New post on AmericaSpace
‘Captain Kirk’ And ‘Wesley Crusher’ Narrate NASA Curiosity Rover Video
by Jason Rhian
[youtube_video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fj67YHeo_ac[/youtube_video]
Video Courtesy of NASA
On Aug. 6 at 1:31 a.m. EDT NASA will have its Mars Science Laboratory Rover Curiosity “beam down” to the Martian surface (albeit without the use of a nifty matter transporter device). To mark this historic, and dramatic, event none other than William Shatner and Wil Wheaton (Captain James T. Kirk and Wesley Crusher respectively from the highly popular television series “Star Trek”) have narrated a video detailing this mission so far. Read more of this post
Jason Rhian | July 31, 2012 at 7:04 pm | Tags: Cape Canaveral, Captain James T. Kirk, Curiosity, Exploration, Explore, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, JPL, Kennedy Space Center, KSC, Mars, Mars Science Laboratory, MSL, NASA, rocket, Rockets, Rover, Space, space exploration, Star Trek, ULA, United Launch Alliance, Wesley Crusher, Wil Wheaton, William Shatner | Categories: Atlas V, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, CCAFS, Exploration, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, JPL, Kennedy Space Center, KSC, Mars, Mars Exploration Rovers, Mars Phoenix Lander, Mars Science Laboratory, MSL, NASA, Robotics, Space, Space Exploration, Star Ship Enterprise, Star Trek, Tech, Technology, ULA, United Launch Alliance, Updates | URL: http://wp.me/p1YCNG-65F
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Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Illegals increase crime rate/taxpayer costs---Lou Dobbs today
More crime , more costs this is what BHO is bringing to America with his criminal operation of not enforcing the law.
Breast & Colon cancer research with bio reactor on ISS ---In jeopardy with Shuttle Termination
to understand breast cancer
Bioreactor research could help women's health
on Earth and in space
Oct. 1, 1998: A special incubator designed to grow tissue samples in space is being applied on Earth in a quest to understand how breast cancer works - and how it might be controlled.
Scientists are using NASA Bioreactors to culture breast cells on Earth to learn what controls the growth of both healthy and malignant breast tissues. Their findings could affect health care for women not only on Earth, but on missions to Mars.
Right: Dr. Robert Richmond of NASA/Marshall withdraws breast tissue specimens from cold storage in one of two liquid nitrogen Dewars that hold this unique collection. At right are two Bioreactors culturing breast tissue specimens. Credit: Dennis Olive, NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center.
"We know that many things - radiation, certain chemicals, genetic makeup - can contribute to the cause of breast cancer," said Dr. Robert Richmond, director of the recently created Radiation and Cell Biology Laboratory at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Richmond is also a research associate professor of medicine at the Dartmouth Medical School in Hanover, N.H.
Sign up for our EXPRESS SCIENCE NEWS electronic mail delivery!
"We are culturing noncancerous mammary cells hoping to learn what guides their growth, and how we might use that knowledge to thwart malignancies before they are created. The type of mammary cells we are growing comes from an individual susceptible to breast cancer, and that susceptibility is likely driven by damage caused by ionizing radiation. Space exploration will involve slightly increased exposures of crew members to radiation, so what we learn from these cells could help help justify methods of female crew selection, and help manage breast cancer in the national population at the same time." Cancer research is typically a collaborative and interdisciplinary effort. In this regard, Richmond was connected with a breast cancer susceptible donor of the mammary tissue now used in his laboratory by Dr. Mike Swift of the Medical College of New York, Hawthorne, N.Y. Drs. Olive Pettengill (Pathology Department of the Dartmouth Medical School) and Martha Stampfer (Lawrence-Berkeley Laboratory) helped him to select cells from this cancer susceptible breast tissue. Note to editors: Print-quality copies of these images are available on a separate cancer research image page.
Turning a problem on its side
It has long been established that cells and tissue growing in microgravity - the weightless conditions obtained in space - can grow and mutate in ways different than on Earth. A perpetual challenge for the experimental study of these phenomena has been simulating the conditions of space so that complete laboratory studies can be done by numerous investigators on Earth. The simulated growth of mammalian cells in tissue culture needed to duplicate the quiet conditions of orbital free-fall in a way that allowed for maintaining fresh media and oxygenation.
To solve the problem, NASA in the 1980s developed the bioreactor (right), which is a can-like vessel equipped with a membrane for gas exchange and ports for media exchange and sampling. As the bioreactor turns, the cells continually fall through the medium yet never hit bottom. Under these quiet conditions, the cells "self assemble" to form clusters that sometimes grow and differentiate much as they would in the body. Eventually, on Earth, the clusters become too large to fall slowly and research has to be continued in the true weightlessness of space.
It has been well established that a number of cell types grow in the bioreactor on Earth for extended periods in ways that resemble tissue-like behavior. For this reason, the bioreactor also provides cell culture studies with a new tool for the study of 3-dimensional cell growth and differentiation.
Bioreactors have been used aboard the Mir space station to grow larger cultures than even terrestrial Bioreactors can support. Several cancer types, including breast and colon cancer cells, have been studied in this manner. Continued research using the NASA Bioreactor is planned aboard the International Space Station.
For a detailed description, visit the bioreactor web site.
Within NASA, Richmond also interacts with Dr. Jeanne Becker, an associate professor at the University of South Florida College of Medicine in Tampa, and with investigators in the Biotechnology Cell Science Program at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, home of the NASA Bioreactor.
For many people, culturing cells means putting some small number into nutrient media in a dish or a tube and letting them grow. However, this kind of approach does not provide the culture environment that supports tissue assemblies because in such an environment cells are "clueless." Without a proper 3-D assembly, epithelial cells (the basic cells that differentiate tissue into specific organ functions) lack the proper clues for growing into the variety of cells that make up breast tissue.
So, Richmond and Becker are using NASA Bioreactors to fool mammary cells into thinking they are in a normal environment, and thus culture them into larger assemblies whose natural growth can be studied.
At NASA/Marshall, Richmond has established a research program using a unique collection of healthy breast cells that contain a significant genetic weakness towards cancer.
Right: Two High-Aspect Ratio Vessels turn at about 12 rpm to keep breast tissue constructs suspended inside the culture media. Syringes allow scientists to pull samples for analysis during growth sequences. The tube in the center is a water bubbler that dehumidifies the air to prevent evaporation of the media and thus the appearance of destructive bubbles in the bioreactor.
Becker, in collaboration with coworkers at NASA/Johnson, has grown primary breast cancer cells (obtained directly from different surgical specimens) into masses that resemble the original tumor. She hopes to further our understanding of the factors important in the growth and the spread of tumors.
"We have grown noncancerous human breast cells in the NASA Bioreactor," Richmond said. "Our observations suggest there is much to learn and value to be gained from the study of their tissue-equivalent growth."
Culturing of primary breast cancer cells for long periods is rarely achieved in standard tissue culture dishes. With tumor cells from 27 different breast cancer patients, Becker could get only 5 specimens to grow enough to fill the dish. None of the five could then be expanded further when passed to new dishes.
In contrast, however, tumor samples from another five breast cancer patients grew successfully for long periods of time as 3-dimensional cocultures in the NASA Bioreactor.
These primary breast tumor cell constructs were grown successfully for up to 3 months, and the cancerous fraction increased. These constructs grew up to 3 mm in diameter, at which point they were removed for analysis and thus prevented from additional growth.
The information relating to the patient-derived breast cancer constructs grown in the bioreactor by Becker and coworkers at NASA/Johnson suggests that this model simulates events that occur as breast tumors progress within the body. This line of research therefore offers potential for increasing knowledge on the basic biology of human breast cancer. For more immediate application, this research also provides for the first time an opportunity to test breast cancer therapies on a patient's cancer cells in culture before extending that therapy to the patient herself.
With the healthy cells, Richmond is developing a normal breast tissue-equivalent model, a scientific description of how healthy breast tissue grows. A routine capability to model patient-specific breast cancer then could allow for testing and developing of realistic therapies.
Left: Dr. Harry Mahtani analyzes the nutrient media sampled from the bioreactors.
For example, hormonal therapy is an important treatment option for approximately a third of previously untreated breast cancer patients. It is well known that breast tissue responds to estrogens. However, normal human mammary epithelial cells (HMEC) in a standard 2-dimensional culture dish do not demonstrate any estrogenic response.
Richmond plans experiments that will determine if 3-dimensional constructs of normal breast tissue in the bioreactor will respond to estrogen. If so, then Bioreactors could be used to tailor hormonal therapies that more closely match what will stop growth of cancer cells with minimal side effects for the patient.
To begin this research, Richmond established a cell repository from noncancerous breast tissue donated by a young woman carrying a single defective ATM gene. The debilitating syndrome ataxia-telangiectasia (A-T) results when both of the two ATM genes normally present in cells of the body become defective. These A-T individuals have about a 100-fold increased risk of all cancers plus other serious problems. Women carrying only one defective ATM gene are clinically normal, but have about a 5-fold increased risk, or susceptibility, to breast cancer. To reduce her breast cancer risk to near-zero, the donor elected to have a double mastectomy.
Her breast tissues now reside in a cell bank as perfectly matched cell types - preserved in liquid nitrogen - that will allow experimental results of today to be compared with experimental results obtained for many years to come.
In the bioreactor, these cells will grow in normal fashion because they are normal except for the single defective ATM gene. Once the normal tissue-equivalent model is defined, then these same cells can be manipulated to mimic the stages of breast cancer formation, and the model-related differences evaluated.
A normal tissue-equivalent model would thus hopefully promote the understanding of the creation of breast cancer and, eventually, allow development of therapies tailored to the individual patient.
Dodging a bullet
In addition to bringing the space bioreactor to bear on terrestrial health issues, NASA is also concerned about ionizing radiation, an issue for the human exploration and development of space environment.
Ionizing radiation actually has two components, photons - X-rays, and gamma rays - and particles - naked atomic nuclei blasted out from stars and supernovas. "Ionizing" means the radiation can energize electrons to break away from atoms. Such ionization in the nucleus of a cell can cause genetic damage that promotes the formation of cancer.
Space radiation is of little risk to us on the ground. Earth's atmosphere protects us on the surface from the great majority of space radiation, and the Earth's magnetic field shields space crews in low orbits from all but the most energetic particles.
But outside the magnetic field, the exposure and risk are greater. The exact amount of damage caused by space radiation varies with the length of the trip, the type of shielding used, and the makeup of solar and galactic radiations.
At this time the radiation damage for a trip to Mars is predicted to provide approximately lifetime cancer risk for 30 year-old males of about 28% as compared to 20% on Earth. This is unacceptably high, and scientists are trying to reduce it to about 23%. Because the radiation cancer risk to women is projected to be substantially greater - largely as breast and ovarian cancer - mission planners lean towards all-male crews.
It is important to note that scientists talk of risk, not of absolute predictions. Risk factors are applied to groups of people, and vary greatly from one individual to another because several steps are required for the final development of cancer. It is not possible to know exactly where an individual might be in this chain. Only the average outcome of any normal population can be used to predict risk factors.
As the genetic controls of cancer development become better understood, however, the "normal population" used for predicting cancer risk factors will also become better defined.
"Normal" now means "apparently healthy." However, the many genetic steps leading to cancer can be invisible in a "normal" person.
The phrase "cancer susceptibility" frequently mentioned these days indicates a genetic predisposition to cancer. For example, breast cancer is associated in part with defects in the BRCA1, BRCA2, and ATM genes.
Damage in both of the ATM genes, for example, sets a course for expression of a devastating clinical syndrome called ataxia-telangiectasia, or A-T, which includes an approximately 100-fold increased risk of cancer. On the other hand, studies by Dr. Mike Swift and coworkers have shown that when only one ATM gene is damaged (called A-T heterozygous), then a woman has about a 5-fold increased risk of cancer.despite the fact she appears clinically normal.
Furthermore, scientists suspect that radiation damage is the principal initiator of increased breast cancer susceptibility in women with one defective ATM gene. It would seem prudent, therefore, to consider identifying A-T heterozygous women who might otherwise be selected for extended living within the space environment and thus not expose them to conditions that would further increase their risk of breast cancer.
Isolation of human mammary epithelial cells (HMEC) from breast cancer susceptible tissue.
A: Duct element recovered from breast tissue digest.
B: Outgrowth of cells from duct element in upper right corner cultured in a standard dish; most cells spontaneously die during early cell divisions, but a few will establish long-term growth.
C: Isolate of long-term growth HMEC from outgrowth of duct element; cells shown soon after isolation and in early full-cell contact growth in culture in a dish.
D: Same long-term growth HMEC, but after 3 weeks in late full-cell contact growth in a continuous culture in a dish. Note attempts to reform duct elements, but this time in two dimensions in a dish rather than in three dimensions in tissue.
Links to 1293x971-pixel, 960KB JPG. Credit: Dr. Robert Richmond, NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center
Bioreactor research could help women's health
on Earth and in space
Oct. 1, 1998: A special incubator designed to grow tissue samples in space is being applied on Earth in a quest to understand how breast cancer works - and how it might be controlled.
Scientists are using NASA Bioreactors to culture breast cells on Earth to learn what controls the growth of both healthy and malignant breast tissues. Their findings could affect health care for women not only on Earth, but on missions to Mars.
Right: Dr. Robert Richmond of NASA/Marshall withdraws breast tissue specimens from cold storage in one of two liquid nitrogen Dewars that hold this unique collection. At right are two Bioreactors culturing breast tissue specimens. Credit: Dennis Olive, NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center.
"We know that many things - radiation, certain chemicals, genetic makeup - can contribute to the cause of breast cancer," said Dr. Robert Richmond, director of the recently created Radiation and Cell Biology Laboratory at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Richmond is also a research associate professor of medicine at the Dartmouth Medical School in Hanover, N.H.
Sign up for our EXPRESS SCIENCE NEWS electronic mail delivery!
"We are culturing noncancerous mammary cells hoping to learn what guides their growth, and how we might use that knowledge to thwart malignancies before they are created. The type of mammary cells we are growing comes from an individual susceptible to breast cancer, and that susceptibility is likely driven by damage caused by ionizing radiation. Space exploration will involve slightly increased exposures of crew members to radiation, so what we learn from these cells could help help justify methods of female crew selection, and help manage breast cancer in the national population at the same time." Cancer research is typically a collaborative and interdisciplinary effort. In this regard, Richmond was connected with a breast cancer susceptible donor of the mammary tissue now used in his laboratory by Dr. Mike Swift of the Medical College of New York, Hawthorne, N.Y. Drs. Olive Pettengill (Pathology Department of the Dartmouth Medical School) and Martha Stampfer (Lawrence-Berkeley Laboratory) helped him to select cells from this cancer susceptible breast tissue. Note to editors: Print-quality copies of these images are available on a separate cancer research image page.
Turning a problem on its side
It has long been established that cells and tissue growing in microgravity - the weightless conditions obtained in space - can grow and mutate in ways different than on Earth. A perpetual challenge for the experimental study of these phenomena has been simulating the conditions of space so that complete laboratory studies can be done by numerous investigators on Earth. The simulated growth of mammalian cells in tissue culture needed to duplicate the quiet conditions of orbital free-fall in a way that allowed for maintaining fresh media and oxygenation.
To solve the problem, NASA in the 1980s developed the bioreactor (right), which is a can-like vessel equipped with a membrane for gas exchange and ports for media exchange and sampling. As the bioreactor turns, the cells continually fall through the medium yet never hit bottom. Under these quiet conditions, the cells "self assemble" to form clusters that sometimes grow and differentiate much as they would in the body. Eventually, on Earth, the clusters become too large to fall slowly and research has to be continued in the true weightlessness of space.
It has been well established that a number of cell types grow in the bioreactor on Earth for extended periods in ways that resemble tissue-like behavior. For this reason, the bioreactor also provides cell culture studies with a new tool for the study of 3-dimensional cell growth and differentiation.
Bioreactors have been used aboard the Mir space station to grow larger cultures than even terrestrial Bioreactors can support. Several cancer types, including breast and colon cancer cells, have been studied in this manner. Continued research using the NASA Bioreactor is planned aboard the International Space Station.
For a detailed description, visit the bioreactor web site.
Within NASA, Richmond also interacts with Dr. Jeanne Becker, an associate professor at the University of South Florida College of Medicine in Tampa, and with investigators in the Biotechnology Cell Science Program at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, home of the NASA Bioreactor.
For many people, culturing cells means putting some small number into nutrient media in a dish or a tube and letting them grow. However, this kind of approach does not provide the culture environment that supports tissue assemblies because in such an environment cells are "clueless." Without a proper 3-D assembly, epithelial cells (the basic cells that differentiate tissue into specific organ functions) lack the proper clues for growing into the variety of cells that make up breast tissue.
So, Richmond and Becker are using NASA Bioreactors to fool mammary cells into thinking they are in a normal environment, and thus culture them into larger assemblies whose natural growth can be studied.
At NASA/Marshall, Richmond has established a research program using a unique collection of healthy breast cells that contain a significant genetic weakness towards cancer.
Right: Two High-Aspect Ratio Vessels turn at about 12 rpm to keep breast tissue constructs suspended inside the culture media. Syringes allow scientists to pull samples for analysis during growth sequences. The tube in the center is a water bubbler that dehumidifies the air to prevent evaporation of the media and thus the appearance of destructive bubbles in the bioreactor.
Becker, in collaboration with coworkers at NASA/Johnson, has grown primary breast cancer cells (obtained directly from different surgical specimens) into masses that resemble the original tumor. She hopes to further our understanding of the factors important in the growth and the spread of tumors.
"We have grown noncancerous human breast cells in the NASA Bioreactor," Richmond said. "Our observations suggest there is much to learn and value to be gained from the study of their tissue-equivalent growth."
Culturing of primary breast cancer cells for long periods is rarely achieved in standard tissue culture dishes. With tumor cells from 27 different breast cancer patients, Becker could get only 5 specimens to grow enough to fill the dish. None of the five could then be expanded further when passed to new dishes.
In contrast, however, tumor samples from another five breast cancer patients grew successfully for long periods of time as 3-dimensional cocultures in the NASA Bioreactor.
These primary breast tumor cell constructs were grown successfully for up to 3 months, and the cancerous fraction increased. These constructs grew up to 3 mm in diameter, at which point they were removed for analysis and thus prevented from additional growth.
The information relating to the patient-derived breast cancer constructs grown in the bioreactor by Becker and coworkers at NASA/Johnson suggests that this model simulates events that occur as breast tumors progress within the body. This line of research therefore offers potential for increasing knowledge on the basic biology of human breast cancer. For more immediate application, this research also provides for the first time an opportunity to test breast cancer therapies on a patient's cancer cells in culture before extending that therapy to the patient herself.
With the healthy cells, Richmond is developing a normal breast tissue-equivalent model, a scientific description of how healthy breast tissue grows. A routine capability to model patient-specific breast cancer then could allow for testing and developing of realistic therapies.
Left: Dr. Harry Mahtani analyzes the nutrient media sampled from the bioreactors.
For example, hormonal therapy is an important treatment option for approximately a third of previously untreated breast cancer patients. It is well known that breast tissue responds to estrogens. However, normal human mammary epithelial cells (HMEC) in a standard 2-dimensional culture dish do not demonstrate any estrogenic response.
