Keep the shuttle flying: Fwd: Human Spaceflight News

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Begin forwarded message:

From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: May 28, 2013 5:53:53 AM GMT-06:00
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: Human Spaceflight News - May 28, 2013 and JSC Today

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

JSC TODAY HEADLINES
1.            This Week at Starport
2.            Don't Miss Today's JSC NMA Professional Development Brown Bag Discussion
3.            Low-Cost Computing CoLAB
4.            Getting Your Financial Goals On
5.            Last Week of Health and Fitness Month -- Challenge Yourself and Earn Prizes
6.            Starport Boot Camp -- Registration Now Open
7.            Reminder to Help Influence Change! 2013 Employee Viewpoint Survey
8.            Job Opportunities
9.            Large Format 3D Printing - re:3D and Gigabot
________________________________________     NASA FACT
" On May 31, 2013, asteroid 1998 QE2 will sail serenely past Earth, getting no closer than about 3.6 million miles, or about 15 times the distance between Earth and the moon."
________________________________________
1.            This Week at Starport
May is Asian-Pacific Heritage Month, and to celebrate we will be offering special selections in the cafés every Wednesday this month. Tomorrow's selection will be ginger-scented chicken noodle salad.
Discount Houston Astros tickets are now available for purchase for the July 20 game against the LA Angels and the Sept. 15 game against the Seattle Mariners. Visit the Starport website for details and to purchase your tickets!
Sam's Club will be in the Building 3 Starport Café Thursday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. to discuss membership options. Receive a gift card on new memberships or renewals. Cash or check only for membership purchases.
Shelly Haralson x39168 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/

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2.            Don't Miss Today's JSC NMA Professional Development Brown Bag Discussion
Please join the JSC National Management Association (NMA) today for a professional development brown bag on, "Transitioning Your Career." If you've recently transitioned to a new role in the workplace or are thinking about making a significant career decision, come listen to a panel discuss their experiences dealing with change.
Panel members include Brady Pyle from JSC Human Resources, who is on rotation as a technical deputy branch chief; Dave Hall, who has transitioned careers between engineering and business; and Veronica Reyes at the Workforce Solutions Aerospace Transition Center, who has experience helping people successfully navigate career changes.
This session will be held today, May 28, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Building 12, Room 134. For badging questions or more information, please contact Heather Williams at heather.d.williams@nasa.gov or 281-792-7801.
Event Date: Tuesday, May 28, 2013   Event Start Time:11:30 AM   Event End Time:12:30 PM
Event Location: Building 12, Room 134

Add to Calendar

Heather Williams 281-792-7801

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3.            Low-Cost Computing CoLAB
Are you currently working on or interested in starting a project involving Arduino, Raspberry Pi or other low-cost, small-scale computing hardware?
If so, you are invited to the very first meeting of the Low-Cost Computing (LCC) CoLAB. CoLABs provide a casual forum to share lessons learned and generate innovative new ideas and uses of technologies. In our first meeting we will discuss how low-cost computing is revolutionizing the way in which we prototype and innovate. Come make cross-directorate contacts and learn more about what others are doing with these exciting technologies.
The LCC CoLAB will be held today from 11:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. in Building 30A, Room 2090. Feel free to bring your lunch and your co-workers.
Event Date: Tuesday, May 28, 2013   Event Start Time:11:45 AM   Event End Time:12:45 PM
Event Location: Building 30A, Room 2090

Add to Calendar

Brain Schwing x42514

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4.            Getting Your Financial Goals On
Everyone has a "to-do" list that never goes away. Complete two tasks, add three more, right? With conflicting obligations, choosing what's most important happens each day, week or month. Where does accurate reliable financial education fit in?
Industry data shows that many people are not strategically planning their financial futures. Yet, planning your financial future may be one of the most important steps in achieving financial well-being. Those who set and monitor their financial goals are much more likely to achieve them.
So where do you start and who can you trust? A key first step is education. Join us this summer and begin your financial education here at JSC! Introductory and advanced classes and webinars are available this year. A new remote counseling program is also available for all employees.
Enrollment will open in late May. Preliminary details are available at this link. Email if you have any questions.
Shelly Haralson x39168 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/

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5.            Last Week of Health and Fitness Month -- Challenge Yourself and Earn Prizes
It's the final week of Health and Fitness Month events. Don't miss out on your final opportunities to win some great prizes!
Today, enjoy a "mindful" lunch menu item in the Buildings 3 or 11 cafés and receive a ticket. Stop by the Buildings 3 or 11 Starport Gift Shops to get your ticket.
Tomorrow from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., we will have a fitness challenge at the Gilruth Center (outside). The challenge should take no more than about 10 minutes to complete. Challenge activities will include three events: consecutive pull-ups, three-minute burpee maximum test and a half-mile run. The top three men and women who complete in the challenge will get a prize. All participants will receive a ticket to be entered into our grand prize drawing on Friday. Register for your spot at the Gilruth front desk at x30304 (appointments are in 10-minute increments). Anyone can register -- no fitness center membership is required. More info here.
Richard Wooten x35010 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/

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6.            Starport Boot Camp -- Registration Now Open
Starport's phenomenal boot camp registration is open and filling fast. Don't miss a chance to be part of Starport's incredibly popular program. The class will fill up, so register now!
Early registration (ends Friday, June 7)
o             $90 per person (just $5 per class)
Regular registration (June 8 to 16):
o             $110 per person
The workout begins on Monday, June 17.
Are you ready for 18 hours of intense workouts with an amazing personal trainer to get you to your fitness goal?
Don't wait!
Sign up today and take advantage of this extreme discount before it's too late.
Register now at the Gilruth Center information desk, or call 281-483-0304 for more information.
Steve Schade x30304 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/Fitness/RecreationClasses/RecreationProgram...

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7.            Reminder to Help Influence Change! 2013 Employee Viewpoint Survey
If you have not yet completed the 2013 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, please take a few minutes to do so. You will have already received an email from "Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey" with a link to the survey and will be receiving reminders during the survey period. The ultimate goal of the survey is to provide agencies with a true perspective of current strengths and challenge areas. We encourage your voluntary participation in this survey and hope you view this as an opportunity to influence positive change in our agency. Prior to taking the survey, we encourage you to visit the newly updated Employee Viewpoint and Resources Web page posted on the JSC Human Resources portal. This site provides information regarding 2012 survey results, how our center has used past results and quick reference links to other employee resources. Jennifer Rodriguez x46386

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8.            Job Opportunities
Where do I find job opportunities?
Both internal Competitive Placement Plan (CPP) and external JSC job announcements are posted on the Human Resources (HR) portal and the USAJOBS website. Through the HR portal, civil servants can view summaries of all the agency jobs that are currently open at: 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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9.            Large Format 3D Printing - re:3D and Gigabot
Engineers Without Borders-JSC invites you to come learn about re:3D tomorrow, May 29, in Building 7, Room 141, from noon to 1 p.m. No RSVP is required.
Re:3D is breaking through the current limitations of 3D printing. Re:3D's flagship technology, the Gigabot, is one of the world's first affordable, industrial strength, large-format 3D printers. Re:3D is also at the forefront of material science, exploring novel printer inputs including recycled plastics and metals. With a global online marketplace launching in May and a localized presence in Latin America, re:3D is reaching new markets and creating opportunities worldwide. As catalysts, the team is fostering innovation and organizing a new movement of small businesses to expand the possibilities of additive manufacturing.
Angela Cason x40903 http://www.re3d.org/

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

NASA TV:
·      2:30 pm Central (3:30 EDT) - Soyuz TMA-09M launch coverage
·      2:45 pm Central (3:45 EDT) - File of Expedition 36/37 pre-launch activities
·      3:31 pm Central (4:31 EDT) - LAUNCH on single-day, four-orbit rendezvous with ISS
·      6 pm Central ( 7 EDT) - File footage of pre-launch, launch & post-launch interviews
·      8:30 pm Central (9:30 EDT) - Soyuz TMA-09M docking coverage
·      9:16 pm Central (10:16 EDT) - DOCKING to Russian segment MRM1 ("Rassvet") module
·      10:30 pm Central (11:30 EDT) - Hatch opening/welcome ceremony coverage
·      10:55 pm Central (11:55 EDT) - HATCH OPENING (time approximate)
·      11:30 pm Central (12:30 am EDT) – File of post-docking news conf (subject to cancellation)
·      1 am Central WEDNESDAY (2 EDT) - File of docking, hatch opening & welcome ceremony

Human Spaceflight News
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

HEADLINES AND LEADS

Soyuz prepped to ferry three crew to space station (mission preview)

William Harwood - CBS News

Russian ground crews are preparing a Soyuz spacecraft for launch Tuesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to ferry three fresh crew members -- a veteran Russian cosmonaut, an Italian test pilot and an American shuttle veteran -- to the International Space Station. Boosting the lab's staff back to six, the Expedition 36/37 crews face a busy stay in space highlighted by a full slate of scientific research, six spacewalks, the arrival of multiple cargo ships carrying critical supplies and, in early November, the Olympic torch, which will herald the 2014 Winter Games at Sochi, Russia, in February.

ISS Expedition 36/37 program includes 4 spacewalks - Russian crew member

Itar-Tass

The program of ISS Expedition 36/37 includes four space walks, the first one will be performed in June, Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, the commander of the Soyuz TMA-09M spaceship, told a news conference on Monday. "Our expedition is planned to make four space walks, and I will take part in three of them. The first one is planned for June. Its task will be to repair the thermoregulation system of the functional cargo block, and to carry out a number of scientific experiments. It is not ruled out that we will remove from the ISS' outer surface the Durability experimental platform (which studies the impacts of space on mechanical characteristics and materials - Itar-Tass)," Yurchikhin said.

Space Act deals draw lawmaker scrutiny
Cost, security of contracts questioned

Ledyard King - Florida Today

NASA's increasing use of unconventional contracts to carry out some of its most important work is drawing heavy scrutiny on Capitol Hill. Several key Republicans are questioning whether the contracts, known as Space Act agreements, are compromising safety and security, or squandering tax dollars in order to speed development of missions or foster international partnerships. NASA Inspector General Paul Martin also has begun an audit of how well the agency manages its more than 1,500 agreements with domestic and international partners. His findings are not expected until early next year.

U.S. Lawmakers Again Prod NASA's Asteroid Retrieval Plan

Dan Leone - Space News

House lawmakers preparing to write a new NASA authorization bill voiced doubts May 21 about the worthiness of sending astronauts to a relocated asteroid as soon as 2021 — the only mission, destination and timeline the U.S. space agency has identified for the heavy-lift launch vehicle and crew capsule it is spending nearly $3 billion a year to build. The debate at the May 21 hearing of the House Science space subcommittee centered on whether asteroid retrieval and exploration are a necessary precursor for a crewed mission to Mars — something notionally on tap for the 2030s, according to goals the Obama administration set in 2010.

NASA IG's report says money remains agency's biggest outside challenge

Lee Roop - Huntsville Times

NASA's Inspector General's office has released its semiannual report to Congress on the state of the space agency as of March 31, 2013. The 68-page report is available online. Inspector General Paul Martin said in his cover letter that the agency had high points during the six months covered in the report, including the Mars Curiosity rover landing and commercial resupply missions to the International Space Station. But it also had big challenges, including cost overruns on the James Webb Space Telescope. Those overruns and the need to pay for them led to delays in some other projects and cancellation of others. "From our perspective," Martin wrote, "declining budgets and fiscal uncertainties present the most significant external challenges to NASA's ability to successfully move forward on its diverse portfolio of science, exploration, and aeronautics projects." NASA operates a major field center - the Marshall Space Flight Center - in Huntsville, Alabama. The center, which employs 6,000 government and contract aerospace workers and has an annual budget above $2 billion, is leading development of NASA's new rocket called the Space Launch System. (NO FURTHER TEXT)

What path will lead American humans to Mars?

Elizabeth Howell - Universe Today

Is it just us, or has there been a lot — a LOT — of talk about getting humans to Mars lately? Here's Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin promoting a book about Mars exploration. Over here is Mars One, currently accepting applications for a one-way trip to the Red Planet in 2023 — an opportunity that thousands of people applied for so far. Don't forget the Inspiration Mars people, either. Even as our robotic emissaries break otherworldly driving records and search for Mars' missing atmosphere, it's not enough for our exploratory horizons. The stunning pictures robots beam back from Mars only fuel the fire for human hopes to get there.

