Sorry for the late send out….I am falling behind in the job.
| | JSC TODAY CATEGORIES - Headlines
- Coming Soon to JSC: Baby Deer
- IT Labs presents the IT Heroes Showcase: CommDash
- Energy Savings at Work/Home Memorial Weekend - Organizations/Social
- Out & Allied @ JSC Meeting - Pride Month Rollout
- Altered Mental Status Awareness and Support
- Starport Youth Sports Camps
- Starport Summer Camp - Register Now
- Starport Youth Karate Classes - Free Class May 24
- Beginners Ballroom Dance: May 27 and 29
- Starport Boot Camp - Discount Ends May 30 - Jobs and Training
- SPACE Live Labs for CS Supervisors - 3 Sessions
- Training for Transgender Inclusion - Community
- JSC Child Care Center Has a Few Openings |  |
| Headlines - Coming Soon to JSC: Baby Deer
In the next few months, some of the 150 whitetail deer that reside on-site at JSC will begin to have fawns. Until the fawns are large enough to keep up with their mothers, they will hide away from other deer during the day. Occasionally, fawns will wait for their mothers around JSC buildings, gardens, sidewalks and even under vehicles. Please do not approach or handle any wild animals on-site, including fawns. If you are concerned about the health of a fawn (i.e., it is laying on its side or is covered in ants) or if a fawn needs to be moved to a safer location, please contact the Wildlife Response Team through Work Control at x32038. - IT Labs presents the IT Heroes Showcase: CommDash
IT Labs continues to celebrate NASA's Information Technology (IT) innovators in the "IT Heroes Showcase," featuring a live presentation from Marshall Space Flight Center for the Communications Dashboard (CommDash) project. Taking a cue from social media in general and Facebook in particular, CommDash seeks to create a cohesive interface to help NASA flight controllers keep up with both the "big picture" and significant details of control room communications. This 20-minute event will be conducted live via Google+ Hangouts on air and recorded to the NASA IT Labs YouTube channel for future viewing. Direct your browser to NASA IT Labs YouTube on Thursday, May 22, at noon CDT. Click the live streaming link to join the Hangout on air. To ask questions during the event, log in with a personal Google account. Send comments and/or questions to IT Labs. - Energy Savings at Work/Home Memorial Weekend
Federal agencies are required by law to purchase energy-efficient products for designated item types. Purchasing ENERGY STAR-rated appliances is one way to meet energy efficiency requirements. Products that earn an ENERGY STAR rating demonstrate that they meet strict energy efficiency and performance guidelines. Help JSC increase energy efficiency by requesting ENERGY STAR-rated appliances at work. At home, Memorial Day weekend offers Texas shoppers a break from state and local sales taxes on purchases of certain energy-efficient products. The 2014 ENERGY STAR sales tax holiday begins at 12:01 a.m. (after midnight) on Saturday, May 24, and ends at 11:59 p.m. on Monday, May 26 (Memorial Day). Qualifying products will display the ENERGY STAR logo. Organizations/Social - Out & Allied @ JSC Meeting - Pride Month Rollout
TODAY, May 20, at 11:30 a.m., we're meeting in the Building 30A second floor Collaboration Center Armstrong Room for our monthly meeting. The Pride Planning Committee has put together a great lineup of activities and events at JSC for June's LGBT Pride Month and will be sharing all the details and opportunities to participate. There will be pizza and cake and the unveiling of this year's T-shirt design, too, just to make things festive. Hope you'll be there! Event Date: Tuesday, May 20, 2014 Event Start Time:11:30 AM Event End Time:1:00 PM
Event Location: Bldg 30 2nd floor collaboration center
Add to Calendar
Barbara Conte x31961
[top] - Altered Mental Status Awareness and Support
It can be very distressing watching a loved on experience an altered mental status. An altered mental status commonly presents as problems with thinking clearly, problems with reality testing and changes in mood. These type of difficulties are routinely seen in persons with dementia, brain injuries, mental illness and other medical conditions. It is not uncommon for family and friends to go through a series of their own stages in response to a loved one experiencing an altered mental status. We will be discussing the typical conditions that present with symptoms of altered mental status. We will discuss how to support yourself and loves ones. We will also identify resources for ongoing education and assistance. Please join Anika Isaac LPC, LMFT, LCDC, CEAP, NCC, as she presents "Altered Mental Status Awareness and Support" tomorrow, May 20, from 12 noon to 1 p.m. in the Building 30 Auditorium. - Starport Youth Sports Camps
Starport is now offering youth sports camps. We are offering three different sports camps: baseball, basketball and a multi-sport camp. All camps are a week long. Sign up early online, as spots are going fast! Ages: 6 to 12 Times: 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Dates: - July 14 to 19 (Basketball)
- July 21 to 25 (Baseball)
- Aug. 4 to 8 (Multi-sport)
Fee per session: $150 per child | $50 per week Extended care available. Register online or at the Gilruth Center information desk. - Starport Summer Camp - Register Now
Summer is fast approaching, and Starport will again be offering summer camp for youth at the Gilruth Center all summer long. We have tons of fun planned, and we expect each session to fill up, so get your registrations in early! Weekly themes are listed on our website, as well as information regarding registration. Ages: 6 to 12 Times: 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Dates: June 9 to Aug. 22 in one-week sessions Fee per session: $140 per child | $125 per sibling Register for all sessions and receive a DISCOUNT! Register online or at the Gilruth Center information desk. - Starport Youth Karate Classes - Free Class May 24
Let Starport introduce your child to the exciting art of Youth Karate. Youth Karate will teach your child the skills of self-defense, self-discipline and self-confidence. The class will also focus on leadership, healthy competition and sportsmanship. TRY A FREE CLASS ON MAY 24! Please call the Gilruth Center front desk to sign your child up for the free class (only 25 available spots). Five-week session: May 31 to June 28 Saturdays: 10 to 10:45 a.m. Ages: 6 to 12 Cost: $75 | $20 drop-in rate Register online or at the Gilruth Center. - Beginners Ballroom Dance: May 27 and 29
Do you feel like you have two left feet? Well, Starport has the perfect spring program for you: Beginners Ballroom Dance! This eight-week class introduces you to the various types of ballroom dance. Students will learn the secrets of a good lead and following, as well as the ability to identify the beat of the music. This class is easy, and we have fun as we learn. JSC friends and family are welcome. Regular registration: - $110 per couple (May 17 to May 27)
Two class sessions available: - Tuesdays from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. - starting May 27
- Thursdays from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. - starting May 29
All classes are taught in the Gilruth Center's dance studio (Group Ex studio). - Starport Boot Camp - Discount Ends May 30
Starport's phenomenal boot camp is back, and 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 May 30) - $90 per person (just $5 per class)
Regular registration (May 31 to June 8): - $110 per person
The workout begins on Wednesday, June 9. 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. Jobs and Training - SPACE Live Labs for CS Supervisors - 3 Sessions
Civil servant supervisors are encouraged to attend one of our upcoming SPACE Live Labs. During the live labs, supervisors will be able to work on employee appraisals, and Human Resources support will be available to answer any system-related questions. No registration is required. The live lab dates/times are below. SPACE Supervisor Live Labs (all in Building 12, Room 144): - May 22 - Noon to 1 p.m.
- May 28 - Noon to 1 p.m.
- June 5 - 9 to 10 a.m.
- Training for Transgender Inclusion
Do you find yourself watching in silence, not sure what to do, when an employee, co-worker or friend is being harassed, ridiculed or isolated because they are different? As JSC works toward creating a more diverse and inclusive workplace, it is important to increase our awareness of the issues faced by employees whose gender identity and/or expression do not match their assigned gender. Transgender persons face disproportionate amounts of discrimination in all areas of life, including opportunities for employment and advancement. As co-workers and allies, we can change this. In observance of PRIDE month, the JSC Out & Allied Employee Resource Group is hosting Mara Keisling, director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. Keisling will address the myths and provide facts surrounding gender identity and expression, outline the workplace challenges faced by transgender employees and provide recommendations for steps to increase inclusion and support our transgender employees. SATERN ID: 73786 Community - JSC Child Care Center Has a Few Openings
Space Family Education, Inc. (SFEI) has openings available to dependents of JSC civil servants and contractors for the 2014 summer and August school year. We have openings available Aug. 25 for children who will be: - 15 to 34 months of age
- 3 years of age
- 4 years of age
Program Details: - Open 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. (Closed for federal holidays, but open on Flex Fridays.)
- Competitive pricing with other comparable child cares, but SFEI includes more amenities.
- Additional security. Badges are required to get on-site, and there's an additional security code to get in the school's front door.
- Accelerated curriculum in all classes with additional enrichment and extracurricular programs.
- Convenience. Nearby and easy access for parents working at on-site at JSC.
- Breakfast, morning snack, lunch and afternoon snack are all included.
- Video monitoring available from computers, androids and iPhones.
SFEI is available for dependents of JSC civil servant and contractors. | |
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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 – May 20, 2014
INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION: May is National Osteoporosis Awareness and Prevention Month, and to acknowledge that Jean Sibonga, Ph.D., and Dr. William J. Tarver were interviewed on Great Day Houston, KHOU-TV, yesterday morning on bone loss and osteoporosis research on the ISS.
HEADLINES AND LEADS
NASA is considering recycling plastic for 3D printing on the International Space Station
When NASA sends a 3D printer to the International Space Station, it will dramatically improve the crew's ability to fix unforeseen problems like broken parts and supply shortages. It will also reduce how much mass needs to be carried into space; instead of having a spare copy of everything, astronauts can just print parts as they are needed.
Ham TV Lets You Video Chat With The International Space Station
Hi, great to see you!
Francie Diep - Popular Science
Now—if you catch a lucky window—you can video chat with the International Space Station.
A father-son chat leads to first-of-its-kind NASA spacecraft
Thom Patterson - CNN
The human imagination is an amazing thing. Take for example the story of how a simple father-and-son chat led to a prototype spacecraft for landing on other planets.
