Fwd: Human Spaceflight News - April 9, 2013 and JSC Today

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Begin forwarded message:

From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: April 9, 2013 6:22:30 AM GMT-06:00
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: Human Spaceflight News - April 9, 2013 and JSC Today

 

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

 

JSC TODAY HEADLINES

1.            Learn about Flight Experiment Requirements

2.            Space Serenity Al-Anon Meeting Today

3.            Out & Allied @ JSC Employee Resource Group (ERG) Monthly Meeting

4.            This Week at Starport

5.            Starport's League Sports -- Summer Registration Filling Fast

6.            Starport Boot Camp -- Registration Now Open

7.            Women in STEM High School Aerospace Scholars Mentors Needed

8.            Superhero Flight Day

9.            IEEE Galveston Bay Section: Enabling Cyber-Physical Systems

10.          Lunarfins Scuba Club Open House

11.          RLLS Translation, Telecon and Flight Arrival Departure WebEx Training

12.          Confined Space Entry 8:30 a.m.; and Lockout/Tagout 1 p.m. -- May 17, Building 20, Room 205/206

________________________________________     NASA FACT

" Thanks to the Tomatosphere Project aboard ISS, 600,000 tomato seeds have been orbiting the Earth since July 2012. When the seeds return in May, students in the U.S. and Canada will plant them and observe their germination rates."

________________________________________

1.            Learn about Flight Experiment Requirements

Join the Human Systems Academy for a lecture that will cover the process and challenges in implementing human life sciences experiments aboard the International Space Station. It will specifically address the process for getting experiments selected for flight through the Human Research Program and explain how complements of human life sciences research are developed. It will also touch on some of the unique challenges in conducting human life sciences research in space.

For registration, please go to: https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=SCHEDULED_...

Event Date: Tuesday, April 23, 2013   Event Start Time:9:00 AM   Event End Time:10:00 AM

Event Location: B1/320

 

Add to Calendar

 

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

 

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2.            Space Serenity Al-Anon Meeting Today

"Think" reminds Al-Anon members to look at several angles before responding. Our 12-step meeting is for co-workers, families and friends of those who work or live with the family disease of alcoholism. We meet today, April 9, in Building 32, Room 146, from 11 to 11:45 a.m. Visitors, think about coming.

Event Date: Tuesday, April 9, 2013   Event Start Time:11:00 AM   Event End Time:11:55 AM

Event Location: Building 32, room 146

 

Add to Calendar

 

Employee Assistance x36130 http://sashare.jsc.nasa.gov/EAP/Pages/default.aspx

 

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3.            Out & Allied @ JSC Employee Resource Group (ERG) Monthly Meeting

All JSC team members -- government; contractor; Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT); and non-LGBT allies -- are invited to the Out & Allied @ JSC ERG monthly meeting tomorrow, April 10, from noon to 1 p.m. in Building 4S, Room 1200. The Out & Allied @ JSC team consists of LGBT employees and their allies (non-LGBT supporters). This month, we'll preview the ERG's "It Gets Better" video and discuss our June Pride month activities, as well as plans for future events, including luncheons and happy hours. Please join us, meet others and network! For more information about our group, including how to become involved, any listed Out & Allied member on our SharePoint site may be contacted via phone or email.

Event Date: Wednesday, April 10, 2013   Event Start Time:12:00 PM   Event End Time:1:00 PM

Event Location: Building 4S, room 1200

 

Add to Calendar

 

Steve Riley x37019 https://collaboration.ndc.nasa.gov/iierg/LGBTA/SitePages/Home.aspx

 

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4.            This Week at Starport

Discount tickets to the Houston Dynamo versus Sporting Kansas City game on May 12 are on sale for $20. Visit our website to order your tickets!

Show your support for an eco-friendly planet on Earth Day 2013 (April 22) with a NASA "Leading the Greening" Earth Day T-shirt from the Starport Gift Shops. Sizes Small through 4X are now available in Buildings 3 and 11 for just $16.50. Or, order online. Supplies are limited.

 Sam's Club will be in the Starport Cafés Thursday and Friday from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. to discuss membership options. Receive a gift card on new memberships or renewals. Cash or check only for membership purchases.

Tickets for the JSC Annual Picnic at SplashTown on April 28 are on sale now through April 19 for $33. Get your tickets before the price increases to $37!

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

 

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5.            Starport's League Sports -- Summer Registration Filling Fast

Registration is opening for all of Starport's popular league sports!

Registration closing soon:

o             Volleyball (Reverse 4s) | Monday evenings | Registration ends April 10

Registration now open:

o             Basketball | Wednesday evenings | Registration ends April 26

o             Dodgeball (Coed) | Thursday evenings | Registration ends April 22

o             Kickabll (Coed) | Monday evenings | Registration ends April 24

o             Softball (Men's) | Tuesdays and Wednesdays | Registration ends May 9

o             Softball (Coed) | Wednesdays and Thursdays | Registration ends May 16

o             Ultimate Frisbee (Coed) | Monday evenings | Registration ends May 1

o             Volleyball (Coed) | Tuesday evenings | Registration ends April 24

Registration Opening Soon

o             Soccer (Coed) | Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Saturdays | Registration May 1 to 23

Free-agent registration now open.

All participants must register online.

For more information, please contact the Gilruth information desk at 281-483-0304.

Steve Schade x30304 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/Fitness/Sports/index.cfm#SUMMER

 

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6.            Starport Boot Camp -- Registration Now Open

Starport's phenomenal boot camp registration is now open. 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 19 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 while it lasts. 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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7.            Women in STEM High School Aerospace Scholars Mentors Needed

Women in STEM High School Aerospace Scholars (WISH) is looking for JSC employees and student interns to work the on-site experience this summer. Mentors will have the opportunity to work with a team of students to help facilitate the group to complete research on deep space exploration and team projects. Mentor dates are:

o             June 23 to 28

o             July 7 to 12

Please visit the website to complete an application.

Maria Chambers 281-244-1496 http://wish.aerospacescholars.org/

 

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8.            Superhero Flight Day

They fly into the night, they test equipment in the early light and they're our heroes of human spaceflight! Are you one of these amazing ambassadors for human spaceflight? Help us celebrate our space he-roes/she-roes on International Human Space Flight Day. Space Center Houston is planning an out-of-this-world event on April 12 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., which will include presentations, demonstrations, celebrations and international dance performances. We are looking for volunteers to help lead activities and assist with presentations and demonstrations. Really want to help but can't stay the whole time? No problem! We will have shifts from 10 a.m. to noon and noon to 3 p.m. so that you can get back to your regularly schedule heroics. For more information or to volunteer, call Annie at 281-792-7885.

