9/14/12 news

  Happy Friday everyone, have a safe weekend.         Friday, September 14, 2012   JSC TODAY HEADLINES 1.            NASA Family Honors Dr. Sally Ride on Sept. 18 With Tree-Planting Ceremony 2.            Astronauts on the Airwaves 3.            Last Day to RSVP for NMA Luncheon 4.            Engineering (Engineering and Development) 50th Reunion ________________________________________     QUOTE OF THE DAY “ As you get older it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary. ”   -- Ernest Hemingway ________________________________________ 1.            NASA Family Honors Dr. Sally Ride on Sept. 18 With Tree-Planting Ceremony JSC team members are invited to attend the tree-planting ceremony in honor of Dr. Sally Ride on Tuesday, Sept. 18, in the Memorial Tree Grove at 9 a.m.   Ride was born May 26, 1951, in Los Angeles, and passed away on July 23. Renowned as the first American woman in space, Ride was an inspiration to a new generation of female explorers. A veteran of two spaceflights (1983 and 1984), she also served as a member of the Presidential Commission that investigated the Challenger accident.   Her legacy will continue to live on, as in 2001 she founded Sally Ride Science to pursue her long-time passion of motivating girls and young women to pursue careers in science, math and technology. The company creates entertaining science programs and publications for upper elementary and middle school students and their parents and teachers. Ride also authored five science books for children: "To Space and Back;" "Voyager;" "The Third Planet;" "The Mystery of Mars" and "Exploring Our Solar System."   Diana Norman x32646   [top] 2.            Astronauts on the Airwaves This Sunday, Sept. 16, tune in to hear a radio interview with astronaut Nicole Stott on "Hangar Talk" on KPRC 950 AM, airing from 10 a.m. to noon CDT. Stott will be joining Capt. Mike Landry for a flight in the Radio Mojo cockpit. You can listen live via radio or on the Internet at: http://www.the950.com/cc-common/listenlive/   Also keep an eye (or two) out for astronaut Mike Massimino next month. He will appear on TV on "The Big Bang Theory," episodes 2 and 4. Episode 2 airs Oct. 4, while episode 4 airs Oct. 18.   "The Big Bang Theory" airs Thursdays nights (7 p.m. CDT) on CBS: http://www.cbs.com/shows/big_bang_theory/   JSC External Relations, Office of Communications and Public Affairs x35111   [top] 3.            Last Day to RSVP for NMA Luncheon There are out-of-this-world projects in work with JSC and Space Center Houston.   To learn more about them, please join us for this month's JSC National Management Association (NMA) Chapter luncheon presentation, "JSC and Space Center Houston: Reinvigorating Partnership," with guest speakers JSC Director of External Relations Mike Kincaid and Space Center Houston CEO Richard E. Allen Jr.   Date: Sept. 20 Time: 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Location: Hilton, Discovery Ballroom   Please RSVP by close of business today, Sept. 14, at: http://www.jscnma.com/Events   For RSVP technical assistance, please contact Lorraine Guerra at lorraine.guerra-1@nasa.gov or 281-483-4262.   Cassandra Miranda x38618   [top] 4.            Engineering (Engineering and Development) 50th Reunion On Saturday, Oct. 20, from 12:30 to 5 p.m., veterans of the Engineering and Development (E&D) Directorate and their colleagues and family members will gather at the Gilruth Center to celebrate "The First 50 Years of Engineering and Development Excellence." E&D veterans and the current Engineering Directorate staff, in conjunction with colleagues in other JSC organizations, are very proud of the joint accomplishments over these 50 years. Many former directors of Engineering (and Development) will visit and speak with celebrants. Heavy hors d'oeuvres and liquid refreshments will be served. Tickets are $18 and may be purchased online at: http://users.hal-pc.org/~apolloedreunion/   Dianne Milner x31206   [top]   ________________________________________ JSC Today is compiled periodically as a service to JSC employees on an as-submitted basis. Any JSC organization or employee may submit articles. To see an archive of previous JSC Today announcements, go to http://www6.jsc.nasa.gov/pao/news/jsctoday/archives.       NASA TV: ·                     1:30 pm Central SATURDAY (2:30 EDT) – Expedition 32/33 Change of Command ceremony ·                     2:30 pm Central SUNDAY (3:30 EDT) – E32 Farewell/hatch closure coverage (closes 2:55) ·                     5:45 pm Central SUNDAY (6:45 EDT) – Soyuz TMA-04M undock coverage (undocks 6:09) ·                     8:30 pm Central SUNDAY (9:30 EDT) – Soyuz TMA-04M Deorbit & landing coverage ·                     8:56 pm Central SUNDAY (9:56 EDT) – Soyuz TMA-04M Deorbit burn ·                     9:53 pm Central SUNDAY (10:53 EDT) – Kazakhstan Landing (northern zone near Arkalyk) ·                     5:45 am Central MONDAY (6:45 EDT) – SCA/Endeavour departure from KSC coverage ·                     ~6:15 am Central MONDAY (7:15 EDT) – SCA/Endeavour departs KSC for Ellington Field   Human Spaceflight News Friday – September 14, 2012   HEADLINES AND LEADS   Merck To Conduct Drug Research On ISS   Frank Morring, Jr. - Aerospace Daily   Pending final approval from the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (Casis), Merck Research Laboratories will begin studying therapeutic monoclonal antibodies (MABs) on the International Space Station to learn if the microgravity environment there can aid in drug development. Casis, the nonprofit organization NASA selected to manage the ISS National Laboratory, is in the process of selecting research projects growing out of its initial request for proposals, which involved protein crystallization in microgravity. MABs are proteins engineered to bind to specific disease-causing targets, which can promote healing without dangerous or unpleasant side effects.   CASIS Working ISS Research Proposal with Merck   Dan Leone - Space News   The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) is working a deal with pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. to fly a biomedical experiment to the international space station (ISS) sometime in 2013. The experiment will focus on techniques that could aid in the manufacturing of biomedical treatments for human immunological diseases, CASIS said in a Sept. 10 press release.   Sen. Hutchison Suggests Splitting Up NASA   Dan Leone - Space News   In her last scheduled space hearing with the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, retiring U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) on Sept. 13 asked whether NASA might be better off paring back its diverse portfolio of programs and focusing exclusively on human exploration and science missions. “Is NASA’s mission too broad to be able to fully fund the priorities and should we, in the next NASA authorization, look at splitting NASA?” Hutchison asked witnesses during a hearing on the agency’s space exploration plans.   NASA Launches Program To Certify Space Taxis   Irene Klotz - Space News   With an eye toward breaking Russia’s monopoly on flying crew to the international space station by 2017, NASA has launched a two-stage certification process aimed at ensuring commercial passenger spaceships currently under development will meet the agency’s safety standards, schedule and mission requirements. NASA expects to award multiple firms a Certification Products Contract (CPC), each of which will run for 15 months and be worth up to $10 million. The program dovetails with the agency’s ongoing partnerships with Boeing, Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) and Sierra Nevada Corp., to develop privately owned space transportation systems capable of flying astronauts to the space station.   ATK's Liberty launch vehicle faces uncertain future   Zach Rosenberg - FlightInternational.com   After failing to win an award in the latest round of NASA's commercial crew vehicle development grants, ATK's Liberty launch vehicle remains on paper facing an uncertain future. There is, says Kent Rominger, the Liberty programme manager, "no way on internal funding can we finish the Liberty module, interfaces, design. We probably need on the order of $300 million to get the launcher to [critical design review]. And we're not investing that kind of money. So we are on an order of magnitude less than that, keeping the programme alive while finding the right investment structure," Rominger adds.   NASA’s retired shuttle Endeavour departs Monday for LA science museum   Marcia Dunn - Associated Press   The baby of NASA’s space shuttle fleet is about to leave home — for good. At sunrise Monday, Endeavour will depart Kennedy Space Center for a museum in California, with a two-day stopover in Houston, home to Mission Control and the astronauts who flew aboard the replacement for the lost shuttle Challenger.   NASA Building New Moon Lander Prototype After Fiery Crash   Clara Moskowitz - Space.com   The NASA team behind a prototype moon lander that crashed in a test flight last month is pushing forward to build a new-and-improved replacement. The program, called Project Morpheus after the Greek god of dreams, is aimed at testing new technologies for a future planetary lander, including a novel propulsion system based on liquid oxygen and liquid methane fuels, which scientists say are cheaper and safer than traditional rocket fuels. A future version of Morpheus could be used to land payloads on the moon, Mars, or some other planetary body.   KSC shuttle landing strip to become space port?   Jerry Hume - Central Florida News 13   As the Kennedy Space Center prepares to bid farewell to space shuttle Endeavour next week, NASA administrators are looking ahead to the future, including turning over the Shuttle Landing Facility to a commercial entity. Now that there are no space shuttles lifting off from or touching down at the Space Coast, what's to become of the 15,000-foot-long runway? It may be deserted now, but the KSC wants it to be a part of a thriving multi-use spaceport -- as a horizontal launch and landing facility, among other things.   Space shuttle's runway harbors own set of stories Facility prepares to send off last orbiter   James Dean - Florida Today   A black granite plaque marks the spot where space shuttle Endeavour rolled to a stop to end its final mission on June 1 last year, 9,641 feet from the northwest end of Kennedy Space Center’s runway. Around 7 a.m. Monday, a modified 747 jumbo jet carrying Endeavour will take off from the 15,000-foot runway officially called the Shuttle Landing Facility, marking its last use by a shuttle. The runway will remain, but NASA doesn’t want to pay to operate and maintain it anymore. The agency recently requested proposals, due Sept. 24, from government or commercial partners that could take over the facility within a year.   