Fwd: Human Spaceflight News - July 15, 2013 and JSC Today

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From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: July 15, 2013 6:20:59 AM GMT-06:00
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: Human Spaceflight News - July 15, 2013 and JSC Today

 

 

 

 

Monday, July 15, 2013

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JSC TODAY CATEGORIES Headlines -  JSC DDMS Upgrade 'Go Live' on July 22 -  Configuration Management Database Freeze July 8-19 -  Recent JSC Announcements Organizations/Social -  Reminder: INCOSE Texas Gulf Coast Chapter Program Jobs and Training -  Job Opportunities -  Prepare for Retirement and Prevent Excessive Taxes -  RLLS Portal Education Series July WebEx Training Community -  Bring Our Children to Work Day - Registration Open

Curiosity Heading for Mount Sharp, Sol 329

 

Headlines JSC DDMS Upgrade 'Go Live' on July 22 JSC Design and Data Management System (DDMS) will be upgrading to Windchill 10.1 on July 22. The system will come down at 5 p.m. on July 18, and production will be available again at 7 a.m. on July 22. After the upgrade, DDMS should fully support JAVA 1.7 and Internet Explorer 8/9. If you have any questions, please contact Information Resources Directorate Customer Support (option 1) or one of the DDMS team members. Training material is available from the "Training" tab on the DDMS website (same website as used for user registration). Suzanne Huebinger x47737 https://ddmsweb.jsc.nasa.gov/ [top] Configuration Management Database Freeze July 8-19 The Configuration Management Database (CMDB) will not be updated from July 8 to 19 to reconcile records and clean out "junk" data. More than 12,000 records may be removed as part of this process. This should vastly improve the duplicate records that users see today under "My Tickets" in Enterprise Service Desk (ESD). NOTE: During this freeze period, information may appear inaccurate. End-users are asked to please not call or submit Remedy tickets to the ESD concerning missing or inaccurate assets as listed in "My Tickets." While the removal of "junk" data could possibly include some valid records, upon discovery of valid records, HPES will re-add them as a part of an automatic load performed on the next Tuesday/Thursday. For technical assistance, contact the ESD: 1-877-677-2123 (1-877-NSSC123), option 2 Website JSC-IRD-Outreach x41334 [top] Recent JSC Announcements Please visit the JSC Announcements (JSCA) Web page to view the newly posted announcement: JSCA 13-022: Agency Sponsored Development Programs JSCA 13-023: Communications with Industry Procurement Solicitation for Engineering Fabrication Services Contract Archived announcements are also available on the JSCA Web page. Linda Turnbough x36246 http://ird.jsc.nasa.gov/DocumentManagement/announcements/default.aspx [top]    Organizations/Social Reminder: INCOSE Texas Gulf Coast Chapter Program The Texas Gulf Coast Chapter of INCOSE invites you to "A Systems Integration Panel Discussion: Challenges and Opportunities in Advancing the State of the Art." The program will feature a panel of systems engineering practitioners discussing system integration, one of the most challenging issues facing our community. We often excel at developing individual technologies, but fail when attempting to integrate these on schedule and budget into operating systems. Join us on July 18 in the Lockheed Martin Orion Conference Center (2625 Bay Area Blvd., Suite 160, Houston, 77058) to hear what these experts have to say about system integration, ask questions and add your own insights to the discussion. Refreshments and networking start at 5:30 p.m. The program starts at 6 p.m. RSVP to Larry Spratlin or leave a message at 281-461-5218. The event is free for INCOSE members and $10 for non-members. Visit our website. Larry Spratlin 281-461-5218 [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 Human Resources (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] Prepare for Retirement and Prevent Excessive Taxes Financial Wellness offerings continue this week with retirement and taxes. Join us in a conference room near you! FW106 and 206: Retire with Confidence Understand retirement goals, income needs and sources, qualified vs. non-qualified money, savings rates, asset risk and allocations, and retirement "gotcha's" such as RMD. FW107 and 207: Taxes: Dancing with Uncle Sam Learn about taxes, past, present and future, tax stages, W-2 vs. 1099 income, tax buckets, inflation, taxes on the seed versus the tree, tax-advantaged investments, RMD, stretch IRAs, estate taxes and life insurance trusts. Webinars start next week: 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 employees prior, during and after employment separation. Covers planning, budgets, benefits, 401(k) options/loan avoiding taxes and more. Details are at this link. Shelly Haralson x39168 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/ [top] RLLS Portal Education Series July WebEx Training TTI RLLS Portal Education Series - WebEx Training July The July 15 and July 22 weekly RLLS Portal Education Series: July 15 and July 18 - Physical Logical Access at 7:30 a.m., International Space Station Russian Travel at 2 p.m. CDT July 22 and July 25 - Cell Phone Request at 7:30 a.m., International Shipping at 2 p.m. CDT The 30-minute training sessions are computer-based WebEx sessions, offering individuals the convenience to join from their own workstation. The training 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 session, there will be a question-and-answer opportunity. Please remember 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]    Community Bring Our Children to Work Day - Registration Open JSC and the aerospace community are collaborating for an unforgettable Bring Our Children to Work Day (BOCTW) event on Thursday, Aug. 15, at Space Center Houston (SCH). Your children will experience NASA by participating in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) activities and shadowing you during the workday. Guest speakers, breakout sessions, demonstration booths and hands-on activities will enhance their experience. Admission is through registration only for children grades K-12 and is open to the first 700 to sign up. This number includes employees and their children. Registration ends at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 1. To register, click here. BOCTW participants are invited to remain at SCH to attend NASA's Summer of Innovation Voyage Back to School community event from 4 to 7 p.m. For additional information, please visit the Inside JSC home page. Off-site contractor employees should contact their company representative for information regarding their company's participation in BOCTW Day. Event Date: Thursday, August 15, 2013   Event Start Time:9:00 AM   Event End Time:3:00 PM Event Location: Space Center Houston Add to Calendar Glenda Johnson x30377 [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.

 

 

 

 

NASA TV:

·         6 am Central TUESDAY (7 EDT) – Expedition 36 spacewalk coverage begins

·         7 am Central TUESDAY (8 EDT) – E34/35's Tom Marshburn discusses EVA at Washington's Newseum during E36 spacewalk

·         ~7:10 am Central TUESDAY (8:10 EDT) – EVA begins with EMU switch to battery power

ü  Chris Cassidy – EV1 (sixth EVA)

ü  Luca Parmitano – EV2 (second)

 

Human Spaceflight News

Monday – July 15, 2013

 

HEADLINES AND LEADS

 

Space station launch set for September

 

Carol Vaughn - Salisbury Daily Times

 

An Antares rocket carrying cargo to the International Space Station will launch from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at Wallops Island in mid-September, according to the latest update from Orbital Sciences. Orbital teams preparing the rocket and the Cygnus cargo spacecraft for the demonstration mission to the International Space Station are "well along in preparations," the release said.

 

Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser Gets Wings and Tail, Starts Ground Testing

 

Ken Kremer - Universe Today

 

Sierra Nevada Corporation's winged Dream Chaser engineering test article is moving forward with a series of ground tests at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in California that will soon lead to dramatic aerial flight tests throughout 2013. Pathfinding tow test's on Dryden's concrete runway aim to validate the performance of the vehicles' nose skid, brakes, tires and other systems to prove that it can safely land an astronaut crew after surviving the searing re-entry from Earth orbit. Watch this exciting minute-long, time-lapse video showing attachment of the wings and tail.

 

No Contest for Pad 39A? SpaceX Appears To Be Only Bidder

 

Irene Klotz - Space News

 

Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) appears to be the only company that put in a proposal to NASA to take over one of the space shuttle's mothballed launch pads at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. NASA declined to comment on how many bids it received in response to a solicitation that closed on July 5, but a survey of U.S. launch companies by SpaceNews shows only SpaceX saying it put in a proposal to take over Launch Complex 39A.

 

Johnson's Deputy Director Leaves NASA for New SGT Subsidiary

 

Dan Leone - Space News

 

Steve Altemus left his position as deputy director of the Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston and will be replaced by Kirk Shireman, who had been deputy manager for the international space station program, a NASA spokesman said. Altemus, meanwhile, will head up a new Houston-based subsidiary of Stinger Ghaffarian Technologies (SGT) Inc. called Intuitive Machines. "Our goal is to be the premier provider of disruptive intelligent machine engineering solutions to conquer the toughest technical challenges in aerospace, medicine, and energy," Altemus said in a July 10 press release on Intuitive Machines' website.

 

Ocean science, Laser comm. highlight new space station research

 

Ben Evans - AmericaSpace.com

 

Two years after the retirement of the space shuttle fleet, the role of the International Space Station has long since begun the transitional process from a work-in-progress to a fully-fledged research facility in low-Earth orbit. In few other areas is this reality better exemplified than through two exciting scientific experiments—one already aboard the vast, multi-national outpost, the other scheduled to ride SpaceX's CRS-3 Dragon in December—which seek to open our eyes in new ways to the coastal oceans and demonstrate novel technologies to enable faster space communications. Last week, NASA announced its intention to expand its Hyperspectral Imager for the Coastal Ocean (HICO) instrument to more Earth scientists and environmental researchers. The instrument, which resides atop the Exposed Facility of the Japanese Kibo laboratory, records highly detailed images of various terrestrial environments for research, support, and management.

 

NASA to Use Laser Technology for Improved Spacecraft Communication

 

Nupur Jha - iDigital Times

 

A new communication technology called Optical Payload for Lasercomm Science (OPALS) will be taken up by NASA to improve its spacecraft communication. With this, NASA's data rates for communications with future spacecraft can improve by a factor of 10 to 100 by OPALS. The data will be sent by OPALS in the form of a laser beam from the International Space Station to Earth.

 

They've got their own little space in space

 

Gene Evans - Muscatine Journal (Iowa)

 

This month we will talk a little bit about the ISS (International Space Station.) This big guy is zipping around the earth approximately 230 miles above us and going 4.791 miles per second; that's about 17,250 miles per hour. So far it has traveled 1.5 billion miles in the time it has been in orbit. It can hold a crew of six astronauts and it's easily seen with the naked eye if you know when and where to look as it passes over our area.

 

Veteran astronaut seeks funding to boost plasma engines

 

Paul Sutherland - SEN.com (Space Exploration Network)

 

A company developing a powerful new rocket engine has become the latest space enterprise to seek crowd-sourced funding. Ad Astra Rocket Company, which is headed by a former NASA astronaut who shares the record for flights on the Space Shuttle, with seven trips into orbit, is working on advanced plasma propulsion technology. But the $46,000 being sought through Kickstarter is not to help the company develop the engine. It will pay for the production of a documentary video to help spread the word about their innovative work. Ad Astra's revolutionary engine is called Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) and its inventor, veteran astronaut Dr Franklin Chang Díaz, has been working on it since he researched plasma drives for his doctorate in the late Seventies.

 

Houston Airport System plan calls for building spaceport at Ellington Field

 

Craig Hlavaty - Houston Chronicle

 

The Houston Airport System sees the potential for the city to be a leading player in commercial spaceflight and presented plans Thursday to build a spaceport at Ellington Field. Mario Diaz, the Director of Aviation at the Houston Airport System, presented a plan to City Council's Budget and Fiscal Affairs Committee  that details unique advantages Houston has over other emerging spaceport cities and outlines which types of spacecraft could be launched from populated areas.

 

Boulder's Golden Spike being courted by Texas and Florida

 

Kristen Leigh Painter - Denver Post

 

The small but ambitious Golden Spike Co. may not have a space vehicle, manufacturing plant or large payroll yet, but both Texas and Florida are courting the Boulder-based startup with the aim of stealing its headquarters away from Colorado. The company stands as a stark example of how aerospace-reliant states are beginning to focus on startup space companies at a time when budget constraints have made large government contracts less reliable. It also highlights what some say is a weakness on Colorado's part when it comes to "new space" business. Golden Spike, which hopes to send privately funded human expeditions to the moon by 2020, has created a high level of buzz that seems disproportionate to its size. But both Texas and Florida — two of Colorado's primary aerospace competitors — see long-term potential and are actively pursuing the company.

 

Air Force considers privatizing Cape Canaveral operations

Operator would oversee duties at AFS, Eastern Range

 

James Dean - Florida Today

 

Since the first rocket shot from the Cape in 1950, the Air Force has coordinated local launch activity and provided tracking and safety oversight for outbound vehicles — including pushing the destruct button if one veers off course. Meetings this week will explore a major change to that historic role, studying the possibility of privatizing some or all operations at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and the Eastern Range, "the nation's premier gateway to space." Under a preliminary concept to be discussed in a public forum Thursday and Friday in Colorado Springs, responsibilities now handled by the 45th Space Wing would be turned over to a spaceport operator approved by the Federal Aviation Administration.

