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 15, 2013 6:15:00 AM GMT-06:00
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: Human Spaceflight News - April 15, 2013 and JSC Today

Happy Tax deadline Monday everyone!

Monday, April 15, 2013

JSC TODAY HEADLINES
1.            Earth Day: Celebrate Organically With 'Music in the Mall'
2.            Date Correction: Space Radiation Operations and Research Lecture
3.            Dare to Explore -- No Excuses
4.            IAAP Administrative Professionals Week Celebration
5.            Administrative Professionals Luncheon -- Make Reservations by Wednesday
6.            Book Fair at Starport
7.            Starport Boot Camp -- Register Now
8.            Nominate Your Peer Today
9.            Society of Reliability Engineers (SRE) Luncheon Meeting
10.          Houston Technology Center Presents 'Tech Champs' on May 10
11.          SATERN Registration Open for Next 'Engineers to Entrepreneurs'
12.          Pre-Retirement for Federal Employee Retirement System (FERS)
13.          Thrift Saving Plan Retirement Class
14.          Job Opportunities
________________________________________     NASA FACT
" A fortuitous orbit of the International Space Station allowed the astronauts a striking view of Sarychev Volcano (Kuril Islands, northeast of Japan) in an early stage of eruption on June 12, 2009."
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1.            Earth Day: Celebrate Organically With 'Music in the Mall'
Monday, April 22, is Earth Day. If the weather permits, musically inclined JSC employees are encouraged to bring your instruments to work. In honor of our precious planet, play your instruments outside during your normal lunch break (anywhere between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.). Play a tribute to compliment the natural beauty our Earth provides. Find a nice spot near one of the three ponds in the JSC mall area. Join a group already playing their chords. Bring a blanket or lawn chair to sit on and enjoy your break. For music listeners, take your normal lunch break outside and enjoy the tunes!
Event Date: Monday, April 22, 2013   Event Start Time:11:00 AM   Event End Time:1:00 PM
Event Location: Mall area

Add to Calendar

Laurie Peterson x39845 http://www6.jsc.nasa.gov/ja/ja13/index.cfm

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2.            Date Correction: Space Radiation Operations and Research Lecture
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: Friday, April 26, 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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3.            Dare to Explore -- No Excuses
Think you don't have what it takes to be an explorer? Naysayers didn't think this unique group had what it took, either, to meet their immense challenge head on--but they did. Be inspired by their story and see the parallels between making it up a really daunting mountain and making it in spaceflight.
No matter what talents, abilities, or even disabilities you're working with, you have the right stuff.
JSC External Relations, Office of Communications and Public Affairs x33317 http://www.nasa.gov/centers/johnson/home/index.html

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

Add to Calendar

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

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

Add to Calendar

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

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7.            Starport Boot Camp -- Register Now
Starport's phenomenal boot camp registration is open and filling fast. Don't miss a chance to be part of Starport's incredibly popular program. The class will fill up, so register now!
Early registration (ends Friday, April 19)
o             $90 per person (just $5 per class)
Regular registration (April 20 to 28):
o             $110 per person
The workout begins on Monday, April 29.
Are you ready for 18 hours of intense workouts with an amazing personal trainer to get you to your fitness goal?
Don't wait!
Sign up today and take advantage of this extreme discount before it's too late.
Register now at the Gilruth Center information desk, or call 281-483-0304 for more information.
Shericka Phillips x30304 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/Fitness/RecreationClasses/RecreationProgram...

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8.            Nominate Your Peer Today
The POWER of One Award has been a great success, but we still need your nominations. We're looking for standouts with specific examples of exceptional or superior performance. Our award criteria below will help guide you in writing the short write-up needed for submittal.
o             Single Achievement: Explain how the person truly went above and beyond on a single project or initiative
o             Affect and Impact: What was the significant impact? How many were impacted? Who was impacted?
o             Standout: What stands out? What extra effort? Did the effort exceed and accomplish the goal?
o             Category: Which category should nominee be in? Gold - agency impact award level; Silver - center impact award level; or Bronze - organization impact award level.
If chosen, the recipient can choose from a list of JSC experiences and have their name and recognition shared on Inside JSC.
For complete information on the JSC Awards Program, click here.
Jessica Ocampo 281-792-7804 https://powerofone.jsc.nasa.gov

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9.            Society of Reliability Engineers (SRE) Luncheon Meeting
The Greater Houston Chapter of SRE will hold a general membership meeting on Wednesday, April 17, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Anyone is welcome to come and hear a presentation by Nelson Thompson on "Black Swans and Software Risk -- What We Can Learn From 'Impossible' Catastrophes." Comparisons will be drawn between the detailed sequence of human errors and mistakes leading to accidents such as the BP Gulf oil spill, and will discuss plausible human errors and mistakes that could be made with space system flight software. The meeting will be held at Perry's Steakhouse & Grille (487 Bay Area Blvd., Houston). Each attendee is responsible for his or her own meal. For more information about the Greater Houston Area SRE Chapter, please visit this link.
Robert Graber 281-335-2305

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10.          Houston Technology Center Presents 'Tech Champs' on May 10
Learn about Houston Technology Center's incubation and acceleration clients focused in the energy, life sciences, Information Technology and NASA/aerospace sectors.
Open to the community, Tech Champs enables professionals to be directly involved with and to influence the evolution of emerging technology.
o             Light Breakfast and Networking - 7:15 to 7:45 a.m.
o             Presentations - 7:45 to 9 a.m.
Keynote Speaker: Jim Le Duc, Ph.D.
Le Duc is the director of the Galveston National Laboratory, the only full-suit Biological Safety Level 4 laboratory in operation on an academic campus in the United States. He is a professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology in the School of Medicine at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas, and holds the inaugural Robert E. Shope, MD, and John S. Dunn Distinguished Chair in Global Health.
Register now.
2013 Tech Champs Memberships are now available online.
Event Date: Friday, May 10, 2013   Event Start Time:7:15 AM Event End Time:9:00 AM
Event Location: Gilruth Center, Alamo Ballroom

Add to Calendar

Pat Kidwell x37156 http://houstontech.org/events/1108/

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11.          SATERN Registration Open for Next 'Engineers to Entrepreneurs'
Learn the basic building blocks for creating your own business. Topics include the essentials of the business plan, marketing, financing, legal aspects and other necessary information for a successful business startup.
Taught by the Houston Technology Center staff and Houston-area industry experts, this is the same course attended by entrepreneurs and founders of business startups at the Houston Technology Center's Midtown facility in Houston. It is structured for the JSC community as a series of 10 weekly one-hour brown-bag lunches (from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.).
The Houston Technology Center operates a satellite Campus at JSC in the JSC Acceleration Center, Building 35, to harness the technical know-how and provide business advice, incubation and acceleration services. The goal is to commercialize the incredible technologies found in the NASA/JSC community.
This session starts on May 9, and is expected fill quickly. Register now in SATERN: https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/catalog/viewDailyCatalogCalendarOfferin...
Pat Kidwell x37156

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12.          Pre-Retirement for Federal Employee Retirement System (FERS)
Are you prepared to retire?
This Pre-Retirement for FERS Seminar is designed to help you effectively manage today's realities as you begin to explore retirement possibilities.
Retirement is often looked upon as a financially based decision. Although the financial aspects are important, many other concerns need to be addressed. This seminar is designed to help effectively deal with today's realities as you begin to explore retirement possibilities.
Topics covered include lifestyle planning, health maintenance, financial planning, legal affairs planning and more.
Who Should Attend: Federal employees interested in learning more about the FERS with five to 10 years or fewer until retirement eligibility.
Course Length: 16 hours
Pre-Retirement for Federal Employee Retirement System
Date: May 13 to 14
Time: 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. CDT
Location: Teague Auditorium
Nicole Hernandez Kem x37894 https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=REGIS...

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13.          Thrift Saving Plan Retirement Class
Thrift Saving Plan (TSP) is a retirement savings plan for civilians who are employed by the U.S. government and members of the uniformed services. The TSP is one of three components of the Federal Employees Retirement System and is designed to closely resemble the dynamics of private sector 401(k) plans.
What You'll Learn: This is an overview of the Federal Investment Program and covers the nuts and bolts of the TSP.
Topics Covered:
o             The basics of the TSP
o             Defined contribution plan
o             Tax-savings features
o             Investment options
o             Loan program
o             Withdrawal options
o             Open seasons and inter-fund transfers
Who Should Attend: Federal employees interested in learning more about the TSP. It is also open to employees covered under the older Civil Service Retirement System.
Date/Time:
Session 1: May 15, 9 a.m. to noon
Session 2: May 15, 1 to 4 p.m.
Where: Building 2 Teague Auditorium
Register via SATERN:
https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=REGISTRATI...
https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=REGISTRATI...
Nicole Hernandez Kem x37894

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

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________________________________________
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:
·         UNDERWAY – Progress 49 undocking coverage (Undocks at 8:03 a.m. EDT)
·         11 am Central (Noon EDT) – Orion Briefing with KSC Director Bob Cabana

Human Spaceflight News
Monday, April 15, 2013

Sunrise at Wallops Island – Orbital Sciences' Antares rocket is poised for launch Wednesday

HEADLINES AND LEADS

Congressional tensions between SLS and commercial crew, FY '14 edition

Jeff Foust - SpacePolitics.com

NASA's commercial crew program and the Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion programs have been sources of heated debate on Capitol Hill that last couple of years. But, as both efforts make progress, could the tensions that often pit the two programs against one another be easing? Not necessarily, based on comments from a couple members of Congress last week.

