Death Valley Works to Preserve Night Sky

By ALICIA CHANG, AP Science Writer Alicia Chang, Ap Science Writer – Fri Dec 26, 8:25 am ET, AP

DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL PARK, Calif. – High atop Dante's View, overlooking sheets of salt flats and ribbons of sand dunes, night watcher Dan Duriscoe shone a laser beam at the North Star and steadied his digital camera at the starry heavens.

Duriscoe panned the camera toward the light factory of Las Vegas, 85 miles away but peeking out

like a white halo above the mountains in the eastern horizon.

"You can see the Luxor vertical beam," said Duriscoe, pointing to a time-exposure shot on his camera-connected laptop showing the Vegas Strip pyramid-shaped hotel's famous searchlight. "That's the brightest thing out there."

Acclaimed for its ink black skies, Death Valley, the hottest place in North America, also ranks among the nation's unspoiled stargazing spots. But the vista in recent years has grown blurry.

The glitzy neon glow from Las Vegas and its burgeoning bedroom communities is stealing stars from the park's eastern fringe. New research reveals light pollution from Vegas increased 61 percent between 2001 and 2007, making it appear brighter than the planet Venus on clear nights as seen from Dante's View.

Duriscoe, a soft-spoken, mustachioed physical scientist with the National Park Service, is part of a roving federal team of night owls whose job is to gaze up at the sky and monitor for light pollution in national parks.

"What is alarming to me is, what's going to happen three or four generations from now if this growth of outdoor lights continues?" he asked.

Amid such concerns, Death Valley, the largest national park in the Lower 48, has set an ambitious goal: It wants to be the first official dark-sky national park.
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Since the dawn of civilization, humans have been enthralled by the night sky's romantic mystique. Early seafarers relied on stars to steer their ships. Farmers looked toward the night sky for clues to plant and harvest crops. Ancient cultures spun mythologies from staring at the cosmos.

Civilization is also the chief reason why the night sky is vanishing in many corners. As the world grows, so do the number of lamp posts that sprout up like trees in sprawling subdivisions. Pass by Anywhere, USA and chances are you will see lighted shopping strips, twinkling auto malls and flashy billboards.

Today, it's estimated about one fifth of the world's population and more than two-thirds in the United States cannot see the Milky Way from their backyards.

Further, studies have shown exposure to artificial lights can interrupt animals' biological clocks and disrupt ecosystems. Migratory birds have been known to be confused by blinding lights on skyscrapers and fly smack into them. Last year, the cancer arm of the World Health Organization listed the graveyard shift, where workers toil under artificial lights, as a probable carcinogen.

The International Dark-Sky Association, an Arizona-based nonprofit whose slogan is "Carpe Noctem," has noticed an increased awareness about the perils of light pollution, but acknowledged there's a limit to promoting dark skies.

"I don't think you can get Paris to turn off the Eiffel Tower or persuade Times Square to turn off all of its lights," said Pete Strasser, the association's managing director.

The same could probably be said for Las Vegas, the sparkly desert playground where neon signs blend into the natural landscape.

"It's part of the whole ambiance. It's the selling point of Las Vegas," said Barbara Ginoulias, director of comprehensive planning for Clark County, Nev., where Vegas is located. Still, she added, "We're certainly cognizant of light pollution and we try to address it in the best way."

Ginoulias' department oversees unincorporated parts of Clark County, which are required to shield outdoor lights or cast the light downward. Next month, the county commission will consider an ordinance that would set lighting standards on digital billboards on Interstate 15 that runs along the Vegas Strip.

As for the main drag, Las Vegas Boulevard, Ginoulias said signs are reviewed case-by-case. Newer signs tend to be less flashy or not have the glaring white background, she said.
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With no control over the Vegas glow, park rangers at Death Valley are looking inward to fix the light problem at home as they pursue their goal of becoming the first dark-sky national park.

To gain that distinction, the park must shield or change out two-thirds of its existing outdoor light fixtures. Death Valley has about 700 lights in its 3.3 million acres, including parking lot light poles, flood lights, fluorescent tubes and egress lights next to doors. Only about 200 lights meet the sky-friendly standard.

At the Furnace Creek Visitor Center located 190 feet below sea level, the pedestrian walkway leading to the front entrance is lined with overhead rows of fluorescent tubes under a canopy. From Dante's View at night, the visitor center appears as dancing white and blue dots.

