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        When I read that NASA has a job opening for a Planetary Protection Officer, visions of fighting off alien invaders filled my head. On reading more about the position, I found that it was a perfectly legitimate and logical job posting with a salary range from $124,000 to $187,000. The idea of a PPO dates back to the UN Outer Space Treaty of 1967. The European Space Agency is the only other space agency in the world that has a full time PPO.
        Here is the NASA description of the job: “Planetary protection is concerned with the avoidance of organic-constituent and biological contamination in human and robotic space exploration. NASA maintains policies for planetary protection applicable to all space flight missions that may intentionally or unintentionally carry Earth organisms and organic constituents to the planets or other solar system bodies, and any mission employing spacecraft, which are [i]ntended to return to Earth and its biosphere with samples from extraterrestrial targets of exploration. This policy is based on federal requirements and international treaties and agreements.”
       The PPO is charged with the prevention of contamination of other astronomical bodies by organisms from Earth and the prevention of contamination of the Earth by organisms from other astronomical bodies. The PPO officer is deeply involved with all NASA mission planning from sterilization of spacecraft launched from Earth to the careful handling of any spacecraft returning from missions.
       One big concern that space mission planners have is the fear that we might find signs of life on other planets such as Mars only to realize that what we really found is evidence of contamination brought from Earth by our Mars probes. Although conditions on other astronomical bodes are very harsh and dangerous for life, there are organisms on Earth called extremophiles that are able to survive in very difficult and harsh environments. We cannot rule out the possibility that we might contaminate other astronomical bodies. On the other hand, knowing that Earth life can exist in a very wide range of environmental conditions suggests that alien microbial life could very well adapt and survive to conditions on Earth with unknown and potentially devastating effects. There are theories that life on Earth may have actually originated on another planet and been brought here on meteorites from another place. That theory is called “panspermia.”
        Skeptics might question whether there would or could be similarities between life of Earth and life elsewhere in the universe. Studies of gas nebulae have discovered complex chemistry in these clouds of ionized gas. All the proteins in all the life on Earth is composed of amino acids. RNA and DNA based on nucleic acids provide the information and control necessary to generate and manipulate the proteins. Amino acids and the precursors of nucleic acids have been discovered in nebulae. This suggests that life similar to that on Earth could be found elsewhere. Alien proteins, DNA and RNA could possibly interact with Earth proteins, DNA and RNA. The more we explore space and land on other astronomical bodies, the more danger there is that Earth life and alien life may intermingle with serious consequences.

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        SpaceX is working on a heavy lifter launch vehicle that they call the Falcon Heavy. The Falcon Heavy will be twice as powerful as the next biggest rocket in the world, the Delta IV Heavy and will on cost one third as much to launch. It will be able to lift about one hundred and twenty thousand pounds into orbit. Only the Saturn V rocket that carried men to the moon in 1973 could lift a larger payload. The Falcon Heavy was designed from the beginning to carry men into space.
        The first stage of the Falcon Heavy is comprised of three Flacon 9 engine cores. Together these three engine cores contain twenty-seven Merlin engines which have a combined thrust of more than five million pounds. Just after liftoff, the center engine core reduces thrust. The two side engine-cores fall away and the center core throttles back to full thrust.
         The second stage contains a single Merlin engine to deliver the payload to orbit following the cutoff of thrust from the first stage cores and the separation of the second stage. The second stage Merlin engine can be turned off and on multiple times which allows the delivery of payloads to different orbits including low earth orbit and geosynchronous orbit.
         The payload for the Falcon Heavy will be either a composite flaring that will contain and protect cargo and/or satellites or the Dragon spacecraft.
          Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX has announced that the first test flight of the Falcon Heavy will be in November of this year. However, he also said that that was an optimistic projection and there might be delays. Musk had said that he was hoping for a summer launch but in June stated that it would take several months for the Falcon Heavy cores to reach Cape Canaveral from the factory. Once the cores are at Cape Canaveral, they will need some preparation time.
        Earlier this year, Musk said that he would like to try to recover the second stage after the launch by vertical landing. However, now Musk has dialed back expectations for this first test launch of the Falcon Heavy. Musk said at a recent conference that he was not sure that the Falcon Heavy would even reach orbit on this first mission.
