Fwd: Human Spaceflight News - November 26, 2012 and JSC Today

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From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: November 26, 2012 9:00:06 AM CST
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: Human Spaceflight News - November 26, 2012 and JSC Today

Hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!.

 

 

Monday, November 26, 2012

 

JSC TODAY HEADLINES

1.            Brown Bag Today on 'Greening the Cafés'

2.            Head to the Cafés Wednesday, Nov. 28, for the CFC Fair

3.            Deadline for Annual Security Refresher Training is Coming Fast

4.            Call for Proposals -- Science Innovation Fund (SIF)

5.            Psychology, Sleep, Space and YOU

6.            TTI RLLS Portal WebEx Training

7.            JSC Contractor Safety Forum -- Dec. 4

8.            Innovation Lecture Series: Carlos Dominguez - The TechNowist

9.            Water-BOTs Workshop for 5th to 8th Graders

10.          JSC Child Care Center Has Openings Today

11.          Job Opportunities

12.          Fire Warden Refresher Course (Two Hours)

________________________________________     QUOTE OF THE DAY

" We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures."

 

-- Thornton Wilder

________________________________________

1.            Brown Bag Today on 'Greening the Cafés'

Do you want to find out more about what JSC cafés are doing to reduce JSC's environmental footprint and meet NASA and federal sustainability goals? Join us today in the Building 3 Collaboration Center from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. for a brown-bag discussion on "Greening the Cafés."

Laurie Peterson x39845

 

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2.            Head to the Cafés Wednesday, Nov. 28, for the CFC Fair

Through the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC), you can choose to give to any of thousands of organizations listed at the local, national or global levels. They include organizations to educate, shelter, feed, protect, volunteer and much more. If you are a federal employee, you may submit a payroll-deduction pledge through Employee Express (EEX) at the CFC Fair! (Be sure to know your EEX user ID and password.)

Anyone can donate, as paper pledge forms will be on hand, too. Giving is strictly on a voluntary basis.

Mirella Lanmon x49796

 

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3.            Deadline for Annual Security Refresher Training is Coming Fast

As a reminder, this Friday, Nov. 30, is the deadline for completing the 2012 Security Refresher Training for all NASA civil servants and on-site contractors, available through SATERN.

For further assistance, contact the SATERN Help Desk at 1-877-NSSC-123 (1-877-677-2123).

Ginger Milligan x32877

 

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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 today, 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

 

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5.            Psychology, Sleep, Space and YOU

The Human Systems Academy is pleased to offer a lecture that introduces participants to the Behavioral Health and Performance Operations and support services. This course will provide a summary of the Behavioral Health and Performance Operations group's work, including an overview of astronaut selection, behavioral-health services provided to astronauts, the psychological aspects of long-duration spaceflight and the behavioral health-support services provided to space station crews and families. This course will be held Tuesday, Nov. 27, from 1 to 2 p.m. in Building 15, Conference Room 267.

For registration, please go to: https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=SCHEDULED_...

Cynthia Rando 281-461-2620 http://sa.jsc.nasa.gov/

 

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6.            TTI RLLS Portal WebEx Training

TechTrans International (TTI) will provide two WebEx training sessions on Nov. 27 and 28 at 10 a.m. for the RLLS portal telecom support request module. This training will include the following elements:

o             Locating telecom support request module

o             Quick view of telecom support request

o             Create a new telecom support request

o             Telecom submittal requirements

o             Adding operator support

o             Adding an attachment (agenda, references)

o             Selecting export control

o             Adding additional email addresses distribution notices

o             Submitting telecom request

o             Status of telecom request records

o             View a telecom request record

o             Copy a telecom support request record

o             Contact RLLS support for additional help

Please send an email to James.E.Welty@nasa.gov or call 281-335-8565 to sign-up for these RLLS Telecom Support WebEx Training courses. Classes will be limited to the first 25 individuals registered.

Denise Kimbrough 281-335-8000

 

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7.            JSC Contractor Safety Forum -- Dec. 4

Mark your calendars!

Our next JSC Contractor Safety Forum will be held on Tuesday, Dec. 4, in the Gilruth Alamo Ballroom from 9 to 11 a.m. Our guest speaker for this event will be Dr. Robert Emery, vice president for Safety, Health, Environment and Risk Management at the University of Texas School of Public Health. His presentation topic will be "Ethical Decision-Making Tools for Enhancing Organizational Safety Culture." In addition, David Loyd, chief, Safety and Test Operations Division (JSC-NS) will be presenting a snapshot of the JSC safety metrics for 2012. Hope to see everyone there.

If you have any questions, please contact Pat Farrell at 281-335-2012 or via email.

Patricia Farrell 281-335-2012

 

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8.            Innovation Lecture Series: Carlos Dominguez - The TechNowist

The Human Health and Performance Directorate is pleased to welcome Carlos Dominguez, senior vice president at Cisco Systems and a technology evangelist, as our next Innovation Lecture Series Speaker! Dominguez speaks to and motivates audiences worldwide about how technology is changing how we communicate, collaborate and, especially, how we work. Dominguez gives humorous, highly animated presentations full of deep insight into how technology and the right culture can create winning companies.

When: Jan. 11 at 2 p.m.

Where: Building 30 Auditorium

Space is limited! Register now in SATERN: https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=SCHEDULED_...

Carissa Vidlak 281-212-1409 http://sa.jsc.nasa.gov/

 

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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

 

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10.          JSC Child Care Center Has Openings Today

Space Family Education, Inc. (SFEI) has openings available to dependents of JSC civil servants and contractors.

Immediate openings (ages as Sept. 1, 2012):

o             Two for children 15 to 24 months old

o             One for a child currently 3 years old

o             Two for children currently 4 years old

Openings available Jan. 8 (ages as Sept. 1, 2012):

o             Two for children 3 years old

Program Details:

1. Open 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday (closed federal holidays).

2. Competitive pricing with other comparable child cares, but SFEI includes more amenities.

3. Additional security: Badges required to get on-site, and there's an additional security code to get in the school's front door.

4. Accelerated curriculum in all classes with additional enrichment and extracurricular programs.

5. Convenience: Nearby and easy access for parents working on-site at JSC.

6. Breakfast, morning snack, lunch and afternoon snack are all included.

7. Video monitoring available from computers, androids and iPhones.

Interested parties should send an email to Brooke Stephens with parent contact information and the child's date of birth.

Brooke Stephens x26031

 

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11.          Job Opportunities

Where do I find job opportunities?

Both internal Competitive Placement Plans (CPPs) and external JSC job announcements are posted on the Human Resources (HR) portal and USAJOBS website. Through the HR portal, civil servants can view summaries of all the agency jobs that are currently open:  https://hr.nasa.gov/portal/server.pt/community/employees_home/239/job_opportu...

