Will War With Syria Cause The Price Of Oil To Explode Higher?

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/will-war-with-syria-cause-the-price-of-oil-to-explode-higher


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ISS Research & Technology | NASA

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/index.html


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A Lab Aloft (International Space Station Research)

http://blogs.nasa.gov/ISS_Science_Blog/


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Fwd: JSC Director News, August 2013

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From: JSC Director News <jsc-director-news@lists.nasa.gov>
Date: August 29, 2013 9:36:29 AM GMT-06:00
To: null <bobbygmartin1938@gmail.com>
Subject: JSC Director News, August 2013

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Aug.29, 2013

Greetings:

NASA is developing a first-ever mission to identify, capture and relocate an asteroid and JSC will play an important role. I hope you will take the time to watch the video and read about how a collective team led by JSC is putting the pieces together for that mission.

NASA 905, the Shuttle Aircraft Carrier is officially home. Well almost! Part of a multi-year $12 million project, Boeing announced Aug. 22 that it will disassemble, transport and reassemble the aircraft as part of a six-story space shuttle attraction under development at Space Center Houston.

BTW, did you happen to see space station astronaut Karen Nyberg recently on NBC Today talking about life in space? If not, don't fret, you can catch up with her on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest. Be sure to check out her best "tressed" in space video. Karen is one of many that keep JSC "social" by engaging the public through social media sites that provide instantaneous news, from informative to groundbreaking to just plain fun (like Train Like An Astronaut).

The International Space Station (ISS) team continues its investigation into why water built up inside European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano's helmet during the July 16 spacewalk. The investigation didn't affect two spacewalks for our Russian colleagues. On Aug. 16 Expedition 36 cosmonauts broke a 23 year Russian record by 13 minutes with a 7 hour, 29 minute spacewalk covered on NASA TV and reaching an audience of 22 million. A second Russian spacewalk took place Aug. 22, preparing the station for a new Russian module that will be launched in a few months.

You should check out one of my favorite web sites for ISS Science, A Lab Aloft. On Aug. 20 they posted a blog about how NASA technologies developed for the space station have led to a new phone app that brings low-cost water monitoring to under-resources communities and is being tested in Mwanza, Tanzania. Former NASA environmental engineer John Feighey and his wife Annie founded mWater on the idea inspired by the Microbial Water Analysis Kit (MWAK) used on ISS. Also, three scientists were recognized at the ISS Research and Development Conference in July for their studies on bone loss, cool flames and immune systems.

A partnership more than 50 years in the making helped narrow the field of candidate materials for Orion's future heat shield. Avcoat, last used on the space shuttle in its earliest flights, was put back into production for the study and eventually chosen to protect Orion from temperatures that will climb upwards to 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit. NASA continues to hit major milestones while approaching the next era of human spaceflight. Also in the news, the Space Launch System (SLS) cleared its biggest technical hurdle en route to a 2017 launch by successfully completing a Preliminary Design Review

The Boeing Company unveiled its CST-100 spacecraft test vehicle July 22, the first time we got a glimpse of the crew capsule interior. NASA astronauts Serena Aunon and Randy Bresnik donned launch-and-entry suits to test the maneuverability inside the capsule while Boeing engineers monitored communications, equipment and ergonomics.

FINAL THOUGHTS:  JSC recently hosted Pumps and Pipes, a collaborative effort between three of Houston's largest industries to find synergies.  JSC, Jacobs Engineering and Raytheon partnered with members of BayTech and the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership (BAHEP) to host the group at the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory showcasing a "Top 10" of JSC's current technology projects, including cold storage, augmented reality, telerobotics, fuel cells, ice drilling and water cleanup.

Ellen Ochoa
JSC Center Director

Visit http://go.nasa.gov/12qVNbk to subscribe to JSC Director News

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Fwd: Stand Up For More American Energy

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From: "Bob Livingston" <eletter@news.personalliberty.com>
Date: August 29, 2013 10:02:27 AM GMT-06:00
To: Bobbygmartin1938@gmail.com
Subject: Stand Up For More American Energy
Reply-To: eletter@personalliberty.com

Stand Up For More American Energy

Bobby, thanks for subscribing since 01/16/2012

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Dear Bobby, Please find below a special message from our friends at Energy Citizens. They have some important information to share with you. Sincerely, Bob Livingston Editor, Personal Liberty Digest™ Editor, The Bob Livingston Letter™

STOP MISGUIDED ENERGY POLICIES Dear Bobby: American-made natural gas is creating jobs, growing our economy, lowering our energy bills, and strengthening our energy security. Sign our petition to make sure this natural gas boom isn't derailed by misguided energy policies. President Obama said "we should strengthen our position as the top natural gas producer" and it is up to us to hold him to that promise. Unfortunately, U.S. energy development is threatened by politicians who want to tie up energy producers with regulations and place huge areas off-limits to energy exploration. These policies will destroy jobs, hurt our economy, and make us more dependent on foreign energy suppliers. Stand up for American energy by signing our petition! Americans like you need to speak up for U.S. energy production. Unless our voices are heard, the American oil and natural gas boom will be stifled by anti-development policies. We can't afford to see this happen. Natural gas is doing great things for America. Keep the energy boom going by having your voice heard! Sincerely, Energy Citizens [#UnsubscribeText#] from future emails Energy Citizens | P.O. Box 54 | Alexandria, VA 22313 Follow Us

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Fwd: Are We Willing to Defend Ourselves?

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From: "Gatestone Institute" <list@gatestoneinstitute.org>
Date: August 29, 2013 3:22:30 AM GMT-06:00
To: bobbygmartin1938@gmail.com
Subject: Are We Willing to Defend Ourselves?
Reply-To: "Gatestone Institute" <list@gatestoneinstitute.org>

   

Are We Willing to Defend Ourselves?

by Peter Huessy
August 29, 2013 at 5:00 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3949/us-missile-defense

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The U.S. Air Force has just completed a review of the ballistic missile threats to the U.S.: China is building more ballistic missiles than anyone – and faster. By 2015, Iran's and North Korea's long-range missiles will be able to reach the United States.

The Israeli Air Force, on June 7, 1981, carried out Operation Opera, in which F-16s flew hundreds of miles and successfully destroyed the nuclear facility in Osirak, Iraq -- the difficulty of the task only increased by the absence of laser-guided technology and the distance the jets had to fly.

When, shortly after, President Ronald Reagan was asked whether a National Security Council emergency session should be called to "assess what to do," he replied, "Well, boys will be boys," and calmly proceeded to the presidential helicopter. No NSC session was convened.

This was a time when Americans cheered when the "tough guys" -- John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Clint Eastwood, Keefer Sutherland, Bruce Willis, Sean Connery -- defended the "good guys."

In that 1981 raid, the Israelis, the good guys, God bless them, defended not only Israel, but all of us. Thirty years later, are we willing to defend ourselves?

Or do too many Americans, if we use military force, see our country as a "bully"?

Franz Fanon, a cult figure in the 1960s and the Marxist author of the book, "The Wretched of the Earth" -- favorably mentioned by our nation's President in "Dreams From My Father" and still widely read on American college campuses -- apparently saw America as an imperialist nation and our military as an instrument of oppression.

In addition, according to Wilmington News Journal on October 24, 2001, the top Democratic lawmaker on foreign policy, Senator Joe Biden, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee argued to the Council on Foreign Relations that the United States would be perceived as a "high tech bully" if, in Afghanistan, we did not put troops on the ground and fought only using air power -- as if the United States, or anyone else, should fight according to some notion of "fairness" that requires making your own troops as vulnerable as your adversaries'.

Others credit the U.S. for creating the very terrorism we worry about. The Washington Blog of October 19^th, 2012 details these claims, including Richard Clarke, for instance, formerly the cyber advisor on the National Security Council, claiming that as a result of our liberation of Afghanistan, the U.S. was actually creating thousands more terrorists.

In a July 19, 2004 letter to the author, Congressman Chris Shays explained that Clarke, then a National Security Council aide, told his House Terrorism subcommittee in June 2000 that there were "so many terrorist threats to America that it made no sense prioritizing them." When asked whether he could advise the Congress how best to spend homeland security funding, wrote Shays, Clarke said, "No."

