Wow what a difference a day makes in weather. Yesterday kinda warm and humid then raining hard and very high winds turning very cold!
Today cold and sunny
| | JSC TODAY CATEGORIES - Headlines
- Weekly Senior Staff Safety Message
- JSC Today Submissions for April 21 Due Thursday
- JSC Water Resources - Organizations/Social
- AIAA Houston LnL: Project Morpheus w/ Dr. Johnson
- Pond Conservation Tours and Wellness Walks
- Mental Health Disorders - Autism
- JSC Annual Picnic at SplashTown on April 27 - Jobs and Training
- Extended TDY FedTraveler Live Lab - April 16
- Searching for NASA Images and Mission Videos?
- Enterprise Service Request System (ESRS) Training
- Russian Phase One Language Course - for Beginners - Community
- April Showers ...
- Tour the WM Single-Stream Recycling Facility Today |  |
| Headlines - Weekly Senior Staff Safety Message
This week's topic: Building Trust. This week's message focuses on a JSC team member's experience about learning to trust instincts and find the confidence needed to speak up. As a leader, building trust within your group to help extract opinions on issues may provide opportunities for solutions, or even just illuminate unknown risks. View the presentation in the "Notes Page View" to gain insight into the author's story behind the slides. - JSC Today Submissions for April 21 Due Thursday
Have a JSC Today announcement you'd like to submit for Monday, April 21? Submit it by noon on Thursday, April 17, to ensure it makes it into Monday's edition. Thanks for your cooperation. - JSC Water Resources
In Fiscal Year 2013, JSC used more than 325,000 gallons of water. JSC is very close to several lakes, streams and bayous, so managing our water resources appropriately is critical. Potable water use refers to water used by drinking fountains, janitorial closets, restrooms, laboratories, cafeterias, cooling towers, boilers, chillers, cooling for air compressors, fire protection and turf irrigation. It is the responsibility of all JSC employees to ensure they are utilizing water as conservatively as possible. Please review your processes and identify any potential water-reduction efforts or best-management practices that can help achieve our reduction goals. For more information on water and wastewater, go to the JSC Environmental Office website. Organizations/Social - AIAA Houston LnL: Project Morpheus w/ Dr. Johnson
Join American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Houston Section and Dr. Wyatt Johnson for a lunch and learn on NASA's Morpheus project. Designed to serve as a vertical test bed for advanced spacecraft technologies, the vehicle provides a platform for bringing technologies from the laboratory into an integrated flight system at relatively low cost. This allows individual technologies to mature into capabilities that can be incorporated into human exploration missions. The Morpheus project and the associated Autonomous Landing and Hazard Avoidance Technology project provide technological foundations for key components of the greater exploration architecture necessary to move humans beyond low-Earth orbit. This talk will cover the "before" and "after" flight performance, cover the image-processing techniques needed to digitally record the gimbal pointing error and cover the batch filter design that corrected for the gimbal errors. Please RSVP at the website. We hope to see you there! - Pond Conservation Tours and Wellness Walks
JSC's ponds in the mall area were designed in the 1960s, and up until two years ago had a continuous water flow adding up to 12,088,800 gallons per year. Join us on Earth Day, April 22, to learn about the new recirculation system, interesting facts about JSC's ponds and this exciting conservation project. The pond tours will be joining the JSC Wellness walking group, with tours starting at both 11 a.m. and noon outside the Building 3 Starport Café. - Mental Health Disorders - Autism
April is the National Autism Awareness Month. Please join Takis Bogdanos, LPC-S, CEAP, CGP, with the JSC Employee Assistance Program, for a presentation about Autistic Spectrum Disorders as part of the psycho-educational series "Mental Health Disorders, Causes and Treatments." He will be discussing causes, prevalence, symptoms and impact in everyday life, as well as the latest treatments being implemented. - JSC Annual Picnic at SplashTown on April 27
The NASA JSC Family Picnic takes place at SplashTown water park every year the weekend before the park opens to the public. Don't miss out on this fun family event taking place on April 27! Tickets will be on sale from March 17 through April 18 in the Buildings 3 and 11 Starport Gift Shops and Gilruth Center. Tickets are $33 each for ages 3 and up (ages 2 and under do not need a ticket). After April 18, tickets will be $37. A ticket includes: admission to SplashTown from noon to 6 p.m. for plenty of thrills and admission to the NASA JSC exclusive pavilion (with wristband) for a barbecue lunch, beverages, snow cones, kids' games, Bingo with prizes, face painting, moon bounce, balloon artist, DJ, horseshoes, volleyball and basketball. Jobs and Training - Extended TDY FedTraveler Live Lab - April 16
Do you need some hands-on, personal help with FedTraveler.com? Join the Business Systems and Process Improvement Office for an Extended TDY FedTraveler Live Lab tomorrow, April 16, any time between 9 a.m. and noon in Building 12, Room 142. Our help desk representatives will be available to help you work through Extended TDY travel processes and learn more about using FedTraveler during this informal workshop. Bring your current travel documents or specific questions that you have about the system and join us for some hands-on, in-person help with FedTraveler. If you'd like to sign up for this Extended TDY FedTraveler Live Lab, please log into SATERN and register. For additional information, please contact Judy Seier at x32771. To register in SATERN, please click on this SATERN direct link: https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=SCHEDULED_... - Searching for NASA Images and Mission Videos?
