Keep the shuttle flying: Fwd: Human Spaceflight News

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Begin forwarded message:

From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: April 12, 2013 6:25:19 AM GMT-06:00
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: Human Spaceflight News - April 12, 2013 and JSC Today

Happy Friday everyone.   Have a great weekend.

A little personnel news to mention --- I am hearing that Steve Poulos is coming out of Leave of Absence mode soon to perhaps temporarily take over the leadership of the EVA Office since Glen Lutz has been re-assigned to take over Dorothy Rasco's previous JSC management job (she transferred to HQ to take on another challenge) thru the end of the Fiscal Year and then he is planning to officially retire.

Also per a co-worker, Don Noah has made the prospective retirees list to be retiring in early May. Congratulations to Don for joining your retired ranks soon.

Friday, April 12, 2013

JSC TODAY HEADLINES
1.            Innovation 2013 Kickoff
2.            NASA TV to Provide Coverage of Station Cargo Ship Activities
3.            Leadership Speaker Series With Center Director Dr. Ellen Ochoa
4.            IAAP Administrative Professionals Week Celebration
5.            Thanks for Your Feedback: Check Out the New Cover of IRD's Site
6.            Voicemail Outage Scheduled
7.            Importance of Forgiveness
8.            Learn about Space Radiation Operations and Research
9.            Space Available: Orbital Debris Mitigation and Reentry Risk Management
10.          Tomorrow is Observe the Planets Night at the George Observatory
________________________________________     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.            Innovation 2013 Kickoff
On May 2, Innovation 2013 kicks off in the Teague Auditorium from noon to 2:30 p.m. with inspiration from two of America's most innovative speakers: Colleen Barrett, President Emeritus of Southwest Airlines (SWA), and Udaya Patnaik, founder of Jump Associates, a top strategy and innovation consulting firm.
Barrett orchestrated Southwest's now legendary approach to customer service and will speak on how the SWA people-focused culture drives innovative results. Patnaik will speak on how to create new business and reinvent existing ones by focusing on strategic growth and innovation.
The Innovation Team is also looking for your ideas and input on JSC 2.0. Magnetic whiteboards, sticky notes and electronic media will be available to capture your thoughts on what JSC 2.0 means to you and how to get there. Events later this year will build on your ideas and how to implement them.
For more information, visit the Innovation 2013 website.
Event Date: Thursday, May 2, 2013   Event Start Time:12:00 PM   Event End Time:2:30 PM
Event Location: Teague Auditorium

Add to Calendar

Suzan Thomas/MaGee Johnson x48772/281-204-1500

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2.            NASA TV to Provide Coverage of Station Cargo Ship Activities
NASA TV will broadcast an unpiloted Russian cargo ship's departure from the International Space Station (ISS) on Monday, April 15, and the launch and docking of another April 24 and 26.
The ISS Progress 49 resupply ship, which arrived at the station in late October, will depart the rear port of the station's Zvezda service module at 7:03 a.m. CDT on April 15. NASA TV coverage of the undocking will begin at 6:45 a.m. Progress 49 will reenter Earth's atmosphere several days later and burn up over the Pacific Ocean.
Progress 49's departure will clear the way for the arrival of the ISS Progress 51 cargo craft. Loaded with more than 3 tons of food, fuel, supplies and experiment hardware for the six crew members aboard the orbital laboratory, Progress 51 is scheduled to launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 5:12 a.m. (4:12 p.m. Kazakh time) Wednesday, April 24. NASA TV coverage of the launch will begin at 5 a.m.
Progress 51 will take two days to catch up and rendezvous with the space station. It is scheduled to dock at 7:27 a.m. Friday, April 26. NASA TV coverage will begin at 6:45 a.m.
JSC employees with wired computer network connections can view NASA TV using onsite IPTV on channels 404 (standard definition) or 4541 (HD). If you are having problems viewing the video using these systems, contact the Information Resources Directorate Customer Support Center at x46367. Note: IPTV works best with Internet Explorer.
For NASA TV schedule and video streaming information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv
For information on the International Space Station, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/station
JSC External Relations, Office of Communications and Public Affairs x35111

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3.            Leadership Speaker Series With Center Director Dr. Ellen Ochoa
The Office of the Chief Financial Officer Leadership Development Working Group is proud to present the Leadership Speaker Series with JSC Director Dr. Ellen Ochoa. This is an excellent opportunity for you to get to know your leadership from around the center as they share their experiences, knowledge and tips-n-tricks on how to succeed as an effective leader.
What: Leadership Speaker Series
Who: Dr. Ellen Ochoa
When: April 16 at 10 a.m.
Where: Building 2 Teague Auditorium
Event Date: Tuesday, April 16, 2013   Event Start Time:10:00 AM   Event End Time:11:00 AM
Event Location: Building 2 (Teague)

Add to Calendar

Charlie Jones x42493

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4.            IAAP Administrative Professionals Week Celebration
The International Association of Administrative Professionals - Clear Lake NASA Area Chapter (CLNAC) invites you to a monthly training meeting on April 15 at 5:45 p.m. at the Hilton Garden Inn (750 W. Texas Avenue, Webster, 77598). Cost to attend is $24 (program and dinner) or $10 (program only).
Join us as NASA astronaut Nicole P. Stott presents: "There is No Limit to Achieving Your Goals and Dreams." Join the CLNAC as we observe Administrative Professionals Week. Highlights of the evening include:
o             Our distinguished guest speaker, who will talk about her personal career story and what it took to rise from the bottom to the top
o             Each attendee receives a goodie bag
o             Fabulous door prizes
Extend this invitation to your co-workers, family and friends to join in this special event to congratulate YOU for a job well done! RSVP via e-mail.
Event Date: Monday, April 15, 2013   Event Start Time:5:45 PM   Event End Time:8:00 PM
Event Location: Hilton Garden Inn - Clear Lake

Add to Calendar

Felicia Saenz x32389

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5.            Thanks for Your Feedback: Check Out the New Cover of IRD's Site
Based on your feedback, JSC's Information Resources Directorate (IRD) has developed a new front page to its website to improve navigation and connect you to the right people and support you need. To view the new front page, click here and update your bookmarks. To address immediate needs and lessen the clutter, we've highlighted the most frequently used links to the front. We also followed in the steps of Bing and Google and focused on our search tool to bring the information to you.
This is a short-term solution, and we're constantly refining and improving the ways we can enable your mission. So please keep providing us feedback either via the "Feedback" button on our site and/or on the search page if you are not finding what you're looking for.
JSC IRD Outreach x41334 http://ird.jsc.nasa.gov

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6.            Voicemail Outage Scheduled
An outage of the JSC telephone voicemail system is scheduled for today, April 12, from 6 to 7 p.m. The outage has been scheduled to perform routine preventative maintenance and will affect users of the white Siemens desk phones at JSC, Ellington Field and Sonny Carter Training Center. The grey Cisco phones are not going to be affected by this outage. During this activity, users will not be able to access their voicemail, nor will the system be able to accept any voicemail messages. All messages and greetings existing prior to the outage will be preserved and fully available to users following the outage. No user action is required for this outage. We apologize for any inconvenience.
JSC IRD Outreach x41334 http://ird.jsc.nasa.gov/default.aspx

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7.            Importance of Forgiveness
Please join Takis Bogdanos, LPC-S, on Tuesday, April 16, at 12 noon in the Building 30 Auditorium for a presentation addressing the importance of forgiveness and the damaging effects grudges and resentment have in our daily lives.
Event Date: Tuesday, April 16, 2013   Event Start Time:12:00 PM   Event End Time:1:00 PM
Event Location: Building 30 Auditorium

Add to Calendar

Lorrie Bennett, Employee Assistance Program, Clinical Services Branch x36130

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8.            Learn about Space Radiation Operations and Research
This course is designed to provide an overview of the sources of space radiation exposure, differences in low-Earth orbit (LEO) versus exo-LEO environments, dynamics of space weather and JSC radiation operations.
The JSC Space Radiation Analysis Group (SRAG) is actively engaged in operational activities in support of the International Space Station(ISS), future spacecraft and habitats for radiation protection for the crew. SRAG makes measurements on ISS, analyzes space weather data and is continuously involved in creating better tools and models for space weather forecasting and radiation exposure predictions to improve operational decision-making capabilities.
For registration, please go to: https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=SCHEDULED_...
Event Date: Monday, April 15, 2013   Event Start Time:2:00 PM   Event End Time:3:00 PM
Event Location: B15/267

Add to Calendar

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

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9.            Space Available: Orbital Debris Mitigation and Reentry Risk Management
This two-day course introduces participants to orbital debris environment characterization and mitigation, including characterization and future growth of the orbital debris environment; collision risks; and orbital debris mitigation policies, processes, requirements and standards. It also explains reentry risks and design-for-demise methodology, including the origin and nature of NASA Human Casualty Reentry Risk assessments and criterion; overviews and applications of NASA Debris Assessment Software (DAS) and Object Reentry Survival Analysis Tool; design-for-demise objectives and experience; and demonstration of DAS reentry risk assessment.
This course is designed for NASA project practitioners, mission members, engineers, scientists and other project support staff who are involved in spacecraft design and operations and interested in orbital debris issues and employing mitigation approaches, including "design for demise."
This course is available for self-registration in SATERN until Tuesday, April 30. Attendance is open to civil servants and contractors.
Dates: Tuesday to Wednesday, June 11 to 12
Location: Building 12, Room 146
Zeeaa Quadri x39723 https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=SCHED...

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10.          Tomorrow is Observe the Planets Night at the George Observatory
On April 13, the planets have aligned to create Observe the Planets Night! This will be the only time this year, during observatory hours, that you can view both Jupiter and Saturn. Stop by and view the planets through a telescope at the George Observatory and get tickets for our first-ever Family Space Day Mission to Mars! Come out and spend the evening with the planets. To get tickets, click here.
Note: Park entrance fees apply at $7 per person for everyone over 12 years old.
Event Date: Saturday, April 13, 2013   Event Start Time:3:00 PM   Event End Time:10:00 PM
Event Location: George Observatory at Brazos Bend State Park

Add to Calendar

Megan Hashier 281-226-4179 http://www.hmns.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=404&Ite...

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________________________________________
JSC Today is compiled periodically as a service to JSC employees on an as-submitted basis. Any JSC organization or employee may submit articles. To see an archive of previous JSC Today announcements, go to http://www6.jsc.nasa.gov/pao/news/jsctoday/archives.

NASA TV:
·         9 am Central (10 EDT) – NASA Cherry Blossom Social - GSFC (Education Channel)
·         6:45 am Central MONDAY (7:45 EDT) – Progress 49 undocking coverage
·         (Undocking scheduled at 8:01 a.m. EDT)

CELEBRATING 52/32 TODAY:
Yuri Gagarin orbited the Earth on this day 52 years ago. The first human to do so.
Columbia began the 30 yr career of the winged, reusable Space Shuttle Program.

