AIAA Houston Section will have a dinner event next Monday, March 9!
Presentation at 5:30 (FREE lecture only)
The presentation will take place in the Discovery Room of the Gilruth Center.
Join us as AIAA distinguished lecturer, Dan Adamo, explores what can be a pioneering destination in space. Why is Mars the widely accepted future?
Description:
This 1.5-hour lecture reviews historic Earthly distinctions between exploring and pioneering before applying these distinctions to destinations in space. Although a case can be made for human and robotic exploration in space, there is as yet no compelling rationale for “putting down roots” to pioneer anywhere off Earth. Why then is the surface of Mars widely accepted as humanity’s future “home away from home” to the extent some 200,000 people are willing to attempt forming a permanent colony there? There is no evidence suggesting humans can survive on the surface of Mars long term, let alone thrive there to produce viable offspring. A variety of evidence is presented to affirm the surface of Mars is a “socio-cultural” destination whose suitability for human pioneering is based on more than a century of fictional literature and poorly informed research as the Space Age dawned. More current knowledge of the “unexplored country” in our Solar System suggests small bodies such as asteroids and the moons of Mars are humanity’s best hope for pioneering off Earth this century.
Presenter:
Dan Adamo –
A recognized authority in human space flight trajectory design and operations with extensive experience in associated operations concept formulation, training, documentation, and software development
Specialties: Rendezvous launch window and orbit maneuver targeting, procedures development and coordination with domestic and international stake-holders, technical documentation, trajectory prediction and simulation, public education and outreach
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Join AIAA Houston and Dan Adamo on a discussion on “Exploring The Solar System Through Low-Latency Telepresence (LLT)”
Why would it make sense to send humans more than 99% of the way to an off-Earth exploration destination like Mars without putting “boots on the ground”? How can average speeds achieved by robotic Mars rovers, typically a leisurely 0.4 meters per hour, be dramatically increased? This 1.5-hour lecture will answer these questions by suggesting humans operate in synergy with nearby robotic systems as a game-changing space exploration strategy. When command/feedback delays between human explorers and their robotic proxies are reduced sufficiently, today’s user interface technology can impart multi-sensory impressions of “being there”, a state of cognizance called low-latency telepresence (LLT). Using LLT-based strategies, impressive exploration productivity gains are realizable, together with reduced programmatic cost and risk, when compared to more conventional exploration strategies based on the Apollo Program circa 1970. These benefits accrue regardless of whether humans orbit above or loiter on/beneath a nearby exploration region.
See the flyer (PDF)
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The AIAA Houston Section will have a dinner event with Dan Adamo next Thursday, January 31, 6pm, at Anita Gale’s residence!
See the flyer (PDF) for more details.
RSVP on the event page or on Eventbrite.
If you’re in the Rice University area next Thursday, 1/31, check out the Houston Spaceport Frontier Lecture: Expanding Space
Please join the AIAA Houston Section and Daniel R. Adamo, Astrodynamics Consultant, AIAA Senior Member, and Distinguished Lecturer in a lecture that reviews major challenges to interplanetary human spaceflight and suggests strategies by which they may be addressed. These strategies include pre-emplaced Earth return consumables at the interplanetary destination, water used as a high-efficiency/high-thrust propellant also serving as crew radiation shielding, and transport servicing in a distant retrograde orbit about the Moon. Applied to a hypothetical transport christened Aquarius, the strategies are shown to enable routine and sustainable roundtrips between Earth and Deimos, the outer moon of Mars. Knowledge gaps pertaining to Aquarius are identified with the intent of motivating changes in current technology roadmaps. After listening to this lecture, anyone with interplanetary human spaceflight interests will be conversant with associated technology issues and plausible means by which they might be resolved.
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Reproducing an Apollo Applications Program Single-Launch Human Venus Flyby Trajectory
by Daniel R. Adamo, Astrodynamics Consultant, AIAA Senior Member, and Distinguished Lecturer
An event of AIAA Houston Section History technical committee Chair: Douglas Yazell; Members: Ted Kenny, Chester Vaughan
and
AIAA Houston Section Astrodynamics technical committee Chair: Dr. Albert Allen Jackson IV; Members: Douglas Yazell, Dr. Tim Crain
As proposed to the Apollo Applications Program by NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center in 1967, a single Saturn 5 launch of Apollo-derived hardware could send a crew of three on a Venus flyby mission with free return to Earth one year later. Three 30-day Earth departure seasons between 1972 and 1975 were identified. The season-open trajectory for earth departure on 4 April 1972 is developed in detail for this presentation.
- Cost: Free for presentation only. Membership not required.
- Meal option prices (order by Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2017, 2:00 PM): Members $12, Non-members $15
- Meal: Red River BBQ; brisket, spicy links, cole slaw, beans, iced tea. Vegetarian options available.
See event flyer.
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Advance registration appreciated. Walk-ins welcome.
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