Shuttle/Shuttle Concept Restart: Fwd: Human Spaceflight News

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Begin forwarded message:

From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: June 18, 2013 6:20:49 AM GMT-06:00
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: Human Spaceflight News - June 18, 2013 and JSC Today

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

JSC TODAY HEADLINES
1.            Your Next Mission, Should You Choose to Accept ...
2.            Starport Presents: Buzz Aldrin Book Signing -- This Friday
3.            RSVP Now for the JSC NMA June Luncheon on June 27
4.            ISS IT Integrated Help Desk
5.            Parenting Series Topic: Understanding Child Development
6.            NASA GIRLS and NASA BOYS Are Looking for Virtual Mentors
7.            Extended TDY FedTraveler Live Lab Tomorrow, June 19
8.            EWB-JSC -- What's it All About? Introduction Session
9.            Society of Reliability Engineers (SRE) Luncheon Meeting
10.          Shuttle Knowledge Console (SKC) v5.0
11.          Registration Deadline - APPEL - Project Planning Analysis and Control
12.          TTI RLLS Portal Education Series -- WebEx Training Weekly the Month of June
________________________________________     NASA FACT
" Detailed analysis and review have borne out researchers' initial interpretation of pebble-containing slabs that NASA's Mars rover Curiosity investigated last year: They are part of an ancient streambed."
________________________________________
1.            Your Next Mission, Should You Choose to Accept ...
Get your very own "Passport to Explore Space" and be one of the first to visit every NASA Visitor Center to experience the history and future of America's space program. NASA Visitor Centers AND shuttle orbiter locations have developed a passport to be stamped with a special insignia at each location you visit.
And of course, Space Center Houston is also part of this new program. With your passport, you have the opportunity to embark on a mission to explore and experience the diverse Visitor Center and orbiter locations coast to coast, in big cities and remote locales.
Join Passport to Explore Space and receive:
o             An official eight-page Passport to Explore Space
o             A commemorative stamp placed on your passport at every NASA Visitor Center and shuttle orbiter location you visit
o             Savings on admission, tours, food and retail (offers vary by location)
o             Subscription to "The Space Flyer," a quarterly newsletter featuring the latest happenings at each NASA Visitor Center and shuttle orbiter location
Travel the country and get up close to America's spaceflight story. For more details, check out: http://www.visitnasa.com
JSC External Relations, Office of Communications and Public Affairs x35111 http://www.visitnasa.com

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2.            Starport Presents: Buzz Aldrin Book Signing -- This Friday
Starport is extremely proud to bring you this unique opportunity - the legendary astronaut and space explorer Buzz Aldrin Book Signing on June 21 in the Building 3 café at 11 a.m. Get your copy of Aldrin's new book, "Mission to Mars: My Vision for Space Exploration" for only $26 in the Buildings 3 and 11 Starport Gift Shops.
Please note that Aldrin will only sign books purchased at Starport during this event. No other memorabilia or books purchased elsewhere will be autographed. Don't miss this opportunity to get a piece of American history from this legendary American Hero. Pre-sale books will be delivered at the book signing.
Event Date: Friday, June 21, 2013   Event Start Time:11:00 AM   Event End Time:1:00 PM
Event Location: Building 3

Add to Calendar

Cyndi Kibby x35352 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/

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3.            RSVP Now for the JSC NMA June Luncheon on June 27
Please join us for the June JSC National Management Association (NMA) chapter luncheon presentation featuring Bonnie J. Dunbar, Ph.D., a former NASA astronaut and spaceflight veteran.

When: Thursday, June 27

Time: 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Location: Hilton Discovery Ballroom

Hilton Houston NASA Clear Lake
3000 NASA Pkwy.
Houston, Texas, 77058-4322
o             Cost for members: FREE
o             Cost for non-members: $25
There are three great menu options to choose from:
o             Chicken Alfredo
o             Grilled Tilapia
o             Vegetable Lasagna
Please RSVP at http://www.jscnma.com/Events by close of business Thursday, June 20, with your menu selection. For RSVP technical assistance, please contact Amy Kitchen at x35569.
Catherine Williams x33317

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4.            ISS IT Integrated Help Desk
The International Space Station (ISS) Information Technology (IT) and ISS Data Management and Integration (DMI) help desk phone numbers have been updated, and are now served by the MAPI Help Desk.
If you have an incident, issue or need direct assistance, you can reach the MAPI Help Desk at 281-244-8999.
Services provided include:
o             DMI services, including data location, data accessibility, data transition and help with EDMS uploading
o             IT services, including loan pool support, internal SRs, IP liaison and desktop support
o             Facility support services, including phone, furniture and moves
o             Application support services, including usability, new capability requests and access requests
Note: We will help direct you to any services that fall beyond our scope.
ISS MAPI IT Customer Service - 281-244-8999
ISS MAPI IT Customer Service x48999 https://iss-www.jsc.nasa.gov/nwo/mapi/home/web/helpdesk-apps.shtml

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5.            Parenting Series Topic: Understanding Child Development
It is commonly said that when you have a child, the child does not come with a parenting manual. Each child and family situation is unique. Effective parenting requires a clear understanding of the developmental limitations and abilities of children at different stages. We will be discussing ideas for guiding your child during their different stages and how your parenting expectations play a role. Please join Anika Isaac, MS, LPC, LMFT, LCDC, CEAP, NCC, of the JSC Employee Assistance Program today, June 18, at 12 noon in the Building 30 Auditorium as she presents, "Child Development," the second topic of a monthly series focused on parenting.
Event Date: Tuesday, June 18, 2013   Event Start Time:12:00 PM   Event End Time:1:00 PM
Event Location: Building 30 Auditorium

Add to Calendar

Lorrie Bennett, Employee Assistance Program, Clinical Services Branch x36130

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6.            NASA GIRLS and NASA BOYS Are Looking for Virtual Mentors
NASA wants to inspire the next generation of scientists, engineers and innovators! We need YOU to help these young middle school students see how science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) are FUN! Women@NASA has created NASA Giving Initiative and Relevance to Learning Science (GIRLS) and NASA Building Outstanding Young Scientists (BOYS) to cultivate excitement in the STEM fields. Each participant will complete online lessons with his/her assigned mentor while virtually connected through Skype or Google Chat over a five-week period this summer from July 8 to Aug. 11. You will meet with your student one time per week and will be provided suggested lessons, or you can create something on your own. Volunteer to be a mentor by sending an email to mamta.nagaraja@nasa.gov by Wednesday, July 3. There is no application or other requirement. Contractors and civil servants are eligible to be mentors. To learn more, click here.
Mamta Patel Nagaraja, NASA Headquarters 202-358-2014

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7.            Extended TDY FedTraveler Live Lab Tomorrow, June 19
Do you need some hands-on, personal help with FedTraveler.com? Join the Business Systems and Process Improvement Office for an Extended TDY FedTraveler Live Lab tomorrow, June 19, any time between 9 a.m. and noon in Building 12, Room 142. Our help desk representatives will be available to help you work through Extended TDY travel processes and learn more about using FedTraveler during this informal workshop. Bring your current travel documents or specific questions that you have about the system and join us for some hands-on, in-person help with FedTraveler. If you'd like to sign up for this Extended TDY FedTraveler Live Lab, please log into SATERN and register. For additional information, please contact Judy Seier at x32771. To register in SATERN, please click on this SATERN direct link: https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=SCHEDULED_...
Gina Clenney x39851

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8.            EWB-JSC -- What's it All About? Introduction Session
What is Engineers Without Borders (EWB)? If you don't know, then come out and find out what we're all about this Wednesday, June 19, from noon to 1 p.m. in the back half of Conference Room 141 in Building 7. The EWB-JSC chapter has worked on water treatment, rainwater catchment, solar power and, most recently, fruit drying with the communities the chapter partners with. The group has worked in Mexico and Rwanda, along with mentoring local student chapters on projects in Nicaragua. Come out and learn more about EWB-JSC and hear what they've been up to and how you can get involved. No RSVP is required.
Angela Cason x40903 http://ewb-jsc.org/index.html

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9.            Society of Reliability Engineers (SRE) Luncheon Meeting
The Greater Houston Chapter of SRE will hold a general membership meeting on Wednesday, June 19, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Anyone is welcome to come and hear a presentation by Diana DeMott on "Human Reliability Considerations in Risk Assessment," a presentation she recently made at the Houston American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Symposium. The meeting will be held at Tommy's Patio Café (2555 Bay Area Blvd., Houston - note change in meeting location). Each attendee is responsible for his or her own meal. For more information about the Greater Houston Area SRE Chapter, please visit the link.
For more information, contact one of the officers below:
President - Bob Graber, 281-335-2305, robert.r.graber@nasa.gov
Vice President - Lorenzo Calloway, 832-527-0086, lcallowayii@aol.com
Treasurer - Hung Nguyen, 281-483-3233, hung.x.nguyen@nasa.gov
Secretary - Troy Schwartz, 281-871-7512, tschwartz@LCE.com
Robert Graber 281-335-2305

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10.          Shuttle Knowledge Console (SKC) v5.0
The JSC Chief Knowledge Officer and the Engineering Directorate are pleased to announce the fifth release of SKC. This release includes:
o             A new image rotator that gets new images daily
o             An update to the SIRMA archive that includes 15 additional records
o             75,000 new files in the Shuttle Document Archive (75 GB)
o             The Space Flight Operational Contract document archive, consisting of 192 documents
o             Shuttle postflight videos, consisting of 127 videos
o             Shuttle Flight Documents, consisting of 22 documents collected from the experiences of individuals within the Space Shuttle Program (SSP)
To date, 1.13 TB of information, with 3.82 million documents of SSP knowledge, has been captured. If you are aware of data that still needs to be captured, contact Howard Wagner or Brent Fontenot. Click the "Submit Feedback" button located on the top of the site navigation and give us your comments and thoughts.
Brent J. Fontenot x36456 https://skc.jsc.nasa.gov/Home.aspx

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11.          Registration Deadline - APPEL - Project Planning Analysis and Control
This five-day course offers a foundation in program planning, analysis and control, and provides intensive instruction in project management fundamentals across the entire project lifecycle. Course content covers the areas of technical integration of project elements, design and discipline functions, and their associated interactions to balance performance, cost, schedule, reliability and operability. Proven strategies and practical tools for planning, executing and controlling a variety of projects are presented.
This course is designed for NASA's new engineers or early-career hires.
This course is available for self-registration in SATERN until 11:59 p.m. today. Attendance is open to civil servants and contractors.
Dates: Monday through Friday, July 29 to Aug. 2
Location: Building 12, Room 152
Zeeaa Quadri x39723 https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=SCHED...

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12.          TTI RLLS Portal Education Series -- WebEx Training Weekly the Month of June
From June through August, TTI is hosting the TTI RLLS Portal Education Series highlighting different RLLS modules weekly.
The June 17 weekly education series:
- June 19 at 7:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. CDT - Translation Support
- June 20 at 7:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. CDT - Interpretation Support
The 30-minute training sessions are compute- based WebEx sessions, offering individuals the convenience to join from their own workstation. The RLLS Portal Education Series will cover the following:
o             System login
o             Locating support modules
o             Locating downloadable instructions
o             Creating support requests
o             Submittal requirements
o             Submitting on behalf of another
o             Adding attachments
o             Selecting special requirements
o             Submitting a request
o             Status of a request
Ending each training session, the instructor will answer any questions and remind all users that TTI will no longer accept requests for U.S.-performed services unless they are submitted through the RLLS Portal.
Email James.E.Welty@nasa.gov or call 281-335-8565 to sign up.
James Welty 281-335-8565 https://www.tti-portal.com

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________________________________________
JSC Today is compiled periodically as a service to JSC employees on an as-submitted basis. Any JSC organization or employee may submit articles. To see an archive of previous JSC Today announcements, go to http://www6.jsc.nasa.gov/pao/news/jsctoday/archives.

Human Spaceflight News
Tuesday, June 18, 2013

First US female in space & first ever view of a Space Shuttle in orbit during Challenger's STS-7

HEADLINES AND LEADS

NASA Authorization cycle begins with asteroid retrieval in House's crosshairs

Dan Leone - Space News

A draft authorization bill from the House Science space subcommittee would cap NASA spending at about $16.87 billion for the next two years, prohibit a proposed asteroid retrieval mission, overhaul the agency's management structure and raise the spending cap for Commercial Crew activities while increasing congressional oversight of the program. The bill, as Republican lawmakers have been hinting during House Science, Space and Technology Committee hearings all year, also aims to steer the nation's human spaceflight program back to the Moon, and provide more money for robotic exploration of the solar system at the expense of NASA's Earth observation program.

Hatch of ATV-4 Remains Closed after Docking with ISS

RIA Novosti

Crew members of the International Space Station (ISS) were instructed by mission control teams on Monday to keep the hatches of the newly docked ATV-4 Albert Einstein unmanned resupply spacecraft closed. The fourth Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV-4) of the European Space Agency (ESA) was launched atop an Ariane 5 rocket from the Kourou space center in French Guyana on June 5 and docked with Russia's Zvezda module of the ISS on Saturday afternoon. The planned hatch opening and initial ingress was expected on Monday.

White House, NASA Want Help Hunting Asteroids

Washington Post

The White House and NASA on Tuesday will ask the public for help finding asteroids that potentially could slam into the Earth with catastrophic consequences. Citing planetary defense, the administration has decided that the search for killer rocks in space should be the latest in a series of "Grand Challenges," in which the government sets an ambitious goal, helps create public-private partnerships and sometimes offers prize money for innovative ideas. "This is really a call to action to find all asteroid threats to human populations and know what to do about them," NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver said Monday. She said the asteroid hunt would help prove that "we're smarter than the dinosaurs." (NO FURTHER TEXT)

NASA tests next-gen rovers to explore the moon and Mars

CNET News (cnet.com)

With the success of the Mars rover Curiosity, NASA is now developing planetary-exploration rovers designed to be controlled by astronauts in space. CNET's Kara Tsuboi takes us to the NASA Ames Research Center where a moonscape has been built to test the K-10 rovers. With the success of NASA's Mars Curiosity rover, NASA is now developing a new fleet of rovers for planetary exploration. But unlike Curiosity, which is controlled at a NASA facility on earth, these rovers would be controlled by astronauts in the International Space Station.

ESA's Orion Service Module Overweight, Delaying PDR

Amy Svitak - Aviation Week

The European Space Agency (ESA) and its industrial partners need to reduce the weight of a service module they are developing to fly on NASA's Orion multipurpose crew exploration vehicle in 2017, a hurdle that will delay preliminary design review of the project by a little more than three months. Based on Europe's Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), the service module is to be led by Astrium Space Transportation, the prime contractor on the ATV. Astrium has been working on the effort since shortly before ESA's 20 member states approved a first tranche of around €250 million ($330 million) in funding for the service module at a ministerial budget meeting last November.

Antares first-stage engines available long term, Aerojet Rocketdyne chief Says

Peter de Selding - Space News

The president of the newly formed Aerojet Rocketdyne propulsion provider on June 17 said the company has secured an agreement with the manufacturers of Russia's NK-33 engine, which powers the U.S. Antares rocket's first stage in a version called AJ-26, to assure its long-term supply. At a press briefing here during the Paris Air Show, Warren M. Boley Jr. said Antares prime contractor Orbital Sciences Corp. has only to sign a contract by this fall to assure that deliveries of the new engines can begin in 2016.

Here's how Aerojet Rocketdyne might bring 5,000 new aerospace engineering jobs to Huntsville

Lee Roop - Huntsville Times

When the president of the newly formed Aerojet Rocketdyne aerospace company told state leaders at the Paris Air Show Sunday that a new NASA rocket engine could mean 5,000 engineering jobs for Huntsville, he got people excited. Here's what Warren Boley was talking about and why he's bullish on the new company's future in Alabama. Aerojet, one of the two aerospace giants making up the new Aerojet Rocketdyne, has one of four contracts NASA has awarded for studying the next-generation propulsion system America will need to go to Mars.

NASA picks 8 new astronauts, 4 of them women

Marcia Dunn - Associated Press

NASA has eight new astronauts - its first new batch in four years. Among the lucky candidates: the first female fighter pilot to become an astronaut in nearly two decades. A female helicopter pilot also is in the group. In fact, four of the eight are women, the highest percentage of female astronaut candidates ever selected by NASA. Monday's announcement came on the eve of the 30th anniversary of the launch of the first American woman in space, Sally Ride. She died last summer.

