Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Fwd: NASA and Human Spaceflight News - Wednesday – November 5, 2014 and JSC Today



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From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: November 5, 2014 11:40:33 AM CST
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: NASA and Human Spaceflight News - Wednesday – November 5, 2014 and JSC Today

Latest edition to the losses list ---   I am hearing about 99 folks signed up for the buyout at JSC.
 
RETIREMENT JSC JS711 FTP HULSEY, SUSAN 11/30/14
 
 
Hope you can join us at Hibachi Grill tomorrow at 11:30 for our monthly Retirees Luncheon.
 
 
 
 
Wednesday, November 5, 2014 Read JSC Today in your browser View Archives
 
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    JSC TODAY CATEGORIES
  1. Headlines
    This Week With Orion: Counting Down to Launch
    Tune in Tomorrow: Orion Preflight Briefing
    Hangout With NASA and Cast of Interstellar Today
    Power Outage: Building 45
    Building 17 Network Outage
    IT Security Community Outreach
    JSC Innovations Noted in Current Tech Briefs
    Vote for the 2014 NASA Innovation Award Winners
    November Sustainability Opportunities
    Shuttle Knowledge Console (SKC) v9.0 Release
  2. Organizations/Social
    ABWA Energy Express Network
    Today: Innovations Through Generations
    Would You Watch Out for My Safety?
    Fall Break Soccer Camp
  3. Community
    Video Challenge: Due Date Extended to Nov. 30
    Got Plans for Saturday? You May Now
Early Snow on the Great Smokies
 
 
 
   Headlines
  1. This Week With Orion: Counting Down to Launch
We are just 29 days away from launch!
The first Orion spacecraft is complete and ready for flight. The Orion team put the finishing touches on the vehicle last week, then removed the scaffolding and got Orion into place for its rollout to the launch pad on Nov. 10.
Check back next week for the latest and greatest leading up to launch, and join us in counting down the days every Monday on the gate signs.                  
GO #ORION!
  1. Tune in Tomorrow: Orion Preflight Briefing
NASA's new Orion spacecraft received finishing touches Thursday, marking the conclusion of construction on the first spacecraft designed to send humans into deep space beyond the moon, including a journey to Mars that begins with its first test flight Dec. 4.
To provide more detail on what this first flight entails, NASA will host a preflight briefing at 10 a.m. CST tomorrow, Nov. 6, at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The news conference will be broadcast live on NASA TV and on the agency's website.
Briefing participants include: William Hill, deputy associate administrator for Exploration Systems Development; Mark Geyer, Orion Program manager; Bryan Austin, Lockheed Martin mission director; Mike Sarafin, Orion flight director; Jeremy Graeber, recovery director; and Ron Fortson, United Launch Alliance director of mission management.
JSC, Ellington Field, Sonny Carter Training Facility and White Sands Test Facility employees with hard wired computer network connections can view the event using the JSC EZTV IP Network TV System on channel 404 (standard definition) or channel 4541 (HD). Please note: EZTV currently requires using Internet Explorer on a Windows PC or Safari on a Mac. Mobile devices, Wi-Fi, VPN or connections from other centers are currently not supported by EZTV.
First-time users will need to install the EZTV Monitor and Player client applications:
  1. For those WITH admin rights (Elevated Privileges), you'll be prompted to download and install the clients when you first visit the IPTV website
  2. For those WITHOUT admin rights (Elevated Privileges), you can download the EZTV client applications from the ACES Software Refresh Portal (SRP)
If you are having problems viewing the video using these systems, contact the Information Resources Directorate Customer Support Center at x46367 or visit the FAQ site.
Event Date: Thursday, November 6, 2014   Event Start Time:10:00 AM   Event End Time:11:00 AM
Event Location: NASA TV, IPTV

Add to Calendar

JSC External Relations, Office of Communications and Public Affairs x35111 http://www.nasa.gov/orion

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  1. Hangout With NASA and Cast of Interstellar Today
Join NASA astronaut Mike Fincke, the NASA Keplar team and the cast of Interstellar for a Google+ Hangout live from Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum at 4:30 p.m. CST today. Use the hashtag #InterstellarHangout to share your thoughts and submit questions.
View the Hangout here.
Event Date: Wednesday, November 5, 2014   Event Start Time:4:30 PM   Event End Time:5:30 PM
Event Location: https://plus.google.com/events/c9ua3t35no1degmfgo8

Add to Calendar

JSC External Relations, Office of Communications and Public Affairs x35111

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  1. Power Outage: Building 45
Starting at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 6, an electrical outage to Building 45 will begin. The outage is scheduled through Monday, Nov. 10; however, we hope to have power restored late Sunday evening. Please check the JSCSOS website  on Sunday evening after 7 p.m. for information on the status of the outage. This is a total building outage—therefore, there will be no lighting to the building. Please take everything that you will need Thursday when you leave. The building will be locked and Security will have instructions not to let anyone in until power is restored.
Adrianna Kukan x46944

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  1. Building 17 Network Outage
The Information Resources Directorate is scheduled to work on Building 17 network distribution devices during an already scheduled power outage of the facility. The network distribution switches will undergo a hardware replacement to fix a memory issue. There is the potential that Building 17 users may not have network access during this time; however, impact is expected to be minimal or nonexistent while the systems go offline.
The activity is scheduled for Friday, Nov. 7, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. CST. This work is being performed along with a building facility maintenance activity to repair power.
For any specific issues or questions regarding this activity, please contact the Enterprise Service Desk help desk at 281-483-4800, option 2, option 2.
JSC-IRD-Outreach x34800

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  1. IT Security Community Outreach
In an effort to open up communication with our customers, JSC IT Security now has a security professional to answer your questions.
Send an email to:
  1. JSC-CISO (Center Information Security Officer)
  2. JSC-IRT (JSC Incident Response Team)
  3. JSC-IT-Security (Generic Communication)
  4. JSC-ITSEC-Training (IT Security Annual Training questions)
In addition to these mailboxes, we also have a calendar of events for IT Security presentations.
To view the calendar in Outlook, go to: open calendar/JSC-IT-Security
JSC-IT-Security x34861