Event Date: Friday, April 12, 2013   Event Start Time:10:00 AM   Event End Time:3:00 PM

Event Location: Space Center Houston

 

Add to Calendar

 

Annie Schanock x27885

 

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9.            IEEE Galveston Bay Section: Enabling Cyber-Physical Systems

Igor Alvarado, Business Development manager for Academic Research National Instruments in Austin, describes a new generation of modular, heterogeneous, reconfigurable and embedded real-time high-performance computing systems (RT-HPC) to enable cyber-physical systems (CPS) that combine sensing, communications, computing and control of "systems of systems" such as the Smart-Grid. We will present examples of a wide spectrum of applications and scientific/engineering challenges that can be tackled by CPS, using RT-HPC systems in such industries as energy, transportation, communications, national security, health and others.

The presentation will run from noon to 12:45 p.m. on April 18 in the Gilruth Center Discovery Room. We offer lunch at 11:30 a.m. for $8 for the first 15 requestors; there is no charge for the presentation. Please RSVP to Stew O'Dell and specify whether you are ordering lunch. Lunch free for unemployed IEEE members; advise when reserving.

Event Date: Thursday, April 18, 2013   Event Start Time:11:30 AM   Event End Time:1:00 PM

Event Location: Gilruth Center, Discovery Room

 

Add to Calendar

 

Stew O'Dell x31855

 

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10.          Lunarfins Scuba Club Open House

Interested in diving? Find out how to get started in SCUBA diving! Already a diver? Find out about dive trips, advanced training events, and look for additional SCUBA equipment at the SCUBA Gear Flea Market. Bring to sell or come to buy, or learn about underwater photography or rebreathers. Join the Lunarfins SCUBA Club Open House at 5 p.m. at the Gilruth Live Oak Pavilion, where you will find information and answers to all your questions about membership, club history, dive trips, training and equipment! Free hot dogs, snacks and beverages will be served.

Event Date: Wednesday, April 10, 2013   Event Start Time:5:00 PM   Event End Time:7:00 PM

Event Location: Gilruth Live Oak Pavillion

 

Add to Calendar

 

Barbara Corbin x36215 http://www.lunarfins.com

 

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11.          RLLS Translation, Telecon and Flight Arrival Departure WebEx Training

TechTrans International will provide 30-minute WebEx training on April 10, 11 and 12 for RLLS Portal modules. The following is a summary of the training dates:

Translation Support - April 10 at 2 p.m. CDT

Telecon Support - April 11 at 10 a.m. CDT

Flight Arrival Departure - April 12 at 2 p.m. CDT

o             Locating desired support request module

o             Quick view summary page for support request

o             Create new support request

o             Submittal requirements

o             Submitting on behalf of another individual

o             Adding attachment (agenda, references)

o             Selecting special requirements (export control)

o             Submitting a request

o             Status of request records

o             View request records

o             Contacting RLLS support

Please send an email to James.E.Welty@nasa.gov or call 281-335-8565 to sign up for RLLS Support WebEx training courses. Classes are limited to the first 20 individuals registered.

James Welty 281-335-8565 https://www.tti-portal.com

 

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12.          Confined Space Entry 8:30 a.m.; and Lockout/Tagout 1 p.m. -- May 17, Building 20, Room 205/206

Confined Space Entry: The purpose of this course is to provide employees with the standards, procedures and requirements necessary for safe entry to and operations in confined spaces. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standard 29 CFR 1910.146, "Confined Space," is the basis for this course. The course covers the hazards of working in or around a confined space and the precautions one should take to control these hazards. A comprehensive test will be offered at the end of the class. Use this direct link for registration.

https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=SCHEDULED_...

Lockout/Tagout: The purpose of this course is to provide employees with the standards, procedures and requirements necessary for the control of hazardous energy through lockout and tagout of energy-isolating devices. OSHA standard 29 CFR 1910.147, "The Control of Hazardous Energy (Lockout/Tagout)," is the basis for this course. A comprehensive test will be offered at the end of the class. Use this direct link for registration.

https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=SCHEDULED_...

Shirley Robinson x41284

 

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________________________________________

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

 

 

 

NASA TV: 12:25 pm Central (1:25 EDT) – E35 CDR Chris Hadfield with students at a science event in Edmonton, Alberta

 

Human Spaceflight News

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

 

London at night from the space station (Chris Hadfield via Twitter: @Cmdr_Hadfield)

 

HEADLINES AND LEADS

 

NASA Chief: Commercial Crew Safe from Sequester, for Now

 

Dan Leone - Space News

 

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said the budget for the agency's Commercial Crew Program, an effort to send astronauts to the international space station aboard privately owned spacecraft by 2017, is safe from sequestration — for now. "So far, we see no significant impact the rest of this fiscal year," Bolden said March 28 during a media conference call about Space Exploration Technologies Corp.'s (SpaceX) recently completed cargo delivery mission to the international space station. "But our projection is that if we are not able to get out of this condition, it may slow progress on commercial crew."

 

National Space Symposium (NSS) stories and blog posts

JSC Controllers Will Practice On First Orion Flight

 

Frank Morring, Jr. - Aviation Week

 

Next year's flight test of the Orion multipurpose crew vehicle will include an operational practice session for NASA flight controllers, as well as data collection needed to refine the heat shield and other design elements. When the Delta IV Heavy carrying the Orion clears the launch tower at Cape Canaveral AFS, Fla., control of the flight will shift to Mission Control Center-Houston, just as it did during shuttle-era human launches. A crew isn't scheduled to fly on Orion until 2021, but the Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) will give NASA controllers a chance to test the procedures they are developing for human launch, spaceflight and recovery.

 

National Space Symposium (NSS) stories and blog posts

CST-100 Review Clears Way For Wind Tunnel Testing

 

Guy Norris - Aviation Week

 

Boeing is set to begin detailed wind tunnel tests of its Crew Space Transportation (CST-100) spacecraft following a successful preliminary design review of the launch vehicle adapter structure. The CST-100 is designed to carry crews to the International Space Station as well as take space tourists to the Bigelow Aerospace orbital space complex, and could make its first test flight as early as 2016. Completion of the review marks a key milestone for Boeing, which is developing the CST-100 under a Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) agreement with NASA.

 

Astronaut joins Dream Chaser team

 

Doug Storum - Boulder County Business Report

 

Former NASA astronaut Lee Archambault has joined Sierra Nevada Corp.'s Dream Chaser team as a chief systems engineer and test pilot. SNC is designing and building the Dream Chaser at its space systems division headquarters in Louisville. About 150 employees are working on Dream Chaser, with most based in Louisville. The Dream Chaser would be used for trips to the International Space Station, but it will be capable of other missions for other customers, said Mark Sirangelo, the vice president in charge of SNC's Space Systems unit.

