| | JSC TODAY CATEGORIES - Headlines
- Reminder: Innovation 2014 - Future of Exploration
- Mission Controllers needed for SMART-OP Study
- NSSC News Available Online - Organizations/Social
- Remember MUREP? Attend an Alumni Meet & Greet
- Starport Summer Wellness Walks - Jobs and Training
- What Would You Do in a Medical Emergency on TDY?
- A Common Question: Have I Saved Enough ...?
- Job Opportunities--Check It Out
- JSC Imagery Online Training Tomorrow - Community
- Family Space Day at George Observatory July 26th |  |
| Headlines - Reminder: Innovation 2014 – Future of Exploration
Don't forget the final presentation of the Future of Exploration Series is today at noon in Studio B (behind the Teague Auditorium). The discussion will be focused on Space Suit and EVA strategy and Human Health/Human Factors considerations for the Asteroid Redirect Crewed Mission. Seating is limited, so please arrive at least 10 minutes early to get a seat. The event will also be streamed live. - Mission Controllers needed for SMART-OP Study
Test Subject Screening (TSS) is seeking mission controllers to evaluate a self-guided, multi-media stress management and resilience training computer program called SMART-OP, that will be compared to an attention control group who will watch videos and read infomation on stress management. Volunteers will be randomly assigned to one of the two groups: they will attend 1 informational session; complete 2 pre-and post-test assessments (60-90 minutes) involving questionnaires, neuropsychological tasks, physiological data and biomarker assays; 6 weekly stress management training sessions (30-60 minutes); and a 3 month follow-up, equaling a total of 10 session contacts. Volunteers must be healthy, non-smokers, and taking no medications. Individuals must pass and have a current Category I physical. Volunteers will be compensated (restrictions apply to NASA civil servants and some contractors; contractor employees should contact your local HR department). Please email both Linda Byrd, RN, 3-7284, and Rori Yager, RN, 3-7240. - NSSC News Available Online
The NSSC News is also available on the NSSC Voice of the Customer Web page at https://www.nssc.nasa.gov/voice; just click on the newsletter icon to "Read Our Latest Customer Newsletter." This newsletter contains information NASA employees (civil service and contractors) need to know. Organizations/Social - Remember MUREP? Attend an Alumni Meet & Greet
An Alumni Meet and Greet welcoming the 13 MUREP Reduced Gravity Flight Week university teams will be held Tuesday, July 15th from 1:30-3:00 p.m. in the Teague Auditorium Lobby in Building 2 South. All NASA employees that are alumni or supporters of the student and faculty teams chosen for this prestigious opportunity are invited to come share your NASA story with these outstanding students and SHOW YOUR SCHOOL SPIRIT! Teams are as follows: Austin Community College, California State Polytechnic University - Pomona, Dallas County Community College District, Gadsden State Community College, San Jose State University, Texas Southern University, University of Texas Pan American, University of North Carolina at Pembroke & Robeson Community College, University of Houston, University of Miami, University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras, University of Southern California, University of Texas at El Paso. If you are interested in participating, please RSVP to Sarah Gonzales via e-mail. Event Date: Tuesday, July 15, 2014 Event Start Time:1:30 PM Event End Time:3:00 PM
Event Location: Teague Auditorium Lobby
Add to Calendar
Sarah Gonzales x38623
[top] - Starport Summer Wellness Walks
Starting Tuesday 7/15/2014(tomorrow) our twice-weekly Wellness Walks will start at 9am instead of 11am. Grab a coworker and join the Starport Fitness Team for a brisk 30 minute walk around the ponds in the main mall of JSC. Meet at the staircase outside B3. This 9am start time will continue every Tuesday and Thursday for the remainder of July and the entire month of August. Jobs and Training - What Would You Do in a Medical Emergency on TDY?
This question-and-answer session is for JSC civil servants to learn about the Global Rescue Emergency Medical services available on international TDY. Please bring your co-workers. Event Date: Wednesday, July 16, 2014 Event Start Time:11:00 AM Event End Time:12:00 PM
Event Location: Bldg 30A Aud
Add to Calendar
Sabrina Gilmore x32773
[top] - A Common Question: Have I Saved Enough ...?
