Live 720P HD recording using a Canon 40D & Nikon D700

I'm looking forward to what these hacks will bring us. The Indie film maker has never been in such a good position to produce high quality movies for an extremely low cost.
This is also good news for GLXP teams, as recording their progress in high quality HD suddenly becomes a whole lot more affordable.

Nikon D700

Some Canon die-hards have already managed to coax their DSLRs to record video via live-view, and it looks like Nikon aficionados are now able to do the same, albeit not quite as easily just yet. That's because the mod requires both access to Nikon's SDK for the D700 and the necessary skills to actually do something with it, in this case capturing video from the live-view feed via USB. see rest of story on engadget

Canon 40D

If you're just now starting to come to grips with the fact that Canon's utterly succulent EOS 5D Mark II is just way, way out of reach, here's a little something to lessen the impact of your inferiority complex. An enterprising young buck with a passion to bring video capture abilities to other EOS cameras figured out a way to enable that very capability on all Liveview EOS DSLRs.see rest of story on engadget

Video on Flickr

Near 720p video made with a Canon 40D, using the Live View feature. Camera was connected to the laptop via USB, and a russian program recorded the output. See the video ouput see here on Flickr.

Russian source
Canon 40D-vel készült videó. Részletek a spottr.hu-n!

Migrating from @LunarX_EU to @whitelabelspace

First we would like to thank all the people that have followed us on @LunarX_EU & for all your great comments so far. In the lead up to joining the Google Lunar X-PRIZE we are now migrating over to use our @whitelabelspace account instead as @LunarX_EU as this was only meant as a place holder until we found an official name for our project.

Please join us at @whitelabelspace & feel free to comment/ask questions/make suggestions on how we can improve our chances of winning GLXP, what you would like to know about us, how we can improve our ongoing dialogue with you or how you can join or contribute to our project.

We would like to thank the 600 plus people that have followed us on twitter in the last 4 days. It seems at least that the word has managed to reach many of our blog readers. If you would like to follow our web 2.0 progress on other services, please use the "Contact" link in the navbar above or link here.

Content is sparse at this moment in time but you expect it to start to fill up soon as the details around our team & project become more public. Thanks for all the kind words of support we have received from many of you up to now. We look forward to hearing from you!

Tohoku University's SPRITE-SAT Successfully Launched

The SPRITE-SAT spacecraft designed and built by Tohoku Univeristy, a partner of White Label Space, was successfully launched into space last week on a Japanese H-IIA rocket. The satellite was inserted in the prescribed orbit and radio signals from the satellite have been received at the ground station in Tohoku University, and have confirmed that the satellite is in good health.

SPRITE-SAT has now started its mission to observe Sprites and Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes (TGF). The spacecraft was developed by the faculty and students of Tohoku Univeristy, with technical support from external mentors experienced in satellite development. Students played a leading role in the assembly and testing of the spacecraft, giving a unique opportunity for hands-on education in space science and space engineering.

Onboard the satellite was a minature gallery of art, etched onto a silicon wafer by photolithography, making this mission also one of the first art exhibitions in outer space.

Tohoku University, led by Professor Kazuya Yoshida, will use the experience gained from SPRITE-SAT to develop the rover for our Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP) mission, which will be a small rover capable of travelling at least 500m across the lunar surface and capturing hi-definition videos and photographs for transmission back to Earth.

NASA's Ares-1 "Stick" Broken in Two

This video shows the (intentional) separation of the first and second stages of NASA's planned Ares 1 launcher, which is currently under development as a man-rated replacement for the Space Shuttle.

The separation simulated by this test will take place after the first stage solid motor completes its burn and will be effected by a ring shaped explosive charge that cuts through the aluminium structure that joins the two stages together. Remember, this structure must be thick enough to transmit the high bending loads anticipated during the flight of this long slender rocket, called the "Stick" by some.

The test shown in this slow motion video was to check that the separation charge makes a clean break between the two stages. The shocks generated by the explosive charge were also measured during the test, and this will give important information enabling the engineers to design and layout the nearby equipment mounted in the launcher that must withstand the shock environment.



Earlier Post: When the Change the Ares-1 "Stick" into a Normal Rocket

#spacemashup contest. Winner of the day #1 "marsheimers"

During a twitter conversation today a new word popped up "Marsheimers".
Here at White Label Space HQ we started to discuss what other space related word we could mash together & then thought "why not crowd source it". So we're starting a competition to find the latest & greatest space related mash up words.

If you have a new #spacemashup word please add the tag #spacemashup & tweet it us @whitelabelspace.
We will give a mystery prize to the person that creates the best example.
If you get stuck for ideas then you can always use Naque's Word Mixer but just don't tell us or we will say you cheated :)

Todays winner is @_OM_ & here's the conversation.
@whitelabelspace: NASA Mars rover Spirit has a 'senior moment': Hum, looks like the long-lived Mars rovers are showing their age. .. http://tinyurl.com/dmol4g
@_OM_ @whitelabelspace "Marsheimers"

@_OM_ we owe you one for that great word, drop us a line & we'll send you something.

Hubble - Point and Click

As part of the International Year of Astronomy (http://www.astronomy2009.org/ ) the Hubble Site is letting the public decide where to point their big expensive camera.

The Hubble Space Telescope was launched on board Space Shuttle Discovery in 1990, and since then there have been 4 servicing missions by Space Shuttles. The final servicing mission is planned for May this year (read more here). 

The HST stands as a shining example of the need for Human Spaceflight. Without astronauts, the telescope would never have been able to be serviced and upgraded to continue operating till today. 

