Another great weather day in the Houston metro area. Can you believe this kinda great weather in May in Houston. Hope I don't jinx us..
| | JSC TODAY CATEGORIES - Headlines
- NASA Reaches Out - and it's Music to Our Ears
- JSC IT Services Unavailable May 9 to 11
- ACES Service Availability May 9 to 11
- Bike to Work for Cleaner Air
- Jogging Trail Closure - Organizations/Social
- What Can NASA Learn About Sustainability - May 7
- Today is the First Tuesday Sale at Starport
- Children's Emotional Health - Jobs and Training
- NASA Budget: OMB's Roles and Responsibilities - Community
- Lost in Space! Summer Camp
- Summer Underwater Robotics Camps
- Special Olympics Thanks Space Center Volunteers
- Help Students Reach New Heights |  |
| Headlines - NASA Reaches Out – and it's Music to Our Ears
It was a rare event that brought together not only musical talent—but explorers with musical talent—for the benefit of humankind. On Friday, May 2, JSC's Digital Learning Network hosted a Live Music in Space event featuring a special live International Space Station (ISS) downlink with ISS Commander Koichi Wakata, who performed a piece of the ancient Gagaku music with the sho Japanese instrument. On the ground, students from Pearl Hall Elementary in Pasadena, Texas, performed songs with astronaut Catherine Coleman, Houston Symphony violinist Sergei Galperin and violinist Kenji Williams. Students from Pearl Hall Elementary and Japan's Tenri University also spoke to Wakata and explore the connection between the arts and science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM. Strapped for time? A shorter three-minute clip of one song featuring Wakata and the violinist is here. JSC External Relations, Office of Communications and Public Affairs x35111
[top] - JSC IT Services Unavailable May 9 to 11
JSC IT Services will be unavailable 5 p.m. Friday, May 9, to 4 p.m. Sunday, May 11. The Center Operations Directorate (COD) and the Information Resources Directorate (IRD) have scheduled an important outage for Building 46 to perform several repairs. Building 46 houses the majority of JSC servers. A large number of IT services will NOT be available during this outage, including**: - JSC Google Web searching on internal sites
- Access to share folders
- Printing from networked printers
- Connectivity to various off-site contractor facilities (Jacobs, JAXA, Raytheon, Boeing, Lockheed, Oceaneering, Muniz and more)
- Connectivity to several NASA facilities (Gilruth, JSC Child Care center and more)
- Access to several internal websites and systems
Services available during the outage include**: - Email
- Telephone
- VPN/R2S
**For a full list of impacts, go to Full Shutdown. For information on this activity, please contact Bob Brasher at x36465. - ACES Service Availability May 9 to 11
JSC Center Operations has planned a facility maintenance activity for Building 46. During the activity, the following ACES services at JSC will be unavailable from 9 p.m. Friday, May 9, through 11:59 p.m. Sunday, May 11. - Software updates via Client Automation Enterprise (CAE)
- Backup/restore services via Mobile Information Protection (MIP) Connected Backup
- Vulnerability scans via Retina
- Software Refresh Portal (SRP) access
- Print services
- New registrations for Data at Rest (DAR)
- NCAD services: Ndjsdrw01 and ndjsdra02 will be offline. Domain Resource Administrator (DRA) users can point to another available DRA server using links from NCAD Active Directory Management System.
Network access and print services will remain available for White Sands Test Facility. For technical assistance, contact the Enterprise Service Desk (ESD): - Website: ESD
- Telephone: 1-877-677-2123 (1-877-NSSC123), option 2
- Bike to Work for Cleaner Air
Clean Air Month is recognized across many states as a way to promote awareness about air quality. To help Houston reduce air emissions from vehicle use and commuting, the City of Houston has declared May 9 as Houston's Bike to Work Day, and Houstonians are taking to the streets to reduce air emissions. Whether you bike to work that day or carpool for the whole month, find a way to support Houston's air quality-improvement efforts. Even small steps can make a big difference. - Jogging Trail Closure
A section of the jogging trail will be closed from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. from today, May 6, to Friday, May 9, for safety purposes. Members will still have partial access to the trail, and the closed areas will be marked. The Environmental Office will be removing felled tallow trees from along the trail. The Gilruth staff will have the exact schedule of when the trail will be closed, so please check in with them prior to using the jogging trail. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Organizations/Social - What Can NASA Learn About Sustainability - May 7
You are invited to JSC's SAIC/Safety and Mission Assurance Speaker Forum featuring Nelson Mumma Jr., Global Group director, External Affairs, The Coca-Cola Company. Topic - Sustainability: How Coca-Cola is Inspiring Change in the World Date/Time: Tomorrow, May 7, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Location: Gilruth Center Alamo Ballroom What can we learn from Coca-Cola that can support NASA's sustainability efforts? Mumma will discuss: - The purpose of sustainability
- How sustainability impacts business goals
- Ideas for meeting today's social challenges
- Today is the First Tuesday Sale at Starport
Did you know that Starport offers 10 percent off most items on the first Tuesday of every month to NASA and Starport Partner contractor employees? The discount is not applicable on tickets, stamps, Hallmark or other service items. Additional exclusions apply for pre-sale and special-purchase items. Check to see if your company is a 2014 Starport Partner. A special thank you to all the Starport Partners for your continued support! - Children's Emotional Health
Do you know the one essential gift required to promote your child's emotional development? Did you know that a child's emotional development lays the foundation for academic performance? A child's emotional health also impacts their mental health and ability to establish successful relationships. Emotional health is one of the most critical predictors in shaping a child's overall success. We will learn how to cultivate your child's emotional health and also what not to do. We will be providing resources for learning more about mental health and how vital your impact is to your child's ongoing emotional growth. In recognition of Children's Mental Health Awareness Month, please join JSC Employee Assistance Program counselor Anika Isaac, LPC, LMFT, NCC, LCDC, CEAP, as she presents "Children's Emotional Health." Jobs and Training - NASA Budget: OMB's Roles and Responsibilities
Want more situational awareness of the federal budget process and how it can impact (and be impacted by) NASA and JSC programs? As part of the Office of the Chief Financial Officer subject-matter expert course series, former White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) examiner Ryan Schaefer will lead a session that helps navigate through the budget process and explains how OMB's roles and responsibilities can affect program budgets. To provide context for budgetary decisions and priorities, the course also explores other stakeholders and elements in the NASA budget landscape and how JSC inputs can support favorable outcomes. This course is scheduled for tomorrow, May 7, from 1 to 2:30 p.m. in Building 1, Room 421E. This session is not offered through WebEx, so please register by 3 p.m. today, May 6, in SATERN via the link below or by searching the catalog for the course title. Community - Lost in Space! Summer Camp
