The View from Space: of Mars and men

By John Holliman
Web posted at: 10:25 AM EST (1025 GMT)

In this column:

• Prospector finds ice
• More tests for ISS
• Making money in space
• Non-government space experiments
• Rover: Lost in space?

I just got back from a week of vacation, and what a week in space news I missed. Barbara Morgan gets ready to change from schoolteacher to astronaut, and Eileen Collins is named by the president and first lady to be the first female shuttle commander.

The latest Mir spacewalk went sour when the crew couldn't get the hatch opened. A serious problem was avoided when ground controllers told the cosmonauts to stay inside and worry about the spacewalk later. It's coming up after a Progress supply ship with new bigger wrenches gets to Mir next month.

Prospector finds ice

By the way, they found ice on the moon. This may not sound like much to you, but it's a very, very big deal. Ice on the moon, enough to support hundreds of humans for decades, means that the future of interplanetary space travel could be the near future, rather than the distant future.

Ice can be melted into water, and the water can be converted into oxygen and hydrogen, the two most important elements of space fuel. Since it's already on the moon, we wouldn't have to bring it there, saving billions of dollars in space travel to get beyond Earth's immediate neighborhood. This is really great news and something we'll be talking more about in the weeks ahead. These findings from Lunar Prospector confirm the evidence provided a couple of years ago by the Pentagon-launched Clementine lunar mapping probe.

That's the history lesson. It'll teach me not to take a few days off!

More tests for ISS

Here's what's coming up in the next few days. Another piece of International Space Station hardware is being tested in the United States this week. The first few years of the new space station will depend on Russian-built Soyuz escape capsules to bring crews home in an emergency. The long-term rescue vehicle is being tested at Edwards Air Force base in California this week. It's called the X-38 and will be able to bring six astronauts home at a time, compared to three at a time for Soyuz.

The X-38 will hook up to a docking port on the space station and will be dropped away toward Earth if it's needed. The craft looks like the 1957 Plymouth Fury I drove in college. It has huge tail fins in the back and has a white top and black bottom. The thing that's most striking about the rescue ship is its huge parafoil. This is a huge parachute which spreads to 5,500 square feet to allow the spaceship to land softly. It will be guided to land by remote control.

The X-38 has flown attached to a B-52 bomber in the past, to make sure it will hold together in flight. This week's test will see the mock-up dropped from 23,000 feet and get to the ground on its own. The test has been postponed several times because of weather and mechanical problems. Thursday is the next scheduled try, and we'll have coverage on CNN and here on CNN.com.

Making money in space

While that's going on in the desert, the Senate Commerce Committee will be debating how to make money from space. The committee is debating a bill that would cut government red tape which keeps many private groups from getting involved in spaceflight. The government now can license a private group to launch a satellite or spaceship, and this is done all the time, but until now, there's been no way for the government to give the go-ahead to the return to earth of a non- governmental spacecraft. Also included in the bill are provisions which would tell NASA to consider letting private contractors operate the new space station after it's built, and require the Pentagon to use private launch services to put satellites into orbit, rather than the more expensive option of using their own in-house launch services.

Another interesting provision in the bill would allow the United States to use excess missiles designed for nuclear warheads for commercial launch vehicles. When I was in Moscow, I saw dozens of Proton rockets which had been converted from nuclear warhead carriers to commercial space vehicles.

Non-government space experiments

Speaking of private-sector space launches, the $10 million prize has attracted lots of entrepreneurs and would-be astronauts to the space race. The prize, announced in 1996, gives the money and a huge trophy to the first group which can launch a space ship at least 62 miles above the Earth and return it safely with a passenger aboard.

At least 16 groups are vying for the prize, including one led by Burt Rutan. Rutan, you'll remember, invented the Voyager airplane that flew non-stop around the world. But he's not the only contestant by any means. There's a United Airlines captain who lives down the road from me in Stone Mountain, Georgia, who is in the running to pilot a 70-foot long ship called Mayflower II into orbit from the Gulf of Mexico. Vaughn Cordle is 43 years old and has broken numerous aviation records, but he wants to be the first civilian rocket pilot to travel to space. His team wants to launch on July 4, 1999. Based on all we know, the Mayflower II effort would be the first one of the entrants to try to get to space. If it launches on schedule, we'll watch it together.

Rover: lost in space?

I was hoping NASA's final attempt to reach Pathfinder on the surface of Mars would be successful. After hours of trying to reach the rover or the lander, Jet Propulsion Lab scientists said they'd failed and declared the little rover that could officially dead. I'm not so sure. As the weather on Mars warms, It's possible scientists might give Pathfinder one more long distance call... just in case. Don't be surprised if the rover wakes up and again sends back pictures to Earth of our red neighbor. Also, don't forget the next series of Mars probes that have been built and are being tested for launch over the next year.

John Holliman's column, The View from Space, appears every Wednesday

Related stories:

• New shuttle commander to take 'one big step for women'
• Scientists: There is ice on the moon
• A second delay of X-38 solo flight
• Requiem for a spacecraft: Pathfinder is dead
• The View from Space: More troubles for ISS

Related sites:

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• NASA
  • Lunar Prospector Homepage
  • X-38: Crew Return Vehicle - International Space Station
  • Mars Pathfinder

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