       The Falcon Heavy will be launched from NASA’s launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. No exact date and time has been set yet. Musk said that such details would be announced in the coming months.
        The arrival of such a powerful and cheap launch vehicle will mean a quantum leap in sending major payloads into orbit. It will provide the foundation for missions away from Earth to the Moon, Mars and asteroids. With such lift capacity, bigger and more sophisticated space stations far beyond the International Space Station become possible. The advent of the Falcon Heavy launch vehicle will herald a new age of space exploration and exploitation.
Artist’s concept of a Falcon Heavy on the launch pad:

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       Almost fifty years ago, the human race set foot on the Moon. But then interest in manned lunar missions waned and we have not been back. There have been many fly-bys and landings on the Moon since we landed there but only by machines. Now interest is growing in a return to the Moon in force to establish manned lunar stations and to seek new mineral resources.
       A serious problem for the exploitation of lunar resources by nations and private corporations is the 1967 U.N. Outer Space Treaty which is administrated by the U.N. Office for Outer Space Affairs. One of the central principles of the treaty is that all space resources and astronomical bodies shall not be subject to sovereignty claims by nation states or ownership claims of private entities. All weapons are also banned from space, including the Moon.
       In 1979, the U.N. General Assembly adopted the Moon Agreement which states that the natural resources on the Moon are the “common heritage of mankind.” It recommends that a new international body should be created to govern the use of lunar resources as soon “as such exploitation is about to become feasible.” It is interesting to note that most of the countries with space programs did not sign the Moon Agreement, including the U.S.
       Opposing the Moon Agreement, some nations including the U.S. have created laws that do recognize that private companies will have legal ownership of resources they collect in space, including lunar resources. There will be legal debates about whether national laws or international treaties should prevail with respect to ownership of space resources but many countries and corporations have announced major projects for the acquisition of space resources including those on the Moon.
       Currently five different nations including the U.S, Russia, China, India and Japan have expressed their interest in sending manned missions to the Moon in the near future.  In addition, there are private space companies such as SpaceX which intend to send men to the Moon.
        One of the resources that is abundant on the Moon but scarce on earth is helium 3. Helium 3 is a non-radioactive isotope of helium with two protons and one neutron in the nucleus. It is believed that helium 3 would be a good fuel for a nuclear fusion reactor. China has explicitly said that it wants to go to the Moon to mine helium 3. China plans to launch the Chang’e 5 lunar probe later this year or next year. India intends a soft landing for its Chandrayaan-2 lunar mission next year. Google has created the Lunar X Prize contest for private companies to launch, land and drive a lunar rover around the lunar surface.
       Since there have already been missions that landed rovers on the Moon and left landing vehicles, equipment and trash on the lunar surface, the question of the treatment of artifacts left on the Moon has been raised. NASA published a document in 2011 with the title “How to Protect and Preserve the Historic and Scientific Value of U.S. Government Lunar Artifacts” with suggestions about how to protect historical sites and artifacts on the Moon. The report said “recognizes the steadily increasing technical capabilities of space-faring commercial entities and nations throughout the world and further recognizes that many are on the verge of landing spacecraft on the surface of the Moon.” NASA suggested, for example, a 75-meter artifact boundary around where the Apollo 11 landed.
       It is unclear just what international court could handle legal disputes with respect to lunar artifacts and resources. The U.N. International Court of Justice might be a good place to start. But, granted that a ruling is reached in a court with respect to a dispute on the Moon, there is a question of how it could be enforced. Do we need a U.N. peacekeeping force for the Moon? 

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       Every day small asteroids hit the Earth’s atmosphere and burn up before they reach the surface. One of the great existential threats to the human race is the possibility that a big asteroid could hit the Earth and devastate the ecosystem of the entire planet. Thousands of asteroids regularly cross the orbit of the Earth and pose a serious threat. There are a few that could cause great damage and many that could cause some damage.
       A popular theme for summer blockbuster movies has been desperate efforts by people on Earth to divert or destroy an inbound asteroid. As a matter of fact, this fall, there will be a miniseries on television with just this theme. There is historical evidence of meteor strikes that influenced earlier civilizations. Up until now, all we could do was hide and hope we survived. Now, however, for the first time in the history of humanity on this planet, it is possible that the human race might be able to divert or destroy a major asteroid bound for the Earth.