Aerojet rockets to propel crew vehicle in Orion space program

Edward Ortiz - Sacramento Bee (distributed by Scripps Howard News Service)

When a rocket carrying a new crew vehicle lifts off at Cape Canaveral next year, it will be the first big step in a decades-long odyssey to see humans travel farther into space than ever before. That ambitious program, called Orion, has goals that sound as if they were lifted from the pages of a sci-fi novel: the capture of near-Earth asteroids, bringing them into lunar orbit, a return to the moon, and putting astronauts on Mars. Baby steps in the odyssey are already being taken in labs and testing facilities across the nation. One is at Aerojet in Rancho Cordova, Calif. There, inside solemn buildings surrounded by fields of dry grass, rockets destined for the dark reaches of space are being designed and tested. Aerojet is supplying the large and small rockets that will allow the Orion multipurpose crew vehicle, designed to house four astronauts, to orient itself during space flight and during the re-entry to Earth's atmosphere, said Sam Wiley, head of human space at Aerojet.

Meet the only company that still thinks a manned spacecraft should fly back to earth

Tim Fernholz - Quartz

In a hangar next to an enormous dry lake in the Mojave desert, a new spacecraft that could launch the next generation of space travel is about to begin the testing. What it sets it apart is it's the only manned spacecraft currently being built that can actually fly back home. What's more, the Dream Chaser, as its corny name suggests, is that rare piece of technology that is both a leap forward and a throwback.

New 'Dream Chaser' Space Plane Ready to Start Testing

Paul Scott Anderson - AmericaSpace.com

With the ending of the Space Shuttle program, NASA is now turning to private companies to design and build new spacecraft to take astronauts into orbit. One of the most interesting concepts, the Dream Chaser, is now ready to start testing, and it is hoped that this will help usher in a new era of commercial human spaceflight. The Dream Chaser is a reusable space plane developed by Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC). Appearance-wise, it resembles a mini version of the space shuttle, but modernized. The basic design of the craft can be traced back to NASA's HL-20 lifting body design.

Little love for Asteroid retrieval mission; Squyres deeply worried about SLS launch rate

Marcia Smith – SpacePolicyOnline.com

Only one of four witnesses at a congressional hearing Tuesday expressed enthusiasm for the Obama Administration's new Asteroid Retrieval Mission (ARM). No consensus emerged on an alternative, but ARM clearly faces an uphill battle. Meanwhile, NASA Advisory Council Chair Steve Squyres expressed deep concern about the low expected launch rate of the Space Launch System (SLS) and implored Congress not to "pile more objectives onto NASA" unless it is prepared to provide adequate funding. The May 21 hearing before the Space Subcommittee of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee featured four witnesses with different perspectives on the next steps in human spaceflight, even as they and the subcommittee members all seemed to agree on the eventual destination – Mars. The debate is over the intermediate steps to get there.

NASA's Plum Brook Station tests rocket fairing for SpaceX

John Mangels - Cleveland Plain Dealer

There are 36 concert-sized speakers on the wall of NASA's new testing facility, but you wouldn't want to hear them. In fact, you couldn't hear them, not for long. The noise they're designed to emit is so loud and intense that your eardrums would quickly burst, and bad things would happen to your internal organs, as signs bluntly warn visitors to the Reverberant Acoustic Test Facility. This isn't a music room. As hinted by the four-story-tall rocket nosecone poised in front of the speaker wall, it's a place where space hardware will be exposed to the gauntlet of harsh conditions – pummeling sounds, earthquaking vibrations, searing heat, arctic cold, airless vacuums and blasts of electro-magnetic static – it will experience during launch and orbit.

NASA, Bigelow, Assess Private Interest In Deep-Space Human Exploration

Mark Carreau - Aerospace Daily

Bigelow Aerospace has raced through the initial phase of a first-of-its-kind Space Act Agreement (SAA) intended to provide NASA with new insight into private sector capabilities and motivations for expanding human space activities beyond Earth orbit, including the lunar realm. Signed at the end of March, the two-phase exercise should be complete by early November and provide NASA with a range of potential options for folding U.S. and foreign companies into a broad, NASA-led development strategy to carry out the asteroid-retrieval mission outlined in the agency's $17.7 billion 2014 budget proposal, and eventually send explorers to Mars, according to William Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for human exploration and operations.

Moon base habitat to be tested in Las Vegas desert

Elizabeth Howell - SEN.com (Space Exploration News)

Desert dwellers near Las Vegas will receive an unusual addition to the population at some point in 2014: a habitat built by Bigelow Aerospace. Public details are still scarce, except for these: it is called "The Guide", it's described as a "flight-like" test article that is somewhat smaller than an automobile, and it will be placed in a dry lake near Alamo sometime in the spring or summer of 2014. This is just one of a series of tests that Bigelow is undertaking as it seeks to build one of its inflatable habitats on the Moon someday, said founder Robert Bigelow in a press conference on 23 May.

Space Mom's balance of career, life draws attention on eve of half-year in orbit

Mara Bellaby - Florida Today

Dandelions in a makeshift vase with the remark: "Picked fresh for me today! Some of the most special 'flowers' I've ever received." A little boy in Thomas the Tank Engine boots splashing in a rain puddle. Snuggling with her 10-year-old dog, Charlie. There's a common thread to most of Karen Nyberg's social media photos and posts, many using the #simplejoysonearth hashtag: They are personal and simple, with her 3-year-old son, Jack, often the star. They are a catalog of the small moments that many moms record and share. Then comes a tweet such as "Measuring center of mass for launch vehicle calcs during final fit check of Sokul suit today. Suit's ready to go!"

Lucky Luca gets his chance to fly in space

Jonathan Amos - BBC News

"If it happens, it happens quite soon," says Luca Parmitano. "There may be a motion you do with your head, and before you know it you are barfing in your barf bag. But to be honest, I would be very surprised if it happened to me." Let's hope. The Sicilian is about to fulfil a dream by flying on a Russian Soyuz vehicle to the International Space Station on Tuesday.

Unplugged: Richard Branson's otherworldly space quest

Mark Veverka - USA Today

If you think that civilian space travel is pure folly, then you are probably underestimating the vision and vigilance of two of the greatest entrepreneurs of our time: Virgin Group Chairman Sir Richard Branson and Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos. If anyone is capable of pulling off recreational rocket rides, it is these two. Although they have each launched companies dedicated to bringing suborbital space travel to the pedestrian public, they have yet to share with each other details of their respective commercial forays into the final frontier. But that should soon change.

Perry signs SpaceX law

Laura Martinez - Brownsville Herald

It is now law. Texas Gov. Rick Perry has signed House Bill 2623 into law that will allow the temporary closure of Boca Chica Beach for rocket launches, should SpaceX decide to build a launchpad in Cameron County. Perry signed the bill Friday, showing the state's support for having Space Exploration Technologies — or SpaceX — construct a launch site near Boca Chica Beach.

SpaceX bill signed into law

Eva Ruth Moravec - San Antonio Express News

Gov. Rick Perry on Friday signed into law a proposal to temporarily close a beach on the southern tip of Texas during rocket launches, a move that allows the state to remain competitive for a SpaceX launch site. House Bill 2623 gives state officials permission to close the public Boca Chica Beach, near Brownsville, for up to 12 rocket launches a year. The proposal prohibits beach closures during the Memorial Day and Labor Day holiday weekends without approval of the general land office, the legislation states. It passed the Texas House in April, and was approved by senators on May 9.

Faster, NASA, Faster

Edward Lu - New York Times (Opinion)

(Lu, a former astronaut, is the program manager for advanced projects at Google)

In Silicon Valley we have a saying: launch early, launch often. It's an acknowledgment that successful, innovative companies are the ones that rapidly try new ideas, see what works, improve their products and repeat. Businesses that launch frequently are also able to take advantage of economies of scale to make launchings faster and easier. In many ways, the key to innovation is speed of execution. NASA, an agency that depends on innovation, could benefit from the same mindset. To meet its new goals for human spaceflight, NASA must be able to be creative and take risks, or else it will be unable to adapt to new technology and changing political realities. Grand plans stretching over decades will become irrelevant and eventually collapse.

What is it about sending people into space?

Steve Connor - The Independent (UK)

To boldly go where no man has gone before. It is the most famously sexist split infinitive in the English language and yet it sums up neatly why we still need to have a human programme of space exploration. Of course, the only "manned" space missions we currently have are focussed on sending astronauts to and from the International Space Station, a floating palace of technological wizardry weighing 3,600 tonnes and whizzing 28,000km an hour around the Earth at an altitude of more than 400km.

Here's What It Looks Like Inside The Space Station Control Room

Jennifer Welsh -BusinessInsider.com

Joanne Manaster, a biologist at the University of Illinois-Urbana, tweeted this image of the mission control room that runs the International Space Station. In the picture, you can see a video link into the station, the video feed from an outer camera on the station, and the station's route, which you can also find online. Look at all those screens — four each! You can see the Flight Director, who monitors the technical aspects of the space station's flight in real time; the CAPCOM, who is the capsule communicator that talks directly to the astronauts on the space station; and the MOD, the mission operations dictorate, who plans, directs, manages, and implements overall mission operations.

Shuttle might be grounded, but souvenirs are flying out of California Science Center gift shop

Associated Press

There has always been a special connection between space shuttle Endeavour and California, where it was built. The California Science Center is learning how special. The Los Angeles museum, where the retired shuttle is on permanent display, had 180,769 visitors in July 2012, before the shuttle arrived. This July, museum officials expect 230,916 visitors. Officials say souvenir sales are way up too. Before the shuttle, the average visitor to the museum was a student with $5 in his or her pocket. Now it's a tourist who has $20, $30 or more to spend. T-shirts and apparel have been flying off shelves. Spokesman Ken Jones says 10,000 T-shirts were sold in the 50 days after the exhibit opened in October. (NO FURTHER TEXT)

Bra makers' moon-suit history to be told in Warner Bros. movie

Robert Pearlman - collectSPACE.com

From the studio that put Sandra Bullock into a spacesuit may now come a movie about the real-life seamstresses who traded sewing brassieres for stitching Neil Armstrong's lunar wardrobe. Warner Bros. Pictures, which this fall will release Alfonso Cuarón's Bullock-and-George-Clooney-as-astronauts sci-fi film "Gravity," has hired screenwriter Richard Cordiner to adapt the non-fiction book, "Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo" for the big screen, the Hollywood news website Deadline reports. "Spacesuit," by Nicholas de Monchaux, tells the history of the Apollo moonwalkers' outerwear and the company that created it: ILC, or International Latex Corporation — best known by its consumer brand of "Playtex." De Monchaux, an assistant professor of architecture and urban design at the University of California, Berkeley, researched the book while working for a year as a fellow at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

Watchdog rounds up 5 biggest issues facing NASA

John Kelly - Florida Today (Commentary)

NASA's inspector general is an independent watchdog over the space agency's performance of its duties and spending of your tax dollars. This week, Inspector General Paul Martin delivered a six month status report on his team's work and what they see as NASA's top issues. His list is worth sharing, so here's a quick summary of the five biggest challenges identified…
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COMPLETE STORIES

Soyuz prepped to ferry three crew to space station (mission preview)

William Harwood - CBS News

Russian ground crews are preparing a Soyuz spacecraft for launch Tuesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to ferry three fresh crew members -- a veteran Russian cosmonaut, an Italian test pilot and an American shuttle veteran -- to the International Space Station.

Boosting the lab's staff back to six, the Expedition 36/37 crews face a busy stay in space highlighted by a full slate of scientific research, six spacewalks, the arrival of multiple cargo ships carrying critical supplies and, in early November, the Olympic torch, which will herald the 2014 Winter Games at Sochi, Russia, in February.

"I'm very much looking forward to living there," said astronaut Karen Nyberg, who visited the station during a 14-day shuttle flight in 2008. A shuttle mission is "a sprint, you're go, go, go constantly, and you don't have a lot of time to reflect on what you're doing as you're doing it.

"In fact, there's a lot of that mission that I don't really remember," Nyberg said. "I look at pictures and I'm like, 'oh yeah, we did that.' I think with a longer period of time, I'll have time to actually get it ingrained in my brain of where I am and what I'm doing, and I won't need to go back and look at those pictures to remember what it is that I've done."

Married to astronaut Douglas Hurley and mother of a 3-year-old son, Nyberg holds a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering. She said she was eager to participate in station research, but hopes to find a bit of time for her hobbies amid the hectic schedule.

"I don't watch a lot of movies or things like that," she said. "To relax, I like to sew and draw, do things like that. So I've brought a sketch pad and some pencils that I can hopefully do a little bit of sketching. I brought a little bit of fabric and needle and thread. I have no clue yet what I'm going to do with it, but I'll come up with something!"

