For those who might like to delve more deeply into (or simply know more about the science behind) the National Geographic Channel series “Chasing UFOs,” including megaton extraterrestrial explosions, aerostats to space, and correlation pitfalls, look no further!
Direct link-through to my article on the NatGeo TV blog can be found here:
http://tvblogs.nationalgeographic.com/2012/07/23/the-science-of-chasing-ufos-abducted-in-arizona/
Cheers!
Ben
Test-scale Dark Sky Station 2. Credit: JP Aerospace
A quick note this morning on one of my personal favorite space ventures, JP Aerospace. As a truly DIY space endeavor, the firm has been making a name for itself for more than a decade with their concentrated, unconventional, volunteer-based business model and regular deployments of high-altitude-balloon-lofted platforms complete with telemetry, imaging equipment, and in some cases, secondary rockets (as “rockoons”).
What few realize, (even those who are aware of JP Aerospace,) is just how bewilderingly active they are.
Image from JP Aerospace "Away 35" mission. Credit: JP Aerospace
To start, there’s JP Aerospace’s high-altitude image program. For a modest sponsorship fee, images are splashed on their balloon-lofted structure exteriors and imaged, providing slick stock material of a sponsoring business’s logo against the blackness of space and the curvature of the Earth. (Toshiba even funded one of their “away” missions entirely to collect one-of-a-kind footage of an orbital floating chair for a commercial.)
While this admittedly flashy aspect of JP Aerospace is what typically gets the most press, the image sponsorship program merely helps to fund the rest of their activities, which are devoted to the development of a truly unique spaceflight architecture: Airship to Orbit (ATO). As a three-phase process, the ATO spaceflight architecture includes an Ascender airship (transfer to 140,000 feet), a Dark Sky Station (transfer station at 140,000 feet), and an Orbital Ascender airship/spacecraft (transfer from 140,000 feet to orbit), for a smooth transition to space requiring no conventional rocketry at all (!).
Ascender 175 airship floating in a JP Aerospace hangar. Credit: JP Aerospace
-And don’t let the volunteer/grassroots feel fool you – these guys are serious professionals with a passion to rival that of any other NewSpace venture I’ve seen, and they’re in it for keeps. With more than 45 incremental data-gathering and structural test flights behind them, aerodynamic and microgravity drop tests, high-altitude structural and construction tests, a flight and cargo-capable airship (Tandem-class), a full-scale Dark Sky Station crew cabin mock-up, magnetohydrodynamic generators being tested as I type, one book out on the process, and with another one on the way, JP Aerospace isn’t messing around.
Check them out if you get the chance. For more information on JP Aerospace’s latest activities, check out their website, their blog, or their YouTube channel. (-And pick up a JP Aerospace shirt or cap if you’re so inclined. Proceeds help keep them flying!)
Systems diagram of the proposed Orbital Ascender spacecraft. Credit: JP Aerospace
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