"This is a really bright spot in the park," said Terry Baldino, chief of interpretation at Death Valley. "All the campgrounds have to share their night sky with the lights here. If we can reduce that, then we're going to improve their night stay."

The park has replaced some fixtures with tin can-shaped designs that focus light onto the ground instead of sideways or upward. Rangers are also debating whether to turn off outdoor lights in some cases.

"We're doing little by little," said Baldino.

So far, Utah's Gold Tier Natural Bridges National Monument and Pennsylvania's Cherry Springs State Park are the only two parks certified by the International Dark-Sky Association as dark-sky enclaves. This fall, the group gave a tentative OK to the Geauga Park District's Observatory Park 40 miles east of Cleveland for its work to preserve darkness over the observatory and nearby park land.

Despite Death Valley's lighting challenges, city dwellers from all over still flock to take in the view.

On a recent December evening, a naturalist couple from northern Los Angeles admired the star-studded sky from Zabriskie Point, a popular lookout just south of the visitor center.

"You don't see this in L.A.," said Karen Zimmerman, 49, who works at the Huntington Library, Art

Collections, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, Calif. "You forget how many stars there are."

As Zimmerman spoke, a hazy glare could be seen from a distance.

Zimmerman's wife, Debra, 44, chimed in: "One of the things that concerns us is losing darkness. You just don't get darkness in Los Angeles. It's just nonexistent."
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Back at Dante's View, a 5,475-foot panoramic viewpoint overlooking the glimmering valley floor, Duriscoe is working his second night taking sky brightness readings. The crescent moon, which formed a triangle with Jupiter and Venus earlier in the night, has dropped below the horizon.

The night is still — save for the occasional breeze and whirring noise of Duriscoe's camera mounted on a moving tripod that automatically takes 45 images, covering the entire sky. The images are then stitched together, and by subtracting the light by known stars, scientists create

fisheye and panoramic maps of light invasion.

Duriscoe has been skygazing at national parks for a living since 1999 and made the first sky brightness comparisons two years later. A self-described desert rat, Duriscoe excitedly points to the Orion, Aquarius, Pisces and Aries constellations. The Milky Way, which arches across the night sky, bleeds into the Vegas light dome 30 degrees above the horizon. The glow from the greater Los Angeles region forms a long, narrow band.

Skywatchers can theoretically see some 6,000 stars in the blackest and pristine skies of Death Valley. With light pollution from Vegas, scientists estimate about 2,500 stars are visible from Dante's View.

Advances in technology have enabled people to see the cosmos like never before. Take the Hubble Space Telescope, which has beamed stunning images of exotic galaxies and distant supernovae to people's computers. But Duriscoe noted that these onscreen images are just not the same as being out under the sky.

Sitting on the ledge of Dante's View, his legs stretched out and his back toward Vegas, Duriscoe pondered the shrinking sky.

"This is the real universe," he said, taking in the celestial light show until clouds moved in, drawing a curtain on the stars for the night.

Ensuring U.S. Access to the International Space Station

Vincent Sabathier, G. Ryan Faith, and Alexandros Petersen
August 15, 2008

In his highly publicized July 24 speech in Berlin, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama struck a conciliatory chord in saying, “we must reject the Cold War mindset of the past and resolve to work with Russia when we can.” A few days later, Russia’s envoy to NATO, Dmitri Rogozin, raised the idea of a new security framework for Eurasia that would include the United States and Russia, as well as China and India. Skeptics’ views that this might be a ploy to undermine NATO were significantly reinforced on August 11, when Russia launched a punitive expedition against Georgia. Destruction of the U.S. ally’s prospects of joining the alliance is most certainly one of Russia’s objectives.

But, Russia’s invasion of its Western-leaning south Caucasus neighbor is not an isolated incident. It is part of a pervasive increase in tensions between Washington and Moscow. Just before Obama’s July 24 speech, the Kremlin leaked plans to deploy, for the first time since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, strategic nuclear weapons and delivery systems in Cuba as a response to U.S. missile defense plans involving Poland and the Czech Republic. Russia’s new president Dmitri Medvedev has also followed in the footsteps of his predecessor, Vladimir Putin, in scuttling agreed UN Security Council plans for sanctions on Robert Mugabe’s regime in Zimbabwe and in selling advanced air-defense units to Iran in the midst of international concerns over its uranium enrichment program.