NASA: Russia Alone Can't End Space Station Work
Frank Jordans – Associated Press
Friction between the United States and Russia over Ukraine won't spell the end of the International Space Station, the head of NASA said Monday, dismissing concerns that one of the world's most prestigious scientific endeavors could fall victim to political disagreement.
Tensions Not Affecting Commercial ISS Venture
Jeff Foust – Space News
Ongoing political tensions with Russia have not been a problem so far for a Canadian company operating cameras on the Russian segment of the international space station, but the crisis does create some uncertainty, a company executive said May 15.
International Space Station presses on despite uncertain future
NASA will hold a conference to plan the future of research on the International Space Station, even as tensions with Russia spill over into ISS cooperation.
Andrew McDonald - The Space Reporter
Amidst a great deal of strife over the future of Russian and American cooperation on the International Space Station, NASA is planning for the station's long-term future. According to a NASA statement, the agency, along with the American Astronomical Society and the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space will convene the third annual International Space Station Research and Development Conference on June 17 through 19 in Chicago. Russia, China Sign Space Exploration Agreement
Matthew Bodner – The Moscow Times
With a summit meeting between the Russian and Chinese presidents due to begin Tuesday, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Rogozin has followed last week's rhetorical bombshell — that Russia was not interested in extending operation of the International Space Station, or ISS, beyond 2020 — by trumpeting a future of increased cooperation with the emerging Chinese National Space Agency.
Jettisoning Russia: A Four-Part Plan That Assures U.S. Access To Space
Loren Thompson – Forbes
In a monumental miscalculation, Russian deputy prime minister Dmitri Rogozin has undermined his nation's prospects for continued participation in the world's largest space market. Earlier this month, Rogozin threatened to cease export of the RD-180 rocket engine for military launches, stop providing U.S. astronauts with rides to the International Space Station, and even deny use of Russian territory for ground stations supporting the Global Positioning System. Rogozin oversees the Russian defense industry, so his comments carry considerable weight. It isn't the first time Russian officials have mused about cutting off access to their rocket technology the way Gazprom talks about cutting off gas supplies to Europe, but this time there will be consequences.
The Troubled Fate of the International Space Station
Sten Odenwald – Huffington Post
On May 13, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin announced that Russia will stop its ISS activities in 2020 in response to U.S. sanctions over Russia's annexation of Crimea. According to some reports, they have even forbidden the ISS from flying over Ukraine after 2020. This may just be political posturing, and a lot can happen between now and 2020, but if Russia goes through with its threat we may have a problem that goes beyond ferrying astronauts and supplies to the ISS.
Exclusive: NASA may bring Orion's test flight forward
Paul Sutherland and Ken Kremer - Sen
The maiden flight of NASA's new Orion spacecraft could be brought forward to September, Administrator Charles Bolden has told Sen in an exclusive interview.
2021: A New Space Odyssey?
U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith - Space News
On a wall of my D.C. office, I look at a poster-sized photo taken by the Hubble Space Telescope called the Deep Field. Some years ago, astronomers pointed the Hubble at a dark speck of sky so small it could be covered by Abraham Lincoln's eye on a penny held at arm's length. Within that tiny area of the dark sky, they discovered 3,000 points of light — each a galaxy comprised of an average of 100 billion stars.
Editorial | A Mission Worth a Closer Look
By Space News Editor
Congressional deliberation on what for all intents and purposes is the second-to-last budget request of the Obama administration is well underway, and there's every indication that the latest exercise will be as futile as all previous ones in terms of resolving the human spaceflight policy gulf between the White House and Capitol Hill.
Profile | U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, Member, House Appropriations commerce, justice, science subcommittee
Dan Leone – Space News
U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) is JPL's man in Washington. The seven-term congressman has represented the Pasadena-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory — the crown jewel of NASA's planetary science program — since 2001. Long the best-funded division of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, planetary science ceded that position to the Earth Science Division in 2009, bottoming out in 2013 a little below $1.3 billion.
The Big Melt Accelerates
Kenneth Chang – New York Times
Centuries from now, a large swath of the West Antarctic ice sheet is likely to be gone, its hundreds of trillions of tons of ice melted, causing a four-foot rise in already swollen seas.
Florida Lawmakers OK $42.5 Million for Space Projects
Irene Klotz – Space News
Florida legislators authorized $42.5 million for space-related programs for the state's 2015 budget year that begins July 1, including revamping the space shuttle's runway and landing facilities at the Kennedy Space Center for commercial users.
The future of NASA's commercial partnerships
Jeff Foust – The Space Review
NASA's use of public-private partnerships to develop new space capabilities got another, incremental endorsement on Sunday, when SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft departed from the International Space Station (ISS) and splashed down successfully in the Pacific Ocean off the Baja California coast. Dragon launched last month on the third of twelve contracted cargo resupply missions to the ISS, ferrying experiments and supplies from the station; it returned with some of the results of those experiments, as well as other cargo.
New teaming in Alabama rocket industry as Aerojet Rocketdyne, Dynetics link up
Lee Roop – Huntsville (AL) Times
Rocket propulsion company Aerojet Rocketdyne and aerospace and defense engineering services company Dynetics are teaming up to collaborate on new aerospace technologies and systems in Huntsville.
Space Center puts live webcam on team reassembling 747 shuttle carrier
Craig Hlavaty- Houston Chronicle
Space Center Houston is letting you watch live online as workers reassemble the 747 space shuttle carrier that they acquired from NASA for its planned space shuttle Independence exhibit.
COMPLETE STORIES
NASA is considering recycling plastic for 3D printing on the International Space Station
When NASA sends a 3D printer to the International Space Station, it will dramatically improve the crew's ability to fix unforeseen problems like broken parts and supply shortages. It will also reduce how much mass needs to be carried into space; instead of having a spare copy of everything, astronauts can just print parts as they are needed.
NASA is considering taking that reduction in material one step further by putting a plastic recycler on the ISS. The Made in Space printer that will board the ISS later this year prints in ABS plastic, which is the same type used in Legos and other common items. A recycler would allow the ISS crew to turn broken parts and other unneeded items back into the raw material on which the printer relies.
NASA is supporting research into a recycler with two $125,000 grants. One went to Made in Space, which is developing a recycler known as R3DO. The other was awarded to Tethers Unlimited, a company based outside Seattle that is pursuing robotics-based systems that could 3D print and assemble large structures in space. Tethers Unlimited's recycler is called "Positrusion."
Tethers Unlimited added in its recycler proposal that its system will also be useful for 3D printers on Earth.
"Several small companies have advertised bench-top extruder machines for making filament, some even being designed to recycle scraps, but all of those we are aware of are emulations of the traditional industrial process and are not sufficiently reliable for the average user," Tethers Unlimited wrote. "The Positrusion process would not be suited for high through-put industrial purposes, but it will be marketable to a large portion of the growing population of household and workplace 3D printer users to enable individuals to efficiently practice a self-sustaining 3D printer material cycle."
These are both very early stage grants, but if NASA is putting a 3D printer on the ISS, it makes as much sense to send a recycler. Just as spare parts can become sparse and difficult to get to the station, the filament for an extruder can run out. And if space missions begin venturing farther and farther from Earth, it will become increasingly important to stretch supplies as far as they can go.
Ham TV Lets You Video Chat With The International Space Station
Hi, great to see you!
Francie Diep - Popular Science
Now—if you catch a lucky window—you can video chat with the International Space Station.
Amateur radio enthusiasts have set up a "ham TV" system—the video counterpart to amateur or "ham" radio—from which folks on Earth can get video and sound from the space station. Astronauts aboard the space station, meanwhile, are able to hear (but not see) their Earth callers and respond.
Actually making the call takes a bit of planning. The connection only works if the space station has a clear line of sight. The longest window of time a caller has is 20 minutes, and that's only if five portable ground stations are positioned in just the right way. So, sadly, unlike with ham radio, it would be difficult for anybody to call into the ISS at any time. Instead, interested parties should contact the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station group, which helps set up calls for classrooms, museums and space camps. Of course, ham radio operators have always been able to hail the space station using readily available equipment. The ISS' orbit is well within range of radio waves. Whether an astronaut will pick up at the time you call is another question.
The ham TV hardware was designed by an Italian engineering company called Kayser Italia and assembled by the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station group. There's equipment that's housed in the space station, plus ground equipment and antennas. The Amateur Radio on the International Space Station group manages the antennas.
On April 12, ISS staff confirmed ham TV is ready to take general calls. So far, it has tested its abilities in a call between NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins and ground stations in Italy.
A father-son chat leads to first-of-its-kind NASA spacecraft
Thom Patterson - CNN
The human imagination is an amazing thing. Take for example the story of how a simple father-and-son chat led to a prototype spacecraft for landing on other planets.
One Friday evening in 2009, NASA engineer Stephen Altemus arrived home from work feeling, well, kind of frustrated.
Altemus, who was chief engineer at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, believed the agency was under "incredible pressure and scrutiny" for allegedly high budget costs. NASA's ambitious Constellation program to develop a next-generation rocket was about to be canceled.
"The environment was a sense of uncertainty and chaos and redirection," Altemus told CNN last week on the phone. Engineering, he believed, wasn't being used to contribute to NASA's future.
"That responsibility to make sure every dollar is spent exactly right within the agency sometimes causes a stifling of innovation," Altemus said. "What NASA needed was an innovative fire that made it OK to try and fail and learn from mistakes."
Altemus' 15-year-old son noticed something was wrong.
" 'You never talk bad about NASA, Dad,' " Altemus recalled his son saying. The conversation that followed, the engineer said, was a "moment of inspiration -- instigated by my son."
They sat down at the family dinner table and talked about how to "put NASA back on the map with a bold mission that seemed nearly impossible." A short time later, Altemus created a few charts and his son put together an illustrative YouTube video.
