Monday, July 16, 2012
7/16/12 news----check nasaproblems.com by Don Nelson--EXCELLENT
Monday, July 16, 2012
JSC TODAY HEADLINES
1. Watch Expedition 32/33 Soyuz TMA-05M Docking, Hatch Opening and Welcome
2. Turning Diversity Into Strengths
3. WFCR Viewing Room Closed to Tours for Three Weeks
4. NBL Visitor Gallery and Adjacent Pedestrian Gate Closed July 16 to 31
5. ISS Benefits for Humanity
6. TODAY is the LAST DAY to Get Your Ticket for the Co-op 50th Anniversary
7. Starport 50th Classic Car Show This Wednesday -- Still Time to Enter Your Car
8. 'Opening Up Your Organization to Innovative Tools'
9. Sharpening Your Financial and Physical Fitness IQ
10. Aug. 1, Just Lose it Starts On Site -- Registration Starts Today
11. Debunking Common Nutrition Myths
12. Space Available - APPEL - Space Launch and Transportaion Systems
13. OSHA 30-Hour Construction Safety and Health: Sept. 24-28 - Building 226N, Room 174
________________________________________ QUOTE OF THE DAY
“ It is our duty as men and women to proceed as though limits to our abilities do not exist. ”
-- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
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1. Watch Expedition 32/33 Soyuz TMA-05M Docking, Hatch Opening and Welcome
Expedition 32 NASA Flight Engineer Sunita Williams, veteran Soyuz Commander Yuri Malenchenko of the Russian Federal Space Agency and Flight Engineer Akihiko Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency launched to the space station on July 14 (July 15 Baikonur time) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. They are set to dock to the station's Rassvet module at 11:52 p.m. CDT today, July 16.
The trio will join Expedition 32 Commander Gennady Padalka, NASA Flight Engineer Joe Acaba and Russian Flight Engineer Sergei Revin, who have been aboard the station since mid-May.
This can be seen on NASA TV or on the Web.
NASA TV coverage of events begins at the following times:
Today, July 16
11:15 p.m. - Expedition 32/33 Soyuz TMA-05M docking coverage begins (docking at 11:52 p.m., followed by post-docking news conference from Mission Control in Korolev, Russia)
Tomorrow, July 17
2 a.m. - Expedition 32/33 Soyuz TMA-05M hatch opening and welcoming ceremony coverage begins (ceremony scheduled at 2:25 a.m.)
4 a.m. - Video file of Expedition 32/33 Soyuz TMA-05M docking, hatch opening and welcoming ceremony
JSC employees with wired computer network connections can view NASA TV using onsite IPTV on channels 404 (standard definition) or 4541 (HD) at: http://iptv.jsc.nasa.gov/eztv/
If you are having problems using this video system, please contact the Information Resources Directorate Customer Support Center at x46367.
JSC External Relations, Office of Communications and Public Affairs x35111 http://www.nasa.gov/station
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2. Turning Diversity Into Strengths
The ASIA ERG and LA Diversity and Inclusion Team, along with sponsors from Procurement and the Information Resources Directorate, are proud to host Dr. Kameda as a special speaker on "Turning Diversity into Strengths." Build collaboration by learning how to communicate and work across different cultures to achieve the greatest success.
Friday, July 20, from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. in the Teague Auditorium.
This event is open to all JSC team members.
We have also listed this session in SATERN for open registration. The link below can be used to register for this forum in SATERN.
https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=SCHEDULED_...
We look forward to your participation as we strive to achieve excellence through diversity and inclusion.
Note: If you require special accommodation for a specific disability, please contact TQ Bui at x40266. (An interpreter has been arranged for this event.)
Letha Meyers x49555
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3. WFCR Viewing Room Closed to Tours for Three Weeks
This is a reminder that tours will be discontinued in the White Flight Control Room (WFCR) Viewing Room for three weeks because of scheduled carpet replacement work from July 16 through Aug. 1.
Other tours requiring Escort-Required Visitor Badges may view the WFCR via the PAO booth, which is located in the hallway outside of the viewing room.
Dennis Hehir x33139
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4. NBL Visitor Gallery and Adjacent Pedestrian Gate Closed July 16 to 31
To accommodate repair of the sidewalk awning in front of the NBL Visitor Gallery entrance, the NBL Visitor Gallery and the adjacent sidewalk fence gate between Sonny Carter Training Facility (SCTF) and Boeing will be closed from July 16 to 31.
Employees should use the second employee fence gate located further south between the SCTF parking lot and Boeing building. The combination code is the same. Do not walk around the fence and use the SCTF parking lot exit as a pedestrian entrance/exit.
Dan Sedej x48346
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5. ISS Benefits for Humanity
Are you following along with the newest research results from the International Space Station (ISS)? We have had some amazing breakthroughs in the areas of human health, telemedicine, education and observations of Earth from space. Vaccine-development research, station-generated images that assist with disaster relief and education programs that inspire future scientists, engineers and space explorers are just some examples of research benefits.
The stories featured on the ISS Benefits for Humanity website summarize the scientific, technological and educational accomplishments of research on the space station that have an impact on life on Earth. Visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/benefits/
Stories featured in the "International Space Station Benefits for Humanity" book (available for download here: http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/626862main_ISS_Benefit_for_Humanity.pdf ) serve as examples of the space station's potential as a scientific research facility to strengthen economies and enhance the quality of life on Earth for all people.
Tracy Thumm x46511
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6. TODAY is the LAST DAY to Get Your Ticket for the Co-op 50th Anniversary
If you a current or former NASA co-op and have not already purchased your ticket for the 50th Anniversary Celebration of the JSC Co-op Program, today is your LAST CHANCE! Don't miss out on the speakers, refreshments, heavy hors d'oeuvres, fun activities and nostalgia in the Gilruth Alamo Ballroom on July 25 from 4:30 to 7 p.m. Tickets are $15 in the Buildings 3 and 11 Starport Gift Shops, as well as the Gilruth Center front desk. Tell your NASA civil servant (former or current) co-op friends! The event is limited to 250 guests, so buy your tickets TODAY. Please visit http://tinyurl.com/coop50th for a questionnaire about your time as a co-op.
Randy Eckman x48230
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7. Starport 50th Classic Car Show This Wednesday -- Still Time to Enter Your Car
Starport is turning 50 on July 24! To commemorate this, we will be holding several events leading up to the big date to celebrate our past, present and future. Included in these celebrations is a Classic Car Show in front of Building 1 on July 18 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Since this is also the week of the anniversary of the Apollo lunar landing, we want to showcase cars that were around during the Apollo era -- 1975 and older. We only have space for 40 cars (no trailers allowed), so if we have more than 40 entries we will have a random drawing. Drivers must be badged to come on site. If you are interested in showcasing your classic car, please contact Chris Fowler at galen.c.fowler@nasa.gov or x45369 and provide your contact and vehicle information.
We'll also have $1.62 hot dogs, music and door prizes!
Chris Fowler x35369 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/Events/
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8. 'Opening Up Your Organization to Innovative Tools'
The Human Systems Academy is pleased to offer "Opening Up Your Organization to Innovative Tools." This will be the first course in the series, "Collaborative and Open Innovation: Techniques to Increase Your Productivity." This first course focuses on the philosophy that spurs innovation and self-assessment activities to help participants understand how to define where they are in the continuum and identify areas of improvement, as well as tools for support. The goal is to ignite individual responsibility and contribution through self-awareness on the topic. This course will be held Thursday, July 19, at 3 p.m. in Building 9E, Room 113.
For registration, please go to: http://sa.jsc.nasa.gov/#topicHeader-human-systems-academy-2012-07-19
Cynthia Rando 281-461-2620 http://sa.jsc.nasa.gov
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9. Sharpening Your Financial and Physical Fitness IQ
Improving financial literacy enables people to take appropriate action and achieve their financial goals. Join us for our finance classes offered this week and get on track with your finance goals!
Financial wellness class topics:
Intro to Estate Planning, Retirement, Insurance and Maximizing Your Investments
Financial webinar - Debt Free for Life
This webinar entails behavioral financial techniques for reducing your personal debt as part of your financial stress-management approach. Tools and techniques are introduced to improve your budget and eliminate consumer debt and home mortgages. FICO scores are also reviewed.
On the fitness side, with innovations like rocker bottoms, pump-up tongues and eva midsoles, knowing which pair of shoes to buy can be daunting. Join us this week to learn tips on purchasing the right athletic footwear for your sport or activity of choice.
See link for details.
Jessica Vos x41383 http://www.explorationwellness.com/rd/AE107.aspx?July_Signup.pdf
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10. Aug. 1, Just Lose it Starts On Site -- Registration Starts Today
Battling weight problems? JUST LOSE IT with the help of the Exploration Wellness 12-week weight-management program. JSC's registered dietitian and exercise scientist will help you set a weight-loss goal and empower you to reach it. The professional expertise and group support will keep you on track and help you avoid common pitfalls along your personal weight-loss journey. Weekly meetings will encourage and educate you on various exercise and nutrition topics.
Enrollment details: There is a fee for this program of $100, due by close of business July 30. This fee is refunded if you meet these criteria: Meet your weight goal and receive a 100 percent refund; or 50 percent is refunded for 100 percent attendance.
Please enroll first, then wait for your confirmation email before going to the Gilruth to pay. Classes will be held on Wednesdays from 11 to 11:40 a.m. in Building 8, Conference Room 248.
Greta Ayers x30302 http://www.explorationwellness.com/Web/docs/JLI.pdf
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11. Debunking Common Nutrition Myths
We have more access than ever to an endless supply of information, but how much of it is true? There are a lot of interesting nutritional suggestions on the Internet, in magazines and touted by celebrities today. This class will provide a discussion on some of the most common nutrition myths we are exposed to. Think you know what is fact or fiction? Come join us to find out! The presentation will be held Tuesday, July 24, at 5 p.m. in the Gilruth Center Discovery Room.
You can sign up for this class and other upcoming nutrition classes online at: http://www.explorationwellness.com/WellnessCSS/CourseCatalogSelection/
If you're working on improving your approach to healthy nutrition but can't attend a class, we offer free one-on-one consultations with Glenda Blaskey, the JSC Registered Dietitian.
Glenda Blaskey x41503 http://www.explorationwellness.com/Web/scripts/Nutrition.aspx
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12. Space Available - APPEL - Space Launch and Transportaion Systems
This three-day course is intended to provide practical, detailed approaches and tools to analyze and design manned and unmanned and reusable and expendable launch vehicles for Earth and other planets. This includes architecture and configuration, payloads and vehicle subsystems.
This course is designed for NASA's technical workforce, including engineers, systems engineers and project personnel involved in creating overall mission architectures, detailed designs and the operation of systems.
This course is open for self-registration in SATERN until Thursday, July 26. It is available to civil servants and contractors on a space-available basis.
Dates: Tuesday to Thursday, Aug. 28 to 30
Location: SpringHill Suites - Seabrook
Zeeaa Quadri x39723 https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=SCHED...
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13. OSHA 30-Hour Construction Safety and Health: Sept. 24-28 - Building 226N, Room 174
This four-and-a-half-day course assists the student in effectively conducting construction inspections and oversight. Participants are provided with basic information about construction standards, construction hazards and control, health hazards, trenching and excavation operations, cranes, electrical hazards in construction, steel erection, ladders, scaffolds, concrete and heavy construction equipment. This course is based on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Training Institute Construction Safety Course and is approved for award of the OSHA course completion card. Course may include a field exercise at a construction site, if feasible. A 30-hour construction OSHA card will be issued. There will be a final exam associated with this course, which must be passed with a 70 percent minimum score to receive course credit.
Registration in SATERN is required.
Shirley Robinson x41284
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________________________________________
JSC Today is compiled periodically as a service to JSC employees on an as-submitted basis. Any JSC organization or employee may submit articles. To see an archive of previous JSC Today announcements, go to http://www6.jsc.nasa.gov/pao/news/jsctoday/archives.
