Extreme Environments: Web Articles
Lunar Rover Initiative
"The Lunar Rover Initiative is developing Scarab to evaluate and demonstrate a combined drilling and science rover platform for lunar exploration. Scarab needs to be able to withstand extreme temperatures, perpetual darkness, and intermittent communications to explore polar regions of the moon in order to survey sites and understand resources for future science and exploratory missions. Working for nearly a decade to develop feasible mission concepts and validate technologies in extreme environments here on Earth, we are experienced, skilled, and dedicated to the vision of lunar exploration."
These kind of academic/commercial lunar rovers than can drive, drill, navigate and analyze are the precursors to lunar commercial applications.
The End of Magical Climate Thinking | Foreign Policy
"The Obama administration succumbed, like many others, to a sort of magical climate thinking that promised a painless and even prosperous transition to a low-carbon future with the tools already at hand. The only official within his administration to accurately grasp the technology challenges faced, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, was sidelined at crucial moments. Here is the back story of how the Obama administration dramatically raised and then dashed America's -- and the world's -- hopes that 2009 would be a pivotal year for remaking our collective energy future." This article places blame on both government and green energy advocates for "magical thinking" about what will surely at minimum be a tough, expensive, decades-long slog. The importance of space infrastructure advancements, especially by the private sector, to developing innovative lower-cost solar power and biospheric and climate monitoring systems will be major. Earth and its environment are increasingly understood as one evolving macro-ecosystem traveling through space over eons.
Robot Armada Could Explore New Worlds | R&D Mag
"An armada of robots may one day fly above the mountain tops of Saturn's moon Titan, cross its vast dunes and sail in its liquid lakes. Wolfgang Fink, visiting associate in physics at the California Institute of Technology, says we are on the brink of a great paradigm shift in planetary exploration, and the next round of robotic explorers will be nothing like what we see today."
WHOAA NOAA! Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites
"NOAA scientists have teamed up with experts from the University of Maryland and North Carolina State University to form the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites. The new institute will use satellite observations to detect, monitor and forecast climate change, and its impact on the environment, including ecosystems." “...we have to find ways to best leverage all of our available resources, including the information we get from satellites,” said Mary Kicza, assistant administrator for NOAA’s Satellite and Information Service. “Bringing together some of the best minds to study satellite imagery and data will shed more light on how our climate is changing.” In addition to several university collaborators with NOAA, Remote Sensing Systems, a business in Santa Rosa, CA provides data processing to users via contract with NASA." Commercial processing of satellite data from a wide range of sources for sale as data products is anticipated in the near-future (search on Cisco).
Space blanket deflects dangerous radiation | R&D
"Alien creatures are the least of NASA's worries when it comes to moon travel. There are several potential threats to future missions—with space radiation at the top of the list. Now, a group of students at North Carolina State University has developed a "blanket" of sorts that covers lunar outposts—the astronauts' living quarters—to provide astronauts protection against radiation while also generating and storing power."
Odyssey Moon Partners with Paragon Space Development Corporation to Grow first Plant on the Moon | Commercial Space Watch
"The first Moon flower will become a reality when private lunar expedition partners Odyssey Moon and Paragon Space Development Corporation deliver a biological greenhouse to the lunar surface. Google Lunar X PRIZE contender Odyssey Moon Ltd. announced its partnership with Paragon at a media conference held on March 27, 2009 at the Tucson-based firm, a manufacturer of key components for NASA's Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle that will replace the Space Shuttle and take Astronauts to the Moon and eventually Mars. The lunar plant will be another space biology first for Paragon, having bred the first animals through complete life cycles in space, and grown the first aquatic plant in space.
Mars Rover Update | NASA
"In January 2004, NASA landed two identical robotic rovers named Spirit and Opportunity on the surface of Mars. The twins were primed for a brief 3-month mission to tell us a story of water and possibly life itself in the planet's past. More than five years later, the dynamic duo are still roving the Red Planet, engaged in a saga of overachievement that has transformed Mars exploration." The amazing durability, reliability of and lessons learned from these rovers will surely impact current commercial strategies to develop similar more advanced systems for lunar applications, including competition for lunar-based prizes.
World's Hardiest Organisms Face 3 Years in Space - Popular Mechanics
“When a Russian spacecraft sets off late in 2009 to scrape samples off the Martian moon Phobos, at least 10 of Earth’s toughest life-forms will be going along for the ride. The pioneering experiment, sponsored by the nonprofit Planetary Society, will test whether life can tolerate the deadly hazards of space for three years—long enough to hopscotch between planets.” How is this related to commercial space? This is one of the first studies to expose life to space for long durations beyond the magnetosphere that protects Earth from the worst radiation effects. Human habitation on the Moon for commercial purposes would also expose life to this high-energy radiation so this preliminary study can have broader value.