 

Sierra Nevada unveils Dream Chaser model at U.S. Space & Rocket Center

 

Lucy Berry - Huntsville Times

 

Graduating from Space Camp has always been one of Sarah Blank's dreams, but the soon-to-be seventh-grader got a surprise Friday morning when officials revealed a piece of history at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center. Blank, of Clarksville, Tenn., was among 523 Space Camp and Aviation Challenge graduates who witnessed the unveiling of a one-third scale model of Sierra Nevada Corporation's Dream Chaser module. The model will be on display inside the U.S. Space & Rocket Center's Saturn V Hall.

 

Annual budget battle may mean trouble for NASA

 

John Kelly - Florida Today (Commentary)

 

The early chatter around NASA's next budget and the intertwined space policy direction from Congress is worrisome. Unfortunately, it's not unusual. The story is starting to sound the same every year as parochial concerns and politics stall real progress on setting a long-term policy and spending plan for the space agency that can give it some traction.

 

Partners in Space: The First U.S.-Russian Manned Space Mission

 

Ben Evans - AmericaSpace.com

 

For almost two decades, the United States and Russia have collaborated in the grandest scientific, engineering, and human endeavor ever undertaken in human history: the construction of the International Space Station. Since the days of Shuttle-Mir, these two former superpowers—which once viewed each other with mistrust through the lens of differing political ideologies—have forged an enduring partnership. It has not been an easy journey and down-to-Earth politics has often strained relations, but it seems likely to continue. Yet the seeds of this partnership were first sown way before Shuttle-Mir and the ISS … back in the early 1970s, when America and the then-Soviet Union emerged for the briefest of times from the "deep cold" of the Cold War and staged a manned space mission together. It was known as the "Apollo-Soyuz Test Project" (ASTP).

 

W. Rod Puffer, NASA security director

 

Washington Post

 

W. Rod Puffer, a former security chief of NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston who retired in 1989 as the space agency's security director in Washington, died June 20 at his home in Arlington County. He was 79. He had complications from a stroke suffered in 2011, his son Donovan Puffer said.

 

Welsh astronaut who missed out on becoming one of first men on moon dies, aged 80

 

Nathan Bevan - Wales Online

 

The Welsh astronaut who missed out on the chance of becoming one of the first men on the moon because he had problems learning to fly has died, aged 80. Cardiff-born Dr John "Tony" Llewellyn resigned from Nasa's spaceman corps in 1968, less than 12 months before the historic lunar landings which could have seen his name added to the cosmic annals of history. In the role for just 12 months, Llewellyn took the torturous decision to opt out because he'd failed to master piloting jet aircraft "blindfolded" – a mandatory part of his training.

__________

 

COMPLETE STORIES

 

Space station launch set for September

 

Carol Vaughn - Salisbury Daily Times

 

An Antares rocket carrying cargo to the International Space Station will launch from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at Wallops Island in mid-September, according to the latest update from Orbital Sciences.

 

Orbital teams preparing the rocket and the Cygnus cargo spacecraft for the demonstration mission to the International Space Station are "well along in preparations," the release said.

 

The mission is the last milestone in the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services agreement between Orbital Sciences and NASA. If successful, it will clear the way for Orbital to begin regular cargo resupply missions to the space station—the company has a contract with NASA for eight such missions under the Commercial Resupply Services program.

 

The two stages of the Antares rocket have been joined and the rocket is in the final stages of integration and testing, the release said.

 

Additionally, the Cygnus spacecraft has already been loaded with some 1,300 pounds of cargo. About 250 pounds more is expected to be added before the launch.

 

The rocket and spacecraft should be ready for launch by late August, but the date is being pushed back because NASA Wallops Flight Facility is also supporting NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Experiment Explorer mission, set to launch Sept. 6.

 

Priority has been given to the LADEE mission, which will be launched on a Minotaur V rocket, also built by Orbital.

 

The target date for the Antares launch is Sept. 14, with a launch window of Sept. 14-19. The Cygnus carrying its cargo is scheduled to dock with the International Space Station on Sept. 22.

 

Orbital teams will continue work to get the Antares and Cygnus ready for launch as early as the end of August in case the LADEE mission is unexpectedly delayed, "giving NASA additional options to maximize the launch manifest from Wallops," the release said.

 

Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser Gets Wings and Tail, Starts Ground Testing

 

Ken Kremer - Universe Today

 

Sierra Nevada Corporation's winged Dream Chaser engineering test article is moving forward with a series of ground tests at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in California that will soon lead to dramatic aerial flight tests throughout 2013.

 

Pathfinding tow test's on Dryden's concrete runway aim to validate the performance of the vehicles' nose skid, brakes, tires and other systems to prove that it can safely land an astronaut crew after surviving the searing re-entry from Earth orbit.

 

The Dream Chaser is one of the three types of private sector 'space taxis' being developed with NASA seed money to restore America's capability to blast humans to Earth orbit from American soil – a capability which was totally lost following the forced shutdown of NASA's Space Shuttle program in 2011.

 

For the initial ground tests, the engineering test article was pulled by a tow truck at 10 and 20 MPH. Later this month tow speeds will be ramped up to 40 to 60 MPH.

 

Final assembly of the Dream Chaser test vehicle was completed at Dryden with installation of the wings and tail, following shipment from SNC's Space Systems headquarters in Louisville, Colo.

 

Watch this exciting minute-long, time-lapse video showing attachment of the wings and tail.

 

In the next phase later this year, Sierra Nevada will conduct airborne captive carry tests using an Erickson Skycrane helicopter.

 

Atmospheric drop tests of the engineering test article in an autonomous free flight mode for Approach and Landing Tests (ALT) will follow to check the aerodynamic handling.

 

The engineering test article is a full sized vehicle.

 

Dream Chaser is a reusable mini shuttle that launches from the Florida Space Coast atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket and lands on the shuttle landing facility (SLF) runway at the Kennedy Space Center, like the Space Shuttle.

 

"It's not outfitted for orbital flight. It is outfitted for atmospheric flight tests," said Marc Sirangelo, Sierra Nevada Corp. vice president and SNC Space Systems chairman, to Universe Today.

 

"The best analogy is it's very similar to what NASA did in the shuttle program with the Enterprise, creating a vehicle that would allow it to do significant flights whose design then would filter into the final vehicle for orbital flight," Sirangelo told me.

 

Sierra Nevada Corp, along with Boeing and SpaceX are working with NASA in a public-private partnership using a combination of NASA seed money and company funds.

 

Each company was awarded contracts under NASA's Commercial Crew Integrated Capability Initiative, or CCiCap, program, the third in a series of contracts aimed at kick starting the development of the private sector 'space taxis' to fly US and partner astronauts to and from low Earth orbit (LEO) and the International Space Station (ISS).

 

"We are the emotional successors to the shuttle," says Sirangelo. "Our target was to repatriate that industry back to the United States, and that's what we're doing."

 

The combined value of NASA's Phase 1 CCiCap contracts is about $1.1 Billion and runs through March 2014.

 

Phase 2 contract awards will eventually lead to actual flight units after a down selection to one or more of the companies.

 

Everything depends on NASA's approved budget, which seems headed for steep cuts in excess of a billion dollars if the Republican dominated US House has its way.

 

The Commercial Crew program's goal is to ensure the nation has safe, reliable and affordable crew transportation systems to space.

 

"Unique public-private partnerships like the one between NASA and Sierra Nevada Corporation are creating an industry capable of building the next generation of rockets and spacecraft that will carry U.S. astronauts to the scientific proving ground of low-Earth orbit," said William Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for human exploration and operations in Washington, in a statement.

 

"NASA centers around the country paved the way for 50 years of American human spaceflight, and they're actively working with our partners to test innovative commercial space systems that will continue to ensure American leadership in exploration and discovery."

 

All three commercial vehicles – the Boeing CST-100; SpaceX Dragon and Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser – are designed to carry a crew of up to 7 astronauts and remain docked at the ISS for more than 6 months.

 

The first orbital flight test of the Dream Chaser is not expected before 2016 and could be further delayed if NASA's commercial crew budget is again slashed by the Congress – as was done the past few years.

 

In the meantime, US astronauts are totally dependent on Russia's Soyuz capsule for rides to the ISS. NASA must pay Russia upwards of $70 million per seat until the space taxis are ready for liftoff – perhaps in 2017.

 

"We have got to get Commercial Crew funded, or we're going to be paying the Russians forever," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden at Dryden. "Without Commercial Crew, we probably won't have exploration."

 

Concurrently, NASA is developing the Orion Crew capsule for missions to the Moon, Asteroids and beyond to Mars and other destinations in our Solar System.

 

No Contest for Pad 39A? SpaceX Appears To Be Only Bidder

 

Irene Klotz - Space News

 

Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) appears to be the only company that put in a proposal to NASA to take over one of the space shuttle's mothballed launch pads at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida.

 

NASA declined to comment on how many bids it received in response to a solicitation that closed on July 5, but a survey of U.S. launch companies by SpaceNews shows only SpaceX saying it put in a proposal to take over Launch Complex 39A.

 

United Launch Alliance, which flies the Delta and Atlas rockets, and ATK, which has been developing a shuttle-derived launcher called Liberty, said they passed on the Pad 39A solicitation.

 

Orbital Sciences Corp., which this year completed the first test flight of its new Antares rocket to fly cargo to the international space station, launches from Wallops Island, Va. Company spokesman Barry Beneski said he did not know of any plans to expand to Florida.

 

Likewise passing is Space Florida, the state-backed economic development agency that has been selected to take over operations and develop the shuttle's runway for commercial operations.

 

NASA is looking for a commercial partner to lease Pad 39A, and intends to keep the second shuttle launch pad, 39B, for its heavy-lift Space Launch System. The design for 39B also would accommodate commercial users.

 

California-based SpaceX already flies its Falcon 9 rockets from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, located just south of Kennedy Space Center, and is preparing for launch of its first rocket from a newly developed site at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

 

The company has been on the hunt for a third site, preferably one that would be overseen by the Federal Aviation Administration, not NASA or the military. An environmental assessment of a potential site in Texas is under way.

 

Documents posted on NASA's solicitation website shows the agency wants to have a commercial operator for Pad 39A in place by Oct. 1, 2013, when funding for maintenance is slated for termination.

 

Johnson's Deputy Director Leaves NASA for New SGT Subsidiary

 

Dan Leone - Space News

 

Steve Altemus left his position as deputy director of the Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston and will be replaced by Kirk Shireman, who had been deputy manager for the international space station program, a NASA spokesman said.

 

Altemus, who had been with the agency since 2006, left his post as JSC's No. 2 this month, spokesman Josh Byerly said in a July 9 email. "Kirk is transitioning now," and his official first day as deputy director will be "at the end of the month," Byerly said. He declined to provide exact dates.

 

Altemus, meanwhile, will head up a new Houston-based subsidiary of Stinger Ghaffarian Technologies (SGT) Inc. called Intuitive Machines.

 

"Our goal is to be the premier provider of disruptive intelligent machine engineering solutions to conquer the toughest technical challenges in aerospace, medicine, and energy," Altemus said in a July 10 press release on Intuitive Machines' website.

 

The company also " will be doing space robotics based on technologies they are pulling out of [Johnson] and other places," Walt Faulconer, president of Columbia, Md.-based consulting firm Strategic Space Solutions, which includes SGT and Intuitive Machines among its clients.

 

Ocean science, Laser comm. highlight new space station research

 

Ben Evans - AmericaSpace.com

 

Two years after the retirement of the space shuttle fleet, the role of the International Space Station has long since begun the transitional process from a work-in-progress to a fully-fledged research facility in low-Earth orbit. In few other areas is this reality better exemplified than through two exciting scientific experiments—one already aboard the vast, multi-national outpost, the other scheduled to ride SpaceX's CRS-3 Dragon in December—which seek to open our eyes in new ways to the coastal oceans and demonstrate novel technologies to enable faster space communications.

 

Last week, NASA announced its intention to expand its Hyperspectral Imager for the Coastal Ocean (HICO) instrument to more Earth scientists and environmental researchers. The instrument, which resides atop the Exposed Facility of the Japanese Kibo laboratory, records highly detailed images of various terrestrial environments for research, support, and management. Originally conceived by the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), last December it completed a three-year primary mission of collecting regional coastal ocean data for civilian and naval research and is now supported by NASA's ISS Program. The space agency is inviting proposals for scientific or commercial use of HICO, with particular interest already expressed by the Environmental Protection Agency.