To help you navigate to JSC vacancies, use the filter drop-down menu and select "JSC HR." The "Jobs" link will direct you to the USAJOBS website for the complete announcement and the ability to apply online. If you have questions about any JSC job vacancies, please call your HR representative.

Lisa Pesak x30476

 

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12.          Fire Warden Refresher Course (Two Hours)

This two-hour course is for previously trained Fire Wardens from JSC, Sonny Carter Training Facility and Ellington Field and is required to satisfy the JSC three-year refresher training requirement for building Fire Wardens who have previously completed the initial four-hour Fire Warden Orientation Training.

This course emphasizes a review of the duties and responsibilities of a Fire Warden during an emergency evacuation of their assigned building and conduct of the required monthly walk-around inspection of the Fire Warden's assigned area.

Newly assigned Fire Wardens must attend the four-hour Initial Fire Warden Orientation course available in SATERN for registration.

Date/Time: Nov. 28 from 1 to 3 p.m.

Where: Safety Learning Center, Building 226N, Room 174

Registration via SATERN required:

https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=SCHEDULED_...

Aundrail Hill x36369

 

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________________________________________

JSC Today is compiled periodically as a service to JSC employees on an as-submitted basis. Any JSC organization or employee may submit articles. To see an archive of previous JSC Today announcements, go to http://www6.jsc.nasa.gov/pao/news/jsctoday/archives.

 

 

 

 

 

Human Spaceflight News

Monday – November 26, 2012

 

HEADLINES AND LEADS

 

US is on clock to return to orbit

Boeing, ULA work to reset manned launch capabilities

 

Todd Halvorson – Florida Today

 

At the north end of Cape Canaveral Air Force Station is a launch complex where unmanned Atlas rockets blast off with super-secret national-security satellites. Four towering lightning protection masts surround the pad, which also has been the embarkation point for robotic NASA spacecraft flying missions to the moon, Mars, Jupiter and Pluto. Mike Leinbach looks out over the landscape and envisions something else: American astronauts riding an elevator to the top of a 22-story crew access tower, crossing a swing arm, and then boarding a U.S. spacecraft atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.

 

SpaceX engine probe delays Jan. flight

 

James Dean – Florida Today

 

SpaceX has delivered a Falcon 9 rocket to Cape Canaveral while continuing an engine-problem investigation that will delay the booster's planned launch from mid-January to early March. Company and NASA engineers are still sorting out what caused one of nine Merlin engines to shut down early during the Oct. 7 launch of a Dragon cargo capsule to the International Space Station, NASA officials told an advisory committee.

 

Falcon 9 RUD?

 

Amy Svitak – Aviation Week

 

SpaceX is still investigating the anomaly that led to the loss of one of nine Falcon 9 rocket engines during the company's first commercial resupply services (CRS) mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Video of the Oct. 7 launch shows debris falling from the rocket as it speeds to orbit, though SpaceX says the engine did not explode because they continued to receive data from it. In remarks to the Royal Aeronautical Society Nov. 16, SpaceX CEO and chief technical officer Elon Musk said Falcon 9 is designed to lose up to two engines to what's known in rocket-science lingo as a RUD (rapid unscheduled disassembly) and still reach orbit.

 

U.S. space program turns to Russian engines for boost

 

Mark Matthews - Orlando Sentinel

 

Sometime early next year, a new U.S. rocket is expected to rise from the sandy shores of eastern Virginia. Built by Orbital Sciences of Dulles, Va., and dubbed Antares — for the bright star of the same name — the rocket represents NASA's latest attempt to break Russia's dominance of the global launch business. The goal of the test flight is to see whether Antares can reach orbit, a steppingstone toward its ultimate mission of ferrying cargo to the International Space Station. That is a job principally handled by Russia since NASA retired the space shuttle last year. But even if the Orbital launch is a success, it won't mean NASA will have escaped Moscow's orbit. For the twin engines powering Antares won't be American originals; instead, they are derived from the decades-old, and now defunct, Soviet moon program.

 

Cracks discovered in Orion capsule's pressure shell

 

Stephen Clark - SpaceflightNow.com

 

Three cracks appeared in NASA's first space-bound Orion crew exploration vehicle during a proof pressure test this month, according to agency officials, but the anomaly and anticipated repairs are not expected to impact the schedule for the capsule's first orbital test flight in late 2014. The cracks materialized in the aft bulkhead on the lower half of the Orion multipurpose crew vehicle during a proof pressure test at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in mid-November, according to Joshua Buck, a NASA spokesperson. "The cracks are in three adjacent, radial ribs of this integrally machined, aluminum bulkhead," Buck said. "The cracks did not penetrate the pressure vessel skin, and the structure was holding pressure after the anomaly occurred."

 

UK To Invest in Orion Service Module

 

Amy Svitak - Aviation Week

 

Britain has committed €20 million ($26 million) to help pay for Europe's continued participation in the ISS. Flush with cash from an unprecedented 25% boost to its overall ESA contribution level, Britain's decision to back ISS may have ended a Franco-German standoff over the so-called NASA barter element, under which Europe has proposed to develop a service module based on its Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) that would fly on the U.S. space agency's Orion Multipurpose Crew Vehicle.

 

A crewed NASA mission to the far side of the Moon

 

Paul Sutherland - Space Exploration Network (SEN.com)

 

The USA's present roadmap to space for humans includes a return to the Moon, a visit to an asteroid and eventually a landing on Mars. But a free-thinking group of space scientists have proposed a novel alternative early mission to NASA - a journey to a region of space beyond the far side of the Moon. Their concept would involve flying the agency's planned new Orion space capsule to a spot known as the lunar L2 (Lagrange) point - a location where the combined gravity of the Earth and Moon allows a spacecraft to sit permanently above the lunar far side.

 

'The world is beautiful'

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield on living in space & view from window

 

Christopher Guly - National Post (Canada)

 

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield will soon make his third trek beyond Earth's atmosphere. At 7:12 a.m. Eastern Standard Time on Dec. 19, a three-person crew including retired Colonel Hadfield, NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn and Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko will board a Soyuz rocket, and arrive at the International Space Station (ISS) two days later for a five-month stay. Hadfield spoke to the National Post from the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre in Star City, Russia…

 

Huge Mars Colony Eyed by SpaceX Founder Elon Musk

 

Rob Coppinger - Space.com

 

Elon Musk, the billionaire founder and CEO of the private spaceflight company SpaceX, wants to help establish a Mars colony of up to 80,000 people by ferrying explorers to the Red Planet for perhaps $500,000 a trip. In Musk's vision, the ambitious Mars settlement program would start with a pioneering group of fewer than 10 people, who would journey to the Red Planet aboard a huge reusable rocket powered by liquid oxygen and methane. "At Mars, you can start a self-sustaining civilization and grow it into something really big," Musk told an audience at the Royal Aeronautical Society in London Nov. 16. Musk was there to talk about his business plans, and to receive the Society's gold medal for his contribution to the commercialization of space.