NASA TV:
· Noon Central (1 EDT) – Mars Science Lab “Curiosity” Landing-Minus-30 news conference
· 11:15 pm Central (12:15 am EDT TUESDAY) – Soyuz TMA-05M docking coverage
· 11:52 pm Central (12:52 am EDT TUESDAY) – Expedition 32/33 Soyuz DOCKING
· 2 am Central TUESDAY (3 EDT) – Soyuz hatch opening and welcoming ceremony
· 4 am Central TUESDAY (5 EDT) – Video of Soyuz docking, hatch opening, E32/33 welcome
Human Spaceflight News
Monday, July 16, 2012
HEADLINES AND LEADS
Soyuz blasts off on space station crew ferry flight
William Harwood – CBS News
A Soyuz spacecraft carrying a Russian commander, a NASA flight engineer and a Japanese astronaut -- all veteran space travelers -- blasted off and streaked into orbit late Saturday (U.S. time), the first leg of a two-day flight to the International Space Station. Under a clear blue sky, the Soyuz TMA-05M spacecraft blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 10:40:03 p.m. EDT Saturday (8:40 a.m. local time) and quickly climbed away atop a rush of fiery exhaust. The launching came on the 37th anniversary of the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz Test Project that opened the door to U.S.-Russian space cooperation.
Soyuz rocket launches on mission to space station
Peter Leonard - Associated Press
A Russian Soyuz craft launched into the morning skies over Kazakhstan on Sunday, carrying three astronauts on their way to the International Space Station, where they will quickly start preparing for a frenzy of incoming traffic. NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, Russian cosmonaut Yury Malenchenko and Japan's Akihito Hoshide are set to travel two days before reaching their three colleagues already at the permanent space outpost. Families and colleagues watched the launch from an observation platform in the Russian-leased cosmodrome in the dry southern steppes of this sprawling Central Asian nation.
Russian Soyuz rocket blasts off for space station
Robin Paxton & Dmitry Solovyov - Reuters
A trio of Russian, Japanese and U.S. astronauts blasted off aboard a Soyuz spaceship on Sunday for a four-month mission on the International Space Station (ISS) that Moscow hopes will help restore confidence in its space programme. Veteran Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, NASA astronaut Sunita Williams and Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide launched successfully aboard the Soyuz TMA-05M rocket from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 10:40 p.m. EDT on Saturday. They are scheduled to berth early on Tuesday (late Monday EDT), joining NASA Flight Engineer Joseph Acaba and Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin aboard the ISS, a $100 billion research complex orbiting 240 miles above Earth.
Astronaut, 2 others off to ISS on Soyuz
Todd Halvorson - Florida Today
An American astronaut and explorers from Russia and Japan are zooming toward the International Space Station today after a thundering launch from a central Asian spaceport. Sunita “Suni” Williams blasted off with Yuri Malenchenko and Akihiko Hoshide at 10:40 p.m. EDT Saturday, setting off on a two-day flight to the International Space Station. The launch took place on the 37th anniversary of the 1975 launches of U.S. and Russian spacecraft on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.
New Space Station Crew Launches Into Orbit on Russian Spacecraft
Clara Moskowitz - Space.com
A Russian Soyuz rocket blasted off Saturday carrying new residents for the International Space Station, a trio of veteran spaceflyers representing Russia, the United States and Japan. The rocket launched the Soyuz TMA-05M spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 10:40 p.m. EDT (0240 July 15 GMT), though it was early Sunday local time at the Central Asian spaceport. Onboard were an American, a Russian and a Japanese astronaut due to take up residence for four months at the orbiting outpost. The Soyuz soared smoothly into a blue sky dotted with clouds, punching a hole a one cloud layer as it launched into orbit, according to a NASA broadcast.
U.S., Russian, Japanese Soyuz Crew Heads for ISS, Demanding Schedule
Mark Carreau - Aviation Week
U.S., Russian and Japanese astronauts face a flurry of re-supply craft and spacewalk activities in addition to a demanding research agenda, following their scheduled docking with the International Space Station early Tuesday. Russia's 31 Soyuz mission spacecraft carrying NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and Akihiko Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Saturday at 10:40 p.m., EDT, or 8:40 a.m., local time.
Russian Soyuz rocket blasts off to space station
Agence France Presse
A Russian Soyuz rocket blasted off from the Kazakh steppes Sunday with a crew of three, headed for the International Space Station. The US, Japanese, and Russian astronauts aboard are testing the reliability of Russia's space programme. By News Wires (text) AFP - A Soyuz rocket blasted off with an international crew of three toward the International Space Station on Sunday in a mission testing the reliability of Russia's crisis-prone space programme. NASA's Sunita Williams and Japan's Akihiko Hoshide and Yury Malenchenko of Russia started their journey on top of the Soyuz-FG under the open skies of the Kazakh steppe on schedule and without a hitch.
New commander of ISS will add to her records
Todd Halvorson - Florida Today
A record-setting American astronaut rocketed into Space Saturday on a mission during which she’ll earn a new distinction to add to her already stellar resume. Sunita “Suni” Williams, who earned a master’s degree through Florida Tech, stands to become only the second female commander of the International Space Station when current skipper Gennady Padalka and two crewmates return to Earth in mid-September.
Space workers struggle a year after last shuttle
Mike Schneider - Associated Press
A year after NASA ended the three-decade-long U.S. space shuttle program, thousands of formerly well-paid engineers and other workers around the Kennedy Space Center are still struggling to find jobs to replace the careers that flourished when shuttles blasted off from the Florida "Space Coast." Some have headed to South Carolina to build airplanes in that state's growing industry, and others have moved as far as Afghanistan to work as government contractors. Some found lower-paying jobs beneath their technical skills that allowed them to stay. Many are still looking for work and cutting back on things like driving and utilities to save money.
NASA picks six SLS advanced booster proposals for more study
Lee Roop - Huntsville Times
NASA said Friday it has chosen six proposals -- three by Huntsville-based Dynetics, Inc. -- for further study to improve an advanced booster for its Space Launch System. The other three companies chosen are Northrop Grumman, Aerojet General Corp. and ATK Launch Systems, Inc. The winners will develop engineering demonstrations and risk-reduction concepts for a future heavy-lift rocket to take humans into deep space. Individual awards to the companies will vary, NASA said, but the space agency will spend up to a total of $200 million on the demonstrations.
Four Companies Picked for Advanced Booster Studies
Space News
Four companies will split $200 million in NASA funds to study concepts for the side-mounted boosters needed to power future configurations of the planned heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS), the U.S. space agency said July 13. The selected companies will now begin contract negotiations with NASA, the agency said in a press release. Awards for the 30-month study contracts are due in October, said NASA spokeswoman Kim Henry. NASA will use the results of the studies it funds to develop a solicitation for the next-generation SLS booster system. That solicitation is due out in 2015, according to NASA’s press release.
U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran backs plan to rehabilitate B-2 rocket test stand
Associated Press
U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran says he supports a proposal from NASA to rehabilitate and reuse the B-2 rocket test stand at Stennis Space Center in Hancock County, Miss. Cochran, R-Miss., says NASA proposes to spend $12 million initially on the project. He says the test stand would support NASA's Space Launch System program. Cochran, the ranking Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee, says Stennis is the only facility in the country capable of testing NASA's new heavy-lift vehicle that will replace the space shuttle.
ISS Experiment Blunder Blamed on Flawed Training
Debra Werner - Space News
NanoRacks LLC said July 13 that an internal investigation determined that some student-designed experiments delivered to the international space station (ISS) in May and returned to Earth in early July were never activated on-orbit due to a flaw in NanoRack’s astronaut training procedures. Jeffrey Manber, managing director of the Houston-based company, said in an email that NanoRacks will pay to refly the affected experiments. The experiments in question were fluids housed in Teflon vials, known as MixStix, that were among the cargo Space Exploration Technologies’ Dragon spacecraft delivered to the ISS in late May.
NASA Tests Robotic Gas Station Attendant for Outer Space
Katharine Gammon - Wired.com
Satellites use solar energy to power their electronics, but they rely on gas to maintain orbit or change position. Once tapped out, dead satellites become space junk, which threatens new orbital ventures. To prevent this, NASA is testing the feasibility of using robots to fuel and repair satellites on the fly or tow them to a new job site. In August, NASA will be asking Dextre, a two-armed robot torso built by the Canadian Space Agency and housed on the International Space Station, to use a variety of tools to reach a simulated sealed fuel tank and fill ‘er up.
UAB seniors engineer solution for NASA
WIAT TV (Birmingham)
They were about 5 years old when Buzz Lightyear’s catchphrase – “To infinity and beyond!” – was adopted by a generation of youngsters. Now, a group of students at the University of Alabama at Birmingham are living their childhood fantasies of working toward a space-based existence. School of Engineering students designed a test fixture for evaluating cryogenic insulation materials as part of an engineering senior design project. Their work revealed glass microspheres, hollow borosilicate glass spheres approximately the diameter of a human hair, are a more efficient thermal insulation solution than the current technology for the NASA GLACIER cryogenic freezer designed, which was previously developed by the UAB Center for Biophysical Sciences and Engineering. The microspheres will be incorporated into future GLACIER units and other CBSE projects pending approval from NASA officials at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
The closure of Aquarius Reef Base and America's scientific ambitions
Ben Hellwarth - Huffington Post
Were the U.S. to pull out of the International Space Station, a tidal wave of tweets and headlines would declare the end of an era and decry the scaling back of our national ambition, but little fuss has been made over the potential closure of the world's only remaining underwater research center. Though the history of manned oceanic exploration has paralleled the space race since the early 1960s, when we arrived on the moon and built a lab under the Pacific, the potential scrapping of Florida's Aquarius Reef Base has prompted no referendum on the future of science in America. Because the base has historically been as low profile as it has been scientifically invaluable, its supporters are now hoping that a final, highly-publicized mission and the help of some Hollywood stars might save the scientific outpost.
Construction Update
Space Shuttle Atlantis display at Kennedy Space Center
YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLrbvGIf5zE
A look at the construction progress of the new home for the Space Shuttle Orbiter Atlantis, which is being built at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. Recorded by Don Gworek on July 14, 2012. (NO FURTHER TEXT)
Space pioneers have shifted from public to private sectors
Andrew Follett - Las Cruces Sun-News (Opinion)
(Follett is a research associate at the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC.)
On July 20, 1969, two men landed on the moon. At the time, many thought this "one small step" marked the beginning of a new Age of Exploration. Breathtaking opportunities for all mankind were within reach. Today, NASA cannot put men into space. The agency's troubled Constellation program, meant to replace the Space Shuttle fleet, was canceled after billions was spent. What happened to the American dream of human space exploration?
NASA should consider closing sites to save space
John Kelly - Florida Today (Commentary)
Maintaining NASA centers from sea to sea is no longer necessary and closing some of them, and consolidating work, is about to get a long overdue look from a study demanded by Congress. Quietly meeting in recent months, the National Research Council’s “Committee on NASA’s Strategic Direction” is getting a push from influential members of Congress, which ordered up the study, to consider whether NASA’s far-flung centers and facilities are necessary, among other questions that could fundamentally change the way the agency works. And, NASA is not necessarily raising a stink in response. In fact, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden told the committee that it would be dishonest for the agency to argue that it needs all the facilities it currently has across the U.S.
Who's in Charge if We Find Life on Mars?
Matt Ridley - Wall Street Journal (Commentary)
If all goes well next month, Curiosity, NASA's latest mission to Mars, will land in the Gale crater, a 3.5-billion-year-old, 96-mile-wide depression near the planet's equator. Out will roll a car-size rover to search for signs of life, among other things. It will drill into rocks and sample the contents, using a mass spectrometer, a gas chromatograph and a laser spectrometer. In the unlikely event that the project finds evidence of life, then what? In particular, who is in charge of deciding what we should do if we encounter living Martian creatures?
Japan SELENE-2 Lunar Mission Planned For 2017
Srinivas Laxman - Asian Scientist Magazine
On the eve of the 43rd anniversary of NASA’s Apollo 11 launch which is on July 16, Japan announced on Sunday that it was planning a manned moon mission. Apollo 11 was the first human lunar mission which lifted off on July 16, 1969. The planned Japanese human lunar mission was announced at the 39th scientific assembly of Committee on Space Research (Cospar) which is currently being held in Mysore. Nearly 3,000 space scientists from 74 countries are participating in the meeting.
