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: March 11, 2013 6:40:22 AM GMT-06:00
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: Human Spaceflight News - March 11, 2013 and JSC Today

Monday, March 11, 2013

JSC TODAY HEADLINES
1.            JSC: See the Space Station
2.            Grocery Store Tour -- Tomorrow, March 12, at 5 p.m.
3.            JSC Safety Action Team (JSAT) Nature Walks
4.            FaconSAT-6 Nurtures Collaboration Between Young Cadets and NASA
5.            Co-op Housing Committee Seeks New Rental Property Submissions
6.            Recent JSC Announcement
7.            JSC Lunarfins Scuba Club Meeting
8.            Where Do I Find Job Opportunities?
9.            Registration Deadline - APPEL Scheduling and Cost Control
10.          RLLS Translation, Telecon, Interpreter and Meeting Support Training
11.          Crane Operations and Rigging Safety Refresher: March 27 - Building 20, Room 205/206
12.          Scaffold Users Seminar: March 28 - Building 20, Room 205/206
________________________________________     NASA FACT
" Several studies traveling to station aboard the second SpaceX Dragon involve a small flowering plant called thale cress, or Arabidopsis thaliana, which is essentially the lab mouse of plant research."
________________________________________
1.            JSC: See the Space Station
Viewers in the JSC area will be able to see the International Space Station this week.
Tuesday, March 12, 7:06 a.m. (Duration: 6 minutes)
Path: 11 degrees above SW to 12 degrees above NE
Maximum elevation: 64 degrees
Wednesday, March 13, 6:17 a.m. (Duration: 3 minutes)
Path: 27 degrees above SSW to 25 degrees above ENE
Maximum elevation: 51 degrees
Friday, March 15, 6:13 a.m. (Duration: 3 minutes)
Path: 41 degrees above NW to 10 degrees above NNE
Maximum elevation: 41 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.            Grocery Store Tour -- Tomorrow, March 12, at 5 p.m.
Ever wonder why the fresh foods are along the outside areas of the grocery store and the processed foods are in the center isles? Do grocery store marketing tricks really work? Join the JSC Dietitian to learn more about the subtle ways grocery stores focus your attention on the foods they want you to buy. The tour will take approximately one-and-a-half hours. Family members are welcome! Pre-registration is required, and registration is limited. Class details will be provided to participants via email prior to class. Email Glenda Blaskey to sign up for this class today!
If you're working on improving your approach to healthy nutrition but can't attend a class, we offer free one-on-one consultations with Glenda Blaskey, the JSC Registered Dietitian.
Glenda Blaskey x41503

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3.            JSC Safety Action Team (JSAT) Nature Walks
The JSAT Wellness Group will resume its spring nature walks this month on public walking trails in the Clear Lake area. These relatively short walks (about three miles over one hour) provide an introduction to walking and hiking on natural terrain and paved trails in various local parks and natural areas. There will be information presented on safety and health issues, as well as local plants, trees and wildlife of this area. The groups are normally small, but any employee or family member at JSC is eligible to participate. Participants may walk faster or slower than the main group in most cases. The walks are scheduled weekly at various locations in the Clear Lake area. Additional walks will be scheduled based upon demand.
Please notify the JSC fitness director, Richard Wooten (x35010), if you are interested. Your registration will be confirmed by return email.
Richard Wooten x35010

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4.            FaconSAT-6 Nurtures Collaboration Between Young Cadets and NASA
Read about how a partnership between NASA and United States Air Force cadets is creating a win-win situation as it provides these cadets with real-world experience while JSC shares equipment and expertise to support their mission. You can find the article on JSC Features or the JSC home page.
JSC External Relations, Office of Communications and Public Affairs x33317

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5.            Co-op Housing Committee Seeks New Rental Property Submissions
Do you have a rental property or an extra room in your house that you would be willing to rent to a co-op/intern for a semester or two? Need a roommate? Need a house sitter for a few months? Co-ops and interns at JSC rely on the housing committee to provide quality, affordable housing during their work tours at JSC. If you would like to submit your property for the housing board, please email jsccoophousing@gmail.com with the location and your contact information. Civil servants, contractors, as well as friends of employees are also eligible, so feel free to pass along the email if you know of someone with housing availability. Please note that property eligibility will be determined by the housing committee.
Jennifer Turner 614-432-4141 http://www.jsccoophousing.com/

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6.            Recent JSC Announcement
Please visit the JSC Announcements (JSCA) Web page to view the newly posted announcement:
JSCA 13-009: Communications with Industry Procurement Solicitation for JSC Engineering, Technology, and Science (JETS) 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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7.            JSC Lunarfins Scuba Club Meeting
The JSC Scuba Club will hold its monthly meeting Wednesday, March 13, at 7 p.m. The club meets at the Clear Lake Park Recreation Center (south side of NASA Parkway). We are expecting to have a wide variety of club business to take care of, so we will not be having an invited guest speaker for this month. We need to plan for the April 10 open house at the Gilruth, recruit volunteers for the safety fair, elect officers and discuss and vote on the bylaws. However, a few folks have created picture shows to walk down memory lane in celebration of 50 years for the club. It should be fun to see faces from days gone by! Don't forget -- this is THE month to renew your membership.
Barbara Corbin x36215

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8.            Where Do I Find Job Opportunities?
Both internal Competitive Placement Plan (CPPs) and external JSC job announcements are posted on the Human Resources (HR) Portal and USAJOBS website. Through the HR portal, civil servants can view summaries of all the agency jobs that are currently open at: https://hr.nasa.gov/portal/server.pt/community/employees_home/239/job_opportu...
To help you navigate to JSC vacancies, use the filter drop-down menu and select "JSC HR." The "Jobs" link will direct you to the USAJOBS website for the complete announcement and the ability to apply online. If you have questions about any JSC job vacancies, please call your HR representative.
Lisa Pesak x30476

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9.            Registration Deadline - APPEL Scheduling and Cost Control
This four-day course focuses on managing project constraints including limits on time, human resources, materials, budget, and specifications. It also helps participants to develop effective measures for scheduling and controlling projects as they put the tools of project management to work.
Participants will get hands-on experiences practicing skills in building project requirements and the work breakdown structure. Individual and small-group exercises feature scenarios that hone competencies and skills, and a comprehensive tool kit provides practical field guidance.
This course is designed for NASA's technical workforce, including systems engineers and project personnel who seek to develop the competencies required to succeed as a leader of a project team, functional team, or small project.
This course is open for self-registration in SATERN until tomorrow and is available to civil-servants and contractors on a space-available basis.
Dates: Tuesday-Friday, April 16-19
Location: Building 12, Room 146
Zeeaa Quadri x39723 https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=SCHED...

