Keep the shuttle flying: Fwd: Human Spaceflight News

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Begin forwarded message:

From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: December 7, 2012 7:52:30 AM CST
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: Human Spaceflight News - December 7, 2012 and JSC Today

Happy Friday everyone! As always – it was great to see so many of you at our monthly Retiree Luncheon yesterday at Hibachi!

Especially good to see Lambert Austin and Gene Nitsche and so many others of you.   Always great to catch up with good friends and share our fun experiences since the last time we got to visit.

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy, and Safe New Year.

Continue to pray for our friends and colleagues who are ill or have ill family members to get well soon.   Continue to keep our friends who have lost family members recently in your thoughts and prayers to help them and their families through these most difficult times!

See you all next year.

Friday, December 7, 2012

JSC TODAY HEADLINES
1.            JSC: See the Space Station
2.            White Sands Test Facility: See the Space Station
3.            How to Protect Your Works From Infringement - Copyright Training Part 3
4.            Shuttle Knowledge Console v3.0
5.            Recent JSC Announcement
6.            TTI RLLS Portal Telecom Support WebEx Training
7.            AIAA Houston Section 'Horizons' December/January Issue Now Available
________________________________________     QUOTE OF THE DAY
" Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect."

-- Mark Twain
________________________________________
1.            JSC: See the Space Station
Viewers in the JSC area will be able to see the International Space Station this week.
Saturday, Dec. 8, 6:29 p.m. (Duration: 3 minutes)
Path: 10 degrees above SSW to 29 degrees above ESE
Maximum elevation: 30 degrees

Monday, Dec. 10, 6:26 p.m. (Duration: 3 minutes)
Path: 30 degrees above WSW to 26 degrees above NNE
Maximum elevation: 66 degrees
The International Space Station Trajectory Operations Group provides updates via JSC Today for visible station passes at least two minutes in duration and 25 degrees in elevation. Other opportunities, including those with shorter durations and lower elevations or from other ground locations, are available at the website below.
Joe Pascucci x31695 http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/cities/view.cgi?country=U...

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2.            White Sands Test Facility: See the Space Station
Viewers in the White Sands Test Facility area will be able to see the International Space Station this week.
Sunday, Dec. 9, 6:14 p.m. (Duration: 3 minutes)
Path: 10 degrees above SSW to 38 degrees above ESE
Maximum elevation: 40 degrees

Tuesday, Dec. 11, 6:12 p.m. (Duration: 3 minutes)
Path: 34 degrees above W to 25 degrees above NNE
Maximum elevation: 53 degrees

Wednesday, Dec. 12, 5:21 p.m. (Duration: 5 minutes)
Path: 26 degrees above SSW to 11 degrees above NE
Maximum elevation: 67 degrees
The International Space Station Trajectory Operations Group provides updates via JSC Today for visible station passes at least two minutes in duration and 25 degrees in elevation. Other opportunities, including those with shorter durations and lower elevations or from other ground locations, are available at the website below.
Joe Pascucci x31695 http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/cities/view.cgi?country=U...

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3.            How to Protect Your Works From Infringement - Copyright Training Part 3
Please join the Scientific and Technical Information Center as the last part of the Copyright Training Series will be presented by Yvonne Dooley from the U.S. Public Information Office on Wednesday, Dec. 12, from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. CST. Dooley will show users how to register their works for copyright and provide an overview of the registration process. There will be time for questions at the end of the session. The class will be held in Building 30A, Room 1010, and also online via WebEx.
To register click on the "Classroom/WebEx" schedule.
Provided by the Information Resources Directorate.
Ebony Fondren x32490 http://library.jsc.nasa.gov

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4.            Shuttle Knowledge Console v3.0
The JSC Chief Knowledge Officer and the JSC Engineering Directorate are pleased to announce the third release of the Shuttle Knowledge Console. New content added:
o             Columbia Debris Assessment Working Group Reconstruction Report
o             Shuttle records scanned in Fiscal Year 2012
o             Technical panels, including the Aero Panel, Loads Panel, Propulsion Systems Integration Group, Systems Engineering and Integration Debris Central and Thermal Panel
o             Shuttle-related knowledge-based risks
o             Shuttle document capture files have been reorganized for better searching capability
o             Shuttle Mission Reports and Shuttle Operation Data Book
o             A new image rotator with hundreds of shuttle images spanning the life of the program has been added
o             File browsing for the site has been enhanced to allow sorting by name, type, date and size.
Questions about the new website can be directed to Howard Wagner or Brent Fontenot. Click the "Submit Feedback" button located on the top of the site navigation and give us your comments and thoughts.
Brent J. Fontenot x36456 https://skc.jsc.nasa.gov

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5.            Recent JSC Announcement
Please visit the JSC Announcements (JSCA) Web page to view the newly posted announcement:
JSCA 12-041: Communications with Industry Procurement Solicitation for the Human Health and Institutional Management Support Contract
Archived announcements are also available on the JSCA Web page.
Linda Turnbough x36246 http://ird.jsc.nasa.gov/DocumentManagement/announcements/default.aspx

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6.            TTI RLLS Portal Telecom Support WebEx Training
TechTrans International (TTI) will provide a 30-minute WebEx training on Wednesday, Dec. 12, at 2 p.m. for the RLLS Portal Telecom Support Request module. This training will include the following elements:
o             Locating telecom support request module
o             Quick view of telecom support request
o             Create a new telecom support request
o             Telecom submittal requirements
o             Submitting on behalf of another individual
o             Adding operator support
o             Adding an attachment (agenda, references)
o             Selecting export control
o             Adding additional email addresses distribution notices
o             Submitting telecom request
o             Status of telecom request records
o             View a telecom request record
o             Copy a telecom support request record
o             Contact RLLS support for additional help
Please send an email to James.E.Welty@nasa.gov or call 281-335-8565 to sign up for this RLLS Telecom Support WebEx Training course. The class will be limited to the first 25 individuals registered.
James Welty 281-335-8565 https://www.TTI-Portal.com

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7.            AIAA Houston Section 'Horizons' December/January Issue Now Available
The newest issue of "Horizons" is now published online. This issue includes a cover story on The UP Experience 2012 in Houston that featured legendary aerospace vehicle designer Burt Rutan, who gave us an exclusive interview, as well as:
o             "Interstellar First Stop? Detection of an Earth-Sized Exoplanet at Alpha Centauri B" by Wes Kelly, Triton Systems, LLC
o             "A 2012 TC4 Gravity Assist from Earth" and "A Newly Discovered Highly Accessible NEO" by Daniel R. Adamo, Astrodynamics consultant
o             "Asteroid 2012 DA14's February 2013 Fly-By" by Dr. Patrick Rodi
o             "Creating an Economically Robust Space Policy" by Dr. Martin Elvis of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
o             "Man Will Conquer Space Soon!", continuing reprints of the Collier's space articles (1952 to 1954)
o             A lunch-and-learn summary article, "Voyages: Sustainable Human Space Exploration: A Review" with guest speaker Dr. Kumar Krishen, NASA/JSC
o             "Hubble Meets Skylab" by Scott Lowther, Aerospace Projects Review (APR Corner)

Eryn Beisner x40212

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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. To see an archive of previous JSC Today announcements, go to http://www6.jsc.nasa.gov/pao/news/jsctoday/archives.

Human Spaceflight News
Friday – December 7, 2012

40 yrs ago today Apollo 17 left for the Moon

"As we leave the Moon at Taurus-Littrow, we leave as we came, and God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind."
- Gene Cernan

HEADLINES AND LEADS

Golden Spike space-tourism company: 'To the moon!'

Joel Achenbach - Washington Post

It had to happen: A start-up company is offering rides to the moon. Book your seat now — though it's going to set you back $750 million (it's unclear if that includes baggage fees). Led by heavy-hitter former NASA executives, the Golden Spike Co. would boldly go where humankind went 40 years ago, this time commercially, hawking tickets to foreign governments or space tourists. "Two seats, 750 each," former NASA associate administrator Alan Stern said on Thursday, shortly before he appeared at the National Press Club in Washington to announce the formation of the company. "The trick is 40 years old. We know how to do this."

To the moon? Firm hopes to sell $1.5 billion trips

Seth Borenstein - Associated Press

Attention wealthy nations and billionaires: A team of former NASA executives will fly you to the moon in an out-of-this-world commercial venture combining the wizardry of Apollo and the marketing of Apple. For a mere $1.5 billion, the business is offering countries the chance to send two people to the moon and back, either for research or national prestige. And if you are an individual with that kind of money to spare, you too can go the moon for a couple days. Some space experts, though, are skeptical of the firm's financial ability to get to the moon. The venture called Golden Spike Co. was announced Thursday.

Private firm plans "affordable" lunar mission for $1.5 billion

Irene Klotz - Reuters

A Colorado start-up run by former NASA managers plans to conduct missions to the moon for about $1.5 billion per expedition, a fraction of what a similar government-run operation would cost, company officials said on Thursday. "Our vision is to create a reliable and affordable U.S.-based commercial human lunar transportation system," said former Apollo flight director Gerry Griffin, who serves as chairman of the firm, named Golden Spike. The expeditions would use existing rockets and spacecraft now under development to fly NASA astronauts to the International Space Station.

Got $1.5 billion to spare? How about a trip to the moon?

David Lazarus - Los Angeles Times

I know, I know: It's so hard to find just the right holiday gift for some people. So how about a trip to the moon? All you'll need is $750 million per ticket. But you'll have to book two tickets at a time, meaning that you'll be writing a check for $1.5 billion. A bargain, right? The lunar excursion is being offered by start-up company Golden Spike, which says it's "the first company planning to offer routine exploration expeditions to the surface of the moon." Yeah, not a whole lot of competition on this front quite yet.

