Fwd: Human Spaceflight News - May 17, 2013 and JSC Today

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From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: May 17, 2013 6:36:19 AM GMT-06:00
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: Human Spaceflight News - May 17, 2013 and JSC Today

Happy Friday everyone.  Have a good and safe weekend.

 

 

Friday, May 17, 2013

 

JSC TODAY HEADLINES

1.            Did You Miss the All Hands? Catch the Replays

2.            The JSC NMA Presents 'Transitioning Your Career' on May 28

3.            JSC Imagery Online Training

4.            Recent JSC Announcement

________________________________________     NASA FACT

" NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has found the building blocks for Earth-sized planets in an unlikely place-- the atmospheres of a pair of burned-out stars called white dwarfs. These dead stars are located 150 light-years from Earth in a relatively young star cluster, Hyades, in the constellation Taurus."

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1.            Did You Miss the All Hands? Catch the Replays

If you missed the All Hands on May 16 featuring NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden and JSC Director Ellen Ochoa, you still have opportunities to watch it on Tuesday, May 21, and Thursday, May 23, at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. those days.

JSC team members can view the all-hands meeting on JSC cable TV channel 2 (analog), channel 51-2 (digital high definition) or Omni 45. JSC, Ellington Field, Sonny Carter Training Facility and White Sands Test Facility employees with wired computer network connections can view the event using the JSC EZTV IP Network TV System on channel 402 (standard definition). Please note: EZTV currently requires using Internet Explorer on a Windows PC connected to the JSC computer network with a wired connection. Mobile devices, Wi-Fi connections and newer MAC computers are currently not supported by EZTV. If you are having problems viewing the video using these systems, contact the Information Resources Directorate Customer Support Center at x46367.

JSC External Relations, Office of Communications and Public Affairs x35111

 

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2.            The JSC NMA Presents 'Transitioning Your Career' on May 28

Please join the JSC National Management Association (NMA) for a professional development brown bag on, "Transitioning Your Career." If you've recently transitioned to a new role in the workplace or are thinking about making a significant career decision, come listen to a panel discuss their experiences dealing with change.

Panel members include Brady Pyle from JSC Human Resources, who is on rotation as a technical deputy branch chief; Dave Hall, who has transitioned careers between engineering and business; and Veronica Reyes at the Workforce Solutions Aerospace Transition Center, who has experience helping people successfully navigate career changes.

This session will be held on May 28 from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Building 12, Room 134. For badging questions or more information, please contact Heather Williams at heather.d.williams@nasa.gov or 281-792-7801.

Event Date: Tuesday, May 28, 2013   Event Start Time:11:30 AM   Event End Time:12:30 PM

Event Location: Building 12, Room 134

 

Add to Calendar

 

Heather Williams 281-792-7801

 

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3.            JSC Imagery Online Training

Want to find that "perfect" picture or video? Learn how during a webinar on Wednesday, May 22, from 10:30 to 11:45 a.m. CDT. Mary Wilkerson, Still Imagery lead, will show users how to find and NASA still images in Imagery Online (IO) and the Digital Imagery Management System (DIMS). Leslie Richards, Video Imagery lead, will show employees the video functionality in IO. This training is open to any JSC or White Sands Test Facility employee. To register for the WebEx, go to this link.

This training is provided by the Information Resources Directorate.

Event Date: Wednesday, May 22, 2013   Event Start Time:10:30 AM   Event End Time:11:45 AM

Event Location: WebEx

 

Add to Calendar

 

Scientific and Technical Information Center x34245 http://library.jsc.nasa.gov

 

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4.            Recent JSC Announcement

Please visit the JSC Announcements (JSCA) Web page to view the newly posted announcement:

JSCA 13-017: Key Personnel Assignment - Sidney Schmidt

Archived announcements are also available on the JSCA Web page.

Linda Turnbough x36246 http://ird.jsc.nasa.gov/DocumentManagement/announcements/default.aspx

 

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

 

 

 

 

NASA TV

• 9:30 am Central (10:30 EDT) – Sally Ride: How Her Historic Space Mission Opened Doors for Women in Science – Live from the National Air and Space Museum

 

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT…

 

NASA connects space station & "Star Trek Into Darkness" crews in a Google+ Hangout

 

Expedition 36 Flight Engineer Chris Cassidy, participated in a Google+ Hangout with fellow astronauts at Johnson Space Center and cast members of the new film, "Star Trek Into Darkness" to discuss how work aboard the ISS is turning science fiction into reality. The astronauts and Star Trek cast asked questions of each other and fielded questions from social media followers at several locations, including the Intrepid Museum in New York City and the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.

 

Human Spaceflight News

Friday, May 17, 2013

 

HEADLINES AND LEADS

 

Charles Bolden talks about the future of NASA in Houston

 

Ch 39 News (Houston)

 

With all the excitement this weekend over the new Star Trek, a fake space program, you'd think congress would be more excited about the real space program. But that's not the case. The sequester could slow down or stop some of the programs in the works right now. While NASA is hoping for a $17.7 billion budget, congress might only allow $16.1 billion. NASA's Administrator Charles Bolden visited Houston to trumpet the benefits of NASA's future space exploration programs saying, "At the $16.1 billion level there is no way in the world they can continue a center like JSC at the level of employment that we have right now."

 

Orbital mission to space station postponed

 

Carol Vaughn - Delmarva Now

 

After spending two weeks analyzing information gathered during the Antares rocket's test flight on April 21, an Orbital Sciences Corp. technical team confirmed it was what it looked like to casual viewers — a flawless launch. "Having intensively reviewed the data for a couple weeks, our conclusion was the inaugural Antares flight really was as good as it looked," said Antares Program Manager Mike Pinkston. The rocket's next launch, a demonstration mission that will bring the Cygnus spacecraft to the International Space Station, likely will not take place until August or September.

 

Space plane arrives at NASA facility for flight testing

 

W.J. Hennigan - Los Angeles Times

 

A white-and-black space plane, very much resembling the now-retired space shuttle, was trucked to a NASA flight center in the Mojave Desert to begin a round of testing to see if it has the right stuff to carry astronauts one day. Tucked under a white tarp, the space plane called Dream Chaser arrived Wednesday at Dryden Flight Research Center inside Edwards Air Force Base. Tests at Dryden will include tow, captive-carry and free-flight of the Dream Chaser. The tests come as part of a contract with NASA's Commercial Crew Program, which is aimed at helping private companies develop spacecraft and rockets capable of launching astronauts from American soil, now that the space shuttle fleet is retired.

 

Private spaceship testing underway at NASA facilities in Va, Calif

 

Associated Press

 

A Colorado company developing a spaceship to take astronauts to the International Space Station is having elements of its spacecraft undergo landing-related tests at NASA facilities in Virginia and California. NASA wants private firms to ferry astronauts into low-Earth orbit so it can focus on deep-space exploration and send crews to a nearby asteroid and eventually Mars. Sierra Nevada Corp.'s Dream Chaser vehicle is designed to carry seven people and land like a plane, unlike the capsules two other companies are working on. The spacecraft is based on an old design by researchers at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton.

 

Private Mars Flyby Mission Ponders NASA & Commercial Rockets

 

Clara Moskowitz - Space.com

 

The organizers of a private plan to send two people on a round-trip flyby of Mars in 2018 are choosing between a variety of commercial rockets and a NASA booster for the mission. The nonprofit Inspiration Mars foundation was founded by entrepreneur and space tourist Dennis Tito, who flew to the International Space Station in 2001 aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Tito said the flyby mission is aimed at inspiring the public about space exploration and accelerating humanity's quest to visit Mars by taking advantage of a rare launch opportunity that allows for a relatively brief 501-day round trip. "The way we're going, we'll never get started," Tito said of the government's approach to manned missions to Mars Wednesday (May 8) at the Humans 2 Mars Summit in Washington, D.C. "It's time for us to take the first step."