Texas lawmakers back bill to build Moon colony

Houston Chronicle's Texas on the Potomac

A bipartisan group of lawmakers, including five Texans, has proposed a bill that could create a Moon colony by 2022. The Reasserting American Leadership in Space (REAL) Act, directs NASA to develop a plan to develop a sustained human presence on the moon by 2022. Texas co-sponsors of the bill include Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee of Houston, and Republicans Steve Stockman of Friendswood, John Culberson of Houston, Pete Olson of Sugar Land, and Ted Poe of Humble. The legislation emphasizes the economic, scientific, and national security benefits that come from space exploration. Bill Posey, R-Fla., the bill's primary author, warned that China and Russia are headed to the Moon to colonize, and said the Moon is America's military "high ground."

NASA makes progress on Orion capsule

WFTV TV (Orlando)

WFTV is taking a look at the progress NASA is making on its newest spacecraft. The Orion capsule is scheduled to take flight in 2014. Orion was designed to take astronauts farther than low-earth orbit, but first crews have to test it with an unmanned mission next year. The Orion spacecraft is ready for its close-up Monday at the Kennedy Space Center as the media gets a first look at the future of NASA space travel.

Orion capsule accelerating to 2014 launch & eventual asteroid exploration

Ken Kremer - Universe Today

NASA is picking up the construction pace on the inaugural space-bound Orion crew capsule at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida – and accelerating towards blastoff on the unmanned Exploration Flight Test-1 mission (EFT-1) slated for September 2014 atop a mammoth Delta 4 Heavy Booster which will one day lead to deep space human forays to Asteroids and Mars. Orion was at the center of an impressive and loud beehive of action packed assembly activities by technicians during my recent exclusive tour of the spacecraft to inspect ongoing progress inside the renovated Orion manufacturing assembly facility in the Operations and Checkout Building (O & C) at KSC.

Antares still shooting for Wednesday launch

SpaceflightNow.com

Orbital Sciences will replace a valve assembly aboard its Antares rocket and press ahead with the commercial booster's maiden launch planned for Wednesday, officials said Sunday. The problem was uncovered during a countdown dress rehearsal Saturday at the Wallops Island launch pad in Virginia. "Late in the countdown, at about T-16 minutes, the test was halted because the launch team had detected a technical anomaly in the process. Orbital has determined that a secondary pyro valve aboard one of the two first-stage engines used in the propellant chilldown process was not functioning properly," the company said in a statement. Orbital said a replacement unit will be installed within 24 hours "with the goal of maintaining the April 17 launch date." Wednesday's liftoff is scheduled during a three-hour window opening at 5:00 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT).
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Big Rocket Test Launching from Virginia Island Wednesday

Tariq Malik - Space.com

It's almost show time for a new private rocket on Virginia's Eastern Shore.

A commercially built rocket designed to launch unmanned cargo ships to the International Space Station is counting down toward its first-ever flight test this week from Wallops Island, Va., a small island that is home to NASA's Wallops Flight Facility and a young commercial spaceport. Liftoff for the rocket, called Antares, is currently set for Wednesday, April 17, at 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT). "The team is beyond excited," Barron Berneski, spokesman for the Dulles-based Orbital Sciences Corp. that built the Antares rocket, told SPACE.com in an email. Berneski said Orbital Sciences engineers are currently working to replace a valve on the Antares rocket that thwarted an engine test firing on Saturday. "Late in the countdown, at about T-16 minutes, the test was halted because the launch team had detected a technical anomaly in the process," Berneski said of the valve glitch in a statement. "A replacement unit will be installed within 24 hours with the goal of maintaining the April 17 launch date."

Small Virginia island to host space launch

Brock Vergakis - Associated Press

On one of Virginia's small barrier islands, a NASA facility that operates in relative obscurity outside scientific circles is preparing to be thrust into the spotlight. On Wednesday, Orbital Sciences Corp. plans to conduct the first test launch of its Antares rocket under a NASA program in which private companies deliver supplies to the International Space Station. If all goes as planned, the unmanned rocket's practice payload will be vaulted into orbit from Wallops Island before burning up in the atmosphere on its return to Earth several months later. The goal of the launch isn't to connect with the space station, but to make sure the rocket works and that a simulated version of a cargo ship that will dock with space station on future launches separates into orbit. Orbital officials say that should occur about 10 minutes after liftoff.

Orbital Sciences readying for launch date

Marjorie Censer - Washington Post

The Washington Post Dulles-based Orbital Sciences is readying for a test this month of its Antares rocket launcher, a critical step as the company prepares to complete its first resupply mission to the International Space Station. Orbital's much-anticipated blastoff will take place at the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority facility on Wallops Island, less than a month after Hawthorne, Calif.-based Space Exploration Technologies, also known as SpaceX, completed its second cargo flight to the space station.

Rocket test flight the one that got away from Brevard
Wednesday's test flight - from Virginia - a reminder launches can't be taken for granted

James Dean – Florida Today

Celebrating 29 years in business last week, Wolff's Sandwich Shoppe offered hamburgers and cheeseburgers for 99 cents, their price in 1984. Owner Ron Wolff says some customers, the space workers who have moved from Florida up to Virginia's Eastern Shore, tell him the area around NASA's Wallops Flight Facility recalls an even earlier time and place. "They say this is like Canaveral of the '60s," said Wolff, an elected supervisor in Accomack County, Va., which includes Wallops. "It's amazing that the Florida guys would correlate the Kennedy Space Center with Wallops. It's pretty neat." Some of those workers this week will help Orbital Sciences Corp. launch a new American rocket from a new pad at the state's Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island, which has never launched a rocket so big. The test flight of Orbital's roughly 135-foot Antares, targeted for 5 p.m. Wednesday, marks an important step toward establishing a second private service to resupply the International Space Station alongside SpaceX.

Skylab II: Living Beyond the Dark Side of the Moon

Markus Hammonds - Discovery News

During the 1970s, Skylab was NASA's first space station, built out of a fuel tank from a Saturn V rocket, one of NASA's standard launch vehicles at the time. NASA's advanced concepts office is now wondering if they could use the same trick again to launch the first ever outpost in deep space. Brand Griffin, an engineer with Gray Research Inc working with NASA Marshall, certainly thinks so. Skylab II would be the first deep space station ever launched, to be parked in the Earth-Moon L2 (EML2) Lagrange point – a gravitationally stable point in space roughly 60,000 km from the dark side of the Moon, placing it a total of 440,000 km from Earth. This would truly be, to use a well known phrase, where no one has gone before.

5 questions about NASA's new asteroid capture mission

Lee Roop - Huntsville Times

1. What is the plan? NASA wants to develop new technology to find an asteroid about 7 meters wide (about as wide as a swimming pool), send a spacecraft there carrying a large telescoping "bag," envelop it with the bag and maneuver the asteroid to a safe orbit around the moon for astronauts to visit and sample as early as 2021. See the slide show at left or NASA video below for a closer look at the plan, which as been under study for some time…

Volunteers Line Up For Tito's Mars Flyaround

Frank Morring, Jr. - Aviation Week

Inspiration Mars, the bold plan to send a man and woman on a 501-day trip around the Red Planet beginning in January 2018, reports individuals and industry are offering their services for the task, including "hundreds" of couples who have qualifications that would put them in the running. Dennis Tito, the California financier who was the first space tourist to visit the International Space Station, told a National Space Symposium audience here that finding a suitable launch architecture to start the mission, and a thermal protection system to protect the crew when it re-enters Earth's atmosphere at 14.2 km/sec. after looping around Mars 100 mi. above the surface, are the biggest near-term hurdles to accomplishing the mission.

Companies, nonprofits share visions for space exploration

Jakob Rodgers - Colorado Springs Gazette

The sales pitch went something like this: Organize an unprecedented mission to Mars. Do it without any ability to abort. Then hurl that spacecraft back into the earth's atmosphere at a raging 13.2 kilometers a second. "We were all rather, well, extremely skeptical," said Taber MacCallum, then the co-founder of a company specializing in space life support systems. His hesitation didn't last long. At a time when budget woes continue to cloud NASA's future, nonprofit organizations have begun to make inroads into the field of deep space travel. For MacCallum as well as a small group of engineers and one audacious multimillionaire, the proposed missions offer a glimpse what the future of space travel and exploration might look like.

