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: June 3, 2013 5:52:04 AM GMT-06:00
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: Human Spaceflight News - June 3, 2013 and JSC Today

Happy Monday everyone.

Please join us for our monthly NASA Retirees luncheon at Hibachi Grill in Webster on Bay Area Blvd. at 11:30 this Thursday June 6th.   As usual, we have the party room in the back left hand side reserved. Family and friends are welcome as well.

Monday, June 3, 2013

JSC TODAY HEADLINES
1.            Modified ACES Backup Schedule June 3 Through June 30 at JSC
2.            Aeronautics Research Institute to Accept Proposals for Seedling Funds
3.            June 5: Meet the Strategic Opportunities and Partnership Development Team
4.            Now Serving Texas-Shaped Waffles in the Building 3 Café
5.            Healthy Financial Decisions Can Make a Difference -- You've Got Choices
6.            Spaceflight-Induced Bone Loss and Human Health and Performance Lecture
7.            JSC Contractor Safety and Health Forum -- June 18
8.            June is National Safety Month
9.            Blood Drive June 19 and 20 -- Time Change
10.          Job Opportunities
11.          JSC Weight Watchers at Work Meeting Today
12.          Stay in Touch With the NESC Academy
13.          JSC-SLC-AP -- Train-The-Trainer: Aerial Platform Certifying Officials
14.          Train-The-Trainer: Crane Operations and Riggings Safety Lift Certifying Officials
15.          Train-The-Trainer for Forklift Certifying Officials
________________________________________     NASA FACT
" The Mars Science Laboratory's Radiation Assessment Detector is the first instrument to measure the radiation environment during a Mars cruise mission from inside a spacecraft that is similar to potential human exploration spacecraft."
________________________________________
1.            Modified ACES Backup Schedule June 3 Through June 30 at JSC
To increase performance of the Mobile Information Protection (MIP) backup service at JSC and reduce error messages seen by users, backups will be placed on a rotating three-day schedule from June 3 through June 30.
If you have a current backup:
o             For two days, you will receive a message that your account has been temporarily placed on hold. No action is required.
o             During those two days, your account will not be able to access the server to back up your data.
o             After two days, your account will be automatically set to a normal status and allowed to complete a backup.
This cycle will occur every three days.
Note: If you need to perform a restore while your account is on hold, submit a service desk ticket to request your account be enabled.
For technical assistance, contact the Enterprise Service Desk website or call 1-877-677-2123 (option 2).
JSC IRD Outreach x41334

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2.            Aeronautics Research Institute to Accept Proposals for Seedling Funds
The NASA Aeronautics Research Institute (NARI) will be accepting proposals from multi-organizational teams for the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD) Seedling Fund. Proposals must articulate an innovative, broadly based research topic addressing a strategically important aeronautics technical challenge with the potential to mature into technologies of interest to ARMD or commercial aerospace companies.
Proposals will be considered by NARI for team awards up to $600,000 for a one-year period of performance. One team will be down selected for showing the most promise to continue research for approximately $900,000 for another year. Team-based notices of intent (NOI) are due June 14. NOIs are highly encouraged but not mandatory.
A pre-proposal briefing for prospective participants will be held June 25. Proposals are due July 30. Only civil servants at one of NASA's nine government-operated field centers are eligible to apply as a Principal Investigator.
For specific technical details, click here.
Holly Kurth x32951

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3.            June 5: Meet the Strategic Opportunities and Partnership Development Team
You are invited to JSC's SAIC/Safety and Mission Assurance Speaker Forum featuring Yolanda Marshall, Doug Terrier and Steven González of the Strategic Opportunities and Partnership Development (SOPD) team.
Date/Time: Wednesday, June 5, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Location: Building 1, Room 360
The JSC SOPD Office:
o             Collaborates with JSC organizations to establish beneficial partnerships with external entities
o             Develops strategies for the future of JSC
o             Facilitates the transfer of technology and intellectual property for commercial development
o             Reaches outward and serves within to help JSC position itself for a vibrant future.
Marshall, González and Terrier will be sharing SOPD initiatives and listening to you.
They will be sharing about JSC/SOPDs:
o             Partnerships with industry
o             Collaborations with consortiums
o             Innovation initiatives and facilities
Event Date: Wednesday, June 5, 2013   Event Start Time:11:30 AM   Event End Time:12:30 PM
Event Location: Building 1, room 360

Add to Calendar

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

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4.            Now Serving Texas-Shaped Waffles in the Building 3 Café
The Building 3 Starport Café is now serving Texas-shaped, Texas-sized waffles for breakfast! Stop by in the mornings for this tasty Texas treat for only $2.19/each. Breakfast hours are 7 to 9:30 a.m. Monday through Friday.
Danial Hornbuckle x30240 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/

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5.            Healthy Financial Decisions Can Make a Difference -- You've Got Choices
If you've got one hour, we've got a lineup for you to improve your financial literacy. Join us in June for the Financial Wellness Program at JSC. Educational offerings will be available as in-person lectures, webinars and counseling. The June class series is shown below.
Introductory-level classes:
o             FW101 Financial Wellness Foundation
o             FW102 Budgets, Debt, Insurance and Long-Term Care
o             FW103 Investing and Retirement Planning
o             FW104 Taxes and Estate Planning
o             FW105 Debt Free for Life (webinar only)
Retirement, Taxes and Estate Planning:
o             FW106 Retire with Confidence, Level One
o             FW206 Retire with Confidence, Level Two
o             FW107 Taxes - Dancing with Uncle Sam, Part 1
o             FW207 Taxes - Dancing with Uncle Sam, Part 2
o             FW108 Intro to Estate Planning - Laying the Foundation
o             FW208 Advanced Estate Planning - Being an Executor
Topic Specific:
o             FW203 Insurance - What If ... Financial Protection
o             FW204 Maximize Your Investments
Enrollment and details are at this link.
For questions, email.
Shelly Haralson x39168 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/

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6.            Spaceflight-Induced Bone Loss and Human Health and Performance Lecture
Please join us tomorrow, June 4, from 9 to 10 a.m. in Building 1, Room 720, for a lecture on Spaceflight-induced Bone Loss and Human Health and Performance. This Human Systems Academy course will highlight the challenges of translating astronaut biomedical data to evidence for human skeletal health risks and performance. Space is limited, so please register in SATERN: https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=SCHEDULED_...
Cynthia Rando x41815 https://sashare.jsc.nasa.gov/hsa/default.aspx

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7.            JSC Contractor Safety and Health Forum -- June 18
Our next JSC Contractor Safety and Health Forum will be held on Tuesday, June 18, in the Gilruth Alamo Ballroom from 9 to 11 a.m. One guest speaker is Ron Horton, Afterburner's EVP for Safety and Leadership Development. Horton's topic, "Leading Flawless Execution in a High Risk World," is a very dynamic presentation that will cover the six steps of mission planning using the Flawless Execution Model. Our second speaker, Tommy Northcutt, P.E., from Aerospace Testing Alliance located at the Arnold Air Force Base in Tennessee, will be discussing Arc Flash Hazards and the challenges encountered at his location. The third guest speaker will be Frank Brody, chief, NWS Spaceflight Meteorology Group at JSC, who will be speaking on the 2013 Hurricane Season Forecast.
This will be a very dynamic and informative meeting that you will not want to miss. If you have questions, contact Pat Farrell at 281-335-2012 or via email.
Event Date: Tuesday, June 18, 2013   Event Start Time:9:00 AM   Event End Time:11:00 AM
Event Location: Gilruth Alamo Ballroom

Add to Calendar

Pat Farrell 281-335-2012

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8.            June is National Safety Month
This year's theme, "Safety Starts with Me," encourages organizations to get involved and participate in National Safety Month (NSM). NSM is an annual observance to educate and influence behaviors around leading causes of preventable injuries and deaths.
While leadership from the top is important, creating a culture where there is a sense of ownership of safety by all makes everyone in the organization a safety leader. JSC works to create a culture where people feel a personal responsibility not only for their own safety, but for that of their co-workers, family and friends.
Free materials are available for safety meetings and discussions.
Rindy Carmichael x45078

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9.            Blood Drive June 19 and 20 -- Time Change
The hours of operation for the Teague building have changed due to energy conservation measures. The start time for the blood drive in the Teague Auditorium lobby will change to 9 a.m. To be consistent, the Building 11 donor coach location will also start at 9 a.m.
Blood drive locations and times are:
o             Teague Auditorium lobby - 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
o             Building 11 Starport Café donor coach - 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
o             Gilruth Center donor coach - noon to 4 p.m. (Thursday only)
Criteria for donating can be found at the St. Luke's link on our website.
Teresa Gomez x39588 http://jscpeople.jsc.nasa.gov/blooddrv/blooddrv.htm

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

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11.          JSC Weight Watchers at Work Meeting Today
The JSC Weight Watchers at Work meeting is held on Mondays in Building 20, Room 204. Weigh-in is from 11:30 a.m. to noon, and the meeting runs from noon to 12:30 p.m. All Weight Watchers Monthly Pass members are invited to attend our on-site meeting.
If you are not a current member, you may attend a meeting as a guest to learn more about the program. The meeting is run by Weight Watchers leader Anne Churchill. Weigh in privately on a Weight Watchers scale. Weight Watcher products are also available.
To join now, purchase your discounted Monthly Pass through the JSC portal at the link below (JSC company ID 24156, pass code WW24156). Membership includes unlimited meetings each month (at any participating location) and free eTools, which provide online and mobile access for tracking and recipes.
Join today and get the power to lose weight like never before!
Event Date: Monday, June 3, 2013   Event Start Time:11:30 AM   Event End Time:12:30 PM
Event Location: Bldg 20, Room 204

Add to Calendar

Julie Kliesing x31540 https://wellness.weightwatchers.com

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12.          Stay in Touch With the NESC Academy
Would you like to be informed about upcoming NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC)/NASA Engineering Network (NEN) live webcasts, or when new lessons are released to the NESC Academy website? Now you can by joining the NESC Academy email list here, or by going to http://nescacademy.nasa.gov and clicking on the link in the top-right green area titled "Subscribe to NESC Academy."
The NESC Academy online contains self-paced courses conducted by discipline experts and provides a unique opportunity to share critical knowledge with a broad audience. Check out our most recent releases, which include "An Overview of Spacecraft Attitude Determination and Estimation;" "Fundamentals of Kalman Filtering and Estimation;" and "Experiences and Lessons Learned in Development and Implementation of Aerodynamic Uncertainty: Ares/MLAS/Orion."
Hope Rachel Venus 757-864-9530 http://nescacademy.nasa.gov/