 

NASA Tests Orion Spaceship's Parachutes with Mock Glitch

 

Denise Chow - Space.com

 

NASA conducted a successful test of its next-generation spaceship last week, in an exercise designed to simulate two different types of parachute failures during landing. A prototype of the Orion spacecraft landed safely in the Arizona desert May 1 after it was dropped 25,000 feet (7,620 m) from a C-17 airplane as it flew over Yuma, Ariz. During the test, the mock capsule was traveling about 250 miles per hour (402 km/h) when its parachutes were deployed — the highest speed the Orion spacecraft has experienced so far in its testing phase, NASA officials said in a statement. To simulate a failure, engineers rigged one of Orion's three main parachutes so that it did not inflate after the spacecraft was dropped from the plane. In addition, one of the two drogue chutes, which are used to reorient and slow the capsule as the main parachutes inflate, was not deployed.

 

NASA: New pump resolves big space station leak

 

Marcia Dunn - Associated Press

 

An impromptu spacewalk over the weekend seems to have fixed a big ammonia leak at the International Space Station, NASA said Thursday. The "gusher" erupted a week ago, prompting the hastiest repair job ever by residents of the orbiting lab. Spacewalking astronauts replaced a suspect ammonia pump on Saturday, just two days after the trouble arose. NASA is now calling the old, removed pump "Mr. Leaky," said flight controller Anthony Vareha. "Right now, we're feeling pretty good. We definitely got the big leak," Vareha said in a NASA broadcast from Mission Control in Houston.

 

Space Station's Orbit Raised 2.8 Km

 

RIA Novosti

 

A Russian Progress M-19M resupply spacecraft readjusted the orbit of the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday, a spokesman for the Russian space agency Roscosmos said. The space freighter's engines were run for 922.4 seconds (just over 15 minutes). As a result of the maneuver, the ISS's orbit was raised by about 2.8 kilometers [1.6 miles], the spokesman said adding that the station's orbit is now 430.3 kilometers (259 miles) from Earth.

 

'Star Trek' stars go ga-ga over real astronauts during video hangout

 

Alan Boyle - NBCNews.com's Cosmic Log

 

You'd think that traveling at warp speed to the planet Nibiru would be the coolest thing in outer space, but for the Hollywood types who made "Star Trek Into Darkness," talking with a real astronaut on the International Space Station was way more awesome. "I'll just act like this is a perfectly normal thing to be happening," Damon Lindelof, a writer and producer for the just-released movie, told NASA's Chris Cassidy during a Google+ Hangout presented on Thursday by the space agency and Warner Bros. "We are literally tickled pink to be talking to you right now."

 

Astronaut in Space Beams Hellos to 'Star Trek Into Darkness' Actors

 

Miriam Kramer - Space.com

 

Hollywood actors who pretend to be space travelers on the USS Enterprise got a lesson on the reality of human spaceflight Thursday from the ultimate expert: a real-life astronaut on the International Space Station. NASA's Chris Cassidy opened hailing frequencies with select members of the cast and crew from the new movie "Star Trek Into Darkness" in honor of the film's nationwide release. Chris Pine (Captain Kirk), Alice Eve (Dr. Carol Marcus), John Cho (Sulu) and screenwriter and producer Damon Lindelof asked questions of the high-flying astronaut during the Google+ Hangout.

 

Did 'Star Trek' Give Rise to NASA's 'Space Shuttle'?

 

Robert Pearlman - collectSPACE.com

 

NASA's first space shuttle, the test orbiter Enterprise, was named after the fictional starship on "Star Trek" in response to fans staging a write-in campaign. But did the agency's use of the term "space shuttle" also stem from the television series? "The Galileo [shuttlecraft] is such an important part of Star Trek and not only to Star Trek, it was important to literally the consciousness of the space program," Alec Peters, a "Star Trek" superfan, recently told SPACE.com. "It really is the precursor to the space shuttle Enterprise."

 

Russian cosmonaut first earthling to pay taxes from space

 

Itar-Tass

 

Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov, the commander of Expedition 36 at the International Space Station, has become the first person on the planet to have paid taxes while in orbit. Sources indicate that Vinogradov's rather unusual request was related to the Federal Tax Services by the first woman cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, who is currently a deputy of the State Duma.

 

Chris Hadfield's week: from commanding the space station, to being unfit to drive a car

 

Peter Rakobowchuk - Canadian Press

 

Until a few days ago, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield was responsible for making sure the International Space Station stayed on course. Now that he's back on Earth, he can't even drive a car for the next few weeks. It's been an intense adjustment period for the 53-year-old astronaut who described Thursday how, after months of floating in weightlessness, he's suddenly grappling with the painful effects of gravity.

 

Chris Hadfield: 'Space was too good not to share it'

 

BBC News

 

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield has said his life in space had to be shared on social media, in his first public appearance since returning to Earth. Cmdr Hadfield, 53, said his experiences in space were "too good" to keep to himself. He landed on Tuesday. With nearly 1 million Twitter followers, Cmdr Hadfield said he was pleased with the interest in his work.

 

Performing From Space, Canada's Low-Orbit Star

 

Ian Austen - New York Times

 

As far as YouTube hits go, Canada's contribution has not yet approached the popularity of South Korea's "Gangnam Style." And perhaps because of the limitations of weightlessness, the music video lacked any dance moves at all. But the video, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" that Chris Hadfield produced in the International Space Station as his five-month command neared an end, may have cemented his reputation as the world's best-known singing astronaut, not to mention Canada's newest celebrity.

 

Why Hadfield's Space Oddity video almost didn't happen

 

Daniel Reid - CTV News

 

If Emm Gryner had her way, Chris Hadfield would not have performed Space Oddity in zero-gravity on the International Space Station. The astronaut's collaborator, who helped put together the stunning David Bowie cover, thought the song choice was too obvious. Surprisingly, she wanted something a little more odd. "I kind of suggested some other more obscure space songs, which he didn't want to go for," the Juno award nominee told CTV's Canada AM on Wednesday. "I didn't know it would get this kind of reception."

 

The Astronauts You Should Start Following on Twitter

As astronauts travel to stars, they're sharing their experiences via Facebook and Twitter

 

Melody Kramer - National Geographic

 

When astronaut Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) returned to Earth from the International Space Station on Monday, he brought home something unique: more than 800,000 Twitter followers. Over the past five months, the Canadian commander has spent much of his free time tweeting pictures from space, interacting with his fans, and capturing video—of himself, his crewmates, and anything floating by in zero gravity. Though Hadfield is probably the most famous astronaut on Twitter, he isn't the only one experimenting on social media. In fact, many astronauts—including those slated for upcoming missions—are actively engaging with people on sites like Facebook, Google Plus, and Twitter. So who's worth following from down here on Earth?

 

Downey receives low-interest loan for new permanent shuttle center

 

Pamela Hale-Burns - Long Beach Press-Telegram

 

Downey was awarded a $3 million federal loan to build a permanent center for its original, full-size space shuttle mock-up, officials said this week. Built in 1972 by Rockwell International, the shuttle is currently housed under a temporary tent in a parking lot at the former Downey Studios, 12214 Lakewood Blvd. The low-interest Department of Housing and Urban Development loan will help pay for the new Inspiration Neighborhood Center, a 18,500-square-foot multipurpose community center that will house the shuttle, along with meeting and office space.

