Another beautiful day in the Houston Metro Area. Enjoy it while we can (delayed or confused Global Warming)
| | JSC TODAY CATEGORIES - Headlines
- Ochoa Invites Houstonians to Support JSC
- NASA Astronaut to Discuss Spacewalks
- Wounded Warrior Project: Soldier Ride Houston
- JSC Remote Access VPN/R2S Upgrade May 11
- Studying Muscle Cells on the Space Station
- Properly Dispose of Marked Documents - Organizations/Social
- Discount Astros Tickets Through Starport
- Gift Wrap and Shipping Services Now Available
- Mother's Day Massage Special at Starport
- James Avery Charm Available for Mother's Day
- Starport's Father-Daughter Dance 2014
- Beginners Ballroom Dance: May 27 and 29
- Starport Summer Camp Registration Now Open - Jobs and Training
- Lateral Reassignment Positions Available
- HTC Lunch and Learn Tomorrow
- System Safety Fundamentals: June 9, Building 20 - Community
- It's That Time of Year!
- 3,2, 1, Launch! in Lake Jackson
- Family Space Day at George Observatory - May 17 |  |
| Headlines - Ochoa Invites Houstonians to Support JSC
At NASA, we are constantly reaching out to show our fellow citizens the amazing work we do. In fact, we're so great at doing the seemingly impossible, all the time, that we make it look almost routine. But sometimes, it's those in our own backyard who aren't aware that we are leading a 15-country team to ensure safe and successful operations of a multinational crew aboard the International Space Station, or inspiring millions in more than 170 countries through the popularity of shows like National Geographic's "Live From Space." In a recent opinion piece that JSC Director Ellen Ochoa wrote for the Houston Chronicle, she outlines why Houstonians should jump on our bandwagon (if they're not on it already) and, more importantly—why it's okay for us to continue to show pride in all we do at JSC. The proof is all around us, happening in each of our buildings on-site. JSC External Relations, Office of Communications and Public Affairs x35111
[top] - NASA Astronaut to Discuss Spacewalks
Spacewalks are some of the most challenging tasks an astronaut performs while in space. NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy, a veteran of two missions, will discuss the dynamics of spacewalks during a presentation entitled "Go for EVA." The presentation kicks off the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Houston chapter's Annual Technical Symposium. Cassidy's presentation begins at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, May 8, in the Gilruth Center. The event is open to the media and general public. Cassidy was selected by NASA in 2004. He served as a mission specialist on STS-127, in which he helped complete the construction of the Japanese Kibo module on the International Space Station. Most recently, Cassidy lived and worked on the orbiting laboratory for nearly six months as a flight engineer on Expedition 35/36. Cassidy has completed six spacewalks, totaling 31 hours, 14 minutes, and has accumulated 182 days in space. - Wounded Warrior Project: Soldier Ride Houston
JSC will host the Wounded Warrior Project, Soldier Ride Houston, on Friday, May 16, at 8:30 a.m. at the entrance to Building 1. The Soldier Ride is a unique cycling opportunity for wounded warriors to use cycling and the bonds of service to overcome physical, mental or emotional wounds. Fifty selected warriors from around the nation, of all ability levels, will cycle with state-of-the-art adaptive hand cycles, trikes and bicycles that accommodate warriors' various injuries and disabilities. Up to 25 JSC team members may participate in the ride by sending an email to alan.t.mather@nasa.gov. Rider participation is on a first-come, first-served basis. Communities play a key role in making each Soldier Ride a success and help warriors gain confidence in their rehabilitation efforts. The center encourages JSC team members to line up in front of Building 1 and along the route to cheer the warriors along the course (see map of the route). - JSC Remote Access VPN/R2S Upgrade May 11
The JSC Remote Access system will be upgraded on Sunday, May 11, from noon to 4 p.m. CDT. This outage will affect JSC VPN and JSC R2S. During this activity, access to these remote-access resources will be unavailable or intermittently down while the Information Resources Directorate performs upgrades in support of mitigating security vulnerabilities. White Sands Test Facility (WSTF) remote access services, including WSTF VPN and WSTF R2S, will not be affected and can be used as a backup. For information on Remote Access Services and assistance: - On-site - See JSC and WSTF Remote Network Access Information
- Publically available off-site - See JSC and WSTF Remote Network Access Information at NASA.gov
- Studying Muscle Cells on the Space Station
Last week, Commander Koichi Wakata conducted science operations on JAXA's Cell Mechanosensing-1 investigation. He used RNAlater to fix rodent muscle cell samples for return on SpaceX-3. This investigation identifies gravity sensors in skeletal muscle cells and aims to develop countermeasures to muscle atrophy, a key spaceflight health issue. Scientists believe that the lack of mechanical stress from gravity causes tension fluctuations in the plasma membrane of skeletal muscle cells, in turn changing the expression of key proteins and genes and allowing muscles to atrophy. Read more here. - Properly Dispose of Marked Documents
During a 2013 internal audit of JSC processes, documents containing various markings suggesting handling or distribution restrictions were found in recycle bins across JSC. It is everyone's responsibility to properly label, store and dispose of information. If you see information that is not properly handled, stored or disposed, secure the information and contact a responsible NASA official (e.g., your next-in-line manager). Properly marked documents ensure that the recipient knows of any release restrictions or limitations (e.g., "Internal NASA Use Only," "Proprietary," "SBU," "Export Controlled," etc.). When you no longer need information, including copies of briefings or presentations, properly dispose of them. Please take a look at the JSC Document Disposal Guide. Additional guidance is available in the NPR2810 and NPR1382 series, and in NID 1600.55, Sensitive But Unclassified (SBU) Information. These documents are available through the NASA Online Directives Information System. Organizations/Social - Discount Astros Tickets Through Starport
NASA employees and their friends and families are invited to participate in NASA Nights at Minute Maid Park this season. Discounted ticket are offered throughout the ballpark. There are six games to choose from this summer, so get your discount tickets and come watch some baseball! Tickets must be ordered online. Additional information can be found here. - Gift Wrap and Shipping Services Now Available
Want to get your mom the perfect space-themed Mother's Day gift, but not going home for the holiday? Starport now offers shipping and gift-wrapping services. Just stop by the Buildings 3 and 11 Starport Gift Shops and purchase something unique and special for Mom. We will gift wrap the item and ship it for you via the United States Postal Service while you get on with your busy day. Starport is here to serve, making your life easier and saving you money! Shipping, handling and gift-wrapping fees are applicable. - Mother's Day Massage Special at Starport
