Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone.
| | JSC TODAY CATEGORIES - Headlines
- Reminder: National Women's History Panel Dialogue
- Spot the Orion Challenge
- The Orion Trivia Contest Winner is ...
- Physics in the Movie 'Gravity' Part IV - Organizations/Social
- Building 4S Snack Bar Closed March 18 to 20
- JSC Contractor Safety and Health Forum
- SWAPRA Luncheon Hosts Houston Spaceport's Rep
- JSC Praise and Worship Club
- Happy St. Patrick's Day from Starport
- JSC Wellness Fitness Assessments
- Aliens vs. Astronauts 5.05K - Jobs and Training
- Spaceflight 101 is Tuesday
- Russian Language Training for Phase II
- Job Opportunities - Community
- Mentors Needed for High School Aerospace Scholars |  |
| Headlines - Reminder: National Women's History Panel Dialogue
March is National Women's History Month, and the 2014 theme is "Celebrating Women of Character, Courage and Commitment." Today, March 17, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Building 30 Auditorium, the African-American Employee Resource Group will host a discussion panel of women executives and senior leaders from government and industry. They will share perspectives on how they demonstrate character, courage and commitment as business, CEO, industry and community leaders, mothers, mentors, wives and friends. Panelists: - Cora Carmody, Chief Information Officer and Senior Vice President, Jacobs Engineering
- Annette Moore, Director, Information Resources Directorate, Johnson Space Center
- Penny White, Senior Contracts Manager, The Boeing Company
- Pearl Wright, President, 4W Solutions, Inc.
Please come, listen and learn from this diverse panel how their lives and their work inspire girls and women to achieve their full potential and encourage boys and men to respect the diversity and depth of women's experience. Event Date: Monday, March 17, 2014 Event Start Time:11:30 AM Event End Time:1:00 PM
Event Location: Building 30 Auditorium
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Rhonda Moore x35282
[top] - Spot the Orion Challenge
It's the year of Orion's first flight to space, Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1)! Here is an opportunity for you to get involved, get pumped and learn more about Orion and EFT-1 while on your way to your next meeting. A fact has been posted near a building around JSC's campus. Be the first to spot the Orion fact for March, take a picture, email us the fact and tell us where you found it! The winner is in for a special VIP treat. Keep your eyes open during your walks across campus, and maybe you could be the winner! - The Orion Trivia Contest Winner is ...
James Holt! Holt is a student intern in the Risk and Reliability Analysis Branch of Safety and Mission Assurance. He correctly answered that there are three different types of motors in the Orion Launch Abort System: the Attitude Control Motor, Jettison Motor and Abort Motor. Congratulations to Holt, and thank you to all those who submitted answers. Be on the lookout for our next Orion trivia question! You can join the fun and be our next winner. - Physics in the Movie 'Gravity' Part IV
Momentum equals mass times velocity, and George Clooney's character didn't have to disconnect from Sandra Bullock's character! While tethered, Sandra gets her leg tangled up in the shroud lines of the parachute, and George reaches the end of the tether and decides he has to unhook to save Sandra. This makes no sense. Their momentums had stopped. All Sandra had to do was to give a LIGHT TUG on the tether and George would've come back toward her. Organizations/Social - Building 4S Snack Bar Closed March 18 to 20
The Building 4 South snack bar will be closed from Tuesday, March 18, to Thursday, March 20. The snack bar will be open as normal on Monday and Friday of this week. - JSC Contractor Safety and Health Forum
The JSC Contractor Safety and Health Forum (CSF) will meet tomorrow, March 18, in the Gilruth Alamo Ballroom starting at 9 a.m. This meeting is dedicated to the presentation of the JSC CSF Safety and Health Excellence Awards and Innovation Awards for 2013. Refreshments, sponsored by Jacobs Technology, will be provided after the award presentations. For more information on this special event, please contact Pat Farrell at 281-335-2012, or go to the JSC CSF website. Event Date: Tuesday, March 18, 2014 Event Start Time:9:00 AM Event End Time:11:00 AM
Event Location: Gilruth Alamo Ballroom
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Patricia Farrell 281-335-2012
[top] - SWAPRA Luncheon Hosts Houston Spaceport's Rep
On Wednesday, March 19, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., the South Western Aerospace Professional Representatives Association (SWAPRA) is pleased to be hosting Arturo Machuca, the Houston Airport System's manager of Business Development. Three years ago, Machuca was tasked to develop a plan to license and develop Ellington Airport into a commercial spaceport. Machuca will discuss the development of a Houston Spaceport at Ellington Field. He will share the status and plans of the Houston Airport System's vision for the Houston Spaceport and its positive impact for the entire region. The SWAPRA event will be held at the Bay Oaks Country Club (BOCC) in Clear Lake. The BOCC luncheon cost for non-members is $35 at the door, or $25 with pre-paid RSVPs received today, March 17. Contact David L. Brown at 281-483-7426 or via email to RSVP, or RSVP directly to Chris Elkins at 281-276-2792 or via email. - JSC Praise and Worship Club
Join with the praise and worship band "Allied with the Lord" for a refreshing set of praise and worship songs (this will be a folk/bluegrass session) on Thursday, March 20, from 11:15 a.m. to noon in Building 29, Room 237 (also called Creative Sp.ace). Prayer partners will be available for anyone who has need. All JSC civil servants and contractors are welcome. Event Date: Thursday, March 20, 2014 Event Start Time:11:15 AM Event End Time:12:00 PM
Event Location: B29 Room 237
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Mike FitzPatrick x30758
[top] - Happy St. Patrick's Day from Starport