The Foundation for Financial Wellness provides financial education nationwide. The questions our financial counselors hear most often from students are: "Have I saved enough for retirement?" "How much savings do I need?" "Won't I pay less taxes in retirement? I won't be receiving a paycheck …" Studies show that many people are not strategically planning their financial futures. Those who set and monitor financial goals are more likely to achieve them. So where do you start? A key first step is education. Private financial counseling can help you sort through your important questions and ensure you're on track to meet retirement goals. If you're interested in answers to these types of questions, join us for a financial wellness class or sign up for counseling. Financial wellness counseling is available to all team members, even if you don't have time to attend a class. - Job Opportunities--Check It Out
WHERE DO I FIND JOB OPPORTUNITIES? To help you navigate to JSC vacancies, use the filter drop down menu and select JSC HR. The "Jobs link", will direct you to the USAJOBS website for the complete announcement and the ability to apply on-line. Lateral reassignment and rotation opportunities are posted in the Workforce Transition Tool. To access: HR Portal (https://hr.nasa.gov)> Employees > Workforce Transition > Workforce Transition Tool. These opportunities do not possess known promotion potential; therefore employees can only see positions at or below their current grade level. If you have questions about any JSC job vacancies or reassignment opportunities, please call your Human Resources Representative. - JSC Imagery Online Training Tomorrow
Need to find NASA mission pictures or videos? Learn how during a webinar on Tuesday, July 15th, from 1:30 - 2:45 p.m. Mary Wilkerson, Still Imagery Lead, will show users how to find NASA mission images in Imagery Online (IO) and the Digital Imagery Management System (DIMS). Leslie Richards, Video Imagery Lead, will show employees the video functionality in IO. This training is open to any JSC or WSTF employee. Register here. Community - Family Space Day at George Observatory July 26th
The Expedition Center at the George Observatory is holding a Family Space Day on Saturday, July 26th, from about 3 to 8 p.m. Space related activities will be in the lobby and outside the observatory. This includes bottle rockets, robots and much more! For purchase are tickets to complete a 45-minute Expedition Center mission to the moon! Expedition Center mission tickets may be purchased for $10 a person online. After enjoying a trip to space, stay for the evening and look at the night sky through our telescopes. Telescope tickets can be purchased at the Observatory gift shop. George Observatory is located in the heart of Brazos Bend State Park. Admission to the park is $7 for adults; kids under 12 are free. | |
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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. Disclaimer: Accuracy and content of these notes are the responsibility of the submitters. |
NASA and Human Spaceflight News
Monday – July 14, 2014
HEADLINES AND LEADS
Cargo ship launched today from Wallops Island
Marcia Dunn – Associated Press
A commercial cargo ship rocketed toward the International Space Station on Sunday, carrying food, science samples and new odor-resistant gym clothes for the resident crew.
Antares rocket boosts commercial Cygnus cargo ship into orbit
William Harwood – CBS News
An Orbital Sciences Antares rocket carrying a Cygnus cargo capsule thundered away from the Virginia coast Sunday and streaked into orbit, kicking off a three-day flight to deliver more than 1.5 tons of supplies and equipment to the International Space Station.
Space station cargo launches from Virginia
James Dean – Florida Today
A commercial resupply ship is bound for the International Space Station after a successful launch today from Virginia's Eastern Shore.
Moonwalker Buzz Aldrin says U.S. taking giant leap backward
Phillip Swarts -The Washington Times
Forty-five years after man first landed on the moon, one of the men who was there is worried that the U.S. has become lost in space.
The New Space Race, and Why Nothing Else Matters
Andrew L. Peek – The Fiscal Times
Forty-five years ago this July 20th, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first human beings to set foot on the moon. Their mission represented an emphatic American victory in the first space race, which began in earnest in 1957 when the Soviet Union launched a notably unattractive satellite, Sputnik, into orbit.
Lawmakers fire up alternatives for Shiloh complex
James Dean – Florida Today
Seeking a less environmentally and politically sensitive place than the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge for commercial rockets to blast off, lawmakers are pushing NASA and the Air Force to offer alternatives to the state's proposed Shiloh launch complex.
SpaceX takes fourth shot at Falcon 9 launch
James Dean – Florida Today
SpaceX on Friday test-fired a Falcon 9 rocket's engine for the 11:15 a.m. Monday launch of commercial satellites from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Florida Today live coverage: SpaceX Falcon 9 launch.
Russian Scientists Develop Liquid Test System for ISS
RIA Novosti
Russian scientists have developed a system that makes possible a long-term experiment at the International Space Station (ISS) testing liquids in zero gravity in the near future, a representative of the Siberian branch of Russian Academy of Sciences said Friday.
NASA 3D-prints a nebula, and you can too!
Ever wanted to hold a nebula in your hands? Well now you can thanks to plans from NASA. Warning: It kind of looks like two molars stuck together.
Michael Franco – CNET News
Unlike geologists and zoologists, astronomers rarely get to hold the subject of their study in their hands. That changed recently when Wolfgang Steffen, an astrophysicist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, using software called "Shape," created a 3D-printed model of the Homunculus Nebula.
COMPLETE STORIES
Cargo ship launched today from Wallops Island
Marcia Dunn – Associated Press
A commercial cargo ship rocketed toward the International Space Station on Sunday, carrying food, science samples and new odor-resistant gym clothes for the resident crew.
Orbital Sciences Corp. launched its Cygnus capsule from the Virginia coast, its third space station delivery for NASA.
"It's like Christmas in July," said Frank Culbertson, an executive vice president at Orbital Sciences and former astronaut.
Daylight and clouds limited visibility, but observers from North Carolina to New Jersey still had a shot at seeing the rising Antares rocket. It resembled a bright light in the early afternoon sky.
Its destination, the space station, was soaring 260 miles above Australia when the Cygnus took flight. The unmanned capsule should arrive there Wednesday.
This newest Cygnus contains more than 3,000 pounds of supplies, much of it food. Also on board: mini-satellites, science samples, equipment and experimental exercise clothes. NASA said the new type of clothing is resistant to bacteria and odor buildup. So the astronauts won't smell as much during their two hours of daily workout in orbit and they'll require fewer clothing changes.
NASA is paying for the delivery service. The space agency hired two companies — the Virginia-based Orbital Sciences and California's SpaceX — to keep the space station well stocked once the shuttle program ended. The international partners also make shipments; the European Space Agency, for example, will launch its final supply ship in 1½ weeks from French Guiana.
