Fwd: Human Spaceflight News - July 1, 2013 and JSC Today

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From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: July 1, 2013 6:11:20 AM GMT-06:00
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: Human Spaceflight News - July 1, 2013 and JSC Today

Reminder that our monthly NASA Retirees lunch is delayed from this Thursday to next Thursday.   No monthly NASA retirees lunch this Thursday

 

 

Monday, July 1, 2013

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JSC TODAY CATEGORIES Headlines -  Recovered Materials Organizations/Social -  B3 and B11 Cafe and Gift Shops Closed Friday Jobs and Training -  Job Opportunities -  Human Risks of Spaceflight Lecture -  Jumpstart Your Financial Health: Financial Classes -  APPEL - Requirements Development & Management -  Learn About the Role of Physical Fitness in Health -  RLLS Portal Education Series - WebEx Training July

IRIS Launch Set For Thursday

 

Headlines Recovered Materials The newly published NASA SP, "An Analysis and a Historical Review of the Apollo Program Lunar Module Touchdown Dynamics" by George Zupp, details engineering design and execution. According to Zupp, "This report was developed from personal and formal notes on the analysis of all 16 of the Apollo LM lunar landings." The data collected and solutions worked for LM dynamics are important to recognize and available from JSC Knowledge Online (JKO). Current and former employees such as Zupp have contributed videos, org charts, still images and documents of historical interest. Many of the materials are appropriate to publish in whole, while others lead to improved data architecture as they are processed and represented in the JSC Taxonomy. Share your center or agency experiences with JSC community! Contact the office of the Chief Knowledge Officer today. Brent J. Fontenot x36456 https://knowledge.jsc.nasa.gov/index.cfm?event=historicalrecords&CFID=74... [top]    Organizations/Social B3 and B11 Cafe and Gift Shops Closed Friday The Buildings 3 and 11 Starport Cafés and Gift Shops will be closed on Friday, July 5. Both will re-open with normal operating hours on Monday, July 8. Shelly Haralson x39168 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/ [top]    Jobs and Training Job Opportunities Where do I find job opportunities? Both internal Competitive Placement Plan (CPP) and external JSC job announcements are posted on the HR Portal and USAJOBS website. Through the HR portal, civil servants can view summaries of all the agency jobs that are currently open at: 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 [top] Human Risks of Spaceflight Lecture Please join us for a lecture on the Human Risks of Spaceflight, presented by Human Systems Academy on July 10 from 9 to 11 a.m. in the Building 30 Auditorium. Please register today! https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=SCHEDULED_... Cynthia Rando x41815 https://sashare.jsc.nasa.gov/hsa/default.aspx [top] Jumpstart Your Financial Health: Financial Classes Financial fitness is only a few steps away! Join us for financial classes, or hop online and watch a webinar. Private counseling sessions are available to employees and family members as a part of the program. Turn education into action by learning the appropriate steps to follow with an expert. In-person Classes: On-site lecture topics include budgets, debt, insurance, long-term care, investing, retirement, taxes and estate planning. Classes are held in either Building 29 on Tuesdays or Building 4S on Thursdays during lunchtime. Webinars: FW105: Debt Free for Life Includes debt in the United States today, behavioral approaches, debt-elimination case study and introduction to the Wealth Tree concept. FW109: Financial Transitions Empowers separating employees prior, during and after major transitions. Covers transition skills, planning, budgets, benefits and 401(k) options/loan avoiding tax consequences and more. Details are available at this link. Shelly Haralson x39168 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/ [top] APPEL - Requirements Development & Management This three-day course provides a firm foundation for the development and management of a project's product requirements. This course presents the participant with best practices that, when incorporated into the requirement development and management process, will help a project team develop a winning product--one that delivers what is needed, when it is needed, within the projected costs and with the expected quality. This course is designed for NASA's technical workforce, including systems engineers and project personnel who seek to develop the competencies required to succeed as a leader of a project team, functional team or small project. This course is open for self-registration until Tuesday, July 2, and is open to civil servants and contractors. Dates: Tuesday to Thursday, Aug. 20 to 22 Location: Building 12, Room 146 Zeeaa Quadri x39723 https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=SCHED... [top] Learn About the Role of Physical Fitness in Health You are invited to JSC's SAIC/Safety and Mission Assurance (S&MA) Speaker Forum featuring Dr. Larry Wier, exercise scientist and former director of Health-Related Fitness at JSC. This presentation is geared to address and gain insights into the most important system of all systems: the human system. Subject: Learn About the Role of Physical Fitness in Health Date/Time: Wednesday, July 10, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Location: Building 1, Room 966 Wier will engage us and lead the following discussion: Is your job killing you? How are fitness, health and mortality linked? What is physical fitness anyway? How much exercise should you do? What are the exercise hazards? So, what can exercise do for you? To support Wier's discussion, please select this link and provide your inputs by July 3 to start the conversation. Event Date: Wednesday, July 10, 2013   Event Start Time:11:30 AM   Event End Time:12:30 PM Event Location: Building 1 room 966 Add to Calendar Della Cardona/Juan Trasalvina 281-335-2074/281-335-2272 [top] RLLS Portal Education Series - WebEx Training July From July through August, TTI is hosting the TTI RLLS Portal Education Series highlighting different RLLS modules weekly. The July 1 Weekly Education Series: July 3 at 7:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. CDT - training will cover both the Visa Support Page and Flight Arrival Departure module The 30-minute training sessions are computer-based WebEx sessions, offering individuals the convenience to join from their own workstation. The RLLS Portal Education Series will cover the following: System login Locating support modules Locating downloadable instructions Creating support requests Submittal requirements Submitting on behalf of another Adding attachments Selecting special requirements Submitting a request Status of a request Ending each training session, the instructor will answer any questions and remind all users that TTI will no longer accept requests for U.S.-performed services unless they are submitted through the RLLS Portal. Email or call 281-335-8565 to sign up. James Welty 281-335-8565 https://www.tti-portal.com [top]

 

JSC Today is compiled periodically as a service to JSC employees on an as-submitted basis. Any JSC organization or employee may submit articles. Disclaimer: Accuracy and content of these notes are the responsibility of the submitters.

 

 

 

 

Human Spaceflight News

Monday, July 1, 2013

 

 

HEADLINES AND LEADS

 

NASA Pitches Asteroid Capture To International Partners

 

Frank Morring, Jr. - Aerospace Daily

 

European space agencies will spend the rest of the summer evaluating whether there is a role for them in NASA's proposed asteroid-capture mission, after Administrator Charles Bolden pitched the idea during visits to agency partners. Jean Jacques Dordain, director general of the European Space Agency (ESA), told Bolden he has set up a multi-agency working group headed by ESA human-spaceflight chief Thomas Reiter "tasked to elaborate a coherent approach with regard to your new initiative." Representatives of the national space agencies of France, Germany, Italy and the U.K. will participate in the working group, with a report due from ESA to NASA in September, Dordain told Bolden in a June 20 letter.

 

Atlas Rockets Being Prepped To Reprise Human Spaceflight Role

 

Irene Klotz - Space News

 

Today's Atlas rockets bear little resemblance to those used to launch John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, Wally Schirra and Gordon Cooper into space in 1962 and 1963, but the boosters, now built by United Launch Alliance (ULA), once again are being prepared to carry humans into orbit. The company, a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, is working for two firms developing commercial space taxis, with an eye toward flying NASA astronauts to the international space station within about four years. Another potential customer is privately owned Bigelow Aerospace, which is developing free-flying orbital outposts that would be staffed by company astronauts and available for lease by researchers, businesses, educational institutes, agencies and tourists. ULA plans to demonstrate its commercial human spaceflight service in 2016, a date that is driving development of several rocket upgrades and a crew access tower for its Cape Canaveral launch complex.

 

Differences in FAA/AST funding presage NASA funding battle

 

Jeff Foust - SpacePolitics.com

 

The Senate Appropriations Committee passed a pair of fiscal year 2014 appropriations bills on Thursday, including one that funds the FAA. The Senate bill includes $17.011 million for the FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation. That's significantly more than what the House's version of the same appropriations bill provided for the office: $14.16 million, a level below 2012 and 2013 and low enough to raise concerns by some in the industry. Neither House nor Senate appropriators have gotten to their Commerce, Justice, and Science (CJS) appropriations bills, which fund NASA (and NOAA), but are expected to do so sometime in July. The gaps between the House and Senate bills for FAA suggest that we may see similar gaps between the House and Senate CJS bills, including for NASA.

 

NASA, budgets top Smith's DC agenda

 

Kim Hilsenbeck - Hays Free Press (Texas)

 

While in town last week, local congressman Lamar Smith (R-San Antonio) talked about his role over NASA and the national budget. During a long weekend back home, which included speaking engagements at a chamber of commerce, a rotary club and a graduation commencement, Smith stopped by the Hays Free Press to talk about space, science and partisanship in politics. Another bill in his committee is the NASA reauthorization. The agency discontinued the human space flight program, but, Smith said, "NASA is still a wonderful organization. They've still got the space station and scientific experiments… Most of what NASA does is great, but about five percent of projects are suspect," he said. He also mentioned an Obama administration idea that makes him wary. "[The administration] wants to go for the asteroid retrieval mission, which is not even recommended by NASA folks," Smith said. An explanation of the program included going into space and retrieving asteroids that humans could then use for research into living on Mars. "They didn't even it fund [the program] in their own budget," Smith said of the White House. "All the experts are skeptical; [the idea was] ridiculed by the scientific community."

 

NASA shows off America's next spaceship, Orion

 

Dan Billow - WESH TV (Orlando)

 

Two years after the final launch, the space shuttle's successor has been built. NASA is now testing its Orion spaceship at Kennedy Space Center. Engineers in the operations and checkout building said the new spaceship can carry six astronauts, but its first launch will be unmanned in a little more than one year.

 

Michoud, a public-private model for NASA

 

Paul Murphy - WWL TV (New Orleans)

 

NASA has selected an economic development agency called "Space Florida" to operate and maintain the historic landing facility at the Kennedy Space Center. "This agreement will continue to expand Kennedy's viability as a multi-user spaceport and strengthen the economic opportunities for Florida and the nation," said NASA administrator Charles Bolden. A similar public-private partnership has been in place at NASA's Michoud Assembly Center in New Orleans for the past several years.

 

Astronaut In Space Drives Robot on Earth, a First

 

Leonard David – Space.com

 

NASA transformed the International Space Station into a command center for a robot on Earth this month for a first-of-its-kind test drive of the technology and skills needed to remotely operate robots on the moon, Mars or an asteroid. During the June 17 space technology test, NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy, a space station flight engineer, remotely controlled a K10 rover at the agency's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. The robot was commanded to simulate deploying a polyimide-film antenna in a specially built "Roverscape" at the NASA center. On the space station, Cassidy received telemetry and real-time video from the rover and monitored the robot's reaction to his commands via virtual terrain displays.