It's time to let mom sit back, relax and get spoiled with a massage. For a limited time, Starport is offering a special massage rate for that one-of-a-kind mother, grandmother, aunt or significant woman in your life. Enjoy a 60-minute massage for only $55 during this promotion. Massages must be scheduled Monday through Thursday between April 21 and May 29. Please visit the Starport website to schedule your Mother's Day massage. - James Avery Charm Available for Mother's Day
Starport is proud to offer you the quality of James Avery in an exceptionally designed astronaut charm made exclusively for and available only through the NASA Exchange. This is a wonderful way to honor the men and women who played a part in American history, working in the space industry, or those who dream of the chance to experience the wonders of space for themselves. - Starport's Father-Daughter Dance 2014
Make Father's Day weekend a date your daughter will never forget! Enjoy a night of music, dancing, refreshments, finger foods, dessert, photos and more. Plan to get all dressed up and spend a special evening with the special little lady in your life. The dance is open to girls of all ages, and attire is business casual to semi-formal. A photographer will be on hand to capture this special moment with picture packages for you to purchase. One free 5x7 will be provided. - June 13 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in the Gilruth Center Alamo Ballroom
- Cost is $40 per couple ($15 per additional child)
Register online or at the Gilruth Center information desk. You must register by June 11. There will be no tickets sold at the door. - 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. Discounted registration: - $90 per couple (ends May 16)
Regular registration: - $110 per couple (May 17 to 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 Summer Camp Registration Now Open
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. Jobs and Training - Lateral Reassignment Positions Available
The Workforce Transition Tool is still the best place to find lateral reassignment and rotation opportunities for civil servants. Right now the following positions are posted: - Astronaut Office IT Technical Lead | CB (GS-13)
- Astronaut Office Engineer - Mission Analysis and Planning | CB (GS-13)
- Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory Project Engineer | DX (GS-13-14)
- Planning, Monitor and Control | NA12 (GS-12-13)
- Safety and Mission Assurance Vehicle Systems Engineer | NC (GS-13-14)
- PRA Analyst | NC (GS-13-15)
- EVA Safety and Reliability Engineer | NT (GS-13)
- Contamination Control/Quality Engineer | NT (GS-12-13)
- Launch Vehicle Assessment Engineer - Rotation | ON (GS-13-14)
To access the Workforce Transition Tool, open: HR Portal > Employees > Workforce Transition > Workforce Transition Tool. Check back frequently to see what new opportunities have been posted! All positions do not possess known promotion potential; therefore, employees can only see positions posted at or below their current grade level. - HTC Lunch and Learn Tomorrow
Ever thought about starting your own business? Do you have an idea or technology that you think has potential as a commercial product? Then bring your bagged lunch and join the Houston Technology Center (HTC) in the HTC Conference Center, located on the second floor of Building 35, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. tomorrow for lectures on how to launch, fund and sustain a new business. Event Date: May 8 Event Start Time: 11:30 a.m. Event End Time: 12:30 p.m. Event Location: Building 35, Conference Room 212 - System Safety Fundamentals: June 9, Building 20
This course instructs the student in the fundamentals of system safety management and hazard analysis of hardware, software and operations. Types and techniques of hazard analysis are addressed in enough detail to give the student a working knowledge of their uses and how they are accomplished. Skill in analytical techniques is developed through the use of in-class practical exercises. This course establishes a foundation for the student to pursue more advanced studies of system safety and hazard analysis techniques while allowing students to effectively apply their skills to straightforward analytical assignments. Note: This course is a combination of SMA-SAFE-NSTC-0008 (System Safety Workshop) and SMA-SAFE-NSTC-0015 (System Safety Special Subjects). Students who have taken either of these classes should discuss taking this class with NASA Safety Learning Center management staff. Target Audience: Supervisors and technical/non-technical personnel who perform safety analysis and/or manage system safety programs. Event Date: Monday, June 9, 2014 Event Start Time:8:00 AM Event End Time:4:00 PM
Event Location: Bldg. 20 Room 205/206
Add to Calendar
Shirley Robinson x41284
[top] Community - It's That Time of Year!
Schools are winding down their academic year (YEAH!), and many are focusing their students' attention on CAREERS! V-CORPs has many requests for speakers to talk to students at career days. From kindergarten through high school, these students want to hear about YOUR career—how you got here, what you do and what it takes to be the success that you are. Here are just a few opportunities, but take a look at the V-CORPs calendar for May and June for more! - May 16 - Jennie Reid Elementary School
- May 21 - Lomax Middle School
- May 22 - Stehlik Intermediate School
- May 28 - Dunn Elementary School
- May 30 - Jewell Houston Academy
- May 30 - Barbers Hill Middle School
- 3,2, 1, Launch! in Lake Jackson
When: May 10 to 11 from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Where: Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge What it is: SystemsGo is an educational nonprofit supporting one of NASA's great loves: STEM! We need YOU to help 19 gulf-coast-area high schools test the project vehicles that they have designed and fabricated. Specifically, volunteers will assist with Stage 2/range safety review, Stage 3/recovery deployment installation, launch pad prep/test, fill/fire control, GPS tracking and more. And no worries—you will be trained prior to launch date! - Family Space Day at George Observatory - May 17
The Expedition Center at the George Observatory Observatory is holding a Family Space Day on Saturday, May 17, from about 3 to 8 p.m. For purchase are tickets to complete a 45-minute Expedition Center mission to the moon! Expedition Center mission tickets may be purchased for $10/person online. After enjoying a trip to space, stay for the evening and look at the night sky through our telescopes. Telescope tickets can be purchased at the observatory gift shop. George Observatory is located in the heart of Brazos Bend State Park. Admission to the park is $7 for adults; kids under 12 are free. | |
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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
Wednesday – May 7, 2014
INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION: ISS crewmembers Steve Swanson and Rick Mastracchio spoke to the "Space Broncos" from Boise State University live from the ISS during a downlink yesterday. If you didn't have a chance to watch, you can check it out on YouTube. You get to see both the space station and the students, and be sure to check out the fun just past the 7-minute mark – a surprise question from Steve's dad! The event was covered extensively by the media and the coverage was used on about 20 TV broadcasts.
HEADLINES AND LEADS
Effects of Climate Change Visible from Space, NASA Chief Says
The effects of climate change on Earth can be seen clearly in photos taken by satellites in space, and those images are vital tools in protecting our home planet, NASA chief Charles Bolden wrote today (May 6).
