Fwd: NASA and Human Spaceflight News - Thursday – June 5, 2014

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From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: June 5, 2014 11:08:24 AM CDT
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: NASA and Human Spaceflight News - Thursday – June 5, 2014

And now PAO's version…

 

 

NASA and Human Spaceflight News

Thursday – June 5, 2014

NASA: How to land an asteroid

http://www.click2houston.com/news/nasa-how-to-land-an-asteroid/26333564

 

 

HEADLINES AND LEADS

New report: NASA Mars goal is not viable

Eric Berger – Houston Chronicle

The National Research Council released a new report today that reviews America's human spaceflight goals and the direction of NASA's programs.

Mars or bust, says new report on NASA human space exploration

Amina Khan – Los Angeles Times

NASA is to make great strides in its human spaceflight program, it needs to go big or go home -- and get to the Martian surface, says a new congressionally mandated report.

Human space program review recommends U.S. focus on Mars

Irene Klotz – Reuters

 

The United States should abandon its "flexible approach" to human missions beyond Earth, set Mars as its ultimate goal and open the door to China among other potential partners, a review of the human space flight program said on Wednesday.

NRC human spaceflight report says NASA strategy can't get humans to Mars

Joel Achenbach –The Washington Post

A sweeping review of NASA's human spaceflight program has concluded that the agency has an unsustainable and unsafe strategy that will prevent the United States from achieving a human landing on Mars in the foreseeable future.

NRC says human flight to Mars possible, but more money needed

William Harwood – CBS News

 

Without a substantial, long-term increase in funding, sustained political support across multiple administrations and extensive international participation, the United States will not be able to send humans to Mars before the middle of the century and possibly not even then, according to a National Research Council report released Wednesday.

Report Says Mars Landing is Only Justification for Human Spaceflight Beyond Low Earth Orbit

Dan Leone – Space News

 

A crewed mission to the surface of Mars is the only goal that justifies the effort and billions of dollars it will take to send human explorers beyond Earth orbit, a congressionally chartered National Research Council panel concluded in a report published June 4.

 

Here's What's Behind Washington's Strange Mars Report

Jeffrey Kluger – TIME

Washington breaks the headline-making news that the U.S. is not ready for a crewed Mars mission. Why this is all about one Senator's career

 

Here's something that will surely come as a surprise: America is not yet able to go to Mars. I know, I know, I'm disappointed too. I was sure we had the rocket on the pad, the crew selected and the quonset huts waiting on the Martian surface, ready to welcome the new American settlers.

 

NASA Experts to Discuss Lunar Missions in Russia Despite Sanctions

RIA Novosti

 

Experts from the US space agency NASA are due to arrive in Moscow in June to take part in a number of scientific panel discussions on manned moon missions, according to a director of the Russian research institute that is to host the meetings.

 

KSC hosts public meeting on new master plan

James Dean – Florida Today

 

About 100 people are at Eastern Florida State College's Titusville campus gymnasium to learn about Kennedy Space Center's new 20-year master plan and offer comments on its potential environmental impacts.

 

Indiana company sends x-ray machine into space

Jenna Esarey - Special to The Louisville (KY) Courier-Journal

 

A southern Indiana company is sending an x-ray machine that could be instrumental in finding a treatment for osteoporosis to the International Space Station.

 

NASA to beam video from space station with a laser beam

Space agency works to find better way to communicate with future deep space missions

Sharon Gaudin – ComputerWorld

 

In an effort to fundamentally change the way it will communicate with future deep space missions, NASA will use a laser beam to send a video from the International Space Station to Earth on Thursday.

The Russian Ancestors of SpaceX's New Dragon

If the new design of Elon Musk's spacecraft looks familiar, there is a reason.

Anatoly Zak – Popular Mechanics

 

Last week, SpaceX head Elon Musk unveiled with great fanfare the latest incarnation of its Dragon spacecraft, designed to carry up to seven astronauts into Earth orbit. The most radical feature of the new and improved Dragon V2: its rocket-powered landing system. SpaceX engineers hope to use four pairs of SuperDraco liquid-propellant engines for a helicopter-like landing. Astronauts could make a pinpoint touchdown on dry land, avoiding dangerous ocean landings and eliminating the need for a naval rescue armada.

