The last External Tank

The End of an Era

On September 28th a small mile stone in the history of manned spaceflight took place, as the external tank for the final space shuttle flight, arrived at the Kennedy Space Centre.

The space shuttle has been with us since her maiden voyage took place in 1981 and she is due to be retired in February 2011.  Since the announcement of the shuttle’s retirement and the further news that plans for her replacement program “Constellation”, had been scrapped, a number of people have expressed concerns to me that this might well be the end of NASA and possibly the beginning of the end for the manned space flight.

Taken at face value it might seem as though these are legitimate concerns, after all, if you take away NASA’s ability to put men in Space then what’s the point of having NASA at all!

However I do not share these concerns, in fact I am more excited now about the future spaceflight (manned and unmanned) than I have ever been, and here’s why!

NASA’s New Direction

Falcon 9

President Obama’s new plan for NASA is actually a very smart one, although it gets rid of the shuttles replacement and leaves NASA without a way of getting men into space, it redirects funds in to the research and development of new technologies that will allow for new and much more exciting space craft to be built in the future. But more importantly it also frees up cash to help in the development of commercial space craft (i.e. spacecraft designed and built to carry paying passengers and cargo). Crucially this also includes money to contract private companies to supply them with launches service.  The first of these contracts has already been awarded to a company called Space X who are now working diligently to produce the Falcon 9 rocket and the Dragon space capsule. The Falcon 9 has in fact already made a number of succesful test flights.

It turns out that Space x are just one of a myriad of commercial companies that are all chomping at the bit to provide the people of the world with a chance to hurl themselves in to space… Here are just a few of them:

Virgin Galactic

In June 2004 a small(ish) privately funded aerospace company called Mojave Aerospace Ventures, made history by becoming the first team to design, build and pilot their very own spaceship. Spaceship One (as she was christened) climbed to hight of over 100km to earn pilot Mike Melvill his Astronaut wings. The design of Spaceship one is not  only OutOFThisWorldSuperSexMachineWickedAwesome (yes that is a word) it’s also groundbreaking. It is so groundbreaking (not to mention OutOFThisWorldSuperSexMachineWickedAwesome) that UberGazzilionair (yes that’s also a word) Richard Branson has joined forces with the company to create Virgin Galactic.

Spaceship2 & WhiteKnight

Virgin Galactic promises its customers (wait for it) an out of this world experience at a cost that is reasonable by comparison to taking a ride on the shuttle, and although the first wave of paying astronauts will only be making a suborbital flight, future customers can look forward to actually going in to orbit and making prolonged trips.

Space Port America

Virgin are utterly committed to the idea of getting more people in to space than ever before; to the extent that they have even sunk millions of dollars in to the development of the first commercial space port (how cool does that sound) from which to launch their fleet of spaceships.

Virgin Galactics first commercial flights are likely to start at some point in the next 5 years. You can fin d out more about virgin galactic and watch a rather tasty promo video here

Inflatable Space Stations

Yes you read that right, inflatable space stations. Now the idea might seem a bit far-fetched but it turns that by using materials similar to Kevlar it is possible to build a structure that is not only stronger and more durable than the aluminium tin cans that astronauts currently fly around in, it also lighter and takes up less space than a conventional space habitat.

Hopefully ive convinced you tha the idea is not completely insane, but your probably still a little unconvinced that the idea is ever going to be a success. Well it turns out that NASA actually seriously considered the idea for themselves and did a lot of ground work to develop their own inflatable (or more correctly, expandable) space station. However the idea got canned following a round of budget cuts. Since then the rights to use the technology have been licensed to a Las Vegas based company called Bigelow Aerospace.

Bigelow Aerospace was founded in 1999 and has been actively developing their expandable space station design ever since. They have come up with a number of plans for not only earth orbiting hotels, but also for hotels orbiting the moon and mars, they have even suggested that one of their designs might make for a suitable Luner or Martian base.

Genesis 1

But surely this is all pie in the sky, they are never going to get one of these things in space are they! Well actually yes are, in fact they already have two scaled down test modules, Genesis 1 & 2 in orbit. Genesis 1 launched in 2006 and Genesis 2 followed in 2007. Both modules performed exactly as planned and still up their and functioning today.

