USA security

How the End of NASA Affects US National Security
by Taylor Dinerman
August 1, 2011 at 4:00 am
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Space exploration is not only critical in refusing to surrender the battlefield of space – our next serious theater of war — to our present and future adversaries; it also necessary in retaining US technological superiority and being able to utilize the energy and mineral resources of the Solar system essential for future global prosperity.

The major problem is that It is not just NASA but the whole of the US space industry that is in trouble. It is laying off men and women by the thousand; their skills and experience will be lost forever. Reconstituting the ability to build complex and reliable space systems without these people will be an even more expensive and time consuming process.

Meanwhile, this strategically vital industry will see its overseas competitors, such as China, grow and develop. America's edge in space is endangered, and if it disappears, a large proportion of America's global power will disappear along with it.

Presidents have traditionally used NASA for both diplomatic and military purposes. During the Eisenhower administration the President's advisors wrote that "The novel nature of space exploration offers opportunities for international cooperation in it's peaceful aspects. " Nixon did not hesitate to use the success of the Apollo Moon mission to enhance America's global position, the Astronauts traveled around the world as living symbols of US technological superiority. Bill Clinton sought to cement a positive relationship with post communist Russia by giving them a major role in the Space Station project.

NASA has also been useful in developing and preserving technologies with important military applications. The sensors used on interplanetary probes are similar and sometimes identical to the ones used on the most advanced spy satellites. Life support technologies developed for the shuttle find their way into the flight suits worn by pilots who fly high altitude military jets. And while America has not built a new ICBM or submarine launched nuclear missile for decades, NASA, by keeping the solid rocket motor industry alive has insured that if the decision were made to build a new type of missile for the US nuclear deterrent force, the Defense Department could do so without having to rebuild the nation's solid fueled rocket making expertise from nothing.

By keeping America's space industry alive and healthy NASA has in the past directly contributed to overall US global power. As the agency succumbs to confusion and a lack of clear direction its ability to help keep America secure and prosperous will inevitably diminish.

So, too, with the rest of the US aerospace industry. Boeing's effort to set up a second production line for its new 787 airliner has been declared illegal by the National Labor Relations Board on the grounds that it was going to be built in South Carolina, a "right to work" state. The courts seem to have thought that this was supposedly Boeing's way of illegally punishing the unionized workers in Washington state, who, by the way, will not suffer from a single layoff or lose a single hour's pay due to this increase in 787 production.

The F-22 manufacturing program is also shutting down. The administration claimed that it onlyneeds 187 of these air superiority fighters.

Those parts of the F-35 program that are not "on probation" are under attack for what are perceived as massive cost overruns. It looks as if the Defense budget will be cut by more than $500 billion; and there is serious talk of shutting down America's ability to build nuclear powered aircraft carriers

As America's space shuttle program comes to an end, NASA faces an uncertain and probably painful future. With a smaller budget and without a mission that has broad national support, the space agency has been floundering amid what the Washington Post calls "Rancor".

If NASA was in "disarray" in January 2009, as the current NASA leaders claim, then every single agency of the federal government that tries to accomplish or build anything was, and still is, in equal disarray. NOAA, the FAA, the Coast Guard, The Departments of Agricultural, Energy and Education, to name a few, have all proven incapable of meeting their goals or building hardware on time or within budget. Only those parts of the Government that are dedicated to stopping people from doing things,or regulating human activity, are not in "disarray." They may not be doing anything useful, but they are not in disarray.

To say, as Newt Gingrich did recently, that the problem at NASA is "Bureaucracy" is too miss the point. It was not NASA's employees who got America into this humiliating mess; it was America's politicians.

Admittedly, NASA's Administrator and his Deputy worked hard, along with the President's science advisor and the rest of the White House team, to alienate a critical mass of members of Congress by ignoring their concerns, rejecting their advice and blindsiding them with critical space policy decisions.

. The Obama administration then wrecked the previous program on the grounds that it was underfunded and behind schedule, and replaced it with a new program that looks as if it is now underfund and behind schedule. Congressmen and women being human, and under massive pressure to cut spending, have now cut the guts out of the space agency's proposed budget.

One of the more irony-laden recent press releases, at a time when this nation is saturated with them, is from the American Astronomical Society (AAS), protesting the House Appropriations committee's cancellation of the James Webb Space Telescope. What did the astronomers expect? Did they really believe that the US Government would demolish the human spaceflight program and leave their precious "science" programs untouched?

The House Appropriations Committee has cut deeply into NASA's overall budget, leaving it with $1.9 billion less than the President requested. Its members slashed the Commercial Crew Development program, and agreed to increase support only for the new Space Launch System, sometimes referred to as the Congressional Rocket.

To say that NASA is "screwed up" is to put it kindly. Sometimes destabilizing an institution may be necessary to revive it, but more often the destabilizing is simply destructive. NASA's leadership seems honestly to believe that everything is A-OK. In a Washington Post article on July 2nd, the agency's Deputy Administrator, Lori Garver, is quoted as saying, "We have a Program. We have a Budget. We have Bipartisan Support. We have a Destination." Unpacking that statement is an interesting exercise: it will show that while NASA is losing support for its budget on Capitol Hill, NASA's leaders do not seem to understand why this is happening.