        NASA has just announced that they will conduct a test to change the course of a small asteroid that is heading for the Earth. The test is called Double Asteroid Redirection Test. The DART project is a joint exercise between NASA and the John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory located in Maryland.
       NASA’s planetary defense officer in Washington said that “DART would be NASA’s first mission to demonstrate what’s known as the kinetic impactor technique — striking the asteroid to shift its orbit — to defend against a potential future asteroid impact. This approval step advances the project toward an historic test with a non-threatening small asteroid.”
       The target for DART is a binary asteroid system named Didymos. Didymos A is a large asteroid orbited by Didymos B which is much smaller. In October of 2022, Didymos will make a close approach to the Earth. NASA will launch a satellite the size of a refrigerator towards Didymos B. The satellite will be traveling at three and seven tenths miles per hour when it slams into the asteroid.
        The idea behind the DART project is to use a high velocity satellite to hit an incoming asteroid and change the trajectory enough so that the asteroid will miss the Earth. Using the information from the DART test, NASA scientists will be able to assess the technique as a practical means of diverting incoming asteroids.
        One of the leaders of the John Hopkins teams said “”DART is a critical step in demonstrating we can protect our planet from a future asteroid impact. With DART, we can show how to protect Earth from an asteroid strike with a kinetic impactor by knocking the hazardous object into a different flight path that would not threaten the planet.”
        The NASA announcement of DART was timed to coincide with International Asteroid Day which commemorates that Tuguska asteroid impact in Russia in 1908. This is the biggest recorded asteroid impact in recent history.
Artist’s concept of DART spacecraft:

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       I have blogged before about NASA’s use of nuclear isotopes for thermal batteries in space probes. Nuclear batteries provide the long term reliable and maintenance free power needed for long space missions. Now NASA is considering the use of nuclear fission reactors fueled with uranium for installations on Mars.
       In the 1960s, NASA worked on fission reactors for use in space missions. The Systems for Nuclear Auxiliary Power research project resulted in two types of nuclear reactors. The first system was the radioisotope thermoelectric generators which utilize heat from the decay of radioactive elements such as plutonium to generate electricity. The RTGs have provided power for dozens of space probes.
        The second technology developed by the SNAP program was a fission reactor called the SNAP-10A. It was the only U.S. nuclear power reactor that has even operated in space. After launch in early April of 1965, it ran successfully for forty three days before the failure of unrelated equipment in the spacecraft brought an end to the demonstration.
        NASA has provided funds for other nuclear power technology development projects after SNAP but those projects were ultimately abandoned for a variety of reasons including problems with funding, political issues and technical problems.
        In 2010, NASAs interest in fission reactors was reawakened because of a study reviewing options for power systems to be used in space missions. In 2014, NASA’s Game Changing Development program provided funds for a program called Kilopower. The goal of this fifteen million dollar project was to build and test a small nuclear fission reactor by September 30, 2017 at the Nevada National Security Site near Las Vegas. The testing is scheduled to be completed by January of 2018. If the tests are successful, then NASA will begin work on a bigger system for testing on Mars or other long space mission.
        The Kilopower reactor is about six and a half feet tall. It is designed to produce as much as a kilowatt of electricity. However, the test reactor will not include the Stirling engines that are part of the full design. The Stirling engines convert the energy of the fission reactors into heat. The tests will use thermal simulators to verify that the reactor is generating the desired output. 
        NASA engineers estimate that human expeditions to Mars will require systems that can generate about forty kilowatts of power. The greatest power requirements for future human Mars expeditions will be the equipment that is needed to produce fuel, air, water, run the habitat and power scientific equipment. NASA plans call for sending four or five small ten kilowatt fission reactors to Mars.
        NASA considered the use of solar panels to generate electricity on Mars but that would restrict missions to areas of Mars that received enough sunlight to provide the needed energy. The places on Mars that receive the most sunlight only get about a third of the solar energy that sunny places receive on Mars. There is also the problem of the regular dust storms on Mars that would block sunlight even in sunny areas.
Artist’s concept of four nuclear fission reactors on Mars:

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       Last week I wrote a post about new legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives calling for the addition of a Space Corps to the U.S. military. The bill proposing the new Space Corps would have the Air Force host the new branch, much as the Navy hosts the Marine Corps. However, it turns out that some naval officers are taking exception to the proposal because they think that the Navy should be the host for the Space Corps.