Bigelow hopes to have its first fully operational commercial space station in orbit by 2015. You can find out more about Bigelows CrazyAwesome inflatable space stations here.

Boeing

Its a name that we are all familier with and most of us at some point have taken a flight on one of Boeing’s planes. Well it turns out that Boeing are also throwing their hat in to the ring of commercial space flight. Boeing actually have a long history in space as they (along  with a number of other companies) have been supplying  NASA with space craft since the days of the first Mercury missions. That’s right fokes NASA don’t make their own rockets! So if they have been doing this for years, whats new?

Instead of building space craft under government contracts, Boeing has now designed its very own Crew Transportation Space Vehicle that can fit on to a number of different rockets (including the falcon 9) and fly crews of up to 7 people to the destination of their choice. Having come up with a basic design for their space craft Boeing now intends to develope the project further, however they have been quick to realise that commercial industrys are not going to be interested in going in to space if there isn’t a useful destination for them to go to, as such Boeing has been very vocal about it support for Bigelow Aerospace’s inflatable space stations.

Space – Coming soon

So it would seem that in the next  5 years or so it will be completely conceivable for you to take a ride inside a Boeing space capsule that is perched on top of  a Falcon 9 rocket and make your way towards your inflatable, orbiting hotel. The trip is likely to cost you tens of millions of dollars (to begin with) but prices are will become more reasonable as competition enters the market and cost of the launch technology comes down. But the important point is not the price tag, it’s the fact the in the next few years there will be ample opportunity for any corporation, government or private fee paying passenger to blast themselves in to space and as the technology matures, the destinations are only going to get more and more exciting.

The projects that I have mentioned here represent only a small number of the actual number projects that are under way as we speak. Not since the era of the Apollo moon missions has there been some much interest in space as a destination and over the course of the next five to ten years we are likely to see a huge change in the way we view space as more and more of us earn those astronaut wings.

In my next post im going to look at some of the non manned space missions that are either currently underway or just around the corner that are going to make space an even more exciting destination.

So for the uninitiated, Comicon is an annual Comic Book Convention held in San Diego and w00tstock is basically a scaled down version of Woodstock for nerds and is hosted by such nerd royalty as Wil Wheaton, Adam Savage and the musical duo Paul & Storm.

Fear not, this post is not going to be a lengthy review of these events. There are already a number of other people who, unlike me, actually attended these events, and provided wonderful descriptions of their adventures. For those of you that are so inclined, you can find reviews, here and here and here. In fact it was while reading this last review of w00tstock, that I got the idea for this post. In particular it was the following paragraph that got me thinking:

“In a lot of ways, for me, W00tstock felt like finally finding a home base. I was in a space with a few hundred other people who just…understand. It didn’t matter what particular brand of geekiness you subscribe to or if, like me, you don’t really subscribe to any particular subset. We were there to have fun. We were there to learn about cool stuff and hear awesome songs and listen to awesome stories and be introduced to new cool people to follow on Twitter and online. We were there to get our respective geek on. We were there to take part in the kind of thing we had always wanted to take part in but hadn’t because we’d had a bunch of people telling us that it wasn’t cool/serious/arty/enough. It was amazing.” - Snarke.net

So here is the question that I asked myself after reading this; what makes me a geek?

I believe that we are all familiar with the classic Hollywood stereotype of a pale, bespectacled kid with too many freckles and a bad case of psoriasis, but the truth is I’ve never, NEVER, met a single, Geek, Nerd, Boffin or Dweeb, who wholly conforms to this image. In fact most of the people I know would (to a greater or lesser extent) consider themselves to be a bit of Geek, but none of them even come close to being anything like this stereotype, so what is it that makes them, and me a Geek?