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13.          JSC-SLC-AP -- Train-The-Trainer: Aerial Platform Certifying Officials
In order to assist with the transition of responsibility for certifying lift operators to line organizations, the Safety Learning Center is offering training for aerial platform-certifying officials.
Date/Time: June 20 from 8 to 11 a.m.
Location: Safety Learning Center, Building 20, Rooms 205/206
This class is a train-the-trainer class for those certifying operators for aerial lifts. JSC line organizations and contractors are now responsible for ensuring their lift equipment operators are certified in accordance with the NASA Standard for Lifting Devices and Equipment 8919.9. The operators will need to be certified by individuals who are qualified and approved as lift-certifying officials.
Qualifications for both operators and lift-certifying officials are listed here.
Certifying officials need only to be approved for the lift types for which they certifying operators.
Registration via SATERN required:
https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=SCHEDULED_...
Aundrail Hill x36369

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14.          Train-The-Trainer: Crane Operations and Riggings Safety Lift Certifying Officials
JSC-SLC-CORSR
In order to assist with the transition of responsibility for certifying lift operators to line organizations, the Safety Learning Center is offering training for lift-certifying officials (four-hour course).
Date/Time: June 19 from 8 a.m. to noon
Location: Safety Learning Center, Building 20, Rooms 205/206
This class is a train-the-trainer class for those certifying operators for crane operation and rigging safety. JSC line organizations and contractors are now responsible for ensuring their lift equipment operators are certified in accordance with the NASA Standard for Lifting Devices and Equipment 8919.9. The operators will need to be certified by individuals who are qualified and approved as lift-certifying officials. Qualifications for both operators and lift-certifying officials are listed here.
Certifying officials need only to be approved for the lift types for which they certifying operators.
Registration via SATERN Required:
https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=SCHEDULED_...
Aundrail Hill x36369

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15.          Train-The-Trainer for Forklift Certifying Officials
In order to assist with the transition of responsibility for certifying lift operators to line organizations, the Safety Learning Center is offering training for forklift-certifying officials (three-hour course).
Date/Time: June 20 from 1 to 4 p.m.
Location: Safety Learning Center, Building 20, Rooms 205/206
Registration via SATERN Required:
https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=SCHEDULED_...
This class is a train-the-trainer class for those certifying operators for forklifts. JSC line organizations and contractors are now responsible for ensuring their lift equipment operators are certified in accordance with the NASA Standard for Lifting Devices and Equipment 8919.9. The operators will need to be certified by individuals who are qualified and approved as lift-certifying officials. Qualifications for both operators and lift-certifying officials are listed here.
Certifying officials need only to be approved for the lift types for which they certifying operators.
Aundrail Hill x36369

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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.

Human Spaceflight News
Monday, June 3, 2013

Ed White took a little 22 min. stroll in space during Gemini 4 on this date in 1965 – the first ever US EVA

HEADLINES AND LEADS

NASA Chief Repeats Warnings On Commercial Crew Delays

Guy Norris - Aerospace Daily

The already delayed NASA Commercial Crew Program remains under threat of further hold-ups because of short-sighted congressional budget cuts in 2014, warns agency Administrator Charles Bolden. The program is developing a U.S launch system to get astronauts to low Earth orbit, and was originally targeted at initial capability in 2015. However, reduced budgets over the past three years have pushed this back to 2017, forcing NASA to keep on extending its contract with Russian space agency Roscosmos to transport crews to the International Space Station (ISS) using Soyuz.

Boeing and SpaceX Reach Commercial Crew Milestones

Dan Leone - Space News

Boeing Space Exploration and Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) said they have cleared key milestones on their funded Space Act Agreements with NASA, part of the agency's plan to get at least one crew-carrying vehicle launching to the international space station from U.S. soil by 2017. Boeing in May completed a series of wind tunnel tests it began in March at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., Boeing and NASA said in May 31 press releases. Boeing tested a scale model of its CST-100 spacecraft mated to a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket.

Boeing completes wind tunnel tests for CST-100 and Atlas V

Zach Rosenberg - FlightInternational.com

Boeing has completed two additional milestones under the commercial crew integrated capability (CCiCap) agreement with NASA, earning the company nearly $60 million. Boeing completed wind tunnel testing of the CST-100 crew capsule while attached to its launch vehicle, a Lockheed Martin Atlas V. CST-100 and its service module rely wholly on the Atlas V and its Centaur upper stage for propulsion into suitable orbit, where it will dock with the International Space Station (ISS).

SpaceX Chief Says Reusable First Stage Will Slash Launch Costs

Peter de Selding - Space News

SpaceX Chairman Elon Musk said the company's Dragon capasule, now used to ferry cargo to the international space station, should be ready to carry astronauts to and from space within two or three years, and that he is more optimistic than ever that a partially reusable rocket will accelerate the reduction in launch costs that SpaceX has already caused with its Falcon 9. Speaking at the All things Digital conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., Musk said his ultimate goal with Hawthorne, Calif.-based Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) has not changed since he founded the company: placing humans on Mars to start a permanent colony there.

Astronauts to take robots for spin at mock moon 'roverscape'

Leonard David - Space.com

A unique "roverscape" has been created to help assess the blending of human and robotic skills in deploying a low-radio frequency array on the moon's farside. The series of tests will tap the talents of astronauts on the International Space Station to command an Earth-based robot to conduct simulated lunar tasks. The football field-size roverscape, and an adjacent control center, is located at the NASA Ames Research Center, near Silicon Valley in California. The tests are focused on the feasibility of telerobotic deployment of science gear and hardware, be it on the moon, at asteroids or on Mars.

Collapse of ESA-Roscosmos Crew Vehicle Partnership Holds Lessons

Peter de Selding - Space News

The collapse of a Euro-Russian collaboration on manned space vehicles offers lessons for today's attempts to create a global initiative for human exploration beyond low Earth orbit, European government and industry officials said. In a presentation to a conference on prospective European space collaboration with emerging nations, Astrium Space Transportation and the European Space Agency (ESA) said the attempt by ESA and the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, to join forces on a new crew transport vehicle fell apart for reasons that are as valid today as when the effort was abandoned in 2009.

Asteroid strategy: To deflect you must detect
Astronomers focus on heading off possible catastrophes of the future

Todd Halvorson - Florida Today

Ninety-nine percent of 1 million asteroids that could wipe out metropolitan areas as large as Los Angeles remain undiscovered, but scientists must detect them to deflect them, experts said Friday. The big problem: "Finding them," said former NASA astronaut Ed Lu, head of the B612 Foundation, a non-profit organization that aims to build, launch and operate a powerful space telescope to do just that. Most asteroids are charcoal dark, difficult to detect and track. Watch the 1998 Hollywood disaster hits Deep Impact or Armageddon to see the type of planetary catastrophe that could be triggered in a collision. "We do not want to get hit by an asteroid," said Bill Nye, "the Science Guy," and executive director of The Planetary Society. Just ask the Tyrannosaurus Rex. "We've got to not get hit at all. Zero tolerance," Nye said.

Smaller 'standing army' of space workers for future NASA missions
Bulk of Jacobs' staff for contract culled from ex-USA workers

James Dean - Florida Today

From the time he became a crawler-transporter engineer in 1997, Sam Dove never missed his "Super Bowl" — the move of a space shuttle to its Kennedy Space Center launch pad. His eyes still well up at the memory of the Vehicle Assembly Building's high bay doors opening and the crawler inching forward on eight giant tracks, the weight of a shuttle and responsibility for a space program on its shoulders. Now, two years after the last rollout, Dove is among a select group of former shuttle contractors picked to play the next big game at Kennedy: the launch of NASA's new exploration rocket, and possibly others. The 54-year-old Port St. John resident is one of about 500 people Jacobs Technology Inc. hired earlier this year for a new ground operations contract worth up to $1.4 billion over nearly 10 years.

When you think gyroscopes, go ahead and think the future of spacesuits and jet packs, too

Emi Kolawole - Washington Post

A space walk may look graceful — then again, so does ballet. In space, the absence of gravity means that a small push can send an object moving endlessly on. It can be particularly problematic when that object is a human body. Draper Laboratory is teaming up with NASA, MIT and others to take on the challenge of making it easier for astronauts to move through space both inside and outside a spacecraft. Their work centers around incorporating control moment gyroscopes (CMGs) into astronauts' space suits and jetpacks.

3-D Printing: NASA's Next Frontier

Clint Boulton - Wall Street Journal

NASA is looking to boldly take 3-D printing where no 3-D printer has gone before. As NASA plans ventures deeper into space, flights that already cost millions of dollars will become more expensive. NASA could defray those rising costs by enabling crew members in space stations to print tools, replacement spacecraft parts and, eventually, even structures in which they could live on alien planets. The aeronautical agency next year will fly the first 3-D printer to the International Space Station, where crew members will conduct the first 3-D printing tests in near zero gravity. The new process could help curb costs of delivering cargo to the ISS, such as sample containers, replacement parts, and other essential objects, said Niki Werkheiser, project manager for 3-D printing in zero-G at NASA.

China's latest manned space mission to launch this month

Ben Blanchard - Reuters

China will launch its next manned rocket in the middle of this month, carrying three astronauts to an experimental space module, state media said on Monday, the latest stage of an ambitious plan to build a space station. The Shenzhou 10 space ship and its rocket had already been moved to the launch area at a remote site in the Gobi desert, the official Xinhua news agency reported. Once in orbit, the Shenzhou 10 will link up with the Tiangong (Heavenly Palace) 1 module, which was moved into the correct orbiting position last month. Chinese astronauts carried out a manned docking with the module for the first time last June.

Shenzhou-10 spacecraft to be launched in mid-June

Xinhua News Agency

The Shenzhou-10 manned spacecraft is scheduled to be launched in the middle of June, a spokesperson for China's manned space program announced on Monday. The mission has entered the final phase of preparations, with the modified model of the Long March-2F carrier rocket and spacecraft being transported to the launch site on Monday morning, said the spokesperson.

Shiloh good idea with or without SpaceX

John Kelly - Florida Today (Commentary)

he development of a new commercial launch pad at the north end of Kennedy Space Center is important to the future of our spaceport. It's important for two reasons, one of them related to the presumed prime operator of a new complex at Shiloh and the other more general. First, SpaceX grew up here and SpaceX belongs here. Yes, the growing space exploration company designs and manufactures its Falcon 9 rockets and Dragon spacecraft in the Los Angeles area. But, SpaceX launched itself into its present-day success and grew into a big-league player in the future of space exploration from its complex at Cape Canaveral.