 

Planet-hunter and neutron star sensor selected by NASA

 

Stephen Clark – SpaceflightNow.com

 

NASA will launch a planet-hunting satellite and mount an X-ray astrophysics experiment on the International Space Station in 2017, the space agency announced last week. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, will survey whole sky seeking planets circling bright, nearby stars. It follows NASA's Kepler telescope, which is hunting for planets in a narrow field of stars in the constellation of Cygnus. NASA also picked the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer, or NICER, instrument for a $55 million grant. The NICER payload will launch to the International Space Station aboard SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft or Japan's H-2 Transfer Vehicle for mounting on the outpost's truss backbone. The instrument will measure the variability of cosmic X-ray sources, exploring exotic states of matter within neutron stars, the extremely compact, fast-spinning collapsed remnants of dead stars left after some types of explosive supernovae.

 

Space station could test 'spooky' entanglement over record distance

 

Clara Moskowitz - LiveScience.com

 

"Spooky" quantum entanglement connects two particles so that actions performed on one reflect on the other. Now, scientists propose testing entanglement over the greatest distance yet via an experiment on the International Space Station. Until now, entanglement has been established on relatively small scales in labs on Earth. But now physicists propose sending half of an entangled particle pair to the space station, which orbits about 250 miles (400 kilometers) above the planet. "According to quantum physics, entanglement is independent of distance," physicist Rupert Ursin of the Austrian Academy of Sciences said in a statement. "Our proposed Bell-type experiment will show that particles are entangled, over large distances — around 500 kilometers — for the very first time in an experiment."

 

HD video to be mounted on Space Station, connected to internet

 

Herald Sun (Australia)

 

Forget Facebook and remote-controlled drones. Soon you can satisfy the stalker within yourself through a spaced-based video camera. A high-resolution, social-media controlled video camera is due to be installed on the International Space Station on October 16. It is due to start streaming live video from around the globe across the globe shortly afterwards to web surfers everywhere by the end of the year.

 

Live Public-Access Video Feeds to Come From Space

 

Erik Derr - Latinos Post

 

The people of Earth are set to get a live video feed from space, at the end of this year. That's when two special cameras --- one a medium-resolution still camera and the other, a high-resolution video camera --- will be flown to the International Space Station aboard the Progress 53P Space Cargo Ship, which in turn will be powered by a Russian 'Soyuz' rocket. Launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan amid a number of other station supplies, the two cameras will later become the eyes of the world, in a very real sense, part of an effort by Canada-based company UrtheCast to establish a publicly-accessible, live video feed from the International Space Station.

 

World's First Video Camera in Space to be Launched October 16

 

Benita Matilda - ScienceWorldReport.com

 

The world's first video camera is all set to launch Oct. 16, 2013, within the Progress 53P Space Cargo Ship, aboard a Russian Soyuz Rocket. The two UrtheCast cameras will be launched to the International Space Station along with a payload of space station supplies from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The two cameras, one medium-resolution still camera and one high-resolution video camera, were built in a joint effort along with RSC Energia, which is Russia's largest space organization, and RAL Space from the U.K.  UrtheCast is currently in its final stage of implementing the world's first HD Earth video platform from space.

 

NASA Wallops rolls out the Antares for next week's test launch

 

Tamara Dietrich - Hampton Roads Daily Press

 

The fully integrated Antares rocket was rolled out over the weekend to prepare for next week's long-awaited launch from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) at NASA Wallops Flight Facility on the Eastern Shore. A 135-foot, medium-lift rocket, the Antares will be the largest ever to launch out of Wallops since the flight facility was established in 1945. The launch is set for 5 p.m. Wednesday, April 17, but NASA officials say the larger launch window is 5 to 8 p.m. that day through April 21.

 

What's out there?

How NASA is using its new space tool to make sense of the universe

 

Lee Roop - Huntsville Times

 

The universe is full of charged particles called cosmic rays, but until very recently, scientists say their information about those rays was "a mere anthill." Now, a device on the International Space Station is turning that anthill into "an Everest-sized mountain" of facts, NASA says. Here's how the device is generating that mountain and why it's important. Both the Big Bang theory and current astronomical models say things about the universe that scientists haven't yet captured the data to prove. The universe should have more mass than we've yet observed, for example, and there should be equal amounts of matter and antimatter. Trying to prove or disprove the models from here on Earth hasn't worked very well, because the atmosphere blocks most cosmic rays. But scientists theorized they could catch them in space, and one of the last instruments taken to the International Space Station by a space shuttle was designed to do just that.

 

NASA-backed fusion rocket aims for human Mars mission

 

Sharon Gaudin - Computerworld

 

Scientists at the University of Washington are working on a rocket that they say could enable astronauts to reach Mars in just 30 days. NASA has estimated that, using current technology, a round-trip human mission to Mars would take more than four years. In addition, such a trip would require significant amounts of very expensive chemical rocket. The launch costs alone would add up to more than $12 billion, according to the university. A team of University of Washington researchers and engineers are building components of a nuclear fusion-powered rocket that they say could clear many of the hurdles that block deep space travel, including the long estimated travel times, the exorbitant costs and the health risks associated with spending months in a cramped space capsule. The university's rocket project is funded by NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts Program.

 

Tech for Mars colony finds applications in Alaska

 

Joshua Berlinger - Associated Press

 

A winter in an Arctic village is not for the weary. Northern Alaska is subject to some of the harshest conditions on the planet. Negative 40 degree weather isn't uncommon, and strong winds make it even more dangerous to go outside. The winter darkness can enhance feelings of isolation, but the summer sun is almost as unforgiving — at one point it doesn't set for about 80 days. While most would shy away from these conditions, NASA's Ames research center sees Alaska's Arctic locale as fertile ground for testing technologies that would be needed to establish a self-sustainable colony in space.

 

Meet The NASA Scientist Who's Reinventing The Wheel

 

Brian Clark - Popular Science

 

Salim Nasser never thought he'd reinvent the wheel. But he's done it, in a sense, for wheelchairs. Nasser, a NASA engineer, inventor and quadriplegic, has created a wheel that could dramatically reduce how much energy a wheelchair user expends moving his or her chair forward. Now Rowheels, the company he cofounded in 2012, hopes to bring the wheel to market later this year. If successful, it should mean more efficient mobility and healthier bodies for users, Nasser says. Standard manual wheelchairs require users to grasp and push a rim that extends from the chair's back wheels. It's a decent enough method for self-propulsion, but it taxes small, weak muscles in the shoulders and arms and can lead to repetitive stress injuries. Nasser's wheel helps target bigger muscles. How it works: Using a mechanical device called a planetary gear, Nasser redesigned the wheel hub so that users pull it backwards in a rowing motion to go forward. Planetary gears are used in automatic transmissions and power tools to reverse and reduce motion, but no wheelchair wheels on the market currently use this design, Nasser says. Nasser is a native of Colombia who now lives near the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. His day job is designing and analyzing equipment for mobile launchers used to assist space shuttles. He led a relatively normal life until age 20 when a drunk ran a stop sign and smashed into Nasser's car. "Three vertebrae were broken and I was paralyzed from the chest down," Nasser says. "Initially, I couldn't move anything." After the accident, he moved to Miami to recover. "Within a year, I regained a bit of shoulder and arm strength, but it was a slow process," he says. Four years later, he'd gained enough confidence to apply at Florida International University in Miami. He was accepted and excelled, earning his undergraduate and master's degrees in mechanical engineering over the next 5.5 years. During several summers, he was an intern at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

