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

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From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: September 3, 2013 6:02:06 AM GMT-06:00
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: Human Spaceflight News - September 3, 2013 and JSC Today

Don't forget to join us at our monthly NASA Retirees Luncheon at Hibachi Grill at 11:30 –this Thursday/Sept. 5^th.

 

 

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

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JSC TODAY CATEGORIES Headlines -  New Hazardous Waste Pickup Procedures Start Today -  NASA 55th Anniversary T-Shirt - Order Today -  Conference Attendance: What Can Be Approved? -  Recent JSC Announcement Organizations/Social -  Starport 2.0 - New Website - Phase 1 Launched -  This Week at Starport - Discount Astros Tickets -  Society of Women Engineers Meeting -  JSC Contractor Safety and Health Forum - Sept. 10 Jobs and Training -  Introduction to I&I -  FedTraveler Live Lab, Sept. 4 -  September Sustainability Opportunities -  Evening Financial Wellness - September Only -  Job Opportunities -  Facility Manager Training Community -  Sept. 12 - LPI Cosmic Exploration Speaker Series

Astronaut Candidate Survival Training

 

Headlines New Hazardous Waste Pickup Procedures Start Today Remember that starting today, you will contact the JSC Environmental Services contractor, not facilities Work Control, to request hazardous waste pickups, new hazardous waste containers or to drain containments. You can call the environmental info line at x36207 to request these services, or send an email to JSC-Environmental-Office (in the global). Continue to use form JF 1161, Disposal Inventory for Miscellaneous Hazardous Wastes, when requesting waste pickups. If you have any questions about the new procedure or any other environmental issue, call the environmental info line at x36207. M. Jo Kines x33218 [top] NASA 55th Anniversary T-Shirt - Order Today Special Purchase Opportunity for NASA 55th Anniversary T-Shirt Starport is excited to offer the latest agency T-shirt in celebration of NASA's 55th anniversary on Oct. 1. This is a special online purchase opportunity, with sizes ranging from youth medium to adult XL just $7, or $8 for sizes 2X to 4X. Pick up your shirts at Starport with the TX-JSC option, or have them shipped to your home address for an additional fee. Order online today! Limited time to order. Cyndi Kibby x47467 [top] Conference Attendance: What Can Be Approved? If you have ever wondered why it is so hard to gain approval for conference attendance, join the Office of the Chief Financial Officer policy office to have all your questions answered. The policy office will provide a short presentation and then host a question-and-answer session today, Sept. 3, from 10 to 11 a.m., and Thursday, Sept. 5, from 2 to 3 p.m. Both presentations are in the Building 30 Auditorium. There is no need to register, just come on by. Eameal Holstien x33859 [top] Recent JSC Announcement Please visit the JSC Announcements (JSCA) Web page to view the newly posted announcement: JSCA 13-033: Communications with Industry Procurement Solicitation for Construction Management and Professional Engineering Services (CoMPES) follow-on contract Linda Turnbough x36246 http://ird.jsc.nasa.gov/DocumentManagement/announcements/default.aspx [top]    Organizations/Social Starport 2.0 - New Website - Phase 1 Launched Starport is thrilled to launch our new and improved website: http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov Same URL, but completely redesigned! When creating our new website, we had one goal: Help YOU get to the information you want as quickly and easily as possible. New areas of the site include: Facilities | Full facility listings and descriptions Programs | Expanded information on everything Starport offers Rentals | The information you need directly at your fingertips ShopNASA | Retail and gift shop services simplified Phase 2 of Starport's new website will be launching later this month and will allow for full online account management, registration and payment. Check out Starport today! Steve Schade x30304 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov [top] This Week at Starport - Discount Astros Tickets Last chance to get discount Astros tickets! Sept. 15 is NASA Night at Minute Maid Park. Come watch the Astros take on the LA Angels with discounted tickets. Plus, kids will be allowed to run the bases following the game. Click here for ticket options and pricing. The JSC Federal Credit Union will be in the Buildings 3 and 11 cafés from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. tomorrow, Sept. 4. Stop by and visit with representatives about your financial needs. Sam's Club will be in the Building 3 Starport Café Thursday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. to discuss membership options. Receive gift card on new memberships or renewals. Cash or check only for membership purchases. Effective this month, Sam's Club will be out every other Thursday. Save the date -- Masquerade Jewelry will be out on Sept. 24 to showcase $5 jewelry! Stop by Building 3 from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. and experience the frenzy of $5 jewelry and accessories. Shelly Haralson x39168 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/ [top] Society of Women Engineers Meeting Free frozen yogurt, networking, outreach and leadership opportunities ... and did we mention free frozen yogurt? Come join the Texas Space Center section of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) for our first meeting of the year. Learn about our exciting plans for the upcoming year and how you can get involved. Whether you are looking to network or develop transferable job and life skills, we offer options to get involved. Everyone will receive 10 percent off their purchase at Tutti Frutti Frozen Yogurt, and paid SWE members can enter a drawing to get their frozen yogurt free! What: First SWE-Texas Space Center meeting When: Thursday, Sept. 12, at 5:30 p.m. Where: Tutti Frutti Frozen Yogurt (18015 Saturn Lane, Houston, 77058) Event Date: Thursday, September 12, 2013   Event Start Time:5:30 PM   Event End Time:6:30 PM Event Location: Tutti Frutti;18015 Saturn Lane Houston, TX, 77058 Add to Calendar Kathryn Collier x49002 http://www.swe.org/swe/regionc/sections/c008/ [top] JSC Contractor Safety and Health Forum - Sept. 10 Our next JSC Contractor Safety and Health Forum will be Tuesday, Sept. 10, in the Gilruth Alamo Ballroom from 9 to 11 a.m. The guest speaker for this event is Dr. Richard Bunch, Ph.D., P.T., C.B.E.S., CEO, Industrial Safety and Rehabilitation Institute, Inc., and adjunct professor at Tulane University, School of Public Health. Bunch's presentation, "Advanced Concepts in Office Ergonomics and Wellness," will cover how integrating key ergonomic principles with behavioral modification and wellness interventions have proven to be highly effective for injury prevention and wellness. Robert Martel, Health System specialist with JSC's Occupational Health Branch/SD, will provide an overview of the JSC Occupational Health Branch services. David Loyd, chief, Safety and Test Operations Division/NS, will be discussing the "Results of the JSC NASA Safety Culture Survey." If you have any questions, please contact Pat Farrell at 281-335-2012 or via email. Event Date: Tuesday, September 10, 2013   Event Start Time:9:00 AM   Event End Time:11:00 AM Event Location: Gilruth Alamo Ballroom Add to Calendar Patricia A. Farrell 281-335-2012 [top]    Jobs and Training Introduction to I&I Space available: Introduction to Inclusion & Innovation (I&I) on Sept. 17 Join Dr. Steve Robbins for this one-day session in the Gilruth Center Alamo Ballroom as he facilitates discussions around the connections between open mindedness, inclusion, creativity and innovation. Sign up today! https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=REGISTRATI... Class time: 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (Registration begins at 8 a.m.) Location: Gilruth Center Alamo Ballroom Diane Kutchinski x46490 [top] FedTraveler Live Lab, Sept. 4 Do you need some hands-on, personal help with FedTraveler.com? Join the Business Systems and Process Improvement Office for a FedTraveler Live Lab tomorrow, Sept. 4, any time between 9 a.m. and noon in Building 12, Room 142. Our help desk representatives will be available to help you work through travel processes and learn more about using FedTraveler during this informal workshop. Bring your current travel documents or specific questions that you have about the system and join us for some hands-on, in-person help with the FedTraveler. If you'd like to sign up for this FedTraveler Live Lab, please log into SATERN and register. For additional information, please contact Judy Seier at x32771. To register in SATERN, please click on this SATERN direct link: https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=SCHEDULED_... Gina Clenney x39851 [top] September Sustainability Opportunities How sustainable are you? If you don't really understand what that means, you are not alone! Your JSC sustainability champions can present an overview anytime. A description of our JSC sustainability initiatives and Sept. opportunities to get involved can be found on the JSC Sustainability homepage. Scroll down to the "What's New in Sustainability" section for the September Sustainability Opportunities. Laurie Peterson x39845 http://jsc-web-www6.jsc.nasa.gov/ja/ja13/capp.cfm [top] Evening Financial Wellness - September Only Evening Financial Wellness classes will be offered this Sept. 10, 11, 17 and 18 at the Gilruth. This is a great opportunity to bring your spouse or significant other. Enrollment is open. Seating is limited, so reserve your seat now. Retirement, Taxes and Estate Planning: FW106 and 206: Retire with Confidence, Level One and Two FW107 and 207: Taxes; Dancing with Uncle Sam, Part 1 and 2 FW108 and 208: Estate Planning Intro and Being an Executor Topic Specific: FW203: Insurance; What if … Financial Protection FW204: Maximize Your Investments Introductory Class Webinar Series * These webinars will become available throughout September. FW101: Financial Wellness Foundation FW102: Budgets, Debt, Insurance and Long-Term Care FW103: Investing and Retirement Planning FW104: Taxes and Estate Planning Enrollment Details are at this link. Shelly Haralson x39168 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/ [top] 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] Facility Manager Training The Safety Learning Center invites you to attend an eight-hour Facility Managers Training. NOTE: This will be the final course for Fiscal Year 2013, and space is limited. This course provides JSC Facility Managers with insight into the requirements for accomplishing their functions. Includes training on facility management, safety, hazard Identification and mitigation, legal, security, energy conservation, health and environmental aspects. Attendees of this course must also register in SATERN for a half-day Fire Warden Training. * Others that need Fire Warden training can register through the normal process. Date/Time: Sept. 5 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Where: Safety Learning Center - Building 20, Room 205/206 Registration via SATERN required: https://satern.nasa.gov/learning/user/deeplink_redirect.jsp?linkId=SCHEDULED_... Aundrail Hill x36369 [top]    Community Sept. 12 - LPI Cosmic Exploration Speaker Series The Lunar and Planetary Institutes invites all inquisitive adults to attend Solar Storm: Space Weather's Impacts on Society and the Economy, a presentation by Dr. Daniel Baker from the University of Colorado on Sept. 12 at 7:30 p.m. This free presentation is the first in the Lunar and Planetary Institute's (LPI's) 2013-2104 Cosmic Exploration Speaker Series: "The Universe is Out to Get Us and What We Can (or Can't) Do About It." LPI's Cosmic Explorations presentation begins at 7:30 p.m. and will be followed by a light reception. No reservation is necessary. LPI is located in the USRA building (3600 Bay Area Blvd. in Clear Lake - the entrance is located on Middlebrook Drive) and is part of the Universities Space Research Association. For more information, please click here or contact Andrew Shaner at 281-486-2163 or via email. Event Date: Thursday, September 12, 2013   Event Start Time:7:30 PM   Event End Time:9:00 PM Event Location: LPI - USRA building (3600 Bay Area Blvd.) Add to Calendar Andrew Shaner 281-486-2163 [top]