 

HICO is an imaging spectrometer with the capability to detail the biological and chemical signatures of aquatic and terrestrial materials and is the first of its kind to specifically examine the coastal oceans. It was launched aboard Japan's H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV)-2 Kounotori in September 2009, and after the cargo craft had berthed at the space station it was robotically transferred to the Exposed Facility. Each year, it collects approximately 2,000 scenes from around the world, with current projects ranging from water quality in Puerto Rico to seafloor mapping in South China and from the optical properties of water in northeast and western Australia to measurements of the effects of oil and other pollution.

 

At the same time, forthcoming research aboard the ISS will include the Optical Payload for Lasercomm Science (OPALS), slated to ride into orbit aboard SpaceX's CRS-3 Dragon mission in early December. This experiment—due to fly from the storied Space Launch Complex (SLC)-40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.—will test new technologies which could dramatically improve spacecraft communications, enhance commercial missions, and strengthen the transmission of scientific data by a factor of 10-100.

 

"Future operational laser communications systems will have the ability to transmit more data from spacecraft down to the ground than they currently do," said Michael Kokorowski, OPALS project manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., where the instrument was fabricated. He added that this ability will help to mitigate a "significant bottleneck" for scientific investigations and commercial ventures. After arrival from Pasadena, OPALS was subsequently delivered to the Kennedy Space Center, Fla., where it is currently undergoing checkout, ahead of its launch from SLC-40, no earlier than 9 December. After the Dragon craft has berthed at the space station, OPALS will be transferred to the nadir (Earth-facing) side of a truss-based ExPRESS Logistics Carrier (ELC) for a 90-day mission.

 

Optical communications—or "lasercomm"—involves the modulation of data onto laser beams, enabling much higher data rates than currently achievable with radio-frequency (RF) transmissions. OPALS will transfer a video from its payload to a ground receiver at JPL's Optical Communications Telescope Laboratory in Wrightwood, Calif. As the space station traverses the sky, a laser beacon will be transmitted from the ground telescope onto the payload and tracked. While maintaining lock on the uplink beacon with a closed loop control system and two-axis gimbal, OPALS will downlink a modulated laser beam with a formatted video in several demonstrations, each lasting about 100 seconds.

 

NASA to Use Laser Technology for Improved Spacecraft Communication

 

Nupur Jha - iDigital Times

 

A new communication technology called Optical Payload for Lasercomm Science (OPALS) will be taken up by NASA to improve its spacecraft communication.

 

With this, NASA's data rates for communications with future spacecraft can improve by a factor of 10 to 100 by OPALS. The data will be sent by OPALS in the form of a laser beam from the International Space Station to Earth.

 

It is an optical technology demonstration experiment which came to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida from the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

 

It is scheduled to be launched aboard the space station later this year on a SpaceX Dragon commercial resupply capsule on the company's Falcon 9 rocket.

 

"OPALS represents a tangible stepping stone for laser communications, and the International Space Station is a great platform for an experiment like this," said Michael Kokorowski, OPALS project manager at JPL.

 

"Future operational laser communication systems will have the ability to transmit more data from spacecraft down to the ground than they currently do, mitigating a significant bottleneck for scientific investigations and commercial ventures," Kokorowsk added.

 

OPALS will be mounted International Space Station and communicate with a ground station in Wrightwood, California a mountain town near Los Angeles.

 

"It's like aiming a laser pointer continuously for two minutes at a dot the diameter of a human hair from 30 feet away while you're walking," explained OPALS systems engineer Bogdan Oaida of JPL.

 

The OPALS instrument was built at JPL and is slated to fly on the Dragon capsule in late 2013. The mission is expected to run 90 days after installation on the station.

 

The OPALS Project Office is based in JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

 

They've got their own little space in space

 

Gene Evans - Muscatine Journal (Iowa)

 

This month we will talk a little bit about the ISS (International Space Station.) This big guy is zipping around the earth approximately 230 miles above us and going 4.791 miles per second; that's about 17,250 miles per hour.

 

So far it has traveled 1.5 billion miles in the time it has been in orbit. It can hold a crew of six astronauts and it's easily seen with the naked eye if you know when and where to look as it passes over our area.

 

Some interesting facts about the ISS are that it is 357 feet wide, while the module itself is 167.3 feet. The solar panels are 35 feet long and 11 feet wide and gather the energy needed for the craft from the sun. This entire unit is slightly larger than a football field.

 

The ISS weighs almost approximately 925,000 pounds; that's the equivalent of more than 320 automobiles. It has been in space for almost 15 years and still going strong. The first crew to man the station consisted of three astronauts who were launched in the space shuttle Discovery on Oct. 31, 2000, and docked with the ISS on Nov. 2, 2000. They left the station on March 18, 2001, for a safe trip home. Quite a feat.

 

The station has been used by a number of spacecraft over the years and will continue to do so. As of June 2013 there have been 89 Russian visits, 37 space shuttle visits, three Japanese and three European visits. And last but not least is the commercial craft SpaceX-Dragon.

 

The station has made 57,361 orbits and still going great. You would have a spectacular view of earth and sky from a 360-degree bay window. It also has two bathrooms, a gymnasium (though, who needs exercise in weightless space?) and the same amount of room as a five bedroom house. There have been 168 space walks from the station and more to come.

 

I will not be going into all the computer info that is stored on board the station because it would take too much space, but it would blow your mind.

 

For those interested, NASA provides a list of the best times to spto the station, based on your location. Just go to the spotthestation.nasa.gov/sightings and enter your location in the "location lookup" field.

 

Keep looking up!

 

Veteran astronaut seeks funding to boost plasma engines

 

Paul Sutherland - SEN.com (Space Exploration Network)

 

A company developing a powerful new rocket engine has become the latest space enterprise to seek crowd-sourced funding.

 

Ad Astra Rocket Company, which is headed by a former NASA astronaut who shares the record for flights on the Space Shuttle, with seven trips into orbit, is working on advanced plasma propulsion technology.

 

But the $46,000 being sought through Kickstarter is not to help the company develop the engine. It will pay for the production of a documentary video to help spread the word about their innovative work.

 

Ad Astra's revolutionary engine is called Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) and its inventor, veteran astronaut Dr Franklin Chang Díaz, has been working on it since he researched plasma drives for his doctorate in the late Seventies.

 

After early experimental work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Plasma Fusion Center and then NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC), the private company was set up in 2005 dedicated to the development of advanced plasma rocket propulsion. Also on the company board is George Abbey, a former Director of JSC and so another man with great experience of manned spaceflight.

 

Ad Astra say their rocket engine, using superheated gas for thrust, represents the best form of power to drive spacecraft on missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond. The technology is not suited to lifting vehicles from the ground into orbit, but once in the vacuum of space it is far more efficient than a conventional chemical rocket.

 

Company CEO and Chairman Dr Chang Díaz, who flew seven times on four of NASA's five Shuttles, between 1986 and 2002, believes craft fitted with VASIMR engines will be able to carry twice as much cargo to the Moon as other vehicles and could get to Mars in half the time.

 

The technology could also be used to deflect asteroids that are on a collision course, remove space debris or boost the International Space Station into a higher orbit. Plasma power allows the craft to reach phenomenal speeds in deep space by providing continuous acceleration.

 

So how does this form of propulsion work? In a VASIMR engine, gas such as argon, xenon, or hydrogen is injected into a tube surrounded by a magnet and a series of two radio wave antennas, or couplers. The couplers turn cold gas into superheated plasma and the expanding magnetic field at the end of the rocket (the magnetic nozzle) converts the plasma particles' thermal motion into a directed thrust.

 

The company, which is based near Houston and in Costa Rica, and also has offices in Frankfurt, Germany, is offering rewards for different levels of funding from $5 to $10,000 or more. If the initial funding goal is reached before the closing date of 12 August, stretch goals will include further spending on the documentary and an animation.

 

Launching the crowd-funding campaign, Dr Chang Díaz said: "This is a rocket like no other rocket you might have seen in the past. It is not used for launching things into space or landing them back but rather it is used for moving things already there. We call this in-space propulsion.

 

"The company's limited resources are primarily used for the development of the VASIMR propulsion system and its related technologies. Nonetheless, we constantly receive enquiries about the working of our rocket. So in order to address the high public interest we have set out to make this Kickstarter-funded documentary that explains the abilities of our technology."

 

Space mining company Planetary Resources recently used Kickstarter to raise funds to operate an Arkyd space telescope.

 

Dr Chang Díaz, who shares his US missions record with Jerry Ross, has logged over 1,601 hours in space, including 19 hours and 31 minutes in three spacewalks. He helped send the Galileo spacecraft on its mission to Jupiter and worked aboard both the Russian Mir space station and the ISS.

 

Houston Airport System plan calls for building spaceport at Ellington Field

 

Craig Hlavaty - Houston Chronicle

 

The Houston Airport System sees the potential for the city to be a leading player in commercial spaceflight and presented plans Thursday to build a spaceport at Ellington Field.

 

Mario Diaz, the Director of Aviation at the Houston Airport System, presented a plan to City Council's Budget and Fiscal Affairs Committee  that details unique advantages Houston has over other emerging spaceport cities and outlines which types of spacecraft could be launched from populated areas.

 

Councilwoman Ellen Cohen's chief of staff Brooke Boyett said Cohen found the presentation and prospect of a Houston spaceport "exciting."

 

Diaz and the Houston Airport System hopes to see Houston as a leader in commercial aerospace travel in the next 20 years. The presentation notes that within 25 years of the Wright brothers' first flight, Houston had an airfield -- W.T. Carter Field -- which later became Hobby Airport.

 

"The spotlight will be on Houston in September as we host the Commercial Spaceflight Federation meetings which attract aerospace organizations from across the country," said Diaz.

 

The Commercial Spaceflight Federation is an industry association of over 40 leading businesses and organizations working to make commercial human spaceflight a reality.

 

Houston's booming economy is also mentioned in the material.

 

"We envision that (Ellington) could be a focal point for aerospace innovation, a regional center for a cluster of aerospace entities acting as incubators for aerospace innovation and growth," said the presentation.

 

According to the spaceport presentation, Ellington could host orbital, sub-orbital, and point-to-point launches. There would be no vertical launches at Ellington.

 

They are also reportedly working on an FAA/AST Spaceport License, collaborations with the Johnson Space Center, and partnerships with local universities like Rice, Texas A&M, University of Houston, and Texas Southern University are also being forged.

 

There are also preliminary maps of what Ellington Field would look like with added spaceport capabilities.

 

The presentation reitierates at the end that it's imperative that spaceport planning begins soon, calling it "critical".

 

"Houston, with its distinct advantages, has the potential to become a major player

in this industry by preparing ourselves early."

 

"Preparedness meets opportunity," goes the message.

 

Boulder's Golden Spike being courted by Texas and Florida

 

Kristen Leigh Painter - Denver Post

 

The small but ambitious Golden Spike Co. may not have a space vehicle, manufacturing plant or large payroll yet, but both Texas and Florida are courting the Boulder-based startup with the aim of stealing its headquarters away from Colorado.

 

The company stands as a stark example of how aerospace-reliant states are beginning to focus on startup space companies at a time when budget constraints have made large government contracts less reliable. It also highlights what some say is a weakness on Colorado's part when it comes to "new space" business.

 

Golden Spike, which hopes to send privately funded human expeditions to the moon by 2020, has created a high level of buzz that seems disproportionate to its size. But both Texas and Florida — two of Colorado's primary aerospace competitors — see long-term potential and are actively pursuing the company.

 

"I would say (Texas and Florida) are night and day aggressive, in a positive sense, in the way they are courting us," said Alan Stern, president and CEO of Golden Spike. "Whereas, I don't know anyone in Colorado who has contacted anyone on our board. It is as if we don't exist in Colorado."

 

According to Stern, Florida began supporting Golden Spike in several ways late last year, including monetary investment, and Texas has invited the company into relocation talks.

 

"Golden Spike is not going to be generating a lot of jobs this year or next year, but it is more of the long-term investment," said Dale Ketcham, chief of strategic alliances at Space Florida. "They may or may not succeed, but there is a certain level of risk capital involved in the process and much of that is based upon the concepts and Alan Stern, who has a high level of credibility."

 

While California is considered the largest aerospace economy in both traditional and new space, the state's high living costs and difficult business environment has caused it to hemorrhage aerospace companies.

 

The other states generally considered aerospace leaders — Texas, Florida and Colorado — each offer different strengths.

 

Texas ranks as the most tax-friendly environment for small businesses, according to the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council's 2013 Business Tax Index. Florida has its own state entity called Space Florida that is solely dedicated to recruiting for and diversifying the state's aerospace industry. Colorado boasts the nation's highest per-capita aerospace employment figures and the most educated population among its competitors.