 

Specialized Carriers & Rigging Association Job of the Year Awards

 

D. Ann Shiffler - American Cranes & Transport

 

This year's SC&RA Job of the Year competitions featured strong entries from around the world. The judging panels made their selections from 16 Hauling and 11 Rigging jobs. Congratulations to the six winning entries announced during the Annual Conference Closing Night Awards and Recognition Dinner on Saturday, April 5...Hauling: Moving (using specialized equipment, such as self-propelled transporters, dollies and crawler assemblies): Sarens/Rigging International, Alameda, Calif., transported the U.S. Space Shuttle Endeavor on it final mission, a 14.2-mile journey from Los Angeles International Airport to the California Science Center. In front of more than a million spectators, Sarens used 20 axle lines of self-propelled modular trailers (SPMTs) to transport this national treasure, which weighed 150,000 pounds and measured 78 feet from wing tip to wing tip, 125 feet from nose to tail, and 56 feet from ground to top of tail.

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COMPLETE STORIES

 

NASA Chief: Commercial Crew Safe from Sequester, for Now

 

Dan Leone - Space News

 

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said the budget for the agency's Commercial Crew Program, an effort to send astronauts to the international space station aboard privately owned spacecraft by 2017, is safe from sequestration — for now.

 

"So far, we see no significant impact the rest of this fiscal year," Bolden said March 28 during a media conference call about Space Exploration Technologies Corp.'s (SpaceX) recently completed cargo delivery mission to the international space station. "But our projection is that if we are not able to get out of this condition, it may slow progress on commercial crew."

 

Bolden had warned in February that the Commercial Crew Program could be among the first NASA efforts to be slowed by sequestration — automatic spending cuts that phased in March 1 and which would eliminate almost $1 trillion in federal spending by 2023. NASA's share of the sequester this year was five percent of its $17.8 billion top line from 2012, plus a smaller cut Congress imposed to shield certain military and civil programs — including some at NASA — from sequestration's full effect. That left the space agency with $16.65 billion for 2013, under a six-months spending bill signed March 26.

 

Even under these conditions, the Commercial Crew Program actually wound up with a slightly bigger budget for 2013 than it had in 2012: $489 million instead of $406 million. However, the increased funding is still far short of the $830 million the White House requested for the program this year.

 

It is not yet clear what alternative to sequestration Congress might approve. Dueling 10-year budget plans passed by the House and Senate last month serve as a starting point for negotiations. Meanwhile, the White House is set to weigh in April 10, when it will at last transmit its 2014 budget request to Congress. Budget requests are usually made public in February.

 

Bolden has gone to bat for the White House's commercial crew request many times, but Congress has never signaled a willingness to fund the administration's signature human spaceflight effort at that level. His latest plug for a bigger Commercial Crew Program budget was during a March 20 hearing of the House Appropriations commerce, justice, science subcommittee.

 

"If we aren't able to get up to the $800 million level, then I will have to come back and officially notify the Congress that we cannot make 2017 for availability of commercial crew," Bolden said at that hearing.

 

Despite that possibility, NASA is pressing ahead with the next stages of the Commercial Crew Program, which is now in the middle of a $1.1 billion development phase known as Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap). In the current phase, which began in August and runs through May 2014, Boeing Space Exploration, Sierra Nevada Space Systems and SpaceX are all working on competing designs for crew transportation systems.

 

NASA will soon begin narrowing the field of commercial crew competitors, Bolden said at the March 20 hearing. The agency plans to issue a request for proposals for follow-on work to CCiCap this summer, Bolden said at the hearing.

 

"We intend to put a request for proposal on the street this summer and you will probably get a downselect," Bolden told lawmakers. However, "you won't see the selection announced until the middle of next year, 2014."

 

The number of companies NASA will bounce from the program "is budget dependent," Bolden said. The agency would like to fund as many competing designs as it can for as long as possible.

 

In parallel with CCiCap, NASA is working on a separate program to certify that the astronaut transportation systems its commercial crew partners design are safe for round trips to the international space station. The first phase of this so-called Certification Products Contract is under way now, and NASA is planning to solicit bids for the second phase this summer, according to a notice posted online March 19.

 

Boeing, Sierra Nevada and SpaceX got about $10 million each for the first phase of certification work, which must be performed under traditional government contracts. NASA says the Space Act Agreements it uses to fund Commercial Crew development work do not allow the agency to dictate design requirements — something it must do in order to perform a certification.

 

NASA is counting on the Commercial Crew program to provide  the United States with an alternative to buying rides for astronauts aboard Russian Soyuz capsules at about $65 million a seat.

 

National Space Symposium (NSS) stories and blog posts

JSC Controllers Will Practice On First Orion Flight

 

Frank Morring, Jr. - Aviation Week

 

Next year's flight test of the Orion multipurpose crew vehicle will include an operational practice session for NASA flight controllers, as well as data collection needed to refine the heat shield and other design elements.

 

When the Delta IV Heavy carrying the Orion clears the launch tower at Cape Canaveral AFS, Fla., control of the flight will shift to Mission Control Center-Houston, just as it did during shuttle-era human launches.

 

A crew isn't scheduled to fly on Orion until 2021, but the Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) will give NASA controllers a chance to test the procedures they are developing for human launch, spaceflight and recovery.

 

In next year's flight test the Delta IV will take the role of the heavy-lift Space Launch System still in development, and of the Orion service module the European Space Agency will build. The Orion testbed under assembly at Kennedy Space Center, Fla., will fly out on a two-orbit elliptical trajectory that will take it deep into space. The vehicle will come back into the atmosphere at 84 percent of the velocity it would see coming back from the vicinity of the Moon, according to Larry Price, deputy Orion program manager at Lockheed Martin.

 

The capsule will be protected from the heat of reentry by Avcoat — an epoxy resin built up in a fiberglass honeycomb matrix. Lockheed Martin has shipped the titanium support structure for the shield to Boston, where Textron will install the Avcoat and machine its 1.5-in. thickness to match the support structure. From there it will be shipped to the Cape for integration into the test article.

 

Thermocouples and calorimeters embedded in the ablative heat shield will collect data on the direct and radiative heat loads during reentry, which engineers can use to validate their design models and make adjustments if necessary.

 

At present Orion is about 2,000 lb. above its specified 21,500-lb. weight. Data collected on the first flight may allow engineers to trim some of that excess from the heat shield, or let them know that they will have to find and trim it somewhere else.