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Human Spaceflight News

Tuesday – September 3, 2013

 

HEADLINES AND LEADS

 

NASA, Congress Finalize Operating Plan for 2013

 

Dan Leone - Space News

 

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and Commercial Crew Program are almost fully shielded from the sequester budget cuts under the agency's final operating budget for the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. The final operating plan, concluded in August after months of negotiations with Capitol Hill, includes about $16.9 billion for NASA in 2013, nearly 5 percent less than what U.S. President Barack Obama requested, according to NASA spokeswoman Beth Dickey. But the 5 percent cut was not applied evenly across NASA's programs as originally envisioned under the sequestration policy.

 

JWST, Commercial Crew Spared Cuts in NASA FY2013 Operating Plan

 

Marcia Smith - SpacePolicyOnline.com

 

With only six weeks left in FY2013, Congress and the Obama Administration finally reached agreement on NASA's FY2013 operating plan that details how the agency will spend the money appropriated by Congress.   Although the agency was subject to across-the-board cuts of about 7 percent that were to be applied proportionately to all its activities, at least two projects were spared those cuts -- the commercial crew program and the James Webb Space Telescope.

 

NASA veteran Chris Kraft upfront with criticism

 

Eric Berger - Houston Chronicle

 

NASA says it's going places, that its plan to develop a new space capsule and rocket will take human astronauts places they've never been before - asteroids and eventually Mars. But many former NASA officials are deeply skeptical about the plan espoused by the space agency, at the direction of the Obama administration. Among the critics is the legendary Chris Kraft, NASA's first manned spaceflight director, for whom Mission Control at Johnson Space Center is named. Kraft spoke recently with science writer Eric Berger about NASA's plans…

 

NASA Officials Talk SLS / Budget

 

Jason Rhian - AmericaSpace.com

 

During a visit to NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF) for the ribbon-cutting for the new Vertical Weld Center, AmericaSpace spoke with NASA's Dan Dumbacher and William Gerstenmaier regarding the current state of the program that the center will be used to help build: the Space Launch System, or SLS. Recent questions by our guests have reminded us about these interviews, which we are now presenting to you for the first time. During the interview, NASA's Deputy Associate Administrator for Exploration Systems in the Human Exploration & Operations Mission Directorate details plans for the first manned flight of SLS, currently slated to take place in 2021, as well as the possibility of seeing SLS missions fly at the rate of about once per year. (NO FURTHER TEXT)

 

'Albert Einstein' Pulls Up ISS

 

RIA Novosti

 

Russian mission control successfully adjusted the orbit of the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday using thrusters of the unmanned European spacecraft ATV-4 "Albert Einstein" docked with the station. The perigee height of the ISS is now 412 kilometers (256 miles) and apogee height 418 kilometers (260 miles), a mission control spokesman told RIA Novosti. The orbit adjustment was to make easier the upcoming docking of a Soyuz spacecraft that is to bring a new crew to the ISS next month, the spokesman said. The crew comprises Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazanskiy and NASA astronaut Michael Hopkins. Their spacecraft will blast off for the ISS on September 25. (NO FURTHER TEXT)

 

Orbital launch set for Sept. 17

 

Carol Vaughn - Eastern Shore News

 

Orbital Sciences and NASA have announced a new launch date for a demonstration mission to the International Space Station to be launched from Wallops Island in September. The launch is now set for Tuesday, Sept. 17, at 11:16 a.m., with a 15-minute launch window. The previous date announced was Sept. 14, with a launch window from Sept. 14-19. The launch of Orbital's Antares rocket carrying the Cygnus spacecraft is one of two high-profile missions planned for takeoff in September from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA Wallops Flight Facility.

 

Commercial space groups to discuss Ellington spaceport

 

Alex Macon - Galveston County Daily News

 

As support for a proposed spaceport at Ellington Field builds, members of the commercial spaceflight industry and Houston Airport System will meet at Space Center Houston this week to unveil details of the plan. The system is expected to release conceptual renderings and graphics depicting the look and design of the spaceport. A new logo for the airport also is set to debut. The Wednesday event will feature keynote speaker and Houston Airport System Director Mario Diaz, a proponent of the spaceport. He has said Ellington could obtain a license from the Federal Aviation Administration next year.

 

KSC employment dips below lowest point

Space center work force less than 8,000 first time since 1964

 

James Dean – Florida Today

 

Men had not yet set foot on the moon when Kennedy Space Center employment began a slide that purged more than 17,000 jobs over eight years. But two years after the final shuttle launch, the center has never employed fewer people than now. KSC's total work force this summer dipped below 8,000 for the first time since NASA began keeping comprehensive records in 1964, two years after the center was formally established. The total — including civil servants, contractors, construction workers and other tenants — is about half what it was four years ago and hundreds less than the previous low reached in 1976, a year after American and Soviet crews met in space and five years before the first shuttle launch. With local astronaut launches not planned before 2017 on commercial vehicles and 2021 on a NASA rocket, Kennedy jobs may not have hit the bottom but aren't expected to fall much further.

 

Hadfield: Space experience 'magic'

Retired astronaut shares rare perspective on being weightless

 

Todd Halvorson - Florida Today

 

Chris Hadfield could arguably be the solar system's coolest Canadian, a charismatic astronaut and social media superstar with one million Twitter followers and almost 500,000 likes on his Facebook page. This year, at age 53, Hadfield became the first Canadian to command the International Space Station. He is the only Canadian to fly aboard the ISS and Russia's former Mir space station. He flew aboard the shuttle orbiters Atlantis and Endeavour and is a veteran spacewalker. Also on his resume: Decorated military fighter pilot. Mechanical engineer. Aquanaut. Visual artist and accomplished musician. Hadfield is one of those rare engineers whose eloquence matches his mechanical aptitude. Florida Today recently chatted with Hadfield about space exploration and life in orbit.

 

NASA networking event giving Fairhope native chance to showcase space agency's 'Next Great Ship'

 

Kelli Dugan - Mobile Press-Register

 

Folks eager to learn the ins and outs of doing business with NASA will not be the only ones getting an education Wednesday. The Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce will host the national space agency for a business-to-business forum for small- and mid-sized businesses across the region from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sept. 4 at the Arthur R. Outlaw Convention Center. But Fairhope native Todd May, manager of NASA's Space Launch System Program and a key presenter during the forum, will also tell the public about the national space agency's new heavy-lift launch vehicle from the deck of the USS Alabama at 5 p.m. and is slated to speak at his alma mater, Fairhope High School, at 10 a.m. Sept. 5. "I grew up on the Gulf Coast," May said in a prepared statement released by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville. Registration is $75 and includes lunch and a post-conference reception sponsored by Boeing Co. For more information or to attend, call (251) 431-8607.

 

30 Years Ago: First African-American Launches into Space

 

Megan Gannon - Space.com

 

Thirty years ago Friday, Guion "Guy" Bluford became the first African-American in space, launching into low-Earth orbit aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger. But he never set out to be a pioneer. "My desire was to make a contribution to the program," Bluford said in a statement from NASA. "People came from all over to watch this launch because I was flying," added Bluford. "I imagined them, all standing out there at one o'clock in the morning with their umbrellas, all asking the same question, 'Why am I standing here?'"

 

30 Years Ago:

First shuttle night launch, first African-American astronaut, oldest man in space

 

Ben Evans - AmericaSpace.com

 

At about midnight on the rainy evening of 30 August 1983, the adventure began for Guy Bluford, NASA's first African-American astronaut. Together with his four STS-8 crewmates—Dick Truly, Dan Brandenstein, Dale Gardner, and Bill Thornton—he left the Operations and Checkout Building at the Kennedy Space Center, Fla., bound for Pad 39A and a ride into space aboard Challenger. For Bluford, the 8.5-minute climb to orbit, and the six days in space that would follow, proved to be one of the highlights of his life … so much so that he found himself laughing, chuckling, and giggling almost uncontrollably throughout the ascent.

 

A View of the Earth

From the Hubble Space Telescope. Which I nearly broke.

