Keep the shuttle flying: Fwd: Human Spaceflight News

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Begin forwarded message:

From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: May 7, 2013 6:14:41 AM GMT-06:00
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: Human Spaceflight News - May 7, 2013 and JSC Today

Mike Gentry reports that he has located Dave Ballard, thanks for every ones help.

Kyle Herring and Jeri Brown reported that the Explorer Orbiter KSC's wooden mockup, also known as "Woody" by some, will be placed atop the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft at some point for display at Space Center Houston at the site where Woody is on display now.

Dave Tadlock has been moved to Webster rehab. Facility   -- from Betty Tadlock: Here's where David is: Kindred Hospital Clear Lake, 350 Blossom Street, Webster, TX 77598 Room 323 - Main Phone: 281.316.7800

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

JSC TODAY HEADLINES
1.            How-to-Telework Sessions for PC, Mac and iPad Users This Week
2.            Tackling the Challenges of Securing the Cyber Space -- May 8
3.            This Week at Starport
4.            Salsa/Latin Dance Classes Return to Starport
5.            New This Summer -- Youth Sports Camps at Starport
6.            IEEE: Project Management Workshop -- Spaces Still Available
7.            Nominate Your Peer Today
8.            JSC Career Path Development Course -- Register Today
9.            Crane Operations and Rigging Refresher ViTS: June 5 and 6 - Building 17, Room 2026
10.          Signs, Signals and Barricades ViTS: June 7
________________________________________     NASA FACT
" A test version of NASA's Orion spacecraft landed safely during a simulation of two types of parachute failures. In the test, conducted in Yuma, Ariz. on May 1, a mock Orion capsule was traveling about 250 mph when the parachutes were deployed - the highest speed in the test series."
________________________________________
1.            How-to-Telework Sessions for PC, Mac and iPad Users This Week
JSC's Information Resources Directorate (IRD) will provide three how-to-telework sessions this week based on device. These one-hour, in-person sessions will focus on the Information Technology (IT) aspects of teleworking. All sessions will be in the Teague Auditorium. No reservations are required.
o             For PC users: Tuesday, May 7, from 10 to 11 a.m.
o             For Mac users: Wednesday, May 8, from 10 to 11 a.m.
o             For iPad users: Thursday, May 9, from 10 to 11 a.m.
Learn more about the access and tools required to telework, as well as tips and tricks about IdMax and Virtual Private Network (VPN).
Have questions? Contact the IRD Customer Support center at x46367 (xGOFOR) - option 6, email jsc-irdscpt@nasa.gov, or reference IRD's Work from Anywhere site.
JSC-IRD-Outreach x46367 http://ird.jsc.nasa.gov/infopedia/wiki%20pages/jsc%20telework%20toolkit....

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2.            Tackling the Challenges of Securing the Cyber Space -- May 8
JSC's SAIC/Safety and Mission Assurance speaker hosts Dr. Andrew Yang, executive director, Cyber Security Institute, and associate professor for computer science and computer information systems.
o             Subject: Tackling the Challenges of Securing the Cyber Space -- an Academia Perspective
o             Wednesday, May 8, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
o             Building 1, Room 966
Yang earned his degree from University of Minnesota in computer and information science. Since 2000, his research has focused on areas related to cyber security, including security of ad hoc networks, wireless sensor networks, wireless local area networks and computer security education. In addition to teaching fundamental computer science courses at the University of Houston-Clear Lake (UHCL), he has developed and taught new undergraduate and graduate courses in cyber security-related areas, including computer security, network security, Web security and the security of wireless sensor networks.
Learn how UHCL and JSC are working together to tackle the challenges of securing cyber security.
Event Date: Wednesday, May 8, 2013   Event Start Time:11:30 AM   Event End Time:12:30 PM
Event Location: Building 1, room 966

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Della Cardona/Juan Traslavina 281-335-2074/281-335-2272

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3.            This Week at Starport
Be sure to stop by the Mini Fitness Expo at Building 3 tomorrow from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. as part of Health and Fitness Month! Get your body fat, blood pressure and BMI measured to earn tickets to be entered in our random prize drawing at the end of the month. Plus, chat with a personal trainer, a SPINNING instructor and our fitness director and get more tickets.
Discount tickets to the Houston Dynamo versus Sporting Kansas City game on May 12 are on sale for $20.
Sam's Club will be in the Building 3 Starport Café Thursday 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.
Shelly Haralson x39168 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/

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4.            Salsa/Latin Dance Classes Return to Starport
Intro to Latin Dance:
This class is an introduction to Salsa, but it also touches on other popular Latin dances found at social settings: Merengue, Bachata and maybe even a little bit of Cha-Cha-Cha. Emphasis is on Salsa and then Bachata. Partners are allowed, but not required.
Latin Dance Introduction (begins May 31)
o             Fridays from 7 to 8 p.m. (Studio 1)
Salsa Intermediate:
This class continues teaching salsa beyond that taught in the introduction class. You should be comfortable and confident with the material from the introduction class before moving on to the intermediate class. This is a multi-level class where students may be broken up into groups based upon class experience.
Salsa Intermediate (begins May 31)
o             Fridays from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. (Studio 1)
Registration:
o             Early: May 6 to 17 ($40 per person)
o             Regular: May 18 to 30 ($50 per person)
Shericka Phillips x35563 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/Fitness/RecreationClasses/RecreationProgram...

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5.            New This Summer -- Youth Sports Camps at Starport
Starport Sports Camps at the Gilruth Center are a great way to provide added instruction for all levels of players and prepare participants for competitive play. Let our knowledgeable and experienced coaches give your child the confidence they need to learn and excel in their chosen sport.
Baseball Camp: Focuses on the development of hitting, catching, base running, throwing, pitching and drills
Session Dates: July 8 to 12 and July 15 to 19
Times: 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Ages: 6 to 12
Price $200/per session
Basketball Camp: Focuses on the development of shooting, passing, dribbling, guarding and drills
Session Dates: Aug. 5 to 9
Times: 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Ages: 9 to 14
Price $200
Ultimate Frisbee: Focuses on development of throwing, catching, offense, defense, zones and drills
Session Dates: July 1 to 3
Times: 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Ages: 9 to 14
Price $140
Before and after care is available. Register your child now at the Gilruth Center. Space is limited! Visit our website for information and registration forms.
Shericka Phillips x35563 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/

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6.            IEEE: Project Management Workshop -- Spaces Still Available
The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) Galveston Bay Section sponsors a project management workshop for engineers, technical leads, project leaders and functional managers who want to practice the fundamentals of project management to help themselves and their groups accomplish their endeavors, whether at work, at home or in the community. Participants will learn basic project management techniques and how to apply them in real life without excessive overhead. The workshop will provide course notes, including project management templates/checklists and documented case studies of how to apply project management techniques to engineering and personal projects.
Instructor Tarek Lahdhiri, Ph.D., PE, PMP, is strategy leader for Real-Time Control Systems Simulations at General Motors, LLC.
The workshop is from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on May 18 in the Gilruth Center Discovery Room. You will receive five PDH credits, with light lunch included. The cost for non-IEEE members is $40; IEEE members - $30; IEEE students - $20. RSVP by May 8 to Stew O'Dell.
Event Date: Saturday, May 18, 2013   Event Start Time:9:30 AM   Event End Time:2:30 PM
Event Location: Discovery Room, Gilruth Center

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Stew O'Dell x31855

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

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8.            JSC Career Path Development Course -- Register Today
The JSC Career Path Development Course is designed to instill a sense of initiative and empowerment. The course connects you to resources NASA has to offer and highlights your role in the iterative career development process.
Objectives:
o             To emphasize the value of career path development
o             To provide an understanding of the key players and the individual roles they play in an employee's career planning efforts
o             To discuss the essentials of the career path development process
o             To highlight and provide an overview of the career development tools and resources available
o             To boost employee interest in career planning and enable one to make greater contributions to NASA
Course Details:
Civil servants only
Date: May 23
Time: 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Location: Building 12, Room 152
Use this direct link to register in SATERN. https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=REGISTRATI...
Nicole Hernandez K. x37894

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

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10.          Signs, Signals and Barricades ViTS: June 7
This two-hour course is based on Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) CFR 1926.200, requirements for working with signs, signals and barricades in the construction industry. In this course, the student will receive an overview of those topics needed to work safely in circumstances where signs, signals and/or barricades are required. Topics covered include: 1926.200 - OSHA standards, terminology and proper usage. There will be a final exam associated with this course, which must be passed with a 70 percent minimum score to receive course credit.
Use this direct link to SATERN for registration. This may be the last time this class is offered.
https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=SCHEDULED_...
Event Date: Friday, June 7, 2013   Event Start Time:9:30 AM   Event End Time:11:30 AM
Event Location: Bldg. 17 / Rm 2026

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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:
·         11:45 am Central (12:45 EDT) – E35's Tom Marshburn with the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation's Subcommittee on Science and Space

Human Spaceflight News
Tuesday, May 7, 2013

HEADLINES AND LEADS

Exploring a possible mission to Mars

Joel Achenbach - Washington Post

Is NASA going to send astronauts to Mars?

That's the agency's stated goal, though there's no mission yet, no program per se, certainly no budget (it would probably give lawmakers the jitters) and, at the moment, NASA doesn't have the technology to land astronauts safely and then bring them back to Earth. So humans-to-Mars is aspirational, with the tough logistical and political issues yet to be resolved. Amplification of NASA's long-term Mars strategy came Monday at the outset of a three-day conference at George Washington University called the "Humans to Mars Summit," or H2M. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden served as the keynoter, and he was soon followed by senior agency officials who have Mars on the mind.

