Thursday, August 22, 2013

Fwd: Human Spaceflight News - August 22, 2013 and JSC Today



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Begin forwarded message:

From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: August 22, 2013 5:52:12 AM GMT-06:00
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: Human Spaceflight News - August 22, 2013 and JSC Today

 

 

 

 

 

Thursday, August 22, 2013

 

 

 

   Headlines

  1. Joint Leadership Team Web Poll

Thirty-six percent of JSC employees have visited two or three other centers. It was an almost perfect bell curve of responses. I've been to all 10, but then again, I'm old. This week's question is about the start of the new school year. How does it affect you? Not at all? Adds a lot of stress? Messes with your commute? You enjoyed the baseball pun the most last week and, I agree, it was pretty clever. This week you find yourself struck by a magic language wand and get to select a new language to speak. Which of these languages would you most like to be fluent in? Klingon? Pig Latin? Martian? Na'vi your Sendarin on over to get this week's poll.

Joel Walker x30541 http://jlt.jsc.nasa.gov/

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  1. Inside JSC Continues to Evolve

You may have noticed a few more changes on the Inside JSC internal home page this morning. We have taken your feedback and made a few adjustments. The beloved JSC Phonebook is now a link on the top right side of the page so that it can be found quickly and easily. Also, the Quick Links tile opens each link in a new window, the curator has been added to the footer, and the "NEW" button has changed to "Updated" for clarification.

We have adjusted the calendar to the new style and linked the calendar to the upcoming events tile. So if you have a center event coming up, be sure to submit it. We want to suit your preferences on your home page, so please continue to leave feedback and we will continue to make improvements.

JSC External Relations, Office of Communications and Public Affairs x35111

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  1. Changes to Hazardous Waste Pickup Process

Starting Sept. 1, the JSC Environmental Services (JES) contractor is changing. The new JES contractor, Straughan Environmental, Inc., will take on responsibility for environmental support services, including some services that are currently performed by the JSC Facilities Support Services contractor, PAE, formerly Computer Science Corporation.

Effective Sept. 3, you will contact the JES contractor, not facilities work control, to request waste pickups, new waste containers or to drain containments. Please call the environmental info line at x36207 to request these services, or send an email to JSC-Environmental-Office in the global. Please continue to use form JF 1161, Disposal Inventory for Miscellaneous Hazardous Wastes, for waste pickups.

If you have any questions about the new procedure or any other environmental issue, please call the environmental info line at x36207.

Jo Kines x33218

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   Organizations/Social

  1. Cernan Apollo XVII Framed Pin Set - 10% Discount

Starport is proud to offer you this official, NASA limited edition Celebrating Apollo XVII and the Golden Age of Space framed pin set, which was commissioned and signed by Captain Gene Cernan. Only 1,972 were made, and each frame is numbered, complete with a certificate of authenticity. It's $269 with a 10 percent discount applicable for JSC team members when purchased at Starport Gift Shops (Buildings 3 and 11). It's also available online. This is a presale offer available for a limited time only. Reserve yours today for November delivery, just in time for the holidays! No additional discounts apply.

http://shopnasa.com/store/product/7990/Celebrating-Apollo-Cernan-Sign/

Cyndi Kibby x35352 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/

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  1. Wildlife Committee Meeting: Friday

Attend this month's Wildlife Committee Meeting this Friday. The committee is open to all JSC team members, including those with no background in wildlife. Learn more about the animals and plants that call JSC home and what steps are being taken to protect and manage them.

This month's topic: Wildlife Laws and Regulations

Event Date: Friday, August 23, 2013   Event Start Time:9:30 AM   Event End Time:10:30 AM
Event Location: B-45 Rm 410C

Add to Calendar

Matthew Strausser x33862

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   Community

  1. It's Back-to-School Time

The end of summer means back-to-school season is here. JSC employees contribute a substantial percentage of children returning to school. We want all children to arrive at school safety and employees to get to work without mishap. Taking proper safety precautions can help everyone reach their destination safe and sound.

We don't encounter many school buses on-site, but employees will undoubtedly face one while coming to or leaving work, so it's important to recall local safety laws. The main thing is to be alert. Children are unpredictable. While walking to or from their bus, they are usually very comfortable with their surroundings. This makes them more likely to take risks, ignore hazards or fail to look both ways when crossing the street.

Also, be watchful of children bicycling to/from school. Common collisions involve drivers turning left in front of an oncoming bicycle. Remember: Be Safe, Not Sorry.

Rindy Carmichael x45078

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  1. Telescope Classes Moved to Sept. 28

Do you have a telescope that you don't know how to use? Take a class at the George Observatory. We will be offering two classes on Sept. 28. The first class, how to use a refracting or reflecting telescope, starts at 4 p.m. and costs $30. The second class, how to use a go-to telescope, starts at 6 p.m. and costs $35. For more information about these classes and to purchase tickets, visit this website.

Note: Park entrance fees apply at $7 per person for everyone over 12 years old.

Megan Hashier 281-226-4179 http://www.hmns.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=612&Ite...

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JSC Today is compiled periodically as a service to JSC employees on an as-submitted basis. Any JSC organization or employee may submit articles.

Disclaimer: Accuracy and content of these notes are the responsibility of the submitters.

 

 

 

 

 

NASA TV:

·         UNDERWAY – Russian segment-based spacewalk (began at 6:34 am Central, 7:34 EDT)

(Fyodor Yurchikhin & Alexander Misurkin)

·         2 pm Central (3 EDT) – NASA LADEE Prelaunch Briefing (launch scheduled for Sept. 6)

(Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer)

 

Space Shuttle Columbia STS-3 - Post-Flight Presentation / Press Conference (1982)

 

STS-3 was the third mission for the Space Shuttle Program. It was the first shuttle launch with an unpainted ET, and only mission to end with landing at White Sands Space Harbor.

  • Commander: Jack R. Lousma
  • Pilot: C. Gordon Fullerton
  • Dates: March 22-30, 1982
  • Vehicle: Columbia OV-102
  • Landing site: Runway 17 dry lakebed at Edwards AFB, CA

 

Human Spaceflight News

Thursday – August 22, 2013

 

October 11, 1936 – August 21, 2013

 

   

 

HEADLINES AND LEADS

 

Legendary former shuttle commander, test pilot dies

 

William Harwood - CBS News

 

Former shuttle commander C. (Charles) Gordon Fullerton, veteran of two space missions who also flew NASA's B-52 launch aircraft and was one of only two non-Russians to fly the Tu-144 supersonic transport during a legendary 50-year career, died Wednesday. He was 76. A NASA news release said the aviator suffered a "severe stroke" in late 2009, spending the past three-and-a-half years in a long-term care facility in Lancaster, Calif., just down the road from Edwards Air Force Base where he flew countless missions. During his long aviation career, Fullerton logged more than 16,000 hours flying time in 135 different types of aircraft, including the high-performance F-104 "Starfighter," the F-111, the F-15, F-16 and F/A-18 fighters and much larger jets, including KC-135s, the B-52, NASA's 747 shuttle transport jet and others.