Asked if she planned to follow in the footsteps of former commander Chris Hadfield, a Canadian astronaut who gained internet fame with his prolific Twitter postings, Nyberg said she was still considering how she might utilize social media.

"I haven't decided yet whether I'll do Twitter," she said. "I've been using Pinterest for a couple of years and absolutely love it because of my other hobbies and have actually started my own personal account, adding some space things. I think it will be kind of neat to add on to that while I'm there if I can. Definitely, we're going to do as much as we can to share what we're doing up there with the rest of the world."

Nyberg, Soyuz TMA-09M commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and European Space Agency flight engineer Luca Parmitano are scheduled to blast off Tuesday at 4:31:24 p.m. EDT (GMT-4; 2:34 a.m. Wednesday local time) from the same pad used by Yuri Gagarin at the dawn of the space age.

If all goes well, Yurchikhin, a veteran station commander, will oversee an abbreviated four-orbit six-hour rendezvous with the space station, ending with an automated docking at the Rassvet module around 10:16 p.m.

Soyuz crews historically have used a more traditional two-day rendezvous sequence, but the Russians have been testing single-day launch-to-docking trajectories in recent flights to shorten the time crews are forced to spend cooped up in the cramped ferry craft.

"I would like to get where I'm going," Nyberg said. "The facilities in the Soyuz aren't as comfortable as what it is on space station. So I'm all for just getting there!"

Flying aboard a Soyuz is nothing new for Yurchikhin, but it will be a new experience for Nyberg and Parmitano, making his first space flight.

"I really like the Soyuz. It's a solid, very reliable machine," Parmitano said. "It's fun to fly. I have the privilege of being the left seater, the co-pilot, I have to be qualified just like the commander. So I have a lot of flying time in the simulator. ... The Soyuz flies beautifully."

Said Nyberg: "I think it's a fantastic vehicle, mostly in its simplicity. They're constantly making upgrades, but not making upgrades to the point where it's too complicated a vehicle. It's cozy, very cozy! Luckily, I'm not as big as Luca. I think for the bigger people it can be painful, actually, to sit in that thing."

Even so, she said, "I think it's a great vehicle, and I'm really looking forward to the launch and kind of comparing it (to the space shuttle)."

Yurchikhin, Parmitano and Nyberg will be welcomed aboard the space station by veteran Expedition 36 commander Pavel Vinogradov, rookie cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin and NASA astronaut Christopher Cassidy, who were launched to the outpost on March 28.

The first major item on the agenda for the combined crews will be the undocking of the Progress M-19M/51P cargo ship from the Zvezda command module's rear port on June 11, clearing the way for arrival of a European Space Agency cargo ship, known as an Automated Transfer Vehicle, or ATV, on June 15.

One question mark is the condition of a laser retro reflector on the aft port that may have been damaged or contaminated during the Progress docking April 26. The reflector will be used by the approaching ATV's navigation system to compute the ship's approach velocity and orientation.

Shortly after the Progress launch last month, flight controllers discovered a navigation antenna had failed to deploy on the front end of the cargo ship. In its stowed position, part of the dish antenna threatened to contact or come in close proximity to the Zvezda docking system where the laser reflector is mounted.

During a space station mission management team meeting, or IMMT, U.S. and European Space Agency managers opposed the Progress docking pending additional analysis. Russian managers, however, decided to press ahead after concluding the reflector would not be damaged.

With the IMMT at a procedural impasse, space station Program Manager Michael Suffredini and William Gerstenmaier, director of spaceflight operations at NASA headquarters, discussed the issue with their Russian counterparts and concurred with docking.

Some NASA insiders grumbled that the Russians steamrolled the IMMT process and that agency managers ultimately went along because they had no choice. But in an interview with CBS News, Suffredini said that was simply not the case.

"If it's a U.S. spacecraft coming to the U.S. side of the ISS, our Russian colleagues ultimately have to rely that we have the detailed data," Suffredini said. "So ultimately, I wasn't the owner of the detailed data, that was all owned by the Russians. ... So, I have to rely on them being the experts.

"When we called and started talking to them, they gave us absolute assurances we were not going to load up this thing enough to damage it and that if contamination was the issue ... we had a way to take care of that. And if they were certain based on their data and their findings that we weren't going to damage the (retro reflector), then I had to trust their engineering judgment."

A replacement reflector is being launched aboard the Soyuz with Yurchikhin and his crewmates. If the reflector aboard the station is, in fact, damaged or contaminated, it can be replaced in a Russian spacewalk while the European cargo ship stands by.

"It's an uncomfortable position to be in when we don't agree at the IMMT and have to deal with it at the next level," Suffredini said. "But had I had a compelling argument with data the Russians didn't have, couldn't have, then I very well would expect the Russians to respect our judgment," he said.

In any case, when the Progress M-19M/51P cargo ship departs June 11, cameras on both spacecraft will be used to look for any signs of damage to the laser reflector. If no problems are found, the European cargo ship will be cleared for an automated docking on June 15.

Unloading will begin amid preparations for a spacewalk by Yurchikhin and Misurkin on June 26 to make preparations for attachment of a new Russian laboratory module in December.

Two U.S. spacewalks by Cassidy and Parmitano are planned for July 9 and 16

"Chris and I have been training together underwater, preparing for the tasks we will be doing," Parmitano said. "It's a special challenge. Previously during the shuttle times, EVAs were highly choreographed. Everything was planned and choreographed and trained over and over again. On the station, we don't have that luxury to train as much.

"So we need to be a lot more flexible. In fact, we will receive our procedures while we're in orbit and then we'll have time to study and brief each other on what we're going to do."

ISS Expedition 36/37 program includes 4 spacewalks - Russian crew member

Itar-Tass

The program of ISS Expedition 36/37 includes four space walks, the first one will be performed in June, Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, the commander of the Soyuz TMA-09M spaceship, told a news conference on Monday.

"Our expedition is planned to make four space walks, and I will take part in three of them. The first one is planned for June. Its task will be to repair the thermoregulation system of the functional cargo block, and to carry out a number of scientific experiments. It is not ruled out that we will remove from the ISS' outer surface the Durability experimental platform (which studies the impacts of space on mechanical characteristics and materials - Itar-Tass)," Yurchikhin said.

"Other two space walks will be done to lay electric cables under the new Russian cpace module MLM. And, of course, some research activities will be done on the stations' outer surface," he went on and added that he would not take part in the fourth space walk, regrettably.

Earlier on Monday, a state commission approved the lineup of ISS Expedition 36/37.

The crew of Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg and European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano will fly to the International Space on board the Soyuz TMA-09M spaceship, the launch of which is scheduled for 00:32, Moscow time, on May 29. The orbital mission of the ISS-36/37 crew will last more than four months.

Space Act deals draw lawmaker scrutiny
Cost, security of contracts questioned

Ledyard King - Florida Today

NASA's increasing use of unconventional contracts to carry out some of its most important work is drawing heavy scrutiny on Capitol Hill.

Several key Republicans are questioning whether the contracts, known as Space Act agreements, are compromising safety and security, or squandering tax dollars in order to speed development of missions or foster international partnerships.

NASA Inspector General Paul Martin also has begun an audit of how well the agency manages its more than 1,500 agreements with domestic and international partners. His findings are not expected until early next year.

The contracts allow NASA to reach a "legally binding commitment" with an outside entity for a specific service, such as education outreach, experiments on the International Space Station, or the leasing of NASA facilities — without having to competitively bid for it. They've been around since the space program began in 1958.

Lately, they've been used to accelerate development of NASA's ambitious Commercial Crew and Commercial Cargo programs that work with private companies to replace the mothballed space shuttles with space taxis that will ferry astronauts and supplies to the International Space Station. Under the agreements, the Obama administration has allocated $1.5 billion to three firms.

Under a traditional Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) contract, NASA auditors and engineers work closely with aerospace companies every step of the way to make sure detailed specifications are met.

Under these funded Space Act agreements, companies are paid to achieve certain milestones set by NASA. But how they get there is left largely to the contractor. It costs less, but the firms get to keep the intellectual property rights of their products, and there's a risk a problem could go undetected until later in the development process.

Some lawmakers, such as Alabama GOP Sen. Richard Shelby, who view the agreements as little more than blank checks.

"These agreements lack transparency and incorporate significant schedule leniency," he said at a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing last month on NASA's budget request for fiscal 2014. "Traditional government contracts provide full insight and control over the contractors and the product throughout the process to protect the government's investment and, ultimately, the taxpayer."

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden defended the agreements, saying that embedding NASA teams in the factories of Commercial Crew Program partners provides "sufficient insight" for the agency.

"I don't feel that we're in the dark with any of the contractors," he told Shelby at the hearing. "NASA uses Space Act agreements judiciously but we use them widely because it enables us to do much more than any other agency in the government can do for the budget that we have. We use them as a budget tool."

Republican leaders are skeptical of the Commercial Crew Program in general.

They view it as a threat to their top priority — development of a heavy-lift rocket system to take astronauts to deep space. As a result, Congress lately has provided slightly more than half the administration's budget request for the program.

NASA officials have said the lack of funding has forced them to rely on Space Act agreements for Commercial Crew development more than even they had intended. The agency had expected to return to traditional contracts last year, but proceeded with one more phase using the newer compacts.

An 2011 internal review determined that, as a result, NASA saved money on the Commercial Cargo Program.

Using a traditional contract, NASA would have spent between $1.7 billion and $4 billion to develop a vehicle capable of delivering cargo to the space station. Instead, California-based SpaceX spent $390 million on its Falcon 9, which last year became the first private vehicle to deliver supplies to the space station.

Keith Cowing, an astrobiologist and former NASA manager who now runs NASA Watch, an independent web site tracking space policy and agency operations, calls the agreements important tools that should not be done in by politics.

"Some amazing things — with real public benefits — can be done via this type of agreement," he wrote on his blog recently. "Let's hope that the NASA (inspector general) sees the value to these agreements and does not knuckle under to congressional pressure — pressure driven by ill-informed partisan agendas."

Republican skeptics say it's more than that.

Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., who chairs the House Appropriations subcommittee in charge of NASA funding, is worried other countries may be taking advantage of NASA's know-how through the international partnerships created through the agreements.

"While I suspect many of these (agreements) are appropriate, I am concerned that NASA may be sharing sensitive technologies (with) foreign governments, especially foreign governments that may not share our national interests in space," he said in a letter to Bolden earlier this year, asking for more information about the size and scope of the practice.

NASA has entered into more than 4,000 agreements since 1958, according to the agency. As of Jan. 24, it had 563 active international agreements and 1,010 active agreements with domestic entities.

One of those, a deal that lets Google executives park their planes at NASA-owned Moffet Field — just blocks from the company's Mountain View, Ca., headquarters — is drawing scrutiny as well.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, has asked the inspector general's office to examine the agreement. Martin responded to Grassley that it will be part of the audit.

Under the deal between NASA and H211, a holding company, the planes have been allowed to use a hangar since 2007 provided they pay $133,366 a month and conduct some scientific research on flights, according to a report by San Jose, Calif. television station KNTV, an NBC affiliate.

A NASA spokeswoman told the station the agency welcomes "anybody who wants to have a place on the NASA research park use the airfield who does two things: Have a NASA alignment to one of our missions, and (be) financially solvent."

U.S. Lawmakers Again Prod NASA's Asteroid Retrieval Plan

Dan Leone - Space News

House lawmakers preparing to write a new NASA authorization bill voiced doubts May 21 about the worthiness of sending astronauts to a relocated asteroid as soon as 2021 — the only mission, destination and timeline the U.S. space agency has identified for the heavy-lift launch vehicle and crew capsule it is spending nearly $3 billion a year to build.

The debate at the May 21 hearing of the House Science space subcommittee centered on whether asteroid retrieval and exploration are a necessary precursor for a crewed mission to Mars — something notionally on tap for the 2030s, according to goals the Obama administration set in 2010.

Summing up the questions posed to a four-witness panel of space experts by most of the lawmakers at the hearing, Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.), the ranking member on the subcommittee, said that "many of us have had questions about ... how that then contributes to going to Mars."

Louis Friedman, the co-founder of the Planetary Society advocacy group and a key contributor to the study upon which NASA is basing the asteroid retrieval mission, said the most obvious benefit of sending astronauts to a small asteroid tugged to lunar space by a robotic retrieval craft would be to test the life support systems required to keep crews alive beyond Earth's protective radiation belts.

"I think that's the dominant one," said Friedman, co-leader of the Asteroid Retrieval Feasibility Study, which was published in April 2012 by the Keck Institute for Space Studies, part of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif.

