Fwd: Human Spaceflight News - December 28, 2012

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From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: December 28, 2012 7:23:07 AM GMT-06:00
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: Human Spaceflight News - December 28, 2012

Happy Friday everyone.   We are on the countdown towards the New Year!   Have a safe and great weekend.

 

Human Spaceflight News

Friday, December 28, 2012

 

HEADLINES AND LEADS

 

NASA's Jesco von Puttkamer Has Died

 

Keith Cowing – NASAWatch.com

 

Internal NASA memo: "Jesco passed away today (Thursday) at ~11am. He died at home. He had flu like symptoms for the last week. He is survived by his wife Ursula. This was unexpected and a shock to everyone. Ursula is still making plans and will likely want a simple remembrance. Sam will coordinate and we will keep you informed of plans. Jesco was a tremendous representative of NASA. Jesco will be missed. His passing is a reminder to all of us that each day is precious."

 

NASA, ISS Partners Eye New Universal Docking System

 

Mark Carreau - Aviation Week

 

After a 2012 course correction, efforts by NASA's International Space Station program to develop a new universal docking system standard for use aboard the 15-nation orbital science lab and future deep-space exploration vessels is on track for an operational debut by 2017. Rivals in NASA's efforts to develop a U.S. commercial crew transportation capability — Boeing's CST-100, Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser and the SpaceX Dragon — are in line to initiate and wring out the new universal NASA Docking System (NDS). NASA is targeting 2017 for the first ISS commercial crew missions and planning two U.S. segment docking ports equipped to accept the new, non-proprietary system.

 

Will Humans Keep Evolving on Ultra-Long Space Voyages?

 

Elizabeth Howell - Space.com

 

In the Disney film "Wall-E," a colony of humans becomes an obese population after hundreds of years locked inside a spaceship. A lack of activity and an abundance of food left the starship denizens with little desire to stay in shape. But while "Wall-E" was science fiction, but at least one anthropologist believes the human race will change when it embarks on multigenerational space missions to Alpha Centauri or other nearby stars. To the thinking of Cameron Smith at Portland State University, evolution will continue on starships despite the best attempts to limit it.

 

NASA seeks partners to launch projects

 

Alex Byers - Politico.com

 

One giant leap for mankind. One small step for the GoDaddy Martian Rover? With NASA's budget unlikely to see a boost anytime soon, legislators and policymakers are left looking for a financial fix. Enter one option: selling private sponsorships to future NASA projects or vehicles. Robert Walker, a former Republican chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, floated that idea at a committee hearing on NASA's strategic direction earlier this month.

 

A Start-Up Sees a Gold Rush Among the Stars

 

Kirk Johnson - New York Times

 

The job description and title, "Chief Asteroid Miner," are not what you are likely to come across on a job-search Web site. Besides, the position is taken. Chris Lewicki, the president of Planetary Resources, a company based in this city just east of Seattle, has it on his business cards. "It's certainly an audacious thing that we're after," said Mr. Lewicki, 38. Lots of small start-up companies have stars in their eyes, captivated by entrepreneurial dreams — some half-baked, some brilliant, often a bit of both — of global success and riches. Here, at least the part about the stars is literal.

 

KSC Visitor Complex officially unveils new $16 million entrance

Entrance features a 75-foot long, 30-foot tall fountain

 

 

James Dean - Florida Today

 

NASA's shuttle launch team confirms a "go" for launch, the countdown's final seconds tick away and Atlantis' solid rocket boosters and main engines ignite. In sync with the audio clip of the blastoff, jets of water shoot up from a fountain greeting guests at the new entrance to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, forming a rainbow next to a laser etching of the center's namesake gazing skyward.

 

Astronaut tours Gettysburg with Brownsville native

 

Christine Haines - Uniontown Herald-Standard

 

In 37 years as a licensed battlefield guide at Gettysburg, Brownsville native Deb Novotny had never had a famous person on tour with her — until this year. She got a call in April to set up a tour for September for a family named Lovell. "I didn't know it was going to be 'the' Jim Lovell when I got the tour. Back in April, his youngest daughter called and set up the tour," Novotny said.

 

'Jewel in the Night': Video & Lyrics of 1st Original Song in Space

 

Tariq Malik - Space.com

 

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield has recorded the first original song on the International Space Station, a folk tune about space exploration, the Christmas season and goodwill to people on and off the Earth. Hadfield, who arrived at the space station on Dec. 21, just four days before the Christmas holiday, recorded the song on Dec. 23 and posted it online on Christmas Eve via YouTube and Twitter.

 

KSC water, sewer fixes in works

Project will replace miles of outdated systems

 

James Dean - Florida Today

 

Kennedy Space Center operations ground to a halt one day in September 2010 when a two-foot water main ruptured near the Vehicle Assembly Building. The loss of water pressure delayed a shuttle orbiter's move into the assembly building, forced most employees home and closed the KSC Visitor Complex's main campus to tourists. "That was one of the larger breaks that we've had in our history, and it's pretty severe when you have to send thousands of people home for the day because we have no water system available," said Kevin Miller, a NASA project manager and lead design engineer.

 

Do We Really Need to Take Vacations to Space?