In partnership with the Kroger Foundation, San Jacinto College Aerospace Academy is offering a summer camp for students ages 14 to 18 years old. The camp experience will include geocaching, GPS tracking and mapping of the International Space Station, basic electronics instruction, tours of JSC, professional speakers and much more! All who are interested in our Lost in Space camp will be required to complete our application and essay forms. The application deadline is May 28. A small number of scholarships will be awarded for this camp. - Summer Underwater Robotics Camps
San Jacinto College Aerospace Academy's Water-Bot camps explore the underwater world of remote-operated vehicles (ROVs) and the real-world applications of this exciting field. The exploration continues in three different levels based on experience. The beginner camp will offer basic electronics and robotic construction. The intermediate camps will build upon the beginner skills and add complex engineering design. The advanced camp will be a two-week master class in constructing algorithms in scripting languages and working with advanced electronics and hardware design. Camp dates are in June and July. Please visit our website for more information. If you would like to volunteer as a guest speaker or advanced team mentor, please visit V-CORPs to sign up! - Special Olympics Thanks Space Center Volunteers
The Area 22 Gulf Coast Special Olympics athletes, coaches and committee would like to give a big "high five" of thanks to Space Center Volunteers for coming out and supporting them as the athletes competed in the annual spring games. It was a great day, and it couldn't have happened without all the help from Space Center Volunteers. - Help Students Reach New Heights
Where at? The Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge. SystemsGo is an educational nonprofit supporting STEM in high schools throughout our state. Volunteers are need to help 19 local high schools test the project vehicles that they have designed and fabricated to either loft a one-pound payload to one mile or attempt transonic velocity. All volunteers will be trained prior to launch date. Interested in giving your time to help these future rocket scientists? Visit V-CORPs first and then contact Joyce Abbey at 281-335-2041 or via email. | |
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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 6, 2014
INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION: Did you miss NASA's Star Wars message? ISS astronaut Rick Mastracchio wishes Star Wars fans 'May the Fourth Be With You' in this YouTube video which has already had more than 250,000 views.
HEADLINES AND LEADS
There Might Be a Cure for Diabetes. Thank NASA Research
Deroy Murdock - National Review
Taxpayers should be pleased to see a much-welcome return on federal expenditures — and from a rather unusual source: 219 miles straight overhead.
How a Possible Diabetes Cure May Pay for Over 50 Years of NASA Spending
Mark Whittington - Yahoo News (Commentary)
A recent story in the National Review suggests that a cure for diabetes may be drawing nigh thanks to a long ago physics experiment conducted on the space shuttle Challenger. It casts money spent on NASA programs in an interesting light.
Excitement builds over test flights
Florida Today (May 4, 2014)
Flight hardware arriving within 12 to 18 months for the first launches of commercial crew vehicles should help rekindle shuttle-like excitement around the Cape, NASA's Commercial Crew Program manager said last week.
NASA Partners With US Space Firms To Design Emergency Spacecraft
On Friday, NASA announced that it was partnering with Boeing, Sierra Nevada Corporation and SpaceX to design "lifeboats" for the International Space Station.
Russia Gives Green Light to Super-Heavy Rocket Project
RIA Novosti
A project to build a new super-heavy carrier rocket was included into the draft new Federal Space Program (FSP) Roscosmos chief Oleg Ostapenko said on Thursday.
Griffin, Albaugh: Mars mission could serve to refocus purpose of NASA
First human flyby mission to Mars would offer space agency a chance to reshape its future
Mike Griffin & Jim Albaugh - Houston Chronicle (Opinion)
(Griffin is CEO of Schafer Corp. and a former NASA administrator. He also is the outgoing president of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Albaugh was president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes and Integrated Defense Systems, and is the incoming president of AIAA.)
For the past several years, there has been a widespread feeling in the space community, difficult to articulate but nonetheless quite real, that America's space program is adrift. Following the cancellation of U.S. plans to return to the moon and the retirement of the space shuttle, and with no obviously meaningful goal ahead, there is a clear sense that our space program lacks purpose and direction.
Squandering America's Leadership in Exploration
By U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf – Space News
Today, I am deeply concerned about the state of NASA's human spaceflight program and, ultimately, American leadership in space for the 21st century. This concern is not because I believe NASA isn't capable of great things, or because the American people don't support space exploration. They do. In fact, they hunger to do great things in space again.
How to energize the space economy
Kenneth Silber – The Space Review
There has been some good news for private sector space exploration in recent weeks. SpaceX, the privately owned company headed by Elon Musk, sent its third unmanned cargo mission to the International Space Station and experimented with a controlled re-entry of its Falcon 9 rocket to an Atlantic Ocean splashdown. That and a test of the reusable Falcon 9R prototype over land indicate progress toward SpaceX's goal of making its rockets reusable and thus driving launch costs down.
SpaceX Says ULA Cannot Prove RD-180 Money Doesn't Go to Rogozin
Mike Gruss – Space News
A key issue in the lawsuit filed by rocket maker Space Exploration Technologies Corp. challenging a U.S. Air Force contract with rival United Launch Alliance appears to be whether money associated with the contract winds up in the hands of a high-ranking Russian government official who has been hit with U.S. sanctions.
A war of words in EELV court filings
Jeff Foust – Space Politics
Since the preliminary injunction issued by the US Court of Federal Claims late Wednesday that blocked the US Air Force and United Launch Alliance (ULA) from making any payments to NPO Energomash, the Russian company that manufactures the RD-180 engine used by ULA's Atlas V, there has been a increasingly heated war of words among the parties involved in the suit regarding the language of the injunction, in the form of a series of filings made to the court.
Spotlight | BioServe Space Technologies
Debra Werner – Space News
For more than 20 years, BioServe Space Technologies specialized in preparing life sciences research for space shuttle flights. "We learned very well how to utilize that vehicle and its crew to the best benefit," said Center Director Louis Stodieck.
Ball Awarded Contract To Refurbish SAGE-3 for 2016
By Space News Staff
Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. of Boulder, Colorado, is getting a five-year, sole-source contract to refurbish the Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment (SAGE)-3 instrument and prepare it for a 2016 flight to the international space station.
Nasa to Grow Plants on International Space Station
IB Times
Nasa has supplied a portable plant growth unit to the International Space Station (ISS) to grow lettuce for astronauts on board.
COMPLETE STORIES
There Might Be a Cure for Diabetes. Thank NASA Research
Deroy Murdock - National Review
Taxpayers should be pleased to see a much-welcome return on federal expenditures — and from a rather unusual source: 219 miles straight overhead.