Do you have the luck of the Irish? Shop Starport today and pick a clover to get a discount of 10 to 25 percent off your order (standard exclusions apply). Take 10 percent off anything green Tuesday through Friday. Happy St. Patrick's Day from Starport! - JSC Wellness Fitness Assessments
Fitness assessments are a major component of designing an effective exercise program. An objective assessment evaluates your current fitness level so that you can set goals for the future and measure your progress along the way. Whether you are starting a new exercise program or you have been exercising regularly, getting assessed can serve as both a motivational and educational tool. Fitness assessments are available at the Gilruth Center with one of Starport's certified FitPros. This service is FREE to all Gilruth members. Assessments include: - Body composition
- Aerobic fitness
- Muscular strength
- Muscular endurance
- Flexibility
Participants will receive an analysis of their performance with comparisons to age/gender-adjusted standards for each test, an overall fitness "score" and immediate feedback regarding their results. Additionally, the Starport FitPro will make recommendations based upon individual results and personal goals. Appointments are available by calling the Starport Fitness staff at x38112. - Aliens vs. Astronauts 5.05K
A battle to determine the ultimate life form! Starport is proud to present our spring race, Aliens vs. Astronauts. Race participants will register as either an alien or astronaut, with times for each species being averaged to crown the fastest life form in the universe. Gather your alien and astronaut friends and family! This 5.05K (3.14-mile) race is open to the public and suitable for all fitness levels. Date/Time: April 19 at 9 a.m. Where: Race begins at the Gilruth Center and runs through JSC Prizes: Overall male and female; first-, second- and third-place finishers in each age category Entry fee: $25 (includes race T-shirt for those registered by April 4, with proceeds going to the NASA Exchange Scholarship Program) For more information and online registration, visit the Starport website. Signups are also available at the Gilruth Center. Jobs and Training - Spaceflight 101 is Tuesday
The popular two-and-a-half-hour seminar, Spaceflight 101, will return to the Building 30 Auditorium tomorrow, March 18, at 2 p.m. Open to all (including families), Spaceflight 101 explains the basics of every facet of human spaceflight. Using beautiful graphics and no mathematics, we explore the qualitative physical effects that have shaped the world's space programs into the designs we now see as so familiar. We will look at the science one can do only in space, the reasons the designs look the way they do, future possibilities and will explain what all those terms and acronyms mean. No reservation required. Your escorted visitors and family are welcome to attend. Can't make it? See the archived stream here. - Russian Language Training for Phase II
The JSC Language Education Center announces Phase Two Russian Language course offerings for the 2014 spring quarter (March 31 to June 20).The following classes will be offered this quarter: 2A, 2B and 2D. Registration for all courses is conducted through NASA's SATERN system. All language training takes place at the JSC Language Education Center, located in Building 12, Suite 158. Continuing students, both JSC contractors and civil servants who have approval of their supervisor and training coordinator, can enroll in the appropriate level group class through SATERN. Enrollment preference is, however, given to civil servants. Students new to the program and who have had previous Russian language training, or students who are resuming their Russian language training after a break of two or more quarters, should contact Dr. Anthony Vanchu (281-483-0644, anthony.j.vanchu@nasa.gov) to schedule a placement interview to determine the most appropriate class level. If you have any questions, please contact Natalia Rostova. - Job Opportunities
Where do I find job opportunities? 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. Lateral reassignment and rotation opportunities are posted in the Workforce Transition Tool. To access: HR Portal > Employees > Workforce Transition > Workforce Transition Tool. These opportunities do not possess known promotion potential; therefore, employees can only see positions at or below their current grade level. If you have questions about any JSC job vacancies or reassignment opportunities, please call your HR representative. Community - Mentors Needed for High School Aerospace Scholars
Celebrate the 15th anniversary of High School Aerospace Scholars (HAS) by mentoring students during a series of summer camps connecting our NASA workforce with Texas students. Share your NASA experience and advice with students interested in following your footsteps. Students work alongside NASA employees during simulated missions to Mars. You can choose any week to volunteer just 20 hours, while enjoying our fun activities. Co-ops and interns are welcome and encouraged to volunteer, too. Summer Schedule: - Week 1: June 15 to 20
- Week 2: June 22 to 27
- Week 3: July 6 to 11
- Week 4: July 13 to 18
- Week 5: July 20 to 25
- Week 6: July 27 to Aug. 1
If interested, please: 1. Complete the mentor application here. 3. Review mentor responsibilities. 4. Apply before April 2. | |
| |
| 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. |
| JSC FY 2014 Prospective Losses |
| Loss Type | Center | Org | Employee Type | Name | Separation Date |
| RETIREMENT | JSC | KX111 | FTP | JOHNSON, NICHOLAS | 03/28/14 |
| RETIREMENT | JSC | DX121 | FTP | SEDEJ, DANIEL | 04/03/14 |
| RETIREMENT | JSC | YX111 | FTP | LEONARD, MATTHEW | 03/31/14 |
| RETIREMENT | JSC | OZ411 | FTP | MAGH, ALBERTO | 03/31/14 |
| RETIREMENT | JSC | BJ111 | FTP | KLIMENT, MARIE | 06/29/14 |
| RETIREMENT | JSC | DA221 | FTP | HERNANDEZ, ROSIE | 06/03/14 |
| RETIREMENT | JSC | NC111 | FTP | DOLAN, JOHN | 03/28/14 |
NASA and Human Spaceflight News
Monday – March 17, 2014
HEADLINES AND LEADS
NASA Slips First Test Flight of Orion Space Capsule to December
The countdown to the maiden launch of Orion, a NASA space capsule designed to take astronauts out into the solar system, is now three months longer than previously planned.
