Still planning on buying more Russian seats-- got some real nuts running the US!!

NASA officials mulling the possibility of purchasing Soyuz seats for 2019 | Ars Technica

http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/09/nasa-officials-mulling-the-possibility-of-purchasing-soyuz-seats-for-2019/


Sent from my iPad

Fwd: Elon Musk has a lot to prove at today’s Mars colonization announcement!

Sent from my iPad

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Peter M. Callahan" <pmcallah@gmail.com>
Date: September 27, 2016 at 5:38:35 PM CDT
To: Bobby Martin <bobbygmartin1938@gmail.com>
Subject: Elon Musk has a lot to prove at today's Mars colonization announcement!

Elon Musk/SpaceX is a farce and a sham!

• MUSK IS HORRIBLE AT DEADLINES!

• NOT ONE PERSON HAS FLOWN ABOARD A SPACEX ROCKET!

###

Elon Musk has a lot to prove at today's Mars colonization announcement

Talk is cheap; rockets are expensive

http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/27/13024542/elon-musk-spacex-mission-to-mars-preview-budget-schedule-nasa

--
Sent from Gmail Mobile

Capability needed for EO control!

Fwd: 20 Years Since STS-79

Sent from my iPad

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: September 25, 2016 at 10:59:57 PM CDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: 20 Years Since STS-79

 

AmericaSpace

For a nation that explores
September 24th, 2016

Changing the Guard: 20 Years Since STS-79 (Part 1)

By Ben Evans

 

World record holder Shannon Lucid watches the growth of plants in a Russian greenhouse aboard Mir. This photograph was taken in September 1996, shortly after the crew of STS-79, including Lucid's replacement, John Blaha, arrived to bring her home. Photo Credit: NASA

Twenty years ago, this month, an American national record-breaker circled high above Earth, aboard Russia's Mir space station. In July 1996, Shannon Lucid had surpassed Norm Thagard to become the most flight-experienced U.S. spacefarer and by early September she had eclipsed Russian cosmonaut Yelena Kondakova to become the most seasoned female spacefarer of all time. Not for another decade would her record for womankind be beaten. And in September 1996, after a stupendous 188 days in orbit on a single mission—and 223 days across the entirety of her five-flight astronaut career—Lucid returned to Earth aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis. Yet her return home was far from the "end," but rather the beginning of more than two years of continuous U.S. presence aboard the station, for riding uphill with Atlantis' STS-79 astronauts was another long-duration Mir resident, Lucid's old friend and former crewmate John Blaha.

Launched to Mir aboard Atlantis on STS-76 in March 1996, it was not NASA's or Russia's intent to keep Lucid aboard the station for so long. In fact, she was scheduled to return to Earth on 9 August, after 140 days, which would still have positioned her ahead of Thagard on the U.S. national experience table, though somewhat short of Kondakova's 169-day empirical record for woman. However, following Columbia's STS-78 launch in June 1996, NASA found worrisome damage to the field joint of the Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs), apparently caused by the leakage of hot gases through a total of six discrete joints. It was a catastrophic "blow-by" of the booster's rubberized O-ring seals which had caused the loss of Challenger in January 1986. Upon close inspection, it was found that the gas-path in the case of STS-78's boosters had not penetrated their capture joints and, correspondingly, the SRBs had performed within their design requirements.

Atlantis returns to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) in July 1996, following the discovery of STS-78's booster concerns. Photo Credit: NASA

However, the issue raised concerns over new adhesives and cleaning fluids which had recently been added to the boosters to meet Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) guidelines. Since the EPA forbade the usage of an old-style methyl-based adhesive, NASA was keenly aware that the development of a replacement would take time. Space Shuttle Program Manager Tommy Holloway noted that it was "a serious situation until we determine it's not serious," but added that the SRB joints were an order of magnitude more robust than those which doomed Challenger.

Atlantis' launch on STS-79 was postponed from 31 July until no sooner than mid-September and the stack was rolled back to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) for repairs. In the meantime, Lucid set to work conducting an inventory of Mir's Spektr and newly-arrived Priroda modules, in order to prepare the way for her successor, John Blaha. She also packed experiments, data tapes, and equipment, ready for transfer to Atlantis when the shuttle eventually arrived. In fact, although three previous shuttle crews had docked with the space station, STS-79 would be the first to do so with the complete Mir, outfitted with all six research and habitation modules.

And the STS-79 astronauts—Commander Bill Readdy, Pilot Terry Wilcutt, and Mission Specialists Jay Apt, Tom Akers, and Carl Walz—were also trailblazers, in that they would carry the first Spacehab "double" logistics module in Atlantis' payload bay. Although the flat-roofed Spacehab facility had flown several times on the shuttle, firstly in mid-1993, it had previously been carried in a single configuration and primarily for scientific research. Following its maiden voyage, Spacehab, Inc. had signed a $54 million contract with NASA to change its mode of operations to logistics and resupply for Mir flights. The company invested an additional $15 million into the fabrication of a double module, using one of two single modules, attached via an adapter ring to a Structural Test Article (STA). The double module had the capability to transport up to 6,000 pounds (2,720 kg), whilst a system of canvas soft stowage bags increased the maximum capacity to almost 9,000 pounds (4,080 kg).

In March 1996, STS-76 flew the first Spacehab single logistics module, with its double counterpart expected to ride STS-79. The forward section of the double module would house experiments to be performed during the 10-day shuttle mission itself, whilst the rear section housed the logistics and supplies for Mir. Soft stowage bags were arrayed on the "walls" and "floor" of the aft part of the module, with colored labels to indicate their destination: pink for items going to Mir, blue for items coming back from Mir, and white for items which would stay aboard Atlantis throughout the flight. In orbit, the bags reminded the STS-79 crew of a herd of sea-cows.

The Spacehab double module is prepared for its maiden voyage on STS-79. Photo Credit: NASA

All told, Bill Readdy's crew would transfer around 4,000 pounds (1,800 kg) of supplies into Mir, including logistics, food, and water generated by the shuttle's fuel cells. Several key pieces of research hardware would also head across the hatch into the space station. These included the Biotechnology System (BTS) for cartilage development studies, the Materials in Devices and Superconductors (MIDAS) to examine the electrical properties of high-temperature materials and the Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus (CGBA) with its self-contained aquarium. By the time Atlantis undocked, she also removed over 2,000 pounds (900 kg) of experiment samples and equipment, thereby achieving a new record for the largest total logistics transfer to and from Mir.