 

Astronaut Karen Nyberg talks being a mom in space, rise of female astronauts

 

Amanda Cochran - CBS News

 

Astronaut Karen Nyberg blasted off for her mission aboard the International Space Station in May. She'll be there conducting research until November. But in the meantime, she's doing important research on astronauts' health in space, as several astronauts over the years have suffered from bone and eye deterioration following long-duration flights. She joined the "CBS This Morning" co-hosts from space -- about 250 miles about the Earth.

 

Calgary flood photos captured by space 'disaster cam'

 

Sonja Puzic - CTV News

 

A "disaster camera" set up in space by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield has captured the widespread flood damage in Calgary. The International Space Station's Environmental Research and Visualization System -- nicknamed "disaster cam" -- captured about two dozen images of the flooding on June 22, 23, 24. Hadfield, who attracted worldwide attention by sharing stunning images of the Earth from the ISS on Twitter, installed the ISERV camera in January, during his five-month long space mission.

 

XCOR Aerospace plans suborbital flights from KSC by 2015

 

Todd Halvorson - Florida Today

 

A fledgling space tourism company intends to begin flying suborbital test flights out of Kennedy Space Center by 2015, officials announced. Andrew Nelson, chief operating officer of XCOR Aerospace, said they'll start with a work force of about 20 to 30 and hopefully build to 150 or more. The number of jobs created will depend on the flight rate out of the 3-mile-long shuttle runway. The announcement was made outside the new Space Shuttle Atlantis Exhibit at KSC Visitor Complex. The $100 million exhibit is set to open to the public Saturday.

 

Month in Space: How to experience the overview effect

 

Alan Boyle - NBCNews.com's Cosmic Log

 

Astronauts have known about the overview effect for decades — and now they're giving the rest of us a taste as well. The overview effect is the spiritual feeling that comes over spacefliers when they see the whole Earth from above. That sight delivers the realization that there are no true borders on the planet, that the whole world is one beautiful, precious blue marble in a black, overwhelming cosmos.

 

NASA picks Florida agency to take over shuttle landing strip

 

Irene Klotz - Reuters

 

NASA has selected Space Florida, a state-backed economic development agency, to take over operations, maintenance and development of the space shuttle's idled landing site at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, officials said on Friday. Terms of the agreement, which have not yet been finalized, were not disclosed, but Space Florida has made no secret about its desire to take over facilities no longer needed by NASA to develop a multi-user commercial spaceport, somewhat akin to an airport or seaport. The state already has a lease for one of the space shuttle's processing hangars, and an agreement with Boeing to use the refurbished facility for its planned commercial space taxi.

 

Drink, debauchery and despair:

Astronauts' wives lift lid on grim reality behind the smiling shuttle launches

 

Jacqui Goddard - London Telegraph

 

They were the unsung heroines of the space race, quintessential American housewives expected to stand by their men, smile to order and declare themselves "Happy, proud and thrilled" as their husbands were strapped aboard towering columns of explosives and rocketed to glory. Poised, serene and flawlessly groomed, they were feted as the epitome of domestic perfection, undergoing a transformation from ordinary military spouses to the First Ladies of Space alongside husbands whose bravery in the face of death-defying risks and lunar ambitions knew no bounds. Yet behind the thrills, the glamour, the celebrity status, ticker-tape parades, glossy magazine photo-shoots and receptions with monarchs and presidents, life for the wives of Nasa's pioneering Mercury, Gemini and Apollo era astronauts was also a harrowing, fearful and at times scandalous existence. Chronicled for the first time in a new book, The Astronaut Wives Club, the story of the women behind Nasa's elite space explorers of the 1950s to 1970s shows that it was not just the menfolk who were expected to have the Right Stuff.

 

Private launchers fear new US rules

 

John Kelly - Florida Today (Commentary)

 

The private space industry is in the formative years of its development, and over-regulation easily could stunt its growth. Case in point: The U.S. State Department is proposing new rules that would add private manned spacecraft to a Department of Defense list of "munitions" technology that some in the industry fear would all but prevent any use of those vehicles on foreign soil. The rule, made public in late May and open for public comment through July 8, is part of the government's long-standing effort to keep all technology that could be used to develop weaponry out of the hands of potential adversaries.

 

Wrong Reality: If an American Was First in Space

 

Amy Shira Teitel - Discovery News

 

There are key moments in spaceflight's history that, in retrospect, defined the subsequent course of events. Take Yuri Gagarin's orbital flight in 1961, for example. When Gagarin became the first man in space, America responded with the manned lunar landing challenge, which led to the Apollo program. But what if Gagarin hadn't been first? What if American astronaut Al Shepard became history's first man in space? It's an interesting question, one that conjures an alternate reality where we may not have gone to the moon at all.

 

SPACE SHUTTLE ATLANTIS EXHIBIT

 

Shuttle Atlantis ready for public display

 

William Harwood - CBS News

 

The space shuttle Atlantis, the last of NASA's winged orbiters to fly in space, went on public display at the Kennedy Space Center visitors complex Saturday, the centerpiece of a $100 million facility designed to show off the spaceship as it appeared in orbit, with its payload bay doors open and robot arm extended. Mounted more than three stories above the main floor and tilted 43 degrees to one side, the shuttle can be viewed from below, giving visitors a look at the shuttle's black heat shield tiles and sweeping wings, or from a balcony level that extends almost into the open payload bay.

 

Space Shuttle Atlantis inspires generations of explorers

 

Dewayne Bevil - Orlando Sentinel

 

With a giant question mark hovering over the future of the U.S. space program, the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex opened its $100 million Space Shuttle Atlantis exhibit Saturday. "A lot of people, when the space shuttle's final flight took place … sort of misunderstood that this was the end of the space program," said Bill Moore, chief operating officer of the visitor complex. The absence of a straightforward goal for the manned space program — "We're going to go to Mars" — makes the future murky for the public, Moore said. The new Space Shuttle Atlantis attraction in Brevard County can help people understand that the program is in transition, he said.

 

Space shuttle Atlantis' public debut thrills astronauts, KSC patrons

 

Stacey Barchenger - Florida Today

 

Former United Space Alliance engineer Pablo Martinez used to pinch himself when he worked on the space shuttles, a reminder of just how important the vehicles were in the nation's history. When he walked beside Atlantis, officially unveiled to the public for the first time on display at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex on Saturday, it was a similar feeling, though a tad bittersweet. "I'm not happy it ended this way, but I'm happy to see it again," Martinez said. "It's nice it can be shared with the world," added his wife, Sandra.

 

Fourth space shuttle retirement home opens

 

Justin Ray – SpaceflightNow.com

 

Two years after the final space shuttle launch, the sentimental sendoff to put the retired orbiters on public display around the country was finished Saturday with the opening of the extravagant Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex attraction showcasing Atlantis. The $100 million, privately-financed facility constructed in the past 18 months presents Atlantis like no other shuttle retirement home, her payload bay doors open and the ship tilted 43.21 degrees to simulate flying in orbit. It's a spacecraft spectacle that only astronauts have seen during spacewalks or gazing out the windows of the International Space Station or Russian space station Mir.

 

Space Shuttle Atlantis Exhibit 'Breathtaking,' NASA Fans Say

 

Clara Moskowitz - Space.com

 

Upon first seeing Atlantis, a space shuttle that's been to space and back 33 times, it's not uncommon to gasp — or cry. The retired orbiter is displayed at an angle, with its cargo bay doors open and robotic arm outstretched, and it seems to be just barely out of reach. The sight is arresting, to say the least. The public got its first official look at the display Saturday, when the Space Shuttle Atlantis exhibition opened here at NASA's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.

 

Space Shuttle Atlantis launches on public display in Florida

 

Robert Pearlman - collectSPACE.com

 

Space shuttle Atlantis, the final orbiter among NASA's winged fleet to fly into space, launched on its new mission Saturday as the centerpiece of a $100 million tourist attraction in Florida. Astronauts from each of Atlantis' 33 flights joined officials at NASA's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex for the morning ceremony marking the opening of "Space Shuttle Atlantis," a 90,000-square foot (8360 square meter) exhibit dedicated to the retired spacecraft. After a countdown from "T-minus 10," smoke billowed out from behind replica solid rocket boosters, symbolizing the "launch" of the new display.

 

Space Shuttle Atlantis exhibit opens at KSC visitor complex

 

Jason Rhian - AmericaSpace.com

 

The operators of the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, Delaware North Companies Parks and Resorts (DNC), pulled out all the stops for the grand opening of its new Space Shuttle Atlantis Exhibit. And it is new; the structure even has that "new car" smell. With a parade of astronauts, a "pre-show" that left many speechless, small touches that only a space enthusiast could pick up, and an orbiter poised to begin a new journey—it is clear that the $100 million invested into this structure was well worth the investment.

__________

 

COMPLETE STORIES

 

NASA Pitches Asteroid Capture To International Partners

 

Frank Morring, Jr. - Aerospace Daily

 

European space agencies will spend the rest of the summer evaluating whether there is a role for them in NASA's proposed asteroid-capture mission, after Administrator Charles Bolden pitched the idea during visits to agency partners.

 

Jean Jacques Dordain, director general of the European Space Agency (ESA), told Bolden he has set up a multi-agency working group headed by ESA human-spaceflight chief Thomas Reiter "tasked to elaborate a coherent approach with regard to your new initiative."

 

Representatives of the national space agencies of France, Germany, Italy and the U.K. will participate in the working group, with a report due from ESA to NASA in September, Dordain told Bolden in a June 20 letter.

 

"[W]e welcome this new initiative and are ready to support discussions on potential cooperation that would strengthen ongoing and future space exploration activities to be performed in an international framework," Dordain wrote.

 

However, he noted that ESA's human spaceflight strategy includes the International Space Station in low Earth orbit, the Moon and Mars. NASA's idea is to capture a small near-Earth asteroid, nudge it into high retrograde lunar orbit with solar electric propulsion, and send astronauts in an Orion crew vehicle to study it.

 

ESA is providing service-module propulsion and other hardware for the Orion, based on its work with the Automated Transfer Vehicle developed to deliver cargo to the ISS.

 

"The implementation of the ESA strategy relies on cooperation with international partners, and NASA in particular, allowing to fulfill respective priorities and to develop synergies between identified destinations, without excluding potential other destinations of high interest for space exploration," Dordain told Bolden in his letter.

 

The asteroid-capture idea has met a lackluster response at best in Congress, which must fund the new mission. The House Science Committee's initial draft reauthorization bill for the space agency goes so far as to prohibit use of authorized funds to develop an asteroid-capture spacecraft.

 

Bolden and Dordain first discussed the idea during a face-to-face meeting in Washington. During a recent overseas tour, Bolden also outlined the mission in meetings with Italian Space Agency President Enrico Saggese and K. Radhakrishnan, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), among others. He also discussed the proposed mission at the ISRO Space Applications Center in Ahmedabad that was broadcast to officials at other ISRO sites around India.

 

Atlas Rockets Being Prepped To Reprise Human Spaceflight Role

 

Irene Klotz - Space News

 

Today's Atlas rockets bear little resemblance to those used to launch John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, Wally Schirra and Gordon Cooper into space in 1962 and 1963, but the boosters, now built by United Launch Alliance (ULA), once again are being prepared to carry humans into orbit.