“Totally Different Moon”: The Arrival of Apollo 11
Ben Evans - AmericaSpace.org
When Apollo 11 and its three-man crew – Neil Armstrong, Mike Collins and Buzz Aldrin – rose into space on the morning of 16 July 1969, they embarked on the grandest adventure ever undertaken in human history: the first piloted voyage to the surface of the Moon. Yet, strangely, even after surviving a tumultuous launch atop the Saturn V rocket, performing the translunar injection burn and entering the mysterious region between Earth and the Moon, known as ‘cislunar space’, the main part of the mission had yet to begin. Their mission would really start after Lunar Orbit Insertion (LOI) on 19 July, and the series of increasingly bold and epochal events thereafter.
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COMPLETE STORIES
Soyuz blasts off on space station crew ferry flight
William Harwood – CBS News
A Soyuz spacecraft carrying a Russian commander, a NASA flight engineer and a Japanese astronaut -- all veteran space travelers -- blasted off and streaked into orbit late Saturday (U.S. time), the first leg of a two-day flight to the International Space Station.
Under a clear blue sky, the Soyuz TMA-05M spacecraft blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 10:40:03 p.m. EDT Saturday (8:40 a.m. local time) and quickly climbed away atop a rush of fiery exhaust.
The launching came on the 37th anniversary of the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz Test Project that opened the door to U.S.-Russian space cooperation.
"So how are you guys doing?" Vladimir Popovkin, director of the Russian federal space agency, asked the crew a few minutes before liftoff. "All comfy?"
"Yes sir, we're all situated and getting ready," Yuri Malenchenko, the Soyuz commander, replied.
"Excellent. I don't want to take up any more of you time. I wish you all the best, best of luck during the ascent and free flight operations. And hopefully, everything that you wish for will come true. All the best to you."
Live television from inside the central command module showed Malenchenko, strapped into the center seat, monitoring the automated ascent, flanked on the left by board engineer Sunita Williams and on the right by Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide. All three appeared relaxed as they monitored cockpit displays, tightly strapped into their custom-fitted couches.
The Soyuz rocket appeared to perform flawlessly and eight minutes and 45 seconds after launch, now moving at more than 5 miles per second, the TMA-05M spacecraft slipped into its planned preliminary orbit. A few moments later, the ship's two solar panels unfolded and antennas deployed as programmed.
"Congratulations on your orbital insertion," Popovkin radioed. "Everything was successful. I hope everything goes just as well from here on."
"Thank you so much," Malenchenko, presumably, replied.
A few moments later, after reviewing telemetry and tracking data, a flight controller added: "On behalf of myself personally and everybody else at the mission control center I'd like to congratulate you with a successful ascent (to) orbit. We wish you all the best. Have a very good flight."
If all goes well, Malenchenko will oversee an automated approach to the International Space Station, docking at the Earth-facing Rassvet module around 12:52 a.m. EDT Tuesday.
Standing by to welcome them aboard will be Expedition 32 commander Gennady Padalka, cosmonaut Sergei Revin and NASA astronaut Joseph Acaba, who were launched to the lab on May 15. They've had the station to themselves since July 1 when Expecdition 31 commander Oleg Kononenko, European Space Agency astronaut Andre Kuipers and NASA astronaut Donald Pettit returned to Earth.
The Soyuz TMA-05M launch kicks off a busy six weeks of work aboard the space station and at ground control centers in Japan, the United States and Russia.
On July 21, the Japanese space agency plans to launch an unmanned HTV cargo ship to the station. The next day, the Russian Progress M-15M supply craft docked to the station's Pirs module will undock, fly to a point about 250 miles away and then fly back to the station in an automated approach intended to test a new rendezvous antenna. Docking is expected around 1:24 a.m. EDT on July 24.
Three days after that, the astronauts will use the station's robot arm to capture the Japanese HTV so it can be berthed at the forward Harmony module. Hatches will be opened the next day.
On July 30, the Progress M-15M will be undocked for the final time, clearing the way for launch of the Progress M-16M cargo craft on Aug. 1. Two days later, the M-16M spacecraft, carrying a fresh load of supplies, is expected to dock at the Pirs module.
Along with the supply ship activity, four crew members will be gearing up for two spacewalks. Malenchenko and Padalka will venture outside on Aug. 16 to relocate a Russian cargo crane and to install micrometeoroid debris shields.
Williams and Hoshide will carry out a U.S. spacewalk Aug. 30 to replace a balky solar array power distribution box, called a main bus switching unit, and to install cables that will be needed after a new Russian lab module is delivered in a year or so.
"They've got a fantastically busy mission ahead of them, they are looking toward nine visiting vehicles during the time they're up on board the space station, which is really a lot of coming and going," said NASA chief astronaut Peggy Whitson, a veteran space station commander. "It's going to take a lot of choreography by the ground teams and the crews on orbit to make this all happen. It'll be a very challenging and exciting time for them."
Here is an updated launch-to-docking timeline for the Soyuz TMA-05M mission (in EDT and mission elapsed time). This timeline is provided for general guidance only. The docking time has been updated, but other rendezvous events may be off by a few minutes.
Soyuz rocket launches on mission to space station
Peter Leonard - Associated Press
A Russian Soyuz craft launched into the morning skies over Kazakhstan on Sunday, carrying three astronauts on their way to the International Space Station, where they will quickly start preparing for a frenzy of incoming traffic.
NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, Russian cosmonaut Yury Malenchenko and Japan's Akihito Hoshide are set to travel two days before reaching their three colleagues already at the permanent space outpost.
Families and colleagues watched the launch from an observation platform in the Russian-leased cosmodrome in the dry southern steppes of this sprawling Central Asian nation.
Liftoff took place at the exact scheduled time of 08:40 a.m. local time (0240 GMT), sending a deafening roar as the craft gained height.
Despite withstanding intense G-force pressure, the three astronauts looked relaxed in televised footage as they performed a series of routine operations.
The Soyuz jettisoned three rocket booster stages as it was propelled into orbit, which takes just over nine minutes.
At that stage, a doll given to Malenchenko as a mascot by his daughter and suspended over the three astronauts floated out of view on television footage, indicating the craft had escaped the earth's gravitational pull.
The shell that surrounds the capsule during the launch phase also peeled away, soaking the astronauts in bright yellow sunshine pouring through the viewing hatches.
The solar arrays that deployed on the Soyuz after orbital entry will provide the craft with the power it needs during its two-day trip.
Williams, tightly squeezed into the cramped craft, gave a thumbs-up sign and waved to onboard cameras as Russian space agency chief Vladimir Popovkin congratulated the crew over radio control.
Malenchenko, who is piloting the Soyuz, is one of Russia's most experienced astronauts and is making his fifth voyage into space.
Williams, who was born in Euclid, Ohio, and raised in Massachusetts, is on her second mission and will further extend the record for the longest sojourn in space for a female astronaut. The 46-year old astronaut, who is of Indian-American heritage, spent 195 days at the space station in 2006-2007.
Sunday's launch took place on the 37th anniversary of the landmark Apollo-Soyuz mission during which crafts from the United States and the Soviet Union docked in space, setting a precedent for scientific cooperation between the Cold War foes.
Williams said in a press conference ahead of the launch that the test mission laid the ground for a long-standing friendship and collaboration in the space program.
The Soyuz is schedule to dock Tuesday with the space station at 08:52 a.m. Moscow time (0452 GMT).
Russians Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin and U.S. astronaut Joseph Acaba, who make up the crew of Expedition 32, have been working at the space station since mid-May.
The space station, which orbits up to 410 kilometers (255 miles) above the earth, is braced to handle an unprecedented level of traffic.
Japan's HTV3 cargo ship will dock with the space station next week and will be the first of nine craft making contact with the orbiting satellite over a 17-day span.
Expeditions 32 and the incoming Expedition 33 have 33 experiments planned for their stay at the orbiting laboratory.
Russian Soyuz rocket blasts off for space station
Robin Paxton & Dmitry Solovyov - Reuters
A trio of Russian, Japanese and U.S. astronauts blasted off aboard a Soyuz spaceship on Sunday for a four-month mission on the International Space Station (ISS) that Moscow hopes will help restore confidence in its space programme.
Veteran Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, NASA astronaut Sunita Williams and Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide launched successfully aboard the Soyuz TMA-05M rocket from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 10:40 p.m. EDT on Saturday.
They are scheduled to berth early on Tuesday (late Monday EDT), joining NASA Flight Engineer Joseph Acaba and Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin aboard the ISS, a $100 billion research complex orbiting 240 miles above Earth.
"The Soyuz had a very smooth ride into space," a spokesman for NASA said during a live broadcast on the agency's television channel. The rocket blazed a bright orange trail through cloudy skies above the Kazakh steppe.
Since the retirement of the space shuttles last year, the United States is dependent on Russia to fly astronauts to the ISS, which costs the nation $60 million per person.
Moscow hopes a successful mission will help to restore confidence in its once-pioneering space programme after a string of launch mishaps last year, including the failure of a mission to return samples from the Martian moon Phobos.
The previous Soyuz launch on May 15 was delayed by more than one month to allow Russia's partly state-owned space contractor, RKK Energia, to prepare a new capsule for launch after an accident during pressure tests damaged the Soyuz crew capsule.
There were no such delays with Sunday's launch.
"The most tense, the most difficult part (of the launch) has been successfully implemented," said Vladimir Popovkin, head of Russian space agency Roscosmos.
"I have just spoken to the crew. They are feeling great," Russian news agencies quoted Popovkin as saying in Baikonur. "I have no doubts that all will go according to plan."
Malenchenko, a 50-year-old cosmonaut on his fifth space voyage, loosened his straps about 20 minutes after blast-off after conducting air pressure checks.
Asked by Mission Control how the crew was feeling, he replied: "Good." A doll given to Malenchenko by his daughter dangled from the roof of the capsule.
Williams and Hoshide are both on their second space flight and their first aboard a Soyuz spacecraft. They, along with Malenchenko, are scheduled to return to Earth in mid-November.
The previous crew of three at the ISS returned on July 1. Cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, NASA astronaut Don Pettit and European Space Agency astronaut Andre Kuipers helped to dock the first privately owned spacecraft during a six-month stint in orbit.
At the end of May, this crew released Space Exploration Technologies' unmanned Dragon cargo, which arrived as part of a test flight and was the first privately owned spaceship to reach the 15-nation ISS project.
Sunday's launch took place less than three weeks after China's Shenzhou 9 spacecraft returned to Earth, ending a mission that put the country's first woman in space.
Although China is far from catching up with the United States and Russia, the Shenzhou 9 marked China's fourth manned space mission since 2003 and comes as budget restraints and shifting priorities have held back U.S. manned space launches.
Astronaut, 2 others off to ISS on Soyuz
Todd Halvorson - Florida Today
An American astronaut and explorers from Russia and Japan are zooming toward the International Space Station today after a thundering launch from a central Asian spaceport.
Sunita “Suni” Williams blasted off with Yuri Malenchenko and Akihiko Hoshide at 10:40 p.m. EDT Saturday, setting off on a two-day flight to the International Space Station.
The launch took place on the 37th anniversary of the 1975 launches of U.S. and Russian spacecraft on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.
The blast-off occurred at the storied Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, from the same pad where the former Soviet Union sent up Russian Air Force pilot Yuri Gagarin on the first human space flight on April 20, 1961.
Williams, Malenchenko and Hoshide will join three others aboard the 1 million-pound space station, which covers an area as large as an American football field in space.
They include: Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, the first three-time commander of the international outpost; rookie cosmonaut Sergei Revin; and U.S. astronaut Joe Acaba, an educator-astronaut who taught integrated science at Melbourne High School in the 1999-2000 school year.
Williams, Malenchenko and Hoshide are expected to arrive at the world-class orbital research lab around 1 a.m. EDT on Tuesday.
Williams, 46, holds the world record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman – 195 days. In mid-September, Padalka will hand over the helm of the station to Williams.
Williams at that point will become only the second female to command the International Space Station. The first, U.S. astronaut Peggy Whitson, now is NASA Chief Astronaut.
Williams, Malenchenko and Hoshide are due back on Earth on Nov. 12.