 

Alastair Bland - Smithsonian Magazine

 

As we approach 2013, the possibility of entering a sealed aircraft, buckling up and exiting the atmosphere in the name of leisure is no longer science fiction. Rather, space tourism is so close to reality that talks of orbital hotels and space property rights are underway, a space runway has been built, a touristic spacecraft from Virgin Galactic is ready, and hundreds of wealthy travelers have prepaid for their seats at $200,000 a head. While the starting price of a space ticket is for now only an option for the extremely rich, analysts say that streamlining of costs and energy outputs, and bringing large numbers of tourists into orbit at once, will eventually make orbital holidays relatively affordable and, possibly, an option for the masses.

 

Japanese rocket scientist gives up lucrative career to join Cirque du Soleil

 

Japan Today

 

Born in Okayama, Yusuke Funaki became an engineer in the Research & Development department at Bridgestone, a world leader in tire technology, before he gave it all up to pursue his dream to join the circus. As a 2-year research student for JAXA/Japan's Aerospace Exploration Agency (Japan's NASA), Funaki researched the movements of the robotic arm used at the International Space Satellite.

__________

 

COMPLETE STORIES

 

NASA's Jesco von Puttkamer Has Died

 

Keith Cowing – NASAWatch.com

 

Internal NASA memo: "Jesco passed away today (Thursday) at ~11am. He died at home. He had flu like symptoms for the last week. He is survived by his wife Ursula. This was unexpected and a shock to everyone. Ursula is still making plans and will likely want a simple remembrance. Sam will coordinate and we will keep you informed of plans. Jesco was a tremendous representative of NASA. Jesco will be missed. His passing is a reminder to all of us that each day is precious."

 

Jesco von Puttkamer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia…

 

"After World War II, during which his family lived in Switzerland, von Puttkamer studied mechanical engineering at Konstanz and the Technische Hochschule (RWTH Aachen) in Aachen, graduating with a university degree. In 1962 he left Germany for the United States, where he joined Wernher von Braun's rocket team at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama as an engineer during the Apollo Program."

 

Keith's note: It will be some time before the daily ISS Onorbit Status reports appear again. You see, Jesco did these reports every single day for more than a decade. The only time I can recall where there was a hiatus was last year when he was on vacation in Europe and his laptop died. There is an interesting story behind the origin of these reports - it has to do with some things Jim Oberg and I posted and wrote about a long time ago during the problems on Mir and how Congress reacted ... Jesco was an unusual link between the Apollo era and today. I am certain that a number of people will post here and elsewhere about his unusually long connection with space exploration - a legacy that many people might not be totally aware of - or totally appreciate.

 

NASA, ISS Partners Eye New Universal Docking System

 

Mark Carreau - Aviation Week

 

After a 2012 course correction, efforts by NASA's International Space Station program to develop a new universal docking system standard for use aboard the 15-nation orbital science lab and future deep-space exploration vessels is on track for an operational debut by 2017.

 

Rivals in NASA's efforts to develop a U.S. commercial crew transportation capability — Boeing's CST-100, Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser and the SpaceX Dragon — are in line to initiate and wring out the new universal NASA Docking System (NDS). NASA is targeting 2017 for the first ISS commercial crew missions and planning two U.S. segment docking ports equipped to accept the new, non-proprietary system.

 

Several years of station operations with the Boeing-inspired Soft Impact Mating Attenuation Concept (Simac), which has replaced NASA's in-house International Low Impact Docking System (Ilids) design, are envisioned to help qualify the NDS international standard for the rigors of deep space.

 

"That is the driving force, a more simplified design that is lighter overall, less costly," says Mike Suffredini, NASA's ISS program manager. "We want to fly beyond low earth orbit one day, and one of the tenants of the space station is to wring out critical systems at station before we use them for deep space."

 

The NDS goal is to accommodate dockings between spacecraft with masses ranging from 5 to 350 metric tons.

 

The project began with an international docking system standards discussion by ISS Multilateral Control Board representatives in 2009 to encourage greater global cooperation in space, while establishing a more robust rescue capability.

 

In taking the project lead, NASA's Johnson Space Center turned to Ilids prototyping underway within the center's engineering directorate since the mid-1980s. Ilids, intended to eliminate the need for the jarring post-contact thrusting that accompanied shuttle dockings, was adopted in the mid-1990s as part of NASA's ultimately cancelled X-38 ISS crew rescue vehicle, then NASA's Orion capsule under the also cancelled Constellation program. One Ilids unit was installed at the base of the Hubble Space Telescope by astronauts in 2009 during a final shuttle servicing mission to the observatory.

 

However, Ilids was dropped in favor of Simac as the new international standard for the ISS and the post-Constellation Orion Multipurpose Crew Vehicle in 2012 to address several concerns.

 

Those included the width of the outer soft contact ring in the Ilids system that constricted the post docking passageway, or tunnel connecting the two joined spacecraft and through which astronauts and cargo pass; as well as weight and cost considerations, Suffredini says.

 

The Russians pushed to retain the current 800-mm (31.5-in.) width afforded by the probe-and-drogue system used by the Soyuz and Progress capsules as well as the Russian-derived androgynous peripheral attach system (APAS) used by the shuttle to dock with the ISS. Engineers with NASA, the agency's Jacobs Engineering Group support team and Boeing assessed options for narrowing the width of the Ilids soft contact ring to meet the Russians' request.

 

Unable to do so, ISS managers turned to an alternative, Simac, proposed by Boeing.

 

"It was clear we were struggling with our Russian colleagues to agree on the inner diameter," Suffredini says. "So, we went back and looked at our requirements again and realized we could build a different system that meets our requirement without building a light impact docking system."