NASA's new astronauts: Will these men and women fly to Mars?

Karen Kaplan - Los Angeles Times

It's been two years since NASA's space shuttle program came to an end, but thousands of Americans still dream of becoming astronauts. Eight of them – four men and four women – were introduced Monday as NASA's astronaut candidate class for 2013. More than 6,300 people applied to become astronauts-in-training, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a video announcement. That is the second-most applications the space agency has ever received, according to a NASA statement.

NASA's new astronaut class marks changing of guard for US spaceflight

Pete Spotts - Christian Science Monitor

If there ever was a changing of the guard within the US astronaut corps, perhaps it came Monday. NASA announced the selection of four men and four women as its newest astronaut candidates, the first newcomers to the corps in four years. For the first time, no classmate was alive – either as tot or teen – during the Apollo missions, Skylab, or the Apollo-Soyuz rendezvous between spacecraft launched by intense geopolitical rivals, the US and the former Soviet Union. Instead, theirs was the space-shuttle era – with its tragedies as well as its successes – and the birth and growth of the International Space Station. Both have been criticized in some circles as inspirational duds. And if the future direction of NASA's human spaceflight program keeps twisting and folding back on itself in a political taffy-pull between NASA, the White House, and Congress, that doesn't seem to be discouraging would-be space travelers.

8 score astronaut spots out of 6,300 NASA applicants
Half of new crew are women

Todd Halvorson - Florida Today

Just call them "The Great Eight." Thirty-five years after selecting its first class of space shuttle astronauts in 1978 — the "Thirty-Five New Guys" — NASA on Monday introduced the four men and four women who make up the Astronaut Class of 2013. Talk about stiff competition. The eight were selected from more than 6,300 applicants — the highest number since more than 8,000 vied for those 35 slots in 1978.

New class of NASA astronauts picked for training

SpaceflightNow.com

NASA has selected eight new candidates -- four men and four women -- to join the ranks of its astronaut corps. for missions to the International Space Station and beyond. Picked from the second-highest number of applicants in any previous rounds of astronaut selections, the space agency said more than 6,000 people applied for this 21st astronaut class . NASA has selected and trained 330 astronauts since the initial astronaut class of 1959. Most recently in 2009, NASA selected nine candidates. The latest trainees could become the first Americans to launch from U.S. since retirement of the space shuttle.

NASA unveils its latest class of astronauts – and they should go far

Clara Moskowitz - Space.com

NASA has picked eight Americans, a mix of scientists and military pilots, to begin training for future space missions that may one day launch them all the way to Mars. The new class includes four men and four women who will join the 49 active astronauts at the agency's astronaut corps at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. The new U.S. space travelers, which NASA unveiled Monday, could be part of the first crews to visit an asteroid or Mars, deep-space goals that NASA aims to explore. They could also be the first people to launch to space on a U.S.-built rocket since the era of the space shuttle, which ended in 2011.

Active, former Navy aviators among 8 new astronaut trainees

Navy Times

Two Navy aviators — one active, one former — are among NASA's latest astronaut trainees, a group of eight individuals selected from more than 6,100 applicants, the agency announced Monday. Lt. Cmdr. Victor Glover, 37, and former Lt. Cmdr. Josh Aaron Cassada, 39, are two of the six selectees with military backgrounds, a list that includes two active-duty Army majors, a Marine major and an Air Force lieutenant colonel.

NASA selects Airman for 2013 astronaut candidate class

Air Force News Service

NASA officials selected an Airman as one of the eight military and civilian candidates to become an astronaut trainee. After a 1 ½ year search, officials chose Lt. Col. Tyler N. Hague, the Department of Defense deputy chief of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, out of more than 6,100 applicants. Hague is a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colo., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School, Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.

NASA names members of the first mission to Mars

Alexandra Urusova - Itar-Tass

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration / NASA / has chosen eight Americans that will be able to participate in the first mission to Mars by 2020, as said in a statement of NASA on Monday. "The new space explorers are inspired by our scientific experiments that are carried out on the International Space Station," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "They are ready to lead the first mission outpost on an asteroid and Mars." Among the eight lucky winners are four women and four men. The candidates for a year and a half have been passing a series of complex tests, psychological and physical tests, as well as physical evaluation boards.

Spokane woman living dream of being an astronaut

Ian Cull - KXLY TV (Spokane)

How many people have dreamt of being an astronaut someday and then found out what we'd need to do get there, and gave up? One Spokane woman never gave up, and Monday, her dream continued. After a year and a half search by NASA, Army Major Anne McClain was selected as one of eight people to become a candidate for astronaut from a group of 6,300 applicants. "I can't actually remember ever wanting to do something else. I know from a very early age, before I could even remember saying what I wanted to be when I grow up, I was saying, 'I want to be an astronaut," Maj. McClain said.

New Castle doctor among NASA's newest astronaut recruits

Michael Pound Calkins - Ellwood City Ledger

"I'm Andrew Morgan, and I'm a 2013 astronaut candidate." A smiling Morgan, an Army doctor from New Castle, appeared late Monday in a video released by NASA to introduce the eight-member class of astronaut trainees, a group paired down from more than 6,300 applicants -- and a group that could be among the first people to set foot on Mars. "It's quite an amazing group of people we've selected," Janet Kavandi, NASA's flight crew operations director, said in a video news conference Monday afternoon. "We have a tremendously diverse group of people."

Lifelong dream fulfilled: Mainer to become astronaut
Jessica Meir of Caribou, whose yearbook goal was to walk in space, is one of eight new candidates chosen by NASA

Dennis Hoey - Press Herald (Portland, ME)

A woman from Maine has been chosen from thousands of applicants to train as an astronaut for NASA, a selection that could one day take her to Mars. Jessica U. Meir, a 1995 graduate of Caribou High School who now works in Boston, could be among the leaders of a manned mission to an asteroid in the 2020s and to Mars in the following decade, according to a statement issued by NASA. Meir, 35, is among eight astronaut trainees who were introduced Monday by NASA to be in its first training class in four years.

Jacksonville Woman To Train As NASA Astronaut

April Davis - WITN TV (Greenville, NC)

NASA announced Monday a Jacksonville woman is among the 8 astronaut candidates selected for its 2013 astronaut class after an extensive year-and-a-half long search. 34-year-old Christina Hammock is from Jacksonville. She holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from North Carolina State University. She currently serves as National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration station chief in American Samoa.

Jacksonville woman selected as astronaut candidate

Thomas Brennan - Jacksonville (NC) Daily News

When Christina Hammock attended White Oak High School, she dreamed of becoming an astronaut. Now, her dreams are coming true. Hammock, of Jacksonville, was one eight candidates selected when NASA announced its newest astronaut class Monday. The 34-year-old was among the four women selected — the highest concentration of female candidates ever selected by NASA. More than 6,000 people competed for the eight slots. "It feels incredible and it makes me feel like all my hard work was worth it," Hammock said. "I also realized it's not always hard work if you're doing what you love and following your dreams."

Bay Area woman makes cut to be astronaut

KGO TV (San Francisco)

After a year and a half of culling through 6,000 applicants, NASA has chosen four men and four women to train to become astronauts -- and one of them is from the Bay Area. Nicole Mann is a major in the U.S. Marine Corps and a fighter pilot. She is from Penngrove -- in Sonoma County and went to Stanford. She and the seven other men and women could take part in the first human mission to an asteroid and to Mars. By the way Tuesday is the 30th anniversary of the first American woman in space. Sally Ride also attended Stanford. She died last year of pancreatic cancer.
(NO FURTHER TEXT)

Lockheed Martin named NASA JSC Contractor of the Year

Bay Area Citizen

Lockheed Martin was recently named the Large Business Prime Contractor of the Year by NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC). The award recognizes sustained excellence in meeting or exceeding small business requirements during the nine years the company has held a contract to prepare and process cargo for the International Space Station (ISS). In the last year the contract has exceeded five of seven small business utilization goals by 20 percent or more.

Musk: Humans on Mars Before SpaceX Goes Public

Space News

Investors eager to own a piece of Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) could face a very long wait. According to a recent tweet from the Hawthorne, Calif.-based company's founder and chief executive, Elon Musk, there will be no initial public offering (IPO) of SpaceX stock before humans have begun to settle Mars. "No near term plans to IPO SpaceX," Musk wrote in a short message posted to Twitter June 6. "Only possible in very long term when Mars Colonial Transporter is flying regularly." The Mars Colonial Transporter is a conceptual vehicle that Musk has discussed as part of his company's stated long-term goal: sending human settlers to Mars. This is a change in tone for Musk, who up until the June 6 tweet had said that SpaceX would go public in the near-term, as his other two companies, Solar City and Tesla Motors, have. As recently as February 2012, Musk told Bloomberg News that he might take SpaceX public in 2013.
(NO FURTHER TEXT)

Colloborative thinking: space travel and beyond

Bonnyville, Canada Nouvelle (Editorial)

Earth can be a daunting place: with all the war, oppression, starvation and environmental degradation, among other absurd human decisions. They say ignorance is bliss, but at some point it seems we must become aware of the irrational and either take part, abstain, fight against it … or … get on a space shuttle and move to Mars. Perhaps pioneering the red planet is not the most practical solution. Maybe a more feasible option would be a trip to a permanent base on the Moon?

Death of Yuri Gagarin demystified 40 years on

Russia Today

After over 40 years of secrecy, the real cause of death of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space, has been made public. Prominent Russian cosmonaut Aleksey Leonov reveals the truth behind the events of that tragic day. For over 20 years Aleksey Leonov, the first man to conduct a spacewalk in 1965, has been struggling to gain permission to disclose details of what happened to the legendary Yuri Gagarin in March 1968.

30 YRS AGO CHALLENGER DELIVERED 1^st US WOMAN TO SPACE

Today's Highlight in History: On June 18, 1983…

Astronaut Sally K. Ride, 32, became America's first woman in space as she and four colleagues (commander Robert L. Crippen, pilot Frederick H. Hauck and Ride's fellow mission specialists John M. Fabian and Norman E. Thagard) blasted off aboard the space shuttle Challenger on STS-7, a six-day mission. (NO FURTHER TEXT)

'Ride, Sally Ride!' 30th Anniversary of Her Historic Spaceflight

Lynn Sherr - Parade Magazine

(Sherr's biography of Sally Ride will be published by Simon & Schuster in 2014)

Three decades ago today, Sally Ride became the first American woman to fly into space. Here, biographer Lynn Sherr reflects on that momentous day. Was it really 30 years ago? June 18, 1983: A soft, bright morning at Florida's Kennedy Space Center, with occasional puffs of white dotting the pure blue sky. At 7:33 a.m., the space shuttle Challenger—officially, mission STS-7—thundered off the launch pad carrying a crew of five, including the first American woman to travel into space.

Ride, Sally Ride: Thirty Years Since America's First Woman in Space

Ben Evans

Today marks the 30th anniversary of the launch of America's first woman into space. On 18 June 1983, physicist Dr. Sally Ride rocketed into orbit aboard Challenger and followed in the footsteps of Soviet cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova and Svetlana Savitskaya as history's third female spacefarer. Like Tereshkova and Savitskaya, she blazed a trail which is today being continued aboard the International Space Station by NASA's Karen Nyberg and aboard the Shenzhou-10/Tiangong-1 complex by China's Wang Yaping. This year, 2013, is truly historic, for it also marks the half-century anniversary of the first woman in space … and there can be no greater tribute to female accomplishments on the final frontier than by a long-term female presence there. Thirty years ago, on STS-7, Sally Ride took the United States' first tentative steps toward making that presence a reality.

Sexism Limited Female Space Flights – Russian Cosmonaut

RIA Novosti

Russian women rarely go into space because Russian men fear that their heroism would be diminished if shared with members of the opposite sex, scientist and former cosmonaut Yelena Dobrokvashina said Friday, while she also denied rumors that female cosmonauts have tried to conceive when orbiting the Earth. Since the Soviet Union sent the first woman into space half a century ago, only two Russian women have followed in her footsteps – compared with more than 50 from the United States.

Female astronauts: Breaking the glass atmosphere
What kept American women from getting into space was the simple presumption by men that other men would make better astronauts

Meg Waite Clayton - Los Angeles Times (Opinion)

(Clayton is the author of four novels, including the forthcoming "The Wednesday Daughters.")

Fifty years ago on June 16 — and only two years after the first man entered space — Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova piloted the Vostok 6 through 48 laps around the Earth on a three-day solo mission under the call name Chaika (Seagull). At the age of 26, she'd spent more time in space than all the U.S. astronauts combined. It would be another 20 years and two days before Sally Ride's famous 1983 ride on the Space Shuttle Challenger, and more than three decades before Eileen Collins became the first woman to pilot an American spaceship.
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NASA Authorization cycle begins with asteroid retrieval in House's crosshairs

Dan Leone - Space News

A draft authorization bill from the House Science space subcommittee would cap NASA spending at about $16.87 billion for the next two years, prohibit a proposed asteroid retrieval mission, overhaul the agency's management structure and raise the spending cap for Commercial Crew activities while increasing congressional oversight of the program.

The bill, as Republican lawmakers have been hinting during House Science, Space and Technology Committee hearings all year, also aims to steer the nation's human spaceflight program back to the Moon, and provide more money for robotic exploration of the solar system at the expense of NASA's Earth observation program.

These and other changes were detailed in a copy of the bill, the NASA Authorization Act of 2013, obtained by SpaceNews June 14. The bill holds NASA to spending levels established by the Budget Control Act of 2011, rather than assuming that Congress and the White House will eliminate sequestration's across-the-board spending cuts any time soon.

The House Science space subcommittee will discuss the bill in a hearing June 19. The Senate Commerce Committee, meanwhile, is "not too far behind" its House counterpart in finishing its own version of the next NASA Authorization bill, Ann Zulkowsky, a senior aide in the Democrat-controlled Senate, said June 14 at the Aerospace 2013 conference in Arlington, Va., organized by Women in Aerospace.

Industry sources said the Senate version of the bill does not hold NASA to the sequestered spending limits. One of these sources said the Senate was expected to unveil its authorization bill, which sets policy and spending guidelines for five years rather than two, the week of June 17.

The House Science space subcommittee's bill includes many prescriptions for NASA's human spaceflight program and would codify that Mars, by way of the lunar surface, is a priority destination for human explorers.

"It is the policy of the United States that the development of capabilities and technologies necessary for human missions to lunar orbit, the surface of the Moon, the surface of Mars, and beyond shall be the goals of the Administration's human space flight program," the bill states.

An asteroid retrieval mission, proposed by NASA in April as part of the White House's 2014 budget request, has no place in that framework, according to the draft bill.

"The Administrator shall not fund the development of an asteroid retrieval mission to send a robotic spacecraft to a near-Earth asteroid for rendezvous, retrieval, and redirection of that asteroid to lunar orbit for exploration by astronauts," the bill states.

There has been a notable lack of enthusiasm for the asteroid mission among some of the Republicans who hold key NASA oversight roles in the House — including House Science Committee Chairman Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) — since the mission was proposed. The mission would require development of a robotic spacecraft with solar-electric propulsion, and the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle and Space Launch System (SLS) heavy-lift rocket NASA is developing.

There is no funding authorized for a crewed planetary lander or deep-space astronaut habitat in the bill.

Another provision of the draft authorization bill that originated with House Republicans is an overhaul of NASA's leadership structure. The proposed changes would give Congress greater influence over the selection of the NASA administrator, and give the administrator a six-year term. The NASA administrator is currently a political appointee who serves at the president's pleasure.

House Republicans led by Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas) included these changes in their Space Leadership Preservation Act (H.R. 823), which was introduced in February and has lingered in committee ever since. That bill was itself a rehash of a similar proposal introduced back in September 2012.

Also on the human spaceflight front, the draft authorization act the House Science Committee has produced authorizes up to $700 million a year for the Commercial Crew Program, which under the 2010 NASA Authorization Act was cleared for up to $500 million in annual funding.

A signature Obama administration effort, the Commercial Crew Program seeks to get at least one privately developed crew transportation system ready to launch astronauts to the international space station by the end of 2017. NASA in August split $1.1 billion among Boeing Space Exploration of Houston, Sierra Nevada Space Systems of Louisville, Colo., and Space Exploration Technologies Corp. of Hawthorne, Calif., to mature competing designs. NASA expects a follow-on award next summer after another funding competition now scheduled to begin around July.

