Keep the shuttle flying: Fwd: Human Spaceflight News

Sent from my iPad

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: April 11, 2013 6:20:06 AM GMT-06:00
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: Human Spaceflight News - April 11, 2013 and JSC Today

Another rainy night in Houston----wait a minute   wasn't that a song?

Thursday, April 11, 2013

JSC TODAY HEADLINES
1.            Joint Leadership Team Web Poll
2.            Human Systems Academy: Human Research Program Overview
3.            JSC Library Training on Aerospace Medicine Resources
4.            You're Invited: City of Houston's Green Building Resource Center April 19
5.            Leadership Enrichment and Development Program (LEaD) Application Reminder
6.            HAS Program Needs Mentors and Student Mentors for the Summer
7.            Administrative Professionals Luncheon
8.            Book Fair at Starport -- Building 3 Café
9.            JSC Knowledge Online New Release
10.          Starport April Massage Special -- $55 for 60 -- Monday Through Thursday
11.          Engineers Without Borders-JSC Presents: A Gasification Stove Expert
12.          INCOSE April 18 Presentation -- Lean Systems Engineering Enablers
________________________________________     NASA FACT
" Thanks to the Tomatosphere Project aboard ISS, 600,000 tomato seeds have been orbiting the Earth since July 2012. When the seeds return in May, students in the U.S. and Canada will plant them and observe their germination rates."
________________________________________
1.            Joint Leadership Team Web Poll
Our results from last week indicate that we do our own home maintenance, and do a fairly decent job at it. This week we are celebrating two Environmental Protection Agency Federal Green Challenge awards (JSC and White Sands Test Facility) as we head toward Earth Day. White Sands just won overall National Champion (take that Louisville) for the whole government! For the first question, I want to know how "green" do you feel you are personally? Dark green? Green when it's convenient? Question two verified what I already knew -- we love trashy food. This week I'm letting you vote on your favorite movie/food combination. We collected ideas in my office but can't pick the best. Can you help? Clockwork your Orange Julius on over to get this week's poll.
Joel Walker x30541 http://jlt.jsc.nasa.gov/

[top]
2.            Human Systems Academy: Human Research Program Overview
Join the Human Systems Academy for a lecture covering the Human Research Program. The Human Research Program is a major part of the Space Life and Physical Sciences Research and Applications Division within the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate. It is instrumental in carrying out NASA's Strategic Plan by developing and delivering research findings, health countermeasures and human systems technologies for spacecraft that will support crews on missions to the moon, Mars or other destinations.
For registration, please go to: https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=SCHEDULED_...
Event Date: Thursday, April 18, 2013   Event Start Time:2:00 PM   Event End Time:4:00 PM
Event Location: B9/113

Add to Calendar

Cynthia Rando 281-461-2620 http://sa.jsc.nasa.gov/

[top]
3.            JSC Library Training on Aerospace Medicine Resources
PubMed, the NASA Aeronautics and Space Database, and the Wiley Online Library are some of the online medical resources available to JSC civil servants and contractors. Learn about these and the Bioastronautics Library services by joining Janine Bolton from the Scientific and Technical Information Center in a webinar from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. CDT on Thursday, April 18.
To register for the WebEx, go here and then click on "Schedule for Classroom/WebEx Training." Select the appropriate class from the drop-down menu on the registration page.
Provided by the Information Resources Directorate.
Event Date: Thursday, April 18, 2013   Event Start Time:1:30 PM   Event End Time:2:30 PM
Event Location: WebEx

Add to Calendar

Ebony Fondren x32490 http://library.jsc.nasa.gov

[top]
4.            You're Invited: City of Houston's Green Building Resource Center April 19
On Friday, April 19, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in honor of Earth Day, the City of Houston has invited JSC team members to attend a tour of the Green Building Resource Center at 1002 Washington (77002). If you are interested in learning more about green building concepts and Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), you should go on this tour. Two alternatively fueled government vans will depart/return from JSC (behind Building 419). Van 1 will leave JSC at about 10:15 a.m. and return at about 12:45 p.m. Van 2 will leave JSC at about noon and return at about 2:45 p.m. There are limited seats available.
Sign up by emailing Laurie Peterson regarding which van you're interested in taking. Please make sure you can go, because there are a very limited number of seats available for this tour. You are also welcome to take your own vehicle, but sustainability (i.e., ride-sharing and HOV lane usage) is encouraged!
Laurie Peterson x39845 http://www6.jsc.nasa.gov/ja/ja13/index.cfm

[top]
5.            Leadership Enrichment and Development Program (LEaD) Application Reminder
Reminder: The applications for Leadership Enrichment and Development Program (LEaD)-Class 3 are due by close of business Friday, April 19.
LEaD is designed to provide GS-11 and GS-12 non-AST individual contributors and influence leaders with the opportunity to develop foundational leadership skills. Participants will participate in a year-long program consisting of four modules designed around the core competencies: leading change; leading people and coalitions; results driven; and business acumen. Elements include: online and classroom training; subject-matter expert events; book clubs with senior management; 360-feedback tool; and mentorship.
For additional information, click here or contact Jessica Feinstein at x40989 or Christine Eagleton at x27838.
Christine Eagleton 281-792-7838

[top]
6.            HAS Program Needs Mentors and Student Mentors for the Summer
High School Aerospace Scholars (HAS) is in full swing and looking for mentors and student mentors for this summer. Being a mentor includes:
o             Working with outstanding high school students from across Texas
o             The opportunity to represent your division in education outreach without leaving JSC
o             Inspiring the next generation as only NASA can
o             Using your leadership skills to help students build a realistic human mission to Mars
Mentors are needed the following weeks:
o             June 9 to 14
o             June 16 to 21
o             July 14 to 19
o             July 21 to 26
o             July 28 to Aug. 2
The mentor application can be found online.
Stacey Welch 281-792-8100 http://has.aerospacescholars.org/

[top]
7.            Administrative Professionals Luncheon
Treat your administrative staff to a lavish event on Wednesday, April 24, at 11:30 a.m. Enjoy the Gilruth Center Alamo Ballroom as you have never seen it before, transformed into the ultimate restaurant experience. It's $20 per person or $150 per table of eight. Reservations are required by April 17. Call Danial at 281-483-0240 to reserve your spot.
Appetizer:
Chipotle salmon cake over hill country slaw with lime cilantro ailoli
Salad:
Mixed greens, spiced candied walnuts, red onion, sliced apples and bleu cheese crumbles with lemon tarragon vinaigrette
Entrée:
Herb-seared chicken breast over goat cheese and chive mashed potatoes with roasted asparagus and sundried tomato pesto cream sauce
Vegetarian Entrée:
Ratatouille stuffed Portobello cap with goat cheese over brown rice with roasted asparagus and balsamic gastrique
Dessert:
Sponge cake with Chambord-mixed berries and crème Chantilly
Event Date: Wednesday, April 24, 2013   Event Start Time:11:30 AM   Event End Time:1:00 PM
Event Location: Gilruth Center Alamo Ballroom

Add to Calendar

Danial Hornbuckle x30240 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/

[top]
8.            Book Fair at Starport -- Building 3 Café
Stop by the Books Are Fun book fair held in the Building 3 café on Tuesday, April 23, and Wednesday, April 24, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Search through more than 250 great titles in children's books, cookbooks, general-interest books, New York Times bestsellers, stationary and scrapbooking, music collections and more -- all at unbelievable prices. Click here for more information.
Event Date: Wednesday, April 24, 2013   Event Start Time:9:00 AM   Event End Time:2:00 PM
Event Location: B3 Cafe

Add to Calendar

Shelly Haralson x39168 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/

[top]
9.            JSC Knowledge Online New Release
Features of the JSC Knowledge Online (JKO) site are constantly being improved as the experiences of engineers, leaders and entire programs are captured and reported for JSC users. The "Leadership and Inspiration," "Storytelling" and "Operational Excellence Program" are all focuses for improved searching and ease of use.
New to JKO is a collection of "Leadership and Inspiration" videos. Pete Hasbrook, Jim McIngvale and Walter Ugalde are among the many presenters sharing their experiences on human sustainability, multi-physics simulations, nuclear safety and systems engineering for Morpheus.
Let us know what you think! We'd love to hear your suggestions. Just select one of the user feedback links available from the "Shuttle Knowledge Console," "Taxonomy" or "Case Studies" tabs to let us know. Feedback can be anonymous, or you are welcome to leave your information for a prompt response.
Brent J. Fontenot x36456 https://knowledge.jsc.nasa.gov/index.cfm

[top]
10.          Starport April Massage Special -- $55 for 60 -- Monday Through Thursday
Starport is offering another amazing massage special to the JSC community! Any one-hour massage booked online in April will be $55 when scheduled on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.
Starport Massage - $55 for 60 | Monday through Thursday
o             $55 for a 60-minute massage
o             Must be booked between Monday through Thursday
o             Must be booked online in April
o             Massage must be physically scheduled between April 1 and Aug. 30, 2013
Starport's Massage Therapists
-- Marj Moore, LMT
o             Tuesdays and Thursdays | 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.
o             Every other Saturday | 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
o             Click here to book with Marj
-- Anette Lemon, LMT
o             Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays | 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.
o             Every other Saturday | 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
o             Click here to book with Anette
Book your massage today!
Steve Schade x30304 http://www.innerspaceclearlake.com/massage.php

[top]
11.          Engineers Without Borders-JSC Presents: A Gasification Stove Expert
Come and join Engineers Without Borders (EWB)-JSC as we host a learning session with Paul Anderson, Ph.D., as he presents information on gasification stoves. An expert in the field, Anderson is collaborating with EWB-JSC on a gasification stove design for the fruit-drying system that will be installed at the L'Esperance Children's Aid Orphanage in Rwanda. The presentation will be in Building 7, Room 141, from noon to 1 p.m. today, April 11. No RSVP required.
Angela Cason x40903 http://www.drtlud.com/

[top]
12.          INCOSE April 18 Presentation -- Lean Systems Engineering Enablers
Are you interested in a best practice that will improve program and project performance? Is your company or organization focused on cost, schedule, quality and customer satisfaction? Would your organization benefit from tighter collaboration and working principles between the engineering and program management communities? If you answered "yes" to any of these, then "The Guide for Lean Enablers for Managing Engineering Programs" offers solutions. David Meza currently serves as the Operational Excellence program manager at JSC and will speak at the April 18 INCOSE Texas Gulf Coast Chapter Meeting on lean systems engineering enablers.
The event will be held April 18 starting at 5:30 p.m. at the Lockheed Martin Orion Conference Room (located at 2625 Bay Area Blvd., Suite 160 [OCC], Houston, 77058). Everyone is welcome. Refreshments will be served, so RSVP soon to Larry Spratlin via email or at 281-461-5218, or Ben Edwards via email or at 281-486-6313.
Larry Spratlin 281-461-5218

[top]

________________________________________
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.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT…

NASA Fiscal 2014 Budget Estimates
The Budget ensures that the US remains the world's leader in space exploration and scientific discovery, while positioning America to out-innovate our competitors and inspire the next generation of technology leaders.
Advances U.S. leadership in space exploration and scientific discovery
Advance Aeronautics & Space Activities for Benefit of American taxpayer
Improves life on Earth and protects our planet
Strengthens U.S. economy through science and technology investments

NASA Announces Asteroid Identification, Capture and Sampling Initiative
Using currently-under-development and advanced technologies, NASA will design a mission to capture an asteroid, redirect it to a more easily/quickly accessible orbit in the Earth-Moon corridor and send humans on the Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft to retrieve samples.

Human Spaceflight News
Thursday, April 11, 2013

HEADLINES AND LEADS

NASA's Fiscal 2014 Synopsis

Associated Press

Total Spending: $17.7 billion
Percentage Change from 2013: 0.1% decrease
Discretionary Spending: $17.7 billion
Highlights: Obama's budget includes $105 million to start an ambitious joint human-and-robot space mission that may eventually cost about $2.6 billion. The mission would have a robotic spaceship lasso a small asteroid, haul it to near the moon and then spacewalking astronauts would explore the space rock. The proposal increases by almost $300 million money to help private companies develop commercial spaceships to carry astronauts to the International Space Station instead of the Russian Soyuz rocket and the now-retired space shuttle fleet. It also generally continues current spending levels for NASA's biggest ticket items, $5 billion a year for science, $3 billion a year for the International Space Station, construction of a new heavy-lift rocket and a capsule to hold astronauts. NASA's education spending would drop by $45 million - nearly one-third of the agency's education budget.

