Carnival of Space #518

The Carnival of Space #518 is up next and you are in for a treat!  Some pretty interesting things have been happening in the blogosphere and these authors bring it to you all here and now…

Forget Mars, How About a Colony on Saturn’s Moon Titan?
Mark Whittington | Blasting News

When most people talk about settling the high frontier of space, they think about either the moon, with its wealth of exploitable resources, or #Mars, which is the most Earth-like and could be made even more so through terraforming. However, an article in the New Scientist makes an outside the box case for #Saturn’s #Moon Titan. The key to settling Titan, as it turns out, is…

Scott Pace to be Named Executive Director of the National Space Council
Mark Whittington | Blasting News

Space Policy Online is reporting that the White House has announced the intention to appoint #Scott Pace as executive director of the #National Space Council. The space council was re-established recently by executive order by President Donald Trump. It will comprise a number of cabinet and agency heads, including the…

NASA Doesn’t Have Enough Money for the Journey to Mars
Mark Whittington | Blasting News

The sharp-eyed Eric Berger at Ars Technica noticed that William H. Gerstenmaier, #NASA’s head of human space flight, has admitted that the space agency does not have enough funding to land on Mars, not in the 2030s and likely not ever at the currently projected funding levels. NASA is now stating what many space observers have noted ever since the #Journey To Mars started. The space agency is spending all of the available money on the Orion deep space vessel and the Space Launch System heavy-lift launcher, with…

Juno Returns Eye Popping Pictures of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot
Mark Whittington | Blasting News

NASA has released the closest picture yet taken of #Jupiter’s #Great Red Spot. The Juno space probe approached within 5,600 miles above the clouds of the solar system’s largest planet on July 10. The images were transmitted to Earth the following day along with data gathered from the Red Spot by #Juno’s suite of sensors. Scientists are currently analyzing the data and should be able to…

‘Salvation’ is Marred by the Silly Government Conspiracy Plot Device
Mark Whittington | Blasting News

“Salvation” is a new summer miniseries that just premiered on CBS. The premise is that a giant asteroid is about half a year from colliding with the Earth. The series will be about the efforts to stop the catastrophe and save the human race. The same #Plot Device was used in a couple of big screen films that came out in 1998, “Armageddon” and “Deep Impact.” “Salvation” has a couple of twists on the theme, however. Spoilers follow.

Moon Express Reveals its Plans for Private Lunar Exploration
Mark Whittington | Blasting News

#Moon Express, one of the private groups competing for the #Google Lunar Xprize, has announced its plans for moon exploration for the rest of the decade. The nascent moon mining company’s plans are…

US-Australia had a Successful Mach 8 HiFire 4 Hypersonic Missile Test Last Week
Brian Wang | Next Big Future

The US-Australia Hypersonic International Flight Research Experimentation (HiFIRE) program had at least one successful hypersonic flight at Woomera testing range in South Australia last week. A round of experiments concluded on 12 July, confirmed Australian defense minister Marise Payne.

UQ hypersonics researchers collaborated with the Defence Science and Technology Group (DST Group) and US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), Boeing, and BAE Systems for test flights in July 2017. This vehicle is a free-flying hypersonic glider, designed to fly at Mach 8 (8000 km/hr). It is designed to…

Disney Star Wars Land Could Have Soft Opening for Christmas 2018
Brian Wang | Next Big Future

Two Star Wars-inspired lands are currently under construction at the Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resorts.

A Christmas 2018 soft opening remains in the realm of possibility. If both Star Wars Lands are going to open in…

John Becknell Designer of the Nuclear Thermal Turbo Rocket is Answering Questions
Brian Wang | Next Big Future

John Becknell designer of the Nuclear Thermal Turbo Rocket (NTTR) and x-senior engineer on the Space Raptor engine is answering questions at nextbigfuture. He is answering on the previous article on his air enhanced nuclear thermal rocket that has 5 times the ISP of a chemical rocket and 10 times the payload. The increased payload is from having ten times higher payload fraction.

In 2015, Bucknell presented the Nuclear Thermal Turbo rocket which added…

Air Enhanced Nuclear Thermal Rocket by x-SpaceX Engineer
Brian Wang | Next Big Future

John Bucknell was Senior Propulsion Engineer for the Raptor full-flow staged combustion methalox rocket at SpaceX and is currently the Senior Propulsion Scientist for Divergent3D in Torrance, CA developing additively manufactured vehicle technologies.

In 2015, Bucknell presented the Nuclear Thermal Turbo rocket which added air-breathing to a nuclear thermal rocket.

Specific impulse (usually abbreviated Isp) is a measure of…

Smallest Star Ever Found is the Size of Saturn
Brian Wang | Next Big Future

The smallest star yet measured has been discovered by a team of astronomers led by the University of Cambridge. With a size just a sliver larger than that of Saturn, the gravitational pull at its stellar surface is about 300 times stronger than what humans feel on Earth.

The star is likely as small as stars can possibly become, as it has just enough mass to enable…

Were the Apollo Moon Landings a Good Thing or a Bad Thing?
Mark Whittington | Blasting News

48 years ago as of this writing, the greatest voyage of discovery undertaken since Columbus crossed the Atlantic to the Americas began with a torrent of fire and smoke with the liftoff of a Saturn V rocket. Three men left for the moon before the eyes of the world. Almost two generations later, the debate rages whether Apollo was a good thing or a bad thing. The discussion is especially relevant today with NASA’s…

So much good stuff! If you are a blogger on the topics of space exploration, astronomy or anything you’ve read here today, perhaps you’d like to be a member of the Carnival of Space too!?! We’re open to that. Just click here to begin the process.