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  1. JSC Innovations Noted in Current Tech Briefs
NASA Tech Briefs recognizes more JSC innovative technologies stemming from advanced research and technology programs at NASA.
The latest edition includes the following JSC innovations:
  1. Regenerable Internal CO Scrubber for Hydrogen Sensors (Charles Todd, Terrell Morrison, Robert Howe, Kenneth Flynn, Thomas Stapleton, Wai Lee, Daniel Gonzales and Kenneth Carney)
  2. Method for Determining Self-Reacting Friction Stir Weld Schedules (Joseph Murphy, Jerry Majors, Jason Calmes and Richard Kinmonth)
  3. Bulk Separation and Manipulation of Carbon Nanotubes by Type (James Tour and Christopher Dyke)
  4. Ionospheric Delay Compensation Using a Scale Factor Based on an Altitude of a Receiver (Hui Zhao and John Savoy)
  5. Method for Improved Gun-Drilled Cold Plate Fabrication and Inspection (Mark Zaffetti and Michael Laurin)
  6. Rapid Prototyping Lab (RPL) Generic Display Engine (Patrick Laport and Lee Morin)
Read about these innovative technologies and inventors on the Strategic Opportunities and Partnership Development website.
Holly Kurth x32951

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  1. Vote for the 2014 NASA Innovation Award Winners
It's time to vote for the 2014 NASA Innovation Award winners. These are "People's Choice" awards, and all NASA team members will be afforded the opportunity to view and vote for all nomination summaries and video-clip submissions. There are a total of 32 nominations posted (10 for the Champion of Innovation category, and 22 for the Lean Forward; Fail Smart category). Voting will take place on the NASA@work site and will capture votes of both civil servants and contractor employees.
Vote for Your NASA Innovation Awards: Champion of Innovation Award, and view the challenge here.
Vote for Your NASA Innovation Awards: Lean Forward; Fail Smart, and view the challenge here.
To vote, click on each of the links above and click on "Discuss Challenge" to view the nomination summaries for each award. The voting deadline is Friday, Nov. 14.
  1. November Sustainability Opportunities
Who is your Sustainability Hero? In this edition of your monthly Sustainability Opportunities, you'll find out who was just given this Presidential Award for NASA, and also see the pictures and slides from the inaugural Natural Champions Meet Up on Oct. 22. If you already recycle, turn off lights or generally have an interest in living more sustainably, we want to include your efforts in our center initiatives. Come to one of the sustainability team meetings and sign up for the sustainability listserver to receive announcements regularly. We'll make a bigger difference together!
  1. Shuttle Knowledge Console (SKC) v9.0 Release
The JSC Chief Knowledge Officer is pleased to announce the ninth release of SKC. This release will contain a new sitemap to identify the major content repositories and better facilitate searching through them; a set of 22 Aircraft System Engineering course videos from MIT; and 6,000 new documents totaling 7.3GB. This release will also be the first round of content reorganization, placing 86,000 series documents into named folders. To date, we have captured nearly 6 million documents totaling 2.7 terabytes. Click the "Submit Feedback" button located on the top of the site navigation and give us your comments and thoughts.
   Organizations/Social
  1. ABWA Energy Express Network
Join us for a special networking event on Friday, Nov. 14, at the University of Phoenix west-side campus.
The Energy Express Network is an Express Network of the American Business Women's Association (ABWA), bringing the mission and message of ABWA to the downtown Houston area.
The vision of the Energy Express Network is to be a powerful organization that energizes, inspires and empowers women and men to achieve their optimum potential, both personally and professionally.
Event Date: Friday, November 14, 2014   Event Start Time:5:30 PM   Event End Time:7:30 PM
Event Location: 11451 Katy Fwy, Ste. 101, Houston, TX 77079

Add to Calendar

Kirsten Beyer 281-235-2271 http://www.abwaenergyexpress.org

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  1. Today: Innovations Through Generations
Stop by the Teague Auditorium lobby TODAY during your lunch break for an enlightening experience about the four generations in JSC's workforce. There will be informative games, videos, interactive discussions and more! You don't want to miss this one-time event, where we guarantee you will leave with a new perspective about each generation.
Event Date: Wednesday, November 5, 2014   Event Start Time:12:00 PM   Event End Time:1:30 PM
Event Location: Teague Lobby

Add to Calendar

Rachael Copeland x46962

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  1. Would You Watch Out for My Safety?
The JSC Contractor Safety Forum is proud to have renowned safety speaker John Drebinger present "Would You Watch Out For My Safety" in an open presentation to the JSC community—brought to you by Jacobs Technology. Drebinger's presentations are educational, highly motivational and always entertaining as he helps people identify the reason to watch out for each other's safety. He will discuss the need for safety, common fears about discussing safety, techniques to make these discussions easier and how we can make JSC an even safer place to work while also taking safety home to our family each day. This presentation is perfect for supervisors, safety team members and, really, all employees. Seating is limited, so arrive early.
Event Date: Thursday, November 13, 2014   Event Start Time:9:00 AM   Event End Time:10:30 AM
Event Location: Gilruth Alamo Ballroom

Add to Calendar

Greg Tonnies 281-461-5130

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  1. Fall Break Soccer Camp
Sign up today for our fall break soccer camp! Starport has teamed up with the Challenge Soccer Club to provide a fall break soccer camp for kids ages 8 to 12. Your child will enjoy a soccer learning experience like no other. Children will go through various drills and play fun games throughout this camp. The Challenge Soccer Club is a well-known soccer organization with excellent and educated coaches.
   Community
  1. Video Challenge: Due Date Extended to Nov. 30
Join NASA's International Space Station Program and Humans in Space Art in a journey of exploration. Interested college students and early-career professionals worldwide are invited to influence the future of life on Earth and human space exploration. Individuals and teams should submit a three-minute video capturing their vision of "How will space, science and technology benefit humanity?" Video artwork may be any style. Younger participants may submit a video, but artwork from artists of all ages will be judged together. Winning artwork will be given worldwide visibility and flown in orbit on the International Space Station!
Entries are due Nov. 30—an extended due date.
Click here and select "Challenge" for details.
Please share this information with interested artists, teachers, parents and more. A printable poster is also available on the website.
If you have additional questions, contact the Humans in Space Art Video challenge organizers.
  1. Got Plans for Saturday? You May Now
The Freeman Branch Library in Clear Lake, a staple of reading and enrichment, is celebrating its 50th anniversary on Saturday, Nov. 8, beginning at 10 a.m.
Included in the festivities will be presentations by NASA astronaut Kenneth Bowersox, NASA historian Dr. Jennifer Ross-Nazzal and representatives  discussing the Orion Program.
While you're there, enjoy performances by the School of Rock, the Houston Dynamos mascot, Diesel, as well as educational and fun demonstrations.
It's an all-day extravaganza for the whole family to enjoy.
For more, see the flyer.
Milagros Tanega 281-488-1906

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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 – November 5, 2014
 
Join NASA astronaut Mike Fincke, the NASA Keplar team and the cast of Interstellar for a Google+ Hangout live from Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum at 4:30 p.m. CST today. Use the hashtag #InterstellarHangout to share your thoughts and submit questions. View the Hangout here.
 