Golden Spike Company promises lunar visits in this decade

Ledyard King - Florida Today

Fly you to the moon? That's what a company launched by several ex-NASA executives would like to do — for the right price. The Golden Spike Company bills itself as the first private venture planning to offer routine exploration expeditions to the lunar surface. It joins a growing roster of commercial entries, such as SpaceX, Moon Express and Virgin Galactic, that are developing spacecraft capable of traveling beyond the Earth's atmosphere. The firm is the brainchild of former NASA science chief Alan Stern and Gerry Griffin, a former Apollo flight director and former director of NASA Johnson Space Center. They hope to start launching the flights by the end of the decade, assuming financial backing and sufficient advance ticket sales.

New company to offer moon flights — for just $1.5 billion

Mark Matthews - Orlando Sentinel

The idea sounds so preposterous that even its backers admit it seems lifted from the pages of an Isaac Asimov novel. But the architects of a new aerospace company say they plan to do what kids have dreamed about since the Apollo age: create a business that can blast tourists to the moon — maybe by the end of the decade. "This sounds like science fiction. We intend to make it science fact," said Alan Stern, a former NASA science director who is now leading the company behind the moonshot effort, dubbed Golden Spike.

Is Another Moon Mission Written In The Stars?

Nell Greenfieldboyce - National Public Radio

On Dec. 7, 1972, NASA launched its final human mission to the moon. Forty years later, Apollo 17 commander Eugene Cernan says he'd love to give up his claim-to-fame as "the last man on the moon." "I'd like to be able to shake the hand of that young man or young woman who replaces me in that category," Cernan told NPR. "But unfortunately, the way things have gone and the way things are looking for the future, at least the near-term future, that won't happen in my lifetime. And that truly is disappointing."

Golden Spike Moon venture introduced to public but business details kept private

Space News

A U.S. company called Golden Spike on Dec. 6 unveiled plans to launch privately financed missions to the lunar surface sometime next decade but kept substantially all of the details of its ambitious business venture close to the vest. Golden Spike plans to use existing rockets and other space hardware to send paying customers to the surface of the Moon. The group bills itself as a "commercial space company" but it is counting for now on foreign governments to provide it with the $7 billion to $8 billion in advance sales it will need in order to launch its first mission around 2020. If the company can secure a stable of customers on top of those it needs to finance the nonrecurring costs associated with the first mission, subsequent lunar landing missions would cost about $1.5 billion each, Golden Spike chief executive Alan Stern said.

Fly you to moon by the end of this decade? That'll be $1.4 billion, please

Lee Roop - Huntsville Times

A new company founded by a former Apollo flight director and a NASA chief scientist plans to offer moonwalks to anyone who wants one by the end of the decade, and a well-known Alabama author and Huntsville aerospace company are part of the plan. The moon trip company, called Golden Spike after the final link in America's transcontinental railroad, was announced in Washington today. Its estimate of the starting cost for a two-person roundtrip: $1.4 billion. Why go to the moon? Golden Spike said it imagines several reasons customers might want to go: scientific exploration and discovery, national prestige, commercial development, marketing, entertainment "and even personal achievement." The potential customers? Nations, corporations, even individuals.

Hutchison, Nelson File Standalone Space Bill

Space News

Having missed perhaps their best shot at renewing a commercial launch liability shield that expires this month and extending NASA's authority to pay Russia for Soyuz rides to the international space station, Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) and Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) introduced a standalone space bill Dec. 5 that stands little chance of being enacted in the closing days of the 112th Congress. Hutchison and Nelson filed their nine-page bill, the Space Exploration Sustainability Act (S. 3661), the day after the Senate approved the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act (S. 3254) without considering amendments Hutchison and Nelson had offered separately to address launch liability and longstanding restrictions on NASA's ability to buy space station-related goods and services from Russia.

Khrunichev Completes Nauka Space Station Module

RIA Novosti

Russia's Khrunichev space company has completed assembly of the Nauka ("Science") multirole laboratory module for the International Space Station, Khrunichev said today. The module will now be tested by the RKK Energia corporation. "Work has been completed on assembly of the multirole laboratory module for the International Space Station (ISS). The module was sent to RKK Energia on December 7 for further electronic testing of the flight systems," Khrunichev said.

Dordain Hopes ESA's Orion Contribution Will Spur Common Crew Vehicle
ESA wants to use Orion to widen trans-Atlantic collaboration

Peter de Selding - Space News

The European Space Agency (ESA) wants to use the recently approved European contribution to NASA's Orion crew transport vehicle as a tool to widen trans-Atlantic collaboration to include a common space exploration vehicle, ESA Director-General Jean-Jacques Dordain said. While Europe and the United States would retain their own launch vehicle capabilities for strategic autonomy, he said, exploration vehicles should be developed as collaborative ventures to avoid duplication. "We're basically talking about development of a truck," Dordain said. "Is everyone going to develop his own truck? I have informed NASA that on my next trip to Washington I want to start talking about this."

US Needs New Deep-Space Agency, Apollo Astronaut Says

Mike Wall - Space.com

The United States should create a new agency dedicated to manned exploration of the moon, Mars and other destinations in deep space, a former Apollo astronaut says. Human exploration of such far-flung locales is a challenging proposition, so it would benefit from the type of laser-like attention that NASA gave its Apollo moon program back in the 1960s and early '70s, said Harrison Schmitt, who walked on the lunar surface on the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. "You need to have an agency that is focused on that, and almost nothing else," Schmitt said here today (Dec. 6) at the annual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union. He recommends that the government "create a new agency that can indeed learn the lessons of Apollo and apply them."

Space is calling
Astronaut on the International Space Station answers 20 Kline School students' questions about being in orbit

Jeremiah Dobruck - Los Angeles Times

Students at Kline School in Costa Mesa made an especially long-distance call Thursday, first to northern Italy and then bounced by ham radio to the International Space Station. Twenty students had been prepped and handed scripts with their questions as required by NASA. They were lined up in front of a microphone, waiting in a silent but crowded room on campus. "We don't want to lose even a split second of time, so they're holding their papers and maybe shaking," said Susan Kline, founder and director of the school.

Next space station crew to write history for Canada

Justin Ray – SpaceflightNow.com

The next international crew destined to live aboard the space station, including the first Canadian that will command the complex, flew to the Baikonur Cosmodrome on Thursday to begin final preparations for launch. Chris Hadfield from the Canadian Space Agency, NASA's Tom Marshburn and Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko jetted from the Star City training facility outside Moscow to the launch base in Kazakhstan as their Dec. 19 blastoff aboard Soyuz TMA-07M nears. All veteran space fliers, Hadfield and Marshburn were former space shuttle crewmembers and Romanenko was aboard the station as its resident team doubled to the full six-person size.

Chris Hadfield ready for 'surreal' space station odyssey
Astronaut in quarantine before blasting off in Russian capsule

Janet Davison - Canadian Broadcasting Co.

When Chris Hadfield was a southern Ontario farmboy dreaming of being an astronaut, it just couldn't happen. Canada had no astronaut program and no Canadian could realistically expect to follow in the American footsteps Neil Armstrong had planted as the first man on the moon in that steamy summer of 1969. Forty-three years later, the trail-blazing Hadfield is in quarantine in Kazakhstan, waiting to blast off in a Soyuz capsule for the International Space Station, making history — again — when he takes over as its first Canadian commander in March.

West Orange astronaut braces for unprecedented year in space

Associated Press

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly is already bracing for an unprecedented one-year mission aboard the International Space Station. He figures it will be as grueling as climbing Mount Everest. "It's fun when you're done with it, not while you're doing it," Kelly said Wednesday, barely a week after being named to the marathon flight along with Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko. The mission, which is set to begin in 2015, is intended as a medical test bed for even longer Mars expeditions in the decades ahead. Space station life can be routine, Kelly noted during a news conference.

Too early to announce Sarah Brightman's visit to ISS - Roscosmos

Interfax

The Russian Federal Space Agency has not yet decided whether a space tourist, British soprano singer Sarah Brightman, or a professional crewmember will fly to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2015, Roscosmos manned programs chief Alexei Krasnov said, answering a question from Interfax-AVN. "It is premature to say for certain whether Sarah Brightman, a European astronaut or a Russian cosmonaut will fly there. This issue is still open. We will be able to give more concrete information a little later," he said.

Apollo 17, 40 Years Later: An Astronaut Reflects

Mike Wall - Space.com

The last manned mission to the moon launched 40 years ago today, but astronaut Harrison Schmitt remembers it like it was yesterday. NASA's Apollo 17 mission blasted off in the early hours of Dec. 7, 1972, carrying Schmitt, Gene Cernan and Ron Evans toward Earth's nearest neighbor. Four days later, Schmitt became the 12th and final person — and the only trained geologist — to set foot on the moon when he and Cernan emerged from their lunar module, Challenger. The passage of four decades has not dimmed Harrison "Jack" Schmitt's recollections much.

Missing moon rocks from 1969 mission back in Alaska
Rocks disappeared from Anchorage transportation museum in '73 after arsonist torched building

Associated Press

Alaska's moon rocks from the 1969 Apollo 11 mission are back in the 49th state after going missing for nearly 40 years. They had been displayed at an Anchorage transportation museum in 1973 when an arsonist torched the building. The tiny rocks, originally presented to state officials by then president Richard Nixon, had disappeared until late 2010 when the foster son of the museum director, Coleman Anderson, claimed he had rescued them from rubble destined for a landfill. He subsequently sued to claim ownership.
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COMPLETE STORIES

Golden Spike space-tourism company: 'To the moon!'

Joel Achenbach - Washington Post

It had to happen: A start-up company is offering rides to the moon. Book your seat now — though it's going to set you back $750 million (it's unclear if that includes baggage fees).