 

Michael Massimino - Esquire

 

(Massimino is a veteran of two NASA space flights (STS-109 in March 2002 and STS-125 in May 2009) and has logged a total of 571 hours, 47 minutes in space, and a cumulative total of 30 hours, 4 minutes during four spacewalks)

 

In 1984 I was a senior in college, and I went to see the movie The Right Stuff. And a couple of things really struck me in that movie. The first was the view out the window of John Glenn's spaceship—the view of the Earth, how beautiful it was on the big screen. I wanted to see that view. And secondly, the camaraderie between the original seven astronauts depicted in that movie—how they were good friends, how they stuck up for each other, how they would never let each other down. I wanted to be part of an organization like that.

__________

 

COMPLETE STORIES

 

NASA, Congress Finalize Operating Plan for 2013

 

Dan Leone - Space News

 

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and Commercial Crew Program are almost fully shielded from the sequester budget cuts under the agency's final operating budget for the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.

 

The final operating plan, concluded in August after months of negotiations with Capitol Hill, includes about $16.9 billion for NASA in 2013, nearly 5 percent less than what U.S. President Barack Obama requested, according to NASA spokeswoman Beth Dickey. But the 5 percent cut was not applied evenly across NASA's programs as originally envisioned under the sequestration policy.

 

According to Dickey, NASA's Commercial Crew Program, intended to nurture development of commercial crew taxi services to and from the international space station, received $525 million under the final operating plan — exactly the presequestration amount Congress approved in the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act of 2013 (H.R. 933) signed March 26. That is a high-water mark for Commercial Crew, but still is about 37 percent less than what the White House wanted for 2013.

 

JWST, meanwhile, will get $627.6 million for 2013, even with the request and less than 1 percent below the presequester level approved in the March 26 spending bill.

 

Congressional sources said NASA and the White House wrangled over the final operating plan because lawmakers wanted the agency's Planetary Science Division to get more money than the administration requested. In the end, Planetary Science wound up with $1.27 billion, some 6.6 percent more than the White House's request, according to the figures NASA provided.

 

JWST, Commercial Crew Spared Cuts in NASA FY2013 Operating Plan

 

Marcia Smith - SpacePolicyOnline.com

 

With only six weeks left in FY2013, Congress and the Obama Administration finally reached agreement on NASA's FY2013 operating plan that details how the agency will spend the money appropriated by Congress.   Although the agency was subject to across-the-board cuts of about 7 percent that were to be applied proportionately to all its activities, at least two projects were spared those cuts -- the commercial crew program and the James Webb Space Telescope.

 

NASA has not released the operating plan to the public, but provided account and sub-account totals to SpacePolicyOnline.com at our request.  We have updated our fact sheets on NASA's FY2013 budget request and FY2014 budget request accordingly.

 

The messy FY2013 appropriations process was difficult to follow and NASA's appropriations ultimately were determined by two Continuing Resolutions (CRs).  The first, which covered October 1, 2012 - March 27, 2013, kept NASA and most other government agencies at their FY2012 spending levels, but included a 0.612 percent across-the-board increase.  The second CR covered the rest of the fiscal year (through September 30).  The House agreed to a Senate-passed version that is posted on the Senate Appropriations Committee's website along with an explanatory statement that includes a table detailing NASA funding.  At first glance, those figures looked quite good for the agency -- a total of $17.862 billion -- but later sections of the bill applied a 1.877 percent rescission, a 5 percent sequester, and instructed the Office of Management and Budget to make further across-the-board cuts if necessary to ensure total spending in the bill did not exceed agreed-upon budget caps.

 

According to the numbers provided to SpacePolicyOnline.com today (August 29, 2013), after doing all the math, NASA ended up with $16.865 billion for FY2013, compared to its request of $17.711 billion.  The rescissions and sequester were supposed to be applied "proportionately" to every "program, project and activity," but NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden made clear early on that he intended to exempt some activities, such as commercial crew.  Any such action would require agreement from OMB and Congress.

 

Indeed, the numbers provided by NASA show that the commercial crew program will be funded at $525 million for FY2013, the same level as approved by Congress before the rescissions and sequester are applied.   Similarly, the James Webb Space Telescope is funded at $627.6 million, a tad less than the $628 million approved by Congress before the across-the-board reductions.  A table comparing the FY2013 request, subsequent congressional action (including the second CR), and the final numbers provided by NASA based on the operating plan are in our fact sheet on the FY2013 budget request.

 

Hopefully NASA -- or the congressional appropriations committees -- will release the complete FY2013 operating plan so the taxpayers can know in more detail how their money is being spent.  For now, the numbers provided to SpacePolicyOnline.com today are at least a start.

 

NASA veteran Chris Kraft upfront with criticism

 

Eric Berger - Houston Chronicle

 

NASA says it's going places, that its plan to develop a new space capsule and rocket will take human astronauts places they've never been before - asteroids and eventually Mars. But many former NASA officials are deeply skeptical about the plan espoused by the space agency, at the direction of the Obama administration.

 

Among the critics is the legendary Chris Kraft, NASA's first manned spaceflight director, for whom Mission Control at Johnson Space Center is named. Kraft spoke recently with science writer Eric Berger about NASA's plans. The following are edited excerpts:

 

Q: I know you've been frustrated with the current direction of NASA. What's the problem with the space agency's plan to build the Space Launch System, a so-called heavy-lift rocket?

 

A: The problem with the SLS is that it's so big that makes it very expensive. It's very expensive to design, it's very expensive to develop. When they actually begin to develop it, the budget is going to go haywire. They're going to have all kinds of technical and development issues crop up, which will drive the development costs up. Then there are the operating costs of that beast, which will eat NASA alive if they get there. They're not going to be able to fly it more than once a year, if that, because they don't have the budget to do it. So what you've got is a beast of a rocket, that would give you all of this capability, which you can't build because you don't have the money to build it in the first place, and you can't operate it if you had it.

 

Q: What do you see as the alternative?

 

A: In the private sector we've got an Atlas and a Delta rocket, and the Europeans have a rocket called the Ariane. The Russians have lots of rockets, which are very reliable, and they get reliable by using them. And that's something the SLS will never have. Never. Because you can't afford to launch it that many times.

 

Q: So you're saying that NASA should launch its vehicles on existing rockets that can carry less mass into space?

 

A: What's so magic about this being able to lift 120 tons? Why can't you use what you've got and put your vehicles into space in pieces, like you did with the space station? That's the right way to do it. Eventually you'll get to the point where, even with a really big rocket, you can't put everything on there you need to go where you want to go. Whether you want to go to the moon or Mars, you're going to have to do something in Earth orbit, or maybe lunar orbit, with an assembly capability, a fuel depot capability and the capability to have people operating there sort of as a Cape Canaveral in the sky.

 

Q: Like a lot of people in Congress, you don't like NASA's plan to attempt landing astronauts on an asteroid before maybe trying to go to Mars in the 2030s. Why?

 

A: Most in Congress want to see NASA go back to the moon. So do nearly all of the scientific and technical organizations in the world. China said last week they're going to go to the moon. They aren't going just because it's there, it's because it's a place where you want to be from all kinds of points of view, from science, from a resource point of view. There's no reason why you couldn't set up a factory on the moon to build solar panels. You could provide enough electrical power on the moon from solar cells, and eventually you could supply enough power for half the people on Earth with a solar cell farm on the moon. I just think the world is going to use the moon for practical purposes.

 

Q: A lot of veteran astronauts and engineers are leaving NASA. Why do you think this is?

 

A: Astronauts want to do something that has some excitement to it. The engineers that come to Johnson Space Center want to do something. You go talk to the guys who were doing Constellation (NASA's now-scuttled plan to return to the moon), and the reason they came to NASA was to go back to the moon. They're all leaving now. The leaders are leaving for a lot of other reasons also, but they're leaving because there's no future that they want to be involved in. And that's unfortunate. You've got to have a reason for people to give you their lives, which is what I did. I gave NASA my life not because they asked me to, but because I wanted to. I had a reason. But I just don't think that's there now.

 

Orbital launch set for Sept. 17

 

Carol Vaughn - Eastern Shore News

 

Orbital Sciences and NASA have announced a new launch date for a demonstration mission to the International Space Station to be launched from Wallops Island in September.

 

The launch is now set for Tuesday, Sept. 17, at 11:16 a.m., with a 15-minute launch window.

 

The previous date announced was Sept. 14, with a launch window from Sept. 14-19.

 

The launch of Orbital's Antares rocket carrying the Cygnus spacecraft is one of two high-profile missions planned for takeoff in September from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA Wallops Flight Facility.

 

Both are expected to draw large crowds to the Eastern Shore of Virginia to view the launches.

 

The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, or LADEE, an 844-pound spacecraft about the size of a small refrigerator, is set to take off from Wallops on Sept. 6 aboard a Minotaur V rocket. It will be the first mission to the moon launched from Wallops Island. The launch window for the LADEE mission runs through Sept. 10.

 

The ISS mission will mark the first time Orbital's Cygnus spacecraft will deliver cargo to the International Space Station. The spacecraft will be launched aboard an Antares rocket from pad 0A at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island.

 

The mission is the final milestone in the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services agreement between Orbital Sciences and NASA.

 

A successful demonstration mission will clear the way for Orbital to begin regular cargo supply missions to the International Space Station. The company has a contract with NASA for eight such missions under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services program.

 

More than 1,300 pounds of non-critical crew supplies will be taken to the International Space Station on the demonstration mission, including computer supplies, food bags, tools and several small experiments, called Nanorack modules, a NASA spokesman said.

 

Commercial space groups to discuss Ellington spaceport

 

Alex Macon - Galveston County Daily News

 

As support for a proposed spaceport at Ellington Field builds, members of the commercial spaceflight industry and Houston Airport System will meet at Space Center Houston this week to unveil details of the plan.

 

The system is expected to release conceptual renderings and graphics depicting the look and design of the spaceport. A new logo for the airport also is set to debut.