Human Spaceflight News
Friday, April 12, 2013

HEADLINES AND LEADS

New bill would redirect NASA back to the Moon

Jeff Foust - SpacePolitics.com

Just days after NASA administrator Charles Bolden said that a NASA-led human return to the Moon would not take place "probably in my lifetime," a group of mostly Republican members of the House introduced a bill that would require NASA to do just that, and within a decade.

Reaction to the NASA budget proposal

Jeff Foust - SpacePolitics.com

The fiscal year 2014 budget proposal for NASA is, as previously noted, fairly similar to the agency's 2013 proposal, with the notable exceptions of the new asteroid initiative and changes to NASA's education programs as part of the administration's broader STEM education consolidation. That may be why the budget has, so far, not gotten a very strong reaction, with one notable exception.

In NASA's Budget: Plans To 'Shrink-Wrap' An Asteroid

Geoff Brumfiel - National Public Radio

A NASA mission proposed in President Obama's budget would involve capturing an asteroid and pulling it into Earth's orbit for observation. A NASA mission proposed in President Obama's budget would involve capturing an asteroid and pulling it into Earth's orbit for observation. When President Obama released his 2014 budget for the federal government on Wednesday, much of it was spreadsheets and tables. But one corner of NASA's budget looked like something out of a movie script. The space agency is planning to capture a small asteroid, drag it to the moon and put it in orbit. If the mission goes ahead, then within a decade, astronauts could visit and study it up close.

Orbital Sciences' Antares ready for lift-off

Zach Rosenberg - FlightGlobal.com

The first launch of Orbital Sciences' Antares is due shortly, the last in a series of new American launch vehicles (LV) for some time to come. Others that are due shortly, notably SpaceX's Falcon v1.1 and Falcon Heavy, are modifications (significant ones) of existing LVs. Antares is built to launch the Cygnus, an uncrewed supply capsule, to the International Space Station (ISS) under the commercial resupply services (CRS) programme. In the wake of the Space Shuttle, NASA needed new vehicles to meet commitments for resupplying the ISS. Antares was not NASA's initial choice. Kistler/Rocketplane and SpaceX were both selected for development funding as part of the commercial orbital transportation services (COTS) programme, but Kistler quickly went bust and was liquidated. In its wake, with the continued desire to create competition, $171 million was diverted to Orbital.

A Soviet Moon rocket engine to power U.S. launcher

N. Gopal Raj - The Hindu

In order to have any chance at all in the space race of the 1960s, the Soviet Union needed a powerful rocket like America's Saturn V that would carry the Apollo missions. That rocket was the N1. Its huge first stage was driven by no fewer than 30 liquid-fuelled engines. On February 21, 1969, the N1, as tall as a 35-storey building and weighing over 2,700 tonnes, lifted off on its maiden flight. But, shortly afterwards, the rocket's onboard system shut down two engines of the first stage and then the remaining ones as well, sending it crashing to the ground. Three subsequent launches of the N1 were equally disastrous and ended Soviet hopes of sending its cosmonauts to the Moon. Now, four decades later, an American launch vehicle, carrying improved versions of the N1's first-stage liquid engines, is poised for its first flight. Orbital Sciences Corporation's Antares rocket, with a first stage powered by just two of those engines, is scheduled to lift-off from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on April 17. The Antares is intended to take cargo to the International Space Station on commercial terms.

National Space Symposium (NSS) stories and blog posts
Orbital Sees Cygnus As Hosted Payload Platform

Frank Morring, Jr. - Aviation Week

Orbital Sciences Corp. believes it can sell space on the commercial cargo vehicle it has developed with NASA seed money as an orbiting laboratory once it is unloaded and unberthed from the International Space Station. The Orbital Sciences Antares medium-lift launch vehicle set for its inaugural flight next week won't carry the Cygnus capsule developed to deliver cargo to the ISS, but the instrumented mass simulator it is set to place in orbit will remain there for several months before re-entering the atmosphere.

Europe sets June 5 for launch of space freighter

Agence France Presse

The European Space Agency (ESA) on Thursday announced it would launch the fourth, and heaviest, in a series of hi-tech cargo vehicles to the International Space Station (ISS) on June 5. Named the Albert Einstein, the freighter will deliver 2.5 tonnes of dry cargo, ranging from food and scientific experiments to spare parts and clothing, as well as fuel, water and oxygen. The total mass of the vehicle, its contents and fuel, will come to 20.235 tonnes, "making this spacecraft the heaviest ever lofted into orbit by an Ariane rocket," ESA said.

Altius has high hopes for Sticky Boom

Jeff Thomas - Boulder County Business Report

Space may be the final frontier, but for Jonathan Goff it may also be the new Silicon Valley. "There's a huge amount of money to be made in space. In telecommunications and GPS there's already more than $100 billion a year," said the founder of Altius Space Machines Inc. of Louisville. "The problem is that there's not that many launches that go up in any given year." Altius in 2011 developed a business plan focusing on small-load deliveries to the International Space Station, employing a robotic arm the company was developing, the Sticky Boom. Altius Space Machines won the $25,000 grand prize in the 2011 Heinlein NewSpace Business Plan Competition, hosted by the Space Frontier Foundation, which helped to focus the efforts of this small Louisville startup on a very specific but necessary aspect of space support and research.

ULA a step closer to manned flight

Eric Fleischauer - Decatur Daily

Decatur is one step closer to sending astronauts to space. Boeing Co. announced Friday its successful completion of a preliminary design review of a structure that will join a manned spacecraft to an Atlas V rocket. United Launch Alliance, jointly owned by Boeing and Lockheed Martin Corp., builds the Atlas V in Decatur. The design review was the third milestone under Boeing's Commercial Crew Integrated Capability agreement with NASA, part of a competition to replace the retired space shuttle fleet.

NASA's Mars-Bound Mega Rocket on Track for 2017 Test Launch

Clara Moskowitz - Space.com

The development of NASA's biggest, most powerful rocket yet is running ahead of schedule and on budget, its primary contractor said Wednesday. The towering Space Launch System (SLS) is a 384-foot (117 meters) behemoth intended to launch astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit to deep-space asteroids and Mars. The vehicle is slated to make its first test flight in 2017, when it will launch an unmanned Orion capsule (also in development) beyond the moon. The first manned flight is pegged for 2021. So far, NASA and The Boeing Co., which has been contracted to build the rocket's core stage, are on track to meet that date, officials said.

Bigelow Offering Private Space Station at a Fraction of ISS Cost

Doug Messier - ParabolicArc.com

Hailing what it calls a "sea change" in space costs, Bigelow Aerospace has unveiled pricing information for governments, companies and individuals interested in using its planned private Alpha Space Station. Transportation costs to the station begin at $26.25 million per seat for a 60-day visit. Leases for exclusive use and control over part of the space station begin at $25 million. Naming rights for the entire station will cost an additional $25 million per year. Bigelow has selected SpaceX and Boeing as its transportation providers. SpaceX is selling seats on its seven-seat Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket for $26.25 million, or $183.75 million per vehicle. A seat on Boeing's CST-100 spacecraft, launched by the Atlas V, will cost $36.75 million, or $257.25 million for all seven places.

To infinity — and beyond!

George Knapp - Las Vegas City Life

(Knapp is a Peabody Award-winning investigative reporter for KLAS TV Channel 8)

Business deals don't get much bigger than this one. Have you ever read a contract that gives a governmental green light to a program to "place a base on the surface of the moon?" Ever see an agreement signed by the U.S. government that declares a specific goal "to extend and sustain human activities across the solar system?" Me, either. Yet that is essence of an adventurous deal already reached between NASA and Las Vegas space entrepreneur Robert Bigelow. An official announcement is still a few days away and will likely happen during a news conference at NASA headquarters. In the meantime, I have a draft copy of what could be an historic contract, one that reads like a Kubrick screenplay or an Arthur C. Clarke story. It is flat-out otherworldly.

We've Taken More Than a Million Pictures of Earth From the Space Station
This is what they look like plotted on a map

Megan Garber - The Atlantic
The official purpose of the International Space Station is Science: Astronauts living on the orbital laboratory spend the majority of their time in space testing microgravity's effect on physical objects, fellow animals, and themselves. The less-official purpose of the International Space Station, however, is Wonder. That there are, at this very moment, six human beings hanging out in space is a source of delight and maybe even inspiration to many of us here on Earth. And the fortunate few who get to do the hanging out take advantage of their vaunted environs, spending a good deal of their free time on the ISS taking pictures of the planetary scenery that spreads out 200 miles below them. And I really do mean "a good deal of time." Since astronauts first took up residence there in 2000, they have snapped more than a million pictures from the station. That's nearly 30,000 images per Expedition.

Russia to continue using Kazakhstan's space center

Associated Press

Brushing off reports that Russia may ditch its space base in Kazakhstan, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Moscow would continue to lease the space complex. Russia has a lease deal to use Baikonur until 2050 for an annual fee of $115 million. Amid tensions over fees payments, a Russian official said in February that Russia may suspend its lease for some facilities at Baikonur. Marking the 52nd anniversary of Yuri Gagarin making the first manned space flight, Putin toured the construction site of the Vostochny launch pad in the Far East which is designed to ease Russia's reliance on its ex-Soviet neighbor.

Putin says Russia to launch first manned space flight from its soil in 2018

Denis Dyomkin - Reuters

President Vladimir Putin told astronauts on the International Space Station on Friday that Russia will launch the first manned flights from its soil in 2018 from a new launch pad he said will be used to explore the Moon and deep space. Speaking by video link from the Vostochny Cosmodrome construction site in the Far East region of Amur, Putin said he hoped the facility will also be used by the United States and Europe - playing up cooperation on the 52nd anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's pioneering flight, which set off the Cold War space race and is celebrated as Space Exploration Day in Russia.

Putin unveils $50bn Russian space drive

Australian Associated Press

President Vladimir Putin unveiled a new $US50 billion ($A47 billion) drive for Russia to preserve its status as a top space power, including the construction of a brand new cosmodrome from where humans will fly to space by the end of the decade. Fifty-two years to the day since Yuri Gagarin became the Soviet Union's greatest hero by making the first human flight into space, Putin inspected the new Vostochny (Eastern) cosmodrome Russia is building in the Amur region of the Far East.

Putin Builds Space-Weapon Deterrent as Russia Target Mars, Moon

Ilya Arkhipov - Bloomberg News

Russia's building a system to neutralize space weapons as it prepares to send a man to Mars and build a permanent moon base, President Vladimir Putin and members of his government said. Russia will have the technical means by 2030 to counteract threats from space by other countries, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said at a government meeting near the country's new cosmodrome in the Far East today. Until then, Russia will continue to expand its orbital capabilities to monitor potential threats and prevent rocket attacks, Rogozin said.