Led by heavy-hitter former NASA executives, the Golden Spike Co. would boldly go where humankind went 40 years ago, this time commercially, hawking tickets to foreign governments or space tourists.

"Two seats, 750 each," former NASA associate administrator Alan Stern said on Thursday, shortly before he appeared at the National Press Club in Washington to announce the formation of the company. "The trick is 40 years old. We know how to do this."

You won't have to joystick the lunar lander yourself, so don't worry about dodging killer craters and boulders on the way down. Everything will be automated and controlled from Earth. It'll be like taking a train, the company said.

"We realize this is the stuff of science fiction. We intend to make it science fact," Stern said at the news conference. He added: "We believe in the price points that we're talking about."

The company has assembled some credible advisers, with a board chaired by former NASA Johnson Space Center director Gerry Griffin. The business model requires economies of scale — lots of customers and lots of missions to the moon to offset the very high start-up cost. The company sees 2020 as a plausible date for that initial trip.

Golden Spike would need to commission a lunar lander and moonwalking suits, but most of its mission architecture would rely on commercial rockets and capsules already flying or under development. For example, the company could use a rocket and capsule developed by Elon Musk's commercial start-up SpaceX, which has successfully flown cargo to the international space station under a NASA contract.

The primary targets for Golden Spike are foreign countries that want to do lunar science or attain the prestige of putting their own astronauts on the moon. Because of political sensitivities, the company would not sell a moon trip to China, which has been expanding its space program, Stern said. Nor would the company sell rides to any country restricted by law from access to U.S. technology that could be used for military purposes.

Stern said the company has no billionaire backers but has had a serious discussion with one potential lunar tourist. He wouldn't give the name.

"If you come to me and you're not an unsavory character, we're going to fly you," he said before the news conference.

"If NASA wants a ride, we'd be glad to put them on our railroad,"Griffin added.

The company's board of advisers includes former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who during the Republican primaries early this year said that as president he'd establish a permanent moon base by 2021.

NASA's official reaction to Golden Spike: Go for it.

"This type of private sector effort is further evidence of the timeliness and wisdom of the Obama Administration's overall space policy — to create an environment where commercial space companies can build upon NASA's past successes, allowing the agency to focus on the new challenges of sending humans to an asteroid and eventually Mars," NASA spokesman David Weaver said in a written statement.

To the moon? Firm hopes to sell $1.5 billion trips

Seth Borenstein - Associated Press

Attention wealthy nations and billionaires: A team of former NASA executives will fly you to the moon in an out-of-this-world commercial venture combining the wizardry of Apollo and the marketing of Apple.

For a mere $1.5 billion, the business is offering countries the chance to send two people to the moon and back, either for research or national prestige. And if you are an individual with that kind of money to spare, you too can go the moon for a couple days.

Some space experts, though, are skeptical of the firm's financial ability to get to the moon. The venture called Golden Spike Co. was announced Thursday.

Dozens of private space companies have started up recently, but few if any will make it — just like in other fields — said Harvard astronomer Jonathan McDowell, who tracks launches worldwide.

"This is unlikely to be the one that will pan out," McDowell said.

NASA's last trip to the moon launched 40 years ago Friday. The United States is the only country that has landed people there, beating the Soviet Union in a space race to the moon that transfixed the world. But once the race ended, there has been only sporadic interest in the moon.

President Barack Obama cancelled NASA's planned return to the moon, saying America had already been there. On Wednesday, a National Academy of Sciences said the nation's space agency has no clear goal or direction for future human exploration.

But the ex-NASA officials behind Golden Spike do. It's that old moon again.

The firm has talked to other countries, which are showing interest, said former NASA associate administrator Alan Stern, Golden Spike's president. Stern said he's looking at countries like South Africa, South Korea, and Japan. One very rich individual — he won't give a name — has also been talking with them, but the company's main market is foreign nations, he said.

"It's not about being first. It's about joining the club," Stern said. "We're kind of cleaning up what NASA did in the 1960s. We're going to make a commodity of it in the 2020s."

The selling point: "the sex appeal of flying your own astronauts," Stern said.

Many countries did pony up millions of dollars to fly their astronauts on the Russian space station Mir and American space shuttles in the 1990s, but a billion dollar price tag seems a bit steep, Harvard's McDowell said.

NASA chief spokesman David Weaver said the new company "is further evidence of the timeliness and wisdom of the Obama administration's overall space policy" which tries to foster commercial space companies.

Getting to the moon would involve several steps: Two astronauts would launch to Earth orbit, connect with another engine that would send them to lunar orbit. Around the moon, the crew would link up with a lunar orbiter and take a moon landing ship down to the surface.

The company will buy existing rockets and capsules for the launches, Stern said, only needing to develop new spacesuits and a lunar lander.

Stern said he's aiming for a first launch before the end of the decade and then up 15 or 20 launches total. Just getting to the first launch will cost the company between $7 billion and $8 billion, he said.

Besides the ticket price, Stern said there are other revenue sources, such as NASCAR-like advertising, football stadium-like naming rights, and Olympic style video rights.

It may be technically feasible, but it's harder to see how it is financially doable, said former NASA associate administrator Scott Pace, space policy director at George Washington University. Just dealing with the issue of risk and the required test launches is inordinately expensive, he said.

Company board chairman Gerry Griffin, an Apollo flight director who once headed the Johnson Space Center, said that's a correct assessment: "I don't think there's any technological stumble here. It's going to be financial."

The company is full of space veterans; American University space policy professor Howard McCurdy called them "heavy hitters" in the field. Advisers include space shuttle veterans, Hollywood directors, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson and engineer-author Homer Hickam.

Private firm plans "affordable" lunar mission for $1.5 billion

Irene Klotz - Reuters

A Colorado start-up run by former NASA managers plans to conduct missions to the moon for about $1.5 billion per expedition, a fraction of what a similar government-run operation would cost, company officials said on Thursday.

"Our vision is to create a reliable and affordable U.S.-based commercial human lunar transportation system," said former Apollo flight director Gerry Griffin, who serves as chairman of the firm, named Golden Spike.

The expeditions would use existing rockets and spacecraft now under development to fly NASA astronauts to the International Space Station.

Depending on how many customers sign up, the company said it could be ready to fly its first mission by 2020. It did not elaborate on any existing or pending contracts with customers or suppliers.

The first mission would require an investment of $7 billion to $8 billion, said Golden Spike President Alan Stern, NASA's former associate administrator for science. Once established, mission costs would drop to about $1.5 billion to fly two people to the moon for up to two days.

"This is a game-changer," Stern told reporters in Washington and on a conference call. "We can fly human lunar missions for the cost of a robotic mission."

Stern declined to specify how many missions the company would need to sell to turn a profit.

"If we only sell three or four expeditions, it's completely upside down. We need to sell a bunch. But we do not need to sell ridiculous numbers," he said.

A market study shows 15 to 25 nations can afford lunar exploration and may want to do so, he added.

Potential customers include civilian space agencies, corporations, research institutes and some extremely wealthy individuals.

"We can make it affordable for mid-sized countries like a Korea, an Indonesia, or a South Africa to be in the business of lunar exploration, which would cost them a great deal more to invent that capability," Stern said.

In addition to advance ticket sales, the company is counting on advertising and marketing campaigns to raise funds.

Golden Spike is not the first company proposing privately funded missions to the moon. Other firms include Moon Express, a mining outfit, and companies participating in a Google-sponsored competition to land a robotic probe on the satellite.

"If I could find investors to get started with, we would be going back to the moon within 10 or 15 years to harvest its energy resources and use them back here on Earth," former Apollo astronaut Harrison "Jack" Schmitt told Reuters in a separate interview.

"The return of investment has to be fairly high because of the perceived risk - in addition to the actual risk to that investment capital - but nevertheless I believe it's possible that it could be done," Schmitt said.

Got $1.5 billion to spare? How about a trip to the moon?

David Lazarus - Los Angeles Times

I know, I know: It's so hard to find just the right holiday gift for some people.

So how about a trip to the moon?

All you'll need is $750 million per ticket. But you'll have to book two tickets at a time, meaning that you'll be writing a check for $1.5 billion.

A bargain, right?

The lunar excursion is being offered by start-up company Golden Spike, which says it's "the first company planning to offer routine exploration expeditions to the surface of the moon."

Yeah, not a whole lot of competition on this front quite yet.

Golden Spike plans to get a hold of existing space gear and repurpose it for commercial missions.

"We know how to do this," former NASA science administrator Alan Stern says. "The difference is now we have rockets and space capsules in the inventory. ... We don't have to invent them from a clean sheet of paper. We don't have to start over."

Golden Spike says its plans have been green-lighted by a former space shuttle commander, a space shuttle program manager and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. So you know they're serious.

And as if that weren't enough, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is on the company's board of advisors. As you'll recall, he was campaigning for the presidency with his platform of seeking a permanent moon base by 2021.

Is this really for tourists? Well, there are certainly a few billionaires who might jump at the chance to walk in the footsteps of Neil Armstrong. Oracle's Larry Ellison comes to mind.

But the more likely candidates are countries that lack their own space program but have been long awaiting the chance to place their own people on the lunar surface. For instance, will we never see astronauts from Uzbekistan?

Me, I'm kind of figuring that private-sector moon travel is still a bit of a pipe dream. I'd settle for a decent subway system in Los Angeles.

Golden Spike Company promises lunar visits in this decade

Ledyard King - Florida Today

Fly you to the moon?

That's what a company launched by several ex-NASA executives would like to do — for the right price.

The Golden Spike Company bills itself as the first private venture planning to offer routine exploration expeditions to the lunar surface. It joins a growing roster of commercial entries, such as SpaceX, Moon Express and Virgin Galactic, that are developing spacecraft capable of traveling beyond the Earth's atmosphere.