Richmond plans experiments that will determine if 3-dimensional constructs of normal breast tissue in the bioreactor will respond to estrogen. If so, then Bioreactors could be used to tailor hormonal therapies that more closely match what will stop growth of cancer cells with minimal side effects for the patient.
To begin this research, Richmond established a cell repository from noncancerous breast tissue donated by a young woman carrying a single defective ATM gene. The debilitating syndrome ataxia-telangiectasia (A-T) results when both of the two ATM genes normally present in cells of the body become defective. These A-T individuals have about a 100-fold increased risk of all cancers plus other serious problems. Women carrying only one defective ATM gene are clinically normal, but have about a 5-fold increased risk, or susceptibility, to breast cancer. To reduce her breast cancer risk to near-zero, the donor elected to have a double mastectomy.
Her breast tissues now reside in a cell bank as perfectly matched cell types - preserved in liquid nitrogen - that will allow experimental results of today to be compared with experimental results obtained for many years to come.
In the bioreactor, these cells will grow in normal fashion because they are normal except for the single defective ATM gene. Once the normal tissue-equivalent model is defined, then these same cells can be manipulated to mimic the stages of breast cancer formation, and the model-related differences evaluated.
A normal tissue-equivalent model would thus hopefully promote the understanding of the creation of breast cancer and, eventually, allow development of therapies tailored to the individual patient.
Dodging a bullet
In addition to bringing the space bioreactor to bear on terrestrial health issues, NASA is also concerned about ionizing radiation, an issue for the human exploration and development of space environment.
Ionizing radiation actually has two components, photons - X-rays, and gamma rays - and particles - naked atomic nuclei blasted out from stars and supernovas. "Ionizing" means the radiation can energize electrons to break away from atoms. Such ionization in the nucleus of a cell can cause genetic damage that promotes the formation of cancer.
Space radiation is of little risk to us on the ground. Earth's atmosphere protects us on the surface from the great majority of space radiation, and the Earth's magnetic field shields space crews in low orbits from all but the most energetic particles.
But outside the magnetic field, the exposure and risk are greater. The exact amount of damage caused by space radiation varies with the length of the trip, the type of shielding used, and the makeup of solar and galactic radiations.
At this time the radiation damage for a trip to Mars is predicted to provide approximately lifetime cancer risk for 30 year-old males of about 28% as compared to 20% on Earth. This is unacceptably high, and scientists are trying to reduce it to about 23%. Because the radiation cancer risk to women is projected to be substantially greater - largely as breast and ovarian cancer - mission planners lean towards all-male crews.
It is important to note that scientists talk of risk, not of absolute predictions. Risk factors are applied to groups of people, and vary greatly from one individual to another because several steps are required for the final development of cancer. It is not possible to know exactly where an individual might be in this chain. Only the average outcome of any normal population can be used to predict risk factors.
As the genetic controls of cancer development become better understood, however, the "normal population" used for predicting cancer risk factors will also become better defined.
"Normal" now means "apparently healthy." However, the many genetic steps leading to cancer can be invisible in a "normal" person.
The phrase "cancer susceptibility" frequently mentioned these days indicates a genetic predisposition to cancer. For example, breast cancer is associated in part with defects in the BRCA1, BRCA2, and ATM genes.
Damage in both of the ATM genes, for example, sets a course for expression of a devastating clinical syndrome called ataxia-telangiectasia, or A-T, which includes an approximately 100-fold increased risk of cancer. On the other hand, studies by Dr. Mike Swift and coworkers have shown that when only one ATM gene is damaged (called A-T heterozygous), then a woman has about a 5-fold increased risk of cancer.despite the fact she appears clinically normal.
Furthermore, scientists suspect that radiation damage is the principal initiator of increased breast cancer susceptibility in women with one defective ATM gene. It would seem prudent, therefore, to consider identifying A-T heterozygous women who might otherwise be selected for extended living within the space environment and thus not expose them to conditions that would further increase their risk of breast cancer.
Isolation of human mammary epithelial cells (HMEC) from breast cancer susceptible tissue.
A: Duct element recovered from breast tissue digest.
B: Outgrowth of cells from duct element in upper right corner cultured in a standard dish; most cells spontaneously die during early cell divisions, but a few will establish long-term growth.
C: Isolate of long-term growth HMEC from outgrowth of duct element; cells shown soon after isolation and in early full-cell contact growth in culture in a dish.
D: Same long-term growth HMEC, but after 3 weeks in late full-cell contact growth in a continuous culture in a dish. Note attempts to reform duct elements, but this time in two dimensions in a dish rather than in three dimensions in tissue.
Links to 1293x971-pixel, 960KB JPG. Credit: Dr. Robert Richmond, NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center
Space adds new dimension to Cancer research--shuttle loss reduces effort significantly
When the space shuttle Discovery blasts off to the International Space Station (ISS) later today (launch scheduled Friday August 10, 2001 - 5.39 pm EDT), it will be taking with it a frozen clump of ovarian cancer cells. On the station, mission specialists will thaw them and grow them into a three-dimensional cluster that resembles the type of tumor one sees in the body, rather than into the abnormal shape on the flat bottom of a laboratory culture dish.
The researchers from the University of South Florida College of Medicine and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) hope their culture will provide a biologically more accurate model for studies of ovarian cancer development and its responsiveness to chemotherapy and antihormonal agents.
Such a three-dimensional cluster can only be grown when the cells are in free fall and so subjected to a lower apparent gravitational pull (microgravity) than when sitting in a dish on Earth. Kevin Fong, lecturer in space medicine and physiology at University College London, says this in vitro model could be revolutionary.
Since 1992, the project team has grown ovarian cancer cells in a tissue culture chamber, known as a rotating wall vessel (RWV) bioreactor, designed by NASA to simulate microgravity. This soup-tin sized bioreactor contains a fluid with cells in suspension. The microgravity of 10-3 - 10-4g established when it spins makes the cells continually fall yet never hit the bottom of the vessel. As a result, the cells grow in three dimensions, giving a more biologically representative in vitro model of a tumor in vivo.
"The ovarian cancer cell line we use is from a mixed lineage. When they are grown in two dimensions, you see only epithelial cells, but in three dimensions we see a wider range of cell type, resulting in a biologically more representative model of tumors as found in the body," explains Jeanne Becker, Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of South Florida College of Medicine in Tampa.
What the team wants to learn from the experiment on the ISS is how the cells will develop when they are grown in the microgravity of the ISS - about 10-6g
They will also test the cells for markers involved in tumor development. "In particular, we will be looking at important aspects of these cells, such as cell cycle kinetics and the protein expression associated with ovarian cancer - such as p53 and ras - to see whether any changes are similar to those we have observed in the laboratory," says Becker.
Already, the team has found that tumor cells grown in the ground-based bioreactor are more drug resistant than when grown on a flat surface. For example, the same dose of taxol that kills ovarian cancer cells grown in standard in vitro cultures will not kill all the cancerous cells in the more complex three-dimensional model.
If the studies are successful, Becker hopes this type of culture could be a more reliable way to test new drugs and hormone therapies before they are administered to patients.
This research is part of the overall goal of the ISS, which is to establish and maintain a permanent presence in space and to provide an orbital laboratory for long-term research in biology, chemistry, physics, ecology and medicine. In addition to the ovarian cancer cell line, experiments with kidney epithelial cells, colon cancer cells and neuroendocrine cells, supplied by other investigators, are being taken to conduct experiments in the ISS during this mission.
The ISS, a co-operative venture by the US, Europe, Russia, Canada and Japan, is the largest international scientific and technological project ever undertaken. It orbits the Earth and once fully assembled will be larger than a football stadium. "It's the most exciting era since the Apollo missions," says Fong, " but not without an element of controversy."
Many scientists argue the vast expenditure being pumped into the ISS remains unjustified. The project, in many ways a successor to the Russian Mir space station, is now several years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget. It is also argued that the experiments planned for the ISS will produce reasonable science but that overall it is not worth the money.
"Yes the science isn't cheap and yes there are practical limitations but now it's up there it should be used to the best of it's potential. The quality of the science earmarked for the ISS - and the ovarian cancer research can be included in this - is potentially some of the most important ever done, as these studies can't be done anywhere else, so it's worth paying good money to find these things out," says Fong.
"And whilst I'm never going to say the ISS is value for money, it has to be remembered that this is still at an immature stage - it's three years into a 15 year project. But they estimate in 10 years time it will be 10 times cheaper and in 20 years time it will be 100 times cheaper, so when this becomes a mature project, it is likely this will become an effective platform for science."
References
The researchers from the University of South Florida College of Medicine and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) hope their culture will provide a biologically more accurate model for studies of ovarian cancer development and its responsiveness to chemotherapy and antihormonal agents.
Such a three-dimensional cluster can only be grown when the cells are in free fall and so subjected to a lower apparent gravitational pull (microgravity) than when sitting in a dish on Earth. Kevin Fong, lecturer in space medicine and physiology at University College London, says this in vitro model could be revolutionary.
Since 1992, the project team has grown ovarian cancer cells in a tissue culture chamber, known as a rotating wall vessel (RWV) bioreactor, designed by NASA to simulate microgravity. This soup-tin sized bioreactor contains a fluid with cells in suspension. The microgravity of 10-3 - 10-4g established when it spins makes the cells continually fall yet never hit the bottom of the vessel. As a result, the cells grow in three dimensions, giving a more biologically representative in vitro model of a tumor in vivo.
"The ovarian cancer cell line we use is from a mixed lineage. When they are grown in two dimensions, you see only epithelial cells, but in three dimensions we see a wider range of cell type, resulting in a biologically more representative model of tumors as found in the body," explains Jeanne Becker, Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of South Florida College of Medicine in Tampa.
What the team wants to learn from the experiment on the ISS is how the cells will develop when they are grown in the microgravity of the ISS - about 10-6g
They will also test the cells for markers involved in tumor development. "In particular, we will be looking at important aspects of these cells, such as cell cycle kinetics and the protein expression associated with ovarian cancer - such as p53 and ras - to see whether any changes are similar to those we have observed in the laboratory," says Becker.
Already, the team has found that tumor cells grown in the ground-based bioreactor are more drug resistant than when grown on a flat surface. For example, the same dose of taxol that kills ovarian cancer cells grown in standard in vitro cultures will not kill all the cancerous cells in the more complex three-dimensional model.
If the studies are successful, Becker hopes this type of culture could be a more reliable way to test new drugs and hormone therapies before they are administered to patients.
This research is part of the overall goal of the ISS, which is to establish and maintain a permanent presence in space and to provide an orbital laboratory for long-term research in biology, chemistry, physics, ecology and medicine. In addition to the ovarian cancer cell line, experiments with kidney epithelial cells, colon cancer cells and neuroendocrine cells, supplied by other investigators, are being taken to conduct experiments in the ISS during this mission.
The ISS, a co-operative venture by the US, Europe, Russia, Canada and Japan, is the largest international scientific and technological project ever undertaken. It orbits the Earth and once fully assembled will be larger than a football stadium. "It's the most exciting era since the Apollo missions," says Fong, " but not without an element of controversy."
Many scientists argue the vast expenditure being pumped into the ISS remains unjustified. The project, in many ways a successor to the Russian Mir space station, is now several years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget. It is also argued that the experiments planned for the ISS will produce reasonable science but that overall it is not worth the money.
"Yes the science isn't cheap and yes there are practical limitations but now it's up there it should be used to the best of it's potential. The quality of the science earmarked for the ISS - and the ovarian cancer research can be included in this - is potentially some of the most important ever done, as these studies can't be done anywhere else, so it's worth paying good money to find these things out," says Fong.
"And whilst I'm never going to say the ISS is value for money, it has to be remembered that this is still at an immature stage - it's three years into a 15 year project. But they estimate in 10 years time it will be 10 times cheaper and in 20 years time it will be 100 times cheaper, so when this becomes a mature project, it is likely this will become an effective platform for science."
References
Commercial Shuttle
Nasaproblems.com for more on CC
The Shuttle intriguing candidate for Commercialization
Posted on November 15, 2011 by Bob
The system is presently operational. Its payload to orbit delivery and other capabilities are well documented. Its risks are known and assessable for payload insurance and crew satety considerations and industrial elements arre already doing much of the work in many areas. Bailing. leasing and/or other type of agreement for use of government equipment (orbiters, pads, control centers, etc.) is probably feasible in some arrangement. Needed is an industry, NASA government, Congressional meeting of the minds on all related elements including government flight requirements, (e.g. ISS servicing) and commercial pricing policies. If such a government hand off to industry could be affected it would, of course , keep the shuttle program available for another decade or two should presently unforeseen government needs arise.
U. S. Taxpayers Have Not Yet Realized Their Full Return on Investment from the Shuttle system.
Works as promised
Much life remaining
Man rated and safe–probably as safe as any manned system will be—-no others will get over one hundred flights down the learning curve.
Infrastructure is in place and operational
Replacement of the Orbiter capabilities will take decades and billions.
Decommissioning the Space Shuttle should be postponed indefinitely.
The above is an excerpt from On the Early Retirement of the Space Shuttle by George Jeffs.
Editor’s note: Mr. Cain, Government and Industry can work together and get the Shuttle flying Again. Please discuss with Mr. Jeffs former president of S&EO at Rockwell International.
Read paper
The Shuttle intriguing candidate for Commercialization
Posted on November 15, 2011 by Bob
The system is presently operational. Its payload to orbit delivery and other capabilities are well documented. Its risks are known and assessable for payload insurance and crew satety considerations and industrial elements arre already doing much of the work in many areas. Bailing. leasing and/or other type of agreement for use of government equipment (orbiters, pads, control centers, etc.) is probably feasible in some arrangement. Needed is an industry, NASA government, Congressional meeting of the minds on all related elements including government flight requirements, (e.g. ISS servicing) and commercial pricing policies. If such a government hand off to industry could be affected it would, of course , keep the shuttle program available for another decade or two should presently unforeseen government needs arise.
U. S. Taxpayers Have Not Yet Realized Their Full Return on Investment from the Shuttle system.
Works as promised
Much life remaining
Man rated and safe–probably as safe as any manned system will be—-no others will get over one hundred flights down the learning curve.
Infrastructure is in place and operational
Replacement of the Orbiter capabilities will take decades and billions.
Decommissioning the Space Shuttle should be postponed indefinitely.
The above is an excerpt from On the Early Retirement of the Space Shuttle by George Jeffs.
Editor’s note: Mr. Cain, Government and Industry can work together and get the Shuttle flying Again. Please discuss with Mr. Jeffs former president of S&EO at Rockwell International.
Read paper
“This is an administration that believes the United States is too prominent, to prepossessing, too dominant in the world. The human space flight program was the archetype of exactly what the current administration in its philosophy dislikes about America’s position in the world, and they want it to go away.”
To Obama’s most pointed critics, this policy reflects an ideological bias. “Whatever you thought about what we had, they replaced it with nothing,” says Michael Griffin, Bush’s NASA chief. “This is an administration that believes the United States is too prominent, to prepossessing, too dominant in the world. The human space flight program was the archetype of exactly what the current administration in its philosophy dislikes about America’s position in the world, and they want it to go away.”
Enlarge
Related stories
NASA will launch your name and photo into outer space for free
Gabrielle Giffords: Husband to decide on space shuttle mission next month
Biggest crowds since Apollo days await Endeavour shuttle launch
Strauss-Kahn scandal hurts IMF credibility (Newsweek/DailyBeast)
Donald Trump not running for president (Newsweek/DailyBeast)
E.L. Rothschild and Weather Central Launch MyWeather (Newsweek/DailyBeast)
Topics
Manned Space Flight Space Technology Space Shuttles Technology Science and Technology Foreign Policy World Politics
Nonsense, says Lori Garver, Obama’s space adviser during his campaign and now the deputy administrator of NASA. The Obama administration believes fully in human space exploration, she says, but Constellation was “unsustainable and unsound.”
But some of the president’s friends worry that, as Giffords wrote last year, Obama’s space policy “discards five years and $10 billion of development of the Constellation program and offers little in return.”
Even Griffin admits there is plenty of political blame to go around, noting that Bush-era underfunding made Constellation vulnerable.
Meanwhile, the space gap looms for the nation whose dominance of space began fifty years ago this month, when President John F. Kennedy announced before a joint session of Congress the bold ambition of landing a man on the moon by the end of the decade.
Astronaut Michael Barratt notes that the Endeavour was named for the ship sailed by Captain James Cook on his perilous discovery voyage in 1769, and observes, “If you had gone back to Cook’s day and suggested that they stop sending ships out for a period of time while they huddled and designed a ship for the next generation, I think they would have all [chosen] suicide.”
Enlarge
Related stories
NASA will launch your name and photo into outer space for free
Gabrielle Giffords: Husband to decide on space shuttle mission next month
Biggest crowds since Apollo days await Endeavour shuttle launch
Strauss-Kahn scandal hurts IMF credibility (Newsweek/DailyBeast)
Donald Trump not running for president (Newsweek/DailyBeast)
E.L. Rothschild and Weather Central Launch MyWeather (Newsweek/DailyBeast)
Topics
Manned Space Flight Space Technology Space Shuttles Technology Science and Technology Foreign Policy World Politics
Nonsense, says Lori Garver, Obama’s space adviser during his campaign and now the deputy administrator of NASA. The Obama administration believes fully in human space exploration, she says, but Constellation was “unsustainable and unsound.”
But some of the president’s friends worry that, as Giffords wrote last year, Obama’s space policy “discards five years and $10 billion of development of the Constellation program and offers little in return.”
Even Griffin admits there is plenty of political blame to go around, noting that Bush-era underfunding made Constellation vulnerable.
Meanwhile, the space gap looms for the nation whose dominance of space began fifty years ago this month, when President John F. Kennedy announced before a joint session of Congress the bold ambition of landing a man on the moon by the end of the decade.
Astronaut Michael Barratt notes that the Endeavour was named for the ship sailed by Captain James Cook on his perilous discovery voyage in 1769, and observes, “If you had gone back to Cook’s day and suggested that they stop sending ships out for a period of time while they huddled and designed a ship for the next generation, I think they would have all [chosen] suicide.”
Let us get the word out---Commercial Shuttle---Nelson plan
People , we need to get the word out about Don's plan. This is critical to the USA space capability.
Every email with news, like from newsmax , michellmalkin, western journalism, all articles have authors. Send each on a note on commercial shuttle by don nelson. You can use the following if you want to:
Long range space policy plan by Don Nelson. Chart Showing progression of steps onnasaproblems.com. Details on nasaproblems.com. Covers LEO, cislunar, moon, and mars. This plan utilizes our investment in the Shuttle System.
This plan makes a lot of sense to me. Seems to me a lot of former NASA high level people agree with this approach outlined by Don. Why can't we get a unified effort to try to get this implemented. His plan covers Leo, moon, cislunar, mars. It uses hardware we have with improvements and it does not head down the wrong path (SLS/Orion) as he discusses in his letter to Bolden.
Please help get the word out. The Nation 's space capability & Security is in your hands.