 

Stern has planted serious roots in Colorado but he is no stranger to the interested states, having built connections through his former position as NASA's chief scientist and the principal investigator on NASA's $720 million New Horizons' Pluto-Kuiper Belt mission, which is currently on its way to the distant planet.

 

"Colorado is my home. I raised my family here and have been here 30 years. I absolutely love it. But now running a start-up, you see Colorado through a different lens. We were never approached by anyone here, no one picked up the phone or asked us even to lunch. Compare that to (Texas and Florida) offering to fly us down there and asking us to relocate," Stern said.

 

For their part, Colorado leaders say they have not separated aerospace from their overarching goal of bolstering all advanced industries in the state.

 

"We are just trying to build out the entire advanced industries ecosystem. We don't want to focus on just one advanced industry," said Michelle Hadwiger, director of aerospace business development at the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade.

 

Colorado has tried to reach startups in various ways. The state has passed the Advanced Industries Accelerator Act, and Gov. John Hickenlooper has rolled out his "Colorado Blueprint" — a bottom-up approach to economic development.

 

While that may not directly address Golden Spike's situation as aggressively as other states, it is a start as Colorado attempts to avoid future gaps.

 

A recent Brookings Institution study found a vulnerability in Colorado related to adjacent markets and "new space," an industry catchphrase for the emerging private spaceflight industry — a category that Golden Spike fits into perfectly.

 

"A classic, new space company is missing and could be helpful to the Colorado mix," said Mark Muro, author of the Brookings study.

 

The risk for Colorado is knowing which companies will succeed and are therefore worth the investment.

 

"These technologies are very unknown, but is this going to be a business reality in 20 years? Probably so," said Vicky Lea, aviation and aerospace industry manager for Metro Denver Economic Development Corp. "We can't continue to rely on the fact that we have a great climate and beautiful mountains. We as a state also need to focus on creating an entrepreneurial business state."

 

Another effort the state is making is hiring an aerospace-specific champion who is going to just focus on aerospace and military, serving a role similar to what Space Florida does now, according to the OEDIT.

 

The state's efforts may be too little too late for Golden Spike, which recently had several technical breakthroughs with research partner companies like Northrup Grumman and United Launch Alliance, moving it quickly along its business development plan.

 

Each two-person expedition to the moon carries a price tag of $1.5 billion. Stern estimates, based off of market interest, there will be 20 to 30 launches.

 

If Golden Spike launched 25 expeditions, the company holds $40 billion in potential market value, Stern estimates. "That's a pretty substantial business by anyone's standards," he said.

 

For Stern and Golden Spike, the courting process isn't about government funding but about relationships and support during these early stages that will make the biggest difference.

 

"We are not out there with a tin cup looking for help from the state, or from any government sources. Ours really is a very strong business model that doesn't rely on a billionaire or becoming a U.S. government contractor," Stern said. "There are certainly no bad feelings. It is just odd that we haven't been contacted at all from within Colorado."

 

Air Force considers privatizing Cape Canaveral operations

Operator would oversee duties at AFS, Eastern Range

 

James Dean - Florida Today

 

Since the first rocket shot from the Cape in 1950, the Air Force has coordinated local launch activity and provided tracking and safety oversight for outbound vehicles — including pushing the destruct button if one veers off course.

 

Meetings this week will explore a major change to that historic role, studying the possibility of privatizing some or all operations at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and the Eastern Range, "the nation's premier gateway to space."

 

Under a preliminary concept to be discussed in a public forum Thursday and Friday in Colorado Springs, responsibilities now handled by the 45th Space Wing would be turned over to a spaceport operator approved by the Federal Aviation Administration.

 

"The Air Force wants to understand issues associated with transitioning current government range operations at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station to a commercial spaceport," reads an invitation sent to local officials.

 

Air Force Space Command's meeting announcement and a five-page concept summary stamped "PREDECISIONAL" make clear that the study might not result in any action. If the concept were adopted — a process likely to take years — it's not yet clear if it could dramatically reshape Cape launch operations or simply provide existing services more efficiently.

 

Space Command did not immediately respond to questions about the study, which is part of a broader assessment of range capabilities. The FAA deferred questions to the Air Force.

 

Several experts said budget pressures and increasing commercialization of launch activity are driving the Department of Defense to consider the concept seriously, though ideas have been discussed for years. "Military space has been very expensive and they've got to cut costs," said Charles Vick, senior technical and space policyanalyst at GlobalSecurity.org. "It would allow the Air Force to concentrate less money on running a range and concentrate on the payloads, launch vehicles and propulsion systems, where they really want to make major changes and major progress."

 

Vick believes the proposal would not affect operations significantly, suggesting it would "rearrange rice bowls," or shift responsibilities and costs. But he said it would be important for the Air Force to transfer experience and lessons learned to a new spaceport operator "so that we don't make stupid mistakes with national security payloads and lose them."

 

Edward Ellegood, a space policy analyst at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, saw the concept having more far-reaching implications, potentially resetting how range operations are funded and missions prioritized. He likened the change to the former McCoy Air Force Base turning into Orlando International Airport. "Which would you rather see?" he said. "We might be seeing the beginnings of that transition to a more vibrant commercial space transportation hub."

 

But while giving the Air Force kudos for starting the discussion, Ellegood said he doubts the concept will go anywhere. "It would be a radical change to their national security mindset to give up control over this launch capability," he said.

 

Space Florida CEO Frank DiBello welcomed the Air Force's fresh look at costs and ways to adapt to a changing industry. "It's certainly prompted in part by budget realities, but there is also an opportunity to face the future, to face the way the market is evolving," he said. "The space business is becoming more commercial and more routine, and all of the users of space transportation services should look at the most cost-effective ways of acquiring those services."

 

This week, the Air Force says it wants to learn more about how other public-private partnerships have worked and to solicit feedback from industry partners.

 

According to the concept summary, launch programs would contract for services as needed from a spaceport operator that manages, "as a business or quasi government entity," the airport, roads, utilities, support services and range capabilities at the 16,000-acre base.

 

It assumes the portions of the 45th Space Wing and its contractors "that deal with base and range activities would be eliminated and replaced by an FAA-licensed commercial launch site operator."

 

The new site operator, rocket launchers and government agencies would collaborate to ensure public safety. The FAA has licensed eight spaceports across the country and issues safety approvals for commercial vehicles launching and reentering the atmosphere, including when SpaceX flies cargo to the International Space Station.

 

The agency is expected to license launches from Florida of NASA astronauts on commercial systems anticipated in the next few years.

 

Already, the military is not the only operator of U.S. launch ranges: NASA runs one at Wallops Island in Virginia and Alaska contracts for services at Kodiak Island.

 

NASA says it is working closely with the FAA and Air Force to help ensure range services here would be provided "in the most cost effective and efficient manner without any sacrifice to public safety," according to a statement.

 

Thousands of rockets have launched through the Eastern Range, which spans 15 million square miles, with no public casualties. But its high costs and bureaucracy have contributed to a perception that it is difficult to work with for non-government launchers. That environment has improved, but once-common commercial launches are now virtually non-existent from the Cape, having moved overseas.

 

The Air Force's preliminary study won't affect Space Florida's effort to establish the Shiloh launch complex at the north end of Kennedy Kennedy Space Center and the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, which is competing with other states to win commercial launches by SpaceX and others.

 

"The fact that the range might undergo some degree of privatization doesn't take away the need for Shiloh," DiBello said.

 

The Air Force's next steps after the upcoming meetings could not immediately be confirmed.

 

Sierra Nevada unveils Dream Chaser model at U.S. Space & Rocket Center

 

Lucy Berry - Huntsville Times

 

Graduating from Space Camp has always been one of Sarah Blank's dreams, but the soon-to-be seventh-grader got a surprise Friday morning when officials revealed a piece of history at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center.

 

Blank, of Clarksville, Tenn., was among 523 Space Camp and Aviation Challenge graduates who witnessed the unveiling of a one-third scale model of Sierra Nevada Corporation's Dream Chaser module. The model will be on display inside the U.S. Space & Rocket Center's Saturn V Hall.

 

"It was a lot of fun," Blank said as she held her space camp accolades after graduation. "I thought it was cool that we had the Dream Chaser unveiled at the ceremony, that we got to see it. Not everybody gets to do that."

 

The real Dream Chaser flight vehicle is undergoing ground tests in California at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in preparation of upcoming captive-carry and free-flight tests.

 

The Dream Chaser, which resembles a mini-version of a space shuttle, is a reusable craft that will be able to serve military satellites and transport astronauts into space, Sierra Nevada's Space Systems division Vice President John Roth told AL.com and The Huntsville Times last year.

 

Sierra Nevada will ultimately launch the Dream Chaser to the International Space Station on an Atlas V rocket by the United Launch Alliance in Decatur.

 

U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Huntsville, was among attendees at the revealing of the Dream Chaser model. Deborah Barnhart, chief executive officer of the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, said Friday was an historic day for the space museum.

 

"This spacecraft is going to be able to take us from earth to the space station and beyond carrying crew and supplies for spacecraft into orbit," she said.

 

Todd Mosher, director of design and development for the Dream Chaser, said officials are in the process of creating a Dream Chaser simulator so kids "can fly something more about the future."

 

"We're hoping to actually dedicate that this fall," he said.

 

In late June, Sierra Nevada unveiled a one-third scale Dream Chaser model at the Kennedy Space Center's visitors complex near the new 90,000-square-foot Space Shuttle Atlantis exhibit.

 

Sierra Nevada, which opened an office in Huntsville last year, and Dyncorp recently formed a strategic alliance and announced plans to establish a new fixed-wing aircraft center.

 

Annual budget battle may mean trouble for NASA

 

John Kelly - Florida Today (Commentary)

 

The early chatter around NASA's next budget and the intertwined space policy direction from Congress is worrisome.

 

Unfortunately, it's not unusual.

 

The story is starting to sound the same every year as parochial concerns and politics stall real progress on setting a long-term policy and spending plan for the space agency that can give it some traction.

 

The murmuring so far indicates a NASA spending bill may not come together, at all. In whatever omnibus budget bill does get passed, likely far behind schedule because of other non-space disagreements between the parties, a space spending plan is almost certain to be less than what the White House sought and continue to run at billions of dollars below what leaders had forecast when they agreed to the nation's most recent space exploration strategy.

 

The short version: NASA will continue to operate in semi-paralysis with not only an unclear assignment, but also more tasks and goals than can be accomplished with the funding it's being provided.

 

What's more, there is the disturbing ongoing effort to chip away at seed money for development of commercial crew systems, one major bright spot in NASA's portfolio that continues to show signs of success even with the meager investment made so far. If anyone were measuring results against dollars invested and funding NASA based on that metric, a commercial cargo and commercial crew budget infusion would be in order.

 

Instead, some members of Congress continue to want to reduce funding for the promising private-development efforts.

 

Finally, to top it all off, whatever budget is passed will get loaded up with pork projects that are only tangentially tied to space exploration — and sometimes not even remotely tied to space exploration. Grants, buildings, and science that NASA did not ask for will get funded, inevitably, as the political sausage is made in Washington.

 

This is a process that's repeated itself for decades, and NASA has managed to work its way through the morass and get some impressive things done.

 

The last several years, however, as the federal government's budget has tightened up, space seems to be more and more of an afterthought among the nation's policy makers.

 

Let's hope this year our elected leaders break out of the old bad habits, and pass a meaningful NASA spending plan as well as a policy-authorization bill.

 

Partners in Space: The First U.S.-Russian Manned Space Mission

 

Ben Evans - AmericaSpace.com

 

For almost two decades, the United States and Russia have collaborated in the grandest scientific, engineering, and human endeavor ever undertaken in human history: the construction of the International Space Station. Since the days of Shuttle-Mir, these two former superpowers—which once viewed each other with mistrust through the lens of differing political ideologies—have forged an enduring partnership. It has not been an easy journey and down-to-Earth politics has often strained relations, but it seems likely to continue. Yet the seeds of this partnership were first sown way before Shuttle-Mir and the ISS … back in the early 1970s, when America and the then-Soviet Union emerged for the briefest of times from the "deep cold" of the Cold War and staged a manned space mission together. It was known as the "Apollo-Soyuz Test Project" (ASTP).