Plan shows agency still turns obstacles into opportunities

Frank DiBello - Orlando Sentinel (Opinion)

(DiBello is president and CEO of Space Florida, the state space development agency)

The concept of identifying and capturing an asteroid that keenly interests us, then moving it out of its existing orbit to near the moon for hands-on research, is quirky, brilliant and exactly what we need to do at this point in our nation's history. This mission uses the vehicles and spacecraft that are already being funded, designed and built right now, without requiring an additional major infusion of cash for significant new destination hardware. Grabbing a celestial body and moving it was once science fiction. Now it is real, it is achievable, and we must seize the opportunity, while we are developing the much-needed technologies and capabilities for longer-range manned missions to farther-out destinations in the solar system.

Popeye Forearms: The Challenge of Gemini IX-A

Ben Evans - AmericaSpace.com

An exhausted Gene Cernan can barely manage a grimace for Tom Stafford's camera after completing his spacewalk on Gemini IX-A. Had the hands of fate played out a little differently, this seat might instead have been occupied by Charlie Bassett. Photo Credit: NASA
In the late spring of 1966, the Gemini IX mission seemed hamstrung by bad luck. When its prime crew, Elliot See and Charlie Bassett, was named in November of the previous year, they expected it to be breathtaking in its pace and challenge. With three days in space, a lengthy spacewalk, a rendezvous, and a docking with an unmanned Agena target craft, the mission would put every one of Project Gemini's objectives to the ultimate test. Tragedy struck at the end of February, however, when See and Bassett died in the crash of their T-38 jet. The future fortunes of Gemini IX would pass to their backups, Tom Stafford and Gene Cernan … and the mission would take several unexpected twists and turns and bring NASA face to face with the unforgiving nature of space exploration.
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COMPLETE STORIES

NASA Chief Repeats Warnings On Commercial Crew Delays

Guy Norris - Aerospace Daily

The already delayed NASA Commercial Crew Program remains under threat of further hold-ups because of short-sighted congressional budget cuts in 2014, warns agency Administrator Charles Bolden.

The program is developing a U.S launch system to get astronauts to low Earth orbit, and was originally targeted at initial capability in 2015. However, reduced budgets over the past three years have pushed this back to 2017, forcing NASA to keep on extending its contract with Russian space agency Roscosmos to transport crews to the International Space Station (ISS) using Soyuz.

Now, as NASA faces additional funding shortfalls for fiscal 2014, in addition to the wider effects of sequestration, even this target could slide. This could make it harder for the companies competing for the Commercial Crew Program to develop solid business plans given the current schedule to phase out the ISS around 2020. Boeing, Sierra Nevada and Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) are developing competing proposals under the Commercial Crew integrated Capability (CCiCAP) phase of the program.

Russia

"I authorized the writing of a check to the amount of about $454 million last month that went to Roscosmos, the Russian space agency. They are outside the United States the last time I checked," Bolden says. The additional deal will "extend our reliance on Soyuz for just one more year between 2016 and 2017, because Congress has continued to agree with the president that Commercial Crew is really critical to our nation, to get us access to low Earth orbit."

The president's budget request for the program is $821 million, and with available "plus-up" funds, the agency believes it can accumulate $525 million. "That's the difference between where we are now based on congressional appropriations and where the president is pleading that we get to," Bolden said, speaking at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards AFB, Calif. That is where Sierra Nevada is preparing to start tests of its Dream Chaser lifting-body concept, which is the only one of the crew-transport designs that includes a runway landing,

"You do the math," Bolden said. "There's a $300 million delta between where the Congress is and where the president is. So I have to write a $454 million check to pay the Russians for transport of our crews because we cannot reach an agreement with Congress that allows them to give us an additional $300 million for the Commercial Crew program."

Development program

Bolden adds that budget makers appear to have lost sight of the fact that "Commercial Crew will go away after 2017-2018. It's not one of these forever programs. It's a development program for companies like Sierra Nevada, Boeing and SpaceX, to take over responsibilities of transporting crews to low Earth orbit. Once we get those stood up, . . . the development program goes away and . . . I don't write checks anymore. NASA then writes a check for whoever the company is to provide crew support, but Commercial Crew disappears from our budget line."

From the broader NASA program perspective, the effects of sequestration in 2014 will mean inevitable delays and potential program cancellations. "We're not going to make it work," Bolden says, adding that the originally requested budget of $17.7 billion would "negate sequestration, take it off the table. If we end up in sequestration it significantly reduces the amount of money NASA will have. Under sequestration we'll lose around 5%, so we'll be down to $16.6 billion. It will move everything to the right, and [take] the lower priority items and kick them off the calendar. So sequestration is really, really, really bad. I can't say it any other way," he says.

Boeing and SpaceX Reach Commercial Crew Milestones

Dan Leone - Space News

Boeing Space Exploration and Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) said they have cleared key milestones on their funded Space Act Agreements with NASA, part of the agency's plan to get at least one crew-carrying vehicle launching to the international space station from U.S. soil by 2017.

Boeing in May completed a series of wind tunnel tests it began in March at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., Boeing and NASA said in May 31 press releases. Boeing tested a scale model of its CST-100 spacecraft mated to a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket.

Meanwhile, SpaceX, which like Boeing is working on a capsule-based system, finished up a review of its human certification plan with NASA.

"During this milestone, SpaceX detailed to NASA how we are going to achieve human rating for the Dragon-Falcon 9 crew system, including how we will prove that we meet all of NASA's requirements," SpaceX spokeswoman Christina Ra wrote in a May 28 email.

Boeing's latest milestone was worth $37.8 million; SpaceX's was worth $50 million.

The current phase of NASA's Commercial Crew Program wraps up in April 2014. NASA plans to solicit proposals for a follow-on phase, intended to culminate in a crewed demonstration flight to the space station, later this year.

Boeing completes wind tunnel tests for CST-100 and Atlas V

Zach Rosenberg - FlightInternational.com

Boeing has completed two additional milestones under the commercial crew integrated capability (CCiCap) agreement with NASA, earning the company nearly $60 million.

Boeing completed wind tunnel testing of the CST-100 crew capsule while attached to its launch vehicle, a Lockheed Martin Atlas V. CST-100 and its service module rely wholly on the Atlas V and its Centaur upper stage for propulsion into suitable orbit, where it will dock with the International Space Station (ISS).

"The CST-100 and Atlas V, connected by the launch vehicle adaptor, performed exactly as expected and confirmed our expectations of how they will perform together in flight," says John Mulholland, Boeing's programme manager for commercial crew.

The company also completed liquid oxygen duct development test for the dual-engine Centaur upper stage. The Centaur, which can be launched powered by either one or two Rocketdyne RL-10 engines, is fueled by liquid hydrogen with liquid oxygen. Both the size of CST-100 and safety concerns for its crew necessitate using two RL-10s. A competing CCiCap awardee, Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser spaceplane, will use the same Atlas V/dual-engine Centaur to launch.

CCiCap is a competitive programme to develop vehicles for ferrying crew to the ISS. Three awardees, Boeing, SpaceX and Sierra Nevada, won varying amounts of money to develop the vehicles; awards are handed out piecemeal via a milestone system. Boeing, for its part, has 19 milestones for a potential total of $460 million, not including optional milestones that may or may not be exercised.

CCiCap is the third such round of development grants, and the scheduled milestones extend into mid-2014. A fourth round of grants is anticipated, potentially requiring a downselect to a single competitor.

SpaceX Chief Says Reusable First Stage Will Slash Launch Costs

Peter de Selding - Space News

SpaceX Chairman Elon Musk said the company's Dragon capasule, now used to ferry cargo to the international space station, should be ready to carry astronauts to and from space within two or three years, and that he is more optimistic than ever that a partially reusable rocket will accelerate the reduction in launch costs that SpaceX has already caused with its Falcon 9.

Speaking at the All things Digital conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., Musk said his ultimate goal with Hawthorne, Calif.-based Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) has not changed since he founded the company: placing humans on Mars to start a permanent colony there.

For now, Musk said SpaceX's success in building and launching rockets less expensively than established launch service suppliers is "an incremental, not a revolutionary" breakthrough. "Our aspiration is to have a revolutionary breakthrough," he said.

Musk reiterated the origin of the SpaceX production model, saying fuel is only 0.3 percent of the total cost of a rocket, with construction materials accounting for no more than 2 percent of the total cost, which for the Falcon 9 is about $60 million.

Given that the rocket's constituent materials are such a small part of the total vehicle cost, he said: "Clearly people were doing something silly in how they put those materials together. By eliminating those foolish things, we were able to make a rocket for much less."

Musk said that a rocket's first stage accounts for three-quarters of its total price tag, so a vehicle with a reusable first stage can be produced at far less cost — assuming the hardware is fully and rapidly reusable.

SpaceX is developing a reusable first stage for the Falcon 9 under a program dubbed Grasshopper.

Meanwhile, SpaceX's upgraded, but still expendable, Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to make its inaugural launch sometime this summer from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., carrying Canada's Cassiope science satellite into low Earth orbit. The launch will flight-qualify the rocket's new engine and fairing sufficiently to trigger a series of Falcon 9 commercial missions that the company has booked.

SpaceX said May 30 that the date of the inaugural flight of the new Falcon 9 remains uncertain. Following a successful Cassiope launch, the new Falcon 9 is scheduled to begin commercial operations from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.

The company said the SES-8 commercial telecommunications satellite owned by SES of Luxembourg will be the payload on Falcon 9's first flight to geostationary transfer orbit, the destination of most commercial satellites. The SES launch will be followed by the launch of Thai satellite operator Thaicom's Thaicom 6 telecommunications satellite.

After Thaicom, SpaceX has scheduled the launch, this time into low Earth orbit, of the first batch of satellites for Rochelle Park, N.J.-based Orbcomm's machine-to-machine messaging satellite constellation.

Astronauts to take robots for spin at mock moon 'roverscape'

Leonard David - Space.com

A unique "roverscape" has been created to help assess the blending of human and robotic skills in deploying a low-radio frequency array on the moon's farside. The series of tests will tap the talents of astronauts on the International Space Station to command an Earth-based robot to conduct simulated lunar tasks.

The football field-size roverscape, and an adjacent control center, is located at the NASA Ames Research Center, near Silicon Valley in California. The tests are focused on the feasibility of telerobotic deployment of science gear and hardware, be it on the moon, at asteroids or on Mars.

An operational readiness test is scheduled for the end of this month, followed by tentative sessions involving space station crew members in June, July and August. [Photos: Robonaut 2, Robot Butler for Astronauts]

Designated driver
The K10 robot is ready for action, as is software to be used by ISS astronauts to interface with the wheeled rover, said Terry Fong, director of the Intelligent Robotics Group at Ames. End-to-end testing on the ground has gone well, he said, as have communications checks to and from the space station.

