Keep the shuttle flying: Fwd: Human Spaceflight News

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From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: April 24, 2013 5:50:13 AM GMT-06:00
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: Human Spaceflight News - April 24, 2013 and JSC Today

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

JSC TODAY HEADLINES
1.            Latest International Space Station Research
2.            JSC: See the Space Station
3.            Link Update: Sodexo Satisfaction Survey
4.            You Still Have Time -- RSVP for the May JSC NMA Chapter Luncheon
5.            Nominate Your Peer Today
6.            JSC Annual Picnic at SplashTown This Sunday -- Tickets Still Available
7.            Starport Boot Camp -- Last Chance for Registration
8.            HAS Program Needs Mentors and Student Mentors for the Summer
9.            Fire Protection and Prevention in Construction ViTS: May 10 - Building 17, Room 2026
10.          Scaffold Users Seminar ViTS: May 24 - Building 17, Room 2026
11.          Crane Operations and Rigging Refresher ViTS: June 5 and 6 - Building 17, Room 2026
12.          Summer Water-Bots Camp
________________________________________     NASA FACT
" Hubble has been producing ground-breaking science for two decades. During that time, it has benefited from a slew of upgrades from shuttle missions, including the 2009 addition of a new imaging workhorse, the high-resolution Wide Field Camera 3 that recently took a new portrait of the Horsehead Nebula."
________________________________________
1.            Latest International Space Station Research
Do you enjoy reading about the research being conducted on your International Space Station? Subscribe to our ISS Program Science listserve. We'll send you an email about twice a week with compelling and fun-to-read stories about the important research being conducted every day. This list is open to everyone (external to NASA, too)!
Click here.
Liz Warren x35548

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2.            JSC: See the Space Station
Viewers in the JSC area will be able to see the International Space Station this week.
Wednesday, April 24, 9:30 p.m. (Duration: 2 minutes)
Path: 11 degrees above NNW to 28 degrees above NNE
Maximum elevation: 31 degrees
Saturday, April 27, 8:34 p.m. (Duration: 5 minutes)
Path: 16 degrees above NNW to 16 degrees above ESE
Maximum elevation: 48 degrees
Monday, April 29, 8:33 p.m. (Duration: 4 minutes)
Path: 34 degrees above W to 11 degrees above SSE
Maximum elevation: 41 degrees
The International Space Station Trajectory Operations Group provides updates via JSC Today for visible station passes at least two minutes in duration and 25 degrees in elevation. Other opportunities, including those with shorter durations and lower elevations or from other ground locations, are available at the website below.
Joe Pascucci x31695 http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/cities/view.cgi?country=U...

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3.            Link Update: Sodexo Satisfaction Survey
Sodexo Federal Services is committed to exceeding your expectations while working to continually improve your experience.
Our annual survey helps us to understand how we are performing. We value this input and use this feedback to ensure we are bringing the highest level of service to you.
If you have previously tried to take the survey before but received an error message, we apologize. We hope we have resolved this issue with the website link.
This survey should take no more than seven to 10 minutes to complete. Please complete the questionnaire online by visiting the Starport website and clicking the link to the "Sodexo Customer Satisfaction Survey."
The survey will be available now through May 8. You will receive a confirmation upon completion.
Your feedback is extremely important to us. Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts.
Danial Hornbuckle x30240 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/

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4.            You Still Have Time -- RSVP for the May JSC NMA Chapter Luncheon
Please join us for an enlightening May JSC National Management Association (NMA) chapter luncheon presentation with Natalie Saiz, director, JSC Human Resources, as she speaks about "Dealing with the Human Element of Leadership."
When: Tuesday, May 7
Time: 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Location: Gilruth Alamo Ballroom
o             Cost for members: $0
o             Cost for non-members: $20
There are three great menu options to choose from:
o             Turkey Scaloppine and Bruschetta Topping
o             Flounder Piccata
o             Cheese Manicotti with Two Sauces
Desserts: Carrot cake and double chocolate mousse cake
Please RSVP here by close of business Wednesday, May 1, with your menu selection. For RSVP technical assistance, please contact Amy Kitchen via email or at x35569.
Catherine Williams x33317 http://www.jscnma.com/Events

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5.            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.
Single Achievement: Explain how the person truly went above and beyond on a single project or initiative.
Affect and Impact: What was the significant impact? How many were impacted? Who was impacted?
Standout: What stands out? What extra effort? Did the effort exceed and accomplish the goal?
Category: Which category should nominee be in? Gold - Agency Impact Award Level; Silver - Center Impact Award Level; and 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.
Get complete information on the JSC Awards Program.
Jessica Ocampo 281-792-7804 https://powerofone.jsc.nasa.gov

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6.            JSC Annual Picnic at SplashTown This Sunday -- Tickets Still Available
SplashTown is closed to the public on Sunday to allow NASA family and friends to attend a private day at the water park!
Tickets are on sale now through Friday in the Buildings 3 and 11 Starport Gift Shops and at the Gilruth Center. Tickets are $37 each for ages 3 and up.
A ticket includes: private-day admission at SplashTown on April 28 from noon to 6 p.m., barbecue lunch, beverages, snow cones, kids' games, Bingo, face-painting, a moon bounce, balloon artist, DJ, horseshoes, volleyball, basketball and plenty of thrills!
Event Date: Sunday, April 28, 2013   Event Start Time:12:00 PM   Event End Time:6:00 PM
Event Location: Splashtown

Add to Calendar

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

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7.            Starport Boot Camp -- Last Chance for Registration
Don't miss this session!
Are you ready for 18 hours of intense workouts with an amazing personal trainer to get you to your fitness goal?
Starport's amazing Boot Camp is almost full. Don't miss a chance to be part of our incredibly popular program.
Registration ends Sunday, April 28. The cost is $110 per person, and the workout begins on Monday, April 29.
Sign up today!
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.            HAS Program Needs Mentors and Student Mentors for the Summer
High School Aerospace Scholars (HAS) is in full swing and looking for mentors and student mentors for this summer.
Being a mentor includes:
o             Working with outstanding high school students from across Texas
o             The opportunity to represent your division in education outreach without leaving JSC
o             Inspiring the next generation as only NASA can
o             Using your leadership skills to help students build a realistic human mission to Mars
Mentors are needed the following weeks:
o             June 9 to 14
o             June 16 to 21
o             July 14 to 19
o             July 21 to 26
o             July 28 to Aug. 2
The mentor application can be found online.
Deadline to apply: May 1
Stacey Welch 281-792-8100 http://has.aerospacescholars.org/

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9.            Fire Protection and Prevention in Construction ViTS: May 10 - Building 17, Room 2026
SMA-SAFE-NSTC-0070: This basic course introduces the student to the recognition of potential fire hazards and procedures required to meet Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) 1926.150 - fire protection; 1926.151 - fire prevention; 1926.152 - flammable and combustible liquids; 1926.153 - liquefied petroleum gas; 1926.154 - temporary heating devices; and 1926.155 - definitions to this subpart F to minimize losses due to fires. There will be a final exam associated with this course, which must be passed with a 70 percent minimum score to receive course credit. https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=SCHEDULED_...
Shirley Robinson x41284

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10.          Scaffold Users Seminar ViTS: May 24 - Building 17, Room 2026
SMA-SAFE-NSTC-0316: This four-hour course is based on Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) CFR 1910.28 and 1926.451, requirements for scaffolding safety in the general and construction industries. During the course, the student will receive an overview of those topics needed to work safely on scaffolds, including standards, terminology and inspection of scaffold components; uses of scaffolds; fall protection requirements; signs and barricades; and more. Those individuals desiring to become "competent persons" for scaffolds should take the three-day Scaffold Safety Course, SMA-SAFE-NSTC-0312. This course will be primarily presented via the NASA target audience: Safety, Reliability, Quality and Maintainability professionals; or anyone working on operations requiring the use of scaffolds. There will be a final exam associated with this course, which must be passed with a 70 percent minimum score to receive course credit. Use this direct link for registration. https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=SCHEDULED_...
Shirley Robinson x41284