A company called Encapsulife announced Thursday that it has received U.S. Patent No. 8,673,294 for an "Immunoisolation Patch System for Cellular Transplantation." This springs from research first performed aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger's Mission STS 51-B in late April/early May, 1985.
Dr. Taylor Wang, Ph.D., was a payload specialist on that Challenger journey. While orbiting the Earth, the then–Jet Propulsion Laboratory senior scientist conducted experiments that yielded "a better understanding of the physics governing encapsulation," as he told me. Now, 29 years later, the fruit of his taxpayer-funded studies is growing ripe. If Wang and his Encapsulife colleagues are right, their invention will cure diabetes.
Briefly and simply, Encapsulife's patch would be inserted beneath a diabetic's skin through a simple, minimally invasive, outpatient surgical procedure. The silver-dollar-sized patch contains thousands of islet cells, derived from either live human donors or medically raised pigs. These cells biologically produce insulin when they encounter glucose. The patch's multiple layers shield the islets from the body's white blood cells and other immune mechanisms while letting the insulin diffuse into the diabetic's blood stream. The result is, essentially, an artificial pancreas that automatically generates insulin and avoids rejection without immunosuppressant drugs. (Such medicines can trigger harmful side effects, including limiting the body's defenses against opportunistic infections.)
"Multi-layer capsule systems — similar in concept to a Russian matryoshka doll, with the islet cells being the inner-most doll — are technically difficult to fabricate and rely on Dr. Wang's innovations," says Encapsulife president Tom Gibson. "Our multi-layer system is the only one that successfully has reversed diabetes in canines and primates." Gibson adds that this patch involves "no batteries, no mechanical break-downs, no kinks in pump lines, no injections, no finger-prick blood tests four to eight times a day, no guessing how much insulin to inject to match meals, no dangerous (potentially fatal) hypoglycemic lows, etc."
Dr. Wang considers his NASA tenure key to all of these achievements.
"Without NASA's Shuttle, Spacelab 3, and early follow-on micro-gravity research support, none of our bio-medical advances, with promise to provide enormous medical benefits to mankind, would have come to pass," Dr. Wang says. "I was pleased to tell this to NASA administrator Charles Bolden last week." Interestingly enough, curing diabetes was not Dr. Wang's objective as he zoomed through the heavens at 17,500 miles per hour.
"At the time, I was working on some beautiful fundamental-science experiments," Dr. Wang says. "Medical research never entered my mind." Since then, these practical considerations have consumed him. "I should not have answered my medical colleague's phone call to collaborate," he says. "I would have a more peaceful life. When I got obsessed with this project, it crowded out many other important things in my life: Family time, holidays, movies, walking with my wife. As a matter of fact, she hated this experiment."
Nonetheless, Dr. Wang's decades of work now could cure Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes. These diseases affect 1 million and 18 million Americans, respectively. Diabetes kills some 71,000 Americans annually and costs the U.S. economy $245 billion every year, including 20 percent of Medicare's budget — roughly $110 billion. If commercialized, Encapsulife's patch could save millions of lives and billions of taxpayer dollars.
Encapsulife's Tom Gibson is encouraged by other breakthroughs that should support the patch.
"Recent progress includes islet cloning, adult brown-fat stem-cell programming to create islet cells, and the use of porcine islets," Gibson says. "For transplantation and a functional cure, new islets from any of these sources would require immune-protection — and that technology is at hand. With all of this encouraging news, our development efforts will now go into high gear."
Encapsulife's future R&D will include Phase I clinical trials on human subjects. The company and its just-patented invention face many steps on the road ahead. However, they have gained enormous ground since their inventor and his basic findings returned safely to Earth.
How a Possible Diabetes Cure May Pay for Over 50 Years of NASA Spending
Mark Whittington - Yahoo News (Commentary)
A recent story in the National Review suggests that a cure for diabetes may be drawing nigh thanks to a long ago physics experiment conducted on the space shuttle Challenger. It casts money spent on NASA programs in an interesting light.
Essentially a private company is about to bring to human trials something that amounts to a diabetes patch or an artificial pancreas. A capsule would be implanted under the skin that would contain islets that would process blood glucose but at the same time protect said cells against the body's immune system.
If the human trials work, the day would come in which diabetics would no longer have to constantly monitor their blood sugar, shoot up with insulin, and worry about a variety of side effects ranging from blindness to nerve damage in the feet to death. There are a number of numbers that should be contemplated.
"These diseases affect 1 million and 18 million Americans, respectively. Diabetes kills some 71,000 Americans annually and costs the U.S. economy $245 billion every year, including 20 percent of Medicare's budget - roughly $110 billion."
The experiment that may lead to a diabetes cure is an example of serendipity in that it was just an interesting exercise in microgravity physics. But one thing led to another and 29 years later a major disease may go the way of smallpox and polio. That is kind of how science tends to work. One never knows what it might lead to.
One estimate of total NASA spending between 1958 and 2011 comes out to a figure of just over $526 billion in constant dollars. That money bought the moon landings, the space shuttle program, the International Space Station, a myriad of planetary missions, and a lot of good technology and science. If it has also bought a cure for diabetes, that one innovation, directly attributed to a single 30 year old microgravity experiment, which will have paid for all of NASA from the moment President Eisenhower signed the bill bringing the space agency into existence to the year the space shuttle program ended in just two or three years.
Whatever one thinks of the arguments of technological spinoffs to justify all that money spent on space exploration, that is something to contemplate.
Excitement builds over test flights
Florida Today (May 4, 2014)
Flight hardware arriving within 12 to 18 months for the first launches of commercial crew vehicles should help rekindle shuttle-like excitement around the Cape, NASA's Commercial Crew Program manager said last week.
"We have hardware and we have vehicles, and we have launch pads, and now it's about actually pulling all those pieces together to then go fly," Kathy Lueders told NASA TV. "I'm positive within a year, year-and-a-half, you're going to start seeing these pieces of these vehicles start showing up at the Cape. And as our team starts seeing that and understands what that feels like, you'll start getting that excitement again."
NASA plans to award contracts as soon as August to companies that could fly astronauts to the International Space Station from either Cape Canaveral Air Force Station or Kennedy Space Center. Boeing, Sierra Nevada and SpaceX are the contenders.
So far, Sierra Nevada is the only company known to have booked a launch for an orbital test flight of its Dream Chaser mini-shuttle, targeted for 2016. NASA hopes to begin flying crews to the ISS in 2017.
For many current and former local space program workers, "a little piece of their heart was kind of taken away when the shuttle program retired" in 2011, said Lueders, who was recently promoted to lead the Commercial Crew Program from KSC after months as its acting manager.
"But I'm planning on filling that hole again as we start seeing these missions show up," she said.