 

National Space Symposium (NSS) stories and blog posts

CST-100 Review Clears Way For Wind Tunnel Testing

 

Guy Norris - Aviation Week

 

Boeing is set to begin detailed wind tunnel tests of its Crew Space Transportation (CST-100) spacecraft following a successful preliminary design review of the launch vehicle adapter structure.

 

The CST-100 is designed to carry crews to the International Space Station as well as take space tourists to the Bigelow Aerospace orbital space complex, and could make its first test flight as early as 2016.

 

Completion of the review marks a key milestone for Boeing, which is developing the CST-100 under a Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) agreement with NASA. Boeing, along with competitors SpaceX and Sierra Nevada, was awarded a contract for this follow-on phase to the Commercial Crew Development 2 (CCDev-2) program last August.

 

The Launch Vehicle Adapter is being designed by United Launch Alliance (ULA), maker of the Atlas V rocket that will deliver CST-100 to orbit. Boeing says detailed engineering of the adapter can now begin as it continues to progress toward the first of two planned test flights of the CST-100.

 

John Mulholland, vice president and program manager of Boeing Commercial Crew Programs, says the review also "sets the baseline for us to proceed to wind tunnel testing and the launch segment review in June."

 

Boeing says that two additional CCiCap milestones were also completed earlier this year. These included the engineering 2.0 software release, which "lays the groundwork for spacecraft control and communications," the company says. The second was the Landing and Recovery Ground Systems and Ground Communications design review, which establishes a plan for the equipment and infrastructure needed for ground communications and landing and recovery operations.

 

Astronaut joins Dream Chaser team

 

Doug Storum - Boulder County Business Report

 

Former NASA astronaut Lee Archambault has joined Sierra Nevada Corp.'s Dream Chaser team as a chief systems engineer and test pilot.

 

SNC is designing and building the Dream Chaser at its space systems division headquarters in Louisville. About 150 employees are working on Dream Chaser, with most based in Louisville.

 

The Dream Chaser would be used for trips to the International Space Station, but it will be capable of other missions for other customers, said Mark Sirangelo, the vice president in charge of SNC's Space Systems unit.

 

Archambault will oversee planning and execution of Dream Chaser's flight test programs and the design of the crew interfaces in the Dream Chaser cockpit.

 

Archambault served as a fighter pilot, test pilot and instructor pilot during a decorated 28-year career with the U.S. Air Force and NASA. NASA selected Archambault as an astronaut in 1998. He is a veteran of two space shuttle missions, including STS-117 and STS-119. He has logged 27 days in space and more than 5,000 hours in more than 30 different aircraft, including 22 combat missions in the F-117A Stealth fighter during Operation Desert Storm.

 

"We are extraordinarily fortunate to have Lee join our expanding SNC team," Sirangelo said. "Lee's long history at NASA, in spaceflight and his expansive flight experience will add significantly to the Dream Chaser program."

 

Planet-hunter and neutron star sensor selected by NASA

 

Stephen Clark – SpaceflightNow.com

 

NASA will launch a planet-hunting satellite and mount an X-ray astrophysics experiment on the International Space Station in 2017, the space agency announced last week.

 

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, will survey whole sky seeking planets circling bright, nearby stars. It follows NASA's Kepler telescope, which is hunting for planets in a narrow field of stars in the constellation of Cygnus.

 

Scientists expect TESS, which could cost up to $200 million excluding the price of a launcher, will pull back the veil on planets closer to home.

 

"TESS will carry out the first space-borne all-sky transit survey, covering 400 times as much sky as any previous mission," said George Ricker, lead scientist for the TESS mission from the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. "It will identify thousands of new planets in the solar neighborhood, with a special focus on planets comparable in size to the Earth."

 

The satellite, manufactured by Orbital Sciences Corp., will carry an array of wide-field cameras monitoring stars for dips in brightness caused by planets blotting out a tiny fraction of their light. The craft will launch into a high-altitude elliptical orbit around Earth for a two-year mission.

 

David Charbonneau, a TESS co-investigator from Harvard University, said the mission could find up to 300 Earth-sized planets in the solar neighborhood. TESS will observe a half-million stars during its mission, according to a presentation by Ricker.

 

"We're going to be focusing primarily on Earths and super-Earths, covering a wide range of stellar hosts," Ricker said.

 

The planets identified by TESS will become targets for future more powerful observatories, including ground-based telescopes and the James Webb Space Telescope due for launch in late 2018.

 

"I think it's fair to say that the targets that we will be able to establish from the TESS mission are ones that will be a resource for humanity for all time," Ricker said. "Once you've carried out this survey and established the nearby transiting systems, you've pretty much defined the ones that are going to be most useful to follow-up missions."

 

With the help of other telescopes, TESS could enable scientists to study the masses, sizes, densities, orbits and atmospheres of small planets, revealing if the worlds could be habitable.

 

"The selection of TESS has just accelerated our chances of finding life on another planet within the next decade," said Sara Seager, professor of planetary science and physics at MIT, in a statement.

 

NASA also picked the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer, or NICER, instrument for a $55 million grant.

 

The NICER payload will launch to the International Space Station aboard SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft or Japan's H-2 Transfer Vehicle for mounting on the outpost's truss backbone.

 

The instrument will measure the variability of cosmic X-ray sources, exploring exotic states of matter within neutron stars, the extremely compact, fast-spinning collapsed remnants of dead stars left after some types of explosive supernovae.

 

Neutron stars can condense the mass of 1.4 suns into an object the size of a city. The stars can rotate up to hundreds of times per second, emitting X-rays that can be detected by sensors in space.

 

The NICER instrument will collect spectral data on neutron stars, giving researchers unprecedented insights into the inner workings of the enigmatic objects. Scientists expect to refine models on neutron star structures, composition and dynamics with data from NICER.

 

NASA made the selections of TESS and NICER in the agency's Explorer program, which has launched more than 90 robotic space missions since 1958.

 

"The Explorer Program has a long and stellar history of deploying truly innovative missions to study some of the most exciting questions in space science," said John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for science. "With these missions we will learn about the most extreme states of matter by studying neutron stars and we will identify many nearby star systems with rocky planets in the habitable zone for further study by telescopes such as the James Webb Space Telescope."

 

Space station could test 'spooky' entanglement over record distance

 

Clara Moskowitz - LiveScience.com

 

"Spooky" quantum entanglement connects two particles so that actions performed on one reflect on the other. Now, scientists propose testing entanglement over the greatest distance yet via an experiment on the International Space Station.

 

Until now, entanglement has been established on relatively small scales in labs on Earth. But now physicists propose sending half of an entangled particle pair to the space station, which orbits about 250 miles (400 kilometers) above the planet.

 

"According to quantum physics, entanglement is independent of distance," physicist Rupert Ursin of the Austrian Academy of Sciences said in a statement. "Our proposed Bell-type experiment will show that particles are entangled, over large distances — around 500 kilometers — for the very first time in an experiment."