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11.          Crane Operations and Rigging Refresher ViTS: June 5 and 6 - Building 17, Room 2026
SMA-SAFE-NSTC-0028: This four-hour course serves as a refresher in overhead crane safety and awareness for operators, riggers, signalmen, supervisors and safety personnel and updates their understanding of existing federal and NASA standards and regulations related to such cranes. Areas of concentration include: general safety in crane operations; testing; inspections; pre-lift plans; and safe rigging. This course is intended to provide the classroom training for re-certification of already qualified crane operators, or for those who have only a limited need for overhead crane safety knowledge. There will be a final exam associated with this course, which must be passed with a 70 percent minimum score to receive course credit. Use these direct links for registration.
June 5: https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=SCHEDULED_...
June 6: https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=SCHEDULED_...
Shirley Robinson x41284

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12.          Summer Water-Bots Camp
Join us for Water-Bots 2013! The San Jacinto College Aerospace Academy is offering an outstanding opportunity for students to experience the excitement of underwater robotics.
Beginner Camps: June 17 to 20 and June 24 to 27. The camp experience will include basic electronics instruction, an introduction to soldering, tours of JSC, professional speakers and much more.
Intermediate Camps: July 15 to 18 and July 22 to 25. Requires campers with previous robotic experience. The camp experience will include constructing algorithms in scripting languages such as Python/Matlab/Scilab; working with Arduino boards, sensors and shields; methods of making underwater robotics using a tether system; and much more.
Ages: 12 to 16 years old
Cost: $250
Email for more information.
Sara Malloy x46803 http://www.aerospace-academy.org

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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: 1 pm Central (2 EDT) – House Science Subcom Hearing on NASA FY '14 Budget

Human Spaceflight News
Wednesday, April 24, 2013

ISS pass above Stonehenge, Wiltshire UK – Saturday, April 20 (Credit: Tim Burgess)

HEADLINES AND LEADS

Russian cargo ship launched on station resupply flight
Engineers troubleshoot rendezvous antenna issue

William Harwood - CBS News

An unmanned Russian cargo ship loaded with 3.1 tons of supplies, spare parts and science gear blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Wednesday and set off on a two-day flight to rendezvous and dock with the International Space Station. The Progress M-19M/51P spacecraft, perched atop a Soyuz-U rocket, took off from its Baikonur launching pad at 6:12:16 a.m. EDT (GMT-4; 4:12 p.m. local time), roughly the moment Earth's rotation carried the pad into the plane of the space station's orbit. Climbing away through a blue sky dotted with low white clouds, the Soyuz rocket appeared to perform flawlessly and the Progress was released into its initial orbit just under nine minutes after liftoff. The spacecraft's two solar panels deployed a few moments later. But Russian flight controllers said one of five KURS rendezvous system antennas failed to extend as expected. The KURS system, used by both Progress and manned Soyuz spacecraft, measures differences in radar signal strength to home in on the space station. For Progress flights, the station crew also can take over manual control if necessary and remotely guide the spacecraft to docking.

Russians launch space station resupply ship

Justin Ray - SpaceflightNow.com

It was a throwback of sorts Wednesday as a Russian Progress cargo craft launched on a two-day track in pursuit of the International Space Station, reverting to the old rendezvous style instead of the six-hour sprints employed recently, but one of its navigation antennas did not immediately deploy. Loaded with 3.1 tons of food, fuel and supplies, the freighter was boosted into orbit atop an unmanned Russian Soyuz booster from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 6:12 a.m. EDT (1012 GMT). The space station was located over the South Atlantic at the moment of launch. The preliminary orbit was achieved after a nine-minute ascent provided by the three-stage rocket, and onboard commands were issued to unfurl the craft's communications and navigation antennas and extend two power-generating solar arrays that span 35 feet. However, initial telemetry indicated one of the antennas for the KURS automated rendezvous system -- the hemispherical antenna on the side of the spacecraft -- did not immediately deploy as expected. Russian flight controllers are assessing the situation and any potential impacts. The antenna in question is used for retrieving signals to determine the ship's orientation, and is one of five in the KURS package aboard the Progress.

Sequestration cuts in 2014 put NASA timetable in peril

Ledyard King - Florida Today

NASA's agenda of missions beyond low-Earth orbit would face delays if the federal government has to weather another year of sequestration spending cuts, a top agency official told a Senate panel Tuesday. A flight to corral an asteroid and explore it in 2021 as well as a crewed journey to Mars sometime during the 2030s — which some critics say isn't soon enough — are among projects that would be pushed back by continued budget-trimming, William Gerstenmaier, NASA's chief of human exploration, told members of a Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation subcommittee. If the forced budget cuts remain in effect during fiscal 2014, which begins Oct. 1, "we can't deliver the programs that we committed to you that we would deliver," Gerstenmaier said.

Putin Visits Vostochny, Discusses Future of Russian Space Program

Doug Messier - Parabolic Arc

Russian President-for-Life Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin was in the Amur region on April 12 to view construction progress at the new Vostochny spaceport, name its support city after Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, announce the commitment of $50 million to the space program through 2020, talk to the astronauts aboard the International Space Station, and lay out the future and challenges ahead for the nation's space program. Vostochny — which is now apparently being referred to as Baikonur East — and its adjoining city are being built on nine sites on 1,000 square kilometers of land in the Amur region. Plans call for the first unmanned rockets to launch in 2015, followed by the crewed in 2018. By 2020, the complex will be completed and be ready for the launch of heavy-lift rockets.

Cosmonauts May Carry Olympic Torch and 'Flame' on Spacewalk

Robert Pearlman - collectSPACE.com

Russia may shift its rocket launch and spacewalk schedule to send the torch — and maybe even the flame — for next year's Olympics to the International Space Station (ISS), according to Russia's federal space agency and local media reports. Set to host the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi on the Black Sea coast, Russia plans to launch the traditional Olympic torch relay later this year on Oct. 7. As the flame passes between runners in 2,900 towns and cities spread across the country, a replica of the torch and perhaps an imitation of its flame will lift off on a Soyuz spacecraft with the next crew members for the space station.

MARS plans more launches, seeks more space customers

Tamara Dietrich - Hampton Roads Daily Press

With the Antares rocket successfully launched, Virginia's spaceport on Wallops Island is busy drumming up more commercial space customers — they just can't say who. "Because we signed non-disclosures with organizations, we're not at liberty to discuss who they are and what they're doing," said Zigmond Leszczynski, deputy executive director of the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority (VCSFA). "Needless to say, we think there's a lot of potential there."

Volunteers wanted for one-way ticket to Mars
Dutch company seeks applicants to travel to Red Planet - but without offering return ticket

Al Jazeera

Mars One, a Dutch company, has begun its search for volunteers to fly and live on the red planet - but it's a one-way trip. At a press conference in New York City on Monday, the company's CEO Bas Lansdorp announced an open call for anyone to apply for the flight, knowing that they will never be able to return home. The mission will be one-way only because there currently is no technology that would enable a return trip from Mars to Earth.

Sir Richard Branson on Virgin Galactic's next project

Richard Velotta - Las Vegas Sun

What's ahead for your Virgin Galactic project? "We're hoping to break the sound barrier. That's planned Monday. It will be a historic day. This is going to be Virgin Galactic's year. We'll break the sound barrier Monday and from there, we build up through the rest of the year, finally going into space near the end of the year. I'll be on the first official flight, which we look to have in the first quarter of next year. We're doing a number of test flights into space first.
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Flying high: The career path that sent George Abbey soaring from his maternal home in Laugharne to Nasa
Nasa's former director of the Johnson Space Centre reveals his part in history, including making Wales the most photographed country from space and sending Dylan Thomas into orbit

Kirstie McCrum - WalesOnline

Space has never had a problem capturing the imagination. The deep velvety blackness with its canopy of twinkling stars and even brighter planets grips most of us from a very young age, before we really understand what it means to travel into that final frontier and discover its secrets. George Abbey was just like that as a child. Gazing skyward for a hint about what lay beyond our world, he determined to find out – a decision which took him from his home in Seattle to working for Nasa and then to the highest levels of government in the White House.