The White House has consistently sought more funding for the Commercial Crew Program than Congress has been willing to give. In 2013, the administration asked for more than $800 million and wound up with $525 million. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden has said repeatedly that Congress must meet the request, or the 2017 flight date will slip.

The House Science Committee's draft bill calls on NASA to make sure that does not happen. The bill would require the space agency to evaluate the Commercial Crew Program's prospects for making the 2017 deadline under annual funding levels ranging from $500 million to $800 million. The bill also establishes strict reporting requirements for the Commercial Crew Program, requiring NASA to brief Congress on the effort every 90 days, beginning 180 days after the bill becomes law.

In a related provision, the bill places a $50 million cap — to be exceed only with permission from Congress — on Space Act Agreements, an alternative procurement mechanism NASA uses routinely. The current round of the Commercial Crew Program is funded with $1.1 billion worth of Space Act Agreements. However, NASA has already said it does not plan to use Space Act Agreements for the program's next development phase.

An administration official panned the House proposal, calling it a "non-starter." The official asked for anonymity to speak candidly. Particularly objectionable, this person said, was the proposal to cut Earth Science and kill the asteroid retrieval mission.

The House subcommittee's bill would authorize about $1.2 billion for Earth Science in 2014 and 2015 — about 30 percent less than the division's budget in 2013 and 2012. The main beneficiary from this rebalancing would be the Planetary Science Division, which runs NASA's robotic solar system exploration program.

Conversely, the bill would authorize planetary science for $1.5 billion in funding in 2014 and 2015, the same level the division received for 2012. NASA has proposed reducing planetary science spending for 2013, funding it at about $1.2 billion even though Congress providing a larger appropriation in the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act of 2013 (H.R. 933), which became law March 26.

Rounded to the nearest million, authorized spending levels for major NASA spending accounts in 2014 and 2015 under the House Science space subcommittee's proposal are:

Top Line: $16.865 billion, about even with NASA's 2013 appropriation and roughly 5.1 percent less than what NASA got in 2012 in its last unsequestered spending bill.

Exploration Systems: $4.007 billion, 8.9 percent more than what NASA has proposed spending in 2013 under an operating plan it delivered to Congress in May, and 8.1 percent more than in 2012.

Space Operations: $3.818 billion, 2.5 percent more than the NASA-adjusted level for 2013 and 8.8 percent less than in 2012.

Science Mission Directorate: $4.627 billion, 3.2 percent more than in 2013 and 8.8 percent less than in 2012.

Cross-Agency Support: $2.6 billion, 4.1 percent less than 2013 and 13.2 percent lower than in 2012.

Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate: $566 million, 6.8 percent more than in 2013 and 0.6 percent less than 2012.

Space Technology Mission Directorate: $500 million, 21.9 percent lower than in 2013 and 12.9 percent lower than in 2012. The bill would transfer some of the human spaceflight research and development funding now managed by this directorate back to the Exploration Systems account.

Education Mission Directorate: $125 million, 7.8 percent more than in 2013 and 8.2 percent less than in 2012.

Construction and Environmental Compliance and Restoration: $587 million, 9.3 percent less than 2013 appropriation and 18.7 percent more than in 2012.

Inspector General: $35 million, about flat compared with 2013 and 8.6 percent lower than 2012.

Proposed authorized funding for SLS and Orion in 2014 and 2015 under the House subcommittee's bill are:

SLS: $1.772 billion, of which $1.454 billion would be for rocket development and support work, and $318 million would be for SLS ground systems. That puts vehicle development and support about 6.1 percent higher than in the 2013 operating plan and 2.9 percent lower than in 2012. Ground systems, meanwhile, would be authorized for 15.2 percent less than in 2013 and 4.4 percent more than in 2012.

Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle: $1.2 billion, 7.7 percent more than in 2013 and even with 2012.

The James Webb Space Telescope, meanwhile, would be authorized for $658 million in funding in 2014 and 2015, which are peak development years for the long-delayed, over budget astrophysics flagship. The proposed authorized level is 4.9 percent more than 2013 and 26.9 percent more than in 2012.

Hatch of ATV-4 Remains Closed after Docking with ISS

RIA Novosti

Crew members of the International Space Station (ISS) were instructed by mission control teams on Monday to keep the hatches of the newly docked ATV-4 Albert Einstein unmanned resupply spacecraft closed.

The fourth Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV-4) of the European Space Agency (ESA) was launched atop an Ariane 5 rocket from the Kourou space center in French Guyana on June 5 and docked with Russia's Zvezda module of the ISS on Saturday afternoon. The planned hatch opening and initial ingress was expected on Monday.

The European Space Agency said on Monday evening that the spacecraft was in good technical condition and that hatches will be opened within the next few days.

ATV-4 mission chief Alberto Novelli said the hatch opening was delayed because of differences and ongoing discussion between ESA and Roscosmos about the procedure of the crew's entering into the spacecraft.

The Spaceflight101 portal said the delay was due to possible "mold and bacteria contamination on three cargo bags that are inside the spacecraft" and that a decision is yet to be made on whether the crew should use anti-mold kits to clean ATV-4 cargo before taking it inside the ISS.

"During the final GO/No GO Poll, teams at Mission Control Moscow decided to delay the opening to review some concerns associated with mold build-up inside the ATV spacecraft," the website said. "The level of contamination poses no risk to the crew members, however, teams want to make sure the problem is taken care of in order to protect the atmosphere aboard the space station."

The resupply spacecraft is to deliver more than 6.5 metric tons of cargo to the station, including fuel, water, oxygen, food and equipment. It will remain docked with the ISS until October 28, when it will be deorbited and sunk in non-navigational areas of the Pacific Ocean.

NASA tests next-gen rovers to explore the moon and Mars

c/net News (cnet.com)

With the success of the Mars rover Curiosity, NASA is now developing planetary-exploration rovers designed to be controlled by astronauts in space. CNET's Kara Tsuboi takes us to the NASA Ames Research Center where a moonscape has been built to test the K-10 rovers.

With the success of NASA's Mars Curiosity rover, NASA is now developing a new fleet of rovers for planetary exploration.

But unlike Curiosity, which is controlled at a NASA facility on earth, these rovers would be controlled by astronauts in the International Space Station.

It's happening at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., where scientists built a moonscape to test the K-10 rover.

At the NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, scientists are developing the next generation of rovers to explore the Moon and Mars.

"K-10 is a planetary rover. It's designed to allow us to explore natural terrains and it's equipped with a number of different robot sensors and scientific instruments."

NASA's Terry Fong says the sensors make it possible for the robotic rover to see what's around it and where to drive.

Fong says, "To understand its environment. So we use a lot of different cameras. Up here there's a stereo pair, so a left camera and a right camera."

Scientists in a command station on the other side of the NASA campus is testing the K-10 on a simulated moon surface.

In the next couple of months, engineers plan to perform the same test from the international space station.

Fong elaborates, "We've never had robot controlled fully, you know, interactive mode from space station. 6.43 So we're trying to figure out are there differences? Are there things we're surprised by? Things that we actually have to plan and then design future systems to be able to handle."

The goal, says NASA, is to make robots like the K-10 ready for the next manned moon mission in 2020, where they'll use these new planetary rovers to deploy telescopes on the far side of the moon.

Terry Fong continues, "the far side of the moon is an ideal location for doing radio astronomy. It's radio quiet because you have the whole mass of the moon blocking stray signals. Where you can make observations with a cosmic dawn, so really being able to look far far far back in time and try to understand what happened many billions of years ago."

ESA's Orion Service Module Overweight, Delaying PDR

Amy Svitak - Aviation Week

The European Space Agency (ESA) and its industrial partners need to reduce the weight of a service module they are developing to fly on NASA's Orion multipurpose crew exploration vehicle in 2017, a hurdle that will delay preliminary design review of the project by a little more than three months.

Based on Europe's Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), the service module is to be led by Astrium Space Transportation, the prime contractor on the ATV. Astrium has been working on the effort since shortly before ESA's 20 member states approved a first tranche of around €250 million ($330 million) in funding for the service module at a ministerial budget meeting last November.

Thomas Reiter, ESA director of human spaceflight, says the service module is roughly 0.5 metric tons overweight, but that the agency is working closely with NASA and Orion prime contractor Lockheed Martin to reduce mass ahead of a preliminary design review now slated for October or November.

ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain says program funding is being released to Astrium in slices, but that project development is currently covered through this summer. At that point, he expects to award a contract to Astrium to continue work into 2014, when the agency's member states will again meet to approve a second tranche of about €200 million for the €455 million development.

"It's not the service module itself that is the bottleneck of the mass problems," Dordain said during a press conference at the 50th international Paris air show here today. "This is something we need to do with NASA; we can't do it on our own."

Antares first-stage engines available long term, Aerojet Rocketdyne chief Says

Peter de Selding - Space News

The president of the newly formed Aerojet Rocketdyne propulsion provider on June 17 said the company has secured an agreement with the manufacturers of Russia's NK-33 engine, which powers the U.S. Antares rocket's first stage in a version called AJ-26, to assure its long-term supply.

At a press briefing here during the Paris Air Show, Warren M. Boley Jr. said Antares prime contractor Orbital Sciences Corp. has only to sign a contract by this fall to assure that deliveries of the new engines can begin in 2016.

Originally developed for the Soviet Union's abandoned lunar program, the liquid oxygen- and kerosene-fueled NK-33 has been out of production since the 1970s. In an undated white paper making the rounds in Washington, Orbital says that after deciding to go with the NK-33/AJ-26 for Antares, the company "learned that the available AJ-26 inventory was more limited than had previously been thought due to technical issues, additional costs to make the engines flightworthy and Russian restrictions."

"The AJ-26 has been out of production for over 40 years and there are a finite and limited number of these engines remaining," the Orbital white paper states. "There are enough of these engines to support Orbital's [international space station] cargo resupply missions currently under contract and a limited number of additional missions. For Orbital to be a viable long-term competitor, it needs a long-term propulsion solution."

The questionable availability of the AJ-26 has been of such concern to Dulles, Va.-based Orbital that the company is asking the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to void, on antitrust grounds, the agreement that gives rocket maker United Launch Alliance (ULA) exclusive U.S. access to Russia's RD-180 engine. Orbital wants to purchase RD-180 engines, calling them "the only currently viable long-term engine solution" for Antares, which successfully debuted in April.

Boley disagreed. He said Aerojet has reached an agreement with NK-33 manufacturer Kuznetsov Design Bureau to restart motor production once Orbital gives the go-ahead. He did not disclose financial details, but gave the clear impression that the restarted production line, and the refurbishment of the 23 engines aready purchased by Aerojet, would not represent an unwieldy spike in investment for Orbital and force the Antares prime contractor to seek the RD-180 as an alternative.

With Aerojet's $550 million acquisition of Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne now approved by U.S. antitrust regulators, the combined Aerojet Rocketdyne has an interest in both sides of the issue. The combined company is a joint-venture partner, with Energomash of Russia, in RD AMROSS, the company that supplies the RD-180 to ULA for the Atlas 5 rocket.

Boley said he could imagine lots of reasons why ULA would have insisted on an exclusive arrangement with RD AMROSS given ULA's investment in the RD-180. He did not issue an opinion on the arrangement.

But Boley and Aerojet have a much closer understanding of Antares and the AJ-26 engine, which has been a cause of concern at Orbital as a result of corroded parts.

Boley said it is only normal that an engine that was never meant to be stored long term shows signs of corrosion after 40 years.

Boley said 43 NK-33 engines have been procured by Aerojet Rocketdyne. Twenty of them have been made ready for Orbital's initial Antares missions, to deliver cargo to the international space station for NASA. Two AJ-26 engines are needed to power the Antares core stage.

The remaining 23 have not yet been worked on, but making them ready for Antares, Boley said, does not present any financial or technical obstacles that Aerojet has not already encountered with the first 20 engines.

"No one expected they would sit around for 40 years," Boley said, adding that their condition is no worse than should be expected given the storage. "Through an overhaul and repair process we have addressed the corrosion."

Orbital officials were not immediately available for comment June 17.

Here's how Aerojet Rocketdyne might bring 5,000 new aerospace engineering jobs to Huntsville

Lee Roop - Huntsville Times

When the president of the newly formed Aerojet Rocketdyne aerospace company told state leaders at the Paris Air Show Sunday that a new NASA rocket engine could mean 5,000 engineering jobs for Huntsville, he got people excited. Here's what Warren Boley was talking about and why he's bullish on the new company's future in Alabama.

Aerojet, one of the two aerospace giants making up the new Aerojet Rocketdyne, has one of four contracts NASA has awarded for studying the next-generation propulsion system America will need to go to Mars. Pratt Whitney Rocketdyne, the second part of the new company, is the major subcontractor for another of those contracts held by Dynetics of Huntsville. That gives Aerojet Rocketdyne a big role in two of the candidates for next big engine.

Now for the caveats, qualifiers and key background. The rocket engine Boley is talking about is for a second-generation upgrade of NASA's Space Launch System (SLS). That version could lift 130 metric tons of fuel, astronauts and supplies far beyond Earth orbit.

NASA isn't thinking a lot about that bigger rocket now, but is going all-out to design and build the 130-ton rocket's smaller brother, a 70-metric ton SLS it must launch in 2017. That smaller rocket, what NASA will need to visit an asteroid in deep space, is being developed at Huntsville's Marshall Space Flight Center and will be powered by two ATK solid rocket boosters and four leftover Space Shuttle main engines.

ATK is the third of the four companies involved in the next-generation engine studies. The fourth is Northrop Grumman, but it is studying composite fuel tanks, not engines. None of the four has a contract to build next-generation propulsion components yet, and NASA won't award one before 2016. It could decide to go with one of the three under study, but it doesn't have to.

But NASA does need a new engine if America is going any farther in space. "If we're going to go to Mars," Marshall spokeswoman Kim Henry said Monday, "we're going to need that (130-ton) heavy lift rocket." That means the new core stage engine Boley referred to in Paris, and it means new segment engines.

If those new engines get the green light, they will need to be fully designed, tested, built and integrated into the new rocket's frame. NASA's propulsion experts are in Huntsville, and its test stands are relatively nearby at Stennis Space Center in south Mississippi. So, putting new engineers in Huntsville would make sense, but it's not a sure thing in an era of instant communications and long-distance work.

What is being studied?

Aerojet Rocketdyne is working on a liquid oxygen and kerosene oxidizer-rich staged-combustion engine. It's an engine the Air Force is also interested in for national security satellite launches. Dynetics is testing an updated version of the Saturn F-1 engine. ATK is studying a variety of engine components including batteries and a nozzle, and Northrop Grumman is studying composite tanks to lessen weight. NASA is investing about $200 million in all of these studies, which run for 30 months.

NASA picks 8 new astronauts, 4 of them women

Marcia Dunn - Associated Press

NASA has eight new astronauts - its first new batch in four years.

Among the lucky candidates: the first female fighter pilot to become an astronaut in nearly two decades. A female helicopter pilot also is in the group. In fact, four of the eight are women, the highest percentage of female astronaut candidates ever selected by NASA.

Monday's announcement came on the eve of the 30th anniversary of the launch of the first American woman in space, Sally Ride. She died last summer.

The eight - all in their 30s - were chosen from more than 6,000 applications received early last year, the second largest number ever received. They will report for duty in August at Johnson Space Center in Houston and join 49 astronauts currently at NASA. The number has dwindled ever since the space shuttles stopped flying in 2011. Many astronauts quit rather than get in a lengthy line for relatively few slots for long-term missions aboard the International Space Station.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said these new candidates will help lead the first human mission to an asteroid in the 2020s, and then Mars, sometime in the following decade. They also may be among the first to fly to the space station aboard commercial spacecraft launched from the U.S., he noted. Russia ferries the astronauts now.

"These new space explorers asked to join NASA because they know we're doing big, bold things here - developing missions to go farther into space than ever before," Bolden said in a statement.

The Class of 2013's Nicole Aunapu Mann, a major in the Marines, is an F/A 18 pilot serving at the U.S. Naval Air Station in Patuxent River, Md. Army Maj. Anne McClain is a helicopter pilot. The two other women, Christina Hammock and Jessica Meir, are scientists.

All four men have military backgrounds, including one who is a former emergency room physician, Dr. Andrew Morgan. The others are Josh Cassada, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Victor Glover and Air Force Lt. Col. Tyler (Nick) Hague.

NASA's new astronauts: Will these men and women fly to Mars?