Thanks, Bobby Martin
Sent from my iPad
Every email with news, like from newsmax , michellmalkin, western journalism, all articles have authors. Send each on a note on commercial shuttle by don nelson. You can use the following if you want to:
Long range space policy plan by Don Nelson. Chart Showing progression of steps onnasaproblems.com. Details on nasaproblems.com. Covers LEO, cislunar, moon, and mars. This plan utilizes our investment in the Shuttle System.
This plan makes a lot of sense to me. Seems to me a lot of former NASA high level people agree with this approach outlined by Don. Why can't we get a unified effort to try to get this implemented. His plan covers Leo, moon, cislunar, mars. It uses hardware we have with improvements and it does not head down the wrong path (SLS/Orion) as he discusses in his letter to Bolden.
Please help get the word out. The Nation 's space capability & Security is in your hands.
Thanks, Bobby Martin
Sent from my iPad
BHO removed all rqts for Food Stamp card---you can be a billionaire
On news this am-- on Megan Kelly . It is Vote buying.
Source of natures' left-handedness
This is an artist’s concept of excess left-hand aspartic acid created in asteroids and delivered to Earth via meteorite impacts. The line at the bottom is a chromatogram showing that left-hand aspartic acid (tall peak in the center, with diagram of left-hand aspartic acid molecule on top) was four times more abundant in the meteorite sample than right-hand aspartic acid (smaller peak to the left, with right-handed aspartic acid molecule on top). Image Credit: NASA/Hrybyk-Keith, Mary P.
A recent analysis of a meteorite recovered in Canada sheds new light on a well-known mystery in biology.
The meteorite fell to Earth in January 2000. It exploded over British Columbia, Canada and pieces fell across the frozen Tagish Lake. Many people witnessed the meteor fall and collected pieces quickly and kept them frozen to minimize contamination by Earth organisms.
A team led by Dr. Daniel Glavin of NASA’s Goddard Astrobiology Analytical Laboratory at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, has analyzed some of those fragments and made an exciting discovery.
Glavin’s team put small samples of the Tagish Lake meteorite into hot water solutions, drawing out any volatile molecules, then fed them into a mass spectrometer, a device that determines the composition of molecules by ionizing them and determining their charge-to-mass ratio.
The team was not surprised when organic molecules showed up in the analysis, space rocks have long been known to carry pre-biotic organic molecules, but they were surprised to discover that most of the aspartic acid was of the left-handed variety.
Many molecules, including amino acids, which are the building blocks for proteins and are vital for all life on Earth, have a property known as “chirality,” from the Greek word for hand.
This means that there are two versions of each molecule, a “right-handed” version and a “left-handed” version. These two molecules are mirror images of each other. Just like human hands, they are perfect mirror images, but can never be superimposed on each other.
Chiral molecules are divided into right-handed and left-handed classes, based on certain factors about their structure.
Meteorites like this one discovered at Tagish Lake are providing invaluable insights in molecular biology. Photo Credit: Michael Holly, Creative Services, University of Alberta.
Amino acids are a well-known class of chiral molecule.
Normal, non-biologic chemical reactions should produce equal numbers of right- and left-handed versions of chiral molecules, but life on Earth uses left-handed amino acids almost exclusively.
This has long been a mystery for biologists and chemists alike. In particular, if non-biologic chemical reactions produce right- and left-handed versions equally, why do the organisms that were born from those reactions choose to use the left-handed versions?
Glavin and his team think they may have found the answer.
Analysis of the aspartic acid, an amino acid that is vital to human life, revealed that there were four times more left-handed molecules than right-handed ones.
But another amino acid found in the meteorite sample, alanine, showed no such discrepancy. Glavin believes this is evidence that the samples were not contaminated by Earth chemistry, reasoning that if Earth chemistry had contaminated the samples, that both molecules would have a large discrepancy between right- and left-handed molecules.
Glavin also reasons that since these molecules are rich in carbon-13, an isotope of carbon that has one extra neutron, they are likely from space. Carbon-13 is rare on Earth, but is more plentiful in space, where energetic particles may interact with normal carbon-12 to create carbon-13.
Previous theories about the creation of more left-handed than right-handed amino acids in space involved expose of the pre-biotic molecules to polarized radiation in the solar nebula early in the Solar System’s history. But this theory alone cannot account for the massive discrepancy in the number of right- and left-handed aspartic acid molecules.
Glavin proposes another theory; aspartic acid tends to crystallize in either right-handed or left-handed forms. The two versions do not generally mix during the crystallization process.
But alanine prefers to mix the two versions when crystallizing.
Glavin believes this preference for single-version crystals accounts for the majority of left-handed molecules of aspartic acid. He proposes that early on in the Solar System’s history, polarized light in the solar nebula, or some other process, produced a slight excess of left-handed aspartic acid molecules. These molecules crystallized, and the left-handed crystals catalyzed the creation of more left-handed molecules.
Meanwhile, even if there was an excess of left-handed alanine molecules, the acid’s tendency to form mixed crystals evened out the discrepancy.
This process may even have occurred on Earth in places where such molecules could form, a similar process may have driven the creation of an excess of left-handed amino acids. This excess, fueled by both space rocks falling to Earth and processes inside the Earth itself may have caused life to prefer left-handed over right-handed amino acids.
While this theory may make it easier to understand how life got its start on Earth, it makes it more difficult to find conclusive evidence of past or present life beyond the Earth. Since non-biologic chemistry can drive the formation of an excess number of left-handed molecules, the detection of such an excess, which might have lead to a belief that evidence of life had been found, does not necessarily mean that biological chemistry created that excess.
Dr. Glavin is the lead author of this paper, which will be published in the Meteoritics and Planetary Science journal.
A recent analysis of a meteorite recovered in Canada sheds new light on a well-known mystery in biology.
The meteorite fell to Earth in January 2000. It exploded over British Columbia, Canada and pieces fell across the frozen Tagish Lake. Many people witnessed the meteor fall and collected pieces quickly and kept them frozen to minimize contamination by Earth organisms.
A team led by Dr. Daniel Glavin of NASA’s Goddard Astrobiology Analytical Laboratory at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, has analyzed some of those fragments and made an exciting discovery.
Glavin’s team put small samples of the Tagish Lake meteorite into hot water solutions, drawing out any volatile molecules, then fed them into a mass spectrometer, a device that determines the composition of molecules by ionizing them and determining their charge-to-mass ratio.
The team was not surprised when organic molecules showed up in the analysis, space rocks have long been known to carry pre-biotic organic molecules, but they were surprised to discover that most of the aspartic acid was of the left-handed variety.
Many molecules, including amino acids, which are the building blocks for proteins and are vital for all life on Earth, have a property known as “chirality,” from the Greek word for hand.
This means that there are two versions of each molecule, a “right-handed” version and a “left-handed” version. These two molecules are mirror images of each other. Just like human hands, they are perfect mirror images, but can never be superimposed on each other.
Chiral molecules are divided into right-handed and left-handed classes, based on certain factors about their structure.
Meteorites like this one discovered at Tagish Lake are providing invaluable insights in molecular biology. Photo Credit: Michael Holly, Creative Services, University of Alberta.
Amino acids are a well-known class of chiral molecule.
Normal, non-biologic chemical reactions should produce equal numbers of right- and left-handed versions of chiral molecules, but life on Earth uses left-handed amino acids almost exclusively.
This has long been a mystery for biologists and chemists alike. In particular, if non-biologic chemical reactions produce right- and left-handed versions equally, why do the organisms that were born from those reactions choose to use the left-handed versions?
Glavin and his team think they may have found the answer.
Analysis of the aspartic acid, an amino acid that is vital to human life, revealed that there were four times more left-handed molecules than right-handed ones.
But another amino acid found in the meteorite sample, alanine, showed no such discrepancy. Glavin believes this is evidence that the samples were not contaminated by Earth chemistry, reasoning that if Earth chemistry had contaminated the samples, that both molecules would have a large discrepancy between right- and left-handed molecules.
Glavin also reasons that since these molecules are rich in carbon-13, an isotope of carbon that has one extra neutron, they are likely from space. Carbon-13 is rare on Earth, but is more plentiful in space, where energetic particles may interact with normal carbon-12 to create carbon-13.
Previous theories about the creation of more left-handed than right-handed amino acids in space involved expose of the pre-biotic molecules to polarized radiation in the solar nebula early in the Solar System’s history. But this theory alone cannot account for the massive discrepancy in the number of right- and left-handed aspartic acid molecules.
Glavin proposes another theory; aspartic acid tends to crystallize in either right-handed or left-handed forms. The two versions do not generally mix during the crystallization process.
But alanine prefers to mix the two versions when crystallizing.
Glavin believes this preference for single-version crystals accounts for the majority of left-handed molecules of aspartic acid. He proposes that early on in the Solar System’s history, polarized light in the solar nebula, or some other process, produced a slight excess of left-handed aspartic acid molecules. These molecules crystallized, and the left-handed crystals catalyzed the creation of more left-handed molecules.
Meanwhile, even if there was an excess of left-handed alanine molecules, the acid’s tendency to form mixed crystals evened out the discrepancy.
This process may even have occurred on Earth in places where such molecules could form, a similar process may have driven the creation of an excess of left-handed amino acids. This excess, fueled by both space rocks falling to Earth and processes inside the Earth itself may have caused life to prefer left-handed over right-handed amino acids.
While this theory may make it easier to understand how life got its start on Earth, it makes it more difficult to find conclusive evidence of past or present life beyond the Earth. Since non-biologic chemistry can drive the formation of an excess number of left-handed molecules, the detection of such an excess, which might have lead to a belief that evidence of life had been found, does not necessarily mean that biological chemistry created that excess.
Dr. Glavin is the lead author of this paper, which will be published in the Meteoritics and Planetary Science journal.
7/31/12 news
Hope you can join us this Thursday at our monthly “First Thursday of every month” NASA Retirees Luncheon at Hibachi Grill at 11:30, on Bay Area Blvd. between Highway 3 and I45. It an opportunity to see ex Coworkers and share your retirement lessons learned and fun excursions you may have taken around the World. And don’t be shy, introduce your selves and make new retiree friends while you are enjoying the monthly fellowship with Aerospace colleagues to network or whatever your pleasure.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
JSC TODAY HEADLINES
1. Watch the Launch and Docking of Russia's Progress Cargo Spacecraft on NASA
2. Space Center Houston hosts 'Curiosity: 7 Minutes of Terror'
3. The JSC Safety Action Team (JSAT) Says ...
4. Senior Drug Interaction
5. Interested in the State of the Center? RSVP for Aug. NMA Luncheon
6. Lean Six Sigma - Overview Training
7. Shuttle Knowledge Console
8. FedTraveler Live Lab Tomorrow, Aug. 1
9. Deadline For Contest Entries
10. This Week at Starport
11. Project Asset and Lifecycle Management System (PALMS) Training Available
12. JSC Library's Introductory Training is Tomorrow
________________________________________ QUOTE OF THE DAY
“ The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.”
-- Dolly Parton
________________________________________
1. Watch the Launch and Docking of Russia's Progress Cargo Spacecraft on NASA
NASA TV will broadcast the launch and, for the first time, the same-day rendezvous and docking of a Progress cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS). Coverage begins at 2:15 p.m. CDT Wednesday, Aug. 1.
ISS Progress 48 is scheduled to launch at 2:35 p.m. from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. It will dock later that day at 8:24 p.m. in a test of an abbreviated launch-to-rendezvous schedule designed to reduce the typical two-day flight between a launch and docking. The goal would be to use this new approach for future Soyuz crew member flights.
NASA TV coverage of the Progress' arrival at the station will begin at 7:45 p.m.
Russian flight controllers retain the option to revert to a normal two-day rendezvous if developments require. If that occurs, the craft will dock Friday, Aug. 3, and NASA TV will provide live coverage.
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 viewing the video using these systems, contact the Information Resources Directorate Customer Support Center at x46367.
For more information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/station
JSC External Relations, Office of Communications and Public Affairs x35111 http://www.nasa.gov/station
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2. Space Center Houston hosts 'Curiosity: 7 Minutes of Terror'
Come join a fun-filled family camp-in to celebrate the landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars. There will be edible Mars creations, exciting presentations by Mars experts and even a delicious Mars celebration breakfast following countdown.
Date: Sunday, Aug. 5, from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m.
Save $5! Only $4.95 if purchased online at http://www.spacecenter.org/marslanding.html by Aug. 4. Tickets purchased at the gate will be $9.95.
Susan H. Anderson x38630 http://www.spacecenter.org/marslanding.html
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3. The JSC Safety Action Team (JSAT) Says ...
The rain has come and the grass is growing. Wear protective equipment when you're mowing. Congratulations to August 2012 "JSAT Says…" winner Sharon Kemp, Barrios Technology. Any JSAT member (all JSC contractor and civil servant employees) may submit a slogan for consideration to JSAT Secretary Reese Squires. Submissions for September are due by Friday, Aug. 10. Keep those great submissions coming. You may be the next JSAT Says Winner!
Reese Squires x37776 \\jsc-ia-na01b\JIMMS_Share\Share\JSAT\JSAT Says\JSAT Says 08-2012.pptx
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4. Senior Drug Interaction
Senior citizens have increased risk for potentially dangerous drug interactions due to physiological changes, poor coordination of services and the sheer volume of medications that are taken. The Employee Assistance Program Caregivers Resource Group is happy to present Simone Willingham, MD of the JSC Clinic on Tuesday, July 31, 2012 at 12:00 noon in the Building 30 Auditorium. Dr. Willingham will answer questions and provide information on common medications, drug interactions and side effects.
Lorrie Bennett, Employee Assistance Program, Clinical Services Branch 281-483-6130
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5. Interested in the State of the Center? RSVP for Aug. NMA Luncheon
Please join us for August's JSC National Management Association Chapter luncheon presentation, "State of the Center", with guest speaker Mike Coats.
Date: August 28, 2012
Time: 11:30 a.m. - 1 p.m.
Location: Gilruth Center, Alamo Ballroom
Seats will fill up fast. Please RSVP by close of business Aug. 21 at http://www.jscnma.com/Events
For RSVP technical assistance and membership information, please contact Lorraine Guerra at lorraine.guerra-1@nasa.gov or 281-483-4262.
Cassandra Miranda 1-281-483-8618
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6. Lean Six Sigma - Overview Training
The principles of Lean and Six Sigma have become an industry standard practice in continual improvement over the last couple of decades. They are frequently combined using complementary approaches to both improve efficiency and reduce variation and defects. NASA began its Lean Six Sigma program in early 2000 by benchmarking the training and implementation methods of its contractors and industry partners, resulting in a NASA Lean Six Sigma approach of rapid process improvement. JSC began training civil servants as process improvement facilitators in 2009 and offers periodic training provided by the agency's Master Black Belt. Civil servants and contractors are invited to attend a one-hour overview training session provided by the agency's expert in an informal question-answer format. This one-hour overview also serves as a pre-requisite for the NASA Green Belt training class (offered in SATERN). Monday, Aug. 6: Building 1, Room 360, from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m./Tuesday, Aug. 7: Building 30 Auditorium, from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m.
No registration is required.
Cheryl Andrews x35979
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7. Shuttle Knowledge Console
Hard to believe a year has passed since the final launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis, the final mission of the Space Shuttle Program. As part of JSC's ongoing Space Shuttle Knowledge capture process, the JSC Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO) and the JSC Engineering Directorate are pleased to announce that many of the systems and subsystems developed and utilized during the program have been captured and retained for JSC users at the new Shuttle Knowledge Console. (https://skc.jsc.nasa.gov) Systems such as the Shuttle Drawing System, Subsystem Manager, Space Shuttle Flight Software, SSPWeb and many more can be accessed from the console. Questions about the new website can be directed to Howard Wagner in the JSC Engineering Directorate or Brent Fontenot in the CKO office. We would love your feedback on this new site. Click the "Submit Feedback" button located on the top of the site navigation, and give us your comments.
Brent J Fontenot x36456 https://skc.jsc.nasa.gov/Home.aspx
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8. FedTraveler Live Lab Tomorrow, Aug. 1
Do you need some hands-on, personal help with FedTraveler.com? Join the Business Systems, Innovation and Process Improvement Office for a FedTraveler Live Lab tomorrow, August 1, 2012, any time between 9 a.m. and noon in Building 20, Room 204. Our help desk representatives will be available to help you work through travel processes and learn more about using FedTraveler during this informal workshop. Bring your current travel documents or specific questions that you have about the system and join us for some hands-on, in-person help with the FedTraveler. If you'd like to sign up for this FedTraveler Live Lab please log into SATERN and register. For additional information, please contact Judy Seier at x32771.
Gina Glenney x39851
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9. Deadline For Contest Entries
You still have time to enter the Stay Sharp, Stay Safe campaign contest. But, hurry! The drawing for a fabulous prize will be held this Friday, Aug. 3.
Go to the link below this message, and click on "Contest." Just answer 10 questions, and you're in!
For a sneak peak at the choice of what you might win, visit https://powerofone.jsc.nasa.gov/experience/?awardLevel=GOLD
Now, there's a prize worth going for!
Stacey Menard x45660 http://www6.jsc.nasa.gov/safety/WhatsNew/AAC/
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10. This Week at Starport
Mars mania is coming! On Sunday, Aug. 5, the next Mars rover, Curiosity, will land on Mars. Special Mars products will be offered this week at discounted prices in Starport Gift Shops to honor this spectacular event. Plus both Building 3 and 11 Cafes will have commemorative Curiosity Cups in place of the regular dine-in tumblers. These special cups are free with the purchase of a fountain drink or $0.50 each.
Visit the JSC Federal Credit Union booth in the Starport Cafes on Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.. to chat with representatives regarding you checking, savings, and other accounts.
Plus ... Are you ready to cut loose?? Learn the Footloose dance in one amazing night - Aug. 10 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at the Gilruth Center. Register by Aug. 1, and the fee is only $10/person. Visit http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/Fitness/RecreationClasses/RecreationPrograms.cfm for more details.
Shelly Haralson x39168 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/
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11. Project Asset and Lifecycle Management System (PALMS) Training Available
PALMS is the Engineering Directorate's new Project Management tool for online project planning, scheduling and tracking. Closely integrated with Oasis, PALMS enables Web-based project collaboration, management and publishing of project schedules, resources and associated data products. To register for one of the monthly PALMS classroom training sessions, simply access SATERN and select one of these available courses:
PALMS Project Server Training for Team Members and Project Managers
SATERN Course ID: PALMS-01
The next session is available for self registration in SATERN until Monday, Aug. 13, for all EA civil-servants and contractors.
Date: Tuesday Aug. 14
Location: Building 20, Room 204
Stacey Zapatka x34749
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12. JSC Library's Introductory Training is Tomorrow
Don't miss your chance to learn about the resources and services available at the Scientific & Technical Information Center (STIC). The STIC consists of the Main Library, Bioastronautics Library, the International Space Station Library and the Still Imagery Repository and Video Repository.