This particular Cygnus delivery was delayed a few months by various problems, including additional engine inspections and, most recently, bad weather at the Wallops Island launch site. The delays added to the tension for NASA's human exploration chief, Bill Gerstenmaier. He said he breathed a sigh of relief at liftoff given all the critical equipment on board, not to mention all the meals.
The Cygnus will remain at the space station for about a month. It will be filled with trash and cut loose for a fiery re-entry. Unlike the SpaceX Dragon capsule, the Cygnus is not built to return safely to Earth.
Saturday, meanwhile, marked the 5,000th day of continuous human habitation at the 260-mile-high outpost. Six men currently are on board, representing the United States, Russia and Germany.
"Humans are explorers!" German astronaut Alexander Gerst said via Twitter.
Antares rocket boosts commercial Cygnus cargo ship into orbit
William Harwood – CBS News
An Orbital Sciences Antares rocket carrying a Cygnus cargo capsule thundered away from the Virginia coast Sunday and streaked into orbit, kicking off a three-day flight to deliver more than 1.5 tons of supplies and equipment to the International Space Station.
After a string of delays caused by stormy weather, conflicts with other flights and an engine test failure, the rocket's two Russian-built first stage engines, supplied by Aerojet Rocketdyne, ignited with a roaring rush of fiery exhaust at 12:52 p.m. EDT (GMT-4), generating 734,000 pounds of thrust.
The 133-foot-tall rocket quickly climbed away from pad 0A at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA's Wallops Island, Va., flight facility, arcing away to the southeast through a partly cloudy sky and putting on a dramatic Sunday show for area residents and tourists jamming local roads and beaches.
Burning oxygen and RP-1 kerosene rocket fuel, the Aerojet Rocketdyne AJ26 first stage engines fired for nearly four minutes, boosting the rocket out of the dense lower atmosphere and into the orbital plane of the space station.
After a short coast, the rocket's ATK solid-fuel second stage motor ignited at an altitude of about 106 miles and fired for two minutes and 17 seconds or so to put the spacecraft into an initial orbit with a high point, or apogee, of about 185 miles and a low point, or perigee, of around 125 miles.
Two minutes later, the Cygnus cargo ship was released from the second stage to fly on its own. The spacecraft's two solar panels unfolded and locked in place a few moments later, setting the stage for a series of carefully planned rendezvous rocket firings to catch up with the space station.
"We have completed the first burn," said Frank Culbertson, a former shuttle commander who serves as Orbital's vice president and general manager of advanced programs. "We deployed the solar arrays, we're getting full power, and all the systems on the spacecraft are operating nominally. So we're very excited about the fact that we're in orbit and we're headed to the station. ... We're really looking forward to the rendezvous."
If all goes well, the uncrewed Cygnus cargo craft will reach the lab complex early Wednesday, pulling up to within about 30 feet and then standing by while the lab's robot arm, operated by station commander Steve Swanson, locks on to pull it in for berthing at the Earth-facing port of the forward Harmony module.
"Nicely done @Orbital_Sciences -- looking forward to #Cygnus arrival on Wednesday!" station astronaut Reid Wiseman tweeted from orbit.
"Thanks Reid! We are coming your way -- carefully," Orbital tweeted back.
This is Orbital's second operational station resupply mission under a $1.9 billion contract with NASA that calls for eight flights through 2016 to deliver 20 tons of cargo. SpaceX holds a similar resupply contract, valued at $1.6 billion, for 12 flights to deliver some 44,000 pounds of equipment and supplies.
The commercial contracts were awarded to make up for the lost payload capability of NASA's space shuttle, which was retired in 2011. SpaceX has carried out three operational resupply missions to date with two more flights on tap in September and December and three flights planned next year. Orbital plans its third mission in October with two flights on tap in 2015.
William Gerstenmaier, NASA's director of space operations, said the agency plans to announce a second round of contracts in the December-January timeframe to continue commercial resupply operations past 2016. NASA hopes to operate the space station through 2024, if not longer, and keeping the lab supplied is critical.
For the current mission, known as Orb-2, the Cygnus cargo ship was loaded with 3,293 pounds of crew supplies, including food, spare parts and other station hardware, science equipment, spacewalk components and computer hardware.
The research cargo includes a variety of student experiments, supplies for NASA's Human Research Facility lab rack, igniters for the station's combustion test facility and a Japanese experiment designed to study convection in the microgravity environment of space.
Also on board: 28 small satellites -- nanosats -- built by Planet Labs of San Francisco, the third "flock" of spacecraft launched to date for testing in a commercial venture to continuously photograph the Earth. Four other nanosats also are on board, including one built by NASA to test techniques for returning small experiment samples to the ground.
The Cygnus spacecraft will remain attached to the station for about a month. After it is unloaded and re-packed with trash and no-longer-needed equipment, the lab's robot arm will unberth the cargo ship and release it from the station.
Before falling back to Earth and burning up in the atmosphere, the cargo ship will spend a few extra days in orbit for tests of new rendezvous equipment and procedures designed to allow the craft to remain in orbit for extended periods.