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10.          RLLS Translation, Telecon, Interpreter and Meeting Support Training
TechTrans International will provide 30-minute WebEx training classes on March 13, 14 and 15 for the RLLS Portal modules. The following is a summary of the training dates offered:
Translation - Wednesday, March 13, at 2 p.m.
Telecon - Thursday, March 14, at 10 a.m.
Interpretation Support - Thursday, March 14, at 2 p.m.
Meeting Support - Friday, March 15, at 2 p.m.
o             Locating desired support request module
o             Quick view summary page for support request
o             Create new support request
o             Submittal requirements
o             Submitting on behalf of another individual
o             Adding attachment (agenda, references)
o             Selecting special requirements (export control)
o             Submitting a request
o             Status of request records
o             View request records
o             Contacting RLLS support
Please send an email to James.E.Welty@nasa.gov or call 281-335-8565 to sign up for these RLLS Support WebEx training courses. Classes are limited to the first 20 individuals registered.
James Welty 281-335-8565 https://www.tti-portal.com

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11.          Crane Operations and Rigging Safety Refresher: March 27 - Building 20, Room 205/206
SMA-SAFE-NSTC-0028: This course serves as a refresher in overhead crane safety and awareness for operators, riggers, signalmen, supervisors and safety personnel, and updates their understanding of existing federal and NASA standards and regulations related to such cranes. Areas of concentration include: general safety in crane operations, testing, inspections, pre-lift plans and safe rigging. This course is intended to provide the classroom training for re-certification of already qualified crane operators, or for those who have only a limited need for overhead crane safety knowledge. There will be a final exam associated with this course, which must be passed with a 70 percent minimum score to receive course credit.
Use this direct link for registration. https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=SCHEDULED_...
Event Date: Wednesday, March 27, 2013   Event Start Time:8:00 AM   Event End Time:12:00 PM
Event Location: Building 29/Room 205/206 Safety Learning Center

Add to Calendar

Shirley Robinson x41284

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12.          Scaffold Users Seminar: March 28 - Building 20, Room 205/206
SMA-SAFE-NSTC-0316: This four-hour course is based on Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) CFR 1910.28 and 1926.451, requirements for scaffolding safety in the general and construction industries. During the course, the student will receive an overview of those topics needed to work safely on scaffolds, including: standards, terminology and inspection of scaffold components; uses of scaffolds; fall protection requirements; signs and barricades; and more. Those individuals desiring to become "competent persons" for scaffolds should take the three-day Scaffold Safety course, SMA-SAFE-NSTC-0312. This course will be primarily presented via the NASA target audience: Safety, Reliability, Quality, and Maintainability professionals; and anyone working on operations requiring the use of scaffolds. There will be a final exam associated with this course, which must be passed with a 70 percent minimum score to receive course credit.
Use this direct link for registration. https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=SCHEDULED_...
Event Date: Thursday, March 28, 2013   Event Start Time:8:00 AM   Event End Time:11:00 AM
Event Location: Building 20/Room 205/206 Safety Learning Center

Add to Calendar

Shirley Robinson x41284

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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.

NASA TV:
·         10:30 am Central (11:30 EDT) – NASA Exploration Design Challenge Kickoff Event
·         12:25 pm Central (1:25 EDT) – E34's Chris Hadfield "Let's Talk Science" w/high school students in Airdrie, Alberta

Human Spaceflight News
Monday, March 11, 2013

HEADLINES AND LEADS

Next space station-bound crew flying fast track to orbiting outpost

Robert Pearlman - collectSPACE.com

NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy is on the fast track to the International Space Station (ISS). Not only is he and his two cosmonaut crewmates the next in line to fly to the orbiting laboratory, but they will be the first of the space station's residents to arrive on board the ISS on the same day that they launched. Up until to now, the same trip has taken two days. Set to lift off on Russia's Soyuz TMA-08M spacecraft on March 28 at 4:43 p.m. EDT (2043 GMT) — it will be early March 29 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Russia's launch site in Kazakhstan — Cassidy, together with Roscosmos cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov and Aleksandr Misurkin will reach the station in less time than a typical transatlantic flight.

Chris Hadfield takes care of Space Station spills

Canadian Space Agency (YouTube)

Astronaut Chris Hadfield gives us a demonstration of how astronauts clean up spills on the International Space Station (ISS). Hadfield is in the midst of Expedition 34/35, a five-month mission that will conclude on May 13. (NO FURTHER TEXT)

NASA official describes commercial crew and Its Importance to human space exploration

Jason Rhian - AmericaSpace.org

AmericaSpace spoke with Trent Smith with NASA's Commercial Crew Program. He detailed the basics behind efforts to cede responsibility of delivering crew and cargo to low-Earth orbit (LEO), primarily to the International Space Station, to commercial companies. Under this plan, this should allow NASA to focus on sending crews beyond Earth's influence for the first time in over forty years.

SpaceX conducts fourth Grasshopper launch; doubles previous altitude

Mike Killian - AmericaSpace.org

This past Saturday, Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, performed a fourth test flight of their Grasshopper Vertical Takeoff and Landing Vehicle (VTVL) at the company's rocket development facility in McGregor, Texas. The 10-story tall suborbital reusable rocket, under the power of one kerosene and liquid oxygen burning Merlin 1D engine, leapt 262 feet off the ground—doubling its highest jump to date of 131 feet in December 2012. Using closed loop thrust vector and throttle control, the VTVL hovered for approximately 34 seconds and touched down with its most accurate precision thus far on the centermost part of the launch pad.

Nevadan at Work: To the moon and beyond for Las Vegas developer

Jennifer Robison - Las Vegas Review-Journal

The sky isn't the limit for Robert Bigelow. Bigelow, founder and president of Bigelow Aerospace, has aspirations well beyond Earth's atmosphere: Bigelow is building and launching space habitats that he says could someday serve as the foundation for a colony on the moon. Space captured Bigelow's imagination at an early age. The Las Vegas High School graduate was intrigued as a child by family stories of close encounters with unidentified flying objects. Bigelow eventually made his fortune the Las Vegas way - in real estate, developing hotels, motels and apartment complexes in the 1980s and '90s. But that construction was a means to starting a space-exploration company.

In Open Source Rocket Competition, Collaboration Takes Off

Dana Farrington – National Public Radio

Here's the challenge: Build a rocket engine. Don't worry, you don't need much. At the SXSW festival in Austin on Saturday, startup companies DIYRockets and Sunglass are launching a competition to create 3-D-printed rocket engines with open source (read: free) technology. Sunglass co-founder Nitin Rao says they want to make space travel "less expensive, more global, more transparent." DIYRockets is packing the space chops: The group wants to find ways to lower costs and expand the knowledge base of the space industry. Sunglass has the tools to help. It allows people around the world collaborate on 3-D design projects, without the need for expensive software. The work can be shared through a Web browser.

SXSW: Elon Musk discusses hovering rocket, Mars and that NYT review

Andrea Chang & W.J. Hennigan - Los Angeles Times

Elon Musk says if mankind doesn't make it to Mars by the time he dies, it'll be the biggest disappointment of his life. Speaking to a packed crowd of several thousand attendees at South by Southwest on Saturday, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX said he might even consider making the journey himself. "I'd like to die on Mars, just not on impact," he said. For now, he's been focusing his attention on something a bit closer to home. Musk revealed to the crowd that SpaceX is one step closer to developing a reusable rocket, saying the company recently launched a 10-story rocket that burst into the sky, rose 262.8 feet, hovered and landed safely on the pad 34 seconds later using thrust vector and throttle control.

Elon Musk: SpaceX Testing New Reusable Rockets

Tomio Geron - Forbes

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and CEO of SpaceX, held court on space travel, solar power and electric cars at South By Southwest Saturday. In terms of new innovations, Musk said SpaceX is testing of new rockets that would be reusable. That would provide a massive hundred-fold decrease in the cost of space flight. Fuel and oxygen is only 0.3% of the cost of a rocket. With reusable rockets, space travel could be easier to attain for more people, he said.

Elon Musk: How SpaceX Saved the Dragon Spacecraft from Certain Doom

Lance Ulanoff - Mashable.com

At a keynote at SXSW 2013, Entrepreneur and SpaceX Founder and CEO Elon Musk described how his team stopped the Dragon spacecraft from tumbling out of control in space by performing the "equivalent of a Heimlich Maneuver." In an interview with Chris Anderson, Musk described the moments after launch as "extremely nerve-wracking," since the rockets could fail and destroy the launch pad. He recalled that in the early days of his rocket launches, they had three failures and one left him picking up pieces of the launch pad from the reef for hours.