 

Former astronaut C. Gordon Fullerton dies at 76

 

Associated Press

 

C. Gordon Fullerton, a former astronaut who flew on two space shuttle missions and had an extensive career as a research and test pilot for NASA and the Air Force, died Wednesday, the space agency said. He was 76. Fullerton suffered a severe stroke in 2009 and had been confined to a long-term care facility in Lancaster for most of the past 3 ½ years, NASA said in a statement. An astronaut from 1969 to 1986, Fullerton spent 382 hours in space on his shuttle missions and flew more than 135 different types of aircraft as a test pilot, amassing more than 16,000 flight hours.

 

NASA Astronaut, Test Pilot Gordon Fullerton Dies

 

Guy Norris - Aviation Week

 

Long serving NASA astronaut, research pilot and U.S. Air Force test pilot Gordon Fullerton died Aug 21, aged 76. Fullerton, who logged 382 hours in space on two shuttle missions, was particularly well known for his work at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards AFB, where he served for 22 years as a research test pilot. Before flying on the shuttle Columbia in STS-3 in 1982 and commanding the shuttle Challenger on the STS-51F Spacelab 2 mission in 1985, Fullerton was one of the test pilots who flew the space shuttle prototype Enterprise during the Approach and Landing Test (ALT) program at NASA Dryden in 1977.

 

Astronaut C. Gordon Fullerton, 1936 – 2013

 

Emily Carney - AmericaSpace.com

 

Astronaut Charles Gordon Fullerton passed away today, Wednesday, August 21, at the age of 76. Colonel Fullerton was known for his career pioneering the space shuttle as one of its first test pilots, as well as his later career as a research pilot. Fullerton's Air Force career began in 1958. In 1964, he graduated from the service branch's Aerospace Research Pilot School (ARPS). Following an assignment as a test pilot to the Bomber Operations Division at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, he was selected as a flight crew member for the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) program.

 

Gordon Fullerton, space shuttle test pilot, dies at 76

 

Robert Pearlman - collectSPACE.com

 

Gordon Fullerton, an Apollo-era NASA astronaut who was among of the first test pilots to fly the space shuttle, died on Wednesday, three years after suffering a stroke that left him partially paralyzed. He was 76. One of four astronauts who flew NASA's original prototype orbiter on atmospheric test flights, Fullerton launched into space twice. He piloted the shuttle program's third mission in 1982 and, three years later, was commander when an engine shutdown ended in the shuttle's only inflight abort. Fullerton followed up his 382 hours in space with 22 years of service as a NASA research pilot. Combined with his experience as a test pilot in the U.S. Air Force, Fullerton logged a total of more than 16,000 hours at the controls of more than 135 different types of aircraft, including NASA's B-52 heavy-lift airborne launch aircraft and the 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.

 

Boeing will share plans for its Shuttle Carrier Aircraft

 

Houston Chronicle

 

The Boeing Co. will share its plans for its Shuttle Carrier Aircraft on Thursday, Aug. 22 in Houston. Executives from Boeing and Space Center Houston, the official visitor's center for NASA-Johnson Space Center, will announce details of the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, or SCA, relocation to its final home as well as plans for a one-of-a-kind attraction and educational experience, according to a Boeing Co. release. The event, open only to the media, will be held at the Texas Flying Legends Museum at Ellington Airport.

 

Russian Cosmonauts Prepare for Another Spacewalk

 

RIA Novosti

 

Two Russian crew members of the International Space Station (ISS) have completed preparations for a spacewalk due on Thursday, the second in less than a week, NASA said. "Flight Engineers Fyodor Yurchikhin and Alexander Misurkin completed a final timeline review of the tasks they will perform during Thursday's spacewalk," reads a statement posted on NASA website.

 

Don't Panic: How Space Emergency Astronaut Training Works

 

Elizabeth Howell - Universe Today

 

Routines. They tell you when to get up in the morning, what to do at your day job and how to handle myriad tasks ranging from house cleaning to using a computer. Memorizing these procedures makes it a lot easier to handle things that come up in life. In space, establishing routines is even more important because they will help guide your thinking during an emergency. That's why astronauts spend thousands of hours learning, simulating and memorizing before heading up to space. European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst, who will fly to the International Space Station in 2014 during Expedition 40/41, gave Universe Today some insight on how it's done.

 

Boeing officials update progress on tank for NASA's mega-rocket

Inaugural event spotlights science, technology

 

Jaquetta White - Baton Rouge Advocate

 

By the summer of 2016, the Michoud Assembly Facility will complete construction on the massive tank that will help power NASA's new mega-rocket into deep space, an executive with the company contracted to build the component said Wednesday. "We're well underway. We're on schedule. We're actually in budget," said Gordon Bergstue, production director for the Boeing Co., which is building the heavy-lift rocket's so-called "core stage" at the eastern New Orleans plant.

 

Is China's Space Program Shaping a Celestial Empire?

 

Leonard David - Space.com

 

China is pressing forward on its human space exploration plans, intent on establishing an international space station and, experts say, harnessing the technological muscle to hurl its astronauts to the moon. Highlighting China's intent, the country is working with the United Nations to stage a major workshop on human space technology, to be held Sept. 16-20 in Beijing. The meeting is organized jointly by the U.N. Office for Outer Space Affairs and the China Manned Space Agency, co-organized by the International Academy of Astronautics and hosted by the China Manned Space Agency. The five-day international workshop will bring together senior experts, professionals and decision-makers from public sectors, academia and industry worldwide. On the agenda, the workshop aims to contribute to "establishing institutional capacity in microgravity science and enhancing international cooperation in human space exploration as a global endeavor," according to meeting documents.

 

Engage! Warp Drive Could Become Reality with Quantum-Thruster Physics

 

Miriam Kramer - Space.com

 

Warp-drive technology, a form of "faster than light" travel popularized by TV's "Star Trek," could be bolstered by the physics of quantum thrusters — another science-fiction idea made plausible by modern science. NASA scientists are performing experiments that could help make warp drive a possibility sometime in the future from a lab built for the Apollo program at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. A warp-drive-enabled spacecraft would look like a football with two large rings fully encircling it. The rings would utilize an exotic form of matter to cause space-time to contract in front of and expand behind them. Harold "Sonny" White, a NASA physicist, is experimenting with these concepts on a smaller scale using a light-measuring device in the lab.

 

Rocks in Space

 

Gail Collins – New York Times (Editorial)

 

So, which would you rather do: Capture an asteroid or go back to the moon? This is one of the many interesting issues facing Congress that we probably will not have time to debate once Congress actually comes back next month. Then it'll be nothing but Obamacare and government shutdowns and the occasional discussion about whether Senator Ted Cruz has managed to dispose of his recently discovered dual Canadian citizenship. Which I am personally looking forward to a lot. But today let's consider the American space program. Space exploration is one of the extremely few areas in which there is a lot of bipartisan agreement in Washington. For instance, both parties believe that the United States should be trying to get to Mars. Eventually. Nobody thinks this will happen anytime soon — partly because the technology is so challenging and partly because Congress keeps cutting the space budget.