The firm is the brainchild of former NASA science chief Alan Stern and Gerry Griffin, a former Apollo flight director and former director of NASA Johnson Space Center.

They hope to start launching the flights by the end of the decade, assuming financial backing and sufficient advance ticket sales.

Estimated costs for a two-person mission to the moon start at $1.4 billion, competitive with what other countries spend on robotic science at the moon, the company said.

Griffin, who also served as deputy director of Kennedy Space Center, said the technical know-how to explore space has grown so widespread over recent years that it's spawned a slew of private-sector start-ups, including Golden Spike, that wouldn't have existed a decade ago.

"We're in the midst of a historic era in commercial space flight," he said during a news conference at the National Press Club on Thursday to unveil the company's plans. He said Golden Spike will help customers achieve objectives "based around science, business, national prestige and personal accomplishment."

The last human to walk on the moon was U.S. astronaut Gene Cernan, commander of the Apollo 17 mission that blasted off from Kennedy Space Center 40 years ago today. While Griffin and Stern spoke, images of moon walks and Apollo launches played on a television screen next to them.

While NASA has turned its attention to asteroids and Mars, Stern said the lunar surface remains an inviting destination .

It has platinum "and other exotic elements of economic value ... in huge quantities," he said. "Simply put, the moon is of interest to both the scientific community worldwide and to the commercial development of space. And it's right around the corner."

Though it's going to develop a lunar lander, the company mainly plans to use existing rockets and employ emerging commercial-crew technology to keep costs relatively affordable.

"We are not reinventing wheels," said Stern, Golden Spike's president and CEO.

Stern said the location of launches will depend on whose launch vehicles Golden Spike buys and their launch sites at the end of the decade.

Golden Spike will market trips to "nations, individuals, and corporations with lunar exploration objectives and ambitions." It expects to do its first lunar mission at a cost of about $7 billion and pay for expenses by charging for transport and selling naming rights, among other creative methods, Stern said.

But the company still needs financial backers.

Griffins dismissed rumors that billionaire Warren Buffet has invested.

"(But) if any of you know Warren, I'd be grateful if you'd point him my way," he said.

Stern said they expect to sign up as many as 15 to 20 countries or foreign space agencies as well as companies and individuals who want to explore the moon for science or adventure.

George C. Nield, in charge of commercial space transportation for the Federal Aviation Administration, called Golden Spike's plan "a great example" of the progress the private sector is making in space travel.

The company's board of directors includes a broad range of individuals including a "Star Trek" set designer, one of the world's foremost experts on rocket propulsion, and former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who suggested colonizing the moon during his failed run for president.

Golden Spike was incorporated in 2010 and is named after the ceremonial final spike that joined the rails of the First Transcontinental Railroad across the United States on May 10, 1869.

New company to offer moon flights — for just $1.5 billion

Mark Matthews - Orlando Sentinel

The idea sounds so preposterous that even its backers admit it seems lifted from the pages of an Isaac Asimov novel.

But the architects of a new aerospace company say they plan to do what kids have dreamed about since the Apollo age: create a business that can blast tourists to the moon — maybe by the end of the decade.

"This sounds like science fiction. We intend to make it science fact," said Alan Stern, a former NASA science director who is now leading the company behind the moonshot effort, dubbed Golden Spike.

Stern and a team of aerospace insiders, including former Apollo Flight Director Gerry Griffin, unveiled their vision Thursday during a media conference at the National Press Club.

The overarching idea is to use rockets and capsules already built — or under development — to blast two astronauts to the moon for the (relatively) low cost of about $1.5 billion, roughly $750 million a seat.

Stern said the company's intent is not to attract eccentric billionaire tourists — though they would be welcome — but instead sell seats to other countries' space agencies looking to see their astronauts' boot prints on the lunar surface.

"It is going to energize people around the world," said Stern, adding that he hoped regional rivalries could spur countries to fight for the prestige of reaching the moon. "It's not about being first or second; it's about being part of the club."

Before that happens, though, lots of questions must be answered. Replicating the Apollo landings — even 40 years after the launch of Apollo 17 — is no small step.

For instance, Stern was not specific on which rockets or capsules were being considered. But he said the company was talking with industry players, including SpaceX of California, which is working on a so-called "heavy-lift" rocket. He added that Florida was a possibility for a launch site.

Company executives also have initiated studies with small and large aerospace companies to sketch out designs for lunar landers and spacesuits, which would have to be built, he said.

"We would like to think, and it's achievable, to have a landing by the end of the decade," Stern said.

But the biggest question of all may be: Where will the company get the money to do it?

Though Golden Spike's board of directors includes at least one venture capitalist — investor Esther Dyson — the initial amount of money required is sure to be staggering. Stern compared it to the "cost of building a major airport" — about $8 billion.

Indeed, Stern admitted that financing was the "long pole in the tent" — a phrase often used by engineers when referring to a project's thorniest problem. But he said the company would look to make advance sales to interested countries and parties and leverage that money to get financing. He said it was also exploring the sale of naming rights and merchandising possibilities.

"We've already had conversations with some national space agencies, and they have expressed their interest," said Stern, who would not name the countries other than to say they were in Europe and Asia. China is the only nation actively working today to send an astronaut to the moon.

Stern said there was precedent for international interest in spaceflight, pointing to how the Russians flew astronauts from other countries to its space stations. The U.S. and Russia also have made room for foreign astronauts — and even space tourists — aboard the International Space Station.

In fact, Stern said, "one individual who could be in a position to arrange such a mission has approached us and said very seriously … that they would like to find a way to be on a lunar expeditionary crew." He would not name that potential customer.

Howard McCurdy, a space expert at American University, said the idea isn't as far-fetched as it might seem. Though the financial burden was "certainly a large one," he said the international market could be ripe for either space agencies or thrill seekers looking to put their mark on history.

"I know you could get some Russians and some Saudi princes with the nerves to take on the odds," McCurdy said.

The company itself is named after the ceremonial spike driven to celebrate the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869. Its motto is "Extend your reach."

Is Another Moon Mission Written In The Stars?

Nell Greenfieldboyce - National Public Radio

On Dec. 7, 1972, NASA launched its final human mission to the moon. Forty years later, Apollo 17 commander Eugene Cernan says he'd love to give up his claim-to-fame as "the last man on the moon."

"I'd like to be able to shake the hand of that young man or young woman who replaces me in that category," Cernan told NPR. "But unfortunately, the way things have gone and the way things are looking for the future, at least the near-term future, that won't happen in my lifetime. And that truly is disappointing."

A Lunar 360

Lunar module pilot Harrison Schmitt captured this panorama series during the Apollo 17 mission.

As he prepared to take his final steps off the moon, Cernan said "we leave as we came, and, God willing, as we shall return: with peace and hope for all mankind."

"And I think God is still willing and do believe we will return," Cernan said this week. "I just didn't think the timetable would be as long as it is."

His crewmate and fellow Apollo 17 moonwalker, Harrison Schmitt, feels the same way.

"I certainly would have to be honest and say that I didn't think it would be 40 years," says Schmitt, "and actually it's going to be quite a bit longer than that."

NASA ended the Apollo program because the space race was over, the Nixon administration wanted to save money, and NASA was eager to do new things, like building a reusable space shuttle and an orbiting station.

"There was no groundswell of public opinion saying let's continue flights to the moon or start going to Mars," says John Logsdon, a space historian at The George Washington University. "The public was a little tired of the space program by the time of Apollo 17 and was ready to move on to other things."

Logsdon attended the launch of Apollo 17 and remembers how its powerful rocket lit up the night sky. "It was really a thrilling experience," he says, but there was also "a sense of melancholy that a great program, the Apollo trips to the moon, was coming to an end."

But for the astronauts, it was a still a glorious mission — Schmitt and Cernan sang on the moon, as they explored and drove around in a lunar buggy. Four decades later, Schmitt says he still can see the beautiful lunar valley that he and Cernan were in, with mountains all around.

"They were illuminated by as brilliant a sun as you can imagine," recalls Schmitt, "and of course hanging over the southwestern mountain was this small, apparently small, planet that we call the Earth."

For awhile, under President George W. Bush, NASA did start work on another moon shot. The goal was to return by 2020 and set up a lunar base, to prepare for an eventual Mars mission.

But after President Barack Obama took office, a blue-ribbon panel said the effort had been way under-funded and was behind schedule. So President Obama set NASA on a different course — to go beyond the moon and send people to explore new places. The first target set was a near-Earth asteroid.

NASA is currently developing a large rocket, and a crew vehicle, to do just that, says NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver: "And we are working on refining this capability, allowing us to take those first steps as soon as possible, to an asteroid and on to Mars."

The first launch of the big rocket is scheduled for 2017. Garver says that the test flight will send the new crew capsule looping around the moon and back — though it won't carry any people.

NASA's plans have a lot of people feeling unconvinced. "NASA is building the capabilities for deep space exploration without a very clear sense of how they are going to be used, probably with inadequate budgets, and on a schedule that doesn't make much sense," says Logsdon.

This week, a new report from the National Research Council said there's a real lack of support for a manned asteroid mission — both in Congress and in NASA's rank-and-file.

"This is not generally accepted. It hasn't been explained to them why this is the goal," says Albert Carnesale of the University of California, Los Angeles, who chaired the committee that wrote the report. "There is no broad acceptance of the asteroid as the next principal destination for spaceflight, despite the fact that the President has indeed said so several times."

Many people — like Logsdon — think there's plenty of science left to do on the moon and that it's still the best stepping stone to Mars.

"All the other spacefaring countries, when they think about a destination for exploration, say 'Moon first,'" says Logsdon. "The United States is the only country that says 'Not Moon first.'"