Says SpaceX's Elon Musk:
Disposable rockets are preventing us from making Star Trek a reality

Tom Cheredar - VentureBeat.com

While I've always believed our lack of warp drive technology is what's kept humanity from meeting the Vulcans, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said there's another, more practical roadblock: Rockets, specifically the kind that you only get a single use out of. OK, he didn't actually mention Vulcans, but he was very clear that the future of space travel depends on us being able to create a rocket that isn't a zillion dollars and can be reused multiple times.

Elon Musk Wants to Die on Mars

Elien Becque - Vanity Fair

In a conversation that ranged from the physics of lithium battery technology to the burdens of parenting five kids, Elon Musk sprinkled several gems in his talk with Chris Anderson—the erstwhile editor of Wired—on the main stage at SXSW Friday. According to the 41-year-old Iron Man look-alike, PayPal founder, Tesla CEO, and SpaceX CEO/CTO, the biggest disappointment of his life will be if humans don't reach Mars in his lifetime.

Space entrepreneur hints Texas might get new port

Paul Weber - Associated Press

SpaceX billionaire Elon Musk swung by the Texas Capitol on Friday and told lawmakers he could announce this year that the state will be home to his next ballyhooed spaceport -- if the price is right. Bringing rare celebrity wattage to typically dry House Appropriations Committee hearings where the state budget is hashed out, Musk expressed optimism about Texas' chances of beating out Florida, Georgia and Puerto Rico for what he says will be "a commercial version of Cape Canaveral."

SpaceX chief appears before House committee

Laura Martinez - Brownsville Herald

The next SpaceX launch site will not only be a place to launch rockets: The company would eventually want a site nearby to build them as well. Space Exploration Technologies founder and billionaire Elon Musk made the announcement Friday at a hearing before the Texas House of Representatives Appropriations Committee in Austin, where he explained to committee members what SpaceX, as his company is known, is all about.

SpaceX chief to Texas: Let's make a deal

Jeremy Roebuc - San Antonio Express-News

California billionaire Elon Musk remains hopeful that plans to build the world's first commercial spaceport near Brownsville will take flight later this year. But first, Texas faces stiff competition from other states also hoping to land the project. Florida, Georgia and Puerto Rico have all presented attractive economic incentives. The final decision will likely hinge on which location makes the best offer, Musk, founder of the Los Angeles-based SpaceX, told state lawmakers Friday.

To move ahead, NASA needs to slim down

John Kelly - Florida Today (Commentary)

In a new, lean and mean federal budget world, NASA's going to be crushed under the weight of keeping all 10 of its centers open. The space agency is going to have to take a serious look at its infrastructure costs across the United States, closing unused facilities and starting to give consideration to consolidating work at a smaller number of facilities.
__________

COMPLETE STORIES

Next space station-bound crew flying fast track to orbiting outpost

Robert Pearlman - collectSPACE.com

NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy is on the fast track to the International Space Station (ISS).

Not only is he and his two cosmonaut crewmates the next in line to fly to the orbiting laboratory, but they will be the first of the space station's residents to arrive on board the ISS on the same day that they launched. Up until to now, the same trip has taken two days.

Set to lift off on Russia's Soyuz TMA-08M spacecraft on March 28 at 4:43 p.m. EDT (2043 GMT) — it will be early March 29 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Russia's launch site in Kazakhstan — Cassidy, together with Roscosmos cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov and Aleksandr Misurkin will reach the station in less time than a typical transatlantic flight.

The six-hour, four-orbit rendezvous isn't without precedent. Most recently, Russia's Progress robotic cargo spacecraft have accomplished the same expedited link up with the space station. But as the first for an ISS-bound crew, the compressed timeline brings with it some advantages — and drawbacks — for Cassidy and his shipmates.

"From a crew perspective, the advantages are obvious... we're getting to the space station faster and that brings with it a whole lot more comfort than is provided to you in the Soyuz," Cassidy told collectSPACE in an interview on Friday from Star City, outside of Moscow. "The Soyuz is a great space vehicle, but it is designed just to get you there and get you back. The creature comforts are not quite the same as what you have on the station, with food, and a bed, your own living quarters, a better toilet and all these things."

"The hard part, I think, is that it will be a long work day," Cassidy added. "But we have those here on Earth and you just kind of get through [it] and deal with a little bit lighter of a day the next day and get on with business."

Compressing and stretching

The Soyuz spacecraft that will take Cassidy, Vinogradov and Misurkin to the station in six hours is no different from the previous Russian capsule that took two days to deliver Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn and Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko to the orbiting outpost in December.

The six astronauts and cosmonauts will serve together on the ISS as Expedition 35 crew members.

The Soyuz TMA-08M expedited rendezvous relies in part on compressing the schedule of orbital-adjustment engine burns followed by the crew.

"The launch process is the same, you can't really change that," said Cassidy, who on his first spaceflight, a 2009 U.S. shuttle mission, became the 500th person to launch into space. "The whole rendezvous is the same, what we are just missing is spending a night on [the Soyuz]."

The same-day arrival is also made possible by the digital automated systems that were added to the TMA-M series of Soyuz vehicles, as was first introduced in 2010.

"It is the possibility [now] to do a lot on board the vehicle and to calculate the burns so they are not consuming a lot of fuel," veteran cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, the chief of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, explained in a recent press conference.

The shorter schedule translates to a longer time that the crew will be strapped into the Soyuz's snug, custom-fit seats. On the previous two-day trips, once reaching orbit, the crew would shed their Sokol spacesuits and move into the spacecraft's more spacious orbital module, where they could float more freely.

Initially, the thought was that Cassidy and his crewmates would stay seated for the full six hours — in addition to the time strapped into the seats before launch. But the call of nature changed that plan.

"We wind up being in the vehicle for a very, very long time and people just need to use the toilet eventually," Cassidy told collectSPACE.com, "so we'll open the hatch and have access to the BO [Russian Cyrillic, pronounced "vae-oh" meaning orbital module] and be allowed to take our suits not completely off but enough to do any business we need to take care of and just stretch our legs."

For Cassidy, a former Navy SEAL, a little leg room goes a long way.

"For me, that's the biggest thing, stretching my legs," he said. "I'm a little bit taller than is comfortably seated in the Soyuz and after a couple of hours strapped into that seat tightly, it is really, really nice to stretch your legs out."

Trail-blazers

Although the first time for the International Space Station, the Soyuz TMA-08M expedited rendezvous is not the first for the Russian capsule, or for crewed spacecraft.

An earlier version of the Soyuz used batteries, rather than the current solar arrays, to power the vehicle's systems, which meant that the spacecraft needed to quickly reach their destination — the Soviet Salyut space stations of the 1970s — or return to Earth in a matter of days.

Early NASA astronauts also made fast arrivals in space.

Charles "Pete" Conrad and Richard Gordon performed the first direct-ascent rendezvous in history aboard Gemini 11 in September 1966, meeting up with an unmanned Agena target vehicle less than two hours after launching.

Later in the early 1970s, when NASA astronauts flew to Skylab, the United States' first space station, they also reached the outpost on the same day they left Earth. For the orbital workshop, which was severely damaged during its launch, the quicker rendezvous allowed its first crew to carry out the needed repairs.

NASA official describes commercial crew and Its Importance to human space exploration

Jason Rhian - AmericaSpace.org

AmericaSpace spoke with Trent Smith with NASA's Commercial Crew Program. He detailed the basics behind efforts to cede responsibility of delivering crew and cargo to low-Earth orbit (LEO), primarily to the International Space Station, to commercial companies. Under this plan, this should allow NASA to focus on sending crews beyond Earth's influence for the first time in over forty years.