__________

 

COMPLETE STORIES

 

Legendary former shuttle commander, test pilot dies

 

William Harwood - CBS News

 

Former shuttle commander C. (Charles) Gordon Fullerton, veteran of two space missions who also flew NASA's B-52 launch aircraft and was one of only two non-Russians to fly the Tu-144 supersonic transport during a legendary 50-year career, died Wednesday. He was 76.

 

A NASA news release said the aviator suffered a "severe stroke" in late 2009, spending the past three-and-a-half years in a long-term care facility in Lancaster, Calif., just down the road from Edwards Air Force Base where he flew countless missions.

 

During his long aviation career, Fullerton logged more than 16,000 hours flying time in 135 different types of aircraft, including the high-performance F-104 "Starfighter," the F-111, the F-15, F-16 and F/A-18 fighters and much larger jets, including KC-135s, the B-52, NASA's 747 shuttle transport jet and others.

 

He participated in the Air Force's Manned Orbiting Laboratory, or MOL, program until its termination in 1969 and then went to work for NASA, joining the support crews of four Apollo moon landing missions before serving as pilot during the first free flight of the agency's Enterprise shuttle prototype.

 

He went on to serve as pilot of the shuttle Columbia for the program's third test flight in 1982 and he commanded a Spacelab science flight aboard Challenger in July 1985, logging 15.9 days in space during both missions.

 

During his second launch, one of Challenger's three main engines shut down prematurely because of a sensor failure in the only in-flight abort in shuttle history. Fullerton and pilot Roy Bridges, later director of the Kennedy Space Center, continued the climb to a lower-than-planned orbit and the crew completed a successful mission.

 

Fullerton reported the engine shutdown in such calm tones during a brief call to mission control that reporters listening in did not immediately realize one of the hydrogen-fueled powerplants had failed.

 

"He was cool under pressure when it counted," a NASA official recalled Wednesday.

 

After leaving the astronaut corps in 1986, Fullerton spent 22 years as a test pilot at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, retiring in 2007.

 

Fullerton's long career garnered numerous awards and honors, including the Ivan C. Kincheloe Award from the Society of Experimental Test Pilots; the Department of Defense Distinguished Service and Superior Service Medals; and the Air Force Distinguished Flying Cross.

 

He was inducted in the Astronaut Hall of Fame in 2005.

 

Born Nov. 10, 1936, Fullerton earned a master's degree in aeronautics from the California Institute of Technology in 1958 and joined the Air Force after a brief stint with Hughes Aircraft as a mechanical design engineer.

 

After graduating from flight school, Fullerton served as an F-86 pilot before transitioning to the B-47 bomber at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Ariz.

 

A natural "stick-and-rudder man," Fullerton was selected to attend what became the Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., in 1964 and then moved to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, where he was a test pilot with the Bomber Operations Division.

 

Between 1966 and 1969, Fullerton was part of the Air Force Manned Orbiting Laboratory, or MOL, program, which envisioned launching modified Gemini spacecraft, attached to a compact laboratory, for military reconnaissance missions.

 

The program was terminated in 1969 and Fullerton, an active-duty Air Force officer, was assigned to NASA. He retired from the Air Force with the rank of colonel in 1988.

 

According to a NASA news release, a funeral mass is planned for Saturday at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Lancaster. NASA will hold a "celebration" of Fullerton's life Monday at Dryden.

 

Former astronaut C. Gordon Fullerton dies at 76

 

Associated Press

 

C. Gordon Fullerton, a former astronaut who flew on two space shuttle missions and had an extensive career as a research and test pilot for NASA and the Air Force, died Wednesday, the space agency said. He was 76.

 

Fullerton suffered a severe stroke in 2009 and had been confined to a long-term care facility in Lancaster for most of the past 3 ½ years, NASA said in a statement.

 

An astronaut from 1969 to 1986, Fullerton spent 382 hours in space on his shuttle missions and flew more than 135 different types of aircraft as a test pilot, amassing more than 16,000 flight hours.

 

Fullerton soared into orbit aboard the shuttle Columbia in March 1982, an eight-day flight test that became the only shuttle mission to land on a backup site at White Sands, N.M. Columbia was diverted because heavy rains in the Mojave Desert flooded Rogers Dry Lake at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., the primary landing site for the program's initial years.

 

In 1985, Fullerton commanded the shuttle Challenger on a flight that carried the Spacelab module in its cargo bay in order to conduct a wide array of science experiments.

 

Before space shuttles were operational, Fullerton was a member of one of two crews that flew the shuttle prototype Enterprise in approach-and-landing tests conducted during 1977. Enterprise was released from the top of a modified Boeing 747 to glide down to the desert floor at Edwards.

 

In 2003, after the loss of Columbia and its seven-member crew during re-entry, Fullerton told a gathering at Edwards that NASA faced its worst crisis but would overcome it. He also said he felt a kinship with the crew.

 

"Heroes, indeed they are. But in their own minds, they did not consider themselves heroes. I am sure they felt like the luckiest people on Earth as they snapped in at the pad," Fullerton said. "Columbia was a magnificent machine. She carried us to the greatest adventures of our lives. ... It was indeed a magic carpet ride."

 

A native of Portland, Ore., Fullerton received bachelor's and master's degrees in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology and joined the Air Force in 1958, NASA said.

 

He flew fighters and bombers, attended the Air Force Research Pilot School and served as a test pilot at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, before being selected for the Air Force Manned Orbiting Laboratory program in 1966. When that program was canceled in 1969, he was assigned to NASA's astronaut corps at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

 

Before reaching space in the shuttle program, he was a member of support crews for NASA's last four Apollo lunar missions.

 

Fullerton subsequently transferred to NASA Dryden and spent 22 years as a research test pilot. Among his roles was project pilot for a modified B-52 that conducted aerial launches of Pegasus rockets; the X-38, which was intended to be a vehicle to recover crews from the international space station; and the X-43A, an experimental hypersonic aircraft.

 

Fullerton lamented the 2004 retirement of the B-52 "mothership," known by the last three digits of its tail number.

 

"To me, it's really a sad day, more like a funeral than a celebration, to realize that I'm not likely to crawl in 008 and go out for another flight," he said at the time.

 

"If you were to get in the cockpit now, and wanted to taxi away, you've got to start up 22 pieces of rotating machinery before you're ready to go — eight engines, 10 air-driven hydraulic packs, and four alternators. That's different than any airplane built before or since," he said.

 

In addition to many flight research and airborne science missions, Fullerton also was pilot-in-command of the Boeing 747 aircraft that carried space shuttles on its back on ferry flights from California to Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

 

Fullerton retired from the Air Force in 1988 and from NASA in 2007.

