Happy HOT Tuesday everyone. Crazy weather all over the nation. Bad tornadoes in Nebraska last night…. Ready for the next cold front to come through.
| | JSC TODAY CATEGORIES - Headlines
- Innovation 2014 - Future of Exploration Series
- Mandatory: IT Security Training Due July 15
- Thursday: ARMD Seedling Fund Talk Brown Bag
- The June Orion Trivia Contest Winner is ...
- Locksmith Shop Closed
- FedTraveler Will Be Departing
- B3 Café Closed This Flex Friday - Please Visi
- Weekly Senior Staff Safety Message - Organizations/Social
- Reminder: AIAA Houston Section Awards Dinner
- Network Before Work with Emerge!
- EV + PV = Great!
- Are You Searching for Senior Living Arrangements? - Jobs and Training
- June 18: Become an Ally in the Workplace
- Enhancing Your Creative Genius - Enroll Today - Community
- Fight Off the Summertime Blues |  |
| Headlines - Innovation 2014 – Future of Exploration Series
Innovation 2014 kicked off two weeks ago with NASA Associate Administrator Bill Gerstenmaier talking about NASA's plans for human spaceflight exploration, and last week we heard details of the Asteroid Redirect Mission and the extensibility to Mars. Please join us tomorrow, June 18, for a continuation of the Future of Exploration Series, part 3, with an in-depth conversation focused on the design of the trajectories for the Asteroid Redirect Crewed Mission. - Mandatory: IT Security Training Due July 15
All personnel with access to NASA Information Technology (IT) systems must complete the annual Information Security Training Course titled: ITS-014-001 ANNUAL INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SECURITY AND PRIVACY AWARENESS TRAINING. This training is mandatory and available in your SATERN Learning Plan. If the course is not on your Learning Plan and you are unable to locate it under the Learning History section as being completed, contact the SATERN Help Desk at 1-877-677-2123. Email JSC-ITSEC-TRAINING for further information. - Thursday: ARMD Seedling Fund Talk Brown Bag
Next week, NARI is releasing a solicitation for multi-institutional, multi-disciplinary team-based proposals addressing "big" aeronautical research questions. This Thursday, June 19, the JSC Chief Technologist Office and the JSC Technology Working Group (JTWG) will host a "brown bag opportunity" and would like to invite potential civil servant Principal Investigators to come review the call and participate in a Q&A with Mark Jernigan and others surrounding the upcoming Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD) Seedling Fund call for proposals. ARMD seeks innovative and technically credible proposals for the call that will support exploration of novel concepts, new processes or game-changing technologies with potential to meet national aeronautics needs, be infused into ARMD's fundamental research portfolio or enable new avenues of aeronautics research. Please come join us on Thursday, June 19, from noon to 1 p.m. in the Building 30A collaboration area (second floor, 2085E) "Energy." Event Date: Thursday, June 19, 2014 Event Start Time:12:00 PM Event End Time:1:00 PM
Event Location: Collaboration Area of Bldg 30A – (2nd floor 2085E)
Add to Calendar
Holly Kurth x32951
[top] - The June Orion Trivia Contest Winner is ...
The winner of the June Orion trivia contest drawing is: Rachel Parnell June Trivia Question: Name one of the two radiation sensors flying on the Exploration Flight Test-1 mission. * The correct answer: Radiation Area Monitor (RAM) or Battery-operated Independent Radiation Detector (BIRD) Congratulations, Rachel, and thanks to all contest participants. The next trivia contest question will post on the second Tuesday in July. Join the fun! You could be the next winner of the Orion monthly trivia contest! - Locksmith Shop Closed
The JSC Locksmith Shop will be closed TODAY, June 17, and TOMORROW, June 18, while we relocate to Building 420, Room 118. We apologize for any inconvenience; we plan to return to normal operations on Thursday, June 19. - FedTraveler Will Be Departing
Fed Traveler will be departing CGE will be embarking Transitioning with minimal pain It's already time to train There's no time for skylarking For those of you who have not had an opportunity to take either the CGE Travel Arranger or CGE Travel Approver training classes, we have listed all current and future training dates and times on the CGE SharePoint site: CGE Travel System SharePoint. We will also be offering additional arranger and approver classes after the June 30 CGE go-live date. The dates and times for those classes are currently being finalized and will be listed on the CGE Travel System SharePoint site as soon as they are available. Here are some upcoming deadlines for actions in FedTraveler: All travel authorizations must be supervisor approved in FedTraveler by June 23. All travel authorizations must be final approved in FedTraveler by June 25. - B3 Café Closed This Flex Friday - Please Visit B11
The Building 3 café will be closed this flex Friday for maintenance. Please visit the Building 11 café, which will be open in place of Building 3. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you. - Weekly Senior Staff Safety Message
This week's topic: Creating a Strong Safety Culture - Lessons Learned Creating the right environment is essential for a strong safety culture. Establishing trust, creating diverse teams, focusing on engineering excellence, sharing knowledge and recognizing commitment to safety are all necessary for creating a strong safety culture. Organizations/Social - Reminder: AIAA Houston Section Awards Dinner
Please join the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Houston Section for the final dinner meeting of the 2013-2014 year. Our keynote speaker is astronaut Clay Anderson, who will discuss his experiences on the space shuttle and International Space Station. We will also present the Yuri's 5K fundraising results, the Spirit of Apollo scholarship and our annual section awards. Music will be performed by Dwayne O'Brien, formerly of the band Little Texas. The cost for this event is $15 for AIAA members; $20 for non-member students; and $25 for all other non-members. Please RSVP at the event page by June 18 to ensure your choice of meal. - Network Before Work with Emerge!
Emerge invites the JSC community to a networking breakfast for individuals who would like to collaborate and be inspired BEFORE workload constraints keep you tied to your desk all day. No reservation is required. - EV + PV = Great!
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Galveston Bay Section meeting: EV + PV = Great! P.S.: Do you want a clean car with terrific acceleration? Thursday, June 19, Luncheon Meeting: Noon to 12:45 p.m. - Program and Q&A at Gilruth Presentation: EVs and PV-Electric Vehicles (full-battery EVs and plug-in hybrids) and Photovoltaics Speaker: Dave Hanson from JSC will share information on current EVs on the market, as well as the state of photovoltaic developments. He will discuss equipment, practicality and growth of both EVs and PV. The future looks bright for further developments, but best of all, they are both viable now. Hanson, following electric vehicles and photovoltaics almost all his life, is a member of the IEEE, AIAA, Houston Electric Auto Association and Houston Renewable Energy Group, and is life member of ASES-American Solar Energy Society. Interested non-IEEE engineers, technicians, scientists, IEEE members and guests alike are welcome! Event Date: Thursday, June 19, 2014 Event Start Time:11:30 AM Event End Time:12:45 PM
Event Location: Gilruth
Add to Calendar
Dave Hanson x47718
[top] - Are You Searching for Senior Living Arrangements?