Karen Kaplan - Los Angeles Times

It's been two years since NASA's space shuttle program came to an end, but thousands of Americans still dream of becoming astronauts. Eight of them – four men and four women – were introduced Monday as NASA's astronaut candidate class for 2013.

More than 6,300 people applied to become astronauts-in-training, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a video announcement. That is the second-most applications the space agency has ever received, according to a NASA statement.

The bios of the eight people selected will probably make you feel like a bit of a slacker. Two of them have PhDs and one is a physician training in sports medicine. Four have experience as test pilots for the Navy or Air Force. One person is working at the Pentagon on ways to defeat the homemade bombs that have plagued troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of them is the station chief for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's research outpost in American Samoa.

Many headlines are emphasizing the fact that half the astronaut candidates are women – the first time NASA has had gender parity in an astronaut class. (There were four women in the astronaut candidate class of 1998, but they accounted for just 16% of the class's 25 members, according to a post from Phys.org).

Some NASA watchers certainly see this as a cause for celebration. On the other hand, the fact that we're even talking about whether these new astronauts are men or women is a sign that there's still a ways to go. In the earliest days of the American space program, 13 women were being considered for the astronaut corps before then-Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson quashed a proposal to test their worthiness for space, Meg Waite Clayton wrote in a Los Angeles Times op-ed marking the 50th anniversary of the first spaceflight by a woman.

In his video message, Bolden said the new astronaut trainees are "ready to help lead the first human mission to an asteroid and then on to Mars." All eight of them are between the ages of 34 and 39, so they'd be in their 50s (at least) by the 2030s, the soonest NASA would actually dispatch humans to the Red Planet. NASA has an ambitious plan to capture an asteroid and drag it into orbit around the moon in the 2020s, which could be a more feasible option for working in space.

Until then, the astronauts could help test space vehicles built by private companies and spend time aboard the International Space Station, Bolden said -- though recently retired Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield would be a tough act to follow.

The eight astronaut candidates unveiled Monday were selected after a 1 1/2-year job application process. In alphabetical order, they are:

Josh A. Cassada, who earned a PhD in physics and co-founded a start-up company called Quantum Opus to make devices to high-quality photon detectors. He is 39 and hails from White Bear Lake, Minn.

Victor J. Glover, a lieutenant commander in the Navy who is serving as a Navy Legislative Fellow in Congress. The 37-year-old is from Pomona and graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

Tyler N. Hague, a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force who is working at the Defense Department as deputy chief of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization. He is 37 and his hometown is Hoxie, Kan.

Christina M. Hammock, the station chief for the NOAA's research center on Tutuila island in American Samoa, halfway between Hawaii and New Zealand. The 34-year-old is from Jacksonville, N.C.

Nicole Aunapu Mann, a major in the Marine Corps who is now an integrated product team lead at the U.S. Naval Air Station, Patuxent River in Maryland. She is 35 and a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and Stanford University.

Anne C. McClain, a major in the Army who flies OH-58 helicopters and recently graduated from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School at Naval Air Station, Patuxent River. The 34-year-old is from Spokane, Wash.

Jessica U. Meir, who earned her PhD from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UCSD for studies of how animals like penguins and elephant seals are able to dive underwater for long periods without running out of oxygen. As an assistant professor of anesthesia at Harvard Medical School, she is studying how bar-headed geese are able to fly in low-oxygen conditions when they migrate over the Himalayas. This won't be Meir's first stint with NASA: The 35-year-old was an aquanaut in the NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations program, known as NEEMO. She also flew on NASA's parabolic flight aircraft as part of her study of how microgravity affects the human body.

Dr. Andrew R. Morgan, a major in the Army who has served as flight surgeon for the Army special operations community. The 37-year-old from New Castle, Pa., has worked in emergency medicine and is wrapping up a fellowship in sports medicine.

NASA says the eight will "receive a wide array of technical training at space centers around the globe to prepare for missions to low-Earth orbit, an asteroid and Mars." The civilians among them can expect to earn between $64,724 and $141,715 per year, depending on their education and experience. Those in the Army, Navy, Air Force or Marines will continue to earn their military salaries.

NASA's new astronaut class marks changing of guard for US spaceflight

Pete Spotts - Christian Science Monitor

If there ever was a changing of the guard within the US astronaut corps, perhaps it came Monday.

NASA announced the selection of four men and four women as its newest astronaut candidates, the first newcomers to the corps in four years.

For the first time, no classmate was alive – either as tot or teen – during the Apollo missions, Skylab, or the Apollo-Soyuz rendezvous between spacecraft launched by intense geopolitical rivals, the US and the former Soviet Union. Instead, theirs was the space-shuttle era – with its tragedies as well as its successes – and the birth and growth of the International Space Station.

Both have been criticized in some circles as inspirational duds.

And if the future direction of NASA's human spaceflight program keeps twisting and folding back on itself in a political taffy-pull between NASA, the White House, and Congress, that doesn't seem to be discouraging would-be space travelers.

More than 6,300 people applied for eight openings – the second-largest number of applicants in the agency's history, officials say. Of those, 120 qualified to undergo initial interviews. The screening committee winnowed that down to 49 for a battery of rigorous physical and psychological tests, and another interview.

What emerged was the Elite Eight from a variety of military and civilian backgrounds, but with much in common – virtually all have scuba-diving experience experience (think spacewalks), two have worked at isolated research stations in Greenland or Antarctica (space station and missions beyond low-Earth orbit), and several boast test-pilot credentials.

For instance, the class includes Marine Maj. Nichole Mann, an F-18 pilot who served in Iraq, graduated from test-pilot school, and is a test-pilot operations officer at Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland.

What if some have no front-seat, fighter-jet experience? No problem. Candidate Jessica Meir, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, has a private pilot's license. But she and her classmates will head down to Pensacola Naval Air Station for training in high-performance jets.

"I'm really excited about going to Pensacola for flight training in jets," she said in a prerecorded video. Indeed, none of the candidates was present for the rollout of their training class because all were busy at home tying up loose ends before moving to Houston.

The new class also represents the first to host an even split between men and women – a fitting, if purportedly unintentional nod to Sunday's 50th anniversary of the first woman to reach space, Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, who orbited Earth 48 times before reentering.

"We never determine how many people of each gender we're going to take," said Janet Kavandi, an astronaut and director of flight-crew operations at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, during a briefing Monday to introduce the new candidates. "These were the most qualified people of the ones we interviewed."

The even split "is a great tribute to women today. They are going into fields that are much more demanding," which puts them on an equal footing with male candidates, Dr. Kavandi said.

For all its generational break with the past, the new class carries echoes of the astronaut corps' early days through the beginning of the shuttle program, when a premium was placed on test-pilot experience because each new step along the way involved building and testing new spacecraft. Today, NASA is embarked on building a new launch system, including its Orion capsule, which is designed to send astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit. Meanwhile, the Hawthorne, Calif.-based company SpaceX is preparing its Dragon capsule to carry astronauts to and from the space station.

But the agency also is placing a high priority on a different set of skills than it once did, suggested Kavandi.

With only four US astronauts traveling to the space station each year, the corps is smaller, she said. But that also means each person needs to have a variety of skills "they can bring forward."

"The people that tend to be the most successful are the people that have shown a lot of experience in remote operations. They're very hands-on type people. They are comfortable in different cultures and countries," she said.

But they also have to know how to deal with discomfort, she added. The candidates in the new class work or play in extreme environments. It's easier for people to adjust to space if they've endured physical hardships on Earth, she added.

Persistence also pays. During his video presentation, Air Force Lt. Col. Nick Hague noted that this was the third time he'd applied for an astronaut position

The size of the astronaut corps has dropped from a high of about 149 in 2000 to 48 active-duty astronauts today, driven in no small part by the end of the space shuttle program in 2011. Shuttles were launching several times a year, with each mission carrying a crew of six to seven astronauts.

A study by the National Research Council, conducted as the shuttle program wound down, noted that for the foreseeable future, NASA would need between 45 and 55 active astronauts to fulfill to staff the space station and meet any future exploration needs. The new crop of candidates brings the number up to 49.

8 score astronaut spots out of 6,300 NASA applicants
Half of new crew are women

Todd Halvorson - Florida Today

Just call them "The Great Eight."

Thirty-five years after selecting its first class of space shuttle astronauts in 1978 — the "Thirty-Five New Guys" — NASA on Monday introduced the four men and four women who make up the Astronaut Class of 2013.

Talk about stiff competition. The eight were selected from more than 6,300 applicants — the highest number since more than 8,000 vied for those 35 slots in 1978.

There's an Army doctor who worked covert special operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa.

There's an experienced aquanaut and under-ice diver who has done fieldwork in Antarctica and now is an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School.

NASA astronaut Mike Foreman, who gained entry to the Astronaut Office in 1998 after his eighth application, said the quality of the newest class is dauntingly impressive.

"Personally, I'm just glad I'm not competing for a spot today," said Foreman, a veteran of two space shuttle missions. "These people are just like super-human people to me."

The new "astronaut candidates" will report to Houston in early August and begin a year of basic training — a step that must be completed successfully to be put on flight status and be made eligible for selection to a crew.

The United States currently doesn't have a spacecraft to fly its own astronauts, relying instead on Russia. But potential future missions include flights to the International Space Station on U.S. commercial space taxis; or exploration missions to destinations that could include asteroids, the moon or Mars.

The class includes:

·         Josh Cassada, 39: A test pilot with combat experience, Cassada is a physicist with a PhD. and an entrepreneur. He co-founded Quantum Opus, a start-up that provides researchers with high-speed photon detectors.
·         Victor Glover, 37: A test pilot with combat experience, Glover is a Navy lieutenant commander who holds three advanced degrees. Glover was a NCAA Division 1 wrestler and football player. He is serving as a Navy Legislative Fellow in the U.S. Congress.
·         Tyler "Nick" Hague, 37: A test pilot with combat experience, Hague holds bachelor's and master's degrees in aeronautical engineering. He works with the Department of Defense as Deputy Chief of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization.
·         Christina Hammock, 34: Hammock holds bachelor's degrees in electrical engineering and physics, a master's in electrical engineering, and she worked in x-ray detection at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. She completed three scientific expeditions to Greenland and Antarctica. Now she is the Station Chief in American Samoa for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
·         Nicole Aunapu Mann, 35: A military test pilot with combat experience, Mann holds bachelor's and master's degrees in mechanical engineering. The Marine Corps major now is serving as an Integrated Product Team Leader at the U.S. Naval Air Station in Patuxent River, Md. She also is a scuba diver who was captain of the Naval Academy's women's soccer team.
·         Anne McClain, 34: An Army helicopter pilot, McClain earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, a master's in public health, and a master's degree in international security. She was a member of the U.S. National Women's Rugby Team, flew combat missions and is a recent graduate of U.S. Naval Test Pilot School.
·         Jessica Meir, 35: A civilian scientist, Meir holds a bachelor's degree in biology, a master's in international space studies and a doctorate in marine biology. An aquanaut and under-ice diver, Meir has done fieldwork in Antarctica. Currently, Meir is Assistant Professor of Anesthesia at Harvard Medical School.
·         Andrew Morgan, 37: An Army medical doctor, Morgan earned a bachelor's degree in environmental engineering and also is a medical doctor. Morgan is an experienced emergency physician and served as a flight surgeon for the Army special operations community. He jumped with the Army Golden Knights parachute team and is completing a sports medicine fellowship.

The Class of 2013 has the highest percentage of women ever. Veteran NASA astronaut Janet Kavandi, director of Flight Crew Operations at Johnson Space Center in Houston, said the gender split was not by design. "These were the most qualified people that we interviewed. I'm glad, I'm happy it turned out that way. But we weren't seeking that when we started out."

New class of NASA astronauts picked for training

SpaceflightNow.com

NASA has selected eight new candidates -- four men and four women -- to join the ranks of its astronaut corps. for missions to the International Space Station and beyond.

Picked from the second-highest number of applicants in any previous rounds of astronaut selections, the space agency said more than 6,000 people applied for this 21st astronaut class .

NASA has selected and trained 330 astronauts since the initial astronaut class of 1959. Most recently in 2009, NASA selected nine candidates.

The latest trainees could become the first Americans to launch from U.S. since retirement of the space shuttle.

"These new space explorers asked to join NASA because they know we're doing big, bold things here -- developing missions to go farther into space than ever before," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "They're excited about the science we're doing on the International Space Station and our plan to launch from U.S. soil to there on spacecraft built by American companies. And they're ready to help lead the first human mission to an asteroid and then on to Mars."

The astronaut candidates are:

Josh A. Cassada, Ph.D., 39, is originally from White Bear Lake, Minn. Cassada is a former naval aviator who holds an undergraduate degree from Albion College, and advanced degrees from the University of Rochester, N.Y. Cassada is a physicist by training and currently is serving as co-founder and Chief Technology Officer for Quantum Opus.

Victor J. Glover, 37, Lt. Commander, U.S. Navy, hails from Pomona, Calif., and Prosper, Texas. He is an F/A-18 pilot and graduate of the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School, Edwards, Calif. Glover holds degrees from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, Calif.; Air University and the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, Calif. He currently is serving as a Navy Legislative Fellow in the U.S. Congress.

Tyler N. (Nick) Hague, 37, Lt. Colonel, U.S. Air Force, calls Hoxie, Kan., home. He is a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colo.; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass., and the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School, Edwards, Calif. Hague currently is supporting the Department of Defense as Deputy Chief of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization.

Christina M. Hammock, 34, calls Jacksonville, N.C., home. Hammock holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from North Carolina State University, Raleigh, N.C. She currently is serving as National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration Station Chief in American Samoa.

Nicole Aunapu Mann, 35, Major, U.S. Marine Corps, originally is from Penngrove, Calif. She is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Stanford University and the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School, Patuxent River, Md. Mann is an F/A 18 pilot, currently serving as an Integrated Product Team Lead at the U.S. Naval Air Station, Patuxent River.

Anne C. McClain, 34, Major, U.S. Army, lists her hometown as Spokane, Wash. She is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Va.; the University of Bath and the University of Bristol, both in the United Kingdom. McClain is an OH-58 helicopter pilot, and a recent graduate of the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School at Naval Air Station, Patuxent River.

Jessica U. Meir, Ph.D., 35, is from Caribou, Maine. She is a graduate of Brown University, has an advanced degree from the International Space University, and earned her doctorate from Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Meir currently is an Assistant Professor of Anesthesia at Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston.

Andrew R. Morgan, M.D., 37, Major, U.S. Army, considers New Castle, Pa., home. Morgan is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and earned a doctorate of medicine from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, Md. He has experience as an emergency physician and flight surgeon for the Army special operations community, and currently is completing a sports medicine fellowship.

The new astronaut candidates will begin training at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston in August.

"This year we have selected eight highly qualified individuals who have demonstrated impressive strengths academically, operationally and physically," said Janet Kavandi, director of Flight Crew Operations at Johnson. "They have diverse backgrounds and skill sets that will contribute greatly to the existing astronaut corps. Based on their incredible experiences to date, I have every confidence that they will apply their combined expertise and talents to achieve great things for NASA and this country in the pursuit of human exploration."

NASA unveils its latest class of astronauts – and they should go far

Clara Moskowitz - Space.com

NASA has picked eight Americans, a mix of scientists and military pilots, to begin training for future space missions that may one day launch them all the way to Mars. The new class includes four men and four women who will join the 49 active astronauts at the agency's astronaut corps at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The new U.S. space travelers, which NASA unveiled Monday, could be part of the first crews to visit an asteroid or Mars, deep-space goals that NASA aims to explore. They could also be the first people to launch to space on a U.S.-built rocket since the era of the space shuttle, which ended in 2011.

In the nearer term, the new recruits could launch on Russian rockets to serve long-duration missions on the International Space Station, which is expected to operate until at least 2020.

"These new space explorers asked to join NASA because they know we're doing big, bold things here — developing missions to go farther into space than ever before," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement. "They're excited about the science we're doing on the International Space Station and our plan to launch from U.S. soil to there on spacecraft built by American companies. And they're ready to help lead the first human mission to an asteroid and then on to Mars."

The new spaceflier hopefuls were selected from more than 6,000 applications — the second-largest applicant pool NASA's ever had. With the new class being evenly split between men and women, it represents the largest percentage of female astronaut candidates in any new class.