Moonwalker Jack Schmitt and the Future of US Space Exploration (Exclusive Interview)
Harrison "Jack" Schmitt has already been to the moon and walked on its surface. But he is eager to see a rebirth of the zeal for United States human space exploration that boosted Schmitt and fellow astronaut, Eugene Cernan, onto the lunar surface back in December 1972, as Ronald Evans circled that airless world as Command Module Pilot.
Brasfield & Gorrie gets $45M to build new NASA test stands in Huntsville
Lee Roop – Huntsville (AL) Times
Brasfield & Gorrie construction company of Birmingham has won a $45 million contract to build two large stands at Marshall Space Flight Center to test the fuel tanks and other key hardware for NASA's new Space Launch System.
Dangling Dextre Digs out Docked Dragon Depot prior to Station Departure
Ken Kremer – Universe Today
To close out their final week aboard the International Space Station, three of the six Expedition 39 crew members are completing their unloading tasks inside the docked commercial SpaceX Dragon cargo freighter and other duties while teams at Mission Control in Houston conduct delicate robotics work outside with dazzling maneuvers of the Dextre robot to remove the last external experiment from the vessels storage truck.
NASA May Put Greenhouse on Mars in 2021
Plant life may touch down on Mars in 2021.
Researchers have proposed putting a plant-growth experiment on NASA's next Mars rover, which is scheduled to launch in mid-2020 and land on the Red Planet in early 2021. The investigation, known as the Mars Plant Experiment (MPX), could help lay the foundation for the colonization of Mars, its designers say.
Air Force to award 'Space Fence' contract to track orbital debris
Christian Davenport – The Washington Post
Space: so vast, so open. And yet, so littered with junk.
NASA's Curiosity Rover Drills Into 3rd Rock on Mars
NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has collected samples from deep inside a Red Planet rock for the third time ever.
New Horizons Needs Hubble To Find A Kuiper Belt Target
Frank Morring Jr. – Aviation Week
As the $700 million New Horizons probe approaches its July 2015 encounter with Pluto, scientists back on Earth are worried that a priceless chance to study a Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) beyond it may be slipping away.
It's Time to Push for US Human Spaceflight Independence (Op-Ed)
Richard Garriott, cosmonaut/astronaut, and Owen Garriott, astronaut (retired) – Space.com The United States and Russia, along with the other partners of the International Space Station (ISS) community, have been working together successfully for 14 years. As NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden has noted, this relationship has survived many political crises in that period, and the communities of engineers, scientists and astronauts have also worked well together. The Russian space program has been and currently remains a highly capable, cost-effective, reliable partner for U.S. interests on the ISS.
6 in Houston move to next round of planned one-way trip to Mars
Craig Hlavaty – Houston Chronicle
An international project to colonize Mars by sending volunteers on a one-way mission has selected six people from the Houston area to go to the next round.
COMPLETE STORIES
Effects of Climate Change Visible from Space, NASA Chief Says
The effects of climate change on Earth can be seen clearly in photos taken by satellites in space, and those images are vital tools in protecting our home planet, NASA chief Charles Bolden wrote today (May 6).
Bolden's comments, which were released on his NASA blog, followed the release of the Third U.S. National Climate Assessment report today by the White House. According to the report, the fallout from human-induced climate change will result in more extreme weather events, longer and hotter summers and other extreme regional effects. Some of those effects, like more frequent wildfires and coastal flooding, are visible from space.
"We can already see the impacts of climate change around the world, especially through the lens of our satellites," Bolden wrote in the blog post today. "The U.S. National Climate Assessment combined observations from NASA's incredible fleet of Earth observation satellites with surface-based and satellite data from our interagency and international partners, to help us understand what's going on globally in areas such as polar ice, precipitation extremes, temperature change, sea level rise and forest ecosystems."
Bolden wrote that NASA scientists and missions were vital to the National Climate Assessment report, and the space agency has big plans in 2014 to continue that role.
"Five NASA Earth Science missions will be launched into space in 2014 alone," Bolden wrote. "Together with NASA's existing fleet of satellites, airborne missions, researchers, and the unique platform of the International Space Station (ISS), these new missions will help answer some of the critical challenges facing our planet today and in the future."
In February, NASA and Japan launched the Global Precipitation Measurement core observatory to track global rainfall patterns. The next satellite to launch will be the Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2, which is slated to blast off in July to map the carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere. It is a replacement for the first OCO satellite, which was lost during a failed launch in 2009.
Two of the new climate-monitoring NASA instruments will be delivered to the International Space Station. The RapidScat instrument will monitor ocean wind speeds and direction, while the Cloud-Aerosol Transport System will use light-detection and ranging (or lidar) to track dust, smoke and other particles in Earth's atmosphere.
Finally, NASA will launch the Soil Moisture Active Passive mission in November to study soil moisture around the world, as well as monitor the timing of freeze thaws.
"All of the data NASA collects is widely disseminated and helps many people to make wise decisions about how we care for our planet, as well as predict and cope with changes in climate and extreme weather events," Bolden wrote. "The National Climate Assessment is an example of how critical the NASA data and research are."
Moonwalker Jack Schmitt and the Future of US Space Exploration (Exclusive Interview)
Harrison "Jack" Schmitt has already been to the moon and walked on its surface. But he is eager to see a rebirth of the zeal for United States human space exploration that boosted Schmitt and fellow astronaut, Eugene Cernan, onto the lunar surface back in December 1972, as Ronald Evans circled that airless world as Command Module Pilot.
The Apollo 17 mission — the sixth landing of astronauts on the moon — was America's last human connection to that crater-pocked and dusty globe. Landing in the moon's Taurus-Littrow valley, the expedition set several records, such as: the longest manned lunar landing flight; the most time spent by astronauts on the lunar surface; and hauling back the largest cache of moon samples to Earth.
Schmitt, a professional geologist, is a member of an elite club, one of the "dusty dozen" to have strolled across the lunar landscape. He was the last man to set foot on the moon.
Now heading toward age 79, Schmitt departed his NASA scientist-astronaut duties in August 1975 to run for the U.S. Senate, elected to that post and served a six-year term as one of New Mexico's Senators in Washington, D.C.
Space.com sat down with Jack Schmitt for an exclusive interview during the 45th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) held here in March to discuss his moonwalking experience, space politics and the future trajectory of the U.S. space program.
Space.com: U.S. astronauts returning to the moon, how do you resurrect that prospect?
Jack Schmitt: There is one big difference between now and then with the Apollo program. Now, as then, a return rests on geopolitical considerations. That tact might be stimulated in the future, near-term or far-term. But there is another path that we didn't think about in those days of Apollo and that is an investor-based path. That is quiescent right now, even though there are some small groups talking about this approach. It's another path that may or may not move forward.