Are you searching for the right living arrangements for an aging parent or loved one? The JSC Employee Assistance Program is happy to present guest speaker Diana Jones from Brookdale Plaza at Clear Lake (formerly The Terrace), who will speak to us about senior living. Jones is the Sales and Marketing director with Brookdale Plaza at Clear Lake. She will discuss various senior living options, such as 55 and up apartment living, independent retirement community living, licensed assisted living, memory care, skilled nursing and continuing care retirement communities. Jobs and Training - June 18: Become an Ally in the Workplace
Are you concerned with equality in the workplace? Are you interested in learning how, as a straight ally, to create an inclusive environment for LGBT colleagues? On June 18 as part of Pride Month activities, the Out & Allied Employee Resource Group invites you to an informative and empowering seminar led by Lowell Kane. The day-long class will explore the unique needs and concerns that LGBT people face in the workplace while also building your own knowledge, skills and abilities for creating a more inclusive and affirming community as a straight ally. Participants will develop an understanding of LGBT terminology and symbols; history; concepts of privilege and identity development; and learn how to maintain a work environment that doesn't tolerate oppression based on sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression. Space is limited! Sign up now in SATERN by searching "Become an Ally in the Workplace." - Enhancing Your Creative Genius - Enroll Today
Interested in expanding your creative potential? NASA's Enhancing Your Creative Genius course is being offered to JSC employees in July! During this non-traditional and highly interactive course, participants will travel to an off-site business location to learn the core principles of creativity, hear from a NASA Leader and take a short tour to increase ideation. There will be various brainstorming and ideation techniques used and demonstrated throughout the two days. Monday and Tuesday, July 21 and 22, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. * or * Wednesday and Thursday, July 23 and 24, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The course will be held off-site within the Houston area. Participants are responsible for their own travel. Lunch will be available for purchase (optional). Details to be provided to course participants. Space is limited, so sign up today. Community - Fight Off the Summertime Blues
Just because school is out doesn't mean that we don't have lots of requests for volunteers! Here are a few terrific opportunities for you to engage the public and help them fight off summertime blues. Sign up for these events on the V-CORPs home page. June 23 - Mechanical Design Workshop. Speak to professionals at a Schlumberger-hosted workshop about how NASA designs hardware for harsh environments. It's a three-day workshop, so they are flexible on the date. June 24 - Cub Scout Camp. Do you remember Scout Camp? These scouts are attending a day camp and are interested in hearing about what it's like to be an engineer. They also have some flexibility on the date/time. July 2 - Pasadena Public Library (PPL) Summer Series. The PPL hosts a talk every Wednesday; they would love to have someone from NASA talk about space exploration. July 2 - Rice University/Sigma Xi Meeting. The Rice University chapter of this international science and engineering honor society is looking for someone to speak to them about what is going on at NASA these days. Aug. 8 - Civil Air Patrol (CAP) Aerospace Night. This CAP squadron has an aerospace education night once every month. They would like to hear about spacesuits, but they will welcome any NASA-related topic for their meeting. Sept. 23 - ISA SE Texas Kickoff Meeting. The International Society of Automation is looking for a speaker to help them kick off their 2014-2015 year. There are many more opportunities in V-CORPs. Click through the months to see all of your options, or click on the Current Outreach Opportunities tile (upper, right-hand side) for a chronological listing of all the events in the next two months. | |
| |
| JSC Today is compiled periodically as a service to JSC employees on an as-submitted basis. Any JSC organization or employee may submit articles. Disclaimer: Accuracy and content of these notes are the responsibility of the submitters. |
NASA and Human Spaceflight News
Tuesday – June 17, 2014
HEADLINES AND LEADS
Space policy via the rearview mirror
A discussion of the National Research Council report "Pathways to Exploration: Rationales and Approaches for a U.S. Program of Human Space Exploration"
Dale L. Skran – The Space Review
The long-awaited (since 2010) National Research Council (NRC) report on human spaceflight has arrived (see "A new pathway to Mars", The Space Review, June 9, 2014), much to the dismay of space settlement and commercial space advocates. This report seems to call for ditching the International Space Station (ISS) to fund a series of Apollo-style space adventures using the Space Launch System (SLS) while dismissing commercial space as "speculative."
NASA's big rocket gives Putin a big advantage
R.D. Boozer – The Space Review
The Space Launch System (SLS) is an enormous rocket that Congress is mandating NASA develop. SLS is not only slowing US progress in human spaceflight, but also has given leverage to Russian president Vladimir Putin to fight back against US economic sanctions levied against his country because of his aggression against Ukraine. Understanding why this statement is true requires reviewing the circumstances that led to the SLS project.
Expedition 40 Completes Week of Medical Research Aboard the International Space Station
Thomas Carannante - Science World Report
NASA has shifted their focus of the space program and is preparing for long-duration and deep space missions. The six-person ISS Expedition 40 crew wrapped up the week after completing plentiful medical research for these types of missions.
New decontamination system built in Alabama clears way for experiments on living things in space
Lee Roop – Huntsville (AL) Times
A new decontamination system built in Huntsville is clearing the way for experiments on animals, plants and microbes in space. NASA says those experiments could lead to new disease treatments on Earth and new ways to protect astronauts' health on long space missions.
Russia eyes Soyuz upgrades for mission around the moon
Stephen Clark – Spaceflight Now
Space tourism firm Space Adventures says two customers have paid deposits for a flight around the moon on a Soyuz spacecraft, but the trip requires major changes to the Russian crew capsule, a vehicle that has seen only incremental upgrades in recent decades.
Cracks in Pluto's moon Charon may suggest ancient underground ocean
Deborah Netburn – Los Angeles Times
In the icy outskirts of our solar system, more than 29 times farther from the sun than the Earth, scientists say a great liquid ocean may have once flowed far beneath the surface of a moon called Charon.
Hubble telescope to look for follow-on target for Pluto-bound probe
Eric Hand - Science Magazine's Science Insider
New Horizons, NASA's mission to the outer solar system, has been given a large chunk of time on the Hubble Space Telescope to assist an increasingly desperate search for an icy object the spacecraft can study after it hurtles past Pluto in July 2015, NASA headquarters announced today.
Moon Bumps: Earth's Gravity Creates Lunar Bulges
Earth's gravitational pull is so powerful that it creates a small bulge on the surface of the moon. For the first time, scientists have observed this bump from orbit, using NASA satellites.
SpaceX launch set for Friday evening
James Dean - Florida Today
SpaceX and Orbcomm today confirmed they are now targeting a 6:08 pm ET Friday launch of a Falcon 9 rocket and six commercial satellites from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
America's weapon in the US-Russia space war
Last month Elon Musk wowed reporters on the floor of SpaceX's Hawthorne, California-based factory, pulling back the curtain on the spaceship that his commercial spaceflight company hopes will carry NASA astronauts to the International Space Station as soon as 2016. The unveil of the Dragon V2, as the spacecraft is known, couldn't have come at a better time. Just two weeks prior, Russia's deputy prime minister vowed to bar NASA from hitching rides to the ISS aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft in retaliation for Western sanctions imposed on Russia in response to the the Ukraine crisis.
Meddling Threatens Commercial Crew
Space News (Editorial)
A Senate proposal to give NASA's traditionally underfunded commercial crew program its biggest appropriation to date next year comes with a big string attached in the form of stricter financial reporting requirements.
NASA's 'Rocket to Nowhere' could hijack private spaceflights
No 'trampoline' for our astronauts
Washington Times (Editorial)
NASA lives in the shadow of its former glory, the remembrance of the days when the nation held its breath every time a rocket left Cape Canaveral and cheered every touchdown. Now the space shuttle has been mothballed, and prospects of a new ship to carry Americans to space are tarnished by setbacks and cost overruns. The only way an American astronaut can get into space now is to hitch a ride on a Russian rocket.
COMPLETE STORIES
Space policy via the rearview mirror
A discussion of the National Research Council report "Pathways to Exploration: Rationales and Approaches for a U.S. Program of Human Space Exploration"
Dale L. Skran – The Space Review
The long-awaited (since 2010) National Research Council (NRC) report on human spaceflight has arrived (see "A new pathway to Mars", The Space Review, June 9, 2014), much to the dismay of space settlement and commercial space advocates. This report seems to call for ditching the International Space Station (ISS) to fund a series of Apollo-style space adventures using the Space Launch System (SLS) while dismissing commercial space as "speculative."
As a member of the National Space Society (NSS) Policy Committee, I was involved in drafting formally-approved input to the NRC report generation process. The following material does not attempt to reprise the contents of the NRC report or earlier coverage of it here, and you may find it helpful to read them before continuing with this article. This article is not an NSS position and represents only my personal views.
At 286 pages, the NRC report is long and contains some excellent and cogent material. Chapter 2, titled "Why Do We Go There?" contains a generally well thought out presentation of the reasons for human interest in space.
The report outlines five "pragmatic" rationales:
- Economic and technological benefits
- National security
- National stature and international cooperation
- Education and inspiration
- Science
In addition, two "aspirational" rationales are mentioned:
- Human survival
- Shared human destiny
Section 2.3, "Enduring Questions," asks:
- How far from the Earth can humans go?