NASA has rejected the policy that the Bush administration had carefully crafted in cooperation with Members of Congress from both parties and which had been accepted with overwhelming bipartisan support. It was a policy that not only would get America back to the Moon sometime in the middle of the next decade, but would do so with a minimum of job losses.

Of course NASA has a program; that is the easy part. Turning the program into reality is hard, and there is no sign that NASA's current leadership can convince Congress to fund the Program.

Traditionally NASA has undertaken the job of opening up the frontier and without the assurance that NASA can create it is hard to imagine that investors will be willing to risk providing the financing that the economic expansion of the US into the Solar system. NASA plays a role similar to one the US cavalry played when America moved west: it provides the settlers and business people with enough security to risk building a new economy.

The House Appropriations Committee has given NASA a budget. It Is hard to imagine how that budget can be made compatible with Lori Garver's and the administration's program. Congress is funding its priorities: a new rocket and the new exploration vehicle that the new rocket will launch. Congress is cutting the budget for the things that the administration wants such as the budget for unfocused technology development

The NASA program that the administration wants is one based on the idea that a new kind of 'commercial' space industry can provide access to orbit, while NASA invents new technologies that can explore the solar system at a lower cost than current technology would allow. The Congress disagrees and has ordered NASA to build a new heavy-lift rocket using existing technology. With this rocket, the US will be able to send human missions to the Moon or to Mars or, as the administration wants, to visit an asteroid.

The administration says that it wants to go to an asteroid because it wants to gather information about the formation of the Solar system; that it believes that the experience of going to an asteroid will help develop the technology and expertise needed to go to Mars.

Last year, Congress passed the NASA Authorization Bill with bipartisan support, but it lacked the overwhelming bipartisan support that previous NASA authorization bills had received in 2005 and 2007. Sadly, the space agency has lost much of its traditional base of Congressional support and has not been able to find much of a new one.

People at NASA say that they have a destination:a so-far unidentified asteroid.They say this will provide better scientific information about the early development of the Solar System and that the operation will be a low-cost way to develop technologies that will be needed if NASA is someday to send people to Mars. But NASA lacks a serious plan to get there and also is having a real problem finding other nations ready to cooperate. As long as the US cannot maintain a space policy for more than several years at a time, few countries will dare to invest their time and efforts in cooperating with it.

Last February, America's premier space policy expert, John Logsdon, pointed out that, "Today, there most certainly is no pressing national security question for which the answer is: "go to an asteroid."

In an era of tight budgets and angry partisanship, it may be foolish to imagine that any national leader could convince a large majority of Congress to fund an ambitious national program, let alone the kind of transnational "feel good" project — such as the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission that was supposed to symbolize US- Soviet "détente"– that some people in this administration seem to believe is desirable.

The expectation that the "New Space" commercial human spaceflight industry — which can be described as a collection of small entrepreneurial firms that have been building small rockets and have been trying to find low cost ways to get into space — will be able to replace NASA may not be realistic.

Considering how things are going in Washington,however, it may be more realistic than any other part of the space agency's current program. Congress seems ready to cut more than two thirds of the proposed budget for commercial human spaceflight –from the proposed roughly $900 million, down to about $300 million. That cut, however, will just slow the industry down rather than stop it.

This will mean that for many years there will be no way for Americans to get into orbit other than to buy a seat on a Soyuz capsule from the Russians.

As long as NASA depends on Russia for access to the ISS, Russia will be able to shut down that access at any moment and take full control of a station that America spent more than $80 billion dollars building. There is also the ongoing international image of America's astronauts dependent on Russia for their professional existence.

If NASA chooses to spread tiny — by government standards — sums of this $300 million around to all of the current recipients of "commercial" space contracts, the country will end up with a collection of undercapitalized, nearly bankrupt "New Space" companies that are totally dependent on government funding.

There is also the possibility that regulatory actions by the Federal Aviation Administration, or by some other part of the government, could bring the whole effort to build the "New Space" industry to an a loud halt, in which event the US would lose an important body of technical and business knowledge,as well as the drive, enthusiasm and imagination that these bring to the whole aerospace industry.

The problem is that the "New Space" industry is a valuable source of ideas and often pushes NASA and the large aerospace companies to innovate, to abandon their old procedures in favor of better new ones;but the industry lacks the capital to accomplish any really big projects such as building a rocket that can actually reach orbit. If America is going to be able to obtain access to the minerals and energy resources in the Solar System that it needs to thrive in the second half of the 21st century.

We shall have to have both the large, old fashioned aerospace firms and the small, nimble "New Space" firms.

SpaceX based in Hawthorne California, seems to stand by itself. The firm has the deep pockets of its founder, Elon Musk, co-inventor of PayPal, and it also has been developing its rockets and other space hardware for more than a decade. The company has so far successfully launched its Falcon 9 rocket twice . Sometime in the late fall of this year, it hopes to launch it again, carrying the company's Dragon capsule. The Dragon will fly past the International Space Station (ISS), demonstrating that SpaceX can safely operate its maneuvering thrusters and its communications gear near that$100 billion orbital facility. If all goes well, next year the SpaceX Dragon capsule will dock with the station, proving that the firm can fulfill its obligations to fly supplies to the space station under the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services contract it signed in 2008.

Once this happens, SpaceX will assume the mission of sending US cargo, consisting of food, water oxygen, and equipment,to keep the station running and to support the scientific experiments that are performed there.