NASA's Asteroid Mission Hopes to Prevent 'Large Scale Destruction'
Administrator Charles Bolden says the mission has several benefits

Jason Koebler - US News & World Report

President Barack Obama's asteroid lasso mission is at least partially designed to give humans a fighting chance of avoiding an Armageddon-like situation, NASA's top administrator said Monday. The mission, planned for the 2020s, calls for NASA to use a robotic spacecraft to capture a still unspecified asteroid and bring it into orbit around the moon. From there, a manned spaceship will send astronauts to sample the asteroid and perhaps bring a sample of it back to Earth. The agency sees it as a chance to test its Orion spacecraft, which it plans to use to send astronauts to Mars in the 2030s. Speaking at the Human to Mars Summit in Washington, D.C. Monday, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said that beyond using the lasso mission as a test bed for Orion, the mission is also being done to "prepare efforts to prevent an asteroid from colliding with devastating force into our planet."

NASA hopes for 'synergies' between asteroid relocation effort, sample-return mission

Dan Leone - Space News

The asteroid sample-return mission set to launch in 2016 could help NASA figure out how to haul a space rock back to the Moon for astronauts to examine next decade, a senior agency official said here April 30. "I think the two missions could have a lot of synergies," Jim Green, director of NASA's Planetary Science Division, said at NASA headquarters here following a presentation by the scientist in charge of the robotic Osiris-Rex asteroid sample-return mission. As part of a plan to bring a 10-meter asteroid back to lunar space to provide a destination for the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle and its Space Launch System booster, the Obama administration has charged NASA's Planetary Science Division with stepping up its asteroid detection efforts.

First flight of Cygnus cargo craft delayed to September

Stephen Clark – SpaceflightNow.com

Orbital Sciences Corp. says the first full-up test flight of its Cygnus cargo resupply ship to the International Space Station will probably slip to September due to a combination of factors, including an engine replacement on the mission's Antares rocket and a scheduling conflict with a Japanese logistics spacecraft. The first flight of Orbital's Cygnus resupply freighter, an automated cargo carrier developed in partnership with NASA, was expected this summer. But Orbital officials decided to swap out one of the AJ26 first stage engines on the spacecraft's Antares rocket, adding three or four weeks of prep time before the mission is ready to blast off.

Engine swap pushes Orbital's ISS demo flight to at least August

James Dean - Florida Today

Orbital Sciences Corp.'s demonstration mission to the International Space Station won't fly before August, the company reported today. Dulles-Va. based Orbital said it will swap out one of the two main engines slated to launch an Antares rocket and Cygnus cargo spacecraft to the station. The swap is necessary to confirm a seal is functioning properly, Orbital said, and the replacement AJ26 engine has been fully tested. The demonstration mission had been tentatively targeted for late June or early July, but the engine swap adds three to four weeks.

Apollo Test Stand Re-Purposed For SLS

Jason Rhian - AmericaSpace.com

One of the test stands at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi which supported the development of the Saturn family of launch vehicles is now being tapped to test engines that are planned for use on NASA's new heavy-lift booster, the Space Launch System, or "SLS." The B-2 stand, as it is known, was used to validate the Saturn's engines before they were used to prepare for manned missions to the Moon. According to NASA, B-2 has been renovated to test the Space Launch System's core stage in late 2016 and late 2017. This element of SLS has four RS-25 rocket engines. This element will be placed into the stand where it will be used to conduct propellant fill and drain tests as well as two hot-fire tests.

Johnson Space Center campus looks to support NASA entrepreneurs

Angela Shah - Xconomy.com (business news website)

The shuttering of NASA's space shuttle program two years ago was felt most acutely in the Houston suburbs, home to the Johnson Space Center. In the aftermath, corporate boosters scrambled to keep talent in the area in order to preserve some of the economic engine that the space program brought to the city. The result is the Johnson Space Center campus, a business incubator and accelerator run by the Houston Technology Center, which opened last November and is designed to help get off the ground the youngest of startups—the entrepreneur armed with an idea. "NASA didn't hire dumb people," says Tim Budzik, the managing director of the JSC campus.

Sarah Brightman plans on upcoming space journey

John Carucci - Associated Press

If you called Sarah Brightman a space cadet, it would probably make her smile. That's because she plans on becoming the first recording artist to venture into space en route to the International Space Station sometime in the next two years. The classically trained singer-actress always wanted to explore the heavens. She says it began in 1969 when she was a little girl sitting in front of the television during the historic Apollo 11 landing on the moon.

Russia Confirms Plans to Send Sarah Brightman to Space

RIA Novosti

Russia's space agency Roscosmos said on Monday it has reached an agreement with US-based Space Adventures Ltd. company to proceed with the plans to put British singer Sarah Brightman on a space flight to the International Space Station (ISS) in October 2015. "The sides will discuss in the near future the implementation of this project, including Sarah Brightman's preparation for the flight and the program of her activities on board the orbital station," Roscosmos said in a statement.

Astronaut Hadfield's Music Unites Schools in Song

Elizabeth Howell - Universe Today

Last time Chris Hadfield went up in space in 2001, most of them were infants. In 1995, during his first mission, none of them were even born. Hundreds of elementary school students at an Ottawa school, however, sang enthusiastically along with his music — and along with thousands of other students throughout Canada — during a nationwide performance May 6. The 860 children at St. Emily Catholic School added their voices to the throng as Hadfield led a rendition of "Is Somebody Singing" from the International Space Station. Ranging in ages between 4 and 12, the students at this school spent six weeks practicing in their individual classrooms before performing together for the first time.

Will it be Texas or Florida for SpaceX's commercial launches?
Pressure's on to court private sector

James Dean - Florida Today

The spotlight in a multi-state competition to win SpaceX's commercial rocket launches today shifts back to Texas. At a public meeting in Brownsville, residents will weigh in on a new private launch complex SpaceX has proposed building on the Gulf Coast near Mexico, which the company says could become its "commercial Cape Canaveral." The Texas discussion comes five days after the Volusia County Council voted 6-1 to support a commercial spaceport Florida hopes to develop at the north end of Kennedy Space Center and the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, offering SpaceX an alternative to other states.

New Tenant Moves into KSC's Space Station Processing Facility

Irene Klotz - Space News

With just five full-time employees and a handful of contractors, Melbourne, Fla.-based Micro Aerospace Solutions is not going to do much to alleviate the economic whiplash that continues to reverberate around NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) following the retirement of the space shuttle program in 2011. But the company's lease of office space and lab facilities at Kennedy's largely empty Space Station Processing Facility may be a harbinger of things to come.

Red Bull Stratos 'Space Jump' Suit, Capsule on Display in Houston

Robert Pearlman - collectSPACE.com

The Red Bull Stratos pressurized capsule and spacesuit that Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner used to break the speed of sound while free-falling from the stratosphere last October are now on public display for the first time. The Stratos "space jump" capsule and pressure suit made its world premiere as a museum exhibit on Friday (May 3) at Space Center Houston, the privately-run, official visitor center for NASA's Johnson Space Center in Texas. While not a NASA mission, the Red Bull Stratos team included a number of the space agency's veterans, including former space shuttle flight surgeon Jonathan Clark, who served as the project's medical director.

Space shuttle Enterprise's New York exhibit reopening July 10

Robert Pearlman - collectSPACE.com

Space shuttle Enterprise, NASA's retired prototype orbiter, will reopen on public display July 10, just shy of one year since its exhibit in New York first opened. Enterprise's new "Space Shuttle Pavilion," located at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in Manhattan, replaces its original display home that was destroyed by Hurricane Sandy in October 2012. The replacement structure is now under construction around and above the prototype shuttle and is expected to be completed over the coming weeks.

Drawing the battle lines for NASA's 2014 budget

Jeff Foust - The Space Review (Opinion)

While it was nearly two months late, the NASA 2014 budget proposal released on April 10 didn't contain a lot of surprises. In broad strokes, the 2014 budget proposal is similar to the 2013 budget proposal, both in overall funding (about $17.7 billion) and the programs it funds—or doesn't fund enough, as the case may be. The biggest difference in the 2014 budget is the inclusion of a new, relatively high-profile asteroid initiative, but that effort accounts for less than one percent of the overall budget. The debate over that initiative, as well as some other, more familiar battles, will likely dominate congressional deliberations over the budget in the coming months, as some recent hearings have demonstrated.

Caveat Emptor

Space News (Editorial)

Reaction to NASA's new plan to capture a small asteroid and transport it to lunar orbit for an up-close astronaut inspection has ranged from cautious to skeptical, suggesting that the space agency has some tough selling to do. The asteroid capture mission is the sole highlight in a NASA budget request that otherwise seeks to maintain the status quo in 2014. Funding requested for the agency's highest-profile programs — commercial crew and cargo, Space Launch System (SLS), Orion deep-space crew capsule and James Webb Space Telescope — fell in line with expectations.
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COMPLETE STORIES

Exploring a possible mission to Mars

Joel Achenbach - Washington Post

Is NASA going to send astronauts to Mars?

That's the agency's stated goal, though there's no mission yet, no program per se, certainly no budget (it would probably give lawmakers the jitters) and, at the moment, NASA doesn't have the technology to land astronauts safely and then bring them back to Earth. So humans-to-Mars is aspirational, with the tough logistical and political issues yet to be resolved.

Amplification of NASA's long-term Mars strategy came Monday at the outset of a three-day conference at George Washington University called the "Humans to Mars Summit," or H2M. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden served as the keynoter, and he was soon followed by senior agency officials who have Mars on the mind.