"The only part of the puzzle we really haven't tried is doing this live with an astronaut," Fong told Space.com. As yet there is not a "designated driver" of the K10 among the ISS astronauts, with tests perhaps involving multiple crew members, he said.

"We've constructed a good outdoor robot test area. It has craters, a hill, a variety of boulders and covered in crushed rock," Fong said. "This test bed is a stepping stone being indoors in the lab and being outside in the completely natural world."

Breaking new ground

Fong said that the space station/rover experiments will break a bit of new ground.

In contrast with much of what goes on involving the station, there has been no ground training of astronauts ahead of time, Fong said.

"We're doing what the astronaut crew office refers to as 'just-in-time' training," Fong said, with software crafted to assist an astronaut to run the K10 rover in stepwise fashion.

"For us, that's interesting. We're guinea pigs from that perspective, trying to provide feedback to others of how well this kind of on-orbit, real-time training will work," Fong said.

Telerobotics era

One early outcome of the forthcoming tests is to mimic teleoperating a rover on the moon's farside from NASA's Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle parked at the lunar L2 Lagrange Point.

That's a spot where the combined gravity of the Earth and moon allows a spacecraft to be synchronized with the moon in its orbit around the Earth, so that the spacecraft is relatively stationary over the farside of the moon.

"What I think is exciting about all of this is the telerobotics era we're getting into," said Jack Burns, director of the NASA Lunar Science Institute's Lunar University Network for Astrophysics Research, a NASA-funded center at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

"This is a very serious effort," Burns told Space.com. "Anytime you are going to be working with real astronauts, it has to be a pretty serious effort."

Uncovering the gotchas

Burns is a key player behind a proposed L2 lunar farside piloted mission that uses astronauts to remotely unfurl on the moon a low-radio frequency antenna comprised of polyimide film. That array could track down the "cosmic dawn" of the universe shortly after the Big Bang.

To make such a mission more realistic, Burns said a university vacuum chamber is in use to imitate the day/night thermal cycles on the moon. A mini-rover has been built that is controlled from inside the chamber to help scope out deployment issues.

Each stage of the tests — be it at the Ames roverscape or at the university — build toward more realism, Burns said, enabling team members to uncover, ahead of time, some of the gotchas.

"Humans and machines working together," Burns told Space.com. "This is really the way exploration is going to be done in the future … be it on the surface of the moon or on Mars." [Visions of the Future of Human Spaceflight]

Doing more at a distance

Laura Kruger, a University of Colorado, Boulder, grad student on the project, is a "synthetic astronaut" helping to design the training module that space station crew members will use in tasking the K10 rover.

"We had to figure out the cognitive workload, the step-by-step procedures for different people that have different backgrounds," Kruger said, including how much help is required from computers contrasted with how much astronauts can handle.

Kruger said that the space station crew sessions are divided up into a K10 survey of the Ames roverscape, then having the rover deploy the thin-film telescope arrays, followed by inspection and documentation of the achieved work at the roverscape.

Fong at Ames said the upcoming test results are meant to be applied to a variety of future space ventures.

"The whole overall approach here is independent of any particular, single mission. Whether it's an L2 lunar farside mission, at Mars orbit or even in proximity to an asteroid … it's all the same thing...to extend the human reach and enable astronauts to do more at a distance."

Collapse of ESA-Roscosmos Crew Vehicle Partnership Holds Lessons

Peter de Selding - Space News

The collapse of a Euro-Russian collaboration on manned space vehicles offers lessons for today's attempts to create a global initiative for human exploration beyond low Earth orbit, European government and industry officials said.

In a presentation to a conference on prospective European space collaboration with emerging nations, Astrium Space Transportation and the European Space Agency (ESA) said the attempt by ESA and the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, to join forces on a new crew transport vehicle fell apart for reasons that are as valid today as when the effort was abandoned in 2009.

Perhaps the most important hurdle is technology-export regulations, which ultimately doomed the proposed Crew Space Transportation System (CSTS) after millions of dollars of investment between 2006 and 2009.

Not for the first time, European officials acknowledged that while U.S. technology-transfer barriers, commonly known as the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, get the most publicity, similar restrictions apply in Russia and in Europe.

Recently the Euro-Russian ExoMars project, which features two launches to Mars in 2016 and 2018, including a European lander on the 2016 mission, was forced to do without a Russian nuclear power source because licenses for its export to Europe for integration with the spacecraft could not be secured in time.

Similarly, managers of ESA's new Vega small-satellite launcher program were obliged to find a substitute for the French-provided guidance, navigation and control system after Vega's maiden flight because France refused to permit its export to Italy, home of the Vega prime contractor. Vega's second flight, with the new Italian-made guidance suite, was successfully conducted on May 7.

In their May 16 presentation to the Symposium on Legal and Policy Aspects of Space Cooperation Between Europe and the BRICS countries, Astrium and ESA said export control proved more difficult than expected for the Euro-Russian CSTS endeavor.

"Stringent export control regimes on space and dual-use technologies require both sides to pass as quickly as possible to formally controlled [exchanges] covered by inter-agency information-exchange agreements," the authors said. "The understanding of their importance and the time required to establish such agreements is often much underestimated by implementation-oriented program management."

It seems like part of another era, but it was only seven years ago that ESA and Roscosmos decided that a joint crew transportation system would serve both sides' interests given the fact that China and the United States seemed not to wish to invite foreign participation in their systems.

ESA and Roscosmos wanted to design a crew carrier that would be operated both from Europe's Guiana Space Center spaceport in South America, and from Roscosmos-controlled launch bases.

The result of the studies was a capsule borrowing from Russia's Soyuz vehicle heritage and from Europe's Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) space-station freighter.

When the studies began, the 20,000-kilogram ATV had yet to fly. It has now successfully docked, automatically, with the international space station three times. The fourth ATV – the vehicles are discarded after each mission to burn up in the atmosphere – is scheduled for launch June 5.

The joint work concluded with a plan that Russia would focus on a design of a new capsule, with Europe focusing on the service module, with an exchange of components flowing between Europe and Russia.

Issues soon developed, however, according to the presentation made by Cristian Bank of Astrium Space Transportation and Marco Caporicci of ESA. They included: Intellectual property rights and the legally required confidentiality of data labeled as militarily sensitive. Filtering information exchange to permit the work to move forward while staying within regulatory boundaries was a challenge, as was the question of who assumes ownership of the work produced, and after what level of acceptance testing.

A second issue involved the value to place on each side's work share, and the relative value of services and products.

The relationship between the principal Russian industrial participant, RSC Energia, and the Astrium-led European team was never clarified as to whether they were co-prime contractors in a joint venture or a single team in which one was prime and the other a subcontractor.

According to the CSTS final report, the expected detailed system-engineering phase was derailed due to the absence of a technology transfer agreement. The Russian side began work on its own, without much communication with the European consortium, leading to duplication.

As a result, different technical solutions were proposed.

The European work centered in part on an evolved Ariane 5 heavy-lift rocket whose development was not yet certain in 2008. The Russian work was based on a new man-rated launch vehicle using Russia's Vostochny spaceport, but its development timetable was never clear.

These issues, coupled with the expected questions about future production volume and the division of financial compensation ultimately caused the program to be shut down.

ESA continued the work through a program called the Advanced Reentry Vehicle, which would have started Europe on the path to a crew-return vehicle by reinforcing the Automated Transfer Vehicle so that it could return to Earth intact. This program has since been abandoned.

ESA and NASA have agreed that ESA will provide the service module for NASA's Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, at least for one Orion flight. A longer-term collaboration on Orion has yet to be negotiated.

"The CSTS experience could help in identifying deficiencies in utilization-scheme baselining and program ramp-up," the presentation's authors said of the Orion collaboration.

Asteroid strategy: To deflect you must detect
Astronomers focus on heading off possible catastrophes of the future

Todd Halvorson - Florida Today

Ninety-nine percent of 1 million asteroids that could wipe out metropolitan areas as large as Los Angeles remain undiscovered, but scientists must detect them to deflect them, experts said Friday.

The big problem: "Finding them," said former NASA astronaut Ed Lu, head of the B612 Foundation, a non-profit organization that aims to build, launch and operate a powerful space telescope to do just that.

Most asteroids are charcoal dark, difficult to detect and track. Watch the 1998 Hollywood disaster hits Deep Impact or Armageddon to see the type of planetary catastrophe that could be triggered in a collision.

"We do not want to get hit by an asteroid," said Bill Nye, "the Science Guy," and executive director of The Planetary Society.

Just ask the Tyrannosaurus Rex.

"We've got to not get hit at all. Zero tolerance," Nye said.

Nye and colleagues spoke three hours before gigantic Asteroid 1998 QE2 passed harmlessly by Earth. The flyby prompted the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to host the second in a series of "We The Geeks" hangouts.

As wide as the Golden Gate Bridge is long, the asteroid zoomed by the planet at a distance of 3.6 million miles – 15 times farther than the distance between the Earth and the moon. The 1.7-mile-wide space rock made its closest approach at 4:59 p.m. EDT.

President Obama challenged NASA in April 2010 to send American astronauts to an asteroid by 2025.

The administration's proposed 2014 NASA budget includes start-up funds for a mission to identify, track, and send a robotic spacecraft to capture a small asteroid and tow it to a stable lunar orbit.

Then in 2021, American astronauts would be launched on a prospecting mission to mine the asteroid for samples that would shed scientific light on the origins and evolution of the solar system.

Doing so would beat the Obama deadline by a full four years.

Smaller 'standing army' of space workers for future NASA missions
Bulk of Jacobs' staff for contract culled from ex-USA workers

James Dean - Florida Today

From the time he became a crawler-transporter engineer in 1997, Sam Dove never missed his "Super Bowl" — the move of a space shuttle to its Kennedy Space Center launch pad.

His eyes still well up at the memory of the Vehicle Assembly Building's high bay doors opening and the crawler inching forward on eight giant tracks, the weight of a shuttle and responsibility for a space program on its shoulders.

Now, two years after the last rollout, Dove is among a select group of former shuttle contractors picked to play the next big game at Kennedy: the launch of NASA's new exploration rocket, and possibly others.

The 54-year-old Port St. John resident is one of about 500 people Jacobs Technology Inc. hired earlier this year for a new ground operations contract worth up to $1.4 billion over nearly 10 years.

"I've been very fortunate to come through all the transition," he said. "It's more than just a job, and I'm one of the fortunate ones that was able to stay."

How fortunate?

Some 5,000 individuals submitted more than 20,000 applications for various positions on the Test and Operations Support Contract, or TOSC, which NASA awarded to Jacobs in December.