HEADLINES AND LEADS
 
In Traveling to the Stars, Risk and Cost
Accidents at Virgin Galactic and Orbital Sciences Show Hurdles for Private Space Efforts
Jad Mouawad – New York Times (Nov. 3, 2014)
 
Space travel has long been the preserve of governments and sci-fi fans, but in recent years a crop of new commercial ventures, often backed by billionaire entrepreneurs, has sought to get into the race.
 
ATK-Orbital merger is a wait-and-watch game
Amrita Jayakumar - Washington Post (Nov. 3, 2014)
 
It was not a good week for Dulles satellite company Orbital Sciences. The company's latest NASA mission went up in flames last week, and though the cause of the explosion is still not clear, the failed mission sparked debate about the future of commercial space flight and America's continued reliance on Soviet-era rocket engines.
 
ISS member countries seek to operate station at least till 2020 — Russian Space Agency
ITAR-TASS News Agency
Heads of space agencies of the International Space Station (ISS) member countries confirmed that the station has the potential to be used for further manned space exploration
 
Heads of space agencies of the International Space Station (ISS) member-countries confirmed that the ISS would operate at least till 2020, Russia's Space Agency (Roscosmos) press service told TASS on Wednesday.
 
Jerry Davis: NASA's Ames Research Facility Plans Transition to Cloud Computing
Mary-Louise Hoffman - ExecutiveGov
A NASA research facility wants to adopt a commercial cloud platform to manage scientific virtual collaboration, mobility and enterprise functions, Federal News Radio reported Monday.
Last man on the moon visits Costa Mesa
Jordan Graham - Orange County (CA) Register
In 1972, when astronaut Eugene Cernan stepped off the moon's surface and onto the Apollo 17 craft to return to Earth, he looked down at his final footprints and knew it was the last time he would ever walk the lunar surface.
Virgin Galactic: We Are Moving Forward
Commercial space hopefuls pledge to continue their "mission to make space accessible for all."
Kelsey D. Atherton – Popular Science
 
Last night, Virgin Galactic held a press conference intended as its last connected directly to SpaceShipTwo's crash on Friday. The conference had three major themes: the crash investigation is ongoing, the cutting edge of transportation technology always carries risk, and despite setbacks Virgin Galactic has no intention to abandon space tourism.
 
Fledgling space industry resolute after fatal crash
Virgin Galactic accident should not be allowed to stifle innovation, warn analysts.
Alexandra Witze – Nature
 
What was already a bad week for commercial spaceflight turned tragic on 31 October with the fatal crash of SpaceShipTwo, the rocket plane owned by Virgin Galactic that was meant to ferry tourists and scientists to the edge of space. The fledgling private space industry is reeling from the accident, in which the co-pilot, Michael Alsbury, died, and the pilot, Peter Siebold, was left seriously injured. The crash came just three days after the explosion of an uncrewed Antares rocket that was launching on a commercial mission to resupply the International Space Station.
 
Antares Investigation Board Includes Former NASA Shuttle Program Manager
Dan Leone – Space News
 
Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Virginia, identified members of the eight-person accident investigation board charged with figuring out what destroyed the company's Antares rocket and Cygnus space tug 15 seconds after liftoff Oct. 28 from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport spaceport in Wallops Island, Virginia.
 
Rocket explosion isn't the end of kids' science project
Middle schoolers will get second chance to send worms to space station
Reuters
 
California students whose science project was onboard the supply rocket that exploded last week will have another shot at getting their work into space.
 
Asteroid Miners Plan Next Step After Spacecraft Explosions
Sonja Elmquist - Bloomberg News
 
"It's a big, audacious statement to make, that we're going to bring resources from space to the economic sphere," said Eric Anderson, co-founder and co-chairman of Planetary Resources Inc.
The satellite was aboard an Orbital Sciences Corp. (ORB:US) rocket that exploded shortly after launch Oct. 28. Three days later, a spacecraft operated by billionaire Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic Ltd. crashed during a test flight.
 
In life and death, Virgin Galactic space pilot testing new frontier
Irene Klotz - Reuters
 
The fledging private space travel industry marked a sad but perhaps inevitable milestone last week with its first fatal flight.
The costs of space travel: Column
David Weber – USA Today
Exploration is always costly. But the prize is worth the labor and loss.
 
The last week or so has been tough on the commercial development of space.
 
Dobbs: Accept the risk in space ventures
Greg Dobbs – Denver Post (Opinion)
 
The man held his hand about a foot from my face, put his forefinger about a millimeter above his upturned thumb, and told me, "We are always about this close to catastrophe."
COMPLETE STORIES
 
In Traveling to the Stars, Risk and Cost
Accidents at Virgin Galactic and Orbital Sciences Show Hurdles for Private Space Efforts
Jad Mouawad – New York Times (Nov. 3, 2014)
 
Space travel has long been the preserve of governments and sci-fi fans, but in recent years a crop of new commercial ventures, often backed by billionaire entrepreneurs, has sought to get into the race.
 
The list of so-called thrillonaires has only grown, along with their ambitions: Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder who set up Blue Origin to lower the cost of space technology; Elon Musk, who founded SpaceX with the aim of going to Mars one day; and Richard Branson, who started the space tourism company Virgin Galactic.
 
But two recent accidents involving commercial rockets have underscored the high risks and soaring costs involved in any spaceflight.
 
On Friday, a Virgin Galactic space plane exploded during a test flight over the Mojave Desert, killing one pilot and injuring another. Days earlier, an Orbital Sciences rocket carrying a supply vessel to the International Space Station blew up seconds after it was launched.
 
Both accidents are under investigation. Although they were unrelated, their occurrence just days apart was a stark reminder that the path to space is just as arduous for private companies as it is for government-funded programs.
 
"The engineering and physics of space tend to be unforgiving, no matter who is doing this," said Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University and a former assistant administrator at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
 
The common thread between these new space initiatives is that they all are looking for ways to sharply cut the cost of spaceflight. Without that, analysts say, there is no realistic prospect of making spaceflights both routine and affordable in the future.
 
"What you are seeing playing out are different experiments, by different groups, trying different approaches," Mr. Pace said. "To me, this does not call into question the basic logic of relying more on the private sector."
 
The push to privatize spaceflight is in part borne of necessity. After pioneering space exploration and landing on the moon with programs like Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, NASA has had to adapt to tighter budgets and redefine its mission. Today, one of its main goals is to encourage and fund the development of commercial space entities.
 