All expressed cautious optimism that the agency is on the right path to get to Mars eventually, though some members of the audience were openly impatient and more than a little dismissive of NASA's current plan to send astronauts on a mission to inspect a lassoed asteroid.

After three senior NASA officials — William Gerstenmaier, John Grunsfeld and Michael Gazarik, the associate administrators for human exploration, science and space technology, respectively — talked extensively of the asteroid mission, an audience member took a microphone and expressed exasperation that they were so focused on the asteroid rather than Mars. Another member of the audience, Robert Terry, a retired physicist, made a reference to a private venture, Mars One, that vows to create a permanent Mars colony in just a decade: "When Mars One puts boots on the ground in 2023, what lessons do you expect you'll be learning from that?"

The officials declined to be combative, though Gazarik, for one, noted that he's skeptical of some of the ambitious Mars missions being promoted by private groups. He added, in a conciliatory tone, "I'm skeptical of our own plans."

Then, as they were preparing to leave the stage, they received a nudge from the stage itself, when Artemis Westenberg, the president of Explore Mars — the nonprofit organization that staged the conference — announced that her organization had surveyed Americans and found that only 14 percent favor a visit to an asteroid.

She quoted favorably a line from one of the asteroid-mission skeptics: "Why stand on a rock when you can walk on a world?"

But Bolden, in kicking off the conference, made it clear that the administration plans to take Mars one step at a time, starting with the development of a "commercial crew" program in which private companies would taxi American astronauts to the international space station. Only if that program is fully funded by Congress can NASA turn to the harder tasks of sending astronauts on deep space missions, Bolden said.

He acknowledged that people in the audience want to go to Mars immediately.

"I don't know about you, but I'm not ready. I don't have the capability to do it. NASA doesn't have the capability to do that right now. But we're on a path to be able to do it in the 2030s," Bolden said.

The Obama administration's 2010 "National Space Policy of the United States of America" requires the NASA administrator to set "far-reaching exploration milestones," including: "By 2025, begin crewed missions beyond the moon, including sending humans to an asteroid. By the mid-2030s, send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth."

So, taken literally, the policy does not call for NASA to put astronauts on the surface of the fourth rock from the sun. They'd go to Mars, take a close look from orbit, perhaps rendezvous with one of the small Martian moons, and come zooming home.

That may seem like a long way to go without bothering to land, but landing on Mars is extraordinarily difficult. Mars has a very thin atmosphere, and without air, it's hard to brake a spaceship coming in at 13,000 miles per hour. Getting to Mars would be relatively easy if you were allowed to crash into it. Surviving will cost you extra.

"Can we do it? Yes," said Gazarik, the head of space technology at NASA, speaking in advance of the H2M conference. But he quickly added: "It depends on your level of risk. You can send people many places. It is a question of risk."

And we need new technology, he said. Finding ways to protect astronauts from deadly radiation in space is a major challenge. So is avoiding those crash landings: "We need better ways to slow down."

NASA succeeded last summer in landing the Curiosity rover within 1.5 miles of its target on Mars after a 350-million-mile journey. The entry and descent used a novel method that included using a 15-foot-diameter heat shield to slow down the craft, then a parachute, then chemical rockets. But landing a spaceship with astronauts would probably require a payload about 40 times heavier, Gazarik said.

"That was a metric ton. That was the size of a Mini Cooper. Imagine if we had a larger spacecraft, if we had fuel and a rocket to get off the planet," he said.

One possibility would be landing the fuel, the return rocket and the astronauts separately so that the payloads could be smaller. But that's easier said than done.

"You got to land it all near the same place. It pushes on our ability to land accurately," Gazarik said.

Top NASA officials have made clear that they see humans-to-Mars as the logical ambition for the agency. In response to a reporter's request for clarification about the National Space Policy, an agency spokesman, Allard Beutel, said in an e-mail: "That's the written policy, which we generally refer to as 'going to Mars,' but obviously we're looking at landing on Mars in the coming years, not just orbiting it. And before that is an asteroid mission. So, we have a number of incremental steps and missions ahead of us that will get better defined as we prepare to go to Mars."

There are private entrepreneurs who also want to send humans to Mars and who might be willing to accept far more risk than a program run by the U.S. civilian space agency. But physics is the same for private and public explorers alike.

No one knows how much a human mission to Mars would cost. But in a time of pinched budgets, it's an ambitious goal for the space agency even when using imaginary future dollars. Simply discussing potential costs could be problematic. The agency well remembers what happened in 1989, when President George H.W. Bush announced an ambitious space strategy that included a permanent moon colony and then a human landing on Mars. A rough estimate emerged from NASA that such a suite of missions would cost $400 billion. Congress flinched, and the Bush 41 Mars mission soon evaporated.

Chris Carberry, executive director of Explore Mars, said he's optimistic that NASA could pull off a manned mission to Mars if given the money: "If NASA was directed to do it and provided the resources, they could definitely do it. The question is whether we have the political will to do it. It's more of a policy issue."

The H2M conference is co-sponsored by GWU's Space Policy Institute, perhaps the leading academic think tank with a focus on government efforts in space. And the program lists a bevy of corporate sponsors, including Boeing, Lockheed Martin and ATK.

NASA's Asteroid Mission Hopes to Prevent 'Large Scale Destruction'
Administrator Charles Bolden says the mission has several benefits

Jason Koebler - US News & World Report

President Barack Obama's asteroid lasso mission is at least partially designed to give humans a fighting chance of avoiding an Armageddon-like situation, NASA's top administrator said Monday.

The mission, planned for the 2020s, calls for NASA to use a robotic spacecraft to capture a still unspecified asteroid and bring it into orbit around the moon. From there, a manned spaceship will send astronauts to sample the asteroid and perhaps bring a sample of it back to Earth. The agency sees it as a chance to test its Orion spacecraft, which it plans to use to send astronauts to Mars in the 2030s. Speaking at the Human to Mars Summit in Washington, D.C. Monday, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said that beyond using the lasso mission as a test bed for Orion, the mission is also being done to "prepare efforts to prevent an asteroid from colliding with devastating force into our planet."

That concern is one that politicians have been increasingly worried about since a meteor struck Russia in February and a large asteroid passed within 17,200 miles of Earth on the same day. Days later, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) called on Congress to develop better asteroid tracking technology.

"We should continue to invest in systems that identify threatening asteroids and develop contingencies, if needed, to change the course of an asteroid headed toward Earth," Smith said in a statement.

Though NASA apparently didn't have an asteroid mission in mind a few years ago, William Gerstenmaier, head of NASA's human exploration project, said that in 2010, the agency was instructed by the Obama administration to design a manned mission to an asteroid.

After initially deciding that sending a manned spacecraft to an asteroid wasn't feasible within its budget, NASA decided to use a robotic spacecraft to bring it closer to Earth before sending humans to it.

NASA has apparently taken that to heart – Bolden wasn't the only high-level official to suggest Monday that an asteroid could pose a risk to the Earth. John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA's science mission directorate, said colonizing other planets is critical to humanity's survival.

"We have a pretty good theory that single-planet species don't survive," he said. "We don't want to test it, but we have some evidence of that happening 65 million years ago [when an asteroid killed much of Earth's life]. That will happen again someday … we want to have the capability [to leave the planet] in case of the threat of large scale destruction on Earth."

Gerstenmaier said the asteroid mission will help humans "break the tie to Earth."

"With the space station, we can come back within a matter of hours [if there's a problem]," he said. During the asteroid mission, "we could be five days away or more. Orion would need to be sustained for that period of time [if there's a problem]. As we get closer to Mars, we need to have to break the mentality that we can easily get back to Earth."

NASA hopes for 'synergies' between asteroid relocation effort, sample-return mission

Dan Leone - Space News

The asteroid sample-return mission set to launch in 2016 could help NASA figure out how to haul a space rock back to the Moon for astronauts to examine next decade, a senior agency official said here April 30.

"I think the two missions could have a lot of synergies," Jim Green, director of NASA's Planetary Science Division, said at NASA headquarters here following a presentation by the scientist in charge of the robotic Osiris-Rex asteroid sample-return mission.

As part of a plan to bring a 10-meter asteroid back to lunar space to provide a destination for the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle and its Space Launch System booster, the Obama administration has charged NASA's Planetary Science Division with stepping up its asteroid detection efforts. The White House wants to double the money NASA spends on these activities to about $40.5 million as part of early planning for the asteroid retrieval mission, which could launch as soon as 2021.

Green expects the lessons learned by operating in close proximity to the 500-meter diameter asteroid the $800 million Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer, as Osiris-Rex is formally known, will map and sample later this decade will come in handy when NASA sends a solar-electric tug to capture and relocate a smaller asteroid.

"The people that are going to operate the asteroid retrieval mission are going to be sitting in the control room with the Osiris-Rex operators, learning the craft," Green said in a May 2 phone interview. "When we make a comparison with the next mission, we see a lot of parallels. We've got to get up close and personal, we've got to rendezvous with an asteroid. Osiris-Rex will have already done that."

Osiris-Rex, to be built by prime contractor Lockheed Martin Space Systems of Denver, was selected in 2010 as the fourth in NASA's New Horizons series of competitively awarded medium-size planetary science missions. Formal planning for the mission began in 2003, but astronomers inside and outside of NASA have been searching for the right asteroid to sample since the late 1990s, said Dante Lauretta, a professor in the Planetary Sciences Department at the University of Arizona in Tucson, and principal investigator for the mission.