When asked when humans might revisit the moon, NASA's deputy administrator answered by talking about the private sector — like a new company named Golden Spike.

Yesterday, Golden Spike announced plans to sell private flights to the lunar surface, with two-person trips costing around $1.5 billion. "And they say by 2020," says Garver. "So we would of course be very excited for Americans next to land on the moon."

Golden Spike is led by former NASA executives like planetary scientist Alan Stern. He says the company will exploit existing rockets and technology.

Stern acknowledged that people would be skeptical. "I think that's only natural," he said at a press conference to announce the new venture.

But he says his company has done a market study that suggests 15 to 25 nations could be potential customers. "I can guarantee you, this can be a money-making business, if we sell the right number of expeditions," says Stern.

Stern declined to say how many trips they need to sell, but said it's more than a few. "We need to sell a bunch," said Stern. "But we do not need to sell ridiculous numbers."

Golden Spike's board of directors is chaired by Gerry Griffin, a former NASA flight director for Apollo moon missions. Its advisors include former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former U.N. ambassador Bill Richardson.

Golden Spike Moon venture introduced to public but business details kept private

Space News

A U.S. company called Golden Spike on Dec. 6 unveiled plans to launch privately financed missions to the lunar surface sometime next decade but kept substantially all of the details of its ambitious business venture close to the vest.

Golden Spike plans to use existing rockets and other space hardware to send paying customers to the surface of the Moon. The group bills itself as a "commercial space company" but it is counting for now on foreign governments to provide it with the $7 billion to $8 billion in advance sales it will need in order to launch its first mission around 2020.

If the company can secure a stable of customers on top of those it needs to finance the nonrecurring costs associated with the first mission, subsequent lunar landing missions would cost about $1.5 billion each, Golden Spike chief executive Alan Stern said Dec. 6 during a press conference at the National Press Club here. Stern led NASA's Science Mission Directorate from 2007 to 2008.

"We've found a way to send humans to the Moon for the price of a mid-sized scientific flagship mission," Stern said. "That's a game changer."

Golden Spike would operate contractor-provided hardware for every mission it flies. The company would also provide in-house ground support for these missions. Prior to the first Golden Spike lunar excursion, the company plans to do a demonstration flight to low Earth-orbit around 2018, Stern said.

Stern said Golden Spike, which was formed in 2010 but stayed off the public's radar until recent weeks, believes there is "a $20 billion to $30 billion lunar expedition market" ripe for the picking. He said the company performed a market study in which it identified "15 to 20 or more expeditions of this type out there; nations that can afford to do this that do similarly priced projects in space already." Some of those nations, Stern said, might want to buy more than one Moon mission from Golden Spike.

Stern said Golden Spike had met with representatives from several foreign space agencies already, but he refused to say which ones.

Stern likewise would not say how much money the company has raised so far, or from whom it had raised it. He did say that Golden Spike had not secured the financial backing of billionaire donors, as Internet rumors in the days leading up to the company's public unveiling suggested.

Stern said Golden Spike will derive most of its revenue from ticket sales, but that it will also depend on "substantial, but not majority" revenue from what Stern called media activities. These would include video coverage of missions, naming rights to Golden Spike mission spacecraft, and merchandise.

Stern is not the only former NASA official in the company. Gerry Griffin, former Apollo program flight director and one-time head of the Johnson Space Center in Houston, is chairman of Golden Spike's board of directors. Board members include James French, an aerospace engineer who worked for government contractors during the Apollo era and later at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on landmark missions such as the Viking probe.

One former NASA official who does not work for Golden Spike said the new company appears to have a plausible business case.

"I think they have a very good business model," Charles Miller, president of Arlington, Va.-based consulting firm NexGen Space, told SpaceNews at the Golden Spike briefing here. Miller was formerly senior adviser for commercial space at NASA headquarters. His three-year stint in that position wrapped up in January. "Anyone who's been up to the international space station or has been up to [the deorbited Russian space station] Mir is a potential customer for these guys. There's also Japan, all the European countries, Canada, South Korea and India."

Miller said he had no relationship with Golden Spike, either as a consultant or as one of the independent reviewers the company engaged in 2010 to vet its business model.

For planning purposes, Golden Spike has assumed it will launch its missions aboard either United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas 5 or Space Exploration Technologies' (SpaceX) Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy rockets. The Falcon Heavy, a 27-engine variant of the nine-engine Falcon 9 has yet to be built. It is expected to be ready in 2015 in time to launch the U.S. Air Force's Space Test Program 2 experimental satellite.

For a typical mission, "it requires two launches of two sets of existing launch vehicles for each expedition," Stern said. "That's four launches per expedition. The first pair of launches allows us to preposition our lunar lander in low lunar-orbit. The second pair of launches then sends the crew in a capsule . . . to meet the lander in low lunar-orbit. The crew then enters the lander, they leave the automated capsule in orbit, they descend to the surface and conduct their exploration mission. Now to do this, we need to build the equivalent of the Apollo service module to break us into [lunar] orbit. But we know how to do that."

Other things that would have to be developed for the missions Golden Spike has in mind are space suits and a lunar lander. Golden Spike is working with a plethora of aerospace companies to build that hardware. Among its partners is Masten Space Systems of Mojave, Calif. That company is working on an experimental lunar landing vehicle called Xeus, which would use the tank from ULA's Centaur upper stage and proprietary Masten propulsion systems.

Masten spokesman Colin Ake, reached by email Dec. 6, could not immediately confirm whether Masten's Xeus concept would be part of Golden Spike's hardware lineup.

Stern said that Golden Spike'a roster of suppliers were for now under contract only for studies and designs, not for hardware. These contractors would receive what Stern called "preferred provider status," which would put them high on Golden Spike's list of vendors to buy from, but not guarantee any sales. Other than that, Stern would provide no details about these agreements.

Among the entities Golden Spike is partnering with are:

·         Armadillo Aerospace, Dallas.
·         The International Lunar Observatory Association, Kamuela, Hawaii.
·         Moon Express, a Moffett Field, Calif., startup and Google Lunar X-Prize entrant that proposes sending resource-sniffing robot landers to the lunar poles.
·         Paragon Space Development Corporation, Tucson, Ariz.
·         Space Florida, the state's arm for aerospace-related economic development.
·         The Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, Texas.
·         ULA, Denver.Zero Point Frontiers, Huntsville, Ala.

Fly you to moon by the end of this decade? That'll be $1.4 billion, please

Lee Roop - Huntsville Times

A new company founded by a former Apollo flight director and a NASA chief scientist plans to offer moonwalks to anyone who wants one by the end of the decade, and a well-known Alabama author and Huntsville aerospace company are part of the plan. The moon trip company, called Golden Spike after the final link in America's transcontinental railroad, was announced in Washington today. Its estimate of the starting cost for a two-person roundtrip: $1.4 billion.

Why go to the moon? Golden Spike said it imagines several reasons customers might want to go: scientific exploration and discovery, national prestige, commercial development, marketing, entertainment "and even personal achievement." The potential customers? Nations, corporations, even individuals.

Golden Spike says it will use existing rockets and emerging commercial spacecraft to make its trips. The company says its team has been working on the missions for two years. "A key element that makes our business achievable and compelling is Golden Spike's team of internationally known experts in human and robotic spaceflight, planetary and lunar science, exploration, venture capital formation and public outreach," President Alan Stern told the National Press Club today.

Stern, a former NASA chief scientist, is sharing leadership of the new company with board Chairman Gerry Griffin, former Apollo flight director and NASA Johnson Space Center director. On the new company's advisory board is Huntsville author Homer Hickam, best known for his memoir "Rocket Boys."

Zero Point Frontiers, a Huntsville aerospace analysis and technology company, will analyze ways to get people to the moon on a paying basis. "We have a lot of familiarity with this ground," CEO Jason Hundley said in a statement, "and we can help Golden Spike identify some of the pitfalls we identified when NASA was trying to develop its first lunar lander since Apollo."

Zero Point Frontiers Corp. worked with NASA on trade studies for its now-cancelled Constellation program and is supporting Virgin Galactic's new LauncherOne satellite launch vehicle and Virgin Galactic's effort to develop an even smaller satellite launcher for the Defense Department.

Hutchison, Nelson File Standalone Space Bill

Space News

Having missed perhaps their best shot at renewing a commercial launch liability shield that expires this month and extending NASA's authority to pay Russia for Soyuz rides to the international space station, Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) and Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) introduced a standalone space bill Dec. 5 that stands little chance of being enacted in the closing days of the 112th Congress.

Hutchison and Nelson filed their nine-page bill, the Space Exploration Sustainability Act (S. 3661), the day after the Senate approved the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act (S. 3254) without considering amendments Hutchison and Nelson had offered separately to address launch liability and longstanding restrictions on NASA's ability to buy space station-related goods and services from Russia.

A former congressional aide said the bill has little chance of being enacted before the 112th Congress adjourns. Any pending legislation not enacted before the 113th Congress convenes Jan. 3 would have to be reintroduced.

"The Nelson-Hutchison bill, in its current form, is highly unlikely to make it all the way through the process," the former congressional aide said. "[E]ven if it passes the Senate, I think the [House] Foreign Affairs Committee will have serious problems with the INKSNA piece." Since 2000, NASA has been granted a series of waivers to a provision in the Iran, North Korea, Syria Nonproliferation Act (INKSNA) that would otherwise bar the space agency from paying Russia to fly U.S. astronauts, experiments and supplies to the international space station. NASA has lessened its dependence on Russia's Progress supply ships by contracting with Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) Corp. and Orbital Sciences Corp. to ferry cargo to the space station. The agency is pursuing a similar course for astronaut transportation, spending over $1 billion for the next couple years to help SpaceX, Boeing and Sierra Nevada Corp. to develop U.S. alternatives to Russia's three-person Soyuz capsules. However, NASA expects to keep buying Soyuz rides from Russia — at $65 million per seat, or more — beyond July 1, 2016, when its current INKSNA waiver expires.