Lori B. Garver, a former deputy administrator at NASA and one of the most prominent advocates for commercial space during her tenure, said that public funds should be focused on activities that advance technology and provide public benefits to all, like planetary science.
 
At the same time, she said, the government should encourage private companies to move ahead and find innovative ways of reducing costs.
 
"In my view, the private sector has the same incentive, or even more, to get things right as the government does," Ms. Garver said. "If we only trusted risky things to the government, we would only fly in government-owned and operated airplanes."
 
Many of the current commercial operations have some form of government support.
 
Orbital Sciences is operating under a $1.9 billion contract from NASA to deliver cargo to the space station. Its Antares rocket exploded on the third of eight resupply missions.
 
The same is true of SpaceX, which was recently awarded $2.4 billion by NASA to build a transportation system for astronauts within the next three years. SpaceX was also the recipient of an earlier $1.4 billion contract to deliver cargo to the space station. Boeing also won a NASA contract for $4.6 billion to build a spacecraft capable of flying astronauts to the space station.
 
SpaceX and Orbital Sciences have sought to reduce costs in different ways. Orbital's rockets use a pair of refurbished engines built in the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 1970s. The engines were intended for Soviet rockets destined for the moon, but were never used and lay in storage for decades. The engines were refurbished by an American company and incorporated into the Antares rocket by Orbital.
 
SpaceX, by contrast, builds its engines for its Falcon 9 rocket and aims to reduce costs, in the long term, by reusing the rocket. The company has succeeded in firing a test rocket called Grasshopper, having it hover at around 2,400 feet and then returning it to its point of launch.
 
But its efforts to land Falcon 9 rockets have so far been unsuccessful, though the company says it is getting closer. In August, a bigger test rocket trying a high-altitude test was destroyed shortly after takeoff. No one was injured.
 
NASA is "looking for cheaper access to space," said Marco A. Caceres, a space analyst at the Teal Group, a consulting firm in Virginia. The trouble, he said, is that reliability and price are often tied together.
 
"It may be unreasonable to expect to pay under a certain amount to get a reliable vehicle," Mr. Caceres said. "That comes at a cost."
 
Virgin Galactic is an exception to the model of government-funded launchers. The company has been working on an experimental vessel to take paying passengers to the edge of space and back.
 
The craft, called SpaceShipTwo, was designed to be launched from a plane, then rocket up to its apogee at about 62 miles, an altitude considered the boundary of outer space. At the top of its ascent, two tail booms would rotate upward into a so-called feathered position intended to create more drag and stability, and allow the plane to descend gently back into the atmosphere.
 
Federal accident investigators said that the plane had shifted early into this high-drag configuration shortly before its accident on Friday for reasons that are still unclear. The investigators said it was far too soon to draw any conclusions about the crash.
 
Investigators have located almost all of the important pieces of the space plane, which had fallen along a debris field five miles long. That included the fuel tanks and the engine, which were "intact, showed no signs of burn through, no signs of being breached," said Christopher A. Hart, acting chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board.
 
"There is much more we don't know, and our investigation is far from over," Mr. Hart said during a news conference Sunday night at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California.
In a statement Sunday, Virgin Galactic responded to criticism that the design of SpaceShipTwo was flawed and that the test flights were reckless.
 
"At Virgin Galactic, we are dedicated to opening the space frontier, while keeping safety as our 'North Star,' " the company said. "This has guided every decision we have made over the past decade, and any suggestion to the contrary is categorically untrue."
 
Mr. Caceres said the new space entrepreneurs were good at creating excitement about their ventures. Before Friday's accident, about 700 people had reserved seats on Virgin Galactic, with tickets costing $250,000 each.
"You are talking about a brand new era of space," Mr. Caceres said. "You have personalities like Richard Branson and Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, who are not engineers. These are different kinds of people and they can generate a lot of excitement and capital investors who are willing to give you a lot of money."
 
However, he added, "the downside is that if you have problems, you have all this attention focused on you."
 
ATK-Orbital merger is a wait-and-watch game
Amrita Jayakumar - Washington Post (Nov. 3, 2014)
 
It was not a good week for Dulles satellite company Orbital Sciences. The company's latest NASA mission went up in flames last week, and though the cause of the explosion is still not clear, the failed mission sparked debate about the future of commercial space flight and America's continued reliance on Soviet-era rocket engines.
 
What this could mean for the proposed $5 billion merger between Orbital and Alliance Techsystems is unclear.
 
Orbital executives held a conference call with investors Wednesday after the company's stock plunged more than 14 percent. The immediate effect of the explosion is that Orbital's future missions are likely to be pushed back, chief executive David Thompson said.
 
The next supply run to the international space station, scheduled for early April, will be delayed by at least three months, and in the worst case, up to a year, he said. Orbital's failed mission was the third in an eight-part contract with NASA worth $1.9 billion. The company is insured against the failed mission and damage to the launchpad, Thompson said.
 
Industry watchers say it's too early to tell if this setback would derail the merger.
 
"Anytime you have a spectacular failure like that, it's going to be a black eye [to a company]," said Roman Schweizer, a defense policy analyst with Guggenheim Partners.
"But one would think you wouldn't scuttle a major transaction with long-term goals," he said.
 
ATK said it would conduct a "thorough evaluation of any potential implications resulting from the incident, including current operating plans, long-term strategies, and the proposed transaction."
 
In an earnings call with investors, ATK executives re-iterated the company's statement and said they would also look at the implications for ATK's own Castor 30XL motor, which powers the second stage of Orbital's Antares rocket. (Tuesday's explosion occurred before the rocket reached the second stage.)
 
The outcome of the investigation will ultimately determine both Wall Street and ATK's decisions about Orbital Sciences, Schweizer said.
 
"Both companies, particularly ATK, will want to get a better understanding of what this means for Orbital's outlook and their potential customers," he said.
 