The last new cohort of NASA astronauts was selected in 2009, and included nine new candidates. They officially graduated in November 2011, but none have flown to space yet. Michael Hopkins will be the first of that group to fly when he launches in September to the International Space Station.

The new candidates, NASA's 21st astronaut class, will report to the Johnson Space Center for training in August.

"This year we have selected eight highly qualified individuals who have demonstrated impressive strengths academically, operationally and physically," said Janet Kavandi, director of Flight Crew Operations at Johnson Space Center. "They have diverse backgrounds and skill sets that will contribute greatly to the existing astronaut corps. Based on their incredible experiences to date, I have every confidence that they will apply their combined expertise and talents to achieve great things for NASA and this country in the pursuit of human exploration."

The new candidates, as described by NASA, are:

Josh A. Cassada, Ph.D., 39, is originally from White Bear Lake, Minn. Cassada is a former naval aviator who holds an undergraduate degree from Albion College, and advanced degrees from the University of Rochester, N.Y. Cassada is a physicist by training and currently is serving as co-founder and chief technology pfficer for Quantum Opus.
Victor J. Glover, 37, Lt. Commander, U.S. Navy, hails from Pomona, Calif., and Prosper, Texas. He is an F/A-18 pilot and graduate of the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School, Edwards, Calif. Glover holds degrees from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, Calif.; Air University and the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, Calif. He currently is serving as a Navy Legislative Fellow in the U.S. Congress.
Tyler N. (Nick) Hague, 37, Lt. Colonel, U.S. Air Force, calls Hoxie, Kan., home. He is a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colo.; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass., and the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School, Edwards, Calif. Hague currently is supporting the Department of Defense as deputy chief of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization.
Christina M. Hammock, 34, calls Jacksonville, N.C., home. Hammock holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from North Carolina State University, Raleigh, N.C. She currently is serving as National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration Station chief in American Samoa.
Nicole Aunapu Mann, 35, Major, U.S. Marine Corps, originally is from Penngrove, Calif. She is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Stanford University and the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School, Patuxent River, Md. Mann is an F/A 18 pilot, currently serving as an Integrated Product Team Lead at the U.S. Naval Air Station, Patuxent River.
Anne C. McClain, 34, Major, U.S. Army, lists her hometown as Spokane, Wash. She is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.; the University of Bath and the University of Bristol, both in the United Kingdom. McClain is an OH-58 helicopter pilot, and a recent graduate of the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School at Naval Air Station, Patuxent River.
Jessica U. Meir, Ph.D., 35, is from Caribou, Maine. She is a graduate of Brown University, has an advanced degree from the International Space University, and earned her doctorate from Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Meir currently is an assistant professor of Anesthesia at Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston.
Andrew R. Morgan, M.D., 37, Major, U.S. Army, considers New Castle, Pa., home. Morgan is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and earned a doctorate of medicine from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, Md. He has experience as an emergency physician and flight surgeon for the Army special operations community, and currently is completing a sports medicine fellowship.

NASA's astronaut corps began in 1959 with the announcement of the first seven astronauts, the Mercury Seven, who flew on the first U.S. space missions.

Active, former Navy aviators among 8 new astronaut trainees

Navy Times

Two Navy aviators — one active, one former — are among NASA's latest astronaut trainees, a group of eight individuals selected from more than 6,100 applicants, the agency announced Monday.

Lt. Cmdr. Victor Glover, 37, and former Lt. Cmdr. Josh Aaron Cassada, 39, are two of the six selectees with military backgrounds, a list that includes two active-duty Army majors, a Marine major and an Air Force lieutenant colonel.

Glover, who was commissioned in 1999, is serving as a Navy legislative fellow with Congress, according to the release. Before that, the pilot served with the "Dambusters" of Strike Fighter Squadron 195 out of Yokosuka, Japan, according to Navy personnel records.

Cassada left service in April, according to personnel records, last serving with the Defense Contract Management Agency in Kent, Wash. Before that, the aerospace engineering duty officer (engineering) served as an instructor at Naval Test Pilot School in Patuxent River, Md.

Marine Maj. Nicole Mann, 35, graduated from the test pilot school, according to her NASA bio, and has degrees from Stanford and the Naval Academy. She's one of four women in the eight-person class — the highest percentage of women in a class in the agency's history, NASA said in a press release.

NASA selects Airman for 2013 astronaut candidate class

Air Force News Service

NASA officials selected an Airman as one of the eight military and civilian candidates to become an astronaut trainee.

After a 1 ½ year search, officials chose Lt. Col. Tyler N. Hague, the Department of Defense deputy chief of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, out of more than 6,100 applicants. Hague is a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colo., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School, Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.

The 2013 astronaut candidate class comes from the second largest number of applications NASA has ever received. The group will receive a wide array of technical training at space centers around the globe to prepare for missions to low-Earth orbit, an asteroid and Mars.

"These new space explorers asked to join NASA because they know we're doing big, bold things here -- developing missions to go farther into space than ever before," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "They're excited about the science we're doing on the International Space Station and our plan to launch from U.S. soil to there on spacecraft built by American companies. And they're ready to help lead the first human mission to an asteroid and then on to Mars."

The new astronaut candidates will begin training at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston in August.

"This year we have selected eight highly-qualified individuals who have demonstrated impressive strengths academically, operationally, and physically" said Janet Kavandi, the director of Flight Crew Operations at Johnson Space Center. "They have diverse backgrounds and skill sets that will contribute greatly to the existing astronaut corps. Based on their incredible experiences to date, I have every confidence that they will apply

NASA names members of the first mission to Mars

Alexandra Urusova - Itar-Tass

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration / NASA / has chosen eight Americans that will be able to participate in the first mission to Mars by 2020, as said in a statement of NASA on Monday.

"The new space explorers are inspired by our scientific experiments that are carried out on the International Space Station," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "They are ready to lead the first mission outpost on an asteroid and Mars."

Among the eight lucky winners are four women and four men. The candidates for a year and a half have been passing a series of complex tests, psychological and physical tests, as well as physical evaluation boards. The number of applicants exceeded 780 people on one place. Now the members of the group are to go through elaborate preparation, which will start in August this year at the training center of American astronauts in Houston.

NASA has informed that special seminars and workshops will be held in different parts of the world where space explorers have to learn diverse features related to the upcoming mission. If they end successfully, the selected eight people will join the 48 experienced NASA astronauts for future "missions to low-Earth orbit, an asteroid and Mars". The biographies of candidates confirm that to the Red Planet will go the best of the best. Among them is a doctor in medical sciences, four test pilots, military and scientists. In NASA's choice gender parity can be traced. According to experts' opinion, NASA for the first time made this step and has given equal rights to men and women to explore the distant planet.

All candidates are in the prime of life: their age ranges from 34 to 39 years.

"We've chosen eight highly qualified professionals who have shown impressive scientific, physical and psychological preparation ," pointed out the representative of the Johnson Space Center. "They have a wide variety of skills that they will be able to share with the crew and we are totally sure that the candidates with their experience and talents can afford much in the field of human space exploration."

Among the new recruits is a former military pilot, a physicist by training, Josh Cassada. Victor Glover serves in the U.S. Navy, test pilot by education. Tyler (Nick) Hague is also a test pilot, currently is serving at the Pentagon and is engaged in research on disposal of improvised explosive devices. Christina Hammock heads researches in the field of oceanography. Nicole Mann serves in the Marine Corps and Anne McClain is a military and recently has graduated the test pilots school. Jessica Meir conducts researches in the School of Medicine at Harvard University. M.D. Andrew Morgan develops own methods in the area of sports medicine and has extensive experience in medical emergencies.

According to local media, the salary of future astronauts during the training will range between $60,000 and $140,000 a year.

Spokane woman living dream of being an astronaut

Ian Cull - KXLY TV (Spokane)

How many people have dreamt of being an astronaut someday and then found out what we'd need to do get there, and gave up? One Spokane woman never gave up, and Monday, her dream continued.

After a year and a half search by NASA, Army Major Anne McClain was selected as one of eight people to become a candidate for astronaut from a group of 6,300 applicants.

"I can't actually remember ever wanting to do something else. I know from a very early age, before I could even remember saying what I wanted to be when I grow up, I was saying, 'I want to be an astronaut," Maj. McClain said.

McClain, 34, grew up in Spokane and graduated from Gonzaga Prep in 1997. She then graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in Westpoint. After earning two masters degrees while studying in England, she went to Army Flight School in Alabama. She's also been deployed to Iraq for 15 months. Currently, Maj. McClain is a OH-58 helicopter pilot in the Army and recently graduated from the U.S. Navy Test Pilot School.

"I've been fortunate enough along the way that the different experiences I've had, and the different opportunities have presented themselves to make this possible," she said.

McClain will spend the next two months moving from her home in Washington D.C. to Houston, Texas. Her training will begin August 12th.

"We just undergo basic training in all facets of astronaut life from the organization of NASA, and Russian language training, training on the new equipment," Maj. McClain said.

McClain's dream came true Monday as she was selected to join the elite class. She'll now shoot for more dreams on the horizon.

"NASA is looking at a lot of different missions right now, from exploring Mars and asteroids to returning to the moon...so for me personally I don't know where I'm going to fit in to all of that but it's certainly an exciting time to be joining NASA."

Four women were selected to the new class. It's the highest percentage of woman for a NASA astronaut candidate class ever.

New Castle doctor among NASA's newest astronaut recruits

Michael Pound Calkins - Ellwood City Ledger

"I'm Andrew Morgan, and I'm a 2013 astronaut candidate."

A smiling Morgan, an Army doctor from New Castle, appeared late Monday in a video released by NASA to introduce the eight-member class of astronaut trainees, a group paired down from more than 6,300 applicants -- and a group that could be among the first people to set foot on Mars.

"It's quite an amazing group of people we've selected," Janet Kavandi, NASA's flight crew operations director, said in a video news conference Monday afternoon. "We have a tremendously diverse group of people."

Kavandi said Morgan, 37, was born in Morgantown, W.Va., and grew up in New Castle. He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and holds a medical degree from Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md.

Morgan, who goes by Drew, has been deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa; he has also completed the Army's Ranger school, is a certified rescue diver and has parachuted with the Golden Knights, the Army's parachute team. He is currently a major and will soon move from Fort Belvoir, Va., to a home nearby the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Being selected as an astronaut candidate is tough under normal circumstances, but the current class might have had an unusually demanding time making the list. Kavandi said the corps of astronauts is shrinking -- after NASA ended the space shuttle program, not as many astronauts are needed -- and NASA isn't selecting as many candidates as it has in the past.

Of the 6,300 applicants, 300 were brought in to Houston for an interview and a series of medical tests, Kavandi said. Of those, just 49 returned for a final series of medical and psychological tests and another interview; the final class of eight was selected from there.

Should they complete the demanding training, Morgan and the rest of his class will likely serve stints on the International Space Station, which Johnson Space Center Director Ellen Ochoa said should be in service at least through 2020. Beyond those missions, there is the possibility of serving as crew members on commercial space flights, a mission to an asteroid and, ultimately, a trip to Mars.

"We expect this class to be involved with all of those missions," Ochoa said.

Members of the new class didn't appear in Thursday's news conference, but each one -- four women and four men -- made a brief, taped appearance. Morgan said he's anxious to get started with his classmates.

"I definitely felt drawn to be surrounded by the people I've encountered at NASA," he said. "(And) I'm looking forward to meeting my classmates. I know about half of them from the interview process; I want to build that atmosphere of an extended family early on."

Lifelong dream fulfilled: Mainer to become astronaut
Jessica Meir of Caribou, whose yearbook goal was to walk in space, is one of eight new candidates chosen by NASA

Dennis Hoey - Press Herald (Portland, ME)

A woman from Maine has been chosen from thousands of applicants to train as an astronaut for NASA, a selection that could one day take her to Mars.

Jessica U. Meir, a 1995 graduate of Caribou High School who now works in Boston, could be among the leaders of a manned mission to an asteroid in the 2020s and to Mars in the following decade, according to a statement issued by NASA.

Meir, 35, is among eight astronaut trainees who were introduced Monday by NASA to be in its first training class in four years. The group, selected from a pool of more than 6,000 applicants after an 18-month search, includes four women. Their training will begin in August at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

If she successfully completes her two years of intense training, Meir could join Chris Cassidy, the only other active astronaut from Maine. Cassidy, who is now aboard the International Space Station, grew up in York.

Meir is a graduate of Brown University in Rhode Island and is now an assistant professor of anesthesia at Harvard Medical School in Boston. She could not be reached for comment Monday.

But in an interview on YouTube — in a forum called NASA Google+ Hangout — she says flying in space "has been my dream since I was 5 years old."

Meir says she is looking forward to being trained to fly a jet and immersing herself in Russian culture and society. She says she holds a private pilot's license.

Meir could be one of the first astronauts to fly to the International Space Station aboard commercial spacecraft launched from the United States. Russia ferries the astronauts now.

During the hour-long YouTube segment, Johnson Space Center Director Ellen Ochao introduces each of the astronaut candidates. Five are from the military and three, including Meir, are civilians.

Ochao says Meir was born and raised in Caribou, Maine, and that Meir has done extensive field work at Penguin Ranch in Antarctica, where she studied penguin behavior. Meir is also a scuba diver and an airplane pilot.

She has an advanced degree from the International Space University, and earned her doctorate from Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

NASA said the group of eight trainees, with four women, has the highest percentage of female astronaut candidates ever selected for a class.

Kenneth Atcheson II of Presque Isle, who was Meir's high school class adviser and social studies teacher, said he is not surprised that Meir was chosen.

He said he has known her since she was a little girl. When she was in the first grade, she drew a picture of an astronaut. In her senior yearbook, she wrote that her life goal was "to walk in space," Atcheson said.

He said Meir was active in high school. She was a member of the French club, president of the Student Council, a varsity soccer player, a saxophone player in the school band, a member of the National Honor Society and valedictorian of her class.

"She was by far one of the finest young women I've known," he said.

Atcheson, who has taught at Caribou High School for 27 years, said he was giving an exam Monday when he got an email from Meir. It read, "Dreams really do come true."

Atcheson said he had to compose himself, for fear he might start crying in front of his students.

"All day long, all I could think of was my little Jessica could land someday on an asteroid or even Mars," Atcheson said.

There will be a heck of a party in Caribou if she ever goes on a space walk, Atcheson said.

"All of Aroostook County and Maine should go outside and look into the sky and say, 'Jessica, you can do it.' We'll just stand here on earth, spellbound," he said.

Jacksonville Woman To Train As NASA Astronaut

April Davis - WITN TV (Greenville, NC)

NASA announced Monday a Jacksonville woman is among the 8 astronaut candidates selected for its 2013 astronaut class after an extensive year-and-a-half long search.

34-year-old Christina Hammock is from Jacksonville. She holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from North Carolina State University. She currently serves as National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration station chief in American Samoa.

The mission for these astronauts will be to help lead the first human mission to an asteroid and then on to Mars. These new trainees would potentially be the first astronauts to launch on a commercial spacecraft from U.S. soil.

The 2013 astronaut candidate class comes from the second largest number of applications NASA ever has received - more than 6,100.
The group will receive a wide array of technical training at space centers around the globe to prepare for missions to low-earth orbit, an asteroid, and Mars.

NASA administrator Charles Bolden said "These new space explorers asked to join NASA because they know we're doing big, bold things, developing missions to go farther into space than ever before."

Jacksonville woman selected as astronaut candidate

Thomas Brennan - Jacksonville (NC) Daily News

When Christina Hammock attended White Oak High School, she dreamed of becoming an astronaut. Now, her dreams are coming true.

Hammock, of Jacksonville, was one eight candidates selected when NASA announced its newest astronaut class Monday. The 34-year-old was among the four women selected — the highest concentration of female candidates ever selected by NASA. More than 6,000 people competed for the eight slots.

"It feels incredible and it makes me feel like all my hard work was worth it," Hammock said. "I also realized it's not always hard work if you're doing what you love and following your dreams."

Hammock, who is currently assigned to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's climate observatory in American Samoa, said she is most excited about learning to fly a jet and learning to speak Russian.

"I have thought about what it's like to go into space and I think it will be very humbling to see the earth from outer space," she said.

This isn't her first time working with NASA, she said. Hammond has worked on the science instruments for Juno, a planetary probe headed to Jupiter and two earth-orbiting satellites named the Van Allen Probes.

After graduating from White Oak in 1997, Hammock attended North Carolina State University and earned two bachelor's degrees as well as a master's degree in electrical engineering.