Astronaut gives his view of world from edge of the Twittersphere

Sarah-Jane Collins - Sydney Morning Herald

Space, the final frontier, 140 characters at a time. Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield has a birds-eye view of Earth during a five-month stint on the International Space Station, and he is using it to share what he sees. The Great Barrier Reef, Sydney and rivers in Brazil are just a few of the images he has tweeted. Since arriving on the space station in December last year, the astronaut has highlighted unique land formations, weather events and the glittering lights that mark out human development.

Live from outer space, it's our astronaut Tom Marshburn

Lincoln Davidson - Davidson News (N. Carolina)

A technological glitch didn't allow a two-way conversation, but NASA astronaut and Davidson College alumnus Dr. Tom Marshburn '82 spoke to a college audience and showed off a few zero-gravity tricks during a live video downlink from the International Space Station Friday afternoon. Dr. Marshburn spoke about his time in the space station, but questions from those gathered in the Alvarez College Union's 900 Room could not be transmitted to the space station due to technical difficulties.

Stephen Hawking: Explore space for humanity's sake

Alicia Chang - Associated Press

Stephen Hawking, who spent his career decoding the universe and even experienced weightlessness, is urging the continuation of space exploration — for humanity's sake. The 71-year-old Hawking said he did not think humans would survive another 1,000 years "without escaping beyond our fragile planet." The British cosmologist made the remarks Tuesday before an audience of doctors, nurses and employees at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where he toured a stem cell laboratory that's focused on trying to slow the progression of Lou Gehrig's disease.

SpaceShipTwo creates a cool contrail – first blastoff coming soon

Alan Boyle - NBCNews.com's Cosmic Log

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo rocket plane successfully glided through a test on Friday that sent oxidizer flowing through its engine — a sight that led observers to speculate that the suborbital spacecraft's first powered flight could be imminent. SpaceShipTwo has been tested in the air for more than three years. Its hybrid rocket engine has undergone extensive development and testing, including multiple test firings on the ground. But the rocket has not yet been lit up in flight — and that's a crucial step in Virgin Galactic's plan to put tourists in outer space.

Virgin Galactic spaceship reaches new milestone

Las Cruces Sun-News

A Virgin Galactic spaceship that eventually will be launched from Spaceport America reached a new benchmark on Friday. The test flight was described by the company as a "key milestone in advance of SpaceShipTwo's first rocket-powered flight," according to a Virgin Galactic Facebook post. Oxidizer, the substance that allows combustion to happen outside Earth's atmosphere, was passed for the first time ever through the ship's rocket nozzle during flight, according to the company. The test was deemed successful. The two-vehicle system entails a carrier plane, WhiteKnightTwo, hoisting the spaceship aloft and releasing it. The ship, which will carry space tourists, will then jet to suborbital space. The company plans to launch passenger flights from Spaceport America, once its testing and development at Mojave, Calif., are finished.
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Promising projects deserve funding

John Kelly - Florida Today (Commentary)

NASA aims to snag an asteroid, but that's probably not the most important insight from the White House's new space budget proposal. The president's spending plan includes a little less money for two projects important to Kennedy Space Center's future: the so-far, so-good effort to privatize flights of crew and cargo to the International Space Station and a new super rocket and spaceship for missions beyond.
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COMPLETE STORIES

Congressional tensions between SLS and commercial crew, FY '14 edition

Jeff Foust - SpacePolitics.com

NASA's commercial crew program and the Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion programs have been sources of heated debate on Capitol Hill that last couple of years. But, as both efforts make progress, could the tensions that often pit the two programs against one another be easing? Not necessarily, based on comments from a couple members of Congress last week.

Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL) expressed to the Huntsville Times this week his disappointment with the administration's fiscal year 2014 budget request, citing NASA in particular. The funding requested for SLS, $1.385 billion, is below the FY12 budget's nearly $1.5 billion (although it is similar to what the program will end up with in FY13, once final rescission and sequestration cuts are applied and any operations plans changes are implemented.) He also complained that NASA's proposed asteroid retreival mission "does not commit to using SLS to get there and has no clear time frame or cost estimate," the Times reported. (NASA has, in fact, suggested sending astronauts to the captured asteroid in cislunar space in 2021 on EM-2, the first crewed SLS/Orion mission, although specific mission architectures and cost estimates are still under development.)

And what about commercial crew? Aderholt told the Times that, given his perception that SLS was not being adequately funded, the administration's request for $821 million for commercial crew "is not defensible."

Late Friday, the House Science Committee's Democratic Caucus issued a press release from Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD), ranking member of the committee's space subcommittee, marking the 32nd anniversary of the first Space Shuttle launch. (The press release doesn't show up on the caucus's web site as of Saturday morning.) After recounting the shuttle's history, she turned her attention to the future, in particular calling for an acceleration of SLS and Orion:

Under current plans, the first crewed flight of Orion/SLS is scheduled for no earlier than 2021—a ten year hiatus in NASA human spaceflight capability. That's a long time, and I hope that Congress and the Administration can work together to help NASA accelerate the achievement of that capability.

There's no mention in her statement about how to fund an acceleration of those capabilities, and also no mention of commercial crew, which could return orbital human spaceflight capabilities to NASA (albeit on vehicles owned and perhaps operated by American companies) in 2017, under NASA's current schedules.

Texas lawmakers back bill to build Moon colony

Houston Chronicle's Texas on the Potomac

A bipartisan group of lawmakers, including five Texans, has proposed a bill that could create a Moon colony by 2022.

The Reasserting American Leadership in Space (REAL) Act, directs NASA to develop a plan to develop a sustained human presence on the moon by 2022. Texas co-sponsors of the bill include Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee of Houston, and Republicans Steve Stockman of Friendswood, John Culberson of Houston, Pete Olson of Sugar Land, and Ted Poe of Humble.

The legislation emphasizes the economic, scientific, and national security benefits that come from space exploration. Bill Posey, R-Fla., the bill's primary author, warned that China and Russia are headed to the Moon to colonize, and said the Moon is America's military "high ground."

Stockman released a statement urging his colleagues and constituents to support the bill before other nations beat us to it.

"Without it, we risk seeing our future plans perpetually delayed or cancelled, and only watching as other nations seize the lead in space exploration—and reap the benefits in jobs, inventions, investments, national pride and international respect," Stockman said.

Olson said that space exploration is a national security issue and a scientific priority. He said the bill sets forward goals that will maintain American "global preeminence" in space and science.

"The REAL Space Act clarifies NASA's mission, something it has been lacking in recent years. Human space exploration is critically important to America's global future," Olson said.

Jackson Lee said that the impact of the bill for the city of Houston would be substantial. She said Johnson Space Center is crucial in science training and communications. The center could expect increases in staffing of personnel and scientists, and the city of Houston would have more opportunity for large and small business.

The legislation wasn't passed last year, and this year, the focus has been on the initiative to "lasso an asteroid." Frank Wolf, R-Va., warned that if NASA doesn't get to the moon, someone else will.

"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," Wolf said.

NASA makes progress on Orion capsule

WFTV TV (Orlando)

WFTV is taking a look at the progress NASA is making on its newest spacecraft.

The Orion capsule is scheduled to take flight in 2014.

Orion was designed to take astronauts farther than low-earth orbit, but first crews have to test it with an unmanned mission next year.

The Orion spacecraft is ready for its close-up Monday at the Kennedy Space Center as the media gets a first look at the future of NASA space travel.

Astronaut Rex Walheim has been helping to test the capsule from a passenger's perspective.

"It is a lot different than the shuttle. The shuttle was a little bit bigger on the inside. It's different technology too," said Walheim.

Orion's first launch will not be a manned mission; instead, the capsule will be blasted 3,600 miles into space in September 2014.

The build out of the capsule has provided hundreds of space workers with paychecks, and it promises to create hundreds more jobs as it's prepped to be mounted on a Delta 4 rocket for lift off.

It's a welcomed workload for the Space Coast that is strapped for jobs after the shuttle program ended.

University of Central Florida professor and NASA expert Dale Ketchem believes the job decline of the job market on the Space Coast has not been as bad as some feared.

"I think for the most part, it's not as cataclysmic as we feared," Ketchem said. A lot of that has to do with the state, the federal government, the local region, preparing for this even before the great recession hit."

Orion capsule accelerating to 2014 launch & eventual asteroid exploration

Ken Kremer - Universe Today

NASA is picking up the construction pace on the inaugural space-bound Orion crew capsule at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida – and accelerating towards blastoff on the unmanned Exploration Flight Test-1 mission (EFT-1) slated for September 2014 atop a mammoth Delta 4 Heavy Booster which will one day lead to deep space human forays to Asteroids and Mars.

Orion was at the center of an impressive and loud beehive of action packed assembly activities by technicians during my recent exclusive tour of the spacecraft to inspect ongoing progress inside the renovated Orion manufacturing assembly facility in the Operations and Checkout Building (O & C) at KSC.