NASA originally hoped to launch the Orb-2 mission in May, but the flight was delayed to early June because of conflicts with other launches. Then, on May 22, an Antares first-stage engine being test fired for a flight next year suffered a catastrophic failure. The Orb-2 mission was put on hold pending a failure investigation.
The analysis is not yet complete, but the engines used Sunday were cleared for flight after additional boroscope inspections and a review of earlier test firings. Orbital then scheduled launch for Friday, but the flight slipped to Sunday because of stormy weather that interrupted ground processing.
Space station cargo launches from Virginia
James Dean – Florida Today
A commercial resupply ship is bound for the International Space Station after a successful launch today from Virginia's Eastern Shore.
Orbital Sciences Corp.'s 13-story Antares rocket blasted off from Wallops Island at 12:52 p.m. and delivered an unmanned Cygnus spacecraft packed with more than 3,300 pounds of food, equipment and experiments into orbit about 10 minutes later.
The station and its six-person Expedition 40 crew were flying 260 miles over northwest Australia at the time.
It was the fourth successful launch by the liquid- and solid-fueled Antares, which was developed under a NASA program that established new commercial vehicles to deliver cargo after the space shuttle's retirement in 2011.
The launch was delayed while Orbital investigated the failure of an AJ26 main engine during a test, to ensure this rocket's two main engines were healthy. They appeared to perform flawlessly.
The Cygnus – named in honor of the late NASA astronaut and Orbital employee Janice Voss, a five-time shuttle flyer – is expected to arrive at the ISS Wednesday morning for a 6:37 a.m. EDT capture by a 58-foot robotic arm controlled by Expedition 40 commander Steve Swanson.
Among the payloads inside the Cygnus pressurized module is a "flock" of 28 commercial imaging CubeSats developed by San Francisco-based Planet Labs, adding to the company's first flock of Dove satellites launched on the first contracted Cygnus mission in January. They'll be deployed in pairs from the ISS.
The Cygnus will stay attached to the station for 30 to 45 days, then depart full of trash toward a destructive reentry through the atmosphere.
The mission is Orbital's second of eight under a $1.9 billion NASA resupply contract.
Later this month, Europe's ATV freighter is scheduled to launch to the ISS for a fifth and final time. SpaceX's next station resupply launch from Cape Canaveral is tentatively planned Sept. 12.
Moonwalker Buzz Aldrin says U.S. taking giant leap backward
Phillip Swarts -The Washington Times
Forty-five years after man first landed on the moon, one of the men who was there is worried that the U.S. has become lost in space.
With the anniversary Sunday of Apollo 11's giant leap for mankind, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin sees a moribund American space program without a major task to conquer while a geopolitical rival is going full steam ahead, reminding him of the Soviet launch of the first man-made satellite in 1957. Only the U.S. isn't reacting now as it did then.
"We're in the worst position we've ever been in," he told The Washington Times. "We're in worse competitive shape than after Sputnik."
Mr. Aldrin knows a thing or two about space. He was part of NASA's space exploration for many years, flying first in the Gemini 12 mission, and then as part of Apollo 11 with Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins, when he became the second man to walk on the moon. A photo of Mr. Aldrin, taken on the moon's surface by Armstrong, has become one of the most iconic images of human history.
But the U.S. could soon lose its position at the forefront of space exploration and be surpassed by nations such as China, Mr. Aldrin warned.
In 2010, because of budget constraints and concerns that the rockets in development weren't adequate, President Obama canceled the Constellation program, which was viewed as the successor to the space shuttle and which would have put mankind on the path to visiting Mars.
Now the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is trying to figure out the next steps, using the last remaining piece of the canceled program: the command module Orion, which was to house the astronauts. But Mr. Aldrin said there are still concerns that the new spacecraft may be too heavy and too expensive, or would launch too infrequently.
The current plan is to use a robot to capture a small asteroid and bring it into the moon's orbit, where the first astronauts launched on Orion could study it.
In the meantime, the International Space Station is slated for decommissioning in 2024, a year after China's planned space station is set to be completed.
NASA plans eventually to land people back on the moon.
"Where's our space program now?" Mr. Aldrin said. "The president's telling us we're going to do in 10 or 15 years the same thing we did back in '69, '70.
"That's not going to be very popular to the American people," he said.
Instead, he said, the U.S. must set its sights on a celestial body beyond the moon: Mars.
Mr. Aldrin said he and fellow moonwalker Armstrong often would discuss what the next step should be.
"He wanted to go back to the moon, and I wanted to go to Mars," Mr. Aldrin said. "But I don't want to go to Mars by ignoring the moon."
There's much the U.S. can do to prepare for an eventual trip to the Earth's nearest planet, he said, starting with building stations at two Lagrange points — locations in space named for an 18th-century astronomer where the effects of the moon's and Earth's gravities are equal. The stations would allow greater communication and transportation to and from the lunar surface.
The U.S. also could coordinate further international lunar missions, such as sending construction equipment to help other nations build laboratories on the surface. Likewise, the U.S. could develop standards of construction so that all the labs, modules and units could be linked together easily — no matter what nation built them.
The planned mission to the asteroid could be a key opportunity to test a rocket's capabilities before the long flight to Mars, Mr. Aldrin said, and should incorporate a robot that could stay behind to study the asteroid long after humans leave.