You can attend via WebEx from 9 to 10 a.m. To register click on the "Classroom/WebEx" schedule on the following website: http://library.jsc.nasa.gov/training/default.aspx
Provided by the Information Resources Directorate http://ird.jsc.nasa.gov/default.aspx
Ebony Fondren x32490 http://library.nasa.gov
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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:
· 9:40 am Central (10:40 EDT) – E32’s Suni Williams w/WCAI Radio, Woods Hole, MA & CNN’s Sanjay Gupta
NEWS NOTE: Distribution may be delayed through Thursday as I am on West Coast time
Human Spaceflight News
Tuesday – July 31, 2012
HEADLINES AND LEADS
Russia's Progress 47 Cargo Craft Departs Space Station for Final Time
Mark Carreau - Aviation Week
Russia’s much traveled Progress 47 cargo capsule has departed the International Space Station for good, freeing the Russian segment Pirs docking port for the arrival of the Progress 48 later this week, following a first time, four orbit launch to docking transit. Progress 47, which arrived at the six man orbiting lab initially on April 22, undocked for the final time on Monday at 5:19 p.m., EDT, filled with trash and headed for several weeks of orbital engineering tests and a destructive re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere.
Shuttle contractor USA to lay off 148 at Kennedy Space Center
Patrick Peterson - Florida Today
United Space Alliance plans to lay off 148 workers at Kennedy Space Center in September, according to a notice filed last week with the state Department of Economic Opportunity. The notice said employees working in administrative and support, waste management and remediation services would be affected.
NASA's historic Hangar S faces bitter end
Aging facility played big part in space program
Todd Halvorson - Florida Today
For Jack King, it was a magical day. Fifty years ago, on Feb. 23, 1962, President John F. Kennedy traveled to Florida to honor Mercury astronaut John Glenn at historic Hangar S on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Three days earlier, Glenn made history, becoming the first American to orbit Earth — a feat that put the fledgling U.S. space program on equal footing with the Soviet Union in a Cold War battle for technological and ideological supremacy. “So it was a very special occasion,” said King, a longtime Cocoa Beach resident and the first public affairs director at what now is Kennedy Space Center. Memories like that make it hard for King to see Hangar S, which served as crew quarters for the Mercury astronauts, show up on NASA’s demolition list.
Report: NASA Essential to American National Security
Mark Whittington - Yahoo News
A new white paper released by TASC, a company that provides engineering and other services to the military, the intelligence community, and other government agencies, says NASA is vital to the national security of the United States. The white paper suggests that NASA, more than the United States military, is positioned to foster international cooperation in space. The space agency does this by providing technical expertise for international space projects. In such a way, trust and interdependence is built up among nations which in turn lowers the possibility of international conflict. NASA can interface with the civil space agencies of other countries in a way that neither the military nor the State Department are able to.
NASA conducts mission simulations in Hawaii
Marlene Morgan - AmericaSpace.org
Astronaut Eugene Cernan, the commander of Apollo 17, was the last man who walked on the Moon in December 1972. NASA is currently conducting a nine-day field test outside Hilo, Hawaii, so they can evaluate new exploration techniques for the surface of the Moon. These mission simulations, known as analog missions, are performed at extreme and often remote locations here on Earth to prepare for robotic and human missions to extraterrestrial destinations. The In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) analog mission is collaboration with the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), with help from the Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems (PISCES).
New engine passes test and revs up space hopes
Xin Dingding - China Daily
A next-generation engine, that will pave the way for lunar exploration, was successfully tested on Sunday. The engine, with a 120-ton-thrust using liquid oxygen (LOX) and kerosene, will enable the Long March 5 carrier rocket - which is expected to make its maiden voyage in 2014 - to place a 25-ton payload into near-Earth orbit, or place a 14-ton payload into geostationary orbit, experts said. The tests, which included seeing how the engine would respond to rotational speeds of nearly 20,000 revolutions per minute and temperatures of 3,000 C for 200 seconds, were held in Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi province.
Why SpaceX is setting the pace in the commercial space race
Innovations blaze a new trail for NASA spaceflight in the 20-teens
Stewart Money - NBC News (Commentary)
(This is a response to a series by NBC News' Jay Barbree on U.S. human spaceflight. Money is a freelance writer focusing on space transportation issues. He is currently working on a book about SpaceX and the development of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon spacecraft.)
NASA is about to make a critical decision regarding a new chapter in American space exploration. At issue is which two entrants among a field of highly qualified contestants will move ahead as the primary winners into the next phase of the commercial crew competition to replace the space shuttle as America’s means of access to Earth orbit. This decision is about much more than whose brand name will be emblazoned on the side of a spacecraft. With serious differences between the leading contenders, it is also a referendum on the merits of a new approach to developing and conducting spaceflight operations, one which recently resulted in the first-ever private commercial flight to the International Space Station.
Giants in glass houses
Dwayne Day - The Space Review (Commentary)
In the past month I have had the opportunity to visit all three locations that have a Saturn V rocket on display: the Kennedy Space Center Visitor’s Complex, the Huntsville Space and Rocket Center, and Space Center Houston. Both the Kennedy and Huntsville locations have outstanding facilities and exhibits for displaying their Saturn V rockets. They are both obviously proud of what they have and how they represent their communities. They both followed different paths toward funding their facilities, but the end results are impressive and demonstrate a commitment both to honoring the objects and their designers and builders, as well as educating current and future generations of the public. Houston is another story. The building includes wall displays, but no other artifacts or media like at the other two sites. Unfortunately, although intended as a temporary structure, and erected in the middle of the last decade, such buildings often have a tendency to become permanent. What is more dismaying is that the building containing the Saturn V is starting to deteriorate. This simply reinforces the impression that the Saturn V is being stored in a big garage. Houston has had the Saturn V for decades. It has housed it indoors for almost seven years, and yet the city has not improved the presentation or shown any indication that it intends to display the Saturn V with any of the affection and intelligence that the Kennedy and Huntsville communities have given to their Saturn Vs. If you look at what Houston has done it is hard not to wonder if they would have treated a shuttle orbiter with the same indifference. Maybe being overlooked for a shuttle will be a wakeup call for Space Center Houston to get their act together and start aspiring to be like the better space museums.
FAA Deserves Extra Credit for Safety Dialog
Space News (Editorial)
When Paul Allen and Burt Rutan’s SpaceShipOne snagged the $10 million Ansari X Prize in the fall of 2004 by flying to suborbital space twice within a week, many reasonably assumed that more such jaunts — with paying passengers on board — would soon follow. Few would have imagined that eight years would fly by without another flight. But that’s what has happened. Virgin Galactic, the suborbital spaceflight industry’s well-financed frontrunner, says it is on track to begin powered test flights of the six-passenger SpaceShipTwo by year’s end with ticketed flights to follow in 2013. If the New Mexico-based company holds to this schedule, it still stands to benefit from a regulatory amnesty period the United States enacted in late 2004 to nurture the still nascent commercial human spaceflight sector. But just barely.
House to take up bill protecting astronauts’ rights to space artifacts
Robert Pearlman - collectSPACE.com
The U.S. House of Representatives will begin this week considering a bill to confirm the ownership of astronauts' mission mementos. The lawmakers' meeting comes 41 years after astronauts landed on the moon with souvenirs that raised congressional concerns. The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology is scheduled to meet Thursday (Aug. 2) to markup the bill aimed at establishing clear title to the space artifacts that astronauts have kept since flying to the moon.
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COMPLETE STORIES
Russia's Progress 47 Cargo Craft Departs Space Station for Final Time
Mark Carreau - Aviation Week
Russia’s much traveled Progress 47 cargo capsule has departed the International Space Station for good, freeing the Russian segment Pirs docking port for the arrival of the Progress 48 later this week, following a first time, four orbit launch to docking transit.
Progress 47, which arrived at the six man orbiting lab initially on April 22, undocked for the final time on Monday at 5:19 p.m., EDT, filled with trash and headed for several weeks of orbital engineering tests and a destructive re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere.
The freighter, also designated M-15M, departed the station for the first time on July 22 for what was to be an overnight flight test of the new KURS-NA automated rendezvous system. However, the return was postponed after the upgraded avionics failed an activation self test.
After Russian troubleshooting and a warm up of the avionics, the Progress 47 re-docked late Saturday without difficulty, completing a successful test of the KURS-NA. The upgraded rendezvous system is projected to become a fixture aboard future Soyuz crew transport and Progress re-supply craft, possibly by 2014.
Cosmonaut Gennady Padalka removed and stowed the KURS-NA aboard the ISS to await a future trip back to Earth and some further engineering review.
On Monday, the NASA-led ISS mission management team approved plans for the one day Progress 48 mission. The lift off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan is set for Wednesday at 3:35 p.m., EDT. The four orbit transit would lead to an automated docking of the new resupply ship with the space station at 9:24 p.m., EDT.
The normal 34 orbit, two plus day launch to docking timeline remains a Russian option for the Progress 48. If exercised, the latest supply ship would reach the orbiting science lab on Friday at 6:15 p.m., EDT.
Shuttle contractor USA to lay off 148 at Kennedy Space Center
Patrick Peterson - Florida Today
United Space Alliance plans to lay off 148 workers at Kennedy Space Center in September, according to a notice filed last week with the state Department of Economic Opportunity.
The notice said employees working in administrative and support, waste management and remediation services would be affected.
“It’s a continuation of the ramp-down following the end of the space shuttle program, so there’s not one particular group of people targeted,” USA spokeswoman Kari Fluegel in Houston said.
The last shuttle mission ended July 21, 2011. About 8,000 space industry workers have lost their jobs as the 30-year-old shuttle program came to an end. The latest layoff will take place on Sept. 28.
“We expect additional layoffs as we continue to complete the transition and retirement work (on the space shuttles,)” Fluegel said.
Just over 2,500 remain at work for USA in Alabama, Houston and Florida, with nearly 1,300 in Florida.
NASA's historic Hangar S faces bitter end
Aging facility played big part in space program
Todd Halvorson - Florida Today
For Jack King, it was a magical day.
Fifty years ago, on Feb. 23, 1962, President John F. Kennedy traveled to Florida to honor Mercury astronaut John Glenn at historic Hangar S on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
Three days earlier, Glenn made history, becoming the first American to orbit Earth — a feat that put the fledgling U.S. space program on equal footing with the Soviet Union in a Cold War battle for technological and ideological supremacy.
“So it was a very special occasion,” said King, a longtime Cocoa Beach resident and the first public affairs director at what now is Kennedy Space Center.
Memories like that make it hard for King to see Hangar S, which served as crew quarters for the Mercury astronauts, show up on NASA’s demolition list.
The space agency is in the midst of a post-shuttle era examination of all its facilities at KSC and Cape Canaveral. The goal: Determine which facilities will be needed to move ahead with the development of new rockets and spacecraft for deep space missions; which facilities might entice commercial space taxi companies, and which facilities no longer have a reason for being.
“Unfortunately, there are some buildings that aren’t sustainable anymore, some that we can’t really afford to maintain,” said Tom Engler, deputy manager of the Center Planning and Development Office at KSC.
“This is a 60-plus-year-old building. It has a lot of maintenance issues, and it’s actually beneficial to the center to put them on the abandon list and then eventually demolish them because they are too expensive for us to maintain.”
The annual operating cost at Hangar S: $148,000.
“It breaks my heart. I realize there are all kinds of circumstances involved, but there were two facilities I remember so much in the very early days,” King said.
One is the old Mercury Mission Control building, which was razed in 2010. “Hangar S is the other one,” King said.
Take a walk down memory lane with King and you’ll see Hangar S was the nexus of NASA’s nascent operation at Cape Canaveral in the early 1960s.
It’s located a block from the western gate of the air force base, just east of the Banana River.
In the E&L (Engineering and Laboratory) building just across the street, Kurt Debus, the German rocket scientist, directed the design, development and construction of NASA’s Saturn V launch site on North Merritt Island.
In between is the E&O (Engineering & Operations) building, where unsung heroes launched early American satellites.
“That was ‘Unmanned Launch Operations’ — a very humble name for a very fine organization,” King said.
“Communications satellites, weather satellites, lunar probes, planetary probes —all of those exciting missions that were really in the shadow of manned spaceflight,” he said. “Those guys really never got the credit they deserved.”
Next door: Hangar S.
That’s where engineers checked out Mercury spacecraft.
That’s where NASA set up crew quarters for Mercury astronauts.
That’s where Dr. William Douglas, the personal physician of the astronauts, performed preflight medical tests; where Joe Schmitt suited up the astronauts; where the astronauts walked out the north door, boarded a step van, and headed to the launch pad.
And that’s where NASA housed Enos and Ham and others in its chimp colony. The chimps flew before NASA put astronauts at risk.
“You had about five or six chimpanzees, and just like a back-up to the prime pilot, you’d have back-ups to the ‘chosen chimp,’ ’’ King said.
The astronauts successfully lobbied for less aromatic quarters, and that’s when they started staying at the Holiday Inn in Cocoa Beach. Later, the astronauts and innkeeper Henri Landwirth built the Cape Colony Inn on State Route A1A. The La Quinta Inn is there now.
Today, Hangar S is a gutted shadow of its former self.
There’s a wide-open concrete slab floor where Mercury and Gemini capsules were checked out.
Behind that lies an area NASA turned into a training facility, where engineers and technicians learned to operate and maintain the shuttle’s twin maneuvering engines and steering jets.
Climb the stairs on the south end of the building to the old Mercury crew quarters. NASA transformed the area into offices. Now it’s an abandoned mess.
There’s no telling where the astronaut’s sleeping quarters were located; where the kitchen and dining area were; where the medical facilities were or the suit-up room.
The only thing of historical value seems to be the memories.
NASA this summer will request proposals for a demolition design contract, and then select a company to develop the ways and means to bring the building down. It’s unclear exactly when the demolition contractor will be selected, but the entire process is likely to take a year.
King said it’s hard to imagine Hangar S gone.
It’s “like a shrine to me,” he said.
Report: NASA Essential to American National Security
Mark Whittington - Yahoo News
A new white paper released by TASC, a company that provides engineering and other services to the military, the intelligence community, and other government agencies, says NASA is vital to the national security of the United States.
NASA as a vehicle for fostering international cooperation
The white paper suggests that NASA, more than the United States military, is positioned to foster international cooperation in space. The space agency does this by providing technical expertise for international space projects. In such a way, trust and interdependence is built up among nations which in turn lowers the possibility of international conflict. NASA can interface with the civil space agencies of other countries in a way that neither the military nor the State Department are able to.
NASA enables technological innovation
The white paper also suggests that NASA can enhance the national security of the United States by fostering technological innovation that reduces the cost of space operations. This in turn provides the United States an edge in any conflict that does ensue. The report does go on to say that the era of constrained budgets poses a threat to continuing innovation.
NASA as a source of soft power
The meme of NASA's engaging in international space projects as a source of soft power was touched on in an article in Space News by Taylor Dinerman, currently affiliated with the Gatestone institute. Soft power seeks to influence world events and other countries by means other than military strength, such as diplomacy or economic cooperation. Dinerman cited the International Space Station as an example of such soft power generating space projects that NASA is engaged in. He also suggested that a lunar base could serve such a purpose as well, bringing in other, friendly countries to help to administer such a facility and providing a means for international astronauts to visit the moon that they otherwise would not have the opportunity to.
NASA and technological innovation
A year ago, MSNBC published an article about NASA as a source of technological innovation. The piece came to several conclusions.
Some claims about NASA produced technology are overblown. Tang, Velcro, and Teflon, sometimes ascribed to NASA, actually were invented before they were used in the space program.
The path from a technology developed by NASA to a commercially useful product is often indirect and hard to track. Such "spin-offs" can be hard also to predict and developed serendipitously. One effect, not often cited, is the development of a knowledge base just by solving the difficult problems of space flight that can prove useful in other areas.
Studies about the economic return from NASA range from three dollars for every one spent to as much as 21 dollars for everyone spent.
NASA and the commercial sector
While NASA's commercial crew program has had its share of controversy, the fact of the matter is that the space agency as a potential customer and as a source of subsidies has provided a growth of the commercial space sector and a certain degree of technology innovation. This collaborative effort recently featured a mission by the Dragon cargo ship built and operated by SpaceX to the International Space Station. It is hoped that this sort of commercial operation will lower the cost of space travel by fostering private competition for space markets such as the ISS.
NASA conducts mission simulations in Hawaii
Marlene Morgan - AmericaSpace.org
Astronaut Eugene Cernan, the commander of Apollo 17, was the last man who walked on the Moon in December 1972. NASA is currently conducting a nine-day field test outside Hilo, Hawaii, so they can evaluate new exploration techniques for the surface of the Moon. These mission simulations, known as analog missions, are performed at extreme and often remote locations here on Earth to prepare for robotic and human missions to extraterrestrial destinations.
The In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) analog mission is collaboration with the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), with help from the Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems (PISCES).
The Apollo Astronauts did not have the sophisticated tools, machines or technology of today. Mercury, Gemini and Apollo training have been surpassed by steady technological advancement. The ISRU analog mission will demonstrate techniques to prospect for lunar ice. The testing site near Hilo features lava-covered mountain soil similar to the ancient volcanic plains on the moon. The two main tests under way are the Regolith and Environment Science and Oxygen and Lunar Volatile Extraction (RESOLVE) and the Moon Mars Analog Mission Activities (MMAMA).
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) located in California, has designed a unique mechanical geologist to seek out possible evidence of life on Mars for approximately 18 days. The spacecraft would search for favorable possible habitat conditions that would indicate evidence that life could exist on the freeze-dried Martian surface.
One of the most productive methods that scientists have used to learn how to search for the existence of life on other planets – has been to seek it out in isolate fields on planet Earth.
The rovers being tested out are not as elaborate as the Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity (scheduled to land on the Red Planet in August). The drilling demonstration in Hawaii includes CSA’s Artemis Jr. rover and a drill. These devices support the RESOLVE payload.
RESOLVE is designed to prospect for water, ice and other lunar resources. It will also demonstrate how potential future explorers can take advantage of resources at possible landing sites. The rover and its onboard instrumentation are about as tall as a human and weigh about 660 pounds, three times heavier than the equipment that would be used on an actual mission.
MMAMA is a group of small projects and tests that will define the requirements for navigation, mobility, communications, sample processing, curating and other critical elements that could be used in future science and exploration missions. Using another CSA rover, Juno, and payload interfaces, the MMAMA suite of tests includes analysis of regolith using pryolysis (breaking down the samples by heating them), robotic resource mapping, a miniaturized Mossbauer spectrometer, and a combined miniaturized Mossbauer and X-Ray fluorescence spectrometer. A team of engineers and researchers will monitor all of the tests from a mission control center in Hawaii.
Lessons learned from the ISRU project become increasingly important as NASA embarks on deep-space missions. Instead of having to launch all of the resources needed for these missions from Earth (a heavy and therefore expensive affair), a human crew could go into space knowing that natural resources already there waiting for them.
New engine passes test and revs up space hopes
Xin Dingding - China Daily
A next-generation engine, that will pave the way for lunar exploration, was successfully tested on Sunday.
The engine, with a 120-ton-thrust using liquid oxygen (LOX) and kerosene, will enable the Long March 5 carrier rocket - which is expected to make its maiden voyage in 2014 - to place a 25-ton payload into near-Earth orbit, or place a 14-ton payload into geostationary orbit, experts said.
The tests, which included seeing how the engine would respond to rotational speeds of nearly 20,000 revolutions per minute and temperatures of 3,000 C for 200 seconds, were held in Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi province.