Friedman also pointed out that NASA's $16.5 billion budget — down about 7 percent from 2012 thanks to sequestration cuts — could not support human exploration missions to any other extraterrestrial bodies. Friedman also said the asteroid exploration campaign had superior public outreach value compared with the old Constellation Moon-return program the Obama administration canceled in 2010.

"The joy of the asteroid retrieval mission is that we actually begin the process a couple of years from now," Friedman said, noting that Constellation's proposed Moon landing was slipping out toward 2030 at the time of the project's cancellation.

Cost estimates for the asteroid retrieval mission range from $1 billion to just over $2.5 billion. The Keck study assumed mission costs would ring in at the top end of that range. NASA officials, including Administrator Charles Bolden, think the agency's final bill would be somewhere in the middle. Bolden says the Keck study did not take into account the work NASA has already done on the heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion crew capsule.

But the ability to test life support systems does not depend upon the presence of a target asteroid in lunar space, as another panelist pointed out as part of his argument to send SLS and Orion to near-Moon space even if there is nothing there to visit.

"Adopt cislunar space as the next milestone whether ongoing studies show it's possible to redirect a small asteroid there or not," said NASA Advisory Council Chairman Steven Squyres, an astronomy professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. Squyres also implored lawmakers not to prescribe any milestones beyond an Orion cruise to cislunar space without also ensuring funds are available for such a mission.

"That would amount to an unfunded mandate, and that is the bane of government agencies," Squyres said.

Unwavering in his stance that visiting a captured asteroid was a waste of time for human explorers was Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), who chairs the House Science, Space and Technology Committee and is keen to see astronauts return to the Moon. Smith lambasted the proposed asteroid retrieval mission as a "haphazardly" constructed project better carried out by robotically controlled probes.

"An astronaut could drill down into an asteroid, but a robot could do that too," Smith said. "Is there any value to having an astronaut land on a 7- to 10-meter diameter asteroid?"

"I think we would learn something," said Paul Spudis, senior staff scientist at the NASA-funded Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston. "But in terms of what we'd learn [compared with] robotic sample return, I don't think we'd learn much more."

A former NASA official called to testify said he saw little connection between the asteroid retrieval mission NASA is now studying and human exploration of Mars.

"This is a clever concept, and such a mission would undoubtedly demonstrate technology capabilities," said Doug Cooke, a consultant who until 2011 was deeply involved with NASA human spaceflight as the agency's associate administrator for exploration systems. "However, there is not a recognizable connection to a long-term strategy" for exploring Mars.

Cooke also noted that since it is unlikely NASA will receive new funding for the robotic portion of the asteroid retrieval mission, the agency will have to get the money from existing programs.

Meanwhile, the NASA authorization bill — a major policy document that will outline Congress' priorities for the space agency — could arrive in a matter of weeks or months, lawmakers said during the hearing.

A pair of House aides said May 21 that work on a new authorization act will probably begin in early June.

What path will lead American humans to Mars?

Elizabeth Howell - Universe Today

Is it just us, or has there been a lot — a LOT — of talk about getting humans to Mars lately?

Here's Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin promoting a book about Mars exploration. Over here is Mars One, currently accepting applications for a one-way trip to the Red Planet in 2023 — an opportunity that thousands of people applied for so far. Don't forget the Inspiration Mars people, either.

Even as our robotic emissaries break otherworldly driving records and search for Mars' missing atmosphere, it's not enough for our exploratory horizons. The stunning pictures robots beam back from Mars only fuel the fire for human hopes to get there.

President Barack Obama has said he wants to get to Mars by the 2030s, but his is the latest in a series of plans to get there. Every president seems to have a new idea of Mars exploration.

A Congressional committee this week tried to cut through the noise to get some clear messages about what to do. (Context: NASA's fiscal 2014 budget is up for discussion, so this has budgetary relevance.)

So. We had four witnesses with maybe 150 to 200 years of combined space experience appearing before the subcommittee on space on Tuesday (May 21), each with a plan. To wit, here is a very brief summary of their individual positions:

Louis Friedman, executive director emeritus of The Planetary Society (who co-led the co-leader of the Keck Institute for Space Studies Asteroid Retrieval Mission Study): Do the asteroid mission proposed by NASA. It will launch four to five years from now. If done properly, it would be a great opportunity for humans to explore as well as for commercial opportunities in mining.

Paul Spudis, senior staff scientist at the NASA-funded Lunar and Planetary Institute: Return to the moon. It's close, so close to Earth that we can operate rovers by remote control. It's a good spot to learn more about the solar system, and it provides practice for us in living off the resources of the land as it has water — a tool for life support and energy.

Steve Squyres, Cornell University planetary scientist renowned for his Mars rover research: Go to cislunar space, the area close to the moon. It's an easily accessible spot in a restricted budget environment. Thinking beyond that is not realistic in the current budget environment.

Douglas Cooke, NASA's former associate administrator for the exploration systems mission directorate: Re-establish lunar exploration. The asteroid mission would not connect well with the long-term strategy, but the lunar surface would as (like Mars) it is a hostile environment suitable for testing planetary exploration technologies.

Representatives then peppered the space experts with tons of questions, such as:

How best to bring in international partners?

Should we be concerned about other countries talking about going to the moon themselves, such as Russia and China?

Should we take away from other NASA programs, such as astronomy or debris retrieval in orbit, to focus on Mars exploration? (Recall that Mars science was slashed in 2012, including the loss of participation in ExoMars.)

How do we interest the public in the mission? The asteroid retrieval (which many committee members heavily criticized as one released with little outside consultation) doesn't seem to spark with the person on the street.

Should we even attempt to go given the sequestration environment right now?

Take a listen of the experts' answers in full in the archived webcast (available here).

But also — what's your take? Is it worth going to Mars in the first place, and if so, how do we best achieve that? Please leave your thoughts in the comments.

Aerojet rockets to propel crew vehicle in Orion space program

Edward Ortiz - Sacramento Bee (distributed by Scripps Howard News Service)

When a rocket carrying a new crew vehicle lifts off at Cape Canaveral next year, it will be the first big step in a decades-long odyssey to see humans travel farther into space than ever before.

That ambitious program, called Orion, has goals that sound as if they were lifted from the pages of a sci-fi novel: the capture of near-Earth asteroids, bringing them into lunar orbit, a return to the moon, and putting astronauts on Mars.

Baby steps in the odyssey are already being taken in labs and testing facilities across the nation. One is at Aerojet in Rancho Cordova, Calif. There, inside solemn buildings surrounded by fields of dry grass, rockets destined for the dark reaches of space are being designed and tested.

Aerojet is supplying the large and small rockets that will allow the Orion multipurpose crew vehicle, designed to house four astronauts, to orient itself during space flight and during the re-entry to Earth's atmosphere, said Sam Wiley, head of human space at Aerojet.

The company is also supplying a launch-abort system, which would pull the crew module to safety in a life-threatening event during launch.

Next year's unmanned test flight will determine whether NASA is on target to safeguard the lives of astronauts. The heat shield has to be strong enough to sustain the furnace-like heat that will surround the module as it re-enters Earth's atmosphere after orbit. For Orion, that return will happen at 20,000 mph; the space shuttle entered at 12,500 mph.

A successful test flight would bode well for NASA's plans for a first unmanned lunar orbital flight in 2017. That flight would take four astronauts into high orbit -- 3,600 miles into space -- the farthest an astronaut has gone since Apollo 17 in 1972. A full-crew mission to recover an asteroid is slated for 2021.

After that, the milestones get more exotic, the risks more pronounced, and the plans and funding sketchier. Orion will be the taxi-like conveyer of astronauts from Earth to space. It is less clear what craft will take astronauts from the crew module to a landing on Mars or the moon.

This year's presidential budget request for NASA seeks $2.7 billion for space exploration.

Some in Congress, such as Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., vice chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, remain skeptical about funding the massive Orion program and its launch system.

In a recent editorial in the Orlando Sentinel, Rohrabacher stated: "I've never seen NASA accomplish a large mission on budget and on schedule. NASA should work on these projects, but it needs better cost estimates, and better program management. ...

''NASA is incapable and unwilling to include technologies that have not yet been proved in space. NASA has lost its edge," Rohrabacher wrote.

Regardless of the use of established technology, Orion is expected to travel to Mars and it moons, said Larry Price, Orion deputy program manager for Lockheed Martin, NASA's prime contractor for the Orion project.

''The biggest challenge is combining all of the technology and putting it into the largest spacecraft that has ever been built, other than the shuttle, and be able to sustain life for months and go great distances into the solar system," Price said.

''The point is to follow up on all of the groundwork that the Mars rovers have been doing, with human exploration capability."

Having humans rather than rovers on the Red Planet means they could make immediate decisions and wouldn't always have to wait for radio communication with Earth -- a 20-minute delay each way with Mars.

However, the introduction of humans brings physiological challenges.

The most vexing is the high radiation exposure astronauts would encounter on a months-long trip to and from Mars, as well as time spent on the planet, said NASA astronaut Stan Love. A former shuttle astronaut, Love is examining the feasibility of sending the Orion crew vehicle to near-Earth objects for NASA.

''We're still trying to understand what the exact radiation environment is out there - and we're still trying to understand the effect of that radiation on people," Love said. "It's a kind of a tricky subject - if you were studying this with rats you would irradiate a bunch of them, half would die and you would know what the dose is and you can adjust for that. ... We can't really do that with people."

Meet the only company that still thinks a manned spacecraft should fly back to earth

Tim Fernholz - Quartz

In a hangar next to an enormous dry lake in the Mojave desert, a new spacecraft that could launch the next generation of space travel is about to begin the testing. What it sets it apart is it's the only manned spacecraft currently being built that can actually fly back home.

What's more, the Dream Chaser, as its corny name suggests, is that rare piece of technology that is both a leap forward and a throwback.

Three's a crowd

With the end of the US space shuttle program in 2011, there has been no way for NASA to bring astronauts to and from the International Space Station. To solve this problem, NASA began an investment program, Commercial Crew Integrated Capability, that has awarded hundreds of millions of dollars to three companies to develop a private-sector space craft: Aerospace giant Boeing, upstart SpaceX and the Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC).

SNC is probably the least well-known of the three, but the privately held company brings a lot to the table: Its main business is supplying the high-tech components for spacecraft to the military and the government—everything from satellites to the technology that lowered the Curiosity rover to the surface of Mars in 2012. It also made the rocket motor recently tested on Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, which is designed for sub-orbital flight.

Boeing and SpaceX have are focused on space capsules, which return from space by dropping through the atmosphere and eventually parachuting to earth. SNC, on the other hand, has revived a design that has waited some fifty years for the making: a wingless plane called the lifting body.

Flying bathtubs in a dry lake

The SNC's Dream Chaser, a seven-person vehicle intended as a sort of space taxi, came to California last week to undergo testing in NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force base. This is where the US trains its test pilots, aerospace companies test secret planes, and Chuck Yeager became the first human to break the sound barrier in 1953.

By 1963, aerospace engineers at Dryden were past the sound barrier and working on sending people to space. Putting a space craft into orbit is a two-part operation: A huge rocket gets the space craft out of earth's gravity, and then the craft itself maneuvers through space. Since there's no atmosphere in space, space craft design is focused on how to enter and exit the atmosphere. If your space craft is a capsule, it re-enters the atmosphere like a ballistic missile, with lots of heat, before parachuting to earth.

The engineers at Dryden came up with something different, known as a lifting body: a tubby, blunt-nosed ship that enters with less heat, and once in the atmosphere, becomes a wingless plane that could land on a runway. The whole body is designed to provide lift, since wings don't fare very well in reentry. The first lifting body was dragged above the lake by a souped-up Pontiac convertible. Here's Yeager himself on the Rogers Dry Lake in 1963 with an early prototype, the M-2:

This craft would influence the development of NASA's unbuilt HL-20, an early progenitor of the Dream Chaser, and made a cameo appearance at the Dryden unveiling:

There's a reason that the other spacecraft in the crew competition are capsules: They're simple and effective.

But ask an astronaut what makes a spaceplane different, and their first answer may be about comfort. While capsules return to earth at around eight times earth's gravity, the lifting body will only put its passengers through 1.5 g's. That is a big difference if you've just spent thirty days weightless, you're rescuing a sick astronaut (the design is often touted as an emergency exit for space stations), or transporting delicate experiments.

Concern about comfort is doubly important if space is really to become a new frontier for business and tourism. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, a former astronaut, mentioned that a malfunctioning chair in the Russian Soyuz space capsule that brought back the most recent crew of ISS astronauts (including celebrity Chris Hadfield) once exposed astronaut Kevin Ford to a spike of 22 times earth's gravity. Ow.