NASA ready to help search for Maylasian jet if asked, Administrator Charles Bolden says
Lee Roop – Huntsville (AL) Times
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said here today that the space agency hasn't been asked to provide images from its ground-scanning satellites to searchers looking for the missing Maylasian plane, but is ready to do so.
Start-Ups Aim to Conquer Space Market
Quentin Hardy and Nick Bilton – The New York Times
It was party time at the Planet Labs satellite factory, in an unkempt office in the trendy South of Market neighborhood here.
King: Virtual abandoning of NASA was poor U.S. policy
Bill King says we're now beholden to Russia, which is still not really our friend, for space station trips, while costing thousands their jobs.
Bill King – Houston Chronicle
In the early 2000s when I was still living down in the Clear Lake area, I went several times with a local group to Washington to lobby for support for NASA. It was during that time that the administration of George W. Bush made the decision to scrap the shuttle program and instead contract with Russia to launch our astronauts into space until America developed a new launch vehicle.
How to survive on Mars
Richard Galant, CNN
Andy Weir had given up on writing as a career at the age of 26 after agents spurned his novel about a jewel heist involving aliens "on the Planet Sephalon."
'Live From Space': Astronauts Share Revealing TV Glimpse of Life Off Planet Earth
For two hours Friday, astronauts in orbit opened their out-of-this-world home to the people of Earth, offering an unprecedented raw glimpse into the beauty – and peril — of life on the International Space Station.
Swiss company to use KSC's shuttle runway
James Dean – Florida Today
A year-old Swiss company plans to perform zero-gravity flights at Kennedy Space Center starting next year, and will consider the former shuttle runway as a future base for launches of small satellites.
ISS crews could care for space vegetables
Experimental garden flies on next cargo trip
James Dean – Florida Today
The local-food movement is going orbital. An experiment led by Kennedy Space Center scientists will give International Space Station astronauts a garden from which they might one day pick and eat their own salads.
COMPLETE STORIES
NASA Slips First Test Flight of Orion Space Capsule to December
The countdown to the maiden launch of Orion, a NASA space capsule designed to take astronauts out into the solar system, is now three months longer than previously planned.
The space agency on Friday announced that it was retargeting the first flight of its Orion spacecraft from autumn to just before winter this year.
"The Orion team continues to work toward completing the spacecraft to be ready for a launch in [the] September [to] October [period]," NASA stated on its website. "However, the initial timeframe for the launch of the Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) has shifted... to early December to support allowing more opportunities for launches this year."
The EFT-1 mission will fly the Orion capsule to an altitude of approximately 3,600 miles (5,800 kilometers) above the Earth's surface, more than 15 times farther out than where the International Space Station (ISS) orbits. By flying out to those distances, NASA will be able to judge how Orion performs in, and returns from, deep space journeys.
Flying atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta 4 Heavy rocket, EFT-1 precedes the first flight of the Orion capsule on its intended launch vehicle, NASA's new Space Launch System (SLS), targeted for 2017. By 2021, NASA plans to send astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft on a mission to the vicinity of the moon to rendezvous with a redirected asteroid, before ultimately launching a crew to Mars in the 2030s.
For its first spaceflight though, the Orion capsule will carry instrumentation, rather than astronauts, on a mission that will help test out and refine the spacecraft's design. On EFT-1, Orion will re-enter Earth's atmosphere at a speed of more than 20,000 miles per hour (32,200 kph), returning to the planet faster than any current human spacecraft. As Orion returns to Earth, it will endure temperatures of up to 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,200 Celsius), higher than any crewed craft since the Apollo astronauts came home from the Moon.
Orion will then splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California, where NASA and Navy teams will be waiting to recover the capsule for study.
Final assembly and pre-flight testing of the EFT-1 Orion is underway at Kennedy Space Center. Lockheed Martin, as NASA's prime contractor, is preparing the Orion inside the center's historic Operations and Checkout (O&C) building, which was used in the late 1960s and early 1970s to ready Apollo spacecraft for flights to the moon.