NASA Partners With US Space Firms To Design Emergency Spacecraft
On Friday, NASA announced that it was partnering with Boeing, Sierra Nevada Corporation and SpaceX to design "lifeboats" for the International Space Station.
The emergency spacecraft would be docked to the space station in case personnel need to quickly be transported back to Earth, a function currently provided by a pair of Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
Each Soyuz craft is capable of holding three people. This means that with two docked, there can be up to six individuals at a time working on the station. The team lowers to three when a single Soyuz departs and just before a different one arrives during a process called an indirect handover.
NASA's Commercial Crew Program (CCP) requires that an emergency spacecraft must offer a shelter for astronauts in case there is a problem. Also, the craft must be able to rapidly have all its systems running and separate from the station for a prospective return to Earth.
"You've got to make sure it provides the same capability on day 210 as it does on day 1," said Justin Kerr, manager of CCP's Spacecraft Office.
Designers and engineers must consider two primary factors: power and defense against objects outside the spacecraft. The majority of the electricity generated by the ISS solar arrays is restricted to the station's systems and scientific trials. The amount of power allocated to an escape vessel would be equivalent to that required for a refrigerator here on Earth.
"There's very little power available for these spacecraft so what we're really driving the partners to do is develop this quiescent mode that draws very little power," Kerr said.
The spacecraft would ideally be shut down after it is attached to the station. However, because air flow doesn't readily circulate in microgravity, parts of the cabin might be without air for respiration, unless a powered ventilation system is used to circulate the air.
"You don't want someone to go into the spacecraft and immediately pass out because there's no breathable air in that one area," said Scott Thurston, deputy manager of CCP's Spacecraft Office.
Designers also have the distinctive challenge of building a spacecraft sufficiently strong enough to endure impacts from micrometeoroids, but without a lot of shielding because it would weigh too much to launch. Despite the fact that numerous impacts are not expected, designers are still supposed to show their craft can survive an infrequent hit.
"It's something you have to design for, the magic bb scenario," Thurston said.
He added that CCP gave the private companies a list of specifications their spacecraft need to meet during NASA's qualifications process for use as in-orbit emergency crafts. Each company is said to be coming up with their own novel solutions.
"There's no rock left unturned," Thurston said. "Some have started out with very extravagant environmental control and life support systems and as they're doing their studies, they're slowly figuring out exactly what they need and what they don't need."
NASA is also calling for the craft to hold four to seven seats, meaning the station could host more astronauts than its current complement of six.
"You never kept more on station than you could get off the station and back home," Thurston said. "It's why we staff that station the way we do. Now, you expand the crew capacity and then the crew and that really expands the amount of science you can do."
Russia Gives Green Light to Super-Heavy Rocket Project
RIA Novosti
A project to build a new super-heavy carrier rocket was included into the draft new Federal Space Program (FSP) Roscosmos chief Oleg Ostapenko said on Thursday.
"A [super] heavy carrier rocket was included into the new FSP. Work is still under way, with the first stage envisaging the construction of a rocket capable of lifting from 70 to 80 metric tons," Ostapenko said, adding that such rockets would be enough for projects scheduled for the next 20 or 30 years.
The second stage of the project is to build a carrier rocket capable of lifting from 100 to 120 metric tons of payload into the low-earth orbit.
A year ago, Russia said that it will develop new technology including huge new rockets for manned flights to the moon and Mars, by the same year that the Americans are aiming for Mars – 2030.
Super-heavy rockets are necessary for manned Mars or deep space missions, although they are likely to be uneconomical for commercial payloads that can be launched on existing rockets.
Roscosmos formed a working group last year to evaluate proposals for a heavy-lift rocket, including the revival of the Energia launcher, the highest payload rocket ever built in the country.
The Energia, developed in the Soviet Union and launched twice, was cancelled during the economic crisis twenty years ago.
NASA is currently building a new super-heavy rocket, the Space Launch System, that will also come in two variants capable of lifting 70 and 130 tons into orbit. The first test flight of the smaller version is scheduled for 2017.
Russia's largest existing rocket, the Proton, can launch payloads of up to 20 tons. The modular Angara rocket is also under development and comes in several versions, the largest of which is planned to send up to 35 tons into orbit.
China is reportedly considering construction of its own super-heavy rocket, the Long March 9, for a manned lunar mission.
Griffin, Albaugh: Mars mission could serve to refocus purpose of NASA
First human flyby mission to Mars would offer space agency a chance to reshape its future
Mike Griffin & Jim Albaugh - Houston Chronicle (Opinion)
(Griffin is CEO of Schafer Corp. and a former NASA administrator. He also is the outgoing president of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Albaugh was president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes and Integrated Defense Systems, and is the incoming president of AIAA.)
For the past several years, there has been a widespread feeling in the space community, difficult to articulate but nonetheless quite real, that America's space program is adrift. Following the cancellation of U.S. plans to return to the moon and the retirement of the space shuttle, and with no obviously meaningful goal ahead, there is a clear sense that our space program lacks purpose and direction.
Lately, however, there has been a renewed "buzz" in the space community around the question of whether the United States should carry out the first human flyby mission to Mars in 2021. A particularly favorable planetary alignment makes such a mission possible at that time, and then not again until the 2030s. This early opportunity to gain experience toward the goal of human exploration of Mars and the value of such a mission as an inspirational kick-start to what is widely seen as a rather moribund national civil space policy have been attractive to many. Contrariwise, the difficulty of readying the hardware required by 2021 and the many unknowns that will inevitably be faced by the crew that must fly the mission are equally daunting to many others. Nonetheless, the goal is so challengingly tempting that in February it was the subject of a special hearing convened by House Science Committee Chairman and champion U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, "Mars Flyby 2021: The First Deep Space Mission for the Orion and Space Launch System?"
Much was said at that hearing, but a particularly insightful comment was offered by U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Dallas, in her opening remarks. She offers her own answer to the question posed in the hearing topic: "no," because with our present development plans, this would not only be the first deep-space mission for Orion and SLS, but the first mission. More important, she then goes on to pose several questions of her own, questions that make plain what must be remedied about our nation's civil space policy: "However, I think this hearing does provide a good opportunity to again stress that we need a clear, thoughtful road map for our nation's human-exploration program. Successive NASA Authorization Acts have made clear that Congress believes that Mars is an appropriate goal for our nation's human spaceflight activities. It's time for NASA to tell us how they intend to achieve that goal. What technologies will be needed, what sequence of intermediate destinations should be pursued and why, and what are the risks that will need to be addressed?"