Early in September 1996, the STS-79 stack was returned to Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, ready for a launch at mid-month. In fact, it was the third time that Atlantis had completed the journey from the VAB to the pad that summer. She was originally rolled out on 1 July, but after the discovery of the STS-78 booster anomalies, a rollback was ordered. The urgency of this rollback intensified in readiness for the expected landfall of Hurricane Bertha. By mid-July, plans had evolved to replace both of STS-79's boosters, but on the 25th the right-hand replacement SRB failed a leak check at the junction between its aft-center and forward-center segments. It later became clear that an applicator bristle brush, in the vicinity of the secondary O-ring, was the root cause of leakage. New O-rings were installed and the booster was restacked and leak-tested, without incident.

Atlantis returned to the pad in the third week of August, but with Bertha having dissipated the arrival of Hurricane Fran threatened Central Florida and on 4 September the STS-79 stack headed back to the VAB. Its time there, however, was brief. Within 24 hours, Atlantis was back on the pad, with only a slight delay beyond its original 14 September target launch date. Now scheduled to fly on the 16th, the crew was awakened late the previous evening and marched smartly through preparations to fly. Without further ado, Atlantis rocketed into orbit, precisely on time, at 4:54 a.m. EDT. The stage was set for a two-day rendezvous, several days of joint activities with Mir's incumbent crew of Commander Valeri Korzun and Flight Engineer Aleksandr Kaleri … and Shannon Lucid's long-awaited return to Earth.

 

Copyright © 2016 AmericaSpace - All Rights Reserved

 

---

 

 

AmericaSpace

For a nation that explores
September 25th, 2016

Record-Breaker for Women Astronauts: 20 Years Since STS-79 (Part 2)

By Ben Evans

 

For the first time on STS-79, a shuttle crew saw Mir in its complete configuration, with six research and habitation modules. It had been Shannon Lucid's home for six months and would be John Blaha's home for the next four. Photo Credit: NASA

A glass half-full, or half-empty, was Bill Readdy's perspective on the accomplishment of his fellow astronaut Shannon Lucid, who unexpectedly secured the record for the longest single mission ever undertaken by a woman and the most experienced U.S. spacefarer, 20 years ago, this month. In September 1996, Readdy commanded Shuttle Atlantis on STS-79, the fourth rendezvous and docking mission to Russia's Mir space station. As outlined in yesterday's AmericaSpace history article, Readdy and his crewmates—Pilot Terry Wilcutt and Mission Specialists Jay Apt, Tom Akers, and Carl Walz—brought Lucid back to Earth after six months in orbit and dropped off another astronaut, John Blaha, to press ahead with the next stage of a continuous U.S. presence aboard Mir, which would not end until mid-1998.

After many delays, Atlantis roared into the night at 4:54 a.m. EDT on 16 September 1996, generating a glorious spectacle not only for observers on the eastern seaboard of the United States, but also for Lucid herself, from her lofty perch aboard Mir. She was accompanied by a pair of Russian cosmonauts, Valeri Korzun and Aleksandr Kaleri, and her return home had already been delayed since early August. Nonetheless, she had already smashed Norm Thagard's 115-day single-mission national record for the United States and his 140-day career total record for an American astronaut. By the time Lucid's feet again touched terra firma, she would have accrued 188 days on her Mir mission and 223 days across the five spaceflights of her NASA career.

Commander Bill Readdy (far right) and Pilot Terry Wilcutt lead their crew into the darkness for an pre-dawn liftoff on 16 September 1996. Photo Credit: NASA

Atlantis' ascent to orbit was nominal, with the exception of a premature shutdown of one of her Auxiliary Power Units (APUs), which led the Mission Management Team (MMT) to briefly consider bringing the Mir docking a day earlier than planned. At length, it was decided to revert to the original timeline, docking on 18 September, and Readdy and Wilcutt oversaw a series of critical maneuvers to achieve that end. Having launched in the dead of night, the crew was typically awakened in the late evening and after their first sleep period they were roused to the sounds of Gene Chandler's "Duke of Earl." This had been especially chosen by Walz's wife, in honor of their 20th wedding anniversary.

Walz had gained a measure of fame as an Elvis Presley impersonator, which had led him into the astronaut corps' rock band, as the lead singer. It is interesting that his STS-79 crewmate Wilcutt had much to do with this. On a survival training expedition in Spokane, Wash., in the early 1990s, Walz and Wilcutt were talking in a bar. Walz happened to mention his previous singing experience with a Cleveland band called "The Fabulous Blue Moons." Wilcutt challenged him to sing a few Elvis numbers with the bar's resident band, which he did. The rest was history.

Commanding Atlantis for STS-79, Readdy had followed an interesting route to Mir, which might—at one stage—have seen him fly a long-duration mission himself, or even journey downhill aboard a Soyuz. After flying his second shuttle mission in the early fall of 1993, Readdy was appointed NASA's second director of operations at the Star City cosmonauts training center, on the forested outskirts of Moscow, in July 1994. Four months later, he was replaced by fellow astronaut Ron Sega and assigned to command STS-79. In his oral history, Readdy expressed surprise at being notified of his assignment by fax. "When the faxes were working over there [in Star City], when the phones were working over there, we were just ecstatic," he said later. "And when the fax rolled out of the machine on that curly paper, it was kind of a pleasant way to leave Star City with a mission assignment."

Yet Readdy's "mission" might have been quite different. One early plan was to fly him to Mir on STS-71—the first shuttle docking mission to the station—and leave him there for about a month. Readdy would then return to Earth with cosmonauts Anatoli Solovyov and Nikolai Budarin, aboard a Soyuz spacecraft, offering the United States valuable experience of flying the Russian vehicle. "The plan was to train as Norm Thagard's backup on the Mir-18 flight," Readdy told the NASA oral historian. "At that time, there was a Mir-18A and a Mir-18B and the Mir-18B part was to fly up on 71 and then come back on the Soyuz." The plan made practical sense, for since late 1992 NASA had been investigating the use of Soyuz as a potential Assured Crew Return Vehicle (ACRV) for Space Station Freedom. Since Thagard would see the "ascent" phase of the Soyuz TM-21 mission, Readdy would see its "descent" phase. Readdy himself made little further reference to Mir-18B, although the unrealized mission was explored in Bryan Burrough's book, Dragonfly, although primarily as a means of uncovering the alleged political machinations of NASA's senior leadership.

The STS-79 mission patch, highlighting its original EVA component. Image Credit: NASA

Several months later, in April 1995, Readdy's STS-79 crewmates were identified. At one stage, the mission was intended to feature an EVA by Apt and Walz and, indeed, when the crew produced their official patch, it included a pair of space suit gloves shaking hands. However, the EVA was ultimately moved to STS-76 instead. "We didn't have an EVA," said Readdy in his NASA oral history interview. "As it turned out, that was one of the unpleasant surprises."