According to NASA, almost all of the spacecraft's control or avionics components have been installed and, system by system, are now being powered. This functional testing will lead to performance tests, in which all of the systems work together to operate the crew module as a whole.
Ultimately, engineers will turn on all of the Orion capsule's flight computers, radios and other systems simultaneously and simulate the vehicle's sensors so that the spacecraft thinks its flying in space.
Testing of the EFT-1 Orion service module, a mockup of what on later flights will provide the spacecraft with power and in-space propulsion, was recently completed.
The crew module's testing is slated to be finished in April, and then Orion's 16.4-foot in diameter (5 m) heat shield — the largest of its kind ever built — will be installed. With that in place, the crew module, service module and launch abort system will be ready to be mated this spring.
The EFT-1 rocket is also coming together in Florida. The core and starboard boosters for the Delta 4 Heavy arrived at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station earlier this month. The port-side booster, which is still being built in Alabama, is scheduled to arrive in April along with the rocket's upper stage for integration and testing.
Despite the delay to December, NASA is still intending to have the complete EFT-1 vehicle ready by September.
"Completing the [Orion] according to the original schedule will allow many engineers and technicians to continue...to work on the Orion spacecraft that will fly atop the agency's Space Launch System," NASA said. "It will also ensure that NASA's partners are fully ready for the launch of EFT-1 at the earliest opportunity on the manifest."
Though not stated by NASA, reports suggest that the slip to December was made to allow two recently declassified space surveillance satellites to launch before EFT-1. The Air Force's Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program (GSAP) satellites will track satellites orbiting high above the Earth.
NASA ready to help search for Maylasian jet if asked, Administrator Charles Bolden says
Lee Roop – Huntsville (AL) Times
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said here today that the space agency hasn't been asked to provide images from its ground-scanning satellites to searchers looking for the missing Maylasian plane, but is ready to do so.
"When I came to work at the beginning of the week, I said let's make sure what assets we have so that if anybody comes and asks that we've got it ready," Bolden said on a visit to Marshall Space Flight Center. "No one's come to ask yet."
Bolden said NASA did make its satellites and sensors available to the team tracking the spread of oil from the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico and is ready to help with the search if asked.
Bolden was in Huntsville to tour a sophisticated test operation built for the Space Launch System being developed at Marshall. The system tests the guidance and navigation computers that will control the new rocket. The new rocket is on schedule for its first launch in 2017, Bolden said.
But the NASA administrator said he's not ready yet to begin the process of naming the rocket, so people wanting a Saturn VI or other name will have to wait.
"No! Noooo," Bolden interrupted, laughing, when a reporter tried to ask about naming the new rocket. "The rocket will be named something at the appropriate time. I don't know how we're going to do it, to be quite honest. We're not far enough along. This is a personal thing for me. I get asked all the time, 'Why don't you give it a name?' It should come when it's time."
Bolden said he wanted everybody focused on getting the system ready, not naming it. "We'll get there," he said.
Bolden confirmed that a key test of the Orion capsule that is part of the Space Launch System won't happen in September as originally planned. The launch may not happen until December.
"We use the range like everybody else...," Bolden said. "Some people have things of higher priority than we are and, if that happens, we say, OK, as long as we don't lose our slot we can switch around. I think that's the main reason we moved, to accommodate another customer that needed to go before we did."
Bolden said there are no problems with the launch vehicle or Orion. "We're ready to go," he said.
Bolden praised the work of the team at Marshall. "We've got a really tight NASA-contractor team here, as we do around the country," he said. "I appealed to the employees today to stay fired up, stay wanting to take risks, because that's really important, but be vigilant about what we do, be hungry to understand things when the go wrong, not if the go wrong, because we're in the risk-taking business, so we'll always see something that we don't understand.... If we don't have anything happen that we don't understand, we're not doing right. We're not taking risks. We're just doing normal stuff, and I didn't come here to do normal stuff."
Start-Ups Aim to Conquer Space Market
Quentin Hardy and Nick Bilton – The New York Times
It was party time at the Planet Labs satellite factory, in an unkempt office in the trendy South of Market neighborhood here.
A man in a blue tuxedo shared pancakes with about two dozen young engineers at the space start-up. The air was filled with the smell of bacon and the voices of Russian and Japanese astronauts. The astronauts communicated over a video hookup to the International Space Station, 230 miles above the kitchen, one morning last month.
"Now we're going to push the boundaries," said Chester Gillmore, the company's director of manufacturing. He was referring to his cooking skills, but he could just as well have been talking about his 40-employee company, which has already put dozens of small satellites in space. Once they are connected, they will be able to provide near-constant images of what is going on back on Earth.
And that, Mr. Gillmore believes, could be the basis of a very good business.
Silicon Valley, not content with changing how retailers, taxi companies and hotels do business, is taking its disruptive ways into outer space. Several young companies with roots in Silicon Valley are trying to elbow their way into a business long dominated by national governments and aeronautics giants like Boeing.
Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, started by the Tesla founder Elon Musk, is already a contractor for NASA, running supply missions to the International Space Station. Another start-up, Masten Space Systems, with headquarters in Mojave, Calif., is developing rockets designed for unmanned research flights. Skybox Imaging, based in Mountain View, Calif., makes satellites similar to those of Planet Labs, though they are significantly larger.
These start-ups have one thing in common: They think they can undercut the old guard with lower prices and smarter thinking.
While the Planet Labs staff ate pancakes that morning in February, two shoebox-size nine-pound pods made in the company's unconventional factory floated from the International Space Station toward a polar orbit of Earth. Ten hours later, two more were released.
The plan was to launch two to four a day, for a configuration of 28 satellites. The small, basic devices with solar panels and simple maneuvering equipment and radios are expected to last two to four years and are capable of taking weekly photos with details as small as a car.
But that is just the start. Last week, Planet Labs announced that it would put about 100 satellites into space from the United States and Russia, bringing the total number of "Doves," as the company calls them, to 131. That larger network, which Planet Labs hopes to complete within a year, is expected to create a daily photo mosaic of most of Earth.
That mosaic could be valuable to private customers, like agricultural companies monitoring farmlands, or even to governments trying to figure out how to aid natural disaster victims. The company has so far booked contracts worth more than the $65 million in private equity it has raised, according to Will Marshall, the company's co-founder and chief executive.
Working from what he calls a "clean-ish room," separated from the kitchen by some loose plastic sheets, Mr. Gillmore and a small team are working on newer versions of the lightweight satellites, adjusting and improving them with the frequency you would normally see at a software company. The satellites now in space are the seventh version; versions eight through 10, which are expected to cost less and do more, are being assembled.
These satellites are powered by batteries normally found in a laptop, with semiconductors similar to those in a smartphone. "Nothing here was prequalified to be in space," Mr. Marshall said. "We bought most of our parts online."
Planet Labs will not disclose its manufacturing costs, but potential customers who have seen the products think the satellites are approximately 95 percent cheaper than most satellites, a figure Mr. Marshall would neither confirm nor dispute. "We leverage the billions of dollars spent on the consumer mobile phone business" for most of the company's parts, he said.
Launch costs, which are mostly based on weight and distance above the planet, are also lower. All 28 satellites together weigh about 126 pounds and can easily hitch a ride on rockets carrying other space cargo. In comparison, a single Landsat, a popular Earth-imaging satellite, weighs 4,566 pounds and flies twice as high.
With these small, inexpensive satellites, "we'll eventually be able to see anything on the planet. Anything," said Chris Boshuizen, co-founder and chief technology officer at Planet Labs. "We'll be able to tell you what something looked like the day before, the day of and the day after an event."
Planet Labs was founded in 2010 by three scientists who worked at NASA. Mr. Boshuizen is Australian, while Mr. Marshall is British. The third, Robbie Schingler, is an American who is the company's chief operating officer. Like many tech entrepreneurs, all three grew tired of the conventional way things were built — in this case, space products.
For example, the cost of designing, building, launching and monitoring the government's Landsat satellite, which takes pictures of Earth from 480 miles up, is over $1 billion, according to the United States Geological Survey, which administers data from the satellite.
Breaking into a field dominated by big companies with long government contracts is tough to do. And doing it cheaply is even harder.
In designing their satellites, Planet Labs threw out things like propulsion systems, because of the high cost and weight. Instead, the satellites use commercial light sensors, accelerometers and motors to orient their cameras. Laptop batteries were chosen because a more expensive version cost too much. Plus, they fit inside the satellite's frame.
By making little machines that are often updated, Mr. Gillmore said, "we're building satellites with computers that are six months old. Lots of satellites have 10-year-old computers." Version nine, which is almost complete, cost about 35 percent less than the current version in space, and was made four times faster, he estimated.
Should Boeing be worried? Not yet, said James P. Lloyd, associate professor of astronomy and mechanical and aerospace engineering at Cornell University. Professor Lloyd said he believed the space market was big enough for expensive Boeing systems and cheaper alternatives from start-ups.
"Essentially anybody can do it, because a combination of miniaturization, simplification and availability of technology for building small satellites has made it accessible in a way that has never been before," he said.
Also, while Planet Labs can beat older competitors on price, those expensive features do matter, said David Friedberg, chief executive of Climate, an agricultural data analysis firm owned by Monsanto. Monsanto buys data from several older imaging satellites, he said, but is not a Planet Labs customer because it does not yet offer the infrared imagery needed to judge the health of plants. "Their real competition may be drones," he said.
Still, Mr. Marshall is confident that his fast and cheap method will hold its own.
"This is the rapid prototyping, like you see with software, taken into space," he said. "We can see rivers changing course. We can count individual trees."
King: Virtual abandoning of NASA was poor U.S. policy
Bill King says we're now beholden to Russia, which is still not really our friend, for space station trips, while costing thousands their jobs.
Bill King – Houston Chronicle
In the early 2000s when I was still living down in the Clear Lake area, I went several times with a local group to Washington to lobby for support for NASA. It was during that time that the administration of George W. Bush made the decision to scrap the shuttle program and instead contract with Russia to launch our astronauts into space until America developed a new launch vehicle.