 

The company, a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, is working for two firms developing commercial space taxis, with an eye toward flying NASA astronauts to the international space station within about four years. Another potential customer is privately owned Bigelow Aerospace, which is developing free-flying orbital outposts that would be staffed by company astronauts and available for lease by researchers, businesses, educational institutes, agencies and tourists.

 

ULA plans to demonstrate its commercial human spaceflight service in 2016, a date that is driving development of several rocket upgrades and a crew access tower for its Cape Canaveral launch complex.

 

"We had a preliminary design review of the crew access tower design, heading toward critical design review later this year to make sure that all of the safety and accommodation features are included," said John Mulholland, vice president and program manager of commercial programs and space exploration for Boeing, one of the two firms developing human spaceships that would fly on Atlas rockets.

 

ULA currently flies its Atlas 5 rockets from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, located just south of the Kennedy Space Center.

 

"We have a clean launch pad concept, where we process the vehicle  in the Vertical Integration Facility a couple of thousand feet from the pad, then the day before launch roll the rocket and the spacecraft or the capsule out to the launch pad," said Jim Sponnick, the ULA vice president who oversees the Atlas and Delta rocket programs.

 

"On the day of launch after we check out the systems and fuel the rocket, then we load the crew into the capsule, so the addition of the crew access tower is a major part of that," he said.

 

The company recently completed two wind tunnel tests, one to study aerodynamics and loads on an Atlas 5 rocket flying with a Boeing CST-100 capsule and the other to understand how the crew access tower would change the ground wind conditions to the rocket itself.

 

Construction of the crew access tower would begin with the next phase of the NASA-backed Commercial Crew Program awards, expected next year. In addition to Boeing, NASA currently has partnership agreements with Space Exploration Technologies Corp., which would use its Falcon 9 rockets to launch a crewed variant of the Dragon cargo capsule, and Sierra Nevada Corp., which, like Boeing, intends to fly on Atlas boosters.

 

NASA has requested $821 million for its Commercial Crew Program for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 but has been making due with roughly half that amount. A draft request for proposals for the program's next phase is expected to be released this summer, with a final solicitation released in early fall. A contract award is expected in July 2014.

 

"There will definitely be less than three [awards]. One or more is what we're thinking. I'd like to keep all three, but you need funding for that," said Ed Mango, NASA's Commercial Crew program manager at the Kennedy Space Center.

 

Among the planned upgrades to the Atlas rocket itself, the most important change will be largely invisible. Engineers are designing an emergency detection system to automatically monitor systems on the rocket and determine if anything is amiss so the flight could be aborted.

 

"But almost as important is to make sure that you don't leave a perfectly good rocket," Mulholland said, referring to a scenario where a false alarm triggers a crew escape system.

 

ULA already is collecting flight data during its Atlas satellite launches to characterize parameters for planned human missions.

 

"We haven't yet flown the emergency detection system, but we're collecting all of the data that's going to serve to define those boundaries for normal and abnormal," Sponnick said.

 

"We'll fly it with launches starting in  2016, and probably with some demonstration missions before that," he added.

 

Prototype testing is expected to begin later this year.

 

Also under development is a launch vehicle adapter, which will be the interface between the rocket and the crew capsule. A second round of wind tunnel tests is under way and slated to wrap up in August, Mulholland said.

 

Differences in FAA/AST funding presage NASA funding battle

 

Jeff Foust - SpacePolitics.com

 

The Senate Appropriations Committee passed a pair of fiscal year 2014 appropriations bills on Thursday, including one that funds the FAA. The Senate bill includes $17.011 million for the FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation. That's significantly more than what the House's version of the same appropriations bill provided for the office: $14.16 million, a level below 2012 and 2013 and low enough to raise concerns by some in the industry. (Funding for AST is within FAA's Operations budget, which also gets more overall in the Senate version, although the difference isn't as large in percentage terms: $9.71 billion versus $9.52 billion in the House.)

 

Neither House nor Senate appropriators have gotten to their Commerce, Justice, and Science (CJS) appropriations bills, which fund NASA (and NOAA), but are expected to do so sometime in July. The gaps between the House and Senate bills for FAA suggest that we may see similar gaps between the House and Senate CJS bills, including for NASA.

 

Bill Nelson, for example, has suggested that the $16.8 billion in fiscal year 2014 in a draft NASA authorization bill is far too low, and indicated that not only would the Senate version of the authorization bill give NASA more, but that Senate appropriators would also follow suit.

 

The potential for that gap can be seen in the budget allocations given to the two CJS appropriations subcommittees, in effect the pots of money they have to spend. The House CJS allocation, released in May, is $47.2 billion, while the Senate CJS allocation, released last week, is nearly $52.3 billion.

 

So it shouldn't be a surprise if Senate appropriators offer significantly more to NASA than their House counterparts when they get to their CJS bills, but what that eventually means for the space agency given the bigger issues about spending, and the prospects for another round of sequestration, remains to be seen.

 

NASA, budgets top Smith's DC agenda

 

Kim Hilsenbeck - Hays Free Press (Texas)

 

While in town last week, local congressman Lamar Smith (R-San Antonio) talked about his role over NASA and the national budget.

 

During a long weekend back home, which included speaking engagements at a chamber of commerce, a rotary club and a graduation commencement, Smith stopped by the Hays Free Press to talk about space, science and partisanship in politics.

 

This longtime representative from District 21, which includes portions of Buda and about 10 percent of Kyle, recently stepped into his new role as chair of the Science, Space and Technology Committee, which has jurisdiction over programs at NASA, the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

 

Smith spent years as the chair of the judiciary committee; internal term limits forced him to step down from that role. He continues to serve on both that and the Homeland Security Committee.

 

But Smith said his new committee chair post is the future.

 

"It's exciting. It's the future of our country," he said.

 

"You could almost call it the Research and Development Committee. Of the $39 billion in budgets we oversee, over half are R&D," Smith said.

 

In this new committee, Smith and his colleagues are working on a bill for STEM education for girls and minorities. They are also working on the COMPETES Act, which has two components; National Science Foundation grants and STEM (Science, Technology, Education and Math) education.

 

He said his committee got off to good bipartisan support with a retreat – and he is one of the only committee chairs who does just that. He recommends retreats to his fellow committee chairs but, he said, not many follow his lead.

 

In answering a question about bipartisanship in Congress, he said, "Ninety-five percent of the world's problems could be solved with better communication."

 

What is he doing to make that happen and what advice does he have for other legislators?

 

He said the key is identifying and working with someone on his or her district's needs, not just his own.

 

"You have to reach out and communicate," he said.  "I'm meeting with Democrats personally and anticipating their district's needs."

 

Another bill in his committee is the NASA reauthorization. The agency discontinued the human space flight program, but, Smith said, "NASA is still a wonderful organization. They've still got the space station and scientific experiments."

 

He said NASA also does communication satellites and weather forecasting. Its spin-offs include GPS, satellite TV and laser surgery.

 

What will he do about government spending on programs, particularly those that have proven to be ineffective?

 

That's an area where Smith said he wants to take a look at programs that may need to be defunded.

 

"Most of what NASA does is great, but about five percent of projects are suspect," he said.

 

Some of the programs he wants to examine include studying animal photographs in National Geographic magazine, car shows in China, stress in Bolivia, the history of a town in Mexico in the 14th century and lawsuits in Peru in the 1600s to 1800s.

 

"Now, if they can prove these programs are effective, that's fine," Smith said.

 

He also mentioned an Obama administration idea that makes him wary.

 

"[The administration] wants to go for the asteroid retrieval mission, which is not even recommended by NASA folks," Smith said.

 

An explanation of the program included going into space and retrieving asteroids that humans could then use for research into living on Mars.

 

"They didn't even it fund [the program] in their own budget," Smith said of the White House. "All the experts are skeptical; [the idea was] ridiculed by the scientific community."

 

What's the environment in DC like these days?

 

"It's too partisan," Smith said. "We need to talk to each other more, have more communication, get to know each other more, try to diminish partisanship if we can."

 

He said NASA will not be bipartisan, "but I hope COMPETES will be."

 

What are his thoughts on sequestration?

 

"I think we ought to get to a balanced budget; the last time was first term of the Clinton administration, before that it was the Eisenhower administration."

 

(Actually, Clinton's second term, 1998-2001, had balanced budgets each year.)

 

Smith also expressed concern about the national deficit.

 

"The U.S. borrows $.25 on every dollar it spends," he said. "It's a drag on the economy, that's why we have higher than average unemployment, lower than average economic growth, incomes going down for past four years."

 

What is the solution?

 

"I think there's a compromise," he said. "If we don't get to a balanced budget in 10 years, let's at least agree to reduce spending and reduce the deficit every year and if we don't increase the taxes as much as the Senate wants to, let's close some loopholes and raise some revenue that way."

 

In terms of leading the country, Smith said of his colleagues in the House and Senate, "I think we can do better, we must do better."

 

NASA shows off America's next spaceship, Orion

 

Dan Billow - WESH TV (Orlando)

 

Two years after the final launch, the space shuttle's successor has been built.

 

NASA is now testing its Orion spaceship at Kennedy Space Center.

 

Engineers in the operations and checkout building said the new spaceship can carry six astronauts, but its first launch will be unmanned in a little more than one year.

 

That's why engineers are already testing everything -- from its parachutes, to its abort system that could save future astronauts, something the shuttle couldn't do.

 

In 2017, another new arrival will be introduced. NASA's mega-rocket, the biggest ever built, will be able to carry Orion to even greater heights.

 

NASA has also set 2017 as its goal for shorter-range launches to the space station.  These will be made by private companies in ship designs that range from capsule to space plane.

 

Those launched will be the first manned launches from the Space Coast since 2011.

 

NASA officials said everything is on schedule, but any funding cuts could delay them

 

Michoud, a public-private model for NASA

 

Paul Murphy - WWL TV (New Orleans)

 

NASA has selected an economic development agency called "Space Florida" to operate and maintain the historic landing facility at the Kennedy Space Center.

 

"This agreement will continue to expand Kennedy's viability as a multi-user spaceport and strengthen the economic opportunities for Florida and the nation," said NASA administrator Charles Bolden.

 

A similar public-private partnership has been in place at NASA's Michoud Assembly Center in New Orleans for the past several years.

 

Boeing and Lockheed are now building rockets and crew capsules next door to a movie sound-stage and a growing number of high tech commercial ventures now leasing space from the space agency.

 

"We're turning Michoud into a multi program environment for both government, DOD, NASA and commercial entities so was can use our unused space to offset the cost to the taxpayers," said NASA Deputy Chief Operating Officer Malcolm Wood.

 

NASA contractors, combined with the other various commercial and government entities at Michoud now employ about 2600 workers. That's about the same number once employed at the facility, assembling external tanks for the Space Shuttle program.

 

But Michoud remains firmly in the middle of the latest space race to Moon, Mars  and beyond. Much of NASA's new rocket system is being built there.

 

"Our focus right now is the space launch system which is the next rocket that NASA has to go beyond lower earth orbit," said Wood.