 

Ilids relied on a network of magnets and software controls as part of the soft capture ring to lower the initial impact loads that drive the latches and actuators of the older APAS hardware.

 

Spacecraft dockings unfold in two stages — soft capture and hard capture, which typically take 20 min. The first joins the two vehicles. The second draws them together to form an airtight seal.

 

Simac is an actuator-driven latching system that meets the international system's low impact requirements. One of those was to join a pair of space vehicles as light as five metric tons each. Simac features two rather than six electronics boxes. The lower weight opens up the center of gravity, another concern for multiple vehicle docking operations.

 

However, Simac, which has reached the pre-preliminary design phase, will not eliminate all post-contact thrusting.

 

"We prefer not to do them [post-contact thrusting], but the spec does not prevent them. The early data says for nominal docking you will not have a need for that," Suffredini says. "But as we explore the outer envelope of all the different conditions and modes, with the angles and contact conditions, we will have to see if some thrusting is required for certain occasions. That is certainly okay."

 

Simac's lower complexity helps to address the larger goal of creating a non-proprietary spec that will support production by multiple U.S. suppliers, while enabling it to be copied globally.

 

The NASA Docking System, as currently conceived, will require changes to the station's two U.S. segment APAS-equipped docking ports. The ISS docking adapter (IDA), which is in production, will modify the APAS inner ring soft capture mechanism to accommodate commercial crew vehicles with Simac, Suffredini says.

 

The IDAs should be ready for station delivery in 2015, according to his estimates. The Simac docking hardware should be ready a year later, and NASA will likely provide the early production units to the winning  commercial crew transportation initiative participants.

 

As far as Ilids, the development effort is being archived so that it could be available to the commercial sector, perhaps through a Space Act Agreement (SAA) with NASA.

 

"If someone would like it for whatever reason, I'm sure we could work out a SAA," Suffredini says. "We have no conversations like that going on right now."

 

Will Humans Keep Evolving on Ultra-Long Space Voyages?

 

Elizabeth Howell - Space.com

 

In the Disney film "Wall-E," a colony of humans becomes an obese population after hundreds of years locked inside a spaceship. A lack of activity and an abundance of food left the starship denizens with little desire to stay in shape.

 

But while "Wall-E" was science fiction, but at least one anthropologist believes the human race will change when it embarks on multigenerational space missions to Alpha Centauri or other nearby stars.

 

To the thinking of Cameron Smith at Portland State University, evolution will continue on starships despite the best attempts to limit it.

 

"I believe that new pressure, breathing-gas compositions, gravity and radiation environments will act on the early stages of embryo and fetus development; this will be natural selection of new selective agents on the genome," Smith told SPACE.com in an email after stating his views in a recent Scientific American podcast.

 

"Precisely what new characteristics will be selected for or against, and spread or be deleted from the population, is very hard to predict, however."

 

Genetic screening

 

To keep evolution on a favorable track, the early space colonists should be screened as much as possible for genetic problems, Smith said.

 

"Small populations are particularly vulnerable to the 'founder effect' in which the genetic composition of the founding population sets the stage for future generations, so the founding population's genetic composition must be carefully considered," he wrote.

 

But we are not completely sure yet what genes cause health problems, he cautioned.

 

"The old paradigm of assigning health issues to single genes is melting away as we discover that many maladies are polygenic — controlled by multiple genes — and can be activated by currently unknown environmental 'cues,' " he said.

 

He stressed that he doesn't mean breeding a "super-race" of humans, which would open moral issues.

 

Genetic diversity is important to the health of a population, he said. However, the colony should have the minimum number of people for promoting genetic diversity, Smith said.

 

An accompanying article he wrote in Scientific American pointed to a study of Swedish, Amish, Indian and Utah populations. The study showed that twice as many infants died when born to first cousins than when born to unrelated people.

 

Several anthropologists have suggested a minimum of 500 people would be needed to avoid genetic problems brought on by interbreeding, but Smith upped the safety factor to 2,000 residents to avoid a population collapse. That's about half the population of a typical aircraft carrier, he added.

 

A new culture

 

Besides genetic changes, Smith foresees that the colonists will experience changes in their culture and technology. The art will change according to where the colonists live. (Certain astronauts already use music, poetry and artto talk about their experiences in space.)

 

The colonists will give birth to stories that talk about their shared experience in space, giving rise to differences that are already seen on Earth between, say, Australians and Americans.

 

"Colonists of Mars, for example, will retain some Earth culture but invent new artistic traditions according to new materials available," Smith wrote to SPACE.com.

 

One major factor, he added, could be the lighting conditions on Mars: The ruddy light outside and the artificial light in the pressurized habitat will be very different from what people experience on Earth.

 

Smith's day job is teaching human evolution, with a focus on modeling population genetics and demographics of small colonies. He also maintains a keen interest in spaceflight.

 

Among his hobbies, Smith communicates with Icarus Interstellar, an international group of scientists who are gradually working on designs for starships that could take flight to exoplanetslate in this century. Smith also is building a pressure suit that would function up to 50,000 feet in a balloon; he dubs the suit Project Alpha.

 

"I am inspired by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky... who devised basics of spaceflight almost entirely by mind, with few resources, almost a century ago," Smith wrote.

 

"He also did not expect a rapid leap to space colonization (which he wrote about extensively), but expected that it would occur sometime in the future, and proceeded in his thinking and designs ... So, my work will be a small piece of a very large puzzle."