Where the longhorn roam at NASA

Y.C. Orozco - Bay Area Citizen (Houston Community Newspapers)

While their names may not be as familiar, Trident and Magic carry as much historical significance between them that guarantees a place at Johnson Space Center. While not as sleek and eye-catching as The Saturn V or any other of the number of NASA artifacts kept at JSC and the adjacent Rocket Park, the two steers fit right in. They are just two of the several dozen longhorns that graze the field next to JSC as part of the Longhorn Space Center Project. In 1996, then Johnson Space Center (JSC) Director George W. S. Abbey was looking for a way to integrate NASA's place in the region's history with Texas' cattle ranch tradition. "He actually found an old picture of longhorns that used to roam within this area," said CCISD Ag-science manager Jennifer Edenfield. "He thought it would be a great idea to bring the natural history of Texas cattle to NASA." He also wanted NASA to become a more tactile presence in the community. The JSC Longhorn Project would be designed to do both.

SpaceX's Elon Musk and friends look to the far future: Engage warp drive!

Alan Boyle - NBCNews.com's Cosmic Log

What will the far future look like? For actor Will Smith and his son Jaden, the next generation could mark a "tipping point" for the environment. For futurist Ray Kurzweil, solar power is the solution to our energy ills. But for a look at the really far future, turn to Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of SpaceX and Tesla Motors. He's already thinking about spreading out from Earth to other planets — and engaging the warp drive to get to other star systems. "There's some potential, even though it sounds science-fictiony, for warp drive to work," Musk said on Tuesday during a Google+ Hangout to publicize "After Earth," Smith's upcoming movie. "Technically, to warp space such that you're traveling at the speed of light, but you've warped space so that space is actually traveling."

'Mad Men' writers mull show about 1960s Cocoa Beach
Reporters, race to moon are focus

David Berman – Florida Today

Think of it as Madison Avenue meets State Road A1A. Writers from the hit TV series "Mad Men" are working on a potential TV series that would focus on the space program of the 1960s and the journalists who covered it. The working title of the program is "Cocoa Beach." If it comes to fruition, the series could debut as early as this fall. Cocoa Beach Mayor Dave Netterstrom said he was told about the show by Space Coast Film Commissioner Bonnie King. "Hopefully, it happens," Netterstrom said. "It would be super-cool. We're trying to positively develop our brand and our image. We want to let people know we're a cool place to visit and a cool place to live."

Mad Men in Space? Writers Pitch Show About NASA in the '60s

Rachel Edidin - Wired.com

Florida Today reported Monday that writers from the hit TV series Mad Men are pitching a new show: a look at the early days of the U.S. space program through the eyes of the journalists who covered it. It's a rich premise, especially in the Mad Men era: the 1960s were bookended by the first manned spaceflights in 1961 and the Apollo 11 Moon landing in 1969. Wired spoke to Space Coast Film Commissioner Bonnie King, who emphasized that the show is far from a done deal, and is only one of several film projects currently in consideration for filming in the region. Among other factors, King is still searching for appropriate locations.
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COMPLETE STORIES

Russian cargo ship launched on station resupply flight
Engineers troubleshoot rendezvous antenna issue

William Harwood - CBS News

An unmanned Russian cargo ship loaded with 3.1 tons of supplies, spare parts and science gear blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Wednesday and set off on a two-day flight to rendezvous and dock with the International Space Station.

The Progress M-19M/51P spacecraft, perched atop a Soyuz-U rocket, took off from its Baikonur launching pad at 6:12:16 a.m EDT (GMT-4; 4:12 p.m. local time), roughly the moment Earth's rotation carried the pad into the plane of the space station's orbit.

Climbing away through a blue sky dotted with low white clouds, the Soyuz rocket appeared to perform flawlessly and the Progress was released into its initial orbit just under nine minutes after liftoff. The spacecraft's two solar panels deployed a few moments later.

But Russian flight controllers said one of five KURS rendezvous system antennas failed to extend as expected.

The KURS system, used by both Progress and manned Soyuz spacecraft, measures differences in radar signal strength to home in on the space station. For Progress flights, the station crew also can take over manual control if necessary and remotely guide the spacecraft to docking.

"Progress made it safely into orbit ... and was able to deploy its solar arrays as planned," said Brandi Dean, NASA's mission control commentator at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. "One of the five sets of KURS automated rendezvous antennas seems to have not deployed as planned, however, and Russian flight controllers are currently assessing that situation."

She described the antenna in question is "a hemispherical antenna on the side of the body of the Progress."

"It's used to send and receive navigation information," she said. "Again, it's one of a total of five sets of antennas, it's not the only means the Progress has of docking with the International Space Station, but keeping an eye on that situation as Russian flight controllers troubleshoot."

The Russian space program has been testing single-day launch-to-docking rendezvous techniques in recent flights, but the Progress M-19M spacecraft was launched on a more traditional two-day trajectory, setting up a docking at the Zvezda command module's aft port around 8:26 a.m. Friday.

The spacecraft is loaded with 1,764 pounds of propellant, 105 pounds of oxygen and air, 926 pounds of water and 3,483 pounds of dry goods, including spare parts, life support system components and science gear.

Russians launch space station resupply ship

Justin Ray - SpaceflightNow.com

It was a throwback of sorts Wednesday as a Russian Progress cargo craft launched on a two-day track in pursuit of the International Space Station, reverting to the old rendezvous style instead of the six-hour sprints employed recently, but one of its navigation antennas did not immediately deploy.

Loaded with 3.1 tons of food, fuel and supplies, the freighter was boosted into orbit atop an unmanned Russian Soyuz booster from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 6:12 a.m. EDT (1012 GMT). The space station was located over the South Atlantic at the moment of launch.

The preliminary orbit was achieved after a nine-minute ascent provided by the three-stage rocket, and onboard commands were issued to unfurl the craft's communications and navigation antennas and extend two power-generating solar arrays that span 35 feet.

However, initial telemetry indicated one of the antennas for the KURS automated rendezvous system -- the hemispherical antenna on the side of the spacecraft -- did not immediately deploy as expected. Russian flight controllers are assessing the situation and any potential impacts.

The antenna in question is used for retrieving signals to determine the ship's orientation, and is one of five in the KURS package aboard the Progress.

A series of precise engine firings is scheduled over the next two days to guide the Progress toward a planned autopilot rendezvous with the station for docking Friday at 8:26 a.m. EDT (1226 GMT).

"Unlike its three predecessors, this Progress cargo craft is relegated to the typical two-day rendezvous because of the phasing and orbital mechanics associated with this launch date," NASA said.

The 24-foot long ship will attach itself to the aft port of the Zvezda service module, which became available last week when a previous Progress flew away to fly solo for daily thruster firings to help ground controllers in Russia calibrate radar systems before its eventual deorbiting into the South Pacific on Sunday.

Today's launch was known in the station's assembly matrix as Progress mission 51P. The spacecraft's formal Russian designation is Progress M-19M.

The craft will bring nearly three tons of supplies to the station. The "dry" cargo tucked aboard the Progress amounts to 3,483 pounds in the form of food, spare parts, life support gear and experiment hardware.

The refueling module carries 1,764 pounds of propellant for transfer into the Russian segment of the complex to feed the station's maneuvering thrusters. The vessel also has 926 pounds of water and 48 pounds of oxygen and 57 pounds of air.

The space station is staffed by the Expedition 35 crew of commander Chris Hadfield from the Canadian Space Agency, NASA's Tom Marshburn and Chris Cassidy and Russian cosmonauts Roman Romanenko, Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin.

The cosmonauts will be standing by Friday to take over manual control of the approaching Progress spacecraft if the autopilot experiences a problem. They spent time Thursday checking out the backup system.