 

Ursin and his colleagues detail the proposed experiment on Monday in the New Journal of Physics, published by the Institute of Physics and the German Physical Society.

 

Tests of quantum entanglement are called Bell tests after the late Northern Irish physicist John Bell, who proposed real-world checks of quantum theories in the 1960s. Entanglement is one of the weirdest quantum predictions, positing that entangled particles, once separated, can somehow "communicate" with each other instantly. The notion unsettled Albert Einstein so much he famously called it "spooky action at a distance."

 

To better understand entanglement and test its limits, the researchers suggest flying a small device called a photon detection module to the International Space Station, where it could be attached to an existing motorized Nikon 400mm camera lens, which observes the ground from the space station's panoramic Cupola window.

 

Once the module is installed, the scientists would entangle a pair of light particles, called photons, on the ground. One of these would then be sent from a ground station to the device on the orbiting lab, which would measure the particle and its properties, while the other would stay on Earth. If the particles keep their entangled state, a change to one would usher in an instant change to the other. Such a long-range test would allow the physicists to probe new questions about entanglement.

 

"Our experiments will also enable us to test potential effects gravity may have on quantum entanglement," Ursin said.

 

The project should be relatively quick to perform during just a few passes of the space station over the ground lab, with each experiment lasting just 70 seconds per pass, the researchers said.

 

"During a few months a year, the ISS passes five to six times in a row in the correct orientation for us to do our experiments," Ursin said."We envision setting up the experiment for a whole week and therefore having more than enough links to the ISS available."

 

The researchers also proposed a related experiment to try sending a secret key used for quantum information encryption over the farthest distance yet via the International Space Station. Until now, quantum encryption keys have been sent over only relatively short distances on Earth. If the key can be transferred via the researchers' proposed method, it could help to enable more practical quantum encryption.

 

HD video to be mounted on Space Station, connected to internet

 

Herald Sun (Australia)

 

Forget Facebook and remote-controlled drones. Soon you can satisfy the stalker within yourself through a spaced-based video camera.

 

A high-resolution, social-media controlled video camera is due to be installed on the International Space Station on October 16.

 

It is due to start streaming live video from around the globe across the globe shortly afterwards to web surfers everywhere by the end of the year.

 

Will the camera turn planet Earth into the ultimate reality TV show?

 

UrtheCast CEO Scott Larson hopes so - though he's more interested in knocking Google Earth and Google Street View off their perch.

 

He says the video stream will be made available to governments to monitor environmental matters and disasters. It will also be used by the United Nations to "monitor various crises as they develop".

 

"It's going to be a bit of a blend between Google Earth and YouTube.

 

Live Public-Access Video Feeds to Come From Space

 

Erik Derr - Latinos Post

 

The people of Earth are set to get a live video feed from space, at the end of this year.

 

That's when two special cameras --- one a medium-resolution still camera and the other, a high-resolution video camera --- will be flown to the International Space Station aboard the Progress 53P Space Cargo Ship, which in turn will be powered by a Russian 'Soyuz' rocket.

 

Launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan amid a number of other station supplies, the two cameras will later become the eyes of the world, in a very real sense, part of an effort by Canada-based company UrtheCast to establish a publicly-accessible, live video feed from the International Space Station.

 

"This is a watershed moment for UrtheCast, paving the way for the rest of our plan as we work to complete a ground station network, the interactive UrtheCast web platform and rigorous camera testing," said Scott Larson, UrtheCast President and CEO, in an announcement posted at the company's website. "Being placed on the Russian Space Agency's Progress manifest solidifies a decisive step towards UrtheCast's official platform launch."

 

Following their delivery to the ISS, the two UrtheCast cameras will be carried outside by space-walking crew members and installed on the Zvezda Service Module of the Russian segment of the orbiting laboratory.

 

A few months later, the cameras' first images of the Earth will begin transmitting to ground stations across the globe through a high-speed downlink from the station, and then streamed to the web.

 

Actually, there will be a delay of about an hour before the images are shared with the world through Urthecast's site --- due to the rather tricky process of getting images transmitted down to the ground.

 

The imaging systems have about a one-meter resolution, which means they won't be able to see individual people.

 

But, the cameras will be able to see crowds, stadium shows and likely even news events like plane crashes or floods. In that way, the folks at UrtheCast hope their public eye on the world can potentially drive one-of-a-kind conversations about news, environmental matters, and politics.

 

Meanwhile, the United Nations plans to use the feeds for crisis monitoring.

 

UrtheCast developed the video cameras in cooperation with RSC Energia, Russia's largest space organization, and the United Kingdom's RAL Space research and development agency.

 

Space station could test 'spooky' entanglement over record distance

 

World's First Video Camera in Space to be Launched October 16

 

Benita Matilda - ScienceWorldReport.com

 

The world's first video camera is all set to launch Oct. 16, 2013, within the Progress 53P Space Cargo Ship, aboard a Russian Soyuz Rocket.

 

The two UrtheCast cameras will be launched to the International Space Station along with a payload of space station supplies from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

 

The two cameras, one medium-resolution still camera and one high-resolution video camera, were built in a joint effort along with RSC Energia, which is Russia's largest space organization, and RAL Space from the U.K.  UrtheCast is currently in its final stage of implementing the world's first HD Earth video platform from space.

 

The two cameras will be fitted on the Zvezda Service Module of the Russian Segment of the ISS. This will be done during the crew spacewalk. Once the installation is complete, Earth images and videos will be transmitted to ground stations across the globe.  This is possible with the high-speed downlink from the ISS, which will later be streamed to the web.

 

"This is a watershed moment for UrtheCast, paving the way for the rest of our plan as we work to complete a ground station network, the interactive UrtheCast web platform and rigorous camera testing. Being placed on the Russian Space Agency's Progress manifest solidifies a decisive step towards UrtheCast's official platform launch," Scott Larson, UrtheCast President and CEO, was quoted as saying in Latino Post.

 

The information transmitted will focus on environmental matters and political actions, and the UN plans to utilize these feeds for crisis

 

NASA Wallops rolls out the Antares for next week's test launch

 

Tamara Dietrich - Hampton Roads Daily Press

 

The fully integrated Antares rocket was rolled out over the weekend to prepare for next week's long-awaited launch from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) at NASA Wallops Flight Facility on the Eastern Shore.

 

A 135-foot, medium-lift rocket, the Antares will be the largest ever to launch out of Wallops since the flight facility was established in 1945.

 

The launch is set for 5 p.m. Wednesday, April 17, but NASA officials say the larger launch window is 5 to 8 p.m. that day through April 21.

 

The Antares and its Cygnus cargo spacecraft were developed and built by Orbital Sciences Corporation, a space transportation company based in Dulles, as part of its $1.9 billion contract with NASA to resupply the International Space Station through 2016.

 

According to Orbital, the Antares is capable of lifting about 11,000 pounds of payload such as crew supplies and scientific experiments into low-earth orbit.