"We plan to power up Orion for the first time this summer," said Scott Wilson in an exclusive interview with Universe Today beside the Orion vehicle. Wilson is Orion's Production Operations manager for NASA at KSC.

The Orion EFT-1 flight is a critical first step towards achieving NASA's new goal of capturing and retrieving a Near Earth Asteroid for eventual visit by astronauts flying aboard an Orion vehicle by 2021 – if NASA's budget request is approved.

KSC will have a leading role in NASA's asteroid retrieval project that could occur some four years earlier than President Obama's targeted goal of 2025 for a human journey to an asteroid.

Capturing an asteroid and dispatching astronauts aboard Orion to collect precious rock samples will aid our scientific understanding of the formation of the Solar System as well as bolster Planetary Defense strategies – the importance of which is gathering steam following the unforeseen Russian meteor strike in February which injured over 1200 people and damaged over 3000 buildings.

Dozens of highly skilled workers were busily cutting metal, drilling holes, bolting screws and attaching a wide range of mechanical and electrical components and bracketry to the Orion pressure vessel's primary structure as Universe Today conducted a walk around of the EFT-1 capsule, Service Module and assorted assembly gear inside the O&C.

Lockheed Martin is the primary contractor for Orion. A growing number of employees hired by Lockheed and United Space Alliance (USA) are "working 2 shifts per day 7 days a week to complete the assembly work by year's end," said Jules Schneider, Orion Project manager for Lockheed Martin at KSC, during an exclusive interview with Universe Today.

I watched as the workers were boring hundreds of precision holes and carefully tightening the high strength steel bolts to attach the top to bottom ring segments made of titanium to the main load paths on the pressure vessel.

"We are installing lots of wiring to support ground test instrumentation for the strain gauges as well as microphones and accelerometers."

"The simulated back shell panels are being installed now as guides," said Wilson. "The real back shell panels and heat shield will be installed onto the structure later this year."

"The heat shield is the biggest one ever built, 5 meters in diameter. Its bigger than Apollo and Mars Science Lab. It varies in thickness from about 1 to 3 inches depending on the expected heating."

"We are making good progress on the Orion Service module too. The outer panels will be installed soon," Wilson explained.

The olive green colored crew module was clamped inside the birdcage-like Structural Assembly Jig during my visit. The Jig has multiple degrees of freedom to maneuver the capsule and more easily enable the detailed assembly work.

"The technicians are installing strain gauges and secondary structure components to get it ready for the upcoming structural loads test," said Schneider.

"After that we need to finish installing all the remaining parts of the primary structure and a significant portion of the secondary structure."

For the next stage of processing, the EFT-1 crew module has been lifted out of the birdcage Jig and moved onto an adjacent dedicated work station for loads testing at the Operations and Checkout building.

As reported in my earlier article the Orion pressure vessel sustained three 'hairline" cracks in the lower half of the aft bulkhead during proof pressure testing of the vessel and welds at the O & C.

I was observing as the technicians were carefully milling out the miniscule bulkhead fractures.

Workers have now installed custom built replacement brackets and reinforcing doublers on the aft bulkhead.

"We will do the protocol loads test with pressure using about 9 different load cases the vehicle will see during the EFT-1 flight. Chute deployment and jettison motor deployment is a driving load case," said Schneider.

"We will also squeeze the capsule," said Wilson.

"That structural loads testing of the integrated structure will take about 6 to 8 weeks. There are thousands of gauges on the vehicle to collect data," Schneider elaborated.

"The test data will be compared to the analytical modeling to see where we are at and how well it matched the predictions – it's like acceptance testing."

"After we finish the structural loads tests we can than start the assembly and integration of all the other subsystems."

"When we are done with the ground testing program then we remove all the ground test instrumentation and start installing all the actual flight systems including harnesses and instrumentation, the plumbing and everything else," Schneider explained.

Orion hardware built by contractors and subcontractors from virtually every state all across the U.S is being delivered to KSC for installation onto EFT-1. Orion is a nationwide human spaceflight project.

During the unmanned Orion EFT-1 mission, the capsule will fly on a two orbit test flight to an altitude of 3,600 miles above Earth's surface, farther than any human spacecraft has gone in 40 years.

It will then fire braking rockets to plunge back to Earth, re-enter the atmosphere at about 20,000 MPH and test numerous spacecrafts systems, the heat shield and all three parachutes for an ocean splashdown.

Meanwhile other Orion EFT-1 components such as the emergency Launch Abort System (LAS) and Service Module are coming together – read my Orion follow-up reports.

Humans have not ventured beyond low Earth orbit since the Apollo Moon landings ended in 1972. Orion will change that

Big Rocket Test Launching from Virginia Island Wednesday

Tariq Malik - Space.com

It's almost show time for a new private rocket on Virginia's Eastern Shore.

A commercially built rocket designed to launch unmanned cargo ships to the International Space Station is counting down toward its first-ever flight test this week from Wallops Island, Va., a small island that is home to NASA's Wallops Flight Facility and a young commercial spaceport. Liftoff for the rocket, called Antares, is currently set for Wednesday, April 17, at 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT).

"The team is beyond excited," Barron Berneski, spokesman for the Dulles-based Orbital Sciences Corp. that built the Antares rocket, told SPACE.com in an email.

Berneski said Orbital Sciences engineers are currently working to replace a valve on the Antares rocket that thwarted an engine test firing on Saturday.

"Late in the countdown, at about T-16 minutes, the test was halted because the launch team had detected a technical anomaly in the process," Berneski said of the valve glitch in a statement. "A replacement unit will be installed within 24 hours with the goal of maintaining the April 17 launch date."

The upcoming Antares launch is the highest profile launch yet from the Wallops Flight Facility, which was founded in 1945 and currently serves as NASA's home for balloon science missions and small sounding rocket launches that don't reach all the way into orbit. It is located on the southern tip of Wallops Island, which it shares with the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, a staging ground for commercial rocket launches overseen by the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority.

Orbital Sciences plans to launch at least eight Antares rockets from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, nicknamed MARS, to deliver tons of cargo to the International Space Station under a $1.9 billion deal with NASA set in 2008. The company is one of two private spaceflight firms with a commercial cargo delivery deal. The California-based SpaceX, which has flown three missions to the station since 2012, is the other and has a $1.6 billion contract to provide 12 NASA cargo flights.

But unlike SpaceX, which launches its Falcon 9 rockets and Dragon space capsules toward the station from Cape Canaveral in Florida — a mainstay launching ground for American manned and unmanned spaceflight — Orbital Sciences picked the MARS site for Antares flights.

"MARS has completed construction and testing operations on its launch complex at Wallops Island, the first all-new large-scale liquid-fuel launch site to be built in the U.S. in decades," Orbital Sciences CEO David Thompson said in October 2012 when the company took control of its launch pad at the site.

Wednesday's Antares rocket launch will not carry a full-fledged Cygnus spacecraft when it blasts off. Since the mission is a test flight, it will carry a "mass simulator" designed to mimic the weight of a real cargo ship.

Orbital Sciences has dubbed the mission Antares A-ONE and expect the rocket to reach a maximum altitude of between 155 miles and 185 miles (250 and 300 kilometers) above Earth. The mission may also carry a set of tiny satellites for NASA, according to previous mission descriptions.

The Antares rocket is a two-stage booster designed to launch robotic cargo ships called Cygnus on one-way trips. The Cygnus spacecraft is a one-use vehicle and is designed to burn up in Earth's atmosphere at the end of its mission instead of returning cargo to Earth like SpaceX's Dragon capsules.

If all goes well, Orbital Sciences hopes to launch the first official Antares rocket and Cygnus flight toward the space station later this year.

"There's still a lot of work to do ahead of the launch, but after nearly five years from concept design to actual launch, it feels great to be at the finish line of the R&D effort and at the starting line for our next big new product line, serving not just NASA cargo delivery, but other launch markets as well,' Berneski said.

Small Virginia island to host space launch

Brock Vergakis - Associated Press

On one of Virginia's small barrier islands, a NASA facility that operates in relative obscurity outside scientific circles is preparing to be thrust into the spotlight.

On Wednesday, Orbital Sciences Corp. plans to conduct the first test launch of its Antares rocket under a NASA program in which private companies deliver supplies to the International Space Station. If all goes as planned, the unmanned rocket's practice payload will be vaulted into orbit from Wallops Island before burning up in the atmosphere on its return to Earth several months later.

The goal of the launch isn't to connect with the space station, but to make sure the rocket works and that a simulated version of a cargo ship that will dock with space station on future launches separates into orbit. Orbital officials say that should occur about 10 minutes after liftoff.

In that short period of time, Wallops Island will transition from a little-known launch pad for small research rockets to a major player in the U.S. space program.

The Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia's rural Eastern Shore is small in comparison to major NASA centers like those in Florida, California and Texas. The site is near Maryland and just south of Chincoteague Island, which attracts thousands of tourists each summer for an annual wild pony swim made famous by the 1947 novel "Misty of Chincoteague." The Eastern Shore is dominated by forests and farmland, and Wallops Island's isolated nature, with marshland to its west and the Atlantic Ocean to its east, has also made it home to a Navy surface warfare combat center.

Those who work at Wallops Island joke that even people living on the Eastern Shore are surprised to learn about rocket launches there.

In fact, more than 16,000 rockets have been launched from Wallops Island since 1945, but none has drawn the attention of Antares. Most of the launches are suborbital and focus on educational and research programs.

"The real transformation here at Wallops is we've always been kind of a research facility," said William Wrobel, the facility's director. "So this transition is really kind of into an operational phase, where we're going to be doing kind of regular flights out of here to the space station."

A successful launch would pave the way for Dulles-based Orbital to demonstrate that it can connect its unmanned Cygnus cargo ship with the space station this summer. If that's successful, Orbital would launch the first of eight resupply missions from the island in the fall under a $1.9 billion NASA contract.

Orbital has been in the commercial space business for more than 30 years, producing small satellites and rockets for NASA and the military. Antares marks the company's first venture in medium-size rockets, which can carry twice as much of a payload as other rockets it produces.

The space station delivery contract was awarded in 2008, and the company had originally hoped to launch in 2011, when NASA retired it shuttle program. In a partnership with Orbital and NASA, Virginia Commercial Spaceflight Authority built a $120 million liquid fuel launch pad at Wallops specifically for this type of mission. But there were numerous delays, and the state agency didn't turn over the launch pad to Orbital until October.

That further put Orbital behind California-based competitor SpaceX, the second private company working with NASA on cargo resupply missions. NASA chose SpaceX to develop a commercial spaceship in 2006, and it docked with the space station for the first time in 2012.

SpaceX's Dragon capsule returns to Earth after missions with science experiments and old station equipment, but Orbital's Cygnus is filled with trash and burns up in the atmosphere upon re-entry.

"The fact is, there is not that much cargo valuable enough to warrant the additional cost that's inevitable when you try to return something," Orbital spokesman Barron Beneski said. ""It's a demand question. How much return cargo is there and does NASA need to order a Cygnus that can return cargo in addition to what the SpaceX capsule does?"

Landing Orbital's business was seen as a major victory for Virginia over Florida, which has a storied space history as the former home of U.S. manned spaceflight.

But Beneski said Wallops Island had several advantages over Florida, including Wallops Island is a smaller facility and not as busy, he said.

Orbital Sciences readying for launch date

Marjorie Censer - Washington Post

The Washington Post Dulles-based Orbital Sciences is readying for a test this month of its Antares rocket launcher, a critical step as the company prepares to complete its first resupply mission to the International Space Station.

Orbital's much-anticipated blastoff will take place at the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority facility on Wallops Island, less than a month after Hawthorne, Calif.-based Space Exploration Technologies, also known as SpaceX, completed its second cargo flight to the space station.

The Antares launch — which will be visible from some spots locally — will be a key step for Orbital.

"Over the next 18 to 24 months, this program ... is, I think, the most important for [Orbital]," said William Loomis, managing director at the financial services firm Stifel Nicolaus. "It's one of the biggest contracts they have, period."

Both Orbital and SpaceX have deals with NASA to resupply the space station, as the agency looks to private space firms to supplement its capabilities.

Under its deal with NASA, Orbital will launch space modules that will deliver supplies to the station, take away its trash and then burn up as they reenter the atmosphere. The company is planning to complete eight supply missions by early 2016.

Orbital has a $1.9 billion contract with NASA to deliver 20 metric tons of supplies to the space station.

Each unmanned trip takes several pieces of equipment. The Antares vehicle launches the Cygnus space module, which acts as the brains of the operation by housing the avionics, propulsion and navigation systems. Attached to the space module is a cargo module, which is built by Thales Alenia.

The test launch planned for Wednesday — though the date may change because of weather — is focused on the Antares, and the company will use a simulator in place of the Cygnus module, said Mike Pinkston, Orbital's program manager for Antares.

"It's absolutely a huge milestone, no question about it," Pinkston said of the upcoming launch. "We'll gather a huge amount of data."

He said Orbital will be comparing the system's performance to analytical models the company has developed.

If the test is successful, the company plans to run a demonstration about two months later that would use an active Cygnus module, Pinkston said. Earlier this month, the Orbital-built Cygnus module that will be used for the demonstration was transported to Wallops and integrated with the Alenia-built cargo module, Orbital spokesman Barron Beneski said.

The demonstration mission will carry a partial cargo load to the space station, he said.

Assuming the demonstration is also successful, Orbital is planning its first mission to the space station in late fall.

At the same time, SpaceX is looking toward its next resupply flight in late fall, said Gwynne Shotwell, the company's president and chief operating officer.

In late March, SpaceX completed its second cargo flight under NASA's resupply program, returning with thousands of pounds of science samples and equipment, according to NASA.

Shotwell said the company hopes to eventually transport astronauts to the space station.

"There's no question that these missions to the International Space Station have been enormously helpful to sort of locking down the trust" between SpaceX and NASA, she said.

Rocket test flight the one that got away from Brevard
Wednesday's test flight - from Virginia - a reminder launches can't be taken for granted

James Dean – Florida Today

Celebrating 29 years in business last week, Wolff's Sandwich Shoppe offered hamburgers and cheeseburgers for 99 cents, their price in 1984.

Owner Ron Wolff says some customers, the space workers who have moved from Florida up to Virginia's Eastern Shore, tell him the area around NASA's Wallops Flight Facility recalls an even earlier time and place.

"They say this is like Canaveral of the '60s," said Wolff, an elected supervisor in Accomack County, Va., which includes Wallops. "It's amazing that the Florida guys would correlate the Kennedy Space Center with Wallops. It's pretty neat."

Some of those workers this week will help Orbital Sciences Corp. launch a new American rocket from a new pad at the state's Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island, which has never launched a rocket so big.

The test flight of Orbital's roughly 135-foot Antares, targeted for 5 p.m. Wednesday, marks an important step toward establishing a second private service to resupply the International Space Station alongside SpaceX.

It also serves as a reminder of business — from the rocket launch to burgers served by local restaurants — that got away from Florida and forced a reassessment of the state's space future.

Dulles, Va.-based Orbital's 2008 choice of Wallops over the Space Coast brought home the reality that the Cape is not an inevitable launch site for orbital missions to a space station, as many continued to believe during the shuttle program's waning years.

"It was a wake-up call that our future is not guaranteed if we rely on the past," said Frank DiBello, who became Space Florida's president and CEO the next year. "Our future is not guaranteed if we don't change with the times."

Five years later, SpaceX wants to establish a "commercial Cape Canaveral," a site outside NASA or Air Force bases from which it could more easily and cost-effectively launch non-government missions.

The company's stated front-runner: Texas.

Lessons learned since Orbital's decision have helped shape Florida's current strategy to win a potential 12 to 20 commercial launches a year that SpaceX and other companies could bring.

The centerpiece is a plan to develop a commercial launch complex at the north end of Kennedy Space Center and the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, which officials say is necessary to keep pace with other states.

"The commercial marketplace won't wait," said DiBello. "We need to cause that paradigm shift now if we want to be in the game."

NASA has not yet agreed to give up roughly 150 acres for the complex, and many environmentalists oppose the idea.

DiBello said the state can't rely on incentives to attract companies but must present comprehensive packages explaining Florida's political, workforce and operational advantages.

All along, leaders also have worked to diversify the local aerospace industry beyond its roots launching rockets. Recent wins include assembly of Boeing's commercial crew capsule, management of the space station's National Lab and commitments from multiple aircraft companies.

But Orbital's decision made clear that launches were up for grabs, too.

"It was a premier example that this is something we can never take for granted," said Lynda Weatherman, CEO of the Economic Development Commission of Florida's Space Coast.

She said Space Florida has more financing tools available and a management team that knows how to leverage them, enabling it to be more aggressive.

At Wallops, Orbital won a commitment for state and NASA funding to help build a new pad and processing hangar located a few hours away from its Dulles headquarters. Another advantage: it would be the only major player on the range.

Political support was strong from key players in Washington, where members of Congress will be able to see the launches on clear days.

Not everything has gone smoothly.

The cost of the new Wallops facilities needed to support medium-class rockets like Antares rose from an estimated $88 million in 2010 to more than $145 million last year, according to financial reports from the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority, which runs the state spaceport.

The authority struggled to complete construction of the new launch pad, which it says is the first liquid-fuel pad built from scratch in over 20 years, delaying the first Antares launch by months.

The state bought out Orbital's share of the pad so it could be offered to other users, raising its investment to $80 million, according to Virginia Secretary of Transportation Sean Connaughton. NASA has contributed more than $60 million to the project.

The rocket also worked through some technical challenges, including a fire during a 2011 engine test.