ISS member countries seek to operate station at least till 2020 — Russian Space Agency
ITAR-TASS News Agency
Heads of space agencies of the International Space Station (ISS) member countries confirmed that the station has the potential to be used for further manned space exploration
 
Heads of space agencies of the International Space Station (ISS) member-countries confirmed that the ISS would operate at least till 2020, Russia's Space Agency (Roscosmos) press service told TASS on Wednesday.
They also showed interest in its further use, the Roscosmos press service said.
"During the meeting, the ISS partners confirmed that the station has the potential to be used for further manned space exploration. They noted the technical, scientific and experimental capabilities of the ISS. They agreed that cooperation within the ISS will facilitate its further operation for the sake of mankind," the press service said.
Earlier, Roscosmos' deputy head Denis Lyskov told TASS that the extension of the ISS operation for the period after 2020 depends on Russia's space program.
However, he added that no task has been set to stop the ISS operation in 2020.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said earlier that Russia sees no commercial sense in taking part in the ISS project after 2020, because the station consumes more than 30% of Roscosmos budget.
Meanwhile, NASA hopes to continue cooperation till 2024, though no official proposal has been sent to the Russian side.
Jerry Davis: NASA's Ames Research Facility Plans Transition to Cloud Computing
Mary-Louise Hoffman - ExecutiveGov
A NASA research facility wants to adopt a commercial cloud platform to manage scientific virtual collaboration, mobility and enterprise functions, Federal News Radio reported Monday.
The station reports NASA's Ames Research Center in California has partnered with the space agency's Washington headquarters to form an organization that will facilitate cloud migration at the facility.
Jerry Davis, NASA Ames chief information officer, said the organization is also working on requirements and specifications for its future cloud infrastructure, according to an article by Jason Miller.
"We are doing all the front-end work as it relates to security," he told the station in a recent interview.
"We don't want to rush into things, set ourselves up for compromises, vulnerabilities and that sort of thing," he added, according to Miller's report.
Miller reports the center launched a pilot program to assess how the organization can monitor usage and billing of commercial cloud services and aims to implement a cloud design model during the next year or so.
Last man on the moon visits Costa Mesa
Jordan Graham - Orange County (CA) Register
In 1972, when astronaut Eugene Cernan stepped off the moon's surface and onto the Apollo 17 craft to return to Earth, he looked down at his final footprints and knew it was the last time he would ever walk the lunar surface.
But he never expected his final stride would be the last time anyone stepped foot on the moon.
From 1969 to 1972, NASA landed on the moon six times. In the 42 years since, no space agency has returned.
The moratorium has given Cernan, 80, the designation of the "last man on the moon" – a distinction that gives him mixed feelings.
On Saturday, Cernan visited Costa Mesa to receive the All-American Boys Chorus's "Great American Award" at a benefit gala. Prior to the event, he spoke with the Register about his lunar experience.
Q: The space program wasn't around when you were young. What did you want to be?
A: As a kid, during World War II, it was my dream to fly airplanes off aircraft carriers… We didn't have television, but I'd go to the movies, watch the news, and I watched some of these aviators, particularly in the Pacific, do things with airplanes that seemed impossible to me. I said "that's what I want to do." I didn't get in an airplane until I was 22 years old, so that gives you an idea that my dream was way far out. My dad used to tell me, "just go out and do your best." You're not going to beat everyone, but you'll surprise yourself. And he was right.
Q: How did you become an astronaut?
A: I wasn't in the space program when (astronauts) Alan Shepard and John Glenn (were). I watched from afar. … I had just gotten married and my wife asked me how would I like to do that and I said "I'd love to," but thought I'd never get the chance because by the time I got the orders, there'd be nothing left to do. I went to Monterey Naval Postgraduate School, did not apply for the space program, but got the call from the Navy, wanting to recommend me to NASA. It was not only a "yes," but a "hell yes!"… I was the second of my group to fly in space, ended up being the second American to walk in space, went to the moon twice, and commanded the last flight, Apollo 17.
Q: What is it like to be on the moon?
A: It is a significant experience that you come home with. Memories you'll never forget. To look back at the earth is by far the most overwhelming experience… You begin to realize that there is a higher power, that there is a creator of the earth, because it's too perfect. There is too much logic in it – in the small part of the universe that I was privileged to see.
Q: Do you enjoy having the title of "last man on the moon"?
A: I'm very proud, but it's very disappointing, quite frankly. Here we are 42 years after I walked on the moon and we can't even get an American in space. We have to pay the Russians $70-$80 million to get one of us (into space). Think about that. In the 70s, we were going up to moon every two months. Today, we cannot even get into low earth orbit. We were going 240,000 miles away, and today we can't even go 150 miles. I'm very proud to be part of what I've been, but to be the last man on the moon at this time is extremely disappointing.
Q: Why do you think we haven't been back?
A: I wish this administration in Washington would admit that there is such a thing as American exceptionalism. It was American exceptionalism that won World War II, that put Neil Armstrong on the moon, that put that iPhone in your pocket. I wish we would have some leadership that understands what it means to be a world leader in technology and that space is the most visible part of that… When JFK said we were going to the moon in 1969, he was asking us to do the impossible. The real legacy of Apollo is "look what we can do when we realized it's the right, direct thing to do." It was the most significant venture in the history of modern man, and I feel responsible for sharing that adventure… American exceptionalism is the key to the future, and to deny that really upsets me. We need to aspire our kids to dream. The dreamers of today are the doers of tomorrow. And we need some doers going on in the future. Dream the impossible, and go out and make it happen.
Virgin Galactic: We Are Moving Forward
Commercial space hopefuls pledge to continue their "mission to make space accessible for all."
Kelsey D. Atherton – Popular Science
 
Last night, Virgin Galactic held a press conference intended as its last connected directly to SpaceShipTwo's crash on Friday. The conference had three major themes: the crash investigation is ongoing, the cutting edge of transportation technology always carries risk, and despite setbacks Virgin Galactic has no intention to abandon space tourism.
 
At the core of the statement is a vision that Virgin Galactic's planned short hops into space, currently priced only for a wealthy elite, are part of the progression of all humankind:
 
For Virgin Galactic, everything rests on our vision of creating accessible and democratized space that will benefit humanity in countless ways for generations to come. Like early air or sea technologies, the development is not easy and comes with great risks, but our team of more than 400 dedicated engineers and technicians are committed to realizing the potential of this endeavor. From research, to travel, to innovation, we believe that the technology our industry is pioneering is crucial to the advancement of humanity.
 
It's an ambitious statement, especially bold in light of the recent crash. Stuart Witt, chief executive of the Mojave Spaceport that launched SpaceShipTwo on Friday, is fond of comparing the craft to the voyages of 16th century Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan. Magellan is best known for launching the first naval expedition to circumnavigate the globe, though Magellan himself and the vast majority of his crew died along the way.
 
The 21st century is not the 16th century, and the death of co-pilot Michael Alsbury in the crash might shutter the whole enterprise. Writing for Popular Science, Eric Adams noted a key twinge of doubt in Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson's remarks immediately following the crash:
 
For Branson—a typically rabid enthusiast about Virgin Galactic—to even insinuate, by his lack of strenuous affirmation otherwise, that the future of the program may indeed be in jeopardy after just one crash, albeit a fatal one, suggests strongly that he already knows what the final decision will be. Virgin claims it has taken more than 800 payments for suborbital tourist flights, at $200,000 each. This might sound like an extraordinary haul, but at $160 million, it represents barely one-third of what Branson has already reportedly invested in the program. The company can't access that passenger money, however, until it starts actually flying people into space.
 