Others, including former including former President William Clinton, asserted that the creation of a Palestinian state would "take about half the impetus in the whole world, not just the region…for terror away. It would have more impact than anything else that could be done."

As the esteemed Middle East expert Shoshana Bryen countered (in JINSA Report #1030, October 8, 2010, which examined President Clinton's claim), "Blaming the existence of Israel for half the world's terrorism -- not Arab rejection of the UN process under which Israel declared itself independent -- is abhorrent."

The Strategic Defense Initiative Meets the Nuclear Freeze

With the election of Ronald Reagan to the presidency in 1980 -- on an explicit platform of "peace through strength" -- the notion that the U.S. military was an instrument of bullying was rejected by a large majority of the electorate.

Reagan set out to accomplish three key strategic objectives: modernize U.S. nuclear forces; begin to research, develop and eventually build missile defenses, and simultaneously seek major reductions in nuclear weapons to build a more stable strategic environment.

But beyond these policies lay a further goal: to undermine, and eventually bring down, the former Soviet Union.

Others were aghast at the administration's plans. Just days after the President's inauguration, Johnny Apple wrote in the New York Times on February 5, 1981: "Some Soviet officials are evidently worried by the possibility that Mr. Reagan will find himself imprisoned by his own philosophy."

The hostility of the "arms control community" to the administration coalesced around support for the Soviet initiative called the "Nuclear Freeze." The Soviet nuclear arms were modernized, but the US arsenal was approaching block obsolescence. A "freeze" would lock in a Soviet advantage in the "correlation of power."

By the spring of 1983, hostility to Reagan's policies had reached a peak, but three events changed all that.

First, the administration secured Congressional and NATO approval for the deployment of U.S. Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces in Europe to counter the Soviet SS-20 missiles. Second, on March 23, President Ronald Reagan proposed that the U.S. build the Strategic Defense Initiative [SDI].

And third, in May, Congress approved the deployment of the first fleet of Peacekeeper [MX] ICBMs. Thus, in just a matter of months, Reagan's policy of "peace through strength" was fully endorsed by the U.S. Congress and our NATO allies.

The reaction of his critics was nonetheless angry and swift.

Senator Edward Kennedy, on March 24, just one day after the SDI speech, called Reagan's remarks a "misleading Red-Scare tactic" and a "reckless Star Wars scheme," as reported in Space News on March 25, 1983.

A few months later, on June 4, after the Peacekeeper missile deployment was approved, Senator Kennedy continued in the same vein, arguing that "a nuclear freeze" was necessary because "we cannot let the administration modernize our forces with the most threatening of weapons" according to a press statement released by the Senators office.

The next spring, the leadership of the Union of Concerned Scientists prepared a lengthy attack on Reagan's defense policies. In the April 24, 1984 New York Review of Books entitled "Reagan's Star Wars", they predicted that U.S. missile defense policies would undermine strategic stability, cause a worsening arms race, end any possibility of arms control and make conflict with the USSR more likely.

President Reagan, however, stuck to his plan. Together he and subsequent presidents successfully moved forward on all three strategic initiatives. The U.S. adopted the INF, START I, Moscow and New START Treaties, which cumulatively reduced U.S. and Russian deployed nuclear weapons by over 20,000 warheads. And the U.S. simultaneously modernized its fleet of nuclear forces, including the B1, B2 and B52 bombers; the Peacekeeper and Minuteman III ICBM, and the Trident submarine and its contingent of D-5 missiles. They still largely form the bedrock of the U.S. nuclear deterrent.

As for missile defense, the U.S. laid the groundwork for the eventual deployment of what is today over 1,000 American missile defense interceptors -- first by establishing research, development and testing; then by adopting a law requiring the U.S. to be defended from ballistic missiles; then by getting rid of the ABM treaty, which had been the major impediment to missile defenses; and finally by beginning the task of actually building a global, layered missile defense architecture.

Of course, the policy of peace through strength worked as the Soviet empire imploded.

Missile Defense in the Age of Jihad

Today missile defenses are supported by an overwhelming number of Americans -- upwards of 84-88% in both a July 2007 and June 2009 poll by Opinion Research Corporation, according to the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance. Despite such strong public support, however, the task of fielding missile defenses has not been easy.

For close to twenty years after Reagan announced his goal of building major missile defenses to protect the United States and its allies, the U.S. was largely restricted to doing only research.

The restrictions of the ABM treaty, or the 1972 Treaty on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile systems, prohibited developing or testing national missile defenses.

The U.S. could put nothing in the field to defend its population as a whole.

The idea during much of the Cold War was that if the U.S. and the Soviets were both totally vulnerable to nuclear missiles, no one would be tempted to use them in a crisis. Left unexamined was whether such a strategy would also work with any newly-nuclear-armed rogue states and their terrorist affiliates that we might face in the future.

In 2001-2, President George W. Bush jettisoned the ABM treaty, first giving notice that we intended to leave the treaty, then formally leaving it. He secured Congressional support for building, over time, what was characterized as a "global, layered missile defense," including for the American homeland -- a task that still requires much to be accomplished.

What the effort faced, and still faces, is political barriers. Space-based systems, for instance, were taken "off the table." As reported by the Monterey Institute (April 15, 2002) and Global Issues on May 13, 2001, space was "pristine," not to be "weaponized" -- but does anyone imagine that Russians or the Chinese got this message?

Further, because of inertia from the Clinton administration, a ground-based system of interceptors became the initial "program of record" with which to defend the United States.

The ground-based system uses a non-explosive "kill vehicle," which, in space, literally "runs into" the adversary's warhead -- a maneuver called "hit to kill." The U.S. has succeeded in doing this seven times against intermediate-range ballistic missiles, and 60 times against all classes of missiles. Just recently, however, when a battery did not work, a test of the national missile defense system failed.

Some missile defense opponents, quick to react, called for all tests of the system to stop.

For example, Yousaf Butt, a senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists, called, in a July 30, 2013 letter to the New York Times, for the elimination of funding for the mid-course defense of United States territory.

He asserted that rogue states would not strike the US with weapons delivered by missiles that such delivery by missiles was simply the means the Soviets and Americans had agreed to use during the Cold War but would not be used by rogue states.

Many of the most prominent missile defense critics today were the same as those who had ridiculed original missile defense proposals in 1983 as "Star Wars" as some kind of movie fantasy.

Even before any missile defense element was first tested, they had opposed building defenses for America, and as late as 2001, when the US finally jettisoned the ABM Treaty, still had not changed their minds.

Missile defense, they said, could not technologically work. They also still warned that getting rid of the ABM treaty -- which prohibited national missile defenses -- would not only undo any chance for nuclear arms control, but would also provoke a war with the Soviets. [Much of this flawed analysis is contained in the lengthy essay referenced above published by the New York Review of Books.]

Contrary to their fears, however, nuclear weapons in Russia and the United States have actually been collectively reduced by over 15,000 since 2002, when the ABM treaty was junked and the U.S and its allies starting building missile defenses in earnest.

Undaunted, and faced with such facts, critics go back to the false claim that the technology does not work.

When faced with information that 60 of 74 tests were successful -- an 80% success rate -- they claim -- as William Broad reported in the New York Times on June 9, 2000 – "the tests are obviously rigged."

The New Debate: Technology or Politics?

The debate over how to proceed with missile defense is therefore not as simple as it seems.

At the center are two problems. The first is a technology problem, which can be solved.

But the second, the political problem, continues to be tougher.

Critics claim that in the vacuum of space, in the mid-course, a missile cannot distinguish between the real warhead and lighter decoys fired along with it to "confuse" a possible interceptor. The critics claim, therefore, that no intercept is possible.

In the first 3-5 minutes of flight, however, the warhead and decoys remain intact, as part of the missile. Thus, if it were intercepted early, there would be no decoys to worry about. This approach, however, requires an extremely fast interceptor and a favorable geographic setting. Although it can be performed from land, sea or space, the U.S. does not yet have a boost-phase intercept capability in the field to intercept warheads early in flight. Those technologies, which were being researched and tested, were eliminated in 2009.