The contract, which began in March, picked up where United Space Alliance left off after closing out the shuttle program.

Its primary focus is preparing for a 2017 test launch of NASA's Space Launch System rocket and an unmanned Orion capsule, work that includes maintaining and upgrading legacy systems and facilities like the VAB, launch pad 39B and crawler-transporters.

Also included is the packing of cargo for launch to the International Space Station, previously done by The Boeing Co. under another contract, and support for launches of NASA science satellites on expendable rockets.

For those jobs, Jacobs interviewed more than 2,000 candidates.

Andy Allen, a three-time shuttle flier who leads the Jacobs team, joked an astronaut selection would have been easier.

"We weren't selecting anything but the best of what we saw," he said.

Like Dove, about 85 percent of the hires were former USA employees.

Many took pay cuts for the opportunity to keep working at the space center.

Jacobs beat out Boeing and Northrop Grumman Corp. for the contract by offering NASA the lowest cost, in addition to technical know-how.

"The lower proposed cost is valuable to NASA and KSC in the post-shuttle era, where funding is less certain and there is a need to efficiently support commercial customers," wrote Bill Gerstenmaier, head of NASA's human spaceflight programs, in a statement explaining Jacobs' selection.

Support for commercial launches, if they materialize at KSC, represents a hard-to-quantify growth opportunity for Jacobs.

Otherwise, the Tullahoma, Tenn.-based company, a division of Jacobs Engineering Group Inc., plans a modest increase of 200 to 300 positions by 2016 or 2017 as test and validation efforts ramp up before the first SLS launch.

By design, NASA no longer needs the shuttle's "standing army" of more than 5,000 contractors for a rocket that is not reusable and will launch far less frequently, maybe once a year.

Though much smaller, the TOSC contract represents an important new beginning for KSC.

After several years of quarterly shuttle contractor layoffs, the center's workforce — still more than 8,000 strong — can finally look forward, even if it's to a launch that's at least four years away.

"It feels good that we're now focused on the future," said Allen.

Dove, in his 26th year at KSC, describes working for a leaner organization now.

He's one of four engineers certified to operate crawler-transporter systems, including driving the roughly 6-million-pound behemoth, down from a core group of about 10 at USA.

Otherwise, his job isn't too different.

He's helping to implement a major modernization of the Apollo-era crawler needed to carry the SLS, Orion and their mobile launch tower.

But Dove expects the ride, at a top speed of about 1 mph, will feel much the same.

"It will be just like the other rollouts," he said. "People will go home from work and they'll come back the next morning and there will be a rocket on the pad."

He said his colleagues all share an appreciation for working on the new space program and a desire to do their jobs right, especially given NASA's fragile funding situation.

"These modifications have to be done correctly and they have to be done correctly the first time," he said. "Because the budget now, with the sequestration and everything, there's not a lot of second chances."

Dove is optimistic he'll get the chance to move NASA's next exploration system to its launch pad, and maybe some commercial rockets flying astronauts, too.

"It's going to be pretty good, I think, once we get rolling," he said.

When you think gyroscopes, go ahead and think the future of spacesuits and jet packs, too

Emi Kolawole - Washington Post

A space walk may look graceful — then again, so does ballet.

In space, the absence of gravity means that a small push can send an object moving endlessly on. It can be particularly problematic when that object is a human body.

Draper Laboratory is teaming up with NASA, MIT and others to take on the challenge of making it easier for astronauts to move through space both inside and outside a spacecraft. Their work centers around incorporating control moment gyroscopes (CMGs) into astronauts' space suits and jetpacks.

But wait, what is a CMG?

I asked Draper to send me a video illustrating how a CMG works. They pointed me to one on YouTube, which shows how a swiveling chair can be turned using an attached, spinning bicycle wheel.

So, CMGs aren't new. They've been used during human spaceflight before, going back to the 1970s and Skylab.

Today, they are used in satellites, on the international space station and in the Simplified Aid for Extravehicular Activity Rescue (SAFER) — a device used in emergencies when astronauts are separated from the space station.

Draper is developing a spacesuit called a Variable Vector Countermeasure suit, or V2Suit, which uses CMGs to assist in balance and movement coordination. The suit has a set of "wearable modules" about the size of a deck of cards, each equipped with a CMG. The modules are placed on various parts of the body to create a network. The wearer of the suit would then be able to set which direction is "down" relative to his or her own body, and the suit would respond accordingly, with each CMG generating torque to simulate resistance. The team anticipates the suit could help prevent astronauts' loss of bone mass and muscle strength during extended stays in space.

"We're using that property to make it feel as though you are moving against resistance when you are in space," said Draper's Duda, the principal investigator for the V2Suit.

"When you make a body movement that is parallel to down," he said, "we command a resistance. So, it makes [you] feel as though you're moving through a viscous fluid."

The project was initially funded in Sept. 2011 by NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program. That funding lasted for a year.

The team is now roughly eight months into phase 2, which is scheduled to last for two years. The V2Suit has received $600,000 in funding from NASA's NAIAC program over the course of phases 1 and 2. Draper is teaming with MIT and the David Clark Company to continue development with the goal of creating a prototype for testing and evaluation in, among other environments, NASA's zero-G plane, otherwise known as the "Vomit Comet." Duda says the team would like to see the suit in space in the next five to 10 years. "That would be a potentially realistic time frame."

And in case you're wondering, Duda says his team isn't trying to be an astronaut buzz-kill. "We don't want to take the fun out of it," he said. "We don't want this to be something they have to wear every day."

Instead, he says, think of it as a suit that can be worn in the lead-up to landing back on Earth or periodically throughout a long mission. Duda says the team plans to work on determining that during the testing and evaluation phase.

Draper is also working on incorporating CMGs into a system for extravehicular, or EVA, missions. The company is partnering with MIT and the Johnson Space Center. Researchers at Johnson are in the process of developing a jet pack made up of a set of thrusters to help stabilize an astronaut when he or she is working around an asteroid or other larger object in space. That system currently uses gas thrusters to counter astronauts' motion in space. Draper hopes to add CMGs to the jet pack to help reduce the need for thrusters. Ideally, the CMGs would compensate for angular motion, letting the thrusters control linear motion — as opposed to having to take on both. Two students will be spending the summer at Johnson Space Center to integrate the models with the virtual reality laboratory there, according to Duda. "We'll be able to, basically, fly around a simulated asteroid with our control system," he said.

The technology is not formally a part of NASA's asteroid or manned Mars missions plans. Draper has spent an undisclosed amount for the development of the EVA technology.

3-D Printing: NASA's Next Frontier

Clint Boulton - Wall Street Journal

NASA is looking to boldly take 3-D printing where no 3-D printer has gone before. As NASA plans ventures deeper into space, flights that already cost millions of dollars will become more expensive. NASA could defray those rising costs by enabling crew members in space stations to print tools, replacement spacecraft parts and, eventually, even structures in which they could live on alien planets.

The aeronautical agency next year will fly the first 3-D printer to the International Space Station, where crew members will conduct the first 3-D printing tests in near zero gravity. The new process could help curb costs of delivering cargo to the ISS, such as sample containers, replacement parts, and other essential objects, said Niki Werkheiser, project manager for 3-D printing in zero-G at NASA.

It could also spare astronauts from having to wait for replacement parts. At $10,000 per pound, shuttling cargo into space is extremely expensive and slow, with six months or more before a shuttle can bring new supplies to the station. 3-D printing will allow members to make some objects in less than an hour. By increasing reliability on what the crew can build themselves, NASA will also decrease its reliance on commercial payload launch schedules, saving a considerable amount of money. Ms. Werkheiser said it's too early to calculate how much NASA could save with 3-D printing, but said, "it will pay for itself a million times over."

In 3-D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, workers model an object on a computer and print it out one layer at a time, using plastic, metal or composite materials. The technology is gaining momentum across various industries for its ability to help companies get products to market faster, often at lower costs than traditional manufacturing processes General Electric Co. and Ford Motor Co. and are using 3-D printing to build parts for jet turbine engines and automotive fuel injection systems, respectively. Other companies are watching the space to see if it helps them gain more control over their supply chains.

Next August, NASA will aim higher — literally — by printing torque wrenches and other tools that have been digitally modeled on a computer in space. As part of a resupply mission, NASA will fly the ISS a special 3-D printer that can operate in microgravity. Because heat transfer doesn't occur in microgravity, fluctuations during the printing process could occur, potentially weakening the plastic structure. To overcome this challenge, NASA is using a special printer built by 3-D printer maker Made in Space Inc., designed with a so-called microgravity glove box to create thermal flows in a gravity-less environment, "to make sure the product prints in equal and even layers," Ms. Werkheiser said.

NASA will initiate the print process from the ground, observing its progress via cameras on board the station. ISS crew members will remove the printed object when it's complete. At first, NASA will print objects using only plastic materials, but it is also considering the use of titanium and other metals in the future, Ms. Werkheiser said. The ability to print metals will enable crew members to print out replacement parts for space craft and other machines.

As Pete Basiliere, a Gartner Inc. analyst who covers the 3-D printing market, said, in space, "things happen, and they're a long way from getting a spare," he said.

Eventually — in what seems like science-fiction film fodder — NASA plans to pair 3-D printing with robotic machines to create habitats for human missions to Mars and other planetary destinations. Assisted by robots, crew could use soil or minerals found on the planet to print houses and laboratories. "You have to be able to live off the land," Ms. Werkheiser said. Someday 3-D printing may even enable astronauts to build an entire craft in space, she said.

For now, NASA's goals for 3-D printing are more modest – that is, if you call printing out plastic tools while flying in space a modest goal.

China's latest manned space mission to launch this month

Ben Blanchard - Reuters

China will launch its next manned rocket in the middle of this month, carrying three astronauts to an experimental space module, state media said on Monday, the latest stage of an ambitious plan to build a space station.

The Shenzhou 10 space ship and its rocket had already been moved to the launch area at a remote site in the Gobi desert, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Once in orbit, the Shenzhou 10 will link up with the Tiangong (Heavenly Palace) 1 module, which was moved into the correct orbiting position last month.

Chinese astronauts carried out a manned docking with the module for the first time last June.

Rendezvous and docking exercises between the two vessels are an important hurdle in China's efforts to acquire the technological and logistical skills to run a full space lab that can house astronauts for long periods.

China is still far from catching up with the established space superpowers, the United States and Russia. The Tiangong 1 is a trial module, not the building block of a space station.

But this summer's mission will be the latest show of China's growing prowess in space and comes while budget restraints and shifting priorities have held back U.S. manned space launches.

It will be China's fifth manned space mission since 2003 when astronaut Yang Liwei became the country's first person in orbit.