The focus of several of our trips was to convince members of Congress and the administration that putting the country in the position of exclusively relying on our old nemesis to put humans into space was really not a very good idea. While almost all of the officials with whom we spoke sympathized with our concern, nobody did anything and the plan to retire the space shuttle program was approved.
The justification for ending the program was cost savings. In the mid-2000s, NASA was spending about $4 billion - or about 30 percent of its total budget - on shuttle missions. The average cost per flight was about $450 million, according to NASA. But we did not save all of that money with the new arrangement. We are now paying Russia $70 million per seat per flight. We have already signed three deals with Russia for nearly $1.5 billion for space flights. If we had used that money to extend the shuttle program but flown fewer missions, the cost would not have been much higher, at least, in terms of the overall budget.
When the Obama administration took office in 2009, there was a push to reverse the decision to take the space shuttle out of service, or at least to extend the capability until a new American launch vehicle was ready. The fact that Russia had invaded Georgia the year before seemed to be a compelling basis to reconsider becoming totally dependent on our Cold War adversary for space flight.
But the Obama administration was more concerned with "resetting" our relations with Russia, and it felt that investments like Solyndra were a better use of taxpayer dollars. By the way, we could have added one additional shuttle flight for what Solyndra cost the American taxpayers, and the shuttle program could have been extended for 200 years for what the Recovery Act, aka "stimulus," ultimately cost.
We recently signed a new agreement with Russia to purchase rides on their Soyuz spaceships, which "guarantees" the U.S. flights to and from the International Space Station through 2016. I suspect NASA is feeling a little queasy about that "guarantee" from Russia about now. It is doubtful that Putin would have much more compunction about reneging on Russia's agreement with NASA than he did reneging on the 1994 agreement that guaranteed Ukrainian sovereignty.
And what exactly can we do if Russia says they will not fly us anymore or, more likely, that the price is triple the agreed-upon amount? Well, apparently not much. NASA is working on a new launch vehicle that is primarily designed for deep-space launches, but which could be used for trips to the space station. But it will most likely not be ready until the end of this decade. NASA is also doling about $800 million each year to private firms that are developing commercial options for low-Earth orbit. But the earliest any of those companies is projected to be ready to fly a person to the space station is 2017.
To be entirely fair, the extent to which any vital interests of the U.S. might be affected by its inability to put a person in space for the next three or four years is questionable. The military has retained its ability to launch spy satellites. So if Russia snubs its nose at us over flying our astronauts into space, it may be mostly a matter of wounded pride.
But the mere fact that we handed Russia this kind of bargaining chip and propaganda opportunity, while simultaneously causing thousands of Americans to lose their jobs, was a poorly considered decision. It hardly matters whether the decision was willful or because of incompetence. The whole sorry episode is just another example of how dysfunctional our national government has become, regardless of which party is in power.
How to survive on Mars
Richard Galant, CNN
Andy Weir had given up on writing as a career at the age of 26 after agents spurned his novel about a jewel heist involving aliens "on the Planet Sephalon."
After burning through severance checks from his layoff by AOL, he went back to work as a programmer in Silicon Valley.
Ten years later, in 2009, Weir decided to try writing again, but just as a hobby. Keeping his day job at a mobile phone software company, he started posting a new book on a personal website, chapter by chapter as he wrote it. This time, there were no aliens and no imaginary planet.
Instead he crafted a story, set a few decades in the future, about an astronaut who mistakenly gets left for dead on Mars when the other members of his crew are forced to make a quick escape from the effects of a devastating sandstorm.
This book found an audience. People starting following the story and it attracted scientists, including some who e-mailed Weir and offered suggestions to make the book's excursions into physics, chemistry and biology true to science.
Today Weir's "The Martian" is on the New York Times hardcover fiction bestseller list and has been optioned by 20th Century Fox for a potential movie, raising the question: How does a space nerd with no track record as a writer craft a compelling work of science fiction?
The book's hero, a cheeky astronaut named Mark Watney, possesses a self-reliance that enables him to jerry-rig NASA equipment in a suspenseful battle to eke out enough air, food and water to survive alone on Mars. In an interview with CNN, Weir said that his lead character is "smarter and braver than I am. The core personality that most people noticed -- that he's a massive smart ass -- that's basically my personality."
Watney finds ways to heal the injury that led his fellow astronauts to abandon him, thinking he was dead; to grow food in the "hab" module that is his home on Mars, to turn hydrogen and oxygen into water, to restore communication with NASA, and to drive his rover on the inhospitable Martian landscape far further than it was designed to go.
And yet critical life-support components keep failing, mishaps keep setting him back, and he keeps concluding that he's certainly about to die.
There's more than enough science and technology for the technically literate, and although he's never worked at NASA, Weir has gotten compliments for the accuracy of his portrait of an enormous bureaucracy's infighting as it struggles to save a man tens of millions of miles away. In the story, Watney's lonely struggle captures the attention of billions on Earth, even spawning a daily half-hour cable news program: "CNN's Mark Watney Report."