 

In January 1973, two years before launch, the two crews were identified. Aboard the Soviet Soyuz 19 would be Alexei Leonov—the world's first spacewalker—and Valeri Kubasov, whilst the American Apollo 18 craft would be manned by Tom Stafford, Vance Brand, and Deke Slayton. The joint mission received more than its fair share of praise and criticism and preparation was rendered difficult, not least due to the enormous gulf between the cultures of East and West. Language was only one issue on the table. The astronauts and cosmonauts were not expected to be conversational or even fluent, but functional. At one press conference, when asked about the language barrier by a journalist, Stafford responded in Russian and Leonov translated it into English. Still, a few linguistic problems remained: the English would "maneuver" sounded like "manure," whilst to the Americans the Russian word for "separate" was similar to "strangulate." During their final months of training, the five men found themselves speaking the other's language as often as possible.

 

For Deke Slayton it was the culmination of a 16-year wait to get into space, after having been grounded in March 1962, only weeks before his scheduled Mercury mission, by a suspected heart condition. Even though he was returned to flight status in early 1972, Slayton's case remained under the medical microscope and NASA doctors insisted on a new ruling: if the astronaut developed any heart fibrillations during the countdown, the clock was to be held at T-4 minutes and he was to be removed from the Apollo 18 command module. Chris Kraft, director of the Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, Texas, was furious at this idea. "He called me and asked me what this was all about," wrote former flight surgeon Chuck Berry, "because he thought Deke was fully qualified to fly."

 

Berry had left NASA in 1974 and went to JSC to assure the doctors that Slayton wasn't going to fibrillate on the launch pad. The ruling was unnecessary, he argued, and even if anything untoward did happen, Slayton was a slow fibrillator and should not be adversely affected. When the astronaut returned from his long-awaited mission, he gave Berry a gift of thanks. It was the cardiac monitor from his medical harness, mounted onto a piece of tracing paper, on which was printed the reading of his heartbeat. It remained steady, with no fibrillations, throughout the nine-day mission. …

 

Early on 15 July, Stafford, Brand, and Slayton were asleep in their quarters at the Kennedy Space Center, Fla., when Soyuz 19 underwent its final preparations for launch, several thousand miles away, in Baikonur, within today's Kazakhstan. Chris Kraft and other senior managers were at their consoles in Houston, listening to voice telemetry from the Soviet Union. Compared to the excitement associated with the countdowns to U.S. launches, the final seconds of Soyuz 19's time on Earth seemed anti-climatic:

 

" … This is Soviet Mission Control Center. Moscow Time is 15 hours, 15 minutes. Everything is ready at the cosmodrome for the launch of the Soviet spacecraft, Soyuz. Five minutes remaining for launch. On-board systems are now under on-board control. The right control board … opposite the commander's couch is now turned on. The cosmonauts have strapped themselves in and reported that they are ready. They have lowered their face plates. The key for launch has been inserted … "

 

Five minutes later, the ethereal stillness of the barren steppe was broken by the retraction of the fuelling tower from the rocket and a steadily increasing din as the R-7 rocket's central core and its four strap-on boosters roared to life. Liftoff occurred at 3:20:10 p.m. Moscow Time (7:20:10 a.m. EDT and 6:20:10 a.m. CDT). Almost five years since its inception, the first part of ASTP was officially underway. The ascent to orbit was almost flawless, with the only problem being the failure of one of the on-board television cameras. "For a mission whose significance was to demonstrate to a watching world that co-operation in space is possible," Leonov wrote in his autobiography, Two Sides of the Moon, "this was a problem that had to be solved quickly. We had no choice but to dismantle a major part of our orbital section in order to gain access to the wiring for the system of five cameras connected to the switchboard and fix the problem by disconnecting the switchboard from the circuit. It took us many hours, during which we had been scheduled to sleep."

 

It was fortunate that Kubasov—renowned throughout the cosmonaut corps as something of a handyman—was aboard, although their efforts to bring the failed camera back to life were ultimately fruitless. This upset some of the Americans, in particular Bob Shafer, NASA's deputy head of public affairs, who was concerned that there might now be no images of the Apollo spacecraft. For the cosmonauts, though, their efforts to fix the camera almost assured them a second career after landing. "On our return to Earth," Leonov wrote, "this prompted a hilarious mail bag of requests from fellow Soviet citizens wanting Kubasov and me to come and fix their television sets!"

 

Fixing TVs was the last thing on the minds of most of the NASA flight controllers that morning. Despite all the reservations and the mistrust and the lack of transparency and openness in the early days, the Soviets had well and truly stepped up to the plate and launched precisely on time. Now it was America's turn. In a coastal region of Florida, prone to electrical storms and severe weather phenomena, in mid-July 1975, there was a 23-percent chance of Mother Nature throwing a spanner in the works; and for this reason, Apollo had no fewer than five launch windows, between 15-19 July, before it would be necessary to stand down the ground crews. Of course, if more than two of these chances were missed, the joint mission would be ruined: for Leonov and Kubasov would have to return to Earth and their backups, Anatoli Filipchenko and Nikolai Rukavishnikov, would have to be launched in their stead. At the very least, such an outcome would be hugely embarrassing for NASA.

 

The first order of business on the morning of 15 July was chief astronaut John Young tapping on the bedroom doors of Stafford, Brand, and Slayton, giving them the news that Leonov and Kubasov were in space and a long day lay ahead. Seeing Young reminded Slayton of the role that he had fulfilled for more than a decade as Co-ordinator of Astronaut Activities and later head of the Flight Crew Operations directorate: waking each crew up on launch morning, joining them for a "low-residue" breakfast of steak and eggs, helping them to don their space suits, engaging them in last-minute banter … then watching as they headed off on their missions and he stayed behind. The tables were now turned. "It was unusual," he wrote, "for me to be on the other end of that little bit of business."

 

Out at Pad 39B, propellant loading of Apollo 18's Saturn IB booster was nearing completion—liquid oxygen and RP-1 kerosene for its S-IB and liquid oxygen and hydrogen for the S-IVB. Thunderstorms were in the vicinity, but were not expected to disrupt the launch, which was scheduled for mid-afternoon. ASTP's U.S. manager, Glynn Lunney, spoke to his Soviet counterpart, Konstantin Bushuyev, by telephone, congratulating him on the successful launch of Soyuz 19 and advising that events were proceeding normally at NASA's end. Shortly after noon, fully-suited, Stafford, Brand, and Slayton left the Operations and Checkout Building, bound for the pad. In his autobiography, We Have Capture, Stafford wondered what thoughts were passing through Slayton's head … and in his autobiography, Deke, all Slayton could describe was that it felt pretty good to be crossing the swing-arm to the spacecraft. "What the hell," Slayton wrote, "it was only 13 years overdue. I never planned on being the world's oldest rookie astronaut, but I wasn't going to complain."

 

As he waited to be inserted into the command module, Stafford took a final look at the skeletal framework of Pad 39B. He was keenly aware that this would be the last American manned launch for several years, and he wondered when the next piloted spacecraft would leave from this particular complex. Little could he possibly have known that it would be more than a decade before Pad 39B would again see service … and on that occasion, it would witness one of the greatest calamities of the space programme so far: Challenger.

 

As rookie astronaut Bob Crippen helped Stafford connect his electrical, oxygen, and communications umbilicals on the left side of the command module, Slayton prepared to take his seat on the right side. Although his title of "Docking Module Pilot" implied that his sole responsibility was the docking module, Slayton's primary tasks during ascent and re-entry were to monitor the ship's electrical systems. Last to enter was Brand, the command module specialist, who took the centre seat. Checking in with test conductor Clarence "Skip" Chauvin and the blockhouse capcom, Karol "Bo" Bobko, Stafford asked if the countdown would be in English or Russian.

 

"Oh, I figured I'd give it in English!" responded Bobko with a chuckle.

 

A little under eight minutes before launch, with all 556 switches, 40 event indicators, and 71 console lights checked and cross-checked, Stafford asked Bobko to tell the Soyuz crew to get ready for them. The launch itself, at precisely 3:50 p.m. EDT, was perfect, and Stafford found the ascent to be very gentle and smooth, like an elevator. As a veteran of two Gemini launches and a bone-rattling ride on the Saturn V, he was not expecting the rise from Earth to be quite so serene. Even the period of staging, as the S-IB first stage burned out and the single J-2 engine of the S-IVB second stage took over, seemed much calmer; it was "noticeable," he wrote, but nowhere near as violent as the Saturn V.

 

Slayton, a man of few words, described the experience of his first launch into space as being louder than he had expected, but otherwise not surprising. His desire to sit back and enjoy his ride into orbit yielded to a sensation of balancing at the end of a long rubber balloon which was fighting its way through wild winds. "I love it!" he yelled as the Saturn's first stage burned out and the S-IVB picked up the thrust for the final boost into orbit. "Man, I'll tell ya … this is worth waiting 16 years for!" It had, after all, been 1959 when he was chosen by NASA for astronaut training.

 

"You liked that, huh?" grinned Stafford.

 

"I'd like to make that ride about once a day!"

 

Forty minutes after leaving Florida, and by now on the opposite side of the planet, Tom Stafford radioed Capcom Dick Truly in Houston to advise him that the crew were preparing to perform the "transposition and docking" maneuver to extract the docking module from the S-IVB. In a similar manner to the removal of the lunar module on earlier missions, the astronauts uncoupled Apollo from the S-IVB and the panels of the conical spacecraft adaptor were explosively jettisoned, exposing the docking module to the environment of low-Earth orbit for the first time. With Stafford at the controls, the first problem arose: all he could see was the blinding glare of the sunlit Pacific Ocean ahead of him. "I sat there, a few metres from the DM," he wrote, "and began to sweat. Finally, I decided the only choice was to use the Mark I eyeball—lining up on the cross-shaped target mounted atop the truss behind the DM, and, once the DM had drifted toward a darker background, thrusting closer."

 

Stafford achieved a perfect docking, aligning the two vehicles to an accuracy of better than one hundredth of a degree. It was the best accuracy ever achieved with the Apollo docking system. At the instant of capture, however, the crew were out of direct radio communications with the ground and had to wait some minutes before they could tell Truly that all was well. Shortly afterwards, during a five-minute communications pass over the tracking ship USNS Vanguard, the crew successfully extracted the docking module from the S-IVB.

 

Everything was now in place for Apollo to begin a complex series of maneuvers over the next two days to precisely match its orbit with that of Soyuz, undertaking the active role in the rendezvous. Shortly before bedding down for his first night's sleep in orbit, Brand set to work disassembling the bulky docking probe from the connecting tunnel between the command and docking modules. It was his intention to open the docking module's hatch and store an experimental freezer—needed for several joint experiments—there overnight. Very soon, however, he realised that he could not properly insert the tool to unlock and collapse the probe. Back home in Houston, Bo Bobko was the duty capcom.

 

"Okay, Bo," radioed Brand. "Everything in the probe removal checklist on the cue card … has been going great [but] Step 12 is 'capture latch release, tool 7.' You insert it in the pyro[technic] cover [and] you turn it 180 degrees clockwise to release the capture latches. Well, here's where the problem is and let me explain it to you. Do you have somebody there that knows the probe that can listen?"

 

Bobko quickly found a probe expert. "Roger," he verified. "Go ahead."

 

"Okay," continued Brand, "as I look in the back of the … pyro cover, I'm looking with my flashlight through the hole where I insert this tool and there's something behind the pyro cover that's preventing me from putting this tool all the way in. It's actually one of the pyro connectors. This tool has to go down through the pyro cover in between … some pyro connectors, but one of these pyro connectors has rotated such that it's in the way … "

 

Flight Director Neil Hutchinson would later tell reporters that Brand and Bobko spent around 18 minutes troubleshooting the problem with the probe, then decided to delay moving the freezer into the docking module until the following morning. When Brand then tried to close the hatch, he found that the partially-removed probe stopped him from doing so. It was already over an hour past the crew's scheduled bedtime, so Mission Control recommended that they postpone further work. In the meantime, the astronauts slightly raised the command module's cabin pressure to provide additional oxygen and thereby compensate for the nitrogen coolant which was boiling off the freezer.

 

Sleep proved more awkward than anticipated. The crew folded up Brand's centre couch to gain additional space, with two men sleeping in the side couches and the third in a sleeping bag strung across the command module's lower equipment bay, but even that did not work very well. From the second night, Slayton opted to curl into the narrow, cylindrical docking module (which he had earlier jokingly called "the world's fastest, highest-flying sewer pipe") and sleep there. Brand bedded down in the transfer tunnel and Stafford remained aboard the command module.

 

Next morning, they returned to the probe issue, completing each of the 11 steps from the previous night in order to re-engage it in its fully locked position. They then removed the pyro cover, straightened out the misaligned pyro cap, proceeded through the 11 disassembly steps, and finally inserted the key to unlock the capture latches. It was, Neil Hutchinson told journalists, more of an annoyance than anything else, and it warranted hardly a mention in Stafford's and Slayton's autobiographies: the former simply making reference to "a balky docking probe," the latter to "some little problem with the hatch." The real deal was the rendezvous.

