Echoes of Sputnik in Modern Rocket Race for Space

FoxNews.com: Echoes of Sputnik in Modern Rocket Race for Space
Fifty four years after the first Sputnik, is a new race for space brewing?

The fierce Cold War boiled over with the Russian launch of Sputnik in 1957. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara answered with the legendary Nike-Zeus program, a six-year project to develop the Army's first antiballistic missile. General Ivey O'Drewry Jr., the man who led the follow-on Nike-X program from 1962-1969, tells FoxNews.com that McNamara's demands were blunt and clear: Get the job done and beat those Russians.

"I was reviewing the development of the Sprint missile, which had gone through about 12 months of failure," the 90-year old retired general said from his home in Huntsville, Alabama. "I was reviewing the details with him, what we learned and how we'll improve. His answer to me was 'Shut up and sit down, I know you're gonna make it work!'"

"What he wanted hear was, what was the Russian reaction?" O'Drewry said.

The U.S. answer was clear: If Russia wanted a space race, America was all in.

The Nike-Zeus program hit technological limitations in the areas of missile design and communications integration, so the Kennedy Administration created the more robust Nike-X Program in 1963. The project offered a new terminal interceptor, high-speed computers and other technological advancements that enabled the country to battle Russia in the area of missile defense.

"We moved from the radar system used in World War II, where we rotated the lens, to a phased array, which is an electronic phase of small radar beams that could be rotated around electronically,” said the retired general.

Even the small details of the unrelenting and demanding space race of the 60s are still fresh O'Drewry's memory.

Today, the stable of competitors has dramatically increased to include China and India -- and the pressure is back on. China had a record-breaking 2010, launching 15 satellites from its Xi Chiang Satellite Launch Center. India's Chandrayaan-1 revealed the presence of large amounts of water on the moon during the country's first lunar mission in 2008.

And if you take into account President Obama's recent decision to end NASA's Constellation program and shift attention to more commercial launch operations, experts wonder, is the United States even participating in the current space race?

“I was opposed to the decision to end the Constellation program, as it was not replaced with a clear way forward for human space exploration,” Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, told FoxNews.com. “It also created more uncertainties for industry, in an already difficult environment, in adapting to the end of the Space Shuttle program."

The uncertainty is something Pace feels the U.S. should address sooner rather than later.

“The United States, and NASA in particular, needs to have a clear, mission-driven focus on human space exploration.,” said Pace. “This should start with utilization of the International Space Station, followed by returning humans to the moon, and laying the technical and organizational foundations for eventual missions to Mars and other objects in the solar system. Space technology can not be effectively developed without a defined and sustainable commitment to a logical process of exploration.”

As far as O'Drewry. is concerned, the very idea of a new space race is non-existent. He feels something is missing from the current competition between the United States and its fellow space technology competitors, China, India and Russia: combat.

“We're not involved in war today, we're not trying to beat anybody,” said O'Drewry. “Our objective was to develop technology and the Department of Defense's objective was to fight a Cold War."

With that said, he's optimistic that the United States will still be the front-runner when it comes to space technology in the future.

I'm sure improvements are being made," O'Drewry said. "Because as you know, technology never really ends.”

ATK Might Be The New Frontier For Space Exploration

Daily News Pulse:; ATK Might Be The New Frontier For Space Exploration
ATK and a partner on Tuesday unveiled the two-stage Liberty rocket that they want NASA to use as the next launch vehicle for the U.S. space program. And they are hoping the space agency will see fit to award it at least a portion of a $200 million pool of money set aside for promising projects.

Getting In The Air
The companies say they have planned an initial first flight by the end of 2013, a second test flight in 2014, and operational capability in 2015. The five-segment first stage has been successfully ground tested twice and got a flight test in October 2009 to demonstrate proof of concept. However, Astrium would have to build and ship an upper stage in the next two years, and that upper stage would have to be successfully integrated with the first stage — an interesting challenge, especially given there’s no established track record of the two companies working together.

Great Experience
“Together we combine unique flight-proven systems and commercial experience that allows us to offer the market’s most capable launch vehicle along with flexibility to meet a wide variety of emerging needs," ATK Aerospace Systems Group President Blake Larson said in a press statement. "Liberty provides greater performance at less cost than any other comparable launch vehicle.”

First Stage
The Liberty rocket would use a Utah-built solid-fuel motor similar to those used for the space shuttle as the first stage, with the second liquid-fueled stage produced by a European company,Astrium. Both companies boast that their motors have been used on dozens of successful flights.