 

Clarkson University alumnus to lead first deep space flight since Apollo era

Katie Anderson – Watertown Daily Times

 

Since the Apollo era, deep space exploration has been put on hold because of changes in national priorities and funding.

SpaceX President Says Life at Risk Without Space Travel

Jonathan D. Salant - Bloomberg

Failure to invest in the next frontier of human space travel would be both a "big disappointment" and a danger to mankind, said Gwynne Shotwell, president of Space Exploration Technologies Corp.

Robotic Search for Life on Mars Brings Out Human Experiences

Douglas Messier - Space.com

While robots have done the lion's share of planetary exploration to date, there are plenty of human stories to share about this ambitious enterprise.

 

Senate joins House as 'disappointed' at White House commitment to NASA's Space Launch System

Lee Roop – Huntsville (AL) Times

Senate appropriators are "disappointed" in the White House commitment to NASA's Space Launch System, and they are taking steps to strengthen the administration's resolve.

Russia Set to Launch Rocket to Secure Future of Space Industry

Henry Meyer – Bloomberg News

Russia is poised to launch its first new rocket capable of carrying heavy payloads since the Soviet era, and a success may unlock the future of the country's space industry.

 

Tensions Threaten U.S.-Russia Space Deals

Congress has set aside funding to lower reliance on Russian space gear.

Tom Risen – U.S. News and World Report

Partnership on space travel is a keystone of U.S. relations with Russia, but Congress and American aerospace companies are making contingency plans to reduce reliance on space gear from the former Cold War rival​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ as tensions over violence in Ukraine escalate.

 

COMPLETE STORIES

 

New report: NASA Mars goal is not viable

Eric Berger – Houston Chronicle

The National Research Council released a new report today that reviews America's human spaceflight goals and the direction of NASA's programs.

As I have been investigating many of these same themes for my Adrift series, I was eager to read the report. After doing so, and speaking with its lead authors former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels and Cornell University astronomer Jonathan Lunine, here are the report's principal conclusions:

• Human spaceflight is a worthy endeavor.
• Mars should be the eventual destination for the human spaceflight program, but there are multiple ways to get there, including visiting an asteroid or the moon first.
• With current or even inflation-adjusted budget projections for human spaceflight, there are no viable pathways to Mars
• NASA's stated goal of sending humans to Mars in the 2030s is unrealistic, and reaching Mars is unlikely before 2050. "Policy goals that state shorter time horizons cannot change this reality," the report states.

So how did NASA react to the message that its current plans are untenable? With aplomb. In a statement the agency said:

"NASA welcomes the release of this report. After a preliminary review, we are pleased to find the NRC's assessment and identification of compelling themes for human exploration are consistent with the bipartisan plan agreed to by Congress and the Administration in the NASA Authorization Act of 2010 and that we have been implementing ever since.

 

"There is a consensus that our horizon goal should be a human mission to Mars and the stepping stone and pathways thrust of the NRC report complements NASA's ongoing approach. The key elements of that approach include the facilitation of commercial access to low-Earth orbit to sustain fundamental human health research and technology demonstrations aboard the International Space Station (ISS); the development and evolution of the Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion spacecraft to enable human exploration missions in cis-lunar and deep space, including to an asteroid; and the development of game-changing technologies for tomorrow's missions, all leading the way on a path to Mars.

 

"NASA has made significant progress on many key elements that will be needed to reach Mars, and we continue on this path in collaboration with industry and other nations. We intend to thoroughly review the report and all of its recommendations."

Well it's true the report says Mars is a compelling goal. But it's equally true the report says the program of record (NASA's program) won't get us there.

Mars or bust, says new report on NASA human space exploration

Amina Khan – Los Angeles Times

NASA is to make great strides in its human spaceflight program, it needs to go big or go home -- and get to the Martian surface, says a new congressionally mandated report.

But the 285-page report from the National Research Council goes on to say the agency won't succeed unless it does so in a smart, well-planned way, venturing far beyond the International Space Station in low-Earth orbit with the help of a clear, step-by-step plan.

The report calls for the U.S. to set an ambitious (but not too far-out) goal of reaching the Red Planet's surface by building up the necessary technology and expertise in a series of human exploration missions. This stepping-stone plan could potentially include visiting an asteroid or building an outpost on the moon.