As the pilots focused on the Mir rendezvous, Apt and Walz were responsible for activating the bulk of the payloads in the first Spacehab double module. Readdy and Wilcutt accomplished a smooth R-Bar rendezvous and docking with Mir at 11:13 p.m. EDT on 18 September, a little more than two days into the mission, as the combined spacecraft flew high over the Carpathian Mountains, to the west of Kiev. Hatches were opened two hours later. A brief welcoming ceremony was followed by Blaha and Lucid assuming their respective roles as members of different crews: The former transferred his molded seat liner over to the Soyuz TM-23 spacecraft, which he would use in the event of a contingency return to Earth, whilst the latter moved her equipment over to Atlantis and formally joined STS-79.

For all six astronauts, it was the first time that they had seen Lucid in over six months and Wilcutt, for one, was amazed at the extent to which she had adapted and become a creature of weightlessness. "All the long-duration crew members who spent time on Mir said that after about a month, they noticed a difference in themselves," he told a Smithsonian interviewer, several years later. "They'd truly adapted to zero-G. I could see it with Shannon Lucid. She was so graceful; there was never an unnecessary motion. She could hover in front of a display when anyone else would be constantly touching something to hold their position."

Almost immediately, the process of transferring the largest complement of equipment and supplies between the shuttle and Mir got underway. It was a process overseen by Akers, who employed a specialised inventory monitoring system and bar code recorder to effectively keep track of all of the items. "A lot bigger than my office," was Akers' summary of the spaciousness of the double Spacehab. In his mind, the ability to handle packages in the soft stowage bags, rather than individual small items, made it easier to transfer materials to and from Mir. Akers compared the process to FedEx or UPS and felt that packaging items in groups made it far easier to inventory them.

The sole difficulty was understanding the "down-stowage" plan—what was coming back to Earth from Mir—in good time. "That was contingent on knowing how Shannon had packed all of her return items," Akers reflected. "We didn't get that information until a couple of days before launch, because of communications problems. Shannon had done a great job of packing, had everything ready, but the communication of finding out exactly where everything was, so we knew how heavy each package was, which determines how the loads are done, that's one thing we want to do differently."

John Blaha gazes through Atlantis' overhead flight deck windows, shortly after docking with Mir. Photo Credit: NASA

Watching and participating in these full-on, 18-hour days, Blaha had nothing but praise for the shuttle crew as they accomplished all of this work. "Each evening," he said, "the STS-79 crew and the Mir crew met for dinner either on Mir or Atlantis. These were unforgettable times. I will always remember how they all helped me move into my new home." A farewell meal in Mir's base block, early on 23 September, was followed by the movement of the respective crews back to their respective spacecraft for undocking. At 8:00 a.m. EDT, Korzun and Blaha closed the Kristall module's hatch and the vestibule between the station and the shuttle was depressurized.

After an abbreviated, six-hour sleep period, Readdy undocked from Mir at 9:33 p.m. EDT and after departing to a safe separation distance Wilcutt took control of the orbiter for the customary fly-around inspection. With only two fully functional APUs, the weather criteria for a landing on 26 September were more restrictive than normal. Weather conditions at the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida appeared to be acceptable, with only scattered clouds and light winds in the vicinity of the runway, whilst Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., offered a backup capability if necessary.

For Lucid, returning home after six months in space, much of her time was spent exercising to condition herself for the punishing return to terrestrial gravity. At 7:06 a.m. EDT on 26 September, 188 days since Lucid left Earth, Bill Readdy fired Atlantis' engines to begin the irreversible deorbit burn and bring her back home. A little over an hour later, at 8:13, he crossed the eastern seaboard over the state of Georgia and guided his ship into Florida airspace and to a smooth touchdown on Runway 15.

"Depending on whether you want to look at the glass as half-full or half-empty, it meant that Shannon had to spend an awful lot longer on Mir than she had planned," said Readdy in praise of his crewmate's accomplishment. "I think Shannon's girlhood dream to run her own laboratory was such that … it fit right in with her plan and it also allowed her to set the world record for time in space" for women. In fact, Lucid's record for the longest single space mission ever undertaken by an American citizen would remain unbroken until June 2002 and her record for the longest single mission ever undertaken by a woman would endure still longer, until June 2007.

 

Copyright © 2016 AmericaSpace - All Rights Reserved

 

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Fwd: John Young turned 86 on Saturday

Sent from my iPad

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: September 26, 2016 at 10:33:53 AM CDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: John Young turned 86 on Saturday

Happy birthday John Young, it was an Honor to have worked with you during Apollo, Space Shuttle Program, and when you were Technical Assistant to Center Director George Abbey.

Take care,

Gary

 

Moon-walking astronaut John Young turned 86 on Saturday

 

 

John Young, astronaut and Navy veteran, salutes the U.S. flag at the Descartes landing site during the first Apollo 16 extravehicular activity (EVA-1). Young, commander of the Apollo 16 lunar landing mission, jumps up from the lunar surface as astronaut and Air Force veteran, Charles M. Duke Jr., lunar module pilot, took this picture.

(NASA, Charles M. Duke Jr.)

Emilee Speck
Contact Reporter

 

Moon-walking NASA Astronaut and former Orlando resident John W. Young turns 86

At 9 years old John Watts Young moved with his family from Georgia to Orlando, 30 years later he would launch from Cape Canaveral on Gemini 3 as a NASA astronaut.

Saturday marked the retired NASA astronaut and accomplished U.S. Navy pilot's 86^th trip around the sun.

Today you can visit Young's boyhood home at 806 W. Princeton St. in College Park. A historical marker stands outside the yellow bungalow-style house with white trim and a picket fence.

John Young Parkway is named in honor of the space explorer.

Young graduated from Orlando High School --now Edgewater High School-- and went on to Georgia Institute of Technology.

After graduating with honors from Georgia Tech, Young served in the U.S. Navy in Fighter Squadron 103 and later as test pilot for 25 years, setting world records for time-to-climb in the Phantom fighter jet, according to NASA's biography of Young. The F-4 Phantom Fighter II reaches two times the speed of sound.

Like all of the first NASA astronauts, having the nerves of a test pilot made Young a good candidate too when he was selected by NASA in 1962.

Young would go on to fly on five missions after Gemini 3, including the Apollo 16 mission to the moon, landing on the surface and returning lunar materials to Earth.

Young is the only astronaut to pilot four different spacecraft: Gemini, Apollo 10 and 16 and Space Shuttle Columbia's maiden voyage in 1981.

When he retired in 2004, Captain Young had logged more than 15,000 hours flying for the U.S. Navy and 835 hours in his six missions to space.

Happy birthday, Captain! 