 

"In layman's terms, a small-lift is a pickup truck, medium-lift is a semi and heavy-lift would be a train," said Dale K. Nash, executive director of the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority that oversees MARS.

 

"That's a fairly significant step into that market," Nash said, "and resupplying the International Space Station is a very critical, very challenging mission."

 

According to Wallops Flight Facility spokesman Keith Koehler, about 100 media representatives, including social media and three international new organizations, have been credentialed so far to view the launch from Wallops.

 

If it's successful, a mission later this year will launch the Cygnus to demonstrate it can rendezvous with the space station. If that succeeds, Orbital will conduct eight resupply missions out of MARS.

 

State leaders hope having Orbital as a key customer will establish its spaceport as a major hub for the emerging commercial space industry, attract other commercial customers and bring investment and jobs to the state and region.

 

Orbital has said Antares launches will be visible throughout Hampton Roads, but the NASA Wallops website indicates two primary viewing locations for launches. One is at the Wallops Visitors Center along Virginia Highway 175, and the other is the beach on the Virginia side of Assateague Island, although capacity is based on such factors as the time of year and the state of the beach.

 

What's out there?

How NASA is using its new space tool to make sense of the universe

 

Lee Roop - Huntsville Times

 

The universe is full of charged particles called cosmic rays, but until very recently, scientists say their information about those rays was "a mere anthill." Now, a device on the International Space Station is turning that anthill into "an Everest-sized mountain" of facts, NASA says. Here's how the device is generating that mountain and why it's important.

 

Both the Big Bang theory and current astronomical models say things about the universe that scientists haven't yet captured the data to prove. The universe should have more mass than we've yet observed, for example, and there should be equal amounts of matter and antimatter.

 

Trying to prove or disprove the models from here on Earth hasn't worked very well, because the atmosphere blocks most cosmic rays. But scientists theorized they could catch them in space, and one of the last instruments taken to the International Space Station by a space shuttle was designed to do just that.

 

Since they turned on the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) in 2011, scientists have captured more than 31 billion so-called particle "events" - more data than we've collected about cosmic rays since humans began studying physics. An "event" is defined as one detail about a particle passing through AMS' collectors. The particle could be a proton or an electron, for example, and the event could be a record of its charge, mass or velocity.

 

Thirty-one billion bits of information is a lot, but scientists have downloaded it from space using a link relay that includes Huntsville's Marshall Space Flight Center and funneled it to an operations center at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) outside of Geneva, Switzerland. That's the same place as the Large Hadron Collider is located, and scientists say the main difference between its instruments and AMG's is that AMG's are miniaturized and strengthened to stand life in space.

 

Scientists are now crunching that data to see what it tells them about the nature and origin of the universe compared to their theories. Where will the answers lead? No one is certain yet, but when scientists have a proven cosmic model, they'll start to figure it out.

 

NASA-backed fusion rocket aims for human Mars mission

Univ of Washington researchers say rocket could power craft that carries astronauts to Mars in 30 days

 

Sharon Gaudin - Computerworld

 

Scientists at the University of Washington are working on a rocket that they say could enable astronauts to reach Mars in just 30 days.

 

NASA has estimated that, using current technology, a round-trip human mission to Mars would take more than four years.

 

In addition, such a trip would require significant amounts of very expensive chemical rocket. The launch costs alone would add up to more than $12 billion, according to the university.

 

A team of University of Washington researchers and engineers are building components of a nuclear fusion-powered rocket that they say could clear many of the hurdles that block deep space travel, including the long estimated travel times, the exorbitant costs and the health risks associated with spending months in a cramped space capsule.

 

"Using existing rocket fuels, it's nearly impossible for humans to explore much beyond Earth," said John Slough, a University of Washington research associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics. "We are hoping to get a much more powerful source of energy that could eventually make interplanetary travel commonplace."

 

If the research team can build components for a fusion-powered rocket, Slough said it could lead to both 30- and 90-day expeditions to Mars.

 

While NASA has robotic rovers working on Mars today, the space agency has long looked to build a human outpost there.

 

In 2004, President George W. Bush called on NASA to send humans back to the moon by 2020. He said that effort would be done to prepare for a manned-mission to Mars.

 

More recently, President Barack Obama formulated a new plan that calls on NASA to hire commercial companies to build so-called space taxis to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

 

Meanwhile, space agency is charged with building next-generation heavy-lift engines and robotics technology for use in travel to the moon, to asteroids and to Mars.

 

The University of Washington says its researchers have developed a plasma that is encased in its own magnetic field. Nuclear fusion occurs when the plasma is compressed at high pressure with a magnetic field.

 

Researchers, they reported, have had successful lab tests and now are focusing on putting all the pieces together for an overall test.

 

The team has created a system in which a powerful magnetic field causes large metal rings to implode around the plasma, compressing it to a fusion state, to power the rocket. The converging rings merge to form a shell that ignites the fusion, but only for a few microseconds.

 

The fusion reactions quickly heat and ionize the shell. This super-heated, ionized metal is ejected out of the rocket nozzle at a high velocity, the university explained. This process is repeated every minute or so, propelling the spacecraft at high speeds.

 

"I think everybody was pleased to see confirmation of the principal mechanism that we're using to compress the plasma," Slough said. "We hope we can interest the world with the fact that fusion isn't always 40 years away and doesn't always cost $2 billion."

 

The university's rocket project is funded by NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts Program.

 

Tech for Mars colony finds applications in Alaska

 

Joshua Berlinger - Associated Press

 

A winter in an Arctic village is not for the weary.

 

Northern Alaska is subject to some of the harshest conditions on the planet. Negative 40 degree weather isn't uncommon, and strong winds make it even more dangerous to go outside. The winter darkness can enhance feelings of isolation, but the summer sun is almost as unforgiving — at one point it doesn't set for about 80 days.

 

While most would shy away from these conditions, NASA's Ames research center sees Alaska's Arctic locale as fertile ground for testing technologies that would be needed to establish a self-sustainable colony in space.

 

Over the last 20 years, NASA has developed a symbiotic relationship with Alaska's villages, public sector and scientific community, by which Alaskans can implement useful technologies while giving researchers the chance to run some preliminary testing.

 

"There are lots of appropriate places for us to really look at how these systems work in the environments that they'll be in and it would be relevant to our future NASA missions," says Dr. David Bubenheim, a senior research scientist at NASA Ames. "People get to use it and benefit from it, but it's valuable to us just being able to collect some performance data on the systems."

 

Supplying energy to these rural communities is one of the more daunting obstacles that Alaska's desolate villages— or a space station on a remote planet — must overcome.

 

While NASA may have delayed their mission to build their Mars colony, the wind turbines that were created for the project — which bore out of a partnership between the National Science Foundation, NASA Ames, and the Department of Energy — were eventually tweaked so they could be used in the Arctic.