 

When (Part of) Apollo 13 Reached the Moon

 

Amy Shira Teitel – Discovery News

 

Recounts of the Apollo 13 mission are dominated by stories of the oxygen tank's explosion and the subsequent fight engineers waged against the dying spacecraft to save the crew's lives. And understandably so; it's one of the most captivating stories of the era that's given the mission the subtitle of "the successful failure." But it wasn't all a failure. Some mission objectives were just successes, among them the deliberate impact of the Saturn V's third stage on the lunar surface. The massive Saturn V was a three-stage rocket. The first (S-IC) and second (S-II) stages were both designed to fall back to Earth after launch. But the third stage, the S-IVB, was designed to go further. This stage accompanied the Apollo spacecraft into Earth orbit then used its massive engine to send the docked Command and Service Module (CSM) and the Lunar Module (LM) towards the moon; the maneuver was properly called the translunar injection burn.

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COMPLETE STORIES

 

Charles Bolden talks about the future of NASA in Houston

 

Ch 39 News (Houston)

 

With all the excitement this weekend over the new Star Trek, a fake space program, you'd think congress would be more excited about the real space program. But that's not the case.

 

The sequester could slow down or stop some of the programs in the works right now. While NASA is hoping for a $17.7 billion budget, congress might only allow $16.1 billion.

 

NASA's Administrator Charles Bolden visited Houston to trumpet the benefits of NASA's future space exploration programs saying, "At the $16.1 billion level there is no way in the world they can continue a center like JSC at the level of employment that we have right now."

 

Bolden described some of those missions, "Low earth orbit, the International Space Station right now, we're handing that off to commercial entities, asteroid by 2025, and Mars is the ultimate destination for humanity and nobody can go there if we don't go."

 

All those may be in jeopardy with the forced budget cuts.

 

"You could see us have to go to the White House, go to congress and say OK, you all didn't solve the problem. We now have some of our priorities that are going to come off the plate."

 

Let's hope that's not the case, or forever, Mars could be the place where no man has gone before.

 

Orbital mission to space station postponed

 

Carol Vaughn - Delmarva Now

 

After spending two weeks analyzing information gathered during the Antares rocket's test flight on April 21, an Orbital Sciences Corp. technical team confirmed it was what it looked like to casual viewers — a flawless launch.

 

"Having intensively reviewed the data for a couple weeks, our conclusion was the inaugural Antares flight really was as good as it looked," said Antares Program Manager Mike Pinkston.

 

The rocket's next launch, a demonstration mission that will bring the Cygnus spacecraft to the International Space Station, likely will not take place until August or September.

 

The mission had been expected to happen earlier in the summer.

 

The company is changing out a main engine on the rocket's first stage for another tested engine in order to inspect it further and "confirm a seal is functioning properly," according to an Orbital release.

 

The engine switch will push the date for the demonstration mission back three to four weeks, meaning Orbital should be ready to launch by August.

 

But a Japanese cargo mission to the International Space Station currently is scheduled for August, which could push Orbital's mission into September.

 

A team also is working on a third Antares rocket, which will launch the first Commercial Resupply Services mission to the space station, likely sometime in the fourth quarter of this year.

 

Two engines for that rocket already have been delivered to Wallops.

 

The two parts of the Cygnus spacecraft that will be used for the mission — a service module and a pressurized cargo module — will be delivered to Wallops Island and integrated there this fall.

 

Orbital has a $1.9 billion contract with NASA for eight cargo missions to the International Space Station.

 

Space plane arrives at NASA facility for flight testing

 

W.J. Hennigan - Los Angeles Times

 

A white-and-black space plane, very much resembling the now-retired space shuttle, was trucked to a NASA flight center in the Mojave Desert to begin a round of testing to see if it has the right stuff to carry astronauts one day.

 

Tucked under a white tarp, the space plane called Dream Chaser arrived Wednesday at Dryden Flight Research Center inside Edwards Air Force Base.

 

Tests at Dryden will include tow, captive-carry and free-flight of the Dream Chaser.

 

The tests come as part of a contract with NASA's Commercial Crew Program, which is aimed at helping private companies develop spacecraft and rockets capable of launching astronauts from American soil, now that the space shuttle fleet is retired.

 

NASA wants to turn the job of carrying cargo and crews to the International Space Station over to private industry. Meanwhile, the agency will focus on deep-space missions to land astronauts on asteroids and Mars.

 

The Dream Chaser, built in Louisville, Colo., by Sierra Nevada Corp., has won more than $300 million in seed money from the space agency.

 

The flight tests will determine the glide and landing characteristics of the Dream Chaser -- a similar regimen was completed at Edwards on the space shuttle in 1977.

 

"NASA Dryden has always played a vital role in the testing of American flight vehicles," Mark Sirangelo, head of the company's space systems division, said in a statement. "As the Dream Chaser program takes flight, this unique opportunity to conduct our tests at the same location as the space shuttle began its flight brings great pride to our team."

 

NASA is partnered with Sierra Nevada, Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, and Boeing Co. to meet milestones to one day carry astronaut crews. Currently, the United States government has no way for its astronauts to reach space other than doling out $63 million for a seat on a Russian Soyuz rocket.

 

SpaceX has already begun running cargo missions to the space station. The missions are seen as the precursor to privately run manned missions.

 

Private spaceship testing underway at NASA facilities in Va, Calif

 

Associated Press

 

A Colorado company developing a spaceship to take astronauts to the International Space Station is having elements of its spacecraft undergo landing-related tests at NASA facilities in Virginia and California.

 

NASA wants private firms to ferry astronauts into low-Earth orbit so it can focus on deep-space exploration and send crews to a nearby asteroid and eventually Mars.

 

Sierra Nevada Corp.'s Dream Chaser vehicle is designed to carry seven people and land like a plane, unlike the capsules two other companies are working on. The spacecraft is based on an old design by researchers at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton.

 

Astronauts are using a flight simulator at the Langley facility to simulate what it would be like to land the Dream Chaser at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. in a variety of atmospheric conditions. The tests are scheduled to last through Friday and will also include evaluations of the spacecraft's guidance and navigation performance. The simulation involves the final 10,000 feet and 60 seconds of a future Dream Chaser flight.

 

The Louisville, Colo.-based company has also delivered a Dream Chaser engineering test craft to NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif.

 

Among other things, NASA says the tests there will involve a truck towing the craft down a runway to validate the performance of the craft's nose strut, brakes and tires. A free-flight test later this year will measure Dream Chaser's aerodynamics through landing.

 

Sierra Nevada is one of three companies chosen by NASA to develop spaceships to take over the job of the now-retired space shuttle. NASA had hoped to begin using commercial spacecraft to take astronauts to the International Space Station in 2015, but a lack of funding by Congress has pushed that date back to 2017. Until then, the U.S. is reliant on expensive rides from Russia to get its astronauts to the space station.

 

Speaking with reporters at Langley Research Center last week, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said if that Congress doesn't agree to the Obama administration's 2014 budget request for $821 million in seed money for the commercial crew program, that date could move even further back.

 

"If we don't fund it, they can't come in on time and I'll be writing another contract with the Russians, and I don't want to do that," Bolden said.

 

In April, NASA announced that its latest contract with the Russian Space Agency was valued at about $424 million. That's $70.6 million per seat — well above the previous price tag of about $65 million.

 

The other companies developing commercial spaceships are the Boeing Co. of Houston and Space Exploration Technologies, asl known as SpaceX, of Hawthorne, Calif.

 

SpaceX is also one of two companies already under contract to deliver supplies to the International Space Station. It plans to modify the Dragon capsule it's been using to deliver and return cargo from the space station so it can also deliver astronauts.

 

The company has said it can have people flying on a modified Dragon by 2015.

 

Private Mars Flyby Mission Ponders NASA & Commercial Rockets

 

Clara Moskowitz - Space.com

 

The organizers of a private plan to send two people on a round-trip flyby of Mars in 2018 are choosing between a variety of commercial rockets and a NASA booster for the mission.