And while the color-scheme may make it seem superficially similar to the shuttle, Steve Lindsey, a veteran of five space shuttle missions and SNC's Director of Flight Operations, says designers have done a lot to make Dream Chaser cheaper, safer and more reusable. That means non-toxic fuels in its rocket thrusters, putting it on top of the launch rocket so it is exposed to less debris during take-off, and making stronger heat-shield tiles. The fact that it can fly is a safety multiplier, too, because the spacecraft can maneuver on its own in the event of an accident.

Resurrection as a business opportunity

The NASA lifting body was "one of the most tested and reviewed vehicles that had never flown," according to SNC executive Mark Sirangelo, who in 1997 co-founded a company called Space Development, Inc. to find business opportunities in space. The company saw NASA's HL-20 design as a chance to get a leg up, and arranged to licence it as the basis for the Dream Chaser in 2006. Two years later, SpaceDev merged with SNC, and Sirangelo became the head of the company's space systems division. By 2012, SNC had become one of three participants in NASA's spacecraft project.

So far, it has passed three major testing milestones, unlocking some $95 million in public funding. The next steps at Dryden include dragging it around the lake to test its wheels and front strut, dangling it underneath a helicopter to learn about its aerodynamic properties, and then dropping it from said helicopter to see if an automatic pilot can land it. If these and further tests goes well—and the US government funds the commercial crew program's budget—the company hopes to launch a manned mission into orbit by 2017.

And even absent further NASA support, the company, like its competitors, hopes to come up with alternative reveneue sources, from satellite repair to servicing space hotels.

This isn't the first time that hopes have been raised about a ship like the Dream Chaser. But hopes springs eternal, especially for for space shuttle veterans at SNC like Lindsey. When that program was shuttered in 2011, he thought he'd "absolutely" never pilot a spacecraft again. But now, when the Dream Chaser begins manned testing, he says: "I'll be flying it."

New 'Dream Chaser' Space Plane Ready to Start Testing

Paul Scott Anderson - AmericaSpace.com

With the ending of the Space Shuttle program, NASA is now turning to private companies to design and build new spacecraft to take astronauts into orbit. One of the most interesting concepts, the Dream Chaser, is now ready to start testing, and it is hoped that this will help usher in a new era of commercial human spaceflight.

The Dream Chaser is a reusable space plane developed by Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC). Appearance-wise, it resembles a mini version of the space shuttle, but modernized. The basic design of the craft can be traced back to NASA's HL-20 lifting body design.

The first test vehicle arrived at the Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif., last week. The testing procedure will include tests of the flight and runway landing systems. Like the shuttle, the Dream Chaser will launch on a rocket and land like an airplane.

According to William Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for human exploration and operations in Washington, "Unique public-private partnerships like the one between NASA and Sierra Nevada Corporation are creating an industry capable of building the next generation of rockets and spacecraft that will carry U.S. astronauts to the scientific proving ground of low-Earth orbit. NASA centers around the country paved the way for 50 years of American human spaceflight, and they're actively working with our partners to test innovative commercial space systems that will continue to ensure American leadership in exploration and discovery."

Like some other private companies, Sierra Nevada is receiving funding from NASA for its testing as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program (CCP).

The Dream Chaser can accommodate up to seven passengers, but is a lot smaller than the space shuttle, measuring about 9 metres (29.5 feet) long, compared to 37 metres (122 feet) long for the space shuttle.

NASA is hoping to be able to start using such commercial spacecraft to restart its own self-reliant astronaut program by 2017. Until that time, with no more shuttles, it has been relying on Russia to get its astronauts to the International Space Station.

However, contrary to some who now see a bleak future for human spaceflight, with companies like SNC now taking an active role, the next few years actually seem quite promising, at least in terms of getting American astronauts into orbit without having to rely on other countries. New missions to the Moon or Mars are still another matter, but hopefully this will be a big step in that direction as well.

Little love for Asteroid retrieval mission; Squyres deeply worried about SLS launch rate

Marcia Smith – SpacePolicyOnline.com

Only one of four witnesses at a congressional hearing Tuesday expressed enthusiasm for the Obama Administration's new Asteroid Retrieval Mission (ARM). No consensus emerged on an alternative, but ARM clearly faces an uphill battle. Meanwhile, NASA Advisory Council Chair Steve Squyres expressed deep concern about the low expected launch rate of the Space Launch System (SLS) and implored Congress not to "pile more objectives onto NASA" unless it is prepared to provide adequate funding.

The May 21 hearing before the Space Subcommittee of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee featured four witnesses with different perspectives on the next steps in human spaceflight, even as they and the subcommittee members all seemed to agree on the eventual destination – Mars.

The debate is over the intermediate steps to get there.

Lou Friedman, Executive Director Emeritus of the Planetary Society and co-chair of the Keck Institute for Space Studies (KISS) report that proposed what morphed into ARM was the only advocate for that mission. ARM is included in NASA's FY2014 budget request and envisions sending a robotic spacecraft to capture an asteroid, redirect it into lunar orbit, and send astronauts there to study it.    Paul Spudis of the Lunar and Planetary Institute continued his quest for a human return to the surface of the Moon. Cornell's Steve Squyres, principal investigator for the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity and chair of the NASA Advisory Council, agreed with two parts of the ARM proposal – searching for Near Earth Asteroids and sending astronauts to cis-lunar space (between the Earth and the Moon) – but eschewed the idea of capturing an asteroid and bringing it into lunar orbit for a visit by astronauts.   Doug Cooke, a NASA veteran who retired in 2011 after heading NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate and is now a consultant, rued the lack of analysis and planning prior to announcing ARM and argued for development of a human exploration strategy that logically lays out the steps to Mars.

Subcommittee members on both sides of the aisle clearly are not convinced that ARM is the answer.   Subcommittee chairman Steve Palazzo (R-MS) said he is "not convinced this mission is the right way to go and that it may actually prove a detour for a Mars mission." Ranking member Donna Edwards (D-MD) avoided outright opposition to ARM, but stressed that she needs to understand how it, as opposed to alternatives like returning to the Moon, would contribute to the goal of sending humans to the surface of Mars.

Friedman made his case in favor of ARM primarily on the basis that it is a mission that can be done soon and exciting missions with near-term results are needed to keep the public interested in human spaceflight. Spudis disagreed. He thinks the point is to demonstrate there is value for the money spent and "an extensible, reusable system, a spacefaring system that allows us to do all the things we want to do at various spots in space" is the ticket. He would start with a return to the lunar surface and utilizing the resources there. "What we really seek is public support, not necessarily excitement," he argued. Squyres insisted that what is needed to win public support is an "unwavering focus on Mars as the destination," citing the thousands of people who witnessed the landing of the Curiosity rover at 2:00 am in Times Square as evidence of enthusiasm for exploring Mars.

NASA explains ARM as part of a strategy to unite its human spaceflight, space technology and science activities in a common undertaking. NASA Science Mission Directorate head John Grunsfeld stated flatly at the recent Humans to Mars Summit that ARM is not a science-driven mission, however. Friedman acknowledged that sentiment at the hearing, and emphasized that it is a human spaceflight mission, but there will be benefits in the areas of searching for Near Earth Asteroids and learning about asteroids for planetary protection purposes as well as for companies that want to mine them.

Cooke's main point was that the United State needs a logical strategy for human exploration. Although steps are underway that support the long term goal of sending humans to Mars – such as development of SLS and Orion and robotic probes like Curiosity – an overarching "strategy does not exist today." He listed several questions that need to be answered as part of creating that strategy, such as what geopolitical goals the United States wants to achieve, what is our long term vision for human space exploration, and how to collaborate with international partners. He said ARM does not have a "recognizable connection" to a long term strategy, does not appear to be based on consultation with stakeholders or international partners, and "appears to be a very complex mission with the potential for growing more complex and more costly."

Squyres similarly finds no connection between ARM and Mars exploration, adding that he does not see the need for landing on any surface – the Moon, an asteroid or one of the moons of Mars – as preparation for landing on Mars.   He believes the capabilities needed to go to Mars can be demonstrated in cis-lunar space and, given the performance capabilities of SLS and Orion, it is the "only significant destination beyond low Earth orbit that can be reached for the foreseeable future." He said that although there was no consensus among the witnesses as to all the steps to Mars, he believed they did agree that cis-lunar space should be next.

His emphatic message to the subcommittee was that Congress should not specify any other destination or timetable unless it is prepared to give NASA the needed funding. NASA is "being asked to do too much with too little" and the situation is "chronic, severe and getting worse," he asserted. "I beg of you not to pile more objectives on NASA because they can't even afford what they're doing now."

Another concern Squyres stressed is the low flight rate for the Space Launch System (SLS). "I'm deeply worried," he told Edwards, because no other human spaceflight system has had such a low anticipated launch rate. The first SLS launch is expected in 2017, the second in 2021, and then once every two years thereafter. SLS and the Orion spacecraft need to be adequately funded "to be proven out on a pace that really supports … a safe pathway" to cis-lunar space, Squyres insisted.   Cooke agreed. The flight rate is driven "totally" by funding, he said, and "they definitely need more funding … starting with inflation." NASA's budget is currently projected to be flat, with no adjustment for inflation, which erodes buying power as the years pass.

NASA's Plum Brook Station tests rocket fairing for SpaceX

John Mangels - Cleveland Plain Dealer

There are 36 concert-sized speakers on the wall of NASA's new testing facility, but you wouldn't want to hear them.

In fact, you couldn't hear them, not for long. The noise they're designed to emit is so loud and intense that your eardrums would quickly burst, and bad things would happen to your internal organs, as signs bluntly warn visitors to the Reverberant Acoustic Test Facility.

This isn't a music room. As hinted by the four-story-tall rocket nosecone poised in front of the speaker wall, it's a place where space hardware will be exposed to the gauntlet of harsh conditions – pummeling sounds, earthquaking vibrations, searing heat, arctic cold, airless vacuums and blasts of electro-magnetic static – it will experience during launch and orbit.

Since 2007, NASA has spent $150 million to upgrade its Plum Brook testing site. The improvements at the former World War II explosives complex operated by the space agency's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland are to make it a premier destination for space environment simulation. Plum Brook is where rockets prove they're rough and ready.

What's surprising, though, is that the first spacecraft component to challenge NASA's new torture chamber isn't NASA's. The blue logo on the rocket nosecone, more properly called a fairing, belongs to SpaceX, the upstart commercial space company founded in 2002 by Internet billionaire Elon Musk.

SpaceX's presence at Plum Brook is evidence of the rapid change roiling the space community. NASA began improvements at the test site at a time when the space agency intended to return astronauts to the moon and needed a proving ground for the capsule and lunar lander that would take them there. SpaceX had yet to successfully launch its first rocket.

Six years later, NASA has scratched the moon from its trajectory and is aiming to visit an asteroid, then Mars. And SpaceX has quickly emerged as a dominant player in the space industry, with billions of dollars in contracts to deliver cargo and crew to NASA's International Space Station, and to ferry military and commercial satellites into orbit.

NASA still intends to test its Orion space capsule at Plum Brook in 2016 or 2017. But with a sharply restricted budget and marching orders from the Obama White House to embrace commercial partnerships in space exploration, NASA is boosting its efforts to lure private customers to its facilities.

At Houston's Johnson Space Center, for example, the giant swimming pool called the Neutral Buoyancy Lab where astronauts practice spacewalks is now shared with offshore oil and gas rig workers undergoing survival training. The Kennedy Space Center in Florida is planning to lease to commercial rocketeers its historic Launch Pad 39A, where Apollo moon rockets once blasted off, and where space shuttles vaulted to orbit before that program ended in 2011.

"It's indicative of what's becoming a growing public/private partnership," said former astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria, president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. "NASA is getting benefit by [making commercially available] facilities that might otherwise go unused, which has to be good news for everybody. It's a win-win."

SpaceX is paying the Glenn center $581,296 to use Plum Brook's space simulation chambers this spring. The complex has hosted commercial customers in the past, but landing the unconventional, high-profile SpaceX is something of a coup, helping fill gaps in Plum Brook's testing schedule and earning some national publicity to boot.

CEO Musk has Tweeted updates on SpaceX's rocket fairing trials to his more than 211,000 followers, and the company recently posted a video on its YouTube channel. (The Plum Brook space environment complex also doubled as a science lab in last year's blockbuster movie "The Avengers.")

Testing separation of F9 rocket fairing (can hold a city bus) in world's largest vacuum chamber twitter.com/elonmusk/statu…

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 20, 2013

Still, "there are folks within NASA who don't even know this facility exists," Glenn director James Free acknowledged last week during a Plum Brook tour with NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver and associate administrator Michael Gazarik. "We're showcasing to people who could use this facility the benefits of coming here. It's really almost a marketing campaign in that sense."