New Space Station Crew Launches Into Orbit on Russian Spacecraft
Clara Moskowitz - Space.com
A Russian Soyuz rocket blasted off Saturday carrying new residents for the International Space Station, a trio of veteran spaceflyers representing Russia, the United States and Japan.
The rocket launched the Soyuz TMA-05M spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 10:40 p.m. EDT (0240 July 15 GMT), though it was early Sunday local time at the Central Asian spaceport. Onboard were an American, a Russian and a Japanese astronaut due to take up residence for four months at the orbiting outpost.
The Soyuz soared smoothly into a blue sky dotted with clouds, punching a hole a one cloud layer as it launched into orbit, according to a NASA broadcast. It is due to dock at the station early Tuesday, where the three newcomers will join the existing crew of three on the space station's Expedition 32 mission.
The new complement includes NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency spaceflyer Akihiko Hoshide.
"Unfortunately our mission is only four months — I wish it would be years and years and years," Williams said in a preflight briefing. "I'm really lucky to be flying with Yuri and Aki. I think we're going to have a great time."
An international milestone
By coincidence, the U.S.-Russian-Japanese crew's launch and docking is coinciding with the 37th anniversary of the world's first international space mission in history: the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.
On July 15, 1975, NASA launched an Apollo capsule as the former Soviet Union launched the Soyuz 19 capsule to perform the first international space docking test. The mission set the foundation for the international partnerships that have led to the $100 billion International Space Station in orbit today.
In September, the current station crew —Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin of Russia, and NASA astronaut Joe Acaba — will return to Earth, and Williams will relieve Padalka as space station commander. She will be the second female space station commander in the facility's history.
"I'm not good at bossing people around — but my husband might say that's not so true," Williams joked. "If I say we're going to do this, they all jump on it. Everybody's also felt free to offer their two cents. I think it's going to be really, honestly, pretty easy, and part of that is communication."
The international crew will each be bringing a taste of home and their own cultures with them to share.
"I'm not a very good cook, but fortunately we have a couple of Japanese foods that I'm bringing up, so I'd like to share that with my fellow crewmates during my stay," Hoshide told SPACE.com. "Just sharing stories, talking to each other provides a great base of international cooperation."
Busy flight ahead
The Expedition 32 mission will be chock full of activities, between space station maintenance, visiting robotic cargo spacecraft, spacewalks (extravehicular activities, or EVAs), and a full load of science experiments.
"That's a whole lot of work the crew has to do to do the berthings, the dockings and the EVAs," said Mike Suffredini, International Space Station Program manager. "In addition we will allocate 35 hours per week to research."
Several visiting unmanned spacecraft are expected to deliver supplies to the space station during Expedition 32. One of those space freighters, a Japanese HTV-2 cargo ship, is slated to launch in just six days, NASA officials said.
There is at least one Russian spacewalk planned during the crew's stay, and possibly an American-led one as well.
"To do an EVA, this is always something special; I can compare it to docking a vehicle to station, and going outside, it's something unusual," Malenchenko said. "So we are looking forward to do this."
And Williams, Malenchenko, and Hoshide may also be in space to see the first official cargo delivery by a private spacecraft, if commercial firm SpaceX (Space Exploration Technologies) launches its first Dragon supply-delivery run while they're there. Dragon flew a test mission to the space station in May, and is now prepping to launch the first of 12 delivery flights the company is contracted for over the coming years.
"Getting the commercial sector involved, I think it's a good thing," Hoshide said. "It opens up new doors. I'm looking forward to that very much."
U.S., Russian, Japanese Soyuz Crew Heads for ISS, Demanding Schedule
Mark Carreau - Aviation Week
U.S., Russian and Japanese astronauts face a flurry of re-supply craft and spacewalk activities in addition to a demanding research agenda, following their scheduled docking with the International Space Station early Tuesday.
Russia's 31 Soyuz mission spacecraft carrying NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and Akihiko Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Saturday at 10:40 p.m., EDT, or 8:40 a.m., local time.
“We wish you all the best,” Vladimir Popovkin, the head of the Russian Space Agency, ROSCOSMOS, radioed Malenchenko, Soyuz commander, and his U. S. and Japanese crewmates, moments before the departure.
The newcomers, trained for a four to five month stay, will be greeted as they dock by ISS Expedition 32 commander Gennady Padalka, fellow Russian Sergei Revin and NASA's Joe Acaba. Williams, Malenchenko and Hoshide will restore the station to six crew operations, replacing U.S., Russian and European crew members who returned to Earth on July 1.
The automated docking between the Soyuz TMA-05M transport capsule and the station is scheduled for Tuesday at 12:50 a.m. EDT.
Over the next six weeks, the expanded international crew will greet, cast off and carry out engineering tests with unpiloted Japanese and Russian commercial re-supply craft. Two spacewalks, including the first NASA outing in more than a year, are planned as well for the replacement of a faulty U.S. power distribution box, the addition of orbital debris shielding and external changes to accommodate the expected arrival of Russia's Multi-Purpose Research Module in 2013.
All the while, the six-member station crew is penciled in for an average of 35 hours of research activity with more than 200 on-going multi-national science and engineering experiments focused on astronaut health, astrophysics, bio-technology, earth observations, materials science, physics, plant growth and robotics.
"After docking, the crew really hits the ground running," said Dina Contella, NASA's lead Expedition 32 flight director.
"We have pretty accomplished crew. They are ready to go," Janet Kavandi, NASA's director of flight crew operations," told NASA TV, as she and others from the agency awaited the lift off from Kazakhstan. "They know what they are up against."
Williams, 46, holds the current world's record for long duration flight by a woman, 195 days, established during a 2006-07 mission to the space station; Malenchenko, 50, has logged three previous long duration missions, two on the ISS and one on Russia's former Mir space station as well as a 12-day station assembly mission while a shuttle crew member; Hoshide, 43, participated in a 2008 14-day shuttle station assembly mission.
Japan's third HTV re-supply craft is scheduled for a July 27 docking, seven days after launching from the Tanegashima Space Center with 4.6 tons of supplies and research gear. The HTV-3 cargo includes the station's first aquatic habitat, a space aquarium for madaka and zebra fish that will serve as subjects in a bone loss research project.
Russia's 47 Progress, which docked in April, will depart the station on July 22 for testing of a new KURS automated rendezvous antenna. The test will take the Russian freighter to a distance of 250 miles from the station before it returns the following day. A single new antenna is designed to replace four current antennas, reducing mass and power requirements. The 47 Progress spacecraft will be jettisoned from the Pirs docking port for good on July 30.
Russia's Progress 48 is scheduled for an July lift off 31on a two day rendezvous trajectory and docking with the station.
Padalka and Malenchenko are scheduled for an Aug. 16 spacewalk to prepare the Pirs module for the new Russian lab. The activities include the transfer of a second Strela equipment crane from the Pirs docking to the Zarya module and the installation of five orbital debris shields on the Zvezda service module.
Williams and Hoshide will follow with an Aug. 30 spacewalk to replace a main bus switching unit on the station’s solar power truss. The MBSU, which sustained apparent cosmic radiation damage in late 2011, routes solar power to U. S segment station components. Controllers have been unable to communicate with the MBSU, though it has continued to carry out its power distribution functions.
The NASA and JAXA spacewalkers will also distribute power and data cables for the new Russian lab across the U. S. segments of the station.
Russian Soyuz rocket blasts off to space station
Agence France Presse
A Russian Soyuz rocket blasted off from the Kazakh steppes Sunday with a crew of three, headed for the International Space Station. The US, Japanese, and Russian astronauts aboard are testing the reliability of Russia's space programme. By News Wires (text) AFP - A Soyuz rocket blasted off with an international crew of three toward the International Space Station on Sunday in a mission testing the reliability of Russia's crisis-prone space programme.
NASA's Sunita Williams and Japan's Akihiko Hoshide and Yury Malenchenko of Russia started their journey on top of the Soyuz-FG under the open skies of the Kazakh steppe on schedule and without a hitch.
The trio gave big thumbs up after the needle-shaped craft pierced a thin layering of white clouds and safely reached orbit about nine minutes later.
"Goodbye Planet Earth for now! Woo Hoo!" Williams tweeted a few hours before the 305-tonne craft shook the ground with a violent orange explosion of booster rocket flames.
Russia's Roscosmos space programme chief Vladimir Popovkin told reporters that he spoke briefly to the crew members a few minutes into their journey and "They feel fine. I have no doubts that everything will go well."
Live footage from inside the Soyuz TMA-05M capsule that will dock to the ISS after a two-day journey showed a small doll in a red dress hanging before the three space travellers as a good luck charm as the rocket gathered pace.
The astronauts read calmly through thick printouts of their crew procedures while mission commander Malenchenko picked at some of the more distant controls on the panel with a black stick in his hand.
"That is one of the more low-tech aspects of the Soyuz spacecraft," the NASA flight commentator said in a live video feed.
"Some of those buttons are a little bit far away from the crew members so that stick makes it a little easier for him to access the controls."
The workhorse of Russian spaceflight -- briefly grounded last year amid a spate of launch accidents affecting cargo craft and satellites -- today represents the world's last human link to the international science lab.
The final launch of a US satellite in July 2011 left nations dependent on the reliability of Russia's Soviet-era space achievements while governments and private companies scramble for new ways to launch humans to the station and beyond.
The US company SpaceX blazed a new path for private spaceflight by sending a cargo vessel called Dragon to the ISS in May.
But the reliability of such spacecraft is still too untested to entrust them with humans even as other companies join the private space race.
Russia's underfunded Roscosmos agency meanwhile has been hit by turmoil that saw several changes in leadership and bickering with other segments of the space programme -- particularly those responsible for updating the Soyuz.
Roscosmos had earlier this year released a somewhat vague mission statement through 2030 that emphasised new voyages to the Moon and the further scientific exploration of Mars while downplaying human spaceflight.
It also placed a short-term emphasis on purchasing foreign technology that could help bring Russia up to par with the United States.
The team speeding toward the ISS will join Russians Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin as well as NASA astronaut Joseph Acaba -- a crew that lifted off from the Moscow-leased launch centre in Kazakhstan on May 15.
Both Williams and Akihiko have experience on board the space station but had never before travelled on the Soyuz.
Akihiko particularly expressed thanks to those preparing the Russian craft for the journey and tweeted that "everybody is working with pride."
Williams -- a naval aviator who was once deployed to Iraq -- for her part told reporters that she will be excited to watch the London Summer Olympic Games from the station and put a much more global perspective on the event.
New commander of ISS will add to her records
Todd Halvorson - Florida Today
A record-setting American astronaut rocketed into Space Saturday on a mission during which she’ll earn a new distinction to add to her already stellar resume.
Sunita “Suni” Williams, who earned a master’s degree through Florida Tech, stands to become only the second female commander of the International Space Station when current skipper Gennady Padalka and two crewmates return to Earth in mid-September.
“I didn’t even realize that. I mean, of course I knew (NASA Chief Astronaut) Peggy Whitson was the commander of the space station before, but I never really put two and two together that I would be number two,” Williams told Florida Today.
Williams, 46, blasted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 10:40 p.m. EDT along with Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and Akihiko Hoshide of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. They’re due to arrive early Tuesday.
A veteran astronaut , Williams will serve as a flight engineer on the research complex until mid-September at which point Padalka will hand over command. Padalka is due to return to Earth on Sept. 17 with Russian cosmonaut Sergei Revin and U.S. astronaut Joe Acaba, who taught science at Melbourne High in 1999 and 2000.
Williams already is a distinguished astronaut. She holds the world record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman — 195 days.
She also set world records for the highest number of spacewalks ever tallied by a woman — four — and total time spent spacewalking, 29 hours and 17 minutes. Whitson subsequently surpassed both marks.
And Williams is the only astronaut to turn in a marathon performance in orbit.
On April 16, 2007, she tethered herself to a treadmill on the International Space Station and ran 26.2 miles during the 111th Boston Marathon. Her time: four hours, 24 minutes.
Williams said she has no plans for a repeat performance. However, with the 2012 Summer Olympics coming up in London, there may be room for some kind of orbital relay race.