 

The nonprofit Inspiration Mars foundation was founded by entrepreneur and space tourist Dennis Tito, who flew to the International Space Station in 2001 aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Tito said the flyby mission is aimed at inspiring the public about space exploration and accelerating humanity's quest to visit Mars by taking advantage of a rare launch opportunity that allows for a relatively brief 501-day round trip.

 

"The way we're going, we'll never get started," Tito said of the government's approach to manned missions to Mars Wednesday (May 8) at the Humans 2 Mars Summit in Washington, D.C. "It's time for us to take the first step."

 

At the summit, Tito and his Inspiration Mars colleagues laid out some of the details of their plan, which will send a married male-female couple within about 93 miles (150 kilometers) of the Martian surface. The team hasn't yet chosen a launch vehicle for the mission, but said there are three main options.

 

The first option is to use the Falcon 9 Heavy rocket being designed by commercial firm SpaceX. The booster is still in development, but it should be able to launch about 10 metric tons of mass into low-Earth orbit, which is enough to send the Mars-bound capsule and crew in one go. The vehicle is due for its first test launch next year. "Then we'll find out if that is an option," said John Carrico, vice president of space systems for Applied Defense Solutions, a contractor for Inspiration Mars.

 

A second option is to launch the Inspiration Mars crew separately from the fuel that will send them out to Mars and back. This scenario would use an Atlas 5 rocket from United Launch Alliance (ULA) to lift off the fuel for the mission, and a Delta 4 Heavy booster from the same company to carry the crew to Earth orbit. There, the propellant tank would rendezvous and dock with the crew capsule to transfer over the fuel. While this plan requires two launches and an orbital rendezvous, it has the advantage of using well-tried ULA rockets, which are routinely launched to carry unmanned commercial and government payloads.

 

Finally, Carrico said Inspiration Mars team members have been in touch with NASA about its Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, which is being developed to send astronauts to an asteroid and Mars in the next decades.

 

"The nice thing about the SLS is this mission closes with a single launch," Carrico said. The rocket should be able to launch more mass than Inspiration Mars requires, potentially offering extra energy that could be used to add more mass to the life support system or other equipment onboard the spacecraft, or to slow down the rather speedy planned Earth re-entry.

 

Inspiration Mars calculates its crew will plummet back to Earth at 14.2 kilometers per second, which is quicker, and therefore hotter, than the Apollo crews' re-entries coming home from the moon. With the extra launch ability from SLS, this speed could be slowed to 14.0 or 13.9 km/s, Carrico estimated.

 

However, SLS is not scheduled to make its first test launch until 2017.

 

Despite the challenges and uncertainties, the mission has sparked the interest of many. Apollo moonwalker Buzz Aldrin praised the plan Wednesday at the Humans 2 Mars Summit, saying, "I think this should be supported to the maximum degree possible."

 

Indeed, interest has been stronger from around the world than the Inspiration Mars team anticipated.

 

"It's been interesting to see the international response we've gotten," said Taber MacCallum, co-founder of Paragon Space Solutions, which has been hired by Inspiration Mars to develop its life-support system. "When we proposed this mission, we called this a mission for America. We're really being almost forced to rethink this as a mission for Earth with American leadership."

 

NASA Tests Orion Spaceship's Parachutes with Mock Glitch

 

Denise Chow - Space.com

 

NASA conducted a successful test of its next-generation spaceship last week, in an exercise designed to simulate two different types of parachute failures during landing.

 

A prototype of the Orion spacecraft landed safely in the Arizona desert May 1 after it was dropped 25,000 feet (7,620 m) from a C-17 airplane as it flew over Yuma, Ariz. During the test, the mock capsule was traveling about 250 miles per hour (402 km/h) when its parachutes were deployed — the highest speed the Orion spacecraft has experienced so far in its testing phase, NASA officials said in a statement.

 

To simulate a failure, engineers rigged one of Orion's three main parachutes so that it did not inflate after the spacecraft was dropped from the plane. In addition, one of the two drogue chutes, which are used to reorient and slow the capsule as the main parachutes inflate, was not deployed.

 

Simulating a parachute failure enables NASA to demonstrate that the system is reliable even when something goes wrong. Data collected from the tests also help engineers refine their models and designs.

 

"Parachute deployment is inherently chaotic and not easily predictable," Stu McClung, Orion's landing and recovery system manager, said in a statement. "Gravity never takes any time off — there's no timeout. The end result can be very unforgiving. That's why we test. If we have problems with the system, we want to know about them now."

 

This type of parachute failure was one of the most challenging to simulate so far, but is a crucial step toward demonstrating that the spacecraft is safe enough to carry humans, said Chris Johnson, NASA's project manager for the Orion parachute assembly system.

 

"The tests continue to become more challenging, and the parachute system is proving the design's redundancy and reliability," Johnson said in a statement. "Testing helps us gain confidence and balance risk to ensure the safety of our crew."

 

The Orion spaceship is being designed to carry astronauts on exploration missions to the moon, asteroids or Mars. The gumdrop-shaped capsule measures 16.5 feet (5 m) wide at its base, and weighs approximately 23 tons.

 

Orion's parachute system is the largest ever built for a manned spacecraft, NASA officials said. Fully inflated, the three main parachutes can almost cover an entire football field. During landing, the parachutes are designed to slow the capsule before it splashes down in the Pacific Ocean.

 

NASA will test Orion's parachute system again in July. For that test, the mock capsule will be released from a higher altitude: 35,000 feet (over 10,600 m). In September 2014, NASA plans to conduct the Orion spacecraft's first unmanned launch test.

 

NASA: New pump resolves big space station leak

 

Marcia Dunn - Associated Press

 

An impromptu spacewalk over the weekend seems to have fixed a big ammonia leak at the International Space Station, NASA said Thursday.

 

The "gusher" erupted a week ago, prompting the hastiest repair job ever by residents of the orbiting lab. Spacewalking astronauts replaced a suspect ammonia pump on Saturday, just two days after the trouble arose.

 

NASA is now calling the old, removed pump "Mr. Leaky," said flight controller Anthony Vareha.

 

"Right now, we're feeling pretty good. We definitely got the big leak," Vareha said in a NASA broadcast from Mission Control in Houston.

 

Vareha said engineers don't know whether the pump replacement also took care of a smaller leak that has plagued the system for years. It will take at least a couple months of monitoring to know the full status.

 

Ammonia is used as a coolant in the space station's radiator system.

 

The leak forced one of the station's seven power channels to go offline. NASA hopes to resume normal operations early next week, following computer software updates.

 

One of the spacewalkers, NASA astronaut Thomas Marshburn, is now back on Earth. He returned this week aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule, ending a five-month mission.

 

The other spacewalker, Christopher Cassidy, a recent arrival, spent Thursday chatting with three of the actors and a writer-producer of the newest Star Trek movie, "Star Trek into Darkness." The film was beamed up to the space station a few days before its U.S. opening in theaters Thursday.

 

Cassidy watched the first half-hour of the movie while he was exercising Thursday morning and offered a stellar review.

 

"I was riveted as you're racing through the woods and jumping off cliffs," he told the actors. "I won't spoil the rest of the movie for anybody who hasn't seen it. But pretty cool scenes."

 

Space Station's Orbit Raised 2.8 Km

 

RIA Novosti

 

A Russian Progress M-19M resupply spacecraft readjusted the orbit of the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday, a spokesman for the Russian space agency Roscosmos said.

 

The space freighter's engines were run for 922.4 seconds (just over 15 minutes). As a result of the maneuver, the ISS's orbit was raised by about 2.8 kilometers [1.6 miles], the spokesman said adding that the station's orbit is now 430.3 kilometers (259 miles) from Earth.

 

The Progress M-19M space freighter blasted off from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan on April 24 and docked with the ISS Zvezda module on April 26.