Sequestration cuts in 2014 put NASA timetable in peril

Ledyard King - Florida Today

NASA's agenda of missions beyond low-Earth orbit would face delays if the federal government has to weather another year of sequestration spending cuts, a top agency official told a Senate panel Tuesday.

A flight to corral an asteroid and explore it in 2021 as well as a crewed journey to Mars sometime during the 2030s — which some critics say isn't soon enough — are among projects that would be pushed back by continued budget-trimming, William Gerstenmaier, NASA's chief of human exploration, told members of a Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation subcommittee.

If the forced budget cuts remain in effect during fiscal 2014, which begins Oct. 1, "we can't deliver the programs that we committed to you that we would deliver," Gerstenmaier said.

"We can tolerate the (fiscal) 2013 sequester because we're prepared," he told members of the Science and Space Subcommittee. "But if it continues into '14, the programs and timetables I described, I don't believe we can continue to support it. This is really going to be tough for us moving forward."

The automatic cuts that began March 1 were agreed to under a 2011 deal Congress brokered with the White House to avoid defaulting on the national debt. Under its terms, deep cuts in domestic and defense programs would continue through fiscal 2021 unless Congress rescinds them.

Despite criticisms by both Democrats and Republicans, no compromise has yet been reached.

Sequestration already has slashed several hundred million dollars from NASA's budget. The agency earlier this month proposed a $17.7 billion budget for fiscal 2014 that would fund the asteroid mission, the Space Launch System and Orion vehicle for a Mars trip and other high-profile programs. That budget assumes Congress will find a way to avoid sequestration.

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., who chaired Tuesday's subcommittee hearing, said lawmakers will find a way to do that because Americans are increasingly exasperated.

"When people start waiting at an airport for three hours, when people start realizing that starving children are not getting their nutrition, when senior citizens are not getting their Meals on Wheels, there's going to be an outcry," he said after the hearing. "And eventually this nonsense of sequestration is going to get eliminated."

Putin Visits Vostochny, Discusses Future of Russian Space Program

Doug Messier - Parabolic Arc

Russian President-for-Life Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin was in the Amur region on April 12 to view construction progress at the new Vostochny spaceport, name its support city after Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, announce the commitment of $50 million to the space program through 2020, talk to the astronauts aboard the International Space Station, and lay out the future and challenges ahead for the nation's space program.

Vostochny — which is now apparently being referred to as Baikonur East — and its adjoining city are being built on nine sites on 1,000 square kilometers of land in the Amur region. Plans call for the first unmanned rockets to launch in 2015, followed by the crewed in 2018. By 2020, the complex will be completed and be ready for the launch of heavy-lift rockets.

The following compilation includes comments that Putin made during a meeting on the future of the space industry and a call he made to the space station crew. I've added subheadings to make it easier to read.

"I note that in 2013, funding for space programs in Russia amounted to about 181 billion rubles [$5.73 billion], an increase compared to 2008 of more than three times. Of the total amount of allocated funds, we are in third place in the world after the United States and a united Europe, and for the average annual growth in state funding of such programs are ahead of the leading space powers almost five times. It is also possible to complete the deployment of the GLONASS system to fulfill all obligations for the creation and operation of the International Space Station."

On the Size of the Space Market

"Experts estimate that in the next few years, the demand for space in the world of production, joint research will grow steadily. If today, the market is 300-400 billion dollars by 2030 it could rise to $ 1.5 trillion. And, of course, we must take full advantage of this window of opportunity, the more we have, as I said, very good positions that have been created by earlier generations of researchers, engineers and technicians and workers. I note that from 2013 to 2020 for space activities within the relevant state programs should be allocated about a trillion 600 billion rubles. In this case, again, the emphasis should be on the most promising applications of scientific and technological areas."

Coasting on Soviet-era Accomplishments

"Certainly, there are a number of unresolved issues that impede the development of the industry. They have accumulated over the years when the country was not able to put in space and was forced to exploit the Soviet reserve, since it was quite serious, powerful, has allowed us to maintain a strong position. So, on the Russian carrier rocket "Proton" and "Soyuz" and other missiles runs about 35-40 percent of the world launches today. Yet much of the rocket-space equipment significantly out of date, more than 80 percent of the used of electronic components produced abroad. In fact, there are no incentives and mechanisms for innovative development of the industry….

"Regarding incentives. Of course, they should be: for all those who work in the industry, and for your agency."

Rebuilding the Space Industry

"The second key problem – it's accelerated development of applied areas of the Russian space. You know, for a long time, priority was given to us manned projects. Over the years they spent between 40 to 58 percent of the budget of the space program, often to the detriment of other areas. As a result, we are lagging behind the world level in a number of areas, for example, by means of remote sensing, systems, personal satellite communications, recording and saving objects in distress, and so on. Noticeable gap between the leading space powers formed here and in technologies that offer the program of development of so-called deep space. Of course, we have to keep everything that has been accumulated in the manned part, but we need to pull up other areas that I just mentioned.

"The third basic problem – is the realization of promising projects in the field of rockets and new spacecraft for various purposes, as well as the development and production of rocket engines, which power an order of magnitude to exceed existing capacity.

"Particular emphasis should be placed on the development of the technological base to ensure the production of world-class space vehicles, as well as to create conditions for enterprises – space system operators applied purposes.

"The fourth priority – is increasing the group of spacecraft in orbit. Today, the Russian group of socio-economic purpose is noticeably inferior to the respective groups of other space powers."

Recruiting a New Generation of Workers

"The fifth challenge. In the space sector to actively attract new scientists and engineers, especially, of course, talented young people, and for this to create the necessary conditions for professional growth, to provide decent wages and social conditions, to develop a system of research grants, by the way, and in the East. Today, we spoke with [Deputy Prime Minister] Dmitry O. [Rogozin], I ask the Government to keep that in mind. It should be a platform not only for missile launches, it should be a research center, where we have to create a comfortable environment in which people live, of course, should be a good medical center, as I said, scientific, sporting, cultural and entertainment, so that people felt safe there and wanted to work there, tried to come back to work.

"Rocket and space industry, as I have said, and we know it well, refers to knowledge-intensive industries. Therefore, special attention should be paid to the composition of scientific workers with advanced degrees."

Restructuring the Space Industry

"And finally, one more fundamental problem. We need to determine the structure of management by the industry itself, which would allow us to achieve our goals. Of course, we have the appropriate structures exist, but we always have recently talked about the need to improve these structures. Let's talk about that today, too. Work in this direction is underway. I beg to report, what are the suggestions so that we can discuss them and take appropriate action.

"Two words literally. The first – With regard to the structure. We have ministries that do not have the complex, which these agencies lead. Some ministries are almost solely a technique or a method. In the space sector, almost all belong to the state, or the state has a controlling stake. Therefore, in general, I do not rule that out, but I ask Dmitry Rogozin, Chairman of the Government, all the Government to think about it again. Basically, do not rule out that there could be a ministry. But in the first step should, of course, properly complement. It's quite obvious."

About Vostochny & the City of Tsiolkovsky

"I think that the new city will be built here and not just a launch site, not just a platform for launch – there will be built a research center and a city. I think if we are after advice from the locals call the city of the future – Tsiolkovsky, it will be correct….

"But it will just be possible with this platform, from this spaceport. I mean, what is planned launches of heavy and extra-heavy missiles. That is what will largely focus the activities of the launch site in the future. This is the case, as I said, deep-space exploration of the Moon, Mars and other objects. From here we plan to do it.

"It will not only pads, there will be research center. I think that we will have to move here, to some extent, assembly, because it is a large loads are known. Here, I hope everything will be in order to develop at least a significant part of the Russian space in this part of the country."