The Obama administration's stated goals for human space exploration are to send a human to an asteroid by 2025, and to Mars by the mid-2030s. But right now, the report's authors said, the U.S. has been a little lost in space, operating without a solid plan.

"There really isn't a strong direction to the human spaceflight program beyond ISS itself, which is in the mature phase," said Jonathan Lunine of Cornell University, co-chairman of the committee that authored the report.

The report, mandated by Congress in the 2010 NASA Authorization Act, doesn't recommend any specific plan, but outlines three example 'pathways' the U.S. can take to get to Mars, each with its own set of strengths and weaknesses.

One option essentially starts with NASA's planned mission to redirect an asteroid to orbit around the Earth, and then moves toward visiting the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos. Another uses the moon as an intermediate stepping stone, which could involve building a lunar base. A third goes to many of these places -- an asteroid, the moon, the Martian moons, and then some -- basically touring all the nearby spots in the solar system.

That third option would probably be the most expensive but would also hold the least developmental risk because there would be many missions with incremental technology improvements feeding into the following projects, said John C. Sommerer, chairman of the report's technical panel and chief technology officer at Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland.

"A program worthy of the risk and worthy of the cost has to be ambitious -- and Mars has to be the goal," said the committee's other co-chairman, Mitch Daniels Jr., Purdue University's president and a former governor of Indiana. "But we do conclude that we will not get there ... without a new approach."

The report also calls for the United States to look far beyond the limits of the International Space Station. The findings, based on about 18 months of work, come as Russia has announced that it plans to stop using the station after 2020, and amid rising political tensions triggered by turmoil in Ukraine.

Still, long gone are the Cold War days when space exploration was deeply linked to military might in the public and political psyche. There remain aspirational goals, including the survival of the human species and the shared urge to explore the universe. There are also many pragmatic goals, including benefits to the economy, national security, international relations and science education.

And though there isn't one single reason to continue to explore space today, these aspirational and pragmatic goals together provide more than enough reason to reach for Mars, the report's authors said.

Although public opinion has generally been positive toward space exploration, there isn't much popular push to fund such endeavors beyond the inflation rate, Lunine said.

But the report said that if the U.S. is to take its space program to the next level, it will require more funds for the step-by-step missions that will lead to the Martian surface. It will also require, the authors said, more international cooperation -- including with China. Current federal law blocks NASA from working on bilateral projects with the Chinese.

Current U.S. goals aren't well aligned with the rest of the world's interests, the authors pointed out -- the U.S. is looking at asteroids while countries such as China have been sending probes to the moon.

However, having a clear, well-thought-out plan of exploration over the coming years will make it easier for international partners to work with the United States, they said.

Human space program review recommends U.S. focus on Mars

Irene Klotz – Reuters

 

The United States should abandon its "flexible approach" to human missions beyond Earth, set Mars as its ultimate goal and open the door to China among other potential partners, a review of the human space flight program said on Wednesday.

The National Research Council report, commissioned by the U.S. space agency NASA, recommends a stepping stone approach toward Mars that builds technological know-how through a series of well-defined preliminary missions.

All options begin with the International Space Station, a $100 billion research complex flying 250 miles (400 km) above Earth, the 286-page report released in Washington D.C., said.

One path includes NASA's current plan to robotically capture an asteroid, redirect it into a high orbit around the moon and send astronauts there to explore. The report suggests that path continue with missions to the moons of Mars, then on to Martian orbit and finally to the surface of the planet.

But two other paths would be less technologically daunting, NRC panel co-chairman Jonathan Lunine of Cornell University told reporters during a webcast press conference.

NASA could follow the International Space Station program, which currently costs the United States about $3 billion a year, with a series of lunar sorties, an outpost on the moon and then to Mars, the report said.

The last path has the most stops en route to Mars, but poses the least technological risk since milestones have to be met along the way. That option would follow the space station with human missions to an orbit beyond the moon, then to an asteroid in its native orbit, then to the lunar surface, the moons of Mars, Martian orbit and then to Mars itself.

NASA said it supports the panel's findings.

"There is a consensus that our horizon goal should be a human mission to Mars," the agency said in a statement. "The pathways thrust of the report complements NASA's ongoing approach."