At White Label Space, the only thing we could think of as being better than a giant telescope in low earth orbit would be a giant telescope on the Moon. With no atmosphere and large open spaces, astronauts could build giant telescopes with unparalleled views of the cosmos.

But at the moment, we've still got Hubble, and you get to pick between six different targets:

• A star forming region
• Two planetary nebulae
• A spiral galaxy
• An edge-on galaxy
• And interacting galaxies

Head on over to http://youdecide.hubblesite.org to cast your vote

In memory of the Challenger crew

On the 28th of January 1986, I remember watching the news on TV some hours after the liftoff the Challenger and the feeling of disbelief that struck me as the rockets malfunctioned causing Challenger to disintegrate in thin air. The most horrific part of the TV reports that day was not the explosion itself but the look on the spectators faces as it slowly dawned on them that something had gone dreadfully wrong. A sad day in space history but one that proves that even the best laid plans can go wrong & space travel is never an easy task. "Failure is not an option" may have been NASA's motto but sometimes the chips are stacked against us & we must live with the cards that we are dealt.

Top 10 Greatest Space Advertisements

Outer space is a big place with lots of advertising opportunities. We compiled this list of top 10 space-linked advertisements for earthly products to explore some of the brand-linkages that are available for space missions that are seeking sponsorship from private companies.

• 1 - Heineken on Mars
• 2 - Pizza Hut on the ISS
• 3 - Pepsi on MIR
• 4 - Space Food Sticks
• 5 - Space Golf by Element 21
• 6 - Martians with Hewlett Packard Printers
• 7 - 7Up Spaceflight Competition
• 8 - Cosmofon's Signal Reaches Space
• 9 - SONY and Space Tourism
• 10 - Johnnie Walker and Space Walking
  

How to Show YouTube Subtitles

A number of people asked how to display the subtitles for our International Version of the Moon 2.0 video. In fact, it's quite simple if you just know where to click..

The picture below shows the menu bar on which you select the language. This menu is activated by clicking on the small arrow pointing upwards, and then the small one that appears pointing to the left.

WARNING! The arrow that gives the subtitles menu is not visible when the YouTube video is embedded in another webpage. I'm not sure why, perhaps this is because it's still a beta feature?

Moon - The Movie

This certainly looks like a must see for competitors in the Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP).
"Moon" is a black comedy about a lone worker living on the Moon and tasked with mining Helium-3.

Greatest Space Ads Part X - Johnnie Walker and Spacewalking

Played multiple times during the CNN coverage of Barak Obama's Presidential Inauguration, this Johnnie Walker advertisement used the imagery of early spacewalking in the 1960's to link its brand to profound steps in humanity's developments.

Previously in our Greatest Space Ads series:

• Part I - Heinekin on Mars
• Part II - Pizza Hut on the ISS
• Part III - Pepsi on MIR
• Part IV - Space Food Sticks
• Part V - Space Golf by Element 21
• Part VI - Martians with Hewlett Packard Printers
• Part VII - 7Up Spaceflight Competition
• Part VIII - Cosmofon's Signal Reaches Space
• Parrt IX - SONY and Space Tourism
  

Crowd-Sourced Microblogging Space Mission

Yes, it looks like those amazingly inventive Japanese are up to it again...

For those who find that Twitter is just not quite cool enough, now a Japanese non-profit organisation called the Kansai Space Initiative (KSI) has set up space project that will allow microblogging via a space-based server in the form of its 50kg satellite called KaSpl-1, which is due for launch as a secondary payload in 2013. There will be an on-board camera pointing at a digital screen that can display emailed user messages while in orbit... useful hey?

The project will also feature a crowd-sourcing element in that anyone who is interested can pay 3,000 yen (US$33) to get their say in how the project is run. Presumably the launch costs will be paid by those contributions, meaning that about 3000 people will be needed to pay (calculation based on launch cost of $2000/kg times 50kg = $100,000).

How many twitter-holics will be interested financing this project?

(Sources: TechRadar.com article, and Dick's Rocket Dungeon)

Australian Mars Mission - Students in Preparation

Check out this video from the Victorian Space Science Education Centre (VSSEC) in Australia, a space-themed school education centre encouraging secondary school students to be excited about space exploration and using hands-on learning to show how they could enjoy careers in science or engineering.

The highlight of the experience is the simulated Mars mission where the students cooperate to execute a typical Mars surface mission involving role-playing activities dressed as astronauts and work in a simulated mission control center. Interacive software provides problem solving skills amongst the students, including a Martian dust storm that risks the safety of the astronauts.



VSSEC is a fantastic way to teach the Australian youth about the dream of space exploration and science and hopefully they will be inspired them to pursure careers in the space sector and support future government efforts to fund space activites.

Australia is the only nation in the top 25 GDP nations that doesn't have a government-funded space agency (see Senate Report). In fact, despite its well-educated population of over 21 million, Australia doesn't even have a central point of contact for foriegn nations interested in cooperating in space activities!

Not surprinsingly, there is a strong interest in Australia for the Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP). Team FredNET already attracted some Australian involvement, and we at White Label Space are also in discussions with many individuals and organizations in Australia who are interested to join our GLXP effort.


See also:

• Cooperative Research Centre for Satellite Systems (now disbanded)
• CSIRO Astronomy (and Space?) Division
• FedSat
• Australian Space Research Institute
  National Space Society of Australia
• Australia Needs a Space Agency Already! (facebook group promoting a space agency)
• Australian National University Space Activities
• Centre for Hypersonics at the University of Queensland
• Australian Hypersonics Initiative
• Grollo Aerospace (and related info: [1], [2], [3])
• Engineers Australia National Committee in Space Engineering

Space Agencies are Brands Too

At first glance some people may find the idea absurd, but space agencies can in fact be viewed as brands with their own intrinsic commercial value. That is the finding by this recent Practicum Study by the Kogod School of Business.