Exactly so. But rather than being an impediment to the mission, these are precisely the questions for which Mars Flyby 2021 can focus our nation and our space agency on that which is needed to provide the answers. And yes, we need to answer these questions and many more, but doing so starts with the decision to take the first steps. But unlike the situation in the time of Apollo, what faces us for Flyby 2021 are not questions of fundamental feasibility but rather are matters of routine engineering development, well within our capability to pursue.
A commitment to the first human mission to Mars would provide just the impetus we need as a nation to address the political and technical issues that are the present day roadblocks on our path to Mars and, later, beyond. The goal is near enough to require action rather than talk, yet far enough to be attained without undue pressure on the budget. It offers a clear and sorely needed pass-fail test of American resolve - this particular goalpost cannot move, and is not subject to political reinterpretation. The questions we have to answer to give ourselves the best chance for mission success are precisely the questions that must be answered before humans will ever walk the surface of Mars. For these reasons and more, the congresswoman's questions should be seen not as reasons to stay, but as reasons to go.
In its largest sense, the overarching purpose of U.S. civil space policy must be to make America the world's pre-eminent space-faring nation. No lesser goal is worth the effort, risk and expense of the enterprise, and no greater goal is needed. We cannot and must not try to "go it alone"; great nations must embrace alliances and partnerships. But our nation should settle for nothing less than partnering from the front as humankind undertakes to explore and develop what President John F. Kennedy first called "this new ocean."
It is absolutely true that we need "a clear, thoughtful road map for our nation's human exploration program." No single mission or destination can provide that road map or can fully embody our space policy or the strategy by which it is carried out. But such a mission can be on that road; it can exemplify that strategy and policy, it can be a goal that "will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills," as Kennedy said of the lunar goal in 1962.
Mars Flyby 2021 could fill exactly this role on our way to the space frontier. And realistically, we will spend just about as much money at NASA if we are bold as we will if we remain timid. So, let's use that money to be bold - again.
Squandering America's Leadership in Exploration
By U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf – Space News
The following is from an April 28 speech at the George Washington University Space Policy Institute in Washington.
Today, I am deeply concerned about the state of NASA's human spaceflight program and, ultimately, American leadership in space for the 21st century. This concern is not because I believe NASA isn't capable of great things, or because the American people don't support space exploration. They do. In fact, they hunger to do great things in space again.
My concern is rooted in the Obama administration's mismanagement of NASA and our relationships with our international partners. Simply put: Our exploration program is floundering. Since the cancellation of the Constellation program by this administration in 2010, we have seen an agency adrift, grasping for purpose and direction while receiving little support or leadership from the White House.
Perhaps the best example of the administration's mismanagement of our space program is its current plan to "lasso an asteroid" into lunar orbit. The proposal, unveiled in last year's budget proposal, was hardly vetted before its release and has since been found to be poorly thought-out and lacking in support from both the American people and our international partners. No matter how much NASA tries to dress up or rationalize this proposal to the Congress and to the public, it continues to ring hollow. The selection of the asteroid as NASA's near-term destination goal is little more than a line drawn from President Barack Obama's April 2010 speech delivered at Kennedy Space Center, a speech he only gave after his cancellation of the Constellation program and its lunar mission set off a firestorm of negative press.
The current asteroid mission was born not out of a strategic vision for American leadership in space but out of a reactionary need to justify the cancellation of the program to return to the Moon. Strategic space policy should not be made like this. And it's precisely why a few years later I joined with Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas), Rep. Bill Posey (R-Fla.) and several other of my colleagues in proposing reforms to NASA's management to insulate it from politics.
These reforms included a 10-year term for the administrator, just like the FBI director; an independent board of directors; and the ability for the agency to submit its own budget to Congress. I believe these reforms, all of which have been used successfully by other agencies, could be helpful in bringing stability to NASA's programs and direction.
I also have worked in the House Appropriations Committee to address NASA's strategic direction — or lack thereof. I included language in the 2012 Appropriations commerce, justice, science spending bill to have the National Research Council convene a commission to review NASA's strategic direction. The commission's chairman, Dr. Albert Carnesale, said upon the completion of the review last year: "If you ask people in the bowels of NASA, in the field offices — and we spoke with everybody from the directors of each of the field offices to college interns and everybody in between — [the asteroid mission] is not generally accepted."
He also noted, "The more we learn about it, the more we hear about it, people seem less enthusiastic about it." Unfortunately, NASA ignored the findings of the commission's report and has pressed ahead with its misguided plans.
The asteroid mission is not worthy of a great nation, and Congress has made it pretty clear that this is a nonstarter. Notably, Congress restricted funding in the 2014 omnibus bill to only develop technologies that could also be applied to missions involving the Moon and Mars. Most people believe the next administration is likely to abandon this uninspiring mission and pivot toward more compelling missions.
Quite frankly, I believe it's insulting to the men and women at NASA that this is all the White House will allow them to pursue. They know — and the American people know — we can do better. At a time when this administration is thinking small, we need bold, visionary thinking to infuse NASA with a destination and goals that will capture the interest and imagination of the American people. We need missions that push the limit and engage the public's imagination.
I am a little older than some of you, and can vividly remember the excitement in the country and around the world as NASA achieved remarkable milestones in space during the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs, culminating in the lunar landings. These missions spurred a generation of children to become scientists and engineers, fueling our country's competitiveness and economic success.
I still believe that our future in space lies in President John F. Kennedy's call to go to the Moon. This remains as compelling a destination today as it did in the 1960s.
Neil Armstrong, shortly before he died, said, "I am persuaded that a return to the Moon would be the most productive path to expanding the human presence in the solar system." There is no question that a human return would galvanize the American people's — and the world's — attention. As Mr. Armstrong alluded, human missions to the Moon are essential to proving out the technologies necessary for missions to Mars.
There is no question that we would want to test these capabilities for long-duration missions on the Moon — which is only days away from Earth in the case of an emergency — before we send American astronauts on mission to Mars that would take more than a year. Lunar missions also would restore the confidence of our international partners that the U.S. intends to lead again after a period of disarray in our space policy.
It is also worth noting that since the abrupt dismantling of the Constellation program, this administration has also unilaterally terminated a Mars science mission with our European partners and just this year proposed mothballing the SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy) mission right as it was ready to begin operations, another unwelcome surprise to our German partners. It is no wonder our international partners, who commit significant portions of their space budgets to NASA programs, are questioning just what the U.S. is thinking.
That is why — after years of this administration's mismanagement of these international partnerships — a clear, strategic and coherent exploration mission is necessary now more than ever. And the global consensus for such a mission appears to be the Moon.