Monday morning at his office, Altemus made his pitch to his NASA leadership team.
"I said, 'What if we unleashed the power of engineering, and did things our way, and were not deterred? What could we do together?' "
It was a radical idea: Build an unmanned spacecraft with a robotic explorer and send it to the moon within 1,000 days. Its engines would be powered by liquid oxygen and methane fuel. The vehicle would also have a self-guided laser landing system that avoided coming down on big boulders and other hazards.
Altemus' fellow team members said, "Yes." They were in.
Altemus then took his crusade to a higher level, briefing officials at NASA headquarters. "We told them, 'We've got an idea that's going to change the agency.' They were like: 'Yeah, yeah, this is really good but politically this may not fly.' "
Nonetheless, Project M was born.
"We had no money we had no endorsement from leadership, we had no authority to proceed, we had nothing. All we had was this commitment to do engineering in a lean, affordable way."
Despite a shoestring budget, Altemus' team cobbled together the parts and technology they needed. They bartered. They traded.
At first, "a whole lot of political fallout came trying to squash the project," Altemus said. Nonetheless, Project M gained momentum. "It was nothing like what NASA was used to."
Eventually, "the whole attitude changed."
By June 2010, Project M ended without making it to the moon. But it resulted in an offshoot project called the Morpheus planetary lander.
An unmanned spacecraft that can haul 1,100 pounds of cargo, Morpheus looks like a four-legged metallic spider on steroids.
Given what this thing can do without risking human lives, the four-year program was a steal at $14 million. Compare that to the approximate $1.7 billion cost of one space shuttle. That's billion, with a "B."
Mainly Morpheus serves as a testing platform for new technologies that could take both unmanned and manned spacecraft to other worlds. It's the first NASA prototype spacecraft to be propelled using liquid oxygen and liquid methane. It's also the first to use a suite of laser-based sensors as a kind of autopilot for dangerous landing situations.
"The technologies demonstrated on Morpheus are directly applicable to future robotic, and eventually human missions," Morpheus Project Manager Jon Olansen told CNN via e-mail. That includes landing on asteroids, the moon, Mars, or even Jupiter's moon, Europa. U.S. President Barack Obama has called for astronauts to orbit Mars by the mid-2030s.
But its development wasn't exactly smooth sailing. In 2012, during an engine test of a Morpheus prototype, the lander rose a short distance, rolled over and slammed into the ground. It caught fire immediately and exploded about 30 seconds later.
Thankfully there were no injuries, but the crash "was a huge setback for the team," Altemus said. NASA quickly "picked itself up" and figured out how to fix the problem.
Today, the latest version of the Morpheus lander "is a centerpiece for the agency to show what a fantastic team it is, and what incredible things can be done with just sheer willpower to imagine," said Altemus, who in 2013 ended a 25-year career at NASA to start an engineering products business based on space technology.
The sophisticated self-guided system that prevents Morpheus from setting down in hazardous landing zones could be used on a lander that could safely put astronauts on another planet. The auto-pilot could greatly reduce astronaut workload during the critical phase of a manned mission, Olansen said. It opens up areas for exploration that were once considered too dangerous even for robotic landings -- like the north and south poles of the moon, which are riddled with craters.
In fact, during the next decade, NASA plans an unprecedented mission to send astronauts to an asteroid. Accomplishing that feat would be historic.
Training has already begun. On May 9, two astronauts performed a simulated asteroid space walk at the Houston facility's 40-foot-deep low-gravity simulation pool. They practiced on a mockup of an Orion, NASA's manned spacecraft which is still being developed.
Amazingly, NASA planners hope to design a robot spacecraft that would capture an asteroid and haul it into a stable orbit near the moon. Next, astronauts aboard an Orion would spacewalk to the asteroid and collect rock samples that would help scientists learn more about the components of asteroids.
It's possible that Morpheus' fuel -- liquid oxygen and methane -- could be found on Mars or other planets. This opens the door to the idea that a Morpheus-like lander could refuel there.
Here's how it might work: An unmanned fuel-making spacecraft would travel to Mars ahead of the lander. The fuel-making spacecraft would then harvest methane from the atmosphere, said Altemus. "If there's water in the soil you would harvest the water and break down the water into oxygen and hydrogen. Then the lander sets down near the fuel-making spacecraft and uses the oxygen and methane to refuel for another flight.
How amazing would it be if that father-son talk across a Houston dinner table back in 2009 had even the smallest connection to a journey to another world?
Human space exploration is "part of our DNA," said Altemus. "It's as simple as that. We as human beings will find a way to strive to create, to invent. As long as there are planets in the sky that are unreachable, somebody's going to try to reach them."
NASA: Russia Alone Can't End Space Station Work
Frank Jordans – Associated Press
Friction between the United States and Russia over Ukraine won't spell the end of the International Space Station, the head of NASA said Monday, dismissing concerns that one of the world's most prestigious scientific endeavors could fall victim to political disagreement.
The comments by NASA Administrator Charles Bolden come a week after Russia warned that it could cease cooperating with the U.S. on the project after 2020. Although Japan, Europe and Canada are also members, all currently depend on Russian Soyuz capsules to take astronauts to the space station since NASA retired its shuttle fleet.
"There is no single partner that can terminate the international space station," Bolden told reporters in Berlin, where he was attending the city's annual air show.
Bolden said that the cooperation between NASA and Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, on the International Space Station hadn't changed "one iota" in recent years. The project has withstood the increasingly frosty atmosphere between Washington and Moscow that saw the U.S. impose sanctions on Russia over its actions in Ukraine.
Still, Bolden indicated that if for one reason or other a country should drop out of the project, the others would seek to continue.
"There is no one partner that is indispensable on the International Space Station," he said. NASA hopes that private companies such as Space X will be able to develop rockets and capsules to fly astronauts to the space station as early as 2017.
Asked whether there might be an opportunity to bring on board China, which NASA is currently banned from cooperating with on human space flight, Bolden said: "There is nothing that I see in the tea leaves that says our relationship is going to change."
Tensions Not Affecting Commercial ISS Venture
Jeff Foust – Space News
Ongoing political tensions with Russia have not been a problem so far for a Canadian company operating cameras on the Russian segment of the international space station, but the crisis does create some uncertainty, a company executive said May 15.
"The situation hasn't made any difference from an operational standpoint, but it sure isn't helping," UrtheCast Chief Executive Scott Larson said in a presentation at the International Space Development Conference in Los Angeles. The bigger effect, he said, has been on perceptions in the media and among investors in the publicly traded company.
UrtheCast operates two cameras installed on the exterior of the station earlier this year by Russian cosmonauts, a partnership between the company and the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, to provide images and video of Earth. Larson said the company is currently testing one camera, which provides medium-resolution imagery, and expects it to be fully commissioned by this summer. The second camera, which produced high-resolution images and video, will be ready several weeks later.
International Space Station presses on despite uncertain future
NASA will hold a conference to plan the future of research on the International Space Station, even as tensions with Russia spill over into ISS cooperation.
Andrew McDonald - The Space Reporter
Amidst a great deal of strife over the future of Russian and American cooperation on the International Space Station, NASA is planning for the station's long-term future. According to a NASA statement, the agency, along with the American Astronomical Society and the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space will convene the third annual International Space Station Research and Development Conference on June 17 through 19 in Chicago. This conference covers a vast array of topics related to the research and technological innovation already taking place on the station and plans for future research that will last for the remainder of the space station's lifetime.
In 2014, the theme of the conference will be "Discoveries, Applications and Opportunities". The sessions will present research on the consequences of microgravity; strides made in biotechnology, health, and education thanks to the space station; the commercial potential of innovations in technology and engineering aboard the station; and the part the station will play in the road to sending astronauts to Mars in the 2030s. More specialized sessions will cover the newest results in the life, physical, space, and Earth sciences and on technologies that further human exploration. Sessions will also explain to potential proposers how to initiate and fund their own concepts for experiments to be carried out on the station.
The conference will take place against a backdrop of rising tension over Russian actions in Ukraine and U.S.-imposed sanctions. On May 13, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin stated that Russia will cease to participate in the space station in 2020, much earlier than NASA had hoped. As summarized on the Huffington Post, this presents several NASA with several dilemmas. Although private companies, such as SpaceX and Orbital Sciences, have assumed much of the burden of resupplying the station, these are unmanned missions so far. For now, NASA must rely on Russian Soyuz craft to ferry astronauts to and from the station. NASA is hopeful that, in 2016, SpaceX Dragon capsules will be able to transport astronauts.
Perhaps the most dire consequence is the loss of capability in stemming the station's slow orbital decay. In years past, power from NASA Space Shuttles and Russian Progress spacecraft has been used to stabilize the station's orbit. European ATVs assumed some of the burden after the Space Shuttles were retired in 2011, but the ATVs will cease production after ATV-5, which will launch on July 25, 2014. The station's current altitude of 259 miles is slowly decaying every year due to friction with Earth's atmosphere.
Russia, China Sign Space Exploration Agreement
Matthew Bodner – The Moscow Times
With a summit meeting between the Russian and Chinese presidents due to begin Tuesday, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Rogozin has followed last week's rhetorical bombshell — that Russia was not interested in extending operation of the International Space Station, or ISS, beyond 2020 — by trumpeting a future of increased cooperation with the emerging Chinese National Space Agency.
Meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Deputy Prime Minister Wang Yang, in Beijing on Monday, Rogozin announced on Twitter that he had signed "a protocol on establishing a control group for the implementation of eight strategic projects." In a later Facebook post, he said "cooperation in space and in the market for space navigation" were among the projects.
Rogozin and Wang agreed to hold a meeting between the heads of their respective agencies "in the near future," so that Beijing and Moscow could sow the seeds of a potential space partnership.