NASA Turns to 3D Printing for Self-Building Spacecraft   Jeremy Hsu - Innovation News Daily   Spacecraft could build themselves or huge space telescopes someday by scavenging materials from space junk or asteroids. That wild vision stems from a modest proposal to use 3D printing technology aboard a tiny satellite to create a much larger structure in space. The "SpiderFab" project received $100,000 from NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts program to hammer out a design and figure out whether spacecraft self-construction makes business sense. Practical planning and additional funding could lead to the launch of a 3D-printing test mission within several years.   Astronaut Chris Hadfield, crew discuss space mission   CBC News   Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield and the two other crew members who will be travelling with him to the International Space Station (ISS) in December briefed journalists and the public on their upcoming mission Thursday. 'I'm really lucky to be flying with these gentlemen," Hadfield said of Russian space agency commander Roman Romanenko and NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn.   Ground control to major Chris: Canadian astronaut to make music in space   Peter Rakobowchuk - Canadian Press   Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, an avid guitar player, says he's planning on doing some serious space jamming during his six-month visit to the International Space Station. The veteran astronaut is scheduled to blast off aboard a Russian spacecraft on Dec. 5, with NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn and Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko. Both of his travelling space companions also play guitar. Romanenko actually played with U2 when the group visited Moscow in 2010, while Marshburn is a classical guitarist. Hadfield says he's planning to do some song-writing while he gazes down at the Earth.   Neil Armstrong Inspired Canadian Astronaut's Giant Leap   Mike Wall - Space.com   Late astronaut Neil Armstrong's historic 1969 moonwalk put dreams of spaceflight in the heads of countless kids around the world — including one Canadian nine-year-old who would grow up to become his nation's first International Space Station commander. Chris Hadfield is slated to assume control of the huge orbiting laboratory in March 2013, something no Canadian has ever done. And he said watching Armstrong — who was memorialized in a public ceremony Thursday in Washington, D.C. — take that famous "one small step" inspired him to work toward becoming an astronaut, despite some pretty steep odds.   Virgin Galactic finishes unpowered flight test   Zach Rosenberg - FlightInternational.com   Virgin Galactic has largely finished subsonic and unpowered flight tests of SpaceShipTwo, the vehicle that will bring tourists into suborbital space for several minutes of weightlessness. "Essentially we've finished subsonic flight tests of SpaceShipTwo," says George Whitesides, president of Virgin Galactic. "We've explored the envelope in a way that we now feel fairly comfortable that we're ready for the next stage, from an aerodynamics perspective." SpaceShipTwo will remain on the ground for several months as the vehicle's hybrid liquid/solid rocket engine is installed. "This is the main integration of rocket motor components into the vehicle," says Whitesides.   Sanchez: Texas offering $6M, Florida giving $10M   Emma Perez-Trevino - Brownsville Herald   Officials involved in discussions with SpaceX said Thursday that it’s premature to put a dollar sign on the incentives package that would be offered to the company to persuade it to build a rocket-launching facility near Brownsville. “We are still working with the local community to aggressively pursue SpaceX and (are) very much interested in trying to get them to come to Texas,” Lucy Nashed, spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry said Thursday. This was in response to statements from Cameron County Pct. 4 Commissioner Dan Sanchez that the Brownsville Economic Development Council and the state have fallen behind Florida in incentives offered Elon Musk’s SpaceX, or Space Exploration Technologies Corp.   NEIL ARMSTRONG – 1930 – 2012     Armstrong remembered as 'reluctant hero'   William Harwood - CBS News   Neil Armstrong, the unassuming test pilot, family man and reluctant hero who will forever walk in history as the first man on the moon, was honored at the Washington National Cathedral Thursday, remembered as much for the quiet dignity he brought to his role as an enduring American icon as he was for his "giant leap for mankind" 43 years ago. With family members looking on, along with his Apollo 11 crewmates Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin and Michael Collins, Apollo 17 commander Eugene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon, summed up the feelings of many in the crowd of some 1,500 when he said "Fate looked down kindly on us when she chose Neil to be the first to venture to another world."   Nation says goodbye to moonwalker Neil Armstrong   Seth Borenstein - Associated Press   The nation bid farewell Thursday to Neil Armstrong, the first man to take a giant leap onto the moon. The pioneers of space, the powerful of the capital and the everyday public crowded into the Washington National Cathedral for a public interfaith memorial for the very private astronaut. Armstrong, who died last month in Ohio at age 82, walked on the moon in July 1969. "He's now slipped the bonds of Earth once again, but what a legacy he left," former Treasury Secretary John Snow told the gathering.   Astronaut Neil Armstrong is mourned at Washington National Cathedral   Ian Shapira - Washington Post   On Thursday, the last man to walk on the moon took the podium at Washington National Cathedral and honored his friend, Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk the moon. “Fate looked down kindly when she chose Neil to venture to another world and to have the opportunity to look back from space. It could have been another. But it wasn’t,” said Eugene Cernan, who visited the moon in 1972 as commander of Apollo 17. “No one — no one, but no one — could have accepted the responsibility of his remarkable accomplishment with more dignity and more grace than Neil Armstrong. Neil, wherever you are up there...as you soar through the heavens, beyond where even eagles dare to go, you can now finally put out your hand and touch the face of God. Farewell, my friend.”   Neil Armstrong is remembered as America's beloved moonwalker   Rene Lynch - Los Angeles Times   The nation bid a formal farewell to legendary astronaut Neil Armstrong on Thursday, honoring the world's first moonwalker, whose phrase "one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind" will never be forgotten. Armstrong died last month at age 82 after a life purposely lived outside the fame that surrounded him when he commanded the 1969 Apollo 11 space mission that culminated with his lunar walk. Hundreds crowded into the Washington National Cathedral for an interfaith memorial service. It was a particularly apt setting: A moon rock that the Apollo 11 astronauts gave the church in 1974 is embedded in one of its stained glass windows.   Neil Armstrong remembered as revered but reluctant hero   Ledyard King - Florida Today   Neil Armstrong probably wouldn't have wanted all this attention. The first man to walk on the moon was a global but reluctant icon. The 1,500 well-wishers who gathered at the Washington National Cathedral today to remember Armstrong, who died Aug. 25, might have made the former naval aviator somewhat self-conscious.   Remembering Neil Armstrong Consummate test pilot, extraordinary leader, quiet advocate for space exploration   Buzz Aldrin - Wall Street Journal   As America pays tribute to Neil Armstrong in a memorial service Thursday at the National Cathedral in Washington, I would like to reflect on the life and legacy of this great space-exploration pioneer. The memorial service, I note, falls one day after the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy's "moon speech" at Rice University in Houston, a speech that fired the nation's imagination and energies to undertake "the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked." I was deeply saddened to learn of Neil's passing—my good friend and Apollo 11 crewmate along with Michael Collins. It never occurred to me that our mission commander might be the first of us to pass. Thinking about Neil, I was reminded of the statement attributed to Sir Isaac Newton in the 17th century, when he attempted to explain how he was able to develop a powerful understanding of physics and mathematics: "If I have seen further, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants." __________   COMPLETE STORIES   Merck To Conduct Drug Research On ISS   Frank Morring, Jr. - Aerospace Daily   Pending final approval from the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (Casis), Merck Research Laboratories will begin studying therapeutic monoclonal antibodies (MABs) on the International Space Station to learn if the microgravity environment there can aid in drug development.   Casis, the nonprofit organization NASA selected to manage the ISS National Laboratory, is in the process of selecting research projects growing out of its initial request for proposals, which involved protein crystallization in microgravity. MABs are proteins engineered to bind to specific disease-causing targets, which can promote healing without dangerous or unpleasant side effects.   The Florida-based nonprofit has also announced a second call for proposals, this time involving materials testing in the open-space environment on ISS external facilities.   In the Merck agreement, the international drug company will “explore the microgravity effects on several bio-processing applications within the unique environment of the ISS National Lab,” said Paul Reichert, chemistry research fellow at the Merck Research Laboratories.   In the past, MABs have been developed for the treatment of specific cancers and autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. In microgravity , protein crystals can be grown much larger than on the ground to enable higher-resolution definition of their structure for drug engineering. The technique has been in use since the 1980s, and promises to be a major application of ISS biomedical research facilities.   If the Merck proposal passes the standard Casis valuation and prioritization process , the research could begin as early as mid-2013.   CASIS Working ISS Research Proposal with Merck   Dan Leone - Space News   The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) is working a deal with pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. to fly a biomedical experiment to the international space station (ISS) sometime in 2013.   The experiment will focus on techniques that could aid in the manufacturing of biomedical treatments for human immunological diseases, CASIS said in a Sept. 10 press release.   CASIS and Merck are hashing out the final details of Merck’s research proposal, which must then pass muster before a CASIS-led review board, according to Patrick O’Neill, a spokesman for the Florida-based nonprofit NASA chose last year to manage non-NASA research aboard the ISS.   “As soon as CASIS receives the final proposal from Merck, the valuation and prioritization process will begin,” O’Neill wrote in a Sept. 11 email. “Depending upon the complexity of the proposal, the choice of hardware and the integration partner, a review could include as many as 10 reviewers and take upwards of 45 days.”   