- What can humans discover and achieve when we get there?
These deceptively simple questions do provide some useful guidance. The NRC committee reasonably assumes that the answer to the first question is limited to the Lagrange points, asteroids, Mars, and Moon. Unfortunately, the report is flawed by an excessive focus on "What can humans discover?" combined with an unexamined dismissal of "What can we achieve when we get there?" especially as it applies to economic development and space settlement.
The report next turns, in section 2.4.1, to the economic and technology impact of human space flight. The report states "There is now a substantial space-based element of the communications industry and multiple commercial uses of space-based Earth-observing capability. Clearly, these industries would not exist without the original NASA… development work, but they benefited only modestly if at all from human spaceflight programs." This statement underlines a key weakness in the committee's approach. The report does not discuss the vast economic benefits of satellites (which they grossly understate by ignoring location-based services) but those satellites only found their way into orbit in the context of a human spaceflight program. In some cases, the applications (i.e., weather observation) now done by robotic craft were originally envisioned as being provided via crewed space stations.
As a result, the NRC report makes no attempt to look at future robotic space applications that might result from a focus on human spaceflight. For example, there is enormous overlap between developing large space solar power arrays for a solar electric propulsion (SEP) system for flight to Mars or providing beamed power to lunar mines, and developing a solar power satellite for returning power to Earth. There is such a strong synergy between human and robotic applications in space that it is not clear that attempting to separate out the economic benefits of human spaceflight alone is a productive exercise.
The NRC report is burdened with a persistent skepticism toward commercial space activities, and often reports such efforts in a misleading fashion. In section 2.4.1.1, "Evaluation of Economic and Technological Rationales," we are given a barebones and minimally referenced discussion of current space commerce trends, with the conclusion that "It is currently impossible to assess whether commercial capabilities will develop to the point that they can create significant cost savings (on the order of tens of billions of dollars) for NASA human space exploration efforts beyond LEO."
There is no discussion at all that the prospect for increased traffic to LEO for all purposes, including tourism, might lead to significantly lower costs; or that it may lead to reusable spacecraft with superior operational characteristics relative to existing vehicles or the SLS. This glaring absence seems remarkable given the stated goal of SpaceX to develop just such lower-cost, reusable craft, as well as their considerable progress in this direction. Of course, the efforts of SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, XCOR Aerospace, and others to greatly reduce launch costs may all fail. However, the NRC report is based on the unstated assumption that over the entire period considered, all the way out to 2054, there will be essentially no progress in rocketry other than that funded by NASA exploration programs, and that for the entire period the SLS as currently envisioned will remain the preferred method for Americans to reach space. It is difficult to imagine a more unlikely foundation for the planning of future space efforts than this.
The committee considers that "even robotic exploitation of space resources for on-Earth use to be a highly speculative idea because of the cost-benefit equation would need to change substantially in order to make such exploitation commercially viable," while failing to mention that "on-Earth" use of space resources is not a current target of any of the companies pursuing the area of robotic asteroid mining for the foreseeable future.
The report lets slip some hostility to commercial space by adding "investments to foster new commercial partners may create a tension in NASA as the goal of the facilitation of new commercial ventures can compete with that of exploration (that is, the goal of answering the enduring questions) in making decisions about program priorities." This statement is not logical, even in the context of the report itself, which holds that one of the enduring questions was to ask "What can humans discover and achieve when we get there?" Surely mining the Moon and asteroids for human benefit comes under the heading of "What can humans… achieve once we get there?" We are in LEO now, and we are just starting to figure out what we can achieve. A major implication of the NRC report is that NASA should abandon all human LEO activity, commercial and otherwise, in the name of a drive to Mars.
The entire direction of the NRC report is highly ironic, as it rejects the possibility that in-space mining might support fueling a Mars expedition. The report also rejects the probability that commercial space efforts will greatly lower launch costs, while focusing on a series of mission plans little changed from those discussed in the 1950s or '60s.
With regard to the role of human spaceflight and the national security rationale, discussed in section 2.4.2, it is hard to argue with the NRC's conclusion that there is little connection between the two, and that national security is not a strong rationale for human spaceflight. The section that follows on international stature as a rationale for human spaceflight ends with the statement that human spaceflight has important benefits to the international status of the United States, and also has important geopolitical benefits. The current difficulty with Russia aside, this conclusion seems firmly grounded. The section on education and inspiration winds up with the bromide that although spending on human spaceflight may not be sufficient to produce engineers and scientists, there are certainly many scientists and engineers who were inspired by human spaceflight.
The section on scientific exploration and observation, while it supplies a number of excellent pages on discoveries made on the ISS, states "Science done in LEO, other than that directed to furthering human exploration, provides a rationale only for LEO." This hints at the total rejection of on-going human LEO operations that appears in the conclusion of the report.
The report does mention the shifting boundary between when it might be best to send humans or robots to explore, but there is no systematic examination of where this boundary might end up over the next 30 or 40 years. Since the apparent operating assumption of the NRC is that regardless of progress in artificial intelligence and robotics over a multi-decade interval, humans will still remain the more flexible solution for exploration needs, and thus there is little need to consider a future where robots are vastly more capable than today. The science section ends with "This may change at some indeterminate time in the future."
It would seem logical in addressing the role of robots in space exploration to start by developing a baseline understanding of where technology is likely to go over the next 20 to 40 years. Given that driverless cars for general use are being tested today, it seems only reasonable to project substantial gains in robotic abilities in the future, with an ever-narrowing zone where humans have a meaningful advantage in the realm of scientific space exploration. There is a time limit on the "humans are more flexible than robots" argument, and during the next 100 years, with very high probability, this argument will no longer have salience. What the NRC ignores is that the argument could lose salience in 20 years or even sooner. In other words, well before we can get human footprints on Mars, it will be obvious that sending robots for scientific exploration is the better approach.
This leaves us with the "aspirational" rationales. The NRC provides an extremely brief examination of the "survival" rationale in section 2.4.6, running only about one page, and settlement is lumped with "survival." This discussion is of poor quality, and does not even bother to provide a complete list of reasonable threats to human existence: biological threats are missing, for example. After minimal examination, the NRC blandly asserts that "It is not possible to say whether human off-Earth settlements could eventually be developed that would outlive human presence on Earth and lengthen the survival of the human species." A reference is provided to S. Brand's Space Colonies but not to the NASA space colony studies or to the classic The High Frontier. No mention is made of what the specific obstacles to such settlements might be, although the indifference of the committee to this rationale for humans in space looms as the first that must be overcome.
The NRC report twists space settlement and human survival from a viable stand alone "Horizon Goal" to a mere rationalization for further space exploration of the type exemplified by Apollo—a series of one-shot "missions" with no actual sustainability or permanence. The last line of the section is "This [human species extension in space] is a question that can only be settled by pushing the human frontier in space." The question of whether a series of one-shot missions to the Moon, asteroids, and Mars might be the best or most cost-effective way to answer questions related to human settlement in space is never considered.
The final rationale section on "Shared Human Destiny and Aspiration" ends on a banal note: "Some say it is human destiny to continue to explore space. While not all share this view, for those who do, it is an important reason to engage in human spaceflight." The truth of this cannot be argued; its usefulness in determining policy direction remains unclear.
The NRC report then attempts to analyze the impact of the various rationales for human spaceflight. This effort includes a consideration of both value propositions and stakeholder value. Of particular interest is a section where the various impacts of (1) ending all human spaceflight, (2) ending only LEO human spaceflight, or (3) ending only beyond Earth orbit (BEO) human spaceflight are considered. The section on ending only LEO human spaceflight, section 2.6.2.2, contains a reasonable discussion of significant impacts and risks. Unfortunately, the NRC seems to place little value on LEO human activity, regardless of how long the list of benefits of ISS research, the importance of ISS research for BEO exploration, or the very long list of things we have yet to even start doing on the ISS. Currently, increasing numbers of student experiments are being flown to the ISS; the impact of removing these opportunities for student inspiration and their replacement with vicarious observation of BEO astronauts active on multi-year timeframes is not discussed.