 

Copyright © 2016, Orlando Sentinel

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Fwd: Hubble finds new evidence of water eruptions on Jupiter's moon Europa

Sent from my iPad

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Peter M. Callahan" <pmcallah@gmail.com>
Date: September 26, 2016 at 4:06:32 PM CDT
To: Bobby Martin <bobbygmartin1938@gmail.com>
Subject: Hubble finds new evidence of water eruptions on Jupiter's moon Europa

Why does the main stream media talk about the possibility of finding water on Europa?

Obama THE MOSLEM murdered NASA during his failed Administration!

The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) found water in the Moon in 2009.

Specifically, on November 13, 2009, NASA confirmed that water was detected after the Centaur impacted a lunar crater.

We can't even service the Hubble any more because Obama allowed the shuttles to be prematurely retired and put in museums. Obama also outsourced America's human spaceflight capabilities to Russia ❗️🇷🇺 

When Trump wins in a landslide, he needs to put OBAMA on trial for treason against the United States of America!

HOLD OBAMA ACCOUNTABLE!

###

Hubble finds new evidence of water eruptions on Jupiter's moon Europa

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/space/go-for-launch/os-nasa-hubble-telescope-europa-images-20160924-story.html

--
Sent from Gmail Mobile

SpaceX: Accident Points to Breach in Rocket's Helium System

http://www.rdmag.com/news/2016/09/spacex-accident-points-breach-rockets-helium-system?et_cid=5579216&et_rid=45508778&type=headline&et_cid=5579216&et_rid=45508778&linkid=content


Sent from my iPad

Fwd: Rogers planning “major reform” for national security space

Sent from my iPad

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: September 24, 2016 at 9:47:10 PM CDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: Rogers planning "major reform" for national security space

 

Rogers planning "major reform" for national security space

by Mike Gruss — September 23, 2016

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Alabama), above, said he is planning a "major reform" for national security space in next year's defense authorization bill. Credit: C-SPAN.

MAUI, Hawaii – The head of a key U.S. House oversight committee said he is planning a "major reform" of national security space as part of next year's defense authorization bill.

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), the chairman of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, said in a Sept. 23 press release that next week's hearing ""National Security Space: 21st Century Challenges, 20th Century Organization," is the first step in that effort.

"Modern warfare is moving to new heights and it is all-too-clear that our military is not organized and prepared to fight and win a war in space," he said. "This hearing is the first step in what I anticipate will be a major reform effort leading to the FY18 National Defense Authorization Act."

The Sept. 30 hearing is expected to include testimony from John Hamre, a former deputy secretary of defense, Jim Ellis, a retired Navy admiral who led U.S. Strategic Command, and Martin Faga, a former director of the National Reconnaissance Office, which builds and operates the country's spy satellites.

Rogers has become a vocal critic of the national security space community while at the helm of the subcommittee. He's played a key role in discussions on a new launch system to replace the Russian RD-180 rocket engine used on United Launch Alliance's Atlas 5 rocket, which launches a majority of national security payloads. He's also been a proponent of the Defense Department more effectively using commercial satellite operators for its communications needs. Most notably, he has pushed the Air Force for a long-term strategy for its weather satellites.

But in the press release, Rogers said he is concerned about a July report from the Government Accountability Office in which Defense Department leaders suggested improving the management and oversight of the national security space enterprise, by creating a single space force, one that would handle duties currently divided between the National Reconnaissance Office and at least seven other Defense Department agencies.

"Recently, the Government Accountability Office released a new assessment on the state of DOD national security space acquisition management.," Rogers said in the release. "The GAO detailed the 60 different stakeholders who are involved in decision making about space programs.  No system can function well when so many actors have the ability to say 'no' and no one is truly accountable for doing so.  As we see serious foreign space threats increasing and a pattern of significantly delayed and over budget national security space programs, we cannot permit this status quo to continue."

While debating the best organizational structure for the Pentagon's space programs has been a decades long exercise for the national security space community, the GAO said in July that national security experts and Defense Department leaders have recommended a series of reforms. The congressional watchdog agency studied three of those ideas, which included:

• Starting a Defense Space Agency that would combine military space functions currently spread out over eight agencies but would leave the NRO intact.
• Creating a Space Acquisition Agency that would combine the Air Force's Space and Missile Systems Center, which handles the majority of the Defense Department's space acquisitions, with the NRO, which performs the same tasks for the intelligence community.
• Standing up a Space Force that would combine all military space agencies, including the NRO, and would be led by a civilian secretary.

"Given the long-standing fragmentation in space leadership and consequent challenges faced by DOD in synchronizing its extensive space enterprise, proposals such as these that may entail disruptive changes may nevertheless deserve a closer look," the report said.

The GAO said the proposals should receive closer examination if the current organizational structure, which has been in place about one year, proves ineffective. In October 2015, Bob Work, the deputy secretary of defense, designated the Air Force secretary as the Principal DoD Space Advisor. In that role, the PDSA oversees the entire DoD space portfolio and acts as an adviser to senior Pentagon leadership.

In a confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this week, Gen. John Hyten, the head of Air Force Space Command, said in written testimony that he believed it was "too early" to tell if the current organizational structure would prove effective.

"It is working so far, but the real test will be how it continues over the change of administration," he said.

Policy & Politics Military SpaceNROU.S. Air Force

 

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Space dominance!

Amazing the number of of people who do not understand the assets the US has in EO, and the plans China has for Space dominance! And the significance of the destruction of the US manned capabilities!

Very Dangerous for the USA!

After years of investment and strategy, China is well on its way to becoming a space superpower—and maybe even a dominant one. The Chang'e 4 lunar mission is just one example of its scope and ambition for turning space into an important civilian and military domain. Now, satellites guide Chinese aircraft, missiles, and drones, while watching over crop yields and foreign military bases. The growing number of missions involving Chinese rockets and taikonauts are a source of immense national pride.
"China sees space capability as an indication of global-leadership status," says John ­Logsdon, founder of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University. "It gives China legitimacy in an area that is associated with great power."

And look at our manned program , thanks to our potus, & mr bolden! Bm

Sent from my iPad

China's Race To Space Domination | Popular Science

http://www.popsci.com/chinas-race-to-space-domination


Sent from my iPad

Fwd: Hyten tells Senate DoD needs to focus on space control, battle management system

Sent from my iPad

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: September 21, 2016 at 8:48:01 AM CDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: Hyten tells Senate DoD needs to focus on space control, battle management system

 

 

Hyten tells Senate DoD needs to focus on space control, battle management system

by Mike Gruss — September 20, 2016

Gen. John Hyten, commander of Air Force Space Command, testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee Sept. 20. Credit: SASC.

MAUI, Hawaii – As threats to national security satellites evolve, the Defense Department needs to focus on space control programs and a battle management command and control system to prepare for a fight in space, the U.S. Air Force's top space official told a Senate committee Sept. 20.