Want to be an Astronaut? Learn How to Speak Russian

Elizabeth Howell - Universe Today

A fire breaks out on the International Space Station while the orbiting complex is over Russian mission control. How, as an English-speaking astronaut, would you keep up with instructions? The answer is years of Russian training. In between time in simulators, jet airplanes and underwater, neophyte astronauts spend hours learning to read Cyrillic characters and pronounce consonant-heavy words. In fact, one of NASA's requirements for its astronauts now is to learn the Russian language.

Any bets on who will win the battle over NASA's future?

Eric Berger – Houston Chronicle's SciGuy

Much coverage was given Wednesday to the President's budget concerning NASA. As expected, the President's plan included $105 million in seed funding for a plan to robotically capture an asteroid and bring it to a location near the moon, where astronauts could explore it. The plan also includes $822 million in funding for commercial space, which would allow companies like SpaceX and Boeing to develop space taxis to transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station by 2017. There's also money in the budget for NASA's Orion space capsule and rocket to make an unmanned flight in 2018. If you're an optimist. But many members of Congress, including a healthy and bipartisan group of Houston-area representatives, doesn't care. As Bolden was laying out the President's space plan on Wednesday, this group of legislators were reintroducing their plan for NASA, the RE-asserting American Leadership in Space Act, or REAL Space Act. It definitively specifies the moon as NASA's destination of record, not a series of as-yet unspecified destinations that will one day bring astronauts to the surface of Mars.

Taking the Kids – how a museum exhibit is changing lives in Los Angeles

Eileen Ogintz – Chicago Tribune

Richard Hercules, 10, lives in L.A.'s inner-city and has never been on an airplane, but that hasn't stopped him from dreaming of becoming an astronaut when he grows up. He was moved to tears when he saw the Space Shuttle Endeavour fly over his school on its way to its new home at the California Science Center and even more excited when he could walk around the gargantuan space craft -- 122 feet long -- at the museum, touching tires that flew in space, peering up at the tiles crucial to re-entry, inspecting a space potty and galley. (Tortillas, it turns out, are the perfect space food because there were no crumbs to fly around in the gravity-less environment.) "When I grow up and have my own kids, I can show them the Endeavour and tell them my story about when I first saw it," he said.

Replica space shuttle boosters rising at the Cape

Justin Ray - SpaceflightNow.com

Towering replicas of the twin solid-fuel booster rockets that provided the vast majority of thrust to propel space shuttles skyward are being stacked outside the new Atlantis exhibit at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. A mockup of the bright orange external fuel tank that served as the shuttle vehicle's structural backbone for launch will be added to create a dramatic entrance for the $100 million Atlantis display that opens to the public June 29. "Starting June 29, visitors will be able to get up close to the boosters and external tank in a way that only NASA personnel have been able to experience before. Should guests stop for just a moment and imagine the brave astronauts inside Atlantis, strapped to these explosive, fuel-filled SRBs and ET and rocketing into space, goose bumps are guaranteed. And that's before guests even set foot inside," said Bill Moore, chief operating officer of Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.

Shuttle exhibit at KSC gets a boost
Replica rockets form gateway to Atlantis display

Stacey Barchenger - Florida Today

A 200-foot crane this week hoisted two massive steel-and-fiberglass cylinders, reproductions of shuttle rocket boosters, into place flanking the entrance to the unfinished Atlantis exhibit at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. The orange-ringed structures stand taller than the nearby building, and will only get higher as work continues. Officials will add a third segment and an orange external fuel tank to the full-size replicas, bringing the grand entrance to a total of 184 feet. Visitors will walk through the massive structure just minutes before they see the shuttle Atlantis on display inside.
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COMPLETE STORIES

New bill would redirect NASA back to the Moon

Jeff Foust - SpacePolitics.com

Just days after NASA administrator Charles Bolden said that a NASA-led human return to the Moon would not take place "probably in my lifetime," a group of mostly Republican members of the House introduced a bill that would require NASA to do just that, and within a decade.

The "RE-asserting American Leadership in Space Act," aka "REAL Space Act" (HR 1446) was introduced this week by Rep. Bill Posey (R-FL) with eight co-sponsors, all Republicans except for Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX). Most of the bill outlines the various benefits of space exploration and general and returning to the Moon in particular, including technological, economic, and even military ("Space is the world's ultimate high ground, returning to the Moon and reinvigorating our human space flight program is a matter of national security," it states.).

Only at the end does it offer specific policy direction:

…the National Aeronautics and Space Administration shall plan to return to the Moon by 2022 and develop a sustained human presence on the Moon, in order to promote exploration, commerce, science, and United States preeminence in space as a stepping stone for the future exploration of Mars and other destinations. The budget requests and expenditures of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration shall be consistent with achieving this goal.

"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," Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), one of the bill's co-sponsors and chairman of the appropriations subcommittee whose jurisdiction includes NASA, said in a press release about the bill. "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."

The bill has been referred to the House Science Committee, on which Posey serves. (He introduced a similar bill in the last Congress, but it did not leave committee.) Typically legislation like this doesn't pass as a standalone bill, but could serve as a way of laying out members' views as Congress takes up a broader NASA reauthorization bill later this year. However, previous indications from Congressional staff, including during a panel session at last week's Space Studies Board meeting in Washington, have been that they don't anticipate major changes in policy in the new authorization bill—and this would certainly qualify as a major change.

The release announcing the bill's introduction came out the same day as NASA unveiled its 2014 budget proposal, which includes funding to begin work on a mission to retrieve a small near Earth asteroid. Posey, ironically, has indicated some interest in such a mission. "I'm intrigued by the concept," he told the Orlando Sentinel earlier this week. "I think it has merit to it."

Reaction to the NASA budget proposal

Jeff Foust - SpacePolitics.com

The fiscal year 2014 budget proposal for NASA is, as previously noted, fairly similar to the agency's 2013 proposal, with the notable exceptions of the new asteroid initiative and changes to NASA's education programs as part of the administration's broader STEM education consolidation. That may be why the budget has, so far, not gotten a very strong reaction, with one notable exception.

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), chairman of the House Science Committee, did weigh in on NASA's asteroid retrieval mission plans in his broader statement about the administration's budget proposal. "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," he stated. "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."

By comparison, Smith's Democratic counterpart on the committee, ranking member Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), did not bring up the asteroid mission or other specifics of the NASA budget proposal in her statement, although she does mention that the STEM education reorganization effort is one area that is "going to require scrutiny." She does favorably compare the administration's budget request to Republican budget proposals that made cuts in areas "that lead to breakthroughs in areas like materials science and space exploration."

While Smith is skeptical of the asteroid mission proposal, the National Space Society (NSS) is enthusiastic about it. They see the mission as supporting efforts to both protect the Earth from asteroid impacts as well as to extract resources from them. Mark Hopkins, chairman of the NSS's Executive Committee, called the mission an "important step toward the NSS Vision of people living and working in thriving communities beyond the Earth."

The industry group the Coalition for Space Exploration also supports the budget request, calling the proposed asteroid mission "a stepping stone for deep space exploration will help focus discussion on America's next steps toward deep space exploration." But, while NASA says the budget proposal fully funds SLS and Orion, the Coalition is concerned that the FY14 proposal funds those programs at levels below the final FY12 appropriations: almost $175 million for Orion and more than $110 million for SLS. Those programs, they write, "must remain on track to support the already planned 2017 Orion and SLS test flight and 2021 crewed Orion exploration missions."

The Commercial Spaceflight Federation, not surprisingly, endorses the budget proposal's plans to fund commercial crew at more than $800 million for FY14, compared to the pre-rescission and -sequester level of $525 million in the FY13 appropriations bill signed into law. It also supports the agency's space technology budget request; that includes NASA's Flight Opportunities program, which funds research flight on commercial suborbital vehicles.

An exception to the general, if sometimes qualified, support for the budget proposal comes from The Planetary Society, who is concerned that NASA is cutting deep into its planetary science program. The proposal allocated just over $1.2 billion for planetary in FY14, compared to $1.5 billion in FY12; the administration proposed a similar cut in planetary science in FY13, although Congress partially restored it. Bill Nye, CEO of The Planetary Society, said in a blog post that he found the asteroid retrieval mission proposal "intriguing," but was disappointed the administration again sought to cut planetary science. "NASA did not get the message from Congress and the public about their wishes for missions to distant worlds," he stated.

In NASA's Budget: Plans To 'Shrink-Wrap' An Asteroid

Geoff Brumfiel - National Public Radio

A NASA mission proposed in President Obama's budget would involve capturing an asteroid and pulling it into Earth's orbit for observation.

A NASA mission proposed in President Obama's budget would involve capturing an asteroid and pulling it into Earth's orbit for observation.

When President Obama released his 2014 budget for the federal government on Wednesday, much of it was spreadsheets and tables. But one corner of NASA's budget looked like something out of a movie script.

The space agency is planning to capture a small asteroid, drag it to the moon and put it in orbit. If the mission goes ahead, then within a decade, astronauts could visit and study it up close.

Louis Friedman, executive director emeritus of The Planetary Society, understands why some might be skeptical of the new plan: "The very idea of lassoing an object ... and towing it to Earth orbit sounds pretty preposterous when you first think of it."

But it's not crazy. Last year, Friedman headed a committee of academics that took a serious look at the idea.

"Not only was this pretty feasible, at least at the early look of it ... but it was the only way that humans would actually get out beyond the moon in the next couple of decades," he says.

NASA originally wanted to send astronauts out into deep space to study an asteroid in its natural habitat. But the rockets currently under development just aren't powerful enough, and the agency's $17.7 billion budget is being squeezed.

Proponents argue that this plan provides an affordable alternative. NASA will use telescopes on Earth to track down a small asteroid passing by. (Those telescopes, by the way, will also look for anything that might hit us.) Once they've found a target asteroid, the agency will launch a robotic spacecraft to intercept it. In Friedman's study, the spacecraft has a huge inflatable cone on the front. When it reaches the asteroid, the cone inflates and traps the rock inside. Then it deflates.

"I call it 'shrink-wrapping' the asteroid," Friedman says.

That process draws the 500-ton asteroid to the spacecraft and secures it. The spacecraft then steers it back toward the Earth-moon system.

But Jay Melosh, a researcher at Purdue University, has his doubts about the new plan.

"It's not impossible, but it's very difficult, and one could wonder about what advantage would there be in doing all that stuff," he says.

The goal of NASA is to get to Mars, he says. That requires solving difficult problems, like protecting astronauts from the radiation in deep space. NASA is wasting resources "on playing around with this little asteroid while not facing up to the major problems," Melosh says.

Even this mission won't be cheap. Estimates of the total cost of bringing the asteroid to the astronauts are currently around $2.6 billion.