How can a government-funded entity have useful brand value? Well, one only has to think back to the Space Race Version 1.0 (i.e. the race to land humans on the Moon) to see the resulting brand value for NASA, which is now a household name all around the world.

In fact, the Kogod study recommended that the "NASA" brand provides a unique "unexploited value to the American taxpayer". But how could that value be realized?

Some direct ways for NASA to capitalize on its brand value would be to sell the rights to show the famous "NASA" logo on products or to link the NASA brand to commerical brands in advertising campaigns. The revenues earned from the sale of such rights would then be available to NASA for use on new space projects (which might in turn lead to even higher brand value!).

But in the context of the Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP) there is an even more interesting idea.

Many other space agencies around the world currently have rather weak brands. To improve public awareness, those agencies could use technologies developed under private funding by GLXP teams to fast-track the development and execution of their government-funded missions. Don't forget, the ultimate customers of the space agencies are the tax-payers of the respective nation/s, and which tax-payer will vote for a government that wants to spend billions on a a space agency that they've never even heard of?

How much do you think a space agency like ESA or ISRO would like to have its logo (next to the national flag/s of course) on a rover driving across the surface of the Moon or Mars? Food for thought for those entrepreneurial types trying to put together a business plan for the GLXP.

NASA Moon Rover Tire Recreated from Spare

Now 80 years old, Farence Pavlicks (apologies if the spelling is wrong), invented the Lunar Roving Vehicle tires used in the Apollo Program while working for General Motors' Defense Research Labs back in the 1950's. The tires were manufactured by Goodyear and consisted of zinc-coated woven steel wires in place of the rubber compounds normally used for tires on Earth.

After NASA lost all traces of information on the design and manufacturing of the lunar rover tires, they used his advice to recreate the original design in a project redeveloping new tires to support the NASA return to the Moon.

Follow this link to hear the complete story by NPR News.

Let's hope NASA is able to recover all the other knowledge gained during the Apollo program needed to for their return to the Moon. The need to re-capture that knowledge is surely a big driver for NASA to stick with its plans to return the Moon in the coming decade.

Build Your Own Apollo Guidance Computer

Ever wondered what makes a spacecraft's main computer tick? Now, thanks to John Pultorak, you can make yourself a complete replica of the original guidance computer used in the NASA Apollo missions. All the documents you need to repeat his effort are given here.

The Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) was developed in the early 1960s by the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, and could automatically controll all of the navigational systems onboard the Apollo spacecraft.

John took 4 years to hunt down all the technical reports and find the necessary components. Also, to be sure that his replica AGC would work, he also created simulations of the complete computer's logic using modern development tools.

And if you ever wanted proof that there were some useful technology spin-offs from the space industry into other sectors, note that it was the first computer to use integrated circuits, a technology that has now become an integral part of our everyday life. In fact, the AGC used over 4000 of them!

Spaceflight and competitions have always spawned new designs and approaches so imagine what technology spin-offs will come out of the Google Lunar X PRIZE...

Rocket Mavericks the Sky's No Limit

Also part of the wave of young, private, non-profit and bold initiatives that are hitting the space sector recently, a group of like-minded individuals in the US established the Association of Rocket Mavericks, whos mission is to "bridge the gap between the hobbyist and the aerospace community, enabling the civilian, working in collaboration with international universities, to have the resources, technology, education and infrastructure resources to open the domain of space exploration for the common man".

Their main focus is on innovation in the launch vehicle sector, aiming at their first orbital flight in 2015. But they could also represent a good reference point to keep an eye on in the future as a possible provider for engines on a Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP) lander.

You can read more about their endevors in this Wired article.

Keep on reaching for your dreams guys!

Moon 2.0 in Indonesian

One of our Indonesian volunteers was kind enough to provide subtitles in Bahasa Indonesia, the language of Indonesia, for our International Version of Moon 2.0, promotional video of the Google Lunar X-Prize (GLXP).

Please watch the video here. Subtitles can be selected by clicking on the small arrow at the bottom right of the YouTube view screen (see How to Show YouTube Subtitles).

Since YouTube's automatic translate button still has big a red "BETA" label next to it, we still choose to use humans for our translations!

Is Space Exploration Expensive?

We are used to the concept of space exploration being a very expensive endevour, but this simple inflation-adjusted monetary comparison by Voltage shows that the complete budget history of NASA, including the entire Apollo Program, is only a fraction of the 2008 bailout of the US finacial sector.

NASA Surveyor and Pathfinder in 3D

White Label Space recently took a field trip to the USA in order to initiate and pursue discussions with potential partners and sponsors. While in the DC area, the team found some time to visit one of the most famous aerospace museums in the world, the National Air & Space, and learn about previous lunar missions such as Clementine or Surveyor as well as Mars missions such as Pathfinder and Viking.

This proved a great opportunity to see the hardware first hard, which was far more informative than the analysis of pictures and text descriptions. A great deal of knowledge was captured by such previous missions, and even mission studies. By studying this space heritage we can avoid past design mistakes, reducing the cost and risk.

The National Air and Space Museum is without doubt a mine of information, and is a must-see if you happen to be in the DC area, especially for Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP) competitors, but also for the general public.