The Defense Department has become increasingly concerned about technologies from China and Russia that would destroy, or limit the use of, U.S. military and spy satellites in recent years. In response, the Pentagon has shifted about $6 billion over six years for space protection efforts.

At a hearing Sept. 20, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said China and Russia are building systems "specifically designed to cripple U.S. (space) systems." McCain said such information was "deeply disturbing" and that following a classified meeting earlier this week, he only recently understood the full ramifications of an attack on national security satellites.

Gen. John Hyten, the head of Air Force Space Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in written testimony that as a result space control programs and a battle management command and control system should be among the Defense Department's top space priorities.

President Barack Obama nominated Hyten to lead U.S. Strategic Command and Hyten testified before the SASC for his nomination hearing. At STRATCOM, Hyten will oversee space operations, missile defense, cyber warfare, the nuclear arsenal and combatting weapons of mass destruction. If confirmed, he will replace Navy Adm. Cecil Haney. Obama has nominated Lt. Gen. Jay Raymond, the Air Force's deputy chief of staff for operations, to replace Hyten at Space Command.

In March, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said the Pentagon would spend $2 billion this year on space control, which often implies offensive space capabilities.

The Pentagon rarely discusses its own offensive space capabilities or the operational details, which are classified. However, the Air Force's 2017 budget request included funding for several space control programs for the next five years. Among those programs are $144 million for the Counter Communications System, which is used to deny adversaries the use of military communications satellites in conflict and $158 million for the Space Security and Defense Program, which is thought to include some work on offensive space capabilities. Hyten told McCain the Air Force was not developing systems with the intention of limiting specific Chinese or Russian capabilities.

"We are not going down that path," he said.

In addition, a battle management command and control system has been planned for the Air Force's space operations nerve center at the Joint Space Operations Center (JSpOC) at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. However, with the advent of the experimental Joint Interagency Combined Space Operations Center (JICSpOC), a joint project between the intelligence community and the Defense Department at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado, it is unclear exactly where or how such a command and control system would work.

Hyten said the JICSpOC will "change the warfighting culture of our space cadre as well as ensuring we have the ability to fully plan and employ our space control capabilities."

In written testimony, he also seemed to answer the long-standing question of how the Defense Department views the future of both centers. Many members of the national security space community believe the Pentagon has been unclear in describing the future mission of the two centers. But Hyten said the JSpOC will concentrate on battles on earth and the JICSpOC will assist with fights in space.

"The JSPOC will be focused on the support to the terrestrial fight – but it is envisioned that the two centers will be able to integrate effectively along with the rest of the National Security Space Community," Hyten said. "The JSpOC is fully occupied today with the terrestrial fight – space is critical to every military operation around the world…and many civilian activates as well. They must retain that focus. The JICSpOC is fully occupied figuring out how to prepare to effectively fight conflict that extends into the space domain. If we tried to integrate either with the other, both would be at significant risk of failure. For the foreseeable future, they need to focus on their unique, full time requirements."

Hyten also discussed a series of other national security space issues during the hearing. They include:

– The Air Force's next-generation ground control system for its new GPS satellites. The program, known as the Operational Control Segment, or OCX, is five years and $1 billion over budget. "It's horrible. It's embarrassing to me we find ourselves in that position," he said. The Air Force declared a Nunn-McCready breach on the OCX program in June, setting the stage for the cancellation of the program unless the Secretary of Defense determines the program is vital to national security, no reasonable alternatives exist, and that the Air Force has a solid plan to put the project back on track. Hyten said he would support the continuation or the termination of the OCX program, but that the current GPS ground control system has information assurance security gaps.

– On the future of the Operationally Responsive Space Office, which is used to develop space capabilities to plug gaps or address emerging military needs: "While the Operationally Responsive Space program has been a successful pathfinder to responsiveness – and it will continue this superb service in the future – we must also infuse this thinking across our entire enterprise and into the broader space industry."

– On the pending retirement of United Launch Alliance's Delta 4 rocket: "Given the lack of the price competitiveness of the Delta 4 vehicle and anticipated fielding of several new launch vehicle families, I support the eventual phase out of the Delta 4 launch vehicle family – but only when other capabilities are reliably available that can provide the assured access."

– On whether the new leadership structure for the Defense Department's space enterprise, which is headed by the Principal Defense Space Adviser, has been successful: "It is working so far, but the real test will be how it continues over the change of administration."

– On the need for the Missile Defense Agency to use space-based sensors to discriminate ballistic missile warheads from decoys: "Discrimination (coupled with associated Battle Space Awareness) is the critical component to improving the effectiveness of our deployed interceptors as well as providing multiple response options especially as potential adversaries embark on improving countermeasures against our systems. In addition, I believe a space-based element will be critical to this future."

 

 

Time for the U.S. military to let go of the civil space situational awareness mission

by Brian Weeden — September 20, 2016

Applied Minds, Inc. created a vision of how to achieve optimal SSA through the " JSpOC of the Future" demonstration at their Glendale, California, facility. The company designed and built a fullscale, multi-faceted command center mockup that demonstrated advanced tools and techniques for distributed collaboration, data fusion, visualization, and adaptive planning. Credit: U.S. Air Force Research Lab

Four years ago, I wrote an in-depth report called "Going Blind" on how the United States was in danger of losing its ability to "see" in space, a capability known as space situational awareness (SSA). "Going blind" would have detrimental effects on the entire world's ability to use space in a safe, secure, and sustainable manner. While there have been some efforts since to improve the situation, the situation is still dire. The core issues have not been addressed, and the challenges are only increasing.

The time has come for the U.S. military to let go of the spaceflight safety mission, and allow a civil entity — likely with help from the private sector, academia, and international partners — to create its own public, high-accuracy catalog of space objects, and provide safety of spaceflight services to satellite operators. At the same time, the U.S. military should refocus its own efforts on developing SSA capabilities that are critical to protecting U.S national security space capabilities from potential threats.

Currently, there are more than 1,400 active satellites in Earth orbit, and satellite operators are already performing more than 120 maneuvers each year to minimize the risk of a collision with other satellites or one of the tens of thousands of pieces of space debris. There are at least 3,600 new satellites, and possibly thousands more, planned for launch in the next decade. Many of these new satellites are cubesats or large constellations of hundreds to thousands of small satellites, which will vastly increase the complexity and workload to keep on-orbit activities safe and prevent disasters.

Following the 2009 collision between the Iridium 33 and Cosmos 2251 satellites, the U.S. military was tasked to be the main provider of SSA data and close approach warnings for the entire world. The analysts doing the mission are working hard to make the most out of their technological and resource constraints, and senior leaders including Gen. John Hyten, Lt. Gen. Jay Raymond, and Doug Loverro have been working hard to bring necessary changes to U.S. military capabilities, procedures, and policies.