 

NASA seeks partners to launch projects

 

Alex Byers - Politico.com

 

One giant leap for mankind. One small step for the GoDaddy Martian Rover?

 

With NASA's budget unlikely to see a boost anytime soon, legislators and policymakers are left looking for a financial fix. Enter one option: selling private sponsorships to future NASA projects or vehicles.

 

Robert Walker, a former Republican chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, floated that idea at a committee hearing on NASA's strategic direction earlier this month.

 

Far-fetched? Maybe. But with federal appropriations declining each year since 2009, NASA needs to look outside Washington for a cash infusion, Walker says.

 

"Sponsorship brings in people who have no place in aerospace but see an opportunity to have their name associated with it," he told POLITICO.

 

And lawmakers have more to grapple with than just the question of NASA resources: Washington can't even agree on what exactly the agency's job should be.

 

Congress and the White House have butted heads over NASA's direction, with many on the Hill supporting new human exploration missions, such as going back to the moon. The White House, while not writing off that goal, has also promoted technology development and a research mission that would study samples of asteroids that come from deep space.

 

The two bodies were able to pass a space plan in the partisan political climate of 2010 that included components from both sides, noted David Weaver, the agency's associate administrator for communications. But that deal has been described as a compromise that made no one happy rather than a road map for NASA's future.

 

That lack of consensus among political leadership was the key finding of a report commissioned by Congress and released earlier this month. The administration, a National Research Council Committee concluded, needs to take the lead in "forging a new consensus on NASA's future" and eliminate "the current mismatch between NASA's budget and its portfolio of programs, facilities and staff."

 

One way to do that, the report states, is by committing to cost-sharing deals with other government agencies and international partnerships. And, as Walker pointed out at the House hearing, there are private-sector options. That includes sponsorships, but it also encompasses partnerships that could solidify or increase NASA's access to technology or projects developed by innovative space companies like Space X or Virgin Galactic.

 

That's a key component of the administration's space policy, Weaver said.

 

"We now are hiring folks to transport our supplies to the space station, and eventually very soon, we'll be hiring companies to take our astronauts to the space station," he said. "That's going to save us money — money that we will then plow into the development of the most powerful rocket ever developed and a space capsule that will take our astronauts further than we've ever gone before."

 

There's no indication that the agency is talking about selling naming rights, and it's not clear whether sponsorships would be a viable funding source. Proponents of the idea would need to contend with federal rules that prohibit government employees from endorsing a private-sector project, said Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute at The George Washington University.

 

Frank Slazer, vice president of space systems at the Aerospace Industries Association, said the sponsorship idea has been floated before — Pizza Hut put its logo on a Russian rocket in 2000, for example. But once the novelty hits, he said, it can fade fast.

 

"I don't think these things have long-term potential for long-term funding," he said.

 

Lawmakers may not have a strong stance on the sponsorship issue yet — incoming House Science, Space and Technology Committee Chairman Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) hasn't made up his mind. But he noted the option.

 

"The commercialization of space and space exploration can inspire our nation and encourage new generations of astronauts, engineers and innovators," Smith said in a statement to POLITICO. "As the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee begins working on a NASA reauthorization bill next Congress, we will examine ways to promote the commercialization of space that help modernize NASA's mission."

 

A spokesman for outgoing Chairman Rep. Ralph Hall (R-Texas) said the lawmaker had no further comment on the naming rights issue. Immediately after Walker finished his sponsorship remarks at the House hearing, Hall, whose space priority is the International Space Station, did add, "and that's the way it is."

 

So far, at least one legislator is opposed.

 

"I'm very skeptical and the idea is distasteful to me," Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.) said in an interview. "I did not like the idea of selling naming rights to NASA missions, I don't like the idea of astronaut spacesuits looking like a NASCAR uniform," he added, concurring with concerns about the unreliability of corporate funding.

 

Naming rights are likely a long way off, if they come at all. NASA, Walker said, would have to restructure how some of its centers operate. And that possibility also depends on how well the commercial community can till the field.

 

"Everybody who looks at NASA says they are dramatically underfunded for the kinds of things they are asked to do," Walker said. "This is just one idea."

 

A Start-Up Sees a Gold Rush Among the Stars

 

Kirk Johnson - New York Times

 

The job description and title, "Chief Asteroid Miner," are not what you are likely to come across on a job-search Web site. Besides, the position is taken. Chris Lewicki, the president of Planetary Resources, a company based in this city just east of Seattle, has it on his business cards.

 

"It's certainly an audacious thing that we're after," said Mr. Lewicki, 38.

 

Lots of small start-up companies have stars in their eyes, captivated by entrepreneurial dreams — some half-baked, some brilliant, often a bit of both — of global success and riches. Here, at least the part about the stars is literal.

 

In an otherwise unremarkable low-rise office park, with the Bread of Life Christian Church and a gym as neighbors, Mr. Lewicki and about 30 employees are aiming beyond Earth for the next great gold rush. (They are actually after the platinum group of metals, which dwarf gold in value and rarity.)

 

They are planning, within a decade or so, an unmanned robotic mining mission to the asteroid belt.

 

The idea is not new. Space exploration enthusiasts have talked about harvesting the ancient, mineral-laden chunks of rock that hurtle through interplanetary space since at least the 1920s. A decade ago, in the frothy go-go era before the recession, an asteroid mining company was started and sold shares to the public before crashing to earth and going out of business.

