11/20/12 news

    =====================================================     JSC TODAY HEADLINES 1.    Give a Little. Help A LOT. 2.    Get Your JSC Today Submission in Before Thanksgiving Hiatus Begins 3.    Intermittent Internet Connectivity Monday, Nov. 26, from 6 to 9 p.m. CST 4.    Call for Proposals -- Science Innovation Fund (SIF) 5.    Breakfast With Santa 6.    Book Fair at Starport 7.    Extended TDY FedTraveler Live Lab Tomorrow, Nov. 21 8.    Call for JSC Exceptional Software Awards -- Deadline Dec. 14 9.    Water-BOTs Workshop for 5th to 8th Graders 10.  Situational Awareness Class: Dec. 4 to 6; Building 226N, Room 174 11.  Control Team/Crew Resource Management: Jan. 29 to 31     1.      Give a Little. Help A LOT. As Thanksgiving approaches, we at JSC are thankful for your ongoing contributions to the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC)! The CFC is the only federal workplace giving program for federal employees -- and as such, you can choose to give thousands of deserving organizations at the local, national and global levels. They include organizations to educate, shelter, feed, protect, volunteer, or any other number of charities and programs. They, too, would be thankful for your support. This year our center's monetary goal is $675,000. With your help, we can reach it (by Dec. 15). 1. Simply find the charity or charities you want to give to (online or in this book). 2. Federal employees can donate via payroll deductions at EmployeeExpress (EEx). (Instructions on How to Donate via EEx) 3. All JSC team members can make cash/check donations by using the paper pledge form. (Paper pledge forms may be dropped off with the organization coordinator.) Donations of any amount are welcome, starting from $1 per pay period. Give a little. Help A LOT. Mirella Barron Lanmon x49796 [top] 2.      Get Your JSC Today Submission in Before Thanksgiving Hiatus Begins JSC Today will be suffering right along with you the day of and day after Thanksgiving, gorged and barely moving from excessive turkey and dressing. To that end, JSC Today will not be distributed Thanksgiving day or the day after: Nov. 22 and 23.   Plan accordingly so you can get your submissions in for Wednesday, Nov. 21 (submit by noon Tuesday, Nov. 20). Or, submit your announcement for the Monday following (deadline is noon Wednesday, Nov. 21).   JSC Today will resume normal operations on Monday, Nov. 26. We thank you for your understanding. JSC External Relations, Office of Communications and Public Affairs x35111 [top] 3.      Intermittent Internet Connectivity Monday, Nov. 26, from 6 to 9 p.m. CST As part of our ongoing effort to improve the JSC network, we need to make some network infrastructure changes on Nov. 26 from 6 to 9 p.m. CST. During this activity, employees may experience intermittent connectivity while accessing resources outside of the center, such as the Internet. We anticipate the activity to last from 6 to 7 p.m. CST; however, the window is open until 9 p.m. CST in case we run into an unplanned situation. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience. JSC IRD Outreach x41334 http://ird.jsc.nasa.gov/default.aspx [top] 4.      Call for Proposals -- Science Innovation Fund (SIF) The NASA Chief Scientist has established a small investment to provide centers with seed funding for early-stage scientific research activities. NASA currently has analogous seed programs for technology (Center Innovation Fund) and aeronautics (ARMD Seedling Fund). This solicitation seeks short (two-page) proposals from civil servants at JSC. The SIF will be limited to scientific research with only one proposal as PI per scientist. Since SMD funded the program this year, we expect all funds to be used for SMD-relevant projects. Proposals should target concepts of limited duration (typically less than a year; do not expect multi-year activities) and limited funding -- specifically, no more than $75,000, including CS labor per proposal. (Note that funding is primarily CS labor with limited procurement.) Proposals are due on Nov. 26 by 5 p.m. CST. The full solicitation information and templates are available at the Science Innovation SharePoint site. Eileen K. Stansbery x35540 http://ka.jsc.nasa.gov/aresmanage/solicit1/SitePages/Home.aspx [top] 5.      Breakfast With Santa Santa Claus is coming to town and making a stop at the Gilruth Center! Enjoy breakfast with Santa in the Alamo Ballroom from 9 to 11 a.m. on Dec. 8. Your child will have the opportunity to sit on Santa's lap to give him their wish list and have their picture taken. Each child will receive one free 5x7 photo; additional photos may be purchased. Join in on the food, fun, music, crafts and more. Tickets are $10/child and $15/adult. Purchase your tickets at the Gilruth Center or in the Buildings 3 and 11 Starport Gift Shops. Tickets must be purchased by Dec. 1. Hurry, space is limited. Tickets will not be sold at the door. Don't miss out on this special event! Shelly Haralson x39168 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/ [top] 6.      Book Fair at Starport Come and enjoy the Books Are Fun book fair held in the Building 3 café on Friday, Nov. 30, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Search through more than 250 great titles in children's books, cookbooks, general-interest books, New York Times bestsellers, stationary and scrapbooking, music collections and more -- all at unbelievable prices. Click here for more information. Shelly Haralson x39168 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/ [top] 7.      Extended TDY FedTraveler Live Lab Tomorrow, Nov. 21 Do you need some hands-on, personal help with FedTraveler.com? Join the Business Systems and Process Improvement Office for an Extended TDY FedTraveler Live Lab tomorrow, Nov. 21, any time between 9 a.m. and noon in Building 12, Room 142. Our help desk representatives will be available to help you work through Extended TDY 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 FedTraveler. If you'd like to sign up for this Extended TDY FedTraveler Live Lab, please log into SATERN and register. For additional information, please contact Judy Seier at x32771. Gina Clenney x39851 [top] 8.      