When considering termination of BEO human spaceflight, the bias of the NRC against LEO and commercial activities is shown by a refusal to recognize that LEO commercial and scientific operations answer the "enduring question" of what we can achieve in space just as much as BEO human operations would.
These observations need to be viewed in the context of Chapter 3, "Public and Stakeholder Attitudes," which contains 28 pages of considerable interest and value to space advocates, including a fresh stakeholder survey with raw data provided in the appendices. Alas, the entire mass can be summed up in the following quote: "despite positive attitudes toward NASA, there is relatively little public support for increased spending for space exploration." One can also find this gem: "In comparison to other possible spending priorities, space exploration generally fares poorly. Only foreign aid and welfare spending were less popular than space exploration."
None of this should come as a surprise to any space advocate: curing cancer, creating jobs, reducing crime, and so on are always going to lead the spending priority list of the average person over trips to Mars. Since NASA and space advocates have failed to connect space to economic growth, personal security, or long-term survival, it is to be expected that the average person sees no reason for more spending on humans in space.
Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University and a member of the NSS Board of Governors, recently said, "What's the question for which space is the answer?" This is a reasonable thought to entertain. Of all the rationales listed above, "space" is the singular answer for only one, species survival via space settlement. All the other rationales can be satisfied on Earth in other fashions. Until human survival via space settlement becomes the "Horizon Problem" around which NASA is organized, we are unlikely to achieve an enduring policy consensus. Organizing around Mars as a horizon goal, as the NRC does, is dangerously shortsighted and fraught with peril, as will be seen below.
Chapter 4, "Technical Analysis and Affordability Assessment of Human Exploration Pathways," comes last and contains both the most interesting and the most depressing material in the report. The committee has chosen to advocate for "pathways" as distinguished from "capability-based" and "flexible-path" approaches of other reports. A "pathway" consists of a set of design reference missions (DRMs) that lead to a particular goal or set of goals. As the report states, "The committee is not recommending one pathway over another, but is does recommend… that NASA 'maintain long-term focus on Mars as the "horizon goal" for human space exploration.'"
Since the NRC committee has already dismissed economic development and survival/settlement as possible reasons for humans to be in space, and limited the scope of exploration to the Lagrange points, the Moon, Mars, and the asteroids, the content of the "pathways" becomes predictable. In addition, the DRMs, although drawn from a number of sources, and sharing some common technologies and vehicles, retain the flavor of the Apollo program: one-shot enterprises with minimal infrastructure left behind.
Finally, all planning assumes the de-orbiting and non-replacement of the ISS at some date in the 2020s, although the report admits that the longer the ISS operates the better chance it will have to answer important questions related to BEO human spaceflight. Thus, at the completion of any of the pathways, the US will be left as it was after the end of Apollo: no space station anywhere, no occupied lunar base, no means to reach LEO on a routine basis, no infrastructure on Mars (with one exception)13 , and a big pile of rocks in a few labs. The phrase "pathways" is misleading—they might better be called "tricks" or "stunts"—as they lead nowhere except to the achievement of the stated goal of footprints on Mars.
Overall, the methodology of NRC report is good, with proper use made of sand charts, and detailed examination of budgets. The report assembles a very solid review of the challenges of going to Mars, and makes a strong case that doing so is at least several times more complex, risky, and expensive than going to the Moon. After reading these sections, one is left with the sense that "Humans to Mars" advocates often don't fully appreciate many of these points, and that the general public suffers from a "If we could put a man on the Moon, how hard can going to Mars be?" syndrome. NASA then finds itself with a related need to "top itself" by going to Mars, since only this goal seems worthy compared to the initial lunar adventure.
A key assumption that receives minimal examination or discussion is that "the SLS would be the primary launcher enabling exploration beyond LEO."14 One chart of particular interest examines the likely date of "footprints on Mars" based on various assumptions about budget, schedule, and launch tempo.15 This chart shows an earliest possible "Boots on Mars" date of 2033, and a latest possible date of 2054, forty years from today. As the report admits, these dates are based on a long list of optimistic assumptions, and could easily slip by many years. Thus, the NRC report assumes that the SLS will be used for about an additional half century , even though it is based on late-'70s/early-'80s shuttle technology, and that during this entire period there will be no significant advances in rocketry that would call into question this assumption.
Perhaps this is a defensible assumption, but it is a largely unexamined one in the context of the NRC report.16 Even a brief survey of current rocket engine development efforts outside of NASA suggests a strong likelihood that the SLS will be visibly obsolete on its first flight, and a true horse and buggy operation by 2054.
The dirtiest secret in the report resides in the various budget charts. As can be easily seen, we are in for a "Thunderdome" style cage match between SLS, ISS, and any new human exploration projects. Assuming a flat budget17 and continued use of the expensive SLS system, the ISS must be ditched to do anything new in human space exploration, absent significant NASA budget increases that have not been visible over the past decade, and that are even less likely in the future. Even with ditching the ISS, the new funds available are modest and will not support humans to Mars.
Like many past commissions on human space exploration, the NRC report concludes with a plea for more funds, for consensus, and for leadership, all the while acknowledging the coming ISS/SLS "cage match," saying "Maintaining the ISS and developing SLS leave precious little budgetary maneuvering room to plan the next steps beyond LEO." The most straightforward conclusion that some would draw from this report is that going to Mars is completely unaffordable with current technology and budgets, and that we need to deal out a new deck of cards before starting on this journey. Until we establish the principle of a reusable, permanent, in-space infrastructure that routinely supports new missions, including fuel depots, robotic lunar/asteroidal mining stations, and Lagrange point way-stations that are resupplied using commercial fixed price contracts, Mars will remain forever on our "Horizon."
Dale Skran (dale.skran@nss.org) is Deputy Chair of the National Space Society Policy Committee. He is also currently the CEO of iSeeSquared LLC, a stealth mode start-up, and a serial technology entrepreneur. Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone, and do not represent the official positions of any organization or company, including the NSS or iSeeSquared LLC. NASA's big rocket gives Putin a big advantage
R.D. Boozer – The Space Review
The Space Launch System (SLS) is an enormous rocket that Congress is mandating NASA develop. SLS is not only slowing US progress in human spaceflight, but also has given leverage to Russian president Vladimir Putin to fight back against US economic sanctions levied against his country because of his aggression against Ukraine. Understanding why this statement is true requires reviewing the circumstances that led to the SLS project.
After the cancellation of Project Constellation and before SLS was proposed by certain powerful members of Congress, NASA planned several new development projects to catapult the US ahead of its international competition in space. Only one of those new projects survived, the Commercial Crew development program, which is funding vehicles from private companies to transport American astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS). Another of those projects was to involve development of in-space filling stations known as propellant depots to allow for affordable deep space flights. Yet another project involved technology development to produce the most powerful launch vehicles in history for missions to Mars. A general description of this plan was outlined in Congressional testimony by NASA on March 24, 2010. Also, the Orion spacecraft was carried over from Project Constellation, but the focus here is on those projects that were new at the time.
The heavy-lift launch technology development was to be done concurrently with Commercial Crew development. American companies ULA and SpaceX gave quotes of $5.5 billion and $2.5 billion, respectively, to use the new tech on a heavy-lift launcher to be developed after Commercial Crew flights to ISS began. Fixed price contracts would insure the cost to develop both of these rockets (neither would include overly expensive Space Shuttle technology) would be far less than producing one rocket under NASA's usual procedures. Evidence for this contention comes from the fact that a similar strategy has resulted in huge cost savings for NASA in its highly successful Commercial Cargo development program. For instance, a joint Air Force/NASA study showed if the SpaceX Falcon 9 launcher had been developed using NASA's usual procedures of cost-plus contracts under Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR), it would have cost up to eight times more to develop than what it actually did.