Space.com: Investing in the moon seems like a long-shot, both in distance and money back, no?
Schmitt: The amount of investment capital needed to really do something, say like helium-3 mining, is significant. It's out of the range of the private sector that has invested in other things because space investment seems way out. Oil companies see that they can get a more guaranteed rate of return, in their mind, by increased investment in exploration for oil and gas.
I'm trying to be a little bit philosophical about this, which is tough to do. Keep in mind how long it took for the private sector to get interested in the Louisiana Purchase. It was comparable to what we've gone through after Apollo. It's also similar in many ways with the transcontinental railroad and the establishment of private property in the west.
Settlement does go in pulses. And we're in a lull right now. I can't predict when the next pulse — private sector or investor-based or government-based — is going to take off. You just hope that history repeats itself.
Space.com: Your tenure as U.S. Senator surely gave you a front-row seat into the issue of funding a sustained space program?
Schmitt: NASA funding looks bigger than it is relative to the entire budget … and it isn't very big, even relative to the non-entitlement, discretionary monies being spent. The Congress and Administration we have today are unwilling to cut other things in order to fund space, except to the level that it keeps jobs in their district or in their state. Today, basically, NASA is carrying the Apollo overhead. And in real numbers, it doesn't have the same budget.
Space.com: So what needs to be fixed first to get the U.S. space program going in forward gear?
Schmitt: Political leadership of the country has to decide that, geopolitically, it's important for the U.S. to be dominate in deep space, or at least competitive, but dominate would be better. Until the political leadership makes that decision there's not much else we can do except try to make sure that the science community at least is prepared. Hopefully, the technology community is going to be prepared too. Both need to be ready, given a challenge by some new leadership of the country that recognizes the geopolitical significance of deep space.
Space.com: Any other concerns about NASA as an organization? You have advocated for a new space agency, replacing NASA with a National Space Exploration Administration.
Schmitt: If we ever decide to go into deep space again, doing it with a new agency may be the best way…that's why I wrote that essay. NASA needs to be a younger agency. The average age needs to be back where it was in Apollo. The engineering population at the time, NASA and the contractors…they were in their 20s. That's what you've got to have. What's needed is having that stamina, the motivation, the courage and competence of young people. Some have said, most importantly, people that don't know how to fail yet.]
First of all you need a big program to attract them. Then you have to make sure that you are managing it in a way that's highly efficient. The Apollo program was highly efficient. You can't launch a Saturn V every two months and not be efficient.
Space.com: What about the "China card" and their intent to send humans to the moon? Schmitt: They have been saying that for a long time, as well as saying that lunar helium-3 is one of the primary drivers. I think they are interested because of the success of Apollo. They see the geopolitical significance of Apollo. They think that they will gain international prestige and influence and, in fact, dominance over nearby countries, if not the entire world, in deep space exploration.
Space.com: Do you see the moon as a private-sector opportunity whereas NASA should be spending research and development dollars in technology to send humans to Mars?
Schmitt: Yes, I think right now it is fairly clear-cut. What it will be a 100 years from now, I can't tell you. But if the private sector were successful in developing a supply of helium-3 from the moon, it would mean that a great deal of the technological capability to do Mars would have been developed.
Schmitt: You would have the heavy lift rocket systems required to access lunar resources. You would have the moon as a test bed for working out all the operational issues that are still associated with Mars. In developing those rocket systems, there are many things that would be in place…to contract from the private sector.
Schmitt: But the space part won't happen until you have the demonstration that the helium 3 fusion is a viable power plant technology. That would have to come first. But I think that this can be done, about a $5 billion investment to show that it is indeed a viable energy approach. Once you have helium-3 going, I have always thought of the so-called consumables – oxygen, water, you name it – those are a by-product of the helium 3 operation.
You've got to have a space infrastructure that creates a demand for the oxygen and water. But it's not something that can support an investor-base business, unless the space facilities are there, and the infrastructure is in place to use those resources.
Space.com: You set foot on the moon in 1972, geology pick in hand. But even today there seems to be a quandary about how the moon formed. Why is this still being deliberated?
Schmitt: Even here at LPSC, there's debate on the moons of Mars. Were they captured or not? Most of the evidence seems to be leaning toward capture. How the diverse set of moons around Jupiter formed, your guess is as good a mine.
As for Earth's moon, there are a number of things that are bothering the giant impact community. And there is argument for the moon's capture around Earth. But my view is that, when scientists get dogmatic, I tend to go the other way. I'm a skeptic at heart and always start looking for another explanation. I think this comes from my dad. In his mining world, he hated to see people getting dogmatic.
We have to remember that we're testing hypotheses. Frankly, I like to see people squirm a bit when they become a little dogmatic. The giant impact hypothesis has gotten so wedded into the culture that students are being taught it as fact. It's a model. It has to be hypothesis.
Schmitt: I have been busy trying to integrate the scientific output from my Apollo 17 experience with what came out of the work we did on Apollo 17, scientifically, with the actual mission sequence of what took place.
But I want to do more than that; tell not just what happened on the moon, but also something I call 30 days in counting – before our launch. This includes our training, how we interacted with mission control, the en route systems work that we had to do, plus getting all the scientific observations clearly distinguished from operations … even working on a broken fender on our moon rover. I'm writing something that is really a diary, but to also try to make it interesting and readable.
Space.com: That sounds like the most documented of all the Apollo landings on the moon?
Schmitt: If I finish it. It's huge. It is probably five books, at least!
Brasfield & Gorrie gets $45M to build new NASA test stands in Huntsville
Lee Roop – Huntsville (AL) Times
Brasfield & Gorrie construction company of Birmingham has won a $45 million contract to build two large stands at Marshall Space Flight Center to test the fuel tanks and other key hardware for NASA's new Space Launch System.
Engineers will use hydraulic cylinders at each stand to twist, push and bend five separate parts of the rocket's core stage to make sure they can survive launch pressures.
One of the stands, Test Stand 4693, will be 215 feet tall with twin towers. It will test the SLS liquid hydrogen tank, which will be 185 feet tall itself. The tank will be tested at Marshall with liquid nitrogen inside.
The second stand, Test Stand 4697, is 85 feet tall and designed to test the liquid oxygen tank of the new rocket. "Within the foundation of this stand, we have 1.75 miles of embedded anchor rods - that gives you an idea of the type of stability we need to test these parts with such high-level force," project manager Byron Williams said in a NASA press release.