At some later time, SpaceX hopes to show that it can fly people, as well as cargo, to the ISS. Under the best of circumstances, NASA's future access to orbit for people will depend on the success of a single firm's launch-system. Based on past experience with space systems' delays and cost overruns, this dependence on a single company will last until the end of the decade, if not longer.

The Air Force learned that when it relied exclusively on a single rocket to launch its vital satellites into orbit, if something went wrong with America's ability to keep its array of military satellites working and in orbit, it would not be able to monitor what was going on in important parts of the world. This happened in the late 1980s and early 1990s after a series of accidents grounded both the Space Shuttle and the Titan rockets. None of the other "New Space" firms that NASA has been supporting has any real chance of sending people into orbit within the next five years or more. If America's wants to have assured, low cost access to space, both for military reasons and to take advantage of the economic opportunities that are out there in the Solar System, it will have to have multiple ways of getting people and payloads in orbit. The current Delta and Atlas rockets may be reliable but they are not low cost.

Just as the Constellation Return-to-the-Moon program that the administration destroyed was constantly forced to adapt to funding shortfalls,the commercial human spaceflight program is also learning to adjust to constantly changing levels of government funding. If the next administration wanted to, it could cancel the whole commercial program and base the cancellation on the same grounds that were used to kill Constellation: that it is behind schedule and underfunded.

It looks as if keeping a strong and prosperous aerospace industry – and America – is nowhere near at the top of the President's priorities.

Related Topics:  Taylor Dinerman
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Space Program | America's Uncommon Sense

http://americasuncommonsense.com/blog/tag/space-program/


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Do you know.?

• Bobby Martin Do you know what is occurring with the USA nuclear superiority? Have you considered what may occur if another country had superior EO capabilities? Do you feel we are making progress in improving our EO capabilities ?

  14 minutes ago · Like
• 

  Bobby Martin With the present leadership do you feel comfortable the we will always be preeminent in EO & nuclear capabilities? I don't ! We aren't preeminent in EO now!

  8 minutes ago · Like

  
  

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Big trouble for USA manned capability!

Re space x delay ( unmanned)

Bobby Martin Amen, launching manned missions regularly will not happen for long time---then when accidents occur--back to aap & " Caib"----then time passes---no manned capability---well, better get shuttle out of museum----meanwhile years pass ---other nations making progress---where does this leave USA ---- in big Trouble!!!

a few seconds ago · Like

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Preeminence in space by USA critical to survival

Abandoning leadership in space will prove costly!