 

NASA Astronaut, Test Pilot Gordon Fullerton Dies

 

Guy Norris - Aviation Week

 

Long serving NASA astronaut, research pilot and U.S. Air Force test pilot Gordon Fullerton died Aug 21, aged 76.

 

Fullerton, who logged 382 hours in space on two shuttle missions, was particularly well known for his work at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards AFB, where he served for 22 years as a research test pilot. Before flying on the shuttle Columbia in STS-3 in 1982 and commanding the shuttle Challenger on the STS-51F Spacelab 2 mission in 1985, Fullerton was one of the test pilots who flew the space shuttle prototype Enterprise during the Approach and Landing Test (ALT) program at NASA Dryden in 1977.

 

Born in Rochester, New York in Oct 1936, Fullerton earned bachelor's and master's degrees in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 1957 and 1958. After a short stint as a mechanical design engineer at Hughes Aircraft Company, Fullerton joined the U.S. Air Force in 1958 where he trained initially as an F-86 interceptor pilot. Later transferring to B-47 bombers, he went on to graduate from test pilot school at Edwards AFB, Calif in 1964.

 

Two years later Fullerton was selected for the Air Force's Manned Orbiting Laboratory program, but when this was cancelled in 1969 he transferred to NASA's civilian astronaut corps at Johnson Space Center where he served on the support crews for the final four Apollo missions. It was with Apollo 13 crew member Fred Haise that Fullerton would later fly two captive carry and three free-flight ALT tests of the Enterprise to develop procedures for the shuttle's unpowered gliding landing.

 

Fullerton's two space flights were each marked by unique events. His first, the STS-3 orbital test mission in 1982, was the only shuttle to land at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, where it diverted following heavy rains which flooded the normally dry lakebed at Edwards. His second, the STS-5F science research mission in July 1985, was the only shuttle to conduct an abort-to-orbit following the failure of a main engine three minutes before expected cutoff.

 

In 1986 Fullerton transferred to become a test pilot at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center. He also later served as Associate Director of Flight Operations at Dryden and as chief of the directorate's flight crew branch prior to his retirement at the end of 2007. At Dryden, Fullerton was the project pilot on the NB-52B launch aircraft for the Pegasus rocket, the X-38 Crew Recovery Vehicle and the hypersonic X-43A. He also commanded NASA's modified Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft on ferry flights of space shuttles from Edwards to the Kennedy Space Center.

 

Amongst other high-profile research programs at Dryden, Fullerton was also involved in the F-15 and MD-11 Propulsion Controlled Aircraft project which demonstrated the feasibility of landing an aircraft safely using computer-assisted engine controls rather than normal control surfaces. The program, which was sparked by the Sioux City DC-10 accident, culminated in Aug 1995 when Fullerton made the first-ever landing of a throttles-only controlled airliner – a modified MD-11 - at Edwards. Fullerton was also project pilot for high-speed landing tests of space shuttle landing gear components installed on a modified Convair 990 and flew the first test flights of NASA's 747SP Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy.

 

Fullerton, who logged more than 16,000 flight hours flying over 135 types of aircraft, was inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame as well as the International Space Hall of Fame in 1982. He was a Fellow of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, and the winner of numerous awards and medals.

 

Astronaut C. Gordon Fullerton, 1936 – 2013

 

Emily Carney - AmericaSpace.com

 

Astronaut Charles Gordon Fullerton passed away today, Wednesday, August 21, at the age of 76. Colonel Fullerton was known for his career pioneering the space shuttle as one of its first test pilots, as well as his later career as a research pilot.

 

 

Fullerton's Air Force career began in 1958. In 1964, he graduated from the service branch's Aerospace Research Pilot School (ARPS). Following an assignment as a test pilot to the Bomber Operations Division at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, he was selected as a flight crew member for the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) program.

 

When the MOL program was canceled in 1969, NASA absorbed Fullerton – along with several other members of the program – into its hallowed ranks. He served on the support crews for the Apollo 14, 15, 16, and 17 missions.

 

His career as a space shuttle flier began in 1977, when he was assigned to pilot the Enterprise during Approach and Landing Tests (ALT) alongside Apollo 13 astronaut Fred Haise. Fullerton and Haise completed five flights during ALT, two "captive-active" (mated to the Shuttle Carrying Aircraft) and three in free flight. He and Haise helped pioneer shuttle landings, which were un-powered and had no "go around" capability.

 

In March 1982, Fullerton made his first space flight on Columbia during the STS-3 mission, partnered with mission commander Jack Lousma, a Skylab veteran. During this flight, the crew tested the shuttle's Remote Manipulator System (RMS). The flight was also known as the only flight to land at Northrup Strip in White Sands, New Mexico, due to problematic weather at Edwards Air Force Base's Rodgers Dry Lake.

 

In July 1985, Fullerton commanded the space shuttle Challenger on STS-51-F, which carried Spacelab 2. Fullerton flew the shuttle into a lower than normal orbit after sustaining a shutdown in the orbiter's center engine. This was the shuttle program's only Abort-to-Orbit (ATO) scenario. Despite this, Challenger spent seven days in space and successfully completed 127 orbits. Overall, he spent 382 hours in space.

 

After his spaceflights, Fullerton returned to being a research test pilot at Dryden Flight Research Center. He held over 16,000 hours in flight time. He received numerous accolades in his spaceflight and piloting career and had been inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame and the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame, among many other honors. In 2007, he retired from NASA after spending 49 years as a research test pilot.

 

Fullerton suffered a debilitating stroke in 2009 that paralyzed a portion of his body. Last week, he was admitted to a hospice facility. He is survived by his wife, Marie, and two children.

 

He will be missed.

 

Gordon Fullerton, space shuttle test pilot, dies at 76

 

Robert Pearlman - collectSPACE.com

 

Gordon Fullerton, an Apollo-era NASA astronaut who was among of the first test pilots to fly the space shuttle, died on Wednesday, three years after suffering a stroke that left him partially paralyzed. He was 76.

 

One of four astronauts who flew NASA's original prototype orbiter on atmospheric test flights, Fullerton launched into space twice. He piloted the shuttle program's third mission in 1982 and, three years later, was commander when an engine shutdown ended in the shuttle's only inflight abort.

 

Fullerton followed up his 382 hours in space with 22 years of service as a NASA research pilot. Combined with his experience as a test pilot in the U.S. Air Force, Fullerton logged a total of more than 16,000 hours at the controls of more than 135 different types of aircraft, including NASA's B-52 heavy-lift airborne launch aircraft and the 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.

 

Born on Oct. 11, 1936 in Rochester, NY, Charles Gordon Fullerton earned both his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, in 1957 and l958, respectively. After working briefly as a mechanical design engineer for Hughes Aircraft Company, he entered the Air Force in July 1958.

 

First trained as an F-86 interceptor pilot, Fullerton became a B-47 bomber pilot at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona. Fullerton was then selected to attend the Aerospace Research Pilot School (now the Air Force Test Pilot School) at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., in 1964. Upon graduation he was assigned as a test pilot with the Bomber Operations Division at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.