NASA budget:
Asteroid mission efforts, funding commercial crew, & restructuring education

Jeff Foust - SpacePolitics.com

At first glance, the administration's fiscal year 2014 budget proposal doesn't look that different from the agency's 2013 proposal: both request nearly the same amount of money ($17.715 billion in FY14 versus $17.711B in FY13) with only modest variations amount the key accounts. The highest profile initiative is beginning work on a mission to retrieve a small asteroid and return it to cislunar space, where it will be visited by astronauts on an SLS/Orion mission, possibly the already scheduled EM-2 mission in 2021. The overall asteroid mission initiative gets $105 million.

NASA unveils 2014 budget request

William Harwood - CBS News

The Obama administration is requesting $17.7 billion for NASA in its fiscal 2014 budget proposal, including $105 million to begin laying the groundwork for a proposed mission to robotically capture a small asteroid and move it into high Earth orbit to serve as a target for manned sample return visits in the 2020s. The asteroid retrieval mission would require development of new solar-electric propulsion technology, improved asteroid detection techniques, state-of-the-art deep space command and control systems and use of NASA's Orion capsule and a new heavy lift rocket for manned missions beyond low-Earth orbit.

NASA Rolls Back Sequestration To Tackle Asteroid Retrieval

Mark Carreau & Frank Morring, Jr. - Aviation Week

NASA spending rises to a pre-sequestration level of $17.7 billion under President Barack Obama's proposed 2014 budget and holds steady in outyear projections, essentially casting off the current fiscal year deficit-reducing rollback to fuel an accelerated asteroid encounter by astronauts. The spending plan also holds target dates for initiating a new U.S. commercial crew orbital transportation capability, as well as launching the James Webb Space Telescope and second Curiosity-style rover to advance Mars sample return goals — some of NASA's most visible post-shuttle activities — in 2017, 2018 and 2020.

White House budget would trim NASA funding slightly

Joel Achenbach - Washington Post

The NASA budget would shrink slightly under President Obama's budget proposal. The White House is asking for $17.7 billion in funding, down about $50 million from what the agency received in 2012. The proposed NASA budget includes $78 million, little more than starter money, for a mission that would use a robotic spacecraft to lasso a small asteroid and tug it back to a stable orbit a bit farther than the moon from Earth.

NASA Budget Eyes Asteroid Defenses

Andy Pasztor - Wall Street Journal

The proposed $17.7 billion NASA budget unveils plans to develop technologies partly intended to ultimately protect the Earth from potentially dangerous collisions with asteroids. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration envisions launching robotic missions to a small asteroid before the end of the decade, later tugging it into an orbit near the moon and eventually sending astronauts to bring home samples after 2025.

NASA releases asteroid capture mission details

Dan Vergano - USA Today

NASA has confirmed its plans to explore and bag a nearby space rock in the next decade, designating a destination for its under-development space rocket and astronaut capsule. The moon will be getting its own pet asteroid, NASA proposes in a new budget plan. The space agency firmed up details of the asteroid-capture mission, revealed last week by Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., in President Obama's just-released federal budget proposal for 2014, which requests $17.7 billion for the space agency, up from the $16.6 billion that Congress eventually approved for last year's budget.

Asteroid detection among NASA budget priorities

Ledyard King - Florida Today

NASA's proposed fiscal 2014 budget includes $105 million to chase down asteroids. The space agency would use the money to help find meteors that could threaten the Earth and to kick-start the process of locating an asteroid that could be towed into the moon's orbit for exploration by astronauts. President Barack Obama's fiscal 2014 spending plan, unveiled today, seeks a total $17.7 billion for NASA.

Obama Seeks $17.7 Billion for NASA, Proposes Asteroid-retrieval Mission

Brian Berger - Space News

NASA unveiled a mostly business as usual $17.7 billion spending plan April 10 that brushes aside sequestration to keep key space programs on track while making a handful of new investments, including a $105 million downpayment on a mission to capture an asteroid and haul it to the Moon. U.S. President Barack Obama, in submitting his 2014 budget request to Congress, is calling for reversing deep cuts to NASA and other federal agencies by canceling the $1.2 trillion sequester triggered last month and replacing it with a 10-year deficit reduction plan that includes tax hikes and entitlement reform.

NASA Announces Plan for Capturing Asteroid
The space agency wants to tow an asteroid back to our planetary neighborhood

Marc Kaufman - National Geographic

NASA wants to identify an interesting asteroid flying around deep space, figure out a way to capture the spinning and hard-to-grab orb, nudge it into our planetary region and then set it into orbit around the moon, the agency announced Wednesday. The capture would be performed robotically, and the re-located asteroid would become a destination for astronauts to explore—and, possibly, for space entrepreneurs to mine. The idea may sound more like science fiction than national policy, but it actually fits in with key goals of the Obama administration and space community.

NASA unveils plan to catch asteroid as step to Mars flight

Irene Klotz - Reuters

President Barack Obama wants NASA to start work on finding a small asteroid that could be shifted into an orbit near the moon and used by astronauts as a stepping-stone for an eventual mission to Mars, agency officials said on Wednesday. The project, which envisions that astronauts could visit such an asteroid as early as 2021, is included in Obama's $17.7 billion spending plan for the U.S. space agency for the 2014 fiscal year. It is intended as an expansion of existing initiatives to find asteroids that may be on a collision course with Earth, and preparations for a human expedition to Mars in the 2030s.

Obama's budget would boost science, health

Agence France Presse

President Barack Obama's budget proposal released on Wednesday would boost funds for major science and health programs while making small cuts at NASA and the Environmental Protection Agency. Top projects at the US space agency would continue, including developing a new spaceship to send astronauts to the International Space Station, working toward an asteroid rendezvous and the 2018 launch of the James Webb Space Telescope.

Inside NASA's Plan to Catch an Asteroid (Bruce Willis Not Required)

Mike Wall - Space.com

NASA's newly unveiled asteroid-capture plan is still in its early stages, but some details are already emerging about how the audacious mission might work. President Barack Obama's 2014 federal budget request, which was released Wednesday (April 10), gives NASA $105 million to jump-start a program that would snag an asteroid and park it near the moon. Astronauts would then visit the space rock using the agency's Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule, perhaps as early as 2021.

Lawmakers Push NASA to Return to the Moon

Damon Poeter - PC Magazine

A battle brewing inside NASA over long-term mission goals has spilled over to Capitol Hill with a bipartisan group of legislators on Wednesday introducing a bill that would re-set the space agency's focus on returning astronauts to the Moon before attempting manned missions to Mars or a near-Earth asteroid. "The Moon is our nearest celestial body, taking only a matter of days to reach. In order to explore deeper into space—to Mars and beyond—a Moon presence offers us the ability to develop and test technologies to cope with the realities of operating on an extraterrestrial surface," Rep. Bill Posey (R-Fla.), who worked on the Apollo Program at the Kennedy Space Center in his youth, said in a statement.

Boeing Executive Defends SLS as Only Deep-space Option

Dan Leone - Space News

The former head of NASA's space shuttle program, now an executive with Boeing Space Exploration, defended the heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS) the Houston-based company is helping NASA build as the only credible way to mount crewed missions beyond low Earth orbit using today's technology. "If you look at a wide range of missions — anything really beyond low Earth orbit — you have to have more lift capability than we have commercially available right now, and SLS provides that," John Shannon, international space station program manager at Boeing, said April 10 during a press conference at the 29th National Space Symposium. "People that say there are other options, or other ways to get beyond low Earth orbit — it's just not a fact, it's just not true. There are technologies you could develop that would be years and years in the future … but SLS gives you the capability to do that much, much quicker."

KSC to benefit from Obama's proposed NASA budget

Todd Halvorson – Florida Today

President Obama's proposed 2014 NASA budget includes almost $2.3 billion for Kennedy Space Center, enough to keep pace with planned milestones toward the next-generation of U.S. human spaceflight, agency officials said Wednesday. KSC Director Robert Cabana said the money would enable NASA to continue transforming the launch base into a multi-user spaceport – a home for NASA, commercial companies and other federal agencies. "I think it's a great budget for Kennedy Space Center," said Cabana, a former astronaut. "It keeps us on track to meet all our requirements." And those are many.

2014 budget plan for NASA in Huntsville called 'solid,' but only if no sequestration

Lee Roop - Huntsville Times

The director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center told reporters Wednesday that his center's proposed budget for 2014 is "solid" and will mean "stability for the workforce." The challenge to that upbeat view, which ran all the way to the top of the space agency Wednesday, is that the budget proposed by President Obama assumes the end of sequestration. Put sequestration back in the mix and "we won't be able to do the broad course of events portrayed here," Administrator Charles Bolden Jr. said in his own briefing. Marshall Director Patrick Scheuermann said Marshall's share of NASA's proposed $17.7 billion budget for 2014 is $2.18 billion. It includes no program cuts and has "roughly $1.3 billion" for the heavy-lift rocket known as the Space Launch System (SLS) being developed at Marshall.

Boeing progressing on CST-100 space capsule

Zach Rosenberg - FlightInternational.com

Boeing is making progress on the CST-100 capsule, intended to fly astronauts to the International Space Station. "Our next milestone we've got planned is in July, for the orbital manoeuvring and control engine developed by Rocketdyne," says John Mulholland, Boeing's programme manager. "We've already done some early demonstration tests of that, this would be the final demonstration before their critical design review, which is later in the fall."

World space agency chiefs support, question NASA asteroid-capture plan

Dan Leone - Space News

Leaders of space agencies from around the globe gave NASA's plan to capture an asteroid and tow it to lunar orbit a generally positive, though cautious, reaction here during a panel discussion at the 29th National Space Symposium. On April 10, the White House rolled out its 2014 federal budget request. The NASA portion of the request includes $105 million for early work on a mission to locate and capture a small asteroid with a robotic spacecraft, then tow it back to lunar space where astronauts could visit it using the Space Launch System and Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle the agency is building for missions beyond Earth orbit.

NASA's 2014 Budget: Space Exploration Experts React

Tariq Malik - Space.com

President Barack Obama unveiled a proposed federal budget for 2014 today (April 10), which includes $17.7 billion in funding for NASA in the next fiscal year. The budget request also includes $105 million dedicated to support an audacious new mission to capture and asteroid and park it near the moon so that astronauts can explore it by 2025. In addition to the asteroid capture mission, NASA's 2014 budget request also includes about $200 million in cuts to planetary science, which has upset some scientists and space exploration groups. It does, however, increase funding for Earth science missions and fully fund the agency's private space taxi program and new human spaceflight projects, such as the Space Launch System mega-rocket and Orion space capsule.

Commercial space companies call Colorado home

Andy Koen - KOAA TV (Colorado Springs & Pueblo)

When America returns to using its own rockets to send astronauts into space, there is a good chance those vehicles will be designed and even built here in Colorado. The retiring of the Space Shuttle Program alone has sparked a boom in commercial space innovation by requiring private companies to compete for NASA contracts to carry astronaut to the International Space Station via the Commercial Crew Program. "There's a whole revolution going on now," explained Tom Clark, president of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation a member of the Colorado Space Coalition.

To Infinity and Beyond? More Wasteful Spending at NASA

Peter Roff - US News & World Report (Opinion)

(Roff is a contributing editor at U.S. News & World Report. Formerly a senior political writer for United Press International, he's now affiliated with several public policy organizations including Let Freedom Ring, and Frontiers of Freedom.)

The sequester has forced Washington, D.C. to tighten its belt. The spending restraint is long overdue. Total federal debt now exceeds, by most estimates, one year's U.S. gross domestic product. Even so, the modest reduction in spending the sequester has forced the federal government to absorb is not nearly enough to get the books in balance. It's also not, as recent reports have shown, enough to force the government to prioritize or even to show a little common sense. Exhibit A is the new plan underway at NASA, which has had little to do since the space shuttle program was terminated, to lasso an asteroid at an estimated cost of $100 million.

Why Americans must support NASA's plan to capture an asteroid

Tom Jones - FoxNews.com (Opinion)

(Jones is a planetary scientist, author and former astronaut. He was a member of the 2012 Keck Institute for Space Studies asteroid retrieval study team.)