Ian McConnel, a spokesman for Whitehouse Station, N.J.-based Merck did not reply to a request for comment on Sept. 12.   O’Neill said the timing of the Merck experiment’s flight to ISS would depend upon the length of the review process. He would not identify potential launch providers, or say when in 2013 Merck’s payload might fly.   The only U.S. vehicle currently flying to the space station is Space Exploration Technologies Corp.’s Dragon cargo capsule, which launches atop the company’s Falcon 9 rocket. Orbital Sciences Corp., expects to be ready to begin space station cargo runs by 2013 with its yet-to-fly Antares rocket and Cygnus space freighter. The systems first demonstration flight is scheduled for December.   Sen. Hutchison Suggests Splitting Up NASA   Dan Leone - Space News   In her last scheduled space hearing with the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, retiring U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) on Sept. 13 asked whether NASA might be better off paring back its diverse portfolio of programs and focusing exclusively on human exploration and science missions.   “Is NASA’s mission too broad to be able to fully fund the priorities and should we, in the next NASA authorization, look at splitting NASA?” Hutchison asked witnesses during a hearing on the agency’s space exploration plans.   Hutchison, a longtime NASA champion whose 19 years in the Senate will end come January, asked “as an example” whether NASA’s aeronautics program might be better off in the Defense Department. NASA devoted $570 million of its $17.8 billion budget to aeronautics research in 2012.   She also pressed the hearing's panel of witnesses — two prominent scientists and a propulsion company executive — to suggest programs that should be de-emphasized in order to free up more money for space exploration and science.   None of the witnesses would play favorites with NASA’s portfolio, and all three argued against splitting up the agency.   Charles Kennel, a former senior NASA official who chairs the National Research Council’s Space Studies Board, said that NASA’s $5 billion Science Mission Directorate can do world-class science with the budget it has.   “I believe that the way the science program is funded, with about $5 billion, gives us a shot at leadership in each of the fields that we are pursuing,” Kennel said. However, he stressed that “the science program would suffer tremendously if it were cut off from and made separate from the human spaceflight program.”   Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne President Jim Maser also made a case against a split.   “If we still think it’s important and someone else [besides NASA] is doing it, we’re still not saving any money,” Maser said. “So if the objective is to work with a limited budget, I’m not sure splitting it off from NASA and getting somebody else to do it will steady that.”   Maser did suggest that NASA’s international partners could share more of the financial burdens of space exploration.   “Maybe some of the suffering can be shared with international collaboration,” he said. “We have to decide which areas are relevant for that.”   NASA Advisory Council Chairman Steven Squyres, a planetary scientist who led NASA’s 2003 Mars Exploration Rover mission, leaped to the defense of NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate.   “I have personally come to the opinion that the NASA aeronautics program is really one of NASA’s shining jewels,” Squyres said. “If you look at NASA’s budget and you ask yourself, ‘What are the things that the agency does that most directly benefit the taxpayers in their daily lives?’ it’s hard to find anything better than the aeronautics program.”   Hutchison, one of the architects of the NASA Authorization Act of 2010 that ordered NASA to build the Space Launch System (SLS) heavy rocket and its companion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, is leaving the Senate in January before that legislation expires.   NASA Launches Program To Certify Space Taxis   Irene Klotz - Space News   With an eye toward breaking Russia’s monopoly on flying crew to the international space station by 2017, NASA has launched a two-stage certification process aimed at ensuring commercial passenger spaceships currently under development will meet the agency’s safety standards, schedule and mission requirements.   NASA expects to award multiple firms a Certification Products Contract (CPC), each of which will run for 15 months and be worth up to $10 million. The program dovetails with the agency’s ongoing partnerships with Boeing, Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) and Sierra Nevada Corp., to develop privately owned space transportation systems capable of flying astronauts to the space station.   “If there are other companies who can demonstrate that they can indeed meet the requirements of the request for proposals, which is that they can develop a system and have already started to do that to a certain point that is integrated, then we’re certainly willing and very open to anybody to put in a proposal,” Commercial Crew Program manager Ed Mango told Space News at the AIAA Space 2012 conference in Pasadena, Calif.   CPC’s first phase is scheduled to begin in February and run through May 30, 2014. The timing is intended to influence commercial spaceship design and operations plans early enough to meet NASA’s space station mission requirements and minimize potentially costly changes and schedule delays later in the development process.   After three rounds of Space Act Agreements that leveraged U.S. government funding with private investment to stimulate development of passenger spaceships, NASA is shifting to fixed-priced, Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR)-based awards for the CPC effort. The first buy will be for data products related to “an end-to-end Crew Transportation System (CTS) for an ISS design reference mission,” NASA wrote in its Sept. 12 solicitation.   That includes alternative standards, hazard reports, a verification and validation plan and a certification plan. Phase 2 includes final development, test and verification activities, including at least one and possibly more demonstration missions to the space station.   “The government expects that only Phase 1 contractors will be capable of successfully competing for Phase 2,” NASA wrote.   NASA intends to run its ongoing, 21-month, $1.1 billion Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) projects with Boeing, SpaceX and Sierra Nevada separately from any awards the companies may win under the Certification Products Contract.   “They can work in conjunction if folks want to do that, but we, NASA, will keep those separate because one is for public purpose and one is for NASA purpose,” Mango said.   “The partners themselves, whomever would like to propose for that, are really going to end up making a system that can meet multiple customers hopefully, and if they would like to make one of those customers NASA then we are now telling them through CPC, ‘Here’s the requirements you gotta meet. How are you going to meet them? And if you can’t meet them, let’s talk about that and let’s get to a baseline that we can both agree to,’” Mango said.   Under its existing program, NASA was not able to formally evaluate if a company’s design met agency requirements for flying crew to the station.   “This bridge will allow us to either move down the road toward getting design concurrence assessment or potentially waivers for areas where we don’t fully meet all the design requirements,” said John Mulholland, Boeing vice president and program manager for commercial space programs.   “The big benefit of [CPC] is that bridge is going to allow us to move down together and hopefully get certified to fly to the international space station and fly NASA crew,” Mulholland told Space News.   Proposals are due Oct. 12.   ATK's Liberty launch vehicle faces uncertain future   Zach Rosenberg - FlightInternational.com   After failing to win an award in the latest round of NASA's commercial crew vehicle development grants, ATK's Liberty launch vehicle remains on paper facing an uncertain future.   The Liberty, using a five-segment solid rocket booster developed for the Space Shuttle as a first stage and a Vulcain 2 core stage from the Ariane 5 as an upper stage, was designed to launch 20,000kg (44,000lb) into low Earth orbit.   Though the rocket gained an unfunded space act agreement (SAA) during NASA's second round of commercial crew development grants, Liberty was not selected for funding during the third round, the commercial crew integrated capability (CCiCap).   There is, says Kent Rominger, the Liberty programme manager, "no way on internal funding can we finish the Liberty module, interfaces, design. We probably need on the order of $300 million to get the launcher to [critical design review]. And we're not investing that kind of money."   "So we are on an order of magnitude less than that, keeping the programme alive while finding the right investment structure," Rominger adds.   NASA’s retired shuttle Endeavour departs Monday for LA science museum   Marcia Dunn - Associated Press   The baby of NASA’s space shuttle fleet is about to leave home — for good.   At sunrise Monday, Endeavour will depart Kennedy Space Center for a museum in California, with a two-day stopover in Houston, home to Mission Control and the astronauts who flew aboard the replacement for the lost shuttle Challenger.   Endeavour is the second of NASA’s three retired shuttles to head to a museum. The youngest shuttle will make the four-day trip to Los Angeles atop a modified jumbo jet, bound for the California Science Center. Discovery landed at the Smithsonian Institution’s display hangar in Virginia last spring. Atlantis will remain at Kennedy.   After taking off from the former shuttle landing strip Monday morning, Endeavour and its carrier jet will fly low over Kennedy and the beaches of Cape Canaveral, then head west toward NASA points along the Gulf of Mexico. The pair will swoop over Stennis Space Center in Mississippi and Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, where the shuttle booster rockets were made.   Next stop: Ellington Field near NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.   Endeavour will remain at Ellington until Wednesday morning so space center employees can see the shuttle up close. Houston had bid for a shuttle; the loss still nags many there. NASA chose New York City as the winner for the shuttle prototype Enterprise, which was relinquished by the Smithsonian to make room for Discovery.   NASA’s two other shuttles during the 30-year program, Challenger and Columbia, were destroyed during flight, with 14 astronauts altogether killed.   Endeavour was built to replace Challenger and made its flying debut in 1992, six years after the launch accident. It performed the next-to-last shuttle mission in May and June 2011.   During its 25 missions, Endeavour logged 299 days in space and circled Earth 4,671 times. Total off-the-planet mileage: 122.8 million miles.   