SUNDAY, AUGUST 12, 2012 Abandoning USA Space Capability to others will Eliminate our Capability to Defend Ourselves Credit: americasuncommonsense.com 7. SPACE POLICY AND THE CONSTITUTION #1 Harrison Schmitt Former Senator Schmitt Finds New Space Policy Cedes Moon to China, Space Station to Russia, and Liberty to the Ages The Administration announced a new Space Policy in 2010, after a year of morale bending clouds of uncertainty. The lengthy delay, the abandonment of human exploration, and the wimpy overall thrust of the policy indicates that the Administration does not understand, or want to acknowledge, the essential role space plays in the future of the United States and of liberty. Antagonism against America's demonstration of predominance in space continues. Expenditures of taxpayer provided funds on space related activities find constitutional justification in Article I's power and obligation to "provide for the Common Defence." This power relates directly to the geopolitical importance of space exploration at this frontier of human endeavor. A vibrant space program sets the modern geopolitical tone for the United States to engage friends and adversaries in the world as well as building wealth, economic vitality, and educational momentum through technology and discovery. For example, in the 1980s, the leadership of the former Soviet Union believed America would be successful in creating a missile defense system because we succeeded in landing on the Moon and they had not. Dominance in space clearly constituted a major factor leading to the end of the Cold War. With a new Cold War looming before us, involving the global ambitions and geopolitical challenge of the national socialist regime in China, President George W. Bush attempted to put America back on a course to maintain space dominance. What became the Constellation Program comprised his 2002 vision of returning Americans and their partners to deep space by putting astronauts back on the Moon, going on to Mars, and ultimately venturing beyond. Unfortunately, like all Presidents since Eisenhower and Kennedy, the Bush Administration lost perspective about space. Inadequate budgeting and lack of Congressional leadership and funding during Constellation's most important formative years undercut Administrator Michael Griffin's effort to fully implement the Program beginning in 2004. Delays due to this period of under-funding have rippled through national space capability until we must retire the Space Shuttle in 2011 without a replacement to access to space. Now, we must pay at least $63 million per seat for the Russians to ferry Americans and others to the International Space Station. How the mighty have fallen. Not only did Constellation never receive the Administration's promised funding, but the Bush Administration and Congress required NASA (1) to continue the construction of the International Space Station (badly under-budgeted by NASA Administrator O'Keefe, the OMB, and ultimately by the Congress), (2) to accommodate numerous major over-runs in the science programs (largely protected from major revision or cancellation by narrow Congressional interests), (3) to manage without hire and fire authority (particularly devastating to the essential hiring of young engineers), and (4) to assimilate, through added delays, the redirection and inflation-related costs of several Continuing Resolutions. Instead of fixing this situation, the current Administration did not retain Administrator Griffin, the best engineering Administrator in NASA's history, and now has cancelled Constellation. As a consequence, long-term access of American astronauts to space rests on the improbable success of an untested plan for the "commercial" space launch sector to meet the increasingly risk adverse demands of space flight. Histories of nations tell us that an aggressive program to return Americans permanently to deep space must form an essential component of national policy. Americans would find it unacceptable, as well as devastating to human liberty, if we abandon leadership in deep space to China, Europe, or any other nation or group of nations. Potentially equally devastating to billions of people would be loss of free nations' access to the energy resources of the Moon as fossil fuels diminish on Earth. In that harsh light of history, it is frightening to contemplate the long-term, totally adverse consequences to the standing of the United States in modern civilization if the current Administration's decision to abandon deep space holds for any length of time. Even its commitment to maintain the International Space Station using commercial launch assets constitutes a dead-end for Americans in space. At some point, now set at the end of this decade, the Station would be abandoned to the Russians or just destroyed. What, then, should be the focus of national space policy in order to maintain leadership in deep space? Some propose that we concentrate only on Mars. Without the experience of returning to the Moon, however, we will not have the engineering, operational, or physiological insight for many decades to either fly to Mars or land there. The President suggests going to an asteroid. As important as asteroid diversion from collision with the Earth someday may be, just going there hardly stimulates scientific discovery anything like a permanent American settlement on the Moon! Other means exist, robots and meteorites, for example, to obtain most or all of the scientific value from a human mission to an asteroid. In any event, returning to the Moon inherently creates capabilities for reaching asteroids to study or divert them, as the case may be. Returning to the Moon and to deep space constitutes the right and continuing space policy choice for the Congress of the United States. It compares in significance to Jefferson's dispatch of Lewis and Clark to explore the Louisiana Purchase. The lasting significance of Jefferson's decision to American growth and survival cannot be questioned. Human exploration of space embodies the same basic instincts— the exercise of freedom, betterment of one's conditions, and curiosity about nature. Such instincts lie at the very core of America's unique and special society of immigrants. Over the last 150,000 years or more, human exploration of Earth has yielded new homes, livelihoods, know how, and resources as well as improved standards of living and increased family security. Government has directly and indirectly played a role in encouraging exploration efforts. Private groups and individuals take additional initiatives to explore newly discovered or newly accessible lands and seas. Based on their specific historical experience, Americans can expect that benefits comparable to those sought and won in the past also will flow from their return to the Moon, future exploration of Mars, and the long reach beyond. To realize such benefits, however, Americans must continue as the leader of human activities in space. No one else will hand them to us without requiring a huge economic or political price. With a permanent resumption of the exploration of deep space, one thing is certain: our efforts will be as significant as those of our ancestors as they migrated out of Africa and into a global habitat. Further, a permanent human presence away from Earth provides another opportunity for the expansion of free institutions, with all their attendant rewards, as humans face new situations and new individual and societal challenges. Returning to the Moon first and as soon as possible meets the requirements for an American space policy that maintains deep space leadership, as well as providing major new scientific returns. Properly conceived and implemented, returning to the Moon prepares the way to go to and land on Mars. This also can provide an infrastructure for space exploration in which freedom-loving peoples throughout the world can participate as active partners. Again, if we abandon leadership in deep space to the any other nation or group of nations, particularly a non-democratic regime, the ability for the United States and its allies to protect themselves and liberty for the world will be at great risk and potentially impossible. To others would accrue the benefits—psychological, political, economic, and scientific—that the United States harvested as a consequence of Apollo's success 40 years ago. This lesson has not been lost on our ideological and economic competitors. American leadership absent from space? Is this the future we wish for our progeny? I think not. Again, future elections offer the way to get back on the right track. Tags: American Space Policy, Article I, Common Defence, Jack Schmitt, Moon Landing, National Security, Obama Administration, Space Program This entry was posted on Monday, February 1st, 2010 at 9:32 pmand is filed under 1. new policy failures, SCIENCE & ENGINEERING, Space Policy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Posted by keeptheshuttleflying.com at 9:24 AM Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook No comments: Post a Comment

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Fwd: Human Spaceflight News - January 3, 2014

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Begin forwarded message:

From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: January 3, 2014 9:42:53 AM CST
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: Human Spaceflight News - January 3, 2014

Happy Friday everyone,,,,its Flex Friday again.    Hope you can join us next Thursday at Hibachi Grill for our first retirees luncheon of 2014.   Have a safe and enjoyable weekend.

 

INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION: The Dec. issue of Space Safety Magazine features an article, "ISS: A Nobel Prize-Worthy Partnership." Check it out on page 6: http://go.nasa.gov/1atICGE.

 

Human Spaceflight News

Friday – Jan. 3, 2014

 

HEADLINES AND LEADS

 

Congress, NASA

New year, old issues

Jeff Foust – Space Politics

The beginning of a new year is a time for change: at the very least, putting up those 2014 calendars and tossing the 2013 versions into the recycle bin. However, as 2014 begins, it will look at least initially a lot like 2013 for space policy, as Congress deals with some unfinished business regarding spending and other legislation.

Lori Garver says NASA should not build the SLS: "Where is it going to go?"

Eric Berger    Houston Chronicle

Lori Garver, NASA's powerful former deputy administrator who left the space agency in September, was once an advocate for the Space Launch System, the big rocket NASA is building. But after leaving NASA Garver appears to either have changed her mind or, more likely, she feels free to say what really is on her mind.