 

Adjustments to the station's orbit are carried out regularly to compensate for the Earth's gravity and to facilitate the successful docking and undocking of spacecraft.

 

A Soyuz TMA-09M, to be launched from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan on May 29, will take new crew members to the station - Fyodor Yurchikhin of Russia, Karen Nyberg of the United States and Luca Parmitano of Italy.

 

'Star Trek' stars go ga-ga over real astronauts during video hangout

 

Alan Boyle - NBCNews.com's Cosmic Log

 

You'd think that traveling at warp speed to the planet Nibiru would be the coolest thing in outer space, but for the Hollywood types who made "Star Trek Into Darkness," talking with a real astronaut on the International Space Station was way more awesome.

 

"I'll just act like this is a perfectly normal thing to be happening," Damon Lindelof, a writer and producer for the just-released movie, told NASA's Chris Cassidy during a Google+ Hangout presented on Thursday by the space agency and Warner Bros. "We are literally tickled pink to be talking to you right now."

 

The other "Star Trek" actors in on the Hangout — Chris Pine (who plays Captain James Kirk), John Cho (Sulu) and Alice Eve (who gets a healthy dose of screen time as Dr. Carol Marcus) — were just as taken. They laughed and hooted like fanboys when Cassidy let go of his microphone and took an upside-down spin in zero-G.

 

Pine said he loved the idea of mashing up fictional and real-life spaceflight: "It's great that our worlds can meet at some point in the middle and hopefully inspire people to do good things, and to explore."

 

The feeling was clearly mutual: Astronaut Mike Fincke, who served as space station commander in 2008-2009, said the "Star Trek" TV shows and movies have long inspired scientists, engineers and spacefliers. "We fall for it every time here at NASA," he said.

 

Fincke appeared in the final episode of the "Star Trek: Enterprise" TV series, and on Thursday he joked that he'd rather be in Hollywood: "Ever since I was 3 years old, I wanted to be a director and writer, but I failed director-writer school. Then I tried acting, and that didn't work out. So now I go on spacewalks."

 

If Lindelof has anything to do with it, Fincke won't be the last astronaut to make the crossover to Hollywood. He promised Cassidy that he'd be welcome to a cameo role in a future "Star Trek" movie. "Maybe you could class up the joint a bit," Lindelof said.

 

Cassidy said the "Star Trek" crew would be welcome aboard the space station as well. He noted that there were currently a couple of vacancies in the U.S. segment of the station — due to the fact that one batch of crew members has just returned to Earth, and their replacements aren't due for launch until May 28. "We got two open beds," Cassidy joked. "The first two here get 'em."

 

You can watch the whole 56-minute Hangout while you're waiting for the next showing of "Star Trek Into Darkness," but here are a few of the highlights:

 

• When asked about last week's ammonia coolant leak at the station, Cassidy said he was surprised to see how quickly mission managers were able to plan a spacewalk to fix it. "It's not like you can rescue Spock from a volcano and push a button. It doesn't happen that way up here," he said. Cassidy said the episode illustrated how useful it is to have "garage-tinkerer" types aboard the station.
• Cassidy said ammonia contamination was one of the three emergency threats that the space station crew had to be prepared to deal with, along with an onboard fire or rapid decompression. That led Lindelof to warn the astronaut about the latest "Star Trek" super-villain. "You should watch out for Benedict Cumberbatch," he said. "He's very threatening, I understand."
• Cassidy said the thing that gets him the most about "Star Trek" and other space movies was the ease with which everyone walked around on spaceships, as if artificial gravity was nothing special. Even though weightlessness has its drawbacks, floating around in zero-G would make the movies much more interesting. "Trust me, it's a pretty cool thing to do this anytime you want," Cassidy said.
• The astronauts talked around a question that asked them to name their favorite "Star Trek" captain, but Fincke said his favorite name for a starship would be Enterprise (natch!). Fellow NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren went with the Starship Endurance, which pays tribute to the ship for Ernest Shackleton's famous Antarctic ordeal in 1914.
• Life aboard the space station tends to give astronauts the same optimistic view of the future that runs through the "Star Trek" saga, Cassidy said. From space, Earth seems so tranquil and peaceful. "There are no borders down there," Cassidy said. "You can't see a little yellow line painted on the green part."
• One of the questions sent in during the Hangout focused on a more mundane aspect of spaceflight: How do spacewalkers handle a sneeze? Cassidy admitted that could be a problem. "Once the helmet goes on, any schmutz that goes on there is just an impediment to seeing clearly," he said. The solution is to incline your head downward before the sneeze, so that the schmutz is directed below the face plate.

 

Astronaut in Space Beams Hellos to 'Star Trek Into Darkness' Actors

 

Miriam Kramer - Space.com

 

Hollywood actors who pretend to be space travelers on the USS Enterprise got a lesson on the reality of human spaceflight Thursday from the ultimate expert: a real-life astronaut on the International Space Station.

 

NASA's Chris Cassidy opened hailing frequencies with select members of the cast and crew from the new movie "Star Trek Into Darkness" in honor of the film's nationwide release. Chris Pine (Captain Kirk), Alice Eve (Dr. Carol Marcus), John Cho (Sulu) and screenwriter and producer Damon Lindelof asked questions of the high-flying astronaut during the Google+ Hangout.

 

"I'll just act like this is a perfectly normal thing to be happening," Lindelof said when Cassidy appeared on screen. "We are literally tickled pink to be talking to you right now."

 

Cassidy also seemed excited to speak to the actors on the ground. Earlier in the week, NASA beamed up a copy of "Star Trek Into Darkness" for the astronaut's entertainment.

 

"It's great to be with all of you guys," Cassidy said. "I watched the first 30 minutes as I was exercising this morning, and I was riveted as you were racing through the woods and jumping off cliffs. I won't spoil the rest of the movie for anyone that hasn't seen it, but [there are some] pretty cool scenes."

 

Cassidy went on to explain some of the more unique aspects of life on the International Space Station.

 

"We have email, of course, but the email only synchronizes about four times a day," Cassidy said. "We do have the ability to go to the Internet, but it's not super fast, it's not super reliable, so it's just really to get news and that sort of thing."

 

View full size imageAlthough the movie's director J.J. Abrams could not participate in the webcast due to a scheduling conflict, he did send in a video question for Michael Fincke and Kjell Lindgren two astronauts that took part in the hangout on the ground. The director wanted to know if Fincke or Lindgren had ever had a personal experience that made either of them believe in extraterrestrial life.

 

"We all want to know [if we are] the only ones out there, and 'Star Trek' helps us imagine what it could be like if there were other creatures out there, other people other species," Fincke responded. "So I spent a whole year up in space, 381 days, but it was only 240 miles up, so that's not very far in cosmic terms so we think that as we go farther out into the universe, we might find something out there that we don't know about."

 

While "Star Trek" may be an inspiring piece of entertainment for scientists and astronauts around the world, it is still doesn't necessarily mimic the realities of life in orbit.

 

"The thing that does grab my attention is that everybody is always walking around and walking onto the bridge of the ship or things like that," Cassidy said. "It's probably hard to make that [realistic] in a movie where technically, how would you make everybody float? So I understand, but it would be far more fun if you could."

 

Did 'Star Trek' Give Rise to NASA's 'Space Shuttle'?

 

Robert Pearlman - collectSPACE.com

 

NASA's first space shuttle, the test orbiter Enterprise, was named after the fictional starship on "Star Trek" in response to fans staging a write-in campaign. But did the agency's use of the term "space shuttle" also stem from the television series?

 

"The Galileo [shuttlecraft] is such an important part of Star Trek and not only to Star Trek, it was important to literally the consciousness of the space program," Alec Peters, a "Star Trek" superfan, recently told SPACE.com. "It really is the precursor to the space shuttle Enterprise."