 

SpaceX acquires more properties

 

Emma Perez-Trevino - Valley Morning Star (Brownsville)

 

SpaceX continues to invest in Cameron County, buying more property as well as options it holds on other lands, as the time nears to unveil the results of the environmental impact study. Space Exploration Technologies Corp. purchased two more properties on Election Day Nov. 6 on the steps of the Cameron County Judicial Building on East Harrison Street, according to public records. Local officials have emphasized that this does not reflect that the California-based SpaceX has selected the Cameron County site near Boca Chica Beach from others that it is considering to establish a rocket launch facility.

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COMPLETE STORIES

 

US is on clock to return to orbit

Boeing, ULA work to reset manned launch capabilities

 

Todd Halvorson – Florida Today

 

At the north end of Cape Canaveral Air Force Station is a launch complex where unmanned Atlas rockets blast off with super-secret national-security satellites.

 

Four towering lightning protection masts surround the pad, which also has been the embarkation point for robotic NASA spacecraft flying missions to the moon, Mars, Jupiter and Pluto.

 

Mike Leinbach looks out over the landscape and envisions something else: American astronauts riding an elevator to the top of a 22-story crew access tower, crossing a swing arm, and then boarding a U.S. spacecraft atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.

 

Fifty-one years after Alan Shepard's inaugural U.S. human spaceflight, America no longer is capable of launching its own astronauts into orbit.

 

NASA's shuttle orbiters are ensconced in museums. And in a post-Cold War irony, the U.S. is reliant on Russia to fly astronauts into space.

 

"This is going to happen. We are going to put American astronauts into orbit on American rockets again," said Leinbach, 59, the longtime NASA shuttle launch director who now is director of human space flight operations for ULA. "It's just a question of time."

 

The clock is ticking. Literally for Chris Ferguson, the veteran U.S. astronaut who commanded the last space shuttle mission and is on a short list to command the first piloted test flight of the Boeing spacecraft being developed to carry U.S. crews.

 

Ferguson tracks "Mission Elapsed Time," or MET, a measure of days, hours and minutes since liftoff of an American manned space mission, on his Omega Speedmaster X-33, the watch of choice for U.S. astronauts.

 

At 11:29 a.m. EDT today, the Mission Elapsed Time on his watch will reach 507 days — 507 days since liftoff of Atlantis, NASA's final shuttle mission and the end, temporarily, of America's manned launch capability.

 

Ferguson has no plans to reset his MET tracker until liftoff of the Boeing CST-100's test flight atop an Atlas V rocket, which is being targeted for 2016.

 

Ferguson, who joined Boeing last December, and Leinbach are on the front lines of an epic effort to restore U.S. human spaceflight capability — and a crucial, alternative means of getting people to and from the International Space Station.

 

In August, NASA announced its third round of funding for its commercial crew program, aimed at getting that manned spaceflight capability back. Boeing garnered the largest share — $460 million — of $1.1 billion in seed money. Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, received $440 million.

 

A third company — Sierra Nevada — was awarded $212.5 million for continued development of its Dream Chaser spaceplane.

 

"It's still a number of years away. But we are where we are," Leinbach said. "We have to keep in mind the goal. The goal is to put astronauts in orbit safely on our rockets, and we will do that."

 

In labs, offices and conference rooms from Cape Canaveral to Colorado and California, Boeing and ULA engineers and program managers are banding together to field a next-generation U.S. astronaut transportation system.

 

"It really, truly feels like one company with one goal in mind, and we're really excited about it," Leinbach said.

 

The ULA Atlas V rocket, which was designed to launch satellites, is being upgraded to fly astronauts.

 

Boeing is making steady progress in the design of its CST-100 spacecraft, an Apollo-style capsule that will be able to carry up to seven astronauts.

 

Boeing and SpaceX are considered front-runners for future NASA contracts to provide commercial crew transportation services for American and partner-nation astronauts.

 

SpaceX is upgrading its Dragon cargo carrier for human spaceflight. An unmanned Dragon cargo carrier flew a demonstration mission to the space station in May.

 

Last month, a Dragon spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, winding up the first of at least 12 space station cargo resupply flights under a $1.6 billion NASA contract.

 

And SpaceX aims to launch a piloted test flight of an upgraded Dragon in mid-2015. That's more than a year before the targeted late 2016 launch of the Boeing CST-100 on its first piloted test flight.

 

Competition between the two companies is heating up.

 

The Boeing and SpaceX spacecraft both ranked high on their technical merits. But NASA raised concerns about Boeing's financial commitment to the public-private sector partnership.

 

Ferguson said Boeing is thinking about upping its corporate ante, aiming to advance the date of its first piloted test flight.

 

"We're looking heavily into getting some additional Boeing investment to move that (late 2016) date to the left significantly, which we think we need to do to keep pace with SpaceX," Ferguson said.

 

Standing on the concrete pad at Cape Canaveral's Launch Complex 41, Leinbach ticks off the to-do list for prepping the Atlas V rocket for human spaceflight.

 

"The Emergency Detection System — that's a biggie for us," Leinbach said.

 

ULA engineers are designing a sensor system that will detect rocket problems so astronauts can trigger an abort at any time — on the pad or in flight — and survive.

 

A dual-engine Centaur upper stage is being developed to increase oomph, smooth the ride, and ensure astronauts can abort a flight if needed.

 

"We used to fly dual-engine Centaurs years ago, so it's not that much of a stretch to go back to that," Leinbach said. "We just have to make sure we do it right."

 

And then there are launch pad modifications.

 

Engineers are designing a 220-foot tall crew access tower with an articulating swing arm that can reach the hatch of either a Boeing CST-100 or a Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser, which would also launch atop an Atlas V.

 

It will rise up on the northwest side of the current clean pad, and construction will happen in stages.

 

"This is an active launch pad, for national security space, and NASA. And so in order to build a new structure out here, while we're launching off this facility, is going to be a trick," Leinbach said.

 

Modular components will be built off-site. "We'll bring them in. We'll stack them up like dominoes in between launches," he said.

 

"So you'll see, in time, the construction of this tower. It's going to be a permanent structure here, and we're really excited about it."

 

The skyline at America's rocket ranch is in for a slight change. And in time, U.S. astronauts will be flying once again on U.S. rockets and spacecraft.

 

Ferguson finally will be able to stop his MET tracker.

 

"It's still a number of years away, and that's discouraging," Leinbach said.

 

But "it's not a question of 'if,' " he said. "In my heart, I know this is going to happen."

 

SpaceX engine probe delays Jan. flight

 

James Dean – Florida Today

 

SpaceX has delivered a Falcon 9 rocket to Cape Canaveral while continuing an engine-problem investigation that will delay the booster's planned launch from mid-January to early March.