Observers had to find an asteroid that was conveniently located for a round trip from Earth, and covered with enough dust and loose rocks for Osiris-Rex to grab at least 60 grams worth of surface material, and potentially as much as 2 kilograms. To do so, the Osiris-Rex team leveraged feedback from amateur observers as well as international collaborations between radio astronomers and asteroid experts at NASA and other space agencies. The team chronicled its search for the right asteroid in a document called Design Reference Asteroid, Lauretta said. The document is "kind of the engineering guidebook as the [Osiris-Rex] design team goes forward on the flight system, on the cameras, and other instruments and even on the ground system," Lauretta said.

The asteroid NASA hopes to find for the relocation mission will be very different from the 500-meter diameter asteroid Bennu, formerly known as 1999 RQ36, that Osiris-Rex will visit. For one thing, the asteroid NASA wants to haul back to lunar space will be much smaller, and probably rotating much faster as it orbits the sun, Lauretta said.

Construction on Osiris-Rex flight hardware is set to begin early next year, assuming the project passes its critical design review in December. In the nearer-term, Osiris-Rex has a confirmation review with the NASA Program Management Council on May 15, Lauretta said. Projects that fail to get confirmation at that step of NASA's internal review process are usually canceled.

As a New Frontiers mission, Osiris-Rex's costs are capped at $800 million, excluding a launch vehicle.

"The total budget is the $800 million cost, plus a student experiment called [Regolith X-ray Imaging Spectrometer] out of [the Massachusetts Institute of Technology], and then the launch vehicle," Lauretta said. "We're at about $1.05 billion, when you add all three of those up."

NASA, not Lauretta, is responsible for finding and paying for Osiris-Rex's launch. The agency's Launch Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida is zeroing in on a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 411 rocket, Lauretta said here. The 411 variant carries a single solid-fuel strap-on booster for added thrust off the pad.

"That's what we're designing to right now," Lauretta told SpaceNews after his presentation.

Osiris-Rex is scheduled to launch in September 2016 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., and spend the next two years traveling to asteroid Bennu. After spending roughly 500 days mapping the asteroid from a distance of less than 5 kilometers, Osiris-Rex will get close enough to the asteroid to grab samples from its surface and then begin the long trip home, landing in the Utah desert in September 2023. Sample curation and analysis, also part of the $800 billion New Frontiers mission budget, will continue into 2024.

The University of Arizona-led Osiris-Rex team will hang on to 25 percent of the asteroid sample their spacecraft recovers. NASA will get the other 75 percent, which will be made available to researchers around the globe. Samples will be stored at the Johnson Space Center in Houston and "will be available in our long-term archive and will go through the normal distribution requests from all over the world," Green said.

The New Frontiers program was put into NASA's budget in 2003. In the 2014 budget request released April 10, the agency said it wants to launch a New Frontiers mission about every five years. So far, NASA is on pace to do so. The first New Frontiers mission, the New Horizons probe to the Pluto system, launched in 2006. A Jupiter probe called Juno launched in 2011 and is en route to the gas giant. The five-year launch cadence would continue if Osiris-Rex lifts off in 2016 as planned.

The next New Frontiers competition is expected to begin in "mid- to late 2015," according to Green.

First flight of Cygnus cargo craft delayed to September

Stephen Clark – SpaceflightNow.com

Orbital Sciences Corp. says the first full-up test flight of its Cygnus cargo resupply ship to the International Space Station will probably slip to September due to a combination of factors, including an engine replacement on the mission's Antares rocket and a scheduling conflict with a Japanese logistics spacecraft.

The first flight of Orbital's Cygnus resupply freighter, an automated cargo carrier developed in partnership with NASA, was expected this summer. But Orbital officials decided to swap out one of the AJ26 first stage engines on the spacecraft's Antares rocket, adding three or four weeks of prep time before the mission is ready to blast off.

The engine work involves replacing one of the Antares rocket's two AJ26 first stage engines with another unit to check whether a seal is working properly, according to an update posted on Orbital's website.

Barry Beneski, an Orbital spokesperson, said the flight could theoretically be ready for launch in August. But a Japanese H-2 Transfer Vehicle is already scheduled to fly to the space station in August, taking precedence in the international lab's busy manifest of visiting crew and cargo spacecraft.

"Our expectation is we would be ready to go in August," Beneski said. "If [the HTV] schedule holds, we will probably go on the other side of HTV. However, we're going to be ready in case there is an opening."

The first Cygnus mission is a demonstration flight under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program. The COTS program is a public-private partnership in which NASA is paying Orbital up to $288 million for development of the privately-owned Cygnus spacecraft, which will supply food, experiments and spare parts to the space station.

Once Orbital completes the demo mission, the company will conduct eight operational resupply flights under a $1.9 billion contract with NASA. The space agency arranged a similar deal with SpaceX, which has launched three of its Dragon spacecraft to the space station.

The first of Orbital's eight contracted cargo deliveries could occur as soon as November, company officials said.

Orbital's Antares rocket launched for the first time April 21 and successfully deployed a dummy payload in orbit.

"We always knew late June to early July were going to be difficult launch dates for Orbital to make, but we agreed to hold this date and see how the test flight went and Antares processing was coming along," said Michael Suffredini, NASA's space station program manager. "We also wanted to see if the HTV launch date would hold."

Suffredini said the Japanese mission is set for launch Aug. 4, and Orbital's Cygnus demonstration flight will be rescheduled for September. Officials have not set a target launch date yet, but the flight could take off some time in mid-September, he said.

The Cygnus and HTV both use Japan's proximity communications system to transmit and receive commands, telemetry data and navigation information through the International Space Station.

It takes several weeks for engineers to reconfigure the proximity communications and navigation link between spacecraft, according to Suffredini, requiring additional time between the Cygnus and HTV missions.

The Cygnus spacecraft, already filled with propellant and cargo, is ready for attachment to the Antares rocket inside Orbital's horizontal integration facility at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Engineers will move the craft to the Antares rocket hangar once the booster is ready.

The inaugural Antares launch April 21 went exactly as planned, according to Orbital Sciences.

"While the launch looked great to the casual observer, our team was hungry for data in order to validate our expectations for the rocket's performance," said Mike Pinkston, Orbital's Antares program manager, in a statement posted on the company's website. "Comprehensive post-flight analysis is an absolutely critical step to understanding exactly how a launch vehicle has performed and whether there are any necessary adjustments to its main systems prior to the next launch. Having intensively reviewed the data for a couple weeks, our conclusion was the inaugural Antares flight really was as good as it looked."

An engineering evaluation of data recorded by more than 70 sensors on the rocket's Cygnus mass simulator payload confirmed Orbital's expectations that the Antares will provide a "benign launch environment" for future Cygnus spacecraft and satellite passengers, Orbital said.

Engine swap pushes Orbital's ISS demo flight to at least August

James Dean - Florida Today

Orbital Sciences Corp.'s demonstration mission to the International Space Station won't fly before August, the company reported today.

Dulles-Va. based Orbital said it will swap out one of the two main engines slated to launch an Antares rocket and Cygnus cargo spacecraft to the station.

The swap is necessary to confirm a seal is functioning properly, Orbital said, and the replacement AJ26 engine has been fully tested.

The demonstration mission had been tentatively targeted for late June or early July, but the engine swap adds three to four weeks.

However, a Japanese cargo freighter is already scheduled to launch to the ISS in August, potentially pushing Orbital's mission to September.

Flown under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program, the flight will be the first by a Cygnus cargo carrier.

The mission represents the last major test before Orbital can begin executing a $1.9 billion NASA contract for eight resupply missions.

Orbital said a data review has confirmed the Antares performed well on its first test flight, launched April 21 from Wallops Island in Virginia.

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

Apollo Test Stand Re-Purposed For SLS

Jason Rhian - AmericaSpace.com

One of the test stands at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi which supported the development of the Saturn family of launch vehicles is now being tapped to test engines that are planned for use on NASA's new heavy-lift booster, the Space Launch System, or "SLS."

The B-2 stand, as it is known, was used to validate the Saturn's engines before they were used to prepare for manned missions to the Moon. According to NASA, B-2 has been renovated to test the Space Launch System's core stage in late 2016 and late 2017. This element of SLS has four RS-25 rocket engines. This element will be placed into the stand where it will be used to conduct propellant fill and drain tests as well as two hot-fire tests.

"These tests will help us understand how the spacecraft and engines behave and provide critical information for ensuring mission safety," said the manager of the B-2 Test Stand Restoration, Buildout, and Test Project, Rick Rauch. "After all, if there are problems, it's better to address them on the ground than in the air."

Once B-2 had been selected as the site to conduct core stage testing, engineers at Stennis converted hand-drawn blueprints of the structure into computer models to bring the design work up to modern standards. Renovation was then segmented into three distinct phases: restoration, buildout, and special test equipment. It took the team about a year and a half to complete the evaluation process required to determine what work would need to be done to bring the structure into the 21st century.

"In the first phase, we are restoring the test facility to its original design condition, where it could be used to test any number of stages," Rauch said. "In the second phase, we will focus on building out the stand specifically to accommodate the SLS core stage. Then, in the third phase, we will complete the structural, mechanical, and electrical interfaces required to test the core stage."

Before all is said and done, no element of B-2 will be untouched. Engineers have also been tasked with determining the cost of restoring B-2 to the level required to conduct what is known as "green level testing." This is where the engines are assembled into a single configuration with the core stage and fired at nearly full-power for the first time. Engineers are working to make sure that the newly-configured system will prove to be safe and reliable.

"The teams at the Stennis Space Center are doing a great job preparing the B-2 facility," said the SLS Stages Green Run Test Manager John Rector. Rector is based out of Marshall Space Flight Center. "We're on track to begin testing there in 2016. It's an exciting time for NASA as we establish a new national capability for future space exploration."