We took the chance to use some modern technology for capturing this space heritage. This new technology developed by Microsoft's Live Labs named PhotoSynth allows recreation of a hybrid 3D model that anyone can view and explore over the internet. We preferred using our cameras to build the 3D models we didn't think the security guards and curators would appreciate us crawling over the hardware with a 3D scanner!

Below are two great examples of what can be achieved. The mouse controls are similar to Google Maps, but PhotoSynth also includes a funky damped motion feature.

ESA Shows Its Worth to the Ministerial Council

With timing designed to coincide with this coming week's Ministerial Council Meeting, the European Space Agency (ESA) has released this promotional video showing some footage from its recent projects, and some nice computer graphics of the projects for which it will request budget lines.

Of course, this video is far more exciting and adventurous that the very dry and business-like "programmatic priorities" to be presented to the Ministerial Council, which are to:

• further develop the benefits of space to society and the knowledge economy, stimulating innovation, creativity and growth;
• promote the development of new products and services benefiting daily life;
• be increasingly successful on the global market in space systems, services and applications;
• meet its defence and security needs for space; and
• provide continued access to space.
  

Space exploration itself fits only as sub-categories in the programmatic priorities of contributing to the knowledge-based society and providing access to space.

ESA's exploration objectives are to make full use of the International Space Station (ISS) to prepare for future exploration activities and to start the definition of a new cargo return transportation system derived from the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) that will be able to survive re-entry and land intact with payloads brought back from the ISS.

ESA also proposes to study technologies for the exploration of the Moon and to promote lunar exploration in tandem with the recruitment of new astronauts. To this end, ESA wants to study a Moon lander and to develop capabilities enabling human exploration including Moon-landing technologies, habitation and life support systems and demonstrators.

Scenario and architecture studies are also proposed to prepare future activities. ESA wants to become a leading participant in the robotic exploration of planet Mars (currently a field almost totally dominated by NASA), with the Enhanced ExoMars mission and eventually leading to significant European role in a Mars Sample Return mission.

Greatest Space Ads Part IX - SONY and Space Tourism

In this space-linked advertisement SONY uses the concept of space tourism to appeal to people who want to make the purchase of a lifetime but are afraid of the question:

"When your kids ask where the money went"

Could you go into space with any other brand of video camera after watching this ad?




Previously in our Greatest Space Ads series:

• Part I - Heinekin on Mars
• Part II - Pizza Hut on the ISS
• Part III - Pepsi on MIR
• Part IV - Space Food Sticks
• Part V - Space Golf by Element 21
• Part VI - Martians with Hewlett Packard Printers
• Part VII - 7Up Spaceflight Competition
• Part VIII - Cosmofon's Signal Reaches Space
  

Converting a "Moon-Impactor" to a "Moon-Lander"

As India's Chandryaan-1 mission showed this week, it's possible to use existing launch vehicles and conventional satellite design solutions to reach lunar orbit, and even to send a probe to the impact surface. The only remaining step in order to have a complete lunar surface transportation service is to master the technology of slowing down your lander to have a soft-landing, rather than the hard-landing (aka "impact") of the Indian probe.

In the 1960's, with its Surveyor program, NASA mastered the technology of using a solid rocket motor to decelarate a lander, removing over 90% of its speed to allow a relatively small liquid-fuel propulsion system to make the final descent and landing.

To help with the design of your solid rocket motor breaking stage, you might like to check out Rogers Aeroscience who has recently published some useful reference materials. The following articles are available from their website http://www.rasaero.com/;

• Performance Analysis of the Ideal Rocket Motor.
• Departures from Ideal Performance for Conical Nozzles and Bell Nozzles, Straight-Cut Throats and Rounded Throats.
• Erosive Burning Design Criteria for High Power and Experimental/Amateur Solid Rocket Motors.

India Next to Land on Moon?

According to MoonDaily's AFP report India has announced that it will send a spacecraft to soft land on the Moon's surface by 2012.

India's Chandrayaan-1 mission currently orbiting the Moon is clearly providing them with some confidence that they can now proceed to the next level, a robotic lunar soft-landing. The proposed lander mission, Chandrayaan-2, would include a robotic probe able to "pick samples" for scientific study and transmit the science data back to Earth.

This announcement with a timeline compatible with the Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP) certainly lays down the gauntlet for the other major space agencies in the world that have not yet landed anything on the Moon but who claim to be preparing such missions, namely ESA, JAXA and CNSA. How will they respond?

Using an iPhone to Control a Spacecraft or Lunar Lander?

Can you use an iPhone to soft land a spacecraft of the Moon?

Taking a look at this experiment by Michael Koppelman, it may not be as far fetched as it seems.

Perhaps soon we will see Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP) teams adopting this type of ultra low cost approach for their Moon missions..

iPhone Rocket Launch and Interview (from MobileOrchard.com) from Mobile Orchard on Vimeo.

See also our previous post: Can This SONY Camera Work on the Moon?

How far away is the Moon?

The average distance from the center of the Earth to the center of the Moon is 384,403 km.

To put things in perspective, this great animation from the wikipedia Moon article shows a true scale diagram representing the relative sizes of the two bodies and the time it would take for a beam of light to pass between them - 1.255 seconds.

.. and you thought that Skype was frustrating when there is a communications delay.. imagine talking to a friend on the Moon where the minimum round trip for the information is about 2.5 seconds!

Moon 2.0 en Español

To all those Spanish speakers out there, we have now embedded Spanish subtitles (translated by a native speaker, not a computer!) in our video International Version of Moon 2.0 - Join the Revolution.