Don't forget to register for tomorrow's training from 11 a.m. to noon. Learn how to use JSC's Imagery Online (IO) and Digital Imagery Management System (DIMS), which house and manage JSC's still imagery and downlink videos from the human spaceflight programs. This training is open to any JSC/White Sands Test Facility employee. To register, go to this link. For more information, go to IO or DIMS. - Enterprise Service Request System (ESRS) Training
The Information Resources Directorate (IRD) is providing hands-on ESRS training 1 to 3 p.m. Thursday, April 24, in Building 12, Room 138. Learn to use the new online service request tool for I3P services. Hands-on training includes how to enter and track requests like ordering new seats, moves, edits, network connections, distribution lists and seat de-subscribes. Space is limited. - Russian Phase One Language Course - for Beginners
Russian Phase One is an introductory course designed to acquaint the novice student with certain elementary aspects of the Russian language and provide a brief outline of Russian history and culture. Our goal is to introduce students to skills and strategies necessary for successful foreign language study that they can apply immediately in the classroom. The linguistic component of this class consists of learning the Cyrillic alphabet and a very limited number of simple words and phrases, which will serve as a foundation for further language study. Dates: May 12 to June 12 When: Monday through Thursday, noon to 1 p.m. Where: Building 12, Room 158Q Please register through SATERN. The registration deadline is May 6. Community - April Showers ...
… bring lots of opportunities to volunteer your time! Check out these upcoming events and then head on over to the V-CORPs website to sign up for one (or more!) of them. April 24: Science fair judges needed for elementary school district-wide science fair. You will be judging a field of 120 projects that WON from their respective elementary schools. Judges are needed from 8 a.m. until noon. The location is St. Mary of the Purification Montessori School (3002 Rosedale, Houston). April 25: San Jacinto College North Campus (5800 Uvalde, Houston) is hosting a career panel discussion from 1 to 3 p.m. This is EASY! Just talk about your STEM career, your education, how you got where you are and answer questions from these students. April 28: Texas Space Grant Engineering Design Challenge. Do you want to see what innovative ideas the next generation of space explorers have developed? Do you have a strong background in science or engineering? Then we need YOU to help judge the projects and posters presented by these upper-level engineering students from colleges and universities around Texas. The location is the South Shore Harbor Conference Center, and judges are needed from 7:30 a.m. until noon. New opportunities are added to the calendar almost every day, so keep checking! Questions? Contact your V-CORPs Administrator. - Tour the WM Single-Stream Recycling Facility Today
Courtesy of your JSC Green Team and in support of the JSC Recycling Campaign, you are invited to see the state-of-the-art Waste Management (WM) Single-Stream Recycling Facility off Gasmer. Take an extended lunch break and join us for today's tour. Bring your own lunch and meet us in front of building 11 at 11:15 a.m. We will return to JSC no later than 2 p.m. Contact Laurie Peterson to ensure there are still seats available in one of the vans. | |
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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. Disclaimer: Accuracy and content of these notes are the responsibility of the submitters. |
NASA and Human Spaceflight News
Tuesday – April 15, 2014
Orion News:
FOX News' Happening Now broadcast that while NASA may seem to be on the "backburner" with only commercial missions to the International Space Station from the U.S., Orion Project Manager Mark Geyer was of the opposite opinion because of the new Orion spacecraft launching later this year for the first time.
Geyer said, "It's been a long time to get here, all the struggles we've had, but now that were about to fly and all the pieces are coming together. It's very exciting to be this close." The broadcast also covered the "excitement" at NASA as it heads deeper into space. Kennedy Space Center Director said, "For me it's all a about establishing a human presence in the solar system. It's leaving planet earth. It's having the capability to go beyond. And that's what we're doing. We are developing that capability to actually leave earth and stay for extended periods of time beyond our home planet."
HEADLINES AND LEADS
SpaceX delays launch of space station supply ship with just over hour left, rocket leak blamed
Marcia Dunn – Associated Press
A space station cargo ship will remain Earthbound for a while longer because of a rocket leak.
SpaceX launch to ISS scrubbed
James Dean – Florida Today
A helium leak forced SpaceX to scrub today's attempt to launch a Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon cargo capsule from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
SpaceX scrubs launch to ISS due to helium leak; reschedules for Friday
W.J. Hennigan – Los Angeles Times
Hawthorne rocket maker SpaceX said its planned launch to the International Space Station has been delayed because of a helium leak on its Falcon 9 rocket. Space Lasers Will Beam Astronauts' Superfast Video
"It's like upgrading from dial-up to DSL."
Alex Brown – National Journal
As astronauts aboard the International Space Station send back more and more data, NASA is working to find a connection that can keep up with the flow of information. The answer: lasers.
Homeless vets in orbit on KSC visit
R. Norman Moody - Florida Today
Jan Greene won't soon forget his day at Kennedy Space Center.
Commercial crew, Crimea, and Congress
Jeff Foust – The Space Review
The ongoing crisis in Ukraine and the resulting tensions between Russia and the United States have put a new spotlight on NASA's current dependence on its Russian counterpart, Roscosmos, for sending crews to and from the International Space Station (ISS). The crisis hasn't affected that access, as even NASA's largely symbolic ban on NASA-Russian government cooperation explicitly excluded ISS operations from the outset (see "Symbolism and substance in US-Russian space relations", The Space Review, April 7, 2014). And, given the mutual reliance the ISS partners have (Roscosmos depends on NASA for some ISS resources, including power and communications), that cooperation for now seems safe, unless the crisis dramatically deepens.