 

One of the first turbines was erected in Kotzebue, a small town on Alaska's northwest coast, in 2002. The machines have since been commercialized, and similar turbines have sprung up throughout the circumpolar north.

 

But these technologies aren't just plug-and play. NASA created them to work in the final frontier, not the Last Frontier.

 

To reconfigure them to fit Alaska's needs takes time, money and a partner that understands the community — a role which has partially been filled by the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

 

"It's the land grant system that allows us to use technologies such as those that NASA has developed to bring science into rural areas, isolated communities where food is scarce to improve the lives of people," says Dr. Carol Lewis, the former dean of the School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks

 

But funding cuts — many of which were brought on by the recession — have stopped commercialization and development in their tracks. That's a process that takes decades even when there are adequate resources available, according to Dr. Andy Soria, professor of wood chemistry and applied environmental science and technology at UAF

 

Moving a product from the lab to a village takes an enormous amount of effort.

 

"Science — now more than ever — crawls," Soria says. "(It) takes time and it takes resources. And neither of those seems to be widely available."

 

Meet The NASA Scientist Who's Reinventing The Wheel Salim Nasser's wheel design could dramatically reduce the repetitive-stress injuries that often plague manual wheelchair users

 

Meet The NASA Scientist Who's Reinventing The Wheel

 

Brian Clark - Popular Science

 

Salim Nasser never thought he'd reinvent the wheel. But he's done it, in a sense, for wheelchairs.

 

Nasser, a NASA engineer, inventor and quadriplegic, has created a wheel that could dramatically reduce how much energy a wheelchair user expends moving his or her chair forward. Now Rowheels, the company he cofounded in 2012, hopes to bring the wheel to market later this year. If successful, it should mean more efficient mobility and healthier bodies for users, Nasser says.

 

Standard manual wheelchairs require users to grasp and push a rim that extends from the chair's back wheels. It's a decent enough method for self-propulsion, but it taxes small, weak muscles in the shoulders and arms and can lead to repetitive stress injuries.

 

Nasser's wheel helps target bigger muscles. How it works: Using a mechanical device called a planetary gear, Nasser redesigned the wheel hub so that users pull it backwards in a rowing motion to go forward. Planetary gears are used in automatic transmissions and power tools to reverse and reduce motion, but no wheelchair wheels on the market currently use this design, Nasser says.

 

Jackie Justus, a spinal cord nursing educator at Zablocki Veterans Administration Medical Center in Milwaukee, says a rowing motion for wheelchair users would be a "big step forward and save them a lot of wear and tear." She has been working independently for the past two years with an engineering team to redesign the wheelchair.

 

Pulling, she says, uses larger stronger muscle groups, while pushing a wheelchair uses little muscles in the front of the body and also hunches over the upper body. The rowing motion makes wheelchair users sit up straight, she says, allowing the diaphragm to function properly and significantly improve breathing.

 

Nasser is a native of Colombia who now lives near the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. His day job is designing and analyzing equipment for mobile launchers used to assist space shuttles. He led a relatively normal life until age 20 when a drunk ran a stop sign and smashed into Nasser's car. "Three vertebrae were broken and I was paralyzed from the chest down," Nasser says. "Initially, I couldn't move anything."

 

After the accident, he moved to Miami to recover. "Within a year, I regained a bit of shoulder and arm strength, but it was a slow process," he says.

 

Four years later, he'd gained enough confidence to apply at Florida International University in Miami. He was accepted and excelled, earning his undergraduate and master's degrees in mechanical engineering over the next 5.5 years. During several summers, he was an intern at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

 

An inventor at heart, Nasser began working on a new kind of wheelchair wheel in college. "It was an idea for a senior design project nearly seven years ago," Nasser says. "I came up with the idea and worked on it with a group to refine it and build the prototype. Then it just sat there."

 

In 2010, Nasser dusted off his plan and entered a NASA Tech Briefs "Create the Future" competition.

 

"I redesigned it to be more ergonomic and lighter," Nasser says. "And much to my surprise, I won. I'd always wanted to make something out of it, but I wasn't doing anything with the idea."

 

Following his win, he began getting calls from companies that wanted to manufacture his wheel. But nothing clicked.

 

Then, while checking his spam folder in October of 2011, he noticed a message from Rimas Buinevicius, an entrepreneur in Madison, Wisconsin.

 

Buinevicius, who led a software company called Sonic Foundry for nearly two decades, had spent eight weeks in a manual wheelchair after breaking a leg. During that time, he said his shoulders and arms hurt from pushing his manual wheelchair wheels forward.

 

"When I read about what Salim had invented, I wanted to contact him because I knew--from my own experience--that there was a need for a better wheelchair wheel design," says Buinevicius, who runs "Madcelreator," a company that helps early stage firms bring their ideas to market.

 

"I was initially looking at trying to buy a set of these wheels as a consumer," Buinevicius says. Then he realized he could do a lot more with Nasser's idea.

 

"I figured it could help a lot of people--some 1.8 million folks use manual wheelchairs in the U.S.--so there's a big market out there for these wheels," Buinevicius says. "Over time, damage to shoulders means a lot of pain and ending up in a motorized chair, which most people want to avoid."

 

Though wheelchairs have evolved over the decades--and racing wheelchairs can look like a bit like sleek motorcycles--wheel technology hasn't changed much since it was designed more than 100 years ago, he said.

 

After talking with Buenevicius, Nasser says he "got quite excited and redesigned the wheel completely to further reduce the likelihood of people suffering from repetitive stress syndrome while using the wheel.

 

"I figured out that if a typical user pushes 2,000 to 3,000 times a day, on average, my redesign came out to 330,050 less strokes a year," Nasser says.

 

Buinevicius--who is now the chief executive officer at Rowheels--flew to Florida. The pair hit it off and cofounded Rowheels in 2012. Next, as Nasser continued to improve the wheel design, they entered and won the Grand Prize in the Wisconsin Governor's Business Plan Contest in June of 2012.

 

Recently, Rowheels showed off the beta design of the wheel at MedTrade, a big medical conference in Atlanta; and the International Seating Symposium in Nashville. Nasser is also working with Georgia Tech's RERC/Wheeled Mobility lab and the Shepherd Center, a hospital in Atlanta that specializes in treatment, research and rehabilitation of people with spinal cord and brain injuries, to improve the wheels. Though the cost hasn't been determined yet, Buinevicius estimated that a set of wheels will cost between $2,000 and $3,000.

 

"We vetted the product last month with over 100 researchers, therapists and end users in Nashville," Buinevicius says. "There, the attendees were able to try the product firsthand and we received very favorable responses. We are still doing our own internal testing and using select groups of users. Independent tests will start soon." If all goes well, Buinevicius says they hope Rowheels will be on the market by later this year, "using a combination of third party manufacturers, suppliers and our own people to manufacture and distribute the product."

 

END