Virgin Galactic's statement last night had less doubt than the ones made immediately following the spaceship's crash. But the possibility remains that the SpaceShipTwo might not be humanity's bridge to the stars the way its creators hoped.
 
Meanwhile the National Transportation Safety Board is leading the investigation into the cause of the crash, and we can expect that they'll be very thorough doing so. Everything about the flight, from the vehicle's construction to surviving pilot Peter Siebold's recollection to fuel mixtures and failsafes will be pored over, all trying to establish exactly what went wrong so that it can never happen again. In part, the answer to SpaceShipTwo's crash will be found among the wreckage in the Mojave:
 
Fledgling space industry resolute after fatal crash
Virgin Galactic accident should not be allowed to stifle innovation, warn analysts.
Alexandra Witze – Nature
 
What was already a bad week for commercial spaceflight turned tragic on 31 October with the fatal crash of SpaceShipTwo, the rocket plane owned by Virgin Galactic that was meant to ferry tourists and scientists to the edge of space. The fledgling private space industry is reeling from the accident, in which the co-pilot, Michael Alsbury, died, and the pilot, Peter Siebold, was left seriously injured. The crash came just three days after the explosion of an uncrewed Antares rocket that was launching on a commercial mission to resupply the International Space Station.
But analysts warn against letting the accidents curb spaceflight innovation. "It's absolutely critical that people don't throw up their hands and say 'it's just too hard'," says Joan Johnson-Freese, a space-policy specialist at the US Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.
As Nature went to press, the cause of the accident was still unclear. A 2 November press conference held by the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) focused on the tail booms. These are intended to help slow the rocket plane's descent when it re-enters the atmosphere, in a process known as feathering. Pilots are supposed to engage the feathering action when the craftis moving at roughly 1.4 times the speed of sound, at the top of its parabolic arc of flight. The idea, inspired by a badminton shuttlecock, is to increase drag and allow the spaceship to descend safely.
Two steps are normally required for feathering, said Christopher Hart, acting chairman of the NTSB, which is holding its first accident investigation involving the commercial space industry. On the fateful SpaceShipTwo flight, video footage retrieved from the cockpit shows that one of the pilots completed the first step when the vehicle was moving at only the speed of sound. The second action was not performed, but seconds later, the tail booms began moving to their feathered position anyway.
Until that point, SpaceShipTwo had performed as expected. It took off from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, hanging beneath its carrier aeroplane. It then detached, and fired its rocket motor. Within minutes, it had disintegrated and its pieces were scattered over an 8-kilometre-long swathe of the Mojave Desert.
Among other goals, the flight was meant to test a new type of rocket motor. Virgin Galactic decided in May to switch SpaceShipTwo's fuel from a rubber to a plastic base, in part to boost the spacecraft's final altitude. The fuel reacts with liquid nitrous oxide to propel the rocket. Hart said that the fuel and oxidizer tanks were found intact. In 2007, an explosion during a ground-based test with nitrous oxide killed three workers at Scaled Composites, the Mojave-based company that designed and built SpaceShipTwo.
SpaceShipTwo is a larger, eight-seat version of SpaceShipOne, the two-seater that won the US$10-million Ansari X Prize in 2004 on becoming the first private vehicle to repeatedly reach an altitude of 100 kilometres.
Virgin Galactic had been selling seats on future flights, with up to 5 minutes of weightlessness, for $250,000 each. Its customers include not only celebrities but also scientists who want to use it for microgravity studies. A second SpaceShipTwo is about 60% built. Meanwhile, a competing company, XCOR Aerospace of Mojave, is building a piloted space plane that would take tourists up one at a time.
The accident underscores the complexities of private spaceflight, where engineering systems are designed from scratch and tested in very public view. Many compare the endeavour to the early days of aviation, when aeroplane companies crashed time and again as they tried to commercialize air transportation. "To some degree, we are still in the infancy of spaceflight," says Scott Hubbard, director of Stanford University's centre of excellence for commercial space transportation in Palo Alto, California.
Commercial spaceflight will probably survive, analysts say, but only if the public is as willing to accept the risks as are aerospace experts. "I don't mind if it takes some time to develop," says Alan Stern, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, who has signed up for a research seat on SpaceShipTwo. "I'm quite convinced that commercial suborbital flight will be safe." NASA is building a new launch system for astronauts, but it is space companies that are coming up with rockets and spacecraft designs.
As the space-tourism industry tries to assess its future, another area of commercial spaceflight is likely to keep forging ahead. Last week's failed Antares mission was part of a series of cargo flights to the International Space Station organized by Orbital Sciences of Dulles, Virginia, in partnership with NASA. An inquiry led by Orbital aims to find out why the rocket lifted briefly off its launch pad at Wallops Island, Virginia, before exploding and falling to the ground.
The next planned step for private companies will be flying US astronauts, as well as cargo, to the space station. In September, SpaceX of Hawthorne, California, and Boeing of Houston, Texas, won a contract to begin flying astronauts by 2017. Hubbard, who chairs a safety committee to review SpaceX's upcoming crewed flights, notes that Orbital is not in the running for those.
"Accidents with new technology are inevitable," says Johnson-Freese. "How they are handled is the true test of innovation and innovators."
Antares Investigation Board Includes Former NASA Shuttle Program Manager
Dan Leone – Space News
 
Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Virginia, identified members of the eight-person accident investigation board charged with figuring out what destroyed the company's Antares rocket and Cygnus space tug 15 seconds after liftoff Oct. 28 from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport spaceport in Wallops Island, Virginia.
 
Among the investigators is former NASA Space Shuttle Program Manager Wayne Hale, who oversaw the shuttle's return to flight in 2005 after the loss of the Columbia orbiter and all seven crew members in 2003.
Orbital's Nov. 3 press release about the accident investigation board is copied below.
 