 

The Wednesday event will feature keynote speaker and Houston Airport System Director Mario Diaz, a proponent of the spaceport. He has said Ellington could obtain a license from the Federal Aviation Administration next year.

 

The subject should dominate discussion at the annual conference for the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, which is made up of more than 40 businesses and organizations in the commercial space industry.

 

Its members include Boeing, SpaceX and the Sierra Nevada Corp., which each have partnered with NASA to develop spacecraft to ferry crew and cargo to the International Space Station.

 

Proponents of an Ellington Airport said the field is uniquely located to launch craft and microsatellites for commercial activities such as space tourism and experimentation. The spaceport also will be used for vehicle construction and design.

 

Launches from the port would feature reusable vehicles that take off horizontally, rather than vertically.

 

The FAA has licensed eight commercial spaceports in the U.S. In July, the Houston City Council approved a $718,900 contract authorizing consultants to push for a spaceport license.

 

It would cost somewhere between $48 million to $122 million to equip Ellington to launch space vehicles, according to a 2012 study conducted by the Houston Airport System.

 

KSC employment dips below lowest point

Space center work force less than 8,000 first time since 1964

 

James Dean – Florida Today

 

Men had not yet set foot on the moon when Kennedy Space Center employment began a slide that purged more than 17,000 jobs over eight years.

 

But two years after the final shuttle launch, the center has never employed fewer people than now.

 

KSC's total work force this summer dipped below 8,000 for the first time since NASA began keeping comprehensive records in 1964, two years after the center was formally established.

 

The total — including civil servants, contractors, construction workers and other tenants — is about half what it was four years ago and hundreds less than the previous low reached in 1976, a year after American and Soviet crews met in space and five years before the first shuttle launch.

 

With local astronaut launches not planned before 2017 on commercial vehicles and 2021 on a NASA rocket, Kennedy jobs may not have hit the bottom but aren't expected to fall much further.

 

Center Director Bob Cabana expects the numbers to stay flat for another year or more before the new commercial operations and NASA's exploration program start to ramp up.

 

"It will never be what it was during shuttle and Apollo," Cabana said recently at an exhibit of the retired shuttle Atlantis at the KSC Visitor Complex. "It's a different time, but I think it's definitely a positive atmosphere here. Things are improving greatly on a weekly basis."

 

The historic low isn't a big surprise.

 

Studies anticipated the shuttle's retirement could impact more than 9,000 contractors in Florida. No follow-on program has emerged to replace those positions and quickly close the gap in human launches from U.S. soil.

 

While many displaced aerospace workers are struggling to find jobs, there's a general sense that the area is weathering this space program bust more easily than when the Apollo program was canceled.

 

The number of jobs lost is fewer and the county has grown tremendously, more than doubling its population since 1976 and diversifying its business base along the way.

 

"The employment opportunities are greater now," said Nancy Carswell of Merritt Island, whose husband lost his job after the last moon landing and went on to start real estate and construction businesses. "You have to remember, there was only one show in town and that was the space center. So when that left, there was nothing left."

 

A few years ago, Jodi Tinker had every reason to expect her salon on North Courtenay Parkway, near neighborhoods packed with space workers, might struggle.

 

To her surprise, business has grown since the shuttle program ended, doubling from five to 10 employees and expanding services.

 

"One of the main things that we see is when people are looking for a job, they really want to take care of their appearance," she said.

 

Tinker's success has not come without some personal cost.

 

Her husband was laid off by United Space Alliance and took a job in Virginia, leaving little time at home with the family.

 

Tinker said many of her clients are in the same boat, with one spouse traveling back and forth to work in another state while the other maintains a house and keeps children in school.

 

Aerospace engineer Joe Birko agreed that many of his peers are on the move.

 

"Everybody's spreading out where they can find suitable employment," said Birko, a West Melbourne resident who worked under shuttle-related contracts for 20 years. "Not everybody's finding, of course, what you were making at the space center."

 

Brevard County's unemployment rate has improved significantly even as space center staffing declined, from nearly 12 percent early in 2010 to 7.3 percent this April, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

 

But that statistic and individual success stories can mask what still is a difficult local economy with thousands fewer jobs than the high mark in 2006, said Michael Slotkin, associate professor of economics at Florida Tech.

 

More people have accepted lower living standards, are working part-time and without benefits or are leaving the area.

 

"I think there's a lot of pain out there, and it's just sort of hidden," Slotkin said.

 

He said it was fortunate that shuttle layoffs hit as the national economy began to recover from the housing and financial crises. Kennedy's downturn blunted Brevard's rebound, but its timing avoided the worst-case scenario of all three crises happening at once.

 

"What transpired was awful, but it didn't turn out to be the nightmare of greater than 15 percent unemployment that some people thought it was going to be, and that I worried about at one point in time," he said.

 

For many of the roughly 7,800 people still working at KSC, including about 2,000 civil servants, it might be possible not to notice the dramatically shrunken work force.

 

Office buildings with full parking lots remain a bustle of planning for a modernized spaceport and future missions.

 

The absence of people is most obvious in previously operational sites shut down except for renovations, such as orbiter hangars, launch pads and parts of the Vehicle Assembly Building.

 

Unlike in the '70s, there is no sure thing like the shuttle program to look forward to.

 

Lee Solid, a Rocketdyne executive during the Apollo program who consulted with local work force officials on planning for the shuttle's end, recently lunched with a friend at Kennedy.

 

"Under the circumstances of limited funding and an undefined long-term mission, they're doing the best they can," he said.

 

Hadfield: Space experience 'magic'

Retired astronaut shares rare perspective on being weightless

 

Todd Halvorson - Florida Today

 

Chris Hadfield could arguably be the solar system's coolest Canadian, a charismatic astronaut and social media superstar with one million Twitter followers and almost 500,000 likes on his Facebook page.

 

This year, at age 53, Hadfield became the first Canadian to command the International Space Station. He is the only Canadian to fly aboard the ISS and Russia's former Mir space station.

 

He flew aboard the shuttle orbiters Atlantis and Endeavour and is a veteran spacewalker.

 

Also on his resume: Decorated military fighter pilot. Mechanical engineer. Aquanaut. Visual artist and accomplished musician.

 

Hadfield is one of those rare engineers whose eloquence matches his mechanical aptitude. Florida Today recently chatted with Hadfield about space exploration and life in orbit.

 

Q: What it's like to be weightless — to be able to fly like Superman?

 

A: It's magic. It is like having a superpower. ... It immediately turns you into Superwoman or Superman, and you can fly. You can touch the wall and do a hundred somersaults. You can move a refrigerator around with your fingertips. You can float. It is instantaneous, permanent magic the whole time you're up there. ... It is one of THE great joys of spaceflight, being forever weightless.

 

Q: What is the view of Earth like from the space station?

 

A: If there was ever a place that lets us see ourselves, that lets us see the world, that lets us see our place in the world, the space station surely is that. ... It's beautiful, and interesting, and thought provoking, and perspective building. It's a wonderful place to understand our planet and our place in it better.

 

Q: You are one of the few people who have performed a spacewalk. Tell me what that is like.

 

A: It's the most magnificent experience of my life. I was there for the birth of all three of my children. I was there in the delivery room as my three kids came out squalling and wet and screaming. And I was a Navy test pilot putting airplanes out of control. I helped build part of the (Russian) space station Mir, and everything else pales in comparison to walking in space.

 

Part of it is the rareness of it. It's a brand new human experience, to be alone in the universe. You know, physically and psychologically like that. A large part of it, though, is in the surprising, kind of shocking beauty of it. ... You pull yourself physically outside on a spacewalk, and immediately, instantaneously, you are in between a kaleidoscope of colors and textures that is the world. It's so visually powerful. ... In one hand, you're holding onto a space shuttle or a space station, a human creation — just holding on with one hand, and then if you look the other way, the entire rest of everything else — the universe — is right there underneath your feet. You know, a blackness that is so profound and endless.

 

Q: What does an astronaut do when he or she is not flying?

 

A: That's a really good question. It's as if all astronauts do is fly. But that's so far from the truth. Astronauts very, very seldom fly in space. Now what we do in between flight is, we make spaceflight possible. ... We work in Mission Control. We work at the Cape. We work in Star City, Russia — all the space centers around the world. We support other people flying in space. ... And once in a while, very rarely, you get to fly in space yourself.

 

Q: What is it like to sit on top of a controlled explosion and launch into space?

 

A: It's an amazing ride, and it's something that would be terrifying if you weren't ready for it. But you train for years, and you buy into the risk years in advance. You recognize what the risks are and you accept that I am going to go and do a risky thing. But it's not a random risk: I am going to do things where I have a lot of control over my own destiny. So if you just viewed it as sitting on top of a bomb that was exploding in one direction, you would probably feel quite different than if you viewed it as, well, sort of like getting into your car. Do you view your car as one long, continuous explosion of gasoline? Or do you view it as a nicely controlled channeling of power to allow you to go somewhere quickly? It's sort of the same, only to the Nth degree.

 

Q: You're retired now. What do you do for an encore?

 

A: I'm extremely busy now with things I find interesting and important to me. One is the book I wrote: An Astronauts Guide To Life On Earth. ... And we're planning a book tour in the fall with that. I'm doing a lot of teaching and speaking about spaceflight. ... And eventually, we'll see what comes next.

 

oh, canada

oh, canada

 

The former Soviet Union and the U.S. were the first two countries in space. The third country: Canada.

 

Canada's Alouette satellite was launched in 1962, and since then, the nation has played key roles in space exploration. Canada also designed and built the shuttle's robot arm and the robotic arm used to erect the International Space Station.