That particular technological problem, however, can be solved. As former Missile Defense Director USAF Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Trey Obering recently explained in a July 23, 2013 Foreign Policy Initiative Forum in Washington, D.C., in two mid-course tests, the kill-vehicle was able to distinguish between the warhead and decoys. Funding for that research work, unfortunately, was also eliminated in 2009. We of course still need to do more tests. Critics, however, will not support more tests of boost-phase technology.

Although today our sea-based missile defenses -- projected to be included on nearly 38 Navy Aegis combat ships -- are used primarily for the defense of our forces and friends overseas, they could easily be used for the homeland as well. They just have never been tested for the boost-stage, or early-intercept, of long-range missiles. Unfortunately, in 2009, funding was also eliminated for boost-phase research and development, including funding for the Airborne Laser (ABL), the multiple-kill-vehicle (MKV), a system with a lot of kill-vehicles able to go after the warheads and decoys simultaneously, as well as the KEI, or kinetic-energy interceptor, a extremely fast two-stage missile capable of getting to its target quickly.

At the moment, opponents in Congress can block space research. In fact they will not even support a research study of possible space capabilities, let alone build defenses that would be the best means of defending against missile threats, including those that use decoys. From space, you can be right over the target all the time, with an ability to see a launch almost instantly, and shoot and destroy the threatening missile.

The protection we have at present consists of 30 deployed ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California, and Aegis Navy cruisers with missile-interceptors aboard, able to defend America if the ships, when steaming, are near the continental United States (CONUS).

The U.S. urgently needs complimentary capabilities to defend against ocean-borne threats from freighters or submarines, but even though such defenses are under consideration, no one has yet decided to build them.

The House version of the defense bill explicitly calls for a new East Coast missile defense site, which could both protect against long-range missile threats as well as missile launches from maritime regions around the United States.

One can only ask: Why are more robust U.S. defenses not being put in place to defend America at home?

Lessons for the Hunt for Red October

At the end of the Cold War, when Congress and the George H. W. Bush administration were debating how to proceed with missile defenses, The Hunt for Red October, the Tom Clancy thriller, was speculating about the possible Soviet plan for a first-strike against the United States; it would be able to destroy U.S. cities and simultaneously decapitate its ability to retaliate. This idea morphed into the worry that once the Soviet Union broke up, an authorized, unauthorized or even unintentional launch of Russian missiles might, in the resulting turmoil, come America's way.

GPALS [Global Protection Against Limited Strikes] and ALPS [the Accidental Launch Protection System] were both put forward as possible missile-defense frameworks. As former missile defense chief Hank Cooper, now with High Frontier, explained to me, the George H. W. Bush administration proposed a space-based and ground-based combination of missile defenses to protect the United States, and even explored with some senior Russian experts the idea of joint collaborative work.

Again, politics intervened, and Congressional leaders -- many opposed to missile defense – agreed, in a compromise, to research a land-based component while postponing any kind of space-based element far into the future.

A year later, in 1993, the new Clinton administration announced, as reported by the Federation of American Scientists on May 13, 1993, that it had "Taken the 'Stars' out of Star Wars" designed to protect the American homeland, while cutting, as well, upwards of 25-40% of the funding for short-range missile-defense systems -- those largely protecting our military forces and bases overseas.

Thus began an extended national debate over whether there were any ballistic missile threats to the U.S. that even justified research efforts to examine a national missile defense (NMD) effort. A CIA report claimed no such threats to the U.S. were on the horizon – forgetting, however, to mention to Congress that the report had arbitrarily excluded from its assessment both Hawaii and Alaska.

To connect the dots accurately, Congress then mandated a new study, conducted by a newly created "Commission on the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States," and it directed it to include Hawaii and Alaska. In 1998, the Commission completed its work and released a unanimous report concluding that a country such as Iran or North Korea could develop a long range missile threat to the United States within five years of a decision to do so -- much faster than previous U.S. intelligence studies had estimated.

The report also concluded that the U.S. could not count on rogue states undertaking an extensive missile test period; thus there would be less warning of such developments than previously assumed. The report also noted that previous U.S. intelligence reports were erroneous for assuming that rogue states would develop rockets from indigenous sources only. The report warned that cooperative help from other states, such as Russia and China, could dramatically compress the time frame in which threats could emerge.

Ironically, these fears were realized within weeks of the release of the Commission report, when in a surprise, North Korea test-launched a long-range rocket. While the third stage motor failed, it was determined that if all rocket motor stages had worked, the missile would have had the capability to reach the United States.

That event, in turn, once again led to a fierce debate in Congress whether to accelerate development of a national missile defense and actually make a deployment decision, yes or no.

At the end of the Clinton administration, the President decided "No" -- not to move toward deployment, and not to test a key interceptor.

His decision came despite overwhelmingly bipartisan support for the 1999 National Missile Defense Act, which called for the deployment of a national missile defense (NMD) "as soon as technologically possible."

The National Missile Defense Act had passed the Senate 97-3, and the House 317-105. Senator Thad Cochran, Senator Ted Stevens and Congressman Curt Weldon, were the heroes who secured its passage. Although the bill was signed into law, President Clinton said about testing, "Not today."

Beyond Mutual Assured Destruction [MAD]

It was two years later, on December 18, 2002, when the new George W. Bush administration formally jettisoned the ABM Treaty, which had prevented deployment of missile defenses. That came while the administration also put forward a plan to deploy the initial stage of a national missile defense by the end of its first term.

During the Cold War, the mutual vulnerability of both superpowers to one another's missile strikes was often described as "MAD" or Mutual Assured Destruction -- a doctrine that had been enshrined by the 1972 ABM Treaty ban on missile defenses.

By the end of the Cold War, however, U.S. deterrent policy had evolved to a doctrine of holding our adversaries' military weaponry at risk, including their nuclear forces, to prevent them from remaining in a sanctuary from which to fire -- cost-free and at will -- against the United States and its allies.

By the end of the George W. Bush administration in 2008, some 1,200 American missile defense interceptors of all kinds were deployed, were scheduled soon to be deployed, or built worldwide. It was finally hoped that America would not need to embrace any aspect of MAD much longer. Instead of avenging a missile strike on the United States, we could simply intercept the warhead and destroy it. In a crisis, an American president would have the extra diplomatic maneuverability to avoid being blackmailed or terrorized by a hostile nation aiming missiles -- especially those launched secretly -- at U.S. cities.

Or so we thought.

Given the absence of an effective national missile defense, retaliatory deterrence alone would still remain the basis for U.S. safety. But that policy assumes that the adversaries are rational.

However, can the mullahs in Iran or the Kim family in North Korea -- or their terrorist affiliates -- be relied upon to be perpetually rational?

Even though we have the protection of the initial 30 interceptors -- planned to be increased to 44 -- in Alaska and California, everyone understands that the U.S. national missile defenses need more work.

The mullahs in Iran may love death more than life, and their allies in Pyongyang may again look -- surreptitiously -- for a means of striking the United States. But missile defense would protect against these rogue states, and could prevent the U.S. from being blackmailed.

Adversaries of the U.S. and its allies get to vote, too, and their threats will grow. One cannot stand still.

The fiercest critics of missile defense appear simply not to like defenses. They see them as giving America too much power, what Bill Keller, the New York Times op-ed columnist, later to become its Executive Editor, described as America being able to exercise an "unfettered self-interest" (November 25, 2001).

In 2009, despite widespread progress in building missile defenses for the past decade, and even as missile threats proliferated, the Center for American Progress, for instance, proposed cutting our missile defense budgets from $9 billion to $2 billion, a dramatic cut which would have all but killed the program and its 18 key elements.

At the end of the day, the administration cut funding by $2 billion (from $9 billion to $7 billion annually), but as we have seen, these cuts did serious damage to missile defenses.

As Senator Kelly Ayotte, a key member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, recently noted, (July 23, 2013, Foreign Policy Initiative Forum) overall NMD funding has been cut 50% since 2009. And despite the U.S. facing even greater missile threats, plans for testing have suffered as well.