Demolition work to prepare B-2 for its new role began last summer. Now structural restoration has started in hopes of being completed by 2016.

NASA hopes that SLS will serve to send astronauts to far-flung destinations such as an asteroid and perhaps, one day, Mars. The manned spacecraft that will utilize SLS for these missions is NASA's Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle. SLS is currently scheduled to conduct its first test flight from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39B in Florida in 2017. This unmanned flight is planned to send Orion around the Moon. The first crewed flight is slated to take place in 2021, with a proposed mission to send crew to an asteroid currently being a possibility.

Johnson Space Center campus looks to support NASA entrepreneurs

Angela Shah - Xconomy.com (business news website)

The shuttering of NASA's space shuttle program two years ago was felt most acutely in the Houston suburbs, home to the Johnson Space Center. In the aftermath, corporate boosters scrambled to keep talent in the area in order to preserve some of the economic engine that the space program brought to the city.

The result is the Johnson Space Center campus, a business incubator and accelerator run by the Houston Technology Center, which opened last November and is designed to help get off the ground the youngest of startups—the entrepreneur armed with an idea.

"NASA didn't hire dumb people," says Tim Budzik, the managing director of the JSC campus. "These are smart people. They're going to have to do something else to get a job, and you don't want to lose that capability."

The campus doesn't set up classes of entrepreneurs that graduate after a year's curriculum, or a bootcamp session, like many other programs do. Instead Budzik says the program operates more like a matchmaker, setting up budding entrepreneurs with seasoned peers who can offer individual attention and advice.

Of course, the JSC campus would be hard-pressed to make up for 18,000 jobs, both directly at and related to NASA, that were lost or endangered when Congressional leaders cut back the space center's programs. But the effort is designed to give a leg up to budding startups and, perhaps, enhance the entrepreneurial potential of one of the nation's biggest institutions.

I spoke to Budzik (pictured) about the new program and some of its startups. Here is an edited version of that conversation:

Xconomy: Why set up this campus? How did it come about?

Tim Budzik: Right after the announcement of the retirement of the Shuttle program two years ago and the cancellation of the Constellation [human spaceflight] program, a proposal was put into the governor's office saying, what are we going to do with all these NASA engineers that are being laid off? The Texas Emerging Technology Fund kicked in about $245,000, with a stipulation that the other part will have to come from area businesses. We started in February last year to match the state funds. Local businessmen such as Jim McIngvale from Gallery Furniture and institutions such as the Robert and Janice McNair Foundation raised an additional $250,000. We are increasing our direct area sponsors, but we anticipate it will take about three years to be self-supported by area contributions.

In September last year, we negotiated a contract to move into Building 35 onsite [at the Johnson Space Center].

X: What did you fear would happen without such outreach?

TB: It all revolves around money. There were 5,000 jobs lost at the space center because of the Constellation's cancellation and the Shuttle's retirement. If you expand that to include incidental or secondary businesses that lost employees, that's about 18,000 lost jobs or affected jobs. In economic terms for the [Houston] Bay Area, that's a huge impact. It would have a very negative effect on housing prices, the tax base, the viability of these communities. Not to mention the loss of their intellectual capabilities.

X: How many entrepreneurs are you working with currently? What technologies from NASA-related entrepreneurs do you hope to commercialize?

TB: We have 14 clients right now. We are introducing industry to NASA capabilities and technologies to promote collaboration with NASA. We are working on two client companies right now that are working to take a technology that NASA developed and commercialize it. I have an inventor who wants to commercialize an idea. We tie him up with business-minded folks to help build the business plan.

We have a Lockheed engineer who works on the Orion program [a vehicle that could take astronauts to an asteroid for sample-collecting]. He has a construction material, a UV-curable inflatable panel. It comes out like a rolled-up blanket. You inflate it, leave it in the sun for 15 minutes, and it becomes solid. It can stop a bullet.

It's a lightweight alternative for someone putting up plywood on windows for hurricanes; you could apply this to construction panels, for an inflatable structure for temporary housing, use it as hangar doors. Given that it can stop a bullet, there could be military applications.

X: What is your relationship with the Technology Transfer and Commercialization Office at JSC?

TB: We work with that organization almost daily; they are very receptive. The whole idea of the Emerging Technology Fund is to help develop high-tech jobs of the future. NASA has a whole lot of technologies that are still being developed. They can't afford to develop that technology in a silo. Why not try to work together?

Sarah Brightman plans on upcoming space journey

John Carucci - Associated Press

If you called Sarah Brightman a space cadet, it would probably make her smile.

That's because she plans on becoming the first recording artist to venture into space en route to the International Space Station sometime in the next two years.

The classically trained singer-actress always wanted to explore the heavens. She says it began in 1969 when she was a little girl sitting in front of the television during the historic Apollo 11 landing on the moon.

"I was very lucky and privileged to be living in that time to see that actually happen on a black-and-white TV screen and it changed many of us. I don't think there's been anything to date that was like that," Brightman said.

Since then, she's wanted to go to the moon. Clearly, a firm believer in "her reach must far exceed her grasp," Brightman set her sights on a trip to the ISS.

"It looks as if a special journey into space will be happening for me in a couple of years," said Brightman (she declined to say how much the trip will cost).

She said her fascination follows a long history of artists inspired by space.

"You look at Pink Floyd's `Dark Side of the Moon,' even if there was nothing specific about space, the fact that it was called what it was and the feeling of the music was definitely inspired," said Brightman. "David Bowie (too). It goes on and on."

She's gone through a battery of diagnostic tests to see if she's "space-worthy."

"I went to Star City in Russia and did a series of psychological tests, physical tests. I was monitored when I was put into a centrifuge taken up to weight G, which I loved and felt very comfortable with. I passed through everything really, really well and as said by the Russian Space Federation, I am officially a cosmonaut in training at this moment," she said.

The intense evaluation was unlike anything she had ever done.

"They put you on something called the rotating chair and basically it's to test you for motion sickness," Brightman said.

After spinning for more than 10 minutes, she dealt with incredible nausea and dizziness.

"You have to really focus. It's very important not to pass out. They're looking at a person spinning around in a chair going in different directions. It looks incredibly simple but that actually was the hardest for me," she said.

The International Space Station is a joint project among five participating space agencies including NASA and the Russian space agency. The habitable satellite resides in Earth's lower orbit and has a wingspan approximately the size of an American football field. Since its 1998 launch, it has hosted more than 125 missions.

The rock band Thirty Seconds to Mars premiered the single to their upcoming album at the ISS in March.

Brightman, 52, is best known for originating the role of Christine in both the London and Broadway casts of "The Phantom of the Opera." She was married to the musical's composer, Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Her latest album, "Dreamcatcher," was inspired by wanting to journey into space. She covers songs about the heavens, including "Angel" and "Venus and Mars."

"It's given me a beautiful theme to work with, a beautiful palate to work with and it's been an incredibly creative time," said Brightman.

She's promoting the album with a world tour.

Russia Confirms Plans to Send Sarah Brightman to Space

RIA Novosti

Russia's space agency Roscosmos said on Monday it has reached an agreement with US-based Space Adventures Ltd. company to proceed with the plans to put British singer Sarah Brightman on a space flight to the International Space Station (ISS) in October 2015.

"The sides will discuss in the near future the implementation of this project, including Sarah Brightman's preparation for the flight and the program of her activities on board the orbital station," Roscosmos said in a statement.

Brightman, 52, UNESCO Artist for Peace ambassador and the world's best-selling soprano singer with 30 million CDs sold, announced her plans to become a space tourist in August 2012.

She has already visited Russia and passed a series of tough psychological and physical tests to be officially recognized by the Russian space authorities as "a cosmonaut in training."

A final decision on Brightman's journey to the ISS has not been made as it has to be coordinated between Roscosmos and NASA, fitting the demanding schedule of visiting flights to the orbital station.

In case she makes it to the ISS, the superstar of classical crossover would become the world's eighth space tourist. The first was US entrepreneur Dennis Tito in 2011, and the last, so far, is Cirque du Soleil co-founder Guy Laliberte, who paid $40 million to spend 12 days at the station in 2009.

Astronaut Hadfield's Music Unites Schools in Song

Elizabeth Howell - Universe Today

Last time Chris Hadfield went up in space in 2001, most of them were infants. In 1995, during his first mission, none of them were even born. Hundreds of elementary school students at an Ottawa school, however, sang enthusiastically along with his music — and along with thousands of other students throughout Canada — during a nationwide performance May 6.

The 860 children at St. Emily Catholic School added their voices to the throng as Hadfield led a rendition of "Is Somebody Singing" from the International Space Station.

Ranging in ages between 4 and 12, the students at this school spent six weeks practicing in their individual classrooms before performing together for the first time.

Music is a big part of the school's life. There are regular masses and liturgies. Some of the older students have their own bands and do performances. Saint Emily also hosts local bands in Ottawa, including Junkyard Symphony.

But this performance was something different. Hadfield, Barenaked Ladies frontman Ed Robertson and others reprised the January premiere of the song and invited every school in Canada to take part. Some sang directly with the live broadcast. Others assembled on front lawns, or in gyms, to sing at their own pace.

"We all listened to [the song] and thought it as a great way for the school to come together as a community," said Roisin Philippe, a kindergarten teacher at Saint Emily who co-organized the school's performance. Several teachers brought their own instruments — guitars, harps, and the like — to the performance. Others handed out tambourines.