Grabbing a small, water-rich asteroid and returning it to a safe orbit around the moon is the new NASA mission concept, announced this week, generating excitement and controversy. If the space agency wins approval to retrieve the asteroid by the early 2020s, U.S. astronauts will begin to prospect and dissect the object for its scientific and economic treasure. The concept is a bold combination of our robotic and human spaceflight technologies, propelling astronauts beyond-the-moon, and opening a new economic frontier to harness the wealth of natural resources waiting for us in space.
__________

COMPLETE STORIES

NASA's Fiscal 2014 Synopsis

Associated Press

Total Spending: $17.7 billion
Percentage Change from 2013: 0.1% decrease
Discretionary Spending: $17.7 billion
Mandatory Spending: 0
Highlights:
Obama's budget includes $105 million to start an ambitious joint human-and-robot space mission that may eventually cost about $2.6 billion. The mission would have a robotic spaceship lasso a small asteroid, haul it to near the moon and then spacewalking astronauts would explore the space rock. The idea is to test technologies and methods to protect Earth from being hit by dangerous asteroids and prepare astronauts for a future mission to Mars. Some of the initial money would be used to better scan the solar system for asteroids.

The proposal increases by almost $300 million money to help private companies develop commercial spaceships to carry astronauts to the International Space Station instead of the Russian Soyuz rocket and the now-retired space shuttle fleet. Republicans in Congress have at times balked at increases in this program. It also generally continues current spending levels for NASA's biggest ticket items, $5 billion a year for science, $3 billion a year for the International Space Station, construction of a new heavy-lift rocket and a capsule to hold astronauts, and what will eventually be an $8 billion replacement for the Hubble Space Telescope.

NASA's education spending would drop by $45 million - nearly one-third of the agency's education budget - because science education would be consolidated and augmented at other agencies, especially the Department of Education.

After sequestration, NASA's 2013 spending has dropped to about $16.6 billion.

NASA budget:
Asteroid mission efforts, funding commercial crew, & restructuring education

Jeff Foust - SpacePolitics.com

At first glance, the administration's fiscal year 2014 budget proposal doesn't look that different from the agency's 2013 proposal: both request nearly the same amount of money ($17.715 billion in FY14 versus $17.711B in FY13) with only modest variations amount the key accounts. (OF course, NASA ended up with considerably less than it requested: about $16.6 billion overall once the final accounting for sequestration and rescission is taken into account.) Here's the budget at a glance:

Account                       FY14 request ($M)
Science                                    $5,017.8
Space Technology        $742.6
Aeronautics                   $565.7
Exploration                   $3,915.5
Space Operations         $3,882.9
Education                     $94.2
Cross Agency Support $2,850.3
Construction                 $609.4
Inspector General          $37.0
TOTAL                          $17,715.4

The highest profile initiative is beginning work on a mission to retrieve a small asteroid and return it to cislunar space, where it will be visited by astronauts on an SLS/Orion mission, possibly the already scheduled EM-2 mission in 2021. The overall asteroid mission initiative gets $105 million in the budget request, although only $78 million would be directly related the mission itself: $38 million in space technology to work the solar electric propulsion system the robotic retrieval spacecraft would use, and $40 million in advanced research and development in exploration to encounter asteroids, including dealing with "uncooperative targets". In addition, there is $7 million in space technology to study asteroid impact mitigation strategies, and $20 million in science to improve asteroid searches.

The program is spread out over three directorates, rather than consolidated into one, because the program is still in its earliest stages. "We decided to preferentially invest in the kinds of technologies we needed anyway," a senior NASA official, speaking on background, said prior to the budget's public rollout. Solar electric propulsion, dealing with uncooperative targets, and asteroid searches were individually key programs, the official explained, that could be used for other applications regardless of how the asteroid retrieval mission pans out. The official added NASA hopes to get the overall cost of the mission below the $2.6-billion estimate in the Keck Institute for Space Studies report last year, but declined to say by how much, noting that NASA has not yet performed a mission concept review, planned for this summer.

The budget also includes "full funding" for both the SLS and Orion programs, as well as for Commercial Crew, where NASA is seeking $821 million. In the last two budgets, NASA has sought over $800 million for the program but received only a fraction of that: $406 million in FY12 and under $490 million (post-rescission and -sequestration) in FY13. The NASA official emphasized that this full funding was needed in FY14 in order to keep the program on track for beginning flights in 2017. "You can't hold 2017 at $525 [million]" in 2014 and beyond, the official said, referring to the amount Congress provided for the program in FY13 before rescission and sequestration.

One other change in the FY14 budget is a revamp of the agency's education program. As part of a broader administration initiative in STEM education, NASA's education efforts are being consolidated with about a dozen other agencies, with the Department of Education, NSF, and the Smithsonian taking lead roles. That results in a lower topline for the program—$94 million versus a pre-sequester $125 million for FY13—but the official said there would still be a strong emphasis on education programs at NASA, and expected other agencies to make use of NASA capabilities. "They're not only going to want to partner with us, they're going to need to," the official said. NASA believes it could end up with a more effective program in the long run by taking advantage of the broader reach of those other agencies under this initiative.

NASA unveils 2014 budget request

William Harwood - CBS News

The Obama administration is requesting $17.7 billion for NASA in its fiscal 2014 budget proposal, including $105 million to begin laying the groundwork for a proposed mission to robotically capture a small asteroid and move it into high Earth orbit to serve as a target for manned sample return visits in the 2020s.

The asteroid retrieval mission would require development of new solar-electric propulsion technology, improved asteroid detection techniques, state-of-the-art deep space command and control systems and use of NASA's Orion capsule and a new heavy lift rocket for manned missions beyond low-Earth orbit.

The project is focused on expanding efforts to identify asteroids that might represent a potential threat to Earth, helping scientists learn more about their composition and giving engineers insights into what might be needed to divert an asteroid on a collision course with Earth.

"With this budget, NASA will use game-changing technologies advanced by the administration to develop the first ever mission to identify, capture and relocate an asteroid," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden.

"This mission raises the bar for human exploration and discovery, helps us protect our home planet and brings us closer to a human mission to an asteroid. It brings together the best of NASA's efforts in all areas to achieve the president's goals in a more cost effective and potentially quicker way."

But the president's budget request assumes changes to mandatory budget cuts known as sequestration. If sequestration remains in effect in its current form, NASA's portion of the budget could be reduced by nearly $1 billion, according to the Coalition for Space Exploration.

"In the event of further sequestration budget constraints, it remains unclear whether NASA would have enough funds to accomplish current programs, yet alone newly proposed initiatives," the space advocacy group said in a statement.

The asteroid retrieval mission calls for sending a robotic spacecraft to a targeted 20- to 30-foot-wide asteroid around the end of the decade. Equipped with a large container-like framework on the front end, the spacecraft would slowly scoop up the asteroid and then maneuver it back to a high Earth orbit.

If all goes well, astronauts could visit the captured asteroid in the early 2020s using NASA's Orion crew capsule and the agency's new Space Launch System heavy lift rocket. The first manned flight of the Orion-SLS system remains targeted for 2021.

"This mission allows us to better develop our technology and systems to explore farther than we've ever been before," Bolden said. "That means to an asteroid and to Mars, places that humanity has dreamed about as long as I've been alive but had no hope of ever attaining. We're on the threshold of being able to tell my kids and my grandkids that we're almost there."

The asteroid capture mission is far from certain, but supporters of the plan say the required work to improve asteroid detection and development of new propulsion technology would pay dividends across the manned and unmanned space arenas while providing important insights for planetary defense.

The threat posed by asteroids gained worldwide attention in February when a 150-foot-wide body passed within just 17,000 miles of Earth the same day another small asteroid exploded in the atmosphere above Russia.

"This asteroid initiative brings together the best of NASA's science, technology and human exploration efforts to achieve the president's goal of sending humans to an asteroid by 2025," Bolden said earlier in a statement. "We will use existing capabilities such as the Orion crew capsule and Space Launch System rocket, and develop new technologies like solar electric propulsion and laser communications, all critical components of deep space exploration."

NASA is initiating a series of engineering meetings over the summer to better estimate the cost of the proposed project. But agency officials said they believe it will be less than the $2.65 billion estimate from an independent study group.

Answering questions at a budget briefing held by the Office of Science and Technology Policy, Bolden said the new budget includes $40 million to improve asteroid detection and "we feel very confident that not only will we be a step closer to putting humans with an asteroid and getting humans to Mars, but we will finally answer the question of can humans do something to protect the planet?"

While dramatic, the asteroid retrieval mission represents a small portion of NASA's 2014 budget request. The budget includes $5 billion for space science, including $658 million for the James Webb Space Telescope, the over-budget $6.5 billion successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, and $1.2 billion for planetary science, including initial funding for a 2020 follow-on to the Mars Curiosity rover.

The International Space Station accounts for $3 billion of the NASA total, including funds to pay for U.S. seats on Russian Soyuz spacecraft for near-term flights to and from the lab complex.

At the same time, the administration is requesting $822 million to continue development of domestic commercial manned spacecraft. The goal is to end reliance on the Russians for routine trips to and from low-Earth orbit.

Assuming full funding, the first commercial manned flights to the station would be expected in 2017.

"We are encouraged by the support shown for the Commercial Crew Program, which is now in a critical phase as complete crew transportation systems go through design, build and testing," Michael Lopez-Alegria, president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, said in a statement.

But Bolden made it clear any significant cuts to the commercial manned space budget will push station flights beyond 2017.

"In our calls to our members leading up to today, we made it very clear, $822 million is the bottom line for us to be able to deliver on the scheduled date," Bolden said. "We cannot do it in 2017 if we go below $822 million.

"As we told the members this week, our intent is to be up on the Hill, working with them, looking at our budget, trying to help them understand that we think we have a way to get there without taking anything from other programs."

NASA's 2014 budget request includes $2.7 billion for continued development of the Space Launch System heavy lift rocket and the Orion multi-purpose crew vehicle. The new rocket remains scheduled for its initial test flight in 2017 while the Orion program hopes launch unmanned test flights in 2014 and 2017. A manned flight atop the SLS booster is planned for 2021.

"This budget keeps commercial cargo resupply to the International Space Station on track and provides the necessary resources to launch American astronauts from U.S. soil within the next four years," Bolden said.

"New technologies are the underpinning of everything we do. And this budget continues investments in the heavy lift launch vehicle and the Orion crew vehicle that will take astronauts into deep space. It also provides for continued development of space technologies, such as solar electric propulsion that will power tomorrow's missions."

NASA Rolls Back Sequestration To Tackle Asteroid Retrieval

Mark Carreau & Frank Morring, Jr. - Aviation Week

NASA spending rises to a pre-sequestration level of $17.7 billion under President Barack Obama's proposed 2014 budget and holds steady in outyear projections, essentially casting off the current fiscal year deficit-reducing rollback to fuel an accelerated asteroid encounter by astronauts.

The spending plan also holds target dates for initiating a new U.S. commercial crew orbital transportation capability, as well as launching the James Webb Space Telescope and second Curiosity-style rover to advance Mars sample return goals — some of NASA's most visible post-shuttle activities — in 2017, 2018 and 2020.

Embedded prominently in the spending plan forwarded to the House and Senate on April 10 is a $105 million down payment on an ambitious and yet-to-be-priced effort to identify and robotically corral a small asteroid into an orbit around the Moon in time for a 2021 visit by U.S. astronauts.

They would launch and fly aboard the new Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) and Space Launch System (SLS), which also are funded to hold previously established test flights dates, including the late 2014 unpiloted Orion orbital Exploration Flight Test, the unpiloted Exploration Mission-1 test flight of the SLS-MPCV combination in 2017; and the 2021 flight of Exploration Mission-2, which would place a crew aboard the SLS/MPCV combination for the first time to visit a lunar orbiting asteroid.

The mission offers new urgency for NASA's post-shuttle ambitions to restore a human deep-space exploration capability lost as Apollo came to a close four decades ago, while beginning to equip global leaders with capabilities to fend off the collision threat posed by near-Earth asteroids. It places scientists and the commercial sector closer to the Solar System's building blocks as well as potential resources for future space development, according to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden.