Many NASA facilities "were built at times when the government was doing a greater share of this [space] work," Garver said. "That naturally is evolving. If the government can provide facilities that help the private sector out-innovate our competitors, then it's all to the benefit."

Two Plum Brook testing sites – though not the space environment complex, formally known as the Space Power Facility – were among 33 aging NASA facilities nationwide that the agency's inspector general in February deemed underused or outdated and potentially expendable.

NASA plans to demolish one of those Plum Brook rigs, a vacuum chamber called the K-Site. The other, the B-2 Space Propulsion Research Facility, is inactive while the European Space Agency weighs whether to pay NASA for tens of millions of dollars of improvements that would enable testing the new upper stage of ESA's Ariane V rocket in the B-2 vacuum chamber. "We're just waiting to hear from them," Free said. The Air Force and several aerospace companies are potential B-2 customers as well, Free said.

Building a runway at the Plum Brook complex, which some have suggested would make it easier to deliver large spacecraft components for testing and thus help attract more business, isn't something the space agency is willing to pay for at present. "Right now, taking it on for NASA would just not be a fiscally smart thing to do," Free said. "But there are opportunities for other industrial partners if they choose to do that."

For now, all eyes are on the SpaceX tests that have been underway at Plum Brook since March.

The company wants to verify that the super-sized fairing for its Falcon 9 rocket will perform properly during the tremendous stresses of liftoff and ascent.

A fairing is a clamshell-like shroud at the top of the rocket that protects its payload, typically a satellite or space probe. The smooth, rounded fairing, made of metal or high-tech composites, acts like a ship's prow and cuts aerodynamic drag as the rocket rises through the atmosphere. It also shields a satellite's delicate electronics from the heat, vibration and pressure of launch.

Once aloft, at about 3 1/2 minutes into the flight with the rocket traveling far faster than a bullet, explosive charges or air-powered pushers split the two halves of the shroud open and they fall away so the payload can be released.

Though a fairing sounds simple compared to the complexities of a rocket engine or a flight computer, it's a crucial component whose failure can doom the mission. In 2009, NASA lost a $270 million greenhouse gas-monitoring satellite when the fairing on the commercial rocket carrying it into space didn't open, pitching the expensive payload into the ocean. In 2011, a modified version of the same fairing again failed to open after launch, destroying a $388 million NASA climate observation satellite.

SpaceX has not yet launched a rocket equipped with a large fairing. The five flights of its Falcon 9 rocket to date have carried a capsule or its mockup. With several satellite-carrying missions scheduled for later this year, beginning in June, SpaceX needs to be sure the aluminum and carbon-fiber Falcon 9 fairing works. As a still-unproven satellite launch provider, the company's credibility and business future are on the line.

The first phase of testing at Plum Brook put the SpaceX fairing inside the facility's 10-story tall vacuum chamber, the largest in the world. The fairing itself is 43 feet high and 17 feet wide, big enough, as the company points out, to hold a city bus.

With virtually all air pumped out of the giant compartment to mimic space conditions, engineers triggered the fairing's halves to separate. The test was done three times. Then the fairing was shifted to the acoustic chamber, called the "horn room," where last week testing began to see how the shroud holds up under the punishing sonic buffeting of liftoff.

The Plum Brook horn room is the world's most powerful acoustic facility, able to blast out 163 decibels of sound, far louder than a jet engine. The thunderous noise is generated by a torrent of nitrogen gas – 70,000 cubic feet per minute, roughly the volume of an Olympic pool every 60 seconds – roaring through stainless steel horns. "It's like a tornado of nitrogen gas flowing through all those horns," said Jerry Carek, who manages the space simulation facility. The horns are bare metal, since the sound is literally loud enough to peel paint.

SpaceX officials won't discuss how the fairing tests are going, but they're glad for the chance to identify any problems before they can jeopardize a mission.

"Having a facility like this is great for SpaceX. It's great for the industry," said vice president for government sales Adam Harris. "You don't get to space unless you've launched. The launch vehicle is going to be a shaking ride, so on your way to orbit you want to make sure that you've tested everything, that everything works the way you planned it to."

Spotting trouble "can either happen in space, or in facilities like this," Harris said. "To be able to see it here on the ground is a great advantage for every company."

NASA, Bigelow, Assess Private Interest In Deep-Space Human Exploration

Mark Carreau - Aerospace Daily

Bigelow Aerospace has raced through the initial phase of a first-of-its-kind Space Act Agreement (SAA) intended to provide NASA with new insight into private sector capabilities and motivations for expanding human space activities beyond Earth orbit, including the lunar realm.

Signed at the end of March, the two-phase exercise should be complete by early November and provide NASA with a range of potential options for folding U.S. and foreign companies into a broad, NASA-led development strategy to carry out the asteroid-retrieval mission outlined in the agency's $17.7 billion 2014 budget proposal, and eventually send explorers to Mars, according to William Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for human exploration and operations.

Robert Bigelow, the Las Vegas-based company's co-founder and president, said during a May 23 teleconference with Gerstenmaier that 20 firms, some from sectors as remote from traditional aerospace as agriculture and pharmaceuticals, expressed interest. Some have names as familiar as Boeing Co. and SpaceX. Others represent Middle Eastern and Japanese concerns that seek greater access to low Earth orbit for research and possible manufacturing activities.

The completed "Gate 1," or first phase, report should be ready for public release within several weeks.

"This gives us a chance to kind of step back and do a bigger view of our planning and not do it in our own little stove pipes," Gerstenmaier told the teleconference hosted by Bigelow Aerospace. "We are actually reaching out as we start to formulate our thinking."

NASA's latest deep-space vision would robotically retrieve a small asteroid and place it in a stable lunar orbit by 2021, potentially in time for the first piloted test flight of the agency's new Space Launch System and Orion crew vehicle to visit with astronauts.

Bigelow's own interests include the launching of a commercial space station, possibly in 2016, based on the inflatable module development work that NASA carried out in the late 1990s. In December, the company was awarded a $17.8 billion NASA contract to test a prototype module on the International Space Station, a step in Bigelow's longer-term goal of establishing a lunar base with inflatable habitats.

"The theme of [Gate 1] was to acquire as much information as possible on what the private sector is already doing," Bigelow said. "If they are already investing their own capital and efforts in certain areas of hardware and missions, isn't there an opportunity in there for NASA to benefit so that NASA does not have to pay the perpetual heavy burden of research and development costs?"

The SAA is an indication that NASA is prepared to broaden its perspective on private sector capabilities in areas as fundamental as transportation and life support systems, Gerstenmaier said.

Moon base habitat to be tested in Las Vegas desert

Elizabeth Howell - SEN.com (Space Exploration News)

Desert dwellers near Las Vegas will receive an unusual addition to the population at some point in 2014: a habitat built by Bigelow Aerospace.

Public details are still scarce, except for these: it is called "The Guide", it's described as a "flight-like" test article that is somewhat smaller than an automobile, and it will be placed in a dry lake near Alamo sometime in the spring or summer of 2014.

This is just one of a series of tests that Bigelow is undertaking as it seeks to build one of its inflatable habitats on the Moon someday, said founder Robert Bigelow in a press conference on 23 May.

"It's the simplest, least expensive base we can construct," he said, describing it as similar to what the company hopes to land on the Moon at some point.

"The brass ring for us is having a lunar base -- as a company and in conjunction with other companies, and even other, possibly, foreign entities as well," he added.

Bigelow delivered his comments as part of a larger discussion concerning an unfunded Space Act agreement the company has with Nasa. Earlier this year, Nasa asked the firm to examine options for going beyond low-Earth orbit, perhaps as a forum for public-private partnerships.

The document's first of two phases is now complete, but not released to the public yet. That is expected to happen in June.

NASA to Test Expandable Habitat on ISSNASAtelevision As an agency, Nasa is trying to figure out where it will go next in the coming decades. Nasa recently unveiled an as-yet unfunded plan to capture an asteroid and bring it back to Earth. A Congressional hearing this week, which included participation from Nasa, also discussed options for eventually heading to Mars.

Nasa, however, finds itself in a situation where it has grand plans and not a lot of cash to achieve it. The agency is labouring under the effects of sequestration, a forced reduced-spending approach the US government is dealing with as a result of its multi-trillion dollar debt.

That is where private industry can provide more options for the cash-strapped Nasa. Its associate administrator for space operations, William Gerstenmaier, suggested that perhaps the agency would leave surface exploration of the Moon to entities such as Bigelow, while focusing on exploration in lunar orbit and "deep space" (which could include Mars).

"There's some interest in this area of how can we work with the private sector," said Gerstenmaier, who also participated in the press conference.

Bigelow Aerospace is attempting, as smart companies do, to diversify its customer base and projects on the road to its lunar habitat.

In 2007 and 2008 Bigelow launched two test space stations (Genesis I and II) into orbit. These modules, which are still functional today, are generating long-term data on how inflatable structures work in orbit.

Earlier in 2013, Bigelow signed an agreement with Nasa to provide an inflatable "room" on the International Space Station. Once functional, the room will be the first one by Bigelow to house humans as well as equipment.

The company is also working on a Bigelow Orbiting Space Complex that will include flights by Boeing's CST-100 spacecraft, under development with Nasa's commercial crew program.

The modules Bigelow constructs are made from Vectran, a material that is believed to be stronger and better than more traditional "aluminium can" components. They also feature shields to mitigate the impact of micrometeorites and other debris.

Space Mom's balance of career, life draws attention on eve of half-year in orbit

Mara Bellaby - Florida Today

Dandelions in a makeshift vase with the remark: "Picked fresh for me today! Some of the most special 'flowers' I've ever received." A little boy in Thomas the Tank Engine boots splashing in a rain puddle. Snuggling with her 10-year-old dog, Charlie.

There's a common thread to most of Karen Nyberg's social media photos and posts, many using the #simplejoysonearth hashtag: They are personal and simple, with her 3-year-old son, Jack, often the star. They are a catalog of the small moments that many moms record and share.

Then comes a tweet such as "Measuring center of mass for launch vehicle calcs during final fit check of Sokul suit today. Suit's ready to go!"

And with that, a reminder of Nyberg's other job: astronaut. The 43-year-old Minnesota native, who became the 50th woman in space when she flew to the International Space Station in 2008 aboard shuttle Discovery, is days away from becoming only the ninth woman in the world to make a long-duration flight to the International Space Station.

She'll don her spacesuit, climb into the snug Soyuz spacecraft atop a Russian rocket at Baikonur Cosmodrome — the same launch site from which cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space in 1963 — and blast off at 4:31 p.m. today on a nearly-six-month mission to the station.

"I'm looking forward to living there, sleeping there, working there, playing there and letting the memories become etched in my brain," Nyberg said in an interview earlier this month from Star City, Russia.

What she's not looking forward to is being away from her 3-year-old for half a year.

Among the milestones she'll miss: Jack's first day in preschool.

"You always wonder if you're doing the right things for your children," said Nyberg, who is married to fellow astronaut Doug Hurley. Hurley piloted Atlantis on the final flight of the shuttle program in 2011. "I've struggled with: 'Is it a good thing for me to leave my 3-year-old for six months?' This is a dream I've had since I was a young child myself. I don't think I'd be setting a good example for my son if I gave that up."

Nyberg's frankness via Twitter and Pinterest about the tricky balance between career and family has attracted attention.

Parenting magazine, not usually a regular at NASA events, joined in during a recent round of Nyberg interviews. And amid the more standard mission previews and astronaut-in-training photos, NASA shared a post called "Astronaut Mom Karen Nyberg Prepares for Mission and Motherhood 255 Miles Up" and included a photo of Nyberg enjoying a quiet moment with her son.

"You go to work for part of the day and then you're at home for the rest of the day and you're enjoying things your family is doing. I started thinking about what are the things you're going to miss when on the space station: my son jumping in the rain, my coffee and my dog," Nyberg said.

Her decision to blend the personal and professional online was gradual.

"It just kind of built on itself: a good opportunity to show other people a little bit more about me. Karen. Not just the astronaut."

Karen the astronaut is part of a crew that includes Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, a veteran of three space flights, and space rookie Luca Parmitano, an Italian with the European Space Agency.

Parmitano described Nyberg, who has a doctorate in mechanical engineering, as being like "a cool big sister" — a space veteran who "has done it before and can teach me how to do it myself." Like Nyberg, Parmitano also has a young child he'll be away from.

