The Fight for Space

Our nation's greatest agency is dying. It seems as though NASA is progressively looked at as a special interest group, when in reality it provides an incomparable investment to innovation, culture, the economy, and history. Various organizations, individuals, and now film production companies have taken notice to the steep decline in manned space exploration. NASA itself has been in a steady budgetary decline since the 1970s. "Fight for Space" is a documentary currently funded by backers on the popular crowd funding platform, Kickstarter. As stated on their website:

"FIGHT FOR SPACE is a documentary film that explores the economic and cultural benefits of human space exploration. Our film additionally examines the historical and political events that have led to the decline of NASA's budget since 1968, and its struggle to return to the Moon and send humans to Mars. FIGHT FOR SPACE presents viewpoints from Astronauts, politicians and staff, scientists, former NASA officials, commercial space entrepreneurs, and many other individuals in the space community."

Sometimes the public needs a jolt of inspiration to regain their passions lost over decades. "Fight for Space" seeks to reignite that passion, and inform the public of a need that requires immediate attention. Some people think that it's the President or a representative who decides whether space is important, but that is historically not true. If the public deems an issue important, politicians will always follow for the vote. You can help support "Fight for Space" by backing their Kickstarter Page and help spread the word on social media. 

So in the words of Bill Nye, "C'mon...let's go!"

Making Space Travel Cheap

On Saturday January 10th, SpaceX successfully launched their Dragon cargo spacecraft from Cape Canaveral towards the International Space Station. On Monday, Dragon made successful contact with the ISS and the supplies from the craft were properly transported through the space station. This, however, is something we can already do. The real interest in the mission was not from the piece that went into space, but instead the piece that came back to Earth.

There's a common saying in the aerospace and astrophysics fields; "space is hard." Because space is so difficult, it is increasingly expensive. In order to drastically decrease costs, the launch system (the piece that actually sends the cargo/people into space) needs to be recycled instead of thrown away after each mission. SpaceX is on the verge of engineering a completely reusable rocket (Falcon 9) that will revolutionize the way we send people and supplies into space. Unfortunately the piece that returned to Earth on its 80 mile descent slammed into its landing platform in the Atlantic Ocean at a peak speed of about a mile/second. Boom, no cigar.

In order to direct the rocket to the platform in the ocean, steering rudders were installed, yet it was not equipped with enough fluid to steer the rudders. However, this is a simple fix! Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, tweeted, "am super proud of my crew for making huge strides towards re-usability on this mission. You guys rock!" SpaceX has plans to increase the rudder fluid quantity and try again on January 29th.

SpaceX is truly leading the industry on cheaper space travel and, in the near future, manned space exploration. Not only does a completely reusable rocket lead to decreased costs, but also more time to innovate and make history.