It is contentious points like these that have led some commentators to speak of a new Cold War. Some policymakers argue that Europe and the United States should see things for what they are. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain has more than once called for Russia to be expelled from the G-8 as unqualified and uncooperative. He is also a strong supporter of U.S. efforts to bolster the NATO and EU membership aspirations of nascent democracies Ukraine and Georgia—even in the face of violent Russian opposition. Other potential flashpoints loom: Russia has made claims to the Arctic seabed, with its vast mineral and hydrocarbon deposits, while the United States and Europe look toward exploiting the same Caspian energy resources that Moscow covets.

Despite hopes for a new world order, tension is spreading into almost every realm of U.S.-Russia relations—except for that most visible of Cold War battlegrounds: space. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States and Russia have cooperated, along with Canada, Japan, and Europe, to build and operate the International Space Station (ISS), the most technologically complex and ambitious international project ever undertaken. From the first crew to take up residence in the ISS in October 2000, the station has been inhabited continuously, principally by U.S. and Russian crews, with additional visitors from Europe, Japan, Canada, and elsewhere. Currently, all station partners rely on the U.S. space shuttle and the Russian Soyuz capsule together as the only vehicles able to transport people to and from the space station. That is, until the 2010 retirement of the U.S. space shuttle. The retirement of the three-decade-old system will mark the beginning of a U.S. inability to send its own astronauts into space, a gap in capability that will last for at least five years, as well as the start of an absolute reliance on the Russian Soyuz.

However, even the U.S. ability to continue to purchase seats on the Soyuz capsule is now in jeopardy. The Iran, North Korea, and Syria Nonproliferation Act (PL 109–112) prevents the purchase, either in kind or in cash, of Russian space technology and services, so long as Russia remains viewed as a proliferation threat for nuclear and missile technology. Due to a 2005 congressional waiver of these restrictions for operating the ISS, the United States has been able to purchase seats on launches of the Soyuz spacecraft to augment U.S. space shuttle flights. Although the current purchase of Soyuz flights will extend through 2011, the manufacturer of the Soyuz has stated that there is a three-year lead time to manufacture new capsules. Therefore, the uncertain fate of a new waiver currently under discussion in Congress means that the United States would lose access to a key component of the station logistics and transport system, requiring it to radically restructure its ability to maintain a presence on the station. This already precarious situation could become disastrous when combined with the planned 2010 retirement of the aging U.S. space shuttle fleet.

Granted, the ISS is the most significant achievement remaining from the glory days of Russia’s space endeavors and remains both a potent symbol and a steady source of income for their cash-strapped program. Today, the Russian inclination to rely on the ISS as source of revenue may provide some reason to believe that Russia will continue to ensure access to the ISS. If recent Russian actions are any indicator, a technical excuse to completely block U.S. access to the ISS for geopolitical reasons would fit nicely into the Kremlin toolkit. Almost immediately after the Czech Republic signed an agreement with the United States to place a missile defense tracking radar in its territory, oil supplies through the Druzhba pipeline to the Central European country were reduced to a trickle. Lithuania, one of the Europeans Union’s most vocal critics of Moscow’s policies, has grappled with similar cuts to its energy supplies from Russia for years, ostensibly for technical reasons. Given the current tense climate between the United States and Russia, Moscow would have ample incentives to exert oblique leverage over Washington or other countries by restricting access to the ISS.

These vulnerabilities come at a particularly sensitive time for the United States and its allies in the area of space cooperation. The United States and its partners on the station will have spent more than $100 billion on the ISS by the time of its completion in 2010. Current U.S. spaceflight plans will effectively cede the control of the ISS to Russia on its 2010 completion by leaving with Russia a monopoly on the ability to transport crew—including U.S., European, and Japanese astronauts—to and from the station. Effectively, the United States will have worked at great length with its partners to give Russia the best space station money can buy. Beyond this, as we have seen with the aftermath of the 2003 Columbia disaster, logistical support for the ISS is always difficult, and without an alternate means to send crew and supplies to the station, continued operation of the ISS could be seen as too risky to continue. In the longer term, there are already significant doubts about the future of ISS after 2015, when the United States is planning to shift its focus to returning to the Moon before the 50th anniversary of the first 1969 Moon landing. However, these plans to return to the Moon are also somewhat shaky and reflect a lack of concrete international participation. This host of future uncertainties makes it clear that it is in the interest of the United States and other ISS partners to strongly consider other options for transporting astronauts to the station and space in general.

