5/23/12 news

 
Human Spaceflight News
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
 
HEADLINES AND LEADS
 
SpaceX's Dragon capsule conquers 1st challenge
Now, unmanned capsule must earn its chance to berth with space station
 
James Dean - Florida Today
 
An American spacecraft is closing in on the International Space Station for the first time since the shuttle's final visit last July. This time, it's a privately owned cargo capsule that advocates believe will usher in a new, lower-cost era of commercial spaceflight. SpaceX’s Dragon capsule is expected to fly close under the station Thursday, undergoing a series of tests before earning the opportunity to make history Friday morning by becoming the first commercial craft to berth at the outpost. Even with those challenges still ahead, NASA and SpaceX officials were jubilant Tuesday after SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket launched from Cape Canaveral, placing the unmanned Dragon in orbit.
 
Hopes riding on SpaceX rocket as it heads to space station
 
Dan Vergano - USA Today
 
More hurdles are ahead, but the launch of the private SpaceX rocket sparked hopes of a revitalized U.S. space effort Tuesday as it blasted off to deliver cargo to the International Space Station. The spacecraft, carrying the Dragon cargo capsule atop a Falcon 9 rocket, took off in the early-morning hours into an orbit 185 miles high. Its aim is the first rendezvous of a commercial spacecraft with the space station. The launch marked the third successful one of the rocket for the Hawthorne, Calif.-based SpaceX, although the launch had been delayed several times in the past four months. "Tremendous elation," said SpaceX chief Elon Musk at a news conference after the launch. "A lot of hopes were riding on that rocket."
 
SpaceX's Private Rocket Launch Just Step 1 of Tough Test Flight
 
Mike Wall - Space.com
 
NASA and commercial spaceflight pioneers are hailing Tuesday's historic launch of a private spaceship toward the International Space Station, but the successful liftoff is just the first step in a challenging 10-day test flight. The unmanned Dragon capsule, built by the California-based firm SpaceX, roared off the pad at Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station early Tuesday (May 22) atop SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, becoming the first private spacecraft ever to launch toward the orbiting lab. This in itself is a big milestone, ushering in a new era of American public-private space partnership that NASA has been encouraging for several years. But Dragon still has quite a few boxes to check off before this demonstration mission — a test to see if the capsule is ready to begin contracted cargo flights for NASA — can be declared a complete success, officials said.
 
SpaceX Launches to the ISS. Now What?
 
Joe Pappalardo - Popular Mechanics
 
The routine part of SpaceX’s historic mission to the International Space Station is done. This morning, Elon Musk’s company successfully launched its Falcon 9 rocket. But while launching a rocket to deposit a capsule into orbit is not easy (Saturday’s last-second launchpad abort was a reminder of that) the Falcon 9’s liftoff was not the milestone of this mission. Indeed, it was the third consecutive successful Falcon 9 launch and the fifth straight launch success for SpaceX. The truly nerve-racking parts are coming over the course of the week, as the private company tries to become the first commercial company to dock with the ISS.
 
Beam them up: Ashes of ‘Star Trek’ actor in orbit
 
Seth Borenstein - Associated Press
 
James Doohan, Scotty from "Star Trek," spent his acting career whizzing through the cosmos. Gordon Cooper was one of America's famous Mercury seven astronauts. And Bob Shrake spent his work life anonymously helping send NASA's high-tech spacecraft to other planets. Now the three men who made space their lives are also making space their final resting place. Their ashes - and those of about 300 others - were aboard SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket that blasted into orbit Tuesday as part of an in-space for-profit burial business.
 
With milestone launch, SpaceX aims to make space cheap — and cool
 
Brian Vastag - Washington Post
 
A new era in spaceflight blasted off early Tuesday with the launch of a rocket designed, built and flown by SpaceX, a 10-year-old U.S. company. The rocket lofted an unmanned capsule, which Friday will become the first commercial craft to attempt to dock with the International Space Station. For NASA, the moment marked a transition. Instead of flying the space shuttle, the agency is now renting rides into space.
 