The plan may also face opposition in Congress. Albert Carnesale is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Los Angeles. Last year, he led a review of NASA's strategic direction and found that many in Congress believed that NASA should be setting its sights on the moon rather than an asteroid. NASA's budget provides $78 million to start researching the mission, but ultimately Congress must approve the funding.

Friedman doesn't deny that this is a less ambitious project, but the Planetary Society director says it will get humans farther out into space than they've ever been before.

Orbital Sciences' Antares ready for lift-off

Zach Rosenberg - FlightGlobal.com

The first launch of Orbital Sciences' Antares is due shortly, the last in a series of new American launch vehicles (LV) for some time to come. Others that are due shortly, notably SpaceX's Falcon v1.1 and Falcon Heavy, are modifications (significant ones) of existing LVs.

Antares is built to launch the Cygnus, an uncrewed supply capsule, to the International Space Station (ISS) under the commercial resupply services (CRS) programme. In the wake of the Space Shuttle, NASA needed new vehicles to meet commitments for resupplying the ISS.

Antares was not NASA's initial choice. Kistler/Rocketplane and SpaceX were both selected for development funding as part of the commercial orbital transportation services (COTS) programme, but Kistler quickly went bust and was liquidated. In its wake, with the continued desire to create competition, $171 million was diverted to Orbital.

NASA later signed for eight resupply launches, and Orbital received $1.9 billion from the deal.

The launch vehicle's first stage is powered by two Aerojet AJ-26s, essentially dusted-off Kuznetsov NK-33s that were shelved with the Soviet Union's moon programme. US company Aerojet bought 47 NK-33s for conversion (nine are actually NK-43s, the upper stage version of the engine), and although the deal includes rights to set up its own assembly line, it appears that the cost will make the option unlikely. In any case, at least 50 more NK-33s remain in storage in Russia.

An ATK Castor 30 solid rocket powers the upper stage, a derivative of the Castor 120, which itself is a derivative of motors that powered Peacekeeper intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Two third stages are offered for the launch vehicle if required for the payload – a solid motor based on the ATK Star 48 and an ATK liquid engine adapted from in-space satellite propulsion. NASA does not require either, and no other customers have placed orders.

During a 2011 test, one of the AJ-26s caught fire. The resulting investigation found small cracks throughout some of the engine's components, traced to corrosion from sitting in untended storage. Aerojet was forced to go through their engine supply and repair some of the flight-worthy examples. The engines have since been tested and tested again – including a recent hot-fire test on the launch pad – and both Aerojet and Orbital are confident of success.

Significant delays were caused, partially because of an unfinished launch pad at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island, Virginia. As part of the deal to launch in Virginia, the state government agreed to build the launch pad, working through the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority. While two LVs sat in a nearby building, all but ready for launch, the Space Flight Authority was forced to transfer construction authority to the state Department of Transportation with its long experience of building Virginia's roads. The pad is now finished, except for a few tweaks that will have to wait until after the launch.

The April launch will almost exactly simulate the launch system up to the point of payload release. Rather than a Cygnus capsule, the April launch will loft an instrumented mass simulator, which will make a few dozen orbits and burn up in the atmosphere. If successful, the first official resupply mission will be launched in June with supplies for the ISS.

"The pad operations, the first stage, the second stage will all be virtually identical to what we will do on the first operational mission in June, including the trajectory, the altitude, the team that's operating it across the board," says Frank Culbertson, Orbital's vice-president of advanced systems. "Once we achieve orbit, the mass simulator will separate from the second stage and stay in orbit a few days before it re-enters – it is designed to burn up easily. In the meantime we will get data from the sensors that are installed there, we'll get video, we'll be able to confirm the fairing separates as it should… this mission will essentially be, up to that point, identical to the one that goes to Station later this year."

The fourth CRS flight – the fifth overall – is scheduled to be the debut of a larger second stage engine, the Castor 30XL, required to launch the enhanced Cygnus capsule.

Cygnus is capable of carrying around 2,000kg (4,100lb) in a pressurised cargo hold, but is unable to survive re-entry into Earth's atmosphere. The enhanced version of Cygnus will carry an additional 700kg. The first two Cygnus capsules are all but completed; the first to fly is already filled with cargo and has arrived at Wallops Island for integration with its service module.

The design of the enhanced Cygnus is largely finished, and assembly is scheduled to begin shortly. Testing of some components, including tests of the new solar panels, is ongoing.

The launch vehicle has qualified for both the Department of the Defense's Orbital/Suborbital Programme-3 and the NASA Launch Services II contracts, the overarching contracts through which those organisations buy rockets and launch services. The qualifications mean that Orbital is able to bid with Antares for suitable launch contracts, although these are subject to the new entrant's criteria that limit launches of certain payloads based on the number of sequential launch successes.

"We've talked to many customers in the government and outside the government, but I believe people are probably waiting for us to get a couple flights off before they'll commit to anything," says Culbertson.

Despite Orbital's and Aerojet's best efforts, all involved will be holding their breaths until word of successful orbit, and with good reasons. Launching any rocket is a gamble to some degree, especially for a brand new one. Of the 20 new LVs and significant derivatives launched worldwide since 1990, just over half failed on first launch, according to Flightglobal's Ascend launch database.

"The important thing is, this is one of the biggest programmes in the company, so it's very, very important to succeed on," notes Culbertson. "It's taken longer and cost more money than we anticipated, and we've got a lot of our own invested in it. The significance of this going well cannot be overstated."

A Soviet Moon rocket engine to power U.S. launcher

N. Gopal Raj - The Hindu

On a clear, cold day in February 1969, five months before Apollo 11 left with the first men to walk on the Moon, a gigantic rocket stood on the launch pad at Baikonur. It was from this fabled cosmodrome, now in Kazakhstan, that the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite, and sent Yuri Gagarin on a journey that made him the first human to venture into space. Those achievements spurred a space race, and U.S. President John F. Kennedy responded by vowing to land men on the Moon by the end of the 1960s.

In order to have any chance at all in that race, the Soviet Union needed a powerful rocket like America's Saturn V that would carry the Apollo missions. That rocket was the N1. Its huge first stage was driven by no fewer than 30 liquid-fuelled engines. Together, those engines could generate 4,620 tonnes of thrust. "The Soviet N1 booster had the highest lift-off thrust of any rocket built in the history of space exploration," observed space historian Asif A. Siddiqi in his book 'Challenge to Apollo: The Soviet Union and the Space Race, 1945-1974'.

On February 21, 1969, the N1, as tall as a 35-storey building and weighing over 2,700 tonnes, lifted off on its maiden flight. But, shortly afterwards, the rocket's onboard system shut down two engines of the first stage and then the remaining ones as well, sending it crashing to the ground. Three subsequent launches of the N1 were equally disastrous and ended Soviet hopes of sending its cosmonauts to the Moon.

Now, four decades later, an American launch vehicle, carrying improved versions of the N1's first-stage liquid engines, is poised for its first flight. Orbital Sciences Corporation's Antares rocket, with a first stage powered by just two of those engines, is scheduled to lift-off from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on April 17. The Antares is intended to take cargo to the International Space Station on commercial terms.

Behind the development of those engines lay a tale of bitter rivalry that went on behind the impenetrable iron curtain of the Soviet space programme. It was an animosity that very nearly resulted in the engines being destroyed for good after the N1 programme was terminated.

Friction between Sergey Korolev, the legendary Soviet rocket designer who was responsible for the country's space programme, and Valentin Glushko, the country's pre-eminent designer of liquid engines, had been mounting. Their disagreements came to a head over how the N1 should be built.

Korolev wanted Glushko to develop high-powered engines using liquid oxygen (LOX) and kerosene for the lower stages of the rocket. But Glushko refused, arguing that it was easier to develop high-thrust engines running on a different propellant combination (nitrogen tetroxide and unsymmetrical dimethyl hydrazine). He was, in any case, developing such an engine for what became the Proton rocket.

Low thrust

The resulting rupture in relations between the two men led to Korolev turning to a far less experienced design bureau headed by Nikolay Kuznetsov for the N1's LOX-kerosene engines. The Saturn V's first stage too used LOX-kerosene engines – just five of them. However, each of those huge F-1 engines could produce 690 tonnes of thrust.

By contrast, the NK-15 engines from the Kuznetsov design bureau, which were used in the N1's first stage, could each generate only 154 tonnes of thrust. The result was that 30 NK-15s were needed to get N1 off the ground.

After the Soviet government decided to terminate the N1 programme in 1974, eight years after Korolev's death, there was a dramatic reorganisation of the space industry. Control of Korolev's design bureau was handed over to his rival, Glushko. The first thing the latter did on taking over was to order the destruction of all N1 rockets that were being assembled as well as all related materials and technical documentation.

Despite receiving such an instruction, Kuznetsov managed to preserve a large number of engines that his design bureau had produced for the N1. That included an improved version of the NK-15 engine, designated as NK-33, which had been extensively tested on the ground but not flown.

In the mid-1990s, after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, a U.S company, Aerojet, purchased about 40 NK-33 engines. It modified the engines for use on the Orbital Sciences' rocket, giving them the designation AJ26.

Thus, in a tale with many twists, the NK-33 engines, intended for a massive Soviet Moon rocket, will instead get their first flight in a much smaller American launcher.

National Space Symposium (NSS) stories and blog posts
Orbital Sees Cygnus As Hosted Payload Platform

Frank Morring, Jr. - Aviation Week

Orbital Sciences Corp. believes it can sell space on the commercial cargo vehicle it has developed with NASA seed money as an orbiting laboratory once it is unloaded and unberthed from the International Space Station.

The Orbital Sciences Antares medium-lift launch vehicle set for its inaugural flight next week won't carry the Cygnus capsule developed to deliver cargo to the ISS, but the instrumented mass simulator it is set to place in orbit will remain there for several months before re-entering the atmosphere.

So will future full-up Cygnus vehicles, which will be outfitted to support both the cargo they carry for the space station and any hosted payloads Orbital can find. The company already has a contract with NASA's Glenn Research Center to conduct a combustion experiment on an emptied Cygnus once Orbital begins flying out its $1.9 billion, eight-mission Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract.

"We expect we will have a pretty sophisticated spacecraft that can operate on orbit for upward of a year," said Michael Hamel, Orbital's senior vice president for corporate strategy and development. "Now, this becomes a very interesting platform for being able to provide routine spaceflight opportunities for various technology and operational demonstrations, so we're actively looking at down-the-road missions with CRS becoming a hosted payload platform."

The Glenn experiment will study how fires can propagate and be extinguished in a spacecraft, on a scale that would be unsafe to attempt on an occupied vehicle. In the future, Hamel said Orbital hopes to use the Cygnus to create a market once filled by the Get Away Special (GAS) canisters in the space shuttle payload bay.

The so-called GAS cans carried a variety of stand-alone space experiments that were jettisoned once the payload bay doors were opened, giving researchers a way to expose experiments to the space environment. Potential customers for Cygnus payload space include civilian and military government agencies and commercial researchers.