"These test stands will play a vital role in strengthening America's space exploration capabilities," Brasfield & Gorrie Vice President and Division Manager Alan Anthony said late Tuesday. "We are proud to continue our strong working relationship with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and our work at Redstone Arsenal while supporting NASA's Space Launch System."
The two test stands will take about a year to build. Construction is expected to start in late May in Marshall's historic West Test Area, where one stand will be built atop the bedrock-deep foundation of the stand Wernher von Braun used to test the massive F-1 Saturn V engines.
The core stage of the Space Launch System is 200 feet tall. By comparison, a Saturn V first stage was roughly 75 feet tall. The core is composed of five parts: two fuel tanks, a main engine compartment with associated plumbing for fueling, an intertank ring to join the two tanks and a top ring to attach the core to the Orion upper stage. Breaking the core into five pieces allows NASA to test them on the new stands.
The tanks will be be built at Michoud while the test stands are built at Marshall. All of that will occur this year. The parts will be barged up from New Orleans to Huntsville, where testing will probably begin in 2015 and continue into March or April of 2016. SLS is due to launch in 2017.
Dangling Dextre Digs out Docked Dragon Depot prior to Station Departure
Ken Kremer – Universe Today
To close out their final week aboard the International Space Station, three of the six Expedition 39 crew members are completing their unloading tasks inside the docked commercial SpaceX Dragon cargo freighter and other duties while teams at Mission Control in Houston conduct delicate robotics work outside with dazzling maneuvers of the Dextre robot to remove the last external experiment from the vessels storage truck.
See a dazzling gallery of photos of Dextre dangling outside the docked Dragon depot – above and below.
On Monday, May 5, the robotics team at NASA Mission Control Center at the Johnson Space Center in Houston carefully guided Canada's Dextre robotic "handyman" attached to the end of the 57-foot long Canadarm2 to basically dig out the final payload item housed in the unpressurized trunk section at the rear of the SpaceX Dragon cargo vessel docked to the ISS.
Dextre stands for "Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator" and was contributed to the station by the Canadian Space Agency. It measures 12 feet tall and is outfitted with a pair of arms and an array of finely detailed tools to carry out intricate and complex tasks that would otherwise require spacewalking astronauts.
The massive orbiting outpost was soaring some 225 miles above the home planet as Dextre's work was in progress to remove the Optical PAyload for Lasercomm Science, or OPALS, from the Dragon's truck.
The next step is to install OPALS on the Express Logistics Carrier-1 (ELC-1) depot at the end of the station's port truss on Wednesday.
Monday's attempt was the second try at grappling OPALS. The initial attempt last Thursday "was unsuccessful due to a problem gripping the payload's grapple fixture with the Special Purpose Dextrous Manipulator, or Dextre," NASA reported.
A software patch solved the problem.
Dragon thundered to orbit atop SpaceX's powerful new Falcon 9 v1.1 rocket on April 18, from Cape Canaveral, Fla.
This unmanned Dragon delivered about 4600 pounds of cargo to the ISS including over 150 science experiments, a pair of hi tech legs for Robonaut 2, a high definition Earth observing imaging camera suite (HDEV), the laser optical communications experiment (OPALS), the VEGGIE lettuce growing experiment as well as essential gear, spare parts, crew provisions, food, clothing and supplies to the six person crews living and working aboard in low Earth orbit, under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract.
OPALS uses laser light instead of radio waves to beam back precisely guided data packages to ground stations. The use of lasers should greatly increase the amount of information transmitted over the same period of time, says NASA.
The science experiments carried aboard Dragon are intended for research to be conducted by the crews of ISS Expeditions 39 and 40.
Robotics teams had already pulled out the other payload item from the truck, namely the HDEV imaging suite. It is already transmitting back breathtaking real time video views of Earth from a quartet of video cameras pointing in different directions mounted on the stations exterior.
The SpaceX CRS-3 mission marks the company's third resupply mission to the ISS under a $1.6 Billion contract with NASA to deliver 20,000 kg (44,000 pounds) of cargo to the ISS during a dozen Dragon cargo spacecraft flights through 2016.
After spending six months in space, Station Commander Koichi Wakata from Japan as well as NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin will be departing the station in a week aboard their Soyuz TMA-11M spacecraft on May 13 at 6:33 p.m. EDT.
They are scheduled to land some 3.5 hours later in the steppes of Kazakhstan at 9:57 p.m. (7:57 a.m. Kazakh time on May 14). The events will be carried live on NASA TV.
To prepare for the journey home, the trio also completed fit checks on their Russian Sokol launch and entry suits on Monday.
Meanwhile Dragon is also set to depart the station soon on May 18 for a parachute assisted splashdown and recovery by boats in the Pacific Ocean west of Baja California.
Dragon has been docked to the station since arriving on Easter Sunday morning, April 20.
It was grappled using Canadarm 2 and berthed at the Earth facing port of the Harmony module by Commander Wakata and flight engineer Mastracchio while working at the robotics work station inside the seven windowed domed Cupola module.
For the return trip, the Expedition 39 crew is also loading Dragon with precious science samples collected over many months from the crews research activities as well as trash and no longer needed items.
NASA May Put Greenhouse on Mars in 2021
Plant life may touch down on Mars in 2021.
Researchers have proposed putting a plant-growth experiment on NASA's next Mars rover, which is scheduled to launch in mid-2020 and land on the Red Planet in early 2021. The investigation, known as the Mars Plant Experiment (MPX), could help lay the foundation for the colonization of Mars, its designers say.
"In order to do a long-term, sustainable base on Mars, you would want to be able to establish that plants can at least grow on Mars," MPX deputy principal investigator Heather Smith, of NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, said April 24 at the Humans 2 Mars conference in Washington, D.C. "This would be the first step in that … we just send the seeds there and watch them grow."
The MPX team — led by fellow Ames scientist Chris McKay — isn't suggesting that the 2020 Mars rover should play gardener, digging a hole with its robotic arm and planting seeds in the Red Planet's dirt.
Rather, the experiment would be entirely self-contained, eliminating the chance that Earth life could escape and perhaps get a foothold on Mars.
MPX would employ a clear "CubeSat" box — the case for a cheap and tiny satellite — which would be affixed to the exterior of the 2020 rover. This box would hold Earth air and about 200 seeds of Arabidopsis, a small flowering plant that's commonly used in scientific research.
The seeds would receive water when the rover touched down on Mars, and would then be allowed to grow for two weeks or so.