A mantra for the Age of Selfies
Rex W. Huppke – Chicago Tribune
"It's not my fault that everything looks better when I'm standing in front of it."
NASA surgeon discusses space medicine career with Baylor health students
Regina Dennis - Waco (TX) Tribune-Herald
Figuring out treatment options for a patient can be tedious, but caring for one who is in a spacecraft hundreds of miles above Earth for months at a time poses a unique and daunting set of challenges.
4th, Final Instrument Installed on JWST Science Module
Space News Staff
All four of the James Webb Space Telescope's primary instruments have been mounted to the observatory's integrated science instrument module by engineers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., the space agency said April 8.
How Not To Get Bored During A Year On Space Station
Elizabeth Howell – Universe Today
When planning for long-duration space travel, many people would think along the lines of not forgetting a towel or something of that nature. But we on Earth who are spoiled by the astounding pictures beamed from space must realize that even astronauts can get tired of looking at the same few walls for months at a time.
COMPLETE STORIES
SpaceX delays launch of space station supply ship with just over hour left, rocket leak blamed
Marcia Dunn – Associated Press
A space station cargo ship will remain Earthbound for a while longer because of a rocket leak.
With just over an hour remaining, the SpaceX company called off Monday's planned launch. Officials said they believe the problem can be fixed by Friday, the next opportunity for flying and the last chance before astronauts do urgent spacewalking repairs.
A helium leak in the first-stage of the unmanned Falcon rocket forced a halt to the countdown, the latest delay spanning the past month.
Over the weekend, NASA almost postponed the launch attempt because of a computer outage at the International Space Station. But mission managers decided Sunday that everything would be safe for the arrival of the Dragon capsule and its 2½ tons of supplies.
The computer, a critical backup, failed outside the space station Friday as flight controllers were trying to activate it for a routine software load. The primary computer has been working fine.
It's the first breakdown ever of one of these so-called space station MDMs, or multiplexer-demultiplexers, used to route computer commands for a wide variety of systems. Forty-five MDMs are scattered around the orbiting lab. The failed one is located outside and therefore will require spacewalking repairs.
The Dragon capsule holds a gasket-like material for next week's computer replacement. This new material was rushed to the launch site over the weekend and loaded into the Dragon. NASA said astronauts can make the repair without it if necessary.
NASA astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Steven Swanson will perform the spacewalk next Tuesday — regardless of whether the Dragon flies by then. It will take several days to get the replacement computer ready, thus the one-week wait before the job, NASA's Kenny Todd, a station operations manager, said Monday.
SpaceX — Space Exploration Technologies Corp. of California — is one of two American companies hired by NASA to fill the cargo gap left when the space shuttles retired in 2011. Orbital Sciences Corp. of Virginia is the other.
If the SpaceX Dragon isn't flying by Friday, the company may have to get in line behind Orbital, on track for a May delivery run from its Virginia launching site.
The Dragon should have soared in mid-March, but SpaceX needed two extra weeks of launch prepping. Then an Air Force radar-tracking device was damaged in a fluke accident; an electrical short caused the instrument to overheat.
Monday's helium leak apparently came from a system that separates the first-stage during the first few minutes of flight.
Earlier in the afternoon, SpaceX signed a 20-year lease with NASA to take over the launch pad used during the Apollo and shuttle programs. Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39-A would be used for SpaceX launches with astronauts bound for the space station in three or four more years, if NASA approves the venture. Russia currently provides the only way to get astronauts to and from the space station.
Unmanned missions also are slated for this pad, possibly next year.
SpaceX launch to ISS scrubbed
James Dean – Florida Today
A helium leak forced SpaceX to scrub today's attempt to launch a Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon cargo capsule from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
No further details were immediately available.
SpaceX Launch Director Ricky Lim reported the scrub to his team a little more than an hour before the planned 4:58 p.m. liftoff.
"We have encountered an issue that will result in our scrubbing" the launch, Lim said in an announcement replayed on NASA TV. "The team here will start to safe the vehicle, offload propellants and then work on the details of the next few days forward."
SpaceX expects to be ready to try again at 3:25 p.m. Friday, the next available attempt due to orbital dynamics determing how quickly Dragon can reach the station with time-sensitive experiments.
There's a 40 percent chance of favorable weather on Friday.
SpaceX scrubs launch to ISS due to helium leak; reschedules for Friday
W.J. Hennigan – Los Angeles Times
Hawthorne rocket maker SpaceX said its planned launch to the International Space Station has been delayed because of a helium leak on its Falcon 9 rocket. The company said it plans to fix the leak and prepare for the next launch opportunity on Friday, "though weather on that date isn't ideal."
It's another setback for SpaceX and its third contracted cargo mission for NASA. The company initially planned to launch its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon space capsule in March, but several nagging delays repeatedly pushed it back. SpaceX had planned on a 1:58 p.m. Pacific time liftoff from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Monday. But NASA and the company called off the launch an hour before when the problem was identified on the first stage of the rocket. The Falcon 9 rocket is set to carry the Dragon capsule, packed with 5,000 pounds of supplies for the two Americans, one Japanese and three Russians aboard the space station.