 

What is new is the money and backing from people with global reputations who have said they think Planetary Resources has the right stuff. The company, quietly founded in 2010 and rarely seeking any attention until recently, has the filmmaker James Cameron as an adviser. Larry Page and Eric E. Schmidt, top executives at Google, are among the investors.

 

Of course, as millions of moviegoers know, resource extraction efforts ended in tears for the miners in Mr. Cameron's space epic "Avatar." Those miners sought something called unobtanium, whatever that was, on a faraway moon. Mr. Cameron did not respond to e-mailed questions or repeated requests for an interview.

 

But company leaders at Planetary Resources said in an interview that their business model would be based on the journey itself. Creating a company that could one day launch ships into the unknown darkness of space, and, rather like the shipping magnates of sailing and whaling days past, wait years for a booty-laden return means selling space technology along the way — much of which will have to be invented — to help finance the dream.

 

The company is developing its own orbital telescope, for example, geared to survey remote asteroids to figure out what they are made of, with a planned launching within two years. But it also plans to produce the devices commercially, with a price in the single-digit millions, for corporations, governments or individuals. The idea, company officials said, is to finance finding and mining asteroids by selling, in a sense, the shovels and picks.

 

"The engineering in many cases has been solved," said Mr. Lewicki, who spent 10 years at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory before joining Planetary Resources. "What will settle the winners from the laggards will be who can find the best economic model."

 

The economics of space, said Eric Anderson, a founder of the company, also look increasingly different as the costs and complications of resource extraction here on Earth have soared. Getting deep-sea oil off the coast of Brazil, for example, is expected to cost billions before the first barrel is pumped, he said, which makes the "single-digit billions," which Mr. Anderson estimates his company will ultimately need to launch a prospecting ship and return within the next decade, a much less daunting number.

 

"These are on the scale of the kind of resource dollars that get spent on Earth to bring something on line," he said. "The private equity markets are used to that."

 

People here are very excited about water, too. Recently published discoveries that water is more prevalent in the nearby universe than previously believed have become part of the plan here, because water can be distilled to hydrogen, allowing — at least in theory — an asteroid ship to travel light, making its own fuel on site for the return trip. Water has been found even on Mercury, locked in ice on the poles of the hottest planet in the solar system, nearest the sun.

 

"It's a really interesting mixture of the highly technical and highly primitive," said Mark V. Sykes, the chief executive and director of the Planetary Science Institute, a 40-year-old private nonprofit research organization based in Tucson. Dr. Sykes described how a spacecraft might dock on an asteroid with sophisticated technology and then use simple concentrated sunlight to make fuel for the long slow voyage home, perhaps by solar sail.

 

But while some scientists like Dr. Sykes, who has advised Planetary Resources on asteroid science, said they thought the company could indeed one day go where no mining company has gone before, skeptics said they thought the timeline for making a trip out and back, with something to sell at the end, could be far longer and more expensive than company officials thought.

 

"They look like rocks, like you could reach out and break off a piece, but they are almost certainly rubble piles," said Erik Asphaug, a professor of planetary science at Arizona State University who studies asteroids. With unstable, unconsolidated interiors and no gravity to speak of in most nearby asteroids, many of which are about the size of a city block, a ship would not be able to land at all in a traditional sense, but instead would have to dock as though with a space station and then lock itself onto the asteroid to keep from bouncing back into space. The details are devilish and could take decades, in his opinion, if not a century, to solve.

 

Then there is the question of saving us from the Big One.

 

Relatively little money is being spent now on developing tools that could avert or destroy a large asteroid discovered to be on a collision course with Earth, Professor Asphaug said. But if one day a threat were to emerge, he added, the company or companies that know most about asteroids could suddenly be quite popular with the world's governments — not for riches, but rescue.

 

KSC Visitor Complex officially unveils new $16 million entrance

Entrance features a 75-foot long, 30-foot tall fountain

 

 

James Dean - Florida Today

 

NASA's shuttle launch team confirms a "go" for launch, the countdown's final seconds tick away and Atlantis' solid rocket boosters and main engines ignite.

 

In sync with the audio clip of the blastoff, jets of water shoot up from a fountain greeting guests at the new entrance to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, forming a rainbow next to a laser etching of the center's namesake gazing skyward.

 

"For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace," reads an accompanying quote from President John F. Kennedy's 1962 "moon speech" at Rice University.

 

The Visitor Complex officially opened the $16 million entrance today, a week after arriving guests first began gathering to take pictures in front of the 75-foot long, 30-foot tall blue granite fountain and a globe-shaped NASA "meatball" logo in front of it.

 

The new entryway is the first project completed under a 10-year master plan that aims to "re-modernize and recreate" the Visitor Complex to help it attract customers from theme park competition in Orlando.

 

"We try to make sure that we're doing things that speak to what the modern visitor wants and the things they expect when they arrive," said complex COO Bill Moore of Delaware North Cos. Parks and Resorts, which operates the park without public funding.

 

Progress continues on what is expected to be a major draw starting in July, a $100 million exhibit displaying NASA's retired shuttle orbiter Atlantis.

 

On Thursday the orbiter remained covered in a white protective shrink wrap, raised off the ground and tilted as construction workers built an upper tier from which guests will peer into the payload bay and gaze down at the dipped left wing.

 

A circular cutout, to the left of Atlantis' nose, showed where a full-scale mockup of the Hubble Space Telescope will sit.