The Cygnus/Antares stack will fly two or three missions a year to the ISS. Initially it will be able to deliver 2,000 kg (4,400 lb.) of cargo to the station, a capability that will grow to 2,700 kg after planned improvements in the spacecraft and launcher after the third CRS flight.

Unlike the SpaceX Dragon capsule, which was also developed with Commercial Orbital Transportation Services seed money from NASA, the Orbital vehicle does not carry thermal protection for re-entry, and is not designed to eventually accommodate humans. Instead, Hamel said during the National Space Symposium here, it is "optimized for cargo," and so can fulfill its 20,000-metric-ton delivery requirement in eight flights instead of the 12 it will take the Dragon.

"We can take about 50% more cargo than the Dragon," he said.

Europe sets June 5 for launch of space freighter

Agence France Presse

The European Space Agency (ESA) on Thursday announced it would launch the fourth, and heaviest, in a series of hi-tech cargo vehicles to the International Space Station (ISS) on June 5.

Named the Albert Einstein, the freighter will deliver 2.5 tonnes of dry cargo, ranging from food and scientific experiments to spare parts and clothing, as well as fuel, water and oxygen.

The total mass of the vehicle, its contents and fuel, will come to 20.235 tonnes, "making this spacecraft the heaviest ever lofted into orbit by an Ariane rocket," ESA said.

The Albert Einstein is scheduled to dock with the ISS on June 15, 10 days after launch, it added.

ESA has a contract to build and deliver five so-called Automated Transfer Vehicles (ATVs) as part of its contribution to the ISS.

The robot craft, each the size of a double-decker bus, are designed to make one-way trips.

They are launched by an Ariane 5 heavy rocket from ESA's base in Kourou, French Guiana.

After detaching from the launcher, the ATVs navigate their way to the orbital outpost by starlight and dock automatically.

They provide stores for the ISS crew and additional living space for the duration of their mission.

The ATVs also use on-board engines to boost the ISS, whose altitude drops because it is in low orbit and dragged by lingering atmospheric molecules.

At the end of their trip, filled with garbage and human waste, the craft detach and burn up in a controlled destruction over the South Pacific.

The fifth and last ATV, named after Belgian physicist Georges Lemaitre, the father of the "Big Bang" theory, is due to be launched in 2014.

Altius has high hopes for Sticky Boom

Jeff Thomas - Boulder County Business Report

Space may be the final frontier, but for Jonathan Goff it may also be the new Silicon Valley.

"There's a huge amount of money to be made in space. In telecommunications and GPS there's already more than $100 billion a year," said the founder of Altius Space Machines Inc. of Louisville. "The problem is that there's not that many launches that go up in any given year."

Altius in 2011 developed a business plan focusing on small-load deliveries to the International Space Station, employing a robotic arm the company was developing, the Sticky Boom. Altius Space Machines won the $25,000 grand prize in the 2011 Heinlein NewSpace Business Plan Competition, hosted by the Space Frontier Foundation, which helped to focus the efforts of this small Louisville startup on a very specific but necessary aspect of space support and research.

That award not only helped determine the focus of this small engineering startup in Louisville but also gave it a certain cachet to approach other technology organizations working in the space industry. In all, space industry development is not that different from the Internet-based companies of the 1990s, Goff said, where strategic partners cooperated hoping to quickly develop the technologies that would gain widespread commercial application.

Essentially, the Altius Sticky Boom is a 10- to 100-meter robotic arm that allows a spacecraft to reach and grab objects, such as an incoming payload vehicle that wasn't necessarily designed to hook up with the receiving craft. That would enable the space station to receive these smaller just-in-time payloads from commercial launches, instead of being tied to the larger payloads that are received on a more infrequent basis from cooperating space-station nations.

"Most countries will have their own launch vehicles, but you could have a lot more vehicles in a commercially driven market" that employs smaller launch and satellite vehicles, Goff said. "We're doing what we can do to try to increase that pace."

That could be a boon for researching many new technologies at the space station, such as quickly developing new vaccines — a process that's difficult to fit into the slower pace of the larger payloads. Getting a technology employed on the space station is necessarily an intricate and time-consuming process, but Goff noted that there are many more shorter-term applications where a multiple-use robotic arm could come in handy, such as stocking space fuel depots, servicing satellites, aiding in manned space flights or helping rid Earth's orbit of space debris.

The company's robotic arm for "non-cooperative capture" already has attracted attention from American space agencies. For instance, last year Altius signed a non-reimbursable space act agreement with NASA's Langley Research Center to jointly create a "Compactly Stowable Manipulator," a robotic capture arm that could be stored easily aboard spacecraft such as the manned Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle being built by Lockheed Martin for NASA.

Altius also has been contracted for engineering services by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to help develop new capture technology to assist with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Phoenix project. The project would retrofit older satellites, which still have functioning antenna and solar-power systems, with new components that aid military applications.

The project is exciting because such retrofits also could have commercial applications, Goff said, and the capture technology itself is an extremely interesting technological advancement. The first Sticky Boom had an electrostatic capture end, but the new boom will incorporate JPL's synthetic Gecko adhesive technology.

The capture technology mimics the lizard's ability to walk upside down using billions of invisible hairs on its feet, which create a bond similar to that of Velcro. However, it is believed that a gecko's hairs adapt so precisely to a surface that they actually form a loose molecular bond between surfaces, known as a Van der Wall force.

"If you are trying to grab and stabilize a spinning object in space, you don't have to exert a huge force," Goff said. "These are not super, super strong connections, it's not an electronic locking, but it can grab onto an object and handle misalignment and relative speeds."

While the Sticky Boom may not find its way onto the space station in the near term, the award has helped Altius gain entry with national labs and commercial partners. One such partner is next door in Boulder's SpaceX, as the Sticky Boom could have application in the company's reusable Dragon space vehicle.

"We're looking at some more near-term deployments right now," Goff said. "We're trying to find the right mix of opportunities and the partners to help market them (the resulting technologies).

"It is an exciting and interesting market, and I really believe in trying to create new markets in space. At the same time, we do keep an eye out for terrestrial applications."

ULA a step closer to manned flight

Eric Fleischauer - Decatur Daily

Decatur is one step closer to sending astronauts to space.

Boeing Co. announced Friday its successful completion of a preliminary design review of a structure that will join a manned spacecraft to an Atlas V rocket.

United Launch Alliance, jointly owned by Boeing and Lockheed Martin Corp., builds the Atlas V in Decatur.

The design review was the third milestone under Boeing's Commercial Crew Integrated Capability agreement with NASA, part of a competition to replace the retired space shuttle fleet.

ULA designed the launch-vehicle adapter.

Completion of the milestone means detailed engineering of the adapter can begin as progress toward test flights, planned for 2016, continues.

"This review was an outstanding integrated effort by the Boeing, ULA and NASA teams," said John Mulholland, vice president and program manager of Boeing Commercial Crew Programs. "It sets the baseline for us to proceed to wind tunnel testing and the launch segment review in June."

NASA's Mars-Bound Mega Rocket on Track for 2017 Test Launch

Clara Moskowitz - Space.com

The development of NASA's biggest, most powerful rocket yet is running ahead of schedule and on budget, its primary contractor said Wednesday.

The towering Space Launch System (SLS) is a 384-foot (117 meters) behemoth intended to launch astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit to deep-space asteroids and Mars. The vehicle is slated to make its first test flight in 2017, when it will launch an unmanned Orion capsule (also in development) beyond the moon. The first manned flight is pegged for 2021.

So far, NASA and The Boeing Co., which has been contracted to build the rocket's core stage, are on track to meet that date, officials said.

"We're on budget, ahead of schedule," John Elbon, Boeing's vice president and general manager of space exploration, told reporters here at the 29th annual National Space Symposium. "There's incredible progress going on with that rocket."

At the end of December 2012 — five months ahead of schedule — the team passed a milestone called preliminary design review, which certified that the rocket design meets its requirements within acceptable risk parameters. Its final technical review, called critical design review, is scheduled for 2014.

The booster, in its initial configuration, uses solid rocket boosters based on the space shuttle's design, with an upper stage taken from United Launch Alliance's well-tried Delta 4 rocket.

"The whole theory of it was to use existing hardware so we could design something relatively low-risk and get a capability soon," Elbon said.

Eventually, the SLS will have to be outfitted to carry heavier loads than its initial configuration can lift. It must carry the crew and equipment needed for a mission to Mars — which will be a multistep, complex operation. What those steps will be, exactly, is yet to be settled by NASA.

"The exploration program hasn't been crisply defined," Elbon said. "The real focus has been on developing capabilities. I think, personally, it would be helpful if we had a mission that was clearly defined that would allow us to take these capabilities — to tailor them, define them, shape them for that mission."

Yet there's a benefit in developing SLS as a multipurpose vehicle designed to carry out more than a single mission.

"SLS is every mission beyond low-Earth orbit," said John Shannon, Boeing's International Space Station (ISS) program manager. "The fact that NASA has not picked one single mission is irrelevant."

What's key, the executives stressed, is for the United States to stay true to the goal of getting to Mars. That ambition, set by President Barack Obama during his first term, is the guiding force behind the development of SLS and Orion. If a future administration alters that objective, all bets are off.

"Constancy in purpose," is essential, said Mike Raftery, director of ISS utilization and exploration at Boeing. "This is something that happened with ISS. It needs to happen with Mars, too."

Bigelow Offering Private Space Station at a Fraction of ISS Cost

Doug Messier - ParabolicArc.com

Hailing what it calls a "sea change" in space costs, Bigelow Aerospace has unveiled pricing information for governments, companies and individuals interested in using its planned private Alpha Space Station.

Transportation costs to the station begin at $26.25 million per seat for a 60-day visit. Leases for exclusive use and control over part of the space station begin at $25 million. Naming rights for the entire station will cost an additional $25 million per year.

Astronaut Flight Costs
Lease Block Cost
Naming Rights
Clients can select a live & work visit to the Bigelow Alpha station that can last as long as 60 days or as few as 10 days for a single, per seat rate. This per seat rate will be either $26.25 or $36.75 million depending on the transportation provider selected by the client.
$25 million for exclusive use and control over 110 cubic meters of volume for a two month period
Full Alpha Station yearly for $25 million; Half of the Alpha Station yearly for $12.5 million

Bigelow has selected SpaceX and Boeing as its transportation providers. SpaceX is selling seats on its seven-seat Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket for $26.25 million, or $183.75 million per vehicle. A seat on Boeing's CST-100 spacecraft, launched by the Atlas V, will cost $36.75 million, or $257.25 million for all seven places.

"In stark contrast to the short stays of a week or so aboard the ISS that we have seen wealthy individuals pay as much as $40 million for, astronauts visiting the Bigelow station will enjoy 10 – 60 days in orbit," the company says on its website.

