for various reasons, and people who think that they do actually own pretty pieces of paper. Still, it shows that there is a market if an arrangement could be made for people to legally own lunar real estate.

It is reasonable to assume that Mark's assertion that "no on can actually own lunar land" is based upon the 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty, since he wrote about this last year in an article in Associated Content:

The pertinent article of the treaty is Article II, which reads, "Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means." The problem is that private property rights are determined and defended by a sovereign nation. Absent sovereign authority, property rights can be determined by international treaties. But with sovereign authority forbidden on the moon and "other celestial bodies" and no international treaty governing private property on other worlds, there is literally no body of law governing such things.

The key phrase in the above quote, and the axiom upon which the remainder of his argument rests, is that "private property rights are determined and defended by a sovereign nation". However, the concept of private property precedes the establishment of sovereign nations or even the idea of laws. The very earliest formal laws - the Codex of Hammurabi and the Ten Commandments - both contain prohibitions against stealing; such a prohibition would be utterly meaningless without a prior widespread acceptance of the concept of private property. Furthermore, every parent has experienced their child going through the "MINE!" stage, wherein the child lays claim to all he sees or touches. Clearly the concept of private property predates laws and sovereign nations and may even be an intrisic part of human nature.

I discussed this at length last year, but this issue just keeps coming up. So, I want to expand on what I wrote last year and talk about the enforceability of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty (and by extension the 1979 Moon Treaty). In the Enforceability of Law, F.S. McNeilly states that

'the law is enforceable' means (a) provisions exist for forcing people to conform to the law who if these provisions did not exist might not conform, and (b) the existence of these provisions is adequate to ensure a sufficiently high degree of conformity to the law.

To see how both these treaties are unenforceable when applied to private individuals, let's do a bit of a thought experiment. Suppose that, after a few years of successful launches of the Falcon-9, Elon Musk builds an even bigger rocket, capable of delivering a sizeable (say, several tonnes) payload to the asteroid (6178) 1986 DA for a few dollars per kilogram. Suppose further that Rand Simberg comes into a large sum of money and uses that to purchase the SuperDuperFalcon rocket and launch a payload consisting of machinery (either painstakingly teleoperated, autonomous, or some combination thereof) capable of mining and smelting material on the surface of that asteroid. Who owns the pure iron, nickel, and other metals on that asteroid? Rand Simberg, of course.

Now suppose that Keith Cowing (not to impugn your character, Keith; I just needed a name recognizable to the space geeks out there) also comes into a lot of money and buys his own SuperDuperFalcon rocket and launches a payload to that same asteroid. The payload just happens to be a machine that takes the pure iron mined by Rand, melts it, adds some carbon, and produces steel I-beams and steel panels - without any sort of purchase agreement between Keith and Rand. If Rand can successfully defend his mined material, then Keith's machine is disabled or destroyed when it lands on (or, more accurately, docks with) that asteroid. If Rand cannot defend his property, then Keith's machine takes possession of that property and the resulting steel I-beams become Keith's.

In the above thought experiment, no provisions exist for enforcing the 1967 treaty, since the actors involved are not sovereign nations, they are private individuals. Of course both those men are US citizens, so US law would apply to their dispute. However, let's extend the thought experiment a little further, and assume that Keith's steel-making machine successfully takes Rand's iron, and the I-beams and other steel products are formed into a space station to which Keith launches himself (declaring himself King of Cowingtopia and disavowing his US citizenship). Now suppose that this doesn't happen just once, but thousands of times with thousands of individuals from nations all over the earth, all within the span of a few years after the SuperDuperFalcon becomes available.

How could the Outer Space Treaty be enforceable in that case? Space Police? Have a look at these diagrams:


Ever called the police in an emergency? In a best-case scenario, there might just happen to be a cop cruising around within your neighborhood and you'll get a response within a few minutes. Now consider the size of the asteroid neighborhood - what are the chances that the SpacePolice would have a cruiser close enough to make a difference during a theft like the one I describe above? If you guessed somewhere between "zero" and "HAHAHAHAHA", you're right. There are over a million asteroids bigger than 1km in size in the main asteroid belt; that number rises to over 1 000 000 000 000 000 when including all bodies over 100 meters across throughout the solar system. Even a SpacePolice force a billion men strong would be inadequate to police them all, and response times would average in the weeks, months, or even decades if one goes out far enough. The only ones who would be able to protect private property rights would be those individuals who actually possessed and were able to defend their own hunk of rock.