 

On the first floor, an actual vent hood, known as the "beanie cap," that was lowered over the top of shuttle external tanks at pad 39B has been fixed in place, with interactive exhibits to follow.

 

Since Atlantis rolled into its partially constructed new home Nov. 2, a last wall has been added that almost fully obscures the orbiter from outside view.

 

The exhibit is located at the end of a route visitors will walk from the new entrance into the rocket garden, which provides a more seamless tour of NASA from its origins through the present day than the previous entry into the middle of the park.

 

An old bank of "tollbooth" style ticketing booths topped by spacewalking astronauts has been replaced with new planet-themed ticket stations and automated kiosks.

 

Visitors immediately pass the new "Voyagers" gift shop before walking through turnstiles below the word "Explore" in six-foot letters to start the "vapor trail" path through the park. The path is bordered by river rock from the crawlerway that Saturn rockets and shuttles rolled along to reach KSC's two launch pads.

 

The rocket garden includes a new full-scale mockup of the Mercury-Atlas rocket and capsule that John Glenn flew and a new café with retro colors and images, including one of Lyndon B. Johnson in a crowd of launch watchers.

 

But before many guests had even bought tickets Thursday, the NASA logo and 5,000-gallon fountain presented an instant photo opportunity.

 

"They get it," said Moore.

 

The launch countdown sequence runs every 15 minutes. The meatball glows at night.

"This fountain is just amazing," said Nawaz Mohammed, a 25-year-old IT consultant visiting from Ohio with his wife and a friend after stops at Disney World and Universal Orlando. "The name itself, when we capture that in a picture, it will be a memory that we have visited such a nice place."

 

Astronaut tours Gettysburg with Brownsville native

 

Christine Haines - Uniontown Herald-Standard

 

In 37 years as a licensed battlefield guide at Gettysburg, Brownsville native Deb Novotny had never had a famous person on tour with her — until this year.

 

She got a call in April to set up a tour for September for a family named Lovell.

 

"I didn't know it was going to be 'the' Jim Lovell when I got the tour. Back in April, his youngest daughter called and set up the tour," Novotny said.

 

Novotny said the licensed guides discussed the reservation among themselves, thinking how unlikely it was to be the former NASA astronaut. Then, the daughter, Sue Lovell, called back to discuss further details of the tour.

 

"She said, 'My dad's 84 and we really don't want him to be driving,'" Novotny recalled.

 

Novotny said she looked up information on the astronaut and learned that he was 84 years old, but she didn't say anything to her fellow guides, just in case it was still just an odd coincidence.

 

"A week before the tour, his daughter calls again to see if she could move the tour. 'Neil Armstrong has died and my dad wants to go to the funeral. He was an astronaut, too,'" Novotny recalls Sue Lovell saying.

 

Novotny gladly rescheduled.

 

"This was the first famous person I ever had," Novotny said. "Five minutes before the tour I thought, 'Am I going to be able to do this or am I going to be tongue-tied?'"

 

Novotny said she met the Lovells at the bed and breakfast where they were staying.

 

"For an astronaut, he was the most down-to-earth person I ever met. It was like we were old friends," Novotny said.

 

It was Lovell's first visit to Gettysburg, but he had studied up on the history before the trip, his daughter told Novotny. As they made each stop on the three-hour tour, Lovell would listen intently, then would go off to the side, Novotny said.

 

"He had a camcorder and he would pan the scene and I could hear him talking, relating what I had said for the camera," Novotny said.

 

At the end of the tour, Novotny had a chance to ask Lovell questions about his role in history, asking if he had ever been offered another opportunity to go to the moon because the Apollo 13 mission didn't make it. Lovell told her he had been asked that question at a news conference shortly after the near-disastrous mission.

 

"I looked out in the audience and I saw my wife Marilyn and she was giving me the thumbs down sign," Novotny said Lovell recalled. "It was so stressful for the families, not knowing if they were going to come back."

 

Novotny, who said she fell in love with Gettysburg when she was age 10 and knew by the time that she was 12 that she wanted to teach American history and be a Gettysburg guide, said meeting Lovell was the highlight of her experiences.

 

"I told Jim Lovell I didn't want any money for that tour. It was the tour of my career. I asked him, if he thought about it when he got home, could he send me an autographed picture? He said 'I'll do one better, I'll send you my book.' And sure enough, two weeks later, the book arrived," Novotny said.

 

Five weeks later, Novotny received a call from a man from Mississippi who wanted to be sure to see the Mississippi monument during his tour, saying he had donated to its construction in 2000.

 

Novotny said there is one interesting story related to the 1st Mississippi Regiment and it has to do with a young man named Jeremiah Gage, who was mortally wounded while fighting with the University Greys from the University of Mississippi.

 

"He wrote a letter to his mother and signed it in his own blood. In the letter he said 'give my love to Miss Mary You-Know-Who,' which, of course, today we don't. The letter is supposedly at the University of Mississippi," Novotny said.

 

The visitors said the husband had some connections to the University of Mississippi and he would look into it for her. That was nearly as much of an understatement as the Apollo 13 mission quote, "Houston, we've had a problem." The tourist was novelist John Grisham, a University of Mississippi alumnus and benefactor.

 

"About five days later I get a call and it's John Grisham saying, 'They have the letter you were talking about, but it's not on display,'" Novotny said.