All options will depend heavily on international, private sector and other partnerships, according to the report titled "Pathways to Exploration - Rationales and Approaches for a U.S. Program of Human Space Exploration."

"We're really talking about international collaboration of a different scale than what has been conducted in the past," Lunine said.

In particular, the United States' current relationship with China, which is not a member of the 15-nation space station partnership, needs to be reassessed, the report said.

"Given the rapid development of China's capabilities in space, it is in the best interests of the United States to be open to its inclusion in future international partnerships."

The panel gave no specific estimate of what a Mars mission would cost. But based on past space initiatives, the public would support the endeavor.

"There is a temptation to rush to the question of dollars," panel co-chairman and former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels said. "Dollars is the secondary question."

The pathways approach to Mars is "a very different way of doing business," Lunine said.

NRC human spaceflight report says NASA strategy can't get humans to Mars

Joel Achenbach –The Washington Post

A sweeping review of NASA's human spaceflight program has concluded that the agency has an unsustainable and unsafe strategy that will prevent the United States from achieving a human landing on Mars in the foreseeable future.

The 286-page National Research Council report, the culmination of an 18-month, $3.2 million investigation mandated by Congress, says that to continue on the present course under budgets that don't keep pace with inflation "is to invite failure, disillusionment, and the loss of the longstanding international perception that human spaceflight is something the United States does best."

The report makes a case for sending astronauts back to the moon. That had been a key element of NASA's strategy under President George W. Bush. But President Obama and his advisers explicitly opposed another moon landing ("I just have to say pretty bluntly here: We've been there before," Obama said in a speech on space policy in 2010).

A major argument against returning to the moon was that it didn't pencil out — that there wasn't nearly enough money dedicated to the program. Now the NRC's Committee on Human Spaceflight has come to the same conclusion about the Obama administration's vision for NASA. If the goal is a human landing on Mars, the current strategy won't work.

"Absent a very fundamental change in the nation's way of doing business, it is not realistic to believe that we can achieve the consensus goal of reaching Mars," Mitch Daniels, the former Indiana governor and co-chair of the committee, said Wednesday morning in an interview.

A 2009 committee appointed by Obama urged NASA to keep its options open while investing in spaceflight technology and letting the commercial sector handle routine trips to low Earth orbit. But the NRC reviewers argue that NASA and its international partners should focus on the "horizon goal" of Mars and do whatever it takes to get there, step by step, avoiding changes in strategic direction.

NASA officials, aware that critics see the agency as adrift, say they have already been moving in the direction advocated by the NRC. Their strategy targets Mars, just as the NRC report now demands, they say. "All this work will eventually enable astronaut missions to Mars," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a recent NASA white paper.

"NASA's been doing some work, and has been doing some thinking over the last six months, that is in alignment with what the NRC says the top-level goals are," said Greg Williams, a NASA deputy associate administrator.

But Williams was cool to the suggestion of a return to the moon, saying the airless moon offers little help in developing the kind of descent and landing techniques needed on Mars, which has a thin, troublesome atmosphere.

The NRC committee probed the philosophical question of why we send people into space to begin with. The committee concluded that the purely practical, economic benefits of human spaceflight do not justify the costs but that the aspirational nature of the endeavor may make it worth the effort.

The report says the United States should pursue international collaborations that would include China — currently treated as a space rival and not as a potential partner.

The report cites three potential pathways to Mars, two involving a return to the moon. A lunar landing and habitat would help develop technologies that could later be used on a Mars mission, the report says.

The third pathway is essentially the one that the Obama administration has chosen, which includes the Asteroid Redirect Mission.

The plan, still being studied, would use a robotic spacecraft to grab a small asteroid that is orbiting the sun and passing close to the Earth and then tug the asteroid to a new orbit around the moon. Astronauts would then go to the rock and take samples. The mission architecture would take advantage of big-ticket NASA projects already underway. Most notably, it would provide a destination for the Orion capsule being developed by NASA in tandem with a heavy-lift rocket called the Space Launch System (SLS).

The asteroid mission has been politically controversial — Republicans in Congress unsuccessfully tried last year to forbid NASA to do it — and it has technical challenges, not the least of which is the difficulty identifying an asteroid that could plausibly be captured by a robotic spacecraft.