Ok, so the presumption that someone has to look a certain way in order to be a part of the gang is a stupid one, but it’s a useful starting point, after all it is one of the few stereotypes left in the world that no one seems to have a problem with. But the truth is that Geeks come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, colours, flavours and species. There are almost as many varieties of Geeks, Nerds, Boffins, Dweebs, Egg Heads and poindexters as there are Star Trek and Star Wars spin offs and spoofs (say that ten times fast – Honestly I’ve just tried it, and it is impossible). In fact there are so many different varieties of Geek that it might be impossible to come up with one single definition that binds them all together. Let’s use me as an example:

I’m very much in to all things Space and science; as a result I’m also a big SyFy fan. I tend to read a lot of books on popular science (physics in particular) and as a result I’m drawn to the type of SyFy novel that prides it’s self on scientific accuracy. Conversely I also have a healthy interested in comic book super hero’s, however my entry point for this was through early eighties TV shows and movies and as a result I don’t have the same sort of knowledge (or collection) of comic books that Kevin Smith or Wil Wheaton might have. That said I do have a small collection of a few personal favourites.

From the looks of things my position in the Nerd Spectrum is already looking a little bit blurry and I have only touched on a few of my nerdier attributes. I’m also a gamer, occasional model builder and a reader / writer of blogs.

It is becoming clear to me that having an interest in one particular genre does not immediately qualify you as Geek. It might be true that many of us are in to SyFy, space and comic books, but there are also an equal number of us that are in to Dungeons and Dragons, Computers and MMORPG.

Some of us speak l33t, some of us speak Klingon and some of us speak to girls.

N.B. – Some of us are girls.

Time to get to the point.

For me being a geek isn’t really about other people’s perception, it’s about your own. I don’t define myself as a Geek because I fit the description, I define my self as a Geek because that’s what I am comfortable with, that’s where my loyalties lie and that’s just how I roll.

I’m proud of my geeky, nerdyness and to a certain extent it’s a choice that I have opted in to – Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t wake up one day and decide that I was going to start making paper models of Rockets because I thought it was a good life style choice, I did it because I thought it was cool – because I am a nerd.

This is a topic that I’m probably going to be coming back to at some point as I really am interested in understanding what makes a Geek a Geek. So feel free to leave me a comment and tell me about your own personal brand of geekiness and why you consider yourself to be a geek. Even if you are not a geek, I’m still interested in your opinion.

Maybe together we can come up with a new definition for ourselves, or maybe that’s goes against the point of being a geek – who knows. What I do know is that I like who I am, and despite the stereotype that we sometimes get lumbered with, the Nerd fraternity isn’t getting any smaller. In fact, it keeps getting bigger and more diverse.

PS – w00tstock really is a lot of fun, for a taste check this out:

Now that’s what I call a bold and sweeping statement, and it’s true… sort of. To be a little bit more specific, my name is to be put on to a microchip that will be placed on board the Mars Science Laboratory (a funky little rover the size of a mini) that is due to be launched towards the red planet next year. Now I accept that this is a far cry from the outlandish statement at the top of my post but to those of us sufficiently frustrated by the fact that we don’t already have a colony on Mars and ongoing mining operations in the Kuiper belt, this is just about the coolest thing since the Bow-Tie.

Now many of you might be quick to point out that this is something of an empty gesture, as having your name converted in to a series of 1s and 0s and then stored on a microchip is hardly the same experience as getting your boots dirty in the Martian soil. Now while I would agree that it is a long way short of taking a camping trip to Olympus Mons, I don’t feel that it is an entirely empty gesture.

For me sending my name to Mars isn’t just about having yet another really awesome anecdote with which to hopelessly woo members of the opposite sex. For me it’s about the spirit of participation and showing my support for something that I feel is a worth while and exciting venture, it’s about getting my hands dirty in any way that I can and contributing towards that endeavour. My contribution might only be small, but if signing up to have my name sent to Mars and then blogging about it gets just one other person excited about the project and space exploration then I have done my part. If sending your name (or as it turns out, any bit of text that you want to enter into the name field) to Mars sound to you like the kind of wicked awesomeness that you would like to be involved in,  then you can do so here. But hurry the opportunity won’t be available for long.

It turns out that these days getting involved in science is a lot easier than you might think in a number of cases you really can get your hands dirty.