Working With A Challenge
Yet melding the two technologies — the companies have never worked together before — remains a challenge. “We have a team of 30 people working full time on that goal as we speak,” Patterson said.

All Systems Go for Space Adventurers in Dry Run to Red Planet

TechNewsWorld: All Systems Go for Space Adventurers in Dry Run to Red Planet

Despite the many successes achieved with robotic exploration, humans still have a hankering to visit Mars, and five cosmonauts and astronauts are partially fulfilling that dream. Their virtual adventure puts them through all the paces of a trip to the Red Planet without actually leaving the ground. The crew just entered Mars orbit and is preparing to step onto the Martian surface on Feb. 12.

An international crew of cosmonauts and astronauts reached orbit around Mars Thursday, marking a major milestone on a 520-day simulated journey to the fourth planet from the Sun.



Mars500 crewmembers testing the Russian Orlan suits before their mission started in early June 2010. (Photo: IBMP/Oleg Voloshin)
Now 245 days away from Earth, Mars500 crew members from Russia, France, China, Italy and Colombia are scheduled to land Feb. 12 with simulated trips to the Martian surface.

A European Space Agency (ESA)-sponsored venture, "Mars500 is the most realistic space flight simulation possible without leaving the ground," explained ESA human space flight directorate communications officer Rosita Suenson.

Simulated missions, or dry-runs "are always very important, even in early stages when we do not know specific details about what space vehicle or propulsion system will bring humans to Mars," said University of Southern California astronautics and aerospace engineering professor Michael Gruntman. "Such experiments can uncover important problems and challenges which -- if not addressed -- may ruin the real mission many years later."


Virtual Cosmology
Though the flight to Mars is real in every way possible on Earth, the six-man crew is actually parked in a simulator at the Institute for Medical and Biological Problems in Moscow, Russia. At an orbit-dependent 36 million to more than 250 million miles (58-402 million km) from Earth, Mars is far enough distant that simulated missions are necessary to address concerns about stress, claustrophobia and fatigue.

"Long duration flights without a possibility of abort have never been tried," USC's Gruntman told TechNewsWorld. "In addition, designing the mission and space hardware right in the beginning is a very effective and cost-efficient way for space missions. Making changes in design later is always very expensive and causes delays."

The Earth-bound voyagers will leave their simulated craft for an eight-day rendezvous with the planet surface, flying home Feb. 28.

"The program's emphasis on realism extends to the mission's first Mars walk -- stepping from a mock lander into a simulated Martian environment, overseen from Russia's real-life Mission Control Center," Suenson explained. "Further adding to the realism, space-suited crewmen and controllers alike will be working around a 20-minute communications delay -- the time it takes radio signals to travel between Mars and Earth."

Martian Chronicle
From The War of the Worlds to The Martian Chronicles, Mars has fascinated humans for eons, even promising intelligent Martian life as the 19th century became the 20th. But the idea of sending humans to the Red Planet is getting dated, especially as robots have proved they can cost-effectively explore Mars with far less potential peril.

"I remain surprised by the emphasis on sending humans to Mars," said University of Missouri Vice Chancellor for Research Robert Duncan, a physics professor.

"Generally, I think it makes more sense both economically and ethically to send robots," Duncan told TechNewsWorld. "Simulations with humans can duplicate many important factors such a journey might encounter, but even the best simulation cannot duplicate the huge dose of radiation humans would receive on the voyage. Robots aren't subject to such perils."

Other worlds, too, beckon first, including the moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos, said Simon Fraser University PolyLAB director Stephen Braham, who cofounded the Mars Institute and is a senior researcher for the Canadian Space Agency-funded MarsCanada project.

"We are all looking at new and exciting destinations in the solar system for short-term exploration, and are not planning on landing humans on the moon or Mars for awhile," Braham told TechNewsWorld. "These new deep space mission opportunities include EML-1 -- a point between Earth and moon where gravity balances out -- and near-Earth asteroids. From these locations, we can easily operate robots to explore planets efficiently, without having to risk humans or spend a lot of money."

At a potential cost MU's Duncan estimated at roughly US$1 trillion, a lot of money is what it will take to land humans on Mars. "Compare that to the $150 million total cost of the Martian rovers," he said.

High costs don't mean human space exploration is over, however, and Braham emphasized that "eventually, we will get a lot more bang for the buck by landing humans." Meanwhile, the Mars500 simulation will provide "psychological and other lessons that may well help us understand issues for other deep space missions as well."