Call for JSC Exceptional Software Awards -- Deadline Dec. 14 This is the 2013 call for software award nominations at JSC. Nominees will be considered for the following awards: o    JSC Exceptional Software Award: $8,000 total award o    JSC nominee for NASA Software of the Year Award: Up to $100,000 total award possible o    JSC software nominees for Space Act Awards: Variable amount up to $100,000 o    NASA Exceptional Technology Achievement Medals The JSC Exceptional Software Award is designed to recognize software that has demonstrated outstanding value to accomplishing the JSC mission. Apply online using the Web nomination form and to find out other information. Directorates and individuals must provide their nominations by close of business Dec. 14 via the form link listed. Questions can be sent to Lynn Vernon or Tondra Allen. Lynn R. Vernon x36917 http://jscexceptionalsoftware.jsc.nasa.gov/SOY_nominate/ [top] 9.      Water-BOTs Workshop for 5th to 8th Graders The Aerospace Academy at San Jacinto College (SJC) offers two Saturdays of fun activities, including: hands-on instruction in robotics, a mini-robotic competition and some cool items to take home. Dates: Dec. 8 and 15 Age groups: 5th through 8th grade Cost: $0 (must apply) Time: 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Location: SJC central campus For additional information or registration contact Bridget Kramer at 281-244-6803 or via email. Bridget Kramer x46803 http://www.aerospace-academy.org [top] 10.  Situational Awareness Class: Dec. 4 to 6; Building 226N, Room 174 Two-and-a-half days. NASA is involved in operations where there is always a potential for human error and undesirable outcomes. As part of a team, how we communicate, process information and react in various situations determines our level of success. In our efforts, we often run into glitches and the potential for human error. Situational Awareness is a course that addresses these issues. It involves combining our awareness of what's going on in the operations environment, a knowledge of system-failure design criteria and an understanding of expected outcomes from system failures to avoid hazardous situations and develop safe responses to unsafe conditions that may realistically be expected to arise. This course instructs students in the basic tenets and practices of situational awareness and how they apply to hazardous operations in NASA to promote the best proactive safety techniques in practice. SATERN Registration Required. (Contractors: Update Profile.) https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=SCHEDULED_... Polly Caison x41279 [top] 11.  Control Team/Crew Resource Management: Jan. 29 to 31 Two-and-a-half days. This training directly addresses human-factors issues that most often cause problems in team and crew interaction. No one working on a team or a crew, especially in high-stress activities, is immune to these effects. The Control Team/Crew Resource Management course deals with interpersonal relations, but doesn't advocate democratic rule or hugging fellow team members to improve personal relations. Rather, this course provides awareness of human factors problems that too often result in mishaps and offers recommendations and procedures for eliminating these problems. It  emphasizes safety-risk assessment, crew/team coordination and decision-making in crisis situations. This course is applicable both to those in aircrew-type operations and also to personnel operating consoles for hazardous testing or on-orbit mission operations, or any operation involving teamwork and critical communication. It is preferable that "teams" experience course as a group, if possible. SATERN Registration Required. https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=SCHEDULED_... Polly Caison x41279 [top]         ===================================================== Human Spaceflight News Tuesday – November 20, 2012   HEADLINES AND LEADS   Long-Term Budget Pressures On NASA Mount   Mark Carreau - Aerospace Daily   Traditionally challenged to meet cost/schedule management and performance goals, NASA is in for even tougher fiscal challenges, warns its inspector general, Paul Martin. NASA will be further tested across five fronts, including human spaceflight, by flat budgets or worse, as the White House and Congress attempt to rein in spending to deal with mounting budget deficits, Martin says in a new report. The new pressures will be punctuated by the looming budget penalty known as sequestration and the January “fiscal cliff,” which threaten to cut an additional $1.5 billion from an annual NASA budget that has already declined to $17.7 billion from $18.4 billion in 2011.   NASA Outpost Beyond Moon Could Lead to Mars   Mike Wall - Space.com   Sending astronauts to a deep-space outpost beyond the moon's far side could help lay the groundwork for more ambitious manned missions to Mars, some researchers say. Such a lunar effort would take humanity farther from Earth than it's ever been before, allowing scientists and engineers to work their way up to even more distant targets such as asteroids and Mars in a stepwise fashion, advocates say. "It's a really good way to basically dip your toes in deep space," Josh Hopkins, a space exploration architect for Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver, said during a Nov. 14 presentation with NASA's Future In-Space Operations working group.   Space Station Lab Management Entity Chooses Permanent Board   Aerospace Daily   A newly selected board of directors for the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (Casis), will hold its first formal meeting Dec. 13 in Washington, following induction on Nov. 16. Executive search firm Korn Ferry located seven board members to run the non-profit organization, which was established to manage the U.S. national laboratory portion of the International Space Station (ISS). Casis is responsible for allocating laboratory space to paying customers, and for raising funds and making grants for some research. The new board comprises three scientific members selected for their knowledge of relevant disciplines and familiarity with basic research, and four more tapped for their management and fiduciary experience, according to an announcement of their selection.   