The NRC report is not bullish on the idea. The report says the mission involves the creation of a large number of "dead end" technologies that don't get the United States closer to a Mars landing.

The committee raised a safety issue. The current schedule calls for an unmanned SLS launch in 2017, followed by a mission with a crew in 2021. The committee feared that launch teams could become rusty with long lags between missions. The program "cannot provide the flight frequency required to maintain competence and safety," the report states.

NASA official Williams said Wednesday that the cadence of launches will speed up after 2021.

The committee did not delve deeply into what the private sector, operating commercially, might accomplish independently of the government. There are many space buffs, including SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who have said they want to land on Mars. But committee member John Sommerer said Wednesday that it is unrealistic to expect a commercial company to spend the money and take on the risk necessary to achieve human exploration on the Martian surface.

"You need to develop a very substantial armamentarium of really high-tech stuff to get humans on Mars," he said. "Mars is very hard."

John Logsdon, professor emeritus of George Washington University's Space Policy Institute, said the report has a familiar ring to it.

"They go through all this negative analysis and still conclude we ought to go to Mars. No one ever says, 'Let's lower our ambitions.' It's always, 'Increase the budget,' not 'Lower ambitions,' " he said.

As for going to Mars: "It's a dream. It's been a dream forever. And will remain a dream unless something changes."

NRC says human flight to Mars possible, but more money needed

William Harwood – CBS News

 

Without a substantial, long-term increase in funding, sustained political support across multiple administrations and extensive international participation, the United States will not be able to send humans to Mars before the middle of the century and possibly not even then, according to a National Research Council report released Wednesday.

The long-awaited report -- "Pathways to Exploration -- Rationales and Approaches for a U.S. Program of Human Space Exploration" -- was ordered by Congress in 2010 to review "the goals, core capabilities, and direction of human space flight."

The 285-page study looked into the technologies required for deep space exploration, political support, funding requirements, scientific objectives, international cooperation and feasible mission scenarios. The review panel concluded sending humans to Mars should be the long-range goal of NASA's human exploration program, but only if the nation's political leadership commits to long-term, sustained support.

"For the foreseeable future, the only feasible destinations for human exploration are the Moon, asteroids, Mars, and the moons of Mars," the report said. "Among this small set of plausible goals for human space exploration, the most distant and difficult is a landing by human beings on the surface of Mars -- requiring overcoming unprecedented technical risk, fiscal risk, and programmatic challenges.

"Thus the horizon goal for human space exploration is Mars. All long-range space programs, by all potential partners, for human space exploration converge on this goal."

 

The report did not recommend any specific mission architecture, but clearly favored a return to the moon as the foundation of a stepping-stone "pathways" approach to Mars. Near-term moon missions presumably would attract more international cooperation and public support than the Obama administration's current plan to bypass the moon in favor of a near-term asteroid capture mission to perfect the technologies needed to reach the red planet.

As for the rest of the solar system, "the development challenges associated with any solar system destinations beyond the Earth-Moon system, Earth-Sun Lagrange points, near-Earth asteroids, and Mars are profoundly daunting, involve huge masses of propellant, and have budgets measured in trillions of dollars," the report concluded.

Getting to Mars will be challenge enough, especially given the panel's conclusion that public support for space exploration, while generally positive, does not appear to extend to greatly increased budgets.

Panel co-chair Mitch Daniels, former governor of Indiana, said the committee members "recognize that many of our recommendations will be seen by many as unrealistic, to which we would only observe that absent changes along the lines we are recommending, the goal of reaching Mars on any meaningful timeframe is itself unrealistic."

Even so, he said the panel members are optimistic about the future.

"We believe the public will support it, we believe the rationales justify it, we believe the achievement would be monumental," he said during a briefing. "But we think there is really one, and possibly only one way to get there. We've offered it up in this report."

A key theme in the report was sustained multi-decade funding. Any program aimed at Mars must be adequately funded or "it will not succeed," the report said. "Nor can it succeed without a sustained commitment on the part of those who govern the nation -- a commitment that does not change direction with succeeding electoral cycles. Those branches of government responsible for NASA's funding and guidance are therefore critical enablers of the nation's investment and achievements in human spaceflight."