On the Siting of Vostochny

"Site selection took place quite carefully. A special group was created by me at the time. We looked at a number of venues, including on the shores of the Pacific Ocean. But, based on the experience of our U.S. partners, who have the use of Cape Canaveral make big breaks due to weather conditions, the choice in the end we had made in respect of the areas where we were today. This favorable weather conditions: there are about 300 sunny days a year, this is a well-developed and has prospects of infrastructure, and it's geography. By location is situated almost at the latitude of Baikonur. We today with Vladimir Alexandrovich [Popovkin] said, the difference is only around half a degree. Therefore the place is very good."

Cosmonauts May Carry Olympic Torch and 'Flame' on Spacewalk

Robert Pearlman - collectSPACE.com

Russia may shift its rocket launch and spacewalk schedule to send the torch — and maybe even the flame — for next year's Olympics to the International Space Station (ISS), according to Russia's federal space agency and local media reports.

Set to host the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi on the Black Sea coast, Russia plans to launch the traditional Olympic torch relay later this year on Oct. 7. As the flame passes between runners in 2,900 towns and cities spread across the country, a replica of the torch and perhaps an imitation of its flame will lift off on a Soyuz spacecraft with the next crew members for the space station.

"No decision has been made so far whether an imitation of the Olympic flame or a torch without fire would be moved into outer space," a source in Russia's rocket industry told the Interfax-AVN news service. "No member of the state commission will assume responsibility for moving an open flame close to the Soyuz spacecraft or the ISS."

Flame or no flame, Russia's space agency Roscosmos is planning to do more than deliver the torch to the orbiting outpost, a feat that has been achieved before. The idea is to have cosmonauts carry the torch outside the station on a spacewalk prior to it returning to Earth.

According to the Interfax report, the Olympic torch will be "moved into open space" by cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazansky, who will arrive at the space station in late September.

To choreograph the orbital torch relay, Roscosmos and its International Space Station partners, including NASA, will need to agree on adjustments to the schedule of launches and spacewalks.

To deliver the lit or unlit torch to the space complex, the planned Nov. 25 liftoff of Soyuz TMA-11M would need to launch almost three weeks earlier on Nov. 7. Roscosmos cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, NASA's Rick Mastracchio and Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata would fly to the space station with the torch.

The spacewalk, which would include other, more routine maintenance tasks for the two cosmonauts to complete in addition to carrying the torch, would then take place during the brief time between the arrival of Soyuz TMA-11M and the departure of Soyuz TMA-09M.

Under the proposed plan, Roscosmos cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg and European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Luca Parmitano will stay in space at least a day longer than originally scheduled to return to Earth with the torch on Nov. 11.

The torch's handoff between crews would also result in a short period when nine people would be aboard the space station, a departure from what has in recent years become the norm for crew changes, when the prior crew of three would leave before the next crew arrives.

One of the key symbols of the Games, the torch for the 2014 Sochi Olympics was designed by a team of famous Russian designers and engineers. The aluminum and red torch — red being the traditional color of Russian sports — was crafted to evoke the feathers of a Phoenix, which folklore says brings good fortune and happiness.

How the torches on the ground — there are 14,000 being produced — will differ from the one launching into space, and how the flame will be simulated or safely achieved in orbit, if it is flown, has yet to be released.

If approved, the torch's trip will mark the second time the Olympic torch has arrived aboard the International Space Station. In May 2000, the space shuttle Atlantis launched the STS-101 mission to the orbiting outpost with a replica of the Sydney Summer Olympics torch.

Four years earlier on shuttle Columbia's STS-78 mission, the crew carried an unlit torch into orbit and then took part in the ground-based torch relay soon after landing back on Earth.

The Olympic flame, without the torch, also made its way through space in the form of an electric signal. As part of the 1976 relay, the flame was sent from Greece to Ottawa via satellite. Heat sensors in Greece detected the flame, the signal was transmitted overseas and a laser beam lit the torch.

MARS plans more launches, seeks more space customers

Tamara Dietrich - Hampton Roads Daily Press

With the Antares rocket successfully launched, Virginia's spaceport on Wallops Island is busy drumming up more commercial space customers — they just can't say who.

"Because we signed non-disclosures with organizations, we're not at liberty to discuss who they are and what they're doing," said Zigmond Leszczynski, deputy executive director of the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority (VCSFA). "Needless to say, we think there's a lot of potential there."

The VCSFA owns and operates the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, or MARS, located at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on the Eastern Shore. On Sunday, as state leaders and the head of NASA looked on, the 68-year-old facility launched its most powerful rocket ever in a test to determine if it can boost a cargo ship to the International Space Station. Only one other privately held company — SpaceX — has done so.

After two earlier launch attempts got scrubbed, Sunday's went seamlessly. Now VCSFA intends to leverage that success.

"Success tends to breed success in the business world," Leszczynski said.

Rocket-maker Orbital Sciences Corp. designed and built the medium-class Antares to fulfill a $1.9 billion NASA contract for eight resupply missions to the space station through 2016. But the Dulles-based space technology company has four more missions slated to fly out of MARS this year.

"No time to rest on laurels," said Orbital spokesman Barron Beneski.

•In late June or early July, Orbital is slotted for a demonstration flight of the Antares with the Cygnus cargo ship, which will attempt to dock with the space station. Sunday's test flight carried only a simulation of the ship.

"We're pretty far ahead of the game on Cygnus," Beneski said. "The spacecraft itself is already packed with cargo. It is fueled, it is integrated."

The craft sits in storage while a second Antares is assembled. The June/July timeframe, Beneski said, is the earliest intersection between when "we're likely to be ready and the International Space Station is ready to receive us."

•Then in August, Orbital's new Minotaur V is expected to send a science orbiter to the moon.

NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, or LADEE, will study the fragile lunar atmosphere and test out new technology, including a modular spacecraft bus and a method of communicating using lasers rather than radio signals.

If the lunar atmosphere is to be studied in its relatively natural state before it's disturbed by human activity, NASA says, now's the time.

"It's a really important mission because a lot of countries are looking to go to the moon," Leszczynski said. "And this demonstrates that NASA can conduct a science mission on a smaller vehicle. A smaller launch vehicle keeps the cost down, but you can still get really good science out of it."

The Minotaur V is a five-stage, solid-fuel launch vehicle based on the Peacekeeper intercontinental ballistic missile. Beneski didn't know its exact dimensions, but said it's smaller than the 132-foot Antares.

•At some point, Beneski said, an even smaller Minotaur I rocket will launch an Air Force satellite into orbit.

•Finally, in the third or fourth quarter of the year, he said, Orbital expects to launch an Antares with a Cygnus cargo ship in its first official space station resupply mission.

Gov. Bob McDonnell and other state leaders expect MARS to begin luring more highly skilled, high-paying aerospace jobs to the commonwealth. Only three other states are licensed to launch into orbit — Florida, California and Alaska — but officials are counting on MARS' uncongested launch schedule, the state's generous tax incentives and NASA's onsite expertise to give the commonwealth an edge in competing for a limited number of commercial space customers.

"It's a tough business," Leszczynski said. "It is rocket science."

Volunteers wanted for one-way ticket to Mars
Dutch company seeks applicants to travel to Red Planet - but without offering return ticket

Al Jazeera

Mars One, a Dutch company, has begun its search for volunteers to fly and live on the red planet - but it's a one-way trip.

At a press conference in New York City on Monday, the company's CEO Bas Lansdorp announced an open call for anyone to apply for the flight, knowing that they will never be able to return home. The mission will be one-way only because there currently is no technology that would enable a return trip from Mars to Earth.

"Today, the Mars One foundation starts the search for Mars inhabitants. The search for people from all nations who want to settle on Mars. Mars One is a nonprofit organisation that is working on landing the first crew on Mars in 2023 and another crew every two years after that," he said.

The plan, Lansdorp explained, is to send four astronauts to Mars with the goal of establishing a permanent human colony.

Takeoff, landing and various parts of the mission will be streamed on the internet, and viewed by 4bn people, according to Lansdorf's estimate. Anyone can apply for the mission, though there is an application fee that will go towards the estimated $6 billion required to fund the mission.

Applicants must be between 18-40 years of age and in good physical condition. Good people and survival skills and reasonable grasp of the English language are also required.