 

Company and NASA engineers are still sorting out what caused one of nine Merlin engines to shut down early during the Oct. 7 launch of a Dragon cargo capsule to the International Space Station, NASA officials told an advisory committee.

 

The NASA Advisory Council's Human Exploration and Operations Committee also learned at its Nov. 14 meeting about several anomalies the Dragon spacecraft experienced during its first commercial resupply mission to the station.

 

But Mike Suffredini, NASA's ISS program manager, said last month that the outpost is well-stocked, and there is no urgency to fly the next Dragon mission, the second of 12 under a $1.6 billion contract.

 

"We're in really good shape on orbit, so we could move quite a bit to the right and not really be impacted by it," he said during a news conference Oct. 26. "So we've got plenty of time to sort out root cause. The team is doing an excellent job."

 

The Falcon 9 successfully delivered the Dragon to orbit despite the engine shutdown 79 seconds after liftoff.

 

A commercial satellite flown as a secondary payload, however, was left in a lower-than-desired orbit and re-entered the atmosphere within days.

 

Debris blew away from the rocket when the engine suddenly lost pressure. That was not an explosion, SpaceX said, but likely a release of pressure that shattered an aerodynamic shell around the engine.

 

Among the anomalies the Dragon encountered during the mission:

 

·         Loss of the use of a flight computer because of a suspected radiation hit knocking it out of sync with the two others. SpaceX said it offered to re-sync the computers but NASA determined that was unnecessary.

·         "With two nominally performing computers, we still had redundancy as Dragon needs only one computer to fly," SpaceX spokeswoman Katherine Nelson said in an email.

·         One of three GPS units, and several other components, also were recovered after suspected radiation hits, events Nelson said had "no impact on the mission."

·         Failure of three sensors on the spacecraft's 18 Draco thrusters, none of which violated flight requirements.

·         Loss of all three coolant pumps and power to a freezer holding biological samples because of water intrusion after splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on Oct. 28. The freezer temperature was restored several hours later and circulation fans kept the cabin temperature within required levels.

 

"SpaceX learns from every mission, and new waterproofing methods are already being successfully tested on our avionics for future flights," said Nelson.

 

The Dragon slated to fly NASA's second commercial resupply mission, now tentatively targeted for March 1, is expected to be delivered to the Cape next month.

 

Falcon 9 RUD?

 

Amy Svitak – Aviation Week

 

SpaceX is still investigating the anomaly that led to the loss of one of nine Falcon 9 rocket engines during the company's first commercial resupply services (CRS) mission to the International Space Station (ISS).

 

Video of the Oct. 7 launch shows debris falling from the rocket as it speeds to orbit, though SpaceX says the engine did not explode because they continued to receive data from it.

 

In remarks to the Royal Aeronautical Society Nov. 16, SpaceX CEO and chief technical officer Elon Musk said Falcon 9 is designed to lose up to two engines to what's known in rocket-science lingo as a RUD (rapid unscheduled disassembly) and still reach orbit.

 

For CRS-1, Falcon 9 was able to carry out its primary mission, successfully delivering the company's Dragon cargo capsule to berth with the space station. However, the engine anomaly led to the loss of the rocket's secondary payload -- a prototype messaging satellite built for fleet operator Orbcomm -- just days after launch.

 

The Merlin motor that powers the current Falcon 9 rocket has been in development for almost a decade, and Musk has said in the past that the engine experienced its share of RUD events during testing.

 

"On the plus side," he told the BBC in an interview last week, "we demonstrated that we can indeed complete a mission if we lose an engine, including in a relatively violent way."

 

U.S. space program turns to Russian engines for boost

 

Mark Matthews - Orlando Sentinel

 

Sometime early next year, a new U.S. rocket is expected to rise from the sandy shores of eastern Virginia.

 

Built by Orbital Sciences of Dulles, Va., and dubbed Antares — for the bright star of the same name — the rocket represents NASA's latest attempt to break Russia's dominance of the global launch business.

 

The goal of the test flight is to see whether Antares can reach orbit, a steppingstone toward its ultimate mission of ferrying cargo to the International Space Station. That is a job principally handled by Russia since NASA retired the space shuttle last year.

 

But even if the Orbital launch is a success, it won't mean NASA will have escaped Moscow's orbit. For the twin engines powering Antares won't be American originals; instead, they are derived from the decades-old, and now defunct, Soviet moon program.

 

The irony highlights what some say is a critical failure of U.S. space policy: Only two American companies — Lockheed Martin and SpaceX — build the type of high-performance, liquid-fuel rocket engines that are critical to space missions. And they don't sell to rivals.

 

As a result, U.S. space companies big and small are forced to turn to Russia. Even Boeing — whose Atlas V rocket is a workhorse for the Pentagon and so reliable that NASA is hoping it can carry astronauts to the station in a few years — uses Russian-built engines.

 

"The problem goes beyond Orbital," said John Logsdon, a space expert at George Washington University. "The problem is that we [Americans] are still not investing in advanced liquid-propulsion technology."

 

Others, however, say there's little economic justification for a made-in-the-U.S.A. rocket engine. In an era of increasing globalization, they say, U.S. companies should focus on their strengths — designing and assembling rockets and equipping them with the avionics necessary for successful orbital flights — and let other countries provide the engines.

 

"We know the world is globalizing," said Jay Gullish of Futron, an aerospace-analysis company. "It benefits everyone to use things that are priced right and do the job."

 

The story of how Soviet engines ended up in American rockets begins in what is now Russia — long before globalization was an economic buzzword.

 

During the 1960s, Soviet engineers developed a new line of engines, known as the NK-33s, that were part of the U.S.S.R.'s secret program to blast cosmonauts to the moon. But the rockets powered by the NK-33s failed on four consecutive attempts — because of engineering problems independent of the engines — and Soviet leaders ultimately canceled the program.

 

Dozens of the engines survived, however, and in the mid-1990s the U.S. company Aerojet bought about 40 of them. Aerojet since has upgraded the engines and sold them to Orbital.

 

The decision to buy those engines — rather than seeking them in the U.S. — was one of simple economics, said Orbital officials. NASA is paying the company $288 million to build a rocket and capsule that can reach the station — a relative bargain in the space world, where projects routinely cost billions of dollars.

 

"You can't just go and [easily] buy an engine of that class," said Kurt Eberly, Antares deputy project director, who described the U.S. rocket-engine business as a "weakness" in the overall space industry.

 

The situation has worried U.S. officials enough that in 2009 the White House highlighted the problem in a 14-page letter to congressional leaders. It described the U.S. rocket-engine business as "under significant stress" in part because of "low demand" for its product.

 

The lack of demand is reflected in launch statistics. From 2002 to 2011, the U.S. had 191 successful orbital launches; a distant second to Russia's 255 launches, according to new figures compiled by Futron. (China was third with 87).