A successful February test-firing on the launch pad cleared the way for this week's liftoff.
The entire flight, dubbed A-ONE, will last 10 minutes.

Orbital and NASA want to prove the rocket can place a dummy payload into orbit before attempting to send a valuable Cygnus cargo craft on a demonstration flight to the space station.

"Anytime you're launching a rocket for the first time, there are always risks," said Bruce Manners, the NASA project executive partnered with Orbital under the agency's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program.

The test launch will demonstrate countdown procedures and fueling, then the rocket's ability to blast off, separate the liquid-fueled first stage from the solid-fuel second stage, jettison a payload fairing and deploy the payload into orbit about 160 miles up.

Rigged with sensors for the ride, the payload simulating the size and mass of a Cygnus spacecraft will stay in orbit for about a week before a destructive re-entry.

The flight and the first Cygnus mission to follow — as soon as June if all goes well — are precursors to Orbital starting a $1.9 billion NASA contract for eight station cargo runs.

The mid-week maiden launch may not attract huge crowds, but those are expected to come as the region awakens to its growing space program role.

In addition to future missions supporting the station, a different Orbital rocket this summer will launch the first deep space mission from Wallops, a NASA science satellite bound for orbit around the moon.

"Unlike Florida, Virginia has not seen itself as a true aerospace state," said Jack Kennedy, a member of the spaceport authority's board. "I think with this launch, the entire psyche, the public and political psyche, if you will, will acknowledge for the first time that, hey, we're a player."

While the competition for more launches intensifies, Kennedy believes many states will share the benefits as emerging commercial firms lower costs and increase flight rates over the long term.

"We all need to do our absolute best to establish a competitive environment without trying to literally put one or the other out of business," he said.

Business owners around Wallops have already benefited from Orbital's commercial cargo program. Wolff's sandwich shop filled an order for 70 subs for teams working the Antares hot-fire test in February.

Now a buzz is building for bigger things to come.

Skylab II: Living Beyond the Dark Side of the Moon

Markus Hammonds - Discovery News

During the 1970s, Skylab was NASA's first space station, built out of a fuel tank from a Saturn V rocket, one of NASA's standard launch vehicles at the time. NASA's advanced concepts office is now wondering if they could use the same trick again to launch the first ever outpost in deep space.

Brand Griffin, an engineer with Gray Research Inc working with NASA Marshall, certainly thinks so. Skylab II would be the first deep space station ever launched, to be parked in the Earth-Moon L2 (EML2) Lagrange point – a gravitationally stable point in space roughly 60,000 km from the dark side of the Moon, placing it a total of 440,000 km from Earth. This would truly be, to use a well known phrase, where no one has gone before.

When the original Skylab was launched, sitting atop the most powerful rocket ever constructed, it seemed an unusual idea. The original plan was, after launching into orbit, to vent any excess fuel from inside the final fuel tank and outfit it as a space station once in orbit — though it turned out to be more cost effective to construct the lab on the ground and launch the entire thing directly into orbit, atmosphere and all. The end result was, quite simply, an uncrewed space station in orbit ready for use. As it happens, it turned out to be a very successful idea.

Griffin's concept uses the proposed Space Launch System (SLS) rocket instead of the Saturn V, but other than that, the procedure is practically identical. The SLS is already being developed to open the door for crewed missions into deep space, with destinations including Mars and nearby asteroids. NASA hopes to run SLS test flights by 2017, and plans are currently for it to start launching crewed missions by 2021.

If the plan goes ahead, Skylab II will certainly be spacious. The upper tank which the space station would be derived from is planned to have a diameter of 8.5 meters, giving it a volume of 495 cubic meters. This is nearly double the size of the modules which currently make up the ISS. This would give any of Skylab II's inhabitants plenty of living space, and help to avoid the clutter which can sometimes be a problem on the ISS.

Being the first space habitat beyond lunar orbit, this would be a very different place to the ISS. There would be no quick way to return from here, and resupplying it would be costly and infrequent. Any astronauts staying there would be very much on their own for much of the time, and would need to solve problems by themselves. Even simple communications could be problematic on account of there being a Moon in the way!

While it has to be remembered that all of this is still simply a concept and little more, Griffin has detailed plans on how the Skylab II mission would unfold – presented recently at a meeting of the Future In Space Operations working group. Alongside the benefits of the station itself, Griffin presented a host of other details and concepts, including a "jumbo logistics module." Also derived from a SLS fuel tank, this over-sized supply ship could be transported to EML2 to completely restock and refurnish Skylab II in one go.

Whether or not Skylab II goes ahead, a deep space outpost would be a valuable step in human spaceflight. Such an outpost could act as a rendezvous point for missions to the moon, and a stopover on the way to locations further afield. A human presence in deep space would also facilitate servicing missions to space observatories. With all the newest generation of space telescopes being sent further and further afield, a deep space outpost could enable upgrades and repair missions like those which have helped to keep the Hubble telescope going for so long.

Ever since the Apollo missions, no human being has traveled more than a few hundred kilometers away from the surface of our planet. It's inspiring to see that people are still making plans and drawing up ideas to help keep us reaching further out into space.

5 questions about NASA's new asteroid capture mission

Lee Roop - Huntsville Times

1. What is the plan? NASA wants to develop new technology to find an asteroid about 7 meters wide (about as wide as a swimming pool), send a spacecraft there carrying a large telescoping "bag," envelop it with the bag and maneuver the asteroid to a safe orbit around the moon for astronauts to visit and sample as early as 2021. See the slide show at left or NASA video below for a closer look at the plan, which as been under study for some time.

2. Why do it? Asteroids date back to the origins of the solar system. Exploring one would tell scientists a lot about how we got here. Eventually, we might want to mine asteroids for their precious minerals, although not the kind proposed for capture in this mission. And two recent asteroid close encounters -- one over Russia and one Earth flyby -- have raised the issue of defending the home planet from a potentially catastrophic collision like the one that killed the dinosaurs. Skills learned in this mission could help prevent such a collision.

3. Why not just go to back to the moon instead? A lot of people wonder the same thing. A group of powerful lawmakers, including Alabama's Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Haleyville), are introducing legislation that would order NASA to do just that in about the same time frame. But beyond the "been there, done that" argument of President Obama, a return to the moon would take a lunar lander. NASA doesn't have one and getting a lander ready would be a challenge.

4. What are the challenges and risks? NASA has to find an asteroid that is just the right size and makeup (basically a dried up mudball so it would break up in the atmosphere if anything did go wrong). Then it has to build the spacecraft and telescoping bag to go get it. The agency has sent probes on close encounters with asteroids before, but actually grabbing one of these tumbling objects is something else again. NASA calls asteroids "uncooperative" in a an understatement.

5. Does Alabama have a piece of this rock? Two pieces, actually. An Atlas rocket built at United Launch Alliance in Decatur would be used to launch the spacecraft that goes after the asteroid, and the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville is developing the booster part of the Space Launch System that will take astronauts to the asteroid. ULA, NASA and NASA's contractors employ thousands of skilled aerospace workers and support private businesses in Alabama.

Volunteers Line Up For Tito's Mars Flyaround

Frank Morring, Jr. - Aviation Week

Inspiration Mars, the bold plan to send a man and woman on a 501-day trip around the Red Planet beginning in January 2018, reports individuals and industry are offering their services for the task, including "hundreds" of couples who have qualifications that would put them in the running.

Dennis Tito, the California financier who was the first space tourist to visit the International Space Station, told a National Space Symposium audience here that finding a suitable launch architecture to start the mission, and a thermal protection system to protect the crew when it re-enters Earth's atmosphere at 14.2 km/sec. after looping around Mars 100 mi. above the surface, are the biggest near-term hurdles to accomplishing the mission.

Tito is funding the first two years of the five-year development plans, and expects to fund the rest with contributions, media rights and other sources of income. Media response to the February kickoff press conference for the mission would have generated $80 million in advertising revenue, according to a team spokesman.

Part of Tito's initial support is going to experts in space medicine, life support and thermal protection systems as the team defines the mission. The process includes devising medical, crew-selection and crew-training protocols, and even though there will not be a call for crew applicants until "at least next year," there already has been an influx of volunteers.

"We have received emails from people saying we'd like to be considered when it's time, and from amazing people, with phenomenal backgrounds that are very applicable," said Taber MacCallum, Inspiration Mars chief technology officer and an experienced life-support engineer. "I think we're going to be selecting from an incredible set of teams."

Jane Poynter, MacCallum's wife and co-founder with him of Paragon Space Development Corp., which is developing closed-loop life support for the mission, said among unofficial applicants have been couples who have sailed around the world together on multiyear voyages, and others who have wintered over in Antarctica.

"Taber and I have joked about putting our hat in the ring when that comes up," said Poynter, who spent "two years and 20 minutes" with MacCallum and a team of volunteers in the Biosphere 2 closed-loop environment experiment.