"Because my background is in engineering and research I hope that I will be able to contribute to the science that is going on at the International Space Station," Hammock said. "I also really hope to do outreach and inspire students to pursue science and find something they love."

She hopes to inspire children the same way she said her mother, Barbara Johnsen, of Frederick, Md., and her aunt Dr. Denise Traynor, of Jacksonville, inspired her — to always dream big and never stop believing in yourself.

She is finally fulfilling a dream she has had since sixth grade, said her father, Jacksonville urologist Dr. Ronald Hammock.

"It's a dream come true for both her and I," said Hammock. "We are all so proud of her."

She was always an exceptional student and young woman, her father said.

"I'm sure she will be an exceptional astronaut," Hammock said. "She's the most amazing person I know."

Christina Hammock will begin a two-year training regiment based out of Houston that will last two years. Upon completion, she will become flight eligible and wait on a mission assignment.

Lockheed Martin named NASA JSC Contractor of the Year

Bay Area Citizen

Lockheed Martin was recently named the Large Business Prime Contractor of the Year by NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC).

The award recognizes sustained excellence in meeting or exceeding small business requirements during the nine years the company has held a contract to prepare and process cargo for the International Space Station (ISS). In the last year the contract has exceeded five of seven small business utilization goals by 20 percent or more.

"Lockheed Martin values our relationships with small businesses, recognizing that working together provides NASA with innovative and diverse solutions," said Rick Hieb, vice president of exploration and mission support for Lockheed Martin's Information Systems & Global Solutions. "Together we've supported human spaceflight at Johnson Space Center for more than 50 years, and we look forward to continuing that relationship."

Lockheed Martin was also named the Johnson Space Center Large Prime Contractor of the Year in 2008 in recognition of subcontracting initiatives on the Aircraft Simulation Program.

Under the Cargo Mission Contract, Lockheed Martin procures, sustains, maintains and processes flight crew equipment ranging from laptops to clothing to housekeeping materials. The company also packs the cargo for launch. The team includes GHG Corporation, Bastion Technologies, LZ Technology, University of Texas at El Paso and Rothe Enterprises.

Lockheed Martin also holds contracts at JSC for Mission Operations Directorate facilities development and operations and is the prime contractor for the development of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle. The company is a subcontractor to Wyle on the Bioastronautics contract that supports the ISS and Human Research Programs with space medicine, engineering and life science expertise at JSC.

Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., Lockheed Martin is a global security and aerospace company that employs about 118,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration, and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products, and services. The Corporation's net sales for 2012 were $47.2 billion.

Colloborative thinking: space travel and beyond

Bonnyville, Canada Nouvelle (Editorial)

Earth can be a daunting place: with all the war, oppression, starvation and environmental degradation, among other absurd human decisions.

They say ignorance is bliss, but at some point it seems we must become aware of the irrational and either take part, abstain, fight against it … or … get on a space shuttle and move to Mars.

Perhaps pioneering the red planet is not the most practical solution. Maybe a more feasible option would be a trip to a permanent base on the Moon?

Although both these solutions to the problems associated with escaping the issues of Earth are not realistic at this very moment, the push to explore further and deeper into the dark abyss that is space, eventually sending humans to Mars and colonizing the Moon, is gaining the type of hype that occurred in America and the Soviet Union around their respective space programs in the 1950s and 60s.

The second millennium has brought a renewed energy around space travel, with Canadians taking an extra-keen interest, as one of the most popular modern-day astronauts, Chris Hadfield, who was born and raised in Canada, recently spent time commanding the International Space Station, performing valued research and sending spectacular photos back to Earth via his personal Twitter account.

Though Canada's rise to prominence among national space programs has been remarkable, starting with the invention of the STEM Antenna and the Canadarm and culminating with Hadfield's command of the ISS, it will not be Canada or any other individual nation to make the next great leaps in space.

Progression to new frontiers in space will come with collaboration between humans from all over the world – humans with vast knowledge and understanding in a variety of fields, which will better suit the unpredictable nature of something we do not yet understand.

It's time to stop fighting over arbitrary borders and the limited resources we have here on Earth and time to re-start our urge to explore and pioneer brand new horizons.

Who knows what working together can do? Space travel this decade, time travel the next?

Death of Yuri Gagarin demystified 40 years on

Russia Today

After over 40 years of secrecy, the real cause of death of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space, has been made public. Prominent Russian cosmonaut Aleksey Leonov reveals the truth behind the events of that tragic day.

For over 20 years Aleksey Leonov, the first man to conduct a spacewalk in 1965, has been struggling to gain permission to disclose details of what happened to the legendary Yuri Gagarin in March 1968.

Back then a State Commission established to investigate the accident (which Leonov was a part of), concluded that a crew of MiG-15UTI, Yuri Gagarin and experienced instructor Vladimir Seryogin, tried to avoid a foreign object – like geese or a hot air balloon – by carrying out a maneuver that had led to a tailspin and, finally, collision with the ground. Both pilots died in that test flight.

"That conclusion is believable to a civilian – not to a professional," Leonov told RT. He has always had a firm stance against the secrecy surrounding Gagarin's death, and wanted at least his family to know the truth.

"In fact, everything went down differently," he says.

According to a declassified report, there is a human factor behind the tragic incident - an unauthorized SU-15 fighter jet was flying dangerously close to Gagarin's aircraft.

Leonov had been in charge of parachute jump training on that day. The weather was extremely bad, with rain, wind and snow making it impossible to carry out exercises. He waited for an official confirmation that the exercises would be cancelled, but then heard a super-sonic noise followed by an explosion only a second apart from each other. That is when he knew something was up.

"We knew that a Su-15 was scheduled to be tested that day, but it was supposed to be flying at the altitude of 10,000 meters or higher, not 450-500 meters. It was a violation of the flight procedure."

Leonov that day talked to witnesses that pointed at the model of a Su-15 saying that it appeared out of the clouds with its tail smoking and burning.

"While afterburning the aircraft reduced its echelon at a distance of 10-15 meters in the clouds, passing close to Gagarin, turning his plane and thus sending it into a tailspin – a deep spiral, to be precise – at a speed of 750 kilometers per hour," Leonov tells.

According to the report that Seryogin wrote in his own hand, no aerobatic maneuvers or spins were to be performed by the crew of the MiG-15 with RD-45 engine and external fuel tanks, 260 liters each. Simple turns, pitching and nosedives were conducted after which Yuri reported: "Codename 645, task completed, descending" Leonov explains.

"That was the last we heard from him. The control point recorded that he was at the altitude of 4,200 at the time. 55 seconds later the plane crashed."

Leonov then was ordered to return to the Chkalovsky airfield, where he received the news that Gagarin's plane was supposed to have run out of fuel 45 minutes ago. Leonov's worst suspicions were confirmed when someone had called back reporting a crash site near the village of Novoselovo.

"We sent a team there which found the remains of the plane and the remains of Seryogin. No remains of Gagarin, except for his map case and a purse. So we first thought that he managed to eject. We sent a battalion of soldiers who combed the forest for the whole night. They shouted so that he could hear them, but all they found were remains of a balloon. It was only the next day that we found the remains of Yuri Gagarin. I identified him by a dark mole on the neck which I had spotted just three days before. A commission was set up to investigative the cause of the crash. Gherman Titov and I were invited to take part in the probe as experts."

The truth that was concealed reads more like a thriller story. When Leonov was given clearance to view the actual incident report all these years later, he found a great many inconsistencies. But the issue was with Leonov's own report: it had his name on it, but was written in a different hand, with the facts jumbled up.

"It had been something like this. Marked here was a sonic spike, a blast, followed by one-and-a-half or two seconds of supersonic noise... So, when I looked at the copy, I suddenly noticed that it stated this noise interval to be 15 to 20 seconds long instead of the two seconds that I had reported. That suggested that the two jets must have been no less than fifty kilometers apart."

With the aid of computers, the fresh investigation was able to glean insight into exactly what caused Gagarin to go into a fatal spiral at breakneck speed. They did this by inputting Gagarin's 55 second plunge together with the 750km speed at which he crashed.

"So we used a computer to figure out a trajectory that would relate to this interval of 55 seconds. And it turned out to be a deep spiral. Now, a jet can sink into a deep spiral if a larger, heavier aircraft passes by too close and flips it over with its backwash. And that is exactly what happened to Gagarin. That trajectory was the only one that corresponded with all our input parameters."

Leonov then started going public with the story. This was followed by press conferences - some of them televised. Renowned test pilots were invited to scrutinize and challenge Leonov's testimony.

"My guess would be that one of the reasons for covering up the truth was to hide the fact that there was such a lapse so close to Moscow".

There is a record of General Zapolskiy talking to the Su-15 pilot that leaves no doubt of the pilot's fault for creating such circumstances that led to the incident.

However, the name of the man responsible for Gagarin's death is still not being disclosed. Keeping him anonymous was a condition under which Leonov was allowed to talk.

It is only known that the pilot is now 80 years old and is in poor health.

"I was asked not to disclose the pilot's name. He is a good test pilot…It will fix nothing," Leonov said.

Nikolay Stroev, Deputy Head of the Military-Industrial Commission of the USSR said that the incident happened with no intention on his part as the pilot didn't see the other plane in the clouds as he passed "on supersonic speed in fractions of a second, maybe 10 or 20 meters away".

Conspiracy theories have surrounded the events of that day for years. They included suicide – even a collision with a UFO.

But for all intents and purposes, the case is closed, and the newfound truth should provide those affected with closure. Such is the conclusion of the first woman in space, Russian Valentina Tereshkova. She spoke at a press conference at the UN headquarters in Vienna, where she participated in a conference of the Committee for the Peaceful Use of Outer Space.

"The only regret here is that it took so long for the truth to be revealed," she said. "But we can finally rest easy."

Gagarin's passing was not only a tragedy, but a career-ending moment for Tereshkova. The state simply wouldn't let her fly anymore, as the possibility of losing a second cosmonaut of such stature would have been simply catastrophic.

"They forbade me from flying ever again, even piloting planes. The repercussions of the death of one cosmonaut were so great that they wanted to keep me safe."

But the source of Tereshkova's deepest sadness still lies with Gagarin's passing. She tried to hold back tears, as she spoke: "I still miss him. It is a loss not only for us cosmonaut colleagues, but for the entire community."

30 YRS AGO CHALLENGER DELIVERED 1^st US WOMAN TO SPACE

'Ride, Sally Ride!' 30th Anniversary of Her Historic Spaceflight

Lynn Sherr - Parade Magazine

(Sherr's biography of Sally Ride will be published by Simon & Schuster in 2014)

Three decades ago today, Sally Ride became the first American woman to fly into space. Here, biographer Lynn Sherr reflects on that momentous day.

Was it really 30 years ago?

June 18, 1983: A soft, bright morning at Florida's Kennedy Space Center, with occasional puffs of white dotting the pure blue sky. At 7:33 a.m., the space shuttle Challenger—officially, mission STS-7—thundered off the launch pad carrying a crew of five, including the first American woman to travel into space. Sally K. Ride was 32, with a Ph.D. in astrophysics from Stanford and a chance to redefine The Right Stuff for new generations of American women. What had started more than two decades earlier as a strictly male, military operation to get to the Moon, to beat the Russians—was finally female friendly. She had burst through the ultimate glass ceiling, taking all of us with her.

Some 250,000 people lined the beaches and the roads and the rivers at Cape Canaveral to share the moment, many hoisting their tiny daughters skyward to witness the possibilities for their own futures. Headlines around the world hailed Sally's flight; magazine covers displayed her playful grin beneath a halo of brown curls. And while there were four other exceptionally able crewmates—Commander Bob Crippen, Pilot Rick Hauck, Mission Speicalists John Fabian and Norm Thagard—my favorite sign decorated a Cocoa Beach restaurant marquee: "Ride, Sally Ride! And you guys can tag along, too!" As the anchor of ABC News' coverage that sunny Saturday, I unabashedly cheered her on, concluding, "Technologically, NASA is pushing towards the 21st century. But in human terms, it has finally entered the 20th."

When the crew landed a week later at Edwards Air Force Base in California, President Ronald Reagan telephoned his congratulations: "Somebody said that sometimes the best man for the job is a woman. You were there because you were the best person for the job."

Since STS-7, another 44 female American astronauts have flown, plus nearly a dozen from other nations. There were also the two Soviet women who made it up before Sally Ride. And the International Space Station, parked in an orbit some 200 miles above us—where we coexist peacefully with our former enemies, the Russians—currently contains a crew of six, including astronaut Karen Nyberg. American women have both occupied and commanded the outer space lab.

But the NASA numbers tell only part of Sally's story. Her commitment to the advancement of women in all fields—and her determination to keep girls interested in math and science through her company, Sally Ride Science—made her a role model for countless high achievers. Her death last July from pancreatic cancer, at age 61, was too soon, too sad, and totally surprising.

Sally Ride was also my friend, and I miss her unique combination of charm and wit and the ability to get things done. Fiercely private to the end, she chose to keep the news of her illness within a very small circle. She also chose not to speak publicly about her 27-year relationship with her female partner, Tam O'Shaughnessy. I've turned up a lot more information over the past year, in the course of writing her official biography. But mostly, I've learned that her spot in the pantheon of American heroes is secure. Sally's ride 30 years ago changed our world, and she never stopped trying to make it better—for us, and for our children. As one of her friends said at a recent national tribute, "What could make a life more special?"

Ride, Sally Ride: Thirty Years Since America's First Woman in Space

Ben Evans

Today marks the 30th anniversary of the launch of America's first woman into space. On 18 June 1983, physicist Dr. Sally Ride rocketed into orbit aboard Challenger and followed in the footsteps of Soviet cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova and Svetlana Savitskaya as history's third female spacefarer. Like Tereshkova and Savitskaya, she blazed a trail which is today being continued aboard the International Space Station by NASA's Karen Nyberg and aboard the Shenzhou-10/Tiangong-1 complex by China's Wang Yaping.

This year, 2013, is truly historic, for it also marks the half-century anniversary of the first woman in space … and there can be no greater tribute to female accomplishments on the final frontier than by a long-term female presence there. Thirty years ago, on STS-7, Sally Ride took the United States' first tentative steps toward making that presence a reality.

It is bitterly disappointing and intensely tragic that Ride never lived to celebrate the 30th anniversary of her flight, alongside STS-7 crewmates Bob Crippen, Rick Hauck, John Fabian, and Norm Thagard. Her untimely passing in July 2012 from pancreatic cancer removed yet another space pioneer in a desperately sad year which saw four of humanity's finest taken from us. First there was Janice Voss in February, then Alan Poindexter in July, and, most recently, Neil Armstrong in August.

From the instant that Ride was assigned to STS-7 it was recognized that she would become an American icon. Of Norwegian ancestry, she came from Los Angeles, born on 26 May 1951. In her youth, she aspired to become a professional tennis player and, for a time at Westlake High School, captained the team. After graduation from Westlake she entered Stanford to study physics and English. Whilst there, Billie Jean King watched her play and advised Ride to leave college and turn professional. She rejected King's advice and continued her studies; it is interesting that, since her astronaut days, Ride has become an outspoken advocate for getting more women involved in science and engineering. She received her degree in 1973, a master's credential in 1975, and her doctorate in astrophysics and free electron laser physics in 1978, only days—hours, even—before she drove to Houston to commence astronaut training.

"I saw an ad in the Stanford University student newspaper … that NASA was accepting applications," Ride told the agency's oral historian. "They wanted applications from women, which is presumably the reason the Center for Research on Women [at Stanford] was contacted and the reason they offered to place the ad in the newspaper." Two weeks after Rick Hauck's screening, early in October 1977, the 26-year-old Ride was called to Houston as part of another group of 20 candidates. "It was a group I'd never met before," she said, "and I didn't meet any of the other 180 who were interviewed. The only ones I met were the ones in my little group of 20. We spent a week going from briefing to briefing, from dinner to medical evaluations, psychological exams, and individual interviews with the astronaut selection committee."

For Ride, the media attention at becoming one of six female candidates was especially intense. "The impact started before I left for Houston," she remembered. "There was a lot of attention surrounding the announcement, because not only was it the first astronaut selection in nearly ten years, it was the first time that women were part of a class. There was a lot of press attention surrounding all six of us. Stanford arranged a press conference for me on the day of the announcement! I was a PhD physics student. Press conferences were not a normal part of my day! A lot of newspaper and magazine articles were written, primarily about the women in the group, even before we arrived. The media attention settled down quite a bit once we got to Houston. There were still the occasional stories and we definitely found ourselves being sent on plenty of public appearances."