Federal Space Agency chief Oleg Ostapanko wants to allow "Chinese colleagues participate in some of the most interesting projects that can replace the ISS," Rogozin said, adding that they would also discuss "projects such as cooperation in the field of rocket engine development," and cooperation in the growing market of space applications services — which primarily applies to the development of the Chinese Beidou satellite navigation system and Russia's Glonass navigation system, both rivals to the U.S.' GPS.
However, analysts doubted Russia's ability to be a reliable and fruitful partner to China beyond 2020, as Russian capabilities in space have drastically withered in the 20 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the Russian space program lacks clear direction or goals.
Bleak Prospects
"The purpose of any cooperation between states in space is to minimize the costs of complex projects and the development of science and technology," Pavel Luzin, a researcher at the Russian Academy of Science's Institute for World Economy and International Relations told the Moscow Times Monday.
By this measure, Luzin sees little point in a Russia-China space partnership. China needs Russia only for "technologies they have not yet developed," and Russia lacks both a long-term vision for its space program and an industry capable of supporting it.
Aside from the failed Phobos-Grunt scientific mission to one of the Martian moons in 2011, the history of Russian-Chinese cooperation in space amounts to little more than technology transfer.
"In particular, the Chinese manned space program — spacecraft, spacesuits, etc. — is largely built on borrowed Soviet and Russian technology," Luzin said, and "such cooperation should not be exaggerated."
China does not need Russia as a genuine partner in space, Luzin thinks. Having been barred by the U.S. from the International Space Station program — a $100 billion international scientific project involving 15 nations — China has unilaterally pursued an ambitious exploration program in recent years, convinced that a great power must have a commanding presence in space.
James Oberg, an expert on the Russian space program and NASA mission control veteran, rated China's progress highly. "China's program has moved from methodical recapitulation of Western stages into some breathtakingly innovative new mission designs, such as its asteroid fly-by mission ... [which] shows Beijing's intention to pioneer space exploration in the decade ahead."
In 2003, China became the third nation to independently put a man in space, and in 2011 it deployed its first small, single-module space station — Tiangong. By 2023 it hopes to build a multi-module space station, resembling Russia's Mir space station. China may therefore be interested in using Russia to master the required technology and techniques, but beyond that there is little reason for China to be interested in Russia as a partner, according to Luzin.
Aside from expertise in space station construction, Russia could share expertise on reusable spacecraft and rocket engine technology. Engines are one of Russia's greatest contribution to Western space efforts — U.S. spacecraft manufacturers have been big buyers of Russia's powerful RD-180 and NK-33 engines.
"But here too, cooperation cannot be long term. It will end after the transfer of technology has been completed," Luzin said.
The Price of a Pivot
Were Russia to turn its back on its U.S. partners in space to focus on cooperation with China, it would lose more than it would gain: "It is obvious that without cooperation with the West that Russia would lose in the competition in science and technology," Luzin said.
With a history of cooperation dating back to 1975, the U.S. and Russia have cultivated an intimate partnership in the field of space exploration over the 20 years since the fall of the Soviet Union, a relationship solidified on the ISS joint project. Representatives of both countries' space agencies are present in Mission Control Moscow and Houston at all times to support each other's operations on the ISS, and scientific collaborations are constant.
This relationship has given Moscow a reputation as a reliable and generous partner in large-scale technology projects — Russia has been giving U.S. astronauts rides to the ISS aboard its Soyuz launch vehicle following the retirement of the U.S. Space Shuttle fleet — as well as insight in to advanced Western space technology and science.
"Throwing both away for spite is more than foolish, it is reverting to a doomed path of space development that will harm Russia most, since Russia remains critically dependent on Western technology imports," NASA's Oberg said.
Luzin hit back at that notion — the scientific value of Russia's participation in the ISS program is marginal, he said, and presents little value beyond 2020, since "Russia is not doing anything new on ISS compared to what it was doing aboard the Mir space station between 1986 and 2001."
To Boldly Go
Currently, the Russian space program is entirely tied to the ISS, which Luzin said "receives the lion's share of spending on civil space exploration." This is a product of its integration with the Western aerospace community through the ISS program, which was consciously fostered to address the problem of modernizing the Soviet-era space industry and its integration into the global economy.
Unfortunately, none of these problems were appropriately addressed, said Luzin, and any discussion of Russia's future in space beyond 2020 "rests on the need for deep structural reforms, which not only Rogozin is unprepared for, but the entire Putin team. Moreover, there is no understanding in government of where and how we can and must develop in space."
Oberg was blunt — Russia's main gain in courting Chinese space cooperation is in "fanning nostalgia for obsolete anti-U.S. alliances," he said.
Jettisoning Russia: A Four-Part Plan That Assures U.S. Access To Space
Loren Thompson – Forbes
In a monumental miscalculation, Russian deputy prime minister Dmitri Rogozin has undermined his nation's prospects for continued participation in the world's largest space market. Earlier this month, Rogozin threatened to cease export of the RD-180 rocket engine for military launches, stop providing U.S. astronauts with rides to the International Space Station, and even deny use of Russian territory for ground stations supporting the Global Positioning System. Rogozin oversees the Russian defense industry, so his comments carry considerable weight. It isn't the first time Russian officials have mused about cutting off access to their rocket technology the way Gazprom talks about cutting off gas supplies to Europe, but this time there will be consequences.
U.S. reliance on Russian rocket engines began at a time when the outlook for a constructive relationship between Moscow and Washington was more promising than it is today. In fact, one of the reasons for using RD-180 engines on U.S. military launches was to promote closer relations. But after witnessing repeated aggression against former Soviet Republics that failed to follow Russia's lead in foreign policy, U.S. policymakers have grown wary of Moscow's intentions. So the idea of relying on Russian space technology to accomplish national-security missions looks doomed over the long run. Robert Wright of the Financial Times captured the peculiarity of the current situation in a story last week, noting the RD-180 was used to launch a satellite on April 10 that will probably spy on Russia.
As Washington moves to punish Russia for its transgressions in Ukraine and protect the Pentagon's ability to accomplish vital military missions in space, there is a danger it will further undermine national security by failing to think through all the implications of new policies before they are implemented. The government needs a step-by-step plan for jettisoning Russian technology in its military space program and substituting homegrown launch systems. That can be accomplished by the end of the decade without damaging national interests if Washington takes four fundamental steps.
1. Use the launch resources we already have wisely. Or said differently, don't make the situation worse than it already is. United Launch Alliance (ULA), the only launch provider certified to loft the military's most important satellites into orbit, uses two families of rockets for national-security missions. The Atlas V family built by Lockheed Martin relies on Russia's RD-180 engine for its first stage. The Delta IV family built by Boeing uses one or more RS-68 engines for its first stage developed by Aerojet Rocketdyne. ULA has a two-year supply of RD-180s already on hand, and that supply can be stretched by switching some launches from the Atlas to the Delta. Nothing should be done to impede the use of these launch vehicles in the most cost-effective manner possible until safe, secure alternatives are available.
(Disclosure: All of these companies contribute to my think tank; Lockheed Martin is a consulting client.)
2. Rigorously assess near-term options. The U.S. needs to develop a new generation of rocket engines that can match the efficiency of Russian offerings, but that will take time — four to five years at least. If Moscow stays on its current geopolitical vector, then alternatives to Russian launch technology may be needed sooner. Other than relying more on the Delta family of vehicles, what options does the Pentagon have in the near term? Its main hope, at least for now, would seem to lie with non-traditional providers like SpaceX, which is seeking certification for national-security payloads under an Air Force strategy that envisions competing such launches between ULA and new market entrants.
But the current SpaceX vehicle cannot launch big spacecraft like spy satellites, and a heavier vehicle proposed by founder Elon Musk probably won't be certified before an all-new U.S. launch vehicle becomes available. Redesigning the satellites to make them smaller — and therefore suitable for launch on a wider array of vehicles — would be horrendously expensive, time consuming, and in some cases simply impossible due to the physics involved. So the near-term options for coping with a cutoff of Russian launch technology look relatively sparse — especially as the RD-180s currently on hand get used up.
3. Expedite development of a new U.S. rocket engine. U.S. investment in rocket-engine technology has languished since the Cold War ended. The newest U.S. engines, such as SpaceX's Merlin, are derivatives of older technology that cannot match the performance of the latest Chinese and Russian rockets. Many experts believe the U.S. needs to develop an "oxygen-rich, staged combustion" engine similar to the RD-180 that uses kerosene as its main fuel. Unlike liquid hydrogen, kerosene does not need to be chilled, and when used with the latest propulsion technology it yields an engine that is lighter, more compact and less expensive than anything in the current U.S. fleet.
Aerojet Rocketdyne, the only U.S. company with a proven capacity to develop such a modern, liquid-fueled engine suitable for serving as the first stage on multiple launch vehicles, says it could do so in four years for about a billion dollars. The government and Aerojet have already invested in relevant technologies, and the techniques associated with fabricating more efficient rocket engines are well understood. Washington simply hasn't coughed up the kind of money needed for a new engine – although NASA made a start last year with an award for key components under its Space Launch System program. With the prospect of a Russian cutoff now looming, Congress needs to expedite development of a modern engine along the lines Aerojet has proposed.
4. Keep NASA launch-technology plans on track. Although NASA and the Pentagon use the same technologies to get payloads into orbit, past efforts to achieve efficiencies by sharing in the development of launch systems have often backfired. The measures that the government undertakes to eliminate reliance on Russian launch technology should not be allowed to derail the civil space agency's development of a new Space Launch System. That program will eventually yield the most powerful rockets in the world, capable of placing a 130-ton payload in orbit — and paving the way for human missions to Mars. If America is to sustain its leadership in space it must stop changing NASA plans in midcourse. So whatever problems Mr. Rogozin's intemperate remarks may have created for the Pentagon, we don't need another grand plan for rethinking every aspect of space-launch policy that sends the manned space program back to square one.