The crew's main task is to use the space station as a science laboratory. Nyberg will participate in studies into the blurry vision astronauts often face upon returning home and possible changes to bone structure from the lack of gravity. And she'll be ready for any upkeep duties needed on the station.

Karen, the mom, meanwhile, has been candid about the mixed emotions she has felt as she prepared for the mission, about the life-on-Earth moments she'll miss as the outpost cruises through 16 sunrises every day.

Her son in her arms. "Will never tire of this and will long for it while living in space," she writes in a post on Pinterest.

Story time: her son, again, leaning forward over a Clifford the Big Red Dog book with the caption: "Who doesn't love story time in pj's & a big red dog?"

"Not just a food picture," she promises below a photo on Twitter of grilled tilapia and fresh broccoli shared with her family. "Savoring the moment."

"I started thinking about it more the last week I was in Houston," Nyberg said in the interview. "We were cooking out one night in our backyard (and I thought), I won't do this again. I'm missing the entire summer."

Nyberg, of course, is not the first astronaut mom. Nor is she the first astronaut mom to have to say goodbye to young children for an extended stay in space. In the last few years, Nicole Stott and Cady Coleman left behind elementary school-aged children during their long-duration missions on the ISS.

"I think what Karen is doing, as well as other astronauts, is so important to show how astronauts are real people, too (albeit heroic and driven)," said Libby Norcross, a Challenger Center Flight Director, who thanked Nyberg — via Twitter — for offering "peeks at the personal side of spaceflight."

At the advice of another astronaut, who is also a mom, Nyberg said she videoed herself reading books that Jack can watch. And while on the outpost, she plans on making videos for her son of experiences such as eating in space. They'll video-conference every weekend, and she can talk via an Internet phone with her son and husband in her free time.

"I think the time is going to go very fast," Nyberg said. "I think, all in all, it will be all fantastic."

Her son also seems to be taking it in stride. In a FaceTime call that Nyberg placed to him earlier this month after saying goodbye and heading to Baikonur to prepare for launch, he answered: "Hi, Mommy! Are you still in space?"

"Love that boy," she tweeted.

Lucky Luca gets his chance to fly in space

Jonathan Amos - BBC News

"If it happens, it happens quite soon," says Luca Parmitano. "There may be a motion you do with your head, and before you know it you are barfing in your barf bag. But to be honest, I would be very surprised if it happened to me." Let's hope.

The Sicilian is about to fulfil a dream by flying on a Russian Soyuz vehicle to the International Space Station on Tuesday.

At 36, he will become the youngest person to undertake a long-duration mission to the orbiting outpost. He is also the first of "the Shenanigans" - the European Space Agency's 2009 intake of astronauts - to get an assignment. This is the same group as "Major Tim" Peake, the Briton who was told last week he will go up in 2015.

The Russians invited Luca to try their "puke table", something recommended to all first-time cosmonauts.

It's a bench on which you are alternately tipped head-first and then feet first. You are then moved to a revolving chair and told to close your eyes as they spin you around.

The aim is to test the vestibular system, to get you ready for the weirdness of weightlessness and the way it can confuse an astronaut's sense of balance and orientation in the first hours of flight.

But as a fighter pilot by trade, Luca ought to be well prepared. The barf bag should be redundant; and in any case, he'll have little time to feel sick. He's sitting in the left-hand seat of the Soyuz capsule for the journey up to the ISS.

This is the position that looks after all the on-board systems - its life-support, pressurisation, engines, etc. It carries a lot of responsibility, and even more so given that Tuesday's flight will be only the second accelerated rendezvous with the station.

Traditionally, Soyuz capsules have taken two days to get to the 415km-high platform. In March, mission controllers experimented with a six-hour re-join. It is technically more difficult and requires some very precise orbital adjustments, but it seems to be the way to go for the future.

Luca, his Russian commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and Nasa astronaut Karen Nyberg will have had little time to reflect on their sensations before they are floating through the hatch of the ISS.

"When you have three very highly trained people sitting around for two days waiting to get to the station, it seems a waste - a waste of human resources, of brain power and of work," says Luca. "With this new way to get to the station, you are saving time. And in the future, this means we need less stuff on the capsule just for the flight - less water, less food - and have more room to carry experiments and other payloads."

The Italian has a packed schedule up to his return to Earth in November. He'll see all of the vehicles now used to service the station come and go, perhaps even the new Cygnus freighter which is made in part in Turin.

He's also scheduled to make two spacewalks. "I've dreamt of doing that. Being an astronaut is about walking in space. For me, they are one and the same thing."

There'll also be a lot of science. ISS crews are now completing about 70 hours a week, conducting experiments that exploit the unique microgravity environment on the platform.

And then there is the "million dollar question", as Luca puts it: "Can you do anything better than Chris Hadfield?" The recently returned Canadian astronaut became something of a superstar whilst commanding the station.

His constant tweets, photos and videos from orbit put him in touch with an audience untapped by any previous spaceman in the modern era. Hadfield's cover of David Bowie's A Space Oddity has racked up more than 15 million views on YouTube.

"He's an amazing friend and a role model for many of us. I am just in awe of how much he did," says Luca.

"I taught myself the guitar in the past two years and I would like to play some Italian music that has never been played on the station before.

"My mission is called Volare, which is Italian for 'fly'. It's also the way a lot of people know a very famous Italian song, Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu from the 1950s. I'd like to play that."

It's a good choice. Its many covers include a version by none other than Bowie himself.

And being Italian you would expect Luca to have given some thought to that other Italian religion - food.

National chefs have prepared a range of dishes for him to share with his crew. When the European space freighter, the ATV, arrives at the station in a few weeks, it will be carrying lasagne, risotto and Italian casserole. "Pesto. Oh how I love pesto sauce!"

There's a lot of attention on Luca because he is the first of Esa's 2009 rookies to get his chance in orbit. Of the six in his class, four have been allocated assignments and the remaining two have been promised they will fly by 2017.

"It's not important that I am first; what's important is that all my classmates fly, that we perform well and that we all make our small contribution to the history of spaceflight.

"We're opening things up for those who come after us, for those who will fly well beyond low-Earth orbit and the space station. We'll be helping just a little bit these future astronauts who may not even be born yet."

You can follow Luca and his Volare mission on Twitter (@astro_luca), through his website and on Facebook.

Unplugged: Richard Branson's otherworldly space quest

Mark Veverka - USA Today

If you think that civilian space travel is pure folly, then you are probably underestimating the vision and vigilance of two of the greatest entrepreneurs of our time: Virgin Group Chairman Sir Richard Branson and Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos.

If anyone is capable of pulling off recreational rocket rides, it is these two.

Although they have each launched companies dedicated to bringing suborbital space travel to the pedestrian public, they have yet to share with each other details of their respective commercial forays into the final frontier.

But that should soon change.

The two moguls recently had a conversation and have agreed to meet and discuss their respective space odysseys, Branson told reporters at a business conference here last week. Branson's Virgin Galactic, founded in 2004, a unit of his London-based Virgin Group, recently opened operations in Las Cruces, N.M. Bezo's very stealthy Blue Origin, based in suburban Seattle, was incorporated in 2000 and owns vast acres in rural Texas devoted to launch facilities.

The two multibillionaires, who couldn't be more different in personality, share a common bond: They have successfully disrupted disparate industries in which they had little previous expertise. Branson cut his teeth on music and retailing before branching out into airlines and mobile phones. Bezos, who was a hedge fund wonk, pioneered electronic commerce by harnessing the Internet to sell books and music and is now a leader in tablet devices and cloud-based utility computing.

As it turns out, the two already ran into each other when Amazon started selling music over the Web, which competed with Virgin's once-revolutionary brick-and-mortar megastores. Ultimately, Steve Job's plunge into digital music with the introduction of iTunes led to the demise of Virgin's core business, Branson says.

"Apple came up with an innovation that did the first damage, and the Internet did the rest," Branson told 2,500 attendees at the C2-MTL creativity and commerce confab, which boasts close ties to Quebec's Cirque du Soleil.

"Music shops are fast disappearing," says Branson, explaining why Virgin exited music retailing. The rapid rise of digital music and file sharing taught Branson a valuable lesson while simultaneously validating his instincts to diversify into complex industries in which he had little experience.

When Branson announced his plans to enter aviation by way of Virgin Atlantic Airways, the conventional wisdom was that he should stay in his proverbial lane of music and entertainment. But if he had, as Branson reflects, his company would now be a shell of its current self. Instead, he applied his entertainment prowess to the airline industry and has made flying a little more fun. In addition to London-based Virgin Atlantic, his company has expanded into the U.S. market with Burlingame, Calif.-based Virgin America.

Emboldened by his success in the airline business, Branson doesn't seem to think it is a stretch to join the space race, although he admits that it is one of his "riskiest" ventures yet.

Always focused on the consumer, Branson aims to make space travel as cost-affordable as humanly possible. "Most people would love to become astronauts, if they could afford it and get a return ticket," Branson says. His spacecrafts, which travel at 3.5 times the speed of sound, cost around $300,000 per vehicle to build, Branson says. So, far, Virgin has invested around $300 million in space travel. Virgin Galactic's first commercial flight (not including tests) could be as early as December, says Branson, who hopes to be on that flight pending approval by the Federal Aviation Administration, he says.

In addition to Bezos' venture, another privately funded space transport outfit on the horizon is Hawthorne, Calif.-based Space Exploration Technologies, or Space X, which was started by yet another tech mogul, PayPal founder Elon Musk. Space X, founded in 2002, is focusing on cargo as well as human transport and already has successfully flown to the International Space Station.

Unlike Bezos, Branson is already acquainted with Musk and cites fundamental differences between their two operations, especially in the price of the spacecraft. Branson says Space X is building more powerful vehicles that cost more than double than those of Virgin.

Still, as you might expect, Branson doesn't shy from rivalry and welcomes competition. "Space is a big place," Branson says.

On top of the space travel business, Branson plans on helping send less expensive, more environmentally correct satellites into space, aiming to deliver more mobile wireless and broadband coverage to underdeveloped parts of the world, which is consistent with his philosophical mantra that doing good is good business.

Can Sir Richard, who shuns market research studies as a matter of habit, turn a profit from his space gambit?

"I never went into a business (asking), 'Can I make a lot of money from this?'" Branson says. But "I think we'll be able to pay our bills at the end of the year."

I'm not sure NASA can say that.

Perry signs SpaceX law

Laura Martinez - Brownsville Herald

It is now law.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has signed House Bill 2623 into law that will allow the temporary closure of Boca Chica Beach for rocket launches, should SpaceX decide to build a launchpad in Cameron County.

Perry signed the bill Friday, showing the state's support for having Space Exploration Technologies — or SpaceX — construct a launch site near Boca Chica Beach.

"We've balanced the people's access to their beach at times of peak usage and we have shown a world-class company that Cameron County and Brownsville are doing everything in our power to bring them to South Texas," said state Rep. Rene Oliveira, D-Brownsville, who authored the bill. "The project will pay big dividends in jobs, home and auto sales, science and math curriculum, and national attention focused on our area."

Texas is one of four sites being considered by SpaceX.

The others are in Florida, Georgia and Puerto Rico.

The Texas site is at the eastern end of State Highway 4, about three miles north of the Mexican border. It is about five miles south of Port Isabel and South Padre Island.

SpaceX officials could not be reached for comment Friday.

However, SpaceX founder, billionaire Elon Musk, repeatedly has said Texas is the leading candidate for his rocket launch site. In March, Musk testified before the Texas House Appropriations Committee and explained to committee members what SpaceX is all about.

The bill was co-authored by state Rep. Eddie Lucio III, D-San Benito. State Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., D-Brownsville, helped get the bill approved in the Texas Senate and sent to Perry's office.

According to the bill, the beach cannot be closed on holidays or during weekends in summer months. The only exception to those days would be if SpaceX has to scrub a launch and can show "it stands to suffer significant adverse business consequences" if it doesn't launch, on days that otherwise would be prohibited, officials said.

The bill would also require the county to get approval from the state's General Land Office before a launch can be made.

Oliveira has said the beach would be closed for about 15 hours on the day of a launch for safety measures.

The proposed SpaceX project recently cleared the initial Federal Aviation Administration environmental impact studies. However, if the FAA does not approve the site, the beach will not be closed.

"We are hopeful that the passage of this legislation, along with a solid package from the state, will compel SpaceX to come to Cameron County. The bill represents the hard work of many people trying to make it happen," Oliveira said.

SpaceX bill signed into law

Eva Ruth Moravec - San Antonio Express News

Gov. Rick Perry on Friday signed into law a proposal to temporarily close a beach on the southern tip of Texas during rocket launches, a move that allows the state to remain competitive for a SpaceX launch site.