SETI (the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) has been looking (or more accurately, listening) for E.T. for the last 40 years but frustratingly they have found precisely nothing. The problem that they have been facing is that the amount of data that they can gather is so vast that even the most powerful supercomputers would take forever to analyse it. So ten years ago they developed an exciting solution. That solution was SETI@home.

SETI@home is essentially a cloud computing solution that draws on the power of a vast number of computers all tied together through the internet to carry out the analysis of their data. Now here is the exciting part. Anyone can join in! All you have to do is visit their website and download the free software on to your PC and that’s it. The software works just like a screen saver and kicks in to life when your computer is idle, that way it never interrupts anything you are working on. It automatically downloads the data it needs from the internet and even comes with an exciting and colourful on screen display of the analysis so that you can watch as your computer scans for signs of life on another world. How cool is that? If you want to help E.T. phone home then go to the SETI@home site and download the software (or click here).

While the SETI at home site offers a genuine chance to participate in exciting (and potentially history altering) research, your interaction with it is limited to downloading the software and watching while your machine does all the work. If you’re the kind of person that likes to really feel the sand between your toes then perhaps the next project on my list of cool things to do, is for you.

Zooniverse is a collection of interactive projects that offers its users the chance to physically get involved with real science, make big discoveries and even get something named after them, without leaving the comfort of their living room.

The original incarnation of Zooniverse was Galaxy Zoo, this online project asked users to look at photos of thousands of Galaxies that had been taken by the Sloan Digital Survey and classify certain details about it, later as the project evolved into Galaxy Zoo 2, users where asked to make ever more detailed observations of the galaxies that flashed up on their computer screens. The information gathered by these observations was then compiled and made available to be used by scientists around the world.

What makes Galaxy zoo so unique was not just the fact that the galaxies presented to the users have likely never been seen by human eyes before, nor is it the fact that it is free and easy to get involved, but rather, it is the simple fact that real discoveries are being made from analysis being carried out by its citizen scientists.

Discoveries such as; Green Peas, a new type of galaxy formation and Hanny’s Voorwerp (Dutch for Hanny’s Object), which turned out to be an enormous cloud of gas being super heated by a jet of high energy particles being shot out of a black hole (always a cool line to read or write) and discovered by Hanny Van Arkle, a school teacher from Holland. The discoveries made by the galaxy zoo project have been so significant that a number of ground and space based telescopes (including the daddy of them all, Hubble) have been tasked to carry out follow up observations of objects and phenomena discovered by chaps and chappesses like you and I.

Since Galaxy Zoos 1 and 2 the project has expanded further to become Zoonivers and now has a number of other exciting astronomy projects for you to get involved in. You can now go on line and help them search for a super nova or comb the surface of the moon from images taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. You can even watch in real time for solar flares in footage of the sun beamed directly from the stereo spacecraft. Zooniverse really is one of the most exciting projects on the internet and now has a huge community of people all helping to make some marvellous discoveries. If you think you might like to have a Voorwerp named after you then you can join in for free here.

It has never been easier for you to get involved in making big discoveries and I suspect it’s only going to get easier and more exciting, so why not get involved with a project that you believe in today – soon we will all be citizen scientist.

I had actually spent quite a bit of time on the original version of this post but for one reason or another I was struggling to find my stride, this was no doubt largely down to the fact that I haven’t really written anything in a long time and my stupid man sized brain just didn’t want to get in to gear, but aside from my ineptitude at writing there was another issue that seemed to be holding me back, and it was this; the original post lacked focus. To be honest it was all over the place and it really didn’t have a clear point other than I would like to live in an episode of Star Trek, BSG, Dr Who or (insert your favourite show here) for a day.

But part way through the week all that changed when PhysOrg tweeted the following:

‘Flying car should be available next year.’

At the very moment that I read these seven words, my brain split in two diametrically opposed camps:

On one side of my skull the fanboy in me was busy telling me that this was just about the coolest and most exciting news that I had even been privy too and that the future (as seen in Blade Runner, Star Wars, The Fifth Element, Dr Who etc) was now only a year away. This time next year I would be flying my car to the office and hovering it down into a landing bay on the roof to sound track of bleeping proximity sensors. No longer would I be forced to endure the agonising frustration of rush hour traffic, from here on I would be able to rise above the streets and houses like a rainbow flying high.