 

With a 2016 deadline to deliver the first SLS heavy lift rocket, Boeing is expected to add about 500 new jobs here over the next two years.

 

"The construction phase is in progress right now," said Wood. "As soon as that's over Boeing will be in full production sometime next year and into 2015."

 

NASA is now planning to test the New Orleans-made Orion crew capsule during an unmanned flight in 2014.

 

The first test for the new rocket system will be in 2017.

 

Astronaut In Space Drives Robot on Earth, a First

 

Leonard David – Space.com

 

NASA transformed the International Space Station into a command center for a robot on Earth this month for a first-of-its-kind test drive of the technology and skills needed to remotely operate robots on the moon, Mars or an asteroid.

 

During the June 17 space technology test, NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy, a space station flight engineer, remotely controlled a K10 rover at the agency's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. The robot was commanded to simulate deploying a polyimide-film antenna in a specially built "Roverscape" at the NASA center.

 

On the space station, Cassidy received telemetry and real-time video from the rover and monitored the robot's reaction to his commands via virtual terrain displays.

 

"We successfully conducted the first 'surface telerobotics' test session with the International Space Station," said Terry Fong, director of the Intelligent Robotics Group at Ames. "Cassidy used K10 to perform a surface site survey and to begin deploying a simulated Kapton film-based radio antenna."

 

When astronauts and robots team up

 

Fong said follow-up test sessions between rover and the space station will be conducted in late July and early August. Those sessions will focus on completing antenna deployment, inspecting the deployment and studying human-robot interaction.

 

"We're still finalizing the date of the next test session but anticipate that it will be sometime during the week of July 22," Fong told SPACE.com.

 

The technology demonstrations will also investigate how communication delays over large distances could influence an astronaut's aptitude to take supervisory control of a robot in the event the machinery finds itself in trouble or unable to move.

 

Fong was bullish on the rover/space station linkup. The test session, he said, was notable for achieving a number of firsts, including the following:

 

·         The first real-time teleoperation of a planetary rover from the space station.

·         The first real-time supervisory control of a planetary rover from the station.

·         The first astronaut to interactively control a high-fidelity planetary rover in an outdoor planetary analog.

·         The first use of space station and NASA data networks to connect a crew member's laptop computer to an outdoor robot.

·         The first use of the NASA RAPID robot messaging system to control a robot from space.

·         Proving ground for future missions

 

The test is the first high-fidelity simulation of a human-robot "waypoint" mission — an Earth-moon L2 lunar far side telescope deployment concept proposed by experts at the University of Colorado, Boulder and Lockheed Martin, builder of the NASA Orion spacecraft.

 

"It was a great success … and the team was thrilled with how smoothly everything went," 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, Boulder.

 

The K10 rover deployed two 'arms' of Kapton film under the command of astronaut Cassidy, Burns said.

 

Burns is a leading advocate of a proposed piloted mission to the Earth-moon L2 position, from which astronauts within an Orion spacecraft would remotely unfurl a low-radio-frequency antenna on the moon's farside.

 

In the future, we plan such a deployment on the far side of the moon, where the Kapton film will be the backbone for a low-frequency radio telescope," Burns told SPACE.com.

 

Once deployed on the lunar landscape, Burns said, an array of unfurled polyimide film could track down the "cosmic dawn" of the universe that occurred shortly after the Big Bang. The moon's farside is a radio-quiet locale in the inner solar system, allowing for sensitive observations of the first stars and galaxies that formed only 100 million years after the Big Bang, he said.

 

Astronaut Karen Nyberg talks being a mom in space, rise of female astronauts

 

Amanda Cochran - CBS News

 

Astronaut Karen Nyberg blasted off for her mission aboard the International Space Station in May. She'll be there conducting research until November.

 

But in the meantime, she's doing important research on astronauts' health in space, as several astronauts over the years have suffered from bone and eye deterioration following long-duration flights.

 

She joined the "CBS This Morning" co-hosts from space -- about 250 miles about the Earth.

 

Nyberg, her hair sticking straight up off her head in zero gravity, discussed what it's like to be away from her 3-year-old son Jack. "Of course, it's hard," she said. "But we do have a great communication. I send down a video to him every day that's about 20 seconds long and my husband sends up pictures and videos, and our support people at NASA do the same."

 

During her mission, Nyberg is wearing her husband's wedding ring and a "J" charm representing her son Jack.

 

Nyberg added, "You know, there are people in the military who leave their families...so this is nothing unusual or new. There are people doing this all the time."

 

And even more women could be doing it, too, as half of the newest class of NASA astronauts are women.

 

"That's fantastic," Nyberg said of the statistic. "I think it's a natural evolution of things that eventually more women are starting to get into the fields.

 

"You know, the first astronaut class many years ago, they selected all test pilots -- and there weren't any women test pilots at the time. And as we get more and more women that are excelling in these areas, we're just naturally going to get more and more women."

 

Calgary flood photos captured by space 'disaster cam'

 

Sonja Puzic - CTV News

 

A "disaster camera" set up in space by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield has captured the widespread flood damage in Calgary.

 

The International Space Station's Environmental Research and Visualization System -- nicknamed "disaster cam" -- captured about two dozen images of the flooding on June 22, 23, 24.

 

Hadfield, who attracted worldwide attention by sharing stunning images of the Earth from the ISS on Twitter, installed the ISERV camera in January, during his five-month long space mission.

 

Hadfield recently tweeted one of the post-flood photos of Calgary, next to a picture taken before disaster struck.

 

On its website, NASA says the camera system is expected to provide high-resolution images of floods, forest fires, landslides and other natural disasters. The images can help officials on the ground monitor the extent of the damage and assess "environmental decision making," the agency says.

 

The ISERV team says it has sent the Calgary flood images to Environment Canada, which then distributed them to other federal departments.

 

Hadfield, who is in Ottawa for Canada Day, recently announced his retirement from the Canadian Space Agency. He plans to be in Calgary later this week to serve as grand marshal for Friday's Calgary Stampede Parade.

 

Last week, he told CTV News that he has been following news of the floods. Having lived through 11 floods at his home in Texas while working at NASA, he understands the devastation people are dealing with.

 

"My part is very small, I am just going to show up and thank people and congratulate folks for what's going on," Hadfield said.  "I am sure everyone who collects into Calgary for the Stampede here shortly will be both celebrating the event itself, and all the extra work it's taken this year."

 

XCOR Aerospace plans suborbital flights from KSC by 2015

 

Todd Halvorson - Florida Today

 

A fledgling space tourism company intends to begin flying suborbital test flights out of Kennedy Space Center by 2015, officials announced.

 

Andrew Nelson, chief operating officer of XCOR Aerospace, said they'll start with a work force of about 20 to 30 and hopefully build to 150 or more. The number of jobs created will depend on the flight rate out of the 3-mile-long shuttle runway.

 

The announcement was made outside the new Space Shuttle Atlantis Exhibit at KSC Visitor Complex. The $100 million exhibit is set to open to the public Saturday.

 

XCOR is developing a two-seat rocket plane that will be able to fly tourists, scientists or microgravity research payloads on suborbital flights – quick flights out of the atmosphere and back down to the ground.

 

Nelson said that tickets to ride are being sold for $95,000. More than 300 already have been sold, including about 60 to carry payloads.

 

Asked why they chose KSC, Nelson said the Central Florida tourism market was a big reason.

 

"With 30 million tourism visitors a year, there've got to be a few million who want to fly to space," he said.

 

The local work force with its knowhow also was a big attraction – as was the Space Coast's history.

 

"The DNA. It is the history. This is human spaceflight," Nelson said. "If you want to do it, you have to do it from here."

 

XCOR's rocket plane would take off like an airplane from a runway. Its rocket engines would burn for 3 minutes, boosting the plane and its occupants to an altitude of 190,000 feet. The plane would continue to coast upward to altitude of 382,000 feet. The pilot and passenger would experience just over four minutes in orbit before a glided re-entry and an airplane-like landing 30 minutes after take-off. Altogether, those on the plane would experience 4G's.

 

XCOR has been negotiating with Space Florida, the state's aerospace economic development agency, in order to set up test and flight operations at the Shuttle Landing Facility. NASA, meanwhile, is negotiating with Space Florida to turn over maintenance, operation and development of the landing facility. Doing so would open it up to commercial users, officials said today.

 

KSC Director Robert Cabana, a former astronaut, said that turning the SLF into an airport and a spaceport is "key to our future. It's really important."

 

Month in Space: How to experience the overview effect

 

Alan Boyle - NBCNews.com's Cosmic Log

 

Astronauts have known about the overview effect for decades — and now they're giving the rest of us a taste as well.

 

The overview effect is the spiritual feeling that comes over spacefliers when they see the whole Earth from above. That sight delivers the realization that there are no true borders on the planet, that the whole world is one beautiful, precious blue marble in a black, overwhelming cosmos.

 

Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders encapsulated the message when he said, "We came all this way to explore the moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth." Apollo 14's Edgar Mitchell put it another way: "We went to the moon as technicians; we returned as humanitarians."

 

Today, those views from space are just as precious, and although seeing the pictures are not the same as experiencing the reality, the Internet is making it easier to share all those mind-changing visuals with our borderless planet. The International Space Station provides a true window on the world, and every crew rotation has its featured space photographers. Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, who closed out his stint on the station in May, was a standout — as this slideshow attests. But the current crew has some great photographers as well. We've featured a couple of shots in our latest Month in Space slideshow, but there's much more online. Here's where the current crew of space shooters are sharing the overview effect on a daily basis.

 

Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano: The European Space Agency's representative on the station is following in Hadfield's footsteps, sharing his experiences via LucaParmitano.com and flooding his Twitter, Facebook and Google+ galleries with pictures of Earth and scenes of everyday life in space. ESA passes along Parmitano's pictures on Flickr. Parmitano also has a teen protege pulling for him on the planet: Abigail Harrison, a.k.a. Astronaut Abby, a Minnesota student who is getting the word out about Luca's space adventure. On Friday, Harrison highlighted Parmitano's first picture of the United States as seen from space.

 

NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg: The first quilter in space is also a first-rate shooter, sharing her pictures via Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest. Hadfield made music in space with his guitar, and Nyberg may well do the same with the space station's electronic keyboard. "I plan to play some," she tweeted. All this led the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.'s John Bowman to wonder whether Nyberg is the "next Chris Hadfield."

 

More space station overviews: Nyberg's NASA colleague, Chris Cassidy, has been taking pictures even as he and Parmitano prepare for two spacewalks in July. You can find his pictures, as well as many others from the station, in NASA Spaceflight's Expedition 36 gallery as well as the Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth and the NASA2Explore Flickr gallery. Those are also the best places to find imagery from the station's Russian crew members: Alexander Misurkin, Pavel Vinogradov and Fyodor Yurchikhin. Even though Hadfield is back on Earth and retired from Canada's astronaut corps, he's still sharing pictures via Twitter, Facebook and Google+. This one Web page puts you in touch with all of NASA's social media offerings. And if you really want to get the full-frontal overview effect, check out what NASA astronaut Ron Garan and his colleagues are up to on the Fragile Oasis website, Facebook, Pinterest, Flickr, YouTube, Google+ and Twitter.