In 2010, Obama directed NASA to visit an asteroid by 2025, as a first step in reaching the Martian environs with explorers a decade later. "There will be naysayers all over," Bolden acknowledged in a White House budget briefing. "As details of the mission and its concept become available, it represents an ingenious way for us to respond to a challenge the president issued to NASA," he noted. "One of the serendipitous results from this flight, we hope, will be the ability to deflect an asteroid."

Bolden pointed to the unanticipated Feb. 15 explosion of a small asteroid over Russia that sent more than 1,000 people to area hospitals with blast-related injuries, and the passage of the larger asteroid 2012 DA 14 within 18,000 mi. of the Earth later the same day.

NASA's international partners reacted with interest, and some skepticism, to the asteroid-capture idea. While Japan, Germany and the European Space Agency (ESA) all have missions to asteroids and other near-Earth objects in the works, space agency chiefs attending the National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs weren't sure how it could apply to the NASA plan.

"Everything sounds very nice," says Johann-Dietrich Woerner, head of the German Aerospace Center (DLR). "It's a pioneering work, for sure it will have outreach, but I would ask the question 'why' before I would start a new project. For Germany, on the technologic basis and the scientific basis, I'm sure that we could have our part in that."

Hideshi Kozawa, a senior advisor to the new president of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Naoki Okumura, noted that Japan already has returned samples from an asteroid on its Hayabusa mission, and is developing Hayabusa-2. "It's a good chance for Japan to show our technology to other partners," he says.

Jean-Jacques Dordain, the ESA director general, noted that ESA and DLR are partners in the Rosetta mission, which will land on a comet next year, and said ESA might want a role in the U.S. mission.

"This is a very interesting project, and as I already told Charlie Bolden, we are ready to see how ESA can contribute to such a mission," Dordain says.

U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology committee, was among the first to cast doubt on the mission's political viability.

"Hardworking taxpayers are tired of watching the government borrow and spend money it doesn't have," said Smith. "While getting points for creativity, a proposed NASA mission to 'lasso' an asteroid and drag it to the Moon's orbit will require serious deliberation. Seemingly out of the blue, this mission has never been evaluated or recommended by the scientific community and has not received the scrutiny that a normal program would undergo."

The multiyear cost of the venture to identify and robotically capture and maneuver a 500-ton asteroid into a stable lunar orbit for a visit by U.S. astronauts as soon as 2021 could become clear later this year. Agency officials believe the $2.6 billion cost attached to a similar mission proposal developed by the Keck Institute for Space Studies at CalTech last year can be reduced substantially by a combination of activities already under way within the agency.

"We have had to make some really tough choices with this budget," Bolden noted in introductory remarks. "But we think we have done our best to make really prudent decisions and that NASA will be using its resources strategically for a unified, cohesive exploration program that raises the bar for what humans can achieve."

However, he emphasized the blueprint unravels quickly if Congress and the White House are unable to eliminate sequestration in 2014 and the outyears. "I don't do magic," Bolden stressed when he was questioned about the agency's future by a House appropriations panel last month.

The impacts of sequestration and a smaller rescission reduced proposed NASA spending of $17.7 billion in 2013 to about $16.6 billion when applied against the budget Continuing Resolution agreed to by Congress and the president in March. NASA's operating plan for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30 with more precise estimates will be presented to lawmakers by May 10.

NASA's science mission directorate would lead all spending in the agency, with $5.02 billion, vs. $5.11 billion from the 2013 estimate, followed by space operations, with $3.88 billion vs. $4.25 billion, as spending on the shuttle program ends; exploration, $3.9 billion vs. $3.8 billion; cross agency support, $2.85 billion vs. $3 billion; space technology, $742.6 million vs. $577 million; aeronautics, $565.7 million vs. $573 million; and education, $94.2 million vs. $137 million, as the administration consolidates a 13-agency focus on science and math education.

As envisioned in the 2014 spending plan, the asteroid retrieval mission would engage the Science, Space Technology and the merging Exploration and Space Operations directorates to select an appropriate asteroid; mature a solar-electric propulsion technology to reach and retrieve the space rock; develop strategies for rendezvousing with, securing and maneuvering the unstable object into a lunar orbit around the second Earth-Moon Lagrange point; and devise a human mission plan.

Additional funding in 2015 and beyond would lead to the selection of a destination asteroid in 2016 and the launching of the robotic retrieval three years later.

Obama's proposed budget seeks $821 million within the exploration account for the development of commercial crew transportation services in support of the International Space Station by 2017. Without that amount, NASA will be forced to rely on Russia's Soyuz spacecraft to carry astronauts to and from the station, Bolden said.

The James Webb Space Telescope, once over budget and behind schedule, was rebaselined two years ago. The $8.8 billion designated successor to the Hubble Space Telescope is on schedule for an October 2018 launch. The $658 million in Webb funding for 2014 would be spend on integration of the four major instruments, further assembly of the optical systems and prelaunch testing.

White House budget would trim NASA funding slightly

Joel Achenbach - Washington Post

The NASA budget would shrink slightly under President Obama's budget proposal. The White House is asking for $17.7 billion in funding, down about $50 million from what the agency received in 2012.

The proposed NASA budget includes $78 million, little more than starter money, for a mission that would use a robotic spacecraft to lasso a small asteroid and tug it back to a stable orbit a bit farther than the moon from Earth.

Astronauts could then visit the asteroid in a spaceship under development. But the money allotted to the program is slight enough that it gives the administration an out if technical problems scrap the project.

The budget blueprint says the $78 million would "develop needed technologies and study alternative approaches for a robotic mission to rendezvous with a small asteroid – one that would be harmless to Earth – and move it to a stable location outside the Moon's orbit."

NASA's public affairs staff points out that the total expenditures on new asteroid-related projects is $105 million, including funding for research on identifying potential hazards to the planet from near-Earth asteroids. NASA has also spent two years developing the heavy-lift rocket and crew capsule necessary to perform deep-space missions, such as a rendezvous with an asteroid.

The president's budget also includes a whack at a high-profile element of NASA: Planetary science, including the Mars program that last year put the rover Curiosity on the red planet. The proposal would cut Planetary Science dramatically, from $1.5 billion in 2012 to 1.217 billion in the coming fiscal year.

NASA administrator Charles Bolden said in a news conference that this was primarily the result of finding cheaper ways to achieve the same goals within the agency.

"We have now found ways to be much more frugal," Bolden said.

NASA says much of the reduction comes from a drop in funds needed for the Mars rover program, which had caused a spike in the Planetary Science outlay in previous years. The reduction in funding "is part of the normal development cycle," a NASA spokesman said by e-mail.

But Bill Nye, the "Science Guy" who is CEO of the Planetary Society, which advocates for robotic space exploration in the solar system, expressed his displeasure in a blog post Wednesday on the organization's Web site. The budget cut, he wrote, "will strangle future missions and reverse a decade's worth of investment building the world's premier exploration program."

He added: "NASA got approval to pursue a mission to capture and move an asteroid. This is intriguing and will receive a good deal of press coverage. But the disproportionate cuts to planetary science are disappointing and must get coverage, too. NASA did not get the message from Congress and the public about their wishes for missions to distant worlds."

NASA Budget Eyes Asteroid Defenses

Andy Pasztor - Wall Street Journal

The proposed $17.7 billion NASA budget unveils plans to develop technologies partly intended to ultimately protect the Earth from potentially dangerous collisions with asteroids.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration envisions launching robotic missions to a small asteroid before the end of the decade, later tugging it into an orbit near the moon and eventually sending astronauts to bring home samples after 2025.

The agency's overall spending proposal, basically flat from previously enacted spending levels, identifies such asteroid exploration as the capstone for years of heavy NASA spending on a powerful new rocket and manned capsule championed by congressional leaders.

In the wake of a meteor exploding over Russia in February and a football-size asteroid whizzing by the earth just hours later, NASA's latest strategy, dubbed by some proponents as "planetary defense," seems designed to generate broad public support as well as a favorable response on Capitol Hill. NASA officials say the asteroid to be moved could be about 30 feet long and weigh roughly 500 tons. If all goes well, astronauts could be orbiting around it as soon as 2021.

But the high costs of existing space programs—including operation of the international space station –coupled with continuing White House disputes with Congress over exploration priorities threaten to strangle funding for the latest initiative. Even the agency, which is requesting about $100 million in fiscal 2014 to kick off the asteroid effort, concedes it is designed to be "more cost-effective" than earlier White House visions of sending astronauts to land on a much larger, and potentially more distant asteroid.

At a time when China is aggressively moving toward launching manned missions to the moon, NASA's latest spending blueprint appears to rule out options of returning U.S. astronauts there while maintaining the goal of manned trips to Mars perhaps around 2035.

Spending on a heavy-lift rocket, slated to be the most powerful booster since the Apollo-era Saturn V, and its corresponding Orion crew vehicle together are targeted at around $3 billion, mirroring bipartisan agreement to keep money flowing to those programs. But once again, NASA likely faces a stiff fight over its desire to ramp up funding to $820 million annually to help subsidize work on private taxis to transport astronauts to the orbiting space station. Congress has kept a lid on such appropriations at around $500 million.

While seeking to increase investment in cutting-edge spacecraft propulsion and on-orbit refueling, NASA would lose nearly one-third of its current funding to foster interest and education in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math. The proposed cuts are part of a government-wide bid by the White House to consolidate so-called STEM education in three other agencies.

The proposed budget also maintains roughly $1.8 billion in spending on sensors and other technology to improve weather forecasting and provide new data about climate change.

The proposed $17.7 million is only about $100 million under the pre-sequester $17.8 billion. But it's about $1 billion more than the the current $16.6 billion spending plan, taking sequestration and other cuts into account.

NASA releases asteroid capture mission details

Dan Vergano - USA Today

NASA has confirmed its plans to explore and bag a nearby space rock in the next decade, designating a destination for its under-development space rocket and astronaut capsule.

The moon will be getting its own pet asteroid, NASA proposes in a new budget plan.

The space agency firmed up details of the asteroid-capture mission, revealed last week by Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., in President Obama's just-released federal budget proposal for 2014, which requests $17.7 billion for the space agency, up from the $16.6 billion that Congress eventually approved for last year's budget.

The asteroid project would send astronauts to a 500-ton nearby asteroid by 2021. They would later move the roughly 30-foot-wide space rock into orbit around the moon for later prospecting. The mission would use the space agency's now-under-development Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew capsule, modified to allow space walks by astronauts, to make the capture happen. The proposed budget next year would add $78 million to develop asteroid lassoing technology to NASA's budget.

"There will be naysayers," said NASA chief Charles Bolden at a briefing in Washington on Wednesday. He defended the proposal, tied to a call by Obama for astronauts to visit an asteroid by 2025 before moving on to Mars.

"This mission raises the bar for human exploration and discovery, helps us protect our home planet and brings us closer to a human mission to an asteroid," Bolden said.

The space agency has begun looking for smaller candidate "near-Earth" asteroids for the rendezvous and capture mission. Over the last decade, the space agency has catalogued more than 90% of the most dangerous nearby asteroids, those that are more than a half-mile wide and have orbits that bring them near Earth.

"I remain unconvinced that there is any need for humans to personally visit an asteroid. Robotic spacecraft operated by humans right here on Earth can do the job," says space policy expert Marcia Smith of SpacePolicyOnline. A space telescope that spots nearby asteroids, followed by robotic missions to sample them, makes more sense than sending astronauts, she says.

In his comments, Bolden noted that the Feb. 15 close passage of a large space rock, 2012 DA14, on the same day that a meteor hit a Russian city, galvanized public interest in asteroids. The proposed budget would spend $40 million on identifying nearby asteroids, he said.

Asteroid detection among NASA budget priorities

Ledyard King - Florida Today

NASA's proposed fiscal 2014 budget includes $105 million to chase down asteroids.

The space agency would use the money to help find meteors that could threaten the Earth and to kick-start the process of locating an asteroid that could be towed into the moon's orbit for exploration by astronauts.

President Barack Obama's fiscal 2014 spending plan, unveiled today, seeks a total $17.7 billion for NASA.

The proposal for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 now heads to Congress for review. It seeks about the same amount of money for NASA that the president sought for fiscal 2013 and would fund the agency's top priorities. Those proposed outlays include:

•       $821 million for the Commercial Crew Program designed to replace the space shuttle with a fleet of private sector taxis to ferry astronauts and scientists to and from the International Space Station.