 

It was Fullerton's test flight experience that led to his first spaceflight assignment. The Air Force selected Fullerton in 1966 to train as a crew member for its Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) program.

 

Three years later, when the reconnaissance space station was canceled before being launched, Fullerton transferred to NASA's civilian astronaut corps, where he first served on the support crews for the last four Apollo lunar landing missions.

 

"I did the launch phase for Apollo [missions] 14, 15, and 16, and then on 17 I handed over, and then I went down and was the guy that closed the hatch [on the command module] for 17, the last one, because I wanted to see a launch," Fullerton recounted in a 2002 NASA oral history. "So that kind of closed out the program."

 

Fullerton's first flight experience with the shuttle came as a pilot for the Approach and Landing Test (ALT) program in 1977. Paired with Apollo 13 pilot Fred Haise, Fullerton flew the prototype shuttle Enterprise for two captive and three free flights from atop the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.

 

"We were doing stuff that there wasn't a procedure for," Fullerton said. "We were writing the procedure and then flying it for the first time."

 

The flights on Enterprise proved that a spacecraft could return to Earth as an unpowered glider, an ability Fullerton would help demonstrate on his first trip into space in a location that would be unique throughout the shuttle's 30-year history.

 

Fullerton and commander Jack Lousma launched aboard the orbiter Columbia on March 22, 1982, on the shuttle program's third test flight. During the week-long mission, the two astronauts conducted the first loaded tests of the Canadarm robot arm and performed the first science flown aboard the shuttle.

 

The STS-3 mission also marked the first and only time a shuttle landed at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Diverted from the Edwards Air Force Base where heavy rains left the dry lakebed too wet to support a safe touchdown, Lousma and Fullerton landed Columbia on the desolate Northrop Strip (later White Sands Space Harbor).

 

Fullerton returned to space three years later, commanding a crew of seven on the eighth flight of shuttle Challenger.

 

Lifting off July 29, 1985, the STS-51F mission carried 13 experiments in the fields of astronomy, solar physics and ionospheric, life and material science. Before any science could be conducted however, Challenger first needed to make it safely into space.

 

"We show a center engine failure," Fullerton reported five minutes and 45 seconds into Challenger's ascent, nearly three minutes before any cutoff was expected. By burning the shuttle's two other engines longer, Challenger entered space but at a lower altitude than had been planned. The mission proceeded though, having conducted the first and only abort-to-orbit in the shuttle program's history.

 

Challenger's landing marked the last time Fullerton would fly in space, but far from his last flight for NASA.

 

A year after returning to Earth and in the wake of the 1986 loss of shuttle Challenger, Fullerton joined the research pilot office at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Facility in California. He became the project pilot on the NASA NB-52B launch aircraft, flying the modified bomber on the first six air launches of Orbital Sciences' Pegasus rocket, as well as flew the development flights for NASA's X-38 crew recovery vehicle and X-43A Hyper-X "scramjet" projects.

 

As a pilot for the DC-8 Airborne Science flying laboratory, Fullerton was deployed worldwide supporting a variety of research studies, including atmospheric physics, ground mapping and meteorology. He was also pilot-in-command on the first test flights of the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), following the modifications to the Boeing 747 jumbo jet to integrate the observatory's 2.5-meter infrared telescope.

 

Among Fullerton's other research assignments, he tested the drag chute for the shuttle and served as the pilot-in-command of NASA's Shuttle Carrier Aircraft on numerous flights that ferried the shuttles piggyback from California to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

 

Fullerton retired from the Air Force as a colonel in 1988. He resigned from NASA in 2007.

 

For his nearly 50 years of service, Fullerton was honored with numerous awards and medals, including the Air Force Distinguished Flying Cross, NASA Distinguished Service and Exceptional Service Medals, and both the Iven C. Kincheloe Award and the Ray E. Tenhoff Award from the Society of Experimental Test Pilots.

 

Fullerton was also inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame and the International Space Hall of Fame.

 

He is survived by his wife, Marie, and their two children.

 

Boeing will share plans for its Shuttle Carrier Aircraft

 

Houston Chronicle

 

The Boeing Co. will share its plans for its Shuttle Carrier Aircraft on Thursday, Aug. 22 in Houston.

 

Executives from Boeing and Space Center Houston, the official visitor's center for NASA-Johnson Space Center, will announce details of the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, or SCA, relocation to its final home as well as plans for a one-of-a-kind attraction and educational experience, according to a Boeing Co. release.

 

Part of a multi-year $12 million project, Boeing will sponsor the necessary costs to disassemble, transport and reassemble the aircraft as part of a six-story space shuttle attraction under development at Space Center Houston.

 

The event, open only to the media, will be held at the Texas Flying Legends Museum at Ellington Airport, 11190 Blume Ave., Houston.

 

The space shuttle attraction, scheduled to open in 2015, will be exclusive to Space Center Houston. It will be the only place in the world where guests can climb aboard the SCA and the shuttle replica and experience the 30-year space shuttle program in a hands-on environment.

 

The attraction will also expand Space Center Houston's educational programs, which aim to inspire students to consider careers in science, technology, engineering and math. 

 

Russian Cosmonauts Prepare for Another Spacewalk

 

RIA Novosti

 

Two Russian crew members of the International Space Station (ISS) have completed preparations for a spacewalk due on Thursday, the second in less than a week, NASA said.

 

"Flight Engineers Fyodor Yurchikhin and Alexander Misurkin completed a final timeline review of the tasks they will perform during Thursday's spacewalk," reads a statement posted on NASA website.

 

A spokesman for the Russian mission control center said the spacewalk is scheduled to begin at 15:40 Moscow time (11:40 a.m. GMT) and last until 21:35 Moscow time (5:35 p.m. GMT).

 

During their excursion slated to last about six hours, the two cosmonauts will replace a laser communications experiment with a new platform for a small optical camera system, move a foot restraint and inspect several sites for the origin of a wayward antenna cover observed by US astronaut Chris Cassidy on Monday.

 

This will be the 173rd spacewalk in support of assembly and maintenance, performed on the $100-billion orbiting laboratory built by 15 countries. It will be the eighth in Yurchikhin's career and the third for Misurkin. Both cosmonauts will wear blue-striped Russian Orlan spacesuits outfitted with helmet cameras.

 

Their previous excursion outside the station, a 7-hour, 29-minute marathon on August 16 focusing on preparations for the future arrival of the "Nauka" Multipurpose Laboratory Module, was the longest spacewalk in history conducted by a pair of Russian cosmonauts.

 

Don't Panic: How Space Emergency Astronaut Training Works

 

Elizabeth Howell - Universe Today

 

Routines. They tell you when to get up in the morning, what to do at your day job and how to handle myriad tasks ranging from house cleaning to using a computer. Memorizing these procedures makes it a lot easier to handle things that come up in life.