Dr. Carnesale noted that his commission found "a great deal of enthusiasm, almost everywhere, for the Moon." A lunar return accomplishes two important goals:
n It reinvigorates our exploration program with a short-term mission that will capture the nation's interest.
n It provides an excellent testing ground for the systems and habitats necessary for eventual missions to Mars.
This is the right thing to do in terms of both reasserting American leadership in space and contributing to our ability to go on to Mars. That is why I wrote President Obama in December, shortly after the Chinese rover landed on the Moon, urging him to convene a summit to revisit lunar missions, especially in light of steady advances by China. Unfortunately, the administration never responded.
This White House doesn't care about space, and it doesn't seem to care that it is squandering America's historical leadership in exploration as others catch up. It simply is not on its radar screen, which is unfortunate because we have never before relied so much on our space assets in our everyday lives.
U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) is chairman of the House Appropriations commerce, justice, science subcommittee.
How to energize the space economy
Kenneth Silber – The Space Review
There has been some good news for private sector space exploration in recent weeks. SpaceX, the privately owned company headed by Elon Musk, sent its third unmanned cargo mission to the International Space Station and experimented with a controlled re-entry of its Falcon 9 rocket to an Atlantic Ocean splashdown. That and a test of the reusable Falcon 9R prototype over land indicate progress toward SpaceX's goal of making its rockets reusable and thus driving launch costs down.
SpaceX and other entrepreneurial companies have been touted in recent years as an emerging industry dubbed "New Space" (or "NewSpace"), said to be leading a free-market revolution in space exploration. Unfortunately, the reality is more constrained. A major focus of the NewSpace industry has been getting government funding for projects, such as NASA contracts for resupplying the ISS (while bringing astronauts there continues to be something for which the US relies on Russia).
There are hopes that this government-aided phase of NewSpace will lead to a thriving private sector space economy that would include orbital tourism. But when or whether anything like that is going to happen is far from clear. Tourists might balk at the multiple zeroes in their zero-gravity ticket prices, and any incidents in which customers are vaporized would be a huge liftoff for personal injury law firms.
The Obama Administration and Congress have been in a tug of war in recent years over how much money to provide NASA's Commercial Crew Program, which funds SpaceX and other companies to develop the ability to get people into orbit, with Congress pushing for cuts in order to fund other objectives, including the Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket.
This tension had led to some scoffing from free-market proponents that congressional Republicans turn into Big Government enthusiasts beyond Earth's atmosphere. However, it is worth remembering that NASA's commercial program is in fact a government program, one in which taxpayer money goes toward developing technology that is subsequently owned by the private sector.
Moreover, the Obama Administration and Congress share blame for an overall lack of vision in the nation's space efforts, including failure to focus on steps that could help the private sector accelerate and diversify its space efforts. Such steps should include developing space-based technology that could tap new sources of energy for Earth and working to ameliorate the international legal and political tangle that surrounds the nascent subject of space property rights.
Space energy and property rights are interrelated areas; let's examine them in turn.
An idea long discussed in space technology circles, but not particularly familiar to the public, is space-based solar power. In such systems, solar arrays in orbit around the Earth (or Moon) collect the sun's energy, unhindered by the day-night cycle and atmospheric conditions that limit solar efficiency on Earth. The energy would then be transmitted, via microwaves or other beams, to become usable electricity on Earth.
Space solar power was first proposed in detail by engineer Peter Glaser, then at Arthur D. Little, in the late 1960s. It has been studied intermittently by NASA and the Energy Department, and most recently has been the subject of some very preliminary prototype development by the Navy. It is, in short, not science fiction, but it is also not ready for prime time. Using current rocket and solar technology, the resulting electricity would cost several times today's rates.
Technological advances and growing energy demand could change that calculus in coming decades, a prospect that merits putting space solar power prominently on NASA's agenda. One way to do this would be by reorienting an ongoing NASA initiative, the Asteroid Redirect Mission, or ARM. ARM involves sending a robotic spacecraft to move a small asteroid into orbit around the Moon, where it would then become an objective for human space exploration in the 2020s. The White House and NASA have presented this as a way to learn about diverting asteroids to mitigate the risks of one of them colliding with Earth, and to develop skills and technologies that will be useful for later travel to Mars.
ARM, as currently defined, has not generated much congressional or public enthusiasm. How useful it would be for future asteroid diversion or Mars travel is debatable. But the mission's merits would increase considerably if its objectives included serving as a testbed for space solar power. Installing solar panels on the asteroid ought to be included in the mission concept, as should experimentation in beaming the captured energy through space. Insofar as possible, this should involve fabricating the panels from material obtained from the asteroid or from the Moon, as a future space solar power industry would need to minimize how much material it carts up through Earth's gravitational well.
Besides space solar power, another idea for developing space-based energy is mining helium-3 on the Moon, for use as a fuel in future nuclear fusion reactors. Former senator and astronaut Harrison Schmitt has advocated developing such capacities, including sending humans back to the Moon as explorers and miners. That seems less likely to get on NASA's agenda anytime soon. The Obama Administration, having canceled the Bush administration's plans for a lunar base, has shown an aversion to making the moon a focus of exploration. ("We've been there before," the President said dismissively in 2010, as if a dozen people making brief visits had maxed out the moon's potential.)
Perhaps, though, a future administration will restore the moon as a NASA priority, and in so doing give some thought to the natural satellite's commercial relevance, which eventually could include everything from mining to hotels, if space tourism does get going. And that brings up the second topic: owning property in celestial bodies.
International law currently presents an adverse environment for efforts to claim property on the Moon or other celestial bodies. The UN's 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which has been ratified by every spacefaring nation, prohibits claims of national sovereignty over extraterrestrial territory and has served as a de facto bar against property claims. (Another UN pact, the 1979 Moon Agreement, explicitly bans private property on the Moon and elsewhere in the solar system, but has only been ratified by some non-spacefaring nations.)
Bigelow Aerospace, developer of inflatable space habitats founded by hotel entrepreneur Robert Bigelow, is pressing for clarification of the status of private installations in space. In particular, the company has asked the Federal Aviation Administration's Office of Commercial Space Transportation whether a habitat placed on the moon would have an exclusive "zone of operation" under the Outer Space Treaty.
Ultimately, some form of explicit recognition of property rights will be needed to enable commercial activities on the Moon. Amending or replacing the Outer Space Treaty may be required to make this feasible, even if it is possible to make progress on property rights by exploiting ambiguities in the current legal regime. An absence of clear property rights will not only slow down commercial development on the Moon and elsewhere but also raise risks that activity that does occur will lead to a "tragedy of the commons" scenario, geared to hasty, non-sustainable exploitation.
