Lifeboat Foundation

In May, NASA announced its intent to “establish a common set of principles to govern the civil exploration and use of outer space” referred to as the Artemis Accords.[1,2] The Accords were released initially as draft principles, to be developed and implemented through a series of bilateral agreements with international partners.

The Accords offer the possibility to advance practical implementations of long-held principles in the Outer Space Treaty (OST). They raise a rich set of policy questions as we begin to take the law into new levels of resolution. This bold pursuit of uncharted territories is to be applauded, and yet, there is also the risk of diverging from 53 years of international law.

One the ten principles is focused on Deconfliction of Activities, with “safety zones” named as a specific mechanism of implementation:

While watching the launch of SpaceX Crew Dragon, I noticed that, once the astronauts came out of the elevator in the fixed service structure, they had to ‘climb up’ one level using the stairs, before entering the white room through the crew access arm. I’m curious to know why doesn’t the elevator take them directly to the crew access arm level?

Earlier, I thought the reason might be due to the height difference between the side hatches on the Space Shuttle and Crew Dragon. But after seeing the following image it became evident that the difference is more than one level:

Continue reading “Why do Crew Dragon astronauts need to climb up one level using the stairs before ingress?” »

As Americans took to the streets in protest and NASA astronauts took to the skies on a commercial spacecraft, some space fans had a question: “Can’t we just do space?”

Humans are launching four separate missions to Mars in July 2020 (via @ Seeker)

The Starship, SpaceX’s giant rocket designed to send humans to Mars, could take off from a few different places.

Flight Test (Watch till the end)

#SpaceX

#SpaceMan

On Saturday, May 30 at 3:22pm, for a glorious moment we were given a glimpse of the future of space travel. The successful launch of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 reorbital rocket system carrying the Crew Dragon to the International Space Station was historic in successfully sending NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley within a privately developed spacecraft. The mission also revealed the next generation of astronautical wear, the SpaceX spacesuit.

Alongside the amount of life-supporting technologies tethered from seat to suit via “umbilical cord”, each spacesuit is bespoke to its wearers for optimal safety and comfort, as described by SpaceX spacesuits and crew equipment manager, Chris Trigg:

SpaceX CEO and founder Elon Musk says that after accomplishing its first human launch, the company’s primary focus going forward will be developing Starship, its next-generation spacecraft. According to an internal email seen by CNBC, Musk said that Starship is job one for the company, with the exception of ensuring that everything goes well with the forthcoming return of the Crew Dragon capsule from the International Space Station, which will be carrying NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken on their homeward bound trip.

Starship has been in development at a SpaceX production and testing site in Boca Chica, Texas, since 2019, and was also originally being developed by a second team in parallel in Florida. SpaceX combined the efforts and focused prototype builds in Texas late last year and has been building a number of Starship prototypes using a model of rapid iteration.

The spacecraft is designed to be a fully reusable vehicle that can support both crew and cargo configurations that can make trips to both Earth orbit and deep space destinations including the moon and Mars when paired with the forthcoming SpaceX Super Heavy rocket booster. SpaceX eventually wants to replace both Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy with Starship, which should reduce costs by unifying its production lines and offering full reusability.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wants employees to focus on the company’s Starship rocket, according to an email seen by CNBC.