       Opponents of the Space Corps being formed under the Air Force point out that long space missions on manned spacecraft would be more like operations on ships at sea than flights of aircraft. Space stations that provide fuel and supplies and rotate crews on spaceships would be like floating staging bases now used by the Navy to supply fleets of ships.
        Some critics have pointed out that the Navy is used to thinking in two dimensional terms. The supporters of the Navy refute that by pointing to the three dimensional movement of submarines and Navy planes. The supporters say that the Space Corps will have to combine the naval mentalities needed for surface, subsurface, land and air warfare to answer threats and deal with navigation hazards in Earth orbit and beyond.
       Up until 2002, the Navy had the Naval Space Command. This branch of the Navy controlled space surveillance satellites, advocated for naval warfighting requirements, and advised the Navy on the production of space plans and training. The U.S. Navy Space Surveillance System included a chain of radar stations across the U.S. Southwest that could detect anything as small as a basketball in Earth orbit. Following the decommissioning of the NSC, the Air Force took over control of SPASUR.
       Even though the NSC has been decommissioned, that has not ended the involvement of the Navy in space. The Arleigh Burke class of guided missile destroyers employs the Aegis Combat System and the SPY- 1D multifunction passive electronically scanned array radar. They are able to detect and engage ballistic missiles in space. Supporters of the Navy’s claim to the new Space Corps say that the Navy has the culture and capability to integrate space-based missions and space-compatible concepts into its global system.
       Modern Naval command installations such as an AEGIS Combat Information Center or the integrated fighting bridge of an Independence Class littoral combat ship resemble the imaginary bridges of spaceships in science fiction movies and TV shows. Popular shows such as Star Trek, Battlestar Gallactica, and popular games such as HALO and Warhammer 40k recognize the natural fit of the naval systems of today with the planned spacecraft of tomorrow.
      It is obvious that the military will have to move into space despite the international treaties that ban the militarization of space. Supporters of the Navy say that the Air Force is the wrong choice to host the proposed Space Corps. They say that the U.S. Navy and not the U.S. Air Force “has the crew mentality, operational perspective, and leadership culture compatible with our long-term space needs.” 

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       U.S. Representative Mike Rodgers and U.S. Representative Jim Cooper are the top representatives on the Strategic Forces Subcommittee which oversees military space operations. They recently introduced legislation to the House Armed Services Committee to require the U.S. Air Force to establish a “Space Corps” as a distinct branch of the military by January 1, 2019 to serve “as a separate military service within the Department of the Air Force and under the civilian leadership of the Secretary of the Air Force.” The HASC is preparing to vote on the National Defense Authorization Act.
        “There is bipartisan acknowledgement that the strategic advantages we derive from our national security space systems are eroding,” said Rep. Rogers and Rep. Jim Cooper in a statement. “We are convinced that the Department of Defense is unable to take the measures necessary to address these challenges effectively and decisively, or even recognize the nature and scale of its problems.”
        The United States Armed Forces has five branches: the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Air Force, and the Coast Guard. The Department of Defense only has three subordinate departs: the Department of the Army, the Department of the Navy, and Department of the Air Force. The Marine Corps operate under the Department of the Navy. The Coast Guard is under the Department of Homeland Security. The new Space Corps would be set up to work closely with the Department of the Air Force under the authority of the Secretary of the Air Force.
        There would be a Chief of Staff of the Space Corps who would have a seat on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They would be similar in rank to the Chief of Staff of the Air Force. The legislation also calls for a U.S. Space Command under the U.S. Strategic Command.
         The U.S. Congress is concerned that the rapidly increasing space infrastructure being launched by multiple nations poses a potential threat to U.S. space infrastructure. Hostile nations could destroy U.S. satellite networks disrupting communication and surveillance systems that are critical to national security. In the future, there will be even more activity in space. While international treaties ban weapons in space, the U.S. military is concerned that a rival nation may militarize space.
       Some Air Force generals support the formation of the Space Corps but the Air Force Chief of Staff says that the Air Force should be in charge of military operations in space for the time being. He said, “Whether there’s a time in our future where we want to take a look at this again, I would say that we keep that dialog open, but right now I think it would actually move us backwards.”