The pressure on NASA to select female astronauts was strong and, according to Deke Slayton in his autobiography, Deke, co-authored with Michael Cassutt, "there was some last-minute political bullshit." This appeared to center on the fact that only one woman originally made the space agency's final cut and five pilots had to be dropped in favour of five female mission specialists. "They got selected a couple of years later," Slayton said of the pilots and, indeed, six pilots who reached the semi-final stage in 1978 (John Blaha, Roy Bridges, Guy Gardner, Ron Grabe, Bryan O'Connor, and Dick Richards) were chosen in 1980. The identity of the "one woman" has never been divulged, but whatever the truth the incident underlines the importance that NASA placed in its public image and its need to hire an astronaut class which truly represented the depth and breadth of America.

In April 1982, Ride was called into the office of George Abbey, head of Flight Crew Operations at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, Texas. Abbey had chaired the selection committee and it was he who gave final approval on the choice of astronaut crews. For Ride, being summoned to his office, alone, that spring day, was unusual. "The commander is the first to know about a flight assignment," she remembered. "Bob Crippen, who would be the commander of my crew, had already been told, but then usually the rest of the crew is told together; at least, that was the way it was done then. In this case, Mr. Abbey told me first, before he called over the other members of the crew. He took me up to JSC Director Chris Kraft's office, who talked about the implications of being the first American woman astronaut. He reminded me that I would get a lot of press attention and asked if I was ready for that. His message was 'Let us know if you need help. We're here to help you in any way and can offer whatever help you need.' It was a very reassuring message, coming from the head of the space center."

Ride's colleagues on the STS-7 mission would be Crippen, a veteran of the first shuttle flight, joined by Rick Hauck in the pilot's seat and fellow mission specialist John Fabian. They were destined to train for a year, with a tentatively scheduled launch in April 1983 aboard Challenger to deploy two communications satellites and release and later retrieve a free-flying platform (the Shuttle Pallet Satellite, or "SPAS") using the Canadian-built mechanical arm. In the same way that Ride found out about her assignment, alone, John Fabian had a similar recollection. "I didn't know right off the bat that Sally was going to fly with me," he explained, "and that Rick Hauck was going to fly with me. I'm sure that the decision had been made, but maybe because they hadn't been told, I wasn't told. It wasn't a gathering. I don't know why." Certainly, being told as individuals was unusual, for most shuttle crews were informed as a group … and even the crew of Apollo 11 was gathered together to be told of their impending assignment. Little did they know at the time that their crew would ultimately expand to five members with the inclusion of a third mission specialist, Norm Thagard.

Before STS-7 even left Earth, however, the most famous aspect of the mission was Ride herself. In some of the more cynical areas of the media, it was speculated that she had been added to the crew purely as a public relations ploy, in response to the Soviet Union launching Svetlana Savitskaya in August 1982. "NASA's crew allocation procedure is a closely-guarded secret, though it is known to involve seniority and an attempt to match education and experience to the mission," Flight International told its readers in April 1982, "but since NASA is financed by the U.S. taxpayer, its public image is also important. So it is likely that NASA is capitalising on the publicity of having a woman fly early … "

Whilst it may be a little more than pure coincidence that a female astronaut happened to be one of the earliest to fly, Bob Crippen vehemently disagreed with the notion that Ride was simply a politically-driven "token" on the mission. "She is flying with us because she is the very best person for the job," he told the press. "There is no man I would rather have in her place." Still, the importance of her presence was evident. President Ronald Reagan invited the entire crew to the White House before launch … and again, for a state dinner, after the flight … and at various functions the white male astronauts were largely ignored or unrecognised by the press; the journalists were interested only in Ride.

Years later, Rick Hauck felt that, despite a few "awkward" occasions, training and execution of the first American mixed-sex space flight went without many problems. "There were situations," he acquiesced, "where, maybe in the potty training, I'd never been involved in professional discussions with women about those! It was uncomfortable in a few situations, but the discomfort disappeared easily. Sally was great and Crip set the right tone in terms of what his expectations were of the crew. We just did it."

Awkwardness was also a problem faced by NASA's male-dominated engineering community, who decided that the female astronauts were bound to require a makeup kit! "So they came to me," laughed Ride, "figuring that I could give them advice. It was about the last thing in the world that I wanted to be spending my time training on, so I didn't spend much time on it at all. There were a couple of other female astronauts who were given the job of determining what should go in the makeup kit and how many tampons should fly as part of a flight kit. I remember the engineers trying to decide how many tampons should fly on a one-week flight and there were probably other issues, just because they had never thought about what kind of personal equipment a female astronaut would take. They knew that a man might want a shaving kit, but they didn't know what a woman would carry."

Confining four people to a volume the size of a camper van for six days made for cramped accommodation. Then, eight months into their training, the quartet became a quintet. When STS-5 rocketed into orbit on November 1982, one of its objectives was to perform the first-ever shuttle-based spacewalk. Unfortunately, this was cancelled, partly due to space sickness suffered by two of the crew members. This adverse effect on no less than half of the STS-5 crew prompted NASA to add a pair of physician-astronauts to STS-7 and STS-8.

Norm Thagard, the physician joining Crippen's crew, was already well known to Rick Hauck. "He and I had first met when we were both on the USS Lake Champlain, learning to land airplanes on aircraft carriers," in the mid-1960s, recalled Hauck. "In order to try to learn more about space sickness, NASA generated a bunch of tests and I was one of the guinea pigs! As soon as we got on orbit, Norm had these visual, spinning things that I had to watch and, boy, I felt miserable. They sure accomplished the purpose! It was after about four hours that I started to come out of it and that resolved itself." A similar perspective was offered by John Fabian: "I told people that if you had one, Norm Thagard measured it!"

At the time of Thagard's assignment—just four days before Christmas 1982—the STS-7 launch was still officially scheduled for April of the following year, which also provided NASA with invaluable data about the length of time needed by astronauts to prepare themselves for missions. Eventually, due to hydrogen leaks which pushed Challenger's maiden voyage from late January into early April 1983, Bob Crippen's team found themselves rescheduled for mid-June. Despite the late addition of Thagard, Sally Ride recalled that he blended into the crew seamlessly. "We didn't spend every waking hour together," she said, "but we did spend almost all our time together, either as an entire crew or in groups of two or three. I was spending almost all my time with Crip and Rick in launch and re-entry simulations. Also, because we had things that required the whole crew, we did a lot of training together. We got to know each other very well. We never had any issues at all and got to be very good friends through the training."

By the time Paul Weitz's STS-6 crew brought Challenger swooping into Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., on 9 April 1983, the STS-7 launch date had slipped to "no earlier than" 18 June. Although SPAS, with its rendezvous commitment, attracted the most press attention, the commercial focus was a pair of commercial telecommunications satellites: Canada's Anik-C2 and Indonesia's Palapa-B1.

Displaying a similar theme of unity as a crew, and heralded by signs which screamed Ride, Sally Ride, Bob Crippen led his team out of the Operations and Checkout Building into the glare of media flashbulbs in the early hours of 18 June. It had been a peculiar morning. John Fabian remembered it lucidly: their "last breakfast," a cake on the table, designed with their crew patch, followed by suiting-up and the long drive to Pad 39A. "You go through these various steps along the way," he recalled of the drive. "At each place, they're checking your ID and less and less people can proceed beyond each one of those." When they finally passed through the last of those checks, Crippen turned to the others and told them that they had just said goodbye to the last sane people in the facility, "because we've got to be crazy to do what we're doing!"

The five astronauts took the elevator ride to the 195-foot level, where they disembarked and headed across a narrow walkway to the "white room," adjacent to Challenger's access hatch, where technicians awaited them. Whilst Crippen and Hauck were being strapped into their seats, Fabian had a few minutes to look around, "take a last-minute nervous pee," and watch the twinkling of car headlights, to the north, the south, and the west, crowding the roadways of the Kennedy Space Center. As Mission Specialist One, Fabian took his seat directly behind Hauck, with Ride to his left in the flight engineer's position and Thagard downstairs on the middeck. "Once you get in the vehicle," he explained, "and get strapped down and the door's closed and latched and the technicians who are out there have run like hell, which is the right thing to do, you have just a little bit of time to think about all this, about what you're going to do and about why you're out there and about how you feel doing it." That feeling lasted all the way down to the last built-in hold in the countdown, at T-9 minutes; after that, Fabian continued, "you're only set on one thing: and that is you really want to fly today!" Unlike some astronauts, he admitted that he was aware of the risks involved, but "fear" did not factor into his emotional state. "I tell people I've been married to the same woman for 44 years," he reasoned, "so I don't scare easily!"

Thankfully, their countdown and liftoff at precisely 11:33 a.m. EST was one of the smoothest ever conducted. Challenger's three main engines shut down on time, eight minutes and 20 seconds into the mission. To the untrained eye, the perfect ascent demonstrated NASA's seemingly effortless ability to fly on time and within the tolerance of very brief "launch windows." Only five minutes were available to the STS-7 crew for their first opportunity on 18 June, and only two minutes for a second shot, beginning at 12:24 p.m. The shorter-than-normal windows were dictated by three considerations: Earth horizon sensor constraints on Anik-C2 for a deployment during Challenger's eighth orbit and on Palapa-B1 eleven orbits later, together with a requirement for adequate lighting conditions at Edwards Air Force Base, in the event that an emergency landing should become necessary.

For the four rookies on the crew, their years of training had paid off. "Physically, the simulator does a pretty good job," Sally Ride said of its closeness to the real thing. "It shakes about right and the sound level is about right and the sensation of being on your back is right. It can't simulate the G-forces that you feel, but that's not too dramatic on a shuttle launch. The physical sensations are pretty close and, of course, the details of what you see in the cockpit are very realistic. The simulator is the same as the shuttle cockpit and what you see on the computer screens is what you'd see in flight." There, however, the similarities ended. "The actual experience of a launch is not even close to the simulators," Ride exclaimed. "The simulators just don't capture the psychological and emotional feelings that come along with the actual launch. Those are fuelled by the realisation that you're not in a simulator—you're sitting on top of tons of rocket fuel and it's basically exploding underneath you! It's an emotionally and psychologically overwhelming experience; very exhilarating and terrifying, all at the same time."

During ascent and re-entry, Ride helped Crippen and Hauck keep track of Challenger's systems. "My job was primarily to keep track of where we were in the checklists and be prepared with the malfunction checklists should anything go wrong," she remembered. "I was the one that was expected to be first to find and turn to the procedures should anything go wrong. I was also monitoring systems and status on the computer screens. My main job, though, assuming nothing went wrong, was to read the checklist and tick off the milestones. One of the first things that I was supposed to do—seven seconds after booster ignition—was, once the shuttle started to roll, to say 'Roll program.' I'll guarantee that those were the hardest words I ever had to get out of my mouth. It's not easy to speak seven seconds after launch!"

Meanwhile, in the pilot's seat, Rick Hauck recalled seeing the sky outside his cockpit window change colour as Challenger climbed higher. "Seeing the sky turn from blue to black in a fraction of a second was amazing," he said later, "because as you leave the atmosphere, the Sun's rays are no longer being scattered by the air molecules. I remember as I was glancing out the window, startled, Crip said 'Eyes on the cockpit!' Back to work. Watch all the gauges. I guess that's one thing that stands out in my memory. Everything about it was thrilling." From his position, Fabian remembered that there was no chit-chat, no jokes—"it was all taken very professionally," he said, "and very seriously"—although he did get the chance to crane his neck, a few seconds after launch, to look through one of the overhead windows and watch the fire from the SRBs and the launch pad gradually recede, the view broadening to take in the entire launch complex, then the whole of Cape Canaveral.

Achieving orbit, and the exalted and intensely peculiar state of weightlessness, the five astronauts were finally able to unstrap and begin configuring Challenger from a rocket ship into an Earth-circling spacecraft. "Below" them the Home Planet hung in the blackness like a brilliant blue and white jewel. But there was little time to contemplate their new surroundings. They had work to do.

It is bitterly disappointing and intensely tragic that Ride never lived to celebrate the 30th anniversary of her flight, alongside STS-7 crewmates Bob Crippen, Rick Hauck, John Fabian, and Norm Thagard. Her untimely passing in July 2012 from pancreatic cancer removed yet another space pioneer in a desperately sad year which saw four of humanity's finest taken from us. First there was Janice Voss in February, then Alan Poindexter in July, and, most recently, Neil Armstrong in August.

On the morning of 18 June 1983, Ride and her STS-7 crewmates entered orbit, with two commercial satellite deployments ahead of them and the release and retrieval of a unique Shuttle Pallet Satellite (SPAS). The main objective of their first day in space was the deployment of Canada's Anik-C2 comsat, which would be performed by Fabian and Ride. Three hours into the mission, updated computations of Challenger's orbital path—including her altitude, velocity, and inclination—were radioed up to them. Then, about 40 minutes before deployment, Crippen and Hauck maneuvered the shuttle into the correct attitude with its long axis "horizontal," one wing down, and the open payload bay doors facing into the direction of travel. At length, the restraint arms pulled away from the $160 million Anik-C2 and the astronauts flipped a switch on Challenger's aft flight deck to open the Pacman-like jaws of its sunshield and impart a spin rate of 50 revolutions per minute on the payload. This steady rotation helped to stabilise the satellite during deployment.

Next, at 9:01:42 p.m. EST, nine and a half hours since leaving Florida and flying high over the Pacific, Fabian and Ride fired and released a clamp that held the satellite and its booster in place. Seeming to move in slow motion, the payload left the bay at just 2.3 feet per second. Fifteen minutes later, Crippen and Hauck backed the shuttle away to a distance of around 25 miles, aiming the shuttle's belly toward the satellite to protect their delicate topside from the exhaust of the PAM-D booster. At 9:46 p.m., as the combination hurtled over Africa, an on-board timer automatically fired the motor for approximately one hundred seconds to push Anik-C2 into a highly elliptical geostationary transfer orbit. The performance of the booster and its motor were described as "satisfactory" on STS-7, with the only minor concern being a slight hesitation of Anik-C2's sunshield during closure. Post-flight inspections revealed that a small Teflon rub strip, laced into one of its insulating panels, had inadvertently pulled itself loose.

Launching Indonesia's Palapa-B1 satellite on 19 June followed the same routine. Once more under the watchful eyes of Fabian and Ride, it was sent spinning out of the payload bay at 1:36 p.m. EST. Forty-five minutes later, its PAM-D ignited to insert it perfectly into an accurate transfer orbit. Commanded from an Indonesian ground station at Cibinong, near Jakarta, the satellite was manoeuvred, in a similar manner to Anik-C2, into its operational slot at 108 degrees East longitude.

With two satellite deployments behind them, and two days off the planet, Ride and her crewmates were gradually acquiring their "space legs." "I didn't really know what to expect, because there isn't a way to train for being weightless," said Ride of her first experience of life in space. "It's so far removed from a person's everyday experience that even hearing other astronauts describe it didn't give me a clue how to prepare for it. What I discovered was that, although it took an hour or so to get used to moving around, I adapted to it pretty quickly. I loved it! I really enjoyed being weightless."

It was a pity that physician Norm Thagard, with his battery of space sickness tests to operate, could not have applied some of his expertise to the third deployable payload aboard Challenger. For, had the Shuttle Pallet Satellite been a human crew member, its maneuvers in space during the second half of the STS-7 mission would undoubtedly have rendered it somewhat queasy. The aim of flying the research platform was to demonstrate the shuttle's ability to conduct close range "proximity" operations, including rendezvous, station-keeping, and retrieval. It would be deployed and recovered using the shuttle's 50-foot-long Remote Manipulator System (RMS) arm, built in Canada. Such operations on STS-7 would provide critical, real-world data in support of one of Challenger's most important assignments planned for the spring of 1984: the recovery and repair of NASA's crippled Solar Max science satellite.

Indeed, the SPAS operations were, admitted Rick Hauck, one of the most challenging aspects of STS-7. "It was going to be the first time that the shuttle had flown in close proximity to another object," he explained. "We knew that the shuttle had a lot of capabilities that had been designed into it and one of our major objectives was to flight test the ability to do the last stages of rendezvous and fly very close to another object when you're both going at 17,500 mph. The objective was, using the RMS, Sally was to lift it out of the bay and release it. Crip would fly the shuttle with it just sitting there, because we could always drift relative to each other. We needed to make sure we could fly close to it comfortably, then back away, fire the jets to go back to it, eventually up to 200 feet, fly around it and see if we could fly it without having the reaction jets upset the satellite."