At first glance, the possibility of a U.S.-led joint effort with Europe and Japan to quickly develop a backup transportation system, perhaps a capsule that could make use of existing U.S., European, or Japanese launch technologies. A joint program would bring the original space station partners together, finally delivering on the more than 20-year-old promises of the space station. A joint effort would leverage resources and capabilities using the U.S., European, and Japanese common interest in succeeding on the ISS, even if only to declare the station a success and move forward. However, the lack of any discussions thus far—let alone any concrete planning along these lines—means that although such an approach might be most beneficial, such an outcome is by no means certain and will most certainly require a fair amount of time to implement.

It therefore behooves U.S. policymakers to explore other options for access, if nothing else to prevent the reintroduction of Cold War competition to space. Perhaps somewhat ironically, a more promising option may lie with the world’s fastest-growing space power: China. Since China generated great controversy with its unannounced and highly polluting antisatellite test in early 2007, the United States and other space-faring nations have been skeptical about the underlying nature of China’s space program. Although there is no real practical way for China to immediately step up as an alternate means of station access today, such an option could still prove to be a fairly quick remedy, despite the fact that the United States has substantially blocked any dialog on the subject. However, Chinese officials have for many years expressed a keen interest in joining the ISS and seem determined to push forward with ambitious objectives for a Chinese role in space. The United States’ space gap—the half-decade period in which it will not be able to launch its own astronauts into space—would seem an opportune time to attempt confidence-building measures with Beijing. Although China has seen Russia as its historical partner in developing much of its spaceflight infrastructure, an overture from Washington could serve to break down significant barriers on space policy.

After China’s antisatellite test, the strong world reaction led many analysts to speak anew about the weaponization of space. It was thought that Beijing was either testing its ability to counter the U.S. asymmetric advantage in networked warfighting prowess or was reacting to intelligence about U.S. plans for satellite defense mechanisms. However, there have been few notable incidents since, and details have emerged that suggest Chinese military planners may have overstepped their bounds in ordering the test. That said, although cooperation on specific military technology is unlikely between China and the United States, exploring synergies in the realm of commercial space activities and civil space exploration hold the potential to build confidence and reduce skepticism across the board.

With China rallying its growing resources to host the 2008 Olympic Games, the sensitivity of its decisionmakers to the advantages and ideals of international cooperation will be heightened. This presents an excellent opportunity for senior U.S. policymakers to begin a new era of space cooperation with the world’s fastest-growing major economy. Alternately, the United States could pursue cooperation with its traditional partners in space to find solutions to the problems it faces. Either option has the potential to not only provide much-needed international support for U.S. plans to return to the Moon but also to ensure access to the ISS for the foreseeable future, effectively isolating the United States from any potential new Cold War tensions. U.S. civil space activity should not become a hostage to Russian objections to Georgia’s NATO membership goals, U.S. missile defense plans, or any facets of new Cold War political maneuvering. In a time of increasing tensions, the International Space Station can now help to serve the mission for which it was undertaken: greater cooperation among all space-faring nations.

Vincent Sabathier is a senior fellow and the director of Human Space Exploration Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. G. Ryan Faith is a program manager with the CSIS Human Space Exploration Initiative, and Alexandros Petersen is an adjunct fellow with the CSIS Russia and Eurasia Program.

Next Space Tourist, Station Crew Eager to Fly

By Clara Moskowitz

Staff Writer

Originally Posted: 30 July 2008

6:10 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON - America's next space tourist and a new space station crew are gearing up for an October launch to the International Space Station (ISS).

Computer game developer Richard Garriott, along with U.S. astronaut Michael Fincke and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Lonchakov are slated to launch Oct. 12 aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft from Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome spaceport.

Garriott, the son of former NASA astronaut Owen Garriott, who flew aboard the U.S. Skylab station and a U.S. shuttle, is set to become the first second-generation U.S. spaceflyer. He is flying under a $30 million deal brokered with Russia's Federal Space Agency by the Virginia-based firm Space Adventures to visit the ISS for about a week.

"To be frank this price tag is the majority of my wealth, to be honest," Garriott said Wednesday at a NASA briefing in Houston. "The reason why it's worth that to me is that this is the goal I've been working toward for a significant portion of my adult life."

The Austin, Texas resident is famous for creating the "Ultima" series of online computer games. His latest release, "Tabula Rasa," is an online science fiction game chronicling humanity's exodus from Earth after a major cataclysm. He plans to carry a so-called "immortality drive," a flash drive repository of information, including digital versions of the DNA from some computer gamers, copies of the avatars in one of his games, as well as an archive of mankind's greatest achievements.