She and Hoshide will be the subjects of an experiment to determine whether short, intense exercise — rather than typical two-hour workouts each day on the station —would better counteract the effects of weightlessness on the human body.
“It’s going to be a great mission, really exciting, lots of things to do,” Williams said. “I mean, it’s pretty unbelievable when you think about all the things that are on the menu out there, waiting for us.”
Williams, Malenchenko and Hoshide are scheduled to return to Earth on Nov. 12.
Space workers struggle a year after last shuttle
Mike Schneider - Associated Press
A year after NASA ended the three-decade-long U.S. space shuttle program, thousands of formerly well-paid engineers and other workers around the Kennedy Space Center are still struggling to find jobs to replace the careers that flourished when shuttles blasted off from the Florida "Space Coast."
Some have headed to South Carolina to build airplanes in that state's growing industry, and others have moved as far as Afghanistan to work as government contractors. Some found lower-paying jobs beneath their technical skills that allowed them to stay. Many are still looking for work and cutting back on things like driving and utilities to save money.
"Nobody wants to hire the old guy," said Terry White, a 62-year-old former project manager who worked 33 years for the shuttle program until he was laid off after Atlantis landed last July 21. "There just isn't a lot of work around here. Or if so, the wages are really small."
White earned more than $100,000 a year at the end of his career at the space center. The prospects of finding a job that pay anywhere near that along the Space Coast are slim.
"I could take an $11-an-hour job that is 40 miles away," he said "But with gas prices and all that, it's not really worthwhile."
More than 7,400 people, who once had labored on one of history's most complicated engineering achievements, lost their jobs when the shuttle program ended last July. While other shuttle workers in Houston, New Orleans and Huntsville, Ala., lost jobs, those areas had bigger economies to absorb the workers. In less economically diverse Brevard County, the mainly contractor positions cut by NASA accounted for just under 5 percent of the county's private sectors jobs.
The Kennedy Space Center's current workforce of 8,500 workers is the smallest in more in than 35 years. In the middle of the last decade, the space center employed around 15,000 workers.
James Peek, a 48-year-old quality inspector for the shuttles, has applied for 50 positions with no success since he was laid off in October 2010. He has taken odd jobs glazing windows for a luxury hotel in Orlando and working as a security guard. He has no health insurance and incurred a $13,000 bill when he was hospitalized for three days last May.
"With most companies, it's like your application goes into a black hole," Peek said. "We're struggling to stay afloat."
Jobless space workers have signed up for Brevard Workforce's job placement and training services. Slightly more than half of the 5,700 workers the agency has been able to track have found jobs, but more than a quarter of those positions were outside Florida. Those jobs have been in the fields of engineering, mechanics and security, according to the agency.
Brevard County's unemployment rate spiked in the months that the shuttle program wound down, going from 10.6 percent in April 2011 to 11.7 percent in August 2011. It has since declined to 9 percent, a result of a smaller workforce as many former shuttle workers either moved away or retired earlier than planned. Brevard County has added 2,700 jobs since the beginning of the year, but many are in the southern part of the 72-mile-long county where information technology giant Harris Corp. and airplane-maker Embraer are located. Jobless space workers in the northern part of the county jokingly refer to those high-tech workers as "their rich cousins."
Some local employers are finding that the former space workers' salary demands are sometimes too high.
"STOP sending former Space Center employees," one employer wrote to Brevard Workforce, the local job agency, in a comment included in its monthly committee report. "They have an unrealistic salary expectation."
Taxpayer money allocated for job training programs for displaced space shuttle workers also is dwindling a year after the program ended.
Adding to the difficulties of finding a new job is the age of many of the former shuttle workers. Many spent their entire careers working on the space shuttles and are now in their 50s and 60s.
In between sending out resumes and meeting at networking events, many of the space workers are volunteering at Kennedy Space Center, giving tours to dignitaries and providing oral histories to tourists who stop by the Vehicle Assembly Building.
Even though many of the older space workers like White had years to plan for the end of the shuttle program, they stuck around, hoping to prepare the orbiters for displays in museums in Florida, Los Angeles and Washington after the program ended. They expected younger shuttle workers to move over to the successor Constellation program whose goal was to send astronauts to the moon and then Mars. But the cancellation of the Constellation program in 2010 increased the competition for those few jobs left prepping the shuttles.
Some shuttle workers, such as Kevin Harrington, had been holding out hope that the program announced after Constellation's demise – a heavy-lift rocket system that would launch astronauts in an Orion space capsule – would offer immediate widespread job opportunities. But the plans announced last year won't have unmanned test launches of the Space Launch System for another five years, and the first manned mission won't be for about another decade.
Private-sector companies, such as Paypal founder Elon Musk's Space X, are starting unmanned launches from Kennedy Space Center, but their need for workers doesn't come close to what was required for the shuttle program.
"We expected a little more action from our government, at least in figuring out what direction we're going to go in," said Harrington, 55, who worked on the shuttles' thermal protection system earning about $80,000 a year. "Ultimately, that would inform which direction we would go in. A lot of us thought, since we have such deep roots in the community, we could wait it out. It was hopeful at first. Now it isn't so hopeful. Things aren't moving fast."
Many of the former space workers find camaraderie and job tips each Friday at the weekly breakfast of the Spacecoast Technical Network, a group created by former Kennedy Space Center workers. Just hours before 70 members dined on eggs, biscuits and coffee at a recent meeting, three Chinese astronauts parachuted back to Earth in a capsule halfway around the world. For the space workers, it was yet another sign of the growing competition facing the United States as a leader of space exploration. At the moment, the United States has no way of sending astronauts to space in its own vehicles, and NASA is relying on the Soviet-made Soyuz capsules to send U.S. astronauts to the international space station.
One of the network's founders, Bill Bender, recently joined more than two dozen other colleagues working on a reconnaissance project for a contractor in Afghanistan where they are earning six-figure annual incomes.
Bender had been out of work for about a year from his job on the cancelled Constellation program when he took the one-year contract to work halfway around the world.
"As the months passed, I began to realize the hard reality that things I had known and taken for granted no longer existed. Stable work, good pay, benefits, etc. were no longer a reasonable expectation," Bender wrote in a recent email from Afghanistan. "As time went by and it was getting closer to a year without a job ... the (Afghan) opportunity looked better and better. The money was very good due to compensation for hardship and danger."
Those who have remained on the Space Coast without jobs are cutting back on small luxuries. Harrington has trimmed back on eating out and vacations.
Al Schmidt, who worked 27 years at the space center, has cut back on using his car and utilities at home to save money. The 60-year-old's unemployment benefits are running out soon, and without a new U.S. space program offering ready-to-go jobs, he is contemplating retirement, something he doesn't want to do.
"I live day to day. I can't afford new cars or lots of groceries," Schmidt said. "From where I sit, there is nothing coming online soon enough to resolve my problem."
NASA picks six SLS advanced booster proposals for more study
Lee Roop - Huntsville Times
NASA said Friday it has chosen six proposals -- three by Huntsville-based Dynetics, Inc. -- for further study to improve an advanced booster for its Space Launch System. The other three companies chosen are Northrop Grumman, Aerojet General Corp. and ATK Launch Systems, Inc.
The winners will develop engineering demonstrations and risk-reduction concepts for a future heavy-lift rocket to take humans into deep space. Individual awards to the companies will vary, NASA said, but the space agency will spend up to a total of $200 million on the demonstrations.
The proposals are:
· "Subscale Composite Tank Set," Northrop Grumman Systems Corp Aerospace Systems
· "Full-Scale Combustion Stability Demonstration," Aerojet General Corp.
· "F-1 Engine Risk Reduction Task," Dynetics Inc.
· "Main Propulsion System Risk Reduction Task," Dynetics Inc.
· "Structures Risk Reduction Task," Dynetics Inc.
· "Integrated Booster Static Test," ATK Launch Systems Inc.
"The initial SLS heavy-lift rocket begins with the proven hardware, technology and capabilities we have today and will evolve over time to a more capable launch vehicle through competitive opportunities," said William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for the Human Exploration Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "While the SLS team is making swift progress on the initial configuration and building a solid baseline, we also are looking ahead to enhance and upgrade future configurations of the heavy lift vehicle. We want to build a system that will be upgradable and used for decades."
The initial launch system uses two five-segment solid rocket boosters similar to the ones that lifted the space shuttle into orbit. Future launch systems will need much more power than is currently available from any existing U.S. rocket. SLS is being designed for crew and cargo missions to deep space targets including an asteroid in 2025 and Mars in the 2030s.
Four Companies Picked for Advanced Booster Studies
Space News
Four companies will split $200 million in NASA funds to study concepts for the side-mounted boosters needed to power future configurations of the planned heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS), the U.S. space agency said July 13.
The selected companies will now begin contract negotiations with NASA, the agency said in a press release. Awards for the 30-month study contracts are due in October, said NASA spokeswoman Kim Henry. NASA will use the results of the studies it funds to develop a solicitation for the next-generation SLS booster system. That solicitation is due out in 2015, according to NASA’s press release.
SLS is the congressionally mandated heavy-lift rocket NASA is designing for future deep-space missions. Early SLS flights will launch with five-segment solid rocket boosters developed by ATK Launch Systems of Magna, Utah, for the cancelled Constellation program.
Future SLS configurations, however, must be able to lift 130 metric tons to low Earth orbit. To do that, SLS will need new boosters that are more powerful than the ATK-developed solids. These next-generation boosters could be either solid- or liquid-fueled, NASA has said.
The four selected companies are:
· Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems, which proposed a subscale composite tank set.
· Aerojet General Corp., which proposed a full-scale combustion stability demonstration.
· Dynetics Inc., which submitted three winning proposals for risk reduction work on the Apollo-era F-1 engine, a main propulsion system, and booster structures.
· ATK Launch Systems, which proposed a static test of an integrated booster.
In its first two flights, scheduled for 2017 and 2021, an SLS capable of lifting 70 metric tons to orbit will send the Lockheed Martin-built Orion crew capsule around the Moon and back. Only the second flight will carry astronauts.
U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran backs plan to rehabilitate B-2 rocket test stand
Associated Press
U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran says he supports a proposal from NASA to rehabilitate and reuse the B-2 rocket test stand at Stennis Space Center in Hancock County, Miss. Cochran, R-Miss., says NASA proposes to spend $12 million initially on the project. He says the test stand would support NASA's Space Launch System program.
Cochran, the ranking Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee, says Stennis is the only facility in the country capable of testing NASA's new heavy-lift vehicle that will replace the space shuttle.
Stennis has been conducting testing on the J-2X rocket engine, which would provide upper-stage power for NASA's SLS.
Cochran says the decision to reuse the B-2 test stand followed an SLS program evaluation of the costs and benefits of options for required testing of SLS engines.
ISS Experiment Blunder Blamed on Flawed Training
Debra Werner - Space News
NanoRacks LLC said July 13 that an internal investigation determined that some student-designed experiments delivered to the international space station (ISS) in May and returned to Earth in early July were never activated on-orbit due to a flaw in NanoRack’s astronaut training procedures. Jeffrey Manber, managing director of the Houston-based company, said in an email that NanoRacks will pay to refly the affected experiments.
The experiments in question were fluids housed in Teflon vials, known as MixStix, that were among the cargo Space Exploration Technologies’ Dragon spacecraft delivered to the ISS in late May.
Once onboard the space station, an astronaut was supposed to start each experiment by flexing the tube to mix the fluids. When the vials were returned to students via the Russian Soyuz that landed July 1, many researchers determined their experiments were never activated.
“Previous crews were given on the ground review and personal interaction prior to launch,” Manber said. “For this mission, the astronaut received hardware training solely via video while on the space station. Clearly, there was a miscommunication resulting from the video instruction.”
In the future, NanoRacks plans to change the MixStix instructional video, train astronauts prior to missions if possible and review other NanoRacks videos to make sure future missions are successful, Manber added.
NASA Tests Robotic Gas Station Attendant for Outer Space
Katharine Gammon - Wired.com
Satellites use solar energy to power their electronics, but they rely on gas to maintain orbit or change position. Once tapped out, dead satellites become space junk, which threatens new orbital ventures.
