8/7 (1)Countering Objections to Space Settlement (2)OCO3 LA Urban-focused satellite CO2 observations

When:  Aug 7, 2021 from 10:00 to 12:30 (PT)
Associated with  Los Angeles-Las Vegas Section
RSVP and Information: https://conta.cc/3tRGgAv
AIAA LA-LV e-Town Hall Meeting 8/7
Saturday, August 7, 2021, 10 AM PDT

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(Part I) (10:10 AM - 11:20 AM PDT (GMT -0700))
Countering Objections to Space Settlement
by
Mr. Al Globus

Contract software engineer, NASA Ames Research Center - Retired
AIAA Space Colonization Technical Committee
NSS Board of Directors
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(Part II)(11:20 AM - 12:50 PM PDT (GMT -0700))
Urban-focused satellite CO2 observations from the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-3:
A first look at the Los Angeles megacity
by
Dr. Matthäus Kiel

Research Scientist
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
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(Part I)
Countering Objections to Space Settlement
Space settlement is moving from the fringe of space conversations towards the center. As this happens some will object to one or more aspects of space settlement. Most of these objections have been heard before. Indeed, since space settlement became part of the discussion with Gerard O’Neill’s work on free space settlements in the 1970s, many of the same objections have surfaced again and again. The space settlement movement, including this author, has some experience responding to these attacks. This presentation is intended to be a place to find rebuttals to objections to space settlement. For each objection there are talking points and a brief discussion.

Mr. Al Globus worked at NASA Ames for 39 years as a contract software engineer on space settlement, asteroid mining, Hubble, space stations, X37, shuttle, Earth observation, TDRSS, cubesats, lunar teleoperation, spaceflight effects on bone, molecular nanotechnology, scientific visualization, and space solar power publishing dozens of papers on these and other topics. He founded and has run the annual NSS Space Settlement Contest for 7-12 grade students for over 25 years. The contest attracted 14,000 kids in 2020. Most recently, he found a way to build O’Neill-style space settlements with multiple orders of magnitude less mass and place them close to Earth, making launch from Earth practical.

Al is a member of the NSS Board of Directors, chairman of the Space Settlement Advocacy Committee, member of the Policy committee, and sits on the board of the Alliance for Space Development.
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(Part II)
Urban-focused satellite CO2 observations from the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-3:
A first look at the Los Angeles megacity
The NASA Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 and -3 (OCO-2 and OCO-3) are the first NASA space-based sensors designed to measure carbon dioxide (CO2) from space with the precision and coverage needed to identify the sources emitting it into the atmosphere and the natural processes that absorb it at the surface.

Whereas OCO-2 (launched in 2014) provides global maps of column-averaged dry-air mole fractions of carbon dioxide (XCO2) with a 16-day repeat cycle, OCO-3 is specifically designed to support the identification and quantification of anthropogenic CO2 emissions on regional scales (<100km). OCO-3 was launched on May 4, 2019 from Kennedy Space Center via a Space-X Falcon 9 rocket. The instrument was installed two days later as an external payload on the International Space Station (ISS). OCO-3’s new Snapshot Area Map (SAM) and target mode observations provide an innovative dataset for carbon studies on sub-city scales. Unlike any other current space-based instrument, OCO-3 has the ability to scan large contiguous areas (up to 80km x 80km) of emission hot spots like cities, power plants, and volcanoes. These measurements result in dense, fine-scale spatial maps of XCO2.

Here we present XCO2 distributions over the Los Angeles megacity (LA) derived from the very first OCO-3 SAM and target mode observations taken in October 2019 and early 2020. Urban XCO2 enhancements range from 0 − 6 parts per million (ppm) relative to a clean background. OCO-3's SAM observations reveal intra-urban variations of XCO2 over the city that have never been observed from space before. The spatial variations are mainly driven by the complex fossil fuel emission patterns and meteorological conditions in the LA Basin. In the future, OCO-3's frequent target and SAM mode observations will play a major role in quantifying anthropogenic emissions over urban areas world wide. These measurements can help to monitor the effectiveness and progress of localized CO2 emission reduction policies.

Dr. Matthäus Kiel is a Research Scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Since obtaining his Ph.D. in Physics at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Germany), his research has focused primarily on the retrieval of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations from multiple remote sensing platforms (satellite, airborne, ground-based). Dr. Kiel conducted his postdoctoral studies at the California Institute of Technology with focus on the terrestrial carbon cycle, addressing cross-cutting challenges in the anthropogenic footprint of carbon and its relationship to air quality. Presently, Dr. Kiel is a member of the OCO-2 and OCO-3 science and validation teams at JPL. He provides science support for the development of retrieval algorithms and has extensive experience in validating satellite products against independent measurements. Further, Dr. Kiel is part of the MAIA science team at JPL and works on the quality assessment of aerosol and particular matter measurements from space. He works closely with all project teams including calibration, algorithm, validation, and mission planning.
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Disclaimer: The views of the speakers do not represent the views of AIAA or the AIAA Los Angeles-Las Vegas Section.
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(949)426-8175
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