The Troubled Fate of the International Space Station
Sten Odenwald – Huffington Post
On May 13, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin announced that Russia will stop its ISS activities in 2020 in response to U.S. sanctions over Russia's annexation of Crimea. According to some reports, they have even forbidden the ISS from flying over Ukraine after 2020. This may just be political posturing, and a lot can happen between now and 2020, but if Russia goes through with its threat we may have a problem that goes beyond ferrying astronauts and supplies to the ISS.
Here's why:
With the help of commercial companies such as Space-X and Orbital, the United States has recovered most of its ability to re-supply the International Space Station with food, water and equipment on what is becoming a regular schedule. The latest commercial re-supply was by the Space-X, Dragon spacecraft launched on April 18. Orbital Sciences Corporation completed its first Cygnus re-supply mission to the Station on January 9.
The European Space Agency also has an Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) launch on July 25, 2014 called the Georges Lemaitre, and the Japanese Space Agency has two re-supply missions scheduled for 2015 and one scheduled for 2016. Beyond 2016, the dominant re-supply missions will be presumably be provided by Space-X and Orbital Sciences. Meanwhile in 2014 there have been two re-supply missions provided by the Russian Progress spacecraft on February 5 and April 9. The next one is on July 23, followed by one on October 29, and four in 2015.
This all sounds very promising, but there are two more issues.
First, these are un-manned missions. The rotation of astronauts on the Station is still being handled by the Russian Space Agency through contracts to the participating partner countries. Astronauts are ferried up in the Soyuz TMA vehicles, three at a time. Currently, the United States pays about $70 million per astronaut to bring them to the ISS, and return them to ground after their rotation is over. The next scheduled manned flights will be in May, September and November of 2014, and March and May 2015. The expectation and hope is that by 2016, the Space-X, Dragon capsules will be human-qualified and able to transport astronauts safely to the ISS. Also by 2016, Boeing will be flight testing is own manned capsule capable of docking with the ISS. NASA, meanwhile, plans to have its Orion spacecraft ready for maiden flights by the end of 2017 capable of sending humans to deep space destinations such as an asteroid and eventually Mars, but not the ISS.
Second, the ISS orbit is losing altitude. The ISS orbits Earth and encounters friction with the upper atmosphere, causing the ISS to constantly lose altitude by about 50 to 100 meters each day.
A combination of re-boosts by visiting Space Shuttles, ATVs and the Russian Progress vehicles have helped to maintain the orbit against atmospheric decay. The last Space Shuttle visit was in 2011, so the re-boost capability fell to the Russian Progress and the European ATV vehicles. In 2011, ATV-2 boosted the ISS orbit from 217 to 250 miles. In 2012, ATV-3 raised the orbit to from 245 to 260 miles. In 2013, ATV-4 boosted its orbit to 259 miles. Currently there are no more European ATVs being built after ATV-5 to be launched July 25, 2014, and only the Russian vehicles will provide this service afterwards.
Suppose the ISS altitude in 2020 starts out at 400 km (250 miles). At a 50 meter loss per day, this will fall to about 236 miles by 2021, and to 205 miles by 2024 when the ISS mission is supposed to end. The ISS reached a similar altitude in 2007. What will the future bring?
The difficulty of predicting altitudes in the future is that solar activity increases the density of the atmosphere at the ISS orbit and produces increased orbit drag. Between 2020 and 2024 we will be approaching the next sunspot maximum (ca 2024) and drag will increase. The last time we were in this sunspot cycle situation was between 1999-2000 when the altitude decreased from 250 to 200 miles in just one year. At that time we had the Space Shuttle to help gradually re-boost the orbit back to 250 miles by 2003. That will not be the case after 2020. It is likely that without any Russian assistance, the ISS altitude will fall well below 200 miles by 2024. At these low altitudes, air friction grows enormously and the altitude loss rate will dramatically increase to one mile per week or even higher. At some point after it reaches 200 miles, ISS will have to be abandoned for safety reasons.
Without the Russian Progress vehicles after 2020, ISS re-entry and burn up will be inevitable, and may not be controllable to the degree NASA, and Congress, had originally hoped. Currently, the 2013 NASA plan involved two Progress vehicles providing the fuel for a controlled re-entry. A new plan could force the de-orbit to occur soon after 2020. This means the future of ISS would revert to the ca 2020 disposal plan in place before 2010. In fact in 2009, the plan was to de-orbit the station by 2016!.
So, the Russian abandonment of ISS (for now) will not drastically change the future of the ISS after 2020, which has always been uncertain. Only now the end of ISS will revert to a political decision not an engineering or scientific one. At that point, there will be no place for astronauts to go except perhaps the Chinese Tiangong Space Station due for launch in 2020.
It seems that, without ISS, American manned space travel beyond 2020 will have to go "all-in" on the politically controversial destinations of the Moon, an asteroid or Mars to keep itself relevant!
Exclusive: NASA may bring Orion's test flight forward
Paul Sutherland and Ken Kremer - Sen
The maiden flight of NASA's new Orion spacecraft could be brought forward to September, Administrator Charles Bolden has told Sen in an exclusive interview.
The unmanned mission, dubbed Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1), is currently scheduled for December this year.
It was put back three months from the original target date to make way for the launch of military surveilance satellites for the US Air Force.
But speaking exclusively to Sen blogger Ken Kremer, former astronaut Bolden revealed that the original launch slot could be reinstated and NASA was keeping all options open.
The team of engineers and scientists are working to have the spacecraft in place to launch in September, whatever date is finally picked. "The vehicle will be ready to fly in September," Bolden told Sen.
The Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle will be blasted into space on its test flight atop America's most powerful rocket, the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy.
It will fly further from Earth than any spacecraft designed for humans since the end of the Apollo programme, reaching a distance of 5,800 km (3,600 miles). An important part of the mission will be to test Orion's heat shield when the capsule re-enters the atmosphere at a speed of around 32,000 kilometres per hour (20,000 mph).
Ken talked with Bolden, who flew four times on the space shuttle, including the mission to deploy the Hubble Space Telescope, at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
2021: A New Space Odyssey?
U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith - Space News
On a wall of my D.C. office, I look at a poster-sized photo taken by the Hubble Space Telescope called the Deep Field. Some years ago, astronomers pointed the Hubble at a dark speck of sky so small it could be covered by Abraham Lincoln's eye on a penny held at arm's length. Within that tiny area of the dark sky, they discovered 3,000 points of light — each a galaxy comprised of an average of 100 billion stars.
To me, this picture symbolizes the need to look beyond Earth, to consider our place in the universe, and to dream about infinite possibilities through the exploration of what is out there.
Another photo that has made a great impression is of Earth as seen from space, a pale blue dot in a sea of darkness. The first Americans to fly to the Moon on the Apollo 8 mission in 1968 looked back at our planet nearly 400,000 kilometers away and contemplated how everyone and everything they had ever known was found on that blue marble.
At a fundamental level, space exploration — the mission of NASA — is about inspiration. For years I have heard countless stories of how NASA inspired students to study math, chemistry and physics, and adults to become scientists and engineers. However, some of these same people now feel that NASA no longer inspires them, their children or their grandchildren.
Mankind's first steps on the Moon are a distant memory. And with the retirement of the space shuttle, NASA is paying Russia $70 million a seat to transport American astronauts to the international space station. There's a sense that America is falling behind, with our best days behind us. Today, America's finest spaceships and largest rockets are found in museums rather than on launch pads.
Regrettably, the Obama administration has contributed to this situation. Within a few months of taking office, the White House drastically cut the budget for NASA's Constellation program to return American astronauts to the Moon. In its stead, President Barack Obama has proposed robotic and human missions to an unnamed asteroid.
NASA's own advisory group on asteroids derided this mission, saying "it was not considered to be a serious proposal." While consensus on Capitol Hill might be hard to find, there is general agreement that the president's asteroid retrieval mission inspires neither the scientific community nor the public, who would foot the bill.
So, what is an inspiring mission? Maybe a journey to Mars. The red planet has long intrigued us. And one of the most intriguing missions is a Mars flyby with two astronauts onboard NASA's Orion crew vehicle.
NASA's Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket, which is currently under development, could propel Orion to Mars, but additional life-support modules will be needed. The flyby would take advantage of a unique alignment between Earth and Mars in 2021 that would also include a flyby of the planet Venus. Such a mission is only eight years away, about as much time as President John F. Kennedy gave NASA to shoot for the Moon and take the mantle of space leadership away from the Soviet Union. The engineering design team behind this proposal is composed of widely respected aerospace engineers — some of NASA's best and brightest.
We are not the only nation interested in extending humanity's reach into the solar system. One of the spacefaring nations will reach Mars. The question is whether it will be the United States, Russia or China.
Great nations do great things. President Kennedy's call to the nation wasn't just about reaching the Moon, it was a reminder that we are an exceptional nation. We must rekindle within NASA the fire that blazed the trail to the Moon. The future of this nation's exploration efforts lead to Mars. The first flag to fly on another planet in our solar system should be that of the United States.
Earlier this year, the Science, Space, and Technology Committee held a hearing to examine a Mars flyby 2021 mission. Witnesses testified that the mission is feasible. The committee recently approved a bipartisan NASA authorization bill that explicitly calls on NASA to conduct an independent review of a Mars flyby mission in 2021.
NASA, the White House and Congress should carefully consider this mission proposal. Such a bold new deep-space mission would focus our efforts and inspire our nation.
Editorial | A Mission Worth a Closer Look
By Space News Editor
Congressional deliberation on what for all intents and purposes is the second-to-last budget request of the Obama administration is well underway, and there's every indication that the latest exercise will be as futile as all previous ones in terms of resolving the human spaceflight policy gulf between the White House and Capitol Hill.
The administration continues with what appears to be a half-hearted effort to sell a plan to capture an asteroid and haul it into lunar space for inspection by astronauts who would be delivered by the congressionally mandated Orion deep-space capsule and Space Launch System. The administration's latest argument, as dubious as previous ones, is that the mission will advance the state of the art in space technologies sought by the commercial sector.