 

This week, Canada officially launches an exhibition at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. Dubbed Canada-In-Space: NASA's Enduring Partner, the photo exhibit is a 50-year retrospective of Canadian exploits in space.

 

NASA networking event giving Fairhope native chance to showcase space agency's 'Next Great Ship'

 

Kelli Dugan - Mobile Press-Register

 

Folks eager to learn the ins and outs of doing business with NASA will not be the only ones getting an education Wednesday.

 

The Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce will host the national space agency for a business-to-business forum for small- and mid-sized businesses across the region from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sept. 4 at the Arthur R. Outlaw Convention Center.

 

But Fairhope native Todd May, manager of NASA's Space Launch System Program and a key presenter during the forum, will also tell the public about the national space agency's new heavy-lift launch vehicle from the deck of the USS Alabama at 5 p.m. and is slated to speak at his alma mater, Fairhope High School, at 10 a.m. Sept. 5.

 

"I grew up on the Gulf Coast," May said in a prepared statement released by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville.

 

"And down there, we regularly stand on land and look out at the horizon. It beckons, 'What's out there?' Space exploration beckons the same thing," May said.

 

SLS has been dubbed NASA's "Next Great Ship" and, according to Marshall officials, it will be the "most powerful rocket in the world with the greatest capacity of any launch system ever built to support any destination, any payload and any mission."

 

May, who has led the SLS program for two years, manages a multi-billion-dollar budget and oversees more than 1,000 civil servant and contract employees.

 

"We intend to build the 'ship' that will take us to places in the universe we've never been before. And like the fleets that set out to sea, we look forward to the journey that awaits us," May said of the Space Launch System program," May said.

 

Prior to his current post, May served as associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, where he oversaw a $5 billion annual portfolio of more than 100 scientific missions. He also managed NASA's highly successful Discovery and New Frontiers program, which "develops low-cost missions to encounter comets and asteroids, return scientific samples from deep space, and launch the first mission to explore Pluto" and the Lunar Robotic Program, overseeing a dual spacecraft mission to the moon.

 

In addition to presentations during the business-to-business forum, NASA agency representatives and prime contractors will take part in a trade show, offering attendees face time with potential customers and purchasing agents.

 

Specifically, NASA's Shared Services Center in Mississippi, Stennis Space Center, Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans and the Mobile district of the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers will be represented as well as contractors, including Northrop Grumman Corp., ATK Aerospace, Aerojet Rocketdyne, Lockheed Martin Corp., Teledyne Brown Engineering Inc., Dynetics, the United Launch Alliance and Boeing Co.

 

According to the Alabama Department of Commerce, the state's already robust aerospace sector boasts 300 companies employing some 83,000 people, and the sector is one of 11 targeted aggressively for growth by Accelerate Alabama, the state's official economic development blueprint.

 

Registration is $75 and includes lunch and a post-conference reception sponsored by Boeing Co. For more information or to attend, call (251) 431-8607. 

 

30 Years Ago: First African-American Launches into Space

 

Megan Gannon - Space.com

 

Thirty years ago Friday, Guion "Guy" Bluford became the first African-American in space, launching into low-Earth orbit aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger. But he never set out to be a pioneer.

 

"My desire was to make a contribution to the program," Bluford said in a statement from NASA.

 

"People came from all over to watch this launch because I was flying," added Bluford. "I imagined them, all standing out there at one o'clock in the morning with their umbrellas, all asking the same question, 'Why am I standing here?'"

 

Bluford was part of NASA's barrier-breaking 1978 class of astronauts. Of the 35 spaceflyers selected, three were African-Americans, and six were women, including Sally Ride.

 

Bluford said that he and the other two black astronauts in the class (Fred Gregory and Ron McNair) were aware that one of them would become the first African-American spaceflyer.

 

"I probably told people that I would probably prefer not being in that role … because I figured being the No. 2 guy would probably be a lot more fun," Bluford recalled in a statement from NASA. But he has since embraced his place in space history.

 

"I wanted to set the standard, do the best job possible so that other people would be comfortable with African-Americans flying in space and African-Americans would be proud of being participants in the space program and… encourage others to do the same," Bluford said.

 

NASA chief Charles Bolden, who became the space agency's first black administrator in 2009, remembered Bluford's contributions in a video released by NASA this week.

 

"What was so good about Sally and what was so good about Guy was the fact that they were good," Bolden said in the video. "They didn't need to explain why they were there."

 

"Guy was the first person of color to fly and that was absolutely incredible, but it was would have been empty had he been the first and only," added Bolden, who is a veteran of four space shuttle flights.

 

30 Years Ago:

First shuttle night launch, first African-American astronaut, oldest man in space

 

Ben Evans - AmericaSpace.com

 

At about midnight on the rainy evening of 30 August 1983, the adventure began for Guy Bluford, NASA's first African-American astronaut. Together with his four STS-8 crewmates—Dick Truly, Dan Brandenstein, Dale Gardner, and Bill Thornton—he left the Operations and Checkout Building at the Kennedy Space Center, Fla., bound for Pad 39A and a ride into space aboard Challenger. For Bluford, the 8.5-minute climb to orbit, and the six days in space that would follow, proved to be one of the highlights of his life … so much so that he found himself laughing, chuckling, and giggling almost uncontrollably throughout the ascent.

 

Tucked into the shuttle's payload bay for STS-8 was an Indian communications satellite, Insat-1B, which had netted NASA $4 million in fees and which Bluford and Gardner were scheduled to deploy a few hours into the mission. Unfortunately, another payload—the second Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS-B), whose descendents remain in operational service today—had been deleted from the STS-8 roster as a result of an Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) booster failure soon after the TDRS-A launch on STS-6 in April 1983.

 

Had TDRS-B remained aboard Challenger, alongside Insat-1B, for the STS-8 mission, it would have been the heaviest cargo complement yet ferried into orbit at over 63,000 pounds. "There was very little weight-growth margin," Bluford later told the NASA oral historian. "During the training, Dale and I made several trips to Boeing Aircraft Corporation in Seattle, Wash., to learn about the IUS. We were becoming well versed in the operation of the IUS when it malfunctioned on STS-6 and, because of that, NASA decided not to fly the TDRS on our flight until after the mishap was investigated."

 

The presence of two of these communications and data relay platforms in geostationary orbit—one at 171 degrees West longitude, above the central Pacific Ocean to the south of Hawaii, and another just off the Atlantic coast of Brazil, at 41 degrees West—was highly desirable to support the first Spacelab research flight in late 1983. A third orbital "spare" (TDRS-C) was then to be launched on STS-12 in March 1984 and placed over the equator at 79 degrees West. However, by the end of May 1983, as investigators got to grips with finding out why the IUS had failed to inject TDRS-A into its 22,600-mile operational orbit, NASA opted not to risk launching another one until the problems were resolved. Efforts were already underway to raise TDRS-A into its correct "slot," at the expense of using two thirds of its valuable hydrazine fuel. As late as mid-July 1983, Flight International noted that NASA was hopeful that TDRS-A could be recovered in time to support the first Spacelab mission and the second satellite, TDRS-B, was provisionally remanifested onto STS-12.

 

In place of TDRS-B would fly an unusual contraption called the Payload Flight Test Article (PFTA). According to NASA's shuttle manifest of April 1982, this had been scheduled to fly aboard STS-16 in June 1984, but within a month of the return of STS-6 it had been moved forward to STS-8. Weighing 8,500 pounds, it looked like a giant dumb bell structure—a pair of "wheels," connected by a central axle—to evaluate the performance and handling characteristics of the shuttle's Canadian-built Remote Manipulator System (RMS) mechanical arm. The PFTA was constructed from aluminum and stainless steel and equipped with four grapple fixtures; two of which would be used on STS-8. Its aim was to acquire "real world" data and develop crew expertise on RMS elbow, wrist, and shoulder joint reactions.

 

Yet it was the deployment and tracking requirements of their other payload—the Indian National Satellite, Insat-1B—that brought about one of the most historic features of the mission: the first shuttle night launch, 30 years ago this week. "One of the neat things about it was that it was going to be a night launch and a night landing," recalled Dan Brandenstein in his NASA oral history. "What drove that was we were launching Insat and, to get it in the proper place, we worked the problem backwards. They wanted the satellite 'here,' so then we had to go back down our orbital mechanics and it meant we had to launch at night. The fact we launched at night meant that we would end up landing at night. Dick and I had both done night carrier landings and, judging from the way the shuttle flies and doing that at night, we both looked at each other and said, 'Oooh. This is going to be interesting!' We got very much involved in developing a lighting system to enable us to safely land at night."

 

This nocturnal launch had been simulated on the ground. "We concentrated on flying night launches and night landings in a darkened simulator," Bluford recalled. "We learned to set our light levels low enough in the cockpit that we could maintain our night vision, and I had a special lamp mounted on the back of my seat so that I could read the checklist in the dark. The only thing that wasn't simulated was the lighting associated with the Solid Rocket Booster ignition and the firing of the pyros for SRB and External Tank separation."

 

When Truly, Brandenstein, Gardner, and Bluford were assigned to STS-8 in April 1982, it was intended for them to remain a four-man crew. Then, in December 1982, the decision was taken to add a pair of physician-astronauts to STS-7 and STS-8, and Truly's crew wound up gaining Dr. Bill Thornton, who secured his own place of history by becoming the oldest human being yet to fly into space, aged 54. After 16 years as an astronaut, it was a joy for him to receive his first flight assignment. His wife, Jennifer, described Christmas 1982 as his happiest since joining NASA … and as the astronaut office's foremost expert on "space sickness" Thornton recalled that STS-8 "was the first and probably only flight that an investigator was ever allowed to make his own selection of experiments … and fly with it."

