Space News The problem with the Boeing rocket, which NASA won’t allow to leave is getting worse. In case anyone has not heard, the rocket had problems but made it to the space station, but the crew of 2 have been stranded there because NASA and Boeing have been running tests and can’t seem to solve the thruster problems. At first, it was said it was going to be fixed, but now NASA feels it is far too dangerous to launch. Not only is it felt it is too dangerous for the astronauts, but now it is being said NASA is afraid the rocket might swerve into the space station. There has been talk about SpaceX being sent up to bring the astronauts home, but I just heard the Boeing space suits the astronauts were wearing are not compatible with the SpaceX rocket. I just can’t believe all the problems this Boeing rocket has caused. NASA’s Inspector General criticized Boeing. There is talk of future communications between NASA and the astronauts on the moon, will be accomplished by lasers. Laser communications are not any faster, but their advantage is in the fact they can send more data at once so in a way this is like speeding up the data. When quantum communications come in to use some day, we will have instant communications no matter what the distance is. One of the problems with putting computers into space is the environment of space itself. There is radiation, cosmic rays and such which can damage computer chips and it takes years to create a hardened computer which can resist these waves and particles. This time delay may be over. A hardened GPU chip from Nvidia was hardened using a special shielding. I haven’t heard anything about what I am about to say, but I think maybe this shielding, if it works, it might be invaluable because maybe we could use this shielding to protect all our electronics from attack from EMP weapons. These weapons are in every arsenal. They release an electromagnetic pulse without actually destroying none electronic facilities, but they do destroy electronics of all kinds, and you can believe these can destroy a country even without blowing it up. Computers are in everything today which makes things vulnerable which would not have been years ago. One example is a car. One news outlet said something amazing. I think we all know scientific papers are published all the time but as of August 2024 they said over 28,000 scientific papers about astronomy have been published. I think this illustrates a couple of things. This shows the immense interest in space and what we are discovering. We probably can thank the Webb space telescope and NASA for some of this interest. The Webb telescope is finding new interesting things every day and this has wet the interest not only of the scientific community, but many in the general public. The launching and unfurling of the scope were said to be a greater accomplishment than landing on the moon. Notice no one has tried to copy it yet. The other thing I would like to mention is the human desire to explore. I believe the more we find, the more scientists want to be able to get out there and things will change radically when we break the light speed barrier and more. When it comes to traveling in space the Russians don’t seem to be keeping up anymore with the United States and China. Maybe if they would have not gone to war, they could have kept the progress going in their space program. When we cancelled the Viper moon rover program it set us back and has upset a lot of scientists and even NASA fans. The NASA budget is too small, but on the other hand, it has wasted money on some of its contracts. When contracts go past their promised date and go far over cost, you should consider not giving any more money to that company or punishing them with fines instead of rewarding them. The same problem exists with military contracts and others. NASA is trying to get private companies to fund the Viper Project. Clearly, NASA is trying to involve more space companies in its missions. Rocket Lab is a company which provides launches for lightweight cargoes. In 2023 its net income was -135 million dollars, but it might be turning things around soon. It is going to launch its first planetary mission. Two Rocket Lab spacecraft will be mounted on a Blue Origin New Glenn rocket and headed toward Mars. The mission has been described as the first multi-spacecraft orbital mission to Mars. The International Space Station has now been open for over 20 years. The Mir space station lasted 15 years. In those 20 years hundreds of experiments have taken place. One of the things which was discovered from experiments aboard the space station was a fifth state of matter. Certain drugs were developed. There were actually far more experiments which contributed to discoveries. One of the strangest things which was discovered was a certain type of fire. Scientists were burning fuel droplets and thought they had extinguished the flame, only to discover the flame was still burning, but was invisible. That was not the only strange thing about the flame, it was burning 2.5 times cooler than a candle. One thing the space station has committed to strongly is finding out what happens to people’s bodies who are in space. They found out even with extreme exercise that the absence of gravity is a big problem for our bodies. Among other problems, our muscles atrophy. What we have found is we desperately need to invent artificial gravity for long trips into space, and if we don’t, some of those trips could be a killer. We also found out there is radiation in space and a lot of it. The longer the trip, the more exposure. A 6 month stay on the space state subjects an astronaut to about 72 mSv. 1 mSv is about the same as three chest X-rays. mSv stands for Millisievert. I guess you can see from this, we not only need artificial gravity, but ways to block radiation. We may find out some day, humans are the most fragile race for space travel. News about space and NASA has become very popular. The audience has grown and part of this has to do with the popularity of SpaceX which seems to be far ahead of the pack. They have become the gold standard and there is no sign of them slowing down.
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