But despite these efforts, the U.S. military is running up against the limitations of a military entity providing an international, safety-orientated mission. Civil SSA is a task that by its very nature requires melding a large amount of diverse data from governmental, commercial, and international sources, developing transparent processes and algorithms, and having an agile software platform to continuously incorporate new analytical technologies and expand capacity to meet growing demand.

The limitations of the current approach are felt the most in two areas: upgrading the legacy computer systems used by the U.S. military to create and provide SSA data, and SSA data sharing policy. After more than a decade of efforts and $500 million spent, the latest acquisitions program to try and accomplish the former, the Joint Space Operations Center Mission System (JMS), has been delayed again until at least 2018. And the SSA sharing strategy unveiled by U.S. Strategic Command in 2014 has led to removal of more SSA data from public access, including data on the estimated size of space debris objects in the public satellite catalog, and limitations on what data is provided privately to satellite operators, due to national security concerns.

There are two options to change the current structure and address these limitations. The first option is for the U.S. military to more fully embrace the task of being the world's provider of SSA data and services for safety of spaceflight. The GPS is a good, if imperfect, model of how the U.S. military can provide services for both defense and civil applications. Five policy decisions were key to the GPS success story: establishing a performance standard for the civil GPS service so end users know what they can rely on; publishing an Interface Control Document (ICD) that specifies exactly how commercial companies can design receivers to make use of the civil signal; giving civil entities a voice in managing GPS; eliminating the artificial error originally added to the civil signal; and negotiating an interoperable civil signal across all the international satellite navigation systems. These policy decisions led to an explosion in civil, commercial, and scientific innovation in GPS receivers and applications, and have yielded tens of billions of dollars in economic value to the United States and benefits for the entire world.

Taking the same approach to SSA — establishing a performance standard for a civil SSA service, dropping artificial limits on the accuracy of data in the public satellite catalog, creating an ICD for machine-to-machine interaction with SSA data and services, and interoperability between international SSA capabilities — would go a long ways to improving the safety and efficiency of space activities. But that outcome is only possible if JMS successfully delivers on all its promises, and major changes are made to SSA data sharing policy. The evidence suggests that neither is likely to happen.

That leads to the second option: for the U.S. military to let go of the part of the SSA mission necessary for safety of spaceflight. Letting go means allowing someone else to develop a public, high-accuracy catalog of space objects based on data from non-military sources, which can be used to provide close approach warnings to satellite operators and other safety services. Letting go of these tasks would enable the U.S. military to focus on the national security aspects of SSA, including enhancing the public catalog with data from exquisite military and intelligence sources, and detecting, characterizing, and defending against potential hostile threats to its satellites.

What makes the second option practical now is the huge leap in private sector SSA capabilities over the last few years. The Space Data Association (SDA) provides participating operators with enhanced close-approach warning and radio-frequency interference resolution services. Several companies, including ExoAnalytics, Rincon, Lockheed Martin, and LeoLabs, are already selling SSA data from privately owned sensors. Other companies such as Analytical Graphics Inc., Boeing, Schafer Corp., and Applied Defense Solutions are using commercial SSA data to create and sell SSA services to governments and satellite operators.

And there's the potential for much more to come. Multiple companies that are currently operating, or plan to operate, new constellations of remote sensing satellites have expressed interest in using the time when their satellites are unable to image the Earth to collect SSA data on space objects. Other companies such as Chandah Space Technologies and OrbitalATK have plans to provide on-orbit satellite inspection and radio-frequency mapping services that could truly revolutionize SSA.

Example of window damage Space Shuttle Endeavour sufered in 2008 from micro-meteroid or
orbital debris particle estimated to be only 0.15mm in diameter. Credit: NASA

Yet the private sector, while an important part of the solution, won't be able to solve this challenge on its own. There will still be a need for a civil agency to ensure that space is being used in a safe and efficient manner, and that the United States continues to meet its obligations under the 1967 Outer Space Treaty for providing authorization and continuing supervision of its private sector space activities. Currently, no U.S. federal agency has clear authority over on-orbit activities, which limits the ability of the U.S. government to provide the regulatory certainty that innovative commercial activities need to reassure investors, and ensure that operators of large constellations and cubesats behave in a responsible and safe manner. Giving a civil agency new authorities to perform these tasks, while leveraging commercial SSA data and software, could yield great benefits for relatively little taxpayer expense.

But implementing either of these choices hinges on resolving one, crucial sticking point — national security. Many of the current policy restrictions on SSA data stem from the desire to try to hide national security satellites and activities on orbit, despite the fact that many of these satellites are already well-known and tracked regularly by amateur hobbyists — to say nothing of potential adversaries. And the same national security concerns discourage, if not outright prohibit, many of the new and innovative SSA services being developed by the private sector, out of concern they might "see" something sensitive in orbit.

The U.S. military, and other governments, still needs to keep some secrets in space. But instead of trying to accomplish this by denying the existence of large, broadcasting space objects — a quixotic task in an increasingly transparent space environment — we need to find an alternative solution, as has been done for the air and sea domains. We don't try and hide the existence of aircraft carriers and cruisers, but we do protect details of their capabilities and tactical operations. And we do allow civil authorities to collect data on air traffic to manage safety and efficiency, while the military aircraft conduct operations with due regard and conceal their own presence when they must.

Letting go of the safety of spaceflight SSA mission would be a win-win move for everyone. The U.S. military would get to protect details on its SSA capabilities, and offload an increasingly demanding mission to free up its operators and resources to focus on national security threats. Civil federal agencies would be able to more effectively supervise and authorize commercial space activities, which in turn will help ensure the commercial space boom lives up to its promise and enable greater international cooperation. All of those benefits would reinforce America's role as a global leader in establishing norms of responsible behavior, and help boost humanity's future in space.

Brian Weeden is the technical adviser for Secure World Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to the long-term sustainable use of space for benefits on Earth, and a former U.S. Air Force officer. He is on the Board of Advisors for Chandah Space Technologies.

This commentary originally appeared in the Sept. 12 issue of SpaceNews.

 

 

 © 2016 SpaceNews, Inc. All rights reserved.

 

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Can you Believe it-- NO MANNED Program for the USA Super Power & O proud of it!!!

Read The Case to Save the Shuttle by Richardson & Lost in Space by Abbey plus several articles on this site & O ' s UN speech yesterday, WAKE UP People, get Trump in office or BAD Days are Coming!!!!

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First Space Shuttle Astronauts mark STS-1, STS-2 35th Anniversaries -- WE NOW have ZERO capability!