Opponents of missile defense also simply do not want to go into space even though Russia and China are doing just that. In addition, space is the most likely theater of the next war, especially if left undefended.

Not only is space-based missile defense off-limits, but funding for boost-phase research from the sea or land is still nowhere to be seen in the MDA or Missile Defense Agency.

While the current 30 U.S.-based long range interceptors now deployed provide some defense, they need to be improved. Many missile defense critics, however, want such enhancements scrapped.

The eastern United States and the Gulf region approaches are also in need of protection. Critics, however, say there is no need for an East Coast defense. Although such funding for the East Coast has been approved by the House Armed Services Committee, its Senate counterpart has approved funds only for an environmental-impact study of new basing possibilities.

All this potential work is easily able to be undertaken, but until it is approved, much of the United States and its allies will remain undefended in key, critical areas.

Emerging Threats

There are superb additional missile defense options for our protection beyond those now deployed.

Currently, for example, the U.S. is planning to put Navy interceptors "ashore" in Romania to defend Europe against Iran. Why can't the U.S. deploy on land the same interceptors on its own eastern seaboard? The U.S. could then help defend against ocean-going threats, which may be the optimum means of a surreptitious EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) missile attack by its adversaries.

A U.S. missile defense simply assumes that the U.S has a right to protect itself because it is threatened.

Missile defense opponents, however, such as Bill Keller apparently are uneasy about that. Another prominent critic Joe Cirincione, the head of the Ploughshares Fund claims, "First the shield, then the sword", (Arms Control Today, April 2000), implying that US missile defenses are in reality a preparation for aggression.

Others claim that America's "chickens are coming home to roost" (abcnews.go.com, March 13, 2008), implying that the U.S. deserves the terrorist attacks it suffers -- even if they come from missiles.

On April 12, 2013, the New York Times wrote that America's negotiating conditions with North Korea and Iran are "too severe" -- implying that if the U.S. would only stop building defenses, its adversaries would stop building missiles, too.

A corollary belief is that "they" -- North Korea and Iran, for example, -- want only "regime survival." What is not asked is: "Survival to do what?"

For example, this view was most recently expressed by Professor Graham Allison of Harvard in the Atlantic (August 1, 2013, "Will Iran get a Bomb—or Be Bombed Itself—This Year?"). Despite evidence to the contrary, he asserts that Iran will only build a nuclear weapon "if it thinks the regime is threatened" by the United States or Israel.

The same excuse is reflected in Pyongyang's oft-repeated refrain that it is building a nuclear capability because of America's "hostile policy." As just about any U.S. action is described by Iran and North Korea as "hostile," this reasoning implies that no one should be armed except Tehran and Pyongyang.

The Arms Control Association, apparently angry about the U.S. ending its adherence to the ABM Treaty, wrote in a 2001 editorial: "The U.S. does not play nice in the international sandbox."

Yousaf Butt, in the same July 31, 2013 New York Times letter referenced above, went so far as to conclude that U.S. deployment of missile defenses causes rogue states to build more missiles aimed at America -- in short, that the problem is "our fault for defending ourselves."

Still another prominent critic from the Union of Concerned Scientists claimed, at a May 2, 2001 press conference, "Fire, Aim, Ready" that, "No missile defense is the best defense" -- a statement echoed at the same press conference by Congressman Rush Holt (D) of New Jersey.

So should the U.S. just give up and adopt mutual assured destruction with North Korea, China and Iran?

Many Americans might say that is not good enough.

On July 10, 2013, the U.S. Air Force and the National Air and Space Intelligence Center completed a major review of the ballistic missile threats to the US mainland‎. It concluded that "China has the most active and diverse ballistic missile development program in the world" and is building more ballistic missiles than anyone -- and faster.

The review concludes that by 2015, both Iran's and North Korea's long-range missiles will be able to reach the United States.

One can only conclude that, deep down, many critics of missile defense want to see America not protected. Whatever their criticisms, they keep looking for more and more convenient excuses to camouflage an inherent bias against defending America.

As Bill Keller of the New York Times again put it, an effective US missile defense would undermine the power of North Korea and Iran (see the Orlando Sentinel, "Dreamers, Schemers, Deceivers: Behind ABM Treaty Withdrawal", February 4, 2002).

Perhaps some other Americans are also happy to allow enemies of the United States, such as Iran, North Korea, and their terrorist offshoots, to hold the U.S. hostage to their demands -- whether political, military or economic. But those Americans, despite thousands of years of military history to the contrary, would seemingly prefer the U.S. to succumb to blackmail rather than to exercise a natural, legitimate, and constitutional right of self-defense.

Lessons of Iron Dome

Late last year, Israel successfully defended its homeland from hundreds of rockets launched by the terrorist group Hamas.

Israel's short-range missile defense system, Iron Dome, was built and fielded in three years. The technology was further improved while actually in use. 90% of the attempted intercepts were successful.

Israel's short-range missile defense system, Iron Dome, was built and fielded in three years. (Photo credit: Israel Defense Forces)

When one prominent opponent of U.S. missile defenses, Ted Postol of M.I.T., claimed that at best only 15% of Hamas rockets were destroyed, further investigation into that claim by missile defense expert Uzi Rubin revealed that Postol's criticisms "turned out to be without foundation, they were laughed at."

U.S. Air Force General Bernard Schriever, after a go-ahead from Air Force Chief General Arnold "Hap" Arnold in 1958, built and deployed the Minuteman ICBM in just four years ("A Fiery Peace in a Cold War: Bernard Schriever and the Ultimate Weapon"). It was a remarkable achievement that was just years earlier had been considered impossible. And now over half a century later, the Minuteman's successor, the nuclear ICBM Minuteman III, is still in use, with 450 deployed missiles in five states. The ingenuity we applied during the Cold War and represented by Schriever's success in deterrence should now be equally aimed at building the added deterrent value of missile defenses.

It is often noted that if nuclear deterrence alone worked against the Soviet Union for so many years, why would we need anything different today? However, even though nuclear deterrence worked during the Cold War with the Soviet Union, are we certain that North Korea or Iran, or their proxies, will not try to attack us surreptitiously with missiles?

They could, for example, be launched from a freighter or submarine off-shore, or perhaps in an EMP [electro-magnetic pulse] mode, in which a nuclear warhead is detonated some 70-100 kilometers above the U.S. to shut down the nation's grid and critical infrastructure?

Having the added insurance of missile defenses would be prudent.

Maybe it is time America decided it was time for our "boys to be boys" -- in service to that constitutional requirement: "To Provide for the Common Defense."

Related Topics:  Peter Huessy

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Fwd: Human Spaceflight News - August 29, 2013 and JSC Today

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From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: August 29, 2013 5:52:58 AM GMT-06:00
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: Human Spaceflight News - August 29, 2013 and JSC Today

Happy Flex Friday Eve!  

 

Mark your calendars to remind yourself … next Thursday is our monthly NASA Retirees Luncheon at Hibachi Grill at 11:30—hope you can join us.