NASA currently has a two-pronged strategy in place in terms of its future human space flight program. The first half, the commercial segment, would handle operations in LEO. This would be comprised of companies such as SpaceX, Sierra Nevada Corporation, and The Boeing Company.

The second half involves a powerful new heavy-lift booster, the Space Launch System, and the Orion spacecraft. These vehicles are currently being developed and built to send astronauts to destinations that, excluding the Moon, have never been visited before.

"Some folks think that we can have one without the other—this isn't the case," said Bob Cabana, a four-time space shuttle veteran and the current Director of NASA's Kennedy Space Center.

In some ways, the current issues with NASA's commercial efforts are similar to another situation faced by the space agency between the Apollo era and the space shuttle program. The shuttle was proposed as being one-half of a two-part "shuttle-station" duo.

However, then as now, budgetary woes interfered. NASA was told to either choose the shuttle or station—but they could not do both. Hoping that the financial situation would eventually turn around, the space agency opted to build the shuttle first. From the time of the first space shuttle mission in 1980, until the space shuttle's first flight to orbiting components of what had morphed into the International Space Station, some 18 years had elapsed.

During the closing ceremonies of Florida Space Day, Cabana expressed optimism that the current budget cuts to NASA's commercial program would be hammered out and that NASA's commercial crew program could get back on track. As for Smith, he reinforced the concept that NASA should not be forced to choose between either maintaining access to LEO or returning to the business of space exploration.

"I look at SLS as a 'rocket to anywhere,' but we need these commercial companies to maintain our presence on the International Space Station, which I view as a stepping stone out to destinations out in the solar system," Smith added.

SpaceX conducts fourth Grasshopper launch; doubles previous altitude

Mike Killian - AmericaSpace.org

This past Saturday, Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, performed a fourth test flight of their Grasshopper Vertical Takeoff and Landing Vehicle (VTVL) at the company's rocket development facility in McGregor, Texas. http://youtu.be/2Ivr6JF1K-8

The 10-story tall suborbital reusable rocket, under the power of one kerosene and liquid oxygen burning Merlin 1D engine, leapt 262 feet off the ground—doubling its highest jump to date of 131 feet in December 2012. Using closed loop thrust vector and throttle control, the VTVL hovered for approximately 34 seconds and touched down with its most accurate precision thus far on the centermost part of the launch pad.

The vehicle, known as Grasshopper VTVL 1.0, is being used to perform flights in support of SpaceX's development of fully and rapidly reusable rockets. Eventually the commercial spaceflight company wants a reusable first stage for their Falcon-9 rocket, which SpaceX claims will dramatically reduce costs from having to replace rockets after each launch. With Grasshopper, SpaceX is testing the technology that will enable their rocket's first stage to launch and land intact, instead of burning up in the atmosphere upon reentry.

With the engine generating up to 147,000 pounds of thrust, the vehicle's thrust-to-weight ratio at touchdown was greater than one—proving a key landing algorithm for Falcon 9, according to SpaceX.

These early test flights are meant to demonstrate Grasshopper's ability to perform at subsonic speeds from various altitudes, with each flight launching higher, hovering longer, and descending farther than the previous. Over the next year SpaceX hopes to push Grasshopper to a maximum flight altitude of 11,500 feet, with flight times lasting up to 160 seconds in duration. High-altitude supersonic flight tests would occur soon after, possibly as early as late 2013, although the company has not released any firm details yet about those later flights.

The company is also currently developing a second generation Grasshopper VTVL, known as Grasshopper 2.0. The current Grasshopper 1.0 sports four fixed steel and aluminum landing legs with hydraulic dampers and a steel support structure. Grasshopper 2.0 will have lighter-weight landing legs that fold up on the side of the rocket, and the vehicle itself will be 50 percent taller than Grasshopper 1.0.

Earlier this month SpaceX successfully launched their Dragon spacecraft atop a Falcon-9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Fla. The flight, mission CRS-2, was the company's second operational supply delivery run to the International Space Station under NASA contract. The company has a $1.6 billion contract with NASA to conduct 12 ISS resupply missions over the next several years.

Nevadan at Work: To the moon and beyond for Las Vegas developer

Jennifer Robison - Las Vegas Review-Journal

The sky isn't the limit for Robert Bigelow.

Bigelow, founder and president of Bigelow Aerospace, has aspirations well beyond Earth's atmosphere: Bigelow is building and launching space habitats that he says could someday serve as the foundation for a colony on the moon.

Space captured Bigelow's imagination at an early age. The Las Vegas High School graduate was intrigued as a child by family stories of close encounters with unidentified flying objects.

Bigelow eventually made his fortune the Las Vegas way - in real estate, developing hotels, motels and apartment complexes in the 1980s and '90s. But that construction was a means to starting a space-exploration company.

In 2001, Bigelow launched Bigelow Aerospace. Today, the company has factories in North Las Vegas and Maryland, and a deal with California-based Space Exploration Technologies to put habitats into orbit.

It's working with Boeing to develop a spacecraft to take crews to the International Space Station, and it launched two satellites into orbit using Russian rockets.

In January, Bigelow Aerospace became the first local business to win a lead NASA contract, a $17.8 million deal to build, launch and install its Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) at the space station.

Question: What are your memories of growing up here?

Answer: It was a very small community. Nobody locked their doors. Also, the Korean War was active. I remember squadrons of aircraft flying over the city, approaching Nellis. And, of course, nuclear bombs were a big thing.

It was fun to watch them go off in both the daytime and the nighttime. If we were in class, we were let out into the schoolyard to see the bombs go off and to watch the mushroom clouds.

Question: What did you dream of being when you grew up?

Answer: My fantasy was to be involved in something to do with space. I think that emanated from activities and conversations of family members, friends and parents of friends who talked about the UFO subject. So it was a significant leap beyond watching nuclear bombs.

Question: Why did you go into real estate and hotel development first?

Answer: No bucks, no "Buck Rogers." You could take the path of science and work your way theoretically into that world as an individual, but I had fantasies of having the financial capacity to hire a group to make something happen.

Question: What obstacles made it harder for you to join the space race?

Answer: A lack of focus by our country on space transportation. Transportation is not what we (at Bigelow) do. We focus on the destination. But there's no destination without transportation.

NASA didn't plan ahead. They shut down a 30-year-old transportation system, the space shuttle, which they probably should have done because the system became dangerous. But they never came up with a replacement.

They initiated several programs, but cut those programs before they concluded. NASA found itself in a desperate situation where the United States of America had invested $100 billion in the International Space Station, but had no way to get there. So they had to contract with Russia, who has the only transportation today that can take anyone to the space station.

NASA pays $63 million a person to get someone to the space station. Now NASA has to sponsor private-sector programs to provide space transportation.

Also, the recession interfered with potential customers, which were countries that had to rethink their financial picture. A lot of them fell on hard times, and many of them almost went broke.

Like us with sequestration, they're willing to sacrifice military defense to maintain entitlement programs in a 100 percent capacity.

It's illogical. You need balance in budget cuts and taxation. Other countries faced the same circumstance, where they had to choose between butter and guns. Space programs were not foundational to their existence.

Question: That moment when you knew you had a prime contract from NASA - what was that like?

Answer: It was a three-year overnight success. It was bit anticlimactic, to be honest. It took a long time to work on the contractual aspects. We are excited and proud to work with NASA. For NASA, $18 million is not a lot of money, but it is significant because it's the first expandable system NASA has ever flown.

But this contract was never the end goal. It's a stepping stone to where we want to be.

What we have been working on for the better part of the last year doesn't have much to do with the BEAM contract, and is far more significant.