There is a wide array of cargo on board, including food, science experiments, and even a set of legs for Robonaut 2, NASA's humanoid robot, designed to help astronauts with tasks in space.
The new launch time is set for 12:35 p.m. Friday. There are expected to be scattered thunderstorms in Cape Canaveral, Fla., throughout the day, according to the Weather Channel. When the rocket does take off, it will SpaceX's third mission on its $1.6-billion contract to transport cargo in 12 flights to the space station for NASA.
Space Lasers Will Beam Astronauts' Superfast Video
"It's like upgrading from dial-up to DSL."
Alex Brown – National Journal
As astronauts aboard the International Space Station send back more and more data, NASA is working to find a connection that can keep up with the flow of information. The answer: lasers.
On Monday, NASA is launching optical communication equipment aboard SpaceX-3. Once installed, it will allow ground crews to establish a "lasercom" connection with the ISS.
Just how fast is a laser-based space connection? Well, most space operations currently use radio frequencies that operate at 200 to 400 kilobits per second. The OPALS (Optical Payload for Lasercomm Science) connection will come in at 50 megabits per second.
"It's like upgrading from dial-up to DSL," said NASA's Bogdan Oaida
By comparison, South Korea tops global average Internet speed at 22 megabits per second.
OPALS isn't NASA's first venture into laser communications. A ship called LADEE (which is about to crash) streamed video from the moon a few months ago at a whopping 622 megabits per second.
In the future, NASA hopes to transmit to and from Mars at a gigabit per second. That's the speed Google Fiber claims to offer, which it pegs at 100 times the speed of average broadband.
For now, astronauts will have to keep their super-fast streaming to short cat videos: OPALS will only provide 100 seconds of connection at a time as ground instruments hold a line of site with the station.
Homeless vets in orbit on KSC visit
R. Norman Moody - Florida Today
Jan Greene won't soon forget his day at Kennedy Space Center.
"It is great that these people are doing this for us," said the 59-year-old veteran, who is homeless. "It's something that will stay with us. I can tell this to my grandkids. I'll go back to the camp and think about what I saw today."
Greene was one of three homeless veterans who were treated to a special day at the space center Monday. The idea was sparked by a KSC employee, Trudy Veach, who also is an American Legion Auxiliary volunteer who helps homeless veterans.
Greene, who served in the Navy from 1974 to 1978, and the others cheered after getting off the Space Shuttle Experience attraction. It was the beginning of their day at KSC, in which they would get a complete guided tour, have lunch with an astronaut and get a prime viewing spot for the SpaceX rocket launch which, unfortunately, was postponed until no earlier than Friday.
Ann King-Smith and Billie Pierce, who with other American Legion Auxiliary volunteers help the veterans get their clothes washed once a week, accompanied the three men and the wife of one on the KSC visit.
"I'm so happy," Pierce said after the first two hours at KSC. "They need to feel they are part of the community. They deserve every moment of happiness we can give them. Yes, they are going back to the woods, but they've had a chance to have a good day and enjoy this."
Russell Marquis, who was on the visit with his wife, Kelly, said he had been to KSC years ago but that this visit was so much more special.
"It is pretty awesome," he said. "It's a humbling experience."
The visit was quite a reprieve for Kelly Marquis.
"This is like a vacation in the Caribbean for somebody else," she said. "We appreciate the opportunity. It's something we wouldn't get to do."
Robert Duda, who served in the Navy from 1982 to 1990, said he was humbled by the special treatment he received.
"They make us feel like VIPs," he said.
That's part of the idea, said Andrea Farmer, senior public relations manager for the KSC Visitor Center. The employee brought up the idea to treat the veterans to a visit and it was embraced by her managers.
"We support our staff and their volunteer efforts," Farmer said as she guided the group. "It's a really an honor to host this group of veterans who do so much for our country."
The veterans said that returning to their camps in the woods was simply part of their lives. Volunteers, however, wish they could offer them more.
"The hardest part about today is when we drop them off and they walk into the woods and wave at us as we drive off," King-Smith said. "They've had a good day but you always end with that, and that's what we have to change."
Commercial crew, Crimea, and Congress
Jeff Foust – The Space Review
The ongoing crisis in Ukraine and the resulting tensions between Russia and the United States have put a new spotlight on NASA's current dependence on its Russian counterpart, Roscosmos, for sending crews to and from the International Space Station (ISS). The crisis hasn't affected that access, as even NASA's largely symbolic ban on NASA-Russian government cooperation explicitly excluded ISS operations from the outset (see "Symbolism and substance in US-Russian space relations", The Space Review, April 7, 2014). And, given the mutual reliance the ISS partners have (Roscosmos depends on NASA for some ISS resources, including power and communications), that cooperation for now seems safe, unless the crisis dramatically deepens.
What the events of the last several weeks have done, though, is provide another reminder of NASA's ongoing efforts to develop an alternative to the Soyuz for crew access to the ISS. Much of that attention has been instigated by NASA itself, reminding people of its Commercial Crew Program to develop vehicles that can transport NASA astronauts to the ISS and serve other commercial markets as well. However, the program is not a near-term solution to current tensions, and Congress, so far, does not seem motivated to better support the program despite its concerns about reliance on Russia.