On the other side of brain box the dissenters had begun their work. They had been quick to remind me that flying cars had emerged in the past, and they had all, unequivocally and without exception been terrible. Not one of the monstrosities that had made its way past the design stage had ever been worthy of being called a true flying car. Most required the driver / pilot to get out and attach the wings prior to take off, a task that I have no doubt would have taken so long that it would have cancelled out any time savings that flying to your destination might have brought.

So it was with a certain amount of trepidation that I clicked on the link attached to the tweet. My finger trembled slightly as it hit the mouse button.

My heart sank the moment that the page opened. The headline image was of a car that looked as if it had been constructed by a team of blindfolded airfix enthusiasts, driving carefree down a small suburban street. It seemed as thought the dissenters had been right all along. This was just another gimmick, another pointless exercise in proving that even stupid ideas can be brought to fruition. So in an attempt to understand why someone had built this thing, I took some time to read through the post and do a bit of internet snooping to see what else I could find out. I won’t go in to the fine detail, you can read that for yourself, here.

As it happens I am glad that I took the time to look at this creation in a bit more detail. It’s true that the ‘Transition’ as it is called is not the flying car that we have all dreamt about, but as it happens, Terrafugia (the company that makes it) doesn’t consider it to be a flying car at all, they prefer the term “roadable aircraft” and it is aimed at the sports aviation market as vehicle that can get you from door to door without having to find somewhere to park your car. It has fold away wings (that leave it looking like a mobile billboard when in car mode), runs on unleaded petrol and needs only a modest 500 meters of runway to get it in to the air.

Perhaps the most exciting part of this story is the news that the FAA have given their approval for the Transition to go in to production, which means that it really will get made and put on sale. Whether or not anyone will buy it is a different thing entirely. For one thing it’s not cheap, the deposit alone is $10,000. Secondly, it’s ugly as sin in both car and aircraft configuration, granted it has a cutesy charm to it, but it’s clearly not a Lamborghini or concord.

Lets be honest, the flying car that we have all seen in comic books and science fiction movies is probably a bridge to far with the technology we have today, and after a little bit of thought it is clear to see that the practical implications alone, of adapting our world to allow for thousands of flying cars, are so mind bogglingly immense that no-one in their right mind would undertake such a task. I mean seriously, how may overhead cables, overhanging trees, bridges, sky walks, oddly shaped buildings would need to be removed to make it safe for us all to buzz around our towns and cities and that’s before we even get in to matters such as air traffic control, air pollution, global warming, the affect on the aviation industry and parking.

So, what is my point exactly? Well, it’s more of a frustration than a point. I like many of us, was brought up on a diet of cold war science and post cold war science fiction and we have all been firmly led to believe that a really superwickedawesome future of flying cars, teleporters, ray guns and automatic sliding doors was on its way. Perhaps not surprisingly the march of progress has taken something of a scenic rout and we have all been left wondering where the frak our flying car got to.

But I’m being a little glass is half empty here. I do have to remind myself that we have come a very long way since those first tentative episodes of Star Trek aired and we really do have mobile communicators, super computers and automatic sliding doors these days, and let’s not forget the internet, GPS and the space station. Perhaps I can wait a little longer for my flying car.

In retrospect I’m glad that Terrafugia have been brave enough to have a go at this, after all it is through innovation and experimentation that great things are achieved and although I am dubious about the likely hood of this being a commercial success story, its good to see that someone somewhere is as keen to see flying cars as I am and that they are willing to put their money where their mouth is. From what I can see Terrafugia are marketing the Transition in the right way and they seem to have a very clear idea of who their target market is and are taking the product seriously, which is probably a lot more than can be said for some cars.

Please note that throughout this post I refrained from using any puns involving the terms “Get off the Ground” ,“Never take off” or “That’s not a plane”.

Did you like this post, if so do me a solid and tell a friend, leave a comment or follow me on twitter…