Teachers took the opportunity to integrate the performance into the school's curriculum where possible. Jenny Ng, who teaches Grade 1, would show students some of Hadfield's videos (such as how to brush one's teeth in space.) Others downloaded the sheet music to distribute to the class and teach them how to read music.

The performance is an initiative of the Canadian Broadcast Corp.'s Music Monday. It was the last live event with Hadfield, who currently commands Expedition 35, before he returns to Earth.

Hadfield and two of his crewmates — Tom Marshburn and Roman Romanenko — are scheduled to come back May 13.

Will it be Texas or Florida for SpaceX's commercial launches?
Pressure's on to court private sector

James Dean - Florida Today

The spotlight in a multi-state competition to win SpaceX's commercial rocket launches today shifts back to Texas.

At a public meeting in Brownsville, residents will weigh in on a new private launch complex SpaceX has proposed building on the Gulf Coast near Mexico, which the company says could become its "commercial Cape Canaveral."

The Texas discussion comes five days after the Volusia County Council voted 6-1 to support a commercial spaceport Florida hopes to develop at the north end of Kennedy Space Center and the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, offering SpaceX an alternative to other states.

"Given the enthusiasm which Texas is showing SpaceX, it is essential that Florida show it to wants to be a player in commercial space," said Dale Ketcham, Space Florida's chief of strategic alliances, of the Volusia vote's importance.

While a draft environmental review of the Texas launch site is already complete and will be discussed at today's meeting, Florida is just getting started on its own review.

NASA recently cleared the way for Space Florida, in partnership with the Federal Aviation in Administration, to proceed with an environmental impact statement for roughly 150 acres in the abandoned citrus community of Shiloh.

NASA has not agreed to give the state the land it owns near the Brevard-Volusia county line, but says it supports efforts to attract commercial launches.

"KSC is committed to working closely with the state of Florida in enabling commercial space operations from KSC," Center Director Bob Cabana wrote to the FAA.

The state will soon solicit bids from contractors to perform the environmental study, and the FAA is expected to select one by late summer, Ketcham said.

A first public "scoping meeting" would be expected in a similar timeframe, and the entire review will likely take at least a year.

The same process also is already under way in Georgia, which has proposed developing a spaceport in Camden County just north of the Florida border.

The FAA is in the midst of contractor selection for an environmental review there.

In Texas, SpaceX has proposed launching up to 12 Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy rockets a year.
The 57-acre property under consideration is nearly surrounded by Boca Chica State Park and Lower Rio Grande National Wildlife Refuge, but the FAA's draft environmental study did not anticipate major impacts resulting from development of 20 of those acres.

"There don't appear to be any showstoppers," said Bob Lancaster, president of the Texas Space Alliance, which supports the project. "It looks like they'll have no problem complying with any of the concerns."

At the scoping meeting in Brownsville a year ago, Lancaster cited KSC as an example of how space launches could co-exist with natural areas.

More than 90 percent of nearly 600 submissions during the initial public comment period supported SpaceX, according to the FAA.

Based on that support, its head start completing the environmental study and public comments by SpaceX, Texas considers itself the frontrunner to close a deal with Hawthorne, Calif.-based SpaceX.

"From our position, it looks like it's Texas' to lose, and that barring any unforeseen serious complications, that the Brownsville site at Boca Chica will be SpaceX's commercial launch facility," said Lancaster. "We have seen no other similar level of activity like this at any of the other locations in any other states."

Florida believes its Shiloh site would make the most business sense for SpaceX, which either way will continue to launch government missions such as International Space Station resupply runs from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

If SpaceX does move its commercial operations to another state, Space Florida says demand for a commercial spaceport goes beyond one company.

At least one other firm, Blue Origin of Kent, Wash., has expressed interest in Shiloh, but its systems are not yet ready for flight.

"There are pluses and minuses with any location," said Ketcham. "Whether it's SpaceX or Blue Origin or anyone else, our job is to show the long-term value of their investment will be to do the commercial activity here."

New Tenant Moves into KSC's Space Station Processing Facility

Irene Klotz - Space News

With just five full-time employees and a handful of contractors, Melbourne, Fla.-based Micro Aerospace Solutions is not going to do much to alleviate the economic whiplash that continues to reverberate around NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) following the retirement of the space shuttle program in 2011.

But the company's lease of office space and lab facilities at Kennedy's largely empty Space Station Processing Facility may be a harbinger of things to come.

"It's very hard for private companies to recreate what NASA has," said Donald Platt, Micro Aerospace Solutions founder and president. "Some of the labs and facilities allow small businesses to be pretty competitive."

The company, which provides software and electronics systems for small satellites and experiments, was particularly drawn to Kennedy's electromagnetic interference testing facilities and its vacuum chambers.

"All computer systems and electronic systems have to be tested to make sure they do not interfere with electronics and also that they are not susceptible to outside interference that could cause unwanted activity. We also can do vibration testing where we subject the electronics to forces that they'll experience from launch all the way until they reach orbit.

"Having the ability to test in a lab that can then provide a certification that the electronics systems have passed testing is important."

Micro Aerospace Solutions also is interested in propulsion systems for small satellites and plans to take advantage of KSC facilities for testing small hydrazine systems, for example.

The company's lease includes lab space and an office area for about $25,000 a year, Platt said. Use of test facilities is extra.

Platt says what he is paying is in line with what the commercial sector would charge.

"I think Kennedy has done a pretty good job of understanding what the market prices are. It's not necessarily that it's a bargain. It's more that it offers unique capabilities that are hard to come by elsewhere," Platt said.

Being behind the gate at KSC also is expected to help the company better navigate business hurdles imposed by the U.S. Department of State's International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), which currently consider all satellite components the same as munitions.

"With all the concerns about ITAR, we've certainly seen a lot of questions about foreign citizens having access to information. For a small company like us, the easiest way is to be behind a government secure facility. By using facilities inside of the gate at Kennedy Space Center, you're basically saying that NASA already has screened the people who are there so that provides you an extra layer of ITAR protection," Platt said, adding that the company will maintain its downtown Melbourne office as well.

Micro Aerospace Solutions currently is working on four major projects, including a NASA-backed solar sail experiment called Sunjammer that is slated to fly next year. Another project for a commercial client spins off inertial sensor technology developed for small satellites into an X-ray machine for babies.

"NASA has a lot of good knowledge, a lot of capabilities and a lot of facilities around the country that could certainly be used, and maybe used for things beyond space. I'd hate to see NASA start losing some of that," Platt said. "People talk about center closures. Obviously with sequestration and budget problems something has to happen, but I certainly hope that NASA doesn't lose some of its capabilities that are very unique. Almost every facility has something to offer to the commercial world."

Micro Aerospace Solutions, which moved into the space center April 1, is among 25 companies that have agreements for using KSC facilities, though it is one of the few full-time residents.

"The agreement they have set up with us takes a NASA facility that would have otherwise been empty and basically makes it available to a commercial company to build a commercial business on," said Tom Engler, deputy director of the center's Planning and Development Office.

KSC's newest partner is Minnesota-based PaR Systems Inc., which signed a 15-year lease agreement to use NASA's Hangar N facility and its nondestructive test equipment.

PaR Systems intends to offer nondestructive evaluation testing and other related services for aerospace, marine and other industrial customers. The hangar is located at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, adjacent to KSC.

Another 15 potential partnership agreements are pending.

Red Bull Stratos 'Space Jump' Suit, Capsule on Display in Houston

Robert Pearlman - collectSPACE.com

The Red Bull Stratos pressurized capsule and spacesuit that Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner used to break the speed of sound while free-falling from the stratosphere last October are now on public display for the first time.

The Stratos "space jump" capsule and pressure suit made its world premiere as a museum exhibit on Friday (May 3) at Space Center Houston, the privately-run, official visitor center for NASA's Johnson Space Center in Texas. While not a NASA mission, the Red Bull Stratos team included a number of the space agency's veterans, including former space shuttle flight surgeon Jonathan Clark, who served as the project's medical director.

On Oct. 14, 2012, Baumgartner lifted off inside the helium balloon-lofted capsule to an altitude of about 24 miles (39 kilometers) over New Mexico, where he then jumped to a parachute-assisted touchdown 10 minutes later. During his free fall, Baumgartner accelerated to a top speed of Mach 1.25 (844 mph or 1,358 km/h), making him the first person to break the speed of sound with only his body.

Delayed several days by weather, the supersonic feat was achieved — by coincidence — on the 65th anniversary of test pilot Chuck Yeager first breaking the speed of sound aboard the Bell X-1 rocket-powered aircraft in 1947.

Baumgartner's so-called "jump from the edge of space" — he was nearly 40 miles (64 km) shy of the actual edge of space — broke two additional records: the highest manned balloon flight and the highest altitude jump, the latter previously set in 1960 by Air Force Colonel Joe Kittinger. Kittinger, 84, served as Baumgartner's mentor and his Capcom, or capsule communicator, at the Red Bull Stratros Mission Control.

A replica of Kittinger's "Project Excelsior" unpressurized gondola is on display at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, Ohio.

"Joe Kittinger's gondola in 1960 was like a Model T — practical and very durable," Red Bull Stratos capsule crew chief Jon Wells said after Baumgartner's record-breaking flight. "With very sophisticated, sensitive equipment and all the 'luxuries' of cutting-edge technology, our Red Bull Stratos capsule was more like a modern supercar. From every standpoint, including a technical one, it really did its job."

Space Center Houston's exhibit includes the 2,900-pound (1,315 kg) Stratos capsule, which descended under its own parachute to a "soft" landing about 55 miles (88.5 km) due east from where it was launched. Visitors can look, but not go inside the 11-foot high (3.35 m) by 8-foot wide (2.4 m) capsule to see where Baumgartner rode during the ascent and where he exited to jump.