 

A second problem, the White House concluded, is that a "substantial fraction" of U.S. rocket companies already use cheaper foreign engines — giving U.S. companies even less of a reason to build them.

 

"While demand for U.S. launch vehicles is low, demand for production of U.S. propulsion systems is even more constrained," the letter noted. "Given this situation, most U.S. propulsion providers seem to have little incentive for investing in new capabilities and technologies."

 

That's a problem, said Mike Gold, a top executive with Bigelow Aerospace of Nevada.

 

"Foreign collaboration is commendable. Foreign dependence is deplorable," said Gold, whose company is developing commercial space stations. "The U.S. industrial base needs to take a hard look in the mirror and ensure we maintain critical domestic capabilities in the space arena — both for economic reasons and for national security."

 

SpaceX, the California-based company that is Orbital Sciences' principal rival, did design its own engines under a contract similar to Orbital's. That effort reached a major milestone in May when SpaceX became the first commercial company to blast a capsule to the station. But SpaceX is estimated to have spent about $1 billion developing that capability — far more than Orbital was willing to spend.

 

"We were not prepared to build our own [massive] engine on our own nickel, so we needed to partner with the best of the industry," said Barron Beneski, an Orbital spokesman.

 

NASA has applauded that approach.

 

"The beauty here is that it's not a new program here, but they are putting [old pieces] together in a cost-effective manner," said Alan Lindenmoyer, NASA's commercial crew and cargo-program manager.

 

The true test will come as early as January, when Orbital Sciences launches Antares from Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

 

No cargo will be sent to the station, as Antares will be carrying a dummy capsule, but Orbital executives said it will still be worth the wait — as they'll finally see how the pieces work together.

 

"There's nothing like getting data from your first actual flight," Eberly said.

 

Cracks discovered in Orion capsule's pressure shell

 

Stephen Clark - SpaceflightNow.com

 

Three cracks appeared in NASA's first space-bound Orion crew exploration vehicle during a proof pressure test this month, according to agency officials, but the anomaly and anticipated repairs are not expected to impact the schedule for the capsule's first orbital test flight in late 2014.

 

The cracks materialized in the aft bulkhead on the lower half of the Orion multipurpose crew vehicle during a proof pressure test at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in mid-November, according to Joshua Buck, a NASA spokesperson.

 

"The cracks are in three adjacent, radial ribs of this integrally machined, aluminum bulkhead," Buck said. "The cracks did not penetrate the pressure vessel skin, and the structure was holding pressure after the anomaly occurred."

 

Engineers will scan the cracks with an electron microscope to investigate the cause, said Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator of NASA's human exploration and operations mission directorate, in a presentation to a NASA Advisory Council subcommittee.

 

According to Buck, "the intent is diagnose root cause and repair the cracks in time to support a second scheduled window for loads testing early next year."

 

Since the Orion spacecraft's pressure vessel arrived at Kennedy Space Center in late June, technicians have continued assembly of the crew module and finished the first proof pressure test, which was designed to validate engineering models and verify the Orion pressure shell's structural integrity.

 

During the proof pressure test, engineers pumped air into the crew module to check the structure's ability to hold pressure against the ambient atmosphere at sea level. The test simulates what the spacecraft will see in space, when it must hold pressure against a vacuum.

 

Cracks have occurred during pressure tests of other spacecraft, including a Russian Soyuz capsule's descent module, which was damaged in a prelaunch test in January. Russia scrapped the module and delayed the launch of three space station astronauts until a replacement was ready.

 

The schedule calls for installation of Orion's attitude control thrusters, parachutes, avionics and heat shield in the first half of 2013 before the crew capsule is attached to a mock-up service module.

 

Lockheed Martin Corp., the Orion capsule's prime contractor, is in charge of the 2014 mission, known as Exploration Flight Test-1. The company will oversee the flight in partnership with NASA, which will receive post-flight data.

 

A United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket will launch the capsule from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., into an elliptical orbit reaching 3,600 miles above Earth. From there, the the Orion will dive back into Earth's atmosphere at more than 20,000 mph, giving engineers key data on how the spacecraft responds to a re-entry at speeds nearly replicating what the capsule will see when returning from deep space missions to the moon, asteroids and other destinations.

 

The uncrewed multi-hour flight is scheduled to launch in September 2014, and Buck said NASA does not expect the crack issue to affect the launch date, which is driven by the availability of Orion's Delta 4 launcher in ULA's manifest, according to NASA officials. NASA and Lockheed Martin aim to have the Orion crew vehicle and a structural mock-up of its service module ready for launch operations by December 2013.

 

After splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, crews will recover the Orion crew vehicle and outfit the capsule for an ascent abort test.

 

NASA's Space Launch System, a heavy-lift rocket derived from the space shuttle, will launch the second Orion space mission in late 2017 on a flyby around the moon.

 

The first Orion mission with astronauts is set to fly on the second Space Launch System flight in 2021 to a high-altitude orbit around the moon.

 

UK To Invest in Orion Service Module

 

Amy Svitak - Aviation Week

 

Britain has committed €20 million ($26 million) to help pay for Europe's continued participation in the ISS.

 

Flush with cash from an unprecedented 25% boost to its overall ESA contribution level, Britain's decision to back ISS may have ended a Franco-German standoff over the so-called NASA barter element, under which Europe has proposed to develop a service module based on its Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) that would fly on the U.S. space agency's Orion Multipurpose Crew Vehicle.

 

Until this morning, France and Germany had been at an impasse with regard to the service module proposal, a development valued at €450 million that could cover Europe's share of common operating costs aboard the space station for the period 2017-20, and one that Germany – ESA's largest financial contributor – steadfastly supports.

 

"In the interest of maintaining the European commitments to ISS, and because of our belief there are excellent British technologies that can play a significant role in Orion, we will make a once-off cash contribution of €20 million to the ISS," said David Willetts, U.K. Minister of Universities and Science, who is leading a British delegation at ESA's budget ministerial in Naples, Italy, this week.

 

"We think this is a great opportunity for Britain to contribute technologies, particularly on Orion," Willetts said.

 

In return, U.K-based COM DEV Europe and the U.K. division of chemical space propulsion manufacturer American Pacific Corp. will play a role in the service-module development.

 

A crewed NASA mission to the far side of the Moon

 

Paul Sutherland - Space Exploration Network (SEN.com)

 

The USA's present roadmap to space for humans includes a return to the Moon, a visit to an asteroid and eventually a landing on Mars.

 

But a free-thinking group of space scientists have proposed a novel alternative early mission to NASA - a journey to a region of space beyond the far side of the Moon.

 

Their concept would involve flying the agency's planned new Orion space capsule to a spot known as the lunar L2 (Lagrange) point - a location where the combined gravity of the Earth and Moon allows a spacecraft to sit permanently above the lunar far side.