 

Two burns of the service module's Service Propulsion System (SPS) engine served firstly to circularise their orbit and later adopt an elliptical path to gradually close the gap with Soyuz.

 

Alexei Leonov and Valeri Kubasov were by no means inactive, despite their unsuccessful attempt to repair the television camera, and by the morning of 17 July the distance between Apollo and Soyuz was a little over 560 miles. Shortly after 8:00 a.m. CDT (5:00 p.m. in Moscow), Tom Stafford fired the SPS for a third time to lower his apogee in order to complete the next stage of the rendezvous. From his station, Vance Brand spotted the Russian craft as a bright speck in the darkness, and five minutes later Deke Slayton managed to contact the cosmonauts in Russian on VHF radio:

 

"Soyuz, Apollo. How do you read me?"

 

"Very well," replied Kubasov in English. "Hello, everybody."

 

"Hello, Valeri," Slayton continued. "How are you? Good day, Valeri."

 

"How are you? Good day," came the response.

 

Pleasantries completed, it was time for business. Half an hour later, Kubasov switched on the range tone transfer assembly aboard Soyuz to establish accurate ranging data between the two spacecraft. By now, their separation distance had closed to just 140 miles. At 9:12 a.m. CDT, Stafford executed another maneuver with the SPS which enabled Apollo to effectively "overtake" and catch up with Soyuz. A short terminal phase burn a little over an hour later brought the American craft to within 22 miles of its Soviet counterpart. Shortly thereafter, at 10:46 a.m., Capcom Dick Truly relayed two important messages to the crews: "Moscow is Go for docking; Houston is Go for docking. It's up to you guys. Have fun!"

 

The two craft drew nearer and nearer. By now, Leonov and Kubasov had retreated into their descent module and closed the hatch to the orbital module; similarly, the Apollo crew had sealed the docking module and were in their couches within the command module. Half a mile of empty space lay between them. At Stafford's call, Leonov rolled the Soyuz some 60 degrees to place it into the proper orientation for the final approach. In Houston, Mission Control was packed: Administrator Jim Fletcher and his wife were there, along with Soviet Ambassador Anatoli Dobrynin and chief astronaut John Young, together other senior managers and a gaggle of astronauts, both veterans and rookies: Dave Scott, Joe Allen, Owen Garriott, Bruce McCandless, Story Musgrave, and Rusty Schweickart.

 

Apollo and Soyuz were coming up on the coast of Portugal as Stafford called out the closing distance … five metres … three metres … one metre … until, finally, at 11:09 a.m., the two craft met in a metallic embrace and he called: "Contact!" A second or two later, Leonov rendered his own acknowledgement: "Capture! Soyuz and Apollo are shaking hands now!"

 

For almost two decades, the United States and Russia have collaborated in the grandest scientific, engineering, and human endeavor ever undertaken in human history: the construction of the International Space Station. Since the days of Shuttle-Mir, these two former superpowers—which once viewed each other with mistrust through the lens of differing political ideologies—have forged an enduring partnership. It has not been an easy journey and down-to-Earth politics has often strained relations, but it seems likely to continue. Yet the seeds of this partnership were first sown way before Shuttle-Mir and the ISS … back in the early 1970s, when America and the then-Soviet Union emerged for the briefest of times from the "deep cold" of the Cold War and staged a manned space mission together. It was known as the "Apollo-Soyuz Test Project" (ASTP).

Early on 17 July 1975, high above the coast of Portugal, Apollo 18 successfully docked with Soyuz 19. Aboard the U.S. craft were astronauts Tom Stafford, Vance Brand, and Deke Slayton, whilst the Soviet vehicle carried cosmonauts Alexei Leonov—the world's first spacewalker—and Valeri Kubasov. The instant of docking, Stafford later wrote in his autobiography, We Have Capture, was exceptionally smooth and he promptly retracted the guide ring, actuated the structural latches, and compressed the seals to achieve a rigid configuration. "Tell Professor Bushuyev," he radioed, referring to the Soviet ASTP manager, "the docking was very soft." Leonov congratulated him on a good show. It was so good, in fact, that when they checked the alignments later that evening, the centre of the alignment sight sat right on the very centre of a bolt that held the centre of a target on Soyuz. In other words: Stafford had hit his mark, dead centre.

 

Each of the crew exchanges between the two craft had been worked out months in advance, and it was planned for Slayton and Stafford to pass through the docking module for the first meeting with Leonov. "Given the different pressures in the two spacecraft," Slayton wrote, "you couldn't just open the hatches on both ends of the docking module and go through." For that reason, Brand remained sealed inside the command module for the first historic handshake. However, when Slayton opened the hatch to access the docking module, he and Stafford were hit by an unpleasant odor. It reminded them of burned glue. Quickly, they radioed Leonov that they had "somewhat of a bad atmosphere," but the odor dissipated within minutes. It was later blamed on one of the experiments in the docking module. Playfully, Stafford floated to the far end of the tunnel and rapped his knuckles on the hatch leading into the Soyuz orbital module. Leonov rapped back. In Russian, Stafford asked: "Who's there?"

 

Shortly before opening the hatch into the Soviet craft and the historic, televised handshake, a message was read over the ground-to-space radio link from Leonid Brezhnev. "To the cosmonauts Alexei Leonov, Valeri Kubasov, Thomas Stafford, Vance Brand, Donald Slayton," it read. "Speaking on behalf of the Soviet people, and for myself, I congratulate you on this memorable event … The whole world is watching with rapt attention and admiration your joint activities in fulfilment of the complicated program of scientific experiments … " In conclusion, Brezhnev's message expressed the fervent and sincere hope that ASTP would represent a forerunner of "future international orbital stations."

 

For now, though, on this midsummer's afternoon in 1975 it seemed that the two old foes were setting the seal on a bright future. At 2:17:26 p.m. CDT, high above the French city of Metz, Tom Stafford tugged open the hatch and squinted as he peered into the Soyuz orbital module. There, surrounded by a snake-like collection of umbilicals, were their old friends Alexei Leonov and Valeri Kubasov, both beaming.

 

The meeting was awkward in weightlessness, as Stafford and Leonov warmly shook hands and tried clumsily to hug.

 

"Glad to see you!" Leonov exulted in English.

 

"Ochen rad! (Very good!)" replied Stafford in Russian. "Tovarich! (Comrade!)"

 

No sooner had they adjusted to their new environment than the call came from Houston: President Ford was on the line and wished to speak with them. He had been a strong supporter of the mission—or, at least, the measure of détente that it afforded—and asked questions and offered congratulations for nine whole minutes, almost twice as long as scheduled. Responding to the president's queries was not easy. "It was kind of tricky," wrote Slayton, "since we kept having to hand headsets from Tom to Alexei to Valeri to me to hear the questions and give the answers." Ford echoed many of Brezhnev's points: it had taken the United States and the Soviet Union many years to open this door to useful co-operation in space, and he asked how useful the androgynous docking mechanism might be for future missions. Stafford replied that it had performed beautifully.

 

After the president signed off, the commemorative exchange of gifts began, with Stafford presenting a quintet of tiny American flags and Leonov reciprocating with Soviet flags. Other exchanges included a United Nations banner, launched aboard Soyuz and returned home aboard Apollo. Both crews signed a Certificate of the First International Docking for the official aviation record books, kept by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, and a joint plaque (half of which launched aboard Apollo and half aboard Soyuz) was ceremoniously connected by Stafford and Leonov. "They had a little difficulty making these pieces match," Slayton told journalists in Houston on 9 August. "Fortunately, the docking system worked better than this did!"

 

It was then time for a joint dinner, without Vance Brand, around a green metal table in the Soyuz orbital module, and with the whole world watching a lump undoubtedly jumped into Stafford's throat … for Leonov presented his new American comrades with tubes of vodka! Ten years earlier, Leonov had met a group of astronauts—including Deke Slayton—and shared a collective hope to someday drink a toast together in space. Even after 10 years, Leonov never forgot the pledge.

 

Aware that the whole world was watching on live television, as was President Ford, Stafford seemed reluctant to consume anything alcoholic, but his counterpart persisted; it was a Russian tradition, said Leonov, to drink before eating. Unknown to Stafford, the canny Leonov had peeled the labels from a few tubes of borscht and blackcurrant juice before launch and replaced them with labels for various Russian vodkas. In his autobiography, Stafford later recalled his mild disappointment as he slurped … not vodka, but borscht … through the tube. As Leonov later wrote, "I told him it was the thought that counts!" Leonov's second surprise was a set of pencil sketches of Stafford, Brand, and Slayton, which he had drawn during their two years of training together.

 

Shortly before 6 p.m. CDT, after the dinner of reconstituted strawberries, Roquefort cheese, and sticks of apples and plums, Stafford and Slayton bade the Russians farewell for the night and floated back to the command module, closing and sealing the docking module hatch as they went. Leonov and Kubasov followed suit, securing the hatch of their spacecraft. The two Americans rejoined Brand, who had spent a lonely afternoon keeping an eye on the systems. Right from the start, both sides had insisted on having one crewman aboard their respective craft at all times; this was a point raised by Glynn Lunney at a press conference immediately after the Nixon-Kosygin summit in May 1972. Years later, Brand described his solo work as "kind of minding the store … holding the attitude for the 'stack' of vehicles, which consisted of Soyuz and Apollo and docking module."

 

Brand's turn would come during their second day of docked activities, 18 July, when he floated across to join Kubasov in the Russian craft and Leonov came over to the American side. Aboard Apollo, American fare included potato soup, bread, and grilled steak. For four and a half hours that day, Kubasov and Brand worked together in the cramped Soyuz, which they nicknamed the "Soviet-American TV centre in space," after performing a broadcast from it. Diplomatically, Kubasov wondered aloud to his U.S. audience which of their two nations was more beautiful … and then concluded that neither possessed the full majesty of "our Blue Planet." Meanwhile, Stafford gave Leonov and the Russian audiences back on Earth a televised tour—in their own language—of the Apollo spacecraft; for the American people, these guided shows from outer space had been commonplace for several years, but in the Soviet Union, such "live" events from beyond the atmosphere had never been seen before.

 

The interest of the Russian populace in the joint mission had even inspired them to adopt some of the trappings of the capitalist West. Midway through the mission, Time reported that several Soviet perfume factories had created a new scent, with the rather unimaginative name of "EPAS" ("Experimental Project Apollo-Soyuz"), which they intended to sell for $50.75 per bottle in Russia and a mere $10 in the United States! Other efforts to cash-in included a new brand of cigarettes, burdened with the equally unoriginal name of "Soyuz-Apollo," which Moscow's Yava factory hoped to sell in America.

 

Aside from the public relations side of the mission, there was "real" work to be done, too, and it took the form of five joint experiments, including an experimental multi-purpose electric furnace, located inside the docking module. It carried a series of experiments, which focused on the melting and mixing of paired alloys to analyse the effects of convection in the weightless environment, observing the behaviour of specific materials (such as aluminum-antimony, known to have promise for high-efficiency solar cells), and melting and re-solidifing magnetic and semi-conducting crystals. Earth studies were also undertaken, with Slayton photographing ocean currents off the Yucatan Peninsula and in the Straits of Florida; likewise, Brand filmed his own travelogue, covering part of the United States' eastern seaboard, although he was hampered by cloud cover for much of the time.

 

Other work included studies of aerosols in the stratosphere, observations of the effect of cosmic rays on fungi, the effects of weightlessness on small mice and fish and the retina of the human eye, and astronomical and solar physics experiments. They exploited a planned undocking and re-docking exercise, performed on 19 July. After 44 docked hours, the two spacecraft separated at 7:12 a.m. CDT and Slayton performed an almost flawless re-rendezvous and re-docking with Soyuz. During their period in individual flight, the Apollo crew placed their craft directly between Soyuz and the Sun, such that the diameter of the service module created an artificial eclipse. This enabled Leonov and Kubasov to photograph the solar corona, in conjunction with ground-based observations to compare the effects from instruments located both "inside" and "outside" the atmosphere.