 

NASA picks Florida agency to take over shuttle landing strip

 

Irene Klotz - Reuters

 

NASA has selected Space Florida, a state-backed economic development agency, to take over operations, maintenance and development of the space shuttle's idled landing site at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, officials said on Friday.

 

Terms of the agreement, which have not yet been finalized, were not disclosed, but Space Florida has made no secret about its desire to take over facilities no longer needed by NASA to develop a multi-user commercial spaceport, somewhat akin to an airport or seaport.

 

The state already has a lease for one of the space shuttle's processing hangars, and an agreement with Boeing to use the refurbished facility for its planned commercial space taxi.

 

The so-called CST-100 is one of three spaceships under development in partnership with NASA to fly astronauts to the International Space Station, a permanently staffed, $100 billion research outpost that flies about 250 miles above Earth.

 

NASA ended its 30-year space shuttle program in 2011, leaving Russia's Soyuz capsules as the sole means to transport crews to the station, a service that costs the United States more than $70 million per person. NASA hopes to buy rides commercially from a U.S. company by 2017.

 

The shuttle's retirement left the Kennedy Space Center loaded with equipment and facilities that are not needed in NASA's new human space initiative, which includes a heavy-lift rocket and deep-space capsule for journeys to asteroids, the moon and other destinations beyond the space station's orbit.

 

Last year, NASA solicited proposals for agencies or companies to take over the shuttle landing facility and its 15,000-foot (4,572-meter) runway, one of the longest in the world.

 

Additional landing site infrastructure includes an aircraft parking ramp measuring 480 by 550 feet, a landing aids control building, a 90-foot (27-meter) wide shuttle tow way, an air traffic control tower and a 23,000-square-foot (2,137-square-meter) enclosure used by convoy vehicles that serviced the shuttles after landing.

 

In addition to shuttles returning from orbit, the runway is used by heavy transport aircraft, military cargo planes, T-38, Gulfstream G-2 and F-104 aircraft, and helicopters.

 

Space Florida would like that list to also include suborbital passenger ships, such as the two-seater Lynx space plane being developed by privately owned XCOR Aerospace, orbital vehicles like Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's air-launched Stratolaunch Systems, and unmanned aircraft.

 

"We look forward to working with NASA and KSC leadership in the coming months to finalize the details of this transaction in a way that will provide the greatest benefit to incoming commercial aerospace businesses," Space Florida President Frank DiBello said in a statement.

 

Turning the shuttle landing facility over to a commercial operator will save NASA more than $2 million a year in operations and maintenance costs, documents posted on the agency's procurement website show.

 

The landing facility also includes a 50,000-square-foot (4,645-square-meter) hangar that Space Florida already owns. A commercial flight services company, Starfighters Aerospace, currently operates there.

 

NASA said it received five bids for the shuttle landing facility, including the winning one.

 

The announcement that Space Florida had been chosen was made by NASA administrator Charles Bolden who was in Florida for the opening of the shuttle Atlantis exhibit at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.

 

Proposals to take over one of the shuttle's two launch pads are due on July 5.

 

Drink, debauchery and despair:

Astronauts' wives lift lid on grim reality behind the smiling shuttle launches

 

Jacqui Goddard - London Telegraph

 

They were the unsung heroines of the space race, quintessential American housewives expected to stand by their men, smile to order and declare themselves "Happy, proud and thrilled" as their husbands were strapped aboard towering columns of explosives and rocketed to glory.

 

Poised, serene and flawlessly groomed, they were feted as the epitome of domestic perfection, undergoing a transformation from ordinary military spouses to the First Ladies of Space alongside husbands whose bravery in the face of death-defying risks and lunar ambitions knew no bounds.

 

Yet behind the thrills, the glamour, the celebrity status, ticker-tape parades, glossy magazine photo-shoots and receptions with monarchs and presidents, life for the wives of Nasa's pioneering Mercury, Gemini and Apollo era astronauts was also a harrowing, fearful and at times scandalous existence.

 

Chronicled for the first time in a new book, The Astronaut Wives Club, the story of the women behind Nasa's elite space explorers of the 1950s to 1970s shows that it was not just the menfolk who were expected to have the Right Stuff.

 

Under pressure to play a cool hand and live up to the gold standard the public and Nasa expected of them, some had to turn blind eyes to their husbands' infidelities, sweep domestic strife under the carpet and put on shows of marital harmony "like Stepford Wives" to protect the astronauts' images and careers.

 

"We all tried to be so calm and so cool and everything," said Jane Dreyfus, who divorced from the third man on the Moon, the late Pete Conrad, in 1988. "But we were a far cry from Stepford Wives."

 

Some turned to tranquilisers - or, in the case of Susan Borman, wife of Apollo 8 commander Frank Borman, alcohol - to help them cope with the extreme dread of seeing their husbands sent into space, or the trauma of seeing marriages slipping away.

 

Only by forming a sisterhood they called the Astronaut Wives Club - motto "Proud, Happy, Thrilled" - did they pull one another through the challenges and anxieties of being married to America's first space heroes.

 

"If you think going to the Moon is hard, try staying at home," said Barbara Cernan, the wife of Gene Cernan, commander of the Apollo 17 mission in 1972 and the last man to walk on the Moon.

 

Mr Cernan, addressing the book's official launch event in Houston, choked back tears as he admitted: "If it weren't for the wives who committed their lives to what we were doing, I don't think we would have ever gotten to the Moon."

 

The space race began in October 1957 when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first ever man-made satellite, infuriating the US and deepening Cold War hostilities.

 

Two years later, on the orders of President Dwight Eisenhower, Nasa selected its very first astronauts. Known as the Mercury Seven, all were military test pilots with genius-level intellects. Tasked with beating the Soviet Union to putting a human in Earth orbit, they were seen by their country as models of integrity and valiant ambassadors of anti-Communism.

 

Thrust suddenly into the spotlight, the wives were considered by women across America as "seven glorious women they could look up to and emulate," said author Lily Koppel. Their family lives were spread across the pages of Life magazine, and their home-making skills, fashion choices, hairstyles and lipstick colours scrutinised and copied by those who saw them as perfect cookie-cutter American wives and mothers without a hint of domestic turbulence.

 

Yet of the 30 astronauts recruited into the Mercury Project and the successor Gemini and Apollo programmes - which ultimately set man on the Moon in 1969 - the marriages of only seven survived intact.

 

One of them was over before Mercury even began; Gordon Cooper's wife Trudy had left him in 1958, four months before Nasa selected him for the programme, because, as one of the other spouses would reveal, "he was screwing another man's wife". Driven by the prospect of riding an Atlas rocket into space, and realising he needed a "loving wife" to fit Nasa's requirements of him, he persuaded his wife into a reunion.They split for good in the late 1960s.

 

The marriage of Mercury Seven astronaut Alan Shepard, who became the first American in space, and his wife Louise - nicknamed "Saint Louise" for her composure - was among the few that survived, despite dalliances that included him attending swingers parties and picking up a prostitute in a Mexican border town during a Nasa trip to California prior to his 1961 mission.

 

A livid John Glenn, a fellow Mercury Seven astronaut who went on to become the first American to orbit the Earth, was called on by Nasa to talk a newspaper out of running the story and incriminating photographs.

 

"As John saw it, any astronaut who couldn't keep his 'pants zipped' threatened to ruin everything and squash America's opportunity to beat the Russians, not only in space but on the grounds of moral superiority. They all had a responsibility to the country to be the wholesome heroes they were sold as," said Ms Koppel.

 

Mrs Shepard had feared prior to her husband being selected for America's debut space flight that his penchant for women could ruin his career. Until he gave up his womanising, she believed "he'd be stuck on earth" - yet when others asked why she tolerated his fooling around, she told them: "Because I'm the one he really loves."

 

Many of the wives knew Cape Canaveral and its resort of Cocoa Beach as "that harlot of a town", where a number of the astronauts kept a "Cape Cookie" - a girlfriend on the side.

 

Don Eisele, who flew aboard Apollo 7 in 1968, was served with the first "space divorce" by his wife Harriet upon his return, having endured his infidelity Cape Cookies for years out of a sense of patriotic duty.

 

Whenever she had voiced her fears to him that he was being unfaithful, he told her she was crazy. "If I'm crazy, I should see a psychiatrist," she told him, only for him to answer: "You can't. I'll lose my job."

 

The wife of Apollo 1 astronaut Gus Grissom, who died in a fire during a launch pad exercise at Cape Canaveral in 1967, knew that he was seeing other women but tried to blot it out of her mind. "I'm not saying that Gus didn't have girlfriends.I just tried not to think about those possibilities," she admitted.

 

When Pat White, the widow of Apollo 1 victim Ed White, tried to take an overdose after his death, the Astronaut Wives Club rallied around to help keep the news from the public. She went on to remarry, but killed herself in 1991, still haunted by what happened.

 

Buzz Aldrin could be "heartbreakingly cold" towards his first wife, Joan, to whom he once gave a monkey as a Christmas present. The monkey would bare his teeth, make obscene gestures and dance around mocking her. "Buzz, I've had it. It's either the money or me. Somebody's leaving," his wife told him. She was met with a silent look from her husband that appeared to say "Well, what are you waiting for?" Their marriage ultimately crumbled following his return from the Moon in 1969, when he sank into depression and alcoholism.

 

Neil Armstrong, who preceded Aldrin on the lunar surface, was "emotionally unavailable" to his first wife. "It was hard for them to come home," said Faye Stafford, the former wife of astronaut Tom Stafford, who orbited the Moon on Apollo 10 in 1969. "Who could ever compete with the Moon? I was lucky if I could come in second."

 

Many of the astronaut wives cooperated with the book. "I see them as America's first reality stars. Their country looked to them to hold up the public relations arm of the early space programme and the feeling was that if they did not, their men may not go into space or to the Moon," said Ms Koppel.

 

"Their story is kind of The Right Stuff meets Mad Men, with a little bit of Desperate Housewives thrown in. Decades have passed and they finally felt they could be more honest with themselves and the public about their experience."

 

Private launchers fear new US rules

 

John Kelly - Florida Today (Commentary)

 

The private space industry is in the formative years of its development, and over-regulation easily could stunt its growth.

 

Case in point: The U.S. State Department is proposing new rules that would add private manned spacecraft to a Department of Defense list of "munitions" technology that some in the industry fear would all but prevent any use of those vehicles on foreign soil.

 

The rule, made public in late May and open for public comment through July 8, is part of the government's long-standing effort to keep all technology that could be used to develop weaponry out of the hands of potential adversaries.

 

The rule is getting a cold reception from private space startups such as XCOR, a space tourism company that just this week said it plans to start suborbital test flights from Kennedy Space Center by 2015. Why? Because XCOR, and every other space tourism company, is operating on a business model that requires an international customer base.