Both the heavy-lift and depot development projects were scrapped because certain politicians wanted a Shuttle-derived vehicle under more expensive cost-plus style contracts that would keep billions of NASA dollars flowing to their constituencies. The only way to finance their hyper-expensive rocket was to redirect money intended for those new projects for their pet rocket. Knowing that the Obama Administration considered Commercial Crew the most important of those projects, the politicians (of both parties) essentially issued the ultimatum, "SLS or no Commercial Crew." This devil's bargain recently led former NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver to proclaim, "…Congress forced our hand on SLS. They could make us do it, but can't make me believe we should."
How did all of this Congressional conniving give Vladimir Putin more clout he can use against the US? Part of NASA's original 2010 plan included "…development of a U.S. first-stage hydrocarbon engine for potential use in future heavy lift (and other) launch systems." As Space News noted in an article last year, "In 2010, the Obama administration said it wanted to make development of a 1 million pound-thrust, closed-loop kerosene-fueled engine a national priority. However, Congress preferred a new rocket based on shuttle-derived systems, and the White House had to compromise." That engine would have essentially reproduced the technology of the Russian RD-180 rocket engine now used in ULA's Atlas V rocket. In other words, Atlas V was one of those "(and other) launch systems" mentioned in the Congressional testimony.
The Atlas V is used to launch critical military payloads for the Department of Defense and various NASA deep space probes, and is also slated to launch American astronauts to ISS on Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser spaceplane and Boeing's CST-100 space capsule. Had Congress allowed NASA to pursue the alternative engine instead of SLS, it is probable development of that engine would be near completion by now. Thus, the lack of development of that engine due to SLS has put both our military and NASA more at the mercy of the Russians than we would have been otherwise.
But SLS gives even more benefits to Russia. The first American Commercial Crew flight to ISS has been pushed back from 2015 to 2017 because, year after year, the program received less money than NASA has requested. By contrast, Congress gave SLS more funding than NASA requested during each of those years. That's two extra years of American taxpayer money going to the Russians that did not have to happen. NASA's own Inspector General says that underfunding of Commercial Crew could delay its first flight to ISS as late as 2020; thus, adding yet another three years of American dollars to the Russians—five extra years total. That report further states that Russia will reap a total of $1.7 billion from this deal.
Moreover, the report accompanying the House's 2015 appropriations bill that funds NASA includes language that would require NASA to cut the number of spacecraft participating in the Commercial Crew program from three to one. This idea disregards the fact that the lack of a backup vehicle for the Space Shuttle meant that there was no American crewed spacecraft flying for almost three years after the Challenger accident and for more than two years after the Columbia disaster. Following the latter accident, the Russians hauled American astronauts to the ISS, just as they are doing now and ever since the shuttle program was canceled. This irresponsible proposal could place NASA at the mercy of Russia again in the future if the single chosen vehicle is ever grounded. After all, no vehicle designed by people can ever perfectly safe. Also, the lack of competition between companies could ultimately lead to NASA paying higher prices for crewed space vehicles. Not surprisingly, some members supporting this idea are ardent supporters of SLS and believe their constituents will benefit from the big rocket.
Worse, it seems that the SLS would not be a practical system to take Americans back to the Moon on a continuous basis, or to near Earth asteroids, Mars, and other destinations, as its proponents claim, because of missions costs as high as $5 billion (see "Revisiting SLS/Orion launch costs", The Space Review, July 15, 2013). A more optimistic cost estimate by SLS supporters of $500 million per launch includes only flight costs and replacement of rocket equipment that is lost on each successful launch.
Those lowball estimates don't amortize development costs over each launch, don't include the annual costs for operating expenses, and don't include the annual cost of maintaining launch facilities used by the rocket. The original alternatively proposed systems could have been very effective at accomplishing US deep space missions with much less funding. For instance, the SpaceX alternative heavy lift launch vehicle's estimated launch costs were $300 million per launch, a maximum cost guaranteed by SpaceX.
In short, SLS is not only delaying exciting American manned missions to destinations in deep space, it has increased a precarious reliance on Russian space technology that weakens our country's diplomatic bargaining power when dealing with Putin's excesses. As long as some politicians feel immune to the consequences of their actions, the glacially slow train wreck that is the SLS will continue with ever worsening effects. The politicians will enjoy that immunity only as long as the major media do not delve deeply into what they have been doing and leave the general public in the dark about this pork barrel project that should be axed from our space program.
R.D. (Rick) Boozer is an astrophysics researcher, public speaker, author of the book The Plundering of NASA, and member of the Space Development Steering Committee. He has a Master of Astronomy degree in astrophysics with high distinction and was awarded the University Medal "for outstanding academic achievement at the Master's level." Mr. Boozer also does speaking engagements to excite people about the mysteries of science and to inform them of the necessary steps the US needs to take to be the leading spacefaring nation. He runs the science education websites Astro Maven Blog and Singularity Scientific.
Expedition 40 Completes Week of Medical Research Aboard the International Space Station
Thomas Carannante - Science World Report
NASA has shifted their focus of the space program and is preparing for long-duration and deep space missions. The six-person ISS Expedition 40 crew wrapped up the week after completing plentiful medical research for these types of missions.
ISS Commander Steve Swanson and Flight Engineers Reid Wiseman and Alexander Gerst conducted a number of experiments that sought to understand the effects of long-duration spaceflight on astronauts' health and develop countermeasures to prevent any potential health risks. This research is likely in preparation for NASA's Asteroid Initiative and the eventual Mars missions.
Three experiments - the Sprint Investigation, the Cardio Ox study, and the Circadian Rhythms investigation - were all part of the week's research. Swanson was the subject for the Sprint Investigation, which measures the effectiveness of high-intensity, low-volume exercise training for minimizing the loss of muscle mass and bone density that occurs while spending a prolonged amount of time in space. The ISS astronauts currently work out for 2 ½ hours per day to maintain health and provide information for the investigation.
Wiseman conducted his research for the Cardio Ox study, which investigates the risk of cardiovascular disease related to long-duration spaceflight. Past research has shown the heart becomes spherical after a long time spent in space, but it returns to its normal shape over time when back on Earth. Wiseman underwent an ultrasound test and got his blood pressure measured by Gerst. The goals of this experiment are to determine whether or not biological markers of oxidative and inflammatory stress are elevated during and after spaceflight.
And lastly (among other small experiments) the Circadian Rhythms investigation monitored Gerst's body core temperature over a 36-hour period through the use of sensors and an armband. The results of this research will help scientists understand the adaptations of the human autonomic nervous system. The body clock of astronauts can be disrupted since the ISS orbits the Earth 16 times per day and witnesses a sunrise or sunset every 45 minutes.
New decontamination system built in Alabama clears way for experiments on living things in space
Lee Roop – Huntsville (AL) Times
A new decontamination system built in Huntsville is clearing the way for experiments on animals, plants and microbes in space. NASA says those experiments could lead to new disease treatments on Earth and new ways to protect astronauts' health on long space missions.
The system built by Teledyne Brown Engineering was installed June 13 aboard the International Space Station. It's an upgrade to the Microgravity Science Glovebox also developed in Huntsville at Marshall Space Flight Center.
The glovebox is a sealed, negative-pressure work area where astronauts have already safely performed hundreds of experiments. It works just the way it sounds: Astronauts stick their hands inside the box to manipulate test objects. Without it, NASA says the microgravity of space could turn almost anything – gasses, dust, fluids – into floating hazards.
In the past, astronauts have concentrated their experiments in areas such as fluid physics, materials science and physics. The decontamination system, which can also remove airborne contaminants and clean up spills, sanitizes the inside of the glovebox with high-power ultraviolet light. Now, NASA can test living things - microbes, mice, plants - without worrying that contamination will affect the experiments or the atmosphere of the station.
"This application of UV has been an accepted practice for disinfection since the mid-20th century," project manager Lee Jordan of Marshall said in a statement. "The DNA of the microorganism is disrupted by the UV radiation, leaving them unable to grow or reproduce. With this technology, it is possible to destroy more than 99.99 percent of all pathogens within seconds, without addition of chemicals, without harmful side effects, inexpensively, highly efficiently and absolutely reliably."