To prevent this, NASA is testing the feasibility of using robots to fuel and repair satellites on the fly or tow them to a new job site.
The agency’s Satellite Servicing Capabilities Office has identified 242 end-of-lifers destined to run out of gas in the next five to six years.
The challenge is that, for now, before a satellite leaves the ground, technicians fill its fuel tank and seal it—for good. “No satellite in orbit was designed to be serviced, because no servicer exists,” says Ben Reed, an engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
In August, NASA will be asking Dextre, a two-armed robot torso built by the Canadian Space Agency and housed on the International Space Station, to use a variety of tools to reach a simulated sealed fuel tank and fill ‘er up.
Engineers on the ground in Houston will control the maneuvers, which are the most intricate ever done by a robot in space. After NASA completes these proof-of-concept tests, Reed says, the agency will encourage private companies to take up the technique.
Hopefully a few will step up and offer roadside assistance in space.
UAB seniors engineer solution for NASA
WIAT TV (Birmingham)
They were about 5 years old when Buzz Lightyear’s catchphrase – “To infinity and beyond!” – was adopted by a generation of youngsters. Now, a group of students at the University of Alabama at Birmingham are living their childhood fantasies of working toward a space-based existence.
School of Engineering students Logan Beane, Jeffery Black, Amanda Haglund, Brandon Kirkland and Justin Terrell designed a test fixture for evaluating cryogenic insulation materials as part of an engineering senior design project. Their work revealed glass microspheres, hollow borosilicate glass spheres approximately the diameter of a human hair, are a more efficient thermal insulation solution than the current technology for the NASA GLACIER cryogenic freezer designed, which was previously developed by the UAB Center for Biophysical Sciences and Engineering.
The microspheres will be incorporated into future GLACIER units and other CBSE projects pending approval from NASA officials at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
“The students took a real-life project and problem that needed to be resolved for the next generation of CBSE cryogenic freezers, and they made it happen in two semesters,” says Lee Moradi, Ph.D., P.E., director of engineering at the CBSE.
“The business community needs to build more relationships like this project,” Moradi says. “The more collaboration with local industry, the better chances for students to have a job when they graduate. And working with quality students on projects means businesses have free help finding real-world solutions. It is win-win.”
Air in the NASA GLACIER is circulated through a heat exchanger insulated by a combination of aerogel blankets and vacuum pressure called the GLACIER vacuum jacket. The aerogel blanket has to be measured, cut and wrapped section by section around the complex geometry of the heat exchanger until it’s filled as tightly as possible. This process is tedious and the insulation potential depends highly on installation technique.
CBSE scientists believed the microspheres would be an improvement over the aerogel blanket and asked UAB students to design and fabricate a test chamber that replicates the heat exchanger.
The students tested both materials at varying vacuum pressures. Steady state temperatures were recorded by platinum resistance temperature detectors and revealed glass microspheres as the better option.
The UAB students also reported another energy advantage for glass microspheres when compared with the aerogel blanket — manpower. It took weeks to wrap the internal heat exchanger with the blanket, but only days to fill the insulation region with the microspheres.
Kirkland said testing revealed glass microspheres offered a significant insulation improvement at GLACIERs operating conditions for two reasons. “First, they have better thermal performance in the high-vacuum environments. Second, they flow like a liquid, so the insulation potential can be maximized.”
“Oftentimes in engineering, students don’t understand and anticipate potential issues that can occur during the design process because of limited, first-hand experience. The students deserve much credit for quickly identifying issues associated with configuring the different insulation materials in GLACIER and also for understanding the way the entire system works,” says CBSE systems engineer Jud Dunlap, who mentored the students with research engineers David Ray and Lance Weise.
The closure of Aquarius Reef Base and America's scientific ambitions
Ben Hellwarth - Huffington Post
Were the U.S. to pull out of the International Space Station, a tidal wave of tweets and headlines would declare the end of an era and decry the scaling back of our national ambition, but little fuss has been made over the potential closure of the world's only remaining underwater research center. Though the history of manned oceanic exploration has paralleled the space race since the early 1960s, when we arrived on the moon and built a lab under the Pacific, the potential scrapping of Florida's Aquarius Reef Base has prompted no referendum on the future of science in America.
Because the base has historically been as low profile as it has been scientifically invaluable, its supporters are now hoping that a final, highly-publicized mission and the help of some Hollywood stars might save the scientific outpost. Still, the future appears bleak. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which owns the habitat, wishes to terminate its National Undersea Research Program. Aquarius is a major component of NURP, though official statements rarely mention it.
"While we are grateful for the advances that NURP science has contributed, the current fiscal climate has required NOAA and all agencies to make some very tough budgetary choices," says Fred Gorell, a NOAA spokesman. "As such, the fiscal year 2013 budget request proposes to terminate NURP funding."
Tough budgetary choices are a reality of modern U.S. politics, but the termination of NURP, and with it, Aquarius, adds up to an annual savings of no more than $4 million a year. The Aquarius base typically gets by on about $2.5 million a year, a drop in the fiscal bucket compared to $450 million per space shuttle mission or the $1.4 million the agency drops on a defunct moon program daily thanks to vague legal language.
Ironically, Aquarius's low cost has likely contributed to its low profile. The program can be cut precisely because ordinary citizens haven't heard of it because it isn't expensive enough to be worth cutting. The lab is a perfect example of practical spending.
Operational since the late 1980s and situated 60 feet below the surface a few miles south of the Florida Keys, Aquarius has quietly given scientists prolonged access to the seabed, a unique opportunity to observer the oceanic ecosystem consistently and over time.
"Being able to study the animals and plants in their home using an underwater habitat gives me the gift of time," says Sylvia Earle, the National Geographic Society Explorer-in-Residence known as "Her Deepness" thanks to a long and prosperous career under the waves. "Time to see what these magnificent life forms are actually doing on the reef; time to notice the small and seemingly insignificant things that later turn out to be a sea secret. Every time I live underwater I come back with new insights and a hundred new questions."
The many marine researchers who have taken part in more than 120 Aquarius missions over the years often say the same thing -- a version of "to really know the sea, you have to live and work in the sea." Scientists have several hundred published papers in top-notch journals to show for their time on the bottom spent studying conditions that relate both to life on the reef itself and to larger issues, like ocean acidification and the overall health of the oceans, which is of course inextricably linked to the health of the earth.
A coral reef like this one is a good place for a researcher to be stationed, says Mark Patterson, a professor of marine science at the College of William & Mary who was in on selecting the Aquarius site, a sandy patch in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.
"Coral reefs are the most diverse ecosystems in the ocean and may also have the highest biodiversity of perhaps any habitat on the planet, certainly equal to the rainforest if not exceeding it," says Patterson, who will join Earle on an eight-day mission set to begin July 14. The researchers will be focusing on the biology of corals and sponges on the reef, where, among other things, changes related to global warming have made sponges more dominant than corals.
They will also be waving for the cameras.
Aquarius operators hope to attract public attention by bringing Dr. Earle along for the rinse. U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, whose congressional district includes the Florida Keys, will be taking the dip as well, encouraging NOAA to fund the project with a sliver of its $5 billion budget.
Just in case this last dip effort doesn't work, supporters have hurriedly set up a nonprofit Aquarius Foundation and begun raising money to keep the base in business, says Tom Potts, the base's director. The Foundation's board already boasts some prominent members, including renowned underwater photographer Stephen Frink, former Wall Street financier Audra Santoro and Joseph Pawlik, a professor in the Department of Biology and Marine Biology at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. But these names, while notable, are not nearly so well known as those Potts hopes to attract.
The producer Jon Landau, whose credits include "Avatar" and "Titanic," was recently invited to pay a visit to Aquarius. After resurfacing, he suggested that his frequent collaborator James Cameron, follow his lead. Though Cameron, an avid underwater explorer himself, has not made a pilgrimage yet, his presence could draw additional attention to base's tenuous position as two established nonprofit organizations, the Divers Alert Network and One World One Ocean, funnel donations to the foundation.
Negotiations are now under way to keep money flowing from NOAA long enough to ease a potential public to private transition for the dozen or so staff and contract workers who run the base out of a pair of converted canal-front houses in Key Largo.
The Aquarius habitat itself, encrusted with sea life after years on the bottom, is just over forty feet long and tank-like in appearance, a pressurized, climate-controlled underwater RV. It can hold up to six occupants who can don diving gear and swim into the surrounding water at any time of day or night. They come and go through a door-sized hatch in the floor that remains open. The elevated air pressure inside the habitat matches the water pressure outside so the water stops at the doorstep, forming a kind of liquid looking glass. The aquanauts can spend hours at a time outside the habitat, far longer than the mere minutes they'd have if making ordinary dives from the surface, a historic breakthrough attributable to diving methods developed in the 1960s.
Navy divers have trained at Aquarius, and just last month NASA astronauts were back for another in an ongoing series of training missions. It turns out that living and working on the sea floor is about the closest the astronauts can get on earth to the experience of living and working, say, on an asteroid -- weightless, isolated, and subject to all manner of unexpected occurrences in a hostile environment. This Navy and NASA use has also provided a welcome source of revenue for Aquarius -- the proverbial win-win.
Just a half-century ago, as the nation set its sights on the moon, the concept of equipping free-swimming divers to work out of a sea-floor base sounded like science fiction. No one had ever done such a thing and the very notion went against long-established diving limits, both in terms of depth and duration. Then the U.S. Navy let a few eager scientists and divers loose and - reluctantly at first - the Navy put some money into Sealab, a series of experimental undersea habitats.
While probes, robotic devices and sensors may be cheaper or better suited to some types of undersea monitoring and exploration - just as they are in the harsh, distant destinations of outer space -- Sealab became a dramatic demonstration of how extended stays by human divers in a properly outfitted undersea shelter were indeed possible, and that such manned missions could have distinct advantages for scientific, military or industrial purposes.
A smattering of several dozen habitats around the world followed the example of Sealab, including an American-led project called Tektite, a successful venture of the early 1970s in which none other than Sylvia Earle led an all-female aquanaut team. A little later a privately instigated research habitat called La Chalupa ran missions for a few years. In the 1980s it was converted it into Jules' Undersea Lodge, the world's only underwater hotel, which is in a Key Largo lagoon, not far from Aquarius headquarters.
If Aquarius, the last of the undersea habitats, is able to survive, there's probably a better chance there might someday be others, in other places, as once envisioned.
Some forward-looking American politicians even see this as a time to expand mankind's underwater presence instead of retreating to the surface.
"I would think it would ideal to have a vessel like this, say, along the Great Barrier Reef, in the Coral Triangle, maybe somewhere in the South Pacific, in northern latitudes as well," says former congressman Brian Baird, who served on the House Committee on Science and Technology and made several dives to Aquarius during his six terms. "Station them around the world in key locations and combine that data and build the expertise."
Following the example of America's original aquanauts, would mean expanding our reach into the semi-final frontier. Without Aquarius, it'll be harder to get back to that future.
Space pioneers have shifted from public to private sectors
Andrew Follett - Las Cruces Sun-News (Opinion)
(Follett is a research associate at the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC.)
On July 20, 1969, two men landed on the moon. At the time, many thought this "one small step" marked the beginning of a new Age of Exploration.
Breathtaking opportunities for all mankind were within reach. Today, NASA cannot put men into space. The agency's troubled Constellation program, meant to replace the Space Shuttle fleet, was canceled after billions was spent. What happened to the American dream of human space exploration?
Put simply, government happened. To beat the Soviets to the moon, it created a bureaucracy, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which quickly devolved into a jobs program to bring home the space bacon. NASA lacked incentive to pursue its primary mission of exploration and scientific inquiry. The United States today lacks manned spaceflight capability for the first time since 1961. How can we dream of the stars without the iconic shuttles?
SpaceX, the brainchild of PayPal co-founder Elon Musk, has answered this question with its Falcon 9/Dragon space launch system. The Dragon capsule recently made headlines as the first private craft to deliver cargo to the International Space Station. Each Falcon 9 launch costs around $54 million. If the Space Shuttle were around today, it would cost more than $1.6 billion per launch. It is hard to imagine a better example of the private sector's amazing ability to out-compete government bureaucracy. One shuttle launch could pay for 29 SpaceX launches, and leave $34 million to spare.