 

 

 

Thursday, August 29, 2013

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Headlines Joint Leadership Team Web Poll The new school year is not really a big deal to most of our employees. Newly established school zone speed limits can be frustrating, but manageable. Just be careful around the kiddos. This week we had a few mentoring events, and I was wondering whether you are currently a mentor -- or a protégé. Are you doing both? Neither? Klingon would be your favorite second language to learn. My officemate speaks fluent ob-engl-ob-ish, which I don't understand. I think she insults me regularly. This week it's time for your most burning question about a famous sidekick. Anything you'd like to know about Tonto? Got a good question Rose Tyler could clear up? Scooby your Do on over to get this week's poll. Joel Walker x30541 http://jlt.jsc.nasa.gov/ [top] Do You Have a Question for the Center Director? Please email it to JSC-Ask-The-Director@mail.nasa.gov to be asked at the Center Director All Hands next Thursday, Sept. 5, from 9 to 10 a.m. in the Building 2 South Teague Auditorium. All JSC team members are invited to attend. Center Director Ellen Ochoa will take questions after the All Hands from the audience. JSC, Ellington Field, Sonny Carter Training Facility and White Sands Test Facility team members unable to attend in the Teague Auditorium can watch it on RF Channel 2 or Omni 45. Those with wired computer network connections can view the All Hands using the JSC EZTV IP Network TV System on channel 402.Please note: EZTV currently requires using Internet Explorer on a Windows PC connected to the JSC computer network with a wired connection. Mobile devices, Wi-Fi connections and newer MAC computers are currently not supported by EZTV.  If you are having problems viewing the video using these systems, contact the Information Resources Directorate Customer Support Center at x46367. Event Date: Thursday, September 5, 2013   Event Start Time:9:00 AM   Event End Time:10:00 AM Event Location: Building 2 South Teague Auditorium Add to Calendar Office of Communications and Public Affairs, JSC External Relations x35111 [top] Badging Offices Closed in Observance of Labor Day All badging offices will be closed Monday, Sept. 2, in observance of Labor Day. Normal working operations will resume Tuesday, Sept. 3, as listed below. Building 110: 6 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Building 111: 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Ellington Field: 7 to 11 a.m. Sonny Carter Training Facility: 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Tifanny Sowell x37447 [top] New JSC Technologies Noted in Aug. '13 Tech Briefs The August 2013 issue of NASA Tech Briefs magazine has been published and includes three outstanding and inventive technologies from JSC. Every month, new innovations stemming from advanced research and technology programs conducted by NASA and its industry partners/contractors are introduced in the NASA Tech Briefs publication. The August JSC features are: Method of Separating Oxygen From Spacecraft Cabin Air to Enable Extravehicular Activities; Spectroscopic Determination of Trace Contaminants in High-Purity Oxygen; and Soft Decision Analyzer. To review and learn more about these exciting JSC technologies and their inventors, please visit the Strategic Opportunities & Partnership Development (SOPD) website. Also, you can review all of the current and past NASA Tech Briefs. Holly Kurth x32951 [top] Morpheus Test Today The Morpheus team plans a tether test of its "Bravo" prototype lander today. The test will be streamed live on JSC's UStream channel. View the live stream, along with progress updates sent via Twitter. Morpheus is a vertical test bed vehicle being used to mature new, non-toxic propulsion systems and autonomous landing and hazard detection technologies. Designed, manufactured and operated in-house by engineers at JSC, Morpheus represents not only a vehicle to advance technologies, but also an opportunity to pursue "lean development" engineering practices. The test firing is planned for approximately 1 to 2 p.m. Streaming will begin approximately 45 minutes prior. *Note: Testing operations are very dynamic; actual firing time may vary and tests may be postponed with very short notice. Follow Morpheus on Twitter for the latest information at @MorpheusLander, or view the Twitter feed from our website for updates. For more information, click here or contact Wendy Watkins. Wendy Watkins http://morpheuslander.jsc.nasa.gov [top] Notice to STI Authors on JPR/NPR Requirements Notice to Scientific and Technical Information (STI) authors on JPR/NPR Requirements for Marking Documents with Restricted Content. NASA policy ensures that STI is released properly without violating export control laws, national security regulations or copyright restrictions, thus achieving NASA's mission in maintaining national security. JSC Procedural Requirement (JPR) 2200.2, Release of JSC Scientific and Technical Information to External Audiences, documents the procedures and responsibilities for approving, publishing and disseminating the results of JSC-funded and JSC-sponsored STI of JSC's STI activities for external releases. It also includes the stringent requirement for marking documents with ITAR and EAR restricted content and requirements for labeling Export Controlled Documents. For further information, please click on the following links: Document Availability Authorization Release of JSC STI to external audiences JSC-IRD-Outreach x41334 [top]    Organizations/Social Last Chance - Starport Massage Special $55 (M-Th) Starport's amazing massage special is coming to an end! Any one-hour massage booked online in August will be $55 when scheduled on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. Starport Massage - $55 for 60 | Monday through Thursday $55 for a 60-minute massage Must be booked Monday through Thursday Last day to book is Aug. 31 Massage must be physically take place no later than Nov. 30 Starport's Massage Therapists -- Marj Moore, LMT Tuesdays and Thursdays | 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Every other Saturday | 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Click here to book with Marj -- Anette Lemon, LMT Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays | 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Every other Saturday | 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Click here to book with Anette Book your massage today! Steve Schade x30304 http://www.innerspaceclearlake.com/massage.php [top]    Jobs and Training Training Required for Admin Rights - MEP NASA is implementing Managed Elevated Privileges (MEP) on all IT devices to reduce the security risks. Everyone who needs elevated privileges (admin rights) must take training courses via SATERN by searching for "Elevated Privileges on NASA Information Systems" (ITS-002-09). Deployment of these new policies will happen in various stages, and your organizations will be notified in advance before they are scheduled for deployment. Once implemented, beginning in Sept., NASA end users will not be granted administrative rights to NASA IT resources without training and authorization. Please take appropriate actions to be sure you get your training and testing done before we start to deploy. Additional information can be found here. Heather Thomas x30901 [top]

 

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Human Spaceflight News

Thursday – August 29, 2013

 

HEADLINES AND LEADS

 

Japanese astronaut to command space station in March

 

Irene Klotz - Reuters

 

The first Japanese astronaut to live aboard the International Space Station is preparing for a return flight, this time to serve as commander, officials said on Wednesday. Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, is due to leave in November with a pair of veteran astronauts from the United States and Russia. Wakata, 50, is expected to take command of the orbital research outpost in March, marking the first time a Japanese astronaut will lead a human space mission.  "It means a lot to Japan to have its own representative to command the International Space Station," Wakata told a news conference broadcast from the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

 

JAXA astronaut to become first Japanese national to command space station

 

Japan Daily Press

 

Koichi Wakata, a 50-year old astronaut of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has been commissioned to lead the research mission that will orbit the earth in March. Wakata will be the first Japanese astronaut to take the privilege and responsibility of taking the post. Joining him are veteran astronaut Rick Mastracchio and cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin. "It means a lot to Japan to have its own representative to command the International Space Station," Wakata said via a broadcast from Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX. He also describes having the experience "a big milestone for Japan." The Saitama Prefecture native also holds the record of being the first Japanese to be part of, and live aboard the International Space Station that orbited the Earth in 2009. The research laboratory costing $100 billion involved 15 countries, including Japan. The station's largest and most elaborate laboratory was even provided by Japan. The NASA astronaut and Russian cosmonaut, both three years Wakata's senior, are now training for the March mission, their fourth together. The NASA astronaut, and one of the veteran spacewalkers, will have his first long-duration voyage. As for the cosmonaut, the research mission will take him to his third flight to the station. (NO FURTHER TEXT)

 

Sandra Bullock reveals astronauts helped her prepare for 'crazy, bizarre' Gravity shoot

 

Hannah Lockley - EntertainmentWise.com

 

Sandra Bullock has spoken out about her latest film Gravity, admitting that she had spoken with astronauts to prepare for the space drama. The 49-year-old said: "I called and left a message and they called me back" from the International Space Station, Bullock, who plays Dr Stone, said at the Venice Film Festival after Wednesday's press screening of the film. "They were incredibly helpful," she said. "They gave me an inside visual as to why they chose what they do for a living, their love for what is beyond our planet."

 

UrtheCast contributes key hardware component on Space Station

 

Electronic Products and Technology

 

Vancouver-based technology company UrtheCast Corp. is one step closer to developing the world's first near-live HD video feed of Earth, from space as the Russian Federal Agency Roscosmos has successfully installed its Bi-axial Pointing Platform (BPP) on the Russian module of the International Space Station (ISS).

 

Jeco molds thermoformed door liner for the International Space Station

 

Jennifer Kalish - Plastics News

 

Plastic pallet and container maker Jeco Plastic Products LLC recently completed production of a thermoformed door liner for a cryogenic container that will be used by NASA on the International Space Station. NASA approached the Plainfield, Ind., company around June 2012 to develop a door liner that could withstand extremely low temperatures. Jeco completed the project around June 2013 and is now waiting for the finished product to be sent to the space station. While a completed door liner looks similar to a typical plastic tray, the manufacturing process was very tedious and difficult to perfect, said Jeco CEO Craig Carson.