The book builds up the kind of narrative tension captured in the Oscar best-picture contender "Gravity," which Weir liked, even though it may have stretched the science. ("It doesn't have to be perfectly physically accurate to be entertaining. Nobody calls out the physics problems in 'Star Wars.'")
Yet accuracy is one of the things that gets cited in praise for Weir's book. Astronaut Chris Hadfield, former commander of the International Space Station, has said the book "has the very rare combination of a good, original story, interestingly real characters, and fascinating technical accuracy," according to Crown, the book's publisher.
Now 41, Weir is the son of a particle physicist -- his father double-checked much of the science in "The Martian" -- and an engineer. He got hooked on Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein and other classic science fiction writers by plucking their paperbacks from his father's shelf.
Predictably, Weir is fascinated by manned spaceflight and intrigued by the idea of a manned mission to Mars. But he's no fan of Mars One, the nonprofit that has gotten 200,000 people to express interest in being selected for a one-way trip to Mars, to take place in 2025.
Weir thinks the budget envisioned for the project is far too small and, "it would be basically a death sentence for the people who are going." He thinks a government-funded mission to Mars is far more likely but not for a long time. The after-effects suffered by astronauts on the International Space Station show the dangers of long-term space flight, he says. "There are a lot of pieces of the puzzle that we need to invent" to make for safe travel to Mars. Near term, he looks forward to a Chinese manned mission to the moon.
As for NASA, Weir says he's "disappointed by the state of our manned spaceflight program," especially the lack of a vehicle to replace the space shuttle. Would Weir want to fly on a space mission? "I am not a brave man ...I do not have the right stuff. Astronauts are really a cut above."
As a computer programmer, the closest Weir got to fame was as a member of the team that worked on the hit game "WarCraft2."
At his current job in Mountain View, California, Weir's bosses know the score, he says.
"I'm working on a pitch for my next novel right now, and if I get an advance, I'm going to quit and be a full time writer, which is the culmination of my dream coming true. I think I have to go sit in a coffee shop when I do that. And wear a neckerchief."
'Live From Space': Astronauts Share Revealing TV Glimpse of Life Off Planet Earth
For two hours Friday, astronauts in orbit opened their out-of-this-world home to the people of Earth, offering an unprecedented raw glimpse into the beauty – and peril — of life on the International Space Station.
In the National Geographic Channel's TV event "Live From Space," American astronaut Rick Mastracchio of NASA, Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin gave viewers a tour of their orbiting outpost and dished on everything from space toilets and experiments to dangerous spacewalks and space junk.
Hosted by veteran anchor Soledad O'Brien and co-anchored by NASA astronaut Mike Massimino, "Live From Space" tracked the space station as it sailed over Earth at 17,500 mph (28,163 km/h), completing just over one complete trip around the planet during the two-hour show. O'Brien and Massimino reported live from NASA's Mission Control Center at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, with several other astronauts making cameos to discuss various aspects of life in space.
Wakata treated audience members to incredible views of the Hawaiian Islands and parts of Russia through the huge seven-sided cupola window. Tyurin also helped with the broadcast, holding the camera while Wakata floated in the cupola.
"Everything that we can see from here — from the space station — on the ground's surface, it's not a movie or virtual reality," Tyurin told O'Brien during the program. "It's a real reality and since the borders aren't visible maybe it means that we don't have them at all."
The station crew discussed the dangers of space junk (they have to take shelter in lifeboat-like Russian Soyuz capsules if debris gets too close), while a pre-recorded segment touched on the dangers of spacewalks, including a near-drowning of Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano when water leaked into his spacesuit helmet last summer.
The astronauts also touched on some of the more mundane aspects of life in space during the program. Wakata and Mastracchio also walked the audience through some of the odd differences between life in orbit and on Earth. From going to the bathroom to getting a haircut, everything is more complicated on the space station.
"It is a small toilet, and actually, part of it breaks down every once in a while and we get to work on the repair work here," Wakata said while showing off the space potty.
Astronauts need to use a special vacuum attached to a pair of hair clippers to be sure the hair particles don't fly all over the station.
Wakata, Tyurin and Mastracchio have lived on the International Space Station since November. They recently said goodbye to three crewmates — NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins and cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazanskiy — who returned to Earth on Monday (March 10). O'Brien arranged a reunion of sorts Friday night, with Hopkins joining here in Mission Control to talk to his former crewmates.
Wakata said jokingly that he wanted Hopkins back on board, if only so that the American could clean up the trash he left behind. Hopkins said he'd love to take on more trash duty if it meant a trip back into space.
But while some things are hard in space, it doesn't mean that the astronauts won't miss it when they leave.
"Once you leave here, you're really going to miss this place," Mastracchio said. "I've been up here for four months. I've been away from home for almost six months. I know I'm going to miss the great views out the window and I'm definitely going to miss sleeping in a zero-g environment. It's absolutely fantastic. When this mission is over, I'm definitely going to be happy to go home and see my family."
The space station orbits Earth once every 90 minutes, so "Live from Space" tracked the station through more than one full orbit of the planet. Astronauts on the station particularly enjoy looking down on Earth while floating through space.