SpaceX delays Falcon 9 launch to next week

STEPHEN CLARK, Spaceflight Now

SpaceX has delayed the launch of a Thai communications satellite from Friday until at least Monday, according to the U.S. Air Force.

Spaceport license renewed

Albuquerque (N.M.) Journal

LAS CRUCES – The Federal Aviation Administration has renewed Spaceport America's license to operate as a launch site, the New Mexico Spaceport Authority said Thursday.

Space geckos? Sticky-footed robots could climb future spacecraft

Amina Khan -- Los Angeles Times

Gecko's sticky feet seem to let the little climbing lizards crawl wherever they want. Now researchers have used the gecko feet's trade secrets to let robots use that climbing power in space.

Dark Matter Search Considers Exotic Possibilities

As observations fail to pin down the so-far undetectable stuff, explanations once considered fringe are now getting another look

Clara Moskowitz – Scientific American

Ever since astronomers realized that most of the matter in the universe is invisible, they have tried to sort out what that obscure stuff might be. But three decades of increasingly sophisticated searches have found no sign of dark matter, causing scientists to question some of their basic ideas about this elusive substance.

Second tiny asteroid spotted before it hit Earth

Jeff Hecht – New Scientist

The first new asteroid identified this year didn't last long. Asteroid 2014 AA was spotted by a telescope early New Year's morning, and fizzled up over the Atlantic Ocean a day later.

Iran plans satellite launch in February: Official

An Iranian aerospace official says the country plans to launch an indigenously designed and manufactured satellite into orbit in early February next year.

 

COMPLETE STORIES

 

Congress, NASA

New year, old issues

Jeff Foust – Space Politics

The beginning of a new year is a time for change: at the very least, putting up those 2014 calendars and tossing the 2013 versions into the recycle bin. However, as 2014 begins, it will look at least initially a lot like 2013 for space policy, as Congress deals with some unfinished business regarding spending and other legislation.

The biggest near-term priority for Congress when it returns next week will be fiscal year 2014 appropriations. While the budget deal reached last month set overall spending levels for 2014 and 2015, avoiding sequestration in the process, it's still up to House and Senate appropriators to come up with a bill or bills to appropriate that money before the continuing resolution (CR) funding the government expires on January 15. POLITICO reported earlier this week that appropriators have been working on a single omnibus appropriations bill that is expected to be finalized next week.

Details about the bill aren't included in that report, although it does state that the section covering commerce, justice, and science—including NASA and NOAA—is among those "largely finalized." For NASA, that likely means falling somewhere between the $16.6 billion House appropriators approved and the $18 billion from their Senate counterparts.

Although many space advocates argue that policy should drive the budget, it's likely the opposite will remain true. The House appropriations bill, for example, blocks any spending on NASA's Asteroid Redirect Mission, while the Senate is silent on it. The two bills also have significant differences in the amount available for Commercial Crew, which could drive decisions later in 2014 on how many companies NASA can support in the next phase of the program when it awards contract(s) this summer.

Besides appropriations, there is space-related legislation awaiting action. The year 2013 ended without enactment of a bill to extend the commercial launch indemnification regime. In mid-December the Senate passed an amended version of a bill the House passed in early December, changing the House's one-year extension to a three-year one. However, the House had adjourned for the year by the time the Senate took action. Launch licenses currently in place, or applications submitted by December 31, still have indemnification protection, but any new applications would not be included in the regime—at least until the House and Senate get around resolving their differences.

Also awaiting the House is legislation approved by the House Science Committee last month to stop NASA from withholding funds for termination liability for several key agency programs. The bill would also effectively make it impossible to cancel those programs—the Space Launch System, Orion spacecraft, International Space Station, and James Webb Space Telescope—unless Congress passes legislation to do so. The bill's future, though, is uncertain, even if it passes the House: it's unlikely the administration would support a bill that would, in essence, take control over the future of several key programs out of its hands.

And, if members are feeling really ambitious, they might take up the NASA authorization bills they started working on in 2013. The Senate Commerce Committee passed its version in late July on a party-line vote, after the House Science Committee approved its quite different version earlier in the month, also along party lines. Neither bill has made progress since then, and with the sharp differences in opinion both in authorized spending levels and policy, the bills might remain in legislative limbo indefinitely.

Lori Garver says NASA should not build the SLS: "Where is it going to go?"

Eric Berger    Houston Chronicle

Lori Garver, NASA's powerful former deputy administrator who left the space agency in September, was once an advocate for the Space Launch System, the big rocket NASA is building.

In 2011, for example, she said of NASA's human exploration program: "We plan a very robust future for not only human spaceflight, but for NASA generally."

But after leaving NASA Garver appears to either have changed her mind or, more likely, she feels free to say what really is on her mind.

On the Diana Rehm Show, Garver was asked what programs NASA should cancel in order to allow it to achieve more meaningful things in space. Below I've transcribed the relevant section of the interview:

Rehm: What programs do you think should be cut?

Garver: To me I think those particular programs that are built on previous technology.

Rehm: Like what?

Garver: Right now we are building a huge rocket called the Space Launch System that is really …

Rehm: The SLS?

Garver: The SLS. It was something that Congress dictated to NASA, it had to do with the Orion spacecraft. It is a holdover from Constellation, which the Obama administration tried to cancel, and it's $3 billion a year of NASA's $17 billion. Is that how you would be investing in the space program? Where is it going to go? When will it even fly?