Commercial crew status report
For now, commercial crew efforts are in something of an extended period of transition. The three companies that currently have funded agreements with NASA as part of the Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) program—Boeing, Sierra Nevada, and SpaceX—are currently carrying out those agreements, with many of the milestones of those awards already completed. Meanwhile, those companies await NASA's decision on proposals they submitted early this year for the next phase of the commercial crew effort, Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap).
Boeing is down to the last three milestones in its CCiCap award, said Chris Ferguson, director of crew and mission operations for the CST-100 spacecraft, in a presentation at the Space Tech Expo conference in Long Beach, California, on April 1. "We are on a path to critical design review coming up in July of this year," he said, the final milestone in its CCiCap award.
Boeing has leveraged a considerable amount of flight-proven components for the CST-100 spacecraft, he said, aiding its development. "The spacecraft itself has a lot of legacy in space," citing in particular space-tested and -qualified components of the CST-100's avionics system. "It's been really nice to pull an awful lot from off the shelf for the avionics suite."
One tweak to the CST-100 design is the addition of solar cells to the base of the service module. Originally, Ferguson said, Boeing designed the spacecraft to be powered entirely by batteries, given its short free flight times—less than a day—to and from the ISS. Adding the solar panels to the base "allows us to tread water from an electrical perspective" and keep the batteries charged.
One other upcoming change with the CST-100 has to do with the spacecraft's name itself. "We have absolutely wonderful ideas for a creative name," he said. "I think you'll see that after [CCtCap] contract award."
Sierra Nevada, widely seen as the underdog in the commercial crew competition since it received a CCiCap award half the size of Boeing and SpaceX, is pressing ahead with development of its Dream Chaser lifting body vehicle. At Space Tech Expo, John Curry, senior director and Dream Chaser co-program manager, said the company had achieved 27 milestones total in its various commercial crew awards, from its initial Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) award to its ongoing CCiCap agreement.
One of those milestones was a free flight of a full-scale engineering test article of Dream Chaser last October at Edwards Air Force Base in California, the final milestone in its CCDev-2 agreement. While the vehicle skidded off the runway upon landing when one of the vehicle's landing gear elements failed to deploy, both the company and NASA declared that test a success as the glide flight was intended to test the vehicle's flight characteristics, and the landing gear used on it was different from that planned for the actual flight vehicle.
That test article is back at the company's facilities in Colorado being upgraded for a new series of free flights. "We're going to fly it again this coming fall with the orbital vehicle avionics, software, and guidance, navigation, and control, which is a big upgrade for us and accelerates the development of those systems," Curry said. The first orbital Dream Chaser vehicle is currently under construction at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, under an agreement between Sierra Nevada and Lockheed Martin.
Sierra Nevada has been aggressive in seeking out new partnerships with companies and organizations. In January, it announced agreements with ESA and the German space agency DLR to study technologies that could be incorporated into Dream Chaser, and even look at launching the vehicle on an Ariane 5. Last week, the company announced an agreement with the Houston Airport System to being studying what it would take to use Ellington Airport, a facility not far from NASA's Johnson Space Center that airport managers are seeking to turn into a spaceport, as an alternative landing site for Dream Chaser.
SpaceX, perhaps the most visible of the three commercial crew contenders, is also approaching the end of its CCiCap award. "We have just four milestones left, only four, but they're big ones," said Garrett Reisman, DragonRider program manager for SpaceX, at Space Tech Expo. Two of those remaining milestones are technical reviews, including an integrated critical design review planned for next month.
The other two, though, are hardware flight tests of the Dragon's launch escape system. "Those are the two big E-ticket items that are going to be super exciting," he said. The first, planned for this summer, is a pad abort test, where a Dragon lifts off the pad at Cape Canaveral using its thrusters. The second, planned for later this year, will be an in-flight abort test where a Falcon 9 lifts off from Vandenberg Air Force Base and the Dragon separates around the time of maximum aerodynamic pressure on the vehicle.
Those tests, he said, will be among the final major tests needed before the crewed version of Dragon will be ready. "When we get that done, we're pretty close to being there," he said. "NASA has a goal of having certification complete in 2017, and we definitely intend to meet that goal."
Getting the program funded
While Boeing, Sierra Nevada, and SpaceX all work to complete their CCiCap awards this year, they're also playing a waiting game on the next phase, CCtCap. The companies submitted proposals in January for contracts that would cover development of spacecraft and initial test flights to the station, although awards are not expected from NASA until August.
What's not clear, though, is how many contracts NASA will award. (Unlike previous phases, done under more flexible funded Space Act Agreements, the CCtCap program will use conventional contracts under Federal Acquisition Regulations.) While NASA officials, including administrator Charles Bolden, have emphasized the desire of the agency to maintain competition, it's unlikely given the program's funding profile that all three companies can win contracts. The question will be whether NASA can afford two fully-funded contracts, or instead award "one and a half" contracts—a full-sized contract to one company and a smaller contract to a second company to allow them to continue work, but at a slower pace.
Bolden and others have offered few details about those awards, citing the "blackout" during the ongoing CCtCap procurement. Bolden, testifying before the Commerce, Justice, and Science (CJS) subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee on April 8, said the selections would be based in part on how much funding is available. Although the final fiscal year 2015 appropriations bills won't be done by the time of contract awards, Bolden said they hope to have a good idea by August of what they can expect based on the draft House and Senate versions of that bill.