Question: What's been your biggest career accomplishment?

Answer: Flying two Genesis missions were significant achievements. Both of those launches occurred out of Russia.

America couldn't provide anything that would launch those spacecraft. Also, the BEAM is a big accomplishment. It helped validate our technology and the quality of our workmanship. It proved to us that we can build a spacecraft.

Question: What are your future goals?

Answer: Our objective is to continue to create spacecraft that are habitable and safe to occupy in low-Earth orbit. We want robust business in those structures.

Ultimately, we'd like to be part of the development of a lunar base.

Question: How much room is there for more aerospace development here? Is your company going to be a one-off, kind of unusual local economic player, or could there be others?

Answer: We behave as both a general contractor and in-house fabricator. We make about 50 percent of everything in our spacecraft in-house. The other 50 percent we subcontract out. I think there are a lot of opportunities. We have worked with companies in Clark County, so I think there's some synergy here.

I think we could be part of a core of aerospace companies in Las Vegas that could have a significant presence. The jobs we provide are high-paying jobs. We require well-educated people, and it's an exciting world and business to be involved in.

I know (Gov. Brian Sandoval) is interested in ramping up aerospace's presence in the state under the auspices of diversification. Diversification is always wise.

We understand gaming competition in Macau, and in other states that have gaming now, so Las Vegas and Nevada need to bring in other industries to diversify and stabilize the economy.

Question: Do you believe there's intelligent life beyond Earth?

Answer: It's unimaginable that we could be so egocentric that such a thing would be debatable. It's not a question of whether intelligent life is out there.

If you do serious research, you can get confirmation of the existence of intelligence. We're still, as a very immature, space-fearing species, scratching the surface of Mars to establish something is there. It would be extremely peculiar if we were to not discover intelligent life equal to or better than ourselves. It's very illogical, parochial thinking.

Question: Would you want to live in space?

Answer: It would be the chance of a lifetime. But as the CEO, it's important to keep everything moving. So at least in the short run, I have to plan on continuing to go to work as I have been doing, and continuing with our future goals.

In Open Source Rocket Competition, Collaboration Takes Off

Dana Farrington – National Public Radio

Here's the challenge: Build a rocket engine. Don't worry, you don't need much.

At the SXSW festival in Austin on Saturday, startup companies DIYRockets and Sunglass are launching a competition to create 3-D-printed rocket engines with open source (read: free) technology.

Sunglass co-founder Nitin Rao says they want to make space travel "less expensive, more global, more transparent."

DIYRockets is packing the space chops: The group wants to find ways to lower costs and expand the knowledge base of the space industry. Sunglass has the tools to help. It allows people around the world collaborate on 3-D design projects, without the need for expensive software. The work can be shared through a Web browser.

The designs will be judged by a panel of scientists and inventors from NASA, MIT, TED and others. Sunglass is giving out $10,000 in prizes, and 3-D printing company Shapeways.com will provide $500 to help create the top two designs.

The goal of all of this is not to actually build a rocket and send it to space — yet.

"We hope to showcase what people can do on the platform," says DIYRockets co-founder Darlene Damm.

As far as applying the relatively new tools to the space industry, Rao says, "There's enormous inspiration value." If people are literally building rockets, how hard could designing a chair be?

That's in the short term.

"Over the long term, we want to help people become involved in the [space] industry," Damm says. The talent is out there, she says: "There's so much untapped potential around the world."

As NASA hands the reins of space travel over to the private sector, the space industry is evolving. Retired astronaut John Grunsfeld told NPR in February that the change was natural: Private companies are building off knowledge that NASA has spent decades cultivating.

Damm says initiatives like the rocket competition are adding to this growing trend of public-private partnerships. She says the next step is "taking it down to a level where more people can be involved in it." Think mobile apps, which anyone with the skills can build and make available to others.

"This is a direction where the world is definitely going, and we're at the beginning," she says.

As the space industry turns more toward tourism and away from satellites and research, Damm says, there's no time like the present.

"Now is a really important time to set up a way for everyone to get involved," she says.

But that wouldn't be possible without open source tools that facilitate global networking. With Sunglass, Rao says contributors can track and annotate changes on their designs. Participants with a wide variety of expertise will be able to have a role.

"You define what your contribution is," Rao says. You could help with the design and aesthetics — or you could be an actual rocket scientist.

"We have some hunches for how it might go," Rao says, "but we fully expect to be surprised about the breadth and nature of the projects we'll see."

SXSW: Elon Musk discusses hovering rocket, Mars and that NYT review

Andrea Chang & W.J. Hennigan - Los Angeles Times

Elon Musk says if mankind doesn't make it to Mars by the time he dies, it'll be the biggest disappointment of his life.

Speaking to a packed crowd of several thousand attendees at South by Southwest on Saturday, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX said he might even consider making the journey himself.

"I'd like to die on Mars, just not on impact," he said.

For now, he's been focusing his attention on something a bit closer to home. Musk revealed to the crowd that SpaceX is one step closer to developing a reusable rocket, saying the company recently launched a 10-story rocket that burst into the sky, rose 262.8 feet, hovered and landed safely on the pad 34 seconds later using thrust vector and throttle control. To cushion its fall back to the launch pad, the Grasshopper has steel landing legs with hydraulic dampers, plus a steel support structure.

Video of the test, which took place at SpaceX's rocket development facility in McGregor, Texas, was shown to an enraptured South by Southwest crowd. Musk said it was the first time anyone aside from the video editor and himself had seen the footage, which you can check out below.

"It can land on Earth with the accuracy of a helicopter," he said.

SpaceX, short for Space Exploration Technologies Corp., is trying to prove that the Grasshopper's technology could be used to develop what would be the first-ever fully reusable rocket. A reusable system could mean big savings in developing and operating rockets. The closest example of a reusable launch system is the retired space shuttle fleet, which were only partially reused after a tedious months-long overhaul.

The latest Grasshopper test flight marks a significant increase over the height and length of hover of the Grasshopper's previous test flights -- of 8.2 feet, 17.7 feet and 131 feet -- which took place last year.

Earlier this month, a SpaceX capsule successfully resupplied the International Space Station with cargo. The capsule is set to return to Earth on March 25, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean about 300 miles off the coast of Baja California.

Saturday's hourlong keynote at the Austin Convention Center covered a wide variety of topics, including Musk's thoughts on solar panels and higher education, battery cells, his role models (Benjamin Franklin, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos and Nikola Tesla) and his idea for a new mode of high-speed transportation dubbed the "hyperloop."

"It would be something that would be twice as fast as a plane, at least, in terms of total transit time," Musk said. "It would be immune to weather, incapable of crashing pretty much unless it was a terrorist attack, and the ticket price would be half of a plane."

As for whether the hyperloop would run underground or above ground, Musk said, "it could be either."

Musk also took the opportunity to reflect on last month's highly publicized dispute with the New York Times, which published a review titled "Stalled out on Tesla's Electric Highway," in which reporter John Broder detailed a recent trip from suburban Washington, D.C., to Connecticut in a Model S. The goal was to test the feasibility of a road trip by using Tesla's new Supercharging stations in Delaware and Connecticut.

Broder ran into difficulties with the car's range, which were exacerbated by cold weather. After he left the car overnight without plugging it in, the Model S ended the trip on the back of a flatbed truck.

The New York Times published the story on a Sunday. After Tesla's stock dipped the next day, Musk went on the offensive. Through Twitter and several television appearances, he railed against the piece, calling it "fake" and telling CNBC, "We think the article is something of a setup, and it's pretty unreasonable."

Musk released the data logs from Broder's car several days later, saying they backed up his claims.