 

Novotny said Grisham offered to arrange a viewing of the letter if she ever visits Mississippi. Novotny said now that she is retired from teaching, she needs to find some time to travel before Grisham forgets who she is. In the meantime, the woman who generally reads only history books is making her way through Grisham's novels.

 

'Jewel in the Night': Video & Lyrics of 1st Original Song in Space

 

Tariq Malik - Space.com

 

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield has recorded the first original song on the International Space Station, a folk tune about space exploration, the Christmas season and goodwill to people on and off the Earth.

 

Hadfield, who arrived at the space station on Dec. 21, just four days before the Christmas holiday, recorded the song on Dec. 23 and posted it online on Christmas Eve via YouTube and Twitter. Hadfield is a flight engineer with the station's current Expedition 34 crew and will command the outpost's Expedition 35 crew in early 2013. The Canadian Space Agency astronaut will be the first Canadian space station commander when he takes charge.

 

Check out Hadfield's song in the video and then read the full lyrics below:

 

Jewel in the Night

 

By Chris Hadfield, Astronaut, Canadian Space Agency

 

So bright,

Jewel in the Night,

There in my window below.

 

So bright,

Dark as the night,

with all of our cities aglow.

 

It's long been our way,

To honor this day,

And offer goodwill to men.

 

And though,

Where ever we go,

It's come round to Christmas again.

 

So far,

Shines ever star,

There without limit to see.

 

So grand,

Faraway land,

Beckoning, calling to me.

 

And let it be shown,

Wherever we go,

In all of the wonders above.

 

With all that we bring,

There's no finer thing,

Than this message, this promise of love.

 

Love for the families that gather below,

Love for the stranger that you'll never know,

For those who are with you,

who wander above.

 

So bright,

Jewel in the Night,

There lies the cradle we knew.

 

Home of,

All that we love,

And all of our memories too.

 

It shall be our way to wander away,

to take with us all that we know,

 

And never cease,

This message of peace,

From Bethlehem so long ago.

 

KSC water, sewer fixes in works

Project will replace miles of outdated systems

 

James Dean - Florida Today

 

Kennedy Space Center operations ground to a halt one day in September 2010 when a two-foot water main ruptured near the Vehicle Assembly Building.

 

The loss of water pressure delayed a shuttle orbiter's move into the assembly building, forced most employees home and closed the KSC Visitor Complex's main campus to tourists.

 

"That was one of the larger breaks that we've had in our history, and it's pretty severe when you have to send thousands of people home for the day because we have no water system available," said Kevin Miller, a NASA project manager and lead design engineer.

 

There are no major space program operations to disrupt now, but to prevent such problems in the future, KSC is taking advantage of the post-shuttle lull to overhaul a water and wastewater system that dates to the center's beginning 50 years ago.

 

Work began this fall on a two-year, $22.3 million project to replace 22 miles of water mains, nearly five miles of sewer force mains and more than 30 lift stations.

 

It's the fourth and largest of five planned phases in a revitalization program that will cost $50 million and cover more than half the center's distribution systems, from the headquarters area out to the former shuttle launch pads and runway.

 

The last phase should by completed by late 2016, a year before KSC hopes to launch NASA's heavy-lift Space Launch System rocket on a first test flight.

 

The project is expected to improve reliability, reduce water consumption and increase the amount available for fire protection, cutting annual operations and maintenance costs by $450,000.

 

On a recent afternoon, a crew from lead contractor RTD Construction of Zephyrhills, lowered a section of 12-inch diameter ductile iron pipe wrapped in black plastic into a ditch dug along 10th street, south of the industrial area.

 

At its peak, the job will require up to 50 workers daily.

 

The ductile iron pipe, expected to last 100 to 150 years, is mostly replacing asbestos cement pipes installed in the 60s.

 

"It's time to overhaul them and make sure that we have a robust system going into new programs and into the 21st Century," said Miller, a 28-year-old Port St. John resident who is overseeing the project.

 

In an interesting twist, the new ductile iron pipe, which is made of at least 90 percent recycled materials, comes from the same foundry that received the steel dismantled from KSC's launch pad 39B. It's not known if any of the pad structure will end up back at KSC underground.

 

Like much of the county, KSC receives its water from Cocoa's Dyal Water Treatment Plant on State Road 520. Sewage is pumped to a treatment facility across the river at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

 

The same water system renovations would have taken place over a longer time had there been no post-shuttle gap in launch operations. NASA re-prioritized the work to take better advantage of the gap.

 

"Our ability to get work done is a little smoother between programs," Miller said.

 

Do We Really Need to Take Vacations to Space?

 

Alastair Bland - Smithsonian Magazine

 

As we approach 2013, the possibility of entering a sealed aircraft, buckling up and exiting the atmosphere in the name of leisure is no longer science fiction. Rather, space tourism is so close to reality that talks of orbital hotels and space property rights are underway, a space runway has been built, a touristic spacecraft from Virgin Galactic is ready, and hundreds of wealthy travelers have prepaid for their seats at $200,000 a head. While the starting price of a space ticket is for now only an option for the extremely rich, analysts say that streamlining of costs and energy outputs, and bringing large numbers of tourists into orbit at once, will eventually make orbital holidays relatively affordable and, possibly, an option for the masses.