John Logsdon, a space historian and former director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, said the NRC's review is "another, and probably the most frank, in the line of reports that say we can't get there from here the way we're going. The word 'unsustainable' appears in this report, once again."

The International Space Station cost approximately $150 billion spread out over three decades, including the cost of shuttle assembly flights. In comparison, the NRC committee said the cost of a human flight to Mars would be two to four times the cost of the space station, or the equivalent of 75 to 150 "flagship" robotic missions in the $1 billion to $2 billion price range like the Mars Curiosity Rover and Cassini Saturn orbiter.

Assuming NASA's budget is adjusted for inflation only, and assuming a Mars program cost of around $400 billion, "a pathway to Mars cannot be achieved before roughly 2060," the panel concluded. "An alternative way to look at this information is that to achieve a landing prior to 2050 and still be affordable, the pathway to Mars would have to be technically feasible and cost less than (about) $220 billion."

With budget increases limited to matching inflation "there are no viable pathways to Mars" in the near term, the report says. "A continuation of flat budgets for human spaceflight is insufficient for NASA to execute any pathway to Mars and limits human spaceflight to LEO (low-Earth orbit) until after the end of the ISS (International Space Station) program."

NASA's human spaceflight budget would need an annual increase of 5 percent or more to "enable pathways with potentially viable mission rates, greatly reducing technical, cost, and schedule risk."

The need for sustained political support was cited repeatedly, a reminder of the turmoil NASA has experienced across the Bush and Obama administrations, including two major policy changes.

At the turn of the century, NASA was focused on building the International Space Station and planned to operate the space shuttle through 2020.

But on Feb. 1, 2003, the shuttle Columbia burned up during re-entry and the following January, President Bush ordered a change of course. NASA was told to finish the space station and retire the shuttle by the end of the decade and to focus instead on building new rockets and spacecraft for a return to the moon in the early 2020s.

A few years later, NASA endured another jarring change when the Obama administration cancelled the Constellation moon program, concluding it was too expensive and unsustainable. In its place, NASA was directed to build a new heavy lift rocket to boost the Constellation program's Orion crew capsule into deep space for flights to a nearby asteroid in the mid 2020s with an eventual flight to Mars in the mid 2030s.

At the same time, NASA was directed to fund the development of commercial spacecraft to ferry astronauts to and from the space station.

More recently, the Obama administration has called for an asteroid retrieval mission, using a robotic spacecraft to capture a small asteroid and tow it back to the vicinity of the moon where astronauts in Orion spacecraft could carry out a hands-on investigation. The Obama space policy bypasses the moon and views the International Space Station and the asteroid retrieval mission as stepping stones for eventual Mars exploration.

The NRC report does not favor any specific mission architecture, but it noted that the asteroid retrieval mission, or ARM, has failed to attract widespread support from the scientific community or the public and that international interest in a cooperative venture has not yet materialized.

"While this report's recommendation for adoption of a pathways approach is made without prejudice as to which particular pathway might be followed, it was, nevertheless, clear to the committee ... that a return to extended surface operations on the Moon would make significant contributions to a strategy ultimately aimed at landing people on Mars."

A return to the moon "is also likely to provide a broad array of opportunities for international and commercial cooperation."

The report also lamented current U.S. policy that forbids NASA from engaging in cooperative space ventures with China. An eventual human mission to Mars will require extensive international cooperation, the report said, on a scale that greatly exceeds that of the International Space Station project.

"It is evident that U.S. near-term goals for human exploration are not aligned with those of our traditional international partners," the report said. "While most major spacefaring nations and agencies are looking toward the Moon and, specifically, the lunar surface, U.S. plans are focused on redirection of an asteroid into a retrograde lunar orbit, where astronauts would conduct operations with it.

"It is also evident that given the rapid development of China's capabilities in space, it is in the best interests of the United States to be open to its inclusion in future international partnerships. In particular, current federal law preventing NASA from participating in bilateral activities with the Chinese serves only to hinder U.S. ability to bring China into its sphere of international partnerships and reduces substantially the potential international capability that might be pooled to reach Mars."

China aside, NASA said in a statement that it welcomed the NRC report, saying it "complements the agency's on-going approach."