 

In space, establishing routines is even more important because they will help guide your thinking during an emergency. That's why astronauts spend thousands of hours learning, simulating and memorizing before heading up to space.

 

European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst, who will fly to the International Space Station in 2014 during Expedition 40/41, gave Universe Today some insight on how it's done.

 

Why train so often? According to Gerst, practicing an emergency procedure on the ground makes it easier to think clearly during a situation up in space. An astronaut's reaction to any problem on station — a fire, a depressurization, toxic air — is to begin with the procedures. "They sink in and become a memorized response or a natural reaction," he said. In a fire situation, for example, "Immediately when you hear the sound of the alarm, I will grab the nearest gas mask and the nearest emergency book and head to our control post, which is part of the emergency response." (Chris Cassidy, a former Navy SEAL on station right now, had more to say to Universe Today in March about "muscle memory" during emergencies.)

 

What's the biggest challenge? The complexity of the station. The American and Russian sides have different procedures and different equipment. There are three types of gas masks on station, for example, and three kinds of fire extinguishing systems. (According to Gerst, all but the most stubborn fires on station are extinguished after cutting ventilation and electricity to the affected area.) To address the complexity, the astronauts spend hours in the classroom discussing what to look for in the fire sensors, pressure sensors, ammonia sensors and other parts of the vehicle. The signatures look different for depressurizations, fires and other conditions in space and it's key to know what they mean at a glance.

 

What happens during a simulation? After discussing what actions to take, it's time to play them out. "We don't light our modules on fire, but the trainers are creative in creating that [emergency] condition," Gerst said. Sometimes smoke machines will be used during a fire simulation, for example, or the astronauts will simply be informed by instructors that there is a fire in a section of the station. As the astronauts go through the procedures, trainers keep an eye on them and give feedback. In more complex situations, 10 to 20 flight controllers can join in to simulate communications with Mission Control in Houston or its equivalent in Russia.

 

What about dealing with emergencies in a smaller spacecraft? Astronauts can spend anywhere from hours to days on a Russian Soyuz getting to and from the station. If there's a fire on board, the three people squashed inside the capsule wouldn't have much room to deploy fire extinguishers. The response is essentially for astronauts to slam shut the visors on their spacesuits and vent the spacecraft. During a depressurization, the procedure is also to close the visor. "You don't even have to get out of your seat to deal with the emergency, which makes it quite different," Gerst said.

 

What about emergencies during a spacewalk? Astronauts spend hundreds of hours inside the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory in Houston, a huge pool with a mockup of most of the International Space Station inside. They practice spacewalk procedures such as how to bring an unconscious crew member back to the airlock, or what to do if air leaks out of a spacesuit. Gerst credits this sort of training for helping out during a recent incident involving fellow ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano. In July, emergency procedures kicked in for real when Parmitano's spacesuit sprung a water leak during a spacewalk. In a nutshell, the crew worked to bring Parmitano back inside as quickly as possible, which led to a safe (but early) end to the work. (Read Parmitano's nail-biting first-hand account of the incident here.)

 

What's the big takeaway? Gerst emphasizes that emergency training is a "huge topic". He and Reid Wiseman recently got checked out for emergency procedures on the United States side of the station, only to fly to Moscow and then have to do the same thing for the Russian side in mid-August. And there's other training to do as well — another huge topic is medical emergencies , which Gerst practiced in a German hospital in July.

 

Boeing officials update progress on tank for NASA's mega-rocket

Inaugural event spotlights science, technology

 

Jaquetta White - Baton Rouge Advocate

 

By the summer of 2016, the Michoud Assembly Facility will complete construction on the massive tank that will help power NASA's new mega-rocket into deep space, an executive with the company contracted to build the component said Wednesday.

 

"We're well underway. We're on schedule. We're actually in budget," said Gordon Bergstue, production director for the Boeing Co., which is building the heavy-lift rocket's so-called "core stage" at the eastern New Orleans plant.

 

The core stage — a more than 200-foot-tall tank that will store liquid hydrogen and oxygen to power the rocket's four engines — will be completed more than a year before NASA's heavy-lift Space Launch System rocket sets off on an unmanned test mission into deep space.

 

The Boeing staff at the eastern New Orleans facility will be more than twice its current size by then, said Gordon Bergstue, production director for Boeing operations at Michoud.

 

Bergstue provided the update on the opening day of the inaugural New Orleans TechNOLAgy TechFest 2013, a three-day science and technology conference being held at the University of New Orleans.

 

The festival features panels and workshops on alternative energy, aerospace and aviation technology, artificial intelligence and other science specialities.

 

The festival is expected to draw between 700 and 1,000 people, said Rene Rosenthal, president of the private, nonprofit Louisiana Economic Development Association and a co-producer of the festival.

 

"We want to create the jobs of the future," Rosenthal said. "That's what this is about."

 

Bergstue explained Boeing's aerospace work to a conference room filled with students from the New Orleans Charter Science and Mathematics High School, St. Augustine High School and Mentorship Academy in Baton Rouge. After his presentation, the students broke into teams to build their own rockets from paper.

 

In addition to constructing the core stage, the Michoud facility also will install the rocket's engines.

 

The new rocket replaces the space shuttle program that ended two years ago.

 

The shuttle's external fuel tank was built at the Michoud Assembly Facility, which employed thousands of people from the early 1970s until the space shuttle program ended in 2011.

 

The Space Launch System is designed to take astronauts beyond the moon to asteroids and eventually to Mars, places the shuttle could not go.

 

NASA said earlier this month that its new rocket had passed a preliminary design review. Michoud's work on the rocket is expected to be completed by May 2, 2016, Bergstue said. The core stage will then be shipped by barge to Stennis Space Center in Mississippi for a test launch. An unmanned test flight into deep space will follow in late 2017.

 

By that time, the number of Boeing employees at Michoud will have grown from 160 to 400, Bergstue said. That figure does not include the contractors, government workers and employees of Jacobs Engineering, the building's facility manager, who also work at Michoud.

 

"A program like this is not only important to the nation, but it's important to the community," Bergstue told the students. "There are a lot of jobs associated with it. We're really proud to be part of this area and bring this technology and this economic impact back home where it had its birth place many years ago."

 

Is China's Space Program Shaping a Celestial Empire?

 

Leonard David - Space.com

 

China is pressing forward on its human space exploration plans, intent on establishing an international space station and, experts say, harnessing the technological muscle to hurl its astronauts to the moon.

 

Highlighting China's intent, the country is working with the United Nations to stage a major workshop on human space technology, to be held Sept. 16-20 in Beijing.

 

The meeting is organized jointly by the U.N. Office for Outer Space Affairs and the China Manned Space Agency, co-organized by the International Academy of Astronautics and hosted by the China Manned Space Agency.

 

The five-day international workshop will bring together senior experts, professionals and decision-makers from public sectors, academia and industry worldwide.

 

On the agenda, the workshop aims to contribute to "establishing institutional capacity in microgravity science and enhancing international cooperation in human space exploration as a global endeavor," according to meeting documents.

