Friday space

Some space themed stories for a Friday:

*  it's interesting to read recent astronaut memoir author Scott Kelly talk about how he has struggled all his life with writing at any length.   I guess that means many of us can say we can do something better than a famous test pilot/astronaut.  

*  apparently, the next international joint space project might be a space station orbiting the Moon.   This article at Nature suggests some science that could be done from there, outside of the Earth's magnetic field, but it avoids mentioning the obvious - that means potentially risky human exposure to much larger amounts of radiation.   (The story at the previous link about Scott Kelly notes the he received about 10 chest X rays worth of radiation per day, and that's in the somewhat safer for radiation low earth orbit.)  

Surely the radiation issue would make for a tricky design.  Even relatively short stays by astronauts would have some danger unless there is a radiation proof corner of the station they can shelter in during solar storms.   (They were worried during Apollo that a strong solar flare could fry all of the astronauts.)   Perhaps it would be a good place to test active radiation shields.  Somewhere around the house in a box I think I still have copies of an old article from the 1980's talking about such shielding, but I don't know how much research has gone into their design.   

*  I seemed to have missed news about the creation of the first "virtual nation" in space:

Later this week, Earth will communicate for the first time with a nation based solely in space. If you consider a tiny cubesat about the size of a toaster to be a nation, that is.

The small satellite goes by the name Asgardia-1 and makes up the entirety of the territory of the virtual nation of Asgardia, the pet project of Russian/Azerbaijani scientist and businessman Igor Ashurbeyli, an entrepreneur and investor with a Ph.D. in engineering. In his mind, Asgardia planted its flag in space when it launched from NASA's Wallops Island last month aboard an Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo spacecraft.

"From a legal standpoint, the satellite is the first sovereign territory of Asgardia nation," Ashurbeyli told me over the phone via a translator. ....

The digital nation in a box will then begin orbiting Earth, and when it starts transmitting about 30 minutes later, the self-proclaimed "space kingdom" will be the first off-earth territory to be officially open for business.

Asgardia is an unusual diplomatic, legal and philosophical experiment. For now, anyone can become a citizen by simply signing up online and agreeing to accept the official constitution, which adopts an official policy of pacifism and gives Ashurbeyli the first term as "Head of Nation," among other things.

He explains that each Asgardian citizen is also entitled to up to 300 kilobytes of storage on Asgardia-1. Asgardians are encouraged to upload photos, personal documents and other digital trinkets to establish their virtual residency in space.

Given recent publicity regarding what (some) men like to suddenly show to strangers, I do have to wonder   if any nerd has yet put a photo of you-know-what appendage in orbit. 

Link to the Asgardian home page is here.   I wonder if eventually they'll be issuing passports?  Well, that's the plan:

Could you please explain passports and IDs?

We are working on creating the Parliament, creating the government, and creating the banking system and the national currency SOLAR. The ID card at this point is the card that will be a fully protected, chip-integrated card that would eventually allow you – when they are available – to receive services Asgardia will provide, and to operate within the currency system.

We will start issuing passports as booklets for traveling only when we have reached the recognition with other states as a state that they recognize Asgardia’s passport as a valid document for crossing national borders. We are very realistic, this is a long-term goal.

IDs and passports would only be received in person. We are now asking everyone, and it’s at your own discretion, to fill in your profile. This data needs to be correct. When you decide to claim your documents, you would be asked to present yourself to the ambassador of Asgardia or a consul or a national representative (this title has not been decided upon yet). Documents are taken very seriously. In the long run, it is planned to have six permanent embassies around the world, per number of continents.

I am tempted to get in early.  Having a planetary passport might come in handy during an alien invasion, perhaps...