"In 15 days, we'll have a little greenhouse on Mars," Smith said.
MPX would provide an organism-level test of the Mars environment, showing how Earth life deals with the Red Planet's relatively high radiation levels and low gravity, which is about 40 percent as strong as that of Earth, she added.
"We would go from this simple experiment to the greenhouses on Mars for a sustainable base," Smith said. "That would be the goal."
In addition to its potential scientific returns, MPX would provide humanity with a landmark moment, she added.
"It also would be the first multicellular organism to grow, live and die on another planet," Smith said.
The 2020 Mars rover is based heavily on NASA's Curiosity rover, which landed in August 2012 to determine if the Red Planet has ever been capable of supporting microbial life. Curiosity has already answered that question in the affirmative, finding that a site called Yellowknife Bay was, indeed, habitable billions of years ago.
NASA wants the 2020 rover to search for signs of past Mars life, and collect rock and soil samples for eventual return to Earth. But the space agency is still working out the details of the robot's mission — for example, figuring out what instruments it will carry.
NASA received 58 instrument proposals for the rover during its call for submissions, which lasted from September 2013 until January of this year. Final selections should be made by June or so, NASA officials have said.
Curiosity totes 10 instruments around Mars, so the 2020 rover may end up with a similar amount of scientific gear.
Air Force to award 'Space Fence' contract to track orbital debris
Christian Davenport – The Washington Post
Space: so vast, so open. And yet, so littered with junk.
Hundreds of thousands of pieces of man-made debris are floating around out there, the detritus of more than 50 years of spaceflight. There have been chunks of dead satellites and spent rocket boosters — even a glove that an astronaut dropped in 1965 and a spatula that escaped from a space shuttle in 2006.
Because it zips along faster than a speeding bullet, the trash poses an ever-growing threat to the satellites that help the military communicate and gather intelligence and serve the world's obsession with Google Earth and on-demand movies. Until last year, the Pentagon used what was called a "Space Fence" to track the junk and warn of potential collisions that make owners scramble to move their satellites out of the way.
But that system managed to keep up with only a fraction of it all, and it went out of commission last year. Now the Air Force is poised to take a more modern crack at the problem with a new Space Fence.
With a contract expected to be awarded in the next few weeks, the program is designed to be mankind's best effort yet at tracking space pollution. But the new Space Fence still doesn't provide what many think is the ultimate solution: cleaning up space.
"There's a lot of stuff up there, and the impact of the new Space Fence will be to track more objects and smaller objects," said Joan Johnson-Freese, a professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College.
Tracking the debris "is a necessity, but not sufficient," she said. "We need to move on to an active plan for removal."
Tracking smaller debris
The fence isn't really a fence, but rather a high-frequency radar that is like a flashlight beam in a dark room that illuminates the bits of dust swirling around. All those little bits are then catalogued and tracked as they pass through the radar again and again, until analysts, using massive computer databases, can predict where those pieces of debris will be in the future and when they might come close enough to collide with something.
The new system is vital, officials say, because it will be able to track more and much smaller pieces of debris, which can whip around the globe as fast as 17,000 miles per hour. At that velocity, even something just a half-inch around would pack a punch like a bowling ball traveling at 300 mph, according to NASA.
"It's absolutely essential," said Todd Harrison, a defense analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. "It's the most basic level of defense: You can't defend against it, if you don't know what's there. . . . And we don't want to be playing Russian roulette with our military space systems."
After an intense competition that has gone on for several years and has already resulted in the awards of millions of dollars for prototypes, the high-stakes bidding has been whittled down to two competitors: defense giants Lockheed Martin and Raytheon.
"We believe the space fence is very critical to not only our country but to the world," said Steve Bruce, a Lockheed vice president. "We do rely on space for almost everything. And without us being able to safely maintain equipment in space it would affect our worldwide economy pretty significantly . . . not to mention national security."
Mike Nachshen, a Raytheon spokesman, said the company "is confident of our solution and looks forward to the Air Force's decision."
The Air Force plans to build at least one radar system, to be located in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean. (A possible second system could be located in western Australia).
Now, the Defense Department tracks about 20,000 items with other sensors and radars. But the new fence would be able to track as much as 10 times that. It would also be able to identify smaller items, some the size of a golf ball.
Armed with the catalogue of items, analysts forecast possible collisions, like the ones dramatized in the film "Gravity." (But the objects are moving so fast that scientists say there's no way astronauts could see what's coming.) And for the approximately 1,100 working satellites — and also the international space station and the Hubble telescope — to get out of the way, the warnings often have to come well in advance.
In 2012, the United States issued more than 10,000 warnings of close calls, to U.S. and international satellite owners, helping with 75 "avoidance maneuvers" — satellites expending precious energy to move out of the way.
"It's all predictive," said Brian Weeden, a former Air Force officer and a technical adviser for the Secure World Foundation. "They're predicting where things are going to be three, four days or a week into the future and looking for close approaches."
But there is so much debris whizzing through space that some collisions are inevitable.
Knowing that the international space station is going to be pelted by all sorts of garbage — nuts, bolts, even flecks of paint can cause damage — it was designed to be the "most heavily shielded spacecraft ever," NASA says, that "can survive impact with smaller pieces of debris." NASA outfits its astronauts with spacesuits that are lined with a layer of material used in bulletproof vests to help protect them from flying projectiles.
The space shuttle was also designed to withstand the onslaught, and often returned to Earth with tiny pocks and even cracks in the windows, which were layered three deep for protection.
Crashes spawn more junk
Space wasn't always so polluted. But since Sputnik was launched in 1957, the debris has grown. Spent rocket boosters, laden with fuel, have exploded. Defunct satellites left in orbit have decomposed. And the junk begets more junk, as crashes create more debris, which can then cause even more collisions.
Much of the debris is attributed to two events, which added thousands of new pieces of garbage to space, severely exacerbating the problem but also raising awareness about the growing clutter.
In 2007, China blew up one of its dead weather satellites, and then two years later, an active U.S. communications satellite crashed into a defunct Russian satellite.
One answer is to find ways to limit the amount of potential debris that enters space.
Some rocket boosters are now being designed to fall back to Earth more quickly, so that within 25 years, they hit the atmosphere and disintegrate. The boosters, which carry excess fuel, now are built with vents, allowing the fuel to escape, which can help prevent the boosters from exploding.
Even satellite cameras are now designed in a way to prevent space pollution.
"In the old days you'd blow the lens cap away, and some debris would always result from that," said Dave Baiocchi, a senior engineer at the Rand Corp. "Now they tether the lens cap."