"During this time, visiting astronauts will be granted access to the Alpha Station's shared research facilities. Examples of available equipment include a centrifuge, glove-box, microscope, furnace, and freezer. Also, potential clients should note that as opposed to the ISS, where astronauts dedicate the lion's share of their time to supporting station operations and maintenance, astronauts aboard the Alpha Station will be able to focus exclusively on their own experiments and activities, ensuring that both nations and companies can gain full value from their investment in a human spaceflight program."

Bigelow is also offering clients the opportunity to lease 110 cubic meter blocks of the space station for 60 days at a cost of $25 million. The blocks will be roughly the same volume as a module on the International Space Station.

"This unprecedented amount of volume will allow clients to utilize a significant portion of a space station for their own uninterrupted work and use to fly experiments or other payloads," the company says. "For example, if a client chose to fill a single lease block with 50 or more experiments, the flight cost of sending an individual experiment to the Alpha Station would only be $500,000 or less for two months.

"Per the information above, utilizing a Falcon 9 and Dragon, for only $51.25 million, a client can travel to the Alpha Station for two months and enjoy dominion over 110 cubic meters of volume for 60 days," according to the company. "Additionally, Alpha Station clientele will be allowed to sublease their on-orbit volume or resell purchased astronaut seats. This flexibility will provide clients with the opportunity to reduce their own costs or even make a profit."

Bigelow is also offering naming rights for the station at $12.5 million for 6 months and $25 million for the year. Clients also can name an entire BA 330 module for a year at a cost of $12.5 million.

The company is targeting both sovereign nations as well as commercial companies around the world.

"Nations such as Japan, Canada, Brazil, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Sweden could secure the future of their human spaceflight programs and dramatically increase the size of their astronaut corps," the company's website states. "Smaller countries with no human spaceflight experience such as Singapore or the United Arab Emirates could take their first bold steps into space in a rapid and affordable fashion….

"These commercial stations will also present unique opportunities for corporations to gain significant advantages over their competition," the company says. "The microgravity environment represents a completely new arena for commercial R&D. Already, work aboard the ISS is leading to the development of innovative vaccines for diseases such as Salmonella, and we're only beginning to scratch the surface relative to what regular, robust, and affordable access to the microgravity environment will mean to the biotech and pharmaceutical industries."

To infinity — and beyond!

George Knapp - Las Vegas City Life

(Knapp is a Peabody Award-winning investigative reporter for KLAS TV Channel 8)

Business deals don't get much bigger than this one. Have you ever read a contract that gives a governmental green light to a program to "place a base on the surface of the moon?" Ever see an agreement signed by the U.S. government that declares a specific goal "to extend and sustain human activities across the solar system?" Me, either.

Yet that is essence of an adventurous deal already reached between NASA and Las Vegas space entrepreneur Robert Bigelow. An official announcement is still a few days away and will likely happen during a news conference at NASA headquarters. In the meantime, I have a draft copy of what could be an historic contract, one that reads like a Kubrick screenplay or an Arthur C. Clarke story. It is flat-out otherworldly.

Bigelow made his fortune building apartment buildings and weekly-rental hotel rooms in Las Vegas. In 1999, he launched what must have seemed a pipe dream at the time — his own private space program. But within a few short years he stunned the aerospace world by launching two of his own locally built spacecraft, both of which still circle the Earth (and one of which contains my weightless, floating business card). The focus of Bigelow Aerospace is an expandable module, small and light enough to make for less expensive launches but so strong and durable when expanded to full size that it accomplishes what NASA has been unable to do on its own: It puts more space in space, that is, more room for companies and governments to work, live and conduct research.

Back in January, NASA bigwigs came to Bigelow's main plant to announce a landmark deal that calls for one of Bigelow's modules to be attached to the International Space Station (ISS) within two years. Bigelow used that occasion to let slip some even bigger news — the fact that he is spending $250 million of his own money to build a private space station, larger than the ISS, and that he plans to have it in low-Earth orbit by 2016. What few knew at the time was that he was secretly negotiating an even bigger deal with NASA, one that represents a fundamental, across-the-board change in our approach to space.

NASA has been coasting for a long time, kept alive by the now-distant memory of the moon landings and less spectacular but more important missions such as the Hubble and unmanned probes to Mars and beyond. Basically, NASA has become a job-protection racket, spending public dollars on programs and ideas that always seem to get cancelled. For instance, we spent tens of billions on the ISS but no longer have a way to get there.

The long-term answer has been well-known to NASA and the private space industry for a long time: Figure out how NASA can get out of the way and help private companies take the next step by commercializing space. Make it profitable for Americans to be up there, doing things that will ultimately benefit Earth. Few individuals in the aerospace world have been more critical of NASA than Bigelow, which makes the pending agreement all the more remarkable.

In a nutshell, NASA has decided that the best way to get Americans and American companies back into space is for the government to partner with private enterprise. To provide technical expertise and legal authority for bright, ambitious entrepreneurs to spend their own money on endeavors that will not only re-establish American supremacy in space but also get started on truly exciting long-range projects, including private space stations, as well as permanent bases on the moon, on Mars and beyond.

NASA has picked Bigelow Aerospace to be a linchpin of this new strategy. The agreement will formalize a series of strategic goals and timetables for the next Space Race. Bigelow's company would become a clearinghouse of sorts. Its first assignment: to identify which other companies would be most valuable for NASA's long-range goals, including permanent bases on other celestial bodies, the exploration of the most distant parts of our solar system, and commercial projects that could stimulate the U.S. economy. This is a marriage of American know-how, practical business goals and good, old-fashioned adventure.

Bigelow told me about some of the details in a radio interview a few days ago, but he is saving most of the specifics until NASA makes a formal announcement. From what I have seen, though, it is not hard to imagine our little desert community becoming the heart and soul of a wonderful new initiative that could inspire a new generation of explorers and pioneers who literally will go where no human has gone before.

The walking man

Back when he was still a 22-year-old pup, future Las Vegas businessman John Cushman got the wild idea to take a little walk … from New York to San Diego. He did it to raise funs for Jerry's Kids. It took him a mere 49 days to accomplish the feat, which means he averaged 60 miles per day. That's a lot of walking.

Though he had only a few sponsors, Cushman raised a hefty chunk of dough for MDA. One sponsor was Southland Corp., better known as 7-Eleven. Another was a then-fledgling shoe company called Adidas, which donated the six pairs of athletic shoes he wore out during his jaunt.

Here we are, many years later. Cushman is now 60, a little grayer, a bit slower, but still interested in making a difference. So he's going to do it again. But this time, he hopes to raise a lot more money and a lot of awareness too, especially if his trip is turned into a reality-TV show or is updated online each day.

Cushman has outlined an ambitious proposal and a list of possible sponsors, everything from shoe manufacturers to RV suppliers, cell-phone companies, you name it. He already has some nibbles from Hollywood folks, who are not only interested in seeing if John can survive a walk like this, but also are hoping the venture would focus on Cushman's other primary interest — the paranormal.

Among his side ventures is a nonprofit outfit that stages Dinners with a Ghost in the old town of Goldfield. Cushman's ghost-hunting venture is helping Goldfield preservationists raise funds to save the old schoolhouse and restore other quickly-decaying historical structures in one of our state's most interesting towns. Cushman says he will use his reality show/walkabout to raise awareness for historic preservation causes, and Goldfield in particular. And he might even hustle up a ghost or two along his route.

We've Taken More Than a Million Pictures of Earth From the Space Station
This is what they look like plotted on a map

Megan Garber - The Atlantic
The official purpose of the International Space Station is Science: Astronauts living on the orbital laboratory spend the majority of their time in space testing microgravity's effect on physical objects, fellow animals, and themselves. The less-official purpose of the International Space Station, however, is Wonder. That there are, at this very moment, six human beings hanging out in space is a source of delight and maybe even inspiration to many of us here on Earth. And the fortunate few who get to do the hanging out take advantage of their vaunted environs, spending a good deal of their free time on the ISS taking pictures of the planetary scenery that spreads out 200 miles below them.

And I really do mean "a good deal of time." Since astronauts first took up residence there in 2000, they have snapped more than a million pictures from the station. That's nearly 30,000 images per Expedition.

And nearly all of those images have been archived on NASA's servers -- and, by default, are in the public domain. So the techologist Nathan Bergey did something great: He took NASA's data set and plotted the earth-based coordinates of the images taken from space. What resulted are graphics that double as hauntingly ethereal maps of the planet. Bergey archived only images that he found in NASA's database and that had a known latitude and longitude. So, he notes, "it's not necessarily every single image ever taken, but it's close."

As you can see from the red-and-white image above -- which represents all the Earth images taken from space, in the aggregate -- astronauts tend to focus their lenses on land. (Which makes sense, Bergey says: "Photos of clouds over an otherwise blank ocean get old after a while.")

What's less evident, though, is who is responsible for which photos. Since NASA's dataset included information about photos' Expeditions-of-origin, Bergey created individual maps for each expedition.

It's striking, the variation -- some of which came down to technological capability, sure, but much of which came down to something more human: astronaut interest. Chris Hadfield, current ISS denizen and Commander of flight engineer for the current Expedition, has gotten quite a reputation as a cosmic photographer. He has nothing, though, on Don Pettit -- who is, Bergey points out, "single-handedly responsible for almost half the images taken on orbit." The thick red lines of Expeditions 30/31? That's Pettit and his camera.

And yet, as a trend, photography has seemed to increase in popularity over time. And that's made evident in another map Bergey made, this one comparing the photos taken by various Expeditions.

Russia to continue using Kazakhstan's space center

Associated Press

Brushing off reports that Russia may ditch its space base in Kazakhstan, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Moscow would continue to lease the space complex.

Russia has a lease deal to use Baikonur until 2050 for an annual fee of $115 million. Amid tensions over fees payments, a Russian official said in February that Russia may suspend its lease for some facilities at Baikonur.

Marking the 52nd anniversary of Yuri Gagarin making the first manned space flight, Putin toured the construction site of the Vostochny launch pad in the Far East which is designed to ease Russia's reliance on its ex-Soviet neighbor.

Officials have put the total cost of the Vostochny project at about $10 billion. Putin, however, insisted that Russia would not leave the base in Baikonur.

Although Russia has several smaller launch pads it is only from the steppes in Kazakhstan's Baikonur that the Russian space agency launches its manned mission. Gagarin made the world's first manned space flight from the Baikonur launch pad, which services manned flights to this day.

The first launch from Vostochny, which is located in the sparsely populated Amur region, 5,500 kilometers (3,400 miles) east of Moscow, and just about 100 kilometers (60 miles) away from the border with China, is expected in 2015 and the first manned flight in 2018.

The government would earmark some 1.6 trillion rubles ($50 billion) for the space industry through 2020 to make up for the years of under-investment, Putin said quoted by the Itar-TASS news agency.