 

Re-docking did not go entirely as planned, and the seriousness of the situation seems to vary, depending upon whose autobiography one chooses to read. With Slayton at the command module's controls, the rendezvous proceeded normally, at first, but then he found it difficult to see the cross-line reference on the alignment sight, due to the glare of the sunlit Earth. It was precisely the same kind of blinding "wash-out" that Stafford had experienced during the transposition and docking a couple of days earlier. "He proceeded with the docking," Stafford wrote, "which appeared to go smoothly … but the moment after contact and capture, both vehicles oscillated. It only happened for a few seconds and was probably due to a slight misalignment. The docking was well within limits, so I didn't sweat it." Slayton himself made brief reference to the incident, but did not dwell on it: "I tweaked the hand controller the wrong way, once we had captured Soyuz again, causing the two spacecraft to shake a little."

 

From Slayton's perspective, the incident was a new lesson in fuel management and provided valuable data for future space rescue scenarios. In his autobiography, Two Sides of the Moon, Leonov related that, during the contact and capture at 7:33 a.m., Slayton "inadvertently fired one of Apollo's side roll thrusters, which had the effect of pushing both vehicles off-centre, folding them towards one another." Certainly, television views from inside the command module confirmed that this was a harder docking than the first one. There had been a "real threat" of damaging the joint docking mechanism, Leonov added, and the possibility of a "catastrophic depressurization of our orbital module." To conclude, the cosmonaut noted that no serious damage was done and even that mission controllers in Moscow received an apology from Houston for the mistake.

 

Three hours later, at 10:27 a.m., the two spacecraft undocked for the second and final time. After they had gone their separate ways, they remained from time to time in radio contact and Stafford took the opportunity to gain revenge on Leonov for the vodka/borscht incident. Vance Brand had brought a cassette tape of girls giggling in the shower and Stafford radioed Leonov to ask what he was doing.

 

"Tom, we are resting, because we've worked so hard."

 

Stafford replied that his crew was still working.

 

"Why?"

 

"Listen," said Stafford and motioned to Brand to play the tape, whilst Slayton held down the microphone button. As the sound of running water and giggling girls crossed from ship to ship, Leonov was aghast. "Tom," he asked, "what are you doing over there?"

 

"Working hard!"

 

With images of scantily clad women frolicking around the command module's cabin now in his head, Leonov was still uncertain. "Tom?" he said quietly. "You are kidding, aren't you?"

 

By 21 July 1975, after a successful docking in orbit and two days of joint operations between Apollo astronauts Tom Stafford, Vance Brand, and Deke Slayton, and Soyuz cosmonauts Alexei Leonov—the world's first spacewalker—and Valeri Kubasov, the end of the mission was in sight. On that day, Leonov and Kubasov made their final maneuver: a 4.5-minute "burn" of their retrorocket to begin a ballistic descent through the atmosphere to land back on Soviet soil. Within half an hour, recovery pilots could hear the cosmonauts chattering on the radio and a helicopter-borne television crew showed the descent module, hanging beneath its single parachute as it floated down toward a 1:50 p.m. touchdown. The landing occurred in central Kazakhstan, and shortly thereafter both cosmonauts extricated themselves from the vehicle and waved at photographers.

 

Since it had long been evident that ASTP would be the final American manned mission for some years, NASA opted to take advantage of the Apollo spacecraft's consumables and keep it in orbit for a full nine days of research work, returning to Earth on 24 July. It would be the last time that astronauts would perform such tasks for the better part of a full decade. Earth observations were aided by Apollo's low, and Stafford made reference to this effect in a Houston press conference on 9 August. "Deke made a comment that it looked like the thunderstorms came a quarter of the way up in altitude to our altitude, but, for example, on a clear day over El Paso International Airport, where we usually land going to the west coast, right there were the runways, the taxiways, and the hangars. It was a clear day and you could see them, just visually, with your eyes." Another point, he added, was the earlier higher orbital latitude, which permitted them to see much broader swathes of Earth … and a realisation that "so much of this world … is just desert and mountains."

 

Major work on 23 July included Doppler tracking and geodynamics experiments, which employed the Applications Technology Satellite (ATS)-6 in a geostationary orbit above the equator to assess techniques for monitoring terrestrial plate tectonics and mass anomalies. ATS-6, which was launched in May of the previous year, had already seen significant service during ASTP as a communications relay, providing voice links between the spacecraft and Mission Control for up to 55 percent of the time. Its use marked the first occasion on a manned flight in which such a satellite had been employed for voice communications. The docking module, jettisoned in these latter stages of the mission, provided valuable data in support of the Doppler experiment and would eventually re-enter the atmosphere to destruction in August 1975.

 

As they packed up the last of their equipment on splashdown day, 24 July, Capcom Bob Crippen—who would incidentally fly the United States' next human space mission, the maiden shuttle flight in April 1981—told them that the weather conditions in the primary recovery zone were good. The de-orbit burn was executed at 3:37:47 p.m. CDT, and six minutes later Apollo's service module was jettisoned, leaving the cone-shaped command module alone for a fiery plunge back to Earth.

 

During re-entry, Brand assumed the left-hand seat, with Stafford in the middle and Slayton on the right side. The computer used a series of tiny reaction control thrusters to control re-entry and aim for the recovery point. One of Stafford's tasks was to deactivate these thrusters, whose propellants included a particularly noxious chemical, called nitrogen tetroxide, at an altitude of around 15 miles. After descending another six miles or so, the drogue chute and finally the main canopy were supposed to automatically deploy, followed by the opening of a vent valve to admit fresh air into the cabin. The command module would then splash gently into the Pacific Ocean, a few hundred miles northwest of Hawaii. It did not work out that way … and almost led to the death of the entire crew.

 

In their respective accounts of what happened, neither Brand nor Stafford could be entirely sure of who did what—or who did not do what—but certainly the re-entry phase was considerably more dynamic than anticipated and an irritating squealing noise in their headsets momentarily distracted them. For whatever reason, Stafford did not throw the switch to deactivate the reaction control jets. "The noise made it impossible for us to hear each other or Houston," he wrote in his autobiography, We Have Capture. "In order to be heard in the cockpit, we had to shout. Either the noise kept Vance and Deke from hearing me or I was too distracted to give the command."

 

Nine miles above the Pacific, as intended, the drogue chute deployed and the vent valve opened, but the reaction control jets were still spurting and the valve admitted not fresh air … but a potentially lethal dose of nitrogen tetroxide. "The vent valve was located right below the … thrusters," Stafford wrote, "and it sucked some of the nitrogen tetroxide into the cabin." As soon as he saw the yellowish-brown mist and sniffed its pungent, acrid odour, he knew instantly what it was. So did Brand and Slayton. Moreover, all three instinctively knew what it could do to them.

 

Nitrogen tetroxide is one of the most deadly chemicals used in manned spaceflight; highly toxic and extremely corrosive, if inhaled at concentrations of just 400 parts per million, it can kill. In the same vein, it is one of the most important chemicals ever used in the field of spacegoing rocketry: it is hypergolic with various forms of hydrazine, meaning that it can burn on contact, without a separate ignition source. As Stafford saw this noxious stuff steadily filling the cabin, he immediately flipped a pair of switches to shut off the propellant gate valves and cut the fuel supply … but since some residue remained in the lines, it gave little relief. As the fumes set to work irritating eyes and burning faces, noses, mouths, and throats, Stafford, Brand, and Slayton began hacking and choking uncontrollably.

 

The main parachute canopies deployed as scheduled and the command module struck the Pacific at 4:18:24 p.m. CDT—"a real bone-cruncher," Stafford remembered, "nearly 10 positive Gs"—and promptly flipped into the "Stable 2" position, with its nose submerged and the crew hanging from their harnesses. Brand was seated closest to the vent valve and quickly passed out, his hands clenched. Slayton, too, was feeling nauseous, and it was Stafford who loosened himself and grabbed three sets of oxygen masks. "For some reason, I was more tolerant," he explained later. "I knew that I had a toxic hypoxia … and I started to grunt-breathe to make sure I got pressure in my lungs to keep my head clear." He secured a mask over the unconscious Brand's face and held it there until he revived, thrashing his arms about for several seconds. At length, with all three astronauts breathing on masks, they were able to inflate airbags on the apex to right the command module into a "Stable 1" position in the water and Stafford fully opened the vent valve. With a sudden influx of fresh air, the remaining nitrogen tetroxide fumes quickly disappeared.

 

They were by no means out of the woods yet. "Then it was my turn to screw up," Slayton wrote in his autobiography, Deke, co-authored with Michael Cassutt. "We were in the water a few minutes, still hacking, when they dropped the frogmen. One of them appeared in the window and like a dumb shit I gave him the thumbs-up sign! Everything's okay. Well, of course, it wasn't … but everybody outside thought it was, so there was no special effort to get us out of the command module."

 

Splashdown came a few miles from the recovery ship, USS New Orleans, and within minutes Stafford, Brand, and Slayton were aboard a helicopter, still coughing, but not thinking too much about what they had just endured. Only when they were seated at a press conference on the ship's deck—and, ironically, whilst speaking to President Gerald Ford on the telephone—did they inadvertently drop out that the mission had gone well, except for the final few minutes. As soon as chief flight surgeon Arnauld Nicogossian learned about the nitrogen tetroxide, he stopped the conference and whisked all three men down into the New Orleans' medical bay.

 

Cortisone was pumped into them to reduce lung inflammation and, in Slayton's words, it was a good thing: they had felt fine during the helicopter ride, but within three-quarters of an hour, they suddenly began showing the symptoms of full-blown pneumonia! "The next day," Stafford recalled, "we saw X-rays and our lungs, where they were completely clear before and right after landing, the next day they were all white." It was, said Nicogossian, a classic case of infiltration: an accumulation of abnormal substances in the body. The astronauts were hospitalized at the Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu for two weeks, during which time it was found that they had inhaled 300 parts per million of the toxic gas.

 

Had Stafford not reacted as he did and applied the face masks, all three would certainly have been dead in a matter of minutes.

 

If the return to Earth had been grim for the Apollo crew, its grimness would be duplicated in the realisation that ASTP would not live up to one of its promises: it would not be the first in a string of ambitious U.S.-Soviet joint missions. In fact, more than 15 years would elapse before negotiators again returned to the table to seriously discuss future co-operative efforts in manned space exploration. As a bitter footnote, whilst in Honolulu, a pre-cancerous lesion was discovered on Apollo crewman Deke Slayton's lung. Thankfully, it was benign and had actually turned up in a pre-flight X-ray, but had been overlooked. Had it been spotted before launch, he would have been grounded for the second time in his astronaut career.

 

Détente between the Soviet Union and the United States veered sharply off course in the second half of the 1970s as relations regressed to Cold War levels. The Hensinki Accords, signed in the summer of 1975, attempted to improve relations between East and West. They included agreements on the inviolability of frontiers, the peaceful settlement of disputes, and non-intervention in internal affairs, but the meddling of both the United States and the Soviet Union in the Yom Kippur War, the Chilean coup d'état, the Ogaden War in Ethiopia, the Angolan Civil War, the Nicaraguan Civil War, the Islamic Revolution in Iran, and Afghanistan only soured relations.

 

The arrival of President Jimmy Carter in early 1977 brought a much less sympathetic attitude toward the Soviet Union, and it was under his administration that Presidential Directive No. 18 on National Security was signed into law, re-assessing the United States' position on détente. At the same time, in an effort to stall the manufacturing of nuclear weapons and the development of new missile arsenals, Carter and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev undertook the second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II) and laid down their signatures in Vienna in June 1979. Within six months, however, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, prompting an "open-mouthed" Carter and the CIA to arm a native mujahideen insurgency.

 

Fears grew that the Soviets were seeking to expand their sphere of influence into Pakistan and Iran and even that they were positioning themselves for a takeover of oil in the Middle East. Carter terminated a "wheat deal" with Russia and made the unpopular move of prohibiting American athletes from participating in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, then started a $40 billion covert program to train Pakistani and Afghan militants to counter the Soviet threat.

 

When one views these events through the looking-glass of history, it is not difficult to understand why virtually no progress was made on the topic of co-operation in space after the return of the ASTP crews to Earth. Today, in the era of the International Space Station and genuine co-operation in space, it is saddening to consider the possibility of what might have been. Certainly, ASTP Flight Director Neil Hutchinson once commented on how well he worked with his Soviet counterparts, to such an extent that he wished for another such mission. "It's like going to the Moon once and never going back," Hutchinson said. "Ninety percent of the battle is over with … getting all the firsts done. I could run another Apollo-Soyuz … with a heck of a lot less fuss. Though some of the worry in both Houston and Moscow had been in vain, the two teams had confirmed that they could work together in analysing an unforeseen problem."