"I really enjoy watching my home country through the windows of the space station," Wakata said during the program as the space station was passing over his home country of Japan. Wakata is the first Japanese commander of the space station.
Having a robust human spaceflight program can also help humanity move forward, Wakata said during the program.
"We cannot see boundaries on Earth," Wakata said. "I think expanding our human frontier into space by exploring is part of our DNA. I think the human space program is a vehicle for the survival of the human species. In the future, at some time, we will need to have a home away from home in order to survive a potential environmental impact from an asteroid or an eventual loss of our sun in 5 billion years. I believe that our survival as a human species is the ultimate purpose of human space exploration."
Swiss company to use KSC's shuttle runway
James Dean – Florida Today
A year-old Swiss company plans to perform zero-gravity flights at Kennedy Space Center starting next year, and will consider the former shuttle runway as a future base for launches of small satellites.
Swiss Space Systems, known as S3, has signed a memorandum of understanding with Space Florida to use KSC's three-mile Shuttle Landing Facility, which the state is in negotiations with NASA to take over and operate as a commercial spaceport.
S3 has established a new U.S. subsidiary, S3 USA Operations, and already leases office space at the state-owned Space Life Sciences Lab just outside KSC's gates.
S3 will perform zero-G flights of people or experiments on an Airbus A300. The aircraft is also being developed to air-launch a reusable, suborbital space plane to deploy small satellites weighing up to about 550 pounds.
The company will evaluate KSC as a primary site for satellite launches that could begin in 2018.
S3 employs about 60 people in Switzerland, Spain and the U.S. For more on the company, visit: http://www.s-3.ch/.
ISS crews could care for space vegetables
Experimental garden flies on next cargo trip
James Dean – Florida Today
The local-food movement is going orbital.
An experiment led by Kennedy Space Center scientists will give International Space Station astronauts a garden from which they might one day pick and eat their own salads.
Dubbed "Veggie," the Vegetable Production System will attempt to grow six heads of red romaine lettuce, at first not for astronaut consumption.
But if tests on the ground deem it safe to eat, the crew could be cleared to munch on a second batch of leafy greens grown inside the station's European Columbus module.
"We want to start to develop the ability to have a food system on orbit, so Veggie's a really good first step," said Gioia Massa, the project's lead scientist from KSC's ISS ground processing and research division.
Veggie won't grow the first orbital edibles: Russian cosmonauts in the past have eaten plants from smaller gardens on both the ISS and Mir space station.
Not so for U.S. astronauts, who rely on food from plastic pouches or tin cans, except for the occassional piece of fruit sent up in resupply ships. Strict NASA food safety regulations haven't yet established guidelines for cleaning and eating fresh produce.
The Veggie project continues KSC's long-standing but little-known leadership in plant research within NASA.
"Most people don't have any idea that that's what we do," said Massa, a 39-year-old Cape Canaveral resident. "They think we just launch rockets."
The 15-pound Veggie growth chamber looks like a glass box that glows purple when LED lights at the top are turned on.
Developed by Orbital Technologies Corp. of Madison, Wis., the box is actually a transparent plastic bellows that folds flat for launch but expands upward like an accordion as plants grow.
"Plant pillows" packed with a dry soil-like clay, time-release fertilizer and seeds — for two red romaine crops and one of zinnia flowers — that will fly up with the hardware on SpaceX's next resupply launch. Expected this past Sunday, the launch has been delayed until at least March 30.
Astronauts will set up the garden on the station, but otherwise need to do little more than add water to its reservoir.
Within a month, it's hoped that six loose lettuce plants will sprout and grow to about six inches.
Wearing gloves, astronauts will then harvest the plants with forceps and scissors, wrap them in foil and seal them in a bag for return to Earth in a freezer on the next SpaceX resupply mission, tentatively planned in June.
Scientists at KSC will analyze the space crop for potentially harmful bacteria and microorganisms, plus any changes in antioxidant and mineral levels. If it's clean, they'll work with the astronaut office, flight surgeons, microbiologists and other personnel to win approval for crews to eat the second crop.
Red romaine was chosen in large part because of its low natural microbial levels. Also, it has grown well in test chambers on the ground, looks pretty and is tasty to most people.
"It's not some sort of a weird crop that nobody would eat," said Massa.
Radishes, by contrast, also grew well but did not make the cut. They have much higher microbial levels and are not as widely liked.
In between lettuce crops, the crew may grow six zinnias, in a five-color blend, for pleasure and to generate interest in space and gardening.
The Veggie concept started out as a garden for astronauts, but evolved into a system scientists now are proposing to use for a variety of experiments involving crop plants or petri dishes.
"Once we demonstrate that it works, we hope to get a lot of really interesting investigations in there, and hopefully develop some sort of a pick-and-eat salad concept as well in the future," said Massa.
A more advanced Veggie chamber could be developed to replace the bare bones version flying up first.
Beyond the small initial harvest, astronauts might also enjoy simply watching the plants grow as they go about their daily tasks, and helping to care for them.
"I think that's going to be one of the biggest benefits," Massa said. "When you're living in an environment like the ISS, having green growing plants could be a really nice thing."
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