Apr 2002
Apr 2002
Mark
Shuttleworth, the second private person to buy a
space flight goes up on Thursday 25th April, by which time I hope
this edition will be submitted to the Whites for publication. Mr.
Shuttleworth does not, however, like being referred to as a tourist by the
media. While he's personally fronting the cash for his trip, he
prefers to call himself a cosmonaut-researcher; indeed he is actually
carrying out bona fide AIDS research during the flight for African
researchers and has been trained by an African scientist to look
after a batch of sheep and mouse stem cells during the entire mission
(mission nickname: "Marco Polo"). Interestingly, he
appeared at a recent press conference wearing an AIDS supporter's
ribbon patch on his blue spacesuit in the picture here on the right.
The other fellow is the mission commander, Yuri Gidrenko. Also
joining them in the capsule will be Italian Air Force pilot Roberto
Vittori.
They blast off at 10:26 local time from Baikonur Cosmodrome where both Sputnik - the first satellite - and Yuri Gagarin took off on the first ever manned spaceflight. Unlike the US, the Russians don't let terrorists scare them off announcing launch times. He'll be up there for 10 days, and will come down in the old Soyuz that is currently serving as a lifeboat on the International Space Station (ISS). Oh, and I hear he'll be trying to smuggle up a small quantity of illicit beef jerky to the station.
The European Space Agency (ESA) is developing an unmanned spacecraft called "Jules Verne", after the early science fiction writer who authored "From Earth To Moon". The development costs for what is more formally called the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) are 600 million Euros, for which ESA gets a cargo transport that can take 8.2 tonnes of supplies to the International Space Station. This is nearly 3 times the capacity of the Russian Progress resupply craft currently used for refuelling and resupply, but a smaller capacity than the shuttle's theoretical maximum load of 20 tonnes.
However, ESA say that it will cost only US$160m to launch on top of an Arriane rocket compared to the US$500m estimated cost of a shuttle launch. These prices are still high compared to the cost of paying the Russians to launch a Progress.
Like the Progress, Jules Verne will be able to boost the height of the ISS with its rockets and at the end of its life will be stuffed with rubbish and turned into a US$160m incinerator as it is flown deliberately into the Earth's atmosphere, solar panels and all - you'd have thought they'd design bits of it to be useful on the station, right? A far cheaper version can be constructed by those of you with more limited budgets but having access to the internet and a printer, in the form of a rather nice paper model at this address:
http://esamultimedia.esa.int/docs/atv_model/ATV_2002_Intro.htm
The
New ContourNASA Are planning visits to a couple of comets with a spacecraft called CONTOUR, short for Comet Nucleus Tour seen here on the right courtesy of NASA's artists. If all goes well, it should be visiting comets Encke in November 2003 and Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 some time in June 2006. As part of this, the Contour team is collaborating with comet-watchers world-wide in case a new and interesting comet should pop up like comet Hale-Bopp did. This mission is one of NASA's "Discovery" programs, designed to develop fast, cheap missions - a policy which has come under fire after the failure of some of the Mars spacecraft. We wish it better luck.
The Chinese state media has announced that three baby chickens have hatched from nine eggs taken up on last month's Shenzhou III spacecraft - presumably there was a bit of a scramble over the other six. The primary aim of the launch was to send a manikin in a spacesuit rigged with sensors, but the one female and two male chicks will allow researchers to breed the chickens and see if there have been any effects on fertility. Obviously an eggciting experiment that the Chinese government won't have to shell much out on.
There have been reports that the Chinese Shenzhou spacecraft - the transport of choice for aforementioned pre-hatched chicks - is nothing more than a rip-off of a Russian design, so I decided to round up some pictures and look into it. As you can see from the what I found, there is some similarity in the design of the rear and middle parts of both craft. The middle section is the the bit that returns to Earth and looks in the TV and press pictures somewhat like a diving bell. But the front bit of the craft is substantially different, with the Chinese version sprouting more in the way of solar panels and having a bulkier design that suggests it is more suited to long-duration missions or perhaps even to extend a space station.
I'll
leave you to decide for yourself. On the left, we have the venerable
Russian Soyuz as modelled by yours truly for The Artemis
Project. On the right, the newcomer; a Chinese Shenzhou as
supplied by an animation sequence run on Chinese TV. Printing
quality permitting, spot the difference.
This edition is also on the web, just point your web browser to http://olliver.family.gen.nz. vik@olliver.family.gen.nz
"My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated but not signed."
-
Christopher Morley
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