The New York Times initially responded by saying the article was "completely factual," and Broder wrote a follow-up piece defending his initial assertions. The Times' public editor, Margaret Sullivan, eventually waded into the controversy with a blog post that offered measured criticism of Broder but defended his motives.

Calling Broder's review a "low-grade ethics violation" on Saturday, Musk said that the reporter wasn't as bad as Jayson Blair, but that his review "was not in good faith."

"I don't have a problem with critical reviews, I have a problem with false reviews," he said.

The one somewhat controversial moment came when moderator Chris Anderson asked Musk about his personal life, which Musk conceded was too busy, and his five children.

"Kids are awesome, you guys should all have kids. Kids are great," Musk said, before revealing that he doesn't see his children enough and often emails for work when he spends time with them.

"In the absence of that, I would not be able to get my job done," he said, drawing mutters from the crowd.

Perhaps sensing the audience's discomfort, Anderson said, "It's really not good for the children, it's really not good for the email."

Musk's response: "I do have a nanny there, otherwise they'd kill each other."

Elon Musk: SpaceX Testing New Reusable Rockets

Tomio Geron - Forbes

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and CEO of SpaceX, held court on space travel, solar power and electric cars at South By Southwest Saturday.

In terms of new innovations, Musk said SpaceX is testing of new rockets that would be reusable. That would provide a massive hundred-fold decrease in the cost of space flight. Fuel and oxygen is only 0.3% of the cost of a rocket. With reusable rockets, space travel could be easier to attain for more people, he said.

"If humanity ever were to expand beyond earth, it has to be self sustaining," he said. This has been the goal of SpaceX from the beginning, Musk said. "So far we've not been very successful in that regard. We've got a design. In simulations, in CAD, and so forth.. it should work. If we can build that thing it should work."

Musk then for the first time showed video of the rocket and with the rocket landing by using thrusters with what he called "the accuracy of a helicopter."

Musk also explained how SpaceX survived problems with its most recent Dragon mission. The rocket had three of its four thruster pods not working after it launched. SpaceX was able to get extra communication channels from the U.S. Air Force. Then it used a trick where it increased pressure to slam on a valve. Then it opened up the rocket's solar panels to slow down the rotation of the rocket, which improved communication. Eventually those things worked. The Dragon is currently docked at the International Space Station.

SpaceX is also trying to open a commercial rocket launching facility in Texas, he said. There are some regulatory hurdles the company needs to overcome – such as closing beaches on launch days – but he expects those to be overcome.

Musk also explained the original idea behind SpaceX came from him wanting to donate money to NASA to start a greenhouse on Mars. The greenhouse would show that life could exist on Mars and encourage further money in the federal budget for NASA. Getting that project off the ground didn't work but resulted in SpaceX. (During that process, Musk tried to buy missiles from Russia to build out the project.) SpaceX went through three launch failures before it succeeded with a launch, he added.

NASA is now one-fourth of SpaceX's launches, with the rest being commercial launches. "The whole purpose of that was to get people excited and sending (things) to Mars and increase NASA's budget…. Today NASA's our biggest customer."

Musk also is not completely done with the recent New York Times' review of the Tesla Model S. Musk recently got into a bitter dispute with the New York Times over its review of the new electric car. Musk said he only regrets not rebutting the New York Times' rebuttal.

Musk said he sent a detailed response to the Time's rebuttal to the Time's public editor, but has not posted it publicly. He added that he considered the Times review a "low grade ethics violation" but not a serious Jayson Blair-type act. "It was not in good faith," he said. "I don't have a problem with critical reviews. I have a problem with false reviews."

Musk also recently gave help to Boeing on its battery problem for its new 787 plane, after getting a call for help from Richard Branson. Musk went through a detailed description of the battery problem on the plane. The batteries are too big and too close together, it turns out. Boeing also outsourced much of its battery work, which made communication difficult. Musk offered to help fix the problem, since Tesla has worked on the issue but hasn't yet been asked to by Boeing, he said.

Elon Musk: How SpaceX Saved the Dragon Spacecraft from Certain Doom

Lance Ulanoff - Mashable.com

At a keynote at SXSW 2013, Entrepreneur and SpaceX Founder and CEO Elon Musk described how his team stopped the Dragon spacecraft from tumbling out of control in space by performing the "equivalent of a Heimlich Maneuver."

In an interview with Chris Anderson, Musk described the moments after launch as "extremely nerve-wracking," since the rockets could fail and destroy the launch pad. He recalled that in the early days of his rocket launches, they had three failures and one left him picking up pieces of the launch pad from the reef for hours.

The Dragon launch went smoothly, but things "went awry" shortly after launch when three of four oxidizer tanks refused to pressurize, which mean the solar panels could not extend. This was especially surprising since these systems are built with multiple redundancies, but instead of one or another failing, two-thirds of them went down.

They later found that a small change had been made to three of the four check valves on the tank.

Though Musk and NASA had just a kilobit of intermittent communication with the space craft, SpaceX began to work on a solution. In the meantime, the Dragon spacecraft was "going through free drift in space, just tumbling," said Musk.

SpaceX wrote new software and then uploaded it to Dragon. It was designed to "pressure slam the three oxidizer tanks that were refusing to pressurize."

With the software in place, "the system built pressure upstream, then released the pressure and slammed the valve," explained Musk. "It gave the spacecraft the equivalent of the Heimlich maneuver."

The solar arrays deployed and the spacecraft's rotation slowed down. After the "slam" the pods came back online, one-by-one. Now the unmanned Dragon is docked with the International Space Station.

Land It

That Dragon spacecraft was lifted into space by SpaceX's Falcon rocket. Currently the rockets are not reusable. It's costly and Musk wants to change that.

Re-usability is important, said Musk, "If on Star Trek they got a new ship after every mission it would be silly ... if we want a space beyond Earth, it's critical we solve this problem."

SpaceX has been actively working on a solution since the company was founded. What they want is a rocket that can, after delivering its payload into space, fly back to earth and "land with the accuracy of a helicopter."

Musk then showed a video of one of his rockets successfully blasting off and landing expertly on the ground.

Says SpaceX's Elon Musk:
Disposable rockets are preventing us from making Star Trek a reality

Tom Cheredar - VentureBeat.com

While I've always believed our lack of warp drive technology is what's kept humanity from meeting the Vulcans, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said there's another, more practical roadblock: Rockets, specifically the kind that you only get a single use out of.

OK, he didn't actually mention Vulcans, but he was very clear that the future of space travel depends on us being able to create a rocket that isn't a zillion dollars and can be reused multiple times.

"Reusable rockets are vastly important if you think its important that humanity span beyond earth and become a multi-planetary species," Musk said to two very crowded large ballrooms during a keynote at SXSW yesterday. "If you can imagine watching Star Trek, and if they built a new star ship after every trip? It's pretty silly. And all the other transports we use — planes, trains, cars, bikes — are all reusable. But not rockets."

Musk's initial space project that would have sent a platform-like green house to Mars, that would have (hopefully) eventually pave the way for humans to survive on the planet. He and his team initially nailed all the costs, the scientific process of making it actually work, how to send pictures of it back to earth — pretty much everything except for those asshole disposable rockets.

"The first idea I came up with was actually to do philanthropic mission to send a greenhouse to the surface of mars, with seeds of dehydrated gel that would hydrate upon landing," Musk said. "You'd have this cool greenhouse, with green plants on a red background. That would be the money shot."

Musk explained that the cost of disposable rockets makes space travel truly prohibitive for a large number of businesses to jump into the field. For instance, he said the cost of the fuel and oxygen on SpaceX's Falcon 9 space craft is .9 percent of the entire cost of the trip, while the rocket accounts for the rest of it.