 

Though this so-called L2 halo orbit means they would not visit the Moon's surface, the mission would be a testing ground for NASA to discover more about long-duration missions away from Earth before astronauts venture further into deep space.

 

Such a mission would take Orion's astronauts 65,000 km beyond the Moon - 15 per cent further away from Earth than the Apollo crews journeyed - and they would spend nearly three times longer in space than the later 12 day Apollo missions.

 

They would be able to test operational spaceflight capabilities such as life support, communication, high speed re-entry, and radiation protection. But the mission plan also envisages the astronauts controlling robotic explorers on the lunar far side which has never been visited by a lander.

 

Because the Moon is tidally locked in its orbit around the Earth, it always presents the same face towards us. (A slight rocking, called libration, actually allows us to see close to 60 per cent of the Moon's surface over time). Most of the far side is permanently hidden.

 

The Lunar L2-Farside Exploration and Science Mission Concept has been proposed by a team led by Jack Burns of NASA's Lunar Science Institute in Moffet Field, California. The report's authors comment: "Such telerobotic oversight would also demonstrate capability for human and robotic cooperation on future, more complex deep space missions such as exploring Mars."

 

Their proposal would see a robotic lander and rover launched first on a slow trajectory to the Moon known as ballistic lunar transfer. Three astronauts would then be launched in an Orion spacecraft using NASA's heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS).

 

The spacecraft would fly past the Moon for a gravity slingshot manoeuvre towards the L2 point where Orion would use its propulsion system to enter a halo orbit. From this point, the spacecraft would enjoy continuous line-of-sight links with both the lunar far side and the Earth, say the mission's designers.

 

And because their radio commands would take less than half a second to reach the Moon, compared to about 1.3 seconds from Earth to the Moon, it would be easier to control the robots in real time as they performed tasks such as probing for water ice in the Schrödinger crater that lies within the South Pole-Aitken basin.

 

Basins are impact craters with diameters greater than 300 km. They are seen as suitable for landers because they have broad flat floors. The mission proposers say that Schrödinger basin is the best preserved impact basin of its size on the Moon and provides tremendous science and exploration opportunities, safe landing zones, and a landscape that could be navigated by robotic rovers.

 

Other scientific projects that could be overseen by the astronauts would be a robotic sample return mission to bring lunar rock from the far side back to Earth, plus the installation of a radio telescope shielded from interference from Earth that could study faint signals from the dawn of the Universe.

 

The first Exploration Flight Test of Orion is scheduled for 2014 to verify that the crew module can survive high-speed reentry into the Earth's atmosphere from a lunar return trajectory.

 

Three additional test flights are planned for the spacecraft including an unmanned flight around the Moon in 2017, and a crewed flight soon after that.

 

'The world is beautiful'

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield on living in space & view from window

 

Christopher Guly - National Post (Canada)

 

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield will soon make his third trek beyond Earth's atmosphere. At 7:12 a.m. Eastern Standard Time on Dec. 19, a three-person crew including retired Colonel Hadfield, NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn and Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko will board a Soyuz rocket, and arrive at the International Space Station (ISS) two days later for a five-month stay. And then, in March, the 53-year-old married father of three will step into the ISS commander's chair.

 

Col. Hadfield spoke to the National Post from the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre in Star City, Russia:

 

Q: What's the hardest part about preparing for next month's space mission?

 

A: I've been an astronaut for 20 years and I've been training specifically for this for the last five years, and the hard part is remembering what matters — some key detail that some instructor told me on a boat just off the Port of Sevastopol on the Black Sea three years ago about something critical about my life-support-equipment suit on the Soyuz. I have boiled things down to one-page notes on all sorts of different systems in an effort to be able to simplify in my mind so I can remember the important stuff at the right time.

 

Q: Sounds pretty stressful.

 

A: No, stress is a reaction to things. It actually decreases stress to recognize it in advance and to make one-pagers and to have a plan. If it's an area that I know I won't be able to remember properly, then I make my notes a little more complete so that it removes the stress. I think stress would be being unprepared or not thinking about it, and just relying on good looks and charm.

 

Q: You've twice been in space before. What's the hardest part once you get there?

 

A: The hard part the last time in 2001 was an enormous plateful of things that had to get done in a very short time with a lot of people and where you have been very specifically trained. So, the hardest part, maybe, was the relentlessness of the events and the timeline and the race to keep up and get them done. I think five months from now I'll probably have a different answer for you. It may be less technical, and more psychological or social or personal, as to what's the hardest part. But with six people on station and the level of communications we have with Earth now — by email, phone, videoconferencing and radio — the sense of isolation is much diminished from what it used to be. I think that's really helped decrease a lot of the psychological stresses.

 

Q: How do you resolve disagreements, should they occur among the six of you on the space station, knowing that you can't exactly leave the place?

 

A: The station is bigger than most people think. Inside, it's about the volume of two 747s. It's about as big as five NHL rinks, if we had an NHL. There's lot of opportunity to be off by yourself. You can spend several days on station and never even see one of the other crewmembers. It's big — and people are very focused on specific tasks. We don't eat together every night. So there is privacy. But we're not just meeting each other for the first time up there. We've trained together for years. And since I'm the commander for the latter half of my time on station, I've worked very hard to develop a relationship and set of expectations amongst the crew that will hopefully preclude us getting into a state where something's unresolvable and we have to just walk away. But the key to a good crew like this … is to constantly check their objectives and necessities slightly ahead of my own. To do something nice for every other person on board at least once a day — and keep those things in mind, and recognize when you're getting a little tired and a little frayed.

 

Q: When you mentioned doing something nice for someone daily, can you illustrate by

example?

 

A: If someone's busy, go get them a drink or a snack. Keep your eye out for someone who is over-tasked, getting a little bit behind and volunteer 15 minutes of your time. I brought many small things with me in what we call crew-care packages to be able to give people — not on the first day — but if they're having a down day or things are busy, I have a nice little Easter egg kind of surprise. Something the crew on board the space station now doesn't know is that I'm gathering Christmas cards from their spouses and families, so that when we dock there on Dec. 21, hopefully they'll have a handwritten Christmas card from their family on Christmas morning.

 

Q: What's your favourite memory from your two previous space missions?

 

A: Spacewalking is one. To be able to be between the universe and the world, holding onto a human-built spaceship and seeing the world from that perspective. The moment where we undocked and backed away from Mir and then we undocked and backed away from the ISS, you could see what we had done together. When I was a kid growing up on a farm in Milton, Ont., there were lots of farm implements — and one of them, of course, is a plough. You could spend your whole day harrowing and never see where you've been and what you've done. But after you've ploughed, you could look back at the end of the day and see the change that you have wrought — it's sort of a visual reaffirmation of the sweat and toil that you've put in.