Congress, meanwhile, insists on spending $3 billion per year on Orion and SLS, even if that comes at the expense of the program to restore independent U.S. access to the international space station — something that has taken on greater urgency amid the deterioration of U.S.-Russian relations. SLS and Orion proponents couch their arguments in lofty rhetoric about U.S. leadership in space exploration, but it's no coincidence that the support base for SLS and Orion is dominated by lawmakers whose states and districts directly benefit from these programs.
Many of these same lawmakers have made no secret of their disdain for the Asteroid Redirect Mission, even though it would rely on SLS and Orion — vehicles that otherwise have no consensus destination. The project seems to survive by virtue of the fact that the administration hasn't yet sought to commit any real money to it, requesting just over $130 million next year to develop technologies associated with what would be a multibillion-dollar endeavor.
But Congress has yet to offer a compelling alternative.
Until recently, that is. Some lawmakers, including Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), who chairs the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, have taken to the idea of a crewed Mars flyby mission that originally was proposed as a purely private venture by pioneering space tourist Dennis Tito, chairman of the Inspiration Mars Foundation.
As now envisioned, the mission would utilize SLS and Orion to launch a pair of astronauts on a trajectory that would take them around Mars — to within 165 kilometers of the surface — and back in less than two years.
The catch — and it's a big one — is that the mission would have to launch by 2021 to take advantage of a favorable Earth-Mars alignment that would permit completion of the round trip in a relatively short period of time. If that opportunity is missed, the next chance won't come until the early 2030s, experts say.
The challenge of meeting the 2021 date is steep. Currently the SLS-Orion combo is not slated to debut until 2017 or 2018, with its first crewed mission to follow in 2021. The SLS variant in these missions — both lunar flybys — will not have the upper stage necessary to put Orion on a Mars-bound trajectory. NASA also would need a long-term crew habitation module that would be attached to Orion for the journey to and from the red planet.
Even if it can meet that schedule, there's a risk that NASA — barring a significant budget increase — would be forced to deprioritize many of its other activities.
But there are compelling reasons to give the Mars 2021 flyby a serious look.
First, it would leverage hardware already in development and requires no obvious leaps in technology.
Second, NASA is often at its best when faced with a daunting challenge. The obvious example: U.S. President John F. Kennedy in 1961 challenged NASA to put astronauts on the Moon before the decade was out — the rest is history.
Third, there is widespread agreement Mars is the ultimate goal of the U.S. human spaceflight program. An astronaut-carrying Mars flyby would be a giant leap in that direction that could not help but inspire anyone who is remotely interested in space exploration.
This is the sort of inspiration that has been sorely missing from the U.S. human spaceflight program since the Apollo days. The asteroid capture mission, by contrast, has failed to resonate outside space policy circles; it's something the administration can point to when confronted about its lack of a strategic direction for human spaceflight.
To date, the Obama administration has shown little interest in the Mars 2021 flyby. It's not too late to change that.
The House version of the NASA authorization act for 2015 directs the agency conduct an independent study of the Mars 2021 flyby. Rather than waiting to see whether that provision becomes law, the White House should direct NASA to immediately embark on a detailed 90-day study of the mission's feasibility and cost, and have the results independently reviewed by experts before being released to the public. That study also should identify realistic backup missions that utilize the hardware elements of the Mars flyby if the 2021 launch date cannot be met.
Any White House concerns that the study could send it down a slippery slope toward a major funding commitment should be offset by the potential of the exercise to do just the opposite: A finding that a 2021 launch date is unrealistic would completely take the air out of arguments for continuing to fund SLS and Orion at the $3 billion level.
Both the White House and Congress are to blame for the current space policy stalemate — the former for creating a policy vacuum, the latter for filling it in a self-serving way. The Obama administration can continue to embrace the stalemate, and essentially run out the clock on its responsibility to give direction to the nation's human spaceflight program beyond the space station. But it still has an opportunity, albeit a fast-fading one, to try a different path that just might blossom into something worth remembering for generations.
Profile | U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, Member, House Appropriations commerce, justice, science subcommittee
Dan Leone – Space News
U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) is JPL's man in Washington. The seven-term congressman has represented the Pasadena-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory — the crown jewel of NASA's planetary science program — since 2001. Long the best-funded division of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, planetary science ceded that position to the Earth Science Division in 2009, bottoming out in 2013 a little below $1.3 billion.
Schiff, a member of the House Appropriations commerce, justice, science subcommittee since 2007, has been fighting the last few years to restore NASA's planetary science budget to $1.5 billion — the division's average annual appropriation for most of the past decade. Schiff and other pro-planetary science appropriators had their work cut out for them when President Barack Obama proposed cutting the division's 2013 budget back to $1.1 billion, a 20 percent reduction that didn't take into account sequestration — the automatic, across-the-board spending cuts taking effect that year. By the time the dust finally settled on last year's drawn-out appropriations process, planetary science ended up with $1.27 billion — still a cut, but not as deep as what the White House proposed.
Schiff's effectiveness as a champion for JPL and its planetary science-heavy portfolio gets a big boost from an unlikely ally, Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas), a fellow subcommittee member whose congressional district includes a big chunk of Houston — the epicenter of NASA's human spaceflight program. But Culberson is a self-proclaimed space science nut with a soft spot for robotic explorers, so when it comes to setting NASA budget priorities, he and Schiff often are on the same page.
The duo's fingerprints can be found on the 2015 NASA spending bill that cleared the House Appropriations Committee in early May: Planetary science would get $1.45 billion, about $170 million more than the White House requested.
Schiff won't be satisfied, though, until planetary science gets back to at least $1.5 billion a year — a small price to pay, he says, for the sorts of missions that have "really carried us through the dark days of some of the problems in manned spaceflight," such as those that followed the loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003, midway through Schiff's sophomore term. Just months after the accident, NASA launched the Mars Exploration Rover twins, Spirit and Opportunity, to the red planet. The agency has since lost contact with Spirit, but Opportunity is still going strong.
Schiff, who is candid about his displeasure that NASA's 2015 budget request did not include unequivocal support for continuing that still-viable rover's mission, spoke recently with SpaceNews staff writer Dan Leone.
Describe the state of NASA's planetary science program, as you see it.
I think that if you look at the budget fight we're having right now over extending planetary science missions that continue to produce good science, like Opportunity and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, it tells you in microcosm a lot about the problem we're having with planetary science funding in general. That it's even a question if we extend the life of a mission producing good science means that we're not making an adequate investment in the overall portfolio. I can only think that if we're even contemplating curtailing any of the missions, it means that we have done a very poor job on our overall level of planetary science funding.
Practically speaking, what can you do about that when there does not appear to be any new funding available for NASA?
I think it'd be practical to try to achieve the same level of planetary science funding, proportionately, as planetary science has enjoyed in the past.
Do you mean the 2012 budget of $1.5 billion?
I think that ought to be our initial goal. Obviously, that can't be a static number because back when we last had $1.5 billion it was part of a funding profile that would continue to grow over the years. I'd like to get us back to a place where we get that $1.5 billion number and put planetary science on a sustainable path. That would allow continued investment in these missions, and it wouldn't seriously degrade or undermine other parts of the portfolio. I think we actually need to look at whether we're sequencing our NASA investments in the right way.
What do you mean by that?
Is it so important to invest as substantially as we are in a heavy-lift launch capability when we don't have anywhere to take the heavy lift to yet? And some of that funding can be used to keep some of the planetary science decadal survey priorities on track. So we're not talking about a major reconfiguration of some of these other priorities. What's small in their budget may be very large in the planetary science portfolio. I think that's a part of what we need to look at if we're going to maintain our pre-eminence in planetary science.
To be clear, you're not talking about canceling the Space Launch System and Orion programs, are you?
No. But in other words, we're trying to keep the Mars 2020 rover with a 2020 date. The year 2020 is a very favorable launch window. It will allow us to carry heavier instruments on that craft than if it gets pushed back two years. It would be, I think, the worst form of planning if we invested so much in SLS before we have a place to take SLS to, and the result is we can't launch a Mars mission at the time it's ready to go. So that's what I mean by proper sequencing various components of the NASA portfolio.
What makes you think Mars 2020 might miss its launch window?
If you look at how much we're going to invest in Mars 2020 this year and next year, and in the years leading up to 2020, the curve is a very parabolic shape so that the funding goes up much more dramatically in the last stages of development. Some of this is to be expected, but if you weren't sure that you really wanted to go ahead with the project, you would back-load the funding so that you could pull the plug later, or delay the project later and not have put such a large down payment into the project. If Mars 2020 had a more even funding curve where we had a stronger investment up front, I'd have more confidence that we're really serious about the 2020 date. The scuttlebutt and the suspicious back-loading of the funding make me concerned that there may be more to this than meets the eye.
Where did you hear this scuttlebutt?
Within NASA. And it may be just what people fear, but unfortunately, as they say, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that everybody isn't out to get you. Planetary scientists have taken it on the chin enough in the last several years where their concerns have often been very well placed.
Parts of NASA, including JPL, had been at work on a $2 billion Europa Clipper concept when the White House announced this year that NASA could start early work on a $1 billion Europa mission. What do you make of that?
I hate to hear NASA talking about an end to flagship missions. To me that sounds like we are lowering our horizons, or that we don't feel like we're capable of doing the big things anymore. What gets people excited about science and about NASA is doing the big, hard things, and they are often not inexpensive. I want to keep our ideas big and our destinations challenging. Those of us who are space enthusiasts are going to have to make the case for bigger overall NASA budgets and a bigger piece for planetary science in the NASA portfolio.
Proponents of the heavy-lift SLS rocket might also say that big, hard things are often expensive.
Some of the expenditures we're making, as I mentioned, I don't think are sequenced properly within the limitations of what we're able to accomplish. And they are driven more by local interests than they are by good, overall NASA policy. We need to make sure that we adequately sequence our missions so that we can achieve what's doable in each part of the portfolio when it's doable and not invest a lot of time and money and energy in things that won't be ready to take us anywhere before we're ready to go.