"NASA has made significant progress on many key elements that will be needed to reach Mars, and we continue on this path in collaboration with industry and other nations," the statement said. "We intend to thoroughly review the report and all of its recommendations."

 

Report Says Mars Landing is Only Justification for Human Spaceflight Beyond Low Earth Orbit

Dan Leone – Space News

 

A crewed mission to the surface of Mars is the only goal that justifies the effort and billions of dollars it will take to send human explorers beyond Earth orbit, a congressionally chartered National Research Council panel concluded in a report published June 4.

 

During the long slog toward the martian surface, the panel said, NASA should hone its skills by testing the necessary technology at steppingstone destinations such as the Moon and near-Earth asteroids in their native orbits.

 

The lunar surface, which NASA says is unreachable in the current budget environment, got a shout out in a June 4 press release issued to promote the nearly 300-page report by the NRC's Committee on Human Spaceflight. The report was titled "Pathways to Exploration — Rationales and Approaches for a U.S. Program of Human Space Exploration."

 

"[T]he report found that a return to extended surface operations on the moon would make significant contributions to a strategy ultimately aimed at landing people on Mars, and that it would also likely provide a broad array of opportunities for international and commercial cooperation," the committee, co-chaired by Cornell University professor Jonathan Lunine and former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, said in the release.

 

In the NASA Authorization Act of 2010, Congress directed the NRC to produce a high-level review of the U.S. human spaceflight program as a guide for policymakers "over the fiscal year period of 2014 through 2023, while considering the program's likely evolution in 2015 [through] 2030." In carrying out that directive, the committee allowed for the possibility that the end goal of a Mars landing might not be realized until halfway through this century.

 

The White House has insisted since 2010, the year after U.S. President Barack Obama took office, that it is doing exactly what the NRC's latest report recommends: preparing NASA to land crews on Mars, and developing the technology needed to do it. At the same time, the administration has insisted that it does not need to stop at the lunar surface along the way.

 

Obama in 2010 canceled the Constellation program that sought to establish a Moon base after a blue-ribbon panel said the approach would require considerably more money than NASA was projected to receive under the budget plans laid out by the previous administration, which had hatched the initiative.

Obama, like his predecessor, George W. Bush, was disinclined to give NASA an annual budget increase in the billions so that the agency could develop a lunar lander.

 

In 2013, the White House announced plans to send astronauts to the only destination beyond low Earth orbit it deemed affordable: a small asteroid that would be redirected to lunar space by a new robotic spacecraft that would also serve as a technology pathfinder and demonstration vehicle for future Mars logistics craft.

 

The Asteroid Redirect Mission plan calls for astronauts to visit the captured space rock by 2025, the date by which Obama had previously challenged NASA to send humans to an asteroid. These explorers would be travel inside the Orion deep-space capsule launched by the heavy-lift Space Launch System — vehicles that were mandated by Congress as part of the NASA Authorization Act of 2010.

 

Even lawmakers who are beginning to warm to the Asteroid Redirect Mission, which met a decidedly chilly reception on Capitol Hill, remain cautious about the concept. Democrats on the House Science Committee are among the friendliest to the program, and they have withheld their official blessing pending a written report from NASA on the program's costs and risks, and on whether it requires any new technology that could not also be developed as part of a lunar mission. NASA would be required to complete that report 180 days after a bipartisan NASA reauthorization bill now awaiting a vote on the House floor becomes law.

 

The NRC committee passed no judgment on the Asteroid Redirect Mission. In fact, the mission is one of three assumed starting points from which the report outlines possible paths to the martian surface.

No matter what starting point the agency ultimately settles on, the report says, NASA must mature 10 key capabilities before a crewed Mars landing, and the radiation-soaked interplanetary cruises required both before and after, is feasible. The report placed special emphasis on the first three.

 

• Mars entry, descent, and landing technology, which enables crews and supplies to reach the surface. The most mass NASA has safely set down on Mars is the car-sized Curiosity rover that landed in 2012. A crewed mission would require landing considerably more mass.
• Radiation shielding during the cruise and surface-sorties phases of a Mars landing mission.
• Next-generation in-space propulsion and power systems.
• Heavy-lift launch vehicles.
• Planetary ascent propulsion to get crews off the surface of Mars after their mission is over.
• A new environmental control and life-support system.
• Habitats for crews journeying to and living on Mars.
• Extravehicular activity suits, otherwise known as space suits.
• Crew health. There are medical unknowns associated with long-duration spaceflight, and Mars surface activities, some of which NASA is investigating aboard the international space station in low-Earth orbit.
• In-situ resource utilization, which would entail, for example, using the Mars atmosphere as a source of raw materials for life support systems or propellant.