Hutchison and Nelson's bill would permanently exempt Soyuz and Progress flights from the INKSNA restrictions by rewording the law so that it only bars NASA from paying Russia for space station-related goods and services that Russia had pledged to provide at its own expense.

The main problem with Hutchison and Nelson's proposed remedy, the former congressional aide said, is that it "fixes the space pieces now and forever, but does nothing for the nonproliferation pieces."

Liability Shield

Less controversially, Hutchison and Nelson's bill would extend through 2014 the U.S. government's authority to indemnify launch service companies from third-party damage claims that exceed $500 million. The current authority expires Dec. 31. The U.S. House of Representatives approved a two-year extension in November.

In addition to the INKSNA and launch indemnification provisions, Hutchison and Nelson's bill includes language meant to ensure that NASA adequately funds its Space Launch System, Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, and Commercial Crew and Cargo programs without robbing one to pay for another.

Lastly, the bill calls NASA to submit a report to Congress within 120 days of enactment describing how the agency's two-pronged human spaceflight program could be leveraged to establish a human presence beyond Earth orbit "through the robust utilization of cis-lunar space."

The administrator would also have to say how human activity in cis-lunar space — the general vicinity of Earth's Moon — could enable crewed missions to the lunar surface, asteroids, Mars and its moons, and "other destinations of interest for future human exploration."

In addition, the report would have to address the economic, scientific and technical merits of NASA activity in cis-lunar space, and identify ways for international collaborators and commercial U.S. companies to contribute to cis-lunar missions. Finally, the administrator's report would have to discuss "commercial ventures that result from an expanded and persistent human presence in cis-lunar space."

NASA has been studying crewed missions to cis-lunar space for years, focusing particularly on so-called lunar Lagrange points. At Lagrange points, the gravitational forces of nearby bodies effectively cancel one another out, allowing a spacecraft — such as a crewed space station — to orbit an otherwise empty point in space.

Hutchison and Nelson filed their bill the same day that the National Research Council released a congressionally mandated report that concluded NASA's current portfolio of missions was unaffordable given the agency's current budget.

If the bill Hutchison and Nelson filed Dec. 5 is not enacted by the end of the month, it would have to be reintroduced in the 113th Congress, which convenes in January. Hutchison, who has been a fierce advocate for NASA in general and the agency's Houston-based Johnson Space Center in particular, did not run for re-election in November and is ending her 24-year Senate career come January.

Khrunichev Completes Nauka Space Station Module

RIA Novosti

Russia's Khrunichev space company has completed assembly of the Nauka ("Science") multirole laboratory module for the International Space Station, Khrunichev said today.

The module will now be tested by the RKK Energia corporation.

"Work has been completed on assembly of the multirole laboratory module for the International Space Station (ISS). The module was sent to RKK Energia on December 7 for further electronic testing of the flight systems," Khrunichev said.

Khrunichev is responsible for the main structure of Nauka, its engine installation, thermal regulatory and fire-safety systems. It is also responsible for the interface between the laboratory and the Proton rocket which will take it into space in March 2014.

The ISS currently has five Russian-built modules: the Zvezda service module, the Zarya cargo block, the Pirs docking module, the Poisk ("Search") research module and Rassvet ("Dawn") research module.

The launch of Nauka was originally planned for 2011 but has been repeatedly delayed.

Work started on the module in 1995. In order to simplify the configuration of the Russian segment of the ISS, the Nauka module was based on the FGB-2 module. MLM will carry out commercial projects with the aim of attracting private finance.

MLM will also carry out a range of other functions including life-support, steering the ISS with its attached motor, docking with cargo vessels and fuel transit from Progress cargo ships to the Zvezda module.

Using special cameras on the sides of the MLM and ERA, it will be possible to move equipment and stores from the airtight sections of the station to its outer surface without the necessity of making exits into open space. MLM will have space for three astronauts to work in.

MLM will be attached to a part of the Zvezda module, replacing the existing Pirs module, which will be discarded.

Dordain Hopes ESA's Orion Contribution Will Spur Common Crew Vehicle
ESA wants to use Orion to widen trans-Atlantic collaboration

Peter de Selding - Space News

The European Space Agency (ESA) wants to use the recently approved European contribution to NASA's Orion crew transport vehicle as a tool to widen trans-Atlantic collaboration to include a common space exploration vehicle, ESA Director-General Jean-Jacques Dordain said.

While Europe and the United States would retain their own launch vehicle capabilities for strategic autonomy, he said, exploration vehicles should be developed as collaborative ventures to avoid duplication.

"We're basically talking about development of a truck," Dordain said. "Is everyone going to develop his own truck? I have informed NASA that on my next trip to Washington I want to start talking about this."

In a Nov. 29 press briefing with the French aerospace journalists association, Dordain said he wanted to avoid repeating what he called the "monumental error" committed by the partners of the international space station in developing separate transport vehicles to serve the station.

Given that transport costs account for about 50 percent of the total investment in a space exploration program, he said, the fact that the United States, Russia, Japan and Europe funded separate cargo carriers means none had sufficient funds to build a large-scale experiment-return vehicle.

"The only nation in the world now that runs an exploration program on its own is China, and I hope that will change," Dordain said. "It is obvious that this should be done as part of an international effort."

ESA governments on Nov. 21 agreed to join NASA in building the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, with ESA to spend some 455 million euros ($592 million) to provide Orion's service module.

That money would be owed to NASA in any event as Europe's share of the station's common operating costs between 2018 and 2020. The partners have agreed to operate the facility at least until then.

ESA's common operating cost obligation through 2017 is being paid by flights of Europe's Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) cargo carrier. The fifth and final ATV is scheduled for launch in 2014.

ESA had trouble securing support for the Orion program, with several governments, notably France, saying Europe should be able to find something with a higher public profile to meet its obligation to NASA.

But these governments ultimately agreed to spend 255 million euros in the next two years on the Orion work, with the remaining 200 million euros to come in 2014.

In accepting to participate in the Orion program, France said it would limit its participation to 20 percent of the total.

In what Dordain agreed was the surprise of the Nov. 20-21 ministerial conference, the British government agreed to spend 20 million euros on the Orion work. Britain has remained outside of the space station program, and outside of Europe's launcher efforts as well.

The Orion work was bundled into a total space station funding package totaling 1.32 billion euros between 2012 and 2014. Led by Germany, which retained its leadership of Europe's station effort with a commitment to finance 40.7 percent of that sum, ESA collected subscriptions for slightly less than 1.1 billion euros.

The missing money will need to be found in the coming months, or ESA will cut back on its discretionary spending on its space station use.

While Britain's arrival as a space station supporter was a positive surprise, the substantial drop in Italian participation was a negative. Italy committed to just 9.25 percent of the total package, which is about half its participation in previous space station investments in Europe.

Enrico Saggese, president of the Italian Space Agency (ASI), said in a Nov. 21 briefing after the Naples conference that in recent years Italy has received an insufficient amount of ESA space station contracts for Italian industry, and is reducing its participation to account for that.

ESA commonly guarantees that its member states' industry will receive contracts equivalent to 90 percent of each nation's contributions to an ESA program.

Saggese said Italian industry has received contracts valued at just 60 percent of Italy's contributions.

In the briefing, Dordain reiterated that he would force ESA to reduce its internal costs by 25 percent by 2015, through reductions in staff and also through outsourcing of services ESA now provides. He said ESA's annual internal costs total about 500 million euros.

US Needs New Deep-Space Agency, Apollo Astronaut Says

Mike Wall - Space.com

The United States should create a new agency dedicated to manned exploration of the moon, Mars and other destinations in deep space, a former Apollo astronaut says.

Human exploration of such far-flung locales is a challenging proposition, so it would benefit from the type of laser-like attention that NASA gave its Apollo moon program back in the 1960s and early '70s, said Harrison Schmitt, who walked on the lunar surface on the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.

"You need to have an agency that is focused on that, and almost nothing else," Schmitt said here today (Dec. 6) at the annual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union. He recommends that the government "create a new agency that can indeed learn the lessons of Apollo and apply them."

Having a singular purpose is just one of those lessons. Most of the engineers and scientists who made Apollo such a success were young people in their 20s, whose ideas and optimism were allowed to bubble up to the highest levels of NASA, Schmitt said.

Schmitt, who later served as a one-term U.S. senator, suggests the new agency be called the National Space Exploration Administration. He first put forward the idea in an online proposal published in May 2011.

The new deep-space agency should "stay young, and develop a management structure that is not so hierarchical — that is actually a flat, level management structure so young ideas can reach the top very quickly," added Schmitt, who was the 12th and final person to set foot on the moon, and the only trained geologist to do so. "That happened in Apollo."

Schmitt was speaking on the eve of the 40th anniversary of his Apollo 17 launch, which blasted off Dec. 7, 1972. Since that mission, no human has been back to the moon.

Schmitt thinks a new deep-space exploration agency should have an open portfolio and consider a wide variety of destinations. But he believes strongly that the moon is the first body astronauts should target beyond low-Earth orbit.

"My feeling is, by going back to the moon, you accelerate your ability to go anywhere else — both in terms of experience and in terms of resources, and testing new hardware and navigation techniques, communication techniques and things like that," Schmitt said. "And it's only three days away."

Schmitt stressed that his recommendation is not meant as a rebuke of any kind to NASA, which he said "is doing an absolutely remarkable job with the missions it's been allowed to proceed with."

NASA had been working toward sending astronauts to the moon by 2020, under a program called Constellation that was initiated during the George W. Bush administration. In 2010, President Barack Obama cancelled Constellation after an independent review panel found it to be significantly behind schedule and over budget.