 

Peters, with fellow superfan Adam Schneider, is currently restoring "Galileo," the full-size prop shuttlecraft used for filming the original "Star Trek" series in 1966. The science fiction relic is to go on display at Space Center Houston, the visitor center for NASA's Johnson Space Center, later this year.

 

"They invented the idea of a shuttlecraft," Schneider said, referring to "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry and his television series' crew. Schneider further told SPACE.com that NASA, busy with planning trips to the moon, was at the time only referring to "tugs" to bring cargo to orbit.

 

"One year after Galileo aired, suddenly the word became 'shuttle.' The word 'shuttle' was used over and over again," said Schneider.

 

Peters and Schneider aren't alone in their belief that "Star Trek" gave rise to NASA using the term "space shuttle." The Wikipedia entry for "shuttlecraft" credits "Star Trek" in part for the term entering the vocabulary "as a vehicle for traveling between a planetary surface and space," though it acknowledges that a citation is needed.

 

"Aerospace engineer Maxwell Hunter and others had been using the term shuttlecraft for several years corresponding to the broadcast dates of Star Trek," the entry states.

 

According to the crowd-sourced encyclopedia, the head of the NASA Office of Manned Space Flight George Mueller gave a speech in August 1968 that mentioned the need for a "Space Shuttle."

 

"This was the earliest known official use of the term," the entry states.

 

Studying the space shuttle's origins

 

"The House passed the space budget yesterday... which includes the vote for the shuttle," Mission Control radioed to astronauts John Young and Charlie Duke as they stood on the surface of the moon during the Apollo 16 mission in April 1972.

 

"The country needs that shuttle mighty bad. You'll see," replied Young, who nine years later launched again as the commander of the first space shuttle mission.

 

That day in 1972 was the first time the term "shuttle" was spoken in space, but the word, at least as it applied to a spacecraft, had appeared in aerospace reports and media reports for the better part of a decade, if not more.

 

"Space Shuttle evolved from descriptive references in the press, aerospace industry and government," said NASA's History Office in the 1975 book "Origins of NASA Names" (SP-4402). "As early NASA advanced studies grew into a full program, the name came into official use."

 

One such study released by Bell Aerosystems in 1965 was titled, "Space Shuttle of the Future: The Aerospaceplane." The report's author, Walter Dornberger, one of the original members of Wernher von Braun's rocket team, delivered a talk, "The Recoverable, Reusable Space Shuttle," at the University of Tennessee that same year.

 

The press was using the term even earlier.

 

Defense Space Business Daily was "persistent in referring to [U.S. Air Force] and NASA reentry and lifting-body tests as Space Shuttle tests." The newsletter's editor had shifted from "aerospaceplane" to "spaceplane" to "space shuttle" as early as 1963, inspired by airline shuttle flights.

 

"Star Trek" did not premiere on television for another three years.

 

From shuttle to shuttlecraft

 

It is possible that instead of "Star Trek" paving the way for NASA's use of "space shuttle," it was NASA, or at least one of its early leaders, who originated the term for the show's shuttlecraft — 14 years before Captain James Kirk and his crew embarked on their first away mission.

 

In the March 22, 1952 issue of Collier's magazine, as part of a seminal series of articles focused on selling the U.S. public on the idea of manned spaceflight, rocket pioneer Wernher von Braun described, "On approaching the space station, the tiny shuttle-craft will drive directly into an air lock."

 

In "Star Trek," small shuttlecraft, such as the Galileo, flew directly into the Starship Enterprise's hangar deck.

 

"From things that I've seen, it appears clear that the term 'shuttle' appeared in space literature prior to 'Star Trek,'" Michael Okuda, a graphic designer and technical advisor for the later "Star Trek" series, told collectSPACE in an e-mail. "As far as I can tell, it is not at all clear if 'Star Trek' borrowed the term from previous literature or if it was an independent invention."

 

"I wouldn't be surprised if 'Star Trek' independently coined the specific term 'shuttlecraft,' but I've not seen anything to document this either way," he said. "Even if the show did not coin the term 'shuttlecraft,' I would not be surprised if its use on 'Star Trek' was responsible for bringing it into the lexicon."

 

Russian cosmonaut first earthling to pay taxes from space

 

Itar-Tass

 

Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov, the commander of Expedition 36 at the International Space Station, has become the first person on the planet to have paid taxes while in orbit.

 

Sources indicate that Vinogradov's rather unusual request was related to the Federal Tax Services by the first woman cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, who is currently a deputy of the State Duma.

 

The Federal Tax Service sent a codeword for the 'member area' Internet service that enables him to make payments anyplace he finds it possible to get connected to the worldwide web.

 

While staying aboard the ISS, Vinogradov managed to pay a tax for a plot of land he has in the Moscow region.

 

Mikhail Mishustin, the director of the Federal Taxation Service, confirmed the fact in a conversation with reporters on the sidelines of a Tax Administration Forum of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, underway in Moscow now.

 

Pascal Saint-Amans, the director of the OECD Center for Tax Policy and Administration, said in this connection that the long arm of the Russian tax inspectors is already stretched as far out as the near-terrestrial space.

 

Russia is the only country today that has managed to raise taxes even from a person doing a tour of duty in space, Pascak said joikingly.

 

He added seriously that the countries dynamically introducing innovations in the field of tax administration are not many.

 

Chris Hadfield's week: from commanding the space station, to being unfit to drive a car

 

Peter Rakobowchuk - Canadian Press

 

Until a few days ago, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield was responsible for making sure the International Space Station stayed on course.

 

Now that he's back on Earth, he can't even drive a car for the next few weeks.

 

It's been an intense adjustment period for the 53-year-old astronaut who described Thursday how, after months of floating in weightlessness, he's suddenly grappling with the painful effects of gravity.

 

"Right after I landed, I could feel the weight of my lips and tongue and I had to change how I was talking," Hadfield told reporters during a video news conference from Houston.

 

"I hadn't realized that I learned to talk with a weightless tongue."

 

The latest health update by Raffi Kuyumjian, his flight surgeon, said Thursday that the three-time space visitor was starting to show noticeable improvement in his walk and equilibrium.

 

But Hadfield was not ready to put the pedal to the metal. Kuyumjian said it usually takes about three weeks before a returning astronaut can drive a car again.

 

When Hadfield spoke to reporters, he said his body felt confused and banged-up by the effects of gravity after his long duration visit.

 

He said he had to make a conscious effort to keep his head aloft. That he was dizzy. And because the callouses were gone from his feet, his footsteps felt like walking on hot coals.

 

A first trip to the gym was excruciating, he said, because it felt like two people had jumped on him when he was trying to move on a mat.

 

Things were so different in space.

 

''My body was quite happy living in space without gravity,'' he said.

 

"(It's) a very empowering environment where you can touch the wall and do somersaults, where you can move a refrigerator around with your fingertips and never worry about which way was up.

 

''Well, that all changed when our Soyuz (capsule) slammed back into the Earth. And my body is catching up with the change. And so the symptoms are dizziness. It's like when you come off a ride at the CNE or something.''

 

Hadfield returned to Earth on Monday night and was flown to Houston to be reunited with his wife and to undergo tests and debriefings.

 

Hadfield also announced that his use of social media, which earned him an international audience, won't end with his return to Earth.

 

He had 20,000 Twitter followers when he blasted off with Russian space colleague Roman Romanenko and NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn on Dec. 19, 2012. This week back on terra firma, Hadfield was hovering around one million followers.

 

Hadfield said the point of using social media was not to gain fame — but to teach people about space exploration.

 

"It is just too good an experience to keep to yourself," he said. "And the more people that see it and understand it, the more the benefits of space exploration will roll back into daily life for all of us."