While it's good news that SpaceX and other companies are making progress in developing private space capabilities, there's still a significant role for government in building infrastructure, doing science, and setting rules out there. Putting space energy and space property rights on Washington's agenda would help create a vibrant extraterrestrial economy.
SpaceX Says ULA Cannot Prove RD-180 Money Doesn't Go to Rogozin
Mike Gruss – Space News
A key issue in the lawsuit filed by rocket maker Space Exploration Technologies Corp. challenging a U.S. Air Force contract with rival United Launch Alliance appears to be whether money associated with the contract winds up in the hands of a high-ranking Russian government official who has been hit with U.S. sanctions.
The lawsuit, originally filed April 28 in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, took an unexpected turn April 30 when the judge handling the case issued an injunction temporarily barring ULA and the Air Force from buying the Russian-built engines that power the company's Atlas 5 rocket. The plaintiff did not request the injunction, but Judge Susan Braden cited sanctions against Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who oversees that country's space industry, in issuing the ban.
The Atlas 5 is powered by the RD-180 engine, which is built by NPO Energomash of Russia and sold to ULA by RD-Amross, a joint venture between Energomash and United Technologies Corp. SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk has suggested that Rogozin is financially benefiting from the arrangement, something the Russian official has denied.
Rogozin was one of 11 Russian government officials sanctioned by the U.S. government following Russia's annexation of Crimea and continued meddling elsewhere in Ukraine. The sanctions bar defense and other high technology trade with entities associated with these officials.
In a filing with the court May 2, lawyers from the Justice Department, which is representing the government in the case, requested a clarification out of concern that the injunction could be interpreted so broadly as to apply to all contractual dealings between ULA and the Air Force. Such an interpretation would put the Air Force's existing contracts with ULA at risk, the Justice Department lawyers said.
In a response later that same day, Braden's clerk said the injunction directs that the Air Force and ULA "place no orders and send no money to NPO Energomash or to any other entity (as defined in the Preliminary Injunction) subject to the control of" Rogozin.
SpaceX countered with its own filing May 4, saying the Air Force and ULA cannot prove their assertion that some of the money used to purchase RD-180s does not ultimately wind up in Rogozin's hands. If the court chose to clarify its injunction at all, SpaceX said, it should stress that neither the Air Force nor ULA can make direct or indirect purchases from NPO Emergomash.
"SpaceX opportunistically seeks to expand the scope of this Court's injunction far beyond its plain language in order to prohibit all payments by the United States Air Force to" ULA, the Denver-based launch company wrote in a motion May 5. "SpaceX's response is rife with speculation about the manner in which [United Launch Alliance] acquires the RD-180 engines and how money is transferred from the United States to [ULA] to RD AMROSS to NPO Energomash."
A war of words in EELV court filings
Jeff Foust – Space Politics
Since the preliminary injunction issued by the US Court of Federal Claims late Wednesday that blocked the US Air Force and United Launch Alliance (ULA) from making any payments to NPO Energomash, the Russian company that manufactures the RD-180 engine used by ULA's Atlas V, there has been a increasingly heated war of words among the parties involved in the suit regarding the language of the injunction, in the form of a series of filings made to the court.
The debate started Friday when the Justice Department filed with the court a proposed order clarifying one aspect of the injunction. That proposed order states that the injunction "does not apply to Government purchases from or payments to either United Launch Services, LLC (ULS) or United Launch Alliance, LLC (ULA). The United States may continue to make payments to ULS and/or ULA." That seems straightforward enough, although to the non-legal eye, there's nothing in the original injunction that would appear to have prohibited such payments in the first case.
However, in a response filed with the court on Sunday, SpaceX's legal counsel strongly opposed the proposed order. "In other words, Defendant asks the Court to permit the Government to continue to provide funds to Defendant-Intervenor even if Defendant cannot certify that those funds will flow to NPO Energomash and/or other entities that may be under the control of Deputy Prime Minister Rogozin," the document states. (In the legal language of the filing, the Defendant is the US Government, while the "Defendant-Intervenor" is United Launch Alliance and its operating entity, United Launch Services.) "In essence, Defendant seeks to continue business as usual under the EELV program—including paying monies to ULS—relieved from any obligation to ensure that those monies do not flow in violation of sanctions."
On Monday, ULS responded to SpaceX's response, mincing no words. "SpaceX's response is a frivolous and improper attempt to interfere with ULS's business by needlessly expanding an injunction it never sought in the first place," it states. "There is no basis whatsoever for SpaceX's libelous suggestion that the United States, ULS, and ULA will try to 'circumvent' the Court's Order." It adds that under the "plain terms" of the order, the Air Force can continue to make payments to ULS "because ULS is obviously not under the control of Deputy Prime Minister Rogozin."
In documents filed with the court Friday, the parties anticipated the presiding judge, Susan G. Braden, would rule on the proposed order on Monday. As of late Monday afternoon, the court had not yet issued a decision.
Spotlight | BioServe Space Technologies
Debra Werner – Space News
For more than 20 years, BioServe Space Technologies specialized in preparing life sciences research for space shuttle flights. "We learned very well how to utilize that vehicle and its crew to the best benefit," said Center Director Louis Stodieck.
With the retirement of the space shuttle and emergence of an array of international launch vehicles, BioServe officials are devising new techniques to continue space-based life sciences research. "We make adjustments to reflect these new vehicles and every vehicle is a little bit different," Stodieck said.
During the last two years, BioServe has sent microgravity experiments to the international space station on the Japanese H-2 Transfer Vehicle 3, Space Exploration Technologies Corp.'s Dragon cargo capsule and Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Cygnus spacecraft. Many additional experiments, including three projects with the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, are scheduled to travel to the space station later this year on future SpaceX cargo flights.
On April 20, a SpaceX Dragon delivered to the space station a NASA Ames experiment, known as Micro-7, designed to investigate how spaceflight damages the DNA of a type of cell commonly found in human connective tissue and the ability of that cell to repair the damage.
"There is evidence that microgravity and radiation combined are worse in the body than either one alone," said Jeffrey Smith, NASA Ames project manager for space biology. "Better understanding DNA damage and repair mechanisms could help us go farther and spend longer in space and stay healthier."
Similarly, BioServe is collaborating with NASA Ames on an experiment to study how spaceflight affects the ability of bacteria to infect living organisms. Previous studies have shown that the salmonella bacteria become much more virulent in microgravity and that human immune response is weakened during spaceflight. Those findings were drawn from separate studies.
The NASA Ames-managed study, known as Micro-5, seeks to investigate what happens when the bacteria and host organism meet in microgravity. That experiment is scheduled to fly on the fifth SpaceX cargo mission to the space station, slated for November.