To mark what's celebrated in Russia as the Space Day, Putin had a chat via a video link with the six-man crew of the International Space Station and assured that the new Russian space center would be open to U.S. and European space agencies.

Putin said in televised remarks the site of the new cosmodrome was carefully chosen and would allow cosmonauts land on water. The Sea of Okhotsk on Russia's Pacific coast is 600 kilometers (375 miles) east.

Putin says Russia to launch first manned space flight from its soil in 2018

Denis Dyomkin - Reuters

President Vladimir Putin told astronauts on the International Space Station on Friday that Russia will launch the first manned flights from its soil in 2018 from a new launch pad he said will be used to explore the Moon and deep space.

Speaking by video link from the Vostochny Cosmodrome construction site in the Far East region of Amur, Putin said he hoped the facility will also be used by the United States and Europe - playing up cooperation on the 52nd anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's pioneering flight, which set off the Cold War space race and is celebrated as Space Exploration Day in Russia.

"I want to congratulate the crew on this holiday," Putin said. "These are not just any greetings, these are greetings from the construction site of our future."

Russia wants the launch site near the Chinese border, where it hopes to exploit a new generation of rockets carrying heavier payloads, to rival its current site in Kazakhstan, the lease of which has been in contention since the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union.

Since NASA retired its shuttles last year, Russian rockets blasting off from the Soviet-built Baikonour launch pad provide astronauts around the world with the only ride to the $100-billion research laboratory some 250 miles (400 km) above Earth.

While NASA pays a steep fee for the trip, the upkeep and lease of the Baikonour Cosmodrome is at Russia's expense.

"I very much hope that it will be used not only by our specialists, but by our colleagues from the United States, Europe and other countries," Putin said, while inspecting a mock-up of the completed facility at Vostochny, some 250 km from the city of Blagoveshchensk.

"Space is a sphere of activity that allows us to forget about all difficult international relations... not think about problems but about the future."

Putin, whose ambition is to restore Moscow's Soviet-era might after a series of embarrassing failed launches, said the Vostochny site will open for unmanned launches in 2015 and manned flights in 2018.

"It's clear that in the 21st century Russia must preserve its status as a leading space power," Putin said.

Putin said the space launch market could grow to be worth $1.5 trillion by 2030 from between $300 billion and $400 billion today. He said Russia will spend 1.6 trillion roubles ($52 million) on space exploration through 2020.

Even after the new site is built, Putin said Russia will continue to exploit Baikonour, which it leases at a cost of $115 million a year under a deal that expires in 2050. But he said the facility on Kazakh soil was "physically aged."

Putin unveils $50bn Russian space drive

Australian Associated Press

President Vladimir Putin unveiled a new $US50 billion ($A47 billion) drive for Russia to preserve its status as a top space power, including the construction of a brand new cosmodrome from where humans will fly to space by the end of the decade.

Fifty-two years to the day since Yuri Gagarin became the Soviet Union's greatest hero by making the first human flight into space, Putin inspected the new Vostochny (Eastern) cosmodrome Russia is building in the Amur region of the Far East.

Putin said in a live link-up with the multinational crew of the International Space Station (ISS) that Russia hoped to have the first launches from Vostochny in 2015 and the first manned launches in 2018.

"It's going to be a great launch pad. It took a long time to choose but now work is fully underway," said Putin in comments broadcast on state television, adding that Vostochny would be fully operational by 2020.

Russia still carries out all manned launches from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan - the same place where Gagarin made his historic flight - but this has been shadowed in recent years by disputes with the Kazakh authorities over the lease terms.

The Russian space program has been hurt in recent years by a string of launch failures of unmanned probes and satellites but Putin vowed Moscow would continue to ramp up spending.

He said that from 2013-2020, Russia would be spending 1.6 trillion rubles ($A47 billion) on its space sector, a growth far greater than any other space power.

Putin complained that the country was behind other states in space activities other than manned flights, which he said had long been the "priority" of the Russian space program.

"There is a big gap between us and other space powers in the technology for so-called deep-space programs," Putin said.

One of Russia's most embarrassing failures was the loss of its Phobos-Grunt probe to Mars in 2012 which ended up crashing back into Earth rather than even coming close to completing its mission of visiting a Martian moon.

Putin Builds Space-Weapon Deterrent as Russia Target Mars, Moon

Ilya Arkhipov - Bloomberg News

Russia's building a system to neutralize space weapons as it prepares to send a man to Mars and build a permanent moon base, President Vladimir Putin and members of his government said.

Russia will have the technical means by 2030 to counteract threats from space by other countries, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said at a government meeting near the country's new cosmodrome in the Far East today. Until then, Russia will continue to expand its orbital capabilities to monitor potential threats and prevent rocket attacks, Rogozin said.

"Russia has been and will remain a steadfast opponent of the militarization of space," said Dmitry Peskov, Putin's spokesman. Putin said he's considering creating a space ministry to oversee the industry.

Russia, which put the first man into space, Yuri Gagarin, 52 years ago today, plans to spend 1.6 trillion rubles ($52 billion) on its space industry in 2013-2020, including completing the Vostochny cosmodrome near the border with China. Russia currently uses the Soviet-era Baikonur base in Kazakhstan for manned missions.

The new facility is on schedule to handle its first rocket launch by 2015 and its first manned mission by 2018, according to Putin.

Rocket Failures

Russia is going ahead with plans for its first manned mission to Mars, even after it lost the Phobos-Grunt probe to one of the red planet's moons last year, Rogozin said. That was one of at least four failed Russian spacecraft launches since 2010. Roscosmos, Russia's space agency, halted launches of Proton-M rockets last August after two satellites were lost.

Roscosmos is working on a new "super-heavy" rocket for the Mars mission, Vladimir Popovkin, the head of the agency, said today.

Russia last month signed an agreement with Europe's space agency for a joint unmanned mission to Mars to search for signs of life beyond Earth.

Russia is also pushing forward with plans to establish a permanent base on the Moon for scientific study, Rogozin said, without elaborating.

Russian rocket-maker OAO Energiya has proposed industrializing space to mine the moon for helium-3 and other potential sources of energy.

Want to be an Astronaut? Learn How to Speak Russian

Elizabeth Howell - Universe Today

A fire breaks out on the International Space Station while the orbiting complex is over Russian mission control. How, as an English-speaking astronaut, would you keep up with instructions?

The answer is years of Russian training. In between time in simulators, jet airplanes and underwater, neophyte astronauts spend hours learning to read Cyrillic characters and pronounce consonant-heavy words. In fact, one of NASA's requirements for its astronauts now is to learn the Russian language.

"It's taken very seriously in the program because of the level you need to reach if, God forbid, there was an emergency on board and there was a panicky discussion going on in Russian on the radio," Canadian astronaut and medical doctor David Saint-Jacques told Universe Today. "Ultimately, you need to be fluent to be really useful in a situation like that."

Saint-Jacques himself is no neophyte to language learning. A native francophone, he learned English in public school and really improved it when he was 15 and moved with his family to England for a year. Today he speaks it fluently. He also has some abilities in Japanese, a language he picked up while in that country for a junior academic position at a university.

Now approaching four years as an astronaut trainee, Saint-Jacques told us how astronauts learn Russian. It's a process that not only includes classroom instruction, but time living with a family in Moscow to really pick up on colloquialisms. Below is an edited interview.

What language training focuses on: "The point is not to write perfectly. The point is to communicate, similar to how businessmen learn languages. The emphasis for us is understanding spoken language, but the emphasis for us, the vocabulary, is different. I know all these obscure space hardware words and these crazy Russian space acronyms, but I may not know some of the flowers, for example. I can't know everything."

Basic Russian training: "We have Russian classes one-on-one with a Russian instructor. We get anything between one lesson every two weeks to three, four lessons a week, depending on how you accommodate the training schedule. Most astronauts want as much training as possible. It's part of the requirements for basic training; you have to pass a certain competency test in Russian. There is a standard test that is used by the foreign affairs department, and so we do the same test. It's a verbal test where you call the examiner on the phone and you have a discussion with them on the phone. If you pass a certain grade on that test, you are good to go."

Living in Russia: "You have to go to Russia at some point to learn the Soyuz spacecraft and the Russian segment of space station. That, of course, is in all in Russian. The training is in Russian and the books are in Russian. There are translators that could be there with you, but you don't want to rely on an interpreter for class. It really hits home; the more you know, the better. You will be living there for months, and it's a no-brainer: you have to speak Russian when you are going to Russia."

Immersion: "I took some holidays there [in Russia] with my family. That's one of the great things when you speak the language of the country; you have fun there. I try to hang out with any Russian cosmonaut that comes here to Houston to keep up with them. There are two other ways we can train: you can block two to three weeks to do an intensive Russian test where all you want to do [beforehand] is study Russian. Also, when you are assigned to a spaceflight, in the year before your spaceflight, they [NASA] will try to send you for a month and a half in Moscow in a family for total immersion. That makes most people bump up their Russian level quite a lot."

Side benefits: "It makes you realize how at the end of the day, international relations is really a form of personal relations, and speaking a language is absolutely fundamental. It makes you graduate from having a professional experience to a life experience with the other person, the other country."

Any bets on who will win the battle over NASA's future?

Eric Berger – Houston Chronicle's SciGuy

Much coverage was given Wednesday to the President's budget concerning NASA.

As expected, the President's plan included $105 million in seed funding for a plan to robotically capture an asteroid and bring it to a location near the moon, where astronauts could explore it.

The plan also includes $822 million in funding for commercial space, which would allow companies like SpaceX and Boeing to develop space taxis to transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station by 2017. There's also money in the budget for NASA's Orion space capsule and rocket to make an unmanned flight in 2018. If you're an optimist.

The planetary science community is upset because funding for robotic missions — like the Curiosity rover scuttling over the surface of Mars — is being cut to 2007 levels. There's no money here for really exciting missions like a probe to Europa, or a mission to return Martian rocks to Earth.

The budget papers over the true fight, which has been ongoing for three years now, between Congress and the President over what NASA should be doing with its human exploration program.

Last week NASA administrator Charlie Bolden said this of NASA's human exploration plans, "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." And there is no money in the budget for one. The only money for a human mission beyond low-Earth orbit is the seed funding for a possible astronaut trip to the asteroid a robotic probe brings back to the Earth-moon system.

But many members of Congress, including a healthy and bipartisan group of Houston-area representatives, doesn't care.

As Bolden was laying out the President's space plan on Wednesday, this group of legislators were reintroducing their plan for NASA, the RE-asserting American Leadership in Space Act, or REAL Space Act. It definitively specifies the moon as NASA's destination of record, not a series of as-yet unspecified destinations that will one day bring astronauts to the surface of Mars.