•       $2.7 billion for space exploration. Most of that would be spent on a Space Launch System consisting of a deep-space rocket longer than a football field and an Orion multipurpose vehicle to carry astronauts.

•       $1.2 billion for planetary science, including the planned November launch of the MAVEN robotic probe that will analyze the Martian atmosphere.

•       $658 million to keep the James Webb Space Telescope on track for a 2018 launch. The money would be spent working on the telescope's mirrors and scientific instruments. Construction of the $8 billion telescope, the successor to the Hubble Telescope, has been beset by cost overruns and delays.

•       $834 million for Space and Flight Support, much of it for renovation of Kennedy Space Center's launch complex

"This budget focuses on an ambitious new mission to expand America's capabilities in space, steady progress on new space and aeronautic technologies, continued success with commercial space partnerships, and far-reaching science programs to help us understand Earth and the universe in which we live. It keeps us competitive, opens the door to new destinations and vastly increases our knowledge," said NASA chief Charles Bolden.

"Our drive to make new discoveries and dare new frontiers continues to improve life for people everywhere and raise the bar of human achievement."

The argument for spending $105 million to chase asteroids is that more than 10,000 such objects large enough to level a large city continually brush past the planet undetected. About $27 million would be used to beef up monitoring efforts to identify potential threats and develop a plan to change their trajectory.

The remaining $78 million would be used as seed money for a project that would use a robotic spacecraft to capture an asteroid and tow it into a stable orbit around the moon, according to Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., who was briefed last week about the proposal.
Astronauts aboard the Orion capsule, powered into space by the new monster rocket, would travel to the asteroid, where they could mine materials, research ways to deflect other asteroids away from Earth, and test technology for a trip to Mars, Nelson said.

The proposed $821 million for the Commercial Crew Program could be the toughest sell on Capitol Hill. Lawmakers have chopped the administration's request in past years as part of Republican efforts to cut government spending.

The White House asked for about $800 million for the program in fiscal 2013, but Congress approved only $525 million. That figure is expected to drop further under automatic sequestration budget cuts that took effect March 1.

Obama's fiscal 2014 budget proposal assumes Congress will reach a deal to avoid the cuts in future years, but so far that compromise has remained elusive.

Sequestration cut about $800 million from NASA's budget this year. If the automatic cuts aren't averted for fiscal 2014, agency officials said they could stall some of NASA's most important work.

NASA also must deal with competing congressional visions of its mission.

Rep. Bill Posey, R-Rockledge, and several other House members have introduced a bipartisan bill directing the agency to develop a plan for returning to the moon and establishing a human presence there, something Obama rejected in scrapping the Constellation Program several years ago.

"The moon is our nearest celestial body, taking only a matter of days to reach," said Posey, who once worked on the Apollo Program at Kennedy Space Center. "In order to explore deeper into space — to Mars and beyond — a moon presence offers us the ability to develop and test technologies to cope with the realities of operating on an extraterrestrial surface."

Obama Seeks $17.7 Billion for NASA, Proposes Asteroid-retrieval Mission

Brian Berger - Space News

NASA unveiled a mostly business as usual $17.7 billion spending plan April 10 that brushes aside sequestration to keep key space programs on track while making a handful of new investments, including a $105 million downpayment on a mission to capture an asteroid and haul it to the Moon.

U.S. President Barack Obama, in submitting his 2014 budget request to Congress, is calling for reversing deep cuts to NASA and other federal agencies by canceling the $1.2 trillion sequester triggered last month and replacing it with a 10-year deficit reduction plan that includes tax hikes and entitlement reform.

The president's proposal would return NASA's budget to its 2012 level, which is roughly $1 billion more than the $16.6 billion the agency stands to receive under the sequestered $1 trillion spending bill Congress enacted last month to keep the U.S. government running through September.

The asteroid-capture mission unveiled in the budget request aims to make good on Obama's 2010 pledge to send astronauts to an asteroid by 2025.

NASA expects to spend between $1 billion and $2.6 billion to launch a probe in 2017 to capture an asteroid and haul it to a location near the Moon where it can be visited by astronauts perhaps by 2021, the senior NASA official said.

The $105 million NASA is seeking for the asteroid-capture mission would be spread across NASA's Science, Human Exploration and Space Technology mission directorates. They would use the money to identify target asteroids, refine the mission architecture, develop capturing technologies and work on the solar electric propulsion system that would power the asteroid-capture spacecraft.

New Funding Responsibilities

Aside from the asteroid-capture mission, which seeks to leverage work NASA already is doing, the agency's budget contains no new programs. However, it does include a number of new funding responsibilities.

For example, after several failed attempts to sway Congress to give the Department of Interior's U.S. Geological Survey full budgetary responsibility for future land-imaging satellites, the Obama administration is requesting $30 million in NASA's $1.85 billion Earth science budget to develop a follow-on to the Landsat Data Continuity Mission launched in February. The senior NASA official said the agency expects to decide in 2014 whether to build a copy of the spacecraft, or take a more innovative approach to obtaining the moderate-resolution imagery the Landsat program has been collecting for over 40 years.

Likewise, the White House is proposing that NASA spend $40 million in 2014 developing climate instruments that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would fly on its Joint Polar Satellite System weather satellites.

NASA's Planetary Science Division, whose budget would rise slightly to $1.2 billion compared to Obama's 2013 request, is being asked to foot the Department of Energy's entire bill for producing plutonium-238, a radioactive isotope used to power certain deep-space missions. This will cost NASA about $65 million in 2014, up from the $15 million it has contributed to the effort in recent years.

Key Programs

NASA's 2014 budget proposal aims to keep the Orion crew capsule and its Space Launch System booster on track for an unmanned test launch in 2017 by giving the government-led effort a steady $2.7 billion next year.

The budget also keeps the United States on track to resume launching American astronauts from U.S. soil by 2017 by funding the Commercial Crew Program at $821 million -- significantly more than Congress so far has been willing to spend to help Boeing, Space Exploration Technologies Corp., and Sierra Nevada develop competing crew launch systems.

NASA officials are hopeful Congress will finally fund the full request. "I really do think they hear us," the senior NASA official said. "If we want to have American systems flying to [the international space station], this is the way to do it."

Meanwhile, the James Webb Space Telescope, the $8 billion infrared observatory NASA is racing to finish in time for a 2017 launch aboard a European Space Agency-provided Ariane 5 rocket, would receive $658 million in 2014, or about $16 million more than the rest of the agency's astrophysics program.

Finishing Webb and other legacy programs, including a 2020 Mars rover NASA announced last year as a substitute for the leading role it had been planning to play in Europe's ExoMars mission, is expected to keep NASA from taking on new projects in the years immediately ahead. "What we basically do is starve the pipeline because we can't start new stuff," the senior NASA official said.

If the White House and Congress fail to come to terms on a deficit reduction plan before the 2014 budget year begins Oct. 1, NASA will be hard pressed to maintain the schedules of its priority programs, let alone start anything remotely new. "We won't be able to do much of this stuff if we get sequestered again," the senior NASA official said.

NASA Announces Plan for Capturing Asteroid
The space agency wants to tow an asteroid back to our planetary neighborhood

Marc Kaufman - National Geographic

NASA wants to identify an interesting asteroid flying around deep space, figure out a way to capture the spinning and hard-to-grab orb, nudge it into our planetary region and then set it into orbit around the moon, the agency announced Wednesday.

The capture would be performed robotically, and the re-located asteroid would become a destination for astronauts to explore—and, possibly, for space entrepreneurs to mine.

The idea may sound more like science fiction than national policy, but it actually fits in with key goals of the Obama administration and space community.

Those goals include learning how to identify asteroids heading towards us and to change their course, finding destinations where astronauts can go as they try to learn how to make the longer trip to Mars, and to prove opportunities for space investors. (Related: Psychological Challenges of a Manned Mars Mission)

"This mission represents an unprecedented technological feat that will lead to new scientific discoveries and technological capabilities and help protect our home planet," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement before the plan was announced on Wednesday.

"This asteroid initiative brings together the best of NASA's science, technology and human exploration efforts to achieve the president's goal of sending humans to an asteroid by 2025," his statement continued.

Planning for the effort has just begun, and Bolden said teams will be meeting over the summer to work out how to select the right asteroid, how to get a spacecraft to it, and how to tow it many millions of miles to our moon. (Video: Predicting Asteroid Impacts)

The NASA idea is similar to one developed by scientists at the Keck Institute for Space Studies at the California Institute of Technology, and proposed by them last year.

A robotic spacecraft could drag a 23-foot, 500-ton near-Earth asteroid (NEA) using currently available technology, the Keck scientists concluded, though that technology would have to be modified somewhat. That team concluded that the project would cost $2.6 billion, but NASA officials say its effort would cost much less.

The asteroid proposal was part of the NASA budget rollout for 2014, part of the broader federal budget that President Barack Obama unveiled Wednesday, April 10, 2013, and it included an initial $104 million for the project.

But Bolden said the plan could go forward only if the federal government could rollback the cuts made as a result of the sequester.

As explained by Paul Dimotakis, one of the Keck scientists who worked on the project, the physics of the endeavor requires NASA to target a relatively small asteroid of 500 to 1,000 tons. It needs to be the consistency of dried mud and to be on a trajectory that would take it close to the Earth and moon even without a tug.

It would not be an asteroid in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter, but would be one in Earth's extended neighborhood to start.

Dimotakis listed numerous reasons for undertaking the project, but emphasized two in particular.

Because asteroids are among the oldest objects in the solar system, he said, bringing one to a place where it could be studied intensely would allow scientists to much better understand what that early solar system was like.

And if the long-term goal of American space exploration is to send astronauts to Mars—which President Obama has proposed for the 2030s—then space program managers need achievable milestones to prepare for that mission.

NASA unveils plan to catch asteroid as step to Mars flight

Irene Klotz - Reuters

President Barack Obama wants NASA to start work on finding a small asteroid that could be shifted into an orbit near the moon and used by astronauts as a stepping-stone for an eventual mission to Mars, agency officials said on Wednesday.

The project, which envisions that astronauts could visit such an asteroid as early as 2021, is included in Obama's $17.7 billion spending plan for the U.S. space agency for the 2014 fiscal year.

It is intended as an expansion of existing initiatives to find asteroids that may be on a collision course with Earth, and preparations for a human expedition to Mars in the 2030s.

"This mission allows us to better develop our technology and systems to explore farther than we've ever been before - to an asteroid and to Mars - places that humanity has dreamed about … but has had no hope of ever attaining," NASA administrator Charles Bolden told reporters during a conference call.

"We're on the threshold of being able to tell my kids and my grandkids that we're almost there."

In 2010, Obama proposed that NASA follow the International Space Station program with a human mission to an asteroid by 2025. The agency has been developing a heavy-lift rocket and deep-space capsule capable of carrying astronauts beyond the station's 250-mile (400-km) high orbit.

The system would be capable of traveling to the moon, asteroids and eventually to Mars, the long-term goal of the U.S. human space program.

"I think the asteroid-retrieval mission lays out a place for us to go," Kennedy Space Center director Bob Cabana told reporters in a separate conference call.

"It does everything that needs to be done as far as developing the technologies and the skills that we need for exploration beyond planet Earth."

Obama's 2014 spending plan proposes $105 million to start work on the new mission, which entails finding a 23- to 33-foot (7 to 10-meter) wide asteroid and robotically towing or pushing it toward Earth so it ends up in a stable orbit near the moon.

Astronauts aboard an Orion capsule would then blast off, land on the asteroid and bring back soil and rock samples for analysis.

"The plan combines the science of mining an asteroid, along with developing ways to deflect one, along with providing a place to develop ways we can go to Mars," U.S. Senator Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, told reporters last week.

Obama's budget proposal calls for a doubling of the $20 million NASA currently spends hunting and tracking asteroids; adding $38 million to speed development of a solar electric propulsion system that would be used to move an asteroid; $40 million for work on rendezvous and capture technologies; and $7 million for hazard-avoidance systems.

Billion-dollar price tag?

NASA has not yet estimated the total cost of the mission, but expects it to be less than the $2.65 billion estimated last year by the California Institute of Technology's Keck Institute for Space Studies.

"We do not think at this point that it will be that expensive," NASA Chief Financial Officer Elizabeth Robinson told Reuters.

