Dreams of the Earth and Sky

This article examines how artists, writers and filmmakers inspired by scientific ideas imagined space flight and how engineers and scientists were inspired by these fantasies. The first section discusses Konstantin Tsiolkovsky's impact on images of interplanetary flight and the promotion of outer space in the early twentieth century. The second considers the emergence of popular science films about space as conceived by director Pavel Klushantsev as well as the role of artist Yuri Shvets in the Soviet space epic and the impact of technological modeling on science fiction in art. Finally, the author surveys the “space work” of artists-cum-inventors Bulat Galeyev and Vyacheslav Koleychuk.

The BepiColombo Laser Altimeter

The BepiColombo Laser Altimeter (BELA) is the first European laser altimeter constructed for interplanetary flight. BELA uses a 50 mJ pulsed Nd:YAG laser operating at 10 Hz with a 20 cm aperture receiver to perform the ranging. The instrument also uses a digital approach for range detection and pulse analysis. The ranging accuracy is expected to be better than 2 metres and ∼20 cm in optimum conditions. With the given, only slightly elliptical, orbit, BELA should return a consistent data set for the most if not all of the planet. The instrument is required to function in an extreme environment with the thermal issues being particularly demanding. Novel solutions have been taken to resolve these issues. BELA is described in detail and its predicted performance outlined on the basis of pre-flight testing.

Beyond Eden

Chapter 13 opens with commentary on Bradbury’s 1980 Omni magazine article “Beyond Eden,” an essay commissioned to support the projected Space Shuttle program. In this essay, Bradbury defined his Space-Age Trinity—God, humanity, and the machines of interplanetary flight. The chapter goes on to document Bradbury’s April 1980 interviews with friends who had achieved prominence in the new generation of science fiction films: producers Gary Kurtz and Gene Roddenberry, director Irvin Kershner, and special effects artist John Dykstra. Bradbury never completed the article on the future of science fiction films that these interviews were intended to support, but he did articulate a maturing sense of Toynbee’s “challenge and response” as a way to focus the kind of human growth required to reach other worlds.

Procedure for forming nominal control program of solar sail spacecraft heliocentric movement using locally optimal control laws

The paper is devoted to the non-coplanar interplanetary flight Earth-Venus of the spacecraft equipped with a solar sail. The goal of the heliocentric movement is to transfer a spacecraft with a non-perfectly reflecting solar sail into the Hill’s sphere of the Venus with zero hyperbolic excess speed. The magnitude and direction of acceleration is calculated taking into account specular and diffuse reflections, absorption and transmission of photons by the surface of the solar sail. One of the main tasks in the field of navigation and motion control of a spacecraft is the search for a simple energy-efficient control scheme for performing maneuvers during flight. These control schemes are locally optimal control laws, various combinations of which allow you to perform the necessary maneuvers during an interplanetary flight. The procedure for the formation of a control program for a non-coplanar interplanetary flight of the Earth-Venus type of a spacecraft with a non-perfectly reflecting solar sail is described. The results include the flight trajectory, the change in phase coordinates in time, graphs of changes in control angles, and the nominal control program. The obtained results satisfy all the boundary conditions described in the statement of the problem.

Potential Severe Effects of a Biosphere Collision and Planetary Protection Implications

Proposed near surface habitats on Mars include liquid brines, and fresh water below clear ice. A Europa lander could also encounter water. Some are calling for planetary protection measures to be relaxed (Fairén et al, 2017), Others say we have time to study Mars before Earth life is irreversibly introduced (Rummel et al, 2017).. We argue that when our spacecraft may encounter habitable liquid water, we should aim to be even more ambitious. Some commercial components operate at 300 °C. Building on suggestions from a Venus rover study (Sauder et al, 2017), and a Europa cryobot (Wilcox, 2017), we can aim for 100% heat sterilization during interplanetary flight. In the best case, colliding biospheres could be mutually beneficial, or occupy distinct niches, but in the worst case Earth life has no defences (Lederberg, 1999b) and survives only in enclosed habitats. By examining suggestions for RNA world cells (Szostack, 2016) we argue that the worst case for Mars is extinction of all native life. An astrobiological survey is an essential previous step to inform decisions about whether and how to land humans on Mars. The technology for heavy lift for humans to Mars would permit it to be completed rapidly.