Dragon's "Radiation-Tolerant" Design   Amy Svitak – Aviation Week   Last week, NASA revealed that SpaceX's first commercial resupply mission to the ISS experienced a number of anomalies in addition to the shutdown of a Falcon 9 first-stage engine, including the loss of one of three flight computers on the Dragon cargo vessel due to a suspected radiation hit. Over the weekend I spoke with John Muratore, SpaceX director of vehicle certification, who said the loss of the computer was a function of the radiation-tolerant system design on which Dragon relies, rather than hard-to-come-by "rad-hardened" parts that can be costly and difficult to upgrade.   Shuttle's former safe haven moves on Orbiter hangar being gutted to house next-generation spacecraft   James Dean – Florida Today   In the Kennedy Space Center hangar that Discovery once called home, an excavator’s jaws on a recent afternoon clamped onto a third-floor catwalk, ripped a section away and dropped it into a tangled pile. Thundering booms echoed as another excavator smashed a mound of scrap metal in the opposite corner. It was a loud and jarring scene inside the 25-year-old hangar previously known as Orbiter Processing Facility 3, or OPF-3, a place shuttle workers took extensive precautions to keep free of dirt and debris that could damage an orbiter being readied for flight. And it’s the most tangible evidence yet that unneeded shuttle infrastructure may have a future serving private spacecraft, and that KSC is shifting to a new way of doing business after the shuttle’s retirement.   Notre Dame grad takes space station command   WSBT TV (South Bend)   An Indiana native and Notre Dame graduate has taken command of the International Space Station. NASA astronaut Kevin Ford became the station's commander Sunday with the departure of three astronauts from the U.S., Russia and Japan who landed safely Monday in Kazakhstan.   Repairs underway after Sandy damages Intrepid   WABC TV (New York)   For this storied war ship and its sea, air and space museum, which charts its course now, the battle is underway again. With all hands on deck, the work is to repair, restore and reopen the "Fighting I" to the thousands of visitors it would normally see each day.   The safety cavern under Apollo launch pads   Justin Ray – SpaceflightNow.com   Submerged beneath the concrete of Kennedy Space Center's launching pad that sent humans to the moon resides a fortified bunker and network of tunnels to save the lives of workers and astronauts in a cataclysmic disaster. It is the Apollo-era Emergency Escape System, and this piece of spaceflight history remains in place at pad 39A almost 45 years after its construction in the midst of the space race. Spaceflight Now went inside Monday for a look and captured this photo gallery. __________   COMPLETE STORIES   Long-Term Budget Pressures On NASA Mount   Mark Carreau - Aerospace Daily   Traditionally challenged to meet cost/schedule management and performance goals, NASA is in for even tougher fiscal challenges, warns its inspector general, Paul Martin.   NASA will be further tested across five fronts, including human spaceflight, by flat budgets or worse, as the White House and Congress attempt to rein in spending to deal with mounting budget deficits, Martin says in a new report.   The new pressures will be punctuated by the looming budget penalty known as sequestration and the January “fiscal cliff,” which threaten to cut an additional $1.5 billion from an annual NASA budget that has already declined to $17.7 billion from $18.4 billion in 2011.   “Even if this looming cut is averted, NASA is likely to face constrained budgets for the foreseeable future,” notes Martin in the IG’s 2012 Report on NASA’s Top Management and Performance Challenges, released Nov. 15.   Human spaceflight is joined on the IG’s list of top concerns by project, infrastructure and facilities, and acquisition and contract management; and information technology security and governance.   “This year, we noted that declining budgets and fiscal uncertainties have compounded the difficulty of meeting these challenges,” Martin reports. “Perhaps, more than any other factor, these fiscal pressures will present NASA leaders with difficult choices in the year ahead.”   On the human spaceflight front, the agency has adjusted to the $406 million it received for fiscal 2013 versus an $850 million request in fiscal 2012 to foster the development of commercial crew transportation services in support of the International Space Station (ISS). But the agency noted it cannot meet its goal of a 2017 startup without $850 million annually during the development period.   Currently, ISS operations are projected through 2020. With a goal of a weekly average of 35 hr. of science activity aboard the six-person orbiting science lab, the agency has only been able to manage 26 hr. due to maintenance requirements and personnel limits. Commercial services would permit the station to add a seventh crewmember, according to the report.   Meanwhile, the agency’s efforts to develop a deep-space human exploration capability with the Space Launch System rocket and the Orion/Multipurpose Crew Vehicle is constrained to meeting the objectives of a first integrated unpiloted test flight in 2017, followed by an inaugural manned test flight in 2021. The limitations prevent NASA from meeting all of the requirements for a human mission to a yet-to-be-selected asteroid by 2025, according to the IG’s assessment.   The agency continues to reel from the project management lapses of the James Webb Space Telescope. Once scoped at $5 billion with a 2014 launch date, the project is now pegged at $8.8 billion with a sendoff in late 2018.   “Given the anticipated funding challenges for all federal agencies in the years ahead, changes to the way NASA develops and manages its projects are imperative,” notes Martin, whose auditors found the agency permeated by a “culture of optimism” with too few opportunities to train future managers.   Though a small part of the overall federal bureaucracy, NASA is the government’s ninth-largest property owner with 4,900 structures, 80% of them at least 40 years old, and 10% of them underused or not at all. A mounting deferred maintenance bill of nearly $2.5 billion is forcing NASA to lease out or divest the excess.   “NASA must move beyond its traditional conservative approach of ‘keep it in case we need it,’ in managing its facilities,” according to the report.   In 2011, 81% of NASA’s budget flowed to contractors in support of the agency’s mission, making it especially vulnerable to waste, fraud and abuse. The agency continues to struggle with insight into a range of grant and research awards, including the popular Small Business Innovation Research program, the report says.   The IG found NASA a popular target of domestic and foreign IT system intrusion because of the vastness of its networks and the value of the data.   NASA Outpost Beyond Moon Could Lead to Mars   Mike Wall - Space.com   Sending astronauts to a deep-space outpost beyond the moon's far side could help lay the groundwork for more ambitious manned missions to Mars, some researchers say.   Such a lunar effort would take humanity farther from Earth than it's ever been before, allowing scientists and engineers to work their way up to even more distant targets such as asteroids and Mars in a stepwise fashion, advocates say.   "It's a really good way to basically dip your toes in deep space," Josh Hopkins, a space exploration architect for Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver, said during a Nov. 14 presentation with NASA's Future In-Space Operations working group.   Beyond the lunar far side   NASA is apparently thinking seriously about launching astronauts to Earth-moon L2, a spot in space beyond the moon's far side. EML-2 is a so-called libration point where the gravitational pulls of the moon and Earth roughly balance out, allowing spacecraft to essentially park there.   Astronauts would ride to EML-2 aboard NASA's Orion capsule, which is being built by Lockheed Martin. Orion would get off the ground atop the Space Launch System(SLS), the agency's huge new deep-space rocket.   The launcher's first unmanned test flight is slated for 2017, and NASA hopes the SLS-Orion combo will begin carrying crews by 2021.   EML-2 is an interesting target in its own right, Hopkins said. From there, astronauts could teleoperate rovers on the far side with relative ease, helping explore a part of the moon that remains little-studied to date.   Such rovers could gather samples for a possible return to Earth, he said, which could shed light on the moon's mysterious impact history.   The robots could also deploy huge antennas, helping set up a powerful instrument that would take advantage of the radio "quiet zone" found on the lunar far side to investigate some of the universe's deepest mysteries.   "You can do, particularly, low-frequency radio astronomy from the far side that you can't do from Earth," Hopkins said.   Beyond the moon   But the main reason to set up a manned outpost at EML-2, Hopkins said, is to lay the foundation for human missions to even more far-flung destinations.   In 2010, President Barack Obama directed NASA to work toward getting astronauts to a near-Earth asteroid by 2025, then on to the vicinity of Mars by the mid-2030s. EML-2 would be a good stepping stone along the way, Hopkins said.   Missions to EML-2 would teach NASA and its partners how to operate without a resupply safety net, for example, and would help work out any kinks that may exist in the SLS-Orion pair.   "If things go badly enough, you can always get home pretty quickly," Hopkins said. "That's basically not possible for an asteroid mission, or a Mars mission."   A space station at EML-2 would also serve as a teleoperations training ground, he added, paving the way for efforts to drive Mars rovers from one of the Red Planet's two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos.   While the path Hopkins discussed was drawn up by Lockheed Martin, it appears NASA may be thinking along similar lines. Agency officials have said recently that they are indeed planning to send astronauts back to the moon's neighborhood.   "We just recently delivered a comprehensive report to Congress outlining our destinations which makes clear that SLS will go way beyond low-Earth orbit to explore the expansive space around the Earth-moon system, near-Earth asteroids, the moon, and ultimately, Mars," NASA deputy chief Lori Garver said at a conference in September.   "Let me say that again: We're going back to the moon, attempting a first-ever mission to send humans to an asteroid and actively developing a plan to take Americans to Mars," she added.   Space Station Lab Management Entity Chooses Permanent Board   Aerospace Daily   A newly selected board of directors for the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (Casis), will hold its first formal meeting Dec. 13 in Washington, following induction on Nov. 16.   Executive search firm Korn Ferry located seven board members to run the non-profit organization, which was established to manage the U.S. national laboratory portion of the International Space Station (ISS). Casis is responsible for allocating laboratory space to paying customers, and for raising funds and making grants for some research.   An early task for the board will be to find a permanent replacement for James Royston, a former president of Astrotech who was interim executive director of the Florida-based organization. Royston took that role after the original Casis director, Jeanne Becker, resigned in a dispute over the actions of Congress, NASA headquarters and a private consulting firm in setting up the organization. NASA selected Casis to run the national lab on the ISS based on a proposal submitted by Space Florida, that state’s aerospace industrial development agency.   