Now LOOK at what we have NOTHING , thanks to O--- Bm


http://www.space.com/34125-first-space-shuttle-astronauts-mark-sts-1-sts-2-35th-anniversaries.html


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Fwd: Orion Heat Shield for Next Space Flight Arrives at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center

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Begin forwarded message:

From: "Peter M. Callahan" <pmcallah@gmail.com>
Date: September 20, 2016 at 8:50:25 PM CDT
To: Bobby Martin <bobbygmartin1938@gmail.com>
Subject: Orion Heat Shield for Next Space Flight Arrives at NASA's Kennedy Space Center

Obama has intentionally destroyed America's human spaceflight capabilities.

This article simply describes an uncrewed flight test with NASA's Space Launch System rocket in 2017.  Such a waste these last eight (8) years of Obama have been.

Trump must prevail in November!

Orion Heat Shield for Next Space Flight Arrives at NASA's Kennedy Space Center

https://www.ecnmag.com/news/2016/09/orion-heat-shield-next-space-flight-arrives-nasas-kennedy-space-center

--
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America's edge in space is endangered, and if it disappears, a large proportion of America's global power will disappear along with it.

Fwd: Space industry article----excellent summary of situation

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Begin forwarded message:

From: Bobby Martin <bobbygmartin1938@gmail.com>
Date: February 2, 2013 at 1:47:34 PM CST
To: KT McFarland <kt@ktmcfarland.com>
Subject: Space industry article----excellent summary of situation

Space exploration is not only critical in refusing to surrender the battlefield of space – our next serious theater of war -- to our present and future adversaries; it also necessary in retaining US technological superiority and being able to utilize the energy and mineral resources of the Solar system essential for future global prosperity.

The major problem is that It is not just NASA but the whole of the US space industry that is in trouble. It is laying off men and women by the thousand; their skills and experience will be lost forever. Reconstituting the ability to build complex and reliable space systems without these people will be an even more expensive and time consuming process.

Meanwhile, this strategically vital industry will see its overseas competitors, such as China, grow and develop. America's edge in space is endangered, and if it disappears, a large proportion of America's global power will disappear along with it.

Presidents have traditionally used NASA for both diplomatic and military purposes. During the Eisenhower administration the President's advisors wrote that "The novel nature of space exploration offers opportunities for international cooperation in it's peaceful aspects. " Nixon did not hesitate to use the success of the Apollo Moon mission to enhance America's global position, the Astronauts traveled around the world as living symbols of US technological superiority. Bill Clinton sought to cement a positive relationship with post communist Russia by giving them a major role in the Space Station project.

NASA has also been useful in developing and preserving technologies with important military applications. The sensors used on interplanetary probes are similar and sometimes identical to the ones used on the most advanced spy satellites. Life support technologies developed for the shuttle find their way into the flight suits worn by pilots who fly high altitude military jets. And while America has not built a new ICBM or submarine launched nuclear missile for decades, NASA, by keeping the solid rocket motor industry alive has insured that if the decision were made to build a new type of missile for the US nuclear deterrent force, the Defense Department could do so without having to rebuild the nation's solid fueled rocket making expertise from nothing.

By keeping America's space industry alive and healthy NASA has in the past directly contributed to overall US global power. As the agency succumbs to confusion and a lack of clear direction its ability to help keep America secure and prosperous will inevitably diminish.

So, too, with the rest of the US aerospace industry. Boeing's effort to set up a second production line for its new 787 airliner has been declared illegal by the National Labor Relations Board on the grounds that it was going to be built in South Carolina, a "right to work" state. The courts seem to have thought that this was supposedly Boeing's way of illegally punishing the unionized workers in Washington state, who, by the way, will not suffer from a single layoff or lose a single hour's pay due to this increase in 787 production.

The F-22 manufacturing program is also shutting down. The administration claimed that it onlyneeds 187 of these air superiority fighters.

Those parts of the F-35 program that are not "on probation" are under attack for what are perceived as massive cost overruns. It looks as if the Defense budget will be cut by more than $500 billion; and there is serious talk of shutting down America's ability to build nuclear powered aircraft carriers

As America's space shuttle program comes to an end, NASA faces an uncertain and probably painful future. With a smaller budget and without a mission that has broad national support, the space agency has been floundering amid what the Washington Post calls "Rancor".

If NASA was in "disarray" in January 2009, as the current NASA leaders claim, then every single agency of the federal government that tries to accomplish or build anything was, and still is, in equal disarray. NOAA, the FAA, the Coast Guard, The Departments of Agricultural, Energy and Education, to name a few, have all proven incapable of meeting their goals or building hardware on time or within budget. Only those parts of the Government that are dedicated to stopping people from doing things,or regulating human activity, are not in "disarray." They may not be doing anything useful, but they are not in disarray.

To say, as Newt Gingrich did recently, that the problem at NASA is "Bureaucracy" is too miss the point. It was not NASA's employees who got America into this humiliating mess; it was America's politicians.

Admittedly, NASA's Administrator and his Deputy worked hard, along with the President's science advisor and the rest of the White House team, to alienate a critical mass of members of Congress by ignoring their concerns, rejecting their advice and blindsiding them with critical space policy decisions.

. The Obama administration then wrecked the previous program on the grounds that it was underfunded and behind schedule, and replaced it with a new program that looks as if it is now underfund and behind schedule. Congressmen and women being human, and under massive pressure to cut spending, have now cut the guts out of the space agency's proposed budget.

One of the more irony-laden recent press releases, at a time when this nation is saturated with them, is from the American Astronomical Society (AAS), protesting the House Appropriations committee's cancellation of the James Webb Space Telescope. What did the astronomers expect? Did they really believe that the US Government would demolish the human spaceflight program and leave their precious "science" programs untouched?

The House Appropriations Committee has cut deeply into NASA's overall budget, leaving it with $1.9 billion less than the President requested. Its members slashed the Commercial Crew Development program, and agreed to increase support only for the new Space Launch System, sometimes referred to as the Congressional Rocket.

To say that NASA is "screwed up" is to put it kindly. Sometimes destabilizing an institution may be necessary to revive it, but more often the destabilizing is simply destructive. NASA's leadership seems honestly to believe that everything is A-OK. In a Washington Post article on July 2nd, the agency's Deputy Administrator, Lori Garver, is quoted as saying, "We have a Program. We have a Budget. We have Bipartisan Support. We have a Destination." Unpacking that statement is an interesting exercise: it will show that while NASA is losing support for its budget on Capitol Hill, NASA's leaders do not seem to understand why this is happening.