 

Hadfield added that it felt rewarding to receive a message from someone who said he didn't even know Canada had a space program, until he saw Hadfield's tweets.

 

There were major changes at the Canadian Space Agency while Hadfield was gone.

 

While Hadfield was circling the globe every 92 minutes, Steve MacLean quit as head of the space agency and was replaced earlier this year by interim boss Gilles Leclerc.

 

But Hadfield wouldn't say if he was eager to take over the top job at Canada's space agency.

 

"I'm nowhere near even thinking about that yet," said Hadfield, who is Canada's oldest active astronaut, when asked if he wanted to be the next CSA president.

 

"Ask me again in a few months. For now, I'm still trying to stand up straight and I have to sit down in the shower so I don't faint and fall down."

 

Chris Hadfield: 'Space was too good not to share it'

 

BBC News

 

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield has said his life in space had to be shared on social media, in his first public appearance since returning to Earth.

 

Cmdr Hadfield, 53, said his experiences in space were "too good" to keep to himself. He landed on Tuesday.

 

With nearly 1 million Twitter followers, Cmdr Hadfield said he was pleased with the interest in his work.

 

He had been on the International Space Station since December 2012 and in command of the vessel since March.

 

While in space, Cmdr Hadfield tweeted about his life at the space station, sharing striking images of the Earth from space.

 

"There is beautiful imagery, there's poetry in what is happening, there is purpose in what is happening," Cmdr Hadfield said of his work on the space station. "There is a beauty to it, there is hope in it and it's an international thing."

 

Sore and dizzy

 

His social media activities included singing a song with children around the world and filming a cover of David Bowie's hit Space Oddity.

 

But Cmdr Hadfield insisted his social media activities were secondary to his main functions at the space station.

 

He said life in space was extremely busy, with no spare time to be idle.

 

At his first news briefing in Houston, Texas, where the astronaut is undergoing rehabilitation, Cmdr Hadfield described the physical sensations of being in space and landing on Earth.

 

His first sensation of Earth was the smell of spring after landing in the Kazakh steppe on Tuesday, he said.

 

Emphasising the differences between life in space and "reality" on Earth, Cmdr Hadfield said he was "readapting to it physically and mentally".

 

Cmdr Hadfield added that upon his return to Earth he noticed the weight of his tongue and lips and was remembering how to speak under the force of gravity, while his neck and back felt sore from having to support his head again.

 

"It feels like I played a hard game of rugby yesterday or played full-contact hockey yesterday and I haven't played in a while," he said. "My body is just sore and I'm dizzy, but it's getting better measurably by the hour."

 

Performing From Space, Canada's Low-Orbit Star

 

Ian Austen - New York Times

 

As far as YouTube hits go, Canada's contribution has not yet approached the popularity of South Korea's "Gangnam Style." And perhaps because of the limitations of weightlessness, the music video lacked any dance moves at all.

 

But the video, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" that Chris Hadfield produced in the International Space Station as his five-month command neared an end, may have cemented his reputation as the world's best-known singing astronaut, not to mention Canada's newest celebrity.

 

Mr. Hadfield, 53, is an unlikely star. But his acoustic guitar, a series of televised publicity stunts, a steady stream of online photo postings and his hearty appetite for Twitter messages from space enabled him to overcome, at least in Canada, the yawning indifference that often meets space travel.

 

As if a Canadian had just landed on Mars, broadcasters here provided live updates on Monday night when a Russian Soyuz capsule carrying Mr. Hadfield, the American Tom Marshburn and the Russian Roman Romanenko landed in Kazakhstan. Prime Minister Stephen Harper called Mr. Hadfield "our very own space pioneer," and the Canadian news media prominently noted a BBC online story declaring that Mr. Hadfield "has probably become the most famous astronaut since the days of Neil Armstrong and Yuri Gagarin."

 

Back on Earth but not yet back in Canada, Mr. Hadfield held a televised news conference on Thursday from Houston, where he will be readjusting to gravity until next month. Asked about his fame, he said, "I hope I can just lead a normal life after this."

 

Mr. Hadfield's most heavily publicized achievements from space did not appear off-the-charts from a scientific point of view. He issued Twitter postings like mad. He dropped a puck from space for the Toronto Maple Leafs' home opener against the Buffalo Sabres. He also unveiled a new Canadian five-dollar bill and led thousands of schoolchildren in a singalong.

 

But Will Straw, the director of the Institute for the Study of Canada at McGill University in Montreal, said that what Mr. Hadfield did or did not achieve is beside the point. He is an astronaut from Canada, more than enough to ensure his fame here.

 

"Canadians are always thrilled if anybody in the world notices another Canadian," Mr. Straw said. "It's like the old joke about how many Canadians it takes to screw in a light bulb: 10, one to do the work and nine to point at him and say, 'He's Canadian.' "

 

Rick Mercer, a Canadian satirist, noted that Mr. Hadfield was not exactly an overnight success, having participated in two space shuttle missions.

 

The difference with this trip, Mr. Mercer said, was Mr. Hadfield's digital accessibility. When Canadians sent him requests for space photos of their hometowns through Twitter or e-mail, he aimed his camera in their direction. He also participated in a sketch for Mr. Mercer's mock news television program, "The Rick Mercer Report," from the Space Station.

 

"People felt that they were interacting with a guy in space, not just turning on a television," Mr. Mercer said. "He's a bit goofy, like a normal Canadian. We kind of see ourselves in him."

 

Chris Hadfield's '15 minutes' continue with Ryan Gosling-related meme

 

Emi Kolawole - Washington Post (Innovations)

 

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield is back on terra firma, and the way he chose to spend his days in space aboard the international space station have made him a celebrity — particularly his cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity," which has been viewed well over 11 million times.

 

Hadfield's popularity led The Post's Ed O'Keefe to question why the United States hadn't produced a similar media superstar in space. The short answer: Lawmakers would be questioning the use of taxpayer money on the space program faster than you can say "ground control to Major Tom."

 

Well, it appears that Hadfield isn't immune to criticism from his fellow Canadians along the same vein.

Toronto Sun Columnist Simon Kent was less than thrilled with Hadfield's performances aboard the space station, outlining his displeasure in a column posted Tuesday.

 

Lushly mustachioed Chris Hadfield comes across as a space oddity, an immensely likable person with a keenly developed sense of what works on social media.

 

Good for him. Hadfield clearly enjoyed his 15 minutes of fame (and then some) but his legacy is debatable. … I wonder if NASA, and by extension the financially-embattled Canadian Space Agency, can rely on entertainment to carry it boldly into the future.

 

Ouch.

 

But that's one drop relative to an ocean of praise elsewhere online, with NPR's Maria Godoy writing that the space station is now, with Hadfield's landing, missing its "Space Chef in Chief." And in what is perhaps the highest praise the Internet can offer, Hadfield has joined actor Ryan Gosling in the "won't eat his cereal" Vine meme, thanks to iVillage. Whether you like it or not, Hadfield's "15 minutes" are likely to last at least a little bit longer.

 

Why Hadfield's Space Oddity video almost didn't happen

 

Daniel Reid - CTV News

 

If Emm Gryner had her way, Chris Hadfield would not have performed Space Oddity in zero-gravity on the International Space Station.

 

The astronaut's collaborator, who helped put together the stunning David Bowie cover, thought the song choice was too obvious.

 

Surprisingly, she wanted something a little more odd.

 

"I kind of suggested some other more obscure space songs, which he didn't want to go for," the Juno award nominee told CTV's Canada AM on Wednesday. "I didn't know it would get this kind of reception."

 

As soon as Gryner heard Hadfield's flawless vocals, recorded 370 kilometres above the Earth, all her doubts were put to rest.

 

"It was a beautiful performance," Gryner said. So beautiful, she decided to scrap possible plans to turn it into a duet.