 

They've got to recover hundreds of millions of dollars in technology development that went into the creation of their new spacecraft systems, a kind of development heretofore only possible for the governments of wealthy nations. To do so, they need a lot of well-heeled customers.

 

That's the business model that's been laid out by everyone from XCOR chief operating officer Andrew Nelson to Virgin Galactic's Richard Branson. They've all talked about suborbital flights launched from multiple spaceports, expanding their business across the United States, and around the world. If arms regulations limit the ability to fly the vehicles outside the U.S., their ability to grow the market is hampered.

 

That could slow the industry down, Nelson's been arguing. He and others in the industry point to the way that a similar listing of private satellite technology hurt American companies' capability to compete with foreign space companies in recent decades for commercial launches. Tens of thousands of U.S. space industry jobs were lost as foreign companies gobbled up business. They fear the same sort of drag could be placed on the nascent private manned space industry.

 

That's a big deal for the private space industry and for the Space Coast. While each of the companies is small, the space industry jobs from all of them were supposed to add up to help us overcome the retirement of NASA's space shuttles. In the case of XCOR's announcement last week, it'll begin with as many as 30 jobs and possibly grow to more than 150 depending on the number of KSC flights.

 

While there are likely valid concerns about protecting technology from falling into the wrong hands, overdoing it could also hurt the space industry's long-term future. Those with concern about the development of private human spacecraft ought to consider weighing in.

 

Wrong Reality: If an American Was First in Space

 

Amy Shira Teitel - Discovery News

 

There are key moments in spaceflight's history that, in retrospect, defined the subsequent course of events. Take Yuri Gagarin's orbital flight in 1961, for example.

 

When Gagarin became the first man in space, America responded with the manned lunar landing challenge, which led to the Apollo program. But what if Gagarin hadn't been first? What if American astronaut Al Shepard became history's first man in space? It's an interesting question, one that conjures an alternate reality where we may not have gone to the moon at all.

 

The Space Age, and the Space Race, was in its infancy in 1959. And the two major players were more or less on par. Both the United States and the Soviet Union had launched satellites, were actively training astronauts and cosmonauts respectively, and neither was quite ready to launch a manned mission.

 

With little reason to suspect the pace of space exploration would soon go into overdrive, NASA was looking forward to a measured and deliberate plan to extend man's reach into the cosmic ocean.

 

At the core of NASA's prospective plan in space was gathering as much knowledge and experience about living and working in space. To this end, the agency hoped to develop and build new vehicles – both rockets and spacecraft – that could form the basis of a long term program to peacefully explore space. Of course, national prestige and preserving the United States' role as a leader in space science and technology was also a priority, as was making the new technology available to the nation's military for defense purposes. Understood in these widespread facets of spaceflight was the boon this endeavor would be to the nation's economy.

 

In 1959, to realize these broader goals, NASA developed a rough mission timeline.

 

1960 was the year NASA hoped to work out the logistics of orbital flight by launching meteorological and communications satellites, things that could fail and still be a valuable learning experience. It was also the year NASA hoped to launch its first astronaut on a suborbital flight. The manned and unmanned launches would put the Thor-Delta, Atlas-Agena-B, and Scout vehicles through their paces, adding to NASA's arsenal for later missions.

 

1961 and 1962 would build on 1960's accomplishments with two important firsts: the first robotic flight to the Moon, and the first manned Earth orbital flight. The latter flight would realize the main goal of the Mercury program that was underway at the time.

 

Once the Mercury program was complete, NASA planned to take slow and steady steps in space; there was little indication that space exploration would turn into a race.

 

NASA planned to start by launching probes to Venus and Mars in 1962, presumably on smaller launch vehicles; the first launch of a two stage Saturn-class rocket was listed as the main goal of 1963. Once these more powerful vehicles were flying, the agency planned to send more complex probes to the moon, ones that were designed to make soft and controlled landings on the lunar surface. It also hoped to launch the first orbital observatory with those larger rockets, specifically an astronomical and radio astronomy observatory.

 

In 1964, NASA planned to undertake reconnaissance of our nearest cosmic neighbors. Unmanned probes would circumnavigate the moon before returning to Earth while others would fly to Mars and Venus and return data remotely.

 

With a basic understanding of how to function in space, NASA planned, in 1967, to begin launching the missions that would culminate in a permanent orbital space station as well as manned missions to the moon. In 1959, the lunar landing goal was slated for "beyond 1970."

 

So, had Shepard gone into orbit before Gagarin, would NASA have stuck to this plan? Maybe. But maybe not. The Soviets could have done what Kennedy did start a race to the moon. Or perhaps Gagarin's orbital flight, even coming after Shepard's suborbital, would have spurred NASA to pick a lofty goal like to moon to level the playing field.

 

But it's possible that had an American been the first in space, the course of spaceflight would have been closer to NASA's 1959 plan than the Apollo program we all know. And without Apollo – the push to develop the technology and know-how to get to the moon in the 1960s — the current state of spaceflight would also be very different.

 

SPACE SHUTTLE ATLANTIS EXHIBIT

 

Shuttle Atlantis ready for public display

 

William Harwood - CBS News

 

The space shuttle Atlantis, the last of NASA's winged orbiters to fly in space, went on public display at the Kennedy Space Center visitors complex Saturday, the centerpiece of a $100 million facility designed to show off the spaceship as it appeared in orbit, with its payload bay doors open and robot arm extended.

 

Mounted more than three stories above the main floor and tilted 43 degrees to one side, the shuttle can be viewed from below, giving visitors a look at the shuttle's black heat shield tiles and sweeping wings, or from a balcony level that extends almost into the open payload bay.

 

"It is awesome! It is spectacular," said Bob Cabana, a four-flight shuttle veteran who now serves as director of the Kennedy Space Center. "We showcase Atlantis, but it tells the 30-year history of the shuttle program and the amazing team that made it all happen. I think we display Atlantis like no other orbiter, and folks are going to get to see it as only a very few have on orbit. It truly looks as if it's flying in space."

 

For former shuttle workers and astronauts, the display showcases one of America's greatest technological triumphs, giving the public a chance to see an orbiter from a perspective few were able to enjoy when the ships were flying to and from low-Earth orbit.

 

"This is an unparalleled experience," Tom Jones, a former shuttle astronaut who made four trips to space, told CBS News during a pre-opening walk through. "Here is the whole shuttle story, wrapped up in some history, you get eye poppingly close to the real space shuttle machine and then you go experience it yourself (in a shuttle simulator ride)."

 

More than 60 interactive exhibits are part of the display, including a full-scale mockup of the Hubble Space Telescope, shuttle landing simulators, a shuttle main engine, space station docking simulators and a station mockup designed for kids.

 

"It's got all the angles covered, and I think it's going to be a tremendously successful experience, educational and inspirational," Jones said.

 

But the display also prompts sadness among former shuttle workers, who see Atlantis and its sister ships, Discovery and Endeavour, as viable, state-of-the-art manned spacecraft that were retired before their time, with no replacement vehicle waiting in the wings to take over.

 

"I was sort of hoping this interval between the shuttle retiring and the next vehicle would just be a couple of years," Jones said. "But the budget just hasn't shown up, and I think it's one of the great missteps of our nation in space this decade, to let this slide on to 2016, 2017, 2018. We can do better. We should."

 

But for Savannah Curry, a New Mexico tourist visiting the space center with her parents, seeing Atlantis was an eye-opening experience.

 

"It's really interesting to get to see something like this," she said. "I didn't really grow up knowing a lot about it, and it's a lot of fun learning about everything that happened and how they had to go through such a long process to be able to develop the technology they did. I didn't expect any of it to be this big!"

 

For Andrew Heiss of North Carolina, "it was incredible, seeing it in real life. Added his wife, Nancy: "It's breathtaking!"

 

The enthusiastic reactions of school kids is especially pleasing to Cabana.

 

"It will capture the imagination of another generation, it will continue to inspire as it starts off on its second mission in life. It was a phenomenal spaceship, it helped us explore and discover, and now it's going to lead a mission of inspiration to future scientists, engineers and explorers. It's absolutely fantastic."

 

Atlantis completed NASA's 135th and final shuttle mission with a landing at the Kennedy Space Center on July 21, 2011. The shuttle spent more than a full year in space during its 33 missions, logging 125,935,769 miles over 4,848 orbits.

 

Well before Atlantis returned to Earth, NASA managers decided where the agency's three space shuttles would end up on display.

 

The shuttle Discovery, NASA's oldest surviving orbiter, was first to depart, leaving the Kennedy Space Center atop a 747 transport jet in April 2012, bound for Smithsonian Air & Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles International Airport outside Washington.

 

The prototype shuttle Enterprise, used for approach and landing tests in the late 1970s, was moved from Dulles to the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York City where it went on display in July 2012. The shuttle Endeavour was flown to California that September and hauled through the streets of Los Angeles to the California Science Center.

 

Atlantis was the last orbiter to be prepped for display, rolling out of the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Florida spaceport for the last time in November 2012. Mounted atop a wheeled transporter, Atlantis was moved into its unfinished home at the Visitors Center.

 

The 90,000-square-foot building then was closed in behind the orbiter.

 

Covered in protective shrink wrapping, the 150,000-pound shuttle was carefully jacked up 36 feet above the main floor and tilted at 43.21 degrees. After the shrink wrapping was removed, engineers carefully opened the ship's cargo bay doors, secured by cables to the roof, and installed a replica robot arm that extends out over the viewing balcony.

 

Atlantis' three main engines are represented by real nozzles, but the engines themselves, normally hidden inside the shuttle's aft compartment, are absent. Likewise, the plumbing in the shuttle's forward and aft maneuvering system rocket pods was removed as a safety precaution because of the toxic propellants once routed through the lines.

 

But those modifications are not visible from the outside and to the visitor, the orbiter looks almost exactly like it did in space during its final flight.

 

"I'm very proud," said Tim Macy, director of project development and construction for Delaware North Companies Parks and Resorts, which operates the visitors complex.

 

"Rolling it over here was a difficult task, opening those payload bay doors in one G (gravity) caused a lot of teeth gnashing and hand wringing," he said. "So here we are, with all these things we'd never done before. But you know what? A lot of smart people came together, we had NASA help, we had help from the guys at (shuttle contractor) United Space Alliance, we had our own engineering teams here locally and a couple of really clever people who fought really hard to maintain what we wanted to do."

 

The display is "a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," he said. "Even people who worked on the shuttle have never seen it like this."

 

To make sure the spaceplane remains in pristine condition over the years and decades ahead, Delaware North hired a Washington company, Conservation Solutions, to develop a long-range plan that included wireless sensors throughout the shuttle to monitor humidity and temperature.

 

"We spent a little more time and effort coming up with a conservation plan than I thought we would," Macy said. "I underestimated that, but I'm really, really glad we did what we did."

 

So is Jones. Looking at Atlantis, remembering his own flights, he said the engineers who designed the shuttle could not have known what their creation would accomplish over the three-decade life of the program.

 

"I think the engineering team on the space program didn't realize how hard a job they were taking on," he said. "And they just did it. They pulled off just a coup with a vehicle that could fly for 30 years and still be unexcelled by any other country or space faring nation and yet when the ship retired, it was still at the top of its game."