 

On a lighter note, Thornton's assignment had actually led to the creation of an extra, unofficial crew patch. Historically, astronauts avoided doctors like the plague, remarking that there were only two ways a pilot could emerge from a consultation: either "fine" or "grounded." None of the STS-8 astronauts was at risk of being grounded by Thornton, but his experiments, which included a series of blood tests on himself, resulted in a mission patch featuring his bespectacled eyes peering at a cluster of four pairs of frightened eyes in Challenger's flight deck. This good-natured "fear" of the good doctor continued into space during a telecast in which Thornton explained the purpose of his medical tests to his terrestrial audience. At the end of the telecast, Dick Truly quipped that the rest of the crew were now fed up with this "chamber of horrors" and picked up a hammer, floated across the middeck, and revealed Thornton being restrained to a bulkhead with grey tape. "His three colleagues," wrote space historians Dave Shayler and Colin Burgess in their book NASA's Scientist-Astronauts, "each wielded knives, wrenches, pliers, and hammers and, as the screen faded, a muffled scream from the good doctor was heard to close the telecast … "

 

Humor aside, it was with an air of trepidation that Truly led his men into a bewildering glare of media lights in the opening minutes of 30 August 1983. In the final week before launch, it became necessary for them to shift their sleep patterns into the daytime hours. "It took us about a week to get comfortable with that," recalled Bluford. "Some of us slept at home, while others slept in the crew quarters … in Houston. We ate food prepared at the center and practiced in the simulators at night. About three to four days before launch, we flew to the Cape for the final launch countdown. On 29 August, we were awakened at 10 p.m. We had breakfast and suited up for the mission, then headed downstairs for the van ride to the launch pad. I noticed it was raining. There was lightning in the area and there was some concern expressed by the launch control center about our safety as we proceeded out to the pad. Finally, they left it up to Dick to decide if it was safe for the crew to go to the pad. He made the decision for us to proceed and went out to Challenger.

 

"As we climbed into the vehicle and completed our pre-flight checks," Bluford continued, "the rain began to subside and the clouds began to clear away. The ride into orbit was really exciting! We had darkened the cockpit to prepare for liftoff; however, when the [Solid Rocket Boosters] ignited, they turned night into day inside! Whatever night vision we hoped to maintain, we lost right away at liftoff." Launch occurred at 2:32 a.m., about 17 minutes into a half-hour "window," due to the thunderstorms in the area.

 

Seated behind and between Truly and Brandenstein, as STS-8's flight engineer, it was Bluford's task to check off each stage of the violent climb to orbit. Next to him on the flight deck, literally shoulder to shoulder, and directly behind Brandenstein, was Dale Gardner. Bill Thornton sat alone in the darkened, locker-studded middeck. From his vantage point, the doctor had little to see: the only window was a small circular one in the side hatch, although, craning his neck, he could see "upwards" into the flight deck and through the overhead windows. At the instant of liftoff, Thornton recalled, the sensation was like "taking a fast ride on the London Underground." From his perspective, all was dark during the first two minutes of ascent, but as soon as Challenger shed her twin Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs), the entire cockpit was eerily lit up.

 

Upstairs, Gardner's main view was through the overhead windows, and what he saw worried him sufficiently to call Brandenstein over the intercom. As the pilot, one of Brandenstein's key roles during ascent was to monitor the performance of main engines. "Obviously, Dick Truly and I were up front, watching the instruments," recalled Brandenstein, "and Dale was looking back over his head out the [overhead] window and back at the ground. At night, he could see how it lit everything up. During the first stage, it was really bright, because we had the boosters going. In fact, from the front cockpit, looking out, it was like we were inside a fire, because we didn't really see the flame, but we did see the reflection and the light."

 

They were not far into the ascent when Gardner piped up.

 

"Dan, how do the engines look?"

 

"Fine, they look fine," came Brandenstein's reply.

 

Thirty seconds later, Gardner repeated the question. Again, the response was the same.

 

"I don't know how many times this happened going uphill," Brandenstein recalled years later. After entering orbit, he asked Gardner why he had been so concerned. To Gardner's eyes, the behavior of the main engine exhaust in the rarefied atmosphere had appeared to "flutter," and this had brought back unpleasant memories of shuttle main engines malfunctioning or exploding on test stands in the late 1970s. "You have a different perspective as you get higher," Brandenstein told the oral historian. "The air pressure goes way down and you get into a vacuum, so basically what holds your flame real tight is the atmospheric pressure factors in that. When you get outside atmospheric pressure, they expand and flutter a little bit more."

 

After STS-8, as the astronauts listened back on their cockpit intercom tapes from ascent, they were puzzled to hear someone laughing all the way into orbit. It was Bluford. Years later, he remembered being so excited by the whole event that his only feeling at the time was not fear, but sheer elation. That elation would be multiplied by the events of the next six days in space, which tomorrow's history article will continue.

 

Part 2

 

Thirty years ago this week, the first African-American astronaut, Guy Bluford, rode into orbit aboard Challenger on the space shuttle's first-ever night launch as a member of the STS-8 crew. He was joined by crewmates Dick Truly, Dan Brandenstein, Dale Gardner, and the then-oldest man in space, 54-year-old Bill Thornton. After a bone-rattling ride to orbit, which turned night into day across a sleeping Kennedy Space Center, Fla., the five astronauts safely reached orbit and set to work preparing their ship for its six-day mission.

 

Bluford's desire to blend in with the rest of the crew, and thereby avoid allegations of "positive" discrimination, helped to shield NASA from accusations of creating a racially motivated stunt, but no one at the space agency was unaware of the significance of the event. In Mike Mullane's autobiography, Riding Rockets, he made insightful reference to the issue of race and the fact that it never created a problem in the astronaut office. Having said that, Mullane related a story from January 1983, when he had to sit in for Bluford one day in the Shuttle Mission Simulator at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, Texas. During the course of the day, the Simulation Supervisor ("Sim Sup") asked the crew to invent a medical emergency for the flight surgeon to deal with. In the cockpit, the ideas flowed—Brandenstein had stomach pains, Truly had flu symptons, Gardner had a toothache—until one of them came up with the perfect idea: Bluford had turned white! Outrageous, indeed. When Dick Truly heard the conversation, he warned them that if they made the call, the closest they would get to space would be the office of JSC Director Chris Kraft … to be fired.

 

Upon reaching orbit in the early hours of 30 August 1983, Dan Brandenstein discovered that, despite having been sick during the ground tests, he adapted to microgravity exceptionally well. "I'm one of the lucky ones in that I did a back flip out of my seat and never looked back," he later told the NASA oral historian, "and never had a hiccup in any of my missions. It certainly makes your mission more enjoyable if you don't have to deal with that, but NASA was trying to decide what made people sick and how to prevent it, and it turned out, after a while, they quit trying and there was no correlation. Some guys could ride the spinning chair until the motor burned up and didn't get sick and then got into orbit and, within ten minutes, they were as sick as could be. Ultimately, they found Phenegren worked on almost everybody. Doctors use it on people that have had chemotherapy. So as soon as somebody would start getting a symptom of space sickness, you'd give them a shot and, in about 15 minutes, they'd be as good as new for the rest of the flight." Bluford, too, did not recall any problems. "We had little sandwiches tied to our seats," he said later, "and when we got on orbit, a couple of crew members weren't feeling well as they adapted to space, so they 'passed' on lunch. I felt fine. I not only ate my lunch, but part of theirs, too!"

 

Despite concerns about space sickness and the fact that Dale Gardner—as lead crew member for both the deployment of India's Insat-1B communications satellite and operations with the Canadian-built Remote Manipulator System (RMS) mechanical arm—suffered from the ailment, all five astronauts were able to conduct their prescribed tasks without problems. Releasing the $50 million satellite and its attached Payload Assist Module (PAM-D) booster went according to plan. Insat-1B was the second in a series of multi-purpose geostationary platforms to provide telecommunications, television broadcasting, meteorology, and search and rescue services to most of the Indian subcontinent and Indian Ocean. Its predecessor, Insat-1A, was launched atop a Delta rocket in April 1982. However, despite reaching its 22,600-mile orbit, successfully deploying a jammed C-band antenna and returning valuable meteorological imagery, it failed to deploy its solar sail—which provided a "counterbalance" for its single solar array—and later lost its "lock" on Earth, began to tumble, and inadvertently exhausted its entire supply of attitude control propellant. The satellite was abandoned that September, far short of its advertised seven-year life span, but India's Department of Space received a $70 million insurance payout from the debacle.

 

In the wake of the Insat-1A loss, Ford Aerospace introduced an automatic switching mechanism for the antenna to prevent any future loss of "lock" on Earth, made alterations to the attitude control propellant valves, and modified the design to ensure that the solar sail deployed properly. Like its predecessor, Insat-1B was cube-shaped and carried a dozen C-band and three S-band transponders for its communications and television services. Its meteorological payload consisted of a Very High Resolution Radiometer (VHRR), capable of acquiring visible and infrared images of Earth every 30 minutes, and a system for taking environmental data from unattended land-based and ocean-based stations. Between 1982 and 1990, four Insat-1s surveyed India's natural resources. Their data provided estimates of major crops, conducted drought monitoring, assessed the condition of vegetation, mapped areas at risk of flooding, and identified new underground water supplies.