"The successful tests confirm the reliability of China's LOX/kerosene engine," said Lai Daichu, test commander.
Tan Yonghua, head of Xi'an Aerospace Propulsion Institute under the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp, which developed the engine, said that the single engine currently used by Long March carrier rockets only has a 75-ton thrust, much less than the 120-ton thrust of the new engine.
Luan Xiting, deputy head of the institute, said that the new engine's extra thrust will enable China to assemble a space station and also help with the third stage of the lunar exploration program.
The three stages involve orbit, landing and return.
Earlier reports said that the Chang'e-5 lunar explorer will bring about 2 kg of lunar samples to Earth.
Ouyang Ziyuan, a senior consultant in the lunar exploration program and a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that Chang'e-5 will be launched atop the Long March 5 carrier rocket from the new space launch center in Wenchang, Hainan province, which is under construction.
The space program is in the second stage, with three lunar exploration spacecraft, Chang'e 2, Chang'e 3 and Chang'e 4.
Ouyang said in a recent e-mail reply to China Daily that China will launch its third lunar explorer, Chang'e 3, next year to land on the moon.
A rover will explore its surroundings.
The landing is expected to be the most challenging part of the mission, he said.
Chang'e 3 will hover about 4 meters above the lunar surface.
Then the engine will cut out, and the Chang'e 3 will drop onto the surface.
As for the rover, the leading scientist in lunar exploration said it is "China's most advanced robot".
The rover carries a lunar "radar" and while it is operating on the surface it can scan several hundred meters under the surface.
The rover also carries instruments that can detect minerals.
To combat nighttime temperatures, -180 C, scientists have developed nuclear-powered batteries that can help the lander and rover function.
They will conserve energy by "hibernating" and when the sun rises the solar energy will "wake" the lander and the rover, he said.
Ouyang said the second lunar orbiter, Chang'e 2, has traveled to explore an asteroid.
The asteroid, 4179 Toutatis, is listed as a potentially hazardous object by scientists because it makes frequent Earth fly pasts.
Prior to traveling into deep space, Chang'e 2, launched in October 2010, completed its six-month mission and spent 235 days some 1.5 million km from Earth, where it gathered a large amount of scientific data about solar activity, he said.
It started its quest for the asteroid on April 15, and is expected to observe the asteroid close up, he said.
Why SpaceX is setting the pace in the commercial space race
Innovations blaze a new trail for NASA spaceflight in the 20-teens
Stewart Money - NBC News (Commentary)
(This is a response to a series by NBC News' Jay Barbree on U.S. human spaceflight. Money is a freelance writer focusing on space transportation issues. He is currently working on a book about SpaceX and the development of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon spacecraft.)
NASA is about to make a critical decision regarding a new chapter in American space exploration.
At issue is which two entrants among a field of highly qualified contestants will move ahead as the primary winners into the next phase of the commercial crew competition to replace the space shuttle as America’s means of access to Earth orbit.
This decision is about much more than whose brand name will be emblazoned on the side of a spacecraft. With serious differences between the leading contenders, it is also a referendum on the merits of a new approach to developing and conducting spaceflight operations, one which recently resulted in the first-ever private commercial flight to the International Space Station.
This approach stands in contrast to a traditional aerospace establishment which is already firmly in control of NASA’s separate, much larger, slower and vastly more expensive program, the Space Launch System. As a consequence, it holds the potential to shape the future of American space exploration.
With so much at stake, veteran astronauts, industry insiders, lawmakers and even journalists have been weighing in with their opinions as to who should emerge as a winner. There’s been a late push by the aerospace giant Alliant Techsystems, also known as ATK. The company hasn’t won funding for its Liberty launch vehicle in the current phase of the spaceship competition, but it received several billion dollars of funding in a prior life for the now-canceled Ares 1 rocket development program.
The push for Liberty has reinvigorated a long-running debate over the relative merits of “experienced” aerospace companies such as ATK, versus newer entrants such as Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX.
The line of reasoning is that as a younger company, founded only a decade ago, SpaceX simply lacks the history to compete with more experienced aerospace contractors. Liberty’s backers argue that human spaceflight is something best left to the grand old names from a better, bolder era, who have seen it all before and know how to get us back.
A different model for space travel
Experience however, can be a two-edged sword — a sword that cuts sharpest when wielded not just for auld lang syne, but instead with skill acquired by applying lessons learned across the broad spectrum of the space era. The most important lesson is that if our ultimate purpose is to explore a solar system that is more diverse and interesting than we once thought, we need a different model for doing so.
Dec. 7, 2012, will mark the 40th anniversary of the flight of Apollo 17. That was the last time the United States ever launched an astronaut beyond Earth orbit. The reason why the operational era of human exploration beyond Earth orbit lasted a mere three and a half years, from July 1969 to December 1972, is that early in the Space Age, and continuing with the space shuttle, the nation tied itself to an infrastructure and a way of doing business that was too expensive to sustain.
NASA acknowledged this reality in 2006, even as it was pursuing its plan to send astronauts back to the moon — known as Project Constellation or “Apollo on Steroids” — by establishing the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program. The purpose of the COTS program was to see if there was a better, more sustainable model for achieving access to space by forgoing the traditional approach of top-down, sole-source , cost-plus contracting — and instead harnessing the innovation and drive of private industry while still maintaining a close partnership with NASA.
After plowing nearly $8 billion into the Ares 1 booster program, Project Constellation did in fact prove too expensive to sustain. Instead, it was the COTS approach for cargo delivery to the space station that became the basis for NASA’s commercial crew program.
Success for SpaceX
SpaceX’s first demonstration cargo flight to the space station was accomplished in May as part of the COTS program. That flight took longer than expected, but the results were well worth NASA’s time and money. Thanks to its investment of $396 million, plus a great deal of advice, NASA has made it possible for SpaceX to produce not just a new launch vehicle but something much more profound: a new space transportation system consisting of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle, the recoverable and reusable Dragon spacecraft, and the infrastructure to support those spacecraft.
For comparison’s sake, the cost to NASA for doing this was less than what the space agency spent on one suborbital test launch of the Ares 1-X booster in 2009. It was less than NASA has spent on the development of its deep-space Orion crew capsule in the first half of this year alone.
Now SpaceX has a contract to launch 12 cargo flights to the space station at a cost to the American taxpayer of about $133 million per flight — putting America back in the orbital transport business. The SpaceX Falcon-Dragon transportation system arguably represents the best investment NASA has ever made. In light of that success, a failure to include the company in the top two for NASA’s commercial crew program would signal an almost unfathomable retreat, unworthy of the best of American ingenuity.
The stunningly low-cost and expansive nature of the Falcon-Dragon system represents much more than a rare bargain for taxpayers, in an era when most such stories have a very different ending. It offers indisputable proof that a new approach to space transportation can work far more effectively than the old ways. It’s absolutely vital to keep the company and the space transport system which has pioneered this path in the vanguard.
Safety first
There are other reasons to support the SpaceX approach, with safety foremost among them. The launch vehicle was designed from the outset to exceed NASA’s crew safety standards. For instance, the spacecraft systems are tested to 140 percent of the maximum expected loads, rather than the 125 percent that NASA calls for. SpaceX has developed a launch pad release system that keeps the rocket safely on the ground until all first-stage engines are at full power and trending safely. Once released, the Falcon 9 can suffer a first-stage engine failure and still make it safely to orbit.
Sitting atop the Falcon 9 booster, the crewed version of SpaceX’s flight-proven Dragon spacecraft incorporates a launch escape system built into sidewall of the crew vessel itself, allowing for a safe escape path at any point in flight.
The ATK Liberty proposal, by contrast, is based on the 40-year-old solid rocket architecture which doomed Challenger and offers none of these critical features. No amount of marketing can obscure the fact that once ignition occurs, solid rocket boosters — unlike liquid-fueled rockets — cannot be turned off. Any launch vehicle can have a bad day; the problem with solid boosters is the tendency to turn a bad day into something much worse.
Another argument focuses on experience. SpaceX is the only entrant in the competition that has already flown to the space station with the complete system being offered. Furthermore, SpaceX is contractually obligated to conduct 12 more flights in the coming years as part of its separate, commercial resupply contract. Consequently, by the time NASA astronauts begin boarding any new American launch system for a trip to the orbiting outpost, SpaceX will already have flown the rout many times over. That means the entire system — including Falcon 9, Dragon, ground operations, tracking, space station rendezvous and berthing, as well as the interplay between the NASA and SpaceX flight control teams — will be well proven. It will be, dare we say, an experienced system.
American competitiveness
Yet another issue for consideration has to do with promoting American industrial competitiveness. In spite of the “experience” that veteran aerospace companies bring to the table for commercial crew, one of the items sadly missing from the menu is a strictly American launch vehicle. United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 rocket, though built in Decatur, Ala., is in fact powered by a single Russian main engine, the RD-180, built in a factory outside Moscow. Outsourcing the heart of the rocket, the engine which drives it, may have saved a great deal of money. But it has also contributed to a gaping hole in the U.S. launch industrial base, only now being countered by SpaceX and its Merlin main engine, which is 100 percent designed and built in the U.S.
While the ATK Liberty does employ an American first stage, albeit based on a solid rocket booster, the second stage is entirely European. If the Falcon 9 is left out of the mix, the United States will still lack a truly indigenous crew launch capacity to low Earth orbit.
The Falcon 9 represents the only all-American launch solution on the table, designed and built in California, tested in Texas and launched in Florida. For a U.S. workforce desperate for jobs, and a country looking for something to celebrate, it doesn’t get much better than that.
It may be tempting to cast the decision regarding the next era in American spaceflight in terms of the glory days of American space exploration, and advocate a return to the waiting arms of companies that helped make those glory days. But there’s a reason that the only "Glory Days" we hear about today are coming from Bruce Springsteen: The cost basis for those past-generation launch systems is unsustainable. NASA understands this, and that’s why the agency has resisted recent pressure to "down select" to a single winner.
Speaking at a news conference in May, former shuttle astronaut Brent Jett, who is now deputy manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said the program was set up to reduce costs by fostering competition. The lack of competition, he said, explains “why a system costs $8 billion to build.”
The past and the future
Although SpaceX has plenty of under-30 employees, the company also employs lots of talented aerospace veterans who have seen it all before and know how to eliminate waste to produce a system that’s safe, yet cost-effective. In this, SpaceX has received wise counsel from NASA, who after years of circling in low Earth orbit yearns to begin exploring again. To assert that SpaceX is not up to the task of extending the same lessons to crewed spaceflight is to suggest that neither is the agency doing the advising.
The exploration of space, more so than almost any human endeavor, is an inherently forward-looking enterprise. While the immediate issue is access to low Earth orbit, the implications reach much farther. The fundamental challenge of space exploration is as much financial as it is technological. Substantially reducing the cost of reaching orbit, a goal unsuccessfully pursued by the shuttle program, remains the key to unlocking the solar system.
Even as NASA officials weigh their decision, one company at the forefront of the space frontier is investing its own resources to build what all parties agree is necessary to establishing a permanent future in space: a fully reusable space transportation system. That company is SpaceX. Soon it will begin testing the Grasshopper, a reusable first stage based on the same Falcon 9 launch vehicle that is at the core of company’s commercial crew proposal. While it is too early to tell if the test program will be successful, the effort itself is representative of what space exploration should be about.
If the accomplishments of the Apollo program are to have lasting significance, then somebody, somewhere is going to have to politely bypass the “experienced” wisdom that says it can’t be done — and develop the technology to make fully reusable launch vehicles a reality. For the moment, at least, that company is SpaceX, the launch vehicle is the Falcon 9, and NASA’s commercial crew competition represents an important step along the way.
Giants in glass houses
Dwayne Day - The Space Review (Commentary)
In April 2011, NASA announced the locations where the retired space shuttle orbiters would be located. The Smithsonian received Discovery, Kennedy Space Center’s Visitor Complex received Atlantis, and Endeavour was allocated to Los Angeles’s California Science Center. Enterprise, previously hosted by the Smithsonian, would head to New York City’s Intrepid Air and Space Museum. Naturally, communities that did not receive an orbiter, but felt that they deserved one, were outraged—outrage being the default response to perceived slights these days.
Congressional delegations in both Texas and Ohio called for investigations of NASA’s site selection process. A NASA Inspector General investigation found some errors in NASA’s rating of the various locations, but no evidence of negligence or political influence. Nevertheless, some grumbling still persists, and when Enterprise was recently damaged during transport to its museum location, some crowed that this was proof that New York City didn’t deserve her, and Houston would have treated her better.
Although the museum proposals stood (and fell) on their own merits, there is a relatively simple rule of thumb that could be applied to the institutions that wanted an orbiter: how well do they do displaying the major artifacts already in their collections? In the past month I have had the opportunity to visit all three locations that have a Saturn V rocket on display: the Kennedy Space Center Visitor’s Complex, the Huntsville Space and Rocket Center, and Space Center Houston.
Both the Kennedy and Huntsville locations have outstanding facilities and exhibits for displaying their Saturn V rockets. They are both obviously proud of what they have and how they represent their communities. They both followed different paths toward funding their facilities, but the end results are impressive and demonstrate a commitment both to honoring the objects and their designers and builders, as well as educating current and future generations of the public.
Houston is another story.
Space Center Houston’s Saturn V is located in a temporary building that is not on the actual museum grounds. The building looks like a large shed, and lacks the dramatic windows of the other two facilities. Unlike the other Saturn V rockets, the public can see it for free, if they know how to reach it and are not intimidated by the fact that they have to go through the Johnson Space Center security gate in order to pull into the parking lot.
The building is well-lit, but relatively simply outfitted on the inside, without much room either in front of or behind the vehicle. The building includes wall displays, but no other artifacts or media like at the other two sites. Unfortunately, although intended as a temporary structure, and erected in the middle of the last decade, such buildings often have a tendency to become permanent.
What is more dismaying is that the building containing the Saturn V is starting to deteriorate. Interior insulation is starting to crack and peel, showing considerable degradation from my last visit a year ago. This simply reinforces the impression that the Saturn V is being stored in a big garage.
Houston has had the Saturn V for decades. It has housed it indoors for almost seven years, and yet the city has not improved the presentation or shown any indication that it intends to display the Saturn V with any of the affection and intelligence that the Kennedy and Huntsville communities have given to their Saturn Vs. If you look at what Houston has done it is hard not to wonder if they would have treated a shuttle orbiter with the same indifference.
Maybe being overlooked for a shuttle will be a wakeup call for Space Center Houston to get their act together and start aspiring to be like the better space museums. Houston has been swimming in petrodollars for a long time now, so money is not an issue; a good fundraising effort should be able to gather more than enough money from the local community. What matters is organization and leadership, and based upon the degradation of the Saturn V building, and Space Center Houston’s unenthusiastic display of a rare piece of space history, those requirements appear to be in short supply.
FAA Deserves Extra Credit for Safety Dialog
Space News (Editorial)
When Paul Allen and Burt Rutan’s SpaceShipOne snagged the $10 million Ansari X Prize in the fall of 2004 by flying to suborbital space twice within a week, many reasonably assumed that more such jaunts — with paying passengers on board — would soon follow. Few would have imagined that eight years would fly by without another flight. But that’s what has happened.
Virgin Galactic, the suborbital spaceflight industry’s well-financed frontrunner, says it is on track to begin powered test flights of the six-passenger SpaceShipTwo by year’s end with ticketed flights to follow in 2013. If the New Mexico-based company holds to this schedule, it still stands to benefit from a regulatory amnesty period the United States enacted in late 2004 to nurture the still nascent commercial human spaceflight sector.
But just barely.
A key provision of the 2004 Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act that Congress sent to the president’s desk within two months of SpaceShipOne’s prize-winning flight is set to expire on Oct. 1, 2015. It would have expired this December if lawmakers had not passed a bare-minimum extension in February.
The Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act did three important things: First, it gave the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) clear jurisdiction over private human spaceflight; second, it established an experimental-permit regime meant to fast track flight tests; and third, it barred the FAA for eight years from writing rules designed solely for the protection of passengers and crew flying aboard these brand-new vehicles.
Only this last provision, meant to prevent the FAA from snarling operators in a jumble of best-guess dos and don’ts, is subject to an expiration date.
Proponents cast the partial ban on rule making as a “learning period” meant to allow human spaceflight regulatory standards to evolve without stifling innovation or subjecting passengers and crew to undue risk.
The FAA, of course, remains free to act during the amnesty period to protect public safety — by dictating through the licensing process, for example, where and when these vehicles can fly. Lawmakers back in 2004 also carved out an important exception to the rule-making moratorium that allows the FAA to ban vehicle design features or operating practices that kill or seriously injure crew or passengers, or contribute to a close call that could easily have done so.
However, the underlying notion of letting early passengers fly at their own risk — these are people, after all, who can afford to pay $200,000 for a 90-minute joyride — is essential for allowing the industry to take flight without being weighed down by overregulation.
It has taken longer than many imagined, but the suborbital human spaceflight industry finally appears ready for takeoff. And thanks to NASA, the FAA already finds itself licensing one commercial operator — Space Exploration Technologies — that’s now flown its first quasi-commercial cargo mission to the international space station and is champing at the bit to launch astronauts.
The last thing commercial human spaceflight operators need during the early going is a shelf full of rules approximating those the FAA imposes on an airline industry that carries millions of passengers every day.
But just because the FAA doesn’t have free rein to regulate doesn’t mean it has no responsibility to promote crew and passenger safety.
Congress made this fairly plain in February when it passed the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012. “Nothing in this provision is intended to prohibit the FAA and industry stakeholders from entering into discussions intended to prepare the FAA for its role in appropriately regulating the commercial space flight industry when the provision expires,” lawmakers wrote in a report accompanying the bill.
What’s more, industry is eager to engage the FAA in a safety dialog.
Yet FAA lawyers took a heap of persuading to allow the agency’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation to begin these discussions. Only part of the concern, FAA officials have said, was running afoul of the spirit of the rule-making moratorium. The broader objection pertained to a longstanding federal law that governs the federal rule-making process. The Administrative Procedures Act, which dates back to 1946, is very strict about when and how federal officials may share their thinking about future regulations. Violators can go to jail.
It was no small matter, therefore, for the Office of Commercial Space Transportation to organize a series of monthly public telephone calls, starting in August, to give industry a forum for sharing its views on improving safety while avoiding imprudent regulations.
It’s a good start, but more can be done.
For starters, Congress should extend the learning period beyond 2015. House lawmakers were on the right track when they voted to restart the clock at eight years from the time of the first licensed flight. House and Senate conferees, unfortunately, limited the extension to the three-year duration of the authorization bill itself.
Next, Congress should give the Office of Commercial Space Transportation a small funding boost, focusing the additional money on fielding experts, not putting more bureaucrats in Washington. Currently budgeted at $16 million, the 70-person organization needs to staff up its field offices so that its technical experts can work alongside operators as this industry evolves. A lessons-learned database, maintained with industry’s cooperation and structured to protect proprietary information, would help ensure little problems don’t become big problems; any mistake could be very costly to the whole industry, not just the company that made it.
Finally, the Office of Commercial Space Transportation needs to remember its dual mandate to regulate and promote the U.S. commercial spaceflight industry. The FAA can and should use this promotional mandate to issue safety advisories aimed at heading off accidents.