Orbital Antares Update – November 3, 2014
Over the weekend, Orbital confirmed the participation of the following individuals who will serve on the Antares launch failure Accident Investigation Board (AIB), which is being led by Orbital under the oversight of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The composition of the AIB is as follows:
 
Chairman
  • David Steffy, Chief Engineer of Orbital's Advanced Programs Group
 
Members
  • David Swanson, Senior Director of Safety and Mission Assurance for Orbital's Technical Operations organization
  • Wayne Hale, Independent Consultant and Former NASA Space Shuttle Program Manager
  • David Cooper, Member of Orbital's Independent Readiness Review Team for the company's Launch Systems Group
  • Eric Wood, Director of Propulsion Engineering for Orbital's Launch Systems Group
  • Tom Costello, Launch Vehicle Assessment Manager in the International Space Station Program at NASA's Johnson Space Center
  • Matt Lacey, Senior Vehicle Systems Engineer for NASA's Launch Services Program
 
FAA Oversight Team
  • Michael S. Kelly, Chief Engineer, FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation
  • Marcus Ward, Mishap Response Coordinator, FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation
 
Antares Data Review:
 
The AIB is initially focused on developing a "fault tree" and a timeline of the important events during the launch sequence. Due to the large amount of data available, the AIB is able to work with a rich source of information about the launch. One of the initial tasks for the AIB is to reconcile the data from multiple sources, a process that is now underway, to help create the launch sequence timeline.
 
Launch Site Status:
Over the weekend, Orbital's Wallops-based Antares personnel continued to identify, catalogue, secure and geolocate debris found at the launch site in order to preserve physical evidence and provide a record of the launch site following the mishap that will be useful for the AIB's analysis and determination of what caused the Antares launch failure. The debris is being taken to a NASA facility on Wallops Island for secure and weather resistant storage.
 
Rocket explosion isn't the end of kids' science project
Middle schoolers will get second chance to send worms to space station
Reuters
 
California students whose science project was onboard the supply rocket that exploded last week will have another shot at getting their work into space.
 
The project, developed by students at Urban Promise Academy middle school in Oakland, would have sent live worms to the International Space Station to study space's effects on composting, Oakland schools spokesman Troy Flint said last week.
 
No one was injured when the rocket exploded after lifting off from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia.
 
The rocket was carrying more than 5,000 pounds of equipment, food and other supplies for the station.
 
Flint said school officials were told they would have a second chance to send the project into space. "The kids will be able to realize their dream, if everything goes well, of having their experiments in space, and see the results," Flint said.
 
The project was among 18 student experiments onboard the rocket when it exploded, NASA said.
 
Asteroid Miners Plan Next Step After Spacecraft Explosions
Sonja Elmquist - Bloomberg News
 
"It's a big, audacious statement to make, that we're going to bring resources from space to the economic sphere," said Eric Anderson, co-founder and co-chairman of Planetary Resources Inc.
The satellite was aboard an Orbital Sciences Corp. (ORB:US) rocket that exploded shortly after launch Oct. 28. Three days later, a spacecraft operated by billionaire Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic Ltd. crashed during a test flight.
 
The companies are part of a movement to turn space exploration into a commercial enterprise. The improbable goal for the asteroid miners: as extraterrestrial activities become more common, they plan to provide raw materials that will be more cheaply gathered in space than delivered from Earth.
 
Losing the foot-long (30-centimeter) satellite "really hasn't delayed us at all, in the overall scope of things," said Anderson.
 
Planetary Resources is planning its next launch as soon as August, with a larger satellite to replace and expand the functions of the equipment lost last week, said Chris Lewicki, president and chief engineer at the Redmond, Washington-based company, whose investors include Branson.
 
The 4.7-kilogram (10.3-pound) bundle of antennas and computers was about the size of a loaf of bread and was designed to orbit the earth, giving the company's prospectors practice piloting a satellite. Future versions will be used to explore asteroids, he said.
 
The goal is to extract materials including water, iron, nickel and platinum from asteroids orbiting the sun in paths similar to that of Earth, give or take 30 million miles (48 million kilometers). Planetary Resources plans to produce its first liter of water in 10 years, Lewicki said.
 
Satellite Refueling
Planetary Resources is one of two companies with programs to explore and mine in space. Deep Space Industries Inc. plans to announce its first prospecting satellite launch next month, said David Gump, co-founder and vice chairman of the Houston-based company.
 
The company also plans to extract water from asteroids, and split it into hydrogen and oxygen that will be used for applications including refueling communications satellites.
Satellites need fuel to adjust course, and become useless when that fuel is exhausted. Gump expects operators will be eager to refuel, rather than replace, their satellites, especially when it costs about $17 million a ton to lift material into a high-Earth orbit.
 
"The idea of extending the life of existing communications satellites that are working perfectly well except for running out of fuel -- the idea of refueling -- is taking hold," Gump said.
 
James Cameron
Deep Space Industries hasn't disclosed the source of its funding. The company has revenue from consulting work carried out for the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration and private companies, Gump said.
 
As well as Branson, Planetary Resources' investors include Google Inc.'s Chief Executive Officer Larry Page and Chairman Eric Schmidt, according to the space company's website. Another backer is James Cameron, director of the 2009 film Avatar about humans coming into conflict with extraterrestrial beings over mining on a distant planet.
 
Space Tourism
Planetary Resources has a distinctly geeky personality, proudly naming its satellite after a fictional robot-manufacturer mentioned in the film Star Wars, funding projects via Kickstarter and holding casual video Q&A sessions that are open to anyone.
 
Co-chairman Anderson is also a founder and chairman of Space Adventures Ltd., the only company to date that has sent paying customers into space. Peter Diamandis, also a co-founder, is chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation, which has awarded millions of dollars in prizes to encourage space exploration.
 
"Space represents the ultimate in curiosity," Anderson said. "There is something fundamental about the blackness of the sky above."
 
In life and death, Virgin Galactic space pilot testing new frontier
Irene Klotz - Reuters
 
The fledging private space travel industry marked a sad but perhaps inevitable milestone last week with its first fatal flight.
Now, an effort to honor the fallen pilot on a national memorial to U.S. astronauts who perished in the line of duty is testing yet another frontier.
Mike Alsbury, 39, a pilot for the Mojave, California-based company, Scaled Composites, died during a test flight Friday aboard SpaceShipTwo, a six-passenger commercial rocket plane built for Richard Branson's space tourism company, Virgin Galactic.
The cause of the accident is under investigation.
The non-profit Astronauts Memorial Foundation, which built and maintains the congressionally recognized Space Mirror Memorial at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida, received a request to include Alsbury's name on the black granite monument.
The Space Mirror includes the names of crew members killed during the space shuttle Challenger and Columbia accidents and the 1967 Apollo 1 launch pad fire, as well as astronauts and Air Force pilots killed during training accidents and other flights associated with the U.S. space program.
"Please consider Michael Alsbury for addition to your Space Mirror display of names," longtime space program analyst Jim Oberg wrote on the foundation's Facebook page.
"He lost his life in testing a real manned space vehicle designed for certifiable space flight. It wasn't a government-funded space flight project, but many believe it represents the future of wider human access to suborbital and orbital flight," Oberg said.
The Florida-based foundation acknowledged the request but said its charter dictates that only astronauts and pilots on national U.S. space program missions can be honored.
"Here's your chance to drive the national agenda on opening the space frontier, by getting ahead of any controversial fuss over definitions, and honoring this man and the movement he has come to represent," Oberg said.
The costs of space travel: Column
David Weber – USA Today
Exploration is always costly. But the prize is worth the labor and loss.
 