Later Garver also says NASA should scrap its Mars 2020 rover in favor of a robotic exploration of Europa, a moon of Jupiter that may harbor life in its water oceans.

The significance of Garver's comments, in regard to the SLS, is that they are consistent with those of most observers who do not work directly for NASA, and thus are not beholden to the program of record as mandated by Congress and the White House.

Garver asks the right questions. Where is it going to go? After building such an expensive rocket — which critics have labeled a "rocket to nowhere" — there's just no money to actually build the stuff, like payloads and habitation modules, that would allow NASA to actually use the SLS. When will SLS fly? NASA says it may fly in 2021.

Further reading: A recent interview I did with Chris Kraft, a retired flight director from NASA, offers a scathing analysis of SLS. Another interview, with NASA's Dan Dumbacher, offers a defense.

SpaceX delays Falcon 9 launch to next week

STEPHEN CLARK, Spaceflight Now

SpaceX has delayed the launch of a Thai communications satellite from Friday until at least Monday, according to the U.S. Air Force.

"We're not aware of anything that would cause a mission failure, but in order to ensure the highest possible level of mission assurance we decided to conduct additional inspections of the launch vehicle," said Emily Shanklin, a SpaceX spokesperson.

Liftoff is now set for no earlier than Monday, according to a brief statement emailed by a 45th Space Wing spokesperson. The Air Force's 45th Space Wing operates communications and safety systems for all launches out of Cape Canaveral.

Backup launch opportunities are available from Jan. 8 to Jan. 12. A launch would not be possible Tuesday because the SpaceX mission shares a tracking station in Bermuda with the Orbital Sciences Corp. Antares rocket set for launch Tuesday from the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia on a resupply flight to the International Space Station.

The Falcon 9 rocket is slated to loft the Thaicom 6 communications satellite into a high-altitude egg-shaped supersynchronous transfer orbit.

The satellite, built by Orbital Sciences Corp., will provide broadcasters in the Asia-Pacific with improved television quality and additional high-definition channels, according to Thaicom. It carries 18 C-band and eight Ku-band transponders connected to three antennas.

SpaceX worked over the holidays to ready the Falcon 9 launch pad after the company's successful Dec. 3 launch of the SES 8 television broadcasting satellite, marking the Falcon 9's first mission to geostationary transfer orbit, the desired position for most communications spacecraft.

The launch of Thaicom 6 will duplicate the Dec. 3 flight, sending the 3.6-ton satellite to an orbit stretching more than 50,000 miles from Earth at its highest point. The mission will take about a half-hour from launch to spacecraft separation.

It will mark the eighth flight of a Falcon 9 rocket since 2010, and the third launch of the launcher's newest version since its debut in September in a flight from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

Hardware for Friday's launch, including the Falcon 9 rocket and Thaicom 6 satellite, was delivered to Cape Canaveral in late November and put in storage before the launch of SES 8 cleared room for technicians to begin fueling the spacecraft and assembling the two-stage booster.

On Dec. 28, ground crews put the rocket through a full countdown rehearsal. The launch team loaded propellants into the Falcon 9 rocket and ended the countdown with a brief ignition of the first stage's nine main engines. The rocket remained on the launch pad in the grip of hold-down clamps.

Technicians this week were expected to connect ordnance charges responsible for staging and fairing separation during the Falcon 9's ascent into orbit Friday evening. This week's milestones were also supposed to include the encapsulation of Thaicom 6 inside the Falcon 9's payload fairing and attachment of the spacecraft and fairing to the Falcon 9 rocket.

Spaceport license renewed

Albuquerque (N.M.) Journal

LAS CRUCES – The Federal Aviation Administration has renewed Spaceport America's license to operate as a launch site, the New Mexico Spaceport Authority said Thursday.

The FAA requires a launch site operator license for spaceports hosting licensed vertical and horizontal launches. Seven other U.S. spaceports hold active launch site licenses, including two in California, two in Florida and one each in Alaska, Virginia and Oklahoma.

Spaceport Executive Director Christine Anderson said in a statement that the spaceport has "worked hard to grow our launch customer base" since receiving its first license in 2008.

The spaceport is awaiting the arrival of Virgin Galactic and SpaceX launches this year.

Virgin Galactic is still testing its spacecraft at its Mojave, Calif., location, while SpaceX is preparing to begin high-altitude testing of its reusable rocket at the spaceport.

Spaceport America's current five-year license expires on Dec. 14, 2018.

Space geckos? Sticky-footed robots could climb future spacecraft

Amina Khan -- Los Angeles Times

Gecko's sticky feet seem to let the little climbing lizards crawl wherever they want. Now researchers have used the gecko feet's trade secrets to let robots use that climbing power in space.

The idea, which received backing from the European Space Agency, mimics the pads of the gecko's feet to allow small robots to climb up the hulls of larger spacecraft to maintain and even repair them. Such repair bots could extend the lives of expensive spacecraft, save them from sudden and untimely deaths, and perhaps one day minimize risky spacewalks for future astronauts.

Gecko feet use a "dry adhesive" technique to cling to walls. This doesn't rely on sticky glues, but on bunches of exceedingly tiny hairs on their feet with ends just 100 to 200 nanometers across – about the size of individual bacteria. These structures are so small that they take advantage of the van der Waals force, where atoms in close contact – in this case, the gecko's foot and the surface it's stepping on – are attracted to each other.