 

The deployment of Insat-1B was timed to occur during Challenger's 18th orbit, a little over a day into the mission, and, precisely on time at 3:48:54 a.m. EDT on 31 August, Gardner and Bluford flipped switches on the aft flight deck instrument panel to send the satellite on its way. Fifteen minutes later, Truly and Brandenstein performed a now-customary separation burn in readiness for the PAM-D ignition. Deployment from the shuttle was so precise (within a tenth of a degree) that it saved Insat some 500 pounds of station-keeping propellant which might otherwise have been needed had it been launched aboard an expendable rocket. At 4:34 a.m., the PAM-D fired to lift Insat to geostationary transfer orbit with a 22,600-mile apogee. Later, ground controllers used the satellite's own hypergolic motor to circularize the orbit.

 

However, during its first few days of operations, it came close to suffering the same fate as Insat-1A. Unconfirmed video recordings from the crew suggested that it may have been hit by debris just 19.5 seconds after leaving the payload bay, and, indeed, it was not until mid-September 1983 that ground operators at the Master Control Facility in Hassan, India, succeeded in unfurling its single, five-panel solar array. By this stage, Insat-1B was on station at 74 degrees East longitude—replacing its failed predecessor—and commenced full operations in October. The debris, meanwhile, appeared to have originated from the orbiter's payload bay and a detailed, six-hour television scan was conducted after STS-8 landed. Nothing on the satellite's sunshade or deployment mechanism appeared to be either missing or damaged and, upon inspecting still and video camera footage, no evidence of a direct strike on the satellite was confirmed.

 

It seemed more likely, NASA's post-flight anomaly report concluded, that a stray particle had been spotted by the astronauts as it drifted between themselves and the satellite. For almost seven years, Insat-1B provided satisfactory services, returning 36,000 images of Earth and providing communications and direct nationwide television services to thousands of remote Indian villages. Insat-1B operated until July 1990, after which it served in a "standby" capacity until it was replaced at 93.5 degrees East by Insat-2B in August 1993.

 

Despite the astronauts' intense focus on their mission, memories of simply being in space were aplenty. "The first impression," said Brandenstein, "is still the biggest. We were crossing Africa when I saw my first sunrise in orbit and, to this day, that is the 'wow' of my space flight career. Sunrises and sunsets from orbit are just phenomenal and the first one knocked my socks off! It happens relatively quickly because you're going so fast and you get this vivid spectrum forming at the horizon. When the Sun finally pops up, it's so bright; not attenuated by smog or clouds."

 

Throughout the flight, they received daily updates from Mission Control on terrestrial events. "They kept me abreast of how Penn State was doing in football," said Bluford, "and how the Philadelphia Phillies were doing in baseball. Each morning, we were awakened by a school song. We were informed about the shooting down of a Korean airliner, Dick Truly told me he was leaving the astronaut office to become Commander of the Naval Space Command, and my wife sent me a message saying we had termites in our house!"

 

With the Insat-1B deployment behind them, the crew set to work on their next major objective: testing the muscle of their ship's mechanical arm with the Payload Flight Test Article (PFTA). Although it would not be released into space, this giant dumbbell was the largest payload yet manipulated by the RMS. Yet even the PFTA was barely a third of the weight of the enormous Long Duration Exposure Facility, destined to be placed into orbit by another shuttle crew in the spring of 1984. Nonetheless, its forward and aft screens closely mimicked the visibility and maneuverability obstacles that future astronauts deploying large, cylindrical structures might face. In particular, PFTA became the first shuttle-borne cargo with a "five point" attachment to the payload bay—a keel and four longeron fittings—all of which were out of the direct view of the crew.

 

As a result, Gardner and Bluford relied totally upon cameras fitted to the RMS. With Gardner at the controls, the dumbbell was first grappled by one of its two "active" fixtures and subjected to a variety of tests, as Truly pulsed Challenger's thrusters. These tasks helped to satisfy a number of test objectives to verify ground-based simulations, assess visual cues for payload handling, and demonstrate both hardware and computer software. During each activity, the RMS was employed in both manual and automatic modes. The two grapple fixtures on the payload provided different geometries and mass properties for the arm. Much of the payload's mass was situated at its aft end, thanks to a quantity of lead ballast, and Gardner's evaluations helped to verify that the RMS could position a large structure within 1.9 inches and one degree of accuracy in respect to the shuttle's axes.

 

Having already launched in darkness, STS-8 was scheduled to land in darkness at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., on 5 September 1983. It had been decided to land on Edwards' concrete Runway 22, rather than the dry lakebed, to avoid the risk of kicking up dust and impairing the Precision Approach Path Indicator (PAPI) lights. These lights were designed to keep Truly and Brandenstein on their proper outer glide path of 19 degrees with a beam of half-white, half-red light. The PAPI system was located 1.4 miles from the end of the runway and 1.8 miles from Challenger's point of touchdown. The correct flight path was determined by the shuttle pilots by "centering" the white light onto the band of red lights. With green marker lights signaling the "end" of the runway, and transition and area lighting of 800-million-candlepower xenon floodlights, Runway 22 looked like a Christmas tree.

 

Early on 5 September, Truly and Brandenstein fired Challenger's Orbital Maneuvering System (OMS) engines to begin the irreversible de-orbit "burn" and commit their spacecraft to the hour-long glide to Earth. "As we re-entered the Earth's atmosphere," remembered Bluford, "we began to feel the effects of gravity and saw the fiery plasma of hot air outside the front windows of the orbiter. Dale took pictures of the hot plasma as it enveloped us and he would occasionally hand me the camera. I could feel the camera getting heavier and heavier as we got closer to home." For Truly, whose previous shuttle landing aboard Columbia in November 1981 had been in daylight, STS-8 presented a new series of challenges. "No engines. No moon. No correct dashboard info," he recalled to the NASA oral historian, years later. "The stars were blanked out because the window was frosted over. Then, finally, there were the lights of the California coast and Edwards. On the runway were the lines of red and white lights and that's what brought us in."

 

Touchdown itself came at 12:40 a.m. PDT (3:40 a.m. EDT), completing a six-day journey which, although demonstrating that space sickness could not be effectively predicted, had helped immeasurably to further certify the RMS arm for the planned repair of the Solar Max satellite in April 1984. That arm would continue to prove invaluable throughout the rest of the shuttle era, supporting as it did the construction of the International Space Station and the servicing of the Hubble Space Telescope. Night launches and night landings would occur with greater frequency—by the end of the shuttle era, 34 missions would have launched in the hours of darkness and 26 would have landed likewise—which enhanced the reusable spacecraft's flexibility in executing its myriad assignments. And although the age record established by Bill Thornton would be surpassed, and other African-American astronauts would follow Guy Bluford, their achievements remain to inspire us all.

 

A View of the Earth

From the Hubble Space Telescope. Which I nearly broke.

 

Michael Massimino - Esquire

 

(Massimino is a veteran of two NASA space flights (STS-109 in March 2002 and STS-125 in May 2009) and has logged a total of 571 hours, 47 minutes in space, and a cumulative total of 30 hours, 4 minutes during four spacewalks)

 

In 1984 I was a senior in college, and I went to see the movie The Right Stuff. And a couple of things really struck me in that movie. The first was the view out the window of John Glenn's spaceship—the view of the Earth, how beautiful it was on the big screen. I wanted to see that view. And secondly, the camaraderie between the original seven astronauts depicted in that movie—how they were good friends, how they stuck up for each other, how they would never let each other down. I wanted to be part of an organization like that.

 

And it rekindled a boyhood dream that had gone dormant over the years. That dream was to grow up to be an astronaut. And I just could not ignore this dream. I had to pursue it. So I decided I wanted to go to graduate school, and I was lucky enough to get accepted to MIT.

 

While I was at MIT, I started applying to NASA to become an astronaut. I filled out my application, and I received a letter that said they weren't quite interested. So I waited a couple years, and I sent in another application. They sent me back pretty much the same letter. So I applied a third time, and this time I got an interview, so they got to know who I was. And then they told me no.

 

So I applied a fourth time. And on April 22, 1996, I knew the call was coming, good or bad. I picked up the phone, and it was Dave Leestma, the head of flight crew operations at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

 

He said, "Hey, Mike. This is Dave Leestma. How you doing this morning?"

 

And I said, "I really don't know, Dave. You're gonna have to tell me."

 

And he said, "Well, I think you're gonna be pretty good after this phone call, 'cause we wanna make you an astronaut."

 

Thirteen years after that, it's May 17, 2009, and I'm on space shuttle Atlantis, about to go out and do a spacewalk on the Hubble Space Telescope. And our task that day was to repair an instrument that had failed. This instrument was used by scientists to detect the atmospheres of far-off planets. Planets in other solar systems could be analyzed using this spectrograph to see if we might find a planet that was Earth-like, or a planet that could support life. And just when they got good at doing this, the power supply on this instrument failed. It blew. So the instrument could no longer be used.

 

And there was no way really to replace this unit or to repair the instrument, because when they launched this thing, and they got it ready for space flight, they really buttoned it up. They didn't want anybody to screw with this thing. It was buttoned up with an access panel that blocked the power supply that had failed. This access panel had 117 small screws with washers, and just to play it safe, they put glue on the screw threads so they would never come apart. You know, it could withstand a space launch, and there was no way we could get in to fix this thing.

 

But we really wanted the Hubble's capability back, so we started working. And for five years, we designed a spacewalk. We designed over one hundred new space tools to be used—at great taxpayers' expense, millions of dollars, thousands of people worked on this. And my buddy Mike Good (who we call Bueno)—he and I were gonna go out to do this spacewalk. I was gonna be the guy actually doing the repair.

 

And inside was Drew Feustel, one of my best friends. He was gonna read me the checklist. And we had practiced for years and years for this. They built us our own practice instrument and gave us our own set of tools so we could practice in our office, in our free time, during lunch, after work, on the weekends. We became like one mind. He would say it, I would do it. We had our own language. And now was the day to go out and do this task.