The ultimate answer, of course, is to clean things up. But that's far more difficult than it might seem, said Johnson-Freese, the Naval War College professor.
It's incredibly expensive, for one thing, and cleaning up space isn't exactly the kind of domestic program that members of Congress can rally behind. Then there are the international tensions. Countries continue to own the junk they've launched into space, and China, for example, wouldn't be thrilled if the United States decided to take down one of its satellites.
"There are legal issues," Johnson-Freese said. "There are no salvage laws in space. Even if we had the political will to [salvage junk], which I don't think we do, we couldn't bring down the big pieces because we don't own them."
Swiss scientists are working on what's been called a "janitor satellite," a sort of orbital garbage truck called CleanSpace One that would remove junk.
There's been some discussion of "putting a surcharge on every launch" that would go into a global fund and then help pay for cleanup, Baiocchi said. But it's still in the early stages.
"This is," he said, "uncharted territory."
Even though the movie "Gravity" raised awareness of the space debris problem, Johnson-Freese doesn't think there will be real action on removing the rubbish until there's a crash that "affects people, and the general public says, 'Why isn't my cellphone working?' "
NASA's Curiosity Rover Drills Into 3rd Rock on Mars
NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has collected samples from deep inside a Red Planet rock for the third time ever.
The 1-ton Curiosity rover bored into a slab of Martian sandstone dubbed Windjana on Monday evening (May 5), creating a hole measuring 0.63 inches (1.6 centimeters) wide and 2.6 inches (6.5 cm) deep, NASA officials said. In the coming days, Curiosity will use its scientific instruments to analyze the powder collected during this drilling operation.
"The drill tailings from this rock are darker-toned and less red than we saw at the two previous drill sites," Jim Bell of Arizona State University, deputy principal investigator for Curiosity's Mast Camera (Mastcam), said in a statement.
"This suggests that the detailed chemical and mineral analysis that will be coming from Curiosity's other instruments could reveal different materials than we've seen before," he added. "We can't wait to find out!"
The team chose to drill into Windjana partly to investigate the material that binds sand-size grains together in the rock, NASA officials said. The newly drilled hole is close to a shallow test hole Curiosity dug last week to get a preview of Windjana's interior.
In its two previous drilling activities, Curiosity bored into fine-grained mudstones at a site called Yellowknife Bay, which is close to the spot where the rover touched down in August 2012. Analysis of the resulting samples revealed that, billions of years ago, Yellowknife Bay harbored an ancient lake-and-stream environment capable of supporting microbial life.
The Windjana rock is about 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) southwest of Yellowknife Bay, on the way toward the foothills of the towering Mount Sharp, which rises about 3 miles (5 km) into the Martian sky.
The base of Mount Sharp has long been Curiosity's ultimate science destination. Mission team members want the robot to climb up through the mountain's foothills, reading a history of the Red Planet's changing environmental conditions as it goes. Such work could shed light on why and how Mars transitioned from a relatively warm and wet world long ago to the cold, dry place it is today, they have said.
The Windjana sample will be sieved and then delivered to two mini laboratories located on Curiosity's body: the Chemistry and Mineralogy instrument (CheMin) and the Sample Analysis at Mars instrument (SAM).
CheMin and SAM will perform an in-depth analysis of the powder's composition. Some of this work may be performed on the go, as Curiosity continues the long trek toward Mount Sharp, NASA officials said.
New Horizons Needs Hubble To Find A Kuiper Belt Target
Frank Morring Jr. – Aviation Week
As the $700 million New Horizons probe approaches its July 2015 encounter with Pluto, scientists back on Earth are worried that a priceless chance to study a Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) beyond it may be slipping away.
Even with the most capable ground-based telescopes, a New Horizons search team has failed to find a KBO that New Horizons can reach as it hurtles toward interstellar space following its Pluto flyby. The search continues, but with time running short the project is seeking time on the Hubble Space Telescope to improve the odds that a feasible target can be found.
The New Horizons project needs to know where that target will be when the spacecraft passes through, so it needs some lead time to calculate the object's orbit around the Sun. Otherwise, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to study one of the mysterious bodies at the edge of the Solar System may be squandered.
"The scientific bounty of a spacecraft encounter with a primitive KBO is realizable in our lifetimes, but only with New Horizons and only if a suitable target can be found while there is still time to reach it," wrote two NASA scientific advisory groups in an April 30 joint statement. "No other mission currently in flight, in build, or in design will reach the Kuiper belt. Time is of the essence for New Horizons."
The New Horizon's team has asked for an initial 40 orbits – about 2.5 days – of time on the Hubble to peer "deeper" into the region beyond Pluto for promising candidates. Bill McKinnon, a professor of Earth and Planetary Science at Washington University, said the ability of the space telescope to detect objects that are much fainter than can be seen from the ground, combined with a narrowing of the region that needs to be searched, suggests that a target can be found during a "trial run" this summer. If no target appears, the search will provide a statistical justification for applying more Hubble time to the problem.
"Forty orbits may be enough to get our man," said McKinnon, a member of the New Horizons science team and a former chairman of the NASA Outer Planets Assessment Group that joined the Small Bodies Assessment Group in calling for the Hubble observation. "We may actually find the one we need, so we can declare victory and go home."
The ideal target will be a KBO on the order of 25 km across, McKinnon said, on a trajectory that will put it where New Horizons can reach it with its remaining fuel after the Pluto flyby next year. The spacecraft will use its instruments to characterize the composition, reflectivity and density of the object; map its surface features, and look for smaller moons in orbit around it. Given the great distance and the small size of the objects, scientists "really have no idea" what KBOs are like, although they are pretty sure they have been there since before the Solar System took the form we know today.
"Pluto is a planetary outlier in the Kuiper belt," the two advisory groups stated. "It is entirely unlike the far more numerous, small, primitive planetesimals (KBOs) left over from the era of planet formation that populate the classical Kuiper belt, and especially its dynamically 'cold' core that New Horizons will soon pass through. This population is also the most accessible example of a debris disk, like those detected around numerous other stars."
New Horizons was launched in 2006 on an Atlas V, and picked up a gravity assist from Jupiter 13 months later that sent it on the long transit to Pluto.
It's Time to Push for US Human Spaceflight Independence (Op-Ed)
Richard Garriott, cosmonaut/astronaut, and Owen Garriott, astronaut (retired) – Space.com The United States and Russia, along with the other partners of the International Space Station (ISS) community, have been working together successfully for 14 years. As NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden has noted, this relationship has survived many political crises in that period, and the communities of engineers, scientists and astronauts have also worked well together. The Russian space program has been and currently remains a highly capable, cost-effective, reliable partner for U.S. interests on the ISS.