Unfortunately, the government has been going in the opposite direction. Under President Obama's new NASA budget, money is shifted from the successful parts of NASA, like its robotic exploration program, to areas which produce nothing tangible, such as its environmental sciences program. Obama's budget manages to cut every part of NASA that actually works, including planetary science programs, technological development programs, and many important future Mars missions - without saving any money! As none other than Neil Armstrong, who is rarely outspoken, puts it, NASA is basically doomed to yet another decade of doing nothing in space.
NASA has actually been reduced to holding bake sales to try to convince lawmakers to save these programs. Unfortunately for the agency, it doesn't have a strong case. Estimates put the cost of the now-cancelled Constellation program at $230 billion. The original cost estimates for the George H. W. Bush era Space Exploration Initiative, projected to stretch across three decades, typically fell in the range of $400 to $500 billion. Contrast that with the $300 million spent by SpaceX to develop the Falcon 9 in a little over four years, and the difference between government and private enterprise becomes clear.
Perhaps the greatest triumph of private spaceflight was achieved by aviation pioneer Burt Rutan in 2004, when his company, Scaled Composites, put a live human crew in orbit with its innovative vehicle, Space Ship One. For its feat, the Space Ship One team won the Ansari X Prize, which is awarded by the nonprofit X Prize Foundation.
The X Prize offers a useful example on how to tap the immense power of free enterprise to put America at the forefront of space flight again - all while cutting costs. Interestingly, Newt Gingrich made a similar proposal when he was Speaker of the House. Essentially, he wanted to create a $10 billion prize to be awarded to the first private entity to land a human on Mars. While private funding for such a prize would be ideal, a federal prize would be a great value if NASA wants continue their role in space travel.
The prize wouldn't be paid out until the mission was complete, so the opinions of politicians about the feasibility of a Mars mission would matter less than the willingness of entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk and Burt Rutan to accept the risk of pursuing such an award. A system based on a fixed prize would end government cost overruns and waste.
It is a simple fact that people spend their own money more intelligently than that of others. Private American space firms are currently pursuing accomplishments beyond those of SpaceX, and more advanced and ambitious than the entire government space programs of China and the European Union. Bigelow Aerospace, for example, has created an expandable hotel in space and launched two component units into orbit. It is now possible to buy a ticket for a suborbital spaceflight today with Virgin Galactic. Mars One is even planning a private Mars mission by 2023, decades ahead of NASA's schedule. The spirit of innovation and ingenuity that drove the early Apollo missions never died - it simply took root in the private sector. The new Age of Exploration, a competitive, profit-driven space race against the limits of human imagination, is only just beginning.
NASA should consider closing sites to save space
John Kelly - Florida Today (Commentary)
Maintaining NASA centers from sea to sea is no longer necessary and closing some of them, and consolidating work, is about to get a long overdue look from a study demanded by Congress.
Quietly meeting in recent months, the National Research Council’s “Committee on NASA’s Strategic Direction” is getting a push from influential members of Congress, which ordered up the study, to consider whether NASA’s far-flung centers and facilities are necessary, among other questions that could fundamentally change the way the agency works. And, NASA is not necessarily raising a stink in response. In fact, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden told the committee that it would be dishonest for the agency to argue that it needs all the facilities it currently has across the U.S.
“I urge you to take a close look at the agency’s structure and facilities,” said U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf, the Virginia Republican who chairs the House Appropriations Committee that sets the budgets of NASA and other federal government agencies, in a letter to the committee’s chair. “If NASA were being established today, how would it be structured and what would its priority programs be for the 21st century?” Based on Wolf’s statements and the questioning the committee has done thus far with NASA officials, it’s clear that the review will include some recommendations about NASA centers.
NASA is not just Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Johnson Space Center in Houston and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. And, it extends beyond the rocket engineering experts at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. There are sizable NASA centers in the San Francisco area and in Ohio, Mississippi, Virginia and Maryland. There are smaller satellite offices across the nation, some independent NASA facilities and others where decent numbers of NASA employees work hand in hand with contractors. And there’s the bureaucracy at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
It’s too parochial to say that the important centers are places like Kennedy, of course, because that’s where we launch astronauts and science missions to space. Important groundbreaking science and engineering work is done at every NASA center. However, internal NASA documents and outside reviews indicate hundreds of NASA facilities that are being maintained but not used. Hallways full of offices sit empty in some buildings. Test facilities that haven’t been used for five, 10 or more years are being maintained and kept available in case they’re someday needed, audits indicate.
There is unfilled office, lab and building space available at every NASA center in the country, according to the agency’s own assessments of its real property. So it’s worth an examination of how it is being used, or not used. What could be sold? What could be leased? Could a full center or two be closed and the work done there relocated to a center with a glut of available facilities?
The questions are not as easy as they might appear to budget hawks. Some facilities are incredibly unique and, if NASA didn’t operate them, it’s possible that no one would. Those questions will be worthy of serious investigation. But, as the administrator says, it’s clear that the agency does not need all it has and how much of that waste might be better applied to the mission. The successful commercial cargo and crew programs could use additional money to accelerate development. NASA’s own super rocket and Orion programs could be flying earlier with an infusion of cash. NASA recently scaled back its plans for Mars missions because of insufficient funding. So, if money is being wasted by not efficiently using the agency’s assets, that’s worth serious review.
The findings might prompt some difficult choices and ones that are not politically popular in some corners of the country, but here at the home of Kennedy Space Center, we’re quite familiar with an important and difficult decision about the transition of the space program leaving a substantial mark on our community. If NASA has unused space and facilities, in a time of tight budgets, it ought to be looking hard at how to consolidate and possibly close a center or two.
Who's in Charge if We Find Life on Mars?
Matt Ridley - Wall Street Journal (Commentary)
If all goes well next month, Curiosity, NASA's latest mission to Mars, will land in the Gale crater, a 3.5-billion-year-old, 96-mile-wide depression near the planet's equator. Out will roll a car-size rover to search for signs of life, among other things. It will drill into rocks and sample the contents, using a mass spectrometer, a gas chromatograph and a laser spectrometer.
In the unlikely event that the project finds evidence of life, then what? In particular, who is in charge of deciding what we should do if we encounter living Martian creatures?
Please note that the chances of Curiosity finding actual microbes look very small. They probably lie deep beneath the surface, out of range of lethal radiation and beyond the reach of the rover's probes, and even then they will be rare, if they exist at all. A new paper, however, hints that there's a chance of finding organic molecules that may be characteristic of life. Alexander Pavlov of NASA and colleagues have calculated that simple organic molecules, such as formaldehyde, could survive as little as 2 inches below the surface of Mars, while in young craters more complex molecules like amino acids could be found at such depths.
But none of this would be actual life.
Even a promising fossil would leave doubts about whether anything still lives on the red planet. So the day when the discovery of Martian life is announced is still a very long way off. But perhaps it's time to start thinking about what should happen on that day.
In some ways it is bound to be an anticlimax. Like the announcement of the Higgs boson last week, however magical the moment may be in historical terms, it will not affect most people's daily lives. We can celebrate, congratulate, revel in the detail and philosophize on the meaning, but earthly life will continue as if little had happened.
Pretty soon, though, a political angle will emerge. For one thing, politicians and journalists from countries other than America will start to grumble that this discovery must "belong" to all humankind and not just to NASA. The U.S. government, despite having forked out all the costs of exploring Mars so far, including the $2.5 billion cost of Curiosity, will probably agree. But who will end up making the key decisions?
The United Nations is almost bound to set up an agency to oversee what experiments are planned, but the U.S. may prefer a different body. Private consortia may conceivably start to plan how to go and retrieve a sample, dreaming of the riches to be garnered from displaying it on Earth. If so, nongovernmental organizations will quickly begin to worry about the safety of such a scheme and to champion the rights of Martian microbes to be conserved and respected in their lairs.
In other words, the discovery of extraterrestrial life would produce some predictably messy earthly responses.
As far as I can discern there has been very little public discussion of these issues. The Outer Space Treaty, opened for signature in 1967 by the U.S., U.K. and Soviet Union and ratified by 100 governments, says that no country can claim political sovereignty over land in outer space. The treaty does not forbid private ownership of land in space, however, and it would be up to terrestrial courts to decide if such claims were recognized. Also NASA has clear policies on how to prevent the contamination of one planet with the life of another.
If we hear a radio signal from an extraterrestrial intelligence, there's also a protocol in place, drawn up by the International Academy of Astronautics and invoking three principles: that the decision on whether to reply should be made by an international body; that it should be sent on behalf of all humankind; and that its content should reflect a broad consensus.
But this is of no relevance to unintelligent Martian microbes. If extraterrestrial life is a mystery, so is the question of what we do when we find it.
Japan SELENE-2 Lunar Mission Planned For 2017
Srinivas Laxman - Asian Scientist Magazine
On the eve of the 43rd anniversary of NASA’s Apollo 11 launch which is on July 16, Japan announced on Sunday that it was planning a manned moon mission.
Apollo 11 was the first human lunar mission which lifted off on July 16, 1969.
The planned Japanese human lunar mission was announced at the 39th scientific assembly of Committee on Space Research (Cospar) which is currently being held in Mysore. Nearly 3,000 space scientists from 74 countries are participating in the meeting.
Tatsuaki Okada of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said that his country has planned a lunar landing mission designated as Selenological and Engineering Explorer 2 (SELENE-2).
“It is for developing and the demonstration of key technologies for future human exploration. It is a multipurpose mission which is a precursor for human exploration,” he told a session on lunar sciences.
Okada later told Asian Scientist Magazine that the manned lunar mission will be in collaboration with NASA.
“While the rocket and the lunar lander will be from NASA, the astronaut will be from Japan. There will be science exploration and moon utilization by the Japanese astronaut,” he said.
He said that SELENE-2 will consist of a lander and rover. The unofficial launch target is 2017. While emphasizing that the Japanese government recognizes the importance of lunar exploration, he however did not rule out the possibility of SELENE-2 being delayed because of budgetary constraints.
The mission plan envisages having an orbiter weighing 700 kg, a lander of 1,000 kg, and a 100 kg rover. The lander will have the capacity to carry payloads weighing up to 200 kg.
He said that 11 landing sites for SELENE-2 are under consideration and one of them was the area where Apollo 14 landed. The mission life for the lander and rover will be for two weeks.
A representative from Korea said that her country has planned a lunar orbiter and lander in 2023 and a sample return mission in 2030.
The Korean moon rocket will have three stages.
She said that Korea is participating in Japan’s SELENE-2 mission by supplying an instrument to the rover.
Apart from the moon, Korea has also set its eyes on Mars, though details of this mission were not made public.
“Totally Different Moon”: The Arrival of Apollo 11
Ben Evans - AmericaSpace.org
When Apollo 11 and its three-man crew – Neil Armstrong, Mike Collins and Buzz Aldrin – rose into space on the morning of 16 July 1969, they embarked on the grandest adventure ever undertaken in human history: the first piloted voyage to the surface of the Moon. Yet, strangely, even after surviving a tumultuous launch atop the Saturn V rocket, performing the translunar injection burn and entering the mysterious region between Earth and the Moon, known as ‘cislunar space’, the main part of the mission had yet to begin. Their mission would really start after Lunar Orbit Insertion (LOI) on 19 July, and the series of increasingly bold and epochal events thereafter.