 

In many ways, space travel closely resembles prior phases of human exploration. Five centuries ago, government-funded vessels from Spain traveled across the Atlantic to the New World. Later, common citizens began to make the same trip, and the trans-Atlantic voyage would become a rather routine errand, for better or for worse. Powerful new nations were consequently born. In 1803, Lewis and Clark, working for the U.S. government, embarked on a scientific and cultural exploration of western North America. Their effort opened the West to millions of settlers—for better or for worse. Now, government space exploration has been a reality for more than 50 years—and it may be inevitable that the general public will follow. Proponents of space travel believe that bringing masses of paying passengers into space—and carrying them in reusable launch vehicles—will make space travel cheap enough to become a feasible everyday activity. This will facilitate research endeavors, and space explorers will likely make great discoveries as they move outward into this next, if not final, frontier. Space travel advocates believe that valuable resources—especially minerals, like gold and platinum, and solar power—could be accessed through missions into the wider reaches of our solar system. Further into an imagined future is the prospect of establishing permanent colonies for human habitation far away from Earth.

 

But as the industry gears up to go, critics are asking why we must tap into other worlds' resource banks, why we must endanger the lives of astronauts, and why we should spend money on science-fiction-like undertakings while poverty, pollution, inequality, starvation and extinctions are rampant on Earth. A major concern addresses the pollutants that a space tourism industry could introduce to the Earth's already strained atmosphere. In October 2010, Scientific American's John Matson wrote an article titled "What will space tourism mean for climate change?" He wrote that a mature space tourism industry, consisting of 1,000 flights per year, would spew about 600 metric tons of soot into the atmosphere each year—in addition to greenhouse gases produced during takeoff. Over a period of decades, this soot, seemingly negligible on an annual basis, would produce "a persistent and asymmetric cloud over the Northern Hemisphere that could impact atmospheric circulation and regional temperatures far more than the greenhouse gases released into the stratosphere by those same flights."

 

Proponents of space travel are ready with their defense. In a 2009 report produced by Space Future, a company committed to "opening space to the public," there are virtually no reasons for concern about realizing space travel. The authors, Patrick Collins (owner of Space Future) and Adriano Autino (founder of another space travel promoter Space Renaissance International), acknowledged that space tourism would incur small environmental costs to our planet mainly in its beginning stages. As efficiency increased, however, space travel would begin acting almost as a panacea for all of our planet's ills. They write that in light of current and increasingly frequent "resource wars" between nations, "…opening access to the unlimited resources of near-Earth space could clearly facilitate world peace and security." They also believe that space travel will generate valuable educational, cultural and emotional benefits.

 

Space Renaissance International has published a "manifesto" outlining the arguments for why we should travel beyond the gravity and atmosphere of Earth. The document begins, "If we, the seven billion people that make up 21st century humanity, want our civilisation to keep growing and improving, we must…"

 

But why must our species continue to advance? Do we really want to keep growing? I believe that the physical limitations and boundaries of our planet, if not insurmountable by our technology, might be worth respecting. I also believe we should employ our brilliance as a species in figuring out how to live sustainably on this planet, and I would argue that it's not our business to plunder the natural resources of any other worlds unless we can at least learn to manage and preserve our own—a challenge at which we are failing. But Space Future, Space Renaissance International and other advocates of space tourism believe that we should now be tapping the energy and mineral resources of space precisely because we have failed to properly use and preserve our own. Deep space exploration may be inevitable, as it seems that the human will to conquer or discover eventually overpowers all obstacles and mysteries.

 

As long as the choice is mine, I'll remain on Earth. But market research surveys have indicated that many people in certain countries—especially, it seems, Japan—would enjoy a vacation spent in space. Would you?

 

If you're bent on going, reserve your spot. Just be sure you've got a window seat—and that it isn't over the wing.

 

Japanese rocket scientist gives up lucrative career to join Cirque du Soleil

 

Japan Today

 

Born in Okayama, Yusuke Funaki became an engineer in the Research & Development department at Bridgestone, a world leader in tire technology, before he gave it all up to pursue his dream to join the circus.

 

As a 2-year research student for JAXA/Japan's Aerospace Exploration Agency (Japan's NASA), Funaki researched the movements of the robotic arm used at the International Space Satellite. He received a Masters of Engineering after majoring in aerospace engineering.

 

After landing a lucrative job in research, Funaki saw Quidam, Cirque du Soleil's ninth stage show. He was so impressed that he decided to start skipping rope, a task that may sound simple and child-like but not when it is featured in a Cirque du Soleil show. There is a prowess, energy and artistry of a Cirque's skipping rope act that has many audience members wanting more.

 

Although skipping rope became his new passion, he still continued to make great achievements in engineering and even secured an international patent in tire engineering. But this accomplishment did not diminish his desire to join the circus. Funaki ultimately followed his heart and gave up his job to become a street performer. His pursuits took him around the world to perform in competitions which was his way to strengthen his craft and build his reputation. He found his way to Orlando after being hired by Cirque du Soleil and is now the second half of a duo that is part of the opening act for La Nouba by Cirque du Soleil, a show that has fascinated the imaginations of more than 8 million guests.

 

Behind the scenes of La Nouba, Funaki is referred to as NASA, a nickname given to him by his cast members after they learned about his past career in science. He performs in two shows per night on Tuesdays through Saturdays at the La Nouba Theater, located at the Walt Disney World Resort.

 

END

 

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KjH

Kyle Herring

NASA Public Affairs

 

"I've waited at your side

I've carried the tears you've cried

But to win, darlin' we must play

So don't hide your heart away"