 

He said the shuttle "was a tremendous classroom in space. It taught us how to do complex operations in orbit over those 30 years. The designers of the shuttle could never have imagined the complexity of putting a space station together, all the spacewalks, all the Hubble (Space Telescope) repairs, all the intricate work people accomplished in space using the shuttle as a platform.

 

"If it didn't hit its costs or economics targets, if it didn't hit its safety standards or aspirations, it still taught us so much about being sophisticated in our work in space. And I think we can use that experience to really catapult ourselves out to do significant things around the moon, the asteroids, in the next 10 years."

 

Delaware North put up more than $30 million to pay for Atlantis' new home, according to the Florida Today newspaper. Another $62.5 million came through a Bank of America loan backed by Space Florida, the state's aerospace development agency.

 

Space Shuttle Atlantis inspires generations of explorers

 

Dewayne Bevil - Orlando Sentinel

 

With a giant question mark hovering over the future of the U.S. space program, the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex opened its $100 million Space Shuttle Atlantis exhibit Saturday.

 

"A lot of people, when the space shuttle's final flight took place … sort of misunderstood that this was the end of the space program," said Bill Moore, chief operating officer of the visitor complex.

 

The absence of a straightforward goal for the manned space program — "We're going to go to Mars" — makes the future murky for the public, Moore said.

 

The new Space Shuttle Atlantis attraction in Brevard County can help people understand that the program is in transition, he said.

 

For example, NASA is working with private companies on the Commercial Crew Program, which would send manned spacecraft from the U.S. to the International Space Station, and is planning a Space Launch System to take astronauts back into deep space, beyond the shuttle program's scope.

 

Now, the retired Atlantis shuttle lives in a 90,000-square-foot building, tilted at a 43-degree angle so that it's visible from multiple perspectives. The dusty and nicked orbiter is bathed in theatrical lighting and flanked by interactive stations to educate about the shuttle program, which ended with Atlantis' touchdown at Kennedy Space Center in July 2011.

 

It's a view not usually seen by earthbound folks, said astronaut Tom Jones, who was on two of Atlantis' 33 missions.

 

"This is the way Atlantis is seen in orbit, by astronauts," he said. "You never get a chance to see the shuttle like that on Earth. It's always cocooned in scaffolding or maintenance platforms."

 

Jones and 39 other astronauts greeted hundreds of guests at the grand opening of the attraction Saturday morning.

 

The ceremony took place in the shadow of a replica of the solid rocket boosters and fuel tanks that lifted all 135 shuttle missions into space from the Florida coast.

 

Among the dignitaries were Bob Crippen, who flew on the first shuttle in 1981, and Chris Ferguson and Sandy Magnus, who were aboard the final flight in July 2011.

 

"I couldn't be more proud of the display of Atlantis," said Bob Cabana, a former astronaut and current director of the John F. Kennedy Space Center.

 

"We think they did it right," he said, speaking for the astronaut corps.

 

The attraction's location amid world-famous theme parks and sunny beaches has pros and cons, Moore said.

 

"On the marketing side, it's the most competitive place in the world," he said. "But on the other side, it's where everybody has to come."

 

NASA administrator Charles Bolden said Atlantis had a new mission.

 

"She'll inspire a new generation of explorers," he said.

 

He also thanked the KSC work force and the residents of the Space Coast.

 

"This nation owes you a super debt of gratitude," he said.

 

The attraction's target audience is "people who like science centers, who like to go to museums, who like to go to historically significant places," Moore said.

 

About half of the visitors to the space center complex come from outside the U.S., Moore said. Interest from Brazil is growing rapidly, he said, and new growth is emerging from China and India.

 

"Those are large, large countries with a very smart population that I think are going to like coming here," he said.

 

What they will see could remind them of attractions at Central Florida's theme parks.

 

"There's definitely a trend in the museum industry over the past couple of decades to become more like theme parks," said Robert Niles, editor of the Theme Park Insider website.

 

"You see a lot of the same companies that contract with theme parks to develop attractions that are also contracting with museums to help them develop new exhibits that incorporate some of the same storytelling techniques that we see in theme parks," he said.

 

The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex is operated by Delaware North Companies Parks & Resorts and receives no government funds. Its operation is supported by ticket, merchandise and food sales.

 

"Thank goodness, we didn't have to buy Atlantis … but we did have to pay all the other expenses," Moore said. Those included draining fuel from the orbiter and designing and constructing the building.

 

The $100 million price tag "was a big number to us, to be honest, but it's a good number because it allows us to say, 'We're really going to change things here at the visitor complex,'" Moore said. "There are big guys out here doing some pretty cool things," he said. "But having a real space-flown artifact — and we have others as well — it really tells that whole manned space flight story."

 

Denise Likar and family dropped by the complex while on a six-hour layover between their Cape Canaveral-based cruise and a flight home to Orange County, Calif.

 

"I've been going through here going 'Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,' " she said. "I know that this feat of being able to pitch a vehicle this heavy is just awe-inspiring."

 

Space shuttle Atlantis' public debut thrills astronauts, KSC patrons

 

Stacey Barchenger - Florida Today

 

Former United Space Alliance engineer Pablo Martinez used to pinch himself when he worked on the space shuttles, a reminder of just how important the vehicles were in the nation's history.

 

When he walked beside Atlantis, officially unveiled to the public for the first time on display at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex on Saturday, it was a similar feeling, though a tad bittersweet.

 

"I'm not happy it ended this way, but I'm happy to see it again," Martinez said.

 

"It's nice it can be shared with the world," added his wife, Sandra.

 

The priceless artifact wowed thousands from its perch — 43.21 degrees to the port side and 30 feet in the air, as if in flight — inside the $100 million exhibit. The thousands included those seeing a space shuttle for the first time, as well as astronauts who flew Atlantis and former shuttle workers who for years prepped the fleet for flight.

 

"It's been a while since I teared up," said astronaut Ken Ham, who flew on Discovery and Atlantis. "I was really glad there was a little corner over there I could go and be by myself before I had to talk to folks. This engineering marvel right here kept me and all my friends alive in one of the most harsh environments that humans have ever known. It's making my skin crawl right now, it's amazing. … It's just stunning."

 

The exhibit had special meaning for astronaut Dave Leestma, who flew on Atlantis in 1992, and also on Challenger and Columbia. He was among dozens of astronauts who attended the opening.

 

"They no longer exist," he said of the latter two shuttles. "This is the only one left of the ones I saw, so this is kind of a legacy for my kids and their kids. It's special."

 

The opening featured a 10-second countdown and was held in front of the replica solid rocket boosters and external tank that flank the exhibit entrance.

 

"Just as the future of our space program rides on the shoulders of the shuttle, and those who flew her and those who worked on her, it's made possible by everyone here who shared a dream of manned spaceflight," Bill Moore, chief operating officer at Kennedy Space Center, told the crowd. "They worked tirelessly to make it a reality, and we will fly manned, from the Kennedy Space Center, again, into space."

 

Fourth space shuttle retirement home opens

 

Justin Ray – SpaceflightNow.com

 

Two years after the final space shuttle launch, the sentimental sendoff to put the retired orbiters on public display around the country was finished Saturday with the opening of the extravagant Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex attraction showcasing Atlantis.

 

The $100 million, privately-financed facility constructed in the past 18 months presents Atlantis like no other shuttle retirement home, her payload bay doors open and the ship tilted 43.21 degrees to simulate flying in orbit.

 

It's a spacecraft spectacle that only astronauts have seen during spacewalks or gazing out the windows of the International Space Station or Russian space station Mir.

 

But tourists now can see the veteran shuttle, which logged 33 flights, 125,935,769 miles and 4,848 orbits during 307 days spent aloft, at the Visitor Complex as part of standard admission.

 

The Atlantis facility is the final site one to open. Discovery went on public display in April 2012 as part of the national archive at the Smithsonian's Udvar-Hazy Center in Northern Virginia. Prototype shuttle Enterprise arrived at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York City last June. Endeavour pulled into the California Science Center in Los Angeles in October.

 

Atlantis appears as if she's still soaring, with a giant LED television screen hanging behind the orbiter to display stirring views of Earth, dancing auroras and an orbital sunrise.

 

The theatrical lighting system in the building is synched with the movie, casting the orbiter is blues and purple hues as dawn breaks.

 

"Atlantis is power and grace personified," said Mike Konzen, chief operating officer of PGAV Destinations that helped develop the experience.

 

Guests are greeted by a 184-foot-tall replica of the external fuel tank and solid rocket boosters standing at the entrance. Walking directly under the stack, you can look up at the high-fidelity display that is complete with the smallest of details.

 

Once inside, a pre-show recreates the development of the space shuttle from concept to launch pad. Doors then open to walk into another theater that plays Columbia's thunderous launch of the program's maiden mission, then runs through in-space activities, bringing the shuttle back, turning the reusable vehicle around to launch it yet again.

 

Then, the dramatic reveal occurs as you get the first glimpse of Atlantis, coming nose-to-nose with the shuttle that flew the program's final mission in July 2011.

 

"It is awesome! It is spectacular," said Bob Cabana, a four-flight shuttle astronaut who now serves as director of the Kennedy Space Center. "We showcase Atlantis, but it tells the 30-year history of the shuttle program and the amazing team that made it all happen. I think we display Atlantis like no other orbiter, and folks are going to get to see it as only a very few have on orbit. It truly looks as if it's flying in space."

 

Elsewhere, a special theater adjoins a life-like Hubble Space Telescope among nearly 60 interactive displays throughout the 90,000-square-foot building. An International Space Station area has a mockup of the outpost's toilet and treadmill named for television comedian Stephen Colbert.

 

There is a steep slide that mimics the re-entry slope of a returning shuttle. Nearby is the gaseous oxygen vent hood – or "beanie cap" – removed from launch pad 39B. And two tires removed from Atlantis from her final landing are there to see and touch.

 

Several simulators are located around the attraction to maneuver a shuttle inside the Vehicle Assembly Building for mating to its external fuel tank, plus others to operate the robot arm, dock to the International Space Station or try your hand at landing.

 

And the "Forever Remembered" wall allows guests to pay their respects to the lost crews of Challenger and Columbia.

 

"This completely immersive experience is about much more than seeing Atlantis close up. With hi-fi replicas, simulators and interactive activities touching on all aspects of the shuttle program and its accomplishments, including the Hubble Space Telescope and the International Space Station, it's the closest guests can get to living and working in space – short of applying to the astronaut corps," said Bill Moore, chief operating officer of Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.

 

Space Shuttle Atlantis Exhibit 'Breathtaking,' NASA Fans Say

 

Clara Moskowitz - Space.com

 

Upon first seeing Atlantis, a space shuttle that's been to space and back 33 times, it's not uncommon to gasp — or cry. The retired orbiter is displayed at an angle, with its cargo bay doors open and robotic arm outstretched, and it seems to be just barely out of reach. The sight is arresting, to say the least.

 

The public got its first official look at the display Saturday, when the Space Shuttle Atlantis exhibition opened here at NASA's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.