The van der Waals force only works on very small scales, when atoms are in very, very close contact – and most smooth surfaces are actually quite rough on the micro and nanoscales, said Carlo Menon, an engineer and professor at Simon Fraser University in Canada who is working on the climbing robots. The gecko's tiny foot hairs fill those gaps in, maximizing the contact area between foot and wall, and allowing the van der Waals force to do its work.

This kind of sticking power would be useful in space, Menon said.

"It's a fundamental problem," Menon said. "In space there are not many options if you want to adhere to a surface and detach multiple times in a vacuum."

The researchers decided to use the technique because it's a far better option than using traditional adhesives in space. Wet glues – the kind that make scotch tape sticky – lose their stick as they're repeatedly lifted and then reapplied, and could also give off fumes that damage sensitive electronic equipment.

Using magnets to stick to a metal spacecraft wouldn't work either, as they don't stick to composites and the magnetic fields they generate could affect scientific instrument readings. Velcro only works if the other surface also has Velcro, and broken-off hook fragments could also contaminate the electronic equipment.

A gecko-based solution would have no such drawbacks, so the scientists used a polymer to create hairlike structures on the adhesive. They're not as small as those keratin-based structures on the gecko feet – about 100 times larger – but made of softer stuff that could slightly mold onto a rough surface and improve the surface contact. They tested the adhesive in a vacuum and it held up well, Menon said.

Using the adhesive, he and his team have created two different robot designs – a rolling, tank-like system and a six-legged walker named Abigaille. Both come with their own set of advantages, he said.

"Each of them has pros and cons," Menon said. "If you want to have more dexterity, you go with the leg. If you are more concerned about power consumption, probably the tank is a better choice."

Dark Matter Search Considers Exotic Possibilities

As observations fail to pin down the so-far undetectable stuff, explanations once considered fringe are now getting another look

Clara Moskowitz – Scientific American

Ever since astronomers realized that most of the matter in the universe is invisible, they have tried to sort out what that obscure stuff might be. But three decades of increasingly sophisticated searches have found no sign of dark matter, causing scientists to question some of their basic ideas about this elusive substance.

In October the most sensitive experiment looking for proof of the leading candidate for dark matter—theorized particles called WIMPs (weakly interacting massive particles)—reported null results, disappointing scientists once again. Now some researchers are reexamining dark matter candidates once written off as unlikely, and considering less satisfactory ideas such as the possibility that dark matter will turn out to be made of something more or less undetectable.

Physicists still have no proof that dark matter exists at all, but the evidence for it is substantial. The movements of stars and galaxies can apparently be explained only if there is much more gravitating matter in the universe than the visible stuff of atoms and molecules. Attempts to correct the discrepancy by rewriting the rules of gravity in Einstein's general theory of relativity have repeatedly failed.

WIMPs have long been the favored explanation for dark matter, in part because they could fit in with other popular ideas in physics such as supersymmetry—the suggestion that all known particles in the universe have as-yet-undiscovered partner particles. The lightest of these supersymmetric particles, it is thought, could be a WIMP, and could constitute the universe's dark matter. Attempts to detect WIMPs during the rare occasions that they do bump into regular matter particles have been ongoing since the 1980s, but none have been successful. Most recently the Large Underground Xenon (LUX) project in South Dakota—by far the most sensitive search yet undertaken—reported that three months of data showed no signs whatsoever of dark matter.

If WIMPs do exist, they are running out of places to hide. "We are tightening the noose; we're closing in," says LUX co-spokesman Richard Gaitskell of Brown University, who estimates that more than half of the possible WIMP models have already been disproved. The next five or 10 years should largely wrap up the WIMP search, either by discovering the particles at last or by essentially ruling out their existence. But if dark matter is not made of WIMPs, what is it?

Theoretical particles called axions are another oft-mentioned candidate. Much less massive than WIMPs and likely to interact even less frequently with regular matter, they are more difficult to search for—a fact that partly explains why only one major experiment is looking for axions today, whereas more than a dozen projects are hunting WIMPs. Yet axions, too, have a solid theoretical foundation and could easily explain an abundance of dark matter in the universe. "I don't understand why axions tend to get ranked as number two," says Leslie Rosenberg of the University of Washington, who heads the Axion Dark Matter eXperiment (ADMX). "I would invert the order. But that's my opinion." ADMX began in 1995, however, and has found no signs of axion dark matter so far. A more sensitive iteration of the experiment recently came online, and within three years the project will have either found axions or proved they do not exist, Rosenberg predicts.

With the searches for both WIMPs and axions nearing the finish line with no glimpses of success yet, more and more theorists are considering alternatives. "When people got nervous about WIMPs, other candidates came out of the woodwork," Rosenberg says. Some have suggested that a plenitude of small black holes throughout the universe could account for dark matter. Targeted astronomical searches have found no signs of such black holes, which should bend light from background objects in an effect called gravitational lensing. The idea could be resurrected with some theoretical finagling, however.

Another exotic possibility attracting increased interest is quark matter—an extremely dense phase of matter made of strange quarks (exotic cousins of the up and down quarks that form protons and neutrons). Quark matter could be created inside very massive neutron stars, and in sufficient quantities it could make up a population of quark stars that would emit no light but could exert a gravitational pull on normal matter.