 

Share and exchange information

 

"With such a strong partner as China, I am convinced that this workshop will be extraordinary and interesting, and valuable results will be achieved for the whole space community," Mazlan Othman, director general of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, said in a statement.

 

The workshop "will provide great opportunities for space colleagues from the world to share and exchange information and ideas on human space exploration activities. I believe those exchanges will definitely enhance the friendship among us and the international cooperation in the endeavor," Zhaoyao Wang, director general of the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA), said in a statement.

 

Zhaoyao said that, since its establishment in 1992, the CMSA has organized 11 flight missions and sent 10 Chinese astronauts into outer space to bolster the nation's human space exploration activities.

 

China's first space traveler, Yang Liwei, was sent into orbit in October 2003, making China the third nation — after Russia and the United States — to launch astronauts to space using its own vehicles. [Chinese Lift-Off! Crew of 3 to Visit Space Lab |(Video)]

 

"The year 2013 marks the 10th anniversary of China's manned space flight mission," Zhaoyao said. "These achievements are crucial steps towards fulfilling China's plans of building a manned space station around the year 2020, which would benefit the world by promoting international cooperation in the utilization of the station for the peaceful exploration and use of outer space."

 

Progress…faster than expected

 

"My top line is that the Chinese are moving ahead aggressively on a human exploration program," said Laurence Young, Apollo program professor of astronautics and professor of health sciences and technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

 

Young told SPACE.com that China is progressing toward robotic lunar exploration and eventually human moon exploration.

 

In gauging China's human space exploration campaign, Young said "they have laid out what appears to be a more than reasonable, but nevertheless optimistic plan."

 

From single-piloted missions to multiple crews, space walking, "everything they have been touting they have, in fact, made progress on," Young said. "To many of us, it has been faster than we might have expected."

 

Distinctive Chinese program

 

Some experts have criticized China's rockets and spacecraft as simply blowing dust off Russia's Soyuz design. But Young disagreed, saying, "They are wrong." China has taken the best of what they've imported from the Russians, learned from America and the European Space Agency, he said, "and are building a distinctive Chinese program."

 

Going to the moon is not easy, Young said. "We have to give the Chinese credit for taking on those hard problems. Whether they will be successful or not remains to be seen. But they are serious about it," he said.

 

A leading expert in space biomedical research and artificial gravity, Young has been invited to take part in an International Forum for Space Life Science and Space Biotechnology, to be held Sept. 24 in Beijing.

 

At the forum, China's strategic plan for life science, biotechnology and international cooperation, geared to the country's space station, is to be rolled out.

 

"Around 2020, China is going to build its own space station and to carry out space science research of larger scale," said Yidong Gu, an Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and leader of the science planning group for China's space station.

 

Unmistakable warning signs

 

Writing for the journal Foreign Policy this month, John Hickman, a professor of political science at Berry College in Georgia, said there "are unmistakable warning signs that China may surpass the United States and Russia to become the world's pre-eminent spacefaring power."

 

Hickman said China's recent piloted space mission, Shenzhou 10, "may determine the terms under which the spacefaring powers compete on the final frontier. By the way, he said that one of many ancient names for China is Tianchao — the Celestial Empire. Shenzhou 10 may be pointing the way toward its creation," he said.

 

"For Washington to continue to ignore Beijing's resolute space policy doesn't mean there is no space race; it means that Beijing wins by default," he said.

 

"Saying that it takes two to tango is a poor excuse for losing because international space politics isn't a tango. Instead, it is a conga line," Hickman told SPACE.com.

 

"One of the underlying problems in U.S. space policy-making is the conviction based on the dominant Constructivist Theory of International Relations that the behavior of states is necessarily constrained by a consensus on international norms," Hickman said. "Some decision-makers in Washington are convinced that Beijing can be talked into accepting the leadership of Washington because it has been working to establish that consensus together with the second-tier space powers."

 

Ignore the consensus

 

Hickman said the hitch is that a state like China can ignore the consensus if it possesses the material means and the economic and technological wherewithal to do so. China does, he said.

 

"The problem with the constructivist theory of international relations is that it tempts decision-makers into engaging in wishful thinking about the future.  If China takes the lead, then the other second-tier space powers will begin to follow the Chinese lead," Hickman said.

 

The last time America was forced to participate in a space race, Hickman said, America managed "a come from behind win" in large part because the U.S. had the advantage of a much larger and more efficient economy than the Soviet Union. 

 

"That is not true this time around. China is not the Soviet Union. The implication is that what we need is a serious 'forward' space policy now or we will lose not only this international competition but also the chance to lead the human endeavor in space," Hickman said.

 

Hickman then posed this question with a suggested answer: "What should the United States do? Answer: Establish a permanent manned United States base on the moon first."

 

Last frontier left

 

"I do think a human moon landing is very much in the cards for China," said Narayani Basu, a research officer with the Southeast Asia Research Program at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies in New Delhi, India. "It would seem a natural culmination to the three-phase program that they are working towards completing," she told SPACE.com

 

All in all, space is the last frontier left, Basu said. "Beijing is aware of its competitors. It has done its research and it is working to become a competitor to be reckoned with as far as space exploration goes. They've improved and built upon the technology already in place so that their space program is leaner and sleeker in terms of budgeting," she said.

 

Basu said that China is looking for resources on Earth. And the next step is outer space.

 

Asteroid mining, establishing a permanent manned base on the moon, these are all avenues just waiting to be taken advantage of, Basu added. "The U.S. program is struggling at the moment. Taking a quick lead in matters like these will give Beijing an upper hand in terms of 'geo-strategy' in the future," she said.

 

International space stage

 

China's space station is to be in place by 2020, officials have said — perhaps the same year that the International Space Station is going to be scrapped.

 

"That will undoubtedly give the Chinese an edge on the international space stage," Basu said. "It is also a signal of hope to the Chinese people that China is regaining some of its past glory…that it's still a strong contender in world politics. It is a message that the Party would like to get across, both internationally and domestically, in my opinion, especially given all the bad press about its slowing economy."

 

Basu said that, practicalities apart, space exploration definitely figures as a theme in Chinese President Xi Jinping's "Chinese dream."

 

"His vision implies that China will become stronger, has a definite strategic and economic footprint, and a global — and with the culmination of the space program — extraterrestrial — presence. So, in all fields and arenas, it will be a force to reckon with," Basu said.

 

Engage! Warp Drive Could Become Reality with Quantum-Thruster Physics

 

Miriam Kramer - Space.com

 

Warp-drive technology, a form of "faster than light" travel popularized by TV's "Star Trek," could be bolstered by the physics of quantum thrusters — another science-fiction idea made plausible by modern science.

 

NASA scientists are performing experiments that could help make warp drive a possibility sometime in the future from a lab built for the Apollo program at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

 

A warp-drive-enabled spacecraft would look like a football with two large rings fully encircling it. The rings would utilize an exotic form of matter to cause space-time to contract in front of and expand behind them. Harold "Sonny" White, a NASA physicist, is experimenting with these concepts on a smaller scale using a light-measuring device in the lab.