Because one mishap could be all it takes to bring the hopes of an entire industry tumbling back to Earth.
House to take up bill protecting astronauts’ rights to space artifacts
Robert Pearlman - collectSPACE.com
The U.S. House of Representatives will begin this week considering a bill to confirm the ownership of astronauts' mission mementos. The lawmakers' meeting comes 41 years after astronauts landed on the moon with souvenirs that raised congressional concerns.
The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology is scheduled to meet Thursday (Aug. 2) to markup the bill aimed at establishing clear title to the space artifacts that astronauts have kept since flying to the moon.
The bill (H.R. 4158) takes an almost opposite approach to the outcome of a congressional investigation held after the Apollo 15 mission, which accomplished the fourth manned moon landing in July 1971. Four decades ago, NASA — in response to pressure by Congress — formalized rules that restricted the types of souvenirs that space-bound crews could fly and keep from their missions.
The current bill, which was first introduced last March by committee chair Ralph Hall (R-TX) and ranking member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), came after NASA stepped in to halt the sales of moon-flown equipment that some of the Apollo astronauts had tried to auction. The astronauts maintained that they had the space agency's permission to keep the well-traveled lunar artifacts, but didn't have the ironclad paperwork to prove their claim.
"From the beginning of our nation's space program through the Apollo era, NASA astronauts were permitted to retain mementos from their spaceflights," Hall and Johnson said in a March 2 letter sent to committee's members. "Without statutory clarification, some astronauts may be forced to make reparations."
The bill, titled "To confirm full ownership rights for certain United States astronauts to artifacts from the astronauts' space missions," is, in its current form, only 264 words, or about one-fourth the length of this article.
Thursday morning's markup is expected to be brief, as 32 out of the committee's 36 members are co-sponsors.
Astronauts and their artifacts
In 1971, the Apollo 15 mission launched with what NASA later identified as "unauthorized" articles, including nearly 400 collectible postmarked envelopes, or postal "covers." The post-flight overseas sale of some of these mementos resulted in a congressional investigation and the Apollo 15 crew never flew in space again.
The astronauts' moon-flown mementos were confiscated, and were only returned a decade later when the astronauts filed suit against the government, citing NASA's entrance into an agreement with the U.S. Postal Service to market covers to the public that were flown on the space shuttle.
The astronauts' rights to expendable space equipment — including checklists, personal hygiene kits, and items that if had been left aboard the Apollo lunar module would have been crashed into the moon — went largely uncontested by NASA until last year.
In July 2011, the government filed a lawsuit against Apollo 14 moonwalker Edgar Mitchell to have the motion picture camera he returned from the moon declared government property. After holding onto the camera for more than 40 years, Mitchell consigned it to an auction house in New York to be sold for an estimated $60,000 to $80,000.
In court documents, Mitchell argued that he and his fellow Apollo astronauts had been given permission by NASA to save equipment as souvenirs if they were not intended to return to Earth. According to the Apollo 14 flight plan, had Mitchell not kept the camera, it would crashed with the no longer needed lunar lander at the end of the mission.
But those early policies went mostly unwritten. It was not until decades later that NASA began to document its rules over the use of space shuttle equipment as mementos.
Last October, Mitchell settled out of court, turning over the camera for its display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. In return, he was only responsible for his own legal fees.
Then, this past January, NASA's General Counsel raised new questions over the title to artifacts offered by a Dallas auction house on behalf of Apollo 13 commander James Lovell and Apollo 9 spacewalker Rusty Schweickart. One item in particular, a lunar module activation checklist that had been used to reconfigure the lander into a lifeboat on the periled Apollo 13 mission, made headlines after it sold for a record-setting $388,375.
NASA's inquiry halted that sale. Lovell, Schweickart and other Apollo astronauts came to Washington, D.C. to meet with NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, a former space shuttle astronaut, to try to resolve what the NASA chief described as "fundamental misunderstandings and unclear policies" regarding artifacts from the agency's Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs.
"We'll explore all policy, legislative, and other legal means to resolve these questions expeditiously," Bolden said at the time.
Loaned, gifted, donated or sold
"The agency will support whatever legislation comes from Congress," NASA spokesman Bob Jacobs said, reacting to the introduction of the House bill last March. "This is in line with the discussion that the astronauts had with the administrator back in January."
The bill applies only to artifacts held by U.S. astronauts "who participated in any of the Mercury, Gemini, or Apollo programs through the completion of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project" in 1975. An artifact is defined as "any expendable item... not expressly required to be returned to [NASA] at the completion of the mission and other expendable, disposable, or personal-use items."
The bill, if left as is by the committee and then passed by both the full House of Representatives and U.S. Senate, would extend rights to more than just the artifacts that are currently in the astronauts' possession.
"The federal government shall have no claim or right to ownership, control or use of any artifact that subsequently was transferred, sold, or assigned to a third party by an astronaut," the bill reads.
"Many of the astronauts have loaned, gifted, donated or sold artifacts to universities, museums, family members and private collectors during the intervening years," wrote Hall and Johnson.
END
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Tuesday, July 31, 2012
JSC TODAY HEADLINES
1. Watch the Launch and Docking of Russia's Progress Cargo Spacecraft on NASA
2. Space Center Houston hosts 'Curiosity: 7 Minutes of Terror'
3. The JSC Safety Action Team (JSAT) Says ...
4. Senior Drug Interaction
5. Interested in the State of the Center? RSVP for Aug. NMA Luncheon
6. Lean Six Sigma - Overview Training
7. Shuttle Knowledge Console
8. FedTraveler Live Lab Tomorrow, Aug. 1
9. Deadline For Contest Entries
10. This Week at Starport
11. Project Asset and Lifecycle Management System (PALMS) Training Available
12. JSC Library's Introductory Training is Tomorrow
________________________________________ QUOTE OF THE DAY
“ The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.”
-- Dolly Parton
________________________________________
1. Watch the Launch and Docking of Russia's Progress Cargo Spacecraft on NASA
NASA TV will broadcast the launch and, for the first time, the same-day rendezvous and docking of a Progress cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS). Coverage begins at 2:15 p.m. CDT Wednesday, Aug. 1.
ISS Progress 48 is scheduled to launch at 2:35 p.m. from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. It will dock later that day at 8:24 p.m. in a test of an abbreviated launch-to-rendezvous schedule designed to reduce the typical two-day flight between a launch and docking. The goal would be to use this new approach for future Soyuz crew member flights.
NASA TV coverage of the Progress' arrival at the station will begin at 7:45 p.m.
Russian flight controllers retain the option to revert to a normal two-day rendezvous if developments require. If that occurs, the craft will dock Friday, Aug. 3, and NASA TV will provide live coverage.
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 viewing the video using these systems, contact the Information Resources Directorate Customer Support Center at x46367.
For more information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/station
JSC External Relations, Office of Communications and Public Affairs x35111 http://www.nasa.gov/station
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2. Space Center Houston hosts 'Curiosity: 7 Minutes of Terror'
Come join a fun-filled family camp-in to celebrate the landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars. There will be edible Mars creations, exciting presentations by Mars experts and even a delicious Mars celebration breakfast following countdown.
Date: Sunday, Aug. 5, from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m.
Save $5! Only $4.95 if purchased online at http://www.spacecenter.org/marslanding.html by Aug. 4. Tickets purchased at the gate will be $9.95.
Susan H. Anderson x38630 http://www.spacecenter.org/marslanding.html
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3. The JSC Safety Action Team (JSAT) Says ...
The rain has come and the grass is growing. Wear protective equipment when you're mowing. Congratulations to August 2012 "JSAT Says…" winner Sharon Kemp, Barrios Technology. Any JSAT member (all JSC contractor and civil servant employees) may submit a slogan for consideration to JSAT Secretary Reese Squires. Submissions for September are due by Friday, Aug. 10. Keep those great submissions coming. You may be the next JSAT Says Winner!
Reese Squires x37776 \\jsc-ia-na01b\JIMMS_Share\Share\JSAT\JSAT Says\JSAT Says 08-2012.pptx
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4. Senior Drug Interaction
Senior citizens have increased risk for potentially dangerous drug interactions due to physiological changes, poor coordination of services and the sheer volume of medications that are taken. The Employee Assistance Program Caregivers Resource Group is happy to present Simone Willingham, MD of the JSC Clinic on Tuesday, July 31, 2012 at 12:00 noon in the Building 30 Auditorium. Dr. Willingham will answer questions and provide information on common medications, drug interactions and side effects.
Lorrie Bennett, Employee Assistance Program, Clinical Services Branch 281-483-6130
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5. Interested in the State of the Center? RSVP for Aug. NMA Luncheon
Please join us for August's JSC National Management Association Chapter luncheon presentation, "State of the Center", with guest speaker Mike Coats.
Date: August 28, 2012
Time: 11:30 a.m. - 1 p.m.
Location: Gilruth Center, Alamo Ballroom
Seats will fill up fast. Please RSVP by close of business Aug. 21 at http://www.jscnma.com/Events
For RSVP technical assistance and membership information, please contact Lorraine Guerra at lorraine.guerra-1@nasa.gov or 281-483-4262.
Cassandra Miranda 1-281-483-8618
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6. Lean Six Sigma - Overview Training
The principles of Lean and Six Sigma have become an industry standard practice in continual improvement over the last couple of decades. They are frequently combined using complementary approaches to both improve efficiency and reduce variation and defects. NASA began its Lean Six Sigma program in early 2000 by benchmarking the training and implementation methods of its contractors and industry partners, resulting in a NASA Lean Six Sigma approach of rapid process improvement. JSC began training civil servants as process improvement facilitators in 2009 and offers periodic training provided by the agency's Master Black Belt. Civil servants and contractors are invited to attend a one-hour overview training session provided by the agency's expert in an informal question-answer format. This one-hour overview also serves as a pre-requisite for the NASA Green Belt training class (offered in SATERN). Monday, Aug. 6: Building 1, Room 360, from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m./Tuesday, Aug. 7: Building 30 Auditorium, from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m.
No registration is required.
Cheryl Andrews x35979
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7. Shuttle Knowledge Console
Hard to believe a year has passed since the final launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis, the final mission of the Space Shuttle Program. As part of JSC's ongoing Space Shuttle Knowledge capture process, the JSC Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO) and the JSC Engineering Directorate are pleased to announce that many of the systems and subsystems developed and utilized during the program have been captured and retained for JSC users at the new Shuttle Knowledge Console. (https://skc.jsc.nasa.gov) Systems such as the Shuttle Drawing System, Subsystem Manager, Space Shuttle Flight Software, SSPWeb and many more can be accessed from the console. Questions about the new website can be directed to Howard Wagner in the JSC Engineering Directorate or Brent Fontenot in the CKO office. We would love your feedback on this new site. Click the "Submit Feedback" button located on the top of the site navigation, and give us your comments.
Brent J Fontenot x36456 https://skc.jsc.nasa.gov/Home.aspx
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8. FedTraveler Live Lab Tomorrow, Aug. 1
Do you need some hands-on, personal help with FedTraveler.com? Join the Business Systems, Innovation and Process Improvement Office for a FedTraveler Live Lab tomorrow, August 1, 2012, any time between 9 a.m. and noon in Building 20, Room 204. Our help desk representatives will be available to help you work through travel processes and learn more about using FedTraveler during this informal workshop. Bring your current travel documents or specific questions that you have about the system and join us for some hands-on, in-person help with the FedTraveler. If you'd like to sign up for this FedTraveler Live Lab please log into SATERN and register. For additional information, please contact Judy Seier at x32771.
Gina Glenney x39851
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9. Deadline For Contest Entries
You still have time to enter the Stay Sharp, Stay Safe campaign contest. But, hurry! The drawing for a fabulous prize will be held this Friday, Aug. 3.
Go to the link below this message, and click on "Contest." Just answer 10 questions, and you're in!
For a sneak peak at the choice of what you might win, visit https://powerofone.jsc.nasa.gov/experience/?awardLevel=GOLD
Now, there's a prize worth going for!
Stacey Menard x45660 http://www6.jsc.nasa.gov/safety/WhatsNew/AAC/
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10. This Week at Starport
Mars mania is coming! On Sunday, Aug. 5, the next Mars rover, Curiosity, will land on Mars. Special Mars products will be offered this week at discounted prices in Starport Gift Shops to honor this spectacular event. Plus both Building 3 and 11 Cafes will have commemorative Curiosity Cups in place of the regular dine-in tumblers. These special cups are free with the purchase of a fountain drink or $0.50 each.
Visit the JSC Federal Credit Union booth in the Starport Cafes on Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.. to chat with representatives regarding you checking, savings, and other accounts.
Plus ... Are you ready to cut loose?? Learn the Footloose dance in one amazing night - Aug. 10 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at the Gilruth Center. Register by Aug. 1, and the fee is only $10/person. Visit http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/Fitness/RecreationClasses/RecreationPrograms.cfm for more details.
Shelly Haralson x39168 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/
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11. Project Asset and Lifecycle Management System (PALMS) Training Available
PALMS is the Engineering Directorate's new Project Management tool for online project planning, scheduling and tracking. Closely integrated with Oasis, PALMS enables Web-based project collaboration, management and publishing of project schedules, resources and associated data products. To register for one of the monthly PALMS classroom training sessions, simply access SATERN and select one of these available courses:
PALMS Project Server Training for Team Members and Project Managers
SATERN Course ID: PALMS-01
The next session is available for self registration in SATERN until Monday, Aug. 13, for all EA civil-servants and contractors.
Date: Tuesday Aug. 14
Location: Building 20, Room 204
Stacey Zapatka x34749
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12. JSC Library's Introductory Training is Tomorrow
Don't miss your chance to learn about the resources and services available at the Scientific & Technical Information Center (STIC). The STIC consists of the Main Library, Bioastronautics Library, the International Space Station Library and the Still Imagery Repository and Video Repository.
You can attend via WebEx from 9 to 10 a.m. To register click on the "Classroom/WebEx" schedule on the following website: http://library.jsc.nasa.gov/training/default.aspx
Provided by the Information Resources Directorate http://ird.jsc.nasa.gov/default.aspx
Ebony Fondren x32490 http://library.nasa.gov
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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:
· 9:40 am Central (10:40 EDT) – E32’s Suni Williams w/WCAI Radio, Woods Hole, MA & CNN’s Sanjay Gupta
NEWS NOTE: Distribution may be delayed through Thursday as I am on West Coast time
Human Spaceflight News
Tuesday – July 31, 2012
HEADLINES AND LEADS
Russia's Progress 47 Cargo Craft Departs Space Station for Final Time
Mark Carreau - Aviation Week
Russia’s much traveled Progress 47 cargo capsule has departed the International Space Station for good, freeing the Russian segment Pirs docking port for the arrival of the Progress 48 later this week, following a first time, four orbit launch to docking transit. Progress 47, which arrived at the six man orbiting lab initially on April 22, undocked for the final time on Monday at 5:19 p.m., EDT, filled with trash and headed for several weeks of orbital engineering tests and a destructive re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere.
Shuttle contractor USA to lay off 148 at Kennedy Space Center
Patrick Peterson - Florida Today
United Space Alliance plans to lay off 148 workers at Kennedy Space Center in September, according to a notice filed last week with the state Department of Economic Opportunity. The notice said employees working in administrative and support, waste management and remediation services would be affected.
NASA's historic Hangar S faces bitter end
Aging facility played big part in space program
Todd Halvorson - Florida Today
For Jack King, it was a magical day. Fifty years ago, on Feb. 23, 1962, President John F. Kennedy traveled to Florida to honor Mercury astronaut John Glenn at historic Hangar S on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Three days earlier, Glenn made history, becoming the first American to orbit Earth — a feat that put the fledgling U.S. space program on equal footing with the Soviet Union in a Cold War battle for technological and ideological supremacy. “So it was a very special occasion,” said King, a longtime Cocoa Beach resident and the first public affairs director at what now is Kennedy Space Center. Memories like that make it hard for King to see Hangar S, which served as crew quarters for the Mercury astronauts, show up on NASA’s demolition list.
Report: NASA Essential to American National Security
Mark Whittington - Yahoo News
A new white paper released by TASC, a company that provides engineering and other services to the military, the intelligence community, and other government agencies, says NASA is vital to the national security of the United States. The white paper suggests that NASA, more than the United States military, is positioned to foster international cooperation in space. The space agency does this by providing technical expertise for international space projects. In such a way, trust and interdependence is built up among nations which in turn lowers the possibility of international conflict. NASA can interface with the civil space agencies of other countries in a way that neither the military nor the State Department are able to.
NASA conducts mission simulations in Hawaii
Marlene Morgan - AmericaSpace.org
Astronaut Eugene Cernan, the commander of Apollo 17, was the last man who walked on the Moon in December 1972. NASA is currently conducting a nine-day field test outside Hilo, Hawaii, so they can evaluate new exploration techniques for the surface of the Moon. These mission simulations, known as analog missions, are performed at extreme and often remote locations here on Earth to prepare for robotic and human missions to extraterrestrial destinations. The In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) analog mission is collaboration with the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), with help from the Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems (PISCES).
New engine passes test and revs up space hopes
Xin Dingding - China Daily
A next-generation engine, that will pave the way for lunar exploration, was successfully tested on Sunday. The engine, with a 120-ton-thrust using liquid oxygen (LOX) and kerosene, will enable the Long March 5 carrier rocket - which is expected to make its maiden voyage in 2014 - to place a 25-ton payload into near-Earth orbit, or place a 14-ton payload into geostationary orbit, experts said. The tests, which included seeing how the engine would respond to rotational speeds of nearly 20,000 revolutions per minute and temperatures of 3,000 C for 200 seconds, were held in Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi province.
Why SpaceX is setting the pace in the commercial space race
Innovations blaze a new trail for NASA spaceflight in the 20-teens
Stewart Money - NBC News (Commentary)
(This is a response to a series by NBC News' Jay Barbree on U.S. human spaceflight. Money is a freelance writer focusing on space transportation issues. He is currently working on a book about SpaceX and the development of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon spacecraft.)
NASA is about to make a critical decision regarding a new chapter in American space exploration. At issue is which two entrants among a field of highly qualified contestants will move ahead as the primary winners into the next phase of the commercial crew competition to replace the space shuttle as America’s means of access to Earth orbit. This decision is about much more than whose brand name will be emblazoned on the side of a spacecraft. With serious differences between the leading contenders, it is also a referendum on the merits of a new approach to developing and conducting spaceflight operations, one which recently resulted in the first-ever private commercial flight to the International Space Station.