Russia eyes Soyuz upgrades for mission around the moon
Stephen Clark – Spaceflight Now
Space tourism firm Space Adventures says two customers have paid deposits for a flight around the moon on a Soyuz spacecraft, but the trip requires major changes to the Russian crew capsule, a vehicle that has seen only incremental upgrades in recent decades.
While the Virginia-based company works with Russian engineers to make the venerable Soyuz ferry craft ready for a lunar voyage, Space Adventures president Tom Shelley said last week he expects prices for tourist trips to the International Space Station to fall once U.S.-built capsules begin flying astronauts into low Earth orbit.
The flight around the moon goes for $150 million per person, and a seat on a Soyuz mission to the space station is priced at $52 million, according to Shelley.
Seven space tourists have flown to the space station on flights arranged by Space Adventures. British opera singer Sarah Brightman has reserved a 10-day spaceflight to the space station for late 2015 and is set to begin training in early 2015.
The lunar mission would carry a crew commanded by a professional Russian cosmonaut. Two paying passengers would make for a $300 million mission.
"When you put in perspective of the Apollo program and the cost of access to space in general, it's actually very affordable," Shelley said. "Well, it's good value. Let's put it that way. Maybe affordable is the wrong choice of word."
Speaking to the National Space Club Florida Committee on June 10, Shelley said Soyuz contractor Energia plans to modify the spacecraft for the moon mission by changing the ship's communications and navigation systems.
"We are going to have to change the heat shield because you're re-entering at a significantly higher speed" on a lunar mission, Shelley said, adding engineers are considering whether to guide the Soyuz landing capsule to a "skip re-entry" in which the spacecraft would dip into the atmosphere to dissipate speed before plunging to the surface to a parachute-assisted touchdown.
The Soviet-era Zond robotic circumlunar missions, intended to pave the way for future human voyages, pioneered the skip re-entry technique in the 1960s.
The Soyuz also needs a new habitation module to give the crew more living space during the week-long trip from Earth to the moon and back.
"We're basically taking the same Soyuz that flies to the space station, making a few modifications to allow it go around the far aside of the moon, and adding an extra habitation module to make it more comfortable for the passengers," Shelley said.
The probable flight plan calls for the moon-bound crew to fly to the space station on a Soyuz rocket and spacecraft for a few days, then undock and rendezvous with a habitation module and Block DM propulsion stage launched separately atop a Proton booster.
The Block DM engine would propel the Soyuz capsule on a trajectory once around the far side of the moon and back to Earth.
If the flight includes a visit to the space station, the mission's total duration will be about 17 days, according to Shelley.
An unmanned lunar flight is planned before Russia launches a piloted mission, Shelley said, and the earliest opportunity for a tourist trip is late 2017.
"We are exploring all possible avenues of cooperation with them, and we can do this -- circle the moon in 2017 to 2018 on Soyuz. Technically it is possible," said Vitaly Lopota, CEO of Energia, in a report by Russia's Interfax news agency.
Early concepts for the Soyuz spacecraft from the 1960s included variants designed for lunar missions, but Russia never sent cosmonauts to the moon.
"That would be a very aggressive schedule," Shelley told reporters June 13. "I think late 2017 or 2018 is feasible, but that's what we're figuring out at the moment -- going through all the various different design changes to meet our customer requirements and technical requirements to actually complete the mission. That's what we're doing with the Russians at the moment, and that will dicate the timeframe."
Shelley said he plans to visit Moscow before the end of June for another round of meetings on the lunar mission.
If there is sufficient demand, Space Adventures and Energia plan a series of lunar expeditions.
Shelley described the two depositors as "independent customers" who booked their flights separately. He did not disclose the identities of the clients.
The moon mission requires technical upgrades to the Soyuz, and Shelley would not say if the passengers' payments would cover all the engineering work, or if the project needed additional financial investments from Russia.
Space Adventures' captive market is in tourist flights to low Earth orbit a few hundred miles above Earth, and Shelley said the supply of seats to the International Space Station is poised to go up in the next few years.
Even with the $52 million price tag per seat, tourists are paying less than NASA astronauts to get to the space station. Shelley said that is because NASA buys more training and other services than a civilian passenger needs.
"As far as when it's going to get cheaper, I really don't know," Shelley said. "We've just got to focus on trying to get enough supply into the market to meet the demand that right now is out there."
Space Adventures has a partnership with Boeing Co. to put tourists in its CST-100 crew capsule if NASA gives it the green light to fly to the space station. Boeing is competing against SpaceX and Sierra Nevada Corp. for government funding under NASA's commercial crew program, an initiative aimed at developing privately-owned space taxis, and the space agency plans to decide which companies will continue to receive federal money later this summer.
Since the end of the space shuttle program, NASA astronauts can only get to the space station on Russian Soyuz vehicles, taking up seats that Space Adventures once sold to tourists.
With the possibility of tourist flights on Boeing's CST-100 spacecraft and future openings aboard Soyuz capsules, Shelley says the price of a tourist trip to low Earth orbit could decrease after 2017.
He expects a round-trip flight on Boeing CST-100 capsule will sell for less than the $52 million quote Space Adventures has publicized for Soyuz seats.
"Hopefully, if NASA can get its own astronauts up to the space station, some seats on Russian vehicles will free up, and I think then you'll start to see some movement on price," Shelley said. "But I don't want to focus on price as the limiter on the marketplace because I don't think it is at the moment."
Sarah Brightman will take an empty Soyuz seat next year freed up by a planned one-year expedition on the space station by astronaut Scott Kelly and cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko. Russia will still launch Soyuz spacecraft to the space sation four times during the year-long expedition to ensure the crew has lifeboats for return to Earth in case of an emergency, making a seat open for Brightman.
Cracks in Pluto's moon Charon may suggest ancient underground ocean
Deborah Netburn – Los Angeles Times
In the icy outskirts of our solar system, more than 29 times farther from the sun than the Earth, scientists say a great liquid ocean may have once flowed far beneath the surface of a moon called Charon.
Charon is a moon of the dwarf planet Pluto, and like its host planet, it is a very cold place. Scientists estimate that Pluto's surface temperature is about 380 degrees below zero Fahrenheit--far too chilly for liquid water to exist.
But while little warmth from the sun reaches these frigid bodies, a subterranean ocean on Charon may once have been possible, scientists say. Tidal forces, driven by the ancient gravitational relationship between Charon and Pluto, could have created enough heat to sustain liquid water in the interior of the moon, according to a study published in the journal Icarus.
Charon formed when a large impact ejected material from Pluto into space. The dust and debris from the impact coalesced into several moons that still orbit the dwarf planet. Charon was the biggest, with 1/8 the amount of mass as its host planet.
In the early days of the solar system, Charon was probably closer to Pluto than it is now and the gravity between the two bodies would have caused their surfaces to bulge toward each other. That in turn would have generated friction in their interiors.
"Depending on exactly how Charon's orbit evolved, particularly if it went through a high eccentricity phase, there may have been enough heat from tidal deformation to maintain liquid water beneath the surface of Charon for some time," said Alyssa Rhoden, a research fellow at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, and the lead author of the paper, in a statement.
Rhoden's computer simulations show it is possible that an ocean once flowed in the interior of Charon, but no one can yet say with certainty that it did. For that, we will all have to wait until July 2015, when NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is due to arrive at Pluto and Charon.
If indeed an ocean did exist on Charon, the researchers expect New Horizons to find a pattern of cracks and fissures on its surface, similar to what other spacecrafts have seen on Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's moon Enceladus.
"Since it's easy to get fractures, if we get to Charon and there are none, it puts a very strong constraint on how high the eccentricity could have been and how warm the interior ever could have been," said Rhoden.
But if there are cracks on Charon's surface, then that means an ocean may have once existed. And with it, just possibly, life.