 

Q: What's your worst memory?

 

A: When we first got to Mir, the level of carbon dioxide was very high, their level of air purification at the time, a chemical system, wasn't working optimally. The high carbon dioxide just gave me an absolutely pounding headache, which led to nausea — just like when you have a splitting migraine and not being able to work and having to stop and be sick, and try to deal with all that is not how I wanted to spend my time on Mir for the first day. On the second flight, during our spacewalk, I was handing [former NASA astronaut] Scott Parazynski, a big piece of equipment — an articulated portable foot restraint, an APFR, which is what we snap into place so we can click our feet into it to free our hands up for work — and both of us realized that neither of us had tethered to it, it was completely free floating in space. If either of our grips had flipped, it would have floated off as quite a heavy, expensive and irreplaceable piece of equipment. But we didn't let go of it, and it was a real reminder to me of the necessity to pay attention to detail.

 

Q: What concerns you most about this upcoming mission?

 

A: What worries me most is something that happens to our families while we're in space. A good friend of our family just died last Friday, but we're sending condolence notes to each other, talking to each other and going through the way that people deal with it and heal. If any of the crewmembers were to lose a close family member while we are trapped in orbit, it's going to be very tough for them and very hard for us to be much use to that person. It's going to be hard on the crew.

 

Q: I understand that you will be eating Canadian food — Taste of Nature Nova Scotia Blueberry Fields snack bars and Holy Crap Cereal with hemp. What else will you eat up there?

 

A: There's a standard menu of NASA-provided and Russia-provided food that rotates every 16 days. It's got all the different food groups. We have dieticians, medical-health people and physical-strength people who are all interested in our diet. Some of the diet is based on military rations, some of it is off-the-shelf and some of it is specially prepared by the space-program kitchens in Russia and Houston. The space-station program has members from other countries, so there's European and Japanese food as well.

 

Q: I know you've been asked this many times before, but indulge me please: How do you go to the bathroom up there?

 

A: The big difference is that what is done by gravity on Earth is done by airflow in space. There's a hose that you pee into and a toilet for number two. Instead of gravity pulling the waste away from your body, airflow does it. Urine gets collected and mixed with the humidity and the other waste moisture of the vehicle and gets run through a big filter — like a sewage-treatment plant — and gets turned back into drinking water. We don't have an efficient way to process solids. So they go into one of the unmanned re-supply ships, and when it's full of waste — and it's time to get a new re-supply ship — we send the full one off and it burns up in the atmosphere.

 

Q: What does Earth look like from up there?

 

A: Blue, primarily. You're over water three-quarters of the time. It seems like you're always over the Pacific — if you hold the globe up, you understand why. The thing that's surprising about it is that the angle to the sun and you and the parts of the Earth you're looking at constantly changes. So the shadows and the textures and the refraction of the light constantly change. It's like watching a high-speed sunset all the time where the colours keep bursting in new places, and it just cries out for you to grab somebody and say, "Holy Cow, look at that!" It's like that all the time, so the world is beautiful on the lit side.

 

On the dark side, it's kind of a greyish-black glow of the atmosphere, almost like a gentle halo around the world. But what you see are city lights, which are fairly few and far between — and the thunderstorms, which are huge and thousands of kilometres long off the coast of Indonesia and the active areas around the equator. So you see contagious lightning blasting through a thousand miles of cloud. You can see the southern and northern lights from end to end as if the world was electrically alive underneath your feet. The world is beautiful. I wish everybody could spend time going around the world and seeing the whole thing every 90 minutes — over and over and over again — and stop focusing so much on their street, or their bit of sand or whatever is important to them, and just look at the whole world. It's humbling, and its ours, and it's what keeps us alive.

 

Huge Mars Colony Eyed by SpaceX Founder Elon Musk

 

Rob Coppinger - Space.com

 

Elon Musk, the billionaire founder and CEO of the private spaceflight company SpaceX, wants to help establish a Mars colony of up to 80,000 people by ferrying explorers to the Red Planet for perhaps $500,000 a trip.

 

In Musk's vision, the ambitious Mars settlement program would start with a pioneering group of fewer than 10 people, who would journey to the Red Planet aboard a huge reusable rocket powered by liquid oxygen and methane.

 

"At Mars, you can start a self-sustaining civilization and grow it into something really big," Musk told an audience at the Royal Aeronautical Society in London Nov. 16. Musk was there to talk about his business plans, and to receive the Society's gold medal for his contribution to the commercialization of space.

 

Mars pioneers

 

Accompanying the founders of the new Mars colony would be large amounts of equipment, including machines to produce fertilizer, methane and oxygen from Mars' atmospheric nitrogen and carbon dioxide and the planet's subsurface water ice.

 

The Red Planet pioneers would also take construction materials to build transparent domes, which when pressurized with Mars' atmospheric CO2 could grow Earth crops in Martian soil. As the Mars colony became more self sufficient, the big rocket would start to transport more people and fewer supplies and equipment.

 

Musk's architecture for this human Mars exploration effort does not employ cyclers, reusable spacecraft that would travel back and forth constantly between the Red Planet and Earth — at least not at first

 

"Probably not a Mars cycler; the thing with the cyclers is, you need a lot of them," Musk told SPACE.com. "You have to have propellant to keep things aligned as [Mars and Earth's] orbits aren't [always] in the same plane. In the beginning you won't have cyclers."

 

Musk also ruled out SpaceX's Dragon capsule, which the company is developing to ferry astronauts to and from low-Earth orbit, as the spacecraft that would land colonists on the Red Planet. When asked by SPACE.com what vehicle would be used, he said, "I think you just land the entire thing."

 

Asked if the "entire thing" is the huge new reusable rocket — which is rumored to bear the acronymic name MCT, short for Mass Cargo Transport or Mars Colony Transport — Musk said, "Maybe."

 

Musk has been thinking about what his colonist-carrying spacecraft would need, whatever it ends up being. He reckons the oxygen concentration inside should be 30 to 40 percent, and he envisions using the spacecraft's liquid water store as a barrier between the Mars pioneers and the sun.

 

A $500,000 ticket

 

Musk's $500,000 ticket price for a Mars trip was derived from what he thinks is affordable.

 

"The ticket price needs to be low enough that most people in advanced countries, in their mid-forties or something like that, could put together enough money to make the trip," he said, comparing the purchase to buying a house in California. [Photos: The First Space Tourists]

 

He also estimated that of the eight billion humans that will be living on Earth by the time the colony is possible, perhaps one in 100,000 would be prepared to go. That equates to potentially 80,000 migrants.

 

Musk figures the colony program — which he wants to be a collaboration between government and private enterprise — would end up costing about $36 billion. He arrived at that number by estimating that a colony that costs 0.25 percent or 0.5 percent of a nation's gross domestic product (GDP) would be considered acceptable.