 

The thing I was most worried about when leaving the airlock that day was my path to get to the telescope, because it was along the side of the space shuttle. And if you look over the edge of the shuttle, it's like looking over a cliff, with 350 miles to go down to the planet. And there are no good handrails.

 

When we're spacewalking, we like to grab on to things with our space gloves and be nice and steady. But I got to this one area along the side of the shuttle, and there was nothing good to grab. I had to grab a wire or a hose or a knob or a screw. And I'm kind of a big goon. And when there's no gravity, you can get a lot of momentum built up, and I could go spinning off into space. I knew I had a safety tether that would probably hold, but I also had a heart that I wasn't so sure about. I knew they would get me back, I just wasn't sure what they would get back on the end of the tether when they reeled me in. So I was really concerned about this. I took my time, and I got through the treacherous path and out to the telescope.

 

The first thing I had to do was to remove a handrail from the telescope that was blocking the access panel. There were two screws on the top, and they came off easily. And there was one screw on the bottom right and that came out easily. The fourth screw is not moving. My tool is moving, but the screw is not. I look close and it's stripped. And I realize that that handrail's not coming off, which means I can't get to the access panel with these 117 screws that I've been worrying about for five years, which means I can't get to the power supply that failed, which means we're not gonna be able to fix this instrument today, which means all these smart scientists can't find life on other planets.

 

And I'm to blame for this.

 

And I could see what they would be saying in the science books of the future. This was gonna be my legacy. My children and my grandchildren would read in their classrooms: We would know if there was life on other planets, but Gabby and Daniel's dad broke the Hubble Space Telescope, and we'll never know.

 

And through this nightmare that had just begun, I looked at my buddy Bueno, next to me in his space suit, and he was there to assist in the repair but could not take over my role. He had his own responsibilities, and I was the one trained to do the now broken part of the repair. It was my job to fix this thing. I turned and looked into the cabin where my five crewmates were, and I realized nobody in there had a space suit on.

 

They couldn't come out here and help me. And then I actually looked at the Earth; I looked at our planet, and I thought, There are billions of people down there, but there's no way I'm gonna get a house call on this one. No one can help me.

 

I felt this deep loneliness. And it wasn't just a Saturday-afternoon-with-a-book alone. I felt detached from the Earth. I felt that I was by myself, and everything that I knew and loved and that made me feel comfortable was far away. And then it started getting dark and cold.

 

Because we travel 17,500 miles an hour, ninety minutes is one lap around the Earth. So it's forty-five minutes of sunlight and forty-five minutes of darkness. And when you enter the darkness, it is not just darkness. It's the darkest black I have ever experienced. It's the complete absence of light. It gets cold, and I could feel that coldness, and I could sense the darkness coming. And it just added to my loneliness.

 

For the next hour or so, we tried all kinds of things. I was going up and down the space shuttle, trying to figure out where I needed to go to get the next tool to try to fix this problem, and nothing was working. And then they called up, after about an hour and fifteen minutes of this, and said they wanted me to go to the front of the shuttle to a toolbox and get vise grips and tape. I thought to myself, We are running out of ideas. I didn't even know we had tape on board. I'm gonna be the first astronaut to use tape in space during a spacewalk.

 

But I followed directions. I got to the front of the space shuttle, and I opened up the toolbox and there was the tape. At that point I was very close to the front of the orbiter, right by the cabin window, and I knew that my best pal was in there, trying to help me out. And I could not even stand to think of looking at him, because I felt so bad about the way this day was going, with all the work he and I had put in.

 

But through the corner of my eye, through my helmet, you know, just the side there, I can kinda see that he's trying to get my attention. And I look up at him, and he's just cracking up, smiling and giving me the okay sign. And I'm like, Is there another spacewalk going on out here? I really can't talk to him, because if I say anything, the ground will hear. You know, Houston. The control center. So I'm kinda like playing charades with him. I'm like, What are you, nuts? And I didn't wanna look before, because I thought he was gonna give me the finger because he's gonna go down in the history books with me. But he's saying, No, we're okay. You just hang in there a little bit longer. We're gonna make it through this. We're in this together. You're doing great. Just hang in there.

 

And if there was ever a time in my life that I needed a friend, it was at that moment. And there was my buddy, just like I saw in that movie, the camaraderie of those guys sticking together. I didn't believe him at all. I figured that we were outta luck. But I thought, At least if I'm going down, I'm going down with my best pal.

 

And as I turned to make my way back over the treacherous path one more time, Houston called up and told us what they had in mind. They wanted me to use that tape to tape the bottom of the handrail and then see if I could yank it off the telescope. They said it was gonna take about sixty pounds of force for me to do that.

 

And Drew answers the call, and he goes, "Sixty pounds of force?"

 

He goes, "Mass, I think you got that in you. What do you think?

 

And I'm like, "You bet, Drew. Let's go get this thing."

 

I get back to the telescope, and I put my hand on that handrail, and the ground calls again, and they go, "Well, Drew, you know, you guys are okay to do this, but right now we don't have any downlink from Mike's helmet camera." I've got these cameras mounted on my helmet, so they can see everything I'm doing. It's kinda like your mom looking over your shoulder when you're doing your homework, you know?

 

And they go, "We don't have any downlink for another three minutes, but we know we're running late on time here, so if you have to…" And I'm thinking, Let's do it now while they can't watch! Because the reason I'm taping this thing is if any debris gets loose, they're gonna get all worried, and it's gonna be another hour, and we'll never fix this thing. We've been through enough already.

 

So I'm like, Let's do it now, while Mom and Dad aren't home. Let's have the party.

 

So I say, "Drew, I think we should do it now."

 

And Drew's like, "Go!" And bam! That thing comes right off. I pull out my power tool, and now I've got that access panel with those 117 little bitty screws with their washers and glue, and I'm ready to get each one of them. And I pull the trigger on my power tool and nothing happens, and I look, and I see that the battery is dead. And I turn my head to look at Bueno, who's in his space suit, again looking at me like, What else can happen today?

 

And I said, "Drew, the battery's dead in this thing. I'm gonna go back to the air lock, and we're gonna swap out the battery, and I'm gonna recharge my oxygen tank." Because I was getting low on oxygen; I needed to get a refill.

 

And he said, "Go." And I was going back over that shuttle, and I noticed two things. One was that that treacherous path that I was so scaredy-cat-sissy-pants about going over—it wasn't scary anymore. That in the course of those couple hours of fighting this problem, I had gone up and down that thing about twenty times, and my fear had gone away, because there was no time to be a scaredy-cat, it was time to get the job done. And what we were doing was more important than me being worried, and it was actually kinda fun going across that little jungle gym, back and forth over the shuttle.

 

The other thing I noticed was that I could feel the warmth of the sun. We were about to come into a day pass. And the light in space, when you're in the sunlight, is the brightest, whitest, purest light I have ever experienced, and it brings with it warmth. I could feel that coming, and I actually started feeling optimistic.

 

Sure enough, the rest of the spacewalk went well. We got all those screws out, a new power supply in, buttoned it up. They tried it; turned it on from the ground. The power supply was working. The instrument had come back to life. And at the end of that spacewalk, after about eight hours, I'm inside the air lock getting things ready for Bueno and me to come back inside, but my commander says, "Hey, Mass, you know, you've got about fifteen minutes before Bueno's gonna be ready to come in. Why don't you go outside of the air lock and enjoy the view?"

 

So I go outside, and I take my tether, and I clip it on a handrail, and I let go, and I just look. And the Earth—from our altitude at Hubble, we're 350 miles up. We can see the curvature. We can see the roundness of our home, our home planet. And it's the most magnificent thing I've ever seen. It's like looking into heaven. It's paradise.

 

And I thought to myself, This is the view that I imagined in that movie theater all those years ago. And as I looked at the Earth, I also noticed that I could turn my head, and I could see the moon and the stars and the Milky Way galaxy. I could see our universe. And I could turn back, and I could see our beautiful planet.

 

And that moment changed my relationship with the Earth. Because for me the Earth had always been a kind of a safe haven, you know, where I could go to work or be in my home or take my kids to school. But I realized it really wasn't that. It really is its own spaceship. And I had always been a space traveler. All of us here today, even tonight, we're on this spaceship Earth, amongst all the chaos of the universe, whipping around the sun and around the Milky Way galaxy.

 

A few days later, we get back. Our families come to meet us at the airfield. And I'm driving home to my house with my wife, my kids in the backseat. And she starts telling me about what she was going through that Sunday that I was spacewalking, and how she could tell, listening, watching the NASA television channel, how sad I was. That she detected a sadness in my voice that she had never heard from me before, and it worried her.

 

I wish I would've known that when I was up there, 'cause this loneliness that I felt—really, Carol was thinking about me the whole time. And we turned the corner to come down our block, and I could see my neighbors were outside. They had decorated my house, and there were American flags everywhere. And my neighbor across the street was holding a pepperoni pizza and a six-pack of beer, two things that unfortunately we still cannot get in space.

 

And I got out of the car, and they were all hugging me. I was still in my blue flight suit, and they were saying how happy they were to have me back and how great everything turned out. I realized my friends, man, they were thinking about me the whole time. They were with me too.

 

The next day we had our return ceremony; we made speeches. The engineers who had worked all these years with us, our trainers, the people that worked in the control center, they started telling me how they were running around like crazy while I was up there in my little nightmare, all alone. How they got the solution from the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, and how the team that was working on that Sunday figured out what to do, and they checked it out, and they radioed it up to us.

 

I realized that at the time when I felt so lonely, when I felt detached from everyone else—literally, like I was away from the planet—that really I never was alone, that my family and my friends and the people I worked with, the people that I loved and the people that cared about me, they were with me every step of the way.

 

END