To display subtitles, click on the small arrow at the bottom right of the YouTube screen (see How to Show YouTube Subtitles).

Let's hope to see some Spanish-speaking teams soon in the Google Lunar X PRIZE!

ESA Moon Rover Competition won by University of Bremen Team

A rover designed and built by a team from the University of Bremen has been announced as the winner of the ESA's Robotics Challenge, held last October in Tenerife.

The competition highlighted a specially large variety of rover concepts and designs (not all of which were successful) and the ability of the young student teams to conceive and assemble innovative rovers in a small amount of time.

This competition shows the benefits of exchanges between space agencies, small universities and research centres, people who are just waiting for a chance like the Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP) to finally get a large acknowledgement for their efforts!

Testimonial to the Mars Exploration Rovers

These National Geographic Channel pieces are testimonials to the upcoming 5 year anniversary of the landing of NASA's twoMars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity.

Congratulations to the NASA team responsible for delivering humanity such a fantastic and successful mission, which is still ongoing!

Armadillo Lander for GLXP?

Armadillo Aerospace won the $350,000 "Level 1"prize in the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge at the Spaceport America, New Mexico, last Friday. The vehicle launched vertically and moved sideways, hovered for over 90 seconds then returned to the starting point.

Armadillo tried the next day for the harder "Level 2" challenge, worth $1.65 million in which the rocket needed to fly for 180 seconds then maneuver to a precise landing on a crater-pocked and rock-laden look-alike of a lunar landscape, but failed shortly after ignition, falling on its side.

Congratulations Armadillo! It looks like you are on track to being a premier supplier for Google Lunar X PRIZE teams!

More Problems with NASA's Ares 1

Space-Travel.com has reported that computer simulations now indicate that the long skinny shape of the Ares 1 rocket, currently under development to replace the Shuttle, could lead to problems with "liftoff drift" in which the forces due to its motor ignitition and wind loads could cause it to jump sideways at ignition far enough for its rocket plume to damage the launch tower.
Is the Ares 1 approaching a major redesign? See our previous related post and give your thoughts.

The Moon's in a Hurry

"The moon in a hurry" by Nautilus 1, on Flickr

For Cheap Payloads to Orbit, Think BIG!

This blog post is about the Sea Dragon, probably the biggest rocket ever designed.

The Sea Dragon was designed by Robert Truax for Aerojet in 1962 with the intention of determining the cost savings that would be possible by building a launch vehicle on a scale of large ocean-fairing ships. The concept developed was a two-stage vehicle, roughly half the size of the TITANIC, built in a ship yard and then towed to the launch site in the open sea for launch from a partially submerged position direction out of the ocean.



(Sea DragonCredit - © Mark Wade, and Astronautix.com)

The first stage used Liquid OXygen (LOX) and Kerosene, and had a parachute system landing on the ocean 290 km downrange. An option for recovery and reuse of the stage was also investigated. The second was LOX and Liquid Hydrogen, and stayed in the destination low-Earth orbit.

The main design parameters were:

• LEO payload capacity: 450,000 kg (to 185 km Orbit)
  Take-off weight: ~20,000 tons
• Height: 168m
• Diameter: 23m
• Weight at Launch: 18,000 tonnes
• Launch Price: $300 million (1962 dollars)

Costs to low earth orbit were estimated to be around $600/kg, about one quarter that of the Saturn V.

Will the future bring gigantic Space-Freighter rockets like this lifting out of the ocean to take large amounts of payload to orbit at low costs? We hope so, because it would make space more accessible

References and further reading:

• http://www.optipoint.com/far/far8.htm
• http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/searagon.htm
• NASA Techicanal Reports Server (NTRS)

Joost Launches Global Web 2.0 Video Service

We've been waiting for this one, and now finally it's arrived. Today Joost launched its new web-based video-on-demand service, with all the content legally provided by its owners and streamable for free!

Is this the future of television? One can imagine that the Google Lunar X PRIZE missions will be seen all over the world using this technology.

For more details on the service see Joost's press release.

Private Space Visionary Jim Benson Dies 63

White Label Space would like to send its sincerest condolences to the family, friends and colleague of James ("Jim") Benson who passed away peacefully in his home last week due to glioblastoma multiforme brain tumor, with which he was diagnosed in 2007.

Jim was a visionary leader in the private space industry and was an inspiration to many of us most notably with, but not limited to, the establishment of the SpaceDev company. Further information is available on the SpaceDev press release.

Moon 2.0 in Korean

We now have Korean subtitles for our International Version of the Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP) Moon 2.0 video on YouTube, thanks to one more of our motivated volunteers!

Remember to use the small arrow button on the bottom right of the view screen to select which subtitles you want to see (see How to Show YouTube Subtitles).

The Race is On!

Well it looks like 2 more teams have joined the GLXP race to the Moon.

They were unveiled at the AGI User Conference in Chicago.

The first team is Independence-X Aerospace, a Malaysian team, and the second is Omega Envoy, a team of students from the University of Central Florida. Interestingly enough Omega Envoy have decided to make their company not-for-profit with 'the common goal of advancing private and commercial space exploration.' An interesting move in a competition which aims to turn the Space industry in a fully competitve market. However, still quite a noble ambition, but one might wonoder if their motives might be more tax related and less "future of the human race" related.

If you were wondering who AGI were, they are the makers of Satellite Tool Kit (STK), quite possibly the most useful tool available for Space Mission Design. And the news that they'll be offering their software for *free* for GLXP teams is music to our ears.

Check out who all the current teams are here, but remember, there's more to come...