Among the politically diverse voices supporting the reintroduced bill were:

"Space is the world's ultimate high ground, returning to the Moon and reinvigorating our human space flight program is a matter of national security. Returning to the moon would allow NASA to continue to develop technologies that have not only enhanced our exploration programs but have been applied across all disciplines of science. "– Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee.

"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. Frank Wolf, Chairman of the House Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations Subcommittee.

In Washington the President provides the budget blueprint, but Congress authorizes the funds.

Many of these legislators do not like the asteroid blueprint. Many of these legislators will still be here in 2016, when President Barack Obama is gone. Chances are the next President will not feel beholden to the President's asteroid plan, which doesn't exactly have the same cachet as President Kennedy's Apollo program.

So, does anyone want to take bets on what NASA's manned spaceflight blueprint will look like in 2016?

Taking the Kids – how a museum exhibit is changing lives in Los Angeles

Eileen Ogintz – Chicago Tribune

Richard Hercules, 10, lives in L.A.'s inner-city and has never been on an airplane, but that hasn't stopped him from dreaming of becoming an astronaut when he grows up.

He was moved to tears when he saw the Space Shuttle Endeavour fly over his school on its way to its new home at the California Science Center and even more excited when he could walk around the gargantuan space craft -- 122 feet long -- at the museum, touching tires that flew in space, peering up at the tiles crucial to re-entry, inspecting a space potty and galley. (Tortillas, it turns out, are the perfect space food because there were no crumbs to fly around in the gravity-less environment.)

"When I grow up and have my own kids, I can show them the Endeavour and tell them my story about when I first saw it," he said.

"When I saw the Endeavour up close," added Taylor, Richard's classmate at Century Park Elementary School, "I realized that one day I could travel to space."

New museum exhibits often foster excitement and increase tourism and, since it opened last fall, "The Space Shuttle Endeavour Exhibition" has done both in spades. (Did I mention there is no entrance fee to the wonderful hands-on museum, though you can pay $2 for a timed entrance to Endeavour?) But besides garnering excitement and enthusiasm, this exhibit has the potential to change children's lives.

"The shuttle coming here opened a world of possibilities for these kids, many of whom are the children of immigrants," explained Amy Davis, Taylor and Richard's fifth-grade teacher. Suddenly, they saw the possibilities of a career in math, science, technology and engineering. "It was so hard for them to grasp from a textbook," said Davis. "Seeing the shuttle in front of them makes all the difference."

The children's enthusiasm and engagement spurred Davis to thank the Science Center in a letter. "Thank you from the bottom of my heart for investing time and money so a small, 10-year-old, inner-city child could see that dreams can come true and for giving him hope in his future," she wrote. That missive, in turn, inspired the museum to feature the Century Park fifth graders' Endeavour projects in their shuttle exhibit.

An astronaut raised in California came to speak to the children at school. And now, four of Davis' students, including Richard and Taylor, have been offered scholarships to a week at Space Camp (http://www.spacecamp.com) this summer in Huntsville, Ala. (Davis is working on sponsors to cover the kids' flights.) Keep in mind that these are kids who haven't been to camp, who typically don't have the opportunity to go on family vacations. "I'm most excited about living like an astronaut," Richard said.

The Endeavour, which was the doomed space shuttle Challenger's replacement and the only shuttle to be named by schoolchildren, arrived with great fanfare at the Science Center on Oct. 31, carried on the back of a specially equipped Boeing 747 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and paraded through the heart of urban Los Angeles as 1.5 million people turned out to watch and cheer.

The other three shuttles are on public display on the East Coast -- The Enterprise at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum Complex in New York (http://www.intrepidmuseum.org), the Discovery at the National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Washington Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C., (http://airandspace.si.edu/museum/udvarhazy/) and the Atlantis in Florida at the Kennedy Space Center (http://www.kennedyspacecenter.com). (The Enterprise was a prototype that never actually went into space like the others.)

"For 30 years (19 years in the case of the Endeavour) humans crossed the threshold from being tentative about space exploration with long periods of time during which there were no humans in space to an era of permanent human presence in space (at the International Space Center)," said Dr. Kenneth Phillips, curator for Aerospace Science at the California Science Center.

"We hope that visitors will appreciate the role of the space shuttle program in transforming the human approach to spaceflight and human thinking about what is possible," he added.

That's certainly the case for one group of inner-city kids now thinking differently about their own futures.

In the last six months, more than 1 million people, including thousands of kids, have turned out to see Endeavour at the Science Center -- remarkable when you consider that until now, the Science Center's annual attendance was 1.6 million, observed William Harris, the museum's senior vice president of development. Harris escorted me around the Space Shuttle Endeavour Exhibition as excited kids on field trips gawked and chattered as they checked out spacesuits, a moon rock, earlier space capsules and articles astronauts carried with them in space (a small Slinky, beads blessed by the Dali Lama, a New York Giants cap). They also inspected the control room that monitored the first minutes of every shuttle launch from nearby Canoga Park, Calif., learning that all of the orbiters were built locally.

When the permanent home for the shuttle is completed in 2017, visitors will be able to observe it upright -- and even slide down a 50-foot slide that will simulate how it would feel to land.

"Its size is the coolest thing ever," said 14-year-old Samantha, a member of the Science Center's Curator Kids Club, a group created for kids who live in the underserved communities around the museum. "You can compare how small you are next to it!"

The shuttle, said Harris, is single-handedly turning the California Science Center in L.A.'s Exposition Park into a must-see attraction for those visiting Los Angeles and spurring more people to visit Exposition Park and the neighboring L.A. County Natural History Museum with its amazing dinosaur exhibits.

"Be prepared to be amazed," said 11-year-old Oracio, also a young curator.

I was.

Replica space shuttle boosters rising at the Cape

Justin Ray - SpaceflightNow.com

Towering replicas of the twin solid-fuel booster rockets that provided the vast majority of thrust to propel space shuttles skyward are being stacked outside the new Atlantis exhibit at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.

A mockup of the bright orange external fuel tank that served as the shuttle vehicle's structural backbone for launch will be added to create a dramatic entrance for the $100 million Atlantis display that opens to the public June 29.

"Starting June 29, visitors will be able to get up close to the boosters and external tank in a way that only NASA personnel have been able to experience before. Should guests stop for just a moment and imagine the brave astronauts inside Atlantis, strapped to these explosive, fuel-filled SRBs and ET and rocketing into space, goose bumps are guaranteed. And that's before guests even set foot inside," said Bill Moore, chief operating officer of Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.

Privately financed and operated, the visitor center is constructing the sprawling new building to showcase the storied legacy of the 135 space shuttle missions and pay tribute to the Hubble Space Telescope with a life-sized model and an interactive setup depicting the International Space Station to climb through.

The star attraction is Atlantis, the spaceplane that flew the program's final flight in July 2011 before being decommissioned and prepped for museum display.

Mounted atop steel pillars and tilted to port 43.21 degrees, Atlantis will have her payload bay doors open and appear to spectators as an orbiter seemingly still soaring above Earth with a massive television screen projecting space views to complete the effect.

Tourists will be able to walk under the vehicle, alongside on observation decks and around the rear to gaze at the replica main engines.

Atlantis arrived in her new home Nov. 2 and quickly was encased in a protective plastic wrap to keep construction dirt and debris off the orbiter's delicate blankets and tiles. Crews will uncover the ship April 25, then open the payload bay doors in a slow, delicate process throughout May to reach the final display configuration.

Getting inside the facility will involving walking through the 24-foot-tall archway created between to the bases of the solid rocket boosters now being erected in front of the entrance.

Penwal Industries Inc., a California-based engineering and fabrication company, designed and manufactured the boosters and tank for the visitor complex.

Buried more than 45 feet into the Florida soil, 54 underground supports were put in place to hold the display's 30-by-60-foot anchors that are themselves submerged six feet below the surface.

Just like the days of stacking the multi-segmented boosters in the Vehicle Assembly Building, these replicas came in five sections that a 200-foot-tall crane hoists into place and workers weld together.

Already half complete with 66,000- and 40,000-pound sections mated, the high-fidelity "stack" will see 28,000-pound segments and pointy nose cones added above and the aft skirts installed at the base through April 23.

The replica external tank, which held the half-million gallons of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen to feed the orbiter main engines during launch, will be assembled through mid June. It was manufactured in four sections.

The display will stand 184 feet tall once completed.

"It's one thing for us to announce details and statistics about space shuttle Atlantis and its dramatic, 184-foot-tall entrance, but it is quite another to actually be here in person, standing at the foot of these absolutely massive high-fidelity space shuttle components," said Moore.

Shuttle exhibit at KSC gets a boost
Replica rockets form gateway to Atlantis display

Stacey Barchenger - Florida Today

A 200-foot crane this week hoisted two massive steel-and-fiberglass cylinders, reproductions of shuttle rocket boosters, into place flanking the entrance to the unfinished Atlantis exhibit at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.

The orange-ringed structures stand taller than the nearby building, and will only get higher as work continues. Officials will add a third segment and an orange external fuel tank to the full-size replicas, bringing the grand entrance to a total of 184 feet. Visitors will walk through the massive structure just minutes before they see the shuttle Atlantis on display inside.

"I want them to think 'wow,' " said Tim Macy, director of project development and construction, as he watched workers in hard hats and safety vests climb into the orange-ringed boosters. "This is an enormous piece of equipment. I think that's really what we're trying to do, is educate people, to remember or understand how big this equipment was when it was running on a regular basis."

The rocket boosters are only halfway complete. Before the exhibit's opening date, cone-shaped booster nozzles, or "aft skirts," will be added and then nose cones will top each tower. A replica external fuel tank — without the more than 535,000 gallons of fuel carried to propel shuttles into space — will be placed in between, suspended 24 feet above ground at its base.

The public will get the closest look ever at the equipment.

"Upon the entry, you're already looking at something iconic to the space program," said Andrea Farmer, public relations manager for the visitor complex. "And getting a sense of how big the space program is. ... This is the first time anyone outside of NASA has been this close to this."

The boosters are anchored with piers that descend some 50 feet into the ground, a measure taken to ensure they weather severe storms.

The $100 million visitor center facility is slated to open June 29 and highlights the 30-year history of the shuttle program. The centerpiece is Atlantis, which for now remains shrink-wrapped. Macy said the shuttle's payload doors will be opened next month.

END

Keep the shuttle flying

Friday, April 12, 2013

Fwd: Human Spaceflight News - April 12, 2013 and JSC Today

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Astronaut Flight Costs	Lease Block Cost	Naming Rights
Clients can select a live & work visit to the Bigelow Alpha station that can last as long as 60 days or as few as 10 days for a single, per seat rate. This per seat rate will be either $26.25 or $36.75 million depending on the transportation provider selected by the client.	$25 million for exclusive use and control over 110 cubic meters of volume for a two month period	Full Alpha Station yearly for $25 million; Half of the Alpha Station yearly for $12.5 million