The last week or so has been tough on the commercial development of space.
 
Starting with Orbital Sciences' Antares booster fail in Virginia and continuing through the crash of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo last Friday, the disasters seem pretty spectacular, and they are. Fortunately, the Antares launch was of an unmanned vehicle. "All" we lost there was a payload of food, scientific experiments and other equipment. In the Mojave, we lost Scaled Composites' pilot Michael Alsbury. That one's a lot tougher. He wasn't the first life lost in Virgin Galactic's pursuit of "accessible and democratized space." But we've lost other lives — a lot of them — in the pursuit of space. We will lose more. It's a given.
 
In the great Age of Exploration, men set out to cross a vast, hostile environment. It was called the Atlantic Ocean, or the Indian Ocean or the Pacific Ocean, and men — a lot of them — died in the crossing. Some were funded by countries, some were licensed by governments and some were purely private enterprise. Some went in search of gold, some of spices and some simply of a piece of land they could call their own. Some were get-rich-quick artists. Some were outright thieves.
 
But they kept on crossing.
 
Some would argue that today is fundamentally different from the 15th and 16th centuries. We live in a more "satisfied" society in which higher living standards and modern medicine mean we can expect to live longer, far more affluent lives. We have more to lose and less to gain by risking our lives on an uncertain craft intended to carry us across a vast and hostile environment. In absolute terms, the stake is the same — life or death. In relative terms, the argument goes, with so much to lose and so much less to gain, pioneers, explorers, even buccaneers are going to be harder to find.
 
It's more expensive, too, many would argue. Of course, "expensive" was a factor for the great oceanic risk takers, as well, which was why Queen Isabella had a hard time financing Columbus. Certainly, the infrastructure required to put a spacecraft into orbit — or beyond — dwarfs the infrastructure necessary to build the Pinta, the Nina and the Santa Maria. After all, the largest of Columbus' ships was no more than 75 feet long, compared with the Antares rocket's 133 feet, and there's no comparison between the complexity of the vessels' construction and contents. Except, of course, that both of them represented the cutting edge of the transportation technology of their eras.
 
Robert Heinlein pointed out that Earth is "too small a basket for mankind to keep all its eggs in," and he's right. That's why we worry about things like global warming and dinosaur killers. Even aside from that, the prize space offers is far larger than the spice routes around the Cape of Good Hope or the vast and fertile interior of the continent we call North America today. Just as the explorers sent out by Prince Henry the Navigator, we already know what some of that prize might be. Other parts we're only beginning to imagine — and still others we won't know about until we get there.
 
And men — and women — will keep on crossing until we do.
 
Oh, yes. We'll find them, just as we found them in Prince Henry's day. Profit motive will drive the infrastructure, but we'll find the people we need, like Rudyard Kipling's Explorer did when he heard "something hidden. Go and find it." If you think we won't, then think again. We've seen them before, aboard Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Soyuz, Challenger, Columbia, and we'll see them again. Count on it.
 
Development of space is going to happen, whether under civilian, or government auspices. I believe that private companies will persevere and succeed, just as the joint stock companies succeeded in the 17th century. But if they don't, countries like China will gladly take the lead if they're allowed to, or wrest it away from their competitors if they must. Because the prize is there. Resource extraction, orbital habitats, space manufacturing, virtually unlimited solar energy, and — someday — the stars. That's the frontier, and just as the men and women of Challenger, Columbia and — now — SpaceShipTwo died to pursue it, other men and women will also die.
 
And when they do, still other men — and women — will keep on crossing.
 
It's what we do.
 
David Weber is author of the Honor Harrington and Safehold science fiction series.
 
Dobbs: Accept the risk in space ventures
Greg Dobbs – Denver Post (Opinion)
 
The man held his hand about a foot from my face, put his forefinger about a millimeter above his upturned thumb, and told me, "We are always about this close to catastrophe."
The man I was interviewing at Florida's Kennedy Space Center was the program manager for NASA's space shuttle, which was still flying at the time, but he just as easily could have been talking about commercial spaceflight today.
Two catastrophes occurred in four days last week: one for Orbital Sciences with the loss of a rocket carrying cargo for the International Space Station, the other for Virgin Galactic with the loss of a human being at the controls of SpaceShipTwo. It could lead you to believe we're not yet ready for commercial space flight, at least not manned flight. You'd be right. But if it also leads you to believe they should quit trying, you're wrong.
Alan Shepard, our first man in space, never would have gotten off the ground if NASA had been risk-averse. We surely never would have landed on the moon. Over the years, even after space shuttle Challenger, then Columbia, exploded and killed a total of 14 astronauts, NASA didn't become less risk-averse. If you're going to fly a machine with about 2½ million moving parts, generating temperatures during liftoff as hot as the surface as the sun, you're not exactly risk-averse.
But I started covering the U.S. space program after the second explosion, and what NASA did do was simply work hard to reduce the risks. Or at least to manage them — meaning, to take more time, to build in more backups, and sometimes to accept more delays in the interest of getting it right. There was too much at stake not to.
I Ihope the commercial companies are now heading into the same process. We don't yet know the cause of either of last week's accidents, but as one former astronaut told The Associated Press, these private companies might now realize that it was naïve to declare that they could build spacecraft faster, cheaper, and better than government.
What many people don't realize is, when it comes to building spacecraft, NASA doesn't own a screwdriver, and never did. From Mercury to Apollo to the space shuttle, companies like Boeing and Rockwell International, Douglas Aircraft and IBM were the contractors, working to NASA's specs and under its watchful wing.
Nowadays, in something of a regulatory role, NASA still has oversight over the final form of the vehicles headed for space, but not the authority to dictate every move as they're being made. Which means, among other things, measures meant to ensure safety. Not that Orbital Sciences and Virgin Galactic and others are sloppy, not by a long shot. They have too much at stake themselves. But what they might not have is the collective experience for someone to say, "Houston, we have a problem. Let's slow down."
I'd hate to see it all end. Space is still the final frontier. We should stay in the forefront of its discovery. In the long run, last week's lessons, costly as they were, should help us get there again.
Greg Dobbs of Evergreen was a correspondent for ABC News for 23 years, then for HDNet television's "World Report."
 
END
 
 
 
 
 

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