When They Change The Ares-1 "Stick" to a Normal Rocket

Budget concerns, timelines, and technology limitations have got NASA in a real tight spot for its future manned launch vehicle, the Ares-1. We at White Label Space, like many others around the world, have a feeling that this rocket might never fly in its current configuration with the long skinny shuttle-derived booster supporting the fat upper stage. No rocket like this has ever been launched into space so we made this poll to sample the public opinion on this design.

There are some good reasons why launch vehicles tend to have tapered shapes (where the base is thicker than the top and not the other way around!). At supersonic and hypersonic speeds, tapering gives additional aerodynamic static stability. Also, having a wider lower stage helps to support the higher structural loads that it must transmit. Last we heard, NASA is trying to implement electromagnetic mass absorbers to overcome the structural dynamics problems with the current design, although an active vibration control system of this size has never flown to space, let alone on a man-rated launch vehicle.

Perhaps NASA will give up the stick Ares-1 and define a more realistic baseline with a wider first stage, perhaps something more like the Gemini launcher.

Virgin First Sex in Space

See some hardcore thrusting in this Virgin (Galactic) video, which offers something for everybody, mums, boys, girls, teenagers, white, black, latino, asian, old, young, your nextdoor neighbor, your wife, your husband, your teacher, nurse, animals, or any of your inter-racial friends.

White Label Space is a group of space professionals preparing to officially join the Google Lunar X PRIZE. Right now we are conducting anal ysis on the best possible design for a space mission to complete the objectives of the prize. We hope to officially join the competition before the end of this year.

White Label Space will have a bi-directional emphasis, combining its space engineering expertise with its dedicated efforts to provide the highest possible media exposure to your brand name.

We invite you to take off our label and put your one all over our spacecraft!

And now, after that preamble, the main point of this blog post.. This MSNBC article reports that Virgin Galactic has turned down a $1 million offer to film the first official sex video in space. We think the reason might be because the offer was too low :)



Oh, just in case you didn't figure it out yet, this blog post is an experiment to see how many search engine hits we can get by using the rather attractive words that it contains :)

Did you ever notice how certain brand names are more catchy than others? No doubt Sir Richard Branson had this in mind when he chose the Virgin name for his family of enterprises.

Greatest Space Ads Part VIII - Cosmofon's Signal Reaches Space

This funny space-linked advertisement by the Macedonian mobile provider Cosmofon combines their advertising message with a well-known hobby of Japanese people.





Previously in our Greatest Space Ads series:

• Part I - Heinekin on Mars
• Part II - Pizza Hut on the ISS
• Part III - Pepsi on MIR
• Part IV - Space Food Sticks
• Part V - Space Golf by Element 21
• Part VI - Martians with Hewlett Packard Printers
• Part VII - 7Up Spaceflight Competition
  

Moon 2.0 in Traditional Chinese (繁體華語版)

Ni hao everybody!

As promised we have now uploaded the traditional Chinese subtitles for our International Version of the Google Lunar X PRIZE Moon 2.0 video.

Traditional chinese is the written form used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, and is also widely used in overseas Chinese communities.

Remember to activate the subtitles you need to click on the small arrow in the bottom right corner of the YouTube viewscreen (see How to Show YouTube Subtitles).

Send your "Astronaut" to Space for Just $2

We just came across the website IntoSpace.org that is selling flights of payloads into space for just $2 each!

Well, it's a nice idea paying such a small amount to have your logo or photo in space. But don't forget to read the small print...

IntoSpace's offer is to send your 1 square centimeter logo or photo print (they call it an "Astronaut") into space together with thousands of other customers. Is anybody reminded of the Million Dollar Homepage?

But if you do the math, assuming 75gsm paper, IntoSpace is charging $267,000 for each kilogram they send to space. Considering that the going rate for sending payloads to space is currently around $15,000 per kg, they are trying to charge 18 times what it actually costs for them to put a stack of paper on a spacecraft, sure there is some extra mass for the brackets and bolts holding the stack to the spacecraft structure but clearly they are still charging more than 10 times their costs.

Small print indeed!

SpaceX successfully launches Falcon 1

As you might have heard, SpaceX (… finally …) succeeded with the launch of its Falcon 1 during the weekend.

This, the third Falcon 1 flight, injected a dummy mass into orbit rather than the previously planned two commercial satellites. This was due to the launch agreement specifying at least one successful launch prior to the first fully commercial flight boarding paying customers.

Since their last launch attempt, SpaceX has performed extensive modifications on the Falcon 1 launcher, the main one being the modification to the time constant (2 to 3 bit number) used by the flight software to control the time delay between separation of the first stage and ignition of the second, an error which led to the loss of the previous flight.

White Label Space joins the space community to congratulate SpaceX for this achievement and expects that this is the first in a long series of successful launches. We will certainly stay tuned for the upcoming Falcon 9 launch, SpaceX’s launcher having the most promising lunar capabilities.

White Label Space at IAC

For those of you attending the IAC in Glasgow this week, keep an eye out for our special undercover operatives who will be scoping out the scene and making some contacts with potential parnters!

We made it on to Alltop.com!!!

So finally our blog is starting to gain traction & get some attention from the more established web sites.

Today we where added to Guy Kawasaki's Alltop.com in the Alltop Space section along with some of the best space news & space blogs on the internet.

Read more about what Alltop.com is all about here. This is real privilage & honour for us & It's also a tribute to all the hard work our team has put into generating our web presence in such a short time. Many thanks to Guy & Neenz for making this happen :)

Underwater Training for Lunar Exploration

Can the oceans and lake's of planet Earth be useful environments for practicing future lunar exploration?