Those are just a few of the ideas populating the wide-open landscape of potential explanations for dark matter. "I doubt we've thought through all the interesting possibilities," says theorist Matt Strassler, a visiting physicist at Harvard University. "We may get lucky" and find the answer soon, he says, "or this may drag on for 100 years or more."

The scariest possibility may be that dark matter is made of something impossible to find—some particle that interacts with regular matter only via gravity and no other force. In such a case researchers would have no hope of catching it in a detector. "If we move into a mode where our most favored particles are simply not detectable, we have the classic scientific challenge, which is how do you verify such a theory?" Gaitskell asks. "At that point you're almost a failure—you have a theory that's almost impossible to test."

Perhaps thankfully, such a particle seems somewhat unlikely from a theoretical standpoint. "With a particle that really only interacts gravitationally, you have to ask how it ever got produced in the universe in the first place," says Stanford University theoretical physicist Peter Graham. "Axions and WIMPs both have very nice natural production mechanisms and reasons why they might be here in such abundance. That's what disfavors these other models." Still, they remain on the table.

Even if physicists cannot detect dark particles directly, they hold out the hope that they might find indirect evidence of dark matter with particle accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider in Europe. The LHC could produce WIMPs or other dark matter candidates when it smashes protons together in powerful collisions. Another hope is that astrophysical signals, such as gamma-ray light from the center of the galaxy, might reveal the presence of dark matter particles if dark matter annihilates itself when two particles make contact. Some hints of such signals have been claimed, but they are far from definitive.

Ultimately, most physicists in the hunt say they do not care whether their particular conception of dark matter turns out to be right, as long as they eventually get an answer. "As in all research, there is never a guarantee of success. All we can do is to continue to attempt to answer the most important science questions," says Blas Cabrera of Stanford University, who leads the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS), another WIMP-detection experiment. Lately, more physicists are facing the specter of possible failure. "I would be horrifically disappointed if we didn't discover dark matter," Rosenberg says. "It is within our grasp, and I really want to know what it is."

Second tiny asteroid spotted before it hit Earth

Jeff Hecht – New Scientist

The first new asteroid identified this year didn't last long. Asteroid 2014 AA was spotted by a telescope early New Year's morning, and fizzled up over the Atlantic Ocean a day later.

2014 AA is only the second incoming object astronomers have tracked before it hit the Earth – and they almost missed it. The first such object, 2008 TC3, was discovered on 6 October 2008 about 20 hours before it became a fireball over Sudan.

Word of 2008 TC3's approach spread quickly, allowing observers to track it and predict when and where it would hit the atmosphere to within about a second and a kilometre, says Bill Gray, an amateur astronomer in Maine who calculates asteroid orbits. Thanks to that precision, a team from the University of Khartoum, Sudan, was able to recover fragments that reached the ground.

Astronomers were not so lucky with 2014 AA. Like 2008 TC3, the new asteroid was discovered with an automated telescope in the Catalina Mountains north of Tucson by the University of Arizona's Mount Lemmon Survey. The survey automatically tracks moving objects and calculates preliminary orbits, and then posts the data to a network of astronomers for follow-up observations.

But 2014 AA's holiday-period arrival meant it nearly slipped by unnoticed. With only 90 minutes of automatic observations recorded, Gray calculated the object's orbit in the evening of 1 January and realised it was on a collision course with Earth. He had insufficient data to pinpoint the time and place of impact, but preliminary analysis of infrasound observations has since narrowed it down to around 0200 GMT in the mid-Atlantic, says Steve Chesley of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

The asteroid was 2 to 4 metres wide, which makes it a little smaller than 2008 TC3 and much smaller than the 17-metre-wide meteor that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in February 2013.

Objects of 2014 AA's size hit Earth every few months, and are too small to pose a threat to the planet. But tracking their motions through the atmosphere could help astronomers recover the pieces that survive, says Peter Jenniskens of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, who led the effort to collect meteorites from 2008 TC3 and the Chelyabinsk meteor.

Although 2014 AA is probably lost to the sea, learning to track others like it could have big payoffs for science. "It's like a low-cost sample-return mission," he says.

Iran plans satellite launch in February: Official

An Iranian aerospace official says the country plans to launch an indigenously designed and manufactured satellite into orbit in early February next year.

Deputy head of Iran Space Agency (ISA), Hamid Fazeli, said on Tuesday that final tests are being carried out on several indigenous satellites. They include Sharif Sat, developed by Iranian students and academics from Sharif University of Technology, and AUT Sat, developed by Iranian scientists at Amir Kabir University of Technology.

He added that the launch is intended to mark the Ten-Day Dawn celebrations, which commemorate the 35th anniversary of the victory of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution and will be held on February 1-11, 2014, in Iran and several other countries.

Sharif Sat reportedly weighs less than 50 kilograms and is planned to be placed into a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) at an altitude between 350 kilometers (217 miles) and 500 kilometers (310 miles) above the Earth's surface.

The satellite will capture images with a high degree of accuracy and transmit them to stations on earth.

AUT Sat is a monitoring and telecommunications satellite, which weighs 100 kilograms. It is expected to have a lifespan of two years.

Iran launched its first indigenous satellite, Omid (Hope), in 2009. The country also sent its first bio-capsule containing living creatures into the space in February 2010, using the indigenous Kavoshgar-3 (Explorer-3) carrier.

The country is one of the 24 founding members of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, which was set up in 1959. \

 

END

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