The group has also attracted a "can-do spirit" among engineers at NASA's Ames Research Center, which is working the thermal protection system problem for Inspiration Mars under a Space Act Agreement. Doug Cooke, a recently retired top NASA manager who spearheaded exploration-systems development for the agency, has joined the private group's board advisors, MacCallum said.

"Since we announced this mission, people representing a wide range of industries and organizations are asking how they can contribute," he said. "It's interesting, the level of input we get, because we live in a time when more human spacecraft are being developed in America than in all of American history combined."

MacCallum said work has already started on ground facilities to test the life support hardware, which will be largely crew tended for simplicity, but will be designed effectively to give two-fault-tolerant redundancy comparable to NASA safety standards. Eventually some components and subsystems probably will be tested on the International Space Station.

"That's what it's for," MacCallum said.

Companies, nonprofits share visions for space exploration

Jakob Rodgers - Colorado Springs Gazette

The sales pitch went something like this: Organize an unprecedented mission to Mars.

Do it without any ability to abort.

Then hurl that spacecraft back into the earth's atmosphere at a raging 13.2 kilometers a second.

"We were all rather, well, extremely skeptical," said Taber MacCallum, then the co-founder of a company specializing in space life support systems.

His hesitation didn't last long.

At a time when budget woes continue to cloud NASA's future, nonprofit organizations have begun to make inroads into the field of deep space travel. For MacCallum as well as a small group of engineers and one audacious multimillionaire, the proposed missions offer a glimpse what the future of space travel and exploration might look like.

Philanthropy may play an increasingly important role in future space missions.

"It's a maturation of the industry, really," said MacCallum, who now works on the Mars mission.

"That wasn't true 10 years ago, because you had to develop so much from scratch."

The plans for the mission were outlined last week at the 29th National Space Symposium — garnering particular attention in the ever-crowded space industry gathering.

Private companies have made forays into space travel — competing for NASA funding to build the agency's next astronaut transport vehicle and developing private spacecraft for space tourism.

Virgin Gallactic, for example, has booked hundreds of tickets for future flights to space, according to the company's website

The stir caused by visions of such endeavors, and in particular by new nonprofit ventures, offered a respite from the cloud of fiscal uncertainty that overshadowed much of the elaborate conference.

No one from NASA spoke at the symposium, nor did many top-ranking officials from the Defense Department make the trip to The Broadmoor hotel.

Each absence was a by product of automatic budget cuts that took effect March 1 for fiscal year 2013, which cut $16.6 billion from NASA's budget and $41 billion from the Pentagon's coffers. One effect of those cuts has been reduced travel funding.

The leaders of one nonprofit — the B612 Foundation — credited the federal government's ever-present fiscal uncertainty for its own leap into space travel.

The foundation aims to launch a spacecraft in 2018 that would orbit the sun while scanning the solar system for asteroids measuring at least 140 meters in diameter — objects known as "city-killers."

The goal: Detect threats to earth so that future missions could nudge those asteroids out of the way.

It is a project built largely off technology that's already been developed — specifically, the Kepler spacecraft, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. to search for earth-sized planets elsewhere in the universe.

That technological base has been the key to allowing private companies and nonprofits to enter space, said Scott Hubbard, a Stanford University professor and the project's architect.

Most importantly, it keeps costs down, he said. The mission is expected to cost $450 million. So far, the foundation has raised $2 million.

"This way of doing things is a model for those missions in the future where you don't have to appeal to a huge technology development," Hubbard said.

The same could be said for the Inspiration Mars mission, which is slated to launch Jan. 5, 2018.

The mission is expected to rely largely on research and technology adopted from the International Space Station while it sends two people — a man and a woman — on a 501-day trip to within 100 miles of the Mars surface.

The spacecraft wouldn't land. Rather, it would use the planet as a slingshot to shoot back to earth.

Dennis Tito, the project's founder, said Thursday he plans to fund the project's first two years. After that, he expects to look to private donors and sponsorship deals.

He got the idea, in part, after watching NASA's missions flag in recent years.

After its shuttle fleet retired two years ago, the agency began purchasing seats on Russian rockets to get its astronauts to the International Space Station. Tito did the same thing — becoming the first "space tourist" by purchasing his own ticket aboard a Russian rocket.

NASA also has struggled to find a clear goal for space travel in recent years, alternating between visions for the visits to the moon and Mars.

The most recent idea floated by the White House would send an unmanned spacecraft to an asteroid, lasso it and tow it near the moon, where astronauts would explore the space rock.

Obama proposed $105 million in his fiscal year 2014 budget to jump-start the program, which may eventually cost about $2.6 billion.

"At the beginning of the space race, we all had a can-do spirit," Tito said. "As far as the current situation is concerned, it's quite a bit different.

"...we need to do something more innovative to excite the public — and the Congress to provide additional funding eventually for further Mars exploration."

One of the few men in the world who could relate to Tito's dreams sat in the front row during Thursday's Inspiration Mars discussion.

Before Tito spoke, Buzz Aldrin — who in 1969 became the second man ever to set foot on the moon — struck a cautiously optimistic tone.

"Did Lindberg fly across the Atlantic?" Aldrin said before the panel discussion. "Government didn't fund him. It was a prize, but it was commercial.

"And sometimes commercial leads. A lot times the government leads and turns it over to the commercial. As long as they don't waste resources."

Astronaut gives his view of world from edge of the Twittersphere

Sarah-Jane Collins - Sydney Morning Herald

Space, the final frontier, 140 characters at a time. Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield has a birds-eye view of Earth during a five-month stint on the International Space Station, and he is using it to share what he sees.

The Great Barrier Reef, Sydney and rivers in Brazil are just a few of the images he has tweeted.

Since arriving on the space station in December last year, the astronaut has highlighted unique land formations, weather events and the glittering lights that mark out human development.

Commander Hadfield answers tweets from followers but rarely does interviews. In a video posted to the Canadian Space Agency's blog he said Twitter allows him to share experiences as they happen.

Advertisement ''The favourite pastime of astronauts is looking at the world out of the window. It is so fundamentally beautiful and mesmerising and I've been doing my best with words to try and describe it ever since I first saw it … now I can directly, as I see beautiful things, send those pictures to the ground,'' he said.

In February, he snapped a massive cyclone off the Western Australian coast, and a bright green lake in south-western Queensland. The lake, he said, ''somehow reminds me of a haggis''.

Commander Hadfield has more than 650,000 followers. Last week he won a Shorty award - awards that recognise the best of social media - for science.

Hadfield's Twitter account is @Cmdr_Hadfield

Live from outer space, it's our astronaut Tom Marshburn

Lincoln Davidson - Davidson News (N. Carolina)

A technological glitch didn't allow a two-way conversation, but NASA astronaut and Davidson College alumnus Dr. Tom Marshburn '82 spoke to a college audience and showed off a few zero-gravity tricks during a live video downlink from the International Space Station Friday afternoon.

Dr. Marshburn spoke about his time in the space station, but questions from those gathered in the Alvarez College Union's 900 Room could not be transmitted to the space station due to technical difficulties.

Video from the International Space Station (ISS) came online as planned at 4:05, transmitted from the ISS to NASA mission control in Houston, Texas, which streamed it online. Audio from the 900 Room was transmitted to NASA mission control, but was unable to reach Dr. Marshburn on the ISS.

Despite the technical difficulties, Dr. Marshburn amused those present in the 900 Room with zero gravity tricks, spinning freely in the air of one of the space station's laboratories and swallowing floating droplets of water squeezed from a pouch used for storing water in zero gravity.

"One of our favorite pastimes [here in the ISS] is to play with our food," Dr. Marshburn said. "Being in space is a lot like being a child again. When you get here you have to learn to dress yourself, you have to learn to eat. It's like being a child back on Earth."

The original plan for the video downlink was to have current Davidson students ask questions of Dr. Marshburn. Although technical difficulties made direct communication impossible, Dr. Marshburn answered a few pre-prepared questions that had been sent to him several days earlier.

"How much is physics part of my daily life up here? When you remove the effects of gravity, you can see things happen that could never happen on Earth," Dr. Marshburn said.

Demonstrating with a bag of hazelnuts, Dr. Marshburn showed how putting his hand into the bag to grab the nuts as he would on Earth doesn't work in space. "Too much energy is imparted to the nuts, and they end up flying everywhere," he said, as hazelnuts flew out of the bag. "You have to let them settle down before opening the bag, and then they just float to the top."

Answering a question about the importance of liberal arts education, Dr. Marshburn said that space flight is "the epitome of what's important about liberal arts education."

"We see the technological marvel [of space flight] … but how that relates to humans is the most important part of it. We can have technical mastery over our world, but knowing what to do with the technical accomplishments we've made is so important … for example, some people believe that seeing the Earth rise over the moon during the Apollo program was when we started to care about the environment."