The three interim board members who have been overseeing Casis operations resigned with the establishment of the formal board, Casis says. The new board comprises three scientific members selected for their knowledge of relevant disciplines and familiarity with basic research, and four more tapped for their management and fiduciary experience, according to an announcement of their selection.   Scientists picked to serve on the board are:. Bess Dawson-Hughes, director of the Bone Metabolism Laboratory at Tufts University; Andrei Reuckenstein, vice president of research and associate provost at Boston University; and Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, professor and vice chair of the Biomedical Engineering Department at Columbia University.   Selected as managing members are: France Cordova, former president of Purdue University who has also served as NASA’s chief scientist; Lewis Duncan, president of Rollins College; Leroy Hood, president of the Institute for Systems Biology; and Dr. Howard Zucker, professor of clinical anesthesiology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University.   The board members’ induction marks the end of a process started by the interim panel this past spring.   Dragon's "Radiation-Tolerant" Design   Amy Svitak – Aviation Week   Last week, NASA revealed that SpaceX's first commercial resupply mission to the ISS experienced a number of anomalies in addition to the shutdown of a Falcon 9 first-stage engine, including the loss of one of three flight computers on the Dragon cargo vessel due to a suspected radiation hit.   Over the weekend I spoke with John Muratore, SpaceX director of vehicle certification, who said the loss of the computer was a function of the radiation-tolerant system design on which Dragon relies, rather than hard-to-come-by "rad-hardened" parts that can be costly and difficult to upgrade.   AWST: So, NASA does not require SpaceX to use radiation-hardened computer systems on the Dragon?   John Muratore: No, as a matter of fact NASA doesn't require it on their own systems, either. I spent 30 years at NASA and in the Air Force doing this kind of work. My last job was chief engineer of the shuttle program at NASA, and before that as shuttle flight director. I managed flight programs and built the mission control center that we use there today.   On the space station, some areas are using rad-hardened parts and other parts use COTS parts. Most of the control of the space station occurs through laptop computers which are not radiation hardened.   The radiation environment is something people have known about for a long time. It's part of the natural environment, and it varies. It matters what kind of mission you're doing. With Dragon we're doing low-Earth orbit, short-duration missions and that drives a lot of the architecture.   So NASA didn't require radiation-hardened parts. It did, however, require us to do a hard analysis of the radiation environment, the effect of the environment on the Dragon systems and how we'd respond to that. We not only produced that analysis, but it was reviewed by an independent panel of experts. So NASA had very strong requirements for us to understand the environment and have planned out our responses to the environment, and we've done that.   Q: So, these flight computers on Dragon – there are three on board, and that's for redundancy?   A: There are actually six computers. They operate in pairs, so there are three computer units, each of which have two computers checking on each other. The reason we have three is when operating in proximity of ISS, we have to always have two computer strings voting on something on critical actions. We have three so we can tolerate a failure and still have two voting on each other. And that has nothing to do with radiation, that has to do with ensuring that we're safe when we're flying our vehicle in the proximity of the space station.   I went into the lab earlier today, and we have 18 different processing units with computers in them. We have three main computers, but 18 units that have a computer of some kind, and all of them are triple computers – everything is three processors. So we have like 54 processors on the spacecraft. It's a highly distributed design and very fault-tolerant and very robust.   Q: But there's nothing on the spacecraft in the way of radiation-hardened parts?   A: The parts aren't hardened, the design as a total system is hardened. What it is is each part does not go through the screening that is typical of radiation hardened parts. Now that doesn't mean that each part can't take the dose that a “rad-hardened” part can, because we've taken all of our designs and we've tested them extensively, we've had contracts with the the [NASA] Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) to consult us, and their the world's experts in it, and we've gone to the University of Indiana and tested all of our parts, and we test them until they fail. We keep bringing the environment up and up and up until they fail. But we test them as a total system, not each part at a time. We've tested lots of our parts to very, very high radiation environments. So we test them as a total system, and by that I mean a unit with three processors in it, we test the entire unit. We take the cover off and we hit it really, really hard with radiation, and we do that so we understand how the parts react in the radiation environment.   Q: So what happened in this situation where one computer on board Dragon had a suspected radiation hit and shut down?   A: Think of a computer as lots of white marbles that are arranged in a specific pattern on a table, and a black marble comes in and knocks one of the white marbles out of place. Now, the memories of our computers are constantly checking for that happening. So if we take a hit in our most dense part of our computer – the memory – the computer detects it and repairs it and there's no harm done. But our other circuits in the computer, places like where we're bringing information in and out of the processor, if we take a hit there it can cause basically a bit to flip from a zero to a one. And that instruction can be wrong, and that is where the two processors in a single computer element voting on each other can detect that, and it can force a reboot. And that's what happened, we rebooted the computer.   