Designed and built by the West German aerospace firm Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm (MBB), under a June 1981 agreement with NASA, it was designed to accommodate scientific and technical experiments provided by fee-paying customers. Roughly triangular in shape, it weighed 3,300 pounds when fully laden. During missions, it could operate in the payload bay or be deployed for up to 40 hours in autonomous free flight. For STS-7, the $13 million platform was laden with several scientific and technical experiments, funded by the then-West Germany, the European Space Agency (ESA), and NASA. Although crammed with experiments—ranging from studies of metallic alloys to a state-of-the-art remote sensing scanner—it became most famous for its NASA-provided cameras, which yielded the first picture of the full shuttle in space.

Getting such a historic photograph was planned, said Bob Crippen, thanks to the inputs of Bill Green from NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., but what was not intended was positioning the RMS in such a way that the mechanical arm's joints created the number "7? to honor their own mission number. As a crew, they had practiced the maneuver on the ground—in fact, the design of their mission patch included a similar image—and it was Ride who placed the arm into this configuration in orbit. Some flight controllers were decidedly unhappy about the astronauts' antics. They had not seen the RMS in such a position before and were concerned that to do so, for nothing more than a photo opportunity, might risk stretching the arm to its structural limits.

Still, the imagery acquired by SPAS of the shuttle in orbit, with the glittering blue and white marble of Earth beneath, proved truly stunning. Years later, Ride would admit that she still used the famous photograph as a slide during her lectures. "We worked hard on that," Fabian remembered of the planning for the SPAS Photo. "We worked out the position [with] the arm in the shape of a 'seven' for the seventh flight and we didn't tell anybody about this, of course. We had this on a back-of-our-hand-type of procedure—what angles each joint had to be in order for it to look like that—and then we had worked on the timing, so that we could catch the space shuttle against the black sky, with the horizon down below. That was the picture we most wanted. Now, we got a lot of good pictures, against the cloud background and against the total black sky … It had just a whole battery of cameras: a still camera, a TV camera, a motion-picture camera, and so we're running these various cameras by remote as we fly the shuttle around it so that we can get the shuttle in various types of positions."

Beginning on 20 June, the first of two phases of SPAS activities got underway with initial testing in the payload bay. During this time, seven of its 11 experiments were switched on and allowed to run continuously for 24 hours. Then, next day, with the satellite held securely by the RMS, Crippen and Hauck pulsed Challenger's RCS thrusters to evaluate movements within the arm. Again, Sally Ride found her months of practice on the ground had prepared her amply for operating the real thing in orbit. "The simulators did a good job," she said later. "It was a little easier to use the arm in space than it was in the simulators, because I could look out the window and see a real arm! Although the visuals in the simulator were very good, there's nothing quite like being able to look out of the window and see the real thing. It felt very comfortable and familiar. The simulators had prepared me very well." Early on 22 June, the second phase—actually releasing SPAS into space—got underway. Shortly before 9:00 a.m. EST, under John Fabian's control, it was released from the arm. The crew reported that the satellite's handling characteristics were exactly as expected and the RMS imparted no appreciable motion. For the next nine and a half hours, the astronauts tested the arm, fired off RCS plumes to deliberately disturb the satellite, and practiced the rendezvous and proximity operations needed during the Solar Max repair.

"It was a big deal," Bob Crippen reflected on the first deployment and retrieval by the shuttle, "and we wanted to make sure that we could rendezvous with satellites; could come back in and grab them. It turned out that it all went extremely well. It was a little bit different, in that what we called the 'digital autopilot', or the 'DAP'—which is the way the computer fires the various jets—when we got in close to the satellite, I found that when you tried to slow down sometimes, the attitude control thrusters would also start going, and it kept 'walking' you in when you didn't want to go in … We ended up learning a few things about how the autopilot worked that we corrected subsequently and makes it very nice for rendezvous today, which is extremely important on things like working with the [International Space] Station. It all really worked very well."

Meanwhile, the crew described the retrieval—both in stable and slowly rotating attitudes—as easy to perform, "but the act of going up and capturing it was a little scary," admitted Ride. "What if we couldn't capture this satellite? It was easy in the simulators, but was it going to be easy in orbit? The experience was different because it was real! In the simulator, it wasn't that important and if you missed, it was just a virtual arm going through a virtual payload. In orbit, it really mattered that I captured the satellite." Fortunately, the retrieval went perfectly.

In general, only minor problems marred Challenger's second mission. One of the more worrying problems was a small "pit" in one of the shuttle's forward flight deck windows; caused, it turned out, by the impact of "space debris." It was first noticed by the astronauts on 20 June, but they did not report it. "Crippen decided not to tell the ground that we'd been hit and it didn't come up until after the flight," John Fabian explained later. "His rationale for that, I assume, was that there wasn't anything that the ground could do to help us. The event had already occurred. We were perfectly safe … and so he elected not to say anything. I think it was the right decision." The window was subjected to detailed energy-discursive X-ray analysis after landing, and titanium oxide and small quantities of aluminium, carbon, and potassium were found in addition to pit glass. The morphology of the impact was suggestive of an impacting particle (most likely a tiny fleck of paint) … but travelling at four miles per second! "The results," Fabian continued, "are so much larger than the event itself that it's staggering."

Originally, STS-7 was scheduled to perform the first shuttle landing at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Fla., a fact highlighted in the mission's press kit, which would have helped to reduce turnaround times significantly. "We were looking forward to that," remembered Sally Ride. "They had a red carpet ready to roll out for us and our families were all waiting for us in Florida." Unfortunately, the touchdown on 24 June was postponed by two further revolutions in the hope that conditions would improve or facilitate a landing attempt at Edwards Air Force, Calif. It was expected that bringing shuttles back home to the East Coast launch site would save around $1 million and five days' worth of processing for the next flight. Moreover, KSC landings would remove the necessity to expose the orbiter to the uncertainties and potential dangers of a cross-country ferry flight atop NASA's modified 747. However, as Crippen's crew discovered that June day in 1983, the West Coast landing site exhibited far more stable weather conditions than Florida.

The resultant three-hour delay to STS-7's homecoming, therefore, gave the crew some much deserved free time and, said Rick Hauck, provided them with an opportunity to hold a makeshift, Earth-circling Olympics. "Each person, in turn, had their hands coming up from middeck to flight deck through that opening on the port side, hands curled over the floor of the flight deck. On the count of three," Hauck explained, "we went as fast as we could up into the flight deck, down through the starboard entryway, down through the middeck, and back up. We gave out five awards. Sally won the fastest woman! John Fabian won the competitor that caused the most injuries; no-one got hurt, but I think his leg hit Crip coming around at one point. I think Norm Thagard was the fastest man. Crip was the most injured!"

After the hopes of an East Coast touchdown came to nothing, Crippen and Hauck duly fired Challenger's engines to begin the hour-long hypersonic glide to Earth. Sally Ride was pleased. "I remember being disappointed that we weren't going to land in Florida," she said later, "but I grew up in California and we'd spent a lot of time at Edwards Air Force Base. The pilots had done a lot of approach and landing practice at Edwards, so it almost felt like a second home. But there weren't many people there waiting for us!" Nonetheless, Challenger's touchdown at 10:56 a.m. PST was near-perfect. Her systems performed well during re-entry and landing … but it had been a difficult mission.

"I'm not a shuttle pilot," said Fabian, "but I am a pilot and I know a thing or two about kicking rudders and moving ailerons … and this is a very difficult machine to fly. I have had an opportunity to fly the [shuttle] simulator. It's not nearly as easy to fly as a big air transport, like a Boeing 707 or 757, and certainly a lot more difficult to fly than a little NASA T-38. You've got to stay on top of it all the time. You've got to be thinking well ahead of the vehicle, so this is not just a flying job for … the guy who really knows how to maneuver the airplane. This is a machine that is flown by people who are of great intellect as well as great skill. But when you come back down and you finally roll out on final and you can see the runway in front of you, even though you've seen this in the simulator before, it's still startling when you look out there and see how rapidly you descend down towards that runway. You're really coming down fast, about a twenty degree glide slope, and that's really noticeable." Twenty degrees represents an angle of attack more than six times steeper than a commercial aircraft—indeed, for the final minutes of each shuttle flight, the vehicle fell to Earth with all the grace of a brick.

When the crew returned to Houston, the media frenzy was more intense than previous missions, although their opportunities to relax were limited. Hauck and Fabian visited Indonesia and the whole crew was invited to a White House state dinner, hosted by President Ronald Reagan in honor of the Emir of Bahrain. As the first American woman in space, Sally Ride naturally drew the spotlight, to the extent that Crippen and NASA management were obliged to shield her on occasion. At one glitzy function, a group of unrecognized males—the rest of the STS-7 crew, together with Ride's husband, fellow astronaut Steve Hawley—were almost turned away. Everyone knew Ride, but no one recognized them. Norm Thagard was pushed up against a wall by a particularly discourteous photographer, such was the urgency with which the latter needed to get to Ride and present his lens to her face.

Instinctively, each of them knew that it was all part of the post-flight circus ("Your turn in the barrel," as John Fabian put it) and the price to be paid for having flown into space. Still, Ride only half-jokingly told the NASA oral historian that she was relieved to be assigned to her second mission in November 1983, because training kept her safe from the media. At least there she could be left to get on with her job.

It was a job which carried her again into space in October 1984 and—but for the loss of Challenger—might have led to a third mission in July 1986. However, for Sally Ride, the summer of 1986 would be spent on the panel of the presidential Rogers Commission into the Challenger accident and, thereafter, she would lead an influential report which proposed an ambitious roadmap for America's future in space. The "Ride Report" was ambitious in its scope and several of its recommendations came into effect in the 1990s, whilst others are only steadily becoming a vision for the future, but the influence of Sally Ride as a proponent for science and exploration—and as a proponent for enthusing younger generations with science and exploration—would continue until the end of her life.

Sexism Limited Female Space Flights – Russian Cosmonaut

RIA Novosti

Russian women rarely go into space because Russian men fear that their heroism would be diminished if shared with members of the opposite sex, scientist and former cosmonaut Yelena Dobrokvashina said Friday, while she also denied rumors that female cosmonauts have tried to conceive when orbiting the Earth.

Since the Soviet Union sent the first woman into space half a century ago, only two Russian women have followed in her footsteps – compared with more than 50 from the United States.

"It is, of course, linked with the peculiarities of our mentality," Dobrokvashina said at a press conference dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the first female spaceflight. "Although they always said that everyone was equal – men and women – it's no secret that we live in a man's world."

Women were expected to leave the high-profile jobs to the men, she said. "There was an opinion that men were scared that if women were to go into space … [the men's] aura of heroism would be lost."

Dobrokvashina trained as a cosmonaut in the early 1980s but never had the chance to fly in space. She is now a medical expert at the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, will mark the 50th anniversary of her pioneering flight on June 16. She said last week that the lack of female cosmonauts was linked to a series of unlucky coincidences, technical problems and a desire to protect women from accidents.

At the conference on Friday, Dobrokvashina denied rumors that female cosmonauts in the Soviet Union were required to "perform experiments" to see whether they could conceive in outer space.

"I think that to create a new person in the inhospitable environment [of space] – with its weightlessness and high radiation levels – is inhuman," she said. "Even in concentration camps, they probably wouldn't have done that."

Dobrokvashina also said that, while the conditions in space affect men and women in similar ways, women may actually make better cosmonauts than men.

"It's easier for men to survive physical challenges and short-lived stress, but nature made women for long, slow and tedious work – for slow and meditative work," she said.

Dobrokvashina trained alongside Svetlana Savitskaya, who became the second Russian woman to go into space in 1982. The third and last Russian woman in space, Yelena Kondakova, worked aboard the International Space Station for five months in 1994-95.

Female astronauts: Breaking the glass atmosphere
What kept American women from getting into space was the simple presumption by men that other men would make better astronauts

Meg Waite Clayton - Los Angeles Times (Opinion)

(Clayton is the author of four novels, including the forthcoming "The Wednesday Daughters.")

Fifty years ago on June 16 — and only two years after the first man entered space — Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova piloted the Vostok 6 through 48 laps around the Earth on a three-day solo mission under the call name Chaika (Seagull). At the age of 26, she'd spent more time in space than all the U.S. astronauts combined.

Life magazine proclaimed, "She Orbits Over the Sex Barrier" and, in smaller type above that title, "a blue-eyed blonde with a new hairdo stars in a Russian space spectacular." A Texas paper had the headline, "Russian Blonde Spins around the Earth Toward Possible Rendezvous," a play on the fact that Tereshkova was to communicate from space with another capsule piloted by Valery Bykovsky. A prominent American newspaper described her as "a pleasant-looking, gray-eyed, athletic young woman with wavy, dark blond hair." Bykovsky's hair color, occasionally described as "dark," does not appear to have been of quite as much interest.

Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev told Valya, as he called her, that he felt "a fatherly pride that it is our girl, a girl from the land of the Soviets, who is the first in space." Which would make her the first spacegirl, to be taken somewhat less seriously than a man. But he also said, "Now you see what women are capable of."

Americans found fault with the Soviets sending a woman into space on the basis that Tereshkova was not an experienced pilot — never mind that the first space flights were made by a Russian dog named Laika (nicknamed "Muttnik" in the U.S.), a series of American mice (may they rest in peace) and a few years' worth of monkeys. Never mind that test pilot Chuck Yeager called the Mercury astronauts "Spam in a can."

At the time, 13 American women — all skilled pilots with commercial ratings — had passed the astronaut admission standards in private tests at the Lovelace Clinic in New Mexico. It was part of an Air Force project undertaken with the idea that women, being typically smaller and lighter, might do well in the confines of a space capsule. Just days before the women were to report to the Naval School of Aviation Medicine in Pensacola, Fla., for further testing, though, they were informed by telegram that without a NASA request, the facilities could not be used.

One of them pleaded their case to Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, who gave lip service to the idea of female astronauts but later scrawled "Let's Stop This Now" on the proposal to consider them. During the July 1962 hearings of the House Committee on Science and Astronautics, NASA representatives testified that women could not qualify as astronaut candidates because NASA required all astronauts to be military jet test-pilot program graduates with engineering degrees.

Women, of course, were barred from Air Force training schools.

John Glenn — who, interestingly, didn't actually have the required engineering degree but was nonetheless an astronaut — gave this testimony: "The men go off and fight the wars and fly the airplanes and come back and help design and build and test them. The fact that women are not in this field is a fact of our social order. It may be undesirable."

Would menstruating women be able to fly well? Would the American public tolerate a woman dying in space? Clare Boothe Luce, in a piece in Life, noted that the main argument against sending American women into space was simply the presumption by men that men would make better astronauts.

One NASA spokesperson said the talk of American women in space made him sick to his stomach — a clear indication that he, at least, did not have the right stuff, whether women did or not.

One senator who dismissed Tereshkova's flight as a sexy gimmick claimed it was "carrying romance to a new high," as if the story deserved a bodice-ripper cover and purple prose.

The facts, as Luce set out in Life, were that 31% of Russian engineers were female, as were more than half of Russian professionals. Women constituted an astonishing 74% of Russia's doctors and surgeons: 332,400, compared to just 14,000 in the U.S.

Jane Hart, one of the female "astro-nots," concluded that NASA would hold tight to its "wait-and-see" approach to putting women in space, "even if Russians landed the whole Leningrad Symphony Orchestra on the moon." It would be another 20 years and two days before Sally Ride's famous 1983 ride on the Space Shuttle Challenger, and more than three decades before Eileen Collins became the first woman to pilot an American spaceship.

In truth, the Soviets weren't much better than America when it came to making space for women in space beyond that first flight. Another two decades passed before Svetlana Savitskaya — who would go on to be the first woman to walk in space — gained a place off this Earth. And since then, the nation has put a very few of its women aloft.

Other female astronauts have come from Canada, China, Japan, India and France. The first astronauts to enter space from Britain, South Korea and Iran were women. And the U.S.?

Having come late to the party, NASA made up for lost time. Forty-five of the 57 women who have managed to break through the glass atmosphere since Tereshkova first did so have been American.

END

Shuttle/Shuttle Concept Restart

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Fwd: Human Spaceflight News - June 18, 2013 and JSC Today

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