       The process of passing legislation is long and complex. First there will have to be a formal legislative markup session in the HASC which to review the new portions of the NDAA on June 22. Following the review, the entire HASC will need to vote and approve the bill prior to a debate on the House floor. The House will vote on the bill after July 4th. The Senate Armed Services Committee will hold a markup session on the NDAA on June 28th before a vote to send it to the floor of the Senate. If the legislation survives and is approved in both the House and the Senate, then it will be sent to the White House for the President’s signature.
         Even if this legislation to form the Space Corps does not survive to be passed into law, the circumstances that prompted it to be drafted will not disappear. The debate about creating the Corps will continue and eventually it is expected that there will be a sixth branch of the United States Armed Services.

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       The human race has been obsessed with Mars for over a century. There has been a lot of talk lately about manned expeditions to Mars. From a private group in Europe to NASA, plans are being made to visit and, perhaps, even colonize Mars. Elon Musk, the entrepreneur who founded SpaceX to provide launch services, has been talking about colonizing Mars for years. Recently, he provided more detail about his plans for colonizing Mars. He said that just publicizing his plans will make missions to the red planet more likely.
       Musk points out that using an old style “Apollo” approach would cost about ten billion dollars per person for a Mars mission. He says that if the price per person can be brought under two hundred thousand dollars per person, it would be feasible to establish a self-sustanining colony on Mars. He says that a two orders of magnitude reduction in cost could result from reusing launch vehicles. Another two orders of magnitude drop in cost could come from using methane for fuel. refueling in orbit, and producing fuel on Mars.
       Musk envisions reusing launch vehicles to send tankers full of fuel to Earth orbit to fuel the Martian Colony fleet. He foresees the need for a huge fleet to colonize Mars. As many as a thousand ships would be fueled and filled with cargo and colonists. They would all launch together when the window for a Mars mission opened. The mission window opens about every two years.
      Musk estimates that a million people would be needed to establish a self-sustaining Mars colony. He thinks that about a hundred people per ship would be a reasonable number. That would mean that it would take about ten thousand trips to ferry a million people to Mars. So having a thousand ships would mean that it would still take decades to move a million people. He estimates that it would take from forty to a hundred years to establish a Martian colony.
      Musk’s is working on a design for his Martian fleet that would include using carbon fiber to build the vessels for strength and reduced weight. The new ships will have a simplified fuel system in which some of the methane and the oxygen in the tanks are used to pressurize the tanks. The spacecraft would be the biggest ever built. Each ship would be able to carry four hundred and fifty tons of cargo.
      The top of each ship would be the pressurized compartment for the crew and passengers. Under that would be an unpressurized area for densely packed cargo. Under that cargo compartment would be the oxygen tank with the methane tank beneath the oxygen tank. There will be six high-efficiency vacuum engines mounted around the perimeter of the thrust cone. Three additional engines would be mounted on gimbals and used for steering.
      Current estimates of travel time to Mars vary between one hundred and fifty and three hundred days depending on the distance between the Earth and Mars and the velocity of the spacecraft. Musk hopes that his ships will be able to make the trip in eighty days.
       Musk plans on setting up large fields of solar panels to provide energy for the colony and for fuel production. The Martian atmosphere is primarily carbon dioxide. There is plenty of water-ice on and just under the surface. With the energy provided by the solar panels, it will be possible to make methane and oxygen.
       Musk hopes to have a prototype spacecraft built in the next four years. While I am impressed with what Musk has managed to accomplish in the area of launch vehicles, I fear that his vision of a Mars colony may be just a fantasy in the end.  
 Artist’s concept of Musk Mars spacecraft:

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       Elon Musk’s SpaceX company has been in the news recently for their ability to land a launch vehicle back at the launch site after a mission. They are working to make the reuse of launch vehicles routine which will lower the cost of launches substantially.
       The DoD is heavily involved in exploiting space as part of its mission to protect the security of the U.S. It launches satellites for reconnaissance, communications and defense. It is inevitable that future wars will include critical support from military assets in Earth orbit.
        The United Launch Alliance is a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Boeing Defense, Space & Security. It was formed in 2006 to provide launch services to the U.S. government. It was the only government launch provider for ten years and its customers included the Department of Defense, NASA and other government agencies.
         Musk wanted a piece of the DoD action for SpaceX and pursued the matter in the courts until he won the right to launch vehicle for the DoD in 2014. SpaceX’s first job for the DoD was to launch a National Reconnaissance Office satellite in May of this year.