"Just to be very candid, generally the House number [for commercial crew] is a little bit lower than the Senate number," Bolden said at the hearing, "so if I get a good number from the House, no matter what it is, then we will take a look at that number, added to what we have for 2014, and that will help us determine how many we can select, whether it's one, or one and a half, or two, or whatever."
Since the rollout of NASA's fiscal year 2015 budget proposal in early March—which coincided with the heightening of the Ukraine crisis—NASA has been emphasizing the importance for fully funding commercial crew in order to keep the program on track for 2017. Most of NASA's statement on its ban of non-ISS cooperation with the Russian government, issued late April 2, actually dealt with commercial crew.
"This has been a top priority of the Obama Administration's for the past five years, and had our plan been fully funded, we would have returned American human spaceflight launches – and the jobs they support – back to the United States next year," the NASA statement read. "With the reduced level of funding approved by Congress, we're now looking at launching from U.S. soil in 2017. The choice here is between fully funding the plan to bring space launches back to America or continuing to send millions of dollars to the Russians. It's that simple."
That message—funding commercial crew to end reliance on Russia—hasn't yet resonated with many members of Congress. At last week's appropriations hearing, as well as a March 27 hearing by the House Science Committee's space subcommittee, members continued to express skepticism about whether commercial crew really needed the $848 million requested for 2015.
This led to some contentious moments in those hearings between members and NASA administrator Bolden. At the March hearing, Rep. Steven Palazzo (R-MS), chairman of the space subcommittee, questioned how critical full funding was given that NASA had been sticking to a 2017 date for some time despite not getting as much funding as requested. Bolden noted that the commercial crew program originally had a goal of 2015 for beginning such flights. "We would now find ourselves months away from launching Americans from American soil, and I would not have to worry about paying the Russians another $450 million," had the program been fully funded from the outset, he argued. "If we don't get what the President requested, I can't guarantee 2017, I can't guarantee competition, and we will continue to pay the Russians."
Bolden argued that the slip in schedule from 2015, as originally proposed for the program when it was introduced in 2010, to 2017 was the fault of Congress. "This committee, this Congress, chose to rely on the Russians because they chose not to accept the President's recommendation and request for full funding for commercial crew. You can't have it both ways."
Bolden had an even sharper argument last week with Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), chairman of CJS appropriations subcommittee, over funding for the program. After Bolden again argued that full funding was needed to avoid further slips, Wolf countered that Congress had, in fact, provided the program with plenty of funding. "Congress has provided a lot of funding for commercial crew, particularly once you take into account the larger fiscal situation. There's never been a year that it was zero," he said. "The appropriation has been at or above the authorized level in all the years but one."
"I'm not sure where the [committee] staff says that you've given us more than we've asked. That's just inaccurate." Bolden responded, who appeared to take Wolf's criticism personally. "Every time I come here, my integrity is impugned," he said. "I am tired of having my integrity impugned by members of the committee and the staff."
The dispute between Bolden and Wolf appeared to be rooted in a misunderstanding. Wolf was referring to levels authorized for commercial crew funding in the 2010 NASA authorization act: $312 million for fiscal year 2011, and $500 million each in fiscal years 2012 and 2013. Those amounts are close to what was actually appropriated: $307 million in 2011, $406 million in 2012, and $525 million in 2013. However, those figures were significantly below the administration's original request, which in recent years have been in excess of $800 million, which Bolden argued led to the delays in the program from 2015 to 2017.
Later in the appropriations hearing, Bolden was more conciliatory. "Mr. Chairman, I apologize for losing my temper," he said to Wolf. "I get hot sometimes and I think I misunderstood you."
While NASA has used the current crisis to press for commercial crew funding, the agency has acknowledged it's not a near-term solution should Russia cut off NASA's access to Soyuz spacecraft in the near future. Bolden called commercial crew the backup to Soyuz at the Science Committee hearing, but said it was a three-year backup. That's the same, he argued, as the Air Force's backup plans should Russia cut off access to the RD-180 engine used by the Atlas V first stage: it is studying domestic production, but acknowledges it would take as long as five years to develop a domestic RD-180 production line.
Some in the space community have argued that, in an emergency, the existing cargo version of the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft could be pressed into service to carry crews. However, asked about this at Space Tech Expo, SpaceX's Reisman argued that while Dragon was designed from the outset to carry people, it would not be that simple to quickly convert the cargo version to carry people.
"There are significant upgrades that would need to be made before you could even entertain the idea of putting crew on there," he said. Besides no launch escape system on the cargo version of Dragon, he said, there's no life support system capable of supporting crews, and no displays or controls in the spacecraft for those crews. "I think the way we're heading, and meeting all of the NASA requirements, is the right thing to do to have a vehicle we're going to strap people into."
This all suggests that Congress's decision on funding for commercial crew will be largely decoupled from the current state of US-Russian relations, despite the best efforts of NASA to play up the program as an alternative to reliance on Russia's Soyuz. Given the congressional track record of funding past budget requests for the program, NASA shouldn't count on getting the $848 million it requested for the program, which will, in turn, have implications for how many of the three companies currently in the program will proceed to the next phase.
A mantra for the Age of Selfies
Rex W. Huppke – Chicago Tribune
"It's not my fault that everything looks better when I'm standing in front of it."
That's the mantra I've created for the Age of Selfies. If you repeat it 10 times and then take a selfie with this column — making sure my picture remains prominently in the foreground — you too can become selfie-actualized.