So, if enough people go out there and start claiming asteroids, there is no way that the UN or any imaginable SpacePolice force could "determine and defend" private property rights. No provisions could conceivably exist for forcing people to conform to the UN Outer Space Treaty. The only way to enforce the treaty is to prevent private individuals from going (or sending their robots) out there, forever and ever. Come to think of it, that explains a lot about NASA's actions over the last 35 years.

Space Video of the Day is moving

Over the last half a year I have posted a space video of the day on most days. At the same time, my actual blogging here has shriveled away to nearly nothing. So, I'm going to move the space video of the day off this blog entirely, and starting tomorrow will be posting it instead at Space Feeds; that site is a more natural location for the space video of the day anyhow. I'll still be posting things here, but rather than daily space videos it will be more conventional blogging, like I did for the first four years on Robot Guy.

Space Video of the Day - 071217

Today's space video of the day is the final episode of the 1997 documentary miniseries Stephen Hawking's Universe; this episode is entitled the Answer to Everything. It doesn't get much more comprehensive than that.


Space Video of the Day Archive

comments

I have decided to allow comments throuh the Blogger system in addition to the Haloscan comments. Previously I did not moderate comments that came through Blogger, but I had a lot of problems with spam, so now the comments that go through Blogger will be moderated.

Space Video of the Day - 071215

Today's space video of the day is episode 5 of the 1997 documentary miniseries Stephen Hawking's Universe; this episode is entitled Black Holes and Beyond.


Space Video of the Day Archive

Space Video of the Day - 071213

Today's space video of the day continues the 1997 miniseries Stephen Hawking's Universe. This is episode 4: On the Dark Side.


Space Video of the Day Archive

carnival time

The 33rd Carnival of Space is up at Universe Today. If I'm not mistaken, this is the first time that the folks at Astronomy Picture of the Day have contributed to the carnival of space.

Space Video of the Day - 071212

Today's space video of the day continues the 1997 documentary miniseries Stephen Hawking's Universe with part 3: Cosmic Alchemy.

Space Video of the Day - 071210

Earlier today, SpaceX released a monster update of their activities. Included with the update were links to several videos; unfortunately, whether through incorrect URLs in the update or overloading of their servers, I was unable to watch any of their videos. What I do have is today's Space Video of the Day, taken about a month ago at SpaceX's BFTS facility (the acronym officially stands for Big Falcon Test Stand, however one would be excused for thinking that the original meaning of the F was something different, as the BFTS stands 238 feet tall). This is a full 170-second test of their Merlin 1-C engine, which will power all Falcon-9 rockets in the future.

It should be noted that the amount spent by SpaceX on developing the Falcon-1, Falcon-9, the Dragon (seven-member crew capsule), several completely new rocket engines, the BFTS, and their facilities in California, Texas, Florida, and the equatorial Pacific since the company's inception six years ago totals about what NASA spends every week and a half: that's the difference between a guy (Elon Musk) using his own money, and a government agency frittering away taxpayers' dollars.


Space Video of the Day Archive

Space Video of the Day - 071209

Today's space video of the day is a news conference given earlier today by NASA. On four out of the last seven launches, the engine cut-off sensors have failed during the shuttle external tank filling process, and it happened yet again today. After over a hundred launches they still haven't figured out the problem with this relatively simple back-up part, which doesn't speak well for the level of competence of those involved with Shuttle operations - no matter what lame excuses you hear in this video. With the ECO sensors they seem to be repeating the mistake which brought down the space shuttle Columbia: "oh, this particular problem hasn't killed anyone yet, so maybe it isn't that big of a deal".

Also, I am pretty sure that the external tank being used on this particular shuttle launch, which was to launch the ESA's Columbus module to the international space station, is the same tank that was so heavily damaged by hail in a launch attempt earlier in this year - and NASA still hasn't figured out that putting up a simple tent to protect their two billion dollar asset from hail is a good idea.

I am thoroughly disgusted by NASA. They are giving rocket science a bad name.


Space Video of the Day Archive

Space Video of the Day - 071207

Today's space video of the day continues the 1997 miniseries Stephen Hawking's Universe. This is episode 2: the Big Bang. I'm going to be trying something new with the video today, putting all five segments into a playlist; the segments should automatically follow one another within the single video frame.


Space Video of the Day Archive

Carnival of Space #32

Welcome to the 32nd Carnival of Space. Since these things generally have some sort of theme, this week's Carnival will start out on the ground and get progressively farther from Terra Firma.