The Keck-led "Asteroid Retrieval Feasibility Study" proposed relocating a 500-ton asteroid closer to Earth to give astronauts a "unique, meaningful and affordable" destination in the next decade, meeting Obama's deadline.

Robinson said Keck's cost estimate did not take into account projects already under way at NASA and proposed retrieving a type of asteroid that orbits farther away which would require a longer and more expensive mission.

NASA also would look to partner with fledging space mining companies, such as startups Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries, as well as agencies interested in planetary defense.

"Obviously we're looking all sorts of interests in this asteroid mission in terms of the kinds of scientific and industrial uses that could be spawned from it," Robinson said.

Interest in potentially threatening asteroids sky-rocketed after a small asteroid exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia on February 15, shattering windows and damaging buildings. About 1,500 people were injured by flying glass and debris.

The same day another larger asteroid passed about 17,200 miles from Earth - closer than the television and communication satellites that ring the planet.

The incidents had created an imperative "to develop techniques and technology that will help deter or to keep an asteroid or other type of body from impacting Earth," Bolden said.

"One of the serendipitous results from this (asteroid-retrieval) flight we hope will be the demonstration of a capability to move an asteroid, to deflect it ever so slightly."

Obama is also requesting $822 million to support efforts to develop commercial space taxis in hopes of breaking Russia's monopoly on crew transportation to the space station by 2017. The United States has been unable to fly astronauts since it retired its space shuttle fleet in 2011.

Obama's budget would boost science, health

Agence France Presse

President Barack Obama's budget proposal released on Wednesday would boost funds for major science and health programs while making small cuts at NASA and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Top projects at the US space agency would continue, including developing a new spaceship to send astronauts to the International Space Station, working toward an asteroid rendezvous and the 2018 launch of the James Webb Space Telescope.

Obama's plan, which stands little chance of being enacted by a deadlocked Congress and Senate that have already passed their own budgets, allows for $17.7 billion for NASA, a decrease of 0.3 percent, or $50 million below 2012.

Much of that decline comes from moving education programs for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, known by the acronym STEM, out of NASA as part of a major reshuffle.

Ninety STEM programs across 11 different agencies -- all worth a total of $180 million -- are being funnelled into the Department of Education, in what Obama's budget described as "the single biggest consolidation proposed this year."

This "reorganization" aims to "improve the delivery, impact, and visibility of STEM efforts," the budget document said.

Both job and budget cuts were foreseen for the Environmental Protection Agency, which would receive $8.2 billion, or a 3.5 percent cut below the 2012 enacted level.

The decrease in $296 million at the EPA would be achieved, in part, through "consolidating positions and restructuring the workforce to ensure the Agency has the necessary skills for the current era of environmental protection," it said.

Meanwhile, funding would rise for the National Science Foundation, with an increase of $593 million over 2012 to an annual $7.6 billion budget.

The plan "maintains the President's commitment to increase funding for key basic research agencies, including a robust 8.4 percent increase over the 2012 enacted level for the National Science Foundation," it said.

Another budget boost was included for Health and Human Services as Obama's healthcare reform plan continues to be implemented in the coming years.

The $80.1 billion he called for at HHS represents $3.9 billion above the 2012 enacted level.

The $31 billion for the National Institutes of Health was unchanged, but more cash would go to Alzheimer's research, HIV prevention and treatment, family planning, mental health services and gun violence prevention, the budget said.

The Department of Energy would also get an eight percent boost over 2012, with $28.4 billion in discretionary funds.

The DOE rise would "position the United States to compete as a world leader in clean energy" as well as respond to climate change and "modernize the nuclear weapons stockpile and infrastructure," it said.

The plan would eliminate $4 billion in "annual unwarranted and unnecessary subsidies to the oil, gas, and coal industries," it said.

Other savings would be achieved through some modifications to Medicare, such as aligning drug payment policies for people over 65 with those for low-income people receiving Medicaid, saving $123 billion over the next 10 years, it said.

Inside NASA's Plan to Catch an Asteroid (Bruce Willis Not Required)

Mike Wall - Space.com

NASA's newly unveiled asteroid-capture plan is still in its early stages, but some details are already emerging about how the audacious mission might work.

President Barack Obama's 2014 federal budget request, which was released Wednesday (April 10), gives NASA $105 million to jump-start a program that would snag an asteroid and park it near the moon. Astronauts would then visit the space rock using the agency's Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule, perhaps as early as 2021.

"This mission represents an unprecedented technological feat that will lead to new scientific discoveries and technological capabilities and help protect our home planet," NASA chief Charles Bolden said in a statement.

The space agency is still working out how exactly to pull off the mission, which officials are calling the "Asteroid Initiative" or "Asteroid Retrieval and Utilization Mission" at the moment. But a few things are already clear.

For starters, the probe that will chase down and capture the 25-foot (8 meters) or so asteroid will be unmanned. And it will be powered by solar electric propulsion, which generates thrust by accelerating charged particles called ions.

Ion thrusters have been used on other NASA probes, including Dawn, which recently spent a year orbiting the huge asteroid Vesta before departing for the dwarf planet Ceres. But engineers will need to develop an advanced version for the Asteroid Initiative craft, since it will be towing a 500-ton space rock over millions of miles.

"This mission accelerates our technology development activities in high-powered solar electric propulsion," Michael Gazarik, NASA Associate Administrator for Space Technology, said in a statement.

Still, it may take several years for the probe to meet up with the asteroid. The spacecraft will then envelop the space rock with a bag of sorts, as a new video animation of NASA's Asteroid Initiative mission depicts, and de-spin the rock, likely using thrusters.

The asteroid will then be towed to a "stable orbit in the Earth-moon system where astronauts can visit and explore it," NASA officials wrote in a mission description Wednesday.

These visits will be made possible by Orion and the Space Launch System, which are slated to begin flying crews together by 2021. The NASA animation shows astronauts aboard Orion meeting up with the space rock, which the retrieval probe is still holding onto.

In the video, the astronauts spacewalk their way over to the asteroid, accessing it by unwrapping a small section of the bag. They grab some pieces using a hammer and other tools, then come home with the samples in an ocean splashdown.

The overall asteroid-retrieval idea is similar to one proposed by researchers based at Caltech's Keck Institute for Space Studies in Pasadena. In a feasibility study published last year, the Keck team estimated the total cost of robotic capture and return at $2.6 billion.

NASA hasn't released its own cost estimates yet, but agency officials think they can get it done for less than that.

"The Keck study didn't take into account all the activities we already have going on in our base, so we wouldn't need $2.6 billion in new money," NASA chief financial officer Elizabeth Robinson said during a press conference Wednesday.

The Keck team also focused on grabbing a carbonaceous chondrite, she added. These asteroids are compositionally diverse, full of complex organic molecules, metals and volatile materials like water.

But carbonaceous chondrites also tend to be found farther away than other types of near-Earth asteroids, Robinson said, making their retrieval more time-consuming and expensive. At this point, NASA isn't so particular about the space rock it hopes to target.

"For those two reasons, we think that the price is likely to come in — of new money, new investment — at below that [$2.6 billion]," Robinson said.

Lawmakers Push NASA to Return to the Moon

Damon Poeter - PC Magazine

A battle brewing inside NASA over long-term mission goals has spilled over to Capitol Hill with a bipartisan group of legislators on Wednesday introducing a bill that would re-set the space agency's focus on returning astronauts to the Moon before attempting manned missions to Mars or a near-Earth asteroid.

"The Moon is our nearest celestial body, taking only a matter of days to reach. In order to explore deeper into space—to Mars and beyond—a Moon presence offers us the ability to develop and test technologies to cope with the realities of operating on an extraterrestrial surface," Rep. Bill Posey (R-Fla.), who worked on the Apollo Program at the Kennedy Space Center in his youth, said in a statement.

Other signatories of the RE-asserting American Leadership in Space Act, or REAL Space Act, are Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.), John Culberson (R-Texas), Rob Bishop (R-Utah), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), Pete Olson (R-Texas), Ted Poe (R-Texas), Steve Stockman (R-Texas), and Frank Wolf (R-Va.).

The REAL Space Act would direct "NASA to develop a plan for returning to the Moon and establishing a human presence there" while setting "a clear course for NASA toward human space flight while keeping within current budgetary constraints," according to the bill's proponents.

In recent years, NASA and the Obama administration have made it clear that they would prefer to focus on ambitious missions to send humans to Mars and a near-Earth asteroid rather than attempt to return to the Moon, last visited by the Apollo 17 crew in 1972. But at a high-profile joint meeting of the Space Studies Board and the Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board (ASEB) in Washington, dissent from some in the space community over that agenda came into focus.

UCLA chancellor emeritus and professor Al Carnesale, who leads a group formulating NASA's strategic direction, suggested that the space agency delay a proposed crewed mission to visit an asteroid by 2025 and instead consider returning to the Moon.

"There's a great deal of enthusiasm, almost everywhere, for the Moon. I think there might be, if no one has to swallow their pride and swallow their words, and you can change the asteroid mission a little bit ... it might be possible to move towards something that might be more of a consensus," Carnesale was quoted as saying by Space Politics.

NASA administrator Charles Bolden, also present at the meeting, attempted to quash that notion.

"I don't know how to say it any more plainly. NASA does not have a human lunar mission in its portfolio and we are not planning for one," Bolden said, arguing that changing course at this point would be disruptive to the country's human spaceflight agenda.

Nearly three years ago, President Barack Obama announced the country's goal of sending astronauts to a near-Earth asteroid during a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-space-exploration-21st-century" target="_blank">a speech at the Kennedy Space Center. Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, present at the Kennedy Space Center speech, "has been [to the Moon] ... There's a lot more of space to explore, and a lot more to learn when we do," Obama said at the time.

Rep. Wolf, chairman of the House Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations Subcommittee, stressed what he characterized as a lack of backing within the space community for the long-range manned missions proposed by the White House.

"Last year, the National Research Council committee charged with reviewing NASA's strategic direction found that there was no support within NASA or from our international partners for the administration's proposed asteroid mission. However, there is broad support for NASA to lead a return to the Moon. So the U.S. can either lead that effort, or another country will step up and lead that effort in our absence—which would be very unfortunate," Rep. Wolf said.

At last week's meeting, Bolden did say NASA was prepared to assist in any attempts by other space agencies around the world to send humans to the Moon. However, it remains unclear whether any such missions are being seriously considered—for example, China has issued some signals that it plans to conduct a manned lunar mission while India appears to have backed off on a similar project.

Boeing Executive Defends SLS as Only Deep-space Option

Dan Leone - Space News

The former head of NASA's space shuttle program, now an executive with Boeing Space Exploration, defended the heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS) the Houston-based company is helping NASA build as the only credible way to mount crewed missions beyond low Earth orbit using today's technology.

"If you look at a wide range of missions — anything really beyond low Earth orbit — you have to have more lift capability than we have commercially available right now, and SLS provides that," John Shannon, international space station program manager at Boeing, said April 10 during a press conference at the 29th National Space Symposium. "People that say there are other options, or other ways to get beyond low Earth orbit — it's just not a fact, it's just not true. There are technologies you could develop that would be years and years in the future … but SLS gives you the capability to do that much, much quicker."

Shannon, who spent 25 years at NASA before joining Boeing in January, pointedly dismissed the idea that NASA has to identify a specific destination and mission for SLS to make the big rocket worthwhile.

"This 'SLS doesn't have a mission' is a smokescreen that's been put out there by people who would like to see that [program's] budget go to their own pet projects," Shannon said. "SLS is every mission beyond low Earth orbit. The fact that NASA has not picked one single mission is kind of irrelevant."

NASA is spending roughly $2.7 billion a year on SLS and its companion deep-space crew carrier, the four-seat Orion capsule being built by Lockheed Martin Space Systems of Denver. Orion will first fly to space in 2014 aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket for an Earth orbit and re-entry mission to test the capsule's heat shield. SLS will first launch Orion in 2017, when it will send the craft to lunar space without a crew. NASA will repeat that mission with a crew in 2021.

NASA's 2014 budget request, which was rolled out by the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama only hours after Shannon spoke here, contained no alterations to these plans. The White House requested about $1.7 billion for SLS alone, about $300 million less than the program has this year under a $1 trillion spending bill signed March 26. This funding would be spent on vehicle development at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., launch infrastructure at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and support from NASA's national network of field centers.