After leaving Houston on Wednesday, Endeavour will stop for fuel at Biggs Army Airfield in El Paso, Texas, and then perform a low flyover of the White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico, which served for decades as an emergency shuttle landing site. Then it will head to NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base in California, another old shuttle touchdown venue.   On Thursday, Endeavour will fly to Northern California, home to Ames Research Center in Mountain View. NASA plans low-level flights over San Francisco, Sacramento and other major cities before heading to Los Angeles and a late-morning arrival at Los Angeles International Airport.   NASA was mum Thursday regarding the exact times of all these flyovers for security reasons. Officials warned that the weather needed to cooperate to allow for such a full and busy schedule.   The shuttle will make its final 12-mile journey from the airport to the California Science Center, via city streets, on Oct. 12-13. It will go on public display beginning Oct. 30.   Atlantis’ road trip — from a Kennedy Space Center hangar to the visitor complex — is scheduled for Nov. 2.   NASA retired the shuttle fleet last year under White House direction in order to focus more time and money on travel beyond Earth’s orbit, first an asteroid and then Mars in the coming decades.   Private companies, meanwhile, are trying to pick up where NASA left off regarding the International Space Station. Until those businesses can provide spaceships for flying people, U.S. astronauts will need to rely on Russian rockets to get to the orbiting lab.   Endeavour to buzz past Stennis Space Center   Associated Press   Space Shuttle Endeavour, headed for retirement in California, is scheduled to perform low flyovers -- as low as 1,500 feet -- as it passes NASA facilities in Mississippi and Louisiana.   Stennis Space Center in Hancock County in Mississippi tested the orbiter's main engines. Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans is where the shuttle's iconic orange external fuel tank was constructed.   The flyovers, weather permitting, will take place Monday after Endeavour leaves Kennedy Space Center in Florida heading west.   Stennis spokesman Paul Foerman tells the Sun Herald that the center is not inviting the public to watch, but people interested in seeing the shuttle can go to Infinity Science Center and purchase a tour ticket. The bus tour will stop in a place where the Endeavour can be seen. Infinity Science Center is just off the interchange of Interstate 10 and Mississippi Exit 2 South, next to the Welcome Center.   Stennis is inviting its employees to watch the final flight.   "Our internal plan is to have employees come out, maybe have a banner that says `Go Endeavour,' something to wish them well on their way to California," Foerman said.   Endeavour also will fly over parts of Houston, Clear Lake and Galveston in Texas before landing at Ellington Field near Johnson Space Center. It will remain there until Sept. 19, when it will continue the journey. It is expected to arrive in Los Angeles on Sept. 20.   From there, Endeavour will depart in October on a two-day 12-mile road trip to the California Science Center.   NASA Building New Moon Lander Prototype After Fiery Crash   Clara Moskowitz - Space.com   The NASA team behind a prototype moon lander that crashed in a test flight last month is pushing forward to build a new-and-improved replacement.   The program, called Project Morpheus after the Greek god of dreams, is aimed at testing new technologies for a future planetary lander, including a novel propulsion system based on liquid oxygen and liquid methane fuels, which scientists say are cheaper and safer than traditional rocket fuels. A future version of Morpheus could be used to land payloads on the moon, Mars, or some other planetary body.   The first Morpheus prototype was destroyed by a fiery crash that ended its first untethered test flight Aug. 9 at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The SUV-size lander had made it through 26 previous tests, though these had all been conducted with tethers attached to the vehicle for safety.   "It's definitely a disappointment," Jon Olansen, Morpheus project manager here at NASA's Johnson Space Center, told SPACE.com. "The team put a lot of time and effort into that vehicle and the vehicle was performing very well."   Morpheus crash and burn   Preliminary analysis suggests a problem with Morpheus' Inertial Measurement Unit — the system that determines the vehicle's attitude and speed — is to blame for the Aug. 9 failure.   "We are focusing on the loss of data from our Inertial Measurement Unit," Olansen said. "Somewhere in that string we lost communication. It could have been anything from the unit itself to the wiring, the connectors in between, all the way to our avionics box."   Without the data from the Inertial Measurement Unit, the vehicle couldn't determine how to control itself, so it would have issued commands based on its last known orientation and velocity. Given that failure, it was not surprising that Morpheus barely got off the ground before it crashed and burned, Olansen said.   A full report on the cause of the failure is expected to be complete in about two weeks.   Building Morpheus 2   Meanwhile, a replacement vehicle is being readied, and should be in place to begin test flights in January, Olansen said.   "Most of the components are off at vendors right now being machined and welded," he said. "We're not making significant changes to the vehicle — some, to address the issues we saw, but nothing significant."   One change will be to add backup systems for the Inertial Measurement Unit. The Morpheus lander is what NASA calls a "single-string" prototype, meaning it doesn't have redundant systems the way a spacecraft rated for flight would be.   "If it were flying in space or if it were some other craft that was further along in its development cycle, you'd have redundancy built in," Olansen said. "To keep costs down and to make rapid progress, that’s not the situation we were in, we were single string."   Olansen said he doesn't regret that fact, or the approach the team has taken.   "Ever since the beginning, part of the whole strategy was spend less money in building up the craft so that you can work through failures," he said. "You don’t get to the point where the vehicle itself is too precious to actually test."   The Morpheus team is a relatively lean group of 25 full-time members, and the project, based at Johnson Space Center, has cost NASA about $7 million over the last 2 1/2 years.   Despite the disappointment of losing the first Morpheus, there was no question the project would continue, Olansen said.   "The team is back up and on the horse and moving forward," he added.   KSC shuttle landing strip to become space port?   Jerry Hume - Central Florida News 13   As the Kennedy Space Center prepares to bid farewell to space shuttle Endeavour next week, NASA administrators are looking ahead to the future, including turning over the Shuttle Landing Facility to a commercial entity.   Now that there are no space shuttles lifting off from or touching down at the Space Coast, what's to become of the 15,000-foot-long runway?   It may be deserted now, but the KSC wants it to be a part of a thriving multi-use spaceport -- as a horizontal launch and landing facility, among other things.   Executives with the Titusville-Cocoa Airport Authority said they plan to bid for the landing facility. They said taking it over will help with their goal to make the Space Coast Regional Airport a Spaceport.   NASA is looking at all of its options.   "The goal here is to keep this asset -- it's an incredible asset -- and find an entity that will operate it on a more commercial basis, without any NASA funding, but in a way that NASA still has access to it when we need it and on the terms that we need it," said Joyce Riquelme with the Center for Planning Development Directorate.   NASA wants to make sure the runway will be used for space activity. However, they do have contracts with race car companies that test straight-line aerodynamics here.   Applications to take over the Shuttle Landing Facility are due by Monday, Sept. 24. Space Center administrators will make a decision within the next year.   Space shuttle's runway harbors own set of stories Facility prepares to send off last orbiter   James Dean - Florida Today   A black granite plaque marks the spot where space shuttle Endeavour rolled to a stop to end its final mission on June 1 last year, 9,641 feet from the northwest end of Kennedy Space Center’s runway.   Around 7 a.m. Monday, a modified 747 jumbo jet carrying Endeavour will take off from the 15,000-foot runway officially called the Shuttle Landing Facility, marking its last use by a shuttle.   The shuttle program’s final ferry flight will take Endeavour to its permanent display site in Los Angeles. It follows Discovery’s departure from Kennedy and Enterprise’s commute from Washington, D.C. to New York City, both in April.   “Those are hard partings,” said Michael Ciannilli, a NASA test director and landing recovery director. “A lot of the workforce here worked their entire life on these vehicles and gave their blood, sweat and tears, along with their family support, to do this mission, and now it’s saying goodbye to that time in their life.”   The runway will remain, but NASA doesn’t want to pay to operate and maintain it anymore.   The agency recently requested proposals, due Sept. 24, from government or commercial partners that could take over the facility within a year.   “We do continue to believe that it’s an asset that is required for Kennedy Space Center,” said Joyce Riquelme, director of the Center Planning and Development Office. “We’re looking for alternate ways of managing it at low cost to NASA.”   NASA envisions commercial space planes launching and landing on the runway, taking people or payloads on suborbital and orbital flights.   XCOR Aerospace recently announced plans to test and eventually manufacture its reusable Lynx suborbital spacecraft at KSC, flying as often as four times a day.   Space Florida and the Titusville-Cocoa Airport Authority have publicly expressed interest in managing the facility known as the SLF.   With its shuttle days over, Center Director Bob Cabana is mulling a name change.   Riquelme said one option was Space Landing Facility, which would preserve the original acronym but fails to capture the anticipated horizontal launches.   The top contenders now are the Space Launch and Landing Facility or Horizontal Launch and Landing Facility.   From the beginning of the shuttle program, a runway was as important as a launch pad.   Unlike any U.S. space vehicle before it, the shuttle would not splash down in the ocean but glide back through the atmosphere and touch down like an airplane.   By 1976, a three-mile concrete strip as wide as a football field was open for business at KSC.   But it was not until the 10th shuttle mission in 1984 that NASA’s confidence in the orbiters’ handling and weather conditions combined to permit a landing in Florida. Earlier landings were at Edwards Air Force Base in California, with one at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico.   “It was a revolutionary concept,” Ciannilli said of shuttle landings. “You’re going to fire your engines over the Pacific Ocean, dropping out of orbit, and you’ve got to land on this little strip of land in Florida surrounded by swamps and gators — you want to make sure you’re ready to do that.”   Challenger blew out a tire on that first landing in 1984, prompting a smoothing out of the deep grooves that had been carved to help water runoff.   Orbiter wheels touched down 77 more times at KSC through 2011.   The last three “wheels stop” locations are commemorated with etchings on the runway’s centerline.   A granite plaque sits parallel to each etching on the runway’s eastern edge, where they won’t interfere with ongoing operations. They note the final landing date and location where the nose gear stopped and some career statistics: total number of missions flown, days in space and miles flown.   Designed by local artist Chad Stout, owner of C Spray Glass Blasting in Cocoa, the 2.5-inch-thick markers are made to last.   “The shuttle program wanted to preserve our history,” Ciannilli said. “As time goes on, it’s easy to forget about what happened in the past and kind of lose some of that, so we wanted to prevent that from happening.”   A 44-year-old Merritt Island resident and Florida Tech graduate who grew up building models of shuttle Columbia, Ciannilli remembers the electric feeling among the recovery convoy that gathered at the runway for landings.   Flying at Mach 25, a shuttle had begun its re-entry halfway around the world and would be home within an hour.   Twin sonic booms announced the orbiter’s approach, building excitement. After it touched down and rolled to a stop — 58 times during the day and 20 times at night at KSC — the convoy swarmed the orbiter to ensure the safety of the crew and vehicle.   Eventually, for all but two of the 135 shuttle missions, a smiling crew emerged.   “That was very emotional because you really felt an ownership and a responsibility for those folks,” said Ciannilli. “They got on the vehicle that you worked on, and everybody here felt that. They trusted their lives with us. So when they got off that ship and smiled and waved to their families on the camera, it made us feel really good that we could bring them home.”   NASA Turns to 3D Printing for Self-Building Spacecraft   Jeremy Hsu - Innovation News Daily   Spacecraft could build themselves or huge space telescopes someday by scavenging materials from space junk or asteroids. That wild vision stems from a modest proposal to use 3D printing technology aboard a tiny satellite to create a much larger structure in space.   The "SpiderFab" project received $100,000 from NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts program to hammer out a design and figure out whether spacecraft self-construction makes business sense. Practical planning and additional funding could lead to the launch of a 3D-printing test mission within several years.   "We'd like someday to be able to have a spacecraft create itself entirely from scratch, but realistically that's quite a ways out," said Robert Hoyt, CEO and chief scientist of Tethers Unlimited Inc. "That's still science fiction."   Using 3D printers to build spacecraft parts in orbit would offer an easier way to construct huge space antennas or space telescope components 10 or 20 times larger than today's counterparts without having to fold them up and squeeze them inside a rocket — missions could simply launch with the 3D printers and raw materials.   The idea could also cut space mission costs and boost mission capabilities by making much lighter and larger structures in space, Hoyt explained. That's because space manufacturing avoids the need to make heavier spacecraft components that can not only stand up to Earth's gravity, but can also survive the shaking and acceleration of rocket launches.   "The system could then morph in orbit into a very large system a dozen or hundreds of meters in size," Hoyt told InnovationNewsDaily. "It would be like launching a CubeSat that creates a 50 meter-length boom."   (Cubesats have a size comparable to a loaf of bread, whereas 50 meters (164 feet) is equivalent to the length of a track and field event.)   Hoyt even envisions the space manufacturing technology building space telescopes the size of ARICEBO — a 1,000-foot (305-meter) telescope radio telescope in Puerto Rico. Or the technology could allow space probes to visit distant star systems and begin building sensor arrays and communications transmitters to send signals back to Earth.   The technology might even build upon DARPA's Phoenix idea of scavenging parts from old or broken spacecraft to build a new Frankenstein satellite, except that the space manufacturing could break down both spacecraft parts and materials from asteroid mining.   That futuristic vision will require a more intricate, automated cooperation between robot arms and 3D printing technology.   "We're also working on robot arm systems, so we're hoping at some point to combine that project with our SpiderFab project," Hoyt said.   Astronaut Chris Hadfield, crew discuss space mission   CBC News   Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield and the two other crew members who will be travelling with him to the International Space Station (ISS) in December briefed journalists and the public on their upcoming mission Thursday.   'I'm really lucky to be flying with these gentlemen," Hadfield said of Russian space agency commander Roman Romanenko and NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn.   The three astronauts answered journalists' questions about how they trained for the mission and what kind of experiments they will be doing at the station when they get there at a press conference at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.   The astronauts will blast off into space aboard a Soyuz TMA-07M spacecraft on Dec. 5 from Kazakhstan.   They will join NASA astronaut Kevin Ford and Russian cosmonauts Evgeny Tarelkin and Oleg Novitskiy at the station. Together, the six crew members make up NASA's Expeditions 34 and 35.   "I've flown in space for 20 days, and I've been an astronaut for 20 years, so I'm really looking forward to this space flight," Hadfield said.   In March 2013, Ford, Novitskiy and Tarelkin will depart the ISS, and Hadfield will take command, becoming its first Canadian commander.   Astronauts to test medical device   During his stay at ISS, Hadfield will take at least one spacewalk and will also help operate the Canadarm 2 in capturing one of the U.S. commercial cargo capsules that is expected to supply the station.   Hadfield and crew will also conduct an experiment to test how microgravity affects surface acting agents such as soap, which reduce the surface tension of water.   They will also be testing a device provided by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) called Microflow. The portable device is a miniature version of a flow cytometer, which enables doctors and scientists to analyse the physical and chemical properties of molecules or cells in blood and other bodily fluids.   According to the CSA, the device, which relies on laser and fibre-optic technology, could eventually be used as a medical tool at the station to provide real-time analysis of everything from infections, stress, blood cells, cancer markers and could even be used to test food-quality levels on Earth.   Ground control to major Chris: Canadian astronaut to make music in space   Peter Rakobowchuk - Canadian Press   Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, an avid guitar player, says he's planning on doing some serious space jamming during his six-month visit to the International Space Station.   The veteran astronaut is scheduled to blast off aboard a Russian spacecraft on Dec. 5, with NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn and Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko.   Both of his travelling space companions also play guitar. Romanenko actually played with U2 when the group visited Moscow in 2010, while Marshburn is a classical guitarist.   Hadfield says he's planning to do some song-writing while he gazes down at the Earth.   "On board the space station, there's a Canadian guitar made in Vancouver, but there's also a keyboard and a ukelele," he told reporters during a news conference Thursday with the crew in Houston.   The 53-year-old astronaut says that while he'll be busy doing experiments and maintaining the space station, he'll also take time during evenings and weekends to play and record the songs he's written.   Some of those sessions will include other members of the musical astronaut trio.   "It's an extension of communication," Hadfield said.   "We can talk in Russian, we can talk in French, we can talk in English and we can talk in music — and it's a really fundamental human form of artistic communication."   He said he's looking forward to flying weightless by a huge cupola window and playing, writing and recording music from an inspiring vantage point.   Hadfield noted that he's been working in Canada to record a song written with another band: the Barenaked Ladies.   "It'll be in schools and choirs and high school orchestras this school year — a song that we're written together," he said.   This will be Hadfield's third space mission and, during his space station visit, he will become the first Canadian commander of the giant orbiting laboratory.   "It is hugely exciting and a great honour to be asked to be the commander of the International Space Station. Just from this Canadian kid's point of view, it's just a dream come true at this stage of my life," he said.   Hadfield's first trip was in November 1995 when he visited the Russian Space Station Mir. His second space voyage was a visit to the international station in April 2001, when he also performed two space walks. He was the first Canadian to ever leave a spacecraft and float freely in space.   He said he doesn't expect any space walks this time, unless something needs to be repaired from outside.   During his upcoming stay, the space station will be visited by the Russian Progress, a supply ship, as well as a couple of unmanned U.S. commercial cargo vessels.   With the cancellation of the U.S. space shuttle fleet, the door has been opened to allow private companies like SpaceX to eventually fly astronauts up to the space station.   Right now, the only way for humans to get there is by booking a seat on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft, like the one carrying Hadfield and his crewmates.   But Hadfield told reporters that the privately funded Dragon space capsule, built by SpaceX, will come up about six weeks after his arrival. It already brought up supplies during a visit last May. The last visitor, Cygnus, is a new commercial vehicle made by Orbital Sciences.   Hadfield expects that last vessel to visit toward the end of his six-month visit. He comes back down to Earth in mid-May.   Neil Armstrong Inspired Canadian Astronaut's Giant Leap   Mike Wall - Space.com   Late astronaut Neil Armstrong's historic 1969 moonwalk put dreams of spaceflight in the heads of countless kids around the world — including one Canadian nine-year-old who would grow up to become his nation's first International Space Station commander.   