 

First Danish astronaut to journey into space

 

Copenhagen Post

 

Astronaut Andreas Mogensen's patience has finally paid off. In May 2009, he beat out 8,000 other applicants to be selected as one of six new astronauts at the European Space Agency, and since then he has been waiting to be assigned on a mission. He was told that he might have to wait up to ten years, but now it has been decided that he will start his new job in zero gravity as an aerospace engineer at the International Space Station (ISS) in 2015. That will make him the first Dane ever to venture into space.

 

NASA Initiative Gives Students Hands-On Experience

 

Mark Carreau - Aviation Week

 

Joseph Huseman, a Rice University senior this fall, has gazed into a possible future, one that includes a promising career as a mechanical engineer, perhaps leading ground-breaking aerospace projects. "I've always been interested in spaceflight," said Huseman, who grew up in a small farming community in the Texas panhandle. "As a kid, I looked for spots where I could be a leader." To improve his employment prospects, he is navigating a succession of learning experiences beyond the classroom. This summer, Huseman interned with General Electric Oil and Gas in Houston as part of a new products introduction team. As a 2012 summer intern with UTC Aerospace Systems, he learned of the Reduced Gravity Education Flight Program (RGEFP), headquartered nearby at NASA's Johnson Space Center.

 

NASA Video Makes Asteroid Sample Collection a Hollywood-Like Affair

 

Jon Chang - ABC News's Good Morning America

 

The pulsing drums, rumbling brass and minor key that serve as soundtrack to one of NASA's recent videos make it seem as if Michael Bay were directing a sequel to Armageddon. But these animated astronauts aren't going out of Earth's orbit to blow big space rocks to bits. They're collecting samples, which in itself is a time- and labor-intensive procedure. The video, animated by the Johnson Space Center, annotates just how much time and effort is required to do even the most mundane of space tasks. After the craft Orion is launched into space via heavy-lift rocket, it will make a nine-day journey toward its asteroid target.

 

'We are all Martians': Chemist's otherworldly claim stirs debate

 

Alan Boyle - NBCNews.com's Cosmic Log

 

Are we all Martians? A controversial hypothesis contends that life on our planet had to get its start somewhere else — most likely on Mars — because the chemistry on early Earth couldn't have provided the required molecular machinery. "The evidence seems to be building that we are actually all Martians; that life started on Mars and came to Earth on a rock," Steven Benner, a chemist at the Florida-based Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution, said in a news release. What's more, recent studies suggest that the conditions suitable for the origin of life "may still exist on Mars," he said.

 

NASA lacks vision

Manned space plans headed in wrong direction

 

David Bonnar - Florida Today (Opinion)

 

(Bonnar is a retired Boeing aerospace engineer and manager of advanced rocket design)

 

NASA's budget and manned space plans are going in the wrong direction. The space agency's programs for manned space do not have concrete, high-payoff missions. NASA is spending about 44 percent of its $17.7 billion budget on manned space. Why is it spending all this money on three manned capsules and several Space Launch System (SLS) rocket designs? So far, these missions include two trips around the moon and one to a local asteroid. There seems to be no real vision to NASA's near- and long-range plans.

__________

 

COMPLETE STORIES

 

Japanese astronaut to command space station in March

 

Irene Klotz - Reuters

 

The first Japanese astronaut to live aboard the International Space Station is preparing for a return flight, this time to serve as commander, officials said on Wednesday.

 

Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, is due to leave in November with a pair of veteran astronauts from the United States and Russia.

 

Wakata, 50, is expected to take command of the orbital research outpost in March, marking the first time a Japanese astronaut will lead a human space mission.

 

"It means a lot to Japan to have its own representative to command the International Space Station," Wakata told a news conference broadcast from the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

 

"It's a big milestone for Japan ... to have this experience," he said.

 

In 2009, Wakata became the first astronaut from Japan to live aboard the $100 billion research laboratory that flies about 250 miles (400 km) above Earth.

 

Japan, one of 15 nations participating in the project, provided the station's largest and most elaborate laboratory, named Kibo, as well as cargo resupply ships.

 

Wakata, who was part of two missions on NASA's now-retired space shuttles, is training for his fourth flight along with NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, both 53.

 

Mastracchio, a veteran of three shuttle missions and one of NASA's most experienced spacewalkers, will be making his first long-duration flight. Tyurin will be living aboard the station for a third time.

 

Command of the station typically rotates between a U.S. astronaut and Russian cosmonaut. In 2009, Belgium astronaut Frank De Winne became the first European to command the station. Canada's first commander, Chris Hadfield, was in charge from March until May.

 

Wakata, a native of Saitama, Japan, holds a bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering, a master's in applied mechanics and a doctorate in aerospace engineering from Kyushu University. Before being selected as an astronaut in 1992, he worked as an aircraft structural engineer for Japan Airlines.

 

Wakata's first two spaceflights, in January 1996 and October 2000, were aboard NASA space shuttles. He was Japan's first live-aboard space station resident from March to July 2009. Upon returning to the station in November, Wakata will serve as a flight engineer before taking over command in March.

 

Sandra Bullock reveals astronauts helped her prepare for 'crazy, bizarre' Gravity shoot

 

Hannah Lockley - EntertainmentWise.com

 

Sandra Bullock has spoken out about her latest film Gravity, admitting that she had spoken with astronauts to prepare for the space drama.

 

The 49-year-old said: "I called and left a message and they called me back" from the International Space Station, Bullock, who plays Dr Stone, said at the Venice Film Festival after Wednesday's press screening of the film.

 

"They were incredibly helpful," she said. "They gave me an inside visual as to why they chose what they do for a living, their love for what is beyond our planet."

 

The 3-D sci-fi thriller sees George Clooney and Sandra Bullock as astronauts who are flung into dark, deep space when a debris shower destroys their shuttle.

 

"It was the craziest, most bizarre challenging shoot I've ever done," said the actress, who explained she had also worked out intensely and listened to opera music to prepare for her part.

 

Speaking to Digital Spy recently, Bullock revealed that much of her preparation for the role was tied in with the character's physicality.

 

"The physical aspects were two-fold - one was the core physicality which I needed in order to execute the wire work that was being done, and thank God I did that," Bullock said.

 

"The other side was what I wanted her to look like, or not look like, as a human being. She had experienced great tragedy, and a loss no-one should ever feel, which was the loss of a child.

 

"I wanted her to look as though she's trying to do everything she can to remove anything that would remind her of what she once was, which was a mum. I wanted the body to look almost androgynous."

 

The director, Alfonso Cuaron, who also directed 'Children of Men', used new filmmaking techniques to depict spacewalking, including shooting inside a giant cube to evoke constantly shifting light sources.

 

At the Venice Film Festival, the Mexican director revealed: "We had advisors, scientists and physicists teaching the cast how things would react in space. A lot of the shots required the actors to be isolated, it was a very abstract way for them to perform."

 

UrtheCast contributes key hardware component on Space Station

 

Electronic Products and Technology

 

Vancouver-based technology company UrtheCast Corp. is one step closer to developing the world's first near-live HD video feed of Earth, from space as the Russian Federal Agency Roscosmos has successfully installed its Bi-axial Pointing Platform (BPP) on the Russian module of the International Space Station (ISS).

The BPP is the structure to which the UrtheCast cameras will be attached. The BPP was attached to the Zvezda module on the Russian segment of the ISS on Aug. 22, 2013 during spacewalk #35, conducted by Russian cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin and Aleksandr Misurkin.

 

The two UrtheCast cameras, one medium-resolution and one high-resolution, are scheduled to be launched to the ISS and installed in late 2013.

 

"We are thrilled with the successful installation of the BPP." president & COO Wade Larson stated. "Spacewalks are inherently risky, so having the mechanism that our cameras will be attached to successfully installed is a significant milestone"

 

Working with renowned aerospace partners from across the globe, UrtheCast is building, launching, installing, and will operate two cameras on the Russian segment of the International Space Station.

 

Video data captured by the cameras will be downlinked to ground stations across the planet and displayed on the UrtheCast web platform, or distributed directly to exclusive partners and customers.