 

The United States' GDP in 2010 was $14.5 trillion; 0.25 percent of $14.5 trillion is $36 billion. If all 80,000 colonists paid $500,000 per seat for their Mars trip, $40 billion would be raised.

 

"Some money has to be spent on establishing a base on Mars. It's about getting the basic fundamentals in place," Musk said. "That was true of the English colonies [in the Americas]; it took a significant expense to get things started. But once there are regular Mars flights, you can get the cost down to half a million dollars for someone to move to Mars. Then I think there are enough people who would buy that to have it be a reasonable business case."

 

The big reusable rocket

 

The fully reusable rocket that Musk wants to take colonists to Mars is an evolution of SpaceX's Falcon 9 booster, which launches Dragon.

 

"It's going to be much bigger [than Falcon 9], but I don't think we're quite ready to state the payload. We'll speak about that next year," Musk said, emphasizing that only fully reusable rockets and spacecraft would keep the ticket price for Mars migration as low as $500,000.

 

SpaceX is already testing what Musk calls a next-generation, reusable Falcon 9 rocket that can take off vertically and land vertically. The prototype, called Grasshopper, is a Falcon 9 first stage with landing legs.

 

Grasshopper has made two short flights. The first was on Sept. 21 and reached a height of 6 feet (2 meters); the second test, on Nov. 1, was to a height of 17.7 feet (5.4 m). A planned milestone for the Grasshopper project is to reach an altitude of 100 feet (30 m). [Grasshopper Rocket's 2-Story Test Flight (Video)]

 

"Over the next few months, we'll gradually increase the altitude and speed," Musk said. "I do think there probably will be some craters along the way; we'll be very lucky if there are no craters. Vertical landing is an extremely important breakthrough — extreme, rapid reusability. It's as close to aircraft-like dispatch capability as one can achieve."

 

Musk wants to have a reusable Falcon 9 first stage, which uses Grasshopper technology, come back from orbit in "the next year or two." He then wants to use this vertical-landing technology for Falcon 9's upper stage.

 

Musk hopes to have a fully reusable version of Falcon 9 in five or six years, but he acknowledged that those could be "famous last words."

 

A rocket stepping stone

 

Another stepping stone toward the planned reusable Mars rocket is SpaceX's Falcon Heavy launcher. With a first flight planned for next year from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, the Heavy is a Falcon 9 that has two Falcon 9 first stages bolted on either side.

 

Musk expects the Falcon Heavy to launch from Florida's Cape Canaveral eventually. This triple-first-stage rocket will be able to put 116,600 pounds (53,000 kilograms) into a 124-mile (200 kilometers) low-Earth orbit. But the Falcon Heavy is still much smaller than Musk's fully reusable Mars rocket, which will also employ a new engine.

 

While Musk declines to state what the Mars rocket's payload capability will be, he does say it will use a new staged combustion cycle engine called Raptor. The cycle involves two steps. Propellant — the fuel and oxidizer — is ignited in pre-burners to produce hot high-pressure gases that help pump propellant into the engine's combustion chamber. The hot gases are then directed into the same chamber to aid in the combustion of the propellants.

 

Because Raptor is a staged combustion engine — like the main engines of NASA's now-retired space shuttle fleet — it is expected to be far more efficient than the open-cycle Merlin engines used by the Falcon 9.

 

While the Falcon 9's engines use liquid oxygen (LOX) and kerosene, Raptor will use LOX and methane. Musk explained that "the energy cost of methane is the lowest, and it has a slight ISP [specific impulse] advantage over kerosene and doesn't have any of the bad aspects of hydrogen." (Hydrogen is difficult to store at cryogenic temperatures, makes metal brittle and is very flammable.)

 

SpaceX acquires more properties

 

Emma Perez-Trevino - Valley Morning Star (Brownsville)

 

SpaceX continues to invest in Cameron County, buying more property as well as options it holds on other lands, as the time nears to unveil the results of the environmental impact study.

 

Space Exploration Technologies Corp. purchased two more properties on Election Day Nov. 6 on the steps of the Cameron County Judicial Building on East Harrison Street, according to public records.

 

Local officials have emphasized that this does not reflect that the California-based SpaceX has selected the Cameron County site near Boca Chica Beach from others that it is considering to establish a rocket launch facility.

 

Gilberto Salinas, vice president of the Brownsville Economic Development Council, reiterated Wednesday that BEDC is not involved in SpaceX's land purchases and has distanced itself from SpaceX's internal real estate decisions.

 

Sites in Florida, Puerto Rico, and perhaps Georgia are being considered.

 

SpaceX began purchasing property in Cameron County in June, buying three tracts of land, as The Brownsville Herald has reported.

 

The prospective launch site here is located off Texas Highway 4, about a quarter-mile from Boca Chica Beach, and about three miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. The site is about five miles south of Port Isabel and South Padre Island. The site in Cameron County is said to be the lead contender.

 

SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment about its continued land purchases or to provide information about preliminary findings of the environmental impact study that the Federal Aviation Administration has been conducting.

 

Because SpaceX is paying for the study, the FAA has not revealed costs or the preliminary findings.

 

The FAA has said that it expects the study should be complete by January.

 

The FAA is studying the potential effects of SpaceX's proposal to launch the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy orbital vertical launch vehicles from Cameron County.

 

New properties purchased

 

SpaceX's Director of Business Affairs Lauren Dreyer purchased two properties Nov. 6. These are located in the Spanish Dagger Subdivision, west of Highway 4 and on the southwest side of Laguna Madre Beach Subdivision.

 

Public records show that Dreyer submitted the top bids on the two properties at an auction of the tax delinquent properties.

 

Dreyer purchased the first property, a lot, at the minimum bid of $3,280, which also is the property's appraised value. This property has owed taxes since 1988, according to Cameron County tax records.

 

The second lot that she purchased had a minimum bid of $5,780, and it sold for $22,000. Taxes on this property had not been paid since 1987, tax records show.

 

The firm earlier this year purchased three lots also in the Spanish Dagger Subdivision under the name Dogleg Park LLC.

 

The purchase of the first property, consisting of a lot, was recorded June 6 in the Cameron County District Clerk's Office. The lot, which measures 0.5739 of an acre, was purchased for $2,500 from Cameron County and the Point Isabel Independent School District.

 

Subsequently, an auction of properties took Dreyer to the front steps of the Cameron County Judicial Building where, according to public records, two other lots were purchased.

 

The two lots also in Spanish Dagger Subdivision were purchased at auction Sept. 4 for $6,400 and $15,000.

 

Cameron County continues to research the title to several lots that it believes it owns in the Rio Grande Beach Subdivision, Unit 2, that could be conveyed by the county to SpaceX through sale or lease, Cameron County Judge Carlos Cascos has said.

 

END