China also plans an unmanned moon landing and deployment of a moon rover. Scientists have raised the possibility of sending a man to the moon, but not before 2020.

While Beijing insists its space programme is for peaceful purposes, a Pentagon report last month highlighted China's increasing space capabilities and said Beijing was pursuing a variety of activities aimed at preventing its adversaries from using space-based assets during a crisis.

Shenzhou-10 spacecraft to be launched in mid-June

Xinhua News Agency

The Shenzhou-10 manned spacecraft is scheduled to be launched in the middle of June, a spokesperson for China's manned space program announced on Monday.

The mission has entered the final phase of preparations, with the modified model of the Long March-2F carrier rocket and spacecraft being transported to the launch site on Monday morning, said the spokesperson.

The spacecraft, which will be launched in mid-June from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China, will carry three astronauts and dock with the Tiangong-1, a target orbiter and space module sent to space in 2011.

During the mission, astronauts will also teach a lesson to a group of students via a video feed, said the spokesperson.

The spokesperson said that after propellant was injected into the Shenzhou-10, the launch platform carrying the spacecraft and carrier rocket was safely transported out of the assembly and testing plant to the launch tower on Monday morning.

The spokesperson added that the functional examination and the joint tests of the spacecraft, carrier rocket and ground facilities will be conducted at the launch site in the next few days.

The Shenzhou-10 will dock with the Tiangong-1, where astronauts will conduct space science experiments and offer lessons to students back on Earth. The space module entered the appropriate docking orbit at the end of May and is now running normally, the spokesperson added.

Preparations are going smoothly for all eight major systems of the missions. Astronauts have finished training sessions, including special simulated training on the ground for space experimentation and teaching during the mission, said the spokesperson.

Shiloh good idea with or without SpaceX

John Kelly - Florida Today (Commentary)

he development of a new commercial launch pad at the north end of Kennedy Space Center is important to the future of our spaceport.

It's important for two reasons, one of them related to the presumed prime operator of a new complex at Shiloh and the other more general.

First, SpaceX grew up here and SpaceX belongs here. Yes, the growing space exploration company designs and manufactures its Falcon 9 rockets and Dragon spacecraft in the Los Angeles area. But, SpaceX launched itself into its present-day success and grew into a big-league player in the future of space exploration from its complex at Cape Canaveral.

For a space company, SpaceX's growth trajectory is exceptional. The company needs another launch complex. And, to be competitive and really meet its mission of lower-cost flights, SpaceX needs easy access and other benefits it can get by being outside the federal government installation's gates.

Space Florida, NASA and other entities appear to be moving to try to make something happen before SpaceX gets too serious about its other site under consideration in coastal Texas. SpaceX has a short but proven track record as a winner in the commercial space market. If Florida and the Space Coast are serious are keeping a firm grasp on that market, they need to make sure they keep SpaceX growing here.

The second reason for developing the Shiloh launch complex goes beyond SpaceX. The state insists that the site is worth developing even if SpaceX sites elsewhere because there are other viable candidates for using such a complex off the federal government's installations. The powers that be are not saying who those other candidates are, but certainly there is enough commercial launch activity in development that they're not stretching the truth.

Any moves that can be made that would make the spaceport here more attractive to a variety of launch endeavors is worthwhile. As launch business expands to include a more diverse set of operators, it's important that Florida has a diverse set of sites to offer. For some operators seeking new sites, the government sites at the Cape or KSC might be just what they need. For others, the off-site uniqueness of someplace like Shiloh will be what's best.

Being competitive to be the home base for new operators, in this fast-evolving launch market, will require a team of economic development recruiters and government innovators willing to be nimble to meet companies' needs. If not SpaceX, whatever develops out at Shiloh could become the home to some company that is the next SpaceX.

Plan shows agency still turns obstacles into opportunities

Frank DiBello - Orlando Sentinel (Opinion)

(DiBello is president and CEO of Space Florida, the state space development agency)

The concept of identifying and capturing an asteroid that keenly interests us, then moving it out of its existing orbit to near the moon for hands-on research, is quirky, brilliant and exactly what we need to do at this point in our nation's history.

This mission uses the vehicles and spacecraft that are already being funded, designed and built right now, without requiring an additional major infusion of cash for significant new destination hardware.

Grabbing a celestial body and moving it was once science fiction. Now it is real, it is achievable, and we must seize the opportunity, while we are developing the much-needed technologies and capabilities for longer-range manned missions to farther-out destinations in the solar system.

This nation and its next generation of explorers need a dream they can trust will be there for more than just a few years. The vision of going to the moon or Mars is important, for all of us, but program and career decisions need to be based on reality.

Apollo was inspirational and historic, but it was a blank check from Congress to NASA that we will not likely ever see again. That is a cold but immutable fact. For the U.S. space program, the laws of Congress are no less relevant than the fundamental laws of physics.

This commentary is not about why America should eat its vegetables, but why this asteroid strategy is truly exciting, meaningful and just flat cool.

NASA in general and Kennedy Space Center in particular have long pursued the technology to use the resources available beyond Earth. Developing the capability to use what the solar system provides is a challenge that will excite seasoned engineers and young minds alike. This project does that in a most profound way.

This asteroid strategy will require much of this nation's technical brain trust and industrial base. It will demand new technology with serious and long-term applications, it will result in more launches, and sooner, of American astronauts beyond low Earth orbit, and it shrewdly taps into a growing public and scientific interest in near-Earth objects and planetary defense.

Exploration and exploitation are becoming parallel tracks of research and development, if not becoming outright indistinguishable. The private sector, the true power of the American economy, is fast investing serious resources in this nation's space program — not only in the technology of launch vehicles but also in commercial exploitation of space resources.

Before those investments can begin returning profits, paying taxes, and generating American jobs, the sticky issue of property rights in space will need to be addressed. International space treaties on property rights are currently ambiguous at best and often openly hostile to the concept. This must change for all the obvious reasons.

This asteroid strategy enables this issue to come to the attention of the international community sooner rather than later. If the U.S., or a consortium of nations under our leadership, moves an asteroid from one location to another, how is it not now our property? Are there thorny issues to address here? Yes, but let's do it on our terms instead of waiting for the Chinese to do it and then complaining from the sidelines.

This idea is the perfect reflection of the innovation and responsiveness we so expect of our space program. We are building hardware to go beyond the Earth, but our budget crisis and congressional stalemate will not allow us to reach the moon or Mars for the foreseeable future.

Not unlike the many challenges it has confronted on many a mission before, NASA has proved it can turn an obstacle into an opportunity — an opportunity to keep the dream alive for this nation, and our next generation of explorers and entrepreneurs.

Part 1
Popeye Forearms: The Challenge of Gemini IX-A

Ben Evans - AmericaSpace.com

An exhausted Gene Cernan can barely manage a grimace for Tom Stafford's camera after completing his spacewalk on Gemini IX-A. Had the hands of fate played out a little differently, this seat might instead have been occupied by Charlie Bassett. Photo Credit: NASA
In the late spring of 1966, the Gemini IX mission seemed hamstrung by bad luck. When its prime crew, Elliot See and Charlie Bassett, was named in November of the previous year, they expected it to be breathtaking in its pace and challenge. With three days in space, a lengthy spacewalk, a rendezvous, and a docking with an unmanned Agena target craft, the mission would put every one of Project Gemini's objectives to the ultimate test. Tragedy struck at the end of February, however, when See and Bassett died in the crash of their T-38 jet. The future fortunes of Gemini IX would pass to their backups, Tom Stafford and Gene Cernan … and the mission would take several unexpected twists and turns and bring NASA face to face with the unforgiving nature of space exploration.

Prior to See's and Bassett's deaths, Cernan confidently expected that he and Stafford would fly Gemini XII in late 1966. At the time, Deke Slayton, head of Flight Crew Operations, employed a "rotation" system, whereby the backups for a given mission would ordinarily become the prime crew for a mission, three flights downstream. During their training with See and Bassett, Cernan often found himself wandering along the production line of Gemini spacecraft at McDonnell's plant in St Louis, Miss., to look at "his" future vehicle. At the time of the Gemini IX crews' announcement, Stafford was in dedicated training for Gemini VI, and Cernan found himself in the peculiar situation of working without his commander. His role would be to shadow Charlie Bassett, one of whose primary objectives was to perform a two-hour EVA and test the U.S. Air Force's Astronaut Manoeuvring Unit (AMU). Looking like a massive suitcase, the AMU was so big that it would fly into orbit folded up, like a lawn chair, on the rear of Gemini IX.

Steadily, Bassett would maneuver himself along the length of the spacecraft to reach the AMU, then slip onto a bicycle-like seat, strap on the silver-white box, and glide off into space, using controls on a pair of armrests. It was the result of several years of Pentagon-sponsored development work, with an original focus on the Air Force's Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL). "The possibility of using it to send someone scooting off to disable an enemy satellite," Cernan wrote in his autobiography, The Last Man on the Moon, "wasn't mentioned in public, because we weren't supposed to be thinking about the militarization of space."

From NASA's perspective, however, the AMU was a critical tool for understanding how effectively astronauts could work outside their spacecraft. In June 1965, Ed White had floated around for a few minutes, using a handheld maneuvering gun, but Bassett would take a far greater leap. His excursion would span more than a full orbit, and he would be in full control of his motion and direction, using 12 hydrogen peroxide jets, all the time remaining attached to Gemini IX by a long tether. Since underwater training did not yet form part of EVA preparation, Bassett and Cernan spent much of their time undertaking physical conditioning in the gym. Both men realised that vast reserves of strength and stamina were essential to handle the demands of an EVA and operate inside a bulky space suit, and both played lots of handball and performed hundreds of press-ups. "Before long," Cernan wrote, "we grew Popeye-sized forearms."

The space suit itself was different from that worn by Ed White. This was partly due to the demanding AMU, one of whose searing hydrogen peroxide plumes jetted directly between Bassett's legs! As a result, the suit's trousers included additional heat-resistant materials and the complete ensemble featured white cotton long johns for biosensors, a nylon comfort layer, a Dacron-Teflon "net" to maintain shape, aluminised Mylar for micrometeoroid protection, together with fibreglass, and a metallic fabric, woven from the alloy Chromel R. One day, during training, Bassett and Cernan watched as a technician charred the material for five minutes with a blowtorch, confidently telling them that despite the intense heat of the AMU's exhaust, they would remain comfortable inside their suits.

