Team STELLAR Blog RSS Feed

Check out Team Stellar on your mobile phone or tablet!

Brandon Arroyo — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 17:40:41 -0700

Check out Team Stellar Mobile

Check out Team Stellar's NEW website!

Brandon Arroyo — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 17:31:24 -0700

Check out Team Stellar's new website

Team Stellar is now on FACEBOOK!

Brandon Arroyo — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 17:24:26 -0700

Check out Team Stellar on Facebook

Team Stellar Webcast - July 6th, 2011

Brandon Arroyo — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 15:58:49 -0700

Area code says it all

jmendell — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 20:06:19 -0700

Doom and gloom sells newspapers. The idea that the whole “Space Coast” including Kennedy Space Center (KSC) is going to fall off into the Atlantic Ocean after the shuttle program retires is false. Kennedy Space Center was created and has evolved to meet the changing needs of America's manned space program, initially in competition with the Soviet Union. What is today KSC was authorized in 1958 during the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The facility was originally known as the Launch Operations Directorate (LOD), reporting to the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama.

President John F. Kennedy's 1961 goal of a lunar landing before 1970 led to an expansion of NASA operations from a few buildings in the Industrial Area of Cape Canaveral Missile Test Annex (later Air Force Station), notably Hangar S, to Merritt Island. NASA began land acquisition in 1962, buying title to 131 square miles (340 km2) and negotiating with the state of Florida for an additional 87 square miles (230 km2).
KSC’s future is unclear but here are a just a few visions of the future for this historic space port:

*KSC will continue to provide launch services for NASA and that the center will be involved in processing the agency's next crew capsule.
*By 2016 or 2017 commercial rockets will be taking off and being recovered and processed along with preparations for that first big flight away from Planet Earth.”
*KSC to evolve into a center for scientific research and emerging technologies.
* Commercial cargo and crew that will fly from Kennedy Space Center or Cape Canaveral Air Force Station as soon as 2012 for cargo.
* Evolution of KSC into a "multiuse spaceport" that will support both government and commercial launches.
* Development of the congressionally designed Space Launch System that would launch from Launch Complex 39 at KSC.
* An increase in space research and development on the Space Coast.

The space program will continue to thrive on the East Coast of Florida due to the driven and talented folks that still call the area home. All you have to look at is their telephone area code: (321)

"brain drain" or new talent pool?

jmendell — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 19:11:04 -0700

On many websites, radio stations, and TV programs the term "brain drain" is consistently being used to describe the effect of the work force reduction at NASA. Through a variety of cuts in recent years, the shuttle work force has decline to 7,000 workers from about 17,000.

Also known as Human capital flight, more commonly referred to as "brain drain", is the large-scale emigration of a large group of individuals with technical skills or knowledge. Experts call the idea of a talent drain the "Team B" effect. "The good guys see the end coming and leave," Albert D. Wheelon, a former aerospace executive and a Central Intelligence Agency official told the New York Times. "You're left with the B students."

NASA is not the only one feeling the pain. The NASA contractor responsible for most of the work of maintaining the space shuttles announced on Friday April 15th that it will have to lay off almost 50 percent of its employees – up to 2,800 workers – after the shuttle program shuts down this year.Lockheed Martin has announced there will be reductions in employment across its Aeronautics business area as part of a plan to improve the affordability of its products and increase operational efficiency.

Another way to look at this chapter in the US Space program – a wave of talented employees will now be available to the US Commercial Space effort. The highly educated talent pool will work for less or start their own space companies. This new group has been exposed to cutting edge technology and have proof of their success.

So this “brain drain” should be looked at as positive due to the injection of talent into the Commercial Space program. There is always a positive outcome to every story.

STELLAR has a new webiste!

kgoeller — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 18:24:34 -0700

Please visit:
www.TeamStellar.org/

Space Travel / Exploration into our daily lives

jmendell — Wed, 25 May 2011 16:10:17 -0700

A recent article questioned why today’s Space Programs (Commercial or Public) cannot benchmark off of existing technologies like Earth bound industries and bring Space Travel / Exploration into our daily lives. In the current Space industry – building and maintaining launch vehicles, satellites, and exploration rovers are very different from the automobile, computer or aircraft industries. This comparison is completely wrong due of the following reasons:

-‘Art industry’ vs. consumer-production commodity industries; one rarely builds a 2nd or a 3rd spacecraft similar to a previous one. It costs Ford, Dell, Toyota, and Intel millions of dollars to build their next new model.
-Space Programs do not buy the design ‘off the shelf’. They often insist on changes, and pay for the Non-Recurring Engineering costs.
-Companies rarely build any space-qualified items in anticipation of customers. They build only after receiving an order. The ones that do build before the order mostly lose money.
-Regulations (safety, NTIA, Environmental Impact, ITAR…) other industries do not have as many stringent, or as many restrictions.
-Limited competition, so lack of sheer volume of creativity and product improvements.
-Limited customer/financial base. Not many customers.
-Suppliers of key components are few - narrowing the differences amongst the bidders.
-Space industries are cautiousness and risk adverse. Insurance alone can be a barrier to this industry.

So teams competing for the Google Lunar X-Prize have multiple barriers before they write their first line of code or turn the first screw. But once all these barriers are addressed and overcome – our imaginations will take us to great places.

Tangible benefits of the Space Program

jmendell — Mon, 23 May 2011 16:02:41 -0700

There are always discussions about the benefits of the Space Program. The most tangible benefits are consumer products people use every day. Most don’t realize how many everyday products are direct results of the Space Program. This list includes: Dustbuster, shock-absorbing helmets, home security systems, smoke detectors, flat panel televisions, high-density batteries, trash compactors, food packaging and freeze-dried technology, cool sportswear, sports bras, hair styling appliances, fogless ski goggles, self-adjusting sunglasses, composite golf clubs, hang gliders, art preservation, and quartz crystal timing equipment.

Another benefit from the Space Program is providing answers on how disasters happen and how they can be detected in the future. An article from Caltech News, Pasadena CA discussed the magnitude 9.0 Tohoku-Oki earthquake and resulting tsunami struck off the northeast coast of Japan on March 11, which caused widespread destruction and death. Using observations from a dense regional geodetic network (allowing measurements of earth movement to be gathered from GPS satellite data), globally distributed broadband seismographic networks, and open-ocean tsunami data, researchers have begun to construct numerous models that describe how the earth moved that day.

Researchers now have the ability to build detailed maps of how the event happened and its effects while building models of how it might happen again based on simulation software. All thanks to the Space Program. The commercialization of Space will continue to provide new products to help our everyday lives and offer answers to events we cannot control.

Interesting Space Terms

jmendell — Tue, 10 May 2011 17:59:54 -0700

While searching the web for information - getting side tracked is part of the adventure. Here are a few interesting space terms.

Space Archaeology
In archaeology, space archaeology refers to the study of various human-made items found in space, their interpretation as clues to the adventures mankind has experienced in space, and their preservation as cultural heritage.

Graveyard Orbit
A graveyard orbit, also called a supersynchronous orbit, junk orbit or disposal orbit, is an orbit significantly above synchronous orbit, where spacecraft are intentionally placed at the end of their operational life.

Spacecraft Cemetery
The so-called Spacecraft Cemetery is an area in the southern Pacific Ocean 3900 km southeast of Wellington, New Zealand, where spacecraft, notably the defunct Mir space station and waste-filled Progress cargo ships are and have been routinely deposited. It has been chosen for its remoteness, as not to endanger or harm human life.