Obama instead directed NASA to get humans to a near-Earth asteroid by 2025, then on to the vicinity of Mars by the mid-2030s. The agency is currently developing a huge rocket called the Space Launch System and a crew capsule called Orion to make all of this happen.

Space is calling
Astronaut on the International Space Station answers 20 Kline School students' questions about being in orbit

Jeremiah Dobruck - Los Angeles Times

Students at Kline School in Costa Mesa made an especially long-distance call Thursday, first to northern Italy and then bounced by ham radio to the International Space Station.

Twenty students had been prepped and handed scripts with their questions as required by NASA. They were lined up in front of a microphone, waiting in a silent but crowded room on campus.

"We don't want to lose even a split second of time, so they're holding their papers and maybe shaking," said Susan Kline, founder and director of the school.

They were about to speak to Cmdr. Kevin Ford in orbit as part of the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station program.

The operator across the globe began reciting calls signs as he tried to raise Ford, once, twice, and after switching frequencies, the astronaut's voice came in through the speaker on the third try.

"This is OR4ISS loud and clear on Channel 46," Ford said and began answering a rapid-fire list of questions

"Isaac, we can go anywhere in the space station we want to at any time, no clearance required anywhere. ... Of course we would need special permission to go outside the space station, over."

"Well, we tried to see [the solar eclipse] Tyler, but we couldn't. They told us there would be a big dark splotch on the ground in the distance like a shadow. We really wanted to see it but we couldn't, over."

"I think we'll be back on the moon with a habitation there. I hope the United States is part of the team, because somebody in the world will do it ... Maybe it won't take 40 years, maybe it will only be 20, over."

Doug Borcoman, the parent of a former Kline student and an amateur radio operator, helped the Mesa Verde private school set up contact. He said his heart was still beating hard afterward.

"You always have that moment of doubt that there's some kind of problem with the telebridge or some other thing," he said, crediting their contact in Italy and the ARISS moderator for running a superb call. "I'm so excited about this."

By the students' measure, the experience was out of this world.

"It was more than I expected," sixth-grader Brandon True said. "I can't believe I actually heard his voice."

As the ISS sped toward the horizon over Italy, static cut into the transmission as Ford explained astronauts do see shooting stars, they just look down at them instead of up as they burn up through the Earth's atmosphere.

Kline students managed to squeeze in all 20 of their questions with a few dozen seconds to spare.

Science teacher Sean Butler raised the microphone high as the crowded clapped and cheered, thanking Ford before he signed off:

"Thank you very much. OR4ISS out."

Next space station crew to write history for Canada

Justin Ray – SpaceflightNow.com

The next international crew destined to live aboard the space station, including the first Canadian that will command the complex, flew to the Baikonur Cosmodrome on Thursday to begin final preparations for launch.

Chris Hadfield from the Canadian Space Agency, NASA's Tom Marshburn and Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko jetted from the Star City training facility outside Moscow to the launch base in Kazakhstan as their Dec. 19 blastoff aboard Soyuz TMA-07M nears.

All veteran space fliers, Hadfield and Marshburn were former space shuttle crewmembers and Romanenko was aboard the station as its resident team doubled to the full six-person size.

Their launch is planned for 1212 GMT (7:12 a.m. EST) on Dec. 19, rocketing into orbit atop the three-stage Soyuz booster in pursuit of the station for docking Dec. 21 at 1421 GMT (9:21 a.m. EST).

They will merge into the existing Expedition 34 crew of commander Kevin Ford and Russian cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Evgeni Tarelkin, working alongside with them through March 15 when that trio comes home and leaves Hadfield, Marshburn and Romanenko to create Expedition 35 for the rest of their tour-of-duty that extends to May 14, for a total launch-to-landing mission duration of 146 days.

It will be in those final two months that Hadfield assumes control of the International Space Station, becoming the first Canadian commander.

"For Canada, I am their very first spaceship commander. It is an affirmation to my country, from the trust and the respect and the capability Canada has on a world stage and a real cutting-edge technological stage and something in the human experience that is in a parallel of the great explorations, the first explorers that created Canada as it is," Hadfield says.

"It is a big event...It is great big event for Canada."

Over the next couple of weeks at Baikonur, the crew will climb inside their Soyuz capsule soon after arriving and again closer to launch for a series of fit-checks, perform some final training drills, exercise every day and spend time visiting with family before going away for five months.

But throughout the launch base stay, Hadfield, Marshburn and Romanenko will be kept in medical quarantine to prevent getting sick before flight.

"We don't want to get something as simple as a head cold, like JO Creighton back '90 and it delayed a shuttle launch. We need a quarantine, it's just smart after investing all of this time," Hadfield said.

"But it's also a time to see our vehicle up close. It's sort of like a dress rehearsal -- we get into our spacesuits, we get into the vehicle, down into our seats and it's a chance to compare the real thing to what we've been training in the simulator, find out the things that are different than the sim, reach and touch and look at things."

Hadfield, 53, was raised on a corn farm in southern Ontario, decided at just 9 years old that he wanted to be astronaut, became a pilot as a teenage and ascended to the rank of colonel in the Canadian Air Force. He flew aboard two space shuttle missions, visiting two different space stations in the process.

His first spaceflight delivered a docking module to the Russian space station Mir aboard shuttle Atlantis in November 1995, becoming the first Canadian to operate the shuttle's Canadarm in orbit, and then helped install the next-generation Canadarm2 on the International Space Station aboard shuttle Endeavour's mission in April 2001, becoming the first Canadian spacewalker on that flight.

He will be seated as the co-pilot aboard the Soyuz for launch and landing, assisting Romanenko in those phases of flight.

"The training is incredibly in-depth. I spent one year here just going through the motion-control laws and the systems involved of the Soyuz. So you become incredibly familiar and competent in all of the systems and understanding exactly how that vehicle works. Then in the last year (of training) has largely been in the simulator, putting together all of those technical and theoretical things you learned and now making it all happen in the simulator," Hadfield said.

Marshburn, 52, was born in Statesville, North Carolina, and earned a degree in physics and a masters in engineering physics before working on a doctorate in medicine and a masters in medical science. He was an emergency room doctor and a NASA flight surgeon until being selected as an astronaut, flying once aboard shuttle Endeavour in July 2009 that completed the Japanese laboratory segment of the International Space Station.

He has 16 days in space and three spacewalks on his astronaut resume.

Romanenko, 41, is a major in the Russian Air Force and the son of Soviet-era cosmonaut Yuri Romanenko. The younger Romanenko spent 188 days aboard the International Space Station in 2009 as a member of Expeditions 20 and 21 when the outpost expanded to the full six-person crew.

Chris Hadfield ready for 'surreal' space station odyssey
Astronaut in quarantine before blasting off in Russian capsule

Janet Davison - Canadian Broadcasting Co.

When Chris Hadfield was a southern Ontario farmboy dreaming of being an astronaut, it just couldn't happen.

Canada had no astronaut program and no Canadian could realistically expect to follow in the American footsteps Neil Armstrong had planted as the first man on the moon in that steamy summer of 1969.

Forty-three years later, the trail-blazing Hadfield is in quarantine in Kazakhstan, waiting to blast off in a Soyuz capsule for the International Space Station, making history — again — when he takes over as its first Canadian commander in March.

"For me, it is just surreal," the 53-year-old astronaut said in an interview this week from Star City, Russia, where he spent several weeks training ahead of the Dec. 19 liftoff.

Hadfield talks thoughtfully of the professional and national significances of his upcoming command.

"As an astronaut, it's a pinnacle," he says. "It is the highest level of responsibility of an astronaut to command a spaceship because of course, the lives of the … people on board are my responsibility."

As a Canadian, he sees it as the latest notable step in the country's 50-year-old space program, which began when a 145-kilogram Alouette-1 satellite piggybacked on a U.S. rocket.

"It did very well, but still was, in perspective, a fairly small thing to the point now where you go through all of the satellites, the technologies, Radarsat, Canadarm, Marc Garneau, the other astronauts that have flown, now to the point that a Canadian is commanding a spaceship," he says.

Doing cartwheels

But when Hadfield considers the personal significance of his upcoming command, that giddy schoolboy enthusiasm he had in Milton, Ont., in the late 1960s seeps out again.

"To be able to command the space station, yes, it's professional, and yes I'll take it seriously and yes it's important for Canada, but for me as just a Canadian kid, it makes me want to shout and laugh and do cartwheels."

In ways, it seems, he cannot believe what he's about to do.

"You expect someone to come in and go, 'Wait a minute, you aren't a guy that could command a spaceship, come on.' You expect to get busted by somebody because it's just such an unlikely thing to ever happen in your life, and so it absolutely thrills me just as a person."

It's a thrill 20 years in the making.

Hadfield, a Canadian Forces fighter pilot who has a degree in mechanical engineering from Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., was chosen to become one of four new Canadian astronauts in 1992.

Since then, he's flown on two NASA space shuttle flights and became the first Canadian to operate the Canadarm in orbit. He has done two spacewalks, and was the first Canadian to float freely in space. Training for the space station mission has consumed the past four years.

Key to all of his preparation over the past two decades, Hadfield says, is knowing how to learn.

Staying alive

"There's so many things that we need to know just to keep us alive, but also to be successful and I was lucky enough to come through a Canadian education system that not only taught me facts but taught me how to learn, how to put things into my brain so that I can get them later or if I can't, how to put together a decent set of cheat notes so that I can refer to it six months from now," he says.

"If we don't do our first grapple of a visiting vehicle with the Canadarm until May, you know, how am I going to be fresh and keen and sharp on everything with as complex a thing as Canadarm2 if I haven't actually had my hands in one since here in the simulator … in late November?"