According to this article in SpaceRef.com they can..

NASA astronaut Mike Gernhardt believes that more scientific value can be obtained by mission planning allows astronauts more flexibility to investigate interesting discoveries, and he is using his extensive diving experience to try and prove it.

Well, it's not clear if Earth-bound mission planners will give more autonomy to lunar astronauts, but one's things for sure, it's much easier to test operational concepts at underwater sites rather than in space.

(Featured picure insert: ANZ-100 submersible from sub-find.com)

Travelling through the Universe with Celestia Space Simulator

Are you interested in astronomy, the solar system, and space? Would you like to fly through the universe and observe our blue planet, the Moon, or the Milky Way from the outside? Then this free software application might be very interesting for you: Celestia is a 3D space simulator that runs on your Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux computer.



It contains almost 120,000 star positions collected by European Space Agency’s Hipparcos Space Astrometry Mission. It contains moons, asteroids, and even spacecraft, including their orbital paths, just to name a few. It can animate the constellations in real time as well as simulate object movements with much faster or slower velocity. Furthermore, additional information about these objects, craters, landing sites, observatories, etc. can also be displayed.



The software is open source, therefore many add-ons like high-detail textures for planets, satellites and their orbits, spacecraft, or animations are available. Anybody with programming skills can download the source code and further develop the software; even NASA and ESA use Celestia for creating animations, for Mars Express, for example.

So have a look at http://www.shatters.net/celestia, try out the software, and let us know what you think about it! And many thanks to the developers of this great simulator!

Garage Sale for GLXP Spacecraft

Is it possible to build a working spacecraft from spare parts?

Considering that dedicated test articles are built for almost all spacecraft developments and the space age is now over 40 years old so there must be quite a lot of old space equipment lying around gathering dust (hopefully in dustproof containers) in the labs and storerooms of the world's space agencies and space companies.

Second hand equipment for spacecraft may not be the most up-to-date components or the most efficient designs, but if it works, who cares? Surely many Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP) teams would love to get their hands on it.

Space agencies and companies should clear out all that old stuff and auction it off on eBay!

How Star Trek Would Win Google Lunar XPRIZE!

What would happen if the Star Trek team entered the Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP)?

Approach: Teleport to the moon, take an HD camera ("off-the-shelf" of course, and put it in a hermetic metallic can see our previous post) and a spacesuit (Russian would be cheaper), take vidoes and photos, teleport a few times to other locations (total relative teleport distance across moon 500m), then teleport to the X PRIZE Foundation HQ (see below), deliver the data in a suitable memory card (type TBD). At the same time, give the details of your bank account to collect the prize money. Preferably your team is a non-profit assoication so you don't pay taxes!

View Larger Map

Landing Site: Go for the Heritage Bonus (no point waiting for a full lunar night)

Total cost breakdown: HD camera, memory card, spacesuit, hermetic housing for camera, travel insurance (TBD since we don't know what the risks of teleporting accidents except from the movie SpaceBalls where the guy gets his upper body and lower body reassembled facing in wrong directions). We estimate it would cost less than $1 million (excluding the costs of buying the DVD versions of all prior Star Trek episodes and movies to study their technologies).

Time taken: Not long (we don't know how fast the teleportation system works but you can assume at least light speed), time to film video, take pictures, prepare spacesuit, etc. Probably you could do everything in one day.

Other business opportunities: Advertise products, a few million per product (see our Top 10 Greatest Space Ads post).

Are there any trekkies who can tell us what we missed? Join our facebook group and let us know the full capabilities of GLXP Team Star Trek!

Sneak Preview: Our New Office!

We can't tell you our names, we can't tell you our business plan, we can't tell you our mission plans for the Google Lunar XPRIZE (GLXP) ...

But be informed - White Label Space is coming....

Moon 2.0 - en Français

Oui oui,

We we have finally added put French subtitles on our International Version of the Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP) promotional video Moon 2.0 Join the Revolution!

You can see it at our YouTube channel.

Remember, you must click on the small arrow in the bottom right corner of the YouTube viewscreen to select the subtitles you want to see. Unfortunately, the subtitles feature doesn't yet work when the video is embedded in another webpage.

Top marks to YouTube for making this subtitles feature available!

Swedish Experiments Expose Animals to Space Environment

This interesting article in The Daily Galaxy tells the story of an experiment to test the ability of a certain type of animal, the Tardigrade, to survive exposed to the space environment. Tardigrades are a small sized (<2mm)> space environment. Swedish scientists found that 2% of the specimens could be revived after 10 days of exposure to the full extremes of the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) space environment.

This is an interesting experiment because it really challenges the common perception that life on Earth can only ever stay confined to that thin layer of soil and atmosphere that we call home.

Could rugged species like the Tardigrade could stay alive in the cores of asteroids for far longer periods enabling them to populate other planets and spread life?

Lost In Translation - Don't Rely on Babelfish

This is what happens to a company that has no quality control in their translations.

We at White Label Space are interested in helping to spread the word about the Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP) to other nations where English is not commonly understood. As you may have noticed from our Chinese and Japanese subtitled versions of the Moon 2.0 video, we have already found some translators willing to help out our team... so at least we don't have to rely on automatic web-based translation tool such as babelfish.

And by the way, the correct translation for the chinese writing in the picture is "Restaurant".

Can This SONY Camera Work on the Moon?

Sony has just released the first 24.6 megapixel camera called the DSLR-A900.

This is a good time to raise the question of using a conventional camara in a Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP) mission. Cameras developed for the consumer market (here on Earth) can have costs that that are orders or magnitude lower than the equivalent space-qualified cameras.