Mars One plans to train the team for seven years before the flight, which will take seven months to reach the red planet.

Asked if he thinks it is ethical to send people on a one way journey to Mars, Lansdorp called the mission "idealistic" and "something that can truly change the Earth."

Two males and two females

The Netherlands-based non-profit plans to send new missions thereafter every two years, with the second crew joining in 2025.

Each flight will carry two males and two females, but Lansdorp said Mars One was not requiring anyone to take fertility tests.

"These people will be living on Mars in a very small environment with just four people. It will be a dangerous environment and any prospective parent should always ask themselves is this the right time and place for me to have children," he said. "These are responsible people that we are sending to Mars."

The biggest challenge Lansdorp foresees is gathering and maintaining funding for the mission.

When they arrive on Mars, Lansdorp explained that there will be a habitable settlement already there. The living quarters will be prepared by robotic missions that go to the red planet ahead of the astronauts.

The living quarters will have exercise equipment and will be wired so the astronauts can communicate with family members on Earth via internet and a technology similar to Skype - albeit with delays that could be anywhere from six to 20 minutes long.

They will also have internet and television access.

The organisation said it had already received inquiries from 10,000 prospective applicants in more than 100 countries.

Flying high: The career path that sent George Abbey soaring from his maternal home in Laugharne to Nasa
Nasa's former director of the Johnson Space Centre reveals his part in history, including making Wales the most photographed country from space and sending Dylan Thomas into orbit

Kirstie McCrum - WalesOnline

Space has never had a problem capturing the imagination. The deep velvety blackness with its canopy of twinkling stars and even brighter planets grips most of us from a very young age, before we really understand what it means to travel into that final frontier and discover its secrets.

George Abbey was just like that as a child. Gazing skyward for a hint about what lay beyond our world, he determined to find out – a decision which took him from his home in Seattle to working for Nasa and then to the highest levels of government in the White House.

Now 80, Abbey is lined up to speak on Thursday at the third annual Richard Burton Lecture in Swansea University's Faraday Theatre. Organised by Richard Burton Centre director Dr Daniel Williams, it's a talk that will no doubt inform and entertain, where Abbey will share his personal highlights from the space programme and reveal why, under his watch, Wales became the most photographed nation from space.

The one-time director of Nasa research hub, the Johnson Space Centre, Abbey defines himself "Welsh-American". His mother, Bridget Gibby, came from Laugharne in Carmarthenshire; she was working in London when she met George's father, Sam Abbey, and the couple married before moving to Seattle, where George was born on August 21, 1932.

"My mother was born in Laugharne, but she moved to London when she was young.

"During World War I she met my father, a Canadian airman who was wounded in France and came to recuperate in London. After the war, they moved to Canada and then in the 1920s moved down to the United States of America," recalls their son.

"My oldest brother was born in Wales during World War I, but the rest of us were born in Seattle.

"There was a very strong Welsh feeling in our home because my mother spoke Welsh.

"There's a large Welsh community in Seattle too so she was able to maintain her roots. She had four sisters and they corresponded all the time so she kept up to date on activities in Wales and ended up getting back to visit about once a year."

Abbey's desire to pay tribute to his Welsh roots meant he even developed a love for Dylan Thomas' work.

"Dylan's works have always had great meaning to me and I've always felt a close relationship with Laugharne and the cottage. My mother played in the area around the cottage growing up and a cousin, Dick Lewis, the milkman in Laugharne, was a very close friend of Dylan's and (wife) Caitlin's. They used to drink together every afternoon at Brown's Hotel in Laugharne and Dick was a pallbearer at the funeral.

"He is mentioned in Dylan's works as 'Dick the Milk', so the ties are really close and lasting."

A long way from Thomas' bucolic paradise, growing up in urban Seattle was nonetheless perfect for a boy with his eyes turned to the skies, as it was home to the Boeing Airplane Company which a young Abbey found endlessly fascinating.

He saw his three older brothers go off to serve their country during World War II but he himself was still just 13 years old by the time the war came to a close in 1945.

After graduating from high school, he received a Congressional appointment to the United States Naval Academy where he excelled in engineering.

"When I got out of the Naval Academy, I went into the US Air Force to fly – I had been flying for a couple of years when Sputnik came along," he remembers.

The first artificial earth satellite, Sputnik was launched by the Soviet Union in 1957. As well as heralding the Space Race, its arrival had a mammoth impact on the then 25 year old, who found himself drawn to the research and development aspects of vehicle performance.

In 1959, he received a masters degree in electrical engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology.

"After graduate school the Air Force wanted me to get involved with research and development in space, which was exactly what I wanted to do, so I got involved in the Air Force space programme on a spacecraft called Dyna-Soar."

An early effort for a space shuttle-type programme, the Dyna-Soar programme ran from October 1957 to December 1963.

Abbey worked with the programme as a liaison with aviation giants Boeing until its cancellation, but there were new challenges afoot.

"In 1961, President Kennedy announced that we were going to go to the moon, and I got assigned to work directly on the moon programme."

Of course, it was a race to get there and Abbey found himself at the forefront of an exciting decade in space discovery.

In 1964, he was assigned to Nasa as an Air Force Captain to work as the military liaison to the Apollo programme, and he began to work with the early astronauts.

"The Nasa programme needed experienced people and I had the kind of background they wanted. At that time Sputnik had gone up and then (cosmonaut) Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space in 1961 and then Alan Shepard became the first American in space a month later, and then John Glenn flew about eight months after that (both as part of Project Mercury) so it was a very exciting time.

"The Soviet Union was doing all kinds of great things in space and we were trying to catch up."

As the Apollo programme progressed, Abbey became the technical assistant to the programme manager, George Low, and was on the scene for all the Apollo launches.

Working with the technology and management of a large part of the space programme was as good as a dream come true for Abbey – almost.

Because although he loved his work, he was still dreaming of what lay above and seized his chance when it came.

"I wanted to be an astronaut, so I applied through the Air Force as soon as I was eligible and met the requirements. Then the Air Force decided they would put another requirement over and above the Nasa requirement, so my name didn't get passed on to Nasa and I never got to be an astronaut.

"If I hadn't been in the Air Force, I think I would have stood a good chance," he reveals.

The various Apollo expeditions have become part of the lore of human exploration of outer space, but for Abbey, these other-worldly missions were his working life.

Working towards launching a mission to the moon meant many highs and, inevitably, lows.

Abbey remembers Apollo 1 with sadness. Scheduled to be the first mission of the manned lunar landing programme, it had a target launch date of February 21, 1967.

But during a launch pad test on January 27 at Cape Canaveral, a fire killed all three crew members – command pilot Virgil 'Gus' Grissom, senior pilot Edward H White and pilot Roger B Chaffee – and destroyed the command module.

"We were doing a countdown demonstration test in preparation for the launch of the spacecraft. The three astronauts participated in the test, and there was a spark and it ignited flammable material inside the spacecraft and all three lost their lives.

"We made major changes after that. We designed the hatch for exiting the spacecraft and we developed a whole host of new materials that we could use that would not be flammable and would be self-extinguishing.

"We hadn't lost any astronauts before that and I think it was quite a shock to everyone. We became much more sensitive to the risk and to the idea that we had to be right all the time and there was no margin for error. We made major changes after that."

The lessons learned from Apollo 1 carried them through successful trials when they started flying again.

"In December 1968 we flew Apollo 8 on a mission to the moon and it, of course, was successful."

On December 24, in what was the most-watched television broadcast at the time, the crew of the first manned lunar mission Apollo 8 – commander Frank Borman, command module pilot James Lovell, and lunar module pilot William Anders – read from the Book of Genesis as they orbited the moon.

"The mission flew with television cameras so we actually could see the astronauts in orbit and watch what they did.

"As they read the scriptures, they were showing the pictures of the moon. No one had seen the moon close up like that before, so Being Christmas Eve and reading from the scriptures altogether made it a very moving occasion."