"Since I'm getting a chance to go to space myself, I would be remiss without finding a way to connect to the community of gamers from space," Garriot said.

Garriott will be the sixth space tourist to vacation at the ISS. He plans to devote his stay to research, including protein crystallization and Earth observation experiments, with his father serving as chief scientist. He is scheduled to return to Earth with Expedition 17 Commander Sergei Volkov, himself a second-generation cosmonaut, and flight engineer Oleg Kononenko on Oct. 23 in a Soyuz.

Fincke, who made one previous trip to the space station as a flight engineer on the Expedition 9 crew, is set to lead the new Expedition 18 crew as commander. Lonchakov will serve as flight engineer. The main goal of their mission is to outfit the ISS to host six-person crews, double the population of its current three-person capacity.

"It's going to take us a lot of work, but it's the next step in getting the space station fully operational and we've got the right crew for it," Fincke said. "We think of ourselves as a can-do crew."

Two other members of the Expedition 18 crew, NASA astronaut Sandra Magnus and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Koichi Wakata, are scheduled to fly on later shuttle missions. Magnus plans to ride aboard the November STS-126mission to become a space station flight engineer, while Wakata intends to arrive on the STS-119 mission in early 2009 to relieve her.

One member of the Expedition 18 crew is already aboard the space station. NASA astronaut Gregory Chamitoff, who launched to the ISS in June, is currently serving as a flight engineer with the station's Expedition 17 crew. He plans to stay aboard with Fincke and Lonchakov for the first stage of Expedition 18 before turning his slot over to Magnus in November.

On the Net:

VIDEO: ISS Commander Peggy Whitson Takes Charge
Future of Flight: Space Tourism, Investment and Technology
VIDEO: ISS Commander Peggy Whitson Takes Charge

Virgin Galactic Shows Off Mothership Aircraft

Virgin Galactic unveils mothership for passenger rocket trips into space

By ALICIA CHANG AP Science Writer
MOJAVE, Calif. July 28, 2008 (AP) The Associated Press

Virgin Galactic give sneak peek at its secret space tourism program.

The space tourism race marked a milestone Monday as British mogul Sir Richard Branson and American aerospace designer Burt Rutan waved to a crowd from inside the cabin of an exotic jet that will carry a passenger spaceship to launch altitude.

The photo-op was the public unveiling of the White Knight Two mothership before a crowd of engineers, dignitaries and space enthusiasts at the Mojave Air & Space Port in the high desert north of Los Angeles.

The four-engine jet, with its 140-foot single wing, is an engineering marvel. The space between its twin fuselages is where SpaceShipTwo, the passenger rocket being built for Branson's Virgin Galactic, will be mounted.

White Knight Two, billed as the world's largest all-carbon-composite airplane, is "one of the most beautiful and extraordinary aviation vehicles ever developed," Branson proclaimed.

White Knight Two is the brainchild of Rutan, who made history in 2004 when his SpaceShipOne became the first private, manned craft to reach space. SpaceShipOne accomplished it with help from White Knight Two's smaller predecessor, White Knight. After winning $10 million for the feat, Rutan partnered with Branson, chairman of Virgin Group, to commercialize the prototype.

White Knight Two's long-awaited rollout, a year after a deadly explosion rocked Rutan's test site, is the first tangible sign of progress toward making space tourism a reality. Despite the glitz surrounding the event, significant hurdles remain.

The aircraft must undergo at least a year of rigorous flight tests starting in the fall. In addition, workers have to finish building SpaceShipTwo, which will be flown by two pilots and carry six passengers.

Matthew Upchurch, 46, who reserved a future flight, said he felt goosebumps when he saw White Knight Two.

"It was very emotional for me," said Upchurch, who heads a luxury travel company that works with Virgin Galactic. "I thought, `Oh my God, we're getting closer.'"

The mothership rollout also moved Rutan, who has made a career of designing unconventional aircraft.

"Even though this is a pretty weird airplane, we all expect it fly very well," said Rutan, who traded his usual leather jacket for a white button-down shirt with a Virgin Galactic logo.

Meanwhile, SpaceShipTwo, which is 70 percent complete, remained under wraps. It sat in a hangar several hundred feet away from White Knight Two shrouded in a black tarp. A sticker on it read "Coming Soon ... To A Spaceport Near You."

In the history of spaceflight, most astronauts have been in government programs. In recent years, a handful of wealthy people have paid about $20 million each to ride Russian rockets to the international space station.

