Monday, July 20, 2009

Apollo 11 Moon Landing, 40th Anniversary

The Apollo 11 mission culminated a decade of what had been the greatest period of technological development in the history of the human race. More useful inventions were made during the 1960's than any other similar time interval before or since. In landing a pair of astronauts on the Moon, the United States of America not only "won" the "space race" but also brought about a great number of benefits that all of us have been able to enjoy since.

Apollo 11 was the first of six missions to successfully land a pair of astronauts to walk on the Moon. However, since Apollo 17 Mission Commander Gene Cernan returned to the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) at 05:40:56 GMT on 14 December, 1972, no one has been back to the Moon: Lunar exploration and development was abandoned in the interest of developing NASA's Space Shuttle.

It's time to go back to the Moon: We need space to grow: There are far more resources available in the asteroids, moons and planets in our Solar system than there are here on Earth. Once we learn to travel beyond the reach of our own sun, to other stellar systems, we will find even more - and probably more habitable planets. Going back to the Moon is merely one step on that journey, and it's time for us to take it: We must move beyond the low Earth orbit where the International Space Station travels, and establish permanent a human presence on all of the significant bodies in the Solar system, and in bigger, more self-sufficient colonies than the ISS represents, floating in their own independent orbits.

Today is the 40th anniversary of one of the greatest achievements in human history. Let us honor the memory by vowing to re-open the door to space, and by realizing that vow with the actions necessary to bring it to fruition.

 

 

Apollo 11 40th Anniversary Commemorative Presentation
Prints available at LimitedEditionPhoto.com

 

 

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Tuesday, September 22, 2007

Sputnik 50th Anniversary T-shirt On Sale

 The L5 Development Group is pleased to announce the availability of its Sputnik Launch 50th Anniversary Commemorative T-Shirt in the L5 Fashion section of the L5 Development General Store. The shirt is being offered in a full range of sizes, with either white graphics on a black shirt, or black graphics on a white shirt. Proceeds from the shirt sales will help finance the space business operations of The L5 Development Group, with a portion to be donated to SEDS (Students for the Exploration and Development of Space).

Here is the official press release, announcing the new T-shirt design:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
---------------------

Friday, September 21, 2007
Boston, Massachusetts

The L5 Development Group announced today the official introduction of its commemorative T-shirt honoring an important event in space flight history: the launch of Sputnik I, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth, which occurred 50 years ago on October 4, 1957.

Shirts commemorating the event are offered in either black or white, and are now available from The L5 Development Group's gift shop on their Web site at:

http://L5Development.com/e_store/aGiftShop

"We are introducing this shirt to help increase public awareness of our space travel heritage, and to gather support for a more active human presence in the exploration and development of space," says Fred Koschara, President of The L5 Development Group.

Mr. Koschara observes "I think most people don't realize it's been 50 years that we've had satellites in orbit: We get distracted by more immediate things, and forget that building a presence in space takes a broad (yet focused) effort for a long time." While efforts such as the International Space Station show significant progress in the right direction, The L5 Development Group believes the only way a substantial human presence in space will be achieved is through private enterprise working toward commercial objectives.

"Government programs may seem like a good plan where they aren't constrained by having to return an immediate profit," explains Mr. Koschara. "However, that's exactly the problem: Unless they have a specific national objective, as the Apollo program did in getting to the Moon first, long-term funding is subject to popularity polls. Such criteria make it practically impossible to do real long range planning, as it is unknown when the budget axe will kill the project being worked on. Ultimately, the prospect of a profit is what leads people to invest their time and money - which is what private enterprise is all about."

In very general terms, the private enterprise space program being promoted by The L5 Development Group can be broken down into four steps:

  • We go from the Earth to the Moon and build a minimal base there.
  • The occupants of the Lunar base launch Lunar materials to L5.
  • Once enough material is accumulated at L5, smelting and manufacturing operations are set up there, and a space colony is built.
  • The space colonists living at L5 build solar power satellites, which are then dropped into geostationary orbit to beam electricity down to the Earth, and pay for the whole thing by supplying power at very low rates, perhaps as cheaply as ten cents per kilowatt-hour.

"We aren't getting out there by sitting around waiting for NASA to invite us," quips Mr. Koschara. "The only way it will happen is by getting more people directly involved - and we're hoping our T-shirts will help make the effort more visible."

To order the commemorative T-shirts, contact The L5 Development Group using their site's Gift Shop (as noted above) at:

http://L5Development.com/e_store/aGiftShop

For all other business matters, the company can be reached at:

The L5 Development Group
P.O. Box 15571
Boston, MA 02215
617/792-4320
http://L5Development.com
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TodaysNews Modernization Under Way

 Development of the TodaysNews system on this site was originally undertaken before proper database tools were available from the hosting company where L5Development.com resided. Consequently, it was planned to be maintained by a system of intertwined server scripts to simplify publication of new articles, and moving older ones to the news archive. However, that set of scripts was never completed, and maintaining this sites TodaysNews feature has become such a cumbersome process that it's seldom actually done - as can be seen by the dearth of current articles.