NASA has rejected the policy that the Bush administration had carefully crafted in cooperation with Members of Congress from both parties and which had been accepted with overwhelming bipartisan support. It was a policy that not only would get America back to the Moon sometime in the middle of the next decade, but would do so with a minimum of job losses.

Of course NASA has a program; that is the easy part. Turning the program into reality is hard, and there is no sign that NASA's current leadership can convince Congress to fund the Program.

Traditionally NASA has undertaken the job of opening up the frontier and without the assurance that NASA can create it is hard to imagine that investors will be willing to risk providing the financing that the economic expansion of the US into the Solar system. NASA plays a role similar to one the US cavalry played when America moved west: it provides the settlers and business people with enough security to risk building a new economy.

The House Appropriations Committee has given NASA a budget. It Is hard to imagine how that budget can be made compatible with Lori Garver's and the administration's program. Congress is funding its priorities: a new rocket and the new exploration vehicle that the new rocket will launch. Congress is cutting the budget for the things that the administration wants such as the budget for unfocused technology development

The NASA program that the administration wants is one based on the idea that a new kind of 'commercial' space industry can provide access to orbit, while NASA invents new technologies that can explore the solar system at a lower cost than current technology would allow. The Congress disagrees and has ordered NASA to build a new heavy-lift rocket using existing technology. With this rocket, the US will be able to send human missions to the Moon or to Mars or, as the administration wants, to visit an asteroid.

The administration says that it wants to go to an asteroid because it wants to gather information about the formation of the Solar system; that it believes that the experience of going to an asteroid will help develop the technology and expertise needed to go to Mars.

Last year, Congress passed the NASA Authorization Bill with bipartisan support, but it lacked the overwhelming bipartisan support that previous NASA authorization bills had received in 2005 and 2007. Sadly, the space agency has lost much of its traditional base of Congressional support and has not been able to find much of a new one.

People at NASA say that they have a destination:a so-far unidentified asteroid.They say this will provide better scientific information about the early development of the Solar System and that the operation will be a low-cost way to develop technologies that will be needed if NASA is someday to send people to Mars. But NASA lacks a serious plan to get there and also is having a real problem finding other nations ready to cooperate. As long as the US cannot maintain a space policy for more than several years at a time, few countries will dare to invest their time and efforts in cooperating with it.

Last February, America's premier space policy expert, John Logsdon, pointed out that, "Today, there most certainly is no pressing national security question for which the answer is: "go to an asteroid."

In an era of tight budgets and angry partisanship, it may be foolish to imagine that any national leader could convince a large majority of Congress to fund an ambitious national program, let alone the kind of transnational "feel good" project -- such as the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission that was supposed to symbolize US- Soviet "détente"-- that some people in this administration seem to believe is desirable.

The expectation that the "New Space" commercial human spaceflight industry -- which can be described as a collection of small entrepreneurial firms that have been building small rockets and have been trying to find low cost ways to get into space -- will be able to replace NASA may not be realistic.

Considering how things are going in Washington,however, it may be more realistic than any other part of the space agency's current program. Congress seems ready to cut more than two thirds of the proposed budget for commercial human spaceflight --from the proposed roughly $900 million, down to about $300 million. That cut, however, will just slow the industry down rather than stop it.

This will mean that for many years there will be no way for Americans to get into orbit other than to buy a seat on a Soyuz capsule from the Russians.

As long as NASA depends on Russia for access to the ISS, Russia will be able to shut down that access at any moment and take full control of a station that America spent more than $80 billion dollars building. There is also the ongoing international image of America's astronauts dependent on Russia for their professional existence.

If NASA chooses to spread tiny -- by government standards -- sums of this $300 million around to all of the current recipients of "commercial" space contracts, the country will end up with a collection of undercapitalized, nearly bankrupt "New Space" companies that are totally dependent on government funding.

There is also the possibility that regulatory actions by the Federal Aviation Administration, or by some other part of the government, could bring the whole effort to build the "New Space" industry to an a loud halt, in which event the US would lose an important body of technical and business knowledge,as well as the drive, enthusiasm and imagination that these bring to the whole aerospace industry.

The problem is that the "New Space" industry is a valuable source of ideas and often pushes NASA and the large aerospace companies to innovate, to abandon their old procedures in favor of better new ones;but the industry lacks the capital to accomplish any really big projects such as building a rocket that can actually reach orbit. If America is going to be able to obtain access to the minerals and energy resources in the Solar System that it needs to thrive in the second half of the 21st century.

We shall have to have both the large, old fashioned aerospace firms and the small, nimble "New Space" firms.

SpaceX based in Hawthorne California, seems to stand by itself. The firm has the deep pockets of its founder, Elon Musk, co-inventor of PayPal, and it also has been developing its rockets and other space hardware for more than a decade. The company has so far successfully launched its Falcon 9 rocket twice . Sometime in the late fall of this year, it hopes to launch it again, carrying the company's Dragon capsule. The Dragon will fly past the International Space Station (ISS), demonstrating that SpaceX can safely operate its maneuvering thrusters and its communications gear near that$100 billion orbital facility. If all goes well, next year the SpaceX Dragon capsule will dock with the station, proving that the firm can fulfill its obligations to fly supplies to the space station under the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services contract it signed in 2008.

Once this happens, SpaceX will assume the mission of sending US cargo, consisting of food, water oxygen, and equipment,to keep the station running and to support the scientific experiments that are performed there.

At some later time, SpaceX hopes to show that it can fly people, as well as cargo, to the ISS. Under the best of circumstances, NASA's future access to orbit for people will depend on the success of a single firm's launch-system. Based on past experience with space systems' delays and cost overruns, this dependence on a single company will last until the end of the decade, if not longer.

The Air Force learned that when it relied exclusively on a single rocket to launch its vital satellites into orbit, if something went wrong with America's ability to keep its array of military satellites working and in orbit, it would not be able to monitor what was going on in important parts of the world. This happened in the late 1980s and early 1990s after a series of accidents grounded both the Space Shuttle and the Titan rockets. None of the other "New Space" firms that NASA has been supporting has any real chance of sending people into orbit within the next five years or more. If America's wants to have assured, low cost access to space, both for military reasons and to take advantage of the economic opportunities that are out there in the Solar System, it will have to have multiple ways of getting people and payloads in orbit. The current Delta and Atlas rockets may be reliable but they are not low cost.

Just as the Constellation Return-to-the-Moon program that the administration destroyed was constantly forced to adapt to funding shortfalls,the commercial human spaceflight program is also learning to adjust to constantly changing levels of government funding. If the next administration wanted to, it could cancel the whole commercial program and base the cancellation on the same grounds that were used to kill Constellation: that it is behind schedule and underfunded.

It looks as if keeping a strong and prosperous aerospace industry – and America – is nowhere near at the top of the President's priorities.

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