We'll start out with world traveller and cosmologist Louise Riofrio of A Babe in the Universe, whose travels have taken her to New York on the way to Princeton. While in New York she visited Grand Central Station, with its celestial model on the ceiling, and finished with a night at the American Museum of Natural History. There is no word on whether Louise wore her skin-tight spacesuit in the museum.

With the price of oil flirting with the $90 per barrel mark, Darnell Clayton of Colony Worlds shows that the way to make space relevant to the average person is the energy, stupid! Whether it is mining of Helium-3 or solar power satellites, outer space holds the promise of cheap, clean energy.

Next, we take a trip to the moon. China's Chang'e spacecraft began taking pictures of the moon's surface recently, and some accused China of plagarizing a NASA photo from 2005. Nancy Houser of A Mars Odyssey says that China's space program is actually fairly ambitious, and mocks those who suggest that China might have faked a moon photo.

Emily Lakdawalla of the Planetary Society also says that the Chinese moon photo isn't a fake - but that the Chinese rebuttal of the accusation, which pointed to a new feature evident in the Chang'e image, is in error.

Stuart Atkinson of TheVerse notes the stunning images of the moon taken recently by Japan, China, and the European Space agency. While Stuart, a self-confessed lifetime Mars fan(atic) has been waiting for "bootprints on Barsoom", his love of the Red Planet has until recently blinded him to the fact that the Moon is cool again.

Speaking of the Red Planet, Fraser Cain of Universe Today says that future Mars explorers might never actually set foot on Mars; instead they would remain in orbit and operate robots on the planet's surface.

Going a little further out, my favorite Astropixie, Amanda Bauer (ok, she's the only astropixie I know of, why can't she be my favorite?) explains some interesting features of a composite photo of Jupiter and Io taken by the New Horizons spacecraft on its way to Pluto. She was particularly excited by the 200-mile-high volcanic plume of Io's famous volcano, Tvashtar, which is only one of 36 actively flowing volcanos on Io's surface.

The Space Files says that an old idea about travel around the solar system, the Solar Sail, is about to rise again, this time on a more reliable rocket. Space Files also goes into the history of the solar sail idea in some detail, with lots of pictures.

It might come as a surprise that Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer, has been attending mass - but of course, what he is talking about is not the Catholic tradition, but rather attending to the question of whether "mass" can be used as a verb. The answer he comes up with is that when it comes to stars, it can - and it makes for better writing, too.

Spreading out into the galaxy, Paul Gilster of Centauri Dreams carnival entry for this week is called Of Young Stars and Ancient Planets. This is a discussion of recent work on how young planetary systems form, but goes on from there to look at an interesting Russian study that speculates on whether stars in our part of the galaxy that can support terrestrial worlds may be a fairly recent phenomenon. This has implications for the Fermi question: Where are they?

Since I'm hosting this Carnival, I suppose I get the last word. That fits thematically too, because this week's Space Video of the Week is way, way, way out there: the definitive bad science fiction movie Plan 9 From Outer Space.

Update: Whoops! for some strange reason my mail account sent several carnival entries into the Spam bin, which is really stupid since they were all routed through Fraser. I blame Yahoo. Sorry about that, folks.

Music of the Spheres gave a review of the book Rocket Boys by Homer Hickam. Mark Whittington says that Barack Obama is pitting the space program against school kids. Advanced Nano has a review of some of his favorite launch system proposals.

So that's it for this week's Carnival of Space. If you would like to enter next week's Carnival, be sure to email your entry to carnivalofspace@gmail.com; also feel free to visit visit Universe Today for the Carnival archives (which Fraser should really update, ahem hint hint).

Space Video of the Day - 071204

Today's space video of the day is from the 1997 miniseries Stephen Hawking's Universe. This is episode 1: Seeing is Believing.






Space Video of the Day Archive

Space Video of the Day - 071203

Today's space video is an update on the Venus Express spacecraft produced by the Euopean Space Agency.


Space Video of the Day Archive

Space Video of the Day - 071202

Today's space video of the day is taken from one of my favorite (and one of the best) science fiction movies ever. These are several scenes from the 1950 classic, Destination Moon.

takeoff


big trouble


landing

Space Video of the Day Archive

Space Video of the Day - 071201

Today's space video of the day is from the Google Tech Talk series, and is entitled Beyond Einstein: From the Big Bang to Black Holes.


Space Video of the Day Archive