Dr. Marshburn said he has rarely felt lonely during his time in the ISS. "I feel like I'm surrounded by people," he said. "We have control centers around the world, we hear those voices, we get to know them as friends. Loneliness has not been a problem at all. I haven't felt cooped up. The volume [of the ISS] is about the size of a five bedroom house. The view out the window helps too. A big psychological disadvantage of going to Mars will be not having that view."

Dr. Marshburn began to speak about the effect being in space has had on his perception of time and his memory, but was cut off by the prompt ending of the downlink at 4:35.

Davidson College Technical Director James Nash said that the physical location of the ISS over the Earth may be what ended the transmission so suddenly. "We were always told we had one half hour of airtime and nothing more than that, and it cut exactly at one half hour, so it's probably a fly-over issue."

"We're going to talk to NASA and see if we can do this again, but just know that your Davidson College tech crew didn't have anything to do with that," Mr. Nash added to applause from those assembled in the 900 Room.

Speaking with students afterwards, Mr. Nash said that it was Dr. Marshburn who originally put forward the idea of the video downlink with Davidson College. Mr. Nash added that he would like to host a second, more successful downlink with Dr. Marshburn, who will be in the ISS for another month.

Freshman Chaney Barnes, who was one of the students selected to ask a question of Dr. Marshburn, said he was disappointed it wasn't possible to speak directly to Dr. Marshburn, but that it was still a great experience to see a Davidson graduate in space.

Stephen Hawking: Explore space for humanity's sake

Alicia Chang - Associated Press

Stephen Hawking, who spent his career decoding the universe and even experienced weightlessness, is urging the continuation of space exploration — for humanity's sake.

The 71-year-old Hawking said he did not think humans would survive another 1,000 years "without escaping beyond our fragile planet."

The British cosmologist made the remarks Tuesday before an audience of doctors, nurses and employees at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where he toured a stem cell laboratory that's focused on trying to slow the progression of Lou Gehrig's disease.

Hawking was diagnosed with the neurological disorder 50 years ago while a student at Cambridge University. He recalled how he became depressed and initially didn't see a point in finishing his doctorate. But he continued to delve into his studies.

"If you understand how the universe operates, you control it in a way," he said.

Renowned for his work on black holes and the origins of the cosmos, Hawking is famous for bringing esoteric physics concepts to the masses through his best-selling books, including "A Brief History of Time," which sold more than 10 million copies worldwide. Hawking titled his hourlong lecture to Cedars-Sinai employees "A Brief History of Mine."

Hawking has survived longer than most people with Lou Gehrig's disease, also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. ALS attacks nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord that control the muscles. People gradually have more and more trouble breathing and moving as muscles weaken and waste away. There's no cure and no way to reverse the disease's progression. Few people with ALS live longer than a decade.

Hawking receives around-the-clock care, can only communicate by twitching his cheek, and relies on a computer mounted to his wheelchair to convey his thoughts in a distinctive robotic monotone.

Despite his diagnosis, Hawking has remained active. In 2007, he floated like an astronaut on an aircraft that creates weightlessness by making parabolic dives.

Hawking rattled off nuggets of advice: Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Be curious.

"However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at," he said.

Dr. Robert Baloh, director of Cedars-Sinai's ALS program who invited Hawking, said he had no explanation for the physicist's longevity.

During the hospital tour, Hawking viewed microscopic stem cells through a projector screen and asked questions about the research, which last year received nearly $18 million from California's taxpayer-funded stem cell institute.

Baloh said he has treated patients who lived for 10 years or more.

"But 50 years is unusual, to say the least," he said.

SpaceShipTwo creates a cool contrail – first blastoff coming soon

Alan Boyle - NBCNews.com's Cosmic Log

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo rocket plane successfully glided through a test on Friday that sent oxidizer flowing through its engine — a sight that led observers to speculate that the suborbital spacecraft's first powered flight could be imminent.

SpaceShipTwo has been tested in the air for more than three years. Its hybrid rocket engine has undergone extensive development and testing, including multiple test firings on the ground. But the rocket has not yet been lit up in flight — and that's a crucial step in Virgin Galactic's plan to put tourists in outer space.

During Friday's test, Virgin Galactic's massive WhiteKnightTwo carrier plane took off from the Mojave Air and Space Port, carrying SpaceShipTwo under its belly. The mothership rose to an altitude of about 50,000 feet, then released the rocket plane for a 10.8-minute-long gliding descent back to the runway. Mark Stucky and Mike Alsbury were the test pilots for what was characterized as a "mission rehearsal" for the first rocket-powered flight.

Virgin Galactic said SpaceShipOne successfully went through every step in preparation for that milestone flight, "apart from actually igniting the rocket."

"Importantly, and for the first time in the air, oxidizer was flowed through the propulsion system and out through the nozzle at the rear of the vehicle — thus successfully accomplishing the 'Cold-Flow' procedure," the company said in a news release. "As well as providing further qualifying evidence that the rocket system is flight-ready, the test also provided a stunning spectacle due to the oxidizer contrail, and for the first time gave a taste of what SpaceShipTwo will look like as it powers to space."

Virgin Galactic hasn't announced when the first powered flight would come. "We have to do a full review of the data before we finalize our next flight milestone, but we're getting close now," the company's CEO and president, George T. Whitesides, was quoted as saying on the Space Coalition blog.

April 22 has been the focus of speculation because that would be the 69th birthday of the late millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett, who became the first person to make a nonstop solo flight around the world in 2005. That trip was financed by Branson, a friend and fellow flight enthusiast, and was accomplished with a Virgin GlobalFlyer airplane that looked like a lighter version of WhiteKnightTwo.

"Flying the space plane under power on his birthday would be a poignant tribute to Fossett, who died in a plane crash in California's Sierra Nevada mountains two years after making his solo around-the-world flight," Parabolic Arc's Doug Messier wrote. Citing personal sources, independent consultant Charles Lurio also said April 22 was a target date.

The first powered flight would represent the biggest step yet in SpaceShipTwo's development effort, which builds upon the history-making suborbital space missions that were flown by the SpaceShipOne rocket plane in 2004. Virgin Galactic's plan calls for an increasingly ambitious series of flights from Mojave that will eventually take SpaceShipTwo's test pilots beyond 100 kilometers (62 miles) in altitude, which is the internationally accepted boundary of outer space.

As soon as next year, paying passengers may get their turn to climb aboard SpaceShipTwo at Spaceport America in New Mexico. The aerial launch from WhiteKnightTwo would lift them up to take a look at the curving Earth and the black sky of space. There'd be a few minutes of free-floating weightlessness at the top of the ride. Then SpaceShipTwo's innovative folding-wing design would slow down the supersonic plunge back toward Earth. The outer-space trip would end with a glide back to Spaceport America's 2-mile-long (3.2-kilometer-long) runway.

Virgin Galactic says more than 500 people have signed up for the $200,000 suborbital space tour.

Promising projects deserve funding

John Kelly - Florida Today (Commentary)

NASA aims to snag an asteroid, but that's probably not the most important insight from the White House's new space budget proposal.

The president's spending plan includes a little less money for two projects important to Kennedy Space Center's future: the so-far, so-good effort to privatize flights of crew and cargo to the International Space Station and a new super rocket and spaceship for missions beyond.

It's hardly enough of a reduction to get all worked up about, but a hundred million dollars trimmed from here and another hundred million dollars cut from there begins to add up for programs that are financially malnourished to begin with.

The asteroid mission is neat, but seems small in comparison to the kinds of missions NASA was talking about as the reason for building the next Saturn-class super rocket.

The rocket program needs a strong early funding profile in order to make sure it stays on track. The early years are for overcoming hurdles, not just kicking them down the road, and overcoming hurdles in the space launch business costs money. Even under the best spending plan and with adequate "rainy day" money, a big project like this is likely to run over budget and behind schedule. SLS' budget isn't the "best."

The privatization effort is a budding success on the cargo side. SpaceX has made multiple successful deliveries to the space station and it's demonstrated moxie dealing with its first real in-flight crisis on the last mission. Orbital Sciences is about to launch its entrant, perhaps this week. The minimal government investment in those two companies' development of new rockets and spacecraft is paying off big time.

The commercial crew side is the next big potential payoff for NASA, and for our spaceport here in Brevard County. The success of private cargo deliveries is showing that getting some of the red tape out of the process can speed development and incentivize innovation. But each year, Congress seems to gut the little bit of money the White House seeks for commercial crew, a program based here at Kennedy.

The White House should be proposing the injection of more money into commercial crew given what NASA is seeing results-wise on the cargo side of that effort, and Congress ought to welcome the opportunity to back a less expensive and speedier development path for new space transportation systems. Instead, Congress has lopped off hundreds of millions of dollars in seed money from the project.

If times are austere and NASA needs to get by with less money long-term, it's becoming more evident with each passing year that smart money is on the unshackled, incentive-driven private companies leading the way in new space flight innovations.

END

Keep the shuttle flying

Monday, April 15, 2013

Fwd: Human Spaceflight News - April 15, 2013 and JSC Today

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