An administration official said the funding request for SLS, though lower than the 2013 level, is sufficient to keep the program on track.

"SLS and Orion remain fully funded and on track for 2014 and 2017 tests," this source said. "More money than we request will not move the dates forward and would be a waste."

Meanwhile, with Orion and SLS still in development, it remains unclear whether astronaut crews will have a destination to visit in low Earth orbit after 2020, which is still the official end-of-mission date for the space station.

Shannon said Boeing is evaluating whether the station is structurally sound enough to fly beyond 2020, and also whether NASA and Boeing have enough spare parts to support an extended mission. Boeing executives have previously said the station might be able to operate until 2028.

Shannon said Boeing will know for sure once it completes a space station life-extension study for NASA.

"We expect to provide that data to NASA at the end of this year, and then they can go out to engage with the international partners to start discussing what lifetime of the [station] should be," Shannon said.

NASA's top human spaceflight official, William Gerstenmaier, has already said NASA must soon start talking about extending station operations beyond 2020.

"I believe this is the year we need to start talking about extending beyond 2020," Gerstenmaier told members of the National Academies' Space Studies Board April 4 in Washington.

Gerstenmaier said NASA has found strong support from its Russian partner for keeping the space station aloft for almost 15 more years. The 20-nation European Space Agency, which has not fully committed to funding station activities through 2020, thought such a commitment is expected. Gerstenmaier said the Europeans have given what he characterized as "soft" support for an even longer extension.

Another major partner, Japan, "is struggling with their budget" and has not yet decided whether it can contribute beyond the next decade, Gerstenmaier said.

KSC to benefit from Obama's proposed NASA budget

Todd Halvorson – Florida Today

President Obama's proposed 2014 NASA budget includes almost $2.3 billion for Kennedy Space Center, enough to keep pace with planned milestones toward the next-generation of U.S. human spaceflight, agency officials said Wednesday.

KSC Director Robert Cabana said the money would enable NASA to continue transforming the launch base into a multi-user spaceport – a home for NASA, commercial companies and other federal agencies.

"I think it's a great budget for Kennedy Space Center," said Cabana, a former astronaut. "It keeps us on track to meet all our requirements."

And those are many.

Launch Complex 39B is being converted into a launch site for NASA's Space Launch System, a Saturn V moon rocket-class vehicle that is being developed for missions beyond Earth orbit. Commercial companies could use it, too.

The Operations & Checkout Building is a production facility for the Orion crew exploration vehicle, a new capsule that will carry astronauts to asteroids, the moon, and Mars.

KSC also leads an effort to enable U.S. companies to develop commercial spacecraft to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

"We have made tremendous progress transitioning since the last flight of the space shuttle (in July 2011)," Cabana said. "We're not quite there yet. But, huge progress," Cabana said.

In the works:

·         NASA is talking with an unidentified commercial company for the use of Launch Complex 39A, which the agency abandoned in place.

·         Negotiations also are ongoing with potential users of two shuttle processing facilities.

Boeing already aims to occupy one of three available processing facilities.

Among other potential tenants: the U.S. Air Force's X-37B mini shuttle program and Sierra Nevada's ISS crew transport, a winged spaceplane, called Dream Chaser, under development.

The budget also calls for:

·         -$99.2 million for repairs and modifications to the Vehicle Assembly Building and the Launch Control Center, among other complex 39 facilities.

·         -$39 million for the first phase of a new Central Campus that would replace the current KSC Industrial Area administrative office facilities. Once all is completed, NASA will save $6 million a year in operations costs, Cabana said.

·         -$14.9 million to upgrade environmental control systems in the Launch Complex 39 area to support new Space Launch System rockets.

"The 40- and 50-year-old facilities we have out here are in great need of repair," Cabana said, "and this is going to help us stay viable for the future."

2014 budget plan for NASA in Huntsville called 'solid,' but only if no sequestration

Lee Roop - Huntsville Times

The director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center told reporters Wednesday that his center's proposed budget for 2014 is "solid" and will mean "stability for the workforce." The challenge to that upbeat view, which ran all the way to the top of the space agency Wednesday, is that the budget proposed by President Obama assumes the end of sequestration. Put sequestration back in the mix and "we won't be able to do the broad course of events portrayed here," Administrator Charles Bolden Jr. said in his own briefing.

Marshall Director Patrick Scheuermann said Marshall's share of NASA's proposed $17.7 billion budget for 2014 is $2.18 billion. It includes no program cuts and has "roughly $1.3 billion" for the heavy-lift rocket known as the Space Launch System (SLS) being developed at Marshall.

The budget's new initiative -- towing an asteroid into lunar orbit for a visit by astronauts -- depends on SLS to get the humans to the rendezvous point. "The only way to get humans to the asteroid is SLS," Scheuermann said. President Obama has called for an asteroid visit by 2025, but the new plan of using a robot spacecraft to haul one closer to Earth could make that visit happen earlier. Some timelines being mentioned would even have the first crewed flight of SLS, scheduled for 2021, be an asteroid visit and not a lunar fly-around as now planned.

Speaking on background Wednesday, one NASA source said internal briefings on the asteroid project suggest confidence that SLS can be ready on schedule, thereby enabling a shift to a 2021 asteroid mission if NASA wants. The wild card, this source said, is whether technology can be developed in time to find a suitable asteroid, bag it and bring it back to orbit around the moon. NASA officially calls asteroids "uncooperative targets," because they tumble, are uneven and have their own momentum.

Other key numbers in NASA's budget include the White House proposal to spend $822 million next year on commercial space development. The administration has tried repeatedly to get more money allocated for commercial crew, only to see Congress divert big chunks of that to SLS, but Bolden laid down a marker Wednesday. Without all of the money requested, Bolden said NASA won't be able to make its goal of having astronauts ferried to the International Space Station aboard American rockets by the end of 2017.

Other Marshall parts of the budget proposal include:
·         $184 million to support work on the International Space Station
·         $108 million for construction and revitalization projects, including the new building under construction for the SLS program.
·         $122 million for Earth and planetary science, astrophysics and space weather research
·         $59 million for space technology

Boeing progressing on CST-100 space capsule

Zach Rosenberg - FlightInternational.com

Boeing is making progress on the CST-100 capsule, intended to fly astronauts to the International Space Station.

"Our next milestone we've got planned is in July, for the orbital manoeuvring and control engine developed by Rocketdyne," says John Mulholland, Boeing's programme manager. "We've already done some early demonstration tests of that, this would be the final demonstration before their critical design review, which is later in the fall."

In addition to orbital manoeuvres, the engines will be used for emergency aborts during ascent aboard the Atlas V launch vehicle, and retrofiring to slow the capsule from orbital velocity to initial re-entry speed.

Ground operations tests are also ongoing. Tests have been conducted to ensure good communications in all phases of flight, with satisfactory results.

"We've got two critical milestones coming up focused on that. The first will be mission control center interface testing," says Mulholland. A pilot-in-the-loop test is expected in the near future.

"In December this year we'll have a full demonstration of the integrated software system, leading up to the critical design review (CDR) in March, all in support of the integrated system [CDR] in April."

NASA has scheduled the first operational resupply mission to the International Space Station in 2017, though the agency is likely to cull at least one of the three companies currently funded - Boeing, Sierra Nevada and SpaceX - to save money.

World space agency chiefs support, question NASA asteroid-capture plan

Dan Leone - Space News

Leaders of space agencies from around the globe gave NASA's plan to capture an asteroid and tow it to lunar orbit a generally positive, though cautious, reaction here during a panel discussion at the 29th National Space Symposium.

On April 10, the White House rolled out its 2014 federal budget request. The NASA portion of the request includes $105 million for early work on a mission to locate and capture a small asteroid with a robotic spacecraft, then tow it back to lunar space where astronauts could visit it using the Space Launch System and Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle the agency is building for missions beyond Earth orbit.

The asteroid capture mission, which NASA thinks could cost between $1 billion and $2.6 billion to complete, raised eyebrows among some of NASA's international partners.

"The idea that was presented is a disruptive idea," said Johann-Dietrich Woerner, head of the German Aerospace Research Center, DLR. "Everything sounds very nice; it's pioneering work, for sure. But again, I would ask, 'Why?'"

Woerner said a crewed mission to a relocated asteroid is sure to be a success in terms of public outreach, but he questioned why the mission required the human touch at all.

"Could we do the same as a totally robotic mission?" Woerner asked the audience here. "That's always a question."

A high-ranking official with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) — which is grappling with financial woes in a year when it plans to debut a new rocket and launch an Earth-observing mission in partnership with NASA — was likewise cautious.

"Honestly speaking … we need more data and information about what NASA is thinking," said Hideshi Kozawa, executive adviser to the JAXA president for international cooperation and new business. "But for me, it is a very interesting idea," he said, adding that Japan is open to learning more about the mission.

"We have lots of experience with asteroid missions," Kozawa said, referring to the Hayabusa asteroid sample-return mission Japan successfully completed in 2010.

Jean-Jacques Dordain, director-general of the European Space Agency, said the 20-member organization is willing to discuss a contribution to the asteroid-capture mission "within the context of an overall exploration program, which is by definition an international program."

"It's a very interesting project," Dordain added.

He did not say exactly what contribution Europe might make to the asteroid-capture mission. In a sense, the European Space Agency is already contributing: It is providing the service module for the Lockheed Martin-built Orion crew capsule that, according to the White House's plan, will take astronauts to the captured asteroid by 2025 or earlier.

NASA's 2014 Budget: Space Exploration Experts React

Tariq Malik - Space.com

President Barack Obama unveiled a proposed federal budget for 2014 today (April 10), which includes $17.7 billion in funding for NASA in the next fiscal year. The budget request also includes $105 million dedicated to support an audacious new mission to capture and asteroid and park it near the moon so that astronauts can explore it by 2025.

In addition to the asteroid capture mission, NASA's 2014 budget request also includes about $200 million in cuts to planetary science, which has upset some scientists and space exploration groups. It does, however, increase funding for Earth science missions and fully fund the agency's private space taxi program and new human spaceflight projects, such as the Space Launch System mega-rocket and Orion space capsule.

Charles Bolden, NASA Administrator

This budget focuses on an ambitious new mission to expand America's capabilities in space, steady progress on new space and aeronautic technologies, continued success with commercial space partnerships, and far-reaching science programs to help us understand Earth and the universe in which we live. It keeps us competitive, opens the door to new destinations and vastly increases our knowledge.

Bill Nye (the Science Guy), CEO, The Planetary Society

The Administration just released its proposed budget for 2014 and it contains some very bad news for NASA's planetary exploration program.

Our initial review shows a cut of over $200 million this year – a cut that will strangle future missions and reverse a decade's worth of investment building the world's premier exploration program.

Chris Lewicki, President and Chief Engineer, Planetary Resources, Inc.

We applaud NASA's intention to capture and redirect a small asteroid to trans-Lunar space by 2021. Based on the mission study performed by the Keck Institute for Space Studies, the plan is a reasonable extension of a number of technologies and approaches which have already been demonstrated on prior NASA missions. The U.S. government's investment in this area could be leveraged by commercial industry in a number of ways -- from supporting the mission to identify, characterize and depending on the type of asteroid retrieved, develop ways to understand, extract and utilize the resources from it once returned.

Stuart Witt, Chairman, Commercial Spaceflight Federation

NASA also continues to look toward the future by prioritizing investments in technology through the Space Technology Mission Directorate. We have always had a world-class space program, and investments in technology, in partnership with industry, are needed to keep us there. Reusable suborbital spacecraft, in particular, are providing new capabilities that NASA is using to develop new technologies and to perform vital scientific research.

Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), Ranking Member, House Committee on Science, Space & Technology

There is a lot to digest in the budget request from the President, so I will simply give my initial reactions to the parts of the budget that fall under the jurisdiction of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, namely, our federal investments in research and development and STEM education. [NASA's 2014 Budget Explained in Photos]

While there are specific elements of the budget request for the agencies under the jurisdiction of the Committee that are going to require scrutiny, such as the reorganization of STEM education programs, I am pleased to see the President's commitment to R&D and education. For example, the budget request includes increased funding for the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The President's budget stands in stark contrast to the Republican budget introduced earlier this year. That budget made significant cuts to the spending that funds programs such as those that help develop advanced manufacturing and clean energy technologies, and those that lead to breakthroughs in areas like materials science and space exploration. It also cut the spending for STEM education that helps our children be prepared for the jobs of the future.