To remedy this situation, a completely new database driven TodaysNews system is under development. We are hoping to have the new system online before the end of October, 2007, pending resource availability. Further developments will be announced here as they occur.

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Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Space History Newsletter Made More Accessible

 To make our Space History newsletter more easily found by new site visitors, we have added an icon linking directly to it to the front page of this site. All of the previously existing links, including are still active, so this change will not break any external links to our site.

Enter your email address here to sign up for our Space History newsletter:
 
Note: We record the IP address from which subscriptions are entered to help prevent SPAM abuses.

Under no circumstances will we release your email address to outside persons or organizations, and it will only be used for mailing the specific information you have requested.

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Space History Newsletter Development Continues

 The effort required to build the database of events used to publish our Space History newsletter is proving to be dramatically greater than expected: In order to create an accurate and complete resource, many sources of information must be examined, which takes a significant amount of time, even with a fast Internet connection. Considering the work required to build the portion of the database that has been finished, we expect this project may turn into a full-time job for one or more persons some time in the future. Currently, we are looking for volunteers and/or one or more interns to help with the project. Anyone interested in working on this educational effort should contact our Webmaster to discuss arrangements.

Once the Space History newsletter information has been compiled, we will be offering a variety of options for searching and browsing the material in the Space History section of this site.

We would like to thank our subscribers for their patience in waiting for this feature to be completed, and we hope you enjoy the results!

As was previously announced, we will have a Web-based form for submitting events for inclusion into our Space History database. Until that page is completed, we are accepting submissions via email at SpaceHistorySubmit@L5Development.com .

Your input is welcome and appreciated.

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Monday, October 18, 2004

Space History Newsletter Now In Publication

 We are proud to annouce that our Space History newsletter is now fully operational and is being delivered to subscribers on a daily basis. Each issue is emailed at 1200 GMT (7AM EST/8AM EDT), at which time the online copy at http://L5Development.com/i_resource/history/TodayInHistory.php is also updated.

Building the database of events for the newsletter is going to require a major investment of effort over the next several months. Once the information has been compiled, we will be offering a variety of options for searching and browsing the material in the Space History section of this site.

We would like to thank our subscribers for their patience in waiting for this feature to be completed, and we hope you enjoy the results!

Enter your email address here to sign up for our Space History newsletter:
 
Note: We record the IP address from which subscriptions are entered to help prevent SPAM abuses.

Under no circumstances will we release your email address to outside persons or organizations, and it will only be used for mailing the specific information you have requested.

As was previously announced, we will have a Web-based form for submitting events for inclusion into our Space History database. Until that page is completed, we are accepting submissions via email at SpaceHistorySubmit@L5Development.com .

Your input is welcome and appreciated.

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Thursday, October 7, 2004

Space History Newsletter to be Operational by October 15

 We expect to have our Space History newsletter fully debugged and in operation on or before October 15. Everyone who is already subscribed will automatically start receiving the publication as soon as it is completed.

As was previously announced, we are planning to have a Web-based form for submitting events for inclusion into our Space History database. Until that page is completed, we are accepting submissions via email at SpaceHistorySubmit@L5Development.com Your input is welcome and appreciated.

Enter your email address here to sign up for our Space History newsletter:
 

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Monday, October 4, 2004

X Prize Congratulations !!

 Congratulations to Burt Rutan, Paul Allen, and the entire staff and crew of Mojave Aerospace Ventures (Scaled Composites) for their successful effort in capturing the Ansari X Prize purse. They have done all of us a tremendous favor by demonstrating the power of private enterprise in this realm that has too long been merely the playground of big governments.

To quote their Web site at http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/041004_spaceshipone_x-prize_flight_2.html:

"In addition to meeting the altitude requirement to win the X-Prize, pilot Brian Binnie also broke the August 22, 1963 record by Joseph A. Walker, who flew the X-15 to an unofficial world altitude record of 354,200 feet. Brian Binnie's SpaceShipOne flight carried him all the way to 367,442 feet or 69.6 miles above the Earth's surface."

[Ed. note: 367,442 feet is 111,996 meters - effectively 12 km over the 100 km minimum altitude required to win the X Prize purse.]

It is fitting and appropriate the winning flight was timed to coincide with the (47th) anniversary of the launch of Sputnik, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth. Sputnik was launched by the former Soviet Union at 10:28 am, Moscow time, on October 7, 1957. It is also commemorated by our Sputnik+45 T-shirt available from the L5 Development Gift Shop.

On the Scaled Composites Web site, you can find links for more information and videos, including a high quality 3 minute 5MB streaming / downloadable clip featuring on board camera and chase footage of the second X Prize flight.

From the Ansari X Prize Web site, you can also view an extended format (i.e., over five and a half hours) webcast of the entire morning. This interesting documentary includes a number of interviews and embedded video segments which review the entire history of the project, and the teams that have been in the competition for the prize. It is an excellent presentation, and we hope to be able to include it in our archives for historical purposes.

Once again, congratulations to the Mojave Aerospace Ventures team for their successful flights. We send our best wishes to them, to the X Prize team, and to all of the other competitors, and look forward to their continued success with their future efforts.

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For previous news reports, please visit our News Archive page.

 

 

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