Now some might say, "Rex, you've created a brilliant and powerful phrase that will undoubtedly capture the hearts and minds of every person with a smartphone camera and a social media account. Do you consider yourself a spiritual leader?"
To which I would say, "No, I'm just a simple man who happens to make everything look better when he's standing in front of it. Also, I have fully absorbed our self-portrait fascination and divined the only possible explanation."
What led me to this path of selfie exploration was my inability to recall the last time I saw a photo that didn't include the face and outstretched arm of the person shooting the picture.
It seems there was a time when we would look at images of natural wonders or historic landmarks and think, "Wow, that's an awesome natural wonder or historic landmark." But now we gaze at those same photos and think, "Wow, that's an awesome place to take a selfie."
The world has become a background.
Don't believe me? Check out what NASA has planned for Earth Day on April 22:
"While NASA satellites constantly look at Earth from space, on Earth Day we're asking you to step outside and take a picture of yourself wherever you are on Earth. Then post it to social media using the hashtag #GlobalSelfie."
Every selfie-taker is encouraged to hold up a sign that says where on Earth they are, then every image carrying the #GlobalSelfie hashtag will be used to assemble "a mosaic image of Earth — a new 'Blue Marble' built bit by bit with your photos."
That's right, astronauts and spacecraft have brought us brilliant photos that show the Earth in its entirety. And that's fine if you're into that sort of thing. But what say we re-create an image of the Earth by cobbling together pictures of ourselves!
Let's just call it "MEarth Day."
(Hang on, I really like that term MEarth Day, let me take a selfie in front of it to make it more awesome.)
OK, I'm back.
If the NASA concept doesn't convince you that my mantra is spot on, consider other evidence of the ubiquitous nature of selfies.
The latest "Taking Stock With Teens" survey by asset management firm Piper Jaffray found that the selfie-riddled online photo-sharing service Instagram is the most popular social networking site for teens. Ellen DeGeneres shot a celebrity group selfie at the Oscars and the photo practically broke the Internet, becoming the most retweeted picture in Twitter history.
And if you're concerned about the humility of enhancing scenes by making yourself the focal point, remember this: Pope Francis takes selfies, too.
In a recent homily, the pope said: "Let us ask for the grace of having the wisdom to put ourselves on the margins, for the grace of humility so that we may receive the Lord's salvation."
But after his Palm Sunday homily in St. Peter's Square, the pontiff stepped out of the margins and got right in the frame, taking selfies with some of the young people in the crowd. That's clearly a sign from on high that taking selfies is a selfless and humble act, and I hope Pope Francis will soon adopt my mantra and declare, in Latin or English, either is fine with me: "It's not my fault that everything looks better when I'm standing in front of it."
Of course there's a slight problem with my newly minted philo-selfie. If everything looks better when I'm standing in front of it, how can I possibly bear to look at other people's selfies? Those photos would be inherently subpar because they lack the crucial ingredient: me.
I'm sure you all feel the same about you-less selfies. So I'm calling on the tech community to develop an app that will superimpose a photo of the user in the foreground of other people's selfies.
Say my buddy Bill catches a sunset of unimaginable beauty in the Badlands of South Dakota and quickly tweets out a photo of himself partially blocking that sunset with his bearded visage.
To make that photo interesting to me, the app will overlay an image of me flashing a wry grin. So my picture will be partially blocking Bill, who is partially blocking the previously amazing but now almost entirely obscured sunset.
That would be a photo I could appreciate. And if I retweeted it, others could use the app to put a picture of themselves over the picture of me over the picture of Bill over the now-forgotten sunset.
This opens the door for everyone to view what we value most: ourselves.
And that's just fine. Because, as a wise me once said: "It's not my fault that everything looks better when I'm standing in front of it."
NASA surgeon discusses space medicine career with Baylor health students
Regina Dennis - Waco (TX) Tribune-Herald
Figuring out treatment options for a patient can be tedious, but caring for one who is in a spacecraft hundreds of miles above Earth for months at a time poses a unique and daunting set of challenges.
"Really, what we are trying to do is help protect the health of the men and women who are willingly going into space doing work on behalf of all mankind," said Dr. Joseph Dervay, a flight surgeon for the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Dervay spoke of his 18 years of working in space medicine at a lecture Monday evening for pre-health students at Baylor University. The department regularly invites medical professionals like pharmacists, researchers and family health physicians to share their career paths with students.
Pre-health students make up about a third of Baylor's undergraduate enrollment.
"We want them to be exposed to all the different medical fields out there," said Rizalia Klausmeyer, associate director of the pre-health studies department. "But this one is out there. This one, no one would have thought about."
Dervay completed his medical training while serving in the Navy, where he rose to the rank of captain and spent a combined 29 years of active-duty and reserve service.
He has served as the lead deputy crew surgeon for 11 space shuttle missions and three missions to the International Space Station, and also supported 45 other space missions.
NASA physicians collaborate on treatment and diagnostic options to counter the medical and physiological changes astronauts undergo as a result of a space mission. For example, Dervay said, astronauts lose 10 to 15 percent of the bone density in their hips, heels and lower spine while in space, a change that also can cause kidney stones.
A solution is a daily exercise regimen in which the astronauts run on specially engineered treadmills and weight equipment for up to two hours to build muscle and counter the effects of the bone loss.