Regardless of political differences, he said, the U.S. and China should attempt to cooperate for human space exploration. Indeed, 2020 will be the 45th anniversary of the Apollo-Soyuz mission, when U.S. and Soviet spacecraft docked together in orbit — a symbolic time for the U.S. and China to perform a similar feat, he said.
Mr. Aldrin is concerned, however, that people in Washington may not be remembering history as well as they should. He is worried that not enough is being done to mark the 45th anniversary of the first lunar landing and that the monumental 50th may go uncelebrated.
So he is calling on Mr. Obama to create some ambassadorships — lunar ambassadors, to be exact.
Mr. Aldrin said he hopes the president will name him, Mr. Collins, and a member of the Armstrong's family as lunar ambassadors to represent, educate and support space exploration endeavors with an eye on the future. Armstrong died in 2012.
Likewise, he wants named as ambassadors the crews of Apollo 8, 9 and 13 — missions that didn't land on the moon but laid important groundwork (or, in the case of 13, became an incredible survival tale).
Over the next five years until the anniversary in 2019, Mr. Aldrin said, he hopes the president will extend the same honor to the crews of the next lunar missions: Apollo 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17.
"I know there's a 50 coming, and I'm trying to lay the groundwork," he said. "If we want to have a big deal for the 50th, we just can't slough off the 45th.
"The nation will be extolling all the benefits from Mercury, Gemini, Apollo," he said. "This is the 50th anniversary of carrying out Kennedy's 'Within this decade'" call to land a man on the moon.
So far, there has been no word from the White House. Calls from The Washington Times to the press office about what Mr. Obama is planning to do for the anniversary have gone unanswered.
The benefits of space exploration have been much more widespread than many people realize, Mr. Aldrin said. For example, the demand for smaller and lighter electronics on the spacecraft helped fuel the computer and microchip revolution that has transformed society.
Another big bonus, Mr. Aldrin said, is education.
"You never heard anyone in the '60s or '70s mention the word STEM: science, technology, engineering and math," he said. "Why? Because we were at the top of the world. We didn't have to stimulate our education."
Without the focus on major accomplishments such as space exploration, desire for those areas of education has been slipping.
"We're not there anymore. We're down below," Mr. Aldrin said.
To celebrate the 45th anniversary of man's first lunar landing, Mr. Aldrin has launched the #Apollo45 social media campaign. He is hoping people will post memories of where they were when the Apollo 11 lander, Eagle, first touched down on the moon. (Or, for people who weren't born yet, stories of how the lunar missions affected them.)
A number of notable individuals have agreed to post videos to the Apollo45 YouTube channel through July 20, including scientists Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, London Mayor Boris Johnson, and entertainers such as Stephen Colbert and Tim Allen.
Although honoring and remembering the past is important, Mr. Aldrin said, he wants people to set their eyes on the future. Indeed, Mr. Aldrin, who has become so closely associated with the lunar missions, said he hopes he will be remembered instead for his efforts to reach the Red Planet.
"The men who went to the moon, their legacy is having gone to the moon in their lifetime. That's not my legacy," he said. "My legacy is the future, someone who's been spending his life trying to figure out how to get a gradual, coherent plan to get people on Mars.
"What is going to happen in the ['20s], '30s and '40s when I'm dead and my son's carrying on?" Mr. Aldrin asked. He said he hopes people will say, "We know how to do that.
"Look, we just went to Mars. We stayed, we came back, we know how to do that. We showed the world how to do that."
Whoever makes that commitment will have a profound effect on history, Mr. Aldrin said, greater even than the ruler of Spain who sent Christopher Columbus on a trip across the ocean.
"The world leader that makes a commitment of establishing a growing habitation, a growing existence of humanity on another planet, that person has set in motion more than Queen Isabella ever thought of," Mr. Aldrin said. "To me, that's a really big deal."
The New Space Race, and Why Nothing Else Matters
Andrew L. Peek – The Fiscal Times
Forty-five years ago this July 20th, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first human beings to set foot on the moon. Their mission represented an emphatic American victory in the first space race, which began in earnest in 1957 when the Soviet Union launched a notably unattractive satellite, Sputnik, into orbit.
Since then, however, America's national space program has essentially foundered. It improved space travel by building and then scrapping the Space Shuttle, without ever accomplishing – or attempting – a mission as bold or impactful as the one in 1969. It's time for a new one. To win the next space race, the US should announce its support for private property rights in space, and NASA should take a back seat.
To be fair, NASA's not really at fault here: its business model is just wrong. In the national consciousness, NASA seems like a luxury, in the same low-priority bucket as the F-22A fighter and development aid for Bosnia. And unlike those other items, it's not really clear what the last thirty years of NASA funding has given us. As America's government-run space monopoly, NASA is a money hole, no more viable over the long run than is Amtrak.
That's a shame, because we're not far off from the next major iteration of space exploration. Tesla Motors and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk believes that humans could be travelling to Mars within 10-12 years. And former NASA official and Stanford astronautics professor G. Scott Hubbard sees private space exploration for tourism, residency, or resource extraction as goals for the next iteration of space travel.
That's the new space race: not tourism, not residency per se, but resource extraction.
According to some estimates, a single half-kilometer asteroid could contain over $20 trillion worth of metals and other resources.