The SpaceX chief exec also treated the audience to some newly released footage of the company's fourth flight test of reusable self-landing rocket Grasshopper, which we've embedded below.

For now, Space X is making due with the one-off rockets to launch cargo ships into space via its Dragon 2 space craft, which recently had some problems docking with the International Space Station before calling the mission a success.

Elon Musk Wants to Die on Mars

Elien Becque - Vanity Fair

In a conversation that ranged from the physics of lithium battery technology to the burdens of parenting five kids, Elon Musk sprinkled several gems in his talk with Chris Anderson—the erstwhile editor of Wired—on the main stage at SXSW Friday.

According to the 41-year-old Iron Man look-alike, PayPal founder, Tesla CEO, and SpaceX CEO/CTO, the biggest disappointment of his life will be if humans don't reach Mars in his lifetime.

"It's the first time in four and a half billion years that we are at a level of technology where we have the ability to reach Mars," he told the rapt audience. "The sun is gradually expanding. In 500,000 million years—a billion at the outside—the oceans will boil and there will be no meaningful life on Earth. Maybe some very high temperature bacteria, but nothing that can build rockets." Basically, humans should take advantage of the fact that we've figured out how to get out of here and do just that.

Becoming an "interplanetary species" will eventually be our most attractive (only?) hope for survival, Musk says, declaring that "space travel is the best thing we can do to extend the life of humanity." So dedicated is he to SpaceX's mission and to Mars exploration that he put the two in that order with reference to his own mortality: "I will go if I can be assured that SpaceX would go on without me . . . I've said I want to die on Mars, just not on impact."

And Musk really does think that big. When asked by an audience member to recall the best piece of advice he ever received, he responded, "physics."

The conversation turned to Musk's personal life when Anderson asked about his parenting strategy. "Kids are great. You guys should all have kids! I don't see mine enough actually. What I find is I'm able to be with them and still be on e-mail. I can be with them and still be working at the same time." When an incredulous Anderson, also the father of five children, pressed him, the billionaire double-CEO conceded that family time often included a nanny. "To make sure they don't kill each other."

Despite overwhelming evidence that he is in fact super-human, Musk also admitted that having three job titles and five kids can be tiring. Of his pace he said, "I'd like to take it down a scootch," and that last year "wasn't much fun. In fact, it sucked. So my new years resolution was to have more fun. That's kind of why I'm at SXSW."

The final question came from an audience member who asked about "the biggest mistake" of Musk's life. There followed a long, rather uncomfortable pause in which he appeared not be able to think of any mistakes at all. But Musk's eventual answer was a surprising one for the scientifically-minded entrepreneur: "The biggest mistake, in general, I've made, is to put too much of a weighting on someone's talent and not enough on their personality. And I've made that mistake several times. I think it actually matters whether somebody has a good heart, it really does. I've make the mistake of thinking that it's sometimes just about the brain."

Space entrepreneur hints Texas might get new port

Paul Weber - Associated Press

SpaceX billionaire Elon Musk swung by the Texas Capitol on Friday and told lawmakers he could announce this year that the state will be home to his next ballyhooed spaceport -- if the price is right.

Bringing rare celebrity wattage to typically dry House Appropriations Committee hearings where the state budget is hashed out, Musk expressed optimism about Texas' chances of beating out Florida, Georgia and Puerto Rico for what he says will be "a commercial version of Cape Canaveral."

Musk, who was in Austin to speak at the South by Southwest festival and promote his Tesla electric cars, said the winner hinges on which state puts together the best offer. He hinted at competitors offering generous economic incentives yet stopped short of revealing figures.

He often spoke, however, as though Texas was the preference. SpaceX, based in California, already launches unmanned rockets from a launchpad in Florida, but Musk said there is an inherent appeal to expanding elsewhere.

Musk said his new spaceport would be the world's first commercial orbital launch site.

"All things being equal, I think it's better to have more than one location and have them be geographically separate," Musk said. "But on the other hand, if the economics are so compelling in Florida, that has to be considered."

Whatever offer the state puts on the table for SpaceX is likely to include taxpayer money from Gov. Rick Perry's deal-closing Texas Enterprise Fund, which has been used to sway corporate heavyweights like Apple to expand in the state.

Ironically, after Musk finished testifying and was followed into the hall by admirers wanting pictures with the PayPal co-founder, lawmakers in the freshly empty committee room took managers of the Texas Enterprise Fund to task over transparency and questioned restocking it with more money.

SpaceX already has roots in Texas, as it is building rockets at a plant near Waco. The proposed launch site would be just outside Brownsville near the U.S.-Mexico border. The Federal Aviation Administration is still conducting an environmental impact statement on the site.

Musk said the company hopes to make a decision on where to build the site this year. SpaceX is already buying land near Brownsville.

SpaceX, or more formally Space Exploration Technologies Corp., has a $1.6 billion contract with NASA to keep the International Space Station well stocked. The contract calls for 12 supply runs, including one that was launched earlier this month.

SpaceX chief appears before House committee

Laura Martinez - Brownsville Herald

The next SpaceX launch site will not only be a place to launch rockets: The company would eventually want a site nearby to build them as well.

Space Exploration Technologies founder and billionaire Elon Musk made the announcement Friday at a hearing before the Texas House of Representatives Appropriations Committee in Austin, where he explained to committee members what SpaceX, as his company is known, is all about.

Musk said the company will continue to build its Falcon 9 rockets in California, but when it begins manufacturing rockets larger than the Falcon 9, they would be built at or near the launch site.

"The logical thing is to build near the launch site," he said. "That is something that will occur wherever the launch site occurs."

Musk said Texas still is the leading candidate for a SpaceX launch site.

"It all seems to be progressing pretty well," Musk said. "We are optimistic about making this work in Texas in the Boca Chica area."

He added, "It is looking quite good. Any support that Texas can offer would obviously be helpful."

Texas has one of four sites SpaceX is considering. The others are in Florida, Georgia and Puerto Rico.

The Texas option is east of Brownsville at Boca Chica Beach at the eastern end of Texas Highway 4, about three miles north of the Mexican border and about five miles south of Port Isabel and South Padre Island.

According to the Federal Register, SpaceX proposes to build a vertical launch area and a control center to support up to 12 commercial launches per year.

The vehicles launched include the Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy and smaller reusable, suborbital launch vehicles. Musk said he hopes to select the launch site this year.

On the same day Musk was testifying before the house committee, Brownsville public schools Superintendent Carl Montoya sent a letter to elected officials stating the school district supports the South Texas launch site.

"We believe that SpaceX can enhance the direction that the Brownsville Independent School District is taking toward educating our current and future students," Montoya wrote. "The location of SpaceX in our area is viewed by us as a dream come true. Brownsville ISD is fully committed to this project."

Students in the district were also encouraged to write letters in support of SpaceX — though at least one educator opposed the activity.

"I object to our publicly funded schools being asked to lobby for the benefit of a private company," the teacher wrote.

The district officially supports the SpaceX proposal because of the opportunities it will bring to the area's school children, school officials said.

Musk said SpaceX has been contracted by NASA to take astronauts into space. Eventually, he wants to be able to transport private citizens as well.

"In the long term, our goal is actually to make dramatic improvements in the cost of space flights and to ultimately make it accessible to anyone who wants to go," Musk said.

The launch site he wants to build would be the first commercial orbital launch site in the world, he said. Other sites such as Cape Canaveral in Florida are government launch facilities.

"This would kind of be the commercial version of Cape Canaveral. That is what we are thinking about establishing near Brownsville," Musk said.

He mentioned the public hearing held last May in Brownsville, where more than 500 people showed up to support the Brownsville-area location.