Speaking of SLS and Orion, what do you make of NASA's Asteroid Redirect Mission? Visiting a captured asteroid in lunar orbit is the first destination NASA has really proposed for those vehicles.
I think it's exciting to contemplate going somewhere we haven't gone before and the science that would come out of that. It's something I support, but I want to make sure it doesn't cannibalize too much of the rest of NASA's budget so that we're not able to go forward with other very important priorities.
Do you think NASA's approach to the international space station and the commercial crew program ought to be supported in future appropriations bills?
I've always been a supporter of the commercial spaceflight program, both commercial cargo and commercial crew, for the main reason that I think the commercial sector, the private sector, can do this cost-effectively and get us to places that we've been to repeatedly and therefore allow NASA to do the really hard stuff. I think it's a worthwhile division of labor. I think those in the commercial crew business have shown pretty phenomenal results. SpaceX, just to name one, has done an amazing job. I was out to see their work a year or so ago. The rapid success of their efforts is really extraordinary. The commercial crew sector has been pretty well funded. They've never had to fight for their resources the way other parts of the portfolio have. On the planetary science front, there are a number of advocates among the planetary science crowd that feel they don't have the industrial heft behind them that some of the other parts of the NASA portfolio have.
The Big Melt Accelerates
Kenneth Chang – New York Times
Centuries from now, a large swath of the West Antarctic ice sheet is likely to be gone, its hundreds of trillions of tons of ice melted, causing a four-foot rise in already swollen seas.
Scientists reported last week that the scenario may be inevitable, with new research concluding that some giant glaciers had passed the point of no return, possibly setting off a chain reaction that could doom the rest of the ice sheet.
For many, the research signaled that changes in the earth's climate have already reached a tipping point, even if global warming halted immediately.
"We as people see it as closing doors and limiting our future choices," said Richard Alley, a professor of geosciences at Pennsylvania State University. "Most of us personally like to keep those choices open."
But these glaciers are just the latest signs that the thawing of earth's icy regions is accelerating. While some glaciers are holding steady or even growing slightly, most are shrinking, and scientists believe they will continue to melt until greenhouse gas emissions are reined in.
"It's possibly the best evidence of real global impact of warming," said Theodore A. Scambos, lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
Furthest along in melting are the smallest glaciers in the high mountainous regions of the Andes, the Alps and the Himalayas and in Alaska. By itself, their melting does not pose a grave threat; together they make up only 1 percent of the ice on the planet and would cause sea level to rise only by one to two feet.
But the mountain glaciers have been telling scientists what the West Antarctica glacier disintegration is now confirming: In the coming centuries, more land will be covered by water and more of nature will be disrupted. A full melt would cause sea level to rise 215 feet.
During recent ice ages, glaciers expanded from the poles and covered nearly a third of the continents. And in the distant past there were episodes known as Snowball Earth, when the entire planet froze over. At the other extreme, a warm period near the end of the age of dinosaurs may have left the earth ice-free. Today the amount of ice is modest — 10 percent of land areas, nearly all of that in Greenland and Antarctica.
Glaciers are, simply, rivers of ice formed from snow in regions that are frozen year-round. The snow compacts over time into granular, porous ice, which glaciologists call firn. When firn compacts even more, it becomes glacier ice, which flows, usually slowly, down mountainsides. Depending on how fast new snow accumulates at the top, or melts at the bottom, a glacier grows or shrinks in length and thickness.
Not long ago, the only way to measure glaciers was to put stakes in the ice. Using surveying tools, glaciologists would mark the location and return later to see how far the ice had moved. The method gave scientists a sense of only the areas measured during that study period. "We had these point measurements which were very labor-intensive," said Tad Pfeffer, a glaciologist at the University of Colorado.
Today, satellites provide a global view. Images show where the glaciers are and how areas change over the years. Most useful has been NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, or Grace. Two identical spacecraft have been measuring the earth's gravity. When glaciers melt, the water flows elsewhere, and that part of the planet weighs less, slightly weakening its gravitational pull. Grace isn't precise enough to measure the mass changes in an individual glacier, but it does provide data on regional shifts.
In an analysis last year of the satellite and ground measurements, a team of scientists led by Alex S. Gardner, an earth scientist at Clark University in Worcester, Mass., who is moving to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, concluded that, on average, glaciers in all regions were withering away, dumping 260 billion metric tons of water into the ocean every year.
"I can't think of any major glacier region that's growing right now," Dr. Scambos said. "Almost everywhere we look we're seeing mass loss."
The melting from the mountain glaciers alone raises sea level about 0.7 millimeters a year.
The ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland together possess about 100 times as much ice as all of the mountain glaciers combined, but contribute only slightly more to the sea level rise: 310 billion tons a year, Dr. Scambos said. That is because most of the mountain glaciers lie in areas where temperatures are closer to the melting point than they are in Greenland or Antarctica, and so slight warming tips them to melting.
Greenland, with 10 percent of the world's ice, has enough to raise sea level by 23 feet. "I still think Greenland is the most important thing to watch for this century," Dr. Scambos said.
In 2012, when summer Arctic temperatures were particularly warm, surface melting was observed almost everywhere on Greenland's glaciers, even in the mountains. That had not happened for decades.
Researchers from Dartmouth found that another side effect from global warming, forest fires, made the melting even worse. Soot from fires elsewhere in the world landed on Greenland snow, making it darker, causing it to absorb more heat.
A new study of Greenland, published Sunday in the journal Nature Geoscience, paints an even bleaker picture. The melting is accelerated because many of the glaciers flow in the warming waters around Greenland. However, scientists had believed that the melting would slow once the bottom of the glaciers melted and they were no longer touching the water.
The new research indicates otherwise. Researchers at the University of California, Irvine, including Eric Rignot, the lead author of one of last week's papers concluding that the melt in West Antarctica is irreversible, discovered long, deep canyons below sea level and under the ice sheet. So even as the glaciers retreat, they will still be in contact with the encroaching warm water, and as a result, more ice will melt. "They will contribute more to sea level rise," said Mathieu Morlighem, lead author of the Nature Geoscience paper.
Antarctica is the largest frozen mass on the planet, accounting for about 90 percent of the earth's ice. Most of it is in East Antarctica, which is generally higher and colder and less likely to melt. By some estimates global warming is leading to increased snowfall there, which is limiting the loss. But as in West Antarctica, some of the ice resides in bowl-shape depressions, which are similarly vulnerable to melting.
Over all, data from the European Space Agency's CryoSat satellite, published on Monday, indicates that the continent shed 160 billion tons a year from 2010 to 2013.
Scientists say that the melting will continue as long as the heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases. Even if carbon dioxide and temperatures stabilize, the melting and shifting of glaciers will continue for decades or centuries as they adjust to the new equilibrium.
But a vast majority of the ice is not yet destined to melt. "We have not committed to a lot more that could be committed if we keep turning up the thermostat," said Dr. Alley of Penn State.
Florida Lawmakers OK $42.5 Million for Space Projects
Irene Klotz – Space News
Florida legislators authorized $42.5 million for space-related programs for the state's 2015 budget year that begins July 1, including revamping the space shuttle's runway and landing facilities at the Kennedy Space Center for commercial users.
The proposed aerospace spending includes $20 million in the Florida Department of Transportation budget for space transportation infrastructure; $9.5 million for operations and programs of the Space Florida economic development agency; $5 million for Space Florida financing funding, half of which can be used on the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF); and $3 million for educational programs at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
"I think it was a vote of confidence by the legislature that what Space Florida is doing is what we're supposed to be doing," said Dale Ketcham, chief of strategic alliances for Space Florida.
The aerospace initiatives are included in a $77.1 billion budget for fiscal year 2015 that Florida legislators passed May 2. The spending bill next goes to Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R), who has the authority to veto any specific appropriation.
As NASA seeks to divest facilities idled by the shutdown of the shuttle program, Space Florida is positioning itself to become de facto landlord to a broad range of commercial companies and other entities interested in Kennedy Space Center's amenities. Space Florida already has agreements with NASA for Orbiter Processing Facility hangars and is in negotiations to lease the SLF, whose 4,500-meter runway is one of the world's longest.
"It was not unanticipated that this was going to be a long and agonizing process, but we both have a vested interest in success and we're pretty confident we're going to get there," Ketcham said.
"NASA's having to come to grips with something it has not had to do before, but Space Florida was pretty much created, empowered and chartered to do exactly this. That doesn't make it any easier for NASA and the gods that it has to answer to," Ketcham added.
Prospective customers for the SLF include XCOR Aerospace, which is developing the two-seater Lynx suborbital spaceplane, and Stratolaunch Systems, an orbital space vehicle venture backed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.
In anticipation of new facilities being built near the runway, NASA has submitted an application to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for a permit to dredge and fill about 16 hectares of wetlands located near both ends of the shuttle's runway.
"There are a number of customers who are interested in using the Shuttle Landing Facility. In order to accommodate them, we're going to need some additional hangars, taxiways, utilities, sewer, water and all that other stuff. That's going to be needed one way or another," Ketcham said.
The process, which can take years, began before NASA decided to try to turn over SLF operations to another entity to manage, Ketcham said.
Public comment on the permit request closes May 22.
Other projects funded by Florida legislators include $2 million to continue development of a commercial spaceport at Jacksonville's Cecil Field; $1.5 million for space tourism and marketing campaigns; $1 million for a Space Florida partnership with Israel; and $500,000 for a space transportation research project.
The future of NASA's commercial partnerships
Jeff Foust – The Space Review
NASA's use of public-private partnerships to develop new space capabilities got another, incremental endorsement on Sunday, when SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft departed from the International Space Station (ISS) and splashed down successfully in the Pacific Ocean off the Baja California coast. Dragon launched last month on the third of twelve contracted cargo resupply missions to the ISS, ferrying experiments and supplies from the station; it returned with some of the results of those experiments, as well as other cargo.