The third NASA Ames-BioServe collaboration, known as Micro-6, involves an experiment to study microgravity's impact on yeast and the effectiveness of antimicrobial agents. "The goal is to understand whether the antimicrobial agents used on Earth to treat cells attacked by fungus would be as effective in protecting us in space," Smith said.
BioServe plans to supply all the ground equipment and flight hardware for Micro-5, Micro-6 and Micro-7. For Micro-7, BioServe is providing the cell culture system, which fits inside BioServe's Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus, a mid-deck locker that offers power, experiment manipulation capabilities, temperature control and downlink of data and video. BioServe also is building the glass, barrel-shaped containers used to house the Micro-6 experiment and control its temperature. Each container holds eight BioServe Fluid Processing Apparatuses, which are shaped like test tubes and designed to mix fluids in microgravity.
Micro-5 requires more complex equipment because the roundworms being studied need to be kept in a state of suspended animation before the experiment begins and the salmonella cultures need to be grown and diluted. The centerpiece of the Micro-5 payload is a scanning high-definition camera designed to observe worms subjected to different experimental treatments to assess the virulence of the salmonella. Video clips from that camera will be stored in BioServe's Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus and downlinked for analysis on the ground, Stodieck said.
In addition to providing hardware, BioServe works with researchers to help them design experiments, plan operations, conduct laboratory tests, compile required documents, prepare safety plans, coordinate work with ground laboratories, integrate experiments on the spacecraft and conduct payload verification testing.
"Hardware is almost the simplest thing we provide," Stodieck said. "It is our experience and expertise that can translate a complex scientific investigation into a successful flight experiment."
BioServe also is working with Techshot Inc. of Greenville, Indiana, on a NASA-funded project to study changes in bone mineral density. Techshot developed a bone densitometer, which the company is preparing to use on the space station to gauge the impact of various therapies designed to decrease the significant bone loss animals and humans experience during spaceflight.
"BioServe helped us understand the conditions that are ideal for taking bone scan measurements on the rodents," said John Vellinger, Techshot co-founder and chief operating officer.
NASA established BioServe in 1987 as one of the space agency's Centers for the Commercial time, BioServe was a joint venture of the Aerospace Engineering and Sciences Department of the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Kansas State University. Its goal was to encourage commercial industry to conduct space-based life sciences investigations. Because so little life sciences research had been performed in microgravity, BioServe officials initially conducted many of their own experiments and published the results to encourage private industry to take part.
NASA provided a majority of BioServe's funding until 2006. Since then, BioServe has supported its operations and the salaries of approximately 12 full-time employees through grants it receives for its own research and money it earns supporting life sciences research conducted by other organizations, including NASA. Some of that work comes through the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, the organization charged with managing the space station's U.S. National Laboratory. BioServe also employs University of Colorado students as research assistants with funding drawn from grants, cooperative agreements and sponsored project agreements.
More than 25 years after BioServe was founded, the organization retains its focus on studying "living, breathing things, from microbiology to small organisms through animals and plant research," Stodieck said. Since those experiments are now sent to the space station on unmanned rockets, BioServe officials pay careful attention to preparing experiments for longer missions.
"With the shuttle if you had a relatively short-duration experiment, lasting hours or days, you go up and down on the same flight," Stodieck said. "If you are going up on one vehicle and coming back on another, you have considerably longer durations so you have to think a lot more about how you stabilize experiments for return and analysis on the ground."
That often means keeping samples refrigerated during the trip back to Earth. For example, rodents sent aloft on shuttle could be brought home alive for study because researchers had access to the animals within two to three hours of the spacecraft's landing. If researchers have to wait 48 hours to retrieve living samples from unmanned rockets, however, the animals or organisms will begin readapting to Earth's gravity, Stodieck said.
"We are all hoping that commercial crew vehicles will be able to bring back living samples in the not too distant future," Stodieck said.
Ball Awarded Contract To Refurbish SAGE-3 for 2016
By Space News Staff
Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. of Boulder, Colorado, is getting a five-year, sole-source contract to refurbish the Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment (SAGE)-3 instrument and prepare it for a 2016 flight to the international space station.
"Because of its long history of designing, developing, fabricating, qualifying and calibrating all of the SAGE series of the instruments, [Ball] is the only source capable of providing the unique capabilities required to complete the refurbishment and test campaign for the SAGE III on ISS instrument," NASA wrote in an April 29 notice of its intent to give the work to Ball without seeking competing bids. NASA did not say when the contract would be awarded, or how much it will be worth.
NASA spokesman Steven Cole, reached by email April 30, had no immediate comment about the award.
SAGE 3 has encountered years of delays on its way to the international space station. NASA originally thought it could get the pollution-monitoring instrument there in 2005. The budget request the agency released in March included a 2015 target date, but the April 29 sole-source notice calls for a 2016 launch.
SAGE-3 is slated to fly to station aboard one of the cargo resupply missions Space Exploration Technologies Corp. carries out for NASA with its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule.
The SAGE-3 instrument is currently in storage at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. Ball has built other copies of the instrument, which have been used in various Earth science missions dating back to 1979.
Nasa to Grow Plants on International Space Station
IB Times
Nasa has supplied a portable plant growth unit to the International Space Station (ISS) to grow lettuce for astronauts on board.
The deployable chamber called the Vegetable Production System (Veggie) is capable of producing salad-type crops to provide ISS crew with a palatable, nutritious, and safe source of fresh food.
The space agency hopes to grow the first crops in microgravity aboard the orbiting lab by the end of this year, the Observer reported.
The Veggie utilises the cabin environment for temperature control and as a source of carbon dioxide to promote growth.
"If you can get the environmental conditions correct, there's no reason why plants won't grow pretty well in space," Dr Gioia Massa, Nasa payload scientist for Veggie at the Kennedy Space Centre, Florida, said.
The expedition is part of Nasa's Veg-01 experiment to study the in-orbit growth and development of lettuce seedlings in the spaceflight environment.
"Veggie will provide a new resource for U.S. astronauts and researchers as we begin to develop the capabilities of growing fresh produce and other large plants on the space station," Massa said in a statement, adding that the Veggie could also be used by astronauts for recreational gardening activities during long-duration space missions.
The experiment is also focused at studying the effect of spaceflight environment on the microorganisms that grow on lettuce plants as Nasa's priority is to learn more about the food safety of crops grown in microgravity.
"Determining food safety is one of our primary goals for this validation test," Massa added.
A crop of lettuce and radishes was grown in the prototype test unit at Kennedy's Space Life Sciences Laboratory before the Veggie was supplied to the ISS.
"Seedlings were placed in the Veggie root-mat pillows, and their growth was monitored for health, size, amount of water used, and the microorganisms that grew on them," she said.
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