"It's an environmental review where you invite people normally to raise objections. I don't know if there were people who wanted to object, but they didn't get a chance to because people kept coming up to the mic (microphone) and voicing their support (for SpaceX)," he said. "In fact, I don't think I have ever seen an environmental hearing like that before."

While Musk did not ask the state for any funding, Texas will likely have to come up with some type of incentive package that will convince the SpaceX founder to build a launch site here, officials said.

Georgia is offering thousands of acres rent-free and putting up some economic development money, said State Rep. Rene Oliveira, D-Brownsville. Florida has offered a $20 million-a-year package for all space industry in the state.

Oliveira, who also spoke at the hearing, said Musk has been "very nice about not sitting up here asking for X, Y and Z; I am going to do that on his behalf and perhaps for my community and the state.

"Sometimes we have to put our money where our mouth is and make it attractive to the industry. For us to be competitive with other states we have to make this attractive to SpaceX," Oliveira said.

Since the Texas Legislature has only until May to meet, Oliveira said the state needs to approve an incentive package before then. Texas faces a time disadvantage because the Florida and Georgia legislatures will still be in session when Texas' session ends, he said.

"We are having to do things contingent upon us being the final place to go. It is a strange deal because those other states will still be in session and they are coming up with their own competitive packages out there," Oliveira said.

SpaceX chief to Texas: Let's make a deal

Jeremy Roebuc - San Antonio Express-News

California billionaire Elon Musk remains hopeful that plans to build the world's first commercial spaceport near Brownsville will take flight later this year.

But first, Texas faces stiff competition from other states also hoping to land the project.

Florida, Georgia and Puerto Rico have all presented attractive economic incentives. The final decision will likely hinge on which location makes the best offer, Musk, founder of the Los Angeles-based SpaceX, told state lawmakers Friday.

"We're optimistic about making this work in Texas," he said during a hearing of the state House Appropriations Committee. "Any support that Texas could offer would be absolutely helpful in that direction."

For months, SpaceX, a pioneer in the private space-flight industry, has eyed a location on Boca Chica Beach, 23 miles east of Brownsville, to construct a commercial launch pad capable of sending spacecraft into orbit.

Eventually, Musk told lawmakers Friday, the site could become the primary hub for company flights ferrying astronauts to the International Space Station and well-heeled tourists into the stars.

"We're talking about something that's really in the big leagues here," he said. "We're talking about the commercial version of Cape Canaveral."

The company already operates a test site for its rocket engines in McGregor, outside Waco, and began buying up property along the Texas coastline last year.

With plans to make the final decision this year, Texas has only a short window to best its competition, said state Rep. Rene Oliveira, D-Brownsville, who has emerged as the project's primary cheerleader in the Capitol.

His colleagues at Friday's hearing appeared to need little convincing. Though they were presented with no specific proposals, many of the committee's members appeared star struck in Musk's presence.

The South African native, who was also scheduled to deliver a keynote address today at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival, has earned celebrity status in the tech world after co-founding the online money transferring website PayPal and the electric-car manufacturer Tesla.

Committee Chairman Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, implored Musk to regale lawmakers with tales of Tesla's automobiles. Meanwhile, State Rep. Cecil Bell Jr., R-Magnolia, described a recent trip to SpaceX's McGregor facility as "really neat."

Gov. Rick Perry also has declared himself a fan. During his State of the State address earlier this year, the governor touted SpaceX and other commercial space flight companies as "part of a growing presence in this important market" in the state.

Other companies already operating in Texas include XCOR, which operates a facility in Midland, and Blue Origin, led by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, which runs a site near Van Horn.

Musk's proposed Boca Chica spaceport would be a much larger operation, capable of launching at least 12 rockets a year.

Investing taxpayer money in the future of private space travel doesn't come without risk.

In New Mexico, a $209 million taxpayer funded spaceport project run by Virgin Galactic has had trouble attracting flights since it opened last year. And while the Federal Aviation Administration has already begun an impact study on the proposed Brownsville site, it is unlikely to complete its work before this year's legislative session ends in May.

That means lawmakers would have to wait until the 2015 legislative session to pass any new laws in response to roadblocks the FAA finds. Oliveira said Friday he hopes to pre-emptively address any potential issues with bills before this year's session ends in May.

For instance, he filed legislation this week that would temporarily waive rules barring commercial use of state parkland so that SpaceX could launch rockets at Boca Chica.

As for the economic incentives, neither Musk nor Oliveira was willing to offer a specific figure Friday that would help seal the deal.

Lawmakers in Florida have discussed their own offer from a $20 million-a-year economic development fund set up specifically to benefit aerospace firms.

Musk's firm already operates one launch pad at Cape Canaveral for NASA-contracted cargo flights. He said Friday the state is not eager to lose future business.

Oliveira has said Texas is prepared to offer $3.2 million via its economic development arm. Another $3 million could be available through local incentives, the legislator has said.

"SpaceX has already made a major commitment to Texas," Oliveira said Friday. "But we've got to put our money where our mouth is and try to make ourselves attractive to the industry."

To move ahead, NASA needs to slim down

John Kelly - Florida Today (Commentary)

In a new, lean and mean federal budget world, NASA's going to be crushed under the weight of keeping all 10 of its centers open.

The space agency is going to have to take a serious look at its infrastructure costs across the United States, closing unused facilities and starting to give consideration to consolidating work at a smaller number of facilities.

The idea of the space agency going through a process similar to what the military has done with Base Realignment and Closure is not new, and it's come up every few years. The bottom line is, whether painful or not, some buildings need to be closed or even whole centers so that NASA becomes a more modern, more efficient operation. Partially empty or unused multi-million dollar facilities can't be sustained.

"You can see a future where the overhead of 10 centers consumes the NASA budget without productive contribution to future design," said Joseph Dyer, head of the NASA Aerospace Safety Advisory Council at a George Washington University panel on Friday, looking back at lessons learned in the wake of the Columbia disaster and the events' impact on space exploration.

"Is something like a BRAC required? Probably so, in a rational world. But if you look at where NASA's support comes from, if you testify on the Hill, the people in attendance are from those geographic areas where NASA touches. It's part of the conundrum."

The idea that NASA needs centers strategically located in key states to garner votes for more space spending is outdated. It hasn't worked. Budget writers have not been kind to NASA the last two decades. Agency spending has remained pretty flat, once inflation is factored.

It's long been said by outside reviewers, including investigators of the Columbia accident, that the space agency is saddled with a workload that outstrips the money Congress provides.

The budget quandary is aggravated by far-flung and under-utilized centers from Florida to California, many with campuses of under-used buildings and facilities. Dyer is correct that proposals to close centers will meet opposition among local politicians. That may make it hard. But, if something's not done, the costs will strangle NASA financially.

The NASA infrastructure dates to a bygone era when standing armies across the country were necessary to speed the flight of men to the moon and later to support the space shuttle program. The set up also dates to a time when technology was different. Now, we can deliver goods and information across vast distances easily. We can do things in smaller spaces because, in oversimplified terms, equipment needed to perform a lot of tasks just isn't as big as it used to be. And, some tasks can just be done by fewer people than previously needed.

Most private companies have been consolidating facilities for decades. Case in point: the Northrop Grumman restructuring last week that's resulting in a jobs boon here in Melbourne, but the shuttering of no-longer-needed facilities in such places as Long Island.

The idea of studying center closures or consolidation needs to move beyond being bandied about by experts on panels and become an assignment, with a deadline. The savings ought to be found to fund exploration.

END

Keep the shuttle flying

Monday, March 11, 2013

Fwd: Human Spaceflight News - March 11, 2013 and JSC Today

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