I am also pleased to see that the President's budget trims the deficit while undoing the short-sighted, irresponsible cuts to critical programs and activities that went into place last month as a result of sequestration. Most of us have not yet felt the damage caused by the sequester. I am certain that none of us want to see NOAA's ability to warn the public about natural disasters compromised, or the stoppage of research at the Department of Homeland Security that helps keep Americans safe, or delays of critical upgrades to the Nation's air traffic control systems. Those are just a few of the negative impacts we will be dealing with if we do not come to a consensus on how to address the sequester.

I sincerely hope that I can work with the President and my colleagues to ensure that any appropriations passed by this Congress allow for investments in the programs that will help us remain competitive in a challenging world economy. Investments in science and STEM education have a long history of providing economic and societal benefits to the American people, and they will continue to do so if they are properly funded.

William Gerstenmaier, NASA Associate Administrator for Human Exploration & Operations

The mission to find, capture and redirect an asteroid robotically, and then visit it with astronauts to study it and return samples takes advantage of expertise across all of NASA in an integrated approach to exploration. Along with the scientific research and technology demonstrations happening around the clock on the International Space Station that are teaching us how humans can live and work in space, this mission will give us valuable experience we need in deep space operations to send humans to more distant destinations in the solar system, including Mars. Through the balance of this fiscal year, we will work to define an affordable mission architecture. In Fiscal Year 2014, NASA will begin developing and testing prototype capture mechanisms and concepts for crew interactions with the asteroid.

John Grunsfeld, NASA Associate Administrator for Science

The crucial first step in this endeavor is to enhance our ongoing efforts to identify and characterize near-Earth objects for scientific investigation and to find potentially hazardous asteroids and targets appropriate for capture. The capture mission will be a highly visible and significant collaboration of robotic and human exploration in translunar space.

Michael Gazarick, NASA Associate Administrator for Space Technology

This mission accelerates our technology development activities in high-powered solar electric propulsion. The ambitious mission to rendezvous, capture and redirect a small asteroid to Earth-Moon space could not be accomplished without solar electric propulsion technology. This technology also will support the commercial telecommunications and satellite industries, and is an essential step toward future NASA human and robotic exploration forays into deep space

Commercial space companies call Colorado home

Andy Koen - KOAA TV (Colorado Springs & Pueblo)

When America returns to using its own rockets to send astronauts into space, there is a good chance those vehicles will be designed and even built here in Colorado.

The retiring of the Space Shuttle Program alone has sparked a boom in commercial space innovation by requiring private companies to compete for NASA contracts to carry astronaut to the International Space Station via the Commercial Crew Program.

"There's a whole revolution going on now," explained Tom Clark, president of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation a member of the Colorado Space Coalition.

He says Colorado is well poised to be part of the commercial space revolution. For example, one of three leading designs to replace the shuttle for Commercial Crew Program is the Dream Chaser
by the Louisville-based Sierra Nevada Corporation.

The next generation space plane is smaller and sleeker than the shuttle, can carry up to 7 people, uses airport runways for landing and can be reused.

"The space shuttle is very much like a moving van," explained Mark Sirangelo, president of the company's space systems. "If you were going across the country you'd need something very big to take everything you need and that's what it was to build the space station. Now where we are is we need to get people and all the critical cargo back and forth."

The spacecraft would be launched into orbit atop a rocket built by another Colorado company, United Launch Alliance (ULA) which operates out of Denver.

George Sowers, ULA vice president of Business Development says taking American Astronauts back into space is a matter of pride.

"Until we get one of these systems up and running we have to rely on the Russians to take our own Astronauts up to our own International Space Station."

Both executives credit our state's highly educated workforce and purple mountains majesty as reasons for calling Colorado home.

"It's been a great place to attract people, not only young people but really strong professionals because of the Air Force academy because of the space development in this state," Sirangleo said.

"From my own personal opinion, it's the quality of life. I love the mountains and it's pretty easy to want to live here," added Sowers.

Boeing and Space X are other top competitors in the commercial space race.

Boeing's CST-100 Crew Space Transportation capsule would also be launched by ULA rockets.
Space X launched its Dragon spacecraft and last month reached the space station.

NASA is expected to pick the company they will use next year with an expected first launch date for astronauts sometime in 2016.

To Infinity and Beyond? More Wasteful Spending at NASA

Peter Roff - US News & World Report (Opinion)

(Roff is a contributing editor at U.S. News & World Report. Formerly a senior political writer for United Press International, he's now affiliated with several public policy organizations including Let Freedom Ring, and Frontiers of Freedom.)

The sequester has forced Washington, D.C. to tighten its belt.

The spending restraint is long overdue. Total federal debt now exceeds, by most estimates, one year's U.S. gross domestic product. Even so, the modest reduction in spending the sequester has forced the federal government to absorb is not nearly enough to get the books in balance.

It's also not, as recent reports have shown, enough to force the government to prioritize or even to show a little common sense. Exhibit A is the new plan underway at NASA, which has had little to do since the space shuttle program was terminated, to lasso an asteroid at an estimated cost of $100 million.

According to the online blog Hot Air, "The capture plan is being described as a 'baggie with a draw string' to snag the rock – ideally 25 ft across and 500 tons – and drag it back here to park it in orbit near the moon." Scientists could then examine it with an eye to potentially learning something "which could be used for asteroid mining in the future."

If the economy were growing at a healthy rate, say 4 percent per year, then maybe such an experiment could be justified. Science and experimentation drives job creation, produces economic growth and, to put it bluntly, can be really interesting. The nation certainly profited from President Kennedy's vow to put a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth within a decade. The Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs added considerably to America's national honor, fostered a countrywide spirit of adventure and attracted countless children into careers in math and science.

Now, under Obama, NASA has little to do. Instead of returning to the moon or planning for a manned mission to Mars, as President George W. Bush once proposed, the current administration has relegated the once storied agency to the job of making the Islamic world feel good about the many contributions it has made to science and mathematics over the centuries.

Turning astronauts into space-based version of Gene Autry and Roy Rodgers, doing what amounts to extremely expensive, technologically sophisticated rope tricks, does not measure up – especially when the economy is growing at less than 1 percent. The money is just not there for such flights of fancy.

In fact, the entire U.S. science budget could stand stricter scrutiny. From studies of poultry genitalia to the Starbase Youth Program – which teaches science, technology, engineering, and math to at-risk youth living near military bases located around the United States, a task that could easily be taken up by a private sector that needs the trained work force – there is just too much science pork out there for anyone to be comfortable.

More than that, government science, as a cultural matter, becomes the "accepted science," which then attracts the best scientists and researchers because the funding stream is continual and essentially guaranteed.

To boldly go where no man or woman has gone before, America must first get its financial house in order. If the government continues to spend money on such luxuries as the "Lasso an Asteroid" program, there will be less money available for core functions. By failing to choose between "guns" and "butter," the country may someday find itself in the position where it can afford neither – unless the Chinese, who have a space program of their own, continue to lend us the money.

Why Americans must support NASA's plan to capture an asteroid

Tom Jones - FoxNews.com (Opinion)

(Jones is a planetary scientist, author and former astronaut. He was a member of the 2012 Keck Institute for Space Studies asteroid retrieval study team.)

Grabbing a small, water-rich asteroid and returning it to a safe orbit around the moon is the new NASA mission concept, announced this week, generating excitement and controversy.

If the space agency wins approval to retrieve the asteroid by the early 2020s, U.S. astronauts will begin to prospect and dissect the object for its scientific and economic treasure. The concept is a bold combination of our robotic and human spaceflight technologies, propelling astronauts beyond-the-moon, and opening a new economic frontier to harness the wealth of natural resources waiting for us in space.

The robotic asteroid retrieval mission will pluck a 23-foot, 500-ton asteroid from its solar orbit and shepherd it by the early 2020s into a parking orbit around the moon.

Astronauts in the new Orion deep space craft will unwrap the "bagged" asteroid, dig deep into its secrets, and return hundreds of pounds of 4.5-billion-year old rock and dust for scientific examination.

The captured asteroid will serve as a scientific and industrial guinea pig, giving up its scientific mysteries and sparking the birth of a space natural resources industry.

Visited repeatedly by international and commercial robot probes, the captured asteroid will serve as a scientific and industrial guinea pig, giving up its scientific mysteries and sparking the birth of a space natural resources industry.

In the ten-year, $2.6-billion venture, private firms will work with NASA to demonstrate how to extract water, construction material, and even strategic metals from the millions of asteroids that lurk near Earth's orbit. Access to water, rocket fuel, chemicals, and metals from the asteroids and the Moon would lower dramatically the cost of exploring space, and launch profitable ventures from mining to manufacturing.

The first and most versatile product to go after is water --"space gold." Water from Earth now costs $10,000 a pound to haul to orbit. Why not extract it in space, where we need it?

The water from a single 500-ton asteroid is worth about $1 billion at today's launch prices. Baked out of surface minerals with concentrated sunshine, robotic miners can split water into the powerful rocket fuels hydrogen and oxygen, highly valuable to NASA and its partner space agencies.

Private space firms like Planetary Resources, Inc. and Deep Space Industries already plan to prospect and extract water from nearby asteroids. Access to a nearby asteroid would bring us closer to the day when industry can save NASA and its partners billions while turning a profit from space-produced materials.

Industry can also team with NASA to learn how to fashion asteroid metals into wire and structural beams, or process their complex organic compounds into industrial catalysts for space-based refineries. Although the first customers will be space agencies looking for affordable rocket fuel and drinking water, satellite operators and space tourism companies will sign on, too.

Asteroid retrieval won't be easy: most are small, dim, and hard to detect from the ground, and NASA will need sensitive new telescopes to search for asteroid targets with the right orbit and chemical makeup.

Yet asteroids routinely find us, as we saw and heard in February over Chelyabinsk in Russia.

NASA can quickly harness existing or off-the-shelf telescopes to find and track these small asteroids, so far overlooked in our search for larger, more dangerous objects.

Much of the other technology for the retrieval mission is near at hand. NASA plans to demonstrate advanced solar electric propulsion, already tested on the Dawn asteroid mission. The capture mechanism, a tough fabric envelope opened and closed by graphite-composite stiffeners, draws on previous experience with tear-resistant spacesuit materials and lightweight communications antenna ribs. Experience gained on the capture mission will then feed directly into deep space systems needed for future astronaut journeys toward the Moon, asteroids and Mars.

The International Space Station (ISS) is well-positioned to assist in the industrial use of the captured asteroid. NASA and its ISS partners can use its versatile lab space to experiment with extracting water and metals from meteorites (asteroid "free samples") under low gravity conditions. Industry should propose and help fund these demonstrations.

The ISS partners should also help expand the asteroid search network, and later provide transportation and equipment for initial visits to the captured asteroid. In return, their astronauts can join the U.S. on these deep space asteroid expeditions. The ISS partnership might expand into a public/private consortium to deliver fuels, metals, and chemicals from the moon and asteroids for space use.

One other valuable benefit: the act of capturing and moving a small asteroid is in fact a demonstration of technology that can help us ward off a future rogue asteroid impact. Astronaut examination of the asteroid will also give us valuable civil engineering knowledge that increases the chances we can pull off a deflection mission and prevent a cosmic catastrophe.

To jolt NASA from its doldrums, we must give the agency an exciting, practical focus that accelerates our move into deep space.

Capturing and retrieving an asteroid will energize NASA's exploration efforts: first, access to nearby raw materials out of the Moon's gravity well; next, expeditions to extract lunar resources or visit larger, "free range" asteroids; finally, using space resources to lower the cost and risk of Mars expeditions.

Along the way, we'll create an industry that can free Earth from its finite resource limitations, paying for our space exploration efforts many times over.

Here is a space future both the White House and Congress can support. By "mining the sky" – for profit—we can enrich our society with new wealth and technological innovation.

This new mission will put Americans to work far beyond the moon, spur discovery and commerce on the newest American frontier, and give us the wealth and experience to begin the human exploration of Mars.

END

Keep the shuttle flying

Thursday, April 11, 2013

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

No comments:

Post a Comment

About Me

Blog Archive