Five days before See and Bassett died, the AMU arrived at Cape Kennedy, Fla., for testing. Initial inspections were worrisome—nitrogen pressurant leaked from its propulsion system and oxygen seeped from its life-support apparatus—but by mid-March its woes had been corrected and everything seemed on track for a 17 May liftoff. Early that morning, Flight Director Gene Kranz arrived at his console to oversee the launch of the Agena target vehicle, atop an Atlas booster, followed 99 minutes later by the launch of Stafford and Cernan aboard Gemini IX. The heightened sense of anxiety was not helped when Deke Slayton took Stafford aside for a quiet "word." Cernan did not learn until later what their conversation was about. It was a conversation that Slayton had with several Gemini commanders whose mission involved an EVA. Cernan's spacewalk would be exceptionally hazardous and, if anything went wrong, NASA could ill-afford to leave a dead astronaut in orbit. Stafford would have to find a way to bring his crewmate back to Earth.

In his autobiography, We Have Capture, Stafford remembered staring at Slayton in shock. "To bring him back," he wrote, "the hatch is going to be left partially open, because the attachment point for the umbilical is inside the spacecraft, near the attitude hand controller." Such an awkward re-entry would not be survivable, for either of them. In reality, he told Slayton, when the explosive bolts blew at the base of their Titan II rocket, signalling liftoff, it was Stafford—as Gemini IX's commander—who would call the shots and make the difficult decisions if anything went awry. Cernan was well aware that Stafford's only option would have been to cut him loose, close the hatch, and return to Earth alone. "I knew that Tom would be unable to pull me back inside if I couldn't get myself out of trouble," he wrote. "He would work like the devil to rescue me, but eventually would have to abandon me. We both knew it."

A few weeks later, Slayton had a similar conversation with Gemini X commander John Young and received a similar reply. "There was no way," Young later reflected, "if anything happened to somebody going outside a Gemini that you could get them back in." The seat was too narrow and it was impossible for the commander to reach across the cabin and pull an inflated, rigid space suit, with an immobile person inside, with sufficient overhead clearance to close the hatch. It is extremely fortuitous that no such event occurred in Project Gemini.

By the time Stafford and Cernan arrived at Pad 19 and were strapped into Gemini IX, all eyes were on the impending Atlas-Agena launch. At 10:12 a.m. EST, the rocket roared aloft … but within two minutes, in the words of Cernan, one of its two main engines "went weird." The engine wobbled, then inexplicably gimballed into a full-pitchdown position, effectively "spinning" the rocket into an uncontrolled tumble. All attempts to stabilize the Atlas were in vain. Ten seconds later, the engines shut down and the pencil-like Agena separated from the rocket … but it was too late, moving too fast, too low, and, said Cernan, "all wrong." So wrong, in fact, that the massive 216-degree pitch-down effectively pointed the rocket back towards Cape Kennedy, with a climbing angle just 13 degrees above horizontal. Guidance was promptly lost and the ill-fated booster plopped into the Atlantic Ocean, a couple of hundred miles east of the Cape.

"Aw, shit!" was Tom Stafford's immediate reaction from Gemini IX.

There was a glint of hope on the horizon. Several months earlier, NASA had directed General Dynamics to build a backup Atlas and McDonnell furnished a backup target vehicle, known as an Augmented Target Docking Adaptor (ATDA). It had to be ready within two weeks of any launch accident, and within hours NASA pressed it into service for launch on 1 June. The ATDA had come to be known—somewhat disparagingly—as "The Blob" by the astronauts, but physically it was not dissimilar to the Agena. Its conical docking collar would be jettisoned after orbital insertion and was expected to fulfill all of Gemini IX's rendezvous needs. At the stroke of 10 a.m. on the 1st, it lumbered off Pad 14 and thundered, almost perfectly into orbit. "Almost," that is, because the docking collar only partially opened and did not properly separate.

This time, however, it was Gemini IX which was not quite ready to go. Launch was scrubbed when a glitch was detected in the spacecraft's inertial guidance system and the attempt was rescheduled for 3 June. Tom Stafford had endured a harrowing abort on Gemini VI in December 1965 and pad leader Guenter Wendt could not resist a little fun, nicknaming him "The Mayor of Pad 19," because he had spent so much time there. Some of the pad technicians also took part in the ribbing by hanging a large sign on the door to the elevator. It read: Tom and Gene, notice the "down" capability for this elevator has been removed. Let's have a good flight! Gemini IX's new backups, Jim Lovell and Buzz Aldrin, added their own placard, with a few lines of verse:

We were kidding before

But not anymore

Get your … uh … selves into space

Or we'll take your place.

Lifting off atop the Titan II was, for Cernan, like "a feeling of slow pulsation," followed by "a low, grinding rumble" as the rocket climbed steadily to orbit. That slow-motion start to the mission soon gave way to an increasing sensation of incredible speed, as the Titan thrust the two astronauts—both gritting their teeth—into the high atmosphere and beyond. When the second stage shut down, Cernan beheld nuts and bolts and bits of string floating around the cabin as he entered the magical realm of weightlessness. With three days of complex objectives ahead of them, their first task was to rendezvous with the ATDA … and find out the extent to which its jammed docking collar might impede the success of their mission.

Part 2
Date With An Alligator: The Trials of Gemini IX-A

Almost five decades ago, one of the hairiest and most difficult missions in America's space history unfolded. Gemini IX-A was already complex—a three-day flight, involving rendezvous, docking, maneuvering, and spacewalking—but had endured additional challenges: the death of its prime crew in an aircraft accident and the destruction of its primary docking target in a launch failure. A replacement target, known as the Augmented Target Docking Adaptor (ATDA), had been hastily launched, but its own docking collar had only partially opened and remained attached to the vehicle. On 3 June 1966, Gemini IX-A crewmen Tom Stafford and Gene Cernan flew into orbit, ready for trouble.

They acquired a good radar lock on their quarry—nicknamed "The Blob"—and at first it seemed that the docking collar might have successfully separated. Unfortunately, as Gemini IX-A drew closer, it became clear that it was actually gaping, half-open, like an enormous pair of jaws. "It looks like an angry alligator," Stafford told Mission Control with dismay. Initial hopes that he might be able to nudge it with his spacecraft's nose to fully open the jaws was rejected as too risky by Flight Director Gene Kranz, and Stafford was forced to station-keep at a distance of about 35 feet away. It was clear, he reported, that the ATDA's explosive bolts had fired, but two neatly-taped lanyards stubbornly held the shroud in place. The high tensile strength of these lanyards made it inadvisable to nudge the jaws. Moreover, Gemini IX-A's parachutes were housed in its nose and damaging them was unthinkable.

On the ground, at a strategy meeting that night with senior managers Bob Gilruth and Chris Kraft, Gemini IX-A backup pilot Buzz Aldrin suggested sending Cernan outside to manually clip the lanyards with a pair of surgical scissors. Astronauts Jim McDivitt and Dave Scott, in Los Angeles, Calif., at the time, were despatched to prime contractor Douglas Aircraft's plant to examine a duplicate ATDA and determine if this could be done. Their consensus: it was possible, but would leave many sharp edges which could tear Cernan's suit. Also, the tumbling of the ATDA, the almost-complete lack of EVA experience, and the dangers of the explosive bolts holding the lanyards together posed their own risks.

In the meantime, efforts by controllers to tighten and relax The Blob's docking cone, in the hope that the action might free the shroud, were unsuccessful. "That only pushed out the bottom part of the shroud," wrote Cernan in his autobiography, The Last Man on the Moon, "and forced the other end, which was open, to partially close. Contracting the collar had the reverse effect, and to us, it seemed that those moving jaws were opening and closing." The alligator seemed to be laughing at their misfortune.

After the mission, it would become clear that the problem centered on the fact that the Agena, the ATDA, and the shroud were built by three different organizations, namely Lockheed, McDonnell, and Douglas. Before McDonnell technicians had made a final inspection on the ATDA at Cape Kennedy, Fla., a Douglas engineer had supervised a practice run, with the exception of the lanyards which controlled the electrical disconnect to the explosive bolts. In the interests of safety, the lanyards were not hooked up for the test.

Crucially, the Douglas engineer was then forced to return home and tend his pregnant wife, telling his McDonnell counterpart to "secure the lanyards." Consequently, on launch day, the McDonnell crew followed procedures published by Lockheed, which had themselves been copied from Douglas documentation. The instructions referred to a blueprint which was not present, and the absence of the engineer meant that those technicians responsible for fixing the ATDA's shroud simply wondered what to do with the dangling lanyards and decided that their best and safest bet was to tape them down. It was those taped-down lanyards which had now ruined Stafford and Cernan's target in orbit. It was a classic example of the old metaphor Too many cooks spoil the broth.

In the meantime, five hours into the Gemini IX-A mission, Stafford nosed his spacecraft "down" by 90 degrees and fired his forward thrusters for 35 seconds to slightly increase his speed and drop "above" the ATDA. Simulating a failed radar, they then plotted their position with an on-board sextant, notepad, and pencil, checked their results against a pre-planned chart solution, and commenced a series of four maneuvers to bring themselves back into a station-keeping stance with the target. It was far from easy and, wrote Cernan, represented "a bitch of an exercise that demanded unimagined mental and physical effort." Nonetheless, six and a half hours after launch, they were finally in the vicinity of The Blob, only to depart again shortly thereafter for a third exercise. To prepare for this, at 3:55 p.m. EST, a little over seven hours into the mission, Stafford again pulsed the thrusters to reduce speed and widen the gap between Gemini IX-A and the ATDA.

By now exhausted, the two astronauts checked their systems, took an opportunity to gobble some toothpaste-like mush of chicken and dumplings—"No crumbs that way," wrote Cernan, but "not much taste, either"—and tried with little success to sleep. Awakened in the small hours of 4 June to begin their second day in orbit, they were almost immediately immersed in the third rendezvous: reducing the size of their orbit to again intercept the still-laughing Blob. By rendezvousing with an object "beneath" them, Stafford and Cernan would mimic the procedures to be followed by an Apollo command module pilot tasked with rescuing a lunar module stuck in a low orbit around the Moon. Phase and height adjustments, followed by a thruster burn, reduced the gap between themselves and the target. "The mental perception was that we were falling straight down to Earth," Cernan recalled years later, "and we did not even see the gator until we were within three miles of it." Stafford, too, later admitted to sensations of mild vertigo. At this point, Stafford spotted what appeared to be "a pencil dot on a sheet of paper" and would point out that, had it not been for the radar, the rendezvous would have failed. The rendezvous was completed at 6:21 a.m., and Stafford and Cernan withdrew from the ATDA at 7:38 a.m.