 

Others saw it differently. Robert Hotz, then-editor-in-chief of Aviation Week & Space Technology, thought that the fact that ASTP was a one-off stunt was the real tragedy … that NASA and America had bet everything on a "political fanfare," when it could have invested the money into a second Skylab space station—already built and waiting to launch—for greater long-term scientific return. "Now that it is over," Hotz editorialized, "it is apparent that the decision to fly Apollo-Soyuz, instead of another Skylab, was as foolish and feckless as those other facets of the Nixon-Kissinger détente, the SALT talks, the trade deals, and that great treaty that brought peace to Vietnam."

 

Still, to gain some idea of what might have been, it is necessary to return to the high-watermark of U.S.-Soviet relations: the time in May 1972 when the inaugural politicians' signatures were laid for ASTP. At a press conference in Houston, NASA Administrator Jim Fletcher had responded to a journalist's question by stating that Apollo-Soyuz was merely "a first step in international co-operation" and, moreover, that co-operation in manned programmes "to save duplication of effort between the two countries" was his great hope. Genuine co-operation was the vision of his deputy, George Low, also. During his visit to the Soviet Union in May 1975, Low spoke of the future with several of his NASA colleagues and his Russian counterparts, including Konstantin Bushuyev.

 

A rendezvous and docking between a Salyut orbital station and the space shuttle was one possibility, as was Soviet participation in a Spacelab flight. Although the latter option was not seen in a particularly favorable light, the idea of a Salyut-Shuttle mission and also the development of an "international" space station were of interest to both sides, a possibility which Time told its readers on 4 August 1975. Unfortunately, the enthusiasm of Fletcher and Bushuyev and Low and others lay at the mercy of the political climate … and in the late 1970s that mercy and that climate deteriorated dramatically.

 

It was kept alive for a time, however. Informal discussions continued between the Americans and the Soviets and culminated in a series of talks in October 1976 at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. These established "a meeting of minds" between the two sides on future manned co-operation, with two primary foci: a scientific venture involving the shuttle and the Salyut space station or the development of "a space platform … bilaterally or multilaterally." By May of the following year, this meeting of minds had crystallized further, when NASA Acting Administrator Alan Lovelace and Anatoli Alexandrov of the Soviet Academy of Sciences explored the topic of a shuttle docking with a Salyut in greater depth. The result was a document, rather ponderously entitled "Objectives, Feasibility and Means of Accomplishing Joint Experimental Flights of a Long-Duration Station of the Salyut Type and a Reusable Shuttle Spacecraft," which highlighted the benefits that both sides could bring to such a venture: the Soviet system could achieve long-term missions and the Americans could carry large scientific payloads into orbit.

 

On 18 May 1977, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko and U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance signed the space co-operation agreement, which took effect six days later … exactly five years to the day since ASTP had been formalized. The new deal would run for a further five years. "This agreement," noted a December 1982 document, produced at the behest of Bob Packwood, then-chair of the U.S. Senate's Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, "established the basis for Soviet-American space co-operation through the early 1980s. It was a very important political instrument, because it [ensured] continuity in Soviet-American space relations."

 

The Soviet press, in particular, wrote glowingly of the plans and in November 1977 a meeting in Moscow began to discuss the technical aspects. By April 1978, when follow-on meetings were scheduled to take place in the United States, Flight International mentioned the joint Shuttle-Salyut venture, with a rendezvous scheduled for 1981 and a docking a few years later. At around the same time, in the spring of 1978, NASA's Associate Administrator for Space Science Noel Hinners testified before the House Science and Technology Committee that future U.S.-Soviet co-operation was crucial, not least because "they have a station in Earth orbit now [Salyut 6] that may be capable of lasting 1.5 years to two years [and] we have nothing on the horizon approximating that stay-time duration in space." Sadly, this glimmer of future co-operation on the horizon ultimately was nothing more than a glimmer. The plans did not come to pass.

 

The cause was chiefly political. Issues of human rights violations and the repression of political dissidents, including Anatoli Shcharanski, who was accused of treason and collusion with the CIA, had long bothered the Americans and the implementation of a new Soviet constitution—the "Brezhnev Constitution"—in the summer of 1977 brought with it worrying signs that new guarantees of individual liberties were a mockery of justice. "Exercise by citizens of rights and freedoms must not injure the interests of society and the state and the rights of other citizens," read one proviso of the constitution. "Obviously," Time told its readers on 13 June, "this statement gives legal sanction for the KGB to proceed, without having to manufacture pretexts, against dissidents exercising the right of free speech, assembly, or religion."

 

The situation steadily worsened. When the Carter administration re-established formal ties with the Soviet Union's sworn enemy, China, in January 1979, Brezhnev responded with undisguised anger, delaying the planned second round of SALT until June. Within the year, the Soviets had invaded Afghanistan and relations had deteriorated still further. Reluctantly, the Americans agreed to abide by the SALT agreements, but were determined to exact punitive action in other areas. Space co-operation turned out to be one of them. Even before SALT and Afghanistan, in February 1979, the new NASA administrator, Robert Frosch, spoke of a hypothetical joint Shuttle-Salyut venture in much more frosty language of if, rather than when. By February of the following year, as Soviet troops established a forcible hold on Afghanistan, the situation had scarcely moved. Frosch told Congress that the American and Soviet working groups had "been in abeyance for something over a year."

 

A further meeting was scheduled for October 1980, but nothing was ever formalized and it never happened. Senator James Exon of Nebraska described the relationship as having devolved into an "arm's length arrangement that we'll more or less continue" and noted, tellingly, that "the direct scientific activities may be affected, but not immediately, since there was no immediate action to be taken anyway."

 

In a January 2002 oral history, Arnold Frutkin, deputy head of NASA's International Affairs Office until 1978, related that a breakthrough for more advanced co-operation with the Soviets may have been just around the corner. "It [seemed] so logical to continue … because [ASTP] was so successful," he said. "It seemed to me the thing to do next would be to move into a space station, but that was a huge undertaking at the height of the Cold War with the Soviet Union and it had to be done in such a way that we weren't transferring technology." The Soviets were interested in conceptual studies and developed a draft agreement with NASA, "to the point where they [actually] signed it! There was a signed agreement from them for a joint space station program, but with this careful, limited, step-by-step [procedure, whereby] you would never proceed from one to the … next … unless there was complete comfort and satisfaction in the prior [phase]."

 

Perhaps NASA Administrator Jim Fletcher knew the attitude of the incoming Carter administration about space, for Frutkin noted that he held off from signing the agreement until he had consulted with the new president. "The opinion of the White House," Frutkin continued, "was that the plan should not go ahead. I felt pretty embarrassed, because we led the Soviets into it and then we couldn't follow through, but there [could be] no argument about it. The administration had the right to call it. They didn't want to do it."

 

It would be another decade and a half before the United States and Russia would again approach the negotiating table with a view to a joint manned mission with the Americans. ASTP's U.S. manager Glynn Lunney is not alone in his conviction that ASTP was a vital steppingstone toward the co-operation which eventually spawned Shuttle-Mir and today's International Space Station. "People would have had a difficult time," he told NASA's oral historian in October 1999, "embracing the level of co-operation that is inherent in the International Space Station without the experience that we had in Apollo-Soyuz. It probably would have been a staggering thing to think about in terms of never having had any experience before."

 

Politics has always exerted an enormous influence on the purse-strings of the space program, for good and ill, and the aftermath of ASTP was certainly a prime example of the negative impact of senior leadership upon the realization of humanity's greatest adventure. The situation between the United States and Russia remains fraught with risk, and it must be hoped that the current situation in war-torn Syria—with Moscow backing hard-line dictator Bashar al-Assad and Washington favoring the Islamist-aligned rebels—does not boil over into a "proxy" conflict and cause irreparable damage to an otherwise fruitful partnership in space.

 

W. Rod Puffer, NASA security director

 

Washington Post

 

W. Rod Puffer, a former security chief of NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston who retired in 1989 as the space agency's security director in Washington, died June 20 at his home in Arlington County. He was 79.

 

He had complications from a stroke suffered in 2011, his son Donovan Puffer said.

 

Mr. Puffer joined NASA in 1962 as a security specialist at what was then the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston. He served as the space center's security chief from 1971 until 1980, during which time he worked on Project Mercury, Project Gemini and the Apollo, Skylab and space shuttle human-spaceflight programs.

 

He then transferred to NASA headquarters in Washington and briefly served as the agency's assistant director before being promoted to director of security in 1981.

 

Early in his career, he was a special agent with the Treasury Department in Norfolk.

 

William Rod Puffer was born in Milan, Mich., and raised in Houghton Lake, Mich. He was a 1959 graduate of Michigan State University and a 1984 graduate of the National Defense University in Washington.

 

During the Korean War, he served in the Navy as a submarine torpedoman.

 

His first marriage, to Judith Rickard, ended in divorce. Their son, Michael Puffer, died in 1997. Survivors include his wife of 33 years, Shu-Chen Liang Puffer of Arlington; two sons from his first marriage, Donovan Puffer of Denver and Martin Puffer of Houston; six grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

 

Welsh astronaut who missed out on becoming one of first men on moon dies, aged 80

 

Nathan Bevan - Wales Online

 

The Welsh astronaut who missed out on the chance of becoming one of the first men on the moon because he had problems learning to fly has died, aged 80.

 

Cardiff-born Dr John "Tony" Llewellyn resigned from Nasa's spaceman corps in 1968, less than 12 months before the historic lunar landings which could have seen his name added to the cosmic annals of history.

 

In the role for just 12 months, Llewellyn took the torturous decision to opt out because he'd failed to master piloting jet aircraft "blindfolded" – a mandatory part of his training.

 

"Astronauts had to be supermen back then," said his 67-year-old brother Roger, who'd grown up with him and their other sibling David in the Adamsdown area of the capital.

 

"They'd black-out the cockpits and you'd have to rely on some sort of seventh sense about whether or not the plane was losing altitude, and if that didn't kick in you'd be in trouble.

 

"My brother didn't have that instinct, but what he did have was a brilliant talent for chemistry and that's the reason Nasa gave him a job in the first place.

 

"The space programme had reached the point where it needed someone to do all the necessary scientific work once orbit had been reached, and they figured it was easier to teach a chemist to be a pilot than vice versa."

 

Indeed, so coveted were Llewellyn's analytical talents that a special ruling was made, making him one of only two men at the time to receive astronaut status despite not being American-born.

 

"I think that counted against him a little too, because he felt he'd always be quite low down in the list of names when it came to the drawing up of flight lists," added Roger.

 

"I don't think he really believed he'd make it up there with Neil Armstrong and all that lot and, as time went on, he could feel himself getting more and more behind with his research.

 

"So it was with great regret he took the decision to bow out, although I know he wished those guys well and always held them in high regard."

 

A daredevil from a very early age, Roger's earliest memory of his older brother was cobbling together a make-shift parachute from sacks and leaping from the bedroom window at their Moira Street home.

 

"Tony got up to the most unbelievable stunts, like the time he found this primitive old motorbike, stripped it and tried to get it started," he recalled.

 

"He filled the tank with methylated spirits, built a launch ramp at the bottom of the garden and fired it up.

 

"It was after he'd gone straight through the conservatory that our dad emerged and suggesting he find something else to occupy his time."

 

Falling in love with science, Llewellyn graduated from the University College of Cardiff and accepted a job doing chemical research in Canada – part of the 1950s "brain drain" in which the UK's brightest and best were lured abroad with lucrative offers of work.

 

However, despite subsequently holding down lengthy teaching posts at two prominent Florida universities, Llewellyn would often go back to his lifelong love – the ocean.

 

"He'd always wanted to join the Royal Navy as a boy, but dad told him he was too brainy," said Roger.

 

"And after he left Nasa he did a lot of undersea work – that's the real outer space right there.

 

"He did research with Jacques Cousteau's son, became an aquanaut for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and lived in a dome on the ocean bed just off the south Florida coast in order to investigate just what happens to the human body at those kind of depths.

 

"Then in 1992, he and a friend crossed the North Atlantic from Gibraltar to Antigua on a 32ft sailboat, and in 2000 they did it again, sailing more than 3,000 miles from Miami to the Azores.

 

"And you know the only injury he ever got in all that time? Dropping a canoe on his nose as he untethered it from the roof-rack of his car – he was 77.

 

"How many people do you know who still canoe at that age?"

 

Llewellyn passed away earlier this month following a stroke. He leaves behind Valerie – his Taffs Well-born wife of 56 years – and their three children Ceri, Sian and Gareth.

 

"Tony was a gentleman first and an adventurer second," said Roger.

 

"And you'd never meet a more modest person – in fact, unless you mentioned it I doubt he'd even bring up the whole astronaut thing.

 

"He was always so academic too and was working right up until the end on gene re-modification in cancer sufferers.

 

"That said, he could still name every Indian restaurant on Bridge Street from when we were teenagers."

 

END