 

"When I heard Chris sing, I thought … 'I want to hear what it's like for someone to sing in space,'" she said.

 

In just two days, Hadfield's video already has 10 million views on YouTube – more than David Bowie's original.

 

But between recording in space, cutting video, and getting permission from artist David Bowie, the magical video almost didn't happen at all.

 

"I wanted David to know about it, and Chris also wanted his permission, like a true gentleman," Gryner said. "We just wanted him to give the go-ahead and make sure it was OK."

 

With just a month left before Hadfield's return to Earth, she says she sent a desperate email to Ziggy Stardust himself.

 

"I remember writing David an email and the subject line was '30 days left in space,'" Gryner said.

 

The rock star was very supportive, she said, going so far as to share the song with his followers on Twitter.

 

Gryner thinks listeners have really connected with the song's sincerity and rawness.

 

"It's just great for people to hear something that's real," she said. "Chris sang it so sincerely and it's such a great song."

 

The Astronauts You Should Start Following on Twitter

As astronauts travel to stars, they're sharing their experiences via Facebook and Twitter

 

Melody Kramer - National Geographic

 

When astronaut Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) returned to Earth from the International Space Station on Monday, he brought home something unique: more than 800,000 Twitter followers. Over the past five months, the Canadian commander has spent much of his free time tweeting pictures from space, interacting with his fans, and capturing video—of himself, his crewmates, and anything floating by in zero gravity.

 

Though Hadfield is probably the most famous astronaut on Twitter, he isn't the only one experimenting on social media. In fact, many astronauts—including those slated for upcoming missions—are actively engaging with people on sites like Facebook, Google Plus, and Twitter. So who's worth following from down here on Earth?

 

Space fans might want to start with NASA Mission Specialist Karen Nyberg, who's the next astronaut slated to go into space on May 28 aboard the Russian Soyuz. It'll be Nyberg's second mission to the International Space Station and her first as a Twitter user. She tweets under the handle @AstroKarenN, but where she really shines online is on the social media site Pinterest, where she curates boards entitled "Simple Joys on Earth," "Prep for Spaceflight," and "Hair and Space."

 

Then there's NASA astronaut Mike Massimino (@Astro_Mike) who holds the distinction of being the first person to tweet in space. At the time—back in 2009—Massimino couldn't actually send a tweet from space itself. Instead, his tweet about sunrises and sunsets in orbit was sent to his ground crew, who then posted it to Twitter. Fellow astronaut TJ Creamer's emoticon-filled tweet, sent from the International Space Station after it acquired Internet access, was actually the first tweet sent from space itself.

 

Want to know what astronauts are up to during key points of their mission? Follow Jeremy Hansen (@Astro_Jeremy), a Canadian Space Agency astronaut and prolific tweeter. He live-tweeted the return of Chris Hadfield's Soyuz mission with insider details and frequently shares what it's like to be an astronaut training back here on Earth. (Sometimes it involves eating astronaut-shaped cookies.)

 

If you're bilingual, several astronauts from NASA, the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA), and the European Space Agency (ESA) tweet in two languages. Joe Acaba (@AstroAcaba), the first Puerto Rican astronaut to travel into space, often answers questions on the @NASA_ES account. In addition, Soichi Noguchi (@Astro_Soichi) and Aki Hoshide (@Aki_Hoshide) tweet in English and Japanese, Paolo Nespoli (@Astro_Paolo) and Luca Parmitano (@Astro_Luca) handle English and Italian, and Andre Kuipers (@astro_andre) tweets in English and Dutch.

 

Also worth following: NASA Press Secretary Lauren Worley, who tweets under the handle @spacelauren, and Bobak Ferdowski (@tweetsoutloud), the flight director on the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Mission who made headlines in August 2012 when his Mohawk hairstyle was prominently featured on NASA TV during the Curiosity rover landing. Both frequently tweet about working at NASA, as well as other space-related topics.

 

Downey receives low-interest loan for new permanent shuttle center

 

Pamela Hale-Burns - Long Beach Press-Telegram

 

Downey was awarded a $3 million federal loan to build a permanent center for its original, full-size space shuttle mock-up, officials said this week.

 

Built in 1972 by Rockwell International, the shuttle is currently housed under a temporary tent in a parking lot at the former Downey Studios, 12214 Lakewood Blvd.

 

The low-interest Department of Housing and Urban Development loan will help pay for the new Inspiration Neighborhood Center, a 18,500-square-foot multipurpose community center that will house the shuttle, along with meeting and office space.

 

The facility will be a welcome addition for the lower income neighborhood of south Downey, said Brian Saeki, community development director for the City of Downey.

 

"This loan will provide a facility - not only to learn about space and the things we have to offer here in Downey - but also access to a facility with some special programming for that specific neighborhood," he said. "It's not just a place to have the shuttle mock-up. It's going to be much more than that. "

 

Construction could begin as early as mid-summer and be completed by the first quarter of 2014, Saeki said.

 

"We are very happy and excited," he said. "We can now begin really focusing on getting the construction documents completed and getting the building built."

 

HUD Regional Administrator Ophelia Basgal in a statement that she hopes the loan will be a boost to the city's revitalization efforts and provide jobs for residents.

 

When (Part of) Apollo 13 Reached the Moon

 

Amy Shira Teitel – Discovery News

 

Recounts of the Apollo 13 mission are dominated by stories of the oxygen tank's explosion and the subsequent fight engineers waged against the dying spacecraft to save the crew's lives. And understandably so; it's one of the most captivating stories of the era that's given the mission the subtitle of "the successful failure."

 

But it wasn't all a failure. Some mission objectives were just successes, among them the deliberate impact of the Saturn V's third stage on the lunar surface.

 

The massive Saturn V was a three-stage rocket. The first (S-IC) and second (S-II) stages were both designed to fall back to Earth after launch. But the third stage, the S-IVB, was designed to go further. This stage accompanied the Apollo spacecraft into Earth orbit then used its massive engine to send the docked Command and Service Module (CSM) and the Lunar Module (LM) towards the moon; the maneuver was properly called the translunar injection burn.

 

Only when the CSM/LM was on its way to the moon did the S-IVB undock from the spacecraft. But by then it had the same lunar-bound momentum as the spacecraft. On the Apollo 8, 10, and 11 missions NASA let the S-IVB stage follow a ballistic trajectory that had it pass by the moon and go into into orbit around the sun. But on Apollo 13, NASA kicked the S-IVB on to a trajectory that would have it impact the lunar surface.

 

The reason goes back to Apollo 12. When Pete Conrad and Al Bean landed on the moon, they brought along a series of science instruments. Among them was a seismometer, an instrument designed to register ground displacement on the moon to give scientists a look at our satellite's internal structure. Apollo 11 also left a seismometer on the lunar surface, but it fell silent after just three weeks. So it was for the benefit of the scientists reading data from Apollo 12's seismometer that NASA crashed Apollo 13's S-IVB into the moon.

 

NASA tracked Apollo 13's S-IVB by radio signals after spacecraft separation, enabling engineers to accurately predict the time and place the impact would occur. When Apollo 12's seismometer registered a series of vibrations originating from a point about 83 miles away, they knew it was the spent rocket stage. In that instant, it weighed 29,599 pounds and was traveling at 8,465 feet per second.

 

Apollos 14, 15, 16, and 17 also left seismic stations on the moon creating a network covering a small area of the surface. These four missions' Saturn V S-IVB stages also impacted the Moon creating vibrations picked up by the seismic network. Between 1969 and 1977, this network registered some 13,000 seismic events that encompassed some of the most important science data of the Apollo program.

 

From the array of seismic readings, the S-IVB impacts stood out; the rocket stages produced a unique calibration signal. And for the modern day observer, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has captured some stunning pictures of the stage impact sites.

 

END