The first nation that can import and tax the raw materials of bodies in our solar system would experience an economic boom unparalleled in generations, if ever.
In addition, the military-technological spillover advantages from a vastly expanded space industry might never be surpassed. Since space is infinite, there's no limit to how far the mining sector can expand – the bounds of the solar system in the short term, but in the longer term, who knows? It would be a period of international growth and change unseen since the Age of Discovery, when Spain and Portugal broke out of the European system and became superpowers almost overnight. And, like the 1400's, the first country up there will win.
But only private industry will risk it. Only the private sector has people willing to take losses for years, and often be ruined, for the chance to succeed beyond imagination.
The Obama Administration's 2010 space strategy, which encouraged commercial firms to develop the capability to fly US astronauts into space, did recognize that private industry will be the driver of space exploration. The problem, however, is that human launch capability is not that intrinsically valuable a service.
True, we need it to put astronauts into the International Space Station, where they produce marginally valuable scientific research and watch the World Cup. But that still falls into the "expensive curiosity" label that killed the Space Shuttle. Even a human visit to Mars or a permanent human presence on the moon would not be much more than a milestone for the human race, which – though laudable – is not the most alluring incentive for government or private cash.
But what if space exploration companies could be offered property rights for the resources they extract as well? Private property rights are a mainstay of economic development theory. This would in one stroke encourage far-seeing corporations to invest in space development projects that are virtually guaranteed to have a long-term (indeed, almost infinite) reward.
One that's already in the market is Planetary Resources, a new asteroid-mining company supported in part by Google's CEOs Larry Page and Eric Schmidt. Given the right policy support, others would be quick to join it. Then it's California in 1849, and the gold rush is on.
The US should thus make an explicit promise to space entrepreneurs: if they pay US taxes, follow to-be-created US environmental regulations, and share their technology with the government, the government will defend their claim diplomatically and legally. NASA in this model would play the role of a regulator and information repository, and possibly an R&D lab for US companies.
They'd need it, because other countries would be upset. Operating in the quirky netherworld of never-put-to-the-test space law, the US would be essentially creating customary law on the fly. To smooth the transition, it could also offer a diplomatic incentive: that it would defend the claims of foreign companies whose countries recognize US claims.
That would be a powerful inducement to cooperate in the new space race. Most likely, after initial responses ranging from ridicule to Brazil-level meltdown, the most developed US allies like Japan, Germany, and the Anglosphere would follow suit, either alone or in alliances with companies from the developing world.
Because, if it works, everything else looks like pawn-grabbing. The frontiers of Ukraine, China's claim to Pacific atolls, even the vast caldron of inchoate sectarian rage in the Middle East: strategically, all would have less of a long-term impact than the economic and technological benefits of space mining. The first countries to do it successfully will be the superpowers of the space age – and the last may disappear.
And if it goes nowhere, then so what? The US has lost nothing except some diplomatic angst.
There's always more where that came from.
Lawmakers fire up alternatives for Shiloh complex
James Dean – Florida Today
Seeking a less environmentally and politically sensitive place than the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge for commercial rockets to blast off, lawmakers are pushing NASA and the Air Force to offer alternatives to the state's proposed Shiloh launch complex.
"You've got a lot of unused real estate that used to be launch pads that now can be commercial rocket launch sites," U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson said this week. "We'll see what develops, but I'm encouraged."
Nelson summoned the Secretary of the Air Force, NASA's associate administrator and head of the Federal Aviation Administration to his office in April to study a map of Cape Canaveral and discuss options at Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, and has been receiving status reports since.
The meeting followed a February hearing on underutilized infrastructure at the Cape, during which U.S. Rep. Bill Posey asked local space leaders: If not at Shiloh, where could you accommodate an independent launch range?
And last month, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio urged Kennedy Space Center Director Bob Cabana to ensure the center's plans do not "deter or hamper commercial space entities from making full use of the facility and other potential launch sites in Florida."
The discussions highlight challenges Space Florida faces as it seeks approval to build one or two pads on former orange groves at the north end of KSC and the refuge, a proposal environmentalists strongly oppose.
They also reflect the congressional representatives' concern that the Space Coast risks missing out on growth in commercial launches, after already losing roughly 8,000 jobs from the space shuttle's retirement.
SpaceX, the biggest near-term prize, just won FAA approval to proceed with a privately operated launch complex it has proposed building on the Gulf Coast near Brownsville, Texas.
Orbital Sciences earlier chose to launch ISS cargo from a state-run spaceport on Virginia's Eastern Shore, and a site in Camden County, Ga., just across the Florida border, represents the next potential threat.
Those places promise commercial operations won't take a back seat to exploration and national security missions that are the Cape's top priority, or be subject to added regulations and costs the federal installations impose.
Space Florida selected the Shiloh site "not to tilt at windmills, but to drive the development of a capability here at the Cape that does not exist here now, and which the industry is demanding," CEO Frank DiBello told the National Space Club's Florida chapter this week.
He said Nelson was looking for backup locations but agreed with "the concept of Shiloh," and that Space Florida is open to any alternatives that can match the operating conditions Shiloh and its competitors would offer.
It's not clear NASA or the Air Force can do that, though both say they welcome more commercial operations.
Responding in writing to Posey's question earlier this year, Brig. Gen. Nina Armagno, commander of the 45th Space Wing, said locating an independent launch range on Air Force property "is not operationally feasible."