House Bill 2623 gives state officials permission to close the public Boca Chica Beach, near Brownsville, for up to 12 rocket launches a year. The proposal prohibits beach closures during the Memorial Day and Labor Day holiday weekends without approval of the general land office, the legislation states. It passed the Texas House in April, and was approved by senators on May 9.

"Even as our country shifts towards a greater reliance on private space exploration, Gov. Perry believes that Texas will continue to be the home for the space industry, and this bill ensures that we remain on right path to solidifying that reality," read a statement from Perry's spokesman, Josh Havens.

Authored by Rep. Rene Oliveira, D-Brownsville, the bill was the result of lobbying by SpaceX and encouragement from its billionaire CEO Elon Musk, who spoke to Texas lawmakers about the commercial spaceport he is considering building. Without HB 2623, the port couldn't be built.

Founded in 2002, SpaceX designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft; the company's ultimate goal is "enabling people to live on other planets," its website states. A privately-owned company, SpaceX has more than 3,000 employees in California, Texas, Florida and Washington, D.C.

Faster, NASA, Faster

Edward Lu - New York Times (Opinion)

(Lu, a former astronaut, is the program manager for advanced projects at Google)

In Silicon Valley we have a saying: launch early, launch often. It's an acknowledgment that successful, innovative companies are the ones that rapidly try new ideas, see what works, improve their products and repeat. Businesses that launch frequently are also able to take advantage of economies of scale to make launchings faster and easier. In many ways, the key to innovation is speed of execution.

NASA, an agency that depends on innovation, could benefit from the same mindset. To meet its new goals for human spaceflight, NASA must be able to be creative and take risks, or else it will be unable to adapt to new technology and changing political realities. Grand plans stretching over decades will become irrelevant and eventually collapse.

In the 12 years before I left NASA in 2007, we averaged about four space shuttle launchings per year. We had periods when the rate was even lower: in the late '90s, during the early construction phase of the International Space Station, and in 2003, in the wake of the space shuttle Columbia disaster. I saw firsthand the harm that low launching rates do to innovation.

With precious few flights, every available opportunity to test new equipment or run scientific investigations was filled for years into the future, and this discouraged engineers from trying out new ideas. Without actual flight test data on, for example, prototypes for new life-support equipment, management was forced to substitute analysis for real engineering experience.

As operations slowed, morale dropped and proficiency in mission control, hardware handling and other operations all declined. The space shuttle is a magnificent machine, but it is so expensive and difficult to maintain that most of NASA's effort was aimed at simply getting things up, so there were few resources left for actually exploring space. Imagine how different it would have been if we had had regular weekly launchings!

There is an important distinction to be made between the launching system (the rocket), and the spacecraft and payload (scientific instruments, experiments, people and so on) that it carries. In planning for spaceflight, the goal should be to make the launching system as robust as possible, and then launch rockets frequently so you can experiment and improve on the spacecraft and payloads that carry out missions.

I recognize that NASA cannot push a system to launch more frequently than it is capable of, because this could mean overrunning the budget or, worse, cutting corners on safety. Instead, future systems should be designed so that they can be rapidly prepared for launching by small teams.

This would not only increase NASA's ability to send up innovative payloads but also make launching systems more reliable. After all, the more a rocket is flown, the better it can be understood and the safer it becomes. Frequent launchings would also reduce costs per flight in the long run.

This strategy does have a downside: Given the reality of fixed budgets, a requirement to launch frequently would push designers to create smaller rockets. So any large spacecraft would need to be assembled and fueled in space, rather than on the ground. But if the flight rate is high and the launching system is robust, then such complications could be overcome. If, on the other hand, NASA is able to launch rockets only a few times a year, it will be difficult to maintain the innovation needed to sustain any long-term program.

The Russian Soyuz rocket demonstrates the value of frequent launching. Variants of this rocket have flown more than 1,700 times, averaging more than 30 launchings a year. As a result, the Soyuz is among the most reliable of all existing rockets. In fact, I flew into space aboard a Soyuz rocket in 2003 when NASA space shuttles had been grounded after the Columbia disaster.

There is no reason American companies could not build a similar, but modernized, medium-sized, economical workhorse of a rocket that is simple enough to sustain frequent launching. If NASA were to promise to buy one such rocket a week, the manufacturers could also profitably sell copies for launching commercial spacecraft and satellites — at much lower than current prices — and this would spur the development of space-based industries in fields like telecommunications, earth imaging and even space tourism.

To maintain a vibrant, innovative program, NASA needs to step up the rate of rocket launchings. It should set a requirement that any new launching system fly once a week, then put out contracts for private companies to design and build rockets that can operate this frequently. By launching early and launching often, NASA could get back in the business of exploring space.

What is it about sending people into space?
By sending living beings like ourselves into space we can come closer to the shear thrill and danger of travelling to a far-away place

Steve Connor - The Independent (UK)

To boldly go where no man has gone before. It is the most famously sexist split infinitive in the English language and yet it sums up neatly why we still need to have a human programme of space exploration.

Of course, the only "manned" space missions we currently have are focussed on sending astronauts to and from the International Space Station, a floating palace of technological wizardry weighing 3,600 tonnes and whizzing 28,000km an hour around the Earth at an altitude of more than 400km.

Any astronaut staying up there will see approximately 16 sunsets and sunrises in every 24-hour period. Whatever can be said about this kind of orbital space flight, it is not about boldly going where no-one had gone before – unless you include records for making circular journeys around Earth.

So what is it about sending men and women into space? Why do we need to do it? As Jeremy Paxman so succinctly put it when interviewing Major Tim Peake last week; what's the point?

Lord Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal, has explained his own schizophrenic attitude to human space exploration. As a scientist and practical man he is against on the grounds that it is a waste of money – you can get more bang for your bucks by sending probes and intelligent robots into space.

But as a human being, he is in favour. By sending living, breathing sentient beings like ourselves into space we can come closer to the shear thrill and danger of travelling to a far-away place we can only imagine.

Inspiring the next generation of scientists and engineers, as well as authors, artists and musicians, is one of the principle justifications for spending the colossal sums of money on what some – including Lord Rees – have called "that huge turkey in the sky".

But the International Space Station need not be the final destination for astronauts. What is really needed now is a programme of human space exploration that goes beyond simply orbiting the Earth. We need to set our sights on the Moon and Mars, or possibly visiting a nearby asteroid.

Of course it will always be possible to argue that the money is better spent on Earth. It is easy to see why some believe that hospitals and schools, or feeding the hungry, should have a higher priority.

Yet, space can unify as well as inspire, as astronaut Chris Hadfield has demonstrated. A truly unified world will be a better and safer place, and space exploration could help us to boldly go where humankind has not been before.

Here's What It Looks Like Inside The Space Station Control Room

Jennifer Welsh -BusinessInsider.com

Joanne Manaster, a biologist at the University of Illinois-Urbana, tweeted this image of the mission control room that runs the International Space Station.

In the picture, you can see a video link into the station, the video feed from an outer camera on the station, and the station's route, which you can also find online. Look at all those screens — four each!

You can see the Flight Director, who monitors the technical aspects of the space station's flight in real time; the CAPCOM, who is the capsule communicator that talks directly to the astronauts on the space station; and the MOD, the mission operations dictorate, who plans, directs, manages, and implements overall mission operations.

Manaster is visiting the Johnson Space Center as a part of a NASA Social event — which anyone can attend. She even got to wander around a mock up of the ISS:

Bra makers' moon-suit history to be told in Warner Bros. movie

Robert Pearlman - collectSPACE.com

From the studio that put Sandra Bullock into a spacesuit may now come a movie about the real-life seamstresses who traded sewing brassieres for stitching Neil Armstrong's lunar wardrobe.

Warner Bros. Pictures, which this fall will release Alfonso Cuarón's Bullock-and-George-Clooney-as-astronauts sci-fi film "Gravity," has hired screenwriter Richard Cordiner to adapt the non-fiction book, "Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo" for the big screen, the Hollywood news website Deadline reports.

"Spacesuit," by Nicholas de Monchaux, tells the history of the Apollo moonwalkers' outerwear and the company that created it: ILC, or International Latex Corporation — best known by its consumer brand of "Playtex." De Monchaux, an assistant professor of architecture and urban design at the University of California, Berkeley, researched the book while working for a year as a fellow at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

"Each one of [the spacesuits] was completely handmade – this [was] an utterly couture garment," de Monchaux told National Public Radio at the time his book was released. "Twenty-one layers of all different kinds of material hand sewn by women who came off the bra and girdle assembly lines."

"When you look at how Playtex put these suits together, it was this really kind of fabulous combination of, on the one hand some engineering expertise, but on the other hand, an enormous amount of informal knowledge," remarked de Monchaux.

If the story of a group of seamstresses and their unlikely supervisors — a TV repairman-turned-spacesuit engineer and a former sewing machine salesman-turned-executive — seems devoid of the type of drama needed for a movie, "Spacesuit" recalls their triumph over the military-industrial complex to produce what in July 1969 became the most iconic outfit worn in the history of mankind.

"One of the most remarkable stories is when Playtex was indeed successfully edged out of the [spacesuit selection] process at one point in 1965 and then battled its way back into a six week competition between three companies that would produce the final suit that would walk on the moon," de Monchaux told NPR's "Science Friday" in 2011.

The screenplay for "Spacesuits" is Cordiner's first script in a two-film deal with Warner Bros. A brand strategist for a San Francisco advertising agency, Cordiner's spec script for a documentary about the making of the classic Steven Spielberg movie "Jaws" drew the studio's attention.

"Still can't believe I'll help tell this incredible story... such an honor," Cordiner wrote on Twitter on Wednesday, referring to "Spacesuits."

If the project reaches theaters, it will not be the first time that Warner Bros. has borrowed from space history for a movie. The studio distributed the 1983 film adaptation of Tom Wolfe's "The Right Stuff" about the original Mercury astronauts and backed the 2000 stateside release of "The Dish" about Australia's contribution to the Apollo 11 moon landing.

Warner Bros. and Clint Eastwood acquired the film rights to astronaut Neil Armstrong's authorized biography, "First Man," by historian James Hansen in 2003, but then let the option expire four years later.

Watchdog rounds up 5 biggest issues facing NASA

John Kelly - Florida Today (Commentary)

NASA's inspector general is an independent watchdog over the space agency's performance of its duties and spending of your tax dollars.

This week, Inspector General Paul Martin delivered a six month status report on his team's work and what they see as NASA's top issues. His list is worth sharing, so here's a quick summary of the five biggest challenges identified:

The future of human space flight. Continuing operation of the space station and development of the new super rocket and accompanying human spacecraft are a significant challenge for NASA in an era of flat, or even declining, budgets. The inspector general notes that NASA is limited in its delivery of crew and supplies to the space station and that's cutting into research capability, both in terms of crew time and experiment transportation to and from Earth.

What's more, the inspector general said, the cost of operating the space station and developing the new space transportation system appear to be workable in the short-term. However, the inspector general has concerns about NASA's long-term estimates on cost and schedule.

2. Project management. The inspector general identified four long-standing issues with NASA's management of big projects. They included a culture of optimism resulting in rose-colored forecasts; the under-estimation of the technological complexity of problems facing its biggest projects; unstable funding, a problem worsened during austere budget times; and limited opportunities for its project managers to get training and experience.

3. Facilities management. NASA is the nation's ninth-largest federal property holder and the vast majority are at least four decades old, according to the inspector general's accounting. NASA is more than $2 billion dollars behind in maintenance projects. The agency hasn't kept its records in order regarding the utilization of the property and facilities it does have, and that's a costly problem that NASA must fix so that it's not wasting money that could be spent on space exploration. Underused and duplicative facilities are wasting taxpayer money.

4. Acquisition and contract management. The IG, and other authorities, continue to find overpayment and fraud in NASA's dealings with contractors and grant recipients. One big case was resolved just this week, with the guilty plea of a Merritt Island contractor who bilked the agency out of several million dollars, according to federal prosecutors. One big-picture cause for this kind of problem, the IG said, is weak contract management and oversight by the space agency.

5. Information technology security. NASA's had a couple of high profile cases recently where employee laptops containing sensitive details about employees and space projects went missing.

In the case of employee data, the agency had two cases since 2012 where Social Security numbers and similar information were on unsecured laptops, prompting the agency to spend more than $1 million on credit protection for the victims.
Beyond that, the IG said unprotected space-agency data can cause "significant financial loss, adversely affect national security, or significantly impair our nation's competitive technological advantage."

END

Keep the shuttle flying

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Fwd: Human Spaceflight News - May 28, 2013 and JSC Today

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