 

UrtheCast's cameras will provide high-resolution video and imagery of Earth that will allow for monitoring of the environment, humanitarian relief, social events and agricultural land.

 

Jeco molds thermoformed door liner for the International Space Station

 

Jennifer Kalish - Plastics News

 

Plastic pallet and container maker Jeco Plastic Products LLC recently completed production of a thermoformed door liner for a cryogenic container that will be used by NASA on the International Space Station.

 

NASA approached the Plainfield, Ind., company around June 2012 to develop a door liner that could withstand extremely low temperatures.

 

Jeco completed the project around June 2013 and is now waiting for the finished product to be sent to the space station. While a completed door liner looks similar to a typical plastic tray, the manufacturing process was very tedious and difficult to perfect, said Jeco CEO Craig Carson.

 

"This is not a simple product; appearances are very deceptive in this regard," he said. "This was an extremely difficult product to make, and no one else had been able to successfully do it."

 

The door liners were made using polypropylene sheets with continuous internal polypropylene fibers oriented 90 degrees from one another to produce structures that remain strong and durable at temperatures approaching -392° F.

 

"We're dealing with materials and products that are not used in your normal sort of everyday ambient conditions," said Carson. "Very high temperatures; very low temperatures; extreme loading conditions; you know things like that."

 

Along with their rotomolded products, Jeco specializes in the manufacturing with unusual resins, primarily those with internal reinforcements for high-tolerance applications.

 

"That's our little niche of this market," he said. "It's not particularly big, and it's primarily stuff that is used in aerospace or things like that; you know, oddball things."

 

Because the door liners are only one component of NASA's cryogenic containers, it is unclear when exactly the finished products will be used on the space station.

 

"Everything is completed on the whole thing but the [container] assembly work," Carson said. "The completed assembly is due to be taken up to the International Space Station sometime in the near future."

 

First Danish astronaut to journey into space

 

Copenhagen Post

 

Astronaut Andreas Mogensen's patience has finally paid off.

 

In May 2009, he beat out 8,000 other applicants to be selected as one of six new astronauts at the European Space Agency, and since then he has been waiting to be assigned on a mission. He was told that he might have to wait up to ten years, but now it has been decided that he will start his new job in zero gravity as an aerospace engineer at the International Space Station (ISS) in 2015.

 

That will make him the first Dane ever to venture into space.

 

"This is a very big day for me - a dream come true. ISS has gone from being a source of inspiration to being a reality and my future workplace," Mogensen said at a press conference at the Tycho Brahe Planetarium. 

 

The ISS is an international research lab run by the United States, Russia, Europe and Canada.

 

Will open up future possibilities

When Mogensen is launched into space, it will be a giant leap for Danish space research, according to Kristian Pedersen, the head of the Technical University of Denmark's (DTU) space programme.

 

"It will increase awareness of Danish space exploration in a completely new way," Pedersen told DR Nyheder. "The fact that we have a Dane placed 400km away in the outer limits will bring a new focus to this important and exciting field and will open up infinite possibilities in the future."

 

Mogensen is 36 years old and has a PhD degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas.

 

Before the mission, he will have to go through a tough training programme at NASA in preparation for the mission.

 

Mogensen said he is anxious to get into space.

 

"It's one thing to sit in a simulator, where you can always push the reset button if something goes wrong," he said at today's press conference. "It's something else entirely to be in a real spaceship. The closest I've come is sitting in an aeroplane."

 

NASA Initiative Gives Students Hands-On Experience

 

Mark Carreau - Aviation Week

 

Joseph Huseman, a Rice University senior this fall, has gazed into a possible future, one that includes a promising career as a mechanical engineer, perhaps leading ground-breaking aerospace projects.

 

"I've always been interested in spaceflight," said Huseman, who grew up in a small farming community in the Texas panhandle. "As a kid, I looked for spots where I could be a leader."

 

To improve his employment prospects, he is navigating a succession of learning experiences beyond the classroom. This summer, Huseman interned with General Electric Oil and Gas in Houston as part of a new products introduction team. As a 2012 summer intern with UTC Aerospace Systems, he learned of the Reduced Gravity Education Flight Program (RGEFP), headquartered nearby at NASA's Johnson Space Center.

 

A division of the 18-year-old RGEFP known as Microgravity University (MU) allows undergraduate engineering teams to compete for time aboard a Boeing 727-200 0g aircraft, sometimes called a Weightless Wonder or Vomit Comet, to expose their student projects to brief periods of microgravity. Gravity is eased briefly as the jet transport rises then descends over a series of high-altitude parabolas.

 

Since MU's inception in 1995, more than 800 university students have taken flight along with their experiments. On July 21, Huseman and a half-dozen other members of his Rice Pending Gravitation team joined that special cadre by completing a 0g flight to push the development of an electromagnetic sensor package envisioned as a prospective power-efficient guidance device aboard deep-space probes. Their mission report, outlining their findings, is due to NASA in September. "We're crunching the numbers," says Huseman.

 

Over the years, other undergraduate teams have studied dust coagulation in microgravity for insight into planet formation; the cellular mechanisms behind the bone loss experienced by astronauts; porosity of Martian soil simulants; and effective techniques for the air-tight storage of space suits outside human planetary rovers.

 

"The best scenario would be a place aboard the International Space Station," says Huseman, of the Rice investigation. "But the volume our package takes up is too big, and you get a ton of space on the Vomit Comet."

 

But NASA's educational budget is facing decline and with it opportunities for others like Huseman to enhance their professional skills as they complete their academic careers.

 

"We are following the budget within Congress very closely because it certainly will have some impact on us," says Frank Prochaska, Johnson Space Center RGEFP program manager for student campaigns.

 

Funded at $136 million in NASA's 2012 budget, the 2013 budget sequester and plans to consolidate space agency educational endeavors with those of other federal agencies would drive the education line to just over $94 million under the proposed White House budget for 2014 and the out-years. So far, House and Senate appropriations panels have balked at the cut, approving educational lines for 2014 of $122 million and $116.6 million, respectively.

 

In recent years, the RGEFP has sought to diversify its funding sources beyond NASA's education line, which finances a range of programs intended to encourage youthful interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) careers. The RGEFP embraces eight flight education activities, including several for teachers of K-12 students, students at minority universities and community colleges, space grant fellows as well as undergraduates focused on systems engineering who collaborate with NASA engineers on 0g flight experiments.

 

The diversification has permitted RGEFP to receive financing for its student/teacher flights from other budget activities, including the International Space Station, explains Prochaska. The diversity is funding 0g flights for 17 undergraduate teams this year.

 

But many of the funding sources face spending restraints as well. "I'm anticipating we will have undergraduate flight weeks next year," says Prochaska. "When I look across the model we have for this program, we are in pretty good standing right now because we have diversified our funding sources, If Congress comes back and follows the president's budget, then certainly there is going to be a lot less funding for those programs. Some may get cut. So that would definitely have an impact."

 

The six-month run-up to the flight experience is as demanding as it is instructional for MU undergraduate teams like Huseman's.

 

Most of the Rice students, for example, were enrolled in 18-20 hr. of course work during the 2013 spring semester. It was not unusual for team members to assemble in the university's student engineering lab well past midnight for test sessions and troubleshooting as they prepared for flight.

 

"Problems can set you back a whole week; real things you never think about," says Huseman. "This has taught me to think ahead. Leading an experiment is like thinking 30 minutes ahead. I'm starting to learn that leadership is seeing the holes before they are there, getting ready to fill them or having a way to keep the project moving, regardless."

 

Huseman assembled his team as though the Rice cadre was rolling out a new product. "We wanted a diverse team. Mechanical engineering would not cover everything," he says. "The project has an electrical component. With a lot of data recording, we have a big need for statistics. We've included ground-control members, one a materials science student and the other a business major."

 

The team asked for equipment donations from suppliers; members paid their own travel expenses. "It is a fantastic experience, and it's one that university teams are willing to go to great lengths to participate in," says Prochaska. The team also developed an hour-long classroom presentation illustrating the value of science and math to middle and high school classrooms. They focused 12 classroom visits on some of Houston's underprivileged neighborhoods but also ventured to classrooms and college campuses in California, Tennessee and West Texas.