Virgin Galactic envisions a future where space voyages will become as common as airplane travel. It wants to fly 500 people into space in the first year for $200,000 a head. If it succeeds, that would be on par with the same number of people who have gone up in 45 years of space travel.

So far, more than 250 wannabe astronauts have paid the full amount or put down a deposit to fly with Virgin Galactic, but when they will float in zero gravity is unknown. Rutan has declined to release a schedule. Virgin Galactic stopped predicting after it said in a 2004 press release that flights could begin in 2007.

Virgin Galactic renamed White Knight Two after Branson's mother, Eve. After the rollout, Branson and his mother popped open a bottle of Champagne next to the craft, which sports a decorative motif of a blond woman flying a Virgin flag.

White Knight Two has a wingspan of 140 feet, about the same as a World War II B-29 Superfortress bomber.

The mothership is designed to tuck SpaceShipTwo under the center of its wing and release it at 50,000 feet. After separation, SpaceShipTwo will fire its hybrid rocket and climb some 62 miles above Earth, the internationally recognized boundary of space.

The spaceflight — up and back down without circling the Earth — will include about five minutes of weightlessness. The total trip, from White Knight Two's takeoff to SpaceShipTwo's unpowered landing, will last about 2 1/2 hours.

Monday's unveiling was bittersweet for Rutan's company, Scaled Composites LLC. A year ago, three technicians were killed in an explosion while testing SpaceShipTwo's propellant system. Scaled, which was since bought by Northrop Grumman Corp., held a ceremony last week in honor of the fallen workers.

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On the Net:

Virgin Galactic: http://www.virgingalactic.com
Scaled Composites: http://www.scaled.com

Air Hostess Picks Up Chocolate Bar, Wins Space Trip

I thought Willy Wonka only gave away tours of the Chocolate Factory - not space...

Wed Jul 16, 11:02 AM ET

PARIS (Reuters) - A French air hostess will become one of Europe's pioneer space tourists after picking a chocolate wrapper out of the rubbish and finding a winning number in a competition to fly to the upper reaches of the earth's atmosphere.

Mathilde Epron, 32, said she had bought a Kit Kat chocolate bar at her local supermarket but initially threw the wrapper in the bin, telling herself that "it's only others who win."

Two hours later, thinking back to the competition, she decided to try her luck and fished the wrapper out of the bin, only to find a code marked inside.

"For someone who works in air travel it's really a dream come true," she told France Info radio.
A spokeswoman for Nestle in France confirmed that Epron had won the prize to take a flight on a four-seater, fighter-sized aircraft built by Rocketplane, a company that builds aircraft intended to provide cheap flights into space.

She will receive four days of astronaut training in Oklahoma City in the United States before boarding the Rocketplane XP aircraft which will reach an altitude of 100 km (60 miles) and allow a five-minute experience of weightlessness.

Researchers Predict Tourism to the "Final Frontier"

February 25, 2008

Seeking an out-of-this-world travel destination?

Outer space will rocket into reality as "the" getaway of this century, according to researchers at the University of Delaware and the University of Rome La Sapienza.

In fact, the "final frontier" could begin showing up in travel guides by 2010, they predict.

"In the twenty-first century, space tourism could represent the most significant development experienced by the tourism industry," says Prof. Fred DeMicco, ARAMARK Chair, in UD's Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Management program.

"With the Earth under attack from a myriad of environmental impacts, including climate change concerns and pollution, outer space is the next viable frontier to explore and make longtime plans for," he notes. "While there are global policies to be determined relating to private ventures in space, the technology to make space travel safer and cheaper is moving forward."
DeMicco and Silvia Ciccarelli, a geoeconomist who was a recent visiting scholar at UD, co-wrote "Outer Space as a New Frontier for Hospitality and Tourism," which is in review for an upcoming issue of the Hospitality Educator. Ciccarelli is a consultant to the Italian Association of Aerospace Industries.

What kind of person will be lured to space travel? Is it those of us who've loved "The Jetsons," "Star Trek," or peering at the heavens through a telescope?

"This is a destination for the 'extreme tourists'--tourists who want the ultimate new travel adventure and the thrill of outer space," DeMicco says. "They want something new and interesting--the room with the best view of Earth from space."

According to surveys of the demand for space tourism undertaken in 2001 and 2006 by Futron, a U.S. consulting company, the average age of the wannabe space tourist is 55 years old, 72% are males and 28% are females, 46% have above average or better fitness, 48% spend a month or more on vacation annually, and 41% work full-time and 23% are retired. The projected demand is 13,000 passengers in 2021, with the ability of the celestial industry to generate revenues of $700 million annually.