Chris Hadfield is slated to assume control of the huge orbiting laboratory in March 2013, something no Canadian has ever done. And he said watching Armstrong — who was memorialized in a public ceremony Thursday in Washington, D.C. — take that famous "one small step" inspired him to work toward becoming an astronaut, despite some pretty steep odds.   "When I was a kid, it was impossible to be an astronaut. It wasn't just hard — it was impossible. There was no Canadian astronaut program," Hadfield told SPACE.com.   "But I thought, as a nine-year-old Canadian kid, 'Well, shoot. We just landed on the moon for the first time, and nobody ever did that before,'" Hadfield added. "'So maybe things will change, and even though it's impossible now, I'm going to start getting ready.'"   Hadfield is scheduled to launch toward the station aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft on Dec. 5. He and two fellow spaceflyers — NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn and Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko — will round out the orbiting lab's six-person Expedition 34 when they get there.   NASA astronaut Kevin Ford will command Expedition 34. But Hadfield will take charge of Expedition 35, which begins when Ford and Russian cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Evgeny Tarelkin depart the station in March.   Hadfield has spent a total of 20 days in space on two space shuttle missions — STS-74 in 1995, which helped build Russia's Mir space station, and STS-100 in 2001, an International Space Station assembly flight. He said he's thrilled that he'll get to live on orbit for a five-month stretch this time around, and honored to be selected as commander.   "It is hugely exciting and a great honor to be asked to be the commander of the International Space Station," Hadfield said during a press briefing to preview Expeditions 34 and 35. "It's just a dream come true."   Neil Armstrong vaulted to icon status on July 20, 1969, when he became the first person ever to set foot on another world. The words he uttered upon stepping onto the moon — "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind," are among the most famous ever spoken.   Armstrong died Aug. 25 following complications from a recent heart surgery. He was memorialized first in a private ceremony in Cincinnati on Aug. 31, then in a public service Thursday at Washington National Cathedral. The former Navy pilot is scheduled to be buried at sea Friday.   Virgin Galactic finishes unpowered flight test   Zach Rosenberg - FlightInternational.com   Virgin Galactic has largely finished subsonic and unpowered flight tests of SpaceShipTwo, the vehicle that will bring tourists into suborbital space for several minutes of weightlessness.   "Essentially we've finished subsonic flight tests of SpaceShipTwo," says George Whitesides, president of Virgin Galactic. "We've explored the envelope in a way that we now feel fairly comfortable that we're ready for the next stage, from an aerodynamics perspective."   SpaceShipTwo will remain on the ground for several months as the vehicle's hybrid liquid/solid rocket engine is installed. "This is the main integration of rocket motor components into the vehicle," says Whitesides.   "We won't go straight from, put the hatch back on, zip it up, and the next flight will be a powered flight," Whitesides remarks. "It will be, we'll zip it up, take it up, release it, see if everything's still gliding just the way we like it. Then we'll take it up and do some non-ignition tests of the rocket motor."   Once Virgin Galactic is satisfied the vehicle and rocket motor function will function as expected, subsequent flights will see the hydroxyl-terminated polybutediene/nitrous oxide rocket ignited. The first powered flight may also be the first supersonic one.   "The variable there is just how long we decide to fire the motor on that first flight. The uncertainty is just that we're baselining a pretty short burn, but even on a short burn it will get up to supersonic pretty quickly," says Whitesides. "It is possible but it has not yet been decided."   Sanchez: Texas offering $6M, Florida giving $10M   Emma Perez-Trevino - Brownsville Herald   Officials involved in discussions with SpaceX said Thursday that it’s premature to put a dollar sign on the incentives package that would be offered to the company to persuade it to build a rocket-launching facility near Brownsville.   “We are still working with the local community to aggressively pursue SpaceX and (are) very much interested in trying to get them to come to Texas,” Lucy Nashed, spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry said Thursday.   This was in response to statements from Cameron County Pct. 4 Commissioner Dan Sanchez that the Brownsville Economic Development Council and the state have fallen behind Florida in incentives offered Elon Musk’s SpaceX, or Space Exploration Technologies Corp.   Sanchez said at Thursday’s Commissioners Court meeting that the BEDC and the state are offering SpaceX $3 million each for a total of $6 million in efforts to attract the business to Cameron County. He said Florida is offering $10 million.   “We’re behind in the race,” Sanchez said at the meeting.   Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico have long been reported as candidates for the SpaceX project.   ‘Early stages’   SpaceX spokeswoman Katherine Nelson on Thursday stated the following: “SpaceX is continuing to look at all possibilities for a private launch facility, including sites in Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico. We are still in the early stages of the review process.”   She said SpaceX “appreciates the efforts of, and support from, Texas local, county, regional and state elected officials and organizations.”   According to some local reports, a site in Georgia is also in the mix now.   As for Brownsville, Cameron County Judge Carlos Cascos said the county would be working with and assisting its partners — the state, BEDC, the Texas Department of Transportation and others — in addressing SpaceX infrastructure needs in addition to financial incentives.   “There is more to an incentives package,” he said. “Our package could well exceed the amount in cash that is being talked about. We are prepared to do whatever we need to do to make it happen.”   ‘Many fronts’   He continued: “I tend to agree that the overall dollars may not be the deciding factor, but in terms of logistics, geography and location, we have the best overall package.”   From the governor’s office, Nashed said that negotiations are conducted “on so many fronts (other) than just cash amounts. We are still negotiating and still hopeful that they will pick Texas.”   BEDC Board Chairman David Hughston said he understands that negotiations are ongoing.   “Any speculation on my part regarding the ultimate financial/in-kind package offered by the state of Texas and BEDC/Greater Brownsville Incentives Corp. would be inappropriate at this time,” he said.   “I will say, however, that all indications are that state officials, including Gov. Perry, are extremely supportive of the project and would love to see the launch site in South Texas. Obviously, we want it here very much.”   Hughston said the community has known for some time that Florida and Puerto Rico have been vying for the SpaceX facility.   Jobs   “Now, it appears Georgia is also in the mix. While I have heard all sorts of numbers bandied about, I have no idea what they are actually offering as financial incentives. One thing I do know is that we are committed to working with SpaceX and responding to their needs to the best of our ability,” Hughston said.   Pct. 1 Commissioner Sofia C. Benavides, whose precinct covers the proposed launch site near Boca Chica Beach, said after Thursday’s county meeting that her understanding also is that negotiations continue.   Benavides, as Sanchez, maintained and voiced concern that the funds being offered by BEDC and the state are linked to job creation. “SpaceX has to come here first, create the jobs, and then the money goes to them,” Benavides said.   She continues to be optimistic about the project. “Our people here need it,” she said.   There have been reports that Puerto Rico has offered more money in incentives than Florida.   Location   Space Florida, an independent special district of the state of Florida that arranges financial incentives, did not respond to a request for comment. The government of Puerto Rico’s Secretary of Commerce José Pérez-Riera could not be located.   The launch site that SpaceX is considering in Cameron County is off State Highway 4, about a quarter-mile from Boca Chica Beach, and about 3 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. The site is about 5 miles south of Port Isabel and South Padre Island.   BEDC has been leading the negotiations and efforts with SpaceX. SpaceX apparently contacted the state, and the governor’s office contacted BEDC. Cascos said Thursday that he entirely understands this as BEDC had the mechanism in place and ability to provide cash incentives.   ‘… the last to know’   Sanchez, who advocated Thursday to hike property taxes by 1 cent for seed money to develop an economic development program, said after the meeting that if the county had had an economic development program in place, SpaceX would have approached the county instead of BEDC.   “We were the last to know,” Sanchez said at the meeting.   Sanchez said it was hard to invite someone to dinner “when you’re not putting anything on the table.”   Cascos told Sanchez at the meeting that the county can only continue to hope that an attractive incentive package is presented to SpaceX.   Sanchez noted that SpaceX hasn’t asked for anything, and that the firm is happy with the support from the community.   Sanchez said he was “just saying what is out there.”   NEIL ARMSTRONG – 1930 - 2012     Armstrong remembered as 'reluctant hero'   William Harwood - CBS News   Neil Armstrong, the unassuming test pilot, family man and reluctant hero who will forever walk in history as the first man on the moon, was honored at the Washington National Cathedral Thursday, remembered as much for the quiet dignity he brought to his role as an enduring American icon as he was for his "giant leap for mankind" 43 years ago.   With family members looking on, along with his Apollo 11 crewmates Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin and Michael Collins, Apollo 17 commander Eugene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon, summed up the feelings of many in the crowd of some 1,500 when he said "Fate looked down kindly on us when she chose Neil to be the first to venture to another world."   "It could have been another, but it wasn't, and it wasn't for a reason," Cernan said. "No one, no on but no one could have accepted the responsibility of his remarkable accomplishment with more dignity and more grace than Neil Armstrong. He embodied all that is good and all that is great about America.   "Neil, wherever you are up there, almost half a century later, you have now shown once again the pathway to the stars. It's now for you a new beginning but for us, I will promise you it is not the end. And as you soar through the heavens beyond where even eagles dare to go, you can finally put out your hand and touch the face of God.   "Farewell my friend. You have left us far too soon. But we want you to know we do cherish the time we have had and shared together. God bless you, Neil."   Born in Wapakoneta, Ohio, on August 5, 1930, Armstrong died Aug. 25 after complications following cardiovascular surgery. He was 82. His family held a private memorial service Aug. 31 and at Armstrong's request, the Navy will conduct a burial at sea on Friday. Details have not been released.   During the Korean War, Armstrong flew 78 combat missions for the Navy and then spent seven years as a test pilot, including pioneering flights in the X-15 rocket plane. He joined NASA's astronaut corps in 1962 and served as commander of the two-man Gemini 8 mission before landing on the moon as commander of Apollo 11 on July 20, 1969.   Stepping off he footpad of the lunar lander and onto the surface of the moon, Armstrong uttered 11 words -- 12 if you include a dropped or garbled "a" -- that instantly became synonymous with one of America's greatest technological triumphs: "That's one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind."   "Neil Armstrong was a sincerely humble man of impeccable integrity who reluctantly accepted his role as the first human being to walk on another world," Cernan said. "And when he did, he became a testament, a testament to all Americans of what can be achieved through vision and dedication. But in Neil's mind, it was never about Neil. It was about you, your mothers and fathers, your grandparents, about those of a generation ago who gave Neil the opportunity to call the moon his home.   "But never, ever, was it about Neil. Neil considered that he was just the tip of the arrow, always giving way to some 400,000 equally committed and dedicated Americans, Americans who were the strength behind the bow and always giving credit to those who just didn't know it couldn't be done. And therein lies the strength and the Neil was always willing to give of himself."   The public memorial service Thursday was attended by senior NASA managers, scores of Washington dignitaries and current and former astronauts, including John Glenn, the first American to reach orbit.   NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, a former space shuttle commander, said Armstrong's "courage, grace and humility ... lifted him above the stars" and that he "left more than footprints and a flag on the moon."   "He left a foundation for the future and paved the way for future American explorers to be first to step foot on Mars, or another planet," Bolden said. "Today, let us recommit ourselves to this grand challenge in honor of the man who first demonstrated it was possible to reach new worlds, and whose life demonstrated the quiet resolve and determination that makes every new and more difficult step into space possible."   After a soulful rendition of "Fly Me To The Moon" by jazz singer-pianist Diana Krall, former Treasury Secretary John Snow remembered Armstrong as "a regular guy" and "the most reluctant of heroes."   "It was something he never sought, the public spotlight, and try as he did to deflect the credit and attention to others, the role of national hero, first man, nonetheless fell to him," Snow said. "And I think we as a nation can be thankful that it did. Because with his uncommon humility and grace, Neil captured the very best in the American character and he put it on display for the whole world to see. He's now slipped the bonds of Earth once again, but what a legacy he left."   Aldrin did not speak, but said in a statement earlier that "whenever I look at the moon it reminds me of the moment over four decades ago when I realized that even though we were farther away from earth than two humans had ever been, we were not alone. Virtually the entire world took that memorable journey with us.   "I know I am joined by millions of others in mourning the passing of a true American hero and the best pilot I ever knew. My friend Neil took the small step but giant leap that changed the world and will forever be remembered as a landmark moment in human history."   Collins participated in the service Thursday, leading the assembly in prayer, and wrote in The Washington Post that his crewmate "always seemed serious and businesslike, but you could make him laugh if you tried."   "It was real laughter, because Neil did not pretend," Collins wrote. "He was genuine through and through. He signaled displeasure with silence, never an outburst. He had high standards and stuck to them."   Nation says goodbye to moonwalker Neil Armstrong   Seth Borenstein - Associated Press   The nation bid farewell Thursday to Neil Armstrong, the first man to take a giant leap onto the moon.   The pioneers of space, the powerful of the capital and the everyday public crowded into the Washington National Cathedral for a public interfaith memorial for the very private astronaut.   Armstrong, who died last month in Ohio at age 82, walked on the moon in July 1969.   "He's now slipped the bonds of Earth once again, but what a legacy he left," former Treasury Secretary John Snow told the gathering.   Apollo 11 crewmates Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, Mercury astronaut John Glenn, 18 other astronauts, three NASA chiefs, and about two dozen members of Congress were among the estimated 1,500 people that joined Armstrong's widow, Carol, and other family members in the cavernous cathedral.   Collins read a prayer tailored to Armstrong's accomplishments and humility. A moon rock that the Apollo 11 astronauts gave the church in 1974 is embedded in one of its stained glass windows.   "You have now shown once again the pathway to the stars," Eugene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon said in a tribute to Armstrong. "As you soar through the heavens beyond even where eagles dare to go, you can now finally put out your hand and touch the face of God."   Cernan was followed by a slow and solemn version of "Fly Me to the Moon" by singer Diana Krall.   The service also included excerpts from a speech 50 years ago by John F. Kennedy in which he said America chose to send men to the moon by the end of the 1960s not because it was easy, but because it was hard. The scratchy recording of the young president said going to the moon was a goal that "will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we're willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone."   Shortly after that speech in 1961 at Rice University, Armstrong, not yet an astronaut but always a gifted engineer, was already working on how to land a spaceship on the moon, NASA administrator Charles Bolden recalled. Snow talked of the 12-year-old Armstrong who built a wind tunnel. But most of Armstrong's friends and colleagues spent time remembering the humble Armstrong. Snow called him a "regular guy" and "the most reluctant of heroes."   Bolden, a former astronaut, said Armstrong's humility and courage "lifted him above the stars."   "No one, but no one, could have accepted the responsibility of his remarkable accomplishment with more dignity and more grace than Neil Armstrong," Cernan said. "He embodied all that is good and all that is great about America."   Bolden read a letter from President Barack Obama saying, "the imprint he left on the surface of the moon is matched only by the extraordinary mark he left on ordinary Americans."   Armstrong commanded the historic landing of the Apollo 11 spacecraft on the moon July 20, 1969. His first words after stepping onto the moon are etched in history books: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Armstrong insisted later that he had said "a'' before man, but said he, too, couldn't hear it in the recording.   Armstrong and Aldrin spent nearly three hours walking on the lunar surface while Collins circled above the moon. In all, 12 American astronauts walked on the moon before the last moon mission in 1972.   Armstrong was a U.S. Navy aviator. He joined NASA's predecessor agency in 1955 as a civilian test pilot and later, as an astronaut, flew first in Gemini 8 in 1966. After the moon landing he spent a year in Washington as a top official at the space agency, but then he left NASA to teach aerospace engineering at the University of Cincinnati. He later was chairman of two electronics companies, but mostly kept out of the public eye.   A private service was held earlier in suburban Cincinnati for Armstrong, who will be buried at sea.   In her homily Thursday, the Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, Episcopal bishop for Washington, talked of how Armstrong sought to encourage young people to do even more, go even further.   Among the crowd in the cathedral was 14-year-old Shane DiGiovanna of Cincinnati, a young man who has spent his life grappling with an incurable skin disease and hearing loss. Shane idolized Armstrong and had always wanted to meet the first man on the moon, but it never happened.   But the eighth-grader met Cernan and former Apollo 13 commander James Lovell when they recently announced a memorial fund named for Armstrong at Cincinnati's Children's Hospital Medical Center, where Shane has been treated.   The Armstrong family invited Shane to join them at the Washington memorial service, something Shane called a "really big honor."   Just as Armstrong was working on the lunar lander after the Kennedy speech, Shane said he is now working on drawings of a lander for Mars. He wants to be an aerospace engineer.   "I'm hoping," Shane said, "to definitely contribute a lot to the next step."   Astronaut Neil Armstrong is mourned at Washington National Cathedral   Ian Shapira - Washington Post   On Thursday, the last man to walk on the moon took the podium at Washington National Cathedral and honored his friend, Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk the moon.   “Fate looked down kindly when she chose Neil to venture to another world and to have the opportunity to look back from space. It could have been another. But it wasn’t,” said Eugene Cernan, who visited the moon in 1972 as commander of Apollo 17. “No one — no one, but no one — could have accepted the responsibility of his remarkable accomplishment with more dignity and more grace than Neil Armstrong. Neil, wherever you are up there...as you soar through the heavens, beyond where even eagles dare to go, you can now finally put out your hand and touch the face of God. Farewell, my friend.”   Hundreds of mourners filled the cathedral to celebrate Armstrong’s life. Among them were Edwin Eugene “Buzz” Aldrin and Michael Collins, the other Apollo 11 astronauts who journeyed to the moon on July 20, 1969.   Members of the Armstrong clan, who previously convened for a private ceremony near their home base in Cincinnati, also attended, including Armstrong’s wife, Carol, and sons Mark and Rick.   Armstrong, 82, died Aug. 25 after what the family described as “complications resulting from cardiovascular procedures.”   