 

"The younger kids, those from middle school, asked a ton of questions about space. They just let loose," says Huseman. He is now sizing up a 0g flight proposal for next year.

 

NASA Video Makes Asteroid Sample Collection a Hollywood-Like Affair

 

Jon Chang - ABC News's Good Morning America

 

The pulsing drums, rumbling brass and minor key that serve as soundtrack to one of NASA's recent videos make it seem as if Michael Bay were directing a sequel to Armageddon. But these animated astronauts aren't going out of Earth's orbit to blow big space rocks to bits. They're collecting samples, which in itself is a time- and labor-intensive procedure.

 

The video, animated by the Johnson Space Center, annotates just how much time and effort is required to do even the most mundane of space tasks. After the craft Orion is launched into space via heavy-lift rocket, it will make a nine-day journey toward its asteroid target.

 

Orion first heads towards the moon, but instead of landing there, it swoops around its surface. It takes what little gravity the moon exerts and uses it to slingshot itself closer to the asteroid. Once it gets close enough, the astronauts will begin the docking procedure to the asteroid.

 

After Orion has docked with the asteroid, the astronauts on board can start a spacewalk and collect a sample. Once they are finished, Orion would go back the way it came, looping around the moon for a second time and heading back towards Earth.

 

Rachel Kraft, a spokesperson for NASA, said that many aspects of the Asteroid Initiative aren't set in stone. "This recent video shows a more nuanced impression of what the crewed part of the mission will be like," she told ABC News.

 

A previous video released by NASA showed how an unmanned spacecraft, known as the Asteroid Redirect Vehicle, would wrap an oversized Hefty bag around the asteroid and physically move it to a safe region away from Earth.

 

NASA held a press conference in June, inviting anyone with ideas for the Asteroid Initiative to submit them to the agency. "We've received over 400 submissions," said Kraft. NASA is still reviewing proposals for asteroid redirection and will discuss several of them at a workshop at the end of September.

 

'We are all Martians': Chemist's otherworldly claim stirs debate

 

Alan Boyle - NBCNews.com's Cosmic Log

 

Are we all Martians? A controversial hypothesis contends that life on our planet had to get its start somewhere else — most likely on Mars — because the chemistry on early Earth couldn't have provided the required molecular machinery.

 

"The evidence seems to be building that we are actually all Martians; that life started on Mars and came to Earth on a rock," Steven Benner, a chemist at the Florida-based Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution, said in a news release. What's more, recent studies suggest that the conditions suitable for the origin of life "may still exist on Mars," he said.

 

Scientists have long debated the idea that life got its start elsewhere in the universe, and then was transported to Earth on meteorites or comets — an idea known as panspermia. In a presentation to the annual Goldschmidt Conference in Florence, Italy, Benner lays out an unusually detailed case for panspermia involving early Mars and Earth.

 

Livable Mars, deadly Earth?

 

For years, scientists have been saying that although present-day Mars is an inhospitable place, it was much more habitable billions of years ago. The findings from NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars have added fresh support to such claims.

 

The early environment on Earth, however, was challenging to the rise of life as we know it, at least in Benner's view. One of the biggest challenges has to do with the process by which organic molecules gave rise to life's chemical building blocks: RNA, DNA and proteins.

 

If left to themselves, adding energy to organic molecules just tends to turn them into tar or an oily substance. That's what Benner calls the "tar paradox": How could organic materials ever give rise to biopolymers like DNA?

 

"Certain elements seem able to control the propensity of organic materials to turn into tar, particularly boron and molybdenum, so we believe that minerals containing both were fundamental to life first starting," Benner said. Such minerals can't form easily in the presence of water, but the early Earth was thought to have been covered with water.

 

So where could those minerals come from?

 

"Analysis of a Martian meteorite recently showed that there was boron on Mars; we now believe that the oxidized form of molybdenum was there too," Benner said. During the time when life got its start, Earth was too young and too wet to produce the borates and molybdates that he believes were essential. He says the best place to find such minerals would have been on Mars.

 

"Mars has always been more oxidizing and drier than Earth," Benner told NBC News in an email. "True, being too small to have a magnetic field, it has lost most of its atmosphere and its water. However, 3.5 billion years ago, all of the chemistry that we propose could have happened on Mars. As Mars became less and less habitable over time, the life that originated on Mars (and, in this view, could not have originated on Earth), escaped to Earth, which has remained habitable until this day."

 

Benner said his scenario illustrates the difference "between a locale where life can survive and a locale where life can emerge."

 

Too kooky?

 

Is Benner's story too kooky to believe? One thing's for sure: Benner is not a kook. He was one of the first chemists to voice skepticism about the claims for arsenic-based life, which stirred up such a fuss in 2010. "I'm the guy they bring in to throw a wet blanket over all the enthusiasm," he told NBC News at the time.

 

This time, the wet-blanket role is filled by David Grinspoon, an astrobiologist from the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Grinspoon, who's spending a year doing research at the Library of Congress, says that he's a "huge fan" of Benner's, but that his extraordinary claim isn't sufficiently supported by the evidence.

 

"This isn't really evidence that life came from Mars, but it is evidence that Steven Benner is very clever," Grinspoon told NBC News.

 

He said Benner's scenario is a "plausible story," but for now, it's at least as plausible to stick with the view that life found a way to emerge from prebiotic chemistry on Earth.

 

"I think chemists always think they know more than they know, because nature has a lot of possible pathways it can try," Grinspoon said.

 

What do you think? Is it more likely that life came to Earth from Mars, or that earthly life is entirely home-grown? Feel free to register your opinion in our unscientific survey, or in the comment section.

 

NASA lacks vision

Manned space plans headed in wrong direction

 

David Bonnar - Florida Today (Opinion)

 

(Bonnar is a retired Boeing aerospace engineer and manager of advanced rocket design)

 

NASA's budget and manned space plans are going in the wrong direction.

 

The space agency's programs for manned space do not have concrete, high-payoff missions. NASA is spending about 44 percent of its $17.7 billion budget on manned space. Why is it spending all this money on three manned capsules and several Space Launch System (SLS) rocket designs?

 

So far, these missions include two trips around the moon and one to a local asteroid. There seems to be no real vision to NASA's near- and long-range plans.

 

In 2009, President Barack Obama set up the Augustine commission for manned space. The panel proposed that NASA's main vision should be directed toward Mars, but it should first gain more exploration experience on the moon. The commission also proposed other flexible, beyond Earth missions. But it seems NASA only wants to go grab an asteroid. This is shortsighted and misguided.

 

Rep. Lamar Smith, chairman of the House Space Science Committee, said an asteroid trip is "costly and uninspiring," and we need a "new vision" plan for the space program. Congressman Bill Posey, R-Rockledge, agrees.

 

We need a new "Affordable Space Act" that includes high payoffs at low cost. I recently discussed this with Congressman Posey in his office. In 2009, he gave a vision speech that supported the International Space Station (ISS), commercial space, and the moon and beyond. We discussed achievable, low-cost goals:

 

First, we should not go to Mars without going to the moon first (it has highest benefit-to-cost ratio), and second, we should exclude going to any asteroids or moons of planets (has low benefit-to-cost ratio).

 

Thus, we should design vehicles at low cost and not to high performance, which is the opposite of the current NASA approach.

 

Now, they are building new rocket engines and new solid motors to use on a SLS. They are working on more than five new SLS vehicle designs to launch a variety of space payloads. To date, we have spent about $15 billion on SLS with no flights yet. This is the wrong way to run a low-cost program with high payoffs.

 

Ever since 1960, NASA has spent billions of dollars on manned space and then canceled them: the Saturn/Apollo moon lander, the Skylab, then the shuttle. Now, we may have to sink ISS in 2020. Then, what?

 

For many years, American space engineers have presented scores of plans for lunar and Mars bases. Now, NASA wants to put a net around an asteroid. What kind of a costly, low-benefit mission is this? It's not worth the paper on which it is planned.

 

Come on, NASA, get a better long-range vision and stop fooling around. This country should go forward with affordable, manned space mission objectives.

 

END