Q: You rebooted the computer, but I understand it didn't re-sync, was that intentional?   A: Let's say you're working on something on your PC and you have Internet Explorer up and Word and a whole bunch of things and you take a glitch in the computer and it reboots and you lose all your work. What we do is when we re-sync, the two computers that are still running and have all the latest applications up, they load all that information in the memory so the three memories have all the same information. So when we rebooted, we had the option to re-sync. And we had practiced that on the ground lots. We do it all the time. Matter of fact when we normally bring the computers up we re-sync them. So we'd done this tons of times. But we needed to coordinate that and explain what we were doing to all the partners on the space station, and that just took time. And NASA said rather than distract everybody with going through a long technical explanation of why we do that and convincing everybody it's all ok, can you guys just fly away the way you are? And we were like, yeah. We met every requirement that NASA had, even with one computer down.   Q: So, is there going to be any corrective action in terms of modifications to Dragon for the next cargo resupply mission net year? NASA's ISS Program Manager Michael Suffredini has been quoted suggesting you may replace existing parts with “rad-hardened” parts.   A: I think he was just hypothesizing. The first time you do anything on the space station, you talk about it a lot. And then after you talk about it, the next time it happens it's just like the time before, and they say go ahead, no problem. On our output processors, we took some hits on the last mission [the Falcon 9/Dragon demo flight that delivered Dragon to ISS in June under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program]. And we had to spend a lot of time explaining to people what we were doing. It's an international consortium, it's a $100-billion program, it's a million pounds of hardware, and everybody's systems need to interact, and we need to explain that when we're going to do something. And when we're going to do something the first time, even though we've explained it in safety panels and safety reviews and flight procedures and flight-technique meetings and we had talked about it all before, the first time you actually come up to it, everybody just wants to talk about it again.   So we had similar radiation hits on the output units this time, and we called the flight director and he went “Yeah, go ahead, go reset.” So we reset the input/output units with about a five-minute discussion. It was no big deal. So I think that because of that, he's thinking we spent a lot of time talking about this, maybe you should consider some other kinds of parts. But I think it was just because it was the first time we went through it.   Q: Ok, is there any plan right now to make any changes in the flight computers for the next mission?   A: We might make some slight procedural or software changes so we can get through the re-synching faster. But that's all. We're still talking about that. There's no requirement to make any changes. We met every safety requirement that NASA put on us. Every piece of hardware that had any kind of hit recovered 100%, completely. So the design functioned exactly the way it was intended to function.   Q: Is it possible all three computer units could take a hit and go down at once?   A: So, remember the marbles. Now we've got three tables and the white marbles arranged on all three tables, and the black marble would have to go through so that it hit all three tables at once. And that would be hard to do. But even if it did, we normally power up the vehicle with the computers down. Matter of fact we run with the computers down all the time because each of the input/output units have its own three strings of computers in it. And we can command those directly, we can command them from the station, through the TDRS satellite, we can command them from our own ground station. There was no impact at all. And we would have just rebooted them and come up.   Q: What's the downside to buying radiation-hardened hardware or software? Is it expensive, or just not widely available?   A: It's really not the expense that drives it. We're committed to having the best possible parts in all of our designs. So if it cost a lot and we needed it, we'd go get it. We were already required to have all this redundancy in the computers to meet all the different safety requirements. Then we started looking at what parts do we want to use and what is appropriate for this design. And what really is more important to us than the cost of the parts is the capability of the parts – how much power do they use, how much memory do they hold, how much do they process, and how physically big are they. That's the first thing.   The second thing is what tools they come with. We run the Linux operating system, we program everything in C++, and that enables us to tap into a huge pool of very talented people and find the absolute best people in the computer and software industry to work with us. If you go into the radiation hardened parts, they are very limited in terms of what languages you can work in, what support packages there are for them, who knows how to program in them. It really limits your ability to work with the parts. And the other thing it really does is they all take a little longer time to get and they're a little harder to come by.   