While no one has ever doubted the importance of an independent U.S. capability to put its own astronauts in space, NASA's budget could not keep the space shuttle flying while simultaneously allowing for the development of new systems. So, the United States has been living through an expected gap of about five years from the retirement of the space shuttle, waiting until multiple, new U.S. human spaceflight capabilities become available. Those developments are going quite well, and the nation should soon have several ways to send American astronauts on American vehicles to the International Space Station , and even to points far beyond any previous human missions.
However, Americans are now seeing just how critical an independent capability is. With the United States ratcheting up sanctions on Russia, now including their aerospace sector, it is all too obvious how much this country's space program depends on Russia. Some of our main satellite launch systems depend on powerful engines built in and sourced from Russia. Without these specific systems, some important U.S. satellite launch systems might soon be grounded. In addition, NASA needs to ferry U.S. astronauts both up to and back from the ISS. Without the Soyuz, crews could literally be stranded on board the ISS, or prevented from returning to the ISS from the ground.
The private sector has multiple U.S. human spaceflight systems for low-Earth orbit in development at this time, including Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser space plane, Boeing's CST- 100 capsule and Space X's Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft. Additionally, NASA has its own Orion crew exploration vehicle. But of these four, the only one that has already been flying cargo to the ISS is Falcon 9/Dragon. Even with a well-coordinated and financially supported hard push, these systems are 18 to 24 months away from being ready to fly human crews to the ISS. Without a government-mandated effort, it could be considerably longer!
After more than two decades of development, it is essential that the United States keeps the ability to visit, work and return from the ISS within its national capabilities. Yet, it is surprising to see how little discussion, much less pressure, is being applied to accelerating plans to regain an independent capability for human spaceflight. Now seems to be the time for Congress, NASA and the general public to all push hard, and get one or more of these U.S. systems in space as soon as possible.
6 in Houston move to next round of planned one-way trip to Mars
Craig Hlavaty – Houston Chronicle
An international project to colonize Mars by sending volunteers on a one-way mission has selected six people from the Houston area to go to the next round.
Mars One is an ambitious project by Dutch entrepreneur and co-founder Bas Lansdorp to eventually send four people to the red planet.
In April 2013, the group began accepting applications for prospective space pilgrims to be shot into space in about a decade. According to Mars One, more than 78,000 registered for the selection program within just two weeks of its launch. Ultimately, they received just over 200,000 applicants.
This week they announced the names and demographic breakdowns of the 705 candidates that they culled from thousands of applicants. A total of 204 Americans -- 107 males and 97 females -- were among them.
Four would-be explorers are from Houston proper, one is from League City, and another is from Richmond.
Alitta Erin Boechler, 26; Donald Carl Barker, 47; JahTrent LiTré Smith, 20; and Amy Beth Button, 40, all hail from Houston. Bryan Kiang, 28, and Robert Griffin Alexander, 40, are from Richmond and League City respectively.
Rice graduate student Boechler said Mars One is a way for her to try something completely new and unknown, though she's still grappling with the concept of life away from Earth.
"It is definitely hard to comprehend what life on Mars would be like, but I think that sense of uncertainty is true for all adventures," Boechler said Tuesday. She will miss her family, although Mars One has told her that communication won't be a problem.
"It will be hard to not see green grass, or go to beaches," Boechler adds.
Mars One asked applicants -- who they jokingly refer to as "aspiring Martians" -- to submit videos, explaining why they should be sent on the seven- to eight-month one-way trip to Mars. The videos came streaming in from people of all ages, races, languages, countries, and degrees of seriousness. There were even a few couples that were vying to go to Mars together.
Applicants for Mars One must be at least 18 years old, physically fit, speak English, and agree to live out the final selection process. They must undergo an eight-year training program, all while being all the while followed by TV cameras. No further specific technical skills or experience are required, though you need to accept the one-way trip.
The goal of the not-for-profit organization is to send two people to Mars every two years and have a human settlement on Mars within a decade.
The 705 candidates will now be interviewed by the Mars One selection committee, which will make further cuts.
"We're incredibly excited to start the next phase of Round 2, where we begin to better understand our candidates who aspire to take such a daring trip. They will have to show their knowledge, intelligence, adaptability and personality," Mars One Chief Medical Officer Norbert Kraft said in a press release Monday.
In December 2013, Mars One announced it selected 1,058 candidates out of over 200,000 applicants. Mars One then asked that group to get medical clearance from a doctor and build a public Mars One applicant profile by March of this year. A few hundred dropped out due to personal reasons and medical reasons, according to Mars One. The 418 men and 287 women remaining are now invited to go before the selection team for a personal interview.
Mars One said that after this next round, the remaining candidates will be narrowed down to several international teams of two women and two men. These potential Martian settlers will then enter an extensive, paid, eight-year training program, as getting ready for their journey to Mars will become their life.
"From the first selection series, six groups of four will become full-time employees of the Mars One astronaut corps, after which they'll train for the mission," said Kraft.
Hopeful space traveler Donald Barker invoked the names of noted explorers Sir Edmund Hillary and Sir Ernest Shackleton when it came to the reasoning behind his Mars One candidacy. Barker wants to be sent to Mars because it is out there and undiscovered country.
"Ultimately it is no more unreal than my ancestors crossing the plains in the 1800s or leaving England for America in the 1600s. We go to open up new places to live and thrive," Barker said. According to his web bio, he holds master's degrees in physics, mathematics, psychology and space architecture, which could make him a one-man band in space.
Mars One currently runs on private donations and hopes that the missions will be picked up by television producers to help fund it all, which could make for the first reality show set off Earth. Think CBS' Big Brother, but without the promise of returning to Earth.
The ambitious plan also happens to come with a $6 billion price tag, which is pocket change compared to the $100 billion cost a NASA mission to Mars would cost. For this reason, many people say that the project is full of hot air, adding that even the relatively short time frame -- a decade -- to get humans to Mars is laughable. Some also say that Landsdorp's low figure depends on the technology just catching up to what he is willing to spend.
"We are talking about creating a major media spectacle, much bigger than the moon landings or the Olympics, and with huge potential for revenues coming from TV rights and sponsorships," Lansdorp told the New York Times early last year.
Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, has already said that he plans on one day retiring on Mars, so the Mars One colonists will at least have one neighbor to borrow sugar from, if they make it to their new home.
END
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