 

"We're looking for a change in path length of the photon on the interferometer, because that would be potential evidence that we're generating the effect we're looking for," White told SPACE.com. "We've seen, in a couple different experiments with several different analytic techniques, a change in optical-path length. We're making one leg of the interferometer seem a little shorter because of this device being on, versus the device being off. That doesn't mean that it's what we're looking for."

 

While these results are intriguing, they are in no way definitive proof that warp drive could work, White said. The scaled-down experiments are just a first step toward understanding if these concepts can be taken out of the realm of theory and applied practically.

 

Quantum thrust through space-time

 

Quantum-thruster physics, another technology White is looking into at NASA, could be the key to creating the fuel needed for a warp drive.

 

These electric "q-thrusters" work as a submarine does underwater, except they're in the vacuum of space, White told the crowd here at Starship Congress on Aug. 17. The spacecraft is theoretically propelled through space by stirring up the cosmic soup, causing quantum-level perturbations. The resulting thrust is similar to that created by a submersible moving through water.

 

The technology produces negative vacuum energy, a key ingredient for an exotic-matter-powered warp-drive engine.

 

"The physics models that tell us how to construct a q-thruster are the same models we'll use to generate, design and build a negative vacuum generator," White said. "The quantum thrusters might be a propulsion manifestation of the physics, like the big ring around the spacecraft. If you looked in there, there might be 10,000 of these little cans that are the negative vacuum generators."

 

White wants to try to apply the quantum-thruster physics models the researchers have been working with in the lab to their work with warp drive.

 

"We have measured a force in several test devices which is a consequence of perturbing the state of the quantum vacuum," White said. The effect has been small but significant in his experimentation. Going forward, White hopes to do more robust testing to possibly magnify those claims.

 

Do the time warp

 

The warp-drive ship itself would never be going faster than the speed of light, but the warped space-time around it could help the spacecraft achieve an effective speed of 10 times the speed of light within the confines of White's concept.

 

When first proposed by Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre in 1994, the warp drive would have required huge, unreasonable amounts of energy, but White's work brought those numbers down. Previous studies extrapolated that the drive would need energy equal to the mass energy of Jupiter.

 

"In the early epoch of the universe, there was a very short period known as inflation," said Richard Obousy, president of Icarus Interstellar. "We believe that during that inflationary period, space-time itself expanded at many times the speed of light, so there are tantalizing questions when you look at nature as a teacher. Is this something that can be duplicated around the vicinity of a spacecraft?"

 

Now, White thinks the drive could be powered by a collection of exotic mass about the size of NASA's Voyager 1 probe if the rings housing the mass were shaped like a donut and oscillate over time.

 

Rocks in Space

 

Gail Collins – New York Times (Editorial)

 

So, which would you rather do: Capture an asteroid or go back to the moon?

 

This is one of the many interesting issues facing Congress that we probably will not have time to debate once Congress actually comes back next month. Then it'll be nothing but Obamacare and government shutdowns and the occasional discussion about whether Senator Ted Cruz has managed to dispose of his recently discovered dual Canadian citizenship.

 

Which I am personally looking forward to a lot. But today let's consider the American space program.

 

Space exploration is one of the extremely few areas in which there is a lot of bipartisan agreement in Washington. For instance, both parties believe that the United States should be trying to get to Mars. Eventually. Nobody thinks this will happen anytime soon — partly because the technology is so challenging and partly because Congress keeps cutting the space budget.

So far, NASA has not shown any interest in the tactic being used by a Dutch company that hopes to establish a Martian colony in about 10 years, with money that would come in part from producing a reality series, somewhere along the lines of "Big Brother" or perhaps "Real Housewives of the Red Planet."

 

The third point of wide bipartisan agreement is that nobody wants their constituents to be clobbered by an asteroid. Really, this is a priority. The Obama administration is currently promoting an "asteroid grand challenge," in which we're invited "to find all asteroid threats to human populations" and figure out what to do about them.

 

And — this is good news, people — we've already pinpointed about 95 percent of all the rocks in the solar system that are of planet-mashing size.

 

I know that you are now instantly focusing on the remaining 5 percent, as well as the multitudinous smaller fellows that are capable of taking out Massachusetts or Paris — or your local shopping center. Everybody is in favor of finding them too, particularly since one grazed Russia earlier this year, causing the House Science Committee to hold a special Threats From Space meeting.

 

Even members of Congress who pooh-pooh the peril of global warming believe in the danger of global asteroid-exploding. I am thinking about Rep. Lamar Smith, the Texas Republican who heads — yes! — the House Science Committee. And Sen. Ted Cruz, the top-ranking Republican on the Senate Subcommittee on Science and Space, who demanded that we "do what needs to be done" to prevent an asteroid from hitting the earth and smashing into a major American city. Or a Canadian one.

 

Despite all this cheerleading, there hasn't been all that much money spent on the mission. Discover magazine estimated that over the past 15 years, the United States had spent less money on asteroid detection "than the production budget of the 1998 asteroid movie 'Armageddon.' " In which Ben Affleck won Liv Tyler but the earth lost Shanghai, much of New York and Bruce Willis. But we were talking about capturing asteroids.

 

The question is what NASA should do during the really, really long pre-Mars interlude. The White House wants to send an unmanned spacecraft to capture a smallish asteroid, tow it back and put it into orbit around the moon, where we could send astronauts to study it. This would most definitely help us in the race to develop the best "capture bag," and there's pretty wide agreement we would acquire some other useful technology as well.

 

"This would be the first time humans have, in some sense, rearranged the solar system for their own purposes. So that's exciting," said Prof. Tom Prince, director of the Keck Institute for Space Studies at the California Institute of Technology.

 

Not as far as the House of Representatives is concerned. The Science Committee recently voted to cut all the money for asteroid capture and invest it instead in a new moon landing. There were several objections to the Obama plan, the main one being that it was kind of boring. "Costly and uninspiring," sniffed Chairman Smith.

 

The White House position was that if you wanted to talk about boring, look at a moon landing. "Going back to the moon, something we have done six times, just does not seem to us worth the investment," said Lori Garver, NASA deputy administrator, in a phone interview.

 

And anyway, what about protecting the earth from a killer asteroid? I believe I speak for all of us when I say that space exploration is good, but not being hit by a large hunk of galactic rock is even better.

 

The House Republicans could have a point. The asteroid that NASA wants to capture would be way smaller than Killer Visitor dimensions. Although it does seem a little peculiar that they're calling for a dramatic moon-colony initiative at the same time they're cutting the space budget.

 

It's also conceivable that the Science Committee doesn't like the Obama plan because it's the Obama plan. This has been known to happen in the House. Perhaps we should be grateful it hasn't voted to cancel the asteroid-capturing program 40 times.

 

END

 

 

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