I just walked around the factory this morning, just in the office area alone, and we have over 40 of the flight computers sitting on people's desks. And if they were hard-to-come-by items, we wouldn't have that many computers. We've got 54 in a Dragon – and they're all different kinds of computers, different kinds of processors. We've got computers in the Falcon 9, we've got three computers in one unit on each engine in the Falcon 9, so that's 30 computers right there. We have hundreds of flight computers of different capability levels, and we're in multiple generations of design. The radiation parts tend not to have growth and upgrade paths. It's very hard to grow, if you decide you want a little more capability, a little faster, you're really limited – it's that part. And we're already in our third generation of flight computer at SpaceX. In the last two years we've worked through three generations, we've got people working on a fourth generation computer. So we are constantly looking at what's available in the marketplace, moving with the marketplace so we can use the best software tools, the best people the best techniques and achieve the most modern, optimized, efficient design. That's why we don't want to go into these lines, and they are good pieces of equipment, lots of people use them. But they don't open up the kind of possibilities that we want to have. A lot of other programs are one program. At SpaceX our goal is the most reliable, cost effective and safe access to space in the world, and our CEO [Elon Musk] is very clear: We're going to Mars. So building the computer for the Dragon isn't just about building the computer for the Dragon, it's about building a whole suite of tools, techniques, people and processes to then go to the next vehicle, and the next vehicle. And our equipment crosses lines. Falcon designs go into Dragon, we're currently retrofitting the Dragon design into the new Falcon, so our designs constantly keep evolving, and that's why we don't want to get into lines that have limited growth capacity.   Q: Did the space shuttle have rad-hardened computers?   A: They had rad-hardened design, not rad-hardened parts. I was one of the flight directors the first time we went to repair the Hubble Space Telescope, and they had the same kind of error-correcting memory approach that we have. And we just watched the errors counting up. I remember sitting on the console with my flight computer officer and we were just watching them crank up while we were up repairing the Hubble, and we were just going bang, bang, bang, taking errors and correcting them. So radiation-tolerant design vs. radiation-tolerant parts is very common and was used in shuttle.   Q; So you're not breaking a mold here.   A: We're taking it to an extent previously not done, but we're operating in a well known set of techniques and capabilities.   Shuttle's former safe haven moves on Orbiter hangar being gutted to house next-generation spacecraft   James Dean – Florida Today   In the Kennedy Space Center hangar that Discovery once called home, an excavator’s jaws on a recent afternoon clamped onto a third-floor catwalk, ripped a section away and dropped it into a tangled pile.   Thundering booms echoed as another excavator smashed a mound of scrap metal in the opposite corner.   It was a loud and jarring scene inside the 25-year-old hangar previously known as Orbiter Processing Facility 3, or OPF-3, a place shuttle workers took extensive precautions to keep free of dirt and debris that could damage an orbiter being readied for flight.   And it’s the most tangible evidence yet that unneeded shuttle infrastructure may have a future serving private spacecraft, and that KSC is shifting to a new way of doing business after the shuttle’s retirement.   “It’s the first real example of the transition of existing shuttle hardware and facilities that no longer have a purpose, and giving it new meaning and creating an environment where new jobs can be created and exploration can continue further,” said Dale Ketcham, chief of strategic alliances for Space Florida, the state aerospace economic development agency.   The renamed Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility, or C3PF, and other nearby facilities are being readied for The Boeing Co. to manufacture, assemble and test its CST-100 commercial crew capsules, work that could eventually create 550 jobs.   Boeing is one of three companies competing to carry NASA astronauts to the International Space Station, flights targeted to begin in 2017.   The seven-person capsule’s command module would be assembled in the high bay, and its service module in an adjacent low bay where space shuttle main engines were once refurbished between flights.   “Seeing a part of history being converted into the future is really exciting,” said Grady Brinkley, a Boeing project manager involved in the overhaul.   NASA can’t afford to operate and maintain excess shuttle facilities, nor can it give them directly to companies competing for its business.   Instead, the center turned these facilities over to Space Florida to modernize and lease to interested partners.   The state has committed $10 million to the Boeing partnership, which was announced about a year ago, using Florida Department of Transportation funds for space infrastructure upgrades. That’s about half the project’s total estimated cost, records show.   The first phase of demolition work began in August and is expected to wrap up this year. A second modernization phase is slated to be completed next summer.   Looking into a high bay still distinguished by a cutout for an orbiter’s tail fin, the hangar’s left side was bare of the multilevel access platforms that once surrounded an orbiter (Discovery in the shuttle program’s later years). The edges of platforms remaining on the right side were twisted and sagging.   Standing solitary next to a truck was a structure holding a “white room,” the last stop before crews entered an orbiter’s mid-deck, just like at the launch pad. Signed by astronauts, employees and guests, the room has been carefully severed from its surroundings to be saved as an artifact.   Next door, workers swept the floor of a bay emptied of the stands that once held rows of shuttle main engines.   The engines have been moved to Stennis Space Center in Mississippi for future use by NASA’s planned Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket, which is aiming for a first unmanned test flight in 2017.   