The pressure suit is the same one Baumgartner wore during the jump, one of only three that were produced. It was built by the David Clark Company, the same manufacturer which also made Kittinger's historic pressure suit and the spacesuits worn by NASA's Gemini astronauts. David Clark also produced the pressure suits worn aboard the SR-71 "Blackbird" and U-2 high altitude jets, as well as the launch and entry suits used by the astronauts on the space shuttle.

Guests touring the "Mission to the Edge of Space" exhibit can learn more about Baumgartner and his dive through a series of display panels, including audio listening stations equipped with iPads and video screens that surround the capsule.

"Jump into an incredible behind-the-scenes exhibition revealing the passion, physics and scientific significance of this unprecedented event," Space Center Houston said on its website. "Red Bull Stratos is part of Space Center Houston's ongoing mission to inspire students to consider careers in the fields of math and science."

Space shuttle Enterprise's New York exhibit reopening July 10

Robert Pearlman - collectSPACE.com

Space shuttle Enterprise, NASA's retired prototype orbiter, will reopen on public display July 10, just shy of one year since its exhibit in New York first opened.

Enterprise's new "Space Shuttle Pavilion," located at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in Manhattan, replaces its original display home that was destroyed by Hurricane Sandy in October 2012. The replacement structure is now under construction around and above the prototype shuttle and is expected to be completed over the coming weeks.

"After many months of hard work recovering from Sandy we are extremely excited to announce the opening of our new Space Shuttle Pavilion, and to once again [be able to] share Enterprise with all who visit the museum," Intrepid president Susan Marenoff-Zausner said in a release. "Our team is working hard to bring an incredible exhibit to life that will allow Enterprise to continue to inspire generations of innovators and dreamers for years to come."

Enterprise, which did not fly in space but was used for a series of astronaut-piloted approach and landing tests in 1977, first opened to the public on board the flight deck of the Intrepid, a converted aircraft carrier, on July 19, 2012.

A short three months later, Hurricane Sandy tore through New York City, destroying the Intrepid's first space shuttle pavilion, a climate-controlled, air-supported structure that sheltered Enterprise. The "superstorm" also caused minor damage to the shuttle's vertical stabilizer, or tail.

Repairs to the black and white, iconic orbiter were finished in March, when construction of its new pavilion began with the erection of a metal framework.

"We know space shuttle Enterprise is in good and caring hands, and we hope everyone has an opportunity to visit this important part of our space exploration history in the new pavilion," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement.

The new exhibition facility keeps several of the features of the original display while adding exhibits and experiences.

Visitors to the Intrepid will still be able to walk underneath Enterprise, which sits 10 feet (3 meters) off the deck, and view the shuttle from above, now from a larger observation platform than before. A short film produced for the Intrepid that traces the history of Enterprise and the space shuttle program, narrated by "Star Trek" actor Leonard Nimoy, is also returning.

The redesigned pavilion will now include a "soundscape entryway" featuring the audio exchanges between NASA's flight controllers and the astronauts who flew Enterprise, as well as a new stage for demonstrations and expanded exhibits highlighting technology spin-offs from the 30-year shuttle program.

Enterprise's structure will also serve as the new home for millionaire "space tourist" Gregory Olsen's Russian Soyuz TMA-6 capsule, which he loaned to the museum in 2011 and is currently displayed on the Intrepid's hangar deck.

The pavilion, sponsored by Time Warner Cable, remains a temporary home for the prototype shuttle. The Intrepid is planning to build a permanent exhibit facility for Enterprise that would display the orbiter near, but not on, the aircraft carrier, while providing enhanced educational programs.

Drawing the battle lines for NASA's 2014 budget

Jeff Foust - The Space Review (Opinion)

While it was nearly two months late, the NASA 2014 budget proposal released on April 10 didn't contain a lot of surprises. In broad strokes, the 2014 budget proposal is similar to the 2013 budget proposal, both in overall funding (about $17.7 billion) and the programs it funds—or doesn't fund enough, as the case may be. The biggest difference in the 2014 budget is the inclusion of a new, relatively high-profile asteroid initiative, but that effort accounts for less than one percent of the overall budget. The debate over that initiative, as well as some other, more familiar battles, will likely dominate congressional deliberations over the budget in the coming months, as some recent hearings have demonstrated.

Commercial crew versus SLS

One of the biggest battles shaping up over the administration's budget proposal is also a very familiar one: funding for NASA's commercial crew effort and its heavy-lift launch vehicle, the Space Launch System (SLS). Strictly speaking, the two are not intended to be competitive with each other: the Commercial Crew Program is designed to support development by companies of vehicles capable of transporting astronauts to and from low Earth orbit, including the International Space Station (ISS), while SLS is designed for deep-space missions to the Moon, asteroids, and Mars. Yet, advocates of one program often are also critics of the other, and the two are seen as competitors for limited funding, even though SLS's budget is significantly larger than spending on commercial crew.

The FY2014 budget appeared to reinforce that perceived competition, particularly among SLS supporters. The budget seeks $821.4 million for commercial crew, up from the pre-sequester amount of $525 million Congress approved for 2013 (sequestration and a separate rescission included in the appropriations bill would cut that to just under $490 million), although NASA had sought a similar amount in its original FY13 budget request. SLS, meanwhile, would get $1.385 billion for FY14, compared to $1.497 billion in FY12. (That amount does not include a separate spending on SLS-related ground systems, included in other lines of the budget, that bring the program's total to $1.845 billion in FY14, versus $1.873 billion in FY12.)

Those amounts attracted the attention, and criticism, of some members of Congress, who saw it as evidence that the administration was favoring commercial crew at the expense of SLS. "I am concerned that NASA has neglected Congressional funding priorities," Rep. Steven Palazzo (R-MS), chairman of the space subcommittee of the House Science Committee, said in an opening statement at a hearing April 24 about the NASA budget proposal. He cited in particular spending on SLS and the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) spacecraft. "While Congress continues to insist that these two programs be priorities, NASA has once again offered a budget that does not demonstrate the sustained commitment to their development."

In a hearing the following day by the Commerce, Justice, and Science subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), ranking member of that subcommittee as well as the full appropriations committee, was even more critical of spending on commercial crew versus SLS. "This budget focuses, I believe, too heavily on maintaining the fiction of privately-funded commercial launch vehicles, which diverts, I think, critical resources from NASA's goal of developing human spaceflight capabilities with the SLS," he said in his opening statement.

NASA administrator Charles Bolden, the sole witness at both hearings, defended the spending priorities of the budget proposal. "We are on schedule, on target, on cost to provide that 70-metric-ton vehicle," he said at the Senate hearing, referring to the payload capacity of the initial version of the SLS, whose first launch is planned for 2017. At the House hearing, he said that the requested funding for SLS was what was needed to maintain that schedule, and that adding funding to it at the expense of commercial crew would not make much of a difference to the heavy-lifter's development. "If I added $300 million to the SLS program," he said, referring to the approximate increase in commercial crew sought in the FY14 budget, "you wouldn't notice it."

Bolden kept up the sales pitch for commercial crew last week, after signing a contract modification with the Russian space agency Roscosmos to purchase six additional seats on Soyuz flights to the ISS in 2016 for $424 million. "If NASA had received the President's requested funding for this plan, we would not have been forced to recently sign a new contract with Roscosmos for Soyuz transportation flights," Bolden said in a blog post accompanying the announcement of the deal. Bolden was referring to funding for the program significantly below proposals by the administration dating back three years, when the original goal of commercial crew was to have it enter service in 2015.

NASA's current goal is to begin flights by 2017, but that date is in jeopardy, Bolden said, if Congress doesn't fully fund the commercial crew program in the FY14 budget request. "If we do not get $822 million in the 2014 budget as requested by the President," he said at the Senate hearing, "it will be my unfortunate duty to advise the Congress and the President that we probably will not make 2017 for the availability of an American capability to get our astronauts to space, and I will have to tell you that I'm going to have to come back and ask for authorization to once again pay the Russians to take our crews to space."

"We're running out of wiggle room" to keep that 2017 date, Bolden said Thursday in a speech to the Space Transportation Association on Capitol Hill. "You've got to pay if you want something, and if the nation wants to have a commercial capability, an American capability, to get cargo and crew to low Earth orbit, you have to pay for it."

Defending the asteroid mission

The biggest new item in NASA's 2014 budget request was a new "asteroid initiative" featuring a proposal to send a robotic spacecraft to a small near Earth asteroid and redirect it into orbit around the Moon, where it cold be visited by astronauts, perhaps on the first crewed SLS/Orion mission in 2021 (see "To catch a planetoid", The Space Review, April 22, 2013). The budget seeks $105 million for this initiative, including funding for key technologies needed for the mission as well as enhanced efforts to search for suitable asteroids.

The plan, though, has raised more eyebrows than support in Congress so far. "This request was not accompanied by a budget profile, technical plan, or long-term strategy, yet NASA has asked Congress to commit to funding the first steps," complained Rep. Palazzo at the House hearing, who also described the initiative as coming "out of the blue."

Other members at the hearing noted the lack of enthusiasm about human asteroid missions in general, including a report by the National Research Council in December that cited only "isolated pockets of support" for the goal expressed by President Obama in a 2010 speech of sending humans to a near Earth asteroid by 2025 (see "What's the purpose of a 21st century space agency?", The Space Review, December 17, 2012).

Bolden defended the asteroid initiative in part because it would give NASA experience in diverting threatening asteroids. The mission, he said at the House hearing, "will demonstrate that humans, can, in fact, alter the path of an asteroid that's headed towards Earth."