Obviously the environment at the Moon has an environment with vacuum, radiation and temperature extremes far more severe than on Earth. However, all these issues could be easily overcome by putting a camera in a pressurized housing with temperature controls and metallic walls.

Modern cameras are clearly small and light enough to be flown in space. Mass could even be reduced by removing their components like the casing and the flash. There is an extra mass penalty due to the pressurized casing that needs to be considered but it would not be a show-stopper.

Here are the most relevant details of the DSLR-A900 (from Sony's Technical Specification Page):

• Weight: 850grams (approx.)
• Width: 156.3mm
• Height: 116.9mm
• Depth: 81.9mm
• Ouputs: Video (PAL or NTSC), HD/HDMI™ (1920x1080i 59.94/50Hz), USB 2.0
• Recording Media: Compact Flash I/II/MicroDrive, Memory Stick™
• Recording Format: JPEG, RAW, RAW+JPEG, 16:9 selectable
• Image Size: 6048 x 4032 pixels (JPEG) (24M)
• Max. Continous Frame Rate: 5fps (approx.)
• Image sensor type: CMOS
• Image sensor colour filter: R, G, B, Primary color

So the main question is, can such a camera be compatible with all the requirements of the GLXP?

Firstly, is the image quality sufficient? Does it provide enough image resolution, colour resolution, Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR), Field Of View (FOV)?

Secondly, how about the video quality? It has enough pixels to meet the HD definition but is the frame rate high enough? Will the images with motion be too blurred?

And finally, what about the interface to the rest of the GLXP hardware? What communications protocol should be used? Most developed for space does not use USB for example.

If you have some thoughts on this, post them on our Google Group Open Forum.

Falcon 9 is GO for First (Test) Flight From The Cape

(Graphic Credit SpaceX, see www.spacex.com)

As announced today, Space X has received the USAF Operational Licence for Falcon 9 launches from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Recent rumours suggested that the licence would not be granted due to safety issues and the proximity to other historical launch sites but once again it shows that rumours should not be listened to. In any case, it is now official. Space X will work to perform the first test flight of the newly developed Falcon 9 rocket before the end of this year.

This will mark a significant milestone on the GLXP competition as the forecasted performances make both the Falcon 9 and its evolution "Falcon 9 Heavy" both realistic candidates to launch attempts at the Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP).

However, after 3 failures of Falcon 1, all attention is now focussed on the upcoming Falcon 1 launch which is clearly a critical one for SpaceX. Nobody knows what a fourth failure would mean to SpaceX but many are afraid that it would lead to the cancellation of future launch attempts.

It's Mystery, and we completely agree

If you have been following the Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP) developments during the past months, you probably heard that a new team joined the competition but exercised their right to conceal their identity. For the timebeing they are known just as "Mystery Team". According to GLXP rules they can remain anonymous until 20th of July 2009 (the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing) but they are also free to reveal themselves anytime before then. So far the only signficant clue we have to their identities is that they are based in the United States.

Few days ago, Discovery channel conducted an Instant Messaging (IM) interview with the team's leader (see the IM interview transcript on the discovery website).

We at White Label Space found this interview extremely interesting because the Mystery Team seems to have a set of views on private space exploration and the GLXP competition that is 90% in common with those of our members. Hopefully, soon we will be able to tell you soon what the 10% of difference are!

In the mean time, we recommend you to have a look at the above interview and let us know what you think about their views!

Oh, and by the way, what will they call the second and third Mystery Teams if they join?

GLXP Moon 2.0 video, now in Chinese!

The Google Lunar X PRIZE promotional video "Moon 2.0 Join the Revolution" is now available in (simplified) Chinese at our White Label Space YouTube Channel.

To display the subtitles, click on the small arrow at the bottom right corner of the YouTube view window (see How to Show YouTube Subtitles).

Simplified chinese characters are used in the People's Republic of China (Mainland China), Singapore, Malaysia and also in official documents of the United Nations. They have have a decreased number of strokes compared to traditional Chinese characters, which are still used in other Chinese speaking nations. We will add the traditional Chinese version of the subtitles soon.

WALL-E - The Future of European Space Exploration?

Continuing our theme about rover comparisons from our recent post, today we take a look at that cute animated robot called WALL-E who recently hit the cinemas around the world. WALL-E, created by Pixar Animation Studios, is a fictional robotic character designed to clean up Earth after it becomes polluted by future humanity. In addition to being the character's name, WALL-E is also an acronym for "Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class".

For the sake of comparison, we show below the fictional WALL-E with the "real" ExoMars rover currently being developed by the European Space Agency (ESA).

The ExoMars mission is still under development by ESA. Previously we were given a very exotic and aerodynamic "Artists Impression" of ExoMars (left image). More recently, after more engineers got their hands on the design, ESA released its Phase B1 design (center image) which has replaced all the nice curves with hard 90 degree angles. Interestingly, the ExoMars design is starting to look at lot like the fictional WALL-E design (right image)!

And that's not the only linkage between WALL-E and ExoMars. In collaboration with Disney/Pixar, ESA has developed a special WALL-E website to introduce young people to the wonders of space exploration.

What is going on here?

Is ESA using WALL-E to convince European taxpayers that block-shaped industrial-looking rovers can also be cool? Is ESA now outsourcing its public outreach to Hollywood? Is ESA trying to cash in on environmental issues to sell its space missions?

Well, we don't know the answers to these questions but we thought it would be interesting to get your opinion on the relative merits of the designs with the following poll.