Working closely with other engineers and astronauts, Abbey forged strong friendships with his colleagues.

"You got to know the people quite well and they were dependent on you as they flew their missions and we were dependent on them to do their job right and so you established a pretty close relationship."

After Apollo 8, the next mission in March 1969 saw them go back to do another orbit of the moon and then in May they tried again, making a descent but stopping short of landing with Apollo 10, a 'dry run' for the moon landing.

"Those missions were both successful and then we finally flew Apollo 11 which we landed on the moon for the first time in July.

"We'd been building up to it and to see it finally unfold was a real high point for everyone."

Apollo 11 was the flight that landed the first humans – Americans Neil Armstrong and Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin, as well as onboard command pilot Mike Collins – on the moon on July 20, 1969.

Broadcast on live TV to a worldwide audience, Armstrong famously stepped onto the lunar surface and described the event as "one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind". Apollo 11 effectively ended the Space Race and fulfilled the goal proposed in 1961 by President Kennedy.

After Apollo 11 came Apollo 12, the second mission where astronauts walked on the moon, which saw them set up experiments and collect samples; then came Apollo 13, which was aborted due to an onboard explosion, but which mercifully resulted in no fatalities. The flight was commanded by James A Lovell with John L 'Jack' Swigert and Fred W Haise, and was later dramatised in the film Apollo 13 starring Tom Hanks as Jim Lovell.

Although he doesn't appear as a character in the film, Abbey was a member of the operations team presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award, in 1970 by President Nixon for its role in support of the Apollo 13 mission.

"Each mission was very exciting and before the Apollo programme ended, we actually got the Space Shuttle programme started. The final lunar mission Apollo 17 landed in December 1972 and a few months later we flew the Skylab into orbit and we sent crew on three missions there."

Skylab was the USA's first space station launched and operated by Nasa, orbiting the earth from 1973 to 1979.

In 1976, Abbey was named director of flight operations and made responsible for all Space Shuttle operational planning.

But while he was working hard at the office, he was also being kept busy at home.

"I was married and had five children, and then I got divorced back during the early days of the shuttle programme so I raised the family myself because the children – two girls and three boys – came with me.

"When they were growing up, all the children they went to school with had fathers who were involved with the space programme too – they were astronauts or engineers, so my job wasn't strange, it was sort of normal to them. I think as they've grown older they realise, but they didn't think about it back then.

"Astronauts were their Boy Scout leaders; when they went camping they had astronauts there with them, so it was a normal thing," he laughs.

Abbey's position as director gave him responsibility for everything associated with flight operations, right down to the astronauts.

"We ran a selection programme and had a criteria that would-be astronauts had to meet. They came to Houston and we would interview them and they would undergo medical tests then we selected the best.

"We were fortunate and had a number of outstanding astronauts."

At the time, the Space Station programme started and the focus of Abbey and his team was on research.

"We wanted to make sure we understood how the human body would react for long duration flights, to go back to the moon initially and also to do manned flights to Mars."

Abbey was keen to make sure that there was a Welsh angle to the space flights.

"On a visit to Wales, I told the people in Laugharne at Dylan Thomas' cottage that I would arrange to fly a memento of Dylan's in space aboard the Space Shuttle. They gave me a very treasured photograph, probably fully expecting to never see it again.

"I arranged to have it flown and returned it to them with the authentication of its flight to space. The return of the photo was covered by the newspapers – I would expect it's on display at the cottage in Laugharne today.

"If the weather was good, I also usually tried to get the astronauts as they flew to get a picture of Wales because of my Welsh roots.

"We had regular pictures, but if it was real cloudy that day they wouldn't be able to do it. When we started flying on the higher inclinations, particularly on the space station with the Russians, we were able to get some better pictures of Wales because we flew over it more regularly and they could wait for the weather to improve."

Although he'd been involved heavily in all of the previous programmes he worked on, the Space Shuttle programme was in some ways even more special to him.

"I picked the crews that flew and so I had a very close relationship to each of the missions and was involved in the design and in making changes to the shuttle, improving it and making it a better vehicle. I have great memories of that time and the successes we had, and also unfortunately the accidents that we had – they stay with you as well."

One of the big incidents which tore the heart out of the Space Shuttle programme was the Challenger disaster.

On January 28, 1986, Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, leading to the deaths of its seven crew members.

"Challenger was an accident that didn't need to happen. I took the astronauts out to the launch pad before they flew and I was with the families right after it happened. For me, it emphasised that you've got to be right in what you're doing and there is no margin for error. You've got to be sensitive that when the physics tells you that you have a problem, you need to do something about it, you can't just wish it away.

"Unfortunately we had people who weren't sensitive to that and it caused us to lose a crew and a shuttle. We went back again and re-emphasized what we learned in Apollo when we lost those three astronauts on the pad – namely that you still have to pay attention to detail and you've got to do things right."

The changes that were made following the Challenger disaster saw George move to Washington DC in 1988 where he was made a director at Nasa Headquarters.

"In the Office of Space Flight I had responsibility over the Johnson Space Centre, the Kennedy Space Centre and the Marshall Space Flight Centre and then I went over to work at the White House on the Space Council as director of civil space in 1991. There I worked for President George HW Bush and Vice President Quayle, who was head of the Space Council."

Although away from the engineering cut and thrust, Abbey's career move saw him becoming involved in decisions at the very highest level.

"I look back on that and it was a very enjoyable part of my career. It was an opportunity to make inputs and get things underway.

"We were successful I think in getting the space station redesigned and then also bringing Russia in as a partner, so I look back on that as something that turned out to be a very good thing and I feel good about the part I played."

In 1995, Abbey was named the director of the Johnson Space Centre in Houston, where he stayed until 2001.

"I was in charge of the shuttle and the station programme so I had to make all the decisions relative to the shuttle and the station. I enjoyed it.

"It was a busy time because the station was behind schedule and they had all kinds of problems, so we had to get into a lot of the details and make sure that they got resolved and we got back on track.

"We were working with the Russians, the Europeans, the Japanese and the Canadians in establishing the efforts that led to the International Space Station success, so it was very rewarding."

Since leaving Nasa, Abbey has continued to lead efforts in cooperative exploration of space.

He currently works five days a week at Rice University in Houston as a Fellow in Space Policy at the James A Baker Institute.

"I got an opportunity to get involved in the group which can influence public policy in space, and science and technology. It gave me a chance to continue to grow and get involved in areas I had not worked in before so it's been a learning experience for me.

"I've really enjoyed it, plus I've been able to stay actively involved in space activities."

He dismisses thoughts of retiring, and regularly travels to lecture.

A life that has been committed to the advancement of space science means that he's one of the stars of that world, albeit one with a name who doesn't feature in any of the big screen adaptations of outer space's story.

In some ways, his work has given him assured status in that world – but unlike Glenn, Armstrong et al, his name is not immediately likely to inspire schoolchildren to dream of space travel, a regret that has stayed with him.

"I think the astronauts I helped send up knew that I was there with them in heart. As the missions flew I was involved in every aspect, so we related exactly to what happened.

"Of course I've had the opportunity to see the pictures and all, but pictures probably don't do justice to being there yourself – so they tell me, and I'm sure that's true."

Where the longhorn roam at NASA

Y.C. Orozco - Bay Area Citizen (Houston Community Newspapers)

While their names may not be as familiar, Trident and Magic carry as much historical significance between them that guarantees a place at Johnson Space Center.

While not as sleek and eye-catching as The Saturn V or any other of the number of NASA artifacts kept at JSC and the adjacent Rocket Park, the two steers fit right in.

They are just two of the several dozen longhorns that graze the field next to JSC as part of the Longhorn Space Center Project.

In 1996, then Johnson Space Center (JSC) Director George W. S. Abbey was looking for a way to integrate NASA's place in the region's history with Texas' cattle ranch tradition.

"He actually found an old picture of longhorns that used to roam within this area," said CCISD Ag-science manager Jennifer Edenfield. "He thought it would be a great idea to bring the natural history of Texas cattle to NASA."