All the speakers during the service praised Armstrong as a reluctant hero. They cited his Midwestern roots and said his upbringing in Ohio grounded him as a humble person. Armstrong, they said, will be forever known for placing his feet on the moon first, but neither he nor his friends felt like that superlative captured his love of the Navy and for being a test pilot of super-fast and dangerous aircraft.   As proud as he was of his moon walk, the mourners said, Armstrong always felt like he was merely one among many who made the moment happen.   The memorial service, which precedes Armstrong’s burial at sea on Friday, also featured tributes by Charles F. Bolden Jr., the administrator of NASA, and John W. Snow, the former Treasury secretary who was friends with Armstrong.   Singer Diana Krall, wearing a golden moon necklace, delivered a plaintive version of “Fly Me to the Moon.”   Bolden, a former astronaut, recalled attending last fall’s ceremony in which Armstrong and former senator John Glenn (D-Ohio), also a former astronaut, received the Congressional Gold Medal. It was Armstrong’s final public appearance in Washington, Bolden said.   “He spoke not on his own behalf,” Bolden said, “but accepted the medal, ‘on behalf of [our] fellow Apollo teammates, all those who played a role in expanding human presence outward from Earth, and all those who played a role in expanding human knowledge of the solar system and beyond.”   Snow, the former chief executive of the CSX railroad system who served as Treasury secretary under President George W. Bush, remembered Armstrong as an agonizingly deliberate golf partner.   “You’d wait for him to putt. He’d survey the line to the hole. He’d measure the dew on the green,” Snow recalled. “You sometimes wondered, ‘Neil, are you ever going to hit the ball?’ He couldn’t help but be the engineer.”   Collins, the Apollo 11 command ship pilot who wrote a memoir about their flight, read a prayer, thanking “the creator of the universe” for “your servant Neil Armstrong, who with courage and humility first set foot upon the moon.”   In her homily, the Rt. Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde analyzed why Armstrong was so defiantly humble. People always asked Armstrong, she said, why he didn’t bask in his triumph.   “‘Because,’ he said. ‘I didn’t deserve it,’ ” Budde quoted Armstrong as saying, before she added: “This was not, I am convinced, an expression of Midwestern modesty, an attempt to minimize his passionate ambition .?.?. it was simply the truth: No one goes to the moon alone. No one accomplishes anything of lasting value in any realm of human endeavor alone.”   After the service, one of Armstrong’s fellow astronauts, David Scott, who flew with him on Gemini 8 in Earth’s low orbit in 1966, remembered how their spacecraft went berserk, and they almost died.   If it weren’t for Armstrong’s ability to solve problems and help get them back to Earth safely, Scott said with a laugh, “We’d still be up there.”   Neil Armstrong is remembered as America's beloved moonwalker   Rene Lynch - Los Angeles Times   The nation bid a formal farewell to legendary astronaut Neil Armstrong on Thursday, honoring the world's first moonwalker, whose phrase "one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind" will never be forgotten.   Armstrong died last month at age 82 after a life purposely lived outside the fame that surrounded him when he commanded the 1969 Apollo 11 space mission that culminated with his lunar walk.   Hundreds crowded into the Washington National Cathedral for an interfaith memorial service. It was a particularly apt setting: A moon rock that the Apollo 11 astronauts gave the church in 1974 is embedded in one of its stained glass windows.   Those 1,500 in attendance included a who’s who of the nation's space program, including Armstrong's Apollo 11 crew members Edward "Buzz" Aldrin and Michael Collins, fellow astronaut and former U.S. Sen. John Glenn. About two dozen members of Congress were also there, according to the Associated Press.   The lunar-laced remarks during the memorial service wove together Armstrong's accomplishment in space -- and on terra firma.   “He's now slipped the bonds of Earth once again, but what a legacy he left,” former Treasury Secretary John Snow told the gathering, according to the news service.   "You have now shown once again the pathway to the stars," Eugene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon, said in a tribute to Armstrong. "As you soar through the heavens beyond even where eagles dare to go, you can now finally put out your hand and touch the face of God."   NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, a former astronaut himself, read a letter from President Obama saying, "The imprint he left on the surface of the moon is matched only by the extraordinary mark he left on ordinary Americans."   During one particularly poignant moment, singer Diana Krall delivered a slow version of "Fly Me to the Moon."   The service followed a private funeral held a few weeks ago for close family and friends. And there is one last service to be performed before Armstrong will finally be laid to rest, reported Fox News.   Armstrong will be buried at sea during a service conducted by the Navy. Obama ordered flags be flown at half-mast to mark the day of the ceremony, Fox reported.   In announcing Armstrong's death, his family asked the public to remember the astronaut when they look up and catch a glimpse of the moon. When you "see the moon smiling down at you," they said, "think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink."   Neil Armstrong remembered as revered but reluctant hero   Ledyard King - Florida Today   Neil Armstrong probably wouldn't have wanted all this attention.   The first man to walk on the moon was a global but reluctant icon.   The 1,500 well-wishers who gathered at the Washington National Cathedral today to remember Armstrong, who died Aug. 25, might have made the former naval aviator somewhat self-conscious.   But he probably would have appreciated the words.   “No one, but no one, could have accepted the magnitude of this remarkable (feat) with more dignity and more grace than Neil,” close friend and former fellow astronaut Gene Cernan said at the service, referring to Armstrong’s lunar walk. “He embodied all that is good and all that is great with America.”   Armstrong, who left NASA after the moonwalk and rarely sought publicity, died in Cincinnati from complications after heart surgery. He was 82 and will be buried at sea Friday.   Thursday’s 90-minute service, attended by members of Congress and Armstrong’s family, featured eloquent tributes and solemn prayers from friends, admirers and colleagues.   Former astronaut Michael Collins, who flew with Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Apollo 11 mission to the moon in 1969, read a prayer as Aldrin and former Sen. John Glenn of Ohio, the first man to orbit the Earth, looked on.   The music at the service included bagpipes, hymns and organs. Jazz singer Diana Krall, wearing a pendant in the shape of a crescent moon, played the piano and sang Fly Me to the Moon.   At one point, President John F. Kennedy’s voice echoed through the cathedral.   Speakers carried the famous speech he gave 50 years and one day ago in which he challenged the country to send a man to the moon by the end of that decade. Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the moon on July 20, 1969.   Former U.S. Treasury Secretary John W. Snow, a friend of Armstrong’s who got to know him well after his famous walk, said the world’s most famous astronaut will long be remembered as a hero.   “He has slipped the bonds of Earth once again,” Snow told those gathered. “But what a legacy he left.”   Remembering Neil Armstrong Consummate test pilot, extraordinary leader, quiet advocate for space exploration   Buzz Aldrin - Wall Street Journal   As America pays tribute to Neil Armstrong in a memorial service Thursday at the National Cathedral in Washington, I would like to reflect on the life and legacy of this great space-exploration pioneer.   The memorial service, I note, falls one day after the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy's "moon speech" at Rice University in Houston, a speech that fired the nation's imagination and energies to undertake "the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked."   I was deeply saddened to learn of Neil's passing—my good friend and Apollo 11 crewmate along with Michael Collins. It never occurred to me that our mission commander might be the first of us to pass.   Thinking about Neil, I was reminded of the statement attributed to Sir Isaac Newton in the 17th century, when he attempted to explain how he was able to develop a powerful understanding of physics and mathematics: "If I have seen further, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants."   For the Apollo program, Neil was that giant. He was the consummate test pilot and astronaut whose skills were demonstrated repeatedly throughout his career, whether expanding the envelope of the X-15 space plane to the very edge of space (207,500 feet) at nearly 4,000 mph; gaining control of his spinning spacecraft during Gemini 8 in 1966 and guiding it safely back to Earth; ejecting at the last possible moment before the Lunar Lander Training Vehicle crashed, then quietly returning to his office to analyze the cause of the malfunction and file a mishap report; or, most especially, skillfully guiding the Apollo 11 Lunar Module Eagle to a safe landing in a boulder-strewn lunar expanse.   I still vividly recall standing with Neil on the barren, desolate, yet beautiful surface of the moon, looking at the small, brilliant-blue planet Earth, suspended in the blackness of space, while Mike orbited above us awaiting our return, as virtually the entire world took that journey with us.   Neil did not see Apollo 11 as an ending—rather, he regarded the moon landing as a first small step for humankind into the cosmos. If Neil was an extraordinary engineer, astronaut and leader, he was also soft-spoken and reserved, preferring to advocate quietly for space exploration from behind the scenes. He didn't seek fame or praise for the work that he knew countless others had done to make the moon landing possible.   The last time Neil and I met at the White House, which we did periodically to boost the space policy with a succession of presidents, we talked about where the next step into the future should lie: to the moon or Mars? I said Mars. Neil said: "No!" He thought that we had much to learn from the moon before moving on to other challenges. But in the end, while we differed at times on where next to go and how best to get there, we always shared a common belief that America must lead in space.   As we contemplate his passing, let us also pause to remember those who gave their lives in pursuit of achieving the dream of space exploration: the crews of Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia. We can honor them all, and the president who first set the moon-landing challenge before the nation, by renewing our dedication to space exploration—and resolving to pursue it with the same determination and enduring commitment to excellence personified by Neil Armstrong.   END