A test version of Boeing’s crew capsule occupies a small room leading to an area still identified by a sign that reads: “Space Shuttle Main Engine Processing Facility.”   Boeing also plans to lease the nearby Processing Control Center, a three-story office building, bringing its planned footprint to more than 227,000 square feet.   Despite the facility upgrades, there’s a chance the Boeing work won’t materialize. NASA might not select the company to advance in a competition with SpaceX and Sierra Nevada Corp., or the company could decide the business case isn’t compelling enough to proceed with a commercial crew program.   If that should happen, Ketcham said, the state believes its investment would not be wasted but would help attract another tenant.   The state hopes the work on the hangar becomes a template for transitioning more facilities, possibly including two more hangars and the shuttle runway, to new users.   “The painful transition (from the shuttle’s retirement) isn’t over, and there’s still a lot of people who are unemployed that we need to find work for,” said Ketcham. “But at the end of the day, it’s encouraging to see facilities being refurbished for new purposes and programs.”   Notre Dame grad takes space station command   WSBT TV (South Bend)   An Indiana native and Notre Dame graduate has taken command of the International Space Station.   NASA astronaut Kevin Ford became the station's commander Sunday with the departure of three astronauts from the U.S., Russia and Japan who landed safely Monday in Kazakhstan.   The 52-year-old Ford remains on the space station with two Russians and they are to be joined next month by astronauts from the U.S., Canada and Russia.   Ford's crew arrived at the station on Oct. 25 and is scheduled to return to Earth in March.   Ford grew up in the Blackford County city of Montpelier, graduating from Blackford High School and the University of Notre Dame. The former Air Force colonel was the space shuttle Discovery's pilot for a 2009 space station mission.   Repairs underway after Sandy damages Intrepid   WABC TV (New York)   For this storied war ship and its sea, air and space museum, which charts its course now, the battle is underway again.   With all hands on deck, the work is to repair, restore and reopen the "Fighting I" to the thousands of visitors it would normally see each day.   Matt Woods oversees the massive rebuilding of Intrepid's giant infrastructure, all of it damaged by Sandy's surge. Four feet of water poured through the welcome center and gift shop knocking out vital electrical and safety systems.   Other members of the staff are now working shoulder to shoulder in an improvised office keeping the business end of the museum running.   Up on flight deck, the Shuttle Enterprise, the newest exhibit is being repaired after its inflatable cover was torn apart and its tail section repaired.   At the height of the storm they were running on emergency power, but when that went out, 90 seconds later the dome collapsed and it was ripped apart by high winds.   Officials are hoping to open before the holiday tourist season kicks into high gear.   For more information about efforts to repair the Intrepid, please visit www.intrepidmuseum.org.   The safety cavern under Apollo launch pads   Justin Ray – SpaceflightNow.com   Submerged beneath the concrete of Kennedy Space Center's launching pad that sent humans to the moon resides a fortified bunker and network of tunnels to save the lives of workers and astronauts in a cataclysmic disaster.   It is the Apollo-era Emergency Escape System, and this piece of spaceflight history remains in place at pad 39A almost 45 years after its construction in the midst of the space race.   Picture the mighty Saturn 5 moon rocket, fueled and poised for blastoff from the Florida spaceport. But something goes wrong and everyone at the seaside complex must evacuate to safety. The answer that designers created for men to survive a detonating rocket was this protective cocoon built under the sloping northwest corner of both twin pads at Complex 39.   For the astronauts or crew support personnel at the top of the rocket, they would rely on a high-speed descent elevator to reach the base of the mobile platform. They join technicians working on the platform to jump down a chute on the north-side of the platform that connected to the teflon-lined slide that rapidly gets them underground.   That 200-foot slide empties into the aptly-named "rubber room" with its rubber floors meant to absorb the impact of the explosion occurring on the pad surface 40 feet above them. Hopping off the landing ramp, the people would scurry to their left into the fallout shelter, a domed room suspended on shock-dampening springs and sealed off with massive blast-proof doors. Inside, the chamber held 20 chairs, a toilet and carbon dioxide scrubbing equipment to keep the occupants alive until rescue teams arrive.   And, if a further escape is required, on the opposite side of the dome is another door leading out into an airlock and the entrance to a tunnel burrowed under the western field of both pads.   It was the elaborate safety measures put in place as the Apollo Program got underway. Later, a slide-wire system would be added to evacuate crews from atop the umbilical tower, whisking them out and away from the pad instead of relying on the elevator to go down for accessing the "rubber room" slide.   Still, the dimly-lit cavern, draped in mystic and almost spooky to walk through, has stood the test of time as space shuttle after space shuttle thundered away from pads 39A and 39B above. The rooms on both neighboring complexes were capped off and removed from use. The 1,200-foot escape tunnels were converted into air-intakes, funneling fresh air into the environmental control system and used in purges to the space shuttle.   The B pad room was condemned due to lead paint concerns, but the A pad room remains accessible through the airlock doorway next to the hub of the environmental control system below the pad deck.   Spaceflight Now went inside Monday for a look and captured this photo gallery.   END