An asteroid mission would also, he said, build experience towards eventual human missions to Mars. Some at the House hearing wondered if the Moon would be a better destination to gain that experience prior to going to Mars, but Bolden noted that, fiscally speaking, the asteroid mission concept was the better option. "They both are good," he said. "The one that is executable in today's budget environment is an asteroid mission."

There was some support for the asteroid mission at the House hearing. "Personally, I concur" with NASA's focus on an asteroid mission, said Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL). "I think that's a good direction to go." Brooks added that the mission deals with the small but real risk of asteroid impacts as well as, in his opinion, providing another justification for developing the SLS.

Interestingly, at the Senate hearing, the asteroid mission never came up other than a veiled reference by Sen. Shelby in his opening statement. "I'm concerned, Gen. Bolden, that the budget before us is an example of chasing the next great idea while sacrificing current investments," he said.

Planetary pushback

The asteroid mission has also been discussed along with concerns about cuts in NASA's planetary sciences program. As was the case in fiscal year 2013, the 2014 budget proposal seeks to fund planetary sciences at approximately $1.2 billion, down from the $1.5 billion the program received in 2012. Congress partially restored those funding cuts in the final 2013 spending bill, although the final amount planetary received won't be known until NASA submits an operating plan to Congress by this Friday.

There are concerns that NASA may use that operating plan to redirect some of that additional planetary funding to other agency programs. "There have been reports that the FY 2013 NASA Operating Plan will slash funding from the Planetary Science programs," the office of Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) warned in an April 19 press release. That release included a letter to Bolden from Schiff, Rep. John Culberson (R-TX), and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), asking him to avoid any reprogramming of funds that "disproportionately applies sequester and across-the-board cuts to the Science budget."

At the same time, planetary advocates have been gearing up to increase planetary science above the level in the 2014 budget proposal, arguing that the lower funding level in the proposed budget will result in delays for both flagship science missions, like a Europa orbiter, as well as smaller missions. "The proposed budget for FY14, $1.217 billion, represents the latest in a multi-year effort to underfund Planetary Science within NASA," The Planetary Society noted in testimony it submitted to Congress for last month's hearings. "In difficult economic times, The Planetary Society recommends that Congress prioritize the effective and productive Planetary Science Division within NASA and fund it at $1.5 billion per year."

The American Astronomical Society (AAS), a professional organization of astronomers, also supports additional planetary funding. "The AAS is deeply concerned about the Administration's renewed proposal to cut NASA's Planetary Science Division," it said in a statement last week. "At this level, the budget precludes a major mission to any planet other than Mars after 2017, and precludes exploration of Europa, a high priority for the planetary science community."

At the STA luncheon last week, Bolden said the situation for planetary sciences wasn't as dire as it was just a year ago. "The FY14 request is actually up from where we were," he said, saying that the decision announced last December to pursue a 2020 Mars rover based on Curiosity, as well as the asteroid initiative, means "we think we're up in the planetary science program" compared to a year ago.

Even those planetary scientists who study asteroids ("asteroidologists," as Bolden called them in his STA speech) don't necessary concur with that assessment. The Small Bodies Assessment Group (SBAG), a group of planetary scientists who provide advice to NASA on this topic, concluded at a March meeting that it had been essentially locked out of deliberations about the proposed asteroid retrieval mission by NASA's Human Explorations and Operations Mission Directorate (HEOMD) and Science Mission Directorate (SMD). The move, the committee noted in its meeting minutes, "seems a peculiar decision and raises the serious question of the extent to which HEOMD and SMD wish to make decisions based on restricted input promoting specific outcomes.

Revamping education

A program that spends far less money than science or human spaceflight, but has a high profile, is NASA's education program. The FY14 budget proposal, though, would cut education spending from $136 million in FY12 to $94 million as part of a government-wide consolidation and restructuring of education programs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), a move that has raised concerns by many that NASA's own education efforts might be diluted.

Bolden said his interest in restructuring education came because he could not gauge how well NASA's programs worked. "When I asked what the metrics were for the effectiveness of our K-12 STEM education program, I got blank stares," he said at the House hearing. "We are not able to demonstrate our effectiveness today."

The consolidated STEM education effort, he said, would give NASA access to the capabilities elsewhere in government, such as the Department of Education and the NSF, to develop metrics for the effectiveness of educational efforts. These and other agencies would, in turn, have access to NASA-unique educational tools, like live downlinks from the ISS.

The spending reduction gives many the perception, though, that education at NASA in general is begin gutted. "It is not slashed or gutted or anything," Bolden said of the education budget in his STA speech. "It's trying to make sure we get the best programs out there from the federal government agencies, and where there's duplication we get rid of it. We are not decimating anyone's programs."

The bigger budget picture

NASA's proposed budget, though, has to be taken in the context of the overall budget, and specifically the across-the-board cuts known as sequestration. Those cuts remain a threat for 2014 and beyond if the White House and Congress cannot come up with an alternative plan for reducing the budget deficit.

The budget proposal for NASA and other federal agencies assumes that sequestration is avoided through such an alternative plan. However, if that doesn't happen, the budget would be subject to another round of across-the-board cuts that would reduce NASA's overall budget to as low as $16.1 billion, Bolden warned.

If sequestration continues into FY14, Bolden said at the House hearing, "to be quite candid, all bets are off." There would need to be some hard decisions made about delaying or even cancelling major programs, including the agency's new asteroid initiative. "The asteroid mission will probably go away."

"It will impact the priorities NASA and the Congress agreed to," Bolden said at the Senate hearing, when asked about the effects of continued sequestration. "It will potentially impact JWST [James Webb Space Telescope], it will impact SLS and MPCV, it will devastate commercial crew and cargo." He added that while NASA had avoided furloughs of civil servants under sequestration this fiscal year, unlike many other federal agencies, those furloughs would be likely in FY14 if sequestration continued.

In his STA speech, Bolden added a little bit of advice to Congress as well about budgets and program priorities. "You make it incredibly challenging when you tell us to do something and you don't fund it."

Caveat Emptor

Space News (Editorial)

Reaction to NASA's new plan to capture a small asteroid and transport it to lunar orbit for an up-close astronaut inspection has ranged from cautious to skeptical, suggesting that the space agency has some tough selling to do.

The asteroid capture mission is the sole highlight in a NASA budget request that otherwise seeks to maintain the status quo in 2014. Funding requested for the agency's highest-profile programs — commercial crew and cargo, Space Launch System (SLS), Orion deep-space crew capsule and James Webb Space Telescope — fell in line with expectations.

Some prominent lawmakers, among them House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas), said they were taken aback by the asteroid capture proposal, formally unveiled April 10, and have been asking pointed questions ever since. That's perfectly fair.

In contrast, another group of lawmakers — all staunch supporters of SLS — has introduced legislation mandating that the Moon be the focus of NASA's human exploration program, never mind the fact that there's no funding available for such an endeavor under any imaginable budget scenario, or that space policy is a presidential prerogative.

What's ironic about Congress' skepticism over the asteroid capture mission is that, if nothing else, it provides a destination of sorts for the congressionally mandated SLS, which otherwise is an immensely expensive capability in search of a mission. The same holds true for Orion, a deep-space capsule that was justified in part as a backup to commercial crew taxis for the international space station, a stretch at best.

In a closely related aside, the SLS and Orion factions on Capitol Hill continue to complain that these programs are being shortchanged in favor of NASA's effort to nurture commercial crew taxis to the space station. These concerns are misplaced: Unlike SLS and Orion, the Commercial Crew Program has a clearly defined and time-urgent mission of restoring independent U.S. crew access to the space station. It is the latter program that continues to be underfunded in appropriations bills, ensuring prolonged dependence on Russia for increasingly expensive crew access to the space station.

The asteroid mission, though it seems a bit far-fetched, has some inherent appeal. It's certainly novel, with the potential to capture the public's imagination in a way that was seen this past summer when NASA landed a car-sized rover on the surface of Mars. Moreover, it would leverage investments NASA's already making, not just in SLS and Orion but also in solar electric propulsion and robotic technologies that could apply to future astronaut travel to deep-space destinations.

But lawmakers have legitimate questions about this mission that deserve unambiguous answers. To begin with, NASA must clearly explain how it expects to find an asteroid that can be hauled into lunar orbit in time for a visit by the first SLS-Orion crew in a mission currently targeted for 2021. NASA has acknowledged that the asteroid used to develop the capture scenario, 2009 BD, is not suitable for the actual mission because it couldn't be redirected to lunar orbit until late 2024.

NASA's notional backup plan, which would have the first crewed Orion rendezvous not with a captured asteroid but with the spacecraft designed to perform the retrieval mission, probably isn't worth the investment: There has to be some scientific return to help close the case for this mission.

Speaking of investment, the $1 billion price tag assigned to the mission — not including SLS and Orion — seems unrealistically low. NASA's track record for estimating the costs of large, one-of-a-kind missions is not good, and starting ambitious programs only to abandon them because they prove too expensive only hurts the agency and its stakeholders in the long run.

But perhaps NASA's biggest challenge is demonstrating that this is a serious plan and not merely a technology stunt or — worse — a placeholder designed primarily to blunt critics who correctly note that NASA lacks a realistic, near-term human spaceflight objective beyond the space station. NASA is seeking only $105 million to begin work on the asteroid capture mission in 2014, but that's too much to spend — in any budget environment, let alone the current one — if NASA cannot make a convincing case that this is real.

END

Keep the shuttle flying

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Tuesday, May 7, 2013

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