Giants in glass houses
Dwayne Day - The Space Review (Commentary)
In the past month I have had the opportunity to visit all three locations that have a Saturn V rocket on display: the Kennedy Space Center Visitor’s Complex, the Huntsville Space and Rocket Center, and Space Center Houston. Both the Kennedy and Huntsville locations have outstanding facilities and exhibits for displaying their Saturn V rockets. They are both obviously proud of what they have and how they represent their communities. They both followed different paths toward funding their facilities, but the end results are impressive and demonstrate a commitment both to honoring the objects and their designers and builders, as well as educating current and future generations of the public. Houston is another story. The building includes wall displays, but no other artifacts or media like at the other two sites. Unfortunately, although intended as a temporary structure, and erected in the middle of the last decade, such buildings often have a tendency to become permanent. What is more dismaying is that the building containing the Saturn V is starting to deteriorate. This simply reinforces the impression that the Saturn V is being stored in a big garage. Houston has had the Saturn V for decades. It has housed it indoors for almost seven years, and yet the city has not improved the presentation or shown any indication that it intends to display the Saturn V with any of the affection and intelligence that the Kennedy and Huntsville communities have given to their Saturn Vs. If you look at what Houston has done it is hard not to wonder if they would have treated a shuttle orbiter with the same indifference. Maybe being overlooked for a shuttle will be a wakeup call for Space Center Houston to get their act together and start aspiring to be like the better space museums.
FAA Deserves Extra Credit for Safety Dialog
Space News (Editorial)
When Paul Allen and Burt Rutan’s SpaceShipOne snagged the $10 million Ansari X Prize in the fall of 2004 by flying to suborbital space twice within a week, many reasonably assumed that more such jaunts — with paying passengers on board — would soon follow. Few would have imagined that eight years would fly by without another flight. But that’s what has happened. Virgin Galactic, the suborbital spaceflight industry’s well-financed frontrunner, says it is on track to begin powered test flights of the six-passenger SpaceShipTwo by year’s end with ticketed flights to follow in 2013. If the New Mexico-based company holds to this schedule, it still stands to benefit from a regulatory amnesty period the United States enacted in late 2004 to nurture the still nascent commercial human spaceflight sector. But just barely.
House to take up bill protecting astronauts’ rights to space artifacts
Robert Pearlman - collectSPACE.com
The U.S. House of Representatives will begin this week considering a bill to confirm the ownership of astronauts' mission mementos. The lawmakers' meeting comes 41 years after astronauts landed on the moon with souvenirs that raised congressional concerns. The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology is scheduled to meet Thursday (Aug. 2) to markup the bill aimed at establishing clear title to the space artifacts that astronauts have kept since flying to the moon.
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Russia's Progress 47 Cargo Craft Departs Space Station for Final Time
Mark Carreau - Aviation Week
Russia’s much traveled Progress 47 cargo capsule has departed the International Space Station for good, freeing the Russian segment Pirs docking port for the arrival of the Progress 48 later this week, following a first time, four orbit launch to docking transit.
Progress 47, which arrived at the six man orbiting lab initially on April 22, undocked for the final time on Monday at 5:19 p.m., EDT, filled with trash and headed for several weeks of orbital engineering tests and a destructive re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere.
The freighter, also designated M-15M, departed the station for the first time on July 22 for what was to be an overnight flight test of the new KURS-NA automated rendezvous system. However, the return was postponed after the upgraded avionics failed an activation self test.
After Russian troubleshooting and a warm up of the avionics, the Progress 47 re-docked late Saturday without difficulty, completing a successful test of the KURS-NA. The upgraded rendezvous system is projected to become a fixture aboard future Soyuz crew transport and Progress re-supply craft, possibly by 2014.
Cosmonaut Gennady Padalka removed and stowed the KURS-NA aboard the ISS to await a future trip back to Earth and some further engineering review.
On Monday, the NASA-led ISS mission management team approved plans for the one day Progress 48 mission. The lift off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan is set for Wednesday at 3:35 p.m., EDT. The four orbit transit would lead to an automated docking of the new resupply ship with the space station at 9:24 p.m., EDT.
The normal 34 orbit, two plus day launch to docking timeline remains a Russian option for the Progress 48. If exercised, the latest supply ship would reach the orbiting science lab on Friday at 6:15 p.m., EDT.
Shuttle contractor USA to lay off 148 at Kennedy Space Center
Patrick Peterson - Florida Today
United Space Alliance plans to lay off 148 workers at Kennedy Space Center in September, according to a notice filed last week with the state Department of Economic Opportunity.
The notice said employees working in administrative and support, waste management and remediation services would be affected.
“It’s a continuation of the ramp-down following the end of the space shuttle program, so there’s not one particular group of people targeted,” USA spokeswoman Kari Fluegel in Houston said.
The last shuttle mission ended July 21, 2011. About 8,000 space industry workers have lost their jobs as the 30-year-old shuttle program came to an end. The latest layoff will take place on Sept. 28.
“We expect additional layoffs as we continue to complete the transition and retirement work (on the space shuttles,)” Fluegel said.
Just over 2,500 remain at work for USA in Alabama, Houston and Florida, with nearly 1,300 in Florida.
NASA's historic Hangar S faces bitter end
Aging facility played big part in space program
Todd Halvorson - Florida Today
For Jack King, it was a magical day.
Fifty years ago, on Feb. 23, 1962, President John F. Kennedy traveled to Florida to honor Mercury astronaut John Glenn at historic Hangar S on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
Three days earlier, Glenn made history, becoming the first American to orbit Earth — a feat that put the fledgling U.S. space program on equal footing with the Soviet Union in a Cold War battle for technological and ideological supremacy.
“So it was a very special occasion,” said King, a longtime Cocoa Beach resident and the first public affairs director at what now is Kennedy Space Center.
Memories like that make it hard for King to see Hangar S, which served as crew quarters for the Mercury astronauts, show up on NASA’s demolition list.
The space agency is in the midst of a post-shuttle era examination of all its facilities at KSC and Cape Canaveral. The goal: Determine which facilities will be needed to move ahead with the development of new rockets and spacecraft for deep space missions; which facilities might entice commercial space taxi companies, and which facilities no longer have a reason for being.
“Unfortunately, there are some buildings that aren’t sustainable anymore, some that we can’t really afford to maintain,” said Tom Engler, deputy manager of the Center Planning and Development Office at KSC.
“This is a 60-plus-year-old building. It has a lot of maintenance issues, and it’s actually beneficial to the center to put them on the abandon list and then eventually demolish them because they are too expensive for us to maintain.”
The annual operating cost at Hangar S: $148,000.
“It breaks my heart. I realize there are all kinds of circumstances involved, but there were two facilities I remember so much in the very early days,” King said.
One is the old Mercury Mission Control building, which was razed in 2010. “Hangar S is the other one,” King said.
Take a walk down memory lane with King and you’ll see Hangar S was the nexus of NASA’s nascent operation at Cape Canaveral in the early 1960s.
It’s located a block from the western gate of the air force base, just east of the Banana River.
In the E&L (Engineering and Laboratory) building just across the street, Kurt Debus, the German rocket scientist, directed the design, development and construction of NASA’s Saturn V launch site on North Merritt Island.
In between is the E&O (Engineering & Operations) building, where unsung heroes launched early American satellites.
“That was ‘Unmanned Launch Operations’ — a very humble name for a very fine organization,” King said.
“Communications satellites, weather satellites, lunar probes, planetary probes —all of those exciting missions that were really in the shadow of manned spaceflight,” he said. “Those guys really never got the credit they deserved.”
Next door: Hangar S.
That’s where engineers checked out Mercury spacecraft.
That’s where NASA set up crew quarters for Mercury astronauts.
That’s where Dr. William Douglas, the personal physician of the astronauts, performed preflight medical tests; where Joe Schmitt suited up the astronauts; where the astronauts walked out the north door, boarded a step van, and headed to the launch pad.
And that’s where NASA housed Enos and Ham and others in its chimp colony. The chimps flew before NASA put astronauts at risk.
“You had about five or six chimpanzees, and just like a back-up to the prime pilot, you’d have back-ups to the ‘chosen chimp,’ ’’ King said.
The astronauts successfully lobbied for less aromatic quarters, and that’s when they started staying at the Holiday Inn in Cocoa Beach. Later, the astronauts and innkeeper Henri Landwirth built the Cape Colony Inn on State Route A1A. The La Quinta Inn is there now.
Today, Hangar S is a gutted shadow of its former self.
There’s a wide-open concrete slab floor where Mercury and Gemini capsules were checked out.
Behind that lies an area NASA turned into a training facility, where engineers and technicians learned to operate and maintain the shuttle’s twin maneuvering engines and steering jets.
Climb the stairs on the south end of the building to the old Mercury crew quarters. NASA transformed the area into offices. Now it’s an abandoned mess.
There’s no telling where the astronaut’s sleeping quarters were located; where the kitchen and dining area were; where the medical facilities were or the suit-up room.
The only thing of historical value seems to be the memories.
NASA this summer will request proposals for a demolition design contract, and then select a company to develop the ways and means to bring the building down. It’s unclear exactly when the demolition contractor will be selected, but the entire process is likely to take a year.
King said it’s hard to imagine Hangar S gone.
It’s “like a shrine to me,” he said.
Report: NASA Essential to American National Security
Mark Whittington - Yahoo News
A new white paper released by TASC, a company that provides engineering and other services to the military, the intelligence community, and other government agencies, says NASA is vital to the national security of the United States.
NASA as a vehicle for fostering international cooperation
The white paper suggests that NASA, more than the United States military, is positioned to foster international cooperation in space. The space agency does this by providing technical expertise for international space projects. In such a way, trust and interdependence is built up among nations which in turn lowers the possibility of international conflict. NASA can interface with the civil space agencies of other countries in a way that neither the military nor the State Department are able to.
NASA enables technological innovation
The white paper also suggests that NASA can enhance the national security of the United States by fostering technological innovation that reduces the cost of space operations. This in turn provides the United States an edge in any conflict that does ensue. The report does go on to say that the era of constrained budgets poses a threat to continuing innovation.
NASA as a source of soft power
The meme of NASA's engaging in international space projects as a source of soft power was touched on in an article in Space News by Taylor Dinerman, currently affiliated with the Gatestone institute. Soft power seeks to influence world events and other countries by means other than military strength, such as diplomacy or economic cooperation. Dinerman cited the International Space Station as an example of such soft power generating space projects that NASA is engaged in. He also suggested that a lunar base could serve such a purpose as well, bringing in other, friendly countries to help to administer such a facility and providing a means for international astronauts to visit the moon that they otherwise would not have the opportunity to.
NASA and technological innovation
A year ago, MSNBC published an article about NASA as a source of technological innovation. The piece came to several conclusions.
Some claims about NASA produced technology are overblown. Tang, Velcro, and Teflon, sometimes ascribed to NASA, actually were invented before they were used in the space program.
The path from a technology developed by NASA to a commercially useful product is often indirect and hard to track. Such "spin-offs" can be hard also to predict and developed serendipitously. One effect, not often cited, is the development of a knowledge base just by solving the difficult problems of space flight that can prove useful in other areas.
Studies about the economic return from NASA range from three dollars for every one spent to as much as 21 dollars for everyone spent.
NASA and the commercial sector
While NASA's commercial crew program has had its share of controversy, the fact of the matter is that the space agency as a potential customer and as a source of subsidies has provided a growth of the commercial space sector and a certain degree of technology innovation. This collaborative effort recently featured a mission by the Dragon cargo ship built and operated by SpaceX to the International Space Station. It is hoped that this sort of commercial operation will lower the cost of space travel by fostering private competition for space markets such as the ISS.
NASA conducts mission simulations in Hawaii
Marlene Morgan - AmericaSpace.org
Astronaut Eugene Cernan, the commander of Apollo 17, was the last man who walked on the Moon in December 1972. NASA is currently conducting a nine-day field test outside Hilo, Hawaii, so they can evaluate new exploration techniques for the surface of the Moon. These mission simulations, known as analog missions, are performed at extreme and often remote locations here on Earth to prepare for robotic and human missions to extraterrestrial destinations.
The In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) analog mission is collaboration with the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), with help from the Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems (PISCES).
The Apollo Astronauts did not have the sophisticated tools, machines or technology of today. Mercury, Gemini and Apollo training have been surpassed by steady technological advancement. The ISRU analog mission will demonstrate techniques to prospect for lunar ice. The testing site near Hilo features lava-covered mountain soil similar to the ancient volcanic plains on the moon. The two main tests under way are the Regolith and Environment Science and Oxygen and Lunar Volatile Extraction (RESOLVE) and the Moon Mars Analog Mission Activities (MMAMA).
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) located in California, has designed a unique mechanical geologist to seek out possible evidence of life on Mars for approximately 18 days. The spacecraft would search for favorable possible habitat conditions that would indicate evidence that life could exist on the freeze-dried Martian surface.
One of the most productive methods that scientists have used to learn how to search for the existence of life on other planets – has been to seek it out in isolate fields on planet Earth.
The rovers being tested out are not as elaborate as the Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity (scheduled to land on the Red Planet in August). The drilling demonstration in Hawaii includes CSA’s Artemis Jr. rover and a drill. These devices support the RESOLVE payload.
RESOLVE is designed to prospect for water, ice and other lunar resources. It will also demonstrate how potential future explorers can take advantage of resources at possible landing sites. The rover and its onboard instrumentation are about as tall as a human and weigh about 660 pounds, three times heavier than the equipment that would be used on an actual mission.
MMAMA is a group of small projects and tests that will define the requirements for navigation, mobility, communications, sample processing, curating and other critical elements that could be used in future science and exploration missions. Using another CSA rover, Juno, and payload interfaces, the MMAMA suite of tests includes analysis of regolith using pryolysis (breaking down the samples by heating them), robotic resource mapping, a miniaturized Mossbauer spectrometer, and a combined miniaturized Mossbauer and X-Ray fluorescence spectrometer. A team of engineers and researchers will monitor all of the tests from a mission control center in Hawaii.
Lessons learned from the ISRU project become increasingly important as NASA embarks on deep-space missions. Instead of having to launch all of the resources needed for these missions from Earth (a heavy and therefore expensive affair), a human crew could go into space knowing that natural resources already there waiting for them.
New engine passes test and revs up space hopes
Xin Dingding - China Daily
A next-generation engine, that will pave the way for lunar exploration, was successfully tested on Sunday.
The engine, with a 120-ton-thrust using liquid oxygen (LOX) and kerosene, will enable the Long March 5 carrier rocket - which is expected to make its maiden voyage in 2014 - to place a 25-ton payload into near-Earth orbit, or place a 14-ton payload into geostationary orbit, experts said.
The tests, which included seeing how the engine would respond to rotational speeds of nearly 20,000 revolutions per minute and temperatures of 3,000 C for 200 seconds, were held in Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi province.
"The successful tests confirm the reliability of China's LOX/kerosene engine," said Lai Daichu, test commander.
Tan Yonghua, head of Xi'an Aerospace Propulsion Institute under the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp, which developed the engine, said that the single engine currently used by Long March carrier rockets only has a 75-ton thrust, much less than the 120-ton thrust of the new engine.
Luan Xiting, deputy head of the institute, said that the new engine's extra thrust will enable China to assemble a space station and also help with the third stage of the lunar exploration program.
The three stages involve orbit, landing and return.
Earlier reports said that the Chang'e-5 lunar explorer will bring about 2 kg of lunar samples to Earth.
Ouyang Ziyuan, a senior consultant in the lunar exploration program and a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that Chang'e-5 will be launched atop the Long March 5 carrier rocket from the new space launch center in Wenchang, Hainan province, which is under construction.
The space program is in the second stage, with three lunar exploration spacecraft, Chang'e 2, Chang'e 3 and Chang'e 4.
Ouyang said in a recent e-mail reply to China Daily that China will launch its third lunar explorer, Chang'e 3, next year to land on the moon.
A rover will explore its surroundings.
The landing is expected to be the most challenging part of the mission, he said.
Chang'e 3 will hover about 4 meters above the lunar surface.
Then the engine will cut out, and the Chang'e 3 will drop onto the surface.
As for the rover, the leading scientist in lunar exploration said it is "China's most advanced robot".
The rover carries a lunar "radar" and while it is operating on the surface it can scan several hundred meters under the surface.
The rover also carries instruments that can detect minerals.
To combat nighttime temperatures, -180 C, scientists have developed nuclear-powered batteries that can help the lander and rover function.
They will conserve energy by "hibernating" and when the sun rises the solar energy will "wake" the lander and the rover, he said.
Ouyang said the second lunar orbiter, Chang'e 2, has traveled to explore an asteroid.
The asteroid, 4179 Toutatis, is listed as a potentially hazardous object by scientists because it makes frequent Earth fly pasts.
Prior to traveling into deep space, Chang'e 2, launched in October 2010, completed its six-month mission and spent 235 days some 1.5 million km from Earth, where it gathered a large amount of scientific data about solar activity, he said.
It started its quest for the asteroid on April 15, and is expected to observe the asteroid close up, he said.
Why SpaceX is setting the pace in the commercial space race
Innovations blaze a new trail for NASA spaceflight in the 20-teens
Stewart Money - NBC News (Commentary)
(This is a response to a series by NBC News' Jay Barbree on U.S. human spaceflight. Money is a freelance writer focusing on space transportation issues. He is currently working on a book about SpaceX and the development of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon spacecraft.)
NASA is about to make a critical decision regarding a new chapter in American space exploration.
At issue is which two entrants among a field of highly qualified contestants will move ahead as the primary winners into the next phase of the commercial crew competition to replace the space shuttle as America’s means of access to Earth orbit.
This decision is about much more than whose brand name will be emblazoned on the side of a spacecraft. With serious differences between the leading contenders, it is also a referendum on the merits of a new approach to developing and conducting spaceflight operations, one which recently resulted in the first-ever private commercial flight to the International Space Station.
This approach stands in contrast to a traditional aerospace establishment which is already firmly in control of NASA’s separate, much larger, slower and vastly more expensive program, the Space Launch System. As a consequence, it holds the potential to shape the future of American space exploration.
With so much at stake, veteran astronauts, industry insiders, lawmakers and even journalists have been weighing in with their opinions as to who should emerge as a winner. There’s been a late push by the aerospace giant Alliant Techsystems, also known as ATK. The company hasn’t won funding for its Liberty launch vehicle in the current phase of the spaceship competition, but it received several billion dollars of funding in a prior life for the now-canceled Ares 1 rocket development program.
The push for Liberty has reinvigorated a long-running debate over the relative merits of “experienced” aerospace companies such as ATK, versus newer entrants such as Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX.
The line of reasoning is that as a younger company, founded only a decade ago, SpaceX simply lacks the history to compete with more experienced aerospace contractors. Liberty’s backers argue that human spaceflight is something best left to the grand old names from a better, bolder era, who have seen it all before and know how to get us back.
A different model for space travel
Experience however, can be a two-edged sword — a sword that cuts sharpest when wielded not just for auld lang syne, but instead with skill acquired by applying lessons learned across the broad spectrum of the space era. The most important lesson is that if our ultimate purpose is to explore a solar system that is more diverse and interesting than we once thought, we need a different model for doing so.
Dec. 7, 2012, will mark the 40th anniversary of the flight of Apollo 17. That was the last time the United States ever launched an astronaut beyond Earth orbit. The reason why the operational era of human exploration beyond Earth orbit lasted a mere three and a half years, from July 1969 to December 1972, is that early in the Space Age, and continuing with the space shuttle, the nation tied itself to an infrastructure and a way of doing business that was too expensive to sustain.