 

"I'm not going to lie — I shed a tear," said Jess Johnting of Boca Raton, Fla., an avid space fan who said she'd long been looking forward to the opening of the show.

 

The grand opening was attended by a massive crowd and more than 40 astronauts representing all 33 of Atlantis' missions to space. It "launched" with a bang as sparks and smoke appeared to furl out of the humongous life-size fuel tank and solid rocket boosters guarding the entrance to the Atlantis building.

 

Visitors then proceeded inside, where a giant screen shows a film on the origin and history of the space shuttle program.

 

"I can't believe how long it took to build," said Brittney Frey, age 13, of McDonough, Ga.

 

"It's amazing how far it's come," added her brother, Aaron Frey, age 10.

 

After the video, visitors come face to face with Atlantis herself.

 

"It was breathtaking. It blew my mind," said John Hurley of West Palm Beach, Fla.

 

The sight of the magnificent shuttle grounded for good, and beginning life as a museum exhibit, was also hard for some. "I have mixed emotions. It's kind of bittersweet," Jessica Hurley said.

 

Nonetheless, the Hurleys said the presentation here did Atlantis justice, and they planned to come back "over and over again," she added.

 

Atlantis dominates the center of a multistory building that allows views of the orbiter from many angles. The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex is unique in displaying the vehicle as if it were mid-mission, on orbit. The other retired space shuttles, at Washington, D.C.'s Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Los Angeles' California Science Center, and New York's Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, all present their orbiters in horizontal position.

 

"The size of it — what you see on TV doesn't compare to real life," said Ricky Rawls of Crystal River, Fla. "It's an awesome flying machine."

 

Many said Atlantis was larger than they expected.

 

"It's just amazing, incredible," said Mike Kitslaar of Orlando, Fla., who'd been following the preparation of Atlantis for display via the KSC Visitor Complex's online webcam.

 

Organizers of the exhibition said their prime hope for the show is to inspire the next generation of scientists, astronauts and explorers. Judging by the awed reactions of many kids Saturday, they may be well on their way toward that goal.

 

"It was really cool," said Markis Cheng, age 10, of Arcadia, Calif., who said he'd like to go to space someday. "I've always wanted to see what happens when you float."

 

Space Shuttle Atlantis launches on public display in Florida

 

Robert Pearlman - collectSPACE.com

 

Space shuttle Atlantis, the final orbiter among NASA's winged fleet to fly into space, launched on its new mission Saturday as the centerpiece of a $100 million tourist attraction in Florida.

 

Astronauts from each of Atlantis' 33 flights joined officials at NASA's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex for the morning ceremony marking the opening of "Space Shuttle Atlantis," a 90,000-square foot (8360 square meter) exhibit dedicated to the retired spacecraft.

 

After a countdown from "T-minus 10," smoke billowed out from behind replica solid rocket boosters, symbolizing the "launch" of the new display.

 

"There are not a lot of places where you are going to be able to get as a close to an orbiter as you are going to be able to get when you get inside the Atlantis exhibit here," said Charles Bolden, NASA Administrator and commander of Atlantis' 11th mission, STS-45, in 1992.

 

Inside the five-story building, Atlantis has been mounted 30 feet (9 meters) above the ground and angled 43.21 degrees to one side. The shuttle's payload bay doors have been opened and a detailed replica of its robotic arm has been installed and extended such that it just reaches over the heads of visitors.

 

Theatrical lighting and a 40-foot-long (12-meter) animated digital backdrop helps complete the illusion that Atlantis is back in space, orbiting the Earth.

 

"There's nowhere else in the world that you will be able to see an orbiter that looks the way it looks when it's in flight in space," Bolden said. "That is a very, very, very unique opportunity to see it in a unique configuration."

 

Awesome Atlantis

 

"It is awesome," said Robert Cabana, the director of the Kennedy Space Center and a four-time shuttle astronaut. "We showcase Atlantis but [the exhibit] tells the 30-year history of the shuttle program and the amazing team that made it all happen."

 

The attraction includes replica International Space Station (ISS) modules, a full-size high-fidelity model of the Hubble Space Telescope, four multimedia, cinematic productions and more than 60 interactive activities that invite guests to "be the astronaut."

 

"We have a lot more to offer our guests than just one attraction as they come nose-to-nose with Atlantis," said Bill Moore, chief operating officer of the visitor complex for Delaware North Companies Parks & Resort, which since 1995 has operated the property for NASA. "We have the chance here to give them the experience of what it might be like to be an astronaut — to land a space shuttle, to dock with a space station, to maneuver the shuttle robotic arm and maybe even take a walk in space."

 

The guests' experiences begin even before they enter the building. Outside, a towering replica of the shuttle's solid rocket boosters and massive external fuel tank serve as a gateway for the exhibit. The facility, itself, was designed to evoke a shuttle returning from space, using iridescent hues of orange and gold to represent the glow of re-entry and a shimmering tile pattern similar in appearance to the orbiter's underbelly.

 

Second mission

 

After ending the space shuttle program two years ago to pursue sending U.S. astronauts beyond Earth orbit, NASA awarded its retired orbiters Discovery, Endeavour and the prototype Enterprise to museums and science centers in Virginia, California and New York so that they could serve as educational tools for generations to come.

 

Although the space agency chose to retain ownership of Atlantis, the objective with its display is the same.

 

"When Atlantis landed for the final time [on] July 21, 2011, it was said that its voyage had come to an end," Moore said. "We're going to challenge that a little bit."

 

"Atlantis' voyage is not ending; in fact, it has just begun," he said, explaining that the orbiter's new mission was to inspire and educate those who come to see it on display.

 

Cabana said that Atlantis would "capture the imagination of another generation."

 

"It'll continue to inspire as it starts off its second mission," Cabana said. "It was a phenomenal spaceship — it helped us explore and discover — and now it is going to lead a mission of inspiration for future scientists, engineers and explorers."

 

Space Shuttle Atlantis exhibit opens at KSC visitor complex

 

Jason Rhian - AmericaSpace.com

 

The operators of the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, Delaware North Companies Parks and Resorts (DNC), pulled out all the stops for the grand opening of its new Space Shuttle Atlantis Exhibit. And it is new; the structure even has that "new car" smell. With a parade of astronauts, a "pre-show" that left many speechless, small touches that only a space enthusiast could pick up, and an orbiter poised to begin a new journey—it is clear that the $100 million invested into this structure was well worth the investment.

 

Things kicked off at 9:30 a.m. EDT with a procession of astronauts to the stage at what is now known as "Atlantis Plaza." Each space flyer was introduced by CNN's John Zarrella. They included an astronaut from each of Atlantis' 33 missions (and in some cases more than one from each of the orbiter's flights).

 

Zarrella introduced the event's speakers, Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex Chief Executive Officer Bill Moore, DNC President Rick Abramson, former shuttle astronaut and current NASA Kennedy Space Center Director Robert Cabana, and NASA Administrator Charles Bolden (who is a former space shuttle veteran himself).

 

Both NASA and the Visitor Complex, however, invited more than just astronauts for this special event.

 

"I don't know the total number of invitations we sent out, but NASA had a list and we had a list. We wanted as many of the space workers as the building could hold to attend. We've crammed them in here; I doubt we got them all, but hopefully, through the rehearsals and all, we got as many as we could," Moore said.

 

One of the more well-known space workers in attendance expressed his recollections of the shuttle era as well as what today was like for him.

 

"I worked on shuttle for a little over 33 years, and to be a part of the team that prepared them for flight … it's just amazing to be a part of that history," said Terry White, one of the legions of workers who cared for the shuttle. "I started out as a technician working the original build of Columbia, and then I became a supervisor while we were still processing STS-1. I consider myself fortunate to have worked on all the shuttle missions from the first to the last. I ended up as a project lead for orbiter processing when the program closed. It's been an emotional experience, but seeing the reactions on the public's faces as they came in made it worth it."

 

The opening was kicked off by a mock "launch"—with a pyrotechnic display. The media was then escorted inside to have the opportunity to photograph the various astronauts giving their impressions of the new exhibit. DNC plans for the Atlantis Exhibit to be the centerpiece of the complex's 10-year plan.

 

The first Visitor Complex guests were allowed into the exhibit at around 10:15 a.m. EDT. While there were plenty of sights and sounds (some 60 interactive displays, multimedia presentations, and virtual-reality booths were waiting for them), there were other special attractions that were made available.

 

Throughout a large portion of the day, astronauts were available to pose with guests in front of one of the astrovans, which ferried crews out to the pad. Also on hand were several astronauts signing autographs; these included Mike Mullane, Brewster Shaw, Ken Ham, and the commander of the last shuttle missions, STS-135 (which Atlantis conducted), Chris Ferguson.

 

For several of the astronauts in attendance, the event was a bittersweet one.

 

"To get to something better, you have to have change," Cabana said. "Change isn't easy, but seeing Atlantis' amazing exhibit … it makes it a lot easier."

 

As stated earlier, Atlantis flew the final mission of the shuttle era, STS-135. It concluded the 30-year program with a safe touchdown at the Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility in July 2011. The orbiter was transferred over to the Visitor Complex in November of last year. Once at the Visitor Complex, the real work began.

 

Through a highly orchestrated series of maneuvers, the orbiter was raised 30 feet up into an inclination of 43.21 degrees. Cocooned in the same type of plastic used when boats are moved across land, Atlantis' Exhibit was built around the orbiter. The wrap was removed just a couple months before the grand opening, the orbiter's payload bay doors were opened (and supported as the doors cannot support their own weight in Earth's gravity), and a mockup of Atlantis' robotic Canadarm was put into place, arcing out over one of the many walkways around the shuttle.

 

There are several other models of elements of the shuttle's 30-year history throughout the exhibit. The most prominent is the exterior, full-scale model of the external tank and twin rocket boosters that helped propel the shuttles into the black on 135 separate occasions. A full-scale model of the Hubble Space Telescope, as well as spacewalkers, decorate the interior (one of the astronaut mockups even rides at the tip of a Canadarm). There are a number of other attractions within: actual shuttle tires that safely touched down on Atlantis on STS-135 and models of the mate/de-mate device, but perhaps of greater interest to the swarms of children in attendance was the space potty (more than a few stuck their heads inside for a look around).

 

The Atlantis Exhibit stands out from the two other space-flown orbiters which are currently on display. Space Shuttle Discovery was moved into the Smithsonian's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, located in Chantilly, Va. It was moved into the spot once held by the flight test article shuttle, Enterprise. Endeavour is currently housed in a temporary structure as it waits for the funds needed to produce the permanent structure in which it will be housed. Enterprise was delivered to the Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum in New York.

 

Many of the astronauts in attendance expressed strong reactions as to what they felt the exhibit would be able to achieve. Some also mentioned their hopes for the future.

 

"This is just spectacular; I'm involved with the Challenger Center, and we're all about educating and inspiring young people using space," said William Readdy, who flew three missions on the shuttle and who now works with the Challenger Center, a nonprofit educational organization. "When someone comes here and sees this, it makes my job easy."

 

END