She also said the Air Force is working with future government and commercial customers "who desire the security, infrastructure and existing range capabilities the 45th Space Wing provides."
KSC has leased one of its two pads to SpaceX, which already operates one on the Cape. Both could support commercial launches near-term, but SpaceX over time expects them to focus on government missions such as cargo or crews flying to the ISS, robotic science spacecraft and military satellites.
KSC has proposed another site for one or two commercial pads, but Space Florida doubts it's a viable alternative to Shiloh given its location in the middle of wetlands and proximity to existing pads and a popular beach.
Beyond identifying places on a map where new pads might fit, there is no formal commitment to establishing commercial enclaves within either federal site or detail on how they would work.
Despite bureaucratic inaction in the past, Posey said the federal agencies were slowly moving in the right direction.
"As current commercial enterprises continue to demonstrate their reliability, we are seeing the metamorphosis that will make the range within a range a reality and move us in the direction of a more autonomous range for commercial endeavors," he said.
"That's what I'm pushing for and want to do it sooner rather than later."
Nelson said he is passing no judgment on the 200-acre Shiloh site now undergoing an environmental review.
But he believes technology improvements at the Eastern Range and lessons from working with SpaceX today will lead to expanded commercial activity along the Cape, possibly along a stretch of dismantled launch sites south of Launch Complex 37.
Despite the 45th Space Wing's response to Posey, Nelson said the Air Force is now "proceeding on the basis of seeing if this can work."
"There are not only conversations, there are now serious discussions," he said. "Thus far, it's looking pretty good."
SpaceX takes fourth shot at Falcon 9 launch
James Dean – Florida Today
SpaceX on Friday test-fired a Falcon 9 rocket's engine for the 11:15 a.m. Monday launch of commercial satellites from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Florida Today live coverage: SpaceX Falcon 9 launch.
The launch attempt comes about three weeks after two countdowns scrubbed and a third was postponed due to technical and weather problems. The mission has experienced delays since May.
It's the first of two SpaceX launches for Orbcomm Inc., a New Jersey-based provider of machine-to-machine networks that track products shipped around the world and monitor the health of heavy machinery.
The 224-foot Falcon 9 rocket is carrying the first six of 17 Orbcomm Generation 2 satellites upgrading the company's existing constellation in low Earth orbit.
After launch, SpaceX will try to steer the Falcon 9's first stage to a soft landing in the Atlantic Ocean for recovery by ships, a step toward developing a reusable booster.
Antares targeting launch today
An Orbital Sciences rocket was scheduled to lift off from Virginia at 12:52 p.m. today (Sunday, July 13, 2014) with a load of cargo bound for the International Space Station.
The launch was delayed first by a failed test of an AJ26 engine used by the Antares rocket, and more recently by weather.
The mission is Orbital's second of eight under a $1.9 billion resupply contract. SpaceX's next resupply launch from the Cape is tentatively planned in August.
KSC honors Armstrong
NASA in May renamed its Dryden Flight Research Center after the late Neil Armstrong, the world's first moonwalker.
This month, Kennedy Space Center will take a turn honoring the legendary astronaut by renaming one of its storied facilities, the Operations and Checkout building.
Built in 1964, the "O&C" was used to process and test the command, service and lunar modules for Apollo missions and continued to serve as astronauts' crew quarters. Shuttle astronauts suited up for flight there before departing for the launch pad.
Armstrong's Apollo 11 crewmates Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, who launched from KSC 45 years ago on Wednesday atop a Saturn V rocket, will be on hand for a formal ceremony July 21.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and KSC Director bob Cabana, both former shuttle astronauts, also will make remarks.
New Falcon 9 flights deemed a success
SpaceX last week said the Air Force has confirmed that the company's first three flights of a new Falcon 9 rocket were a success.
That's a key milestone, but not the last step, in the company's effort to win Air Force certification that would allow it to compete with United Launch Alliance for launches of national security payloads.
SpaceX expects to meet the remaining certification requirements later this year. The process is continuing amid a lawsuit SpaceX filed alleging the Air Force improperly awarded ULA a 36-launch contract that will limit near-term opportunities for competition.
The Air Force has asked for the suit to be dismissed.
Asteroid ownership
U.S. Rep. Bill Posey last week introduced with the American Space Technology for Exploring Resource Opportunities in Deep Space (ASTEROIDS) Act of 2014, a bill that would establish property rights for future private asteroid miners.
Posey said the legislation introduced with Democrat Derek Kilmer of Washington State would promote private exploration and protect commercial rights.
"Asteroids are excellent potential sources of highly valuable resources and minerals," Posey, a member of the House Science, Space and Technology committee, said in a statement. "Our knowledge of asteroids — their number, location, and composition — has been increasing at a tremendous rate and space technology has advanced to the point where the private sector is now able to begin planning such expeditions."
Life on the ISS marks 5,000 days
Saturday marked the 5,000th consecutive day of humans living aboard the International Space Station, dating back to November 2000.
Some 1,600 experiments involving 1,500 scientific researchers from 82 countries have been completed during that time, NASA says.
"It's an amazing feat to be able to already have completed so much science," said Kirt Costello, NASA's assistant International Space Station Program scientist. "We have more wonderful discoveries to come."