NASA acknowledged this reality in 2006, even as it was pursuing its plan to send astronauts back to the moon — known as Project Constellation or “Apollo on Steroids” — by establishing the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program. The purpose of the COTS program was to see if there was a better, more sustainable model for achieving access to space by forgoing the traditional approach of top-down, sole-source , cost-plus contracting — and instead harnessing the innovation and drive of private industry while still maintaining a close partnership with NASA.
After plowing nearly $8 billion into the Ares 1 booster program, Project Constellation did in fact prove too expensive to sustain. Instead, it was the COTS approach for cargo delivery to the space station that became the basis for NASA’s commercial crew program.
Success for SpaceX
SpaceX’s first demonstration cargo flight to the space station was accomplished in May as part of the COTS program. That flight took longer than expected, but the results were well worth NASA’s time and money. Thanks to its investment of $396 million, plus a great deal of advice, NASA has made it possible for SpaceX to produce not just a new launch vehicle but something much more profound: a new space transportation system consisting of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle, the recoverable and reusable Dragon spacecraft, and the infrastructure to support those spacecraft.
For comparison’s sake, the cost to NASA for doing this was less than what the space agency spent on one suborbital test launch of the Ares 1-X booster in 2009. It was less than NASA has spent on the development of its deep-space Orion crew capsule in the first half of this year alone.
Now SpaceX has a contract to launch 12 cargo flights to the space station at a cost to the American taxpayer of about $133 million per flight — putting America back in the orbital transport business. The SpaceX Falcon-Dragon transportation system arguably represents the best investment NASA has ever made. In light of that success, a failure to include the company in the top two for NASA’s commercial crew program would signal an almost unfathomable retreat, unworthy of the best of American ingenuity.
The stunningly low-cost and expansive nature of the Falcon-Dragon system represents much more than a rare bargain for taxpayers, in an era when most such stories have a very different ending. It offers indisputable proof that a new approach to space transportation can work far more effectively than the old ways. It’s absolutely vital to keep the company and the space transport system which has pioneered this path in the vanguard.
Safety first
There are other reasons to support the SpaceX approach, with safety foremost among them. The launch vehicle was designed from the outset to exceed NASA’s crew safety standards. For instance, the spacecraft systems are tested to 140 percent of the maximum expected loads, rather than the 125 percent that NASA calls for. SpaceX has developed a launch pad release system that keeps the rocket safely on the ground until all first-stage engines are at full power and trending safely. Once released, the Falcon 9 can suffer a first-stage engine failure and still make it safely to orbit.
Sitting atop the Falcon 9 booster, the crewed version of SpaceX’s flight-proven Dragon spacecraft incorporates a launch escape system built into sidewall of the crew vessel itself, allowing for a safe escape path at any point in flight.
The ATK Liberty proposal, by contrast, is based on the 40-year-old solid rocket architecture which doomed Challenger and offers none of these critical features. No amount of marketing can obscure the fact that once ignition occurs, solid rocket boosters — unlike liquid-fueled rockets — cannot be turned off. Any launch vehicle can have a bad day; the problem with solid boosters is the tendency to turn a bad day into something much worse.
Another argument focuses on experience. SpaceX is the only entrant in the competition that has already flown to the space station with the complete system being offered. Furthermore, SpaceX is contractually obligated to conduct 12 more flights in the coming years as part of its separate, commercial resupply contract. Consequently, by the time NASA astronauts begin boarding any new American launch system for a trip to the orbiting outpost, SpaceX will already have flown the rout many times over. That means the entire system — including Falcon 9, Dragon, ground operations, tracking, space station rendezvous and berthing, as well as the interplay between the NASA and SpaceX flight control teams — will be well proven. It will be, dare we say, an experienced system.
American competitiveness
Yet another issue for consideration has to do with promoting American industrial competitiveness. In spite of the “experience” that veteran aerospace companies bring to the table for commercial crew, one of the items sadly missing from the menu is a strictly American launch vehicle. United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 rocket, though built in Decatur, Ala., is in fact powered by a single Russian main engine, the RD-180, built in a factory outside Moscow. Outsourcing the heart of the rocket, the engine which drives it, may have saved a great deal of money. But it has also contributed to a gaping hole in the U.S. launch industrial base, only now being countered by SpaceX and its Merlin main engine, which is 100 percent designed and built in the U.S.
While the ATK Liberty does employ an American first stage, albeit based on a solid rocket booster, the second stage is entirely European. If the Falcon 9 is left out of the mix, the United States will still lack a truly indigenous crew launch capacity to low Earth orbit.
The Falcon 9 represents the only all-American launch solution on the table, designed and built in California, tested in Texas and launched in Florida. For a U.S. workforce desperate for jobs, and a country looking for something to celebrate, it doesn’t get much better than that.
It may be tempting to cast the decision regarding the next era in American spaceflight in terms of the glory days of American space exploration, and advocate a return to the waiting arms of companies that helped make those glory days. But there’s a reason that the only "Glory Days" we hear about today are coming from Bruce Springsteen: The cost basis for those past-generation launch systems is unsustainable. NASA understands this, and that’s why the agency has resisted recent pressure to "down select" to a single winner.
Speaking at a news conference in May, former shuttle astronaut Brent Jett, who is now deputy manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said the program was set up to reduce costs by fostering competition. The lack of competition, he said, explains “why a system costs $8 billion to build.”
The past and the future
Although SpaceX has plenty of under-30 employees, the company also employs lots of talented aerospace veterans who have seen it all before and know how to eliminate waste to produce a system that’s safe, yet cost-effective. In this, SpaceX has received wise counsel from NASA, who after years of circling in low Earth orbit yearns to begin exploring again. To assert that SpaceX is not up to the task of extending the same lessons to crewed spaceflight is to suggest that neither is the agency doing the advising.
The exploration of space, more so than almost any human endeavor, is an inherently forward-looking enterprise. While the immediate issue is access to low Earth orbit, the implications reach much farther. The fundamental challenge of space exploration is as much financial as it is technological. Substantially reducing the cost of reaching orbit, a goal unsuccessfully pursued by the shuttle program, remains the key to unlocking the solar system.
Even as NASA officials weigh their decision, one company at the forefront of the space frontier is investing its own resources to build what all parties agree is necessary to establishing a permanent future in space: a fully reusable space transportation system. That company is SpaceX. Soon it will begin testing the Grasshopper, a reusable first stage based on the same Falcon 9 launch vehicle that is at the core of company’s commercial crew proposal. While it is too early to tell if the test program will be successful, the effort itself is representative of what space exploration should be about.
If the accomplishments of the Apollo program are to have lasting significance, then somebody, somewhere is going to have to politely bypass the “experienced” wisdom that says it can’t be done — and develop the technology to make fully reusable launch vehicles a reality. For the moment, at least, that company is SpaceX, the launch vehicle is the Falcon 9, and NASA’s commercial crew competition represents an important step along the way.
Giants in glass houses
Dwayne Day - The Space Review (Commentary)
In April 2011, NASA announced the locations where the retired space shuttle orbiters would be located. The Smithsonian received Discovery, Kennedy Space Center’s Visitor Complex received Atlantis, and Endeavour was allocated to Los Angeles’s California Science Center. Enterprise, previously hosted by the Smithsonian, would head to New York City’s Intrepid Air and Space Museum. Naturally, communities that did not receive an orbiter, but felt that they deserved one, were outraged—outrage being the default response to perceived slights these days.
Congressional delegations in both Texas and Ohio called for investigations of NASA’s site selection process. A NASA Inspector General investigation found some errors in NASA’s rating of the various locations, but no evidence of negligence or political influence. Nevertheless, some grumbling still persists, and when Enterprise was recently damaged during transport to its museum location, some crowed that this was proof that New York City didn’t deserve her, and Houston would have treated her better.
Although the museum proposals stood (and fell) on their own merits, there is a relatively simple rule of thumb that could be applied to the institutions that wanted an orbiter: how well do they do displaying the major artifacts already in their collections? In the past month I have had the opportunity to visit all three locations that have a Saturn V rocket on display: the Kennedy Space Center Visitor’s Complex, the Huntsville Space and Rocket Center, and Space Center Houston.
Both the Kennedy and Huntsville locations have outstanding facilities and exhibits for displaying their Saturn V rockets. They are both obviously proud of what they have and how they represent their communities. They both followed different paths toward funding their facilities, but the end results are impressive and demonstrate a commitment both to honoring the objects and their designers and builders, as well as educating current and future generations of the public.
Houston is another story.
Space Center Houston’s Saturn V is located in a temporary building that is not on the actual museum grounds. The building looks like a large shed, and lacks the dramatic windows of the other two facilities. Unlike the other Saturn V rockets, the public can see it for free, if they know how to reach it and are not intimidated by the fact that they have to go through the Johnson Space Center security gate in order to pull into the parking lot.
The building is well-lit, but relatively simply outfitted on the inside, without much room either in front of or behind the vehicle. The building includes wall displays, but no other artifacts or media like at the other two sites. Unfortunately, although intended as a temporary structure, and erected in the middle of the last decade, such buildings often have a tendency to become permanent.
What is more dismaying is that the building containing the Saturn V is starting to deteriorate. Interior insulation is starting to crack and peel, showing considerable degradation from my last visit a year ago. This simply reinforces the impression that the Saturn V is being stored in a big garage.
Houston has had the Saturn V for decades. It has housed it indoors for almost seven years, and yet the city has not improved the presentation or shown any indication that it intends to display the Saturn V with any of the affection and intelligence that the Kennedy and Huntsville communities have given to their Saturn Vs. If you look at what Houston has done it is hard not to wonder if they would have treated a shuttle orbiter with the same indifference.
Maybe being overlooked for a shuttle will be a wakeup call for Space Center Houston to get their act together and start aspiring to be like the better space museums. Houston has been swimming in petrodollars for a long time now, so money is not an issue; a good fundraising effort should be able to gather more than enough money from the local community. What matters is organization and leadership, and based upon the degradation of the Saturn V building, and Space Center Houston’s unenthusiastic display of a rare piece of space history, those requirements appear to be in short supply.
FAA Deserves Extra Credit for Safety Dialog
Space News (Editorial)
When Paul Allen and Burt Rutan’s SpaceShipOne snagged the $10 million Ansari X Prize in the fall of 2004 by flying to suborbital space twice within a week, many reasonably assumed that more such jaunts — with paying passengers on board — would soon follow. Few would have imagined that eight years would fly by without another flight. But that’s what has happened.
Virgin Galactic, the suborbital spaceflight industry’s well-financed frontrunner, says it is on track to begin powered test flights of the six-passenger SpaceShipTwo by year’s end with ticketed flights to follow in 2013. If the New Mexico-based company holds to this schedule, it still stands to benefit from a regulatory amnesty period the United States enacted in late 2004 to nurture the still nascent commercial human spaceflight sector.
But just barely.
A key provision of the 2004 Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act that Congress sent to the president’s desk within two months of SpaceShipOne’s prize-winning flight is set to expire on Oct. 1, 2015. It would have expired this December if lawmakers had not passed a bare-minimum extension in February.
The Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act did three important things: First, it gave the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) clear jurisdiction over private human spaceflight; second, it established an experimental-permit regime meant to fast track flight tests; and third, it barred the FAA for eight years from writing rules designed solely for the protection of passengers and crew flying aboard these brand-new vehicles.
Only this last provision, meant to prevent the FAA from snarling operators in a jumble of best-guess dos and don’ts, is subject to an expiration date.
Proponents cast the partial ban on rule making as a “learning period” meant to allow human spaceflight regulatory standards to evolve without stifling innovation or subjecting passengers and crew to undue risk.
The FAA, of course, remains free to act during the amnesty period to protect public safety — by dictating through the licensing process, for example, where and when these vehicles can fly. Lawmakers back in 2004 also carved out an important exception to the rule-making moratorium that allows the FAA to ban vehicle design features or operating practices that kill or seriously injure crew or passengers, or contribute to a close call that could easily have done so.
However, the underlying notion of letting early passengers fly at their own risk — these are people, after all, who can afford to pay $200,000 for a 90-minute joyride — is essential for allowing the industry to take flight without being weighed down by overregulation.
It has taken longer than many imagined, but the suborbital human spaceflight industry finally appears ready for takeoff. And thanks to NASA, the FAA already finds itself licensing one commercial operator — Space Exploration Technologies — that’s now flown its first quasi-commercial cargo mission to the international space station and is champing at the bit to launch astronauts.
The last thing commercial human spaceflight operators need during the early going is a shelf full of rules approximating those the FAA imposes on an airline industry that carries millions of passengers every day.
But just because the FAA doesn’t have free rein to regulate doesn’t mean it has no responsibility to promote crew and passenger safety.
Congress made this fairly plain in February when it passed the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012. “Nothing in this provision is intended to prohibit the FAA and industry stakeholders from entering into discussions intended to prepare the FAA for its role in appropriately regulating the commercial space flight industry when the provision expires,” lawmakers wrote in a report accompanying the bill.
What’s more, industry is eager to engage the FAA in a safety dialog.
Yet FAA lawyers took a heap of persuading to allow the agency’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation to begin these discussions. Only part of the concern, FAA officials have said, was running afoul of the spirit of the rule-making moratorium. The broader objection pertained to a longstanding federal law that governs the federal rule-making process. The Administrative Procedures Act, which dates back to 1946, is very strict about when and how federal officials may share their thinking about future regulations. Violators can go to jail.
It was no small matter, therefore, for the Office of Commercial Space Transportation to organize a series of monthly public telephone calls, starting in August, to give industry a forum for sharing its views on improving safety while avoiding imprudent regulations.
It’s a good start, but more can be done.
For starters, Congress should extend the learning period beyond 2015. House lawmakers were on the right track when they voted to restart the clock at eight years from the time of the first licensed flight. House and Senate conferees, unfortunately, limited the extension to the three-year duration of the authorization bill itself.
Next, Congress should give the Office of Commercial Space Transportation a small funding boost, focusing the additional money on fielding experts, not putting more bureaucrats in Washington. Currently budgeted at $16 million, the 70-person organization needs to staff up its field offices so that its technical experts can work alongside operators as this industry evolves. A lessons-learned database, maintained with industry’s cooperation and structured to protect proprietary information, would help ensure little problems don’t become big problems; any mistake could be very costly to the whole industry, not just the company that made it.
Finally, the Office of Commercial Space Transportation needs to remember its dual mandate to regulate and promote the U.S. commercial spaceflight industry. The FAA can and should use this promotional mandate to issue safety advisories aimed at heading off accidents.
Because one mishap could be all it takes to bring the hopes of an entire industry tumbling back to Earth.
House to take up bill protecting astronauts’ rights to space artifacts
Robert Pearlman - collectSPACE.com
The U.S. House of Representatives will begin this week considering a bill to confirm the ownership of astronauts' mission mementos. The lawmakers' meeting comes 41 years after astronauts landed on the moon with souvenirs that raised congressional concerns.
The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology is scheduled to meet Thursday (Aug. 2) to markup the bill aimed at establishing clear title to the space artifacts that astronauts have kept since flying to the moon.
The bill (H.R. 4158) takes an almost opposite approach to the outcome of a congressional investigation held after the Apollo 15 mission, which accomplished the fourth manned moon landing in July 1971. Four decades ago, NASA — in response to pressure by Congress — formalized rules that restricted the types of souvenirs that space-bound crews could fly and keep from their missions.
The current bill, which was first introduced last March by committee chair Ralph Hall (R-TX) and ranking member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), came after NASA stepped in to halt the sales of moon-flown equipment that some of the Apollo astronauts had tried to auction. The astronauts maintained that they had the space agency's permission to keep the well-traveled lunar artifacts, but didn't have the ironclad paperwork to prove their claim.
"From the beginning of our nation's space program through the Apollo era, NASA astronauts were permitted to retain mementos from their spaceflights," Hall and Johnson said in a March 2 letter sent to committee's members. "Without statutory clarification, some astronauts may be forced to make reparations."
The bill, titled "To confirm full ownership rights for certain United States astronauts to artifacts from the astronauts' space missions," is, in its current form, only 264 words, or about one-fourth the length of this article.
Thursday morning's markup is expected to be brief, as 32 out of the committee's 36 members are co-sponsors.
Astronauts and their artifacts
In 1971, the Apollo 15 mission launched with what NASA later identified as "unauthorized" articles, including nearly 400 collectible postmarked envelopes, or postal "covers." The post-flight overseas sale of some of these mementos resulted in a congressional investigation and the Apollo 15 crew never flew in space again.
The astronauts' moon-flown mementos were confiscated, and were only returned a decade later when the astronauts filed suit against the government, citing NASA's entrance into an agreement with the U.S. Postal Service to market covers to the public that were flown on the space shuttle.
The astronauts' rights to expendable space equipment — including checklists, personal hygiene kits, and items that if had been left aboard the Apollo lunar module would have been crashed into the moon — went largely uncontested by NASA until last year.
In July 2011, the government filed a lawsuit against Apollo 14 moonwalker Edgar Mitchell to have the motion picture camera he returned from the moon declared government property. After holding onto the camera for more than 40 years, Mitchell consigned it to an auction house in New York to be sold for an estimated $60,000 to $80,000.
In court documents, Mitchell argued that he and his fellow Apollo astronauts had been given permission by NASA to save equipment as souvenirs if they were not intended to return to Earth. According to the Apollo 14 flight plan, had Mitchell not kept the camera, it would crashed with the no longer needed lunar lander at the end of the mission.
But those early policies went mostly unwritten. It was not until decades later that NASA began to document its rules over the use of space shuttle equipment as mementos.
Last October, Mitchell settled out of court, turning over the camera for its display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. In return, he was only responsible for his own legal fees.
Then, this past January, NASA's General Counsel raised new questions over the title to artifacts offered by a Dallas auction house on behalf of Apollo 13 commander James Lovell and Apollo 9 spacewalker Rusty Schweickart. One item in particular, a lunar module activation checklist that had been used to reconfigure the lander into a lifeboat on the periled Apollo 13 mission, made headlines after it sold for a record-setting $388,375.
NASA's inquiry halted that sale. Lovell, Schweickart and other Apollo astronauts came to Washington, D.C. to meet with NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, a former space shuttle astronaut, to try to resolve what the NASA chief described as "fundamental misunderstandings and unclear policies" regarding artifacts from the agency's Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs.
"We'll explore all policy, legislative, and other legal means to resolve these questions expeditiously," Bolden said at the time.
Loaned, gifted, donated or sold
"The agency will support whatever legislation comes from Congress," NASA spokesman Bob Jacobs said, reacting to the introduction of the House bill last March. "This is in line with the discussion that the astronauts had with the administrator back in January."
The bill applies only to artifacts held by U.S. astronauts "who participated in any of the Mercury, Gemini, or Apollo programs through the completion of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project" in 1975. An artifact is defined as "any expendable item... not expressly required to be returned to [NASA] at the completion of the mission and other expendable, disposable, or personal-use items."
The bill, if left as is by the committee and then passed by both the full House of Representatives and U.S. Senate, would extend rights to more than just the artifacts that are currently in the astronauts' possession.
"The federal government shall have no claim or right to ownership, control or use of any artifact that subsequently was transferred, sold, or assigned to a third party by an astronaut," the bill reads.
"Many of the astronauts have loaned, gifted, donated or sold artifacts to universities, museums, family members and private collectors during the intervening years," wrote Hall and Johnson.
END
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