While only a few multimillionaires have been able to afford the current $20 million pricetag to go up in a Russian rocket for a two-week stay at the International Space Station, shorter, more affordable "suborbital" space flights, costing on the order of $80,000 per trip, likely will drive space tourism in the near term, according to Ciccarelli.

"During these flights, a spacecraft reaches space, but it does not enter Earth's orbit," she explains.

Suborbital trips are likely to become available to tourists by 2010-2015, Ciccarelli says, while tourism in space hotels is on a longer trajectory, predicted to become a reality in 2025.
So what will tourists in space do?

"Passengers will enter a world that only astronauts and cosmonauts have experienced--the acceleration of a rocket launch, weightlessness, and a spectacular view of the Earth," Ciccarelli says.

The low-gravity environment 600 to 2,000 kilometers above Earth would suddenly make Leonardo da Vinci's dreams and drawings of human-powered flight possible, using fabric wings attached to the arms, and tails attached to the ankles, according to Ciccarelli.

"Many recreational and sports activities also could exploit this possibility given a fairly large chamber," she notes.

A slowly rotating, cylindrical swimming chamber would enable people to become more like 'flying fish'-to swim in low gravity, but then propel themselves out of the water and 'fly' in a central air space, Ciccarelli says.

A safer, cheaper launch system is critical if space travel is to become more commonplace in the future. An elevator rising tens of thousands of miles into space is one possibility that scientists and entrepreneurs are considering.

"First envisioned some forty years ago, the space elevator will climb an enormous cable, like Jack up the beanstalk, to a terminal where passengers and cargo can board spacecraft for the trip farther out," Ciccarelli says.

"Until recently this was a fantasy because there were no materials strong enough to build such a cable," DeMicco notes. "Today, however, so-called carbon nanotubes up to twenty times stronger than steel are approaching mass production, and engineers say a space elevator could be completed within fifteen years."

The non-profit Spaceward Foundation was formed in 2004 and NASA established a competition in 2005 to accelerate research on the space elevator concept.

While short excursions into outer space may be on the itinerary in the near term, a "space port" currently is being built in Las Cruces, New Mexico, with support from Virgin Galactic and other companies, and hoteliers are scoping out new locations some 238,000 miles above--on the moon.

"Lunar hotels are now being planned," DeMicco says. "Galactic Suites is known as the first space hotel, and they promote delivering 15 sunrises and sunsets in a single day--for the adventure travelers who are willing to spend approximately $4 million for a three-day 'stay' in space," DeMicco says.

In 1967, in an address to the American Astronautical Society, Barron Hilton, then president of Hilton Hotels, described a "Lunar Hilton" with its entrance on the surface of the moon and most of its rooms located 20 to 30 feet below the surface. The hotel would have an aptly named "Galaxy Lounge."

More recently, companies such as Japan's Shimizu Corporation have focused on the design of an orbital hotel in space, with rotating rings to provide artificial gravity.

Who will run these space-age hotels?

DeMicco says UD's students will be up to the challenge.

"Our Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Management students are taught the latest trends in strategic management and forecasting including land, sea, and space among them, and UD is not only a Land Grant, Sea Grant, and Urban Grant university, but also a Space Grant university," he notes.

"Indeed, they are the global travelers today through UD's study abroad programs, with aspirations for the stars in their hospitality and tourism careers of tomorrow."

Private Race to the Moon Takes Off

By Dave Mosher, Anthony Duignan-Cabrera

21 February 2008, 02:01 pm ET

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIF. -- Google and X PRIZE officials unveiled nine new privately funded teams today that will compete for $30 million in the Google Lunar X PRIZE challenge, a race to the moon.

"It's not just a new mission," said Peter Diamandis, Chairman and CEO of the X PRIZE Foundation, during the announcement here at Google's headquarters. "It's a new way of doing business."

The new teams join the Isle of Man-based Odyssey Moon team that was the first group to take up the challenge.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin said he was amazed that so many competitors had signed up so soon after the prize's announcement.

"I was floored," Brin told the team members and reporters who attended the press conference. "We had no such expectation."

Brin credited Google's participation to conversation he had had with Diamandis and mutual friend and Silicon Valley entrepreneur-turned-rocket builder, Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX.

Large companies often invest money in entertainment ventures or sponsor competitions and competitors in events like boat races, Brin said. But those ventures are limited in their purpose.