Hubble telescope to look for follow-on target for Pluto-bound probe
Eric Hand - Science Magazine's Science Insider
New Horizons, NASA's mission to the outer solar system, has been given a large chunk of time on the Hubble Space Telescope to assist an increasingly desperate search for an icy object the spacecraft can study after it hurtles past Pluto in July 2015, NASA headquarters announced today.
The mission team has so far been unable to find a suitable Kuiper belt object (KBO) for follow-up study, but needs to as soon as possible so that it can plan orbital adjustments with its limited supply of fuel.
Beginning this week, the mission team will get 40 orbits of Hubble time from the discretionary budget of the director of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, which operates the telescope. It takes the telescope 97 minutes to orbit Earth, but because Earth blocks intended targets for much of this time, each orbit is worth about an hour of observation.
Researchers will use the time to search a quarter of the space within the realm of the spacecraft's thrusters. A Time Allocation Committee (TAC) of 18 astronomers gave the New Horizons team an additional 120 orbits to search the remaining space if the initial search turns up a reasonable number of KBO candidates. And if a prime candidate is found, the team will get 30 more orbits of time for precision studies to nail down the KBO orbit. "This program was strongly supported by the TAC, whether they were cosmologists, solar system or exoplanet people," says Neill Reid, the head of the science mission office at STScI. "This is the one chance to go visit there."
One major problem has been that the bright, star-filled center of the Milky Way is directly behind the search area, making it difficult for faint KBOs to stand out. The mission team has already been granted dozens of nights of time on some of the largest ground-based telescopes on Earth, to no avail. Reid says the team should have improved chances with Hubble because of its sharper vision, and also because the background sky as seen from space is a bit darker. But success is by no means a given—KBOs have turned out to be far less numerous than mission scientists thought when New Horizons launched in 2006. "It depends on whether the solar system is going to cooperate or not," Reid says. "They made a good case that they had done as much as they could from the ground."
With fierce competition for Hubble time, some observers worried that the TAC might dismiss the large request from the New Horizons team. But the dilemma even got the attention of the Senate subcommittee in charge of science appropriations, chaired by Senator Barbara Mikulski (D–MD), whose state includes both the STScI and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, which operates the New Horizons mission. The lawmakers backed an expanded KBO survey in a report accompanying the NASA spending bill that Mikulski's committee approved earlier this month. "The Committee strongly supports surveying the accessible region of space that the New Horizons spacecraft will be able to transit," the panel wrote, "in order to determine if potential targets of opportunity exist that the spacecraft can explore."
Moon Bumps: Earth's Gravity Creates Lunar Bulges
Earth's gravitational pull is so powerful that it creates a small bulge on the surface of the moon. For the first time, scientists have observed this bump from orbit, using NASA satellites.
The gravitational tug-of-war between Earth and the moon is enough to stretch both celestial bodies, so they each end up having a slight oval shape, with the tapered ends facing each other.
On Earth, this gravitational tension shows up in the form of tides. The moon's pull has a strong effect on Earth's oceans because water has so much freedom of movement.
The corresponding distorting effect on the moon, called the lunar body tide, is more difficult to see, because the moon is solid except for a molten core. But Earth's pull raises a small bulge about 20 inches (50 centimeters) from the surface on the near side of the moon and a matching bulge on the far side.
"The deformation of the moon due to Earth's pull is very challenging to measure, but learning more about it gives us clues about the interior of the moon," Erwan Mazarico, a scientist who works at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, said in a statement.
The same side of the moon always faces Earth, but the bulge does move around a few inches over time, wobbling and following Earth's pull like a magnet, as the moon shifts slightly during its orbit.
Scientists observed the lunar body tide using NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter satellite, which is mapping the height of features on the moon's surface, and NASA's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory satellite, which is mapping the moon's gravitational field. The satellites measured the height of 350,000 locations spread across areas of the moon closest to Earth and areas of the moon on the opposite side from Earth. The satellites passed over each location several times, so scientists could compare the height of each spot from one satellite pass to the next. By identifying which spots changed height, the researchers could track the lunar tide.
Scientists have studied the lunar body tide phenomenon from Earth, but this is the first time satellites have captured images of the lunar tide from orbit. The findings confirm the calculations scientists had already made from ground observations.
SpaceX launch set for Friday evening
James Dean - Florida Today
SpaceX and Orbcomm today confirmed they are now targeting a 6:08 pm ET Friday launch of a Falcon 9 rocket and six commercial satellites from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
The launch was delayed from this past Sunday to allow more time to test one of the satellites.
An update posted on Orbcomm's Web site did not specify the mission's entire launch window, but the window for the most recent planned attempt was just under an hour.
Saturday is available as a backup launch date
PREVIOUS REPORT
SpaceX and Orbcomm plan to announce a new date soon for the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket and six commercial satellites from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, possibly late this week.
Orbcomm says its satellites are encapsulated in a payload fairing in "ready-to-launch condition."
It was additional tests on one of the six spacecraft that delayed a planned launch Sunday or today.
"SpaceX is in the process of finalizing the launch schedule with the Range at the Cape, and we expect to announce a new launch date shortly," Orbcomm said in an update posted on its Web site.
SpaceX on Friday briefly fired the Falcon 9 booster's nine Merlin engines, in what a spokeswoman called a "successful" test.
The Air Force's Eastern Range had scheduled a two-week maintenance period to start this week, but that could be rescheduled to allow a launch attempt to proceed.
America's weapon in the US-Russia space war
Last month Elon Musk wowed reporters on the floor of SpaceX's Hawthorne, California-based factory, pulling back the curtain on the spaceship that his commercial spaceflight company hopes will carry NASA astronauts to the International Space Station as soon as 2016. The unveil of the Dragon V2, as the spacecraft is known, couldn't have come at a better time. Just two weeks prior, Russia's deputy prime minister vowed to bar NASA from hitching rides to the ISS aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft in retaliation for Western sanctions imposed on Russia in response to the the Ukraine crisis.
The fortuitous timing—along with the Dragon V2's sleek, futuristic design—could make the spacecraft an attractive option for NASA, which is also considering designs by Boeing and Sierra Nevada. But more important to SpaceX (CNBC's No. 1 Disruptor) is the advance toward a core company objective: reusability. Dragon V2—unveiled just a month after SpaceX demonstrated technologies key to developing a reusable first rocket stage—can be retrieved, refurbished and relaunched, a concept with the potential to completely upend the economics of a spaceflight industry where equipment costing hundreds of millions of dollars is most often discarded after a single use.
The latest rocket science
The reusable rocket stage is just the latest way SpaceX is disrupting a space launch industry in which it has already undercut its more traditional commercial launch competitors—including France's Arianespace and the Russian-U.S. joint venture International Launch Services (ILS)—by an estimated 25 percent to 35 percent, disrupting an industry that some analysts believe will be the biggest innovation economy in human history.
As confidence in its technology has grown, so has market share; SpaceX now has more than 40 scheduled launches on its manifest through 2018, worth nearly $5 billion, revenues that—barring some kind of major failure—guarantee SpaceX's place as not only the leader of the emerging so-called NewSpace industry but a legitimate threat to the conventional aerospace firms that have dominated space launch for decades.
In little more than 10 years, SpaceX has taken an enterprise that hadn't changed appreciably since the 1960s and shifted the very ground upon which everyone in the space business—from global satellite manufacturers to legacy aerospace powerhouses to NASA—must now stand. Musk, SpaceX's CEO and founder, wants to drive costs down by another order of magnitude by developing reusable rocket stages, making sub-$10 million space access a reality. And if April's reusable rocket demonstration is any indication, SpaceX isn't yet done shaking up the industry.
"It's definitely one of the most ambitious players in the NewSpace industry," said Jonathan Beland, a senior analyst with aerospace consultant Futron. "It's nearly the only one that has gone gung-ho straight into orbital space. They're well funded, they have a distinct vision, and they're playing the space launch industry game a little differently than the traditional players have done."
Who needs Russian spacecraft
SpaceX has largely done so by committing from the outset to trim launch costs, something the traditional commercial spaceflight industry has worried little about.