The two men felt justifiably proud: they had conducted no fewer than three rendezvous in less than a day. However, their work had taken its toll. Both were exhausted, as, indeed, was their spacecraft, whose fuel supply had dwindled to less than 10 percent after the marathon rendezvous effort. Ahead, later on 4 June, lay Cernan's spacewalk, but Stafford donned his commander's cap and told Mission Control that the excursion should be postponed. "We've been busier than left-handed paper-hangers up here," he drawled. "I'm afraid it would be against my better judgment to go ahead and do the EVA at this time…Perhaps we should wait until tomorrow morning." For the first time, Cernan wrote, a pair of astronauts had seemingly "questioned" their duties and, although not a military organization, some within NASA felt that they were quitting. Yet there was little doubt that Stafford and Cernan were best placed to know the situation inside their spacecraft and Capcom Neil Armstrong duly responded that their recommendation had been accepted. Armstrong would later describe Stafford's actions as reflecting "exceptionally good judgment."

As a result, the EVA was moved to 5 June and the remainder of the day was spent focusing upon Gemini IX-A's experiments and ensuring that both men were fully rested. Original plans, dating back to before the deaths of Elliot See and Charlie Bassett, called for the Gemini IX spacewalker to spend at least two hours outside, remove a large, armchair-like Astronaut Maneuvering Unit (AMU) from its housing at the back of the spacecraft's adaptor, and test it. He was supposed to retrieve a micrometeorite package from the original Agena target craft, although this was scratched from the flight plan when the target ended up at the bottom of in the Atlantic, following a launch accident discussed in yesterday's article. A new plan to remove a micrometeorite detector from the ATDA was also called off when it proved impossible to execute a docking.

Still, preparations for the excursion were intense. Early on 5 June, Stafford lowered Gemini IX-A's orbit while Cernan pulled his chest pack down from a shelf above his left shoulder, strapped it on, and plugged in an umbilical tether which would provide him with oxygen, communications, and electrical power. Since the whole cabin would be reduced to vacuum, Stafford also had to be protected, and both men laboriously clicked their helmet visors shut, pulled on heavy gloves, and pressurized their suits until they went, in Cernan's words, "from soft to rock-hard around our bodies." Yet Cernan's suit had much more insulation and protection than that of Stafford. "Out where I was going," he wrote, "the temperature in unfiltered sunlight would be many times hotter than any desert at high noon on Earth, while the nighttime cold could freeze steel until it was as brittle as glass." Approaching dawn on their 31st orbit, the men received permission to go ahead, and at 10:02 a.m. Cernan twisted the handle above his head and the huge hatch swung outwards.

Words clearly defied even the normally-chatterbox Cernan at this point as he pushed himself "upwards," stood on his seat, and rode "like a sightseeing bum on a boxcar" towards the California coastline. Hollering "hallelujah" at the top of his voice, he would later describe the glorious, ever-changing sight as like "sitting on God's front porch," as orbital darkness gave way to the first stirring of dawn. There was little time to sightsee. With Stafford holding onto his foot to steady him, Cernan set to work positioning a television camera and retrieving a nuclear emulsion package which recorded radiation levels and measured the impact of space dust. Next, he affixed a small mirror onto Gemini IX-A's nose, so that Stafford could watch as he made his way towards the AMU at the rear of the spacecraft.

Unlike Ed White, he was not equipped with a hand-held zip-gun and he quickly set to work on his next task: to evaluate his ability to maneuver himself around by tugging at his snake-like tether. It would, he wrote, teach him new lessons about Newton's laws of motion. "My slightest move would affect my entire body, ripple through the umbilical, and jostle the spacecraft," Cernan explained. "Since I had nothing to stabilize my movements, I went out of control, tumbling every which way, and when I reached the end of the umbilical, I rebounded like a bungee jumper, and the snake reeled me in as it tried to resume its original shape." As he looped around Gemini IX-A, the experience was comparable to wrestling an octopus, and Cernan's only chance at controlling his motions came when he managed to grab the tether tightly at the point at which it emerged from the hatch.

After half an hour of helplessness, he seized a handrail and pulled himself towards Gemini IX-A to rest. Clearly, he said, future spacewalkers would need propulsion and more handholds; otherwise they would be unable to prevent themselves from flopping around like rag dolls on the end of their tethers. Cernan's rest break was brief: he had to reach the back of the spacecraft before the arrival of orbital dusk to strap on the AMU, exchange his oxygen umbilicals for those attached to the rocket armchair, and commence the next phase of his spacewalk. His move to the rear of Gemini IX-A was far harder than he could have anticipated. The stiff, bulky suit fought his every move and lacked the flexibility and mobility that he desperately needed.

Nonetheless, Cernan labored, hand-over-hand, halting at times to loop his tether through small eyelets and thus keep it from damage. Finally, he reached the adaptor at the back of the spacecraft and, swinging himself around it, disappeared from view in Stafford's mirror. The Sun, too, vanished as Gemini IX entered orbital darkness over South Africa.

Working in near-pitch blackness, Cernan flicked on a pair of lights—only one of which worked, yielding a glow little more effective than a candle—and prepared to activate the AMU. Thirty-five meticulous steps lay between him and achieving the goal of becoming the first human satellite; steps ranging from pushing buttons to opening valves and disconnecting, then reconnecting, his oxygen supply. His heart rate, which reached 155 beats per minute when he arrived at the adaptor section, showed no signs of slowing as Cernan puzzled over why he had been able to accomplish the task with ease in a parabolic aircraft and yet the real thing was leaving him exhausted, drenched with sweat, and almost blind. At last, he flipped the last switch and prepared to take the AMU on its maiden outing.

All was far from being well. A hundred minutes into the spacewalk, Cernan was scarcely able to see through his fogged-up visor—the suit's environmental control system was struggling and failing to absorb the humidity and exhaled carbon dioxide—and his heart rate soared to 195 beats per minute. Unable to wipe the stinging sweat from his eyes, he had no choice but to rub his nose on the inside of his visor just to make a "hole" through which he could see. He also tried increasing the oxygen flow to his suit in a bid to clear the visor, without success.

Cernan's lack of visibility could hardly have come at a more inappropriate time, precisely when he was completing the intricate procedure of readying the AMU to fly. At one stage, he even had to rely on the reflection in a polished metal mirror on his wrist and on his sense of touch through his thickened gloves for guidance. Merely turning knobs, without adequate leverage, was virtually impossible. So too was telescoping and folding out the AMU's armrests—getting them extended into place was, he wrote years later, "akin to straightening wet spaghetti." Eventually, after much tugging and twisting, he found success, slid onto the saddle, and strapped himself into place. His next step was to disconnect himself from the tether and reconnect himself to the backpack's life-support and communications supplies. From his position, inside the concave steel adaptor at the rear of Gemini IX-A, he temporarily lost communications with Stafford, who could barely hear Cernan's crackled garble that he was unable to see in front of his own eyeballs. Stafford was now worried for his colleague's safety, advising Mission Control that communications had degraded and Cernan's visibility through his visor was so poor that the AMU test was risky.

On the ground, the doctors were coming to similar conclusions: data from Cernan's biomedical sensors clearly indicated that he was exhausted, expending energy at a rate equivalent to running up a hundred stairs per minute, and his heart was pumping three times faster than normal. Cernan knew that their judgment could spell the end of his spacewalk … an eventuality that, as a pilot who had been training for more than six months, he had no wish to contemplate. At length, the decision was snatched out of his hands.

The onset of orbital dawn over the Pacific brought the garbled news from Stafford: "It's a no-go … because you can't see it now. Switch back to the spacecraft electrical umbilical." The Hawaii capcom concurred. Obviously disappointed that he had not only lost his chance to fly the AMU, but that the U.S. Air Force's $10 million rocket armchair was destined to burn up in the atmosphere, Cernan unstrapped and clawed his way back to his hatch. To protect the interior of Gemini IX-A from solar radiation, he had left it partially closed and was now blinded by the Sun as he struggled to find it.

Finally gripping and pulling open the hatch, Cernan twisted himself and pushed his feet through the opening. Stafford manually reeled in the umbilical, then grabbed one of his suited ankles to anchor him back inside the cabin. As he tried to get back inside, Cernan inadvertently kicked the Hasselblad camera that Stafford had been using to photograph the EVA and it drifted off into space. "There went my still pictures," he wrote later, "but I did retrieve the movie camera."

Scrunching himself painfully into his seat, still fighting against the stiffness of the suit, he quickly found that he could not close the hatch. Eventually, with Stafford's help, the pair managed to yank it down and Cernan pumped the handle until the hatch was secure. In his autobiography, he would admit that the pain was so intense that he cried aloud—"but only Tom really knows"—and came close to losing consciousness. Then, as Stafford began repressurizing Gemini IX-A's cabin, Cernan felt the rigidity of the suit begin to soften and he was finally able to breathe properly and remove his helmet. The United States' second spacewalk was over in two hours and eight agonizing minutes.

Exhausted, the beetroot-faced Cernan was doused with weightless droplets fired by Stafford from a water pistol, and strips of skin from his swollen hands tore away as he removed his gloves. He looked, wrote Stafford, "like he'd been baked in a sauna too long." However, with the exception of the reaction he might get from the other astronauts, Cernan really did not care. He had endured the most traumatic spacewalk to date … and, astonishingly, had lived!

Less than a day later, at 9 a.m. EST on 6 June 1966, Gemini IX-A was bobbing in the Atlantic. Cernan described his first fiery re-entry through the atmosphere as "like a meteoric bat out of hell" and compared the spacecraft as having the aerodynamic characteristics of a bathtub as it plummeted Earthward. They splashed down close enough to their prime recovery vessel, the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Wasp, that they were able to offer and acknowledge thumbs-up signals with the ship's crew.

Gene Cernan's harrowing EVA would teach a harsh, yet valuable lesson to those engineers, managers, and even astronauts who perceived extravehicular activity as a proverbial walk in the park. Why, some journalists asked him in the weeks that followed, was his spacewalk so difficult in comparison to Ed White's graceful stroll? The key differences, of course, were that White had been equipped with a hand-held propulsion device and that, other than floating around, he was not actually given any specific tasks.

Yet Cernan's problems—the shortcomings of his suit's environmental controls, the fogging of his visor, the difficulties encountered when getting back into the spacecraft, the need for handholds, the impossibility of moving without a propulsion device—highlighted an urgent need for such issues to be rectified before the closure of the Gemini chapter in November 1966. Apollo managers, then hard at work preparing for the first flight of their spacecraft in the spring of 1967, also took heed: future Moonwalkers could not operate on the lunar surface for many hours under such life-threatening conditions. It is quite remarkable, therefore, that by the time Cernan's backup, Buzz Aldrin, completed his own EVAs on Gemini XII, the problems would have been virtually resolved.

END

Keep the shuttle flying

Monday, June 3, 2013

Fwd: Human Spaceflight News - June 3, 2013 and JSC Today

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