"We should be doing new kinds of things as companies," Brin said. "If we're going to sponsoring things it should be for discoveries."

That's Incentive

The Google Lunar X PRIZE Cup organizers also announced their partnership with Space Florida, a group vested in drawing the Sunshine State onto the commercial spaceflight map. Voted into creation in 2006, the local organization is offering launch site services and $2 million in extra prize money to the winning team if they blast off from Florida.

"The folks at Space Florida are really offering to enhance the prize purse at a significant level," Brett Alexander, executive director of space prizes for the X PRIZE Foundation, told SPACE.com. "It lowers the bar and makes it easier for teams to compete."

Steve Kohler, Space Florida president, said that launching a commercial spacecraft to the moon from Florida would add to the state's rich spaceflight history as home to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and NASA's Kennedy Space Center.

"Florida's long been recognized as a preeminent leader in any activity that involves our exploration of the moon," Kohler said. "Part of our effort as a state and as an organization is to continue that legacy. We believe [this competition] will allow the state to become a future hub for commercial projects."

According to Google Lunar X PRIZE rules, 90 percent of a winning team's funding must come from the private sector to qualify for a piece of $30 million in total prize money.

The first team to land their robot on the moon and complete a gauntlet of tasks with it by Dec. 31, 2012, will snatch the $20 million grand prize. In 2013, the first-place purse drops to $15 million and will expire on Dec. 31, 2014.

The second team to achieve lunar victory by 2014 will take $5 million in prize money, and another $5 million is on the table for difficult bonus objectives. Such challenges include moving a robot an extra 1,600 feet (500 meters), photographing man-made objects on the moon such as the Apollo 11 flag and surviving more than two weeks in frigid lunar darkness.

On top of the potential to win $25 million with a single launch, Alexander explained that Space Florida's extra funding is quite an incentive — especially to a number of teams aiming for a 2009 or 2010 launch.

"A million dollars is not trivial to any one of these teams, let alone two million dollars," Alexander said. "I definitely think somebody's going to make it and I think it's going to happen earlier than we expect."

Bring It On
Odyssey Moon, a team based out of Europe's Isle of Man, was announced as the first competitor in December 2007. The group is hopeful their "MoonOne (M-1)" spacecraft will take the grand prize.
The nine new teams officially drafted into the competition today have submitted lengthy applications and $1,000 deposits.

"To have 10 teams now, so early on, is incredible and great," Alexander said, noting that the 1996 to 2004 Ansari X PRIZE for suborbital spaceflight took years — not a few months — to attract as many teams. "We thought it would take longer for people to organize and get entered into this competition."

"The fact that there are this many teams [competing] does give us some confidence that someone should be able to prevail at the end of the day," Kohler said of the numbers, which he explained will inevitably grow before the Dec. 31, 2010, application cutoff.

The new competitors include:

• Aeronautics and Cosmonautics Romanian Association (ACRA): This Romanian group competed in the Ansari X PRIZE and will enter their "European Lunar Explorer" in the new competition.
• Astrobotic: Headed by William "Red" Whittaker of Carnegie Mellon University, the team expects their "Artemis Lander" and "Red Rover" spacecraft to touch down first on the moon.
  
• Chandah: Adil Jafry leads this team as chairman and CEO of Tara, the largest independent retail electricity provider in Texas. Chendah's spacecraft is called "Shehrezade."


• FREDNET: Developers, engineers and scientists make up FREDNET, headed by Fred Bourgeois III, president and CEO of Applios Inc.


• LunaTrex: A mix of U.S. rocket, robotics, aviation, energy and propulsion experts, the LunaTrex team led by Peter Bitar (founder of Xtreme Alternative Defense Systems) is entering "Tumbleweed" into the competition.


• Micro-Space: Richard Speck of Micro-Space, Inc. and his team hopes their "Human Lunar Lander" will secure the grand prize.


• Quantum3: This team intends to land "Moondancer" at the Sea of Tranquility, where Apollo 11 — the first manned moon mission — touched down in 1969.


• Southern California Selene Group: Their "Spirit of Southern California" spacecraft will rely on early communications satellite technology along with the latest developments in electronics and sensors.
  Team Italia: This Italian group intends to launch a colony of light, mobile robots on a lander for quick distribution on the Moon's surface.

Alexander said the 10 challengers now entered in the Google Lunar X PRIZE Cup aren't participating for show.

"I'd say that the teams out there have a high degree of credibility," he said. "Several of them are really off and running full-steam ahead already."

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