The commercial launch industry emerged in the 1980s and 1990s to fill a void as the U.S. government moved away from the commercial launch business. Companies like Arianespace and ILS have since developed reliable launch vehicles. But with no downward pressure on pricing or an impetus to develop more cost-effective technology, prices have remained high. While neither company advertises its prices, analyst consensus puts them somewhere around $100 million at the low end for an average launch. (SpaceX currently advertises launch prices of just $61.2 million for similar-sized payloads.)
When SpaceX emerged in 2002, it looked far less like a traditional space launch company and more like a Silicon Valley start-up. Engineers attacked technology challenges one component at a time, the way a software developer might. Designers embraced new technologies, like 3-D printing, advances in materials science and enhanced computer-modeling techniques. Working closely with NASA, SpaceX built industry confidence in its technologies and operational capability through a culture of transparency uncommon in the industry.
But the greatest difference between SpaceX and its peers was its insistence that space access doesn't have to be so expensive.
"[Traditional space launch companies] really haven't faced serious competition or anything radically new in decades," said Steve Jurvetson, a partner at Silicon Valley VC firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson, which invests in SpaceX, along with other commercial space companies. "SpaceX struck me as an elegant and unique approach that was very different from that of the traditional industry, where everyone was just going along with bloated cost structures and no motivation to innovate."
Twelve years and three launches to the International Space Station later, there's still no real competition in the commercial launch business, because no other company can compete with SpaceX. Last month at the Berlin Air Show, the head of European aerospace giant Airbus appealed to European countries to overhaul the continent's launch industry to avoid becoming irrelevant, mentioning SpaceX by name.
Earlier this year, Arianespace's CEO told the European Space Agency the company may require additional subsidies to remain competitive in the commercial satellite launch market. SpaceX continues to nibble away at the $5.4 billion commercial satellite launch market, and it may soon start taking much bigger bites.
Meddling Threatens Commercial Crew
Space News (Editorial)
A Senate proposal to give NASA's traditionally underfunded commercial crew program its biggest appropriation to date next year comes with a big string attached in the form of stricter financial reporting requirements.
The Senate version of the 2015 appropriations bill for NASA includes $805 million for NASA's effort to nurture development of privately operated crew transportation services to the international space station. That sum, while less than the $850 million NASA says it needs next year, is more generous than the $785 million proposed in the House version of the bill.
But the Senate measure also includes a provision requiring strict adherence by the program to Federal Acquisition Regulation rules designed to ensure that the government gets a fair price from contractors. Inserted by Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), the provision specifically would bar NASA from waiving FAR 15.403-4, which requires contractors to provide certified cost and pricing data, for the upcoming final development phase of the commercial crew program.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is a problem.
A key rationale for commercializing astronaut transport is that the private sector, if relieved of some of the burdensome reporting and oversight requirements of traditional government aerospace programs, will come up with a solution more quickly and at less cost than otherwise would be the case. The approach seems to be having success in the case of cargo transport, where two companies, after receiving development assistance from NASA, are now resupplying the international space station under service contracts with the agency.
Currently, three companies are vying to transport crews to the station under a similar contracting scheme. NASA intends to select at least two of these companies this summer for funding support that would carry their concepts through full-scale development and first flight. The agency would then follow up with service contracts for crewed missions beginning in 2017.
Granted, there is no cargo as precious as human beings, and this likely will require layers of oversight beyond what NASA is applying to its commercial cargo program.
But it is unclear what pricing certification requirements have to do with safety.
In a statement released June 3, Mr. Shelby, the ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said the measure was all about maintaining budgetary transparency. "We must ensure that taxpayers are getting the best value for their dollar and I believe that this language will make that happen," he said.
Mr. Shelby, as everyone knows, is a staunch supporter of NASA's Space Launch System, which is being developed by the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama and would receive $1.7 billion next year under the Senate bill. That's $350 million more than the White House requested and $100 million more than proposed by the House.
In justifying the increase, the report accompanying the bill cites the need to keep SLS on schedule for a 2017 debut. But NASA program officials more recently said the biggest challenge to meeting that schedule is not the heavy-lift rocket but its payload, the Orion crew capsule, which is being developed in parallel.
Given that, plus the fact that spending to date on SLS, which still has no agreed upon destination, is approaching $6 billion, it is difficult to believe Mr. Shelby's driving concern is ensuring value for taxpayers.
What his bill language does have the potential to do, should it become law, is hamstring the only credible U.S. effort to restore independent access to the space station by forcing the competitors to comply with cumbersome accounting requirements. This is just the sort of thing the commercial crew program was designed to circumvent.
The measure also could conceivably tilt the competitive playing field in favor of Boeing, which as an established NASA and Defense Department contractor is well versed in, and equipped for, FAR compliance. The same cannot be said for the other commercial crew contenders, Space Exploration Technologies Corp. and Sierra Nevada Space Systems.
NASA and the White House have been guilty at times of overstating the advantages of commercializing U.S. crew operations in low Earth orbit. The notion that non-NASA customers will help defray the cost of developing and operating crew transportation services remains just that, for example. That reality weakens NASA's already dubious case for nurturing and maintaining at least two commercial crew taxi services.
But commercialization unquestionably offers a way around some of the byzantine regulations that tend to slow traditional government acquisition programs to a very expensive crawl. Besides, NASA already has gone too far down the commercial path on crew transport to saddle the program with new requirements that could set back the competition.
Mr. Shelby's measure should be stricken from the appropriations legislation before it has any chance to sap the benefits from, and perhaps even upend, a program that is poised to enter its most crucial phase.
NASA's 'Rocket to Nowhere' could hijack private spaceflights
No 'trampoline' for our astronauts
Washington Times (Editorial)
NASA lives in the shadow of its former glory, the remembrance of the days when the nation held its breath every time a rocket left Cape Canaveral and cheered every touchdown. Now the space shuttle has been mothballed, and prospects of a new ship to carry Americans to space are tarnished by setbacks and cost overruns. The only way an American astronaut can get into space now is to hitch a ride on a Russian rocket.
But U.S.-Russian relations are so frayed that such rides are no longer an option. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said in April that NASA could "bring their astronauts to the International Space Station using a trampoline." Depending on how the Senate feels, NASA might need to start work on that trampoline.
Private space vehicles could be the better answer. SpaceX recently rolled out a manned capsule — privately funded — that could replace Russian Soyuz flights as the preferred way to take American astronauts into the heavens. Both SpaceX and Orbital Sciences regularly deliver cargo to the International Space Station in unmanned vehicles. A provision added by a Senate committee to the bill that funds NASA could keep these private rockets grounded.
The provision is complex and deals with how these companies are paid for helping the federal mission in space. Businesses contracting with NASA to ship cargo to the International Space Station are paid now on a fixed price, based on what the agency calculates the service is worth. If the contractor performs the service for less than that amount, the business keeps the profit. If not, the business — not the taxpayers — takes the loss.
Many other NASA contracts (including those to design manned spaceflights that run over budget) are cost-plus-fixed-fee in which the contractor is reimbursed for reported costs, plus a set percentage for profit. In this system, contractors can't lose, and the taxpayers can't win.
Sen. Richard C. Shelby, Alabama Republican, would require commercial spaceflight contractors to provide the government with figures of both the fixed-price cost as well as the cost-plus prices they would receive if paid by that method. Requiring private spaceflight contractors to calculate this additional, irrelevant set of numbers would consume thousands of man hours to calculate the complex, esoteric cost-plus system.
Mr. Shelby says all this extra effort is about transparency for taxpayers. Aerospace engineer Rand Simberg writes on the Reason Magazine website that it's more likely to be about protecting NASA's Space Launch System, an $18 billion rocket program with no defined mission. The program is headquartered at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., and its employees are Mr. Shelby's constituents.
Launching this "Rocket to Nowhere" will cost taxpayers at least a half-billion dollars every time it lifts off — if it ever does. Better the rockets' red glare than the glare of government red tape. It's only fair, and in the long run more efficient, that private firms get a fair opportunity to compete for America's space business.
END
No comments:
Post a Comment