Wanted: Private astronauts
Private space station developer Bigelow Aerospace has hired two former NASA astronauts, Space News reported last week.
Kenneth Ham and George Zamka each piloted or commanded two shuttle missions. Ham is leaving the U.S. Naval Academy's Aerospace Engineering Department, Zamka a position in the Federal Aviation Administration's Office of Commercial Space Transportation.
North Las Vegas-based Bigelow hopes to finish building its first two BA330 inflatable station modules by 2017, according to the report. The company may hire more astronauts this year.
Senate to review RD-180 risks
U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson this week will co-chair a joint hearing by Senate committees on discussing "Options for Assuring Domestic Space Access."
The hearing at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday "will consider the current state of the U.S. launch enterprise and the risks posed to U.S. space operations by relying on the Russian RD-180 rocket engine," according to a press release.
The RD-180 is a Russian-built engine used by United Launch Alliance's Atlas V rocket, the most frequent launcher of U.S. national security missions. Russian officials have threatened to cut off its supply for that purpose, prompting Congress to consider funding development of a new American rocket engine.
UCF students selected for program
A University of Central Florida student team was among 10 selected last week by NASA's Undergraduate Student Instrument Program to develop and fly a science payload on suborbital platforms including sounding rockets, balloons, aircraft, zero-g aircraft and suborbital reusable launch vehicles.
UCF's experiment, titled "Microgravity experiment on accretion in space environments," will fly on a parabolic aircraft. All the program's flights were expected by Spring 2015.
Russian Scientists Develop Liquid Test System for ISS
RIA Novosti
Russian scientists have developed a system that makes possible a long-term experiment at the International Space Station (ISS) testing liquids in zero gravity in the near future, a representative of the Siberian branch of Russian Academy of Sciences said Friday.
"The experiment will have to do with the research of liquids in zero gravity. It is necessary because not a single manned flight to space can do without liquids. One needs to eat, drink and so on. That is why it is necessary to research the way liquids behave in conditions of weightlessness. And it turns out, they behave very differently there, not the way they do on Earth," said Oleg Kabov, deputy head of the heat exchange augmentation lab at the Kutateladze Institute of Thermophysics.
The joint experiment of Russian and European Space Agencies is to explore the evaporation and condensation of liquids. The test, called CIMEX, is to use the system developed at the Russian institute.
The ISS is a base for conducting broad research in space. Russia has so far focused much of its efforts on biomedical research, and is now stepping up its physics research.
Russia is currently the only ISS participant that provides crew changes for the station and carries most deliveries to it.
NASA 3D-prints a nebula, and you can too!
Ever wanted to hold a nebula in your hands? Well now you can thanks to plans from NASA. Warning: It kind of looks like two molars stuck together.
Michael Franco – CNET News
Unlike geologists and zoologists, astronomers rarely get to hold the subject of their study in their hands. That changed recently when Wolfgang Steffen, an astrophysicist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, using software called "Shape," created a 3D-printed model of the Homunculus Nebula.
That might be all well and good for the astronomers, but what does this mean to you? Well, if you have access to a 3D printer, it means that you can hold the Homunculus in your own hands by printing out the first high-resolution 3D model of the cloud of gas. All you need to do is download the plans that NASA has made publically available, feed them into your 3D-printing software, and play god by watching your very own Homunculus Nebula form before your eyes.
This giant cloud of light, gas, and dust was created in the mid-1800s when a binary star system known as Eta Carinae, located about 7,500 light years away, erupted. It spewed a massive amount of solar material into the universe, earning it the position as the second-brightest star in the sky at the time. One of the stars in the binary system measures about 30 times the mass of our sun and could be up to a million times brighter. And that's just the small one! The larger star could hold 90 of our suns in its borders and puts out 5 million times more energy than our sun.
Previous efforts to study and map the Homunculus Nebula, which is expanding out from the two stars at a rate of 1.3 million miles per hour, used only five slices of the system. To create their 3D model of the giant cloud of gas that now measures one full light year across, the researchers took 92 different slices of it using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope and its X-Shooter spectrograph. They imaged near-infrared, visible and ultraviolet wavelengths, creating the most complete spectral map ever, according to NASA.
That data was used to create a shape model, which was then 3D printed (and also published by the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society). "The new shape model confirms several features identified by previous studies," says NASA's statement about the model, "including pronounced holes located at the ends of each lobe and the absence of any extended molecular hydrogen emission from a dust skirt apparent in visible light near the center of the nebula. New features include curious arm-like protrusions emanating from each lobe near the dust skirt; vast, deep trenches curving along each lobe; and irregular divots on the side facing away from Earth."
What the researchers were hoping to find out is if interactions between the two stars in the Eta Carinae system had an effect on the formation of the nebula in which they're contained. The answer seems to be "yes."
"One of the questions we set out to answer with this study is whether the Homunculus contains any imprint of the star's binary nature, since previous efforts to explain its shape have assumed that both lobes were more or less identical and symmetric around their long axis," explained team member Jose Groh, an astronomer at Geneva University in Switzerland. "The new features strongly suggest that interactions between Eta Carinae's stars helped mold the Homunculus."
As you can see in the following video, it kind of looks like two molar teeth stuck together, but it'll definitely be the coolest paperweight in your office!
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