        The Air Force X-37B is a highly classified miniature unmanned version of the space shuttle which was developed to carry out long mission in orbit for the DoD. It is about thirty feet long, ten feet tall and has a wing span of about fifteen feet. It weights about eleven thousand pounds. The Air Force does not provide details about what equipment is carried in the X-37B cargo hold. A fact sheet for the X-37B only said, “The primary objectives of the X-37B are twofold: reusable spacecraft technologies for America’s future in space and operating experiments which can be returned to, and examined, on Earth.”
        Boeing built two X-37B for the DoD. So far, it has flown four missions. The last mission lasted for seven hundred days. The fifth mission of the X-37B will be launched in August of this year aboard a SpaceX launch vehicle.
       One reason that the DoD is using SpaceX to launch missions is that they can provide a cheaper service than alternative launch companies. The ULA that had been the only launch company serving the DoD before Musk took them to court has successfully launched over a hundred missions. Their cost per launch is currently about a hundred million dollars which they are working to reduce. The cost of a launch by SpaceX is currently about sixty million dollars. At a forty percent reduction in cost, it is easy to see why DoD is attracted to SpaceX.
       The ULA complained recently that they were not even given the chance to bid on the X-37B mission. A representative for ULA said in an email that “ULA remains fully committed to continuing to support America’s national security missions with world-class launch services.” ULA says that with multiple launch platforms, it can provide “launch readiness” at any time which is something its competitors cannot do.
       Contracts from DoD will be a major source of income for SpaceX in addition to the supply missions it has been flying for NASA in support of the International Space Station. Next year, SpaceX will begin flying astronauts to the ISS, its most ambitious launch project. 

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       For the most part, I have used this blog to talk about practical matters such as space launch facilities and rocket engines. I have also talked about plans for near future developments of space technology. Today I thought I would go a little further out and talk about an interesting but radical proposal for space infrastructure.
        The New York architectural firm Cloud Architecture Office has proposed erecting giant skyscrapers by dangling them from asteroids in Earth orbit. CAO calls the idea the Universal Orbital Support System. An asteroid would be placed in orbit about thirty thousand miles above the surface of the Earth. A very strong cable would be dropped from the asteroid and a tall building would be suspended from the cable. They call the proposed first building “Analemma Tower.”
       One major advantage of such a building is that it would be totally portable. It can be constructed anywhere and then attached to the asteroid to be moved to any orbital path that is desirable. For instance, if the Tower is build in Dubai, it would cost only twenty percent of what it would cost if it were build in New York City.
        The Tower would draw power from space-based solar panels which would always be exposed to the sun and would generate continuous power. Water will be captured and recycled from clouds and rainwater. Elevators would be driven electromagnetically and would not need any cables.
        The name analemma comes from a term which refers to the figure-eight path that the sun traces during the day as seen from any one place on Earth. The asteroid that holds the building will be in what is called a geostationary orbit which moves with the rotation of the Earth. The Tower could describe a figure-eight orbit that could pass over New York, Atlanta, Havana, Panama City and cities on the West Coast of South America every day.
       The CAO plans call for creating different vertical sections of the tower. Starting at the top part of the tower, the different sections would be:
Funerary
Reliquary
Worship
Monument
Residential
Gardens and agricultural
Office, business and commercial
Transport, shopping, dining, entertainment.
        The building would extend from about five miles to about twenty miles above the Earth. The top would get about forty more minutes of sunlight per day than the bottom because of its altitude. However, the extreme temperature and pressure conditions would make it difficult and dangerous for habitation.
        Although GAO admits that there would be many technical challenges and problems, not to mention great expense to construct such a building, they say that “it taps into the desire for extreme height, seclusion and constant mobility.” GAO is confident that the Tower would pay for itself with extremely expensive prices per square foot, increasing with elevation.
       GAO points out that there have been important developments with respect to the utilization of asteroids. NASA has rendezvoused with and landed on a comet and is planning a mission for 2021 to capture and relocate an asteroid. If this second mission is successful, then utilizing an orbiting asteroid to anchor a building is definitely within the realm of possibility.
Artist’s concept of Analemma Tower dangling over New York:
 

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Credit: Clouds Architecture Office.