But for all the information he has stored in his mind, these weeks now are a time to strip down to what really matters to him for the next few months on the space station.

"We really need to pay attention to the core of what's happening and that is on the afternoon of the 19th of December, to be able to walk out to the spaceship, healthy, well rested and with everything in order in our lives so that we can be absolutely ready to handle whatever goes on for the next six months," he says.

"That goes right from a fire or a problem with the vehicle sitting on the launch pad, a launch abort or problems docking or any sort of problem that might occur during our five months on the station and then our return to Earth in late May."

Even more mundane matters have been on his mind, like making sure everything is sorted out for filing his taxes.

"It's kind of almost a stripping away of the noise of life and focusing very much on the specific music of what needs to happen now."

When not consumed with experiments, spacewalks and just making sure all is well on the space station, Hatfield would also like to make some real music. A guitarist, he hopes to record songs he composed with his brother. Hadfield hopes to premiere a new song for Music Monday 2013 in March, an interstellar jam session with Ed Robertson of the Barenaked Ladies performing back on Earth.

'Nose to the glass'

Other quieter moments could give Hadfield time to put his "nose to the glass" and look back to Earth.

"Just seeing our world in a way that you can't see it any other place — it's a wonderful, constantly changing, mesmerizing view."

For all the lofty plans he has for the next few months, Hadfield is still rooted in his Canadian upbringing, wondering during this week's interview just how the weather was in southern Ontario. On his Twitter feed, one of the last photos he posted from Star City showed a stunning church glistening in the sunshine, and he made special note of something else in the picture: a snowblower.

As the days countdown to Dec. 19, Hadfield is full of hope that his mission will live up to all those dreams born watching Neil Armstrong.

"But if it doesn't, that's OK, too," Hadfield says. "We will do our very best to make it go that way."

West Orange astronaut braces for unprecedented year in space

Associated Press

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly is already bracing for an unprecedented one-year mission aboard the International Space Station. He figures it will be as grueling as climbing Mount Everest.

"It's fun when you're done with it, not while you're doing it," Kelly said Wednesday, barely a week after being named to the marathon flight along with Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko.

The mission, which is set to begin in 2015, is intended as a medical test bed for even longer Mars expeditions in the decades ahead.

Space station life can be routine, Kelly noted during a news conference.

"In the morning, you wake up, you're at work. When you go to sleep, you're also at work. So imagine being in your office for a whole year and you never get to leave," he said. "That is a challenge and it presents its own set of issues, but I think I'm up for it."

As for being off the planet for that long, Kelly said he already knows how he reacts to horrific news while in orbit.

During his five-month space station mission that spanned 2010 and 2011, his sister-in-law, former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, was shot in an assassination attempt in Tucson, Arizona. She is married to Kelly's identical twin, Mark, who retired as a NASA astronaut last year.

"Certainly, nothing good comes out of anything like this. But as a result, I do know how I respond to something along those lines," he said.

Kelly, 48, a Navy captain, has two daughters from a previous marriage, ages 9 and 18. The youngest, Charlotte, screamed "awesome" when she learned her father was selected for the one-year mission.

Brother Mark was all for it. So was Giffords. When Mark told his wife, she said, "a year in space, that's great," Scott Kelly said in a phone interview with The Associated Press.

Meanwhile, in Russia, Kornienko's wife wept at the news. The 52-year-old cosmonaut, a rocket engineer with one daughter, said he initially had some doubts about taking on such a challenge. He previously spent six months in space.

"A year is a serious time," Kornienko said in Russian. But he said his doubts did not last long, "and actually it was my initiative."

Kelly was among four astronauts on NASA's short list for the assignment. Each had served as a commander aboard the space station, and was able to perform spacewalks and robot arm operations. Medical information also went into the selection: A crew member could not have exceeded his limit for exposure to cosmic radiation, for instance.

Kelly said he has no idea how or why he ended up being chosen. He will set a U.S. space endurance record with this mission. No American has spent more than seven months in space at a time.

Russia, on the other hand, already has experience with yearlong space travel. But it's limited to the old Mir space station and more than a decade has passed.

Four Russian cosmonauts have spent at least one uninterrupted year in space. Another two came close.

The world record — 14 months in a single mission — is held by Dr. Valery Polyakov.

"They all are alive and well today. Their health status is quite good for their age," said Dr. Igor Ushakov, director of the Institute for Biological Problems in Moscow.

Ushakov warned that the medical risks will be at least double what they are on the more typical six-month mission.

NASA space station program scientist Julie Robinson expects the two men to come back just fine. They will watch an assortment of multinational crews come and go during their tenure; up to six people live on the orbiting outpost at any one time.

The loss of bone mass is not nearly the problem it used to be in weightlessness because of improved exercise equipment and procedures, she said. The newest concern is impaired vision related to pressure on the brain and spinal cord; in some cases, astronauts suffer vision problems long after their flight.

In a chart held up by the director of Russia's piloted space program, Alexey Krasnov, nearly half the slots were red, indicating medical risks to eventual trips to the moon, asteroids and Mars.

"There are many things we don't know," Krasnov said. "We should take some risks upon ourselves" now before embarking on such ambitious endeavors beyond Earth's orbit.

Too early to announce Sarah Brightman's visit to ISS - Roscosmos

Interfax

The Russian Federal Space Agency has not yet decided whether a space tourist, British soprano singer Sarah Brightman, or a professional crewmember will fly to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2015, Roscosmos manned programs chief Alexei Krasnov said, answering a question from Interfax-AVN.

"It is premature to say for certain whether Sarah Brightman, a European astronaut or a Russian cosmonaut will fly there. This issue is still open. We will be able to give more concrete information a little later," he said.

Roscosmos does not hold any official obligations today regarding Brightman's visit to the ISS, Krasnov said.

A spokesman for the Space Adventures company's Moscow office told Interfax-AVN on Wednesday that this firm had finalized all of the agreements needed for Brightman's flight to the ISS as a space tourist.

All legal issues have been sorted out and the contract with Sarah Brightman has been signed, the spokesman said.

It was reported earlier that the British singer is expected to visit the ISS as a space tourist in October 2015.

Apollo 17, 40 Years Later: An Astronaut Reflects

Mike Wall - Space.com

The last manned mission to the moon launched 40 years ago today, but astronaut Harrison Schmitt remembers it like it was yesterday.

NASA's Apollo 17 mission blasted off in the early hours of Dec. 7, 1972, carrying Schmitt, Gene Cernan and Ron Evans toward Earth's nearest neighbor. Four days later, Schmitt became the 12th and final person — and the only trained geologist — to set foot on the moon when he and Cernan emerged from their lunar module, Challenger.

The passage of four decades has not dimmed Harrison "Jack" Schmitt's recollections much.

"The memory is extremely vivid," Schmitt said here Thursday (Dec. 6) at the annual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union. "And I actually refer back to the transcripts enough that I think I'm keeping that memory correct."

No particular moment from the 12-day mission stands out as his favorite, he added.

"I treasure the whole mission. Every day had more than one really spectacular event," Schmitt said. "The first day, we saw this nearly full Earth, and I was able to take that picture of Africa — still the most-requested photograph in the NASA archives. And it just went on from that."

Schmitt did identify one Apollo 17 science find as particularly important, however — the discovery of "orange soil," which turned out to be composed of tiny beads of volcanic glass. Recently, researchers spotted trace amounts of water within these beads and others like them brought back to Earth by Apollo astronauts.

The discovery of indigenous lunar water has helped reshape scientists' understanding of the moon's formation and how it has evolved over time.

No person has set foot on the moon since Schmitt and Cernan clambered back into the Challenger lunar module for the final time 40 years ago. But Schmitt thinks that should change, and soon.

He advocates for a human return to the moon, which could serve as a stepping stone to other deep-space destinations such as near-Earth asteroids and Mars.

"By going back to the moon, you accelerate your ability to go anywhere else — both in terms of experience and in terms of resources, and testing new hardware and navigation techniques, communication techniques and things like that," Schmitt said. "And it's only three days away."

NASA is currently working to get astronauts to an asteroid by 2025 and then on to the vicinity of Mars by the mid-2030s, as directed by President Barack Obama. The space agency is developing a crew capsule called Orion and a huge rocket known as the Space Launch System to make this happen.

SLS and Orion could also carry astronauts to the moon and its environs, and NASA officials have recently stated a desire to do just that.

"We just recently delivered a comprehensive report to Congress outlining our destinations which makes clear that SLS will go way beyond low-Earth orbit to explore the expansive space around the Earth-moon system, near-Earth asteroids, the moon, and ultimately, Mars," NASA deputy chief Lori Garver said at a conference in September.

Missing moon rocks from 1969 mission back in Alaska
Rocks disappeared from Anchorage transportation museum in '73 after arsonist torched building

Associated Press

Alaska's moon rocks from the 1969 Apollo 11 mission are back in the 49th state after going missing for nearly 40 years. They had been displayed at an Anchorage transportation museum in 1973 when an arsonist torched the building.

The tiny rocks, originally presented to state officials by then president Richard Nixon, had disappeared until late 2010 when the foster son of the museum director, Coleman Anderson, claimed he had rescued them from rubble destined for a landfill. He subsequently sued to claim ownership.

State officials were sceptical of the story and countersued. Assistant Attorney General Stephen Slotnick says evidence collected in the case persuaded Anderson to relinquish his claim. The stones are encased in acrylic glass and mounted in a walnut plaque.

The rocks will be shown at the state museum in Juneau this month before being displayed elsewhere around the state. Apollo 11 landed the first humans, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, on the moon on 20 July 1969. Armstrong was the first to walk on the lunar surface.

END

Keep the shuttle flying

Friday, December 7, 2012

Fwd: Human Spaceflight News - December 7, 2012 and JSC Today

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