"It takes 90 minutes to orbit the Earth at 17,500 mph (in a space shuttle), so we have people who can say they literally ran around the world," Dervay joked to the crowd. "We've also had one lady, a Navy captain, who ran the Boston Marathon while people were doing it on the ground, she was running it in space, which was pretty cool, I think."
Each astronaut undergoes a private medical consultation with the team once a week while they are in orbit. The medical team also works extensively with astronauts ahead of a trip into space to prepare them for medical events during the six-month journeys.
Each is given a medical kit that includes various medicines and medical supplies to treat common issues like space motion sickness or perform procedures like CPR, drawing blood or intubation.
"When you're doing a procedure in orbit, everything you touch has to go somewhere because if it doesn't, that needle is going to rotate in air, and where do you think it's going to end up? Square in your eye," Dervay said. "There's checklists for everything, so that we can train the astronauts how to do everything efficiently and effectively."
Dervay shared how a team of astronauts and physicians created an eye irrigation system using scuba goggles to clear the eye of normal debris that may float around the space shuttle.
NASA physicians also have several ongoing research projects to find ways to better shield the body from the long-term effects of a zero-gravity environment.
One concern is the potential for exposure to radiation once astronauts are outside of the protective barrier of the lower-orbit shield. Space suits are designed with protective layers to ward off radiation, but the medical team has been searching for a preventative pharmaceutical solution.
"We're looking at the kind of chemicals that can help repair DNA, so things that are going on in laboratories right now for cancer patients, we're looking at things we might be able to use as chemical protectants before we're going to send you away (to space) for three years," Dervay said.
In recent years, MRIs conducted on astronauts have shown some swelling in the back of the eye. Dervay said though astronauts have not yet complained of any vision issues, researchers are examining what is causing the transformation before it leads to problems.
"Imagine that you're the one who's going to Mars and your vision is changing after several months," Dervay said. "We have redundant systems for engineering and computers systems (in space), but you've only got one set of eyeballs. We don't have a redundant system for that, so we've got to really figure this one out."
Dervay also shared some of his own personal highlights since working at NASA, such as meeting Neil Armstrong, the first astronaut to walk on the moon, and doing a physical assessment on President Barack Obama and the first lady before they were cleared to greet a crew preparing to launch into space.
He said the U.S. space program has faced challenges with the end of the shuttle program in 2011 and has had to rely on Russian Soyuz capsules to get to the International Space Station. But Dervay said he is hopeful that commercial spacecraft designers will engineer new U.S. vehicles for getting into space by 2017.
"The benefits of what we get out of the space program — engineering, medical, life science — is incredible, so hopefully our country will have the will to get back on track, and we all look forward to the day that we get that," Dervay said.
4th, Final Instrument Installed on JWST Science Module
Space News Staff
All four of the James Webb Space Telescope's primary instruments have been mounted to the observatory's integrated science instrument module by engineers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., the space agency said April 8.
NASA announced the milestone, in which the European Space Agency's Near Infrared Spectrograph was fitted alongside the Canadian Space Agency's Fine Guidance Sensor, ESA's Mid-Infrared Instrument and the Lockheed Martin-built Near Infrared Camera, in an online post.
JWST's four main instruments are set to undergo cryogenic testing at Goddard as a unit for the first time in June or July. The Fine Guidance Sensor — which hosts the Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph — and the Mid-Infrared Instrument were integrated with the science module for a round of cryotesting at Goddard that started last August and concluded in November.
Both the Near Infrared Spectrometer and the Near Infrared Camera were delivered to Goddard about a year later than anticipated when NASA completed an extensive rebaselining of the JWST program in 2012. The flagship astrophysics mission is now expected to cost $8.8 billion to build, launch and operate for five years. The mission required new technology development and is now years behind schedule and billions of dollars over initial budget estimates.
JWST is still on track to launch in late 2018, NASA Astrophysics Division Director Paul Hertz said in an April 9 conference call with members of the NASA Advisory Council's science committee.
How Not To Get Bored During A Year On Space Station
Elizabeth Howell – Universe Today
When planning for long-duration space travel, many people would think along the lines of not forgetting a towel or something of that nature. But we on Earth who are spoiled by the astounding pictures beamed from space must realize that even astronauts can get tired of looking at the same few walls for months at a time.
Scott Kelly is going to spend a year in space in 2015, and he highlighted boredom as one of the things he will need to fight against during his time on the International Space Station.
"There are things I will do a little bit differently with regards to pacing myself. You wouldn't think this is true, but you do have to kind of stay entertained over that kind of period," said Scott Kelly in a NASA interview late last week, which you can watch above.
"No matter how exciting that kind of things is, no matter how beautiful the Earth is, when you're doing it for a year there is still the factor of trying to keep yourself engaged and interested."
Kelly also highlighted some of the training challenges he will face being that he will be up there twice as long as the typical six-month space station mission. While it won't take twice as long to do emergency training, he is required to do it with twice as many astronauts/cosmonauts because he will be working with four crews in space.
He also will train with two different Soyuz spacecraft commanders (which will add "complexity", he noted) and have twice as much science to perform. That includes several "twin" studies where scientists will compare Kelly and his identical brother Mark, a four-time shuttle flyer who retired from the program in 2011.
Another lesson learned from his last six-month flight in 2010? "I know what I want to bring this time that I didn't have last time," Kelly said, although he didn't elaborate on what those items are.
Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko will begin their mission just under one year from now.
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