He also wanted NASA to become a more tactile presence in the community. The JSC Longhorn Project would be designed to do both.

With the help of the Texas Longhorn Breeders Association of America and the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, the sixty acres of land next to JSC is a neutral zone where longhorns like Trident and Magic are free to live out their lives. Students get an opportunity to raise their steer and show at livestock shows throughout the state.

With NASA maintaining the grounds and anything having to do with the animals' well-being, the classrooms are operated by CCISD.

"The trophy steers that are donated by the breeders will live out their life here at NASA," Edenfield. "Once they pass on, the breeders have an agreement that they will donate the horns to the JSC."

In 2004, the project was expanded into a CCISD science curriculum to include seventh graders.

"Every seventh grade student goes through the Longhorn Project within their science class," Edenfield said.

Every year, over 3,000 learn about the history of the longhorn, the genetics of the longhorn as well as getting a hands-on opportunity to feed and take care of the trophy steers.

"A lot of them have never done that -they've never seen an animal first hand," Edenfield said.

Eleven of the 16 students currently participating in the Longhorn Project will show their animal at shows throughout the state at regional livestock shows.

Those show steer are provided to the students by members of the Texas Longhorn Breeders Association of America.

Between 30 and 40 steer live on the JSC land, 11 of those belong to the show team. Grand champions are an unpredictable and often mysterious class unto themselves.

The curvature of the horns, the color pattern, body confirmation – the criteria is a constantly shifting goal.

"One of the hardest things to get the kids to understand is that one day that animal can be grand champion and the next day it can be dead last in its class," said Edenfield.

Edenfield grew up in suburban Texas, but was drawn into agricultural science through her grandfather and father.

Through the JSC Longhorn Project, she now wants to bridge that gap for Clear Creek ISD students.

"They didn't grow up in your traditional farming rural area, they grew up in an urban area and it was something they got involved with in high school, they fell in love with it and they're living their dream," Edenfield said.

While they don't all pursue careers in agriculture, the challenges of raising a show animal is a life lesson, said Edenfield, and the rewards are encompassing, for teacher and student.

"Every ag teacher is different, and there is a rhyme and a reason to our (teacher's) madness and they may not understand it now, but they will eventually," she said. "When they get it, they've got it. And that is probably the most gratifying."

SpaceX's Elon Musk and friends look to the far future: Engage warp drive!

Alan Boyle - NBCNews.com's Cosmic Log

What will the far future look like? For actor Will Smith and his son Jaden, the next generation could mark a "tipping point" for the environment. For futurist Ray Kurzweil, solar power is the solution to our energy ills. But for a look at the really far future, turn to Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of SpaceX and Tesla Motors. He's already thinking about spreading out from Earth to other planets — and engaging the warp drive to get to other star systems.

"There's some potential, even though it sounds science-fictiony, for warp drive to work," Musk said on Tuesday during a Google+ Hangout to publicize "After Earth," Smith's upcoming movie. "Technically, to warp space such that you're traveling at the speed of light, but you've warped space so that space is actually traveling."

Musk was referring to recent studies updating the "Star Trek" conception of warp travel, in which a whole region of the space-time continuum zips along at faster-than-light speeds. Researchers at NASA's Johnson Space Center say the idea isn't as crazy as it sounds, and they're trying to create space-time perturbations on a microscopic scale.

Even NASA Administrator Charles Bolden is on board: "One of these days, we want to get to warp speed," he said last September. "We want to go faster than the speed of light, and we don't want to stop at Mars."

Musk, however, sees Mars as a key stop on the path to turning humanity into a multiplanet species. "Either we're a spacefaring civilization, or we're going to be bound to Earth until some eventual extinction event," he said Tuesday.

All this meshes with the plot of "After Earth," in which Will and Jaden Smith play a father and son who find themselves back on Earth a millennium after cataclysmic events forced humanity to find refuge in a distant star system. The filmmakers organized the Hangout to give the Smiths as well as Musk, Kurzweil and environmentalist Alexandra Cousteau a chance to reflect on humanity's future. (It was also a chance to give the movie some publicity on the day "after Earth Day.")

'Mad Men' writers mull show about 1960s Cocoa Beach
Reporters, race to moon are focus

David Berman – Florida Today

Think of it as Madison Avenue meets State Road A1A.

Writers from the hit TV series "Mad Men" are working on a potential TV series that would focus on the space program of the 1960s and the journalists who covered it. The working title of the program is "Cocoa Beach." If it comes to fruition, the series could debut as early as this fall.

Cocoa Beach Mayor Dave Netterstrom said he was told about the show by Space Coast Film Commissioner Bonnie King.

"Hopefully, it happens," Netterstrom said. "It would be super-cool. We're trying to positively develop our brand and our image. We want to let people know we're a cool place to visit and a cool place to live."

King said this is one of a number of television and film projects she is trying to attract to the Space Coast. She is looking for a local building that could serve as a soundstage for this show, as well as for other television shows and movies.

King said the production team would need a 100,000-square-foot facility, ideally with a 50-foot-high ceiling, from July through March 2014. She said a 25- to 30-foot-high ceiling might work, though. The production team is applying for financial incentives from the state, which has programs to encourage film and television productions to choose Florida, she said.

Netterstrom said this television series will be unlike the 1965 to 1970 astronaut-themed television comedy "I Dream of Jeannie," which was set in Cocoa Beach, but was not filmed there.

Another TV series, "The Cape," was set and filmed in the Cocoa Beach area. The 1996-1997 show, which starred Corbin Bernsen, focused on the lives of space shuttle astronauts.

It was canceled after one season.

Mad Men in Space? Writers Pitch Show About NASA in the '60s

Rachel Edidin - Wired.com

Florida Today reported Monday that writers from the hit TV series Mad Men are pitching a new show: a look at the early days of the U.S. space program through the eyes of the journalists who covered it. It's a rich premise, especially in the Mad Men era: the 1960s were bookended by the first manned spaceflights in 1961 and the Apollo 11 Moon landing in 1969.

Wired spoke to Space Coast Film Commissioner Bonnie King, who emphasized that the show is far from a done deal, and is only one of several film projects currently in consideration for filming in the region. Among other factors, King is still searching for appropriate locations.

With luck, she'll find one because this is a show I want to see. What better foil for the romance of the Space Race than the tried-and-true formula of Mad Men: professionals standing on the fringes of the zeitgeist, racing to keep up with a culture while doing their best to define its momentum? While previous movies and TV series about NASA have focused mostly on astronauts, the early pioneers of space travel owe much of their legend to the reporters who eagerly followed them, spinning an intricate fantasy of space exploration at the peak of the Cold War.

The members of the Cocoa Beach press corps were colorful figures in their own right as well. LIFE magazine initially maintained an exclusive deal for up-close-and-personal access to the astronauts and their families, while the rest of the press jockeyed jealously for access to the titans of the Space Race. Some of them are now household names: Walter Cronkite claimed in a 2002 interview to owe part of his career to his extensive coverage of John Glenn's 1962 spaceflight.

Fifty years later, space exploration can still stir the public's imagination. Last August, more than 3.2 million people live-streamed the Curiosity Rover's descent to Mars (with another million tuning in on television).

According to King, the end of the Space Shuttle program has brought about renewed interest in NASA history from documentary filmmakers, although this is the first pitch for a related fiction project that she's recently entertained.

"Space is hot right now," NASA multimedia liaison Bert Ulrich told Wired. "We did over 100 documentaries in 2012" Ulrich credits much of the renewed interest in NASA to both the agency's command of social media–the Curiosity Rover has over a million Twitter followers–as well as an explosion in educational programming, especially from cable channels .

NASA also consulted on–and appeared in–summer blockbusters like Avengers and the Transformers movies; on the small screen, The Big Bang Theory recently featured a NASA storyline.

END

Keep the shuttle flying

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Fwd: Human Spaceflight News - April 24, 2013 and JSC Today

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