The resultant quietness of those three days was not helped, in the opinion of mission controllers, by a lack of conversation from the astronauts. “It’s all dead air and static,” a Houston official complained at one stage of the cislunar coast. The lengthy spells of silence were, however, punctuated by televised shows in which the crew guided a worldwide audience around their ship, revealing the dismantling of the probe and drogue, a shimmy through the tunnel and an ‘upside-down’ glimpse of lunar module Eagle’s tiny cabin, with Aldrin, toting dark aviator sunglasses, hard at work. Several of these shows were made by Collins, who enjoyed rotating the camera 180 degrees to turn his Earthbound audience on its head and back again; but, in reality, none of them had ever had much chance to practice with the camera on the ground and its late delivery to Cape Kennedy had not helped matters. “We simply didn’t have time to fool around with it,” he wrote. “Neil and Buzz didn’t even know how to turn it on or focus it, and my knowledge of it was pretty sketchy.” With this in mind, they were advised by a helpful instructor that an audience of perhaps a billion or more people would be watching and that screwing up one of their shows was not an option…
The quiet time was interspersed with inevitable chores, mainly performed by Collins: purging fuel cells, charging batteries, dumping waste water and urine, preparing food, dechlorinating the ship’s water supply and, notably, performing a midcourse correction burn to refine their path towards the Moon. Twenty-six hours into the mission, and almost 175,000 km from home, the Service Propulsion System (SPS) engine of the command and service module Columbia roared silently into the void for three seconds in what flight controllers lauded as an “absolutely nominal” firing. In his autobiography, Collins related that, for those few seconds, he was in active control. Several months earlier, his five-year-old son had asked who was ‘driving’ Apollo 8 to the Moon: was it Mr Borman, the ship’s commander? No, Collins replied, it was Sir Isaac Newton – or, at least, the influences of Sun, Earth and Moon, which affected the spacecraft’s path just as the great English scientist’s law of universal gravitation had helped predict three centuries before.
The accuracy of the midcourse burn was so good that two subsequent SPS firings were deemed unnecessary and late on 18 July, precisely on schedule, 62 hours into the flight and some 70,000 km from their target, Columbia and Eagle slipped into the Moon’s sphere of influence. For the past three days, still under the tug of Earth’s gravity, their speed had rapidly decreased from 39,000 km/h immediately after TLI to just over 3,200 km/h; now, as the Moon’s gravitational pull became dominant, they began to ‘fall’ towards it, gradually speeding up to 9,000 km/h. Earlier in the evening, Collins had again removed the probe and drogue from Columbia’s docking mechanism and reopened the tunnel to allow Armstrong and Aldrin to enter Eagle and begin checking out its systems.
Both men considered the ‘down-up-up-down’ trip into the lunar module – as they moved from the ‘floor’ to the ‘ceiling’ of Columbia, then found themselves diving headfirst toward Eagle’s floor – as one of the most unusual sensations of their mission, although Aldrin described the transition as “perfectly natural”, akin to the motions of a swimmer. For two and a half hours, from 5:00 pm to 7:30 pm EST, they verified that the lander was ready to support an undocking and a landing attempt on the afternoon of 20 July and viewers in the United States, western Europe, Japan and most of South America were treated to a televised show of Aldrin performing an equipment inventory inside the tiny cabin.
That evening offered some more quiet time before the historic events to come. Aldrin recalled asking Armstrong if he had decided what he was going to say when he stepped onto the lunar surface, to which the commander, between sips of fruit juice, replied that no, he was still thinking it over.
The sheer grandeur of the Moon itself was something totally different from the ever-present pale lamp in the sky that they had watched nightly as they grew from infancy. “The Moon I have known all my life,” Collins wrote, “has gone away somewhere, to be replaced by the most awesome sphere I have ever seen. To begin with, it is huge, completely filling our window.” It also appeared more menacing than the two-dimensional circle in Earth’s skies; he perceived it to be an intensely unwelcoming and forbidding place, “formidable”, “utterly silent” as it hung “ominously” in the void.
Back on Earth, journalists had frequently posed an inevitable question before the flight: was Collins jealous that Armstrong and Aldrin were about to take the first steps on the Moon, while he remained in orbit? Collins had responded that in all honesty he was more than happy and content to be flying 99.9 percent of the journey. He would, it is true, be mad to suppose that he had the best seat on the mission, but he had already decided that this would be his final space flight; the strain on his wife and children, the constant grind of training and the lengthy spells away from home were too much for them.
Shortly before Apollo 11 was launched, during a cross-country T-38 flight with Deke Slayton, the man who picked crews had offered Collins the chance to serve as backup commander of Apollo 14 and most likely lead Apollo 17 to the Moon. This would give Collins the chance to walk the lunar surface himself. Collins had declined. Now, as he neared the Moon on this midsummer’s evening in 1969 and looked down onto the threatening barrenness of its terrain, then recalled Earth with its waterfalls and valleys and enchanting iridescence of life, he knew he had made the right choice.
Getting into orbit around the Moon on the afternoon of 19 July was a triumph of celestial mechanics and human ability in itself. The LOI manoeuvre actually comprised two firings of the SPS engine – the first, lasting five minutes and 57 seconds, reduced their speed from 9,000 km/h to 5,970 km/h and ‘dropped’ them into an elliptical orbit of 270 x 97 km with the high point on the nearside; and the second, lasting only 17 seconds, came about four hours later and almost circularised their path at roughly 105 x 87 km. To this day, it remains remarkable that they could be guided so precisely across more than three hundred thousand kilometres of cislunar space and then achieve such a perfect orbit around the Moon. “Those big computers in the basement in Houston,” wrote Collins, “didn’t even whimper but belched out super-accurate predictions.” When one considers that the computing power of one of today’s mobile phones would dwarf the entire computing power that guided Columbia and Eagle to the Moon, the act of inserting Apollo 11 into lunar orbit was truly a stupendous achievement.
During the four-hour interval between the two burns, dubbed ‘LOI-1’ and ‘LOI-2’, the opportunity arose to closely examine the surface of the strange world upon which Armstrong and Aldrin would shortly take humanity’s first steps. Initially, the television camera panned across the terrain and the crew were silent, until Mission Control requested that they describe some of what they were seeing. A group of astronomers from Bochum in West Germany had asked that they take a look at the Aristarchus – a prominent, extremely bright impact crater – which had exhibited unusual luminescence over the preceding weeks. “Hey, Houston,” radioed Armstrong, after finding the crater, “I’m looking north up toward Aristarchus now, and there’s an area that is considerably more illuminated than the surrounding area.”
Other regions and landmarks were enthusiastically identified by the crew by their nicknames – the small hills of Boot Hill and Duke Island, the snake-like rilles of Diamondback and Sidewinder and the twin peaks of ‘Mount Marilyn’; the latter unofficially bestowed by Apollo 8 astronaut Jim Lovell in honour of his wife – although, of course, the vast plain of Mare Tranquillitatis (the Sea of Tranquillity) was of principal interest. “The Sea of Tranquillity,” wrote Collins, “is just past dawn, and the Sun’s rays are intersecting its surface at a mere one-degree angle. Under these lighting conditions, craters cast extremely long shadows, and to me the entire region looks distinctly forbidding.” In Collins’ mind, it looked far too rugged to set a baby’s buggy down, let alone a lunar module.
By the early evening of 19 July, following the LOI-2 burn, which Collins had timed to the split second using a stopwatch, everything was ready for the final checkout of Eagle in advance of undocking and the Powered Descent. Luckily, since Aldrin had successfully lobbied to do much of the checkout a day early, the task took barely 30 minutes and by 8:30 pm all was in place as the three astronauts bedded down for a night of surprisingly fitful sleep in Columbia.
Next morning, a very groggy Mike Collins responded to Mission Control’s wake-up call and, after breakfast and a round-up of the morning news, all three men plunged into their respective checklists. Among the most important tasks were donning their space suits and, in the case of Armstrong and Aldrin, getting into the liquid-cooled underwear which would help to maintain a comfortable body temperature during their time on the lunar surface. Collins shoved the remainder of their gear – “an armload of equipment” – through the tunnel to them, then disconnected umbilicals, reinstalled the docking probe and drogue and sealed the hatch. “I am on the radio constantly now,” he wrote, “running through an elaborate series of joint checks with Eagle. In one of them, I use my control system to hold both vehicles steady while they calibrate some of their guidance equipment.” Inside the lander, anchored to the floor by bungee-like cords, Armstrong and Aldrin also had their hands full: punching entries into the computer keypad, aligning their S-band antenna with the Earth-based tracking network, checking and cross-checking VHF communications with Collins and deploying Eagle’s landing gear.
At length, it was time to bid farewell. “You cats take it easy on the lunar surface,” Collins called cheerily. “If I hear you huffing and puffing, I’m going to start bitching at you.” A few minutes later, at 1:44 pm EST on 20 July, he flipped a switch to cast Eagle loose. Yet this momentous beginning of Eagle’s descent occurred unseen by Earth, for both craft were behind the Moon at the time. Before losing radio contact, Capcom Charlie Duke gave them the good news that they had a ‘go’ for undocking. His infectious North Carolina drawl and endearing personality would certainly help to lift some of the tension in the hours ahead.
The Mission Operations Control Room (MOCR) at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, was packed with virtually everybody who mattered in the space programme – Wernher von Braun, Tom Paine, George Mueller, Sam Phillips, Chris Kraft, George Low, Deke Slayton and many astronauts, all waiting for more than a decade of hard work to pay off. In addition, an estimated third of the world’s population was either watching or listening on television or radio.
Still out of direct radio contact with the ground, Collins watched, his nose pressed against one of Columbia’s windows, as Eagle drifted serenely into the inky darkness. Armstrong executed a little pirouette, fully rotating the lander to enable Collins to verify that the landing gear was in good condition. This had required Collins to take a trip to the Grumman assembly plant in Bethpage to familiarise himself with the lunar module, its fully extended landing legs and the long sensor prongs affixed to three of its four footpads. (One leg – the one holding the ladder – was originally to have had a sensor, too, but according to James Hansen, Armstrong requested its removal, lest he or Aldrin trip over it during their climb down to the surface.) There were other worries. One side of the descent stage held the Modular Equipment Storage Assembly (MESA), a carrier brimming with a television camera, and rock boxes and geology tools, which Armstrong would use on the lunar surface. Was it still firmly secured in place or had it accidentally swung open during the separation process? Collins assured him that all was well.
With such assurances ringing in their ears, all three men could afford a brief moment of light-hearted banter – with Collins telling Eagle’s crew that they had a pretty fine-looking machine, despite being upside down, to which Armstrong retorted that, from his perspective, someone was upside down.
At 2:11 pm, Collins fired his thrusters for a nine-second separation burn, “to give Eagle some breathing room”. And at 3:08 pm the first of two firings of the lander’s descent engine got underway. Known as Descent Orbit Insertion (DOI), this lasted 30 seconds and reduced the lowest point of Eagle’s orbit to a height of 15.2 km, at a position convenient for initiating powered descent. The laws of celestial mechanics now became increasingly evident to Collins: in a lower orbit, Eagle was moving faster and was actually ahead of Columbia by about one minute.
As they descended towards perilune, it was necessary for Armstrong and Aldrin to cross-check their instruments, specifically the Primary Navigation, Guidance and Control System (PNGS) and Abort Guidance System (AGS). The former processed data from an inertial platform of gyroscopes and guided the lunar module along a predetermined flight path to its landing site, whilst the latter offered the ability to perform an abort if necessary. “We couldn’t land on AGS,” Armstrong told his biographer James Hansen, “unless we got right down close to the surface, because you couldn’t navigate the trajectory with it.” However, both systems had to be operating throughout the descent phase – if an emergency arose, Armstrong might need to switch instantaneously from PNGS to AGS – and it was imperative that the two systems had the same data. “If tiny errors were allowed to compound,” Hansen wrote, “gross errors in computing the LM’s course and location could result.”
The higher altitude of Columbia meant that Collins was first to regain contact with Houston as the two craft emerged from behind the Moon. The acquisition of signal was what the MOCR had been waiting for. When queried by Charlie Duke over the progress of the DOI burn, Collins responded simply that it had gone “just swimmingly…beautiful”. Ninety seconds later, at 3:49 pm, Aldrin confirmed that the DOI had gone well. Eagle’s radar was activated, verifying a perilune of 15.2 km, and Duke issued a firm ‘go’ to begin Powered Descent. Brief, but persistent communication dropouts forced Collins to relay this to Armstrong and Aldrin and the lander’s descent engine ignited for the second time at 4:05 pm. By the time it shut down, in barely 12 minutes’ time, they would be on the Moon.
Although Collins could certainly speak to them, he could no longer see them; despite having tied a small black patch over his left eye and squinting through Columbia’s sextant, the bug-like lander steadily diminished in size until it looked “like any one of a thousand tiny craters…except that it is moving”. Eventually, it was gone. The best thing Collins could do now was keep quiet and wait.
END
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