SpaceX Blasts Into 'Uncharted Territory,' Hoping to Make Space Cheaper
 
Jeffrey Brown - PBS NewsHour
 
After several delays -- including a last-second abort on Saturday when computers spotted a bad engine valve, Space Explorations Technologies Corporation on Tuesday became the first private company to send a vessel to the International Space Station. Jeffrey Brown and Miles O'Brien discuss the significance of the SpaceX launch. (NO FURTHER TEXT)
 
Although Private, SpaceX Still Involved With NASA
 
Robert Siegel - NPR
 
Robert Siegel talks to Andy Pasztor, aerospace reporter for the Wall Street Journal, about the business model for SpaceX. This was a private launch, but the development of the Falcon 9 rocket was funded in part by NASA. The agency put up $300 million. Are rockets to the space station likely to be profitable? (NO FURTHER TEXT)
 
US, China, Russia, Elon Musk: Entrepreneur's "insane" vision becomes reality
 
Scott Pelley - CBS News
 
Only four entities have put a space capsule in orbit and brought it back: the United States, Russia, China -- and Elon Musk. It is Musk's company, SpaceX, that launched that capsule to the space station Tuesday. Musk is a man who does things others say are impossible. "CBS Evening News" anchor Scott Pelley recently spoke to him for "60 Minutes." "I think we're at the dawn of a new era. And I think it's going to be very exciting," Musk said. "What we're hoping to do with SpaceX is to push the envelope and provide a reason for people to be excited and inspired to be human."
 
Space Policy Is a Hard Sell, Says Holdren
 
Jeffrey Mervis - ScienceInsider.com
 
Presidential science adviser John Holdren made a frank admission today: Selling the Administration’s plan to restructure the U.S. space program hasn’t been easy. And the reason underscores an important lesson about communicating science to the public: Keep the message simple. In 2010, President Barack Obama announced that he was scrapping his predecessor’s 2004 vision for returning astronauts to the moon as a stepping stone to Mars because it was unaffordable and threatened to undermine NASA’s other programs, which include telescopes and other robotic exploration missions, Earth observation, and advanced aeronautics. In addition to abandoning plans for a lunar landing in 2020, the new policy assigns private companies the job of ferrying crew and cargo to and from the international space station so that NASA can be free to pursue more advanced technologies. The Administration even evoked the country’s past achievements in space, declaring that the new approach would be “putting science back into rocket science.”
 
Former Astronaut Will Lead 100-Year Starship Effort
 
Jeremy Hsu - Space.com
 
Star Trek's bold vision of the starship Enterprise manned by a diverse crew may no longer just be science fiction — especially with the first woman astronaut of color heading the real-life project. The U.S. military has chosen Mae Jemison's nonprofit foundation to receive half a million dollars in seed funding to help turn the 100-Year Starship into reality. The 100-Year Starship project faces the challenge of transforming the $500,000 from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) into an organization that does more than merely survive the next century. It must also spur the technological revolutions needed for human space travelers to survive the long journey to distant stars. "We don't have to be the ones to actually send a starship out," said Mae Jemison, head of the Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence.
 
Space shuttle replica readies for Houston trip
 

 
Central Florida News 13
 
Another space shuttle is preparing to leave the Space Coast forever. Space shuttle Explorer, the replica that used to be displayed in front of the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, will be loaded onto a barge and sent to Houston. The shuttle replica has been a staple of the Space Coast since its installation in 1993. It was built using the same blueprints that were used to build the space shuttles. Explorer will be sent to Johnson Space Center's Space Center Houston tourism center.
 
To Boldly Go Where No Shuttle has Gone Before
 
Curt Epstein - Aviation International News (AIN)
 
“Tranquility Base here, the Enterprise has landed.” While it might not have been as dramatic as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin touching down on the moon, for New York City, April 27 was known as the day the city got a space shuttle. I had hoped to personally view the arrival of the space shuttle Enterprise piggybacked on its modified 747 carrier, but several days of weather-related delays made it unworkable in my schedule. Instead I listened to the radio as reporters breathlessly described the sight. It zoomed majestically down the Hudson River and had I been home at the time I would have had a view very much like the one my friend had at Liberty State Park in New Jersey. It may be the last time Enterprise feels the rush of wind under her wings, but at least she had the world’s biggest stage, as millions craned their necks upwards to watch as she made her way to John F. Kennedy International Airport.
 
Can Sci-Fi Relaunch the Space Program?
 
Jon Spaihts - Wall Street Journal (Opinion)
 
(Spaihts is a screenwriter, amateur scientist and lifelong science-fiction fan. He is a co-writer of Ridley Scott’s upcoming film “Prometheus)
 
Filmmakers have tackled space travel from the first days of film – which is to say, before there was space travel. The most famous image from silent movies is Méliès’s “Man in the Moon” with a rocket in his eye. Early films adapted H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, and the adventures of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. By the time humanity reached orbit (Sputnik in 1957, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in 1961, and astronaut John Glenn in 1962) popcorn-munching crowds had already flocked to theaters for “Destination Moon” (1950) and “Forbidden Planet” (1956). The birth of space travel is inextricably bound up with the Cold War. The United States and the Soviet Union were fighting proxy wars around the world. Nuclear submarines probed the seas; spy planes scraped the upper limits of the atmosphere. It was only natural to think of space as one more contested frontier – high ground we had to conquer before the enemy did.
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