Dragon and the Falcon 9 rocket that launched it last month are products of NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program, which used funded Space Act Agreements to support the development of those vehicles by SpaceX. COTS also supported the development of Orbital Sciences Corporation's Antares rocket and Cygnus spacecraft, which are scheduled to fly the second of eight cargo resupply missions to the station next month.
The success of COTS has demonstrated that, in the right circumstances, partnerships with the private sector produce systems less expensively and more flexibly than conventional contracts. That's the model that NASA has also used for its commercial crew efforts, using a series of funded Space Act Agreements with several companies, most notably Boeing, Sierra Nevada Corporation, and SpaceX, to develop vehicles to transport astronauts to and from the ISS—and also be used by those companies for commercial applications, be it ferrying corporate researchers or space tourists.
However, the COTS program ended last year when Orbital completed its Antares/Cygnus test flight to the station. Commercial crew, meanwhile, is transitioning from Space Act Agreements to more conventional contracts in its next phase, called Commercial Crew Transportation Capability; NASA will award one or more contracts in August. So what is the next step for COTS-like partnerships?
While some in the space community would like NASA to use the COTS model for large scale projects, from establishing lunar transportation systems to development of a large kerosene/liquid oxygen rocket engine that could replace the RD-180, NASA's ambitions—or at least its budgets—aren't nearly as grand. Instead, NASA is pursuing a number of smaller programs, many of which offer no direct funding, to stimulate development of technologies and capabilities that could be of use to both NASA and commercial ventures.
One example of this is the Lunar Cargo Transportation and Landing by Soft Touchdown (CATALYST) program. The program is designed to help companies develop spacecraft that can land cargo on the lunar surface. While NASA's exploration plans don't include missions to the lunar surface, the program's website states that "the agency recognizes the U.S. industry's interest in reaching and exploring the moon, and has competitively selected partners to spur commercial cargo transportation capabilities to the surface of the moon."
On April 30, NASA selected three companies to receive unfunded Space Act Agreements to pursue those efforts. Two of the companies, Astrobotic and Moon Express, are already developing lunar landers as part of the Google Lunar X PRIZE competition. The third, Masten Space Systems, has previously proposed a lunar lander called Xeus that would use a modified Centaur upper stage. (Masten has also worked with Astrobotic to test Astrobotic's landing system technology on Masten's Xombie vehicle.)
Under Lunar CATALYST, none of the companies get direct funding from NASA, but access to the agency's technical expertise and resources. "It's an in-kind donation. It's support they won't have to pay for that will hopefully help them go down their path faster," explained Dennis Stone of NASA's Commercial Space Capabilities Office (formerly the Commercial Crew and Cargo Program Office, which ran COTS) in a talk at the International Space Development Conference (ISDC) in Los Angeles on Sunday.
"This is not for a specific NASA need, but rather capacity that NASA had that we felt could be of value of industry in assisting them accelerate their capabilities for their needs," said Jason Crusan, director of the Advanced Exploration Systems Division at NASA Headquarters, in a talk at the FAA's Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC) meeting in Washington on May 8. NASA is in the process of negotiating agreements with the three companies, which he said he expected to be completed by late May or early June.
NASA had been previously developing lunar landing technology in house, with two separate efforts: Morpheus at the Johnson Space Center and Mighty Eagle at the Marshall Space Flight Center. That raised concerns in industry in the past that NASA might be competing with commercial ventures, an issue raised at the COMSTAC meeting earlier this month. Crusan said that NASA is no longer flying Mighty Eagle, while Morpheus is wrapping up a series of flight tests scheduled to end late this month.
After that, he said, the Morpheus team will transition over to support Lunar CATALYST.
"We're at a point in time now that we feel that industry has picked up enough that we can make a transition" from in-house technology development to industry partnership, he said. "We are using that workforce now to help accelerate commercial industry and their landing capabilities."
Luna CATALYST is just one of several ongoing partnership efforts. Another is the Collaborations for Commercial Space Capabilities (CCSC), for which NASA released an announcement for proposals at the end of March, seeking concepts from industry "to advance commercial space-related efforts by facilitating access to NASA's vast spaceflight resources including technical expertise, assessments, lessons learned, and data." Executive summaries of proposals were due to NASA last month, which NASA then screened and then selected an unspecified number to submit a full proposal, due May 29.
Like Lunar CATALYST, CCSC will award unfunded Space Act Agreements to the selected companies, with those selections expected in July. In his ISDC talk, Stone said the exact number of awards will depend on the resources each proposal requires, and could range from a few awards requiring significant resources to many that need less. (NASA hasn't specified the overall level of support it plans to provide to CCSC, only that "limited amount of Government resources [will be] available to provide the base support negotiated in the Agreements," according to a procurement document.)
The proposals, Stone said, have to be aligned to agency goals in space exploration, and can include capabilities for transportation, operations, and habitation and other destination-specific needs. "We put this out as kind of an 'a la carte menu,'" he said, allowing companies to identify "intersections between their business plans and what directions NASA is going."
While neither Lunar CATALYST nor CCSC offers direct funding to companies, elements of NASA's broad agency announcement (BAA) regarding elements of its Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) do offer some financial support (see "After a year, NASA's asteroid mission still seeks definition", The Space Review, March 31, 2014). Stone noted that three of the five areas of the BAA have direct commercial relevance: adapting commercial spacecraft for use on the robotic redirection mission, studies of potential partnership opportunities for secondary payloads on that mission, and studies of partnership opportunities for the later crewed mission to the captured asteroid. NASA plans to award $2.2 million on contracts for those three areas, out of $6 million in the overall BAA.
The latest initiative, announced just last month, seeks to examine ways to enhance commercial use of the station. The "Evolving ISS into a LEO Commercial Market" request for information (RFI) seeks ideas from industry on "how NASA can enable greater private access, use, and applications of LEO utilizing ISS, including crew and cargo transportation, to help industry identify commercially viable activities that would be self-sustaining."
The accompanying press release identified topics that responses to the RFI could address, from ways to break down barriers to commercial use of the station to even "create a private system in low-Earth orbit," a concept that neither the press release nor the RFI defines. Responses to the RFI are due June 30, after which NASA will evaluate them to see which, if any, concepts they would like to pursue further.
"This will not lead directly to partnership opportunities, but it is taking a step in that direction," Stone said of the RFI in his ISDC talk. "This is very broad, very visionary. We're trying to open a very wide gate to bring some interesting ideas in."
None of these programs, individual or combined, are a replacement for COTS, but they are signs that NASA is still interested in finding ways to partner with the private sector outside of conventional contracts to meet the needs of both the agency and industry. NASA "is taking up the success of COTS and is looking at ways we can do more with partnerships," Stone said. "We want, through these initiatives, to begin engaging the private sector in looking at ways to go hand-in-hand in exploration."
New teaming in Alabama rocket industry as Aerojet Rocketdyne, Dynetics link up
Lee Roop – Huntsville (AL) Times
Rocket propulsion company Aerojet Rocketdyne and aerospace and defense engineering services company Dynetics are teaming up to collaborate on new aerospace technologies and systems in Huntsville.
"The goal is to do more design, development, testing and manufacturing in Huntsville," Dynetics Director of Development Steve Cook said Monday. "Combining high performance and affordability is critical to future booster and space propulsion systems. We believe this partnership with Aerojet Rocketdyne allows us to collectively bring the best people and technologies of the 'Rocket City' to our NASA, Department of Defense and commercial customers."
That could include working together on one of the big rocket challenges facing America today: designing and building a replacement for the Russian RD-180 engines that now propel United Launch Alliance's defense satellite-launching Atlas V rocket. The supply of those engines is being threatened by tensions between the U.S. and Russia.
Aerojet Rocketdyne and Dynetics are already working together on NASA's Space Launch System. Dynetics has built 18-foot diameter cryogenic fuel tanks for testing, a development that could lower the weight of launchers, and the pair has resurrected and tested a key part of the F-1 engine that powered the Saturn V rocket.
"Because of these tests, the team successfully completed design and fabrication of a new full-scale gas generator injector using additive manufacturing that will be hot fired at Marshall Space Flight Center in late 2014," said Julie Van Kleeck, Aerojet Rocketdyne vice president for Advanced Space & Launch Systems. "Additionally, other components have been produced, demonstrating affordable casting techniques for large, complicated engine components."
Leaders for both companies praised what Dynetics President David King called "a natural pairing" of the two companies. Expanding the partnership will let the team "deliver innovation combined with affordability to customers using state-of-the-art design, development and manufacturing capabilities, " Aerojet Rocketdyne President Warren M. Boley Jr. said.
Space Center puts live webcam on team reassembling 747 shuttle carrier
Craig Hlavaty- Houston Chronicle
Space Center Houston is letting you watch live online as workers reassemble the 747 space shuttle carrier that they acquired from NASA for its planned space shuttle Independence exhibit.
The NASA 905 jet ferried dozens of space shuttles just back from orbit during the days of the shuttle program. It was moved from a remote part of Ellington Field to its new home just outside the front doors of Space Center Houston in late April during a high-profile two-night move through the streets of Clear Lake.
At this link, through the magic of webcams, you can watch Boeing staff reassemble the plane. Right now, Boeing's team appears to be preparing the base where the plane will sit. This is the same team that dismantled the plane at Ellington over the course of several months.
"This is the first time that a Boeing 747 has been reassembled in the open air," Paul Spana, exhibits manager at Space Center Houston, said in a press release Monday. The Boeing team is said to be working seven days a week in order to get the 747 ready to be coupled with the center's shuttle replica later this summer.
The Independence shuttle replica will eventually sit atop the plane as part of a $12 million, six-story interactive attraction.
Unlike the real space-worn shuttles currently at other sites around the United States, this will be the only shuttle -- albeit a replica -- that the public will be able to tour.
END
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