 

Here's What's Behind Washington's Strange Mars Report

Jeffrey Kluger – TIME

Washington breaks the headline-making news that the U.S. is not ready for a crewed Mars mission. Why this is all about one Senator's career

 

Here's something that will surely come as a surprise: America is not yet able to go to Mars. I know, I know, I'm disappointed too. I was sure we had the rocket on the pad, the crew selected and the quonset huts waiting on the Martian surface, ready to welcome the new American settlers.

 

What's that? You didn't think we had all that nailed down? You may then wonder why the National Research Council (NRC) just released a 286 page report making that point. The headline-making thrust of the study is this:

 

Pronouncements by multiple presidents of bold new ventures by Americans to the Moon, to Mars, and to an asteroid in its native orbit, have not been matched by the same commitment that accompanied President Kennedy's now fabled 1961 speech—namely, the substantial increase in NASA funding needed to make it happen.

 

Stipulated. Space travel ain't about coach seats. It costs lots of money—but that's something most people knew without being reminded. Still, you can read the rest of the blue-ribbon NRC report here—well, actually you can't. You can read only a three-paragraph abstract of it unless you're willing to pay $47 to download the whole thing. This might also leave you wondering why U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) raced to issue a triumphal statement the moment the report was released, announcing in its opening line that the study was the handiwork of, well "U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson." Perhaps U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson would like to front you the 47 bucks then.

 

Here's what's behind this particular bit of space kabuki. The NRC study was mandated by a piece of 2010 pro-NASA legislation that Nelson co-sponsored with former Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson. Why the common cause between the Democrat and Republican in the first years of the hyper-partisan Obama era? Geography. He's from Florida, she's from Texas, the twin lode stones of the American space community. The 2010 bill provided multi-year funding for NASA at a level sufficient to keep at least a slow-walked manned program going. Under the plan, NASA would aim for deep space destinations, while private industry handled the low-Earth orbit work. The report that was just released appears to have been tucked into the act as a sort of time-released capsule that would open in a few years and remind people that if we really want to achieve all of this cool stuff the funding spigot would have to remain open. And which two states would get a lot of that money again?

In fairness, the report's conclusion is well-taken. As recently as yesterday, I spoke to Greg Williams, a policy chief in NASA's Human Exploration and Operations division, and asked him why it's taken so many years for NASA's new heavy-lift manned booster to be built and why it will take so many more before it actually carries people. The Saturn V moon rocket, by contrast, took its first, unmanned flight in November 1967, and 13 months later had the Apollo 8 astronauts orbiting the moon.

"Look at the funding curve back then," Williams said. "It was always going up. We've been doing this work on what amounts to a flat budget."

But lack of cash, plus lack of commitment is what's always been the difference between the do-it-now ethos of the old Space Race and the do-it-eventually-(maybe) ethos of all the space endeavors that have come since. For Nelson, who, as a member of the House in 1986 leveraged himself a ride aboard the space shuttle Columbia—one mission before the Challenger crew died in an explosion during launch—this is little more than a big kiss for home state voters anxious to keep the space coast going.

A strong case can indeed be made for why we should go to Mars, both in terms of pure research and human inspiration—which counts for something. And a self-evident case can be made that if we want to do it within the lifetimes of any person on the planet today, we need to pay for it. Space isn't cheap—never has been. But you don't need a Senator tending his home fires to demand a book-length report telling you that's so. "This affirms that the mission to Mars is a go," Nelson said in his statement.

No, it doesn't. But his 2018 re-election campaign may already be underway.

NASA Experts to Discuss Lunar Missions in Russia Despite Sanctions

RIA Novosti

 

Experts from the US space agency NASA are due to arrive in Moscow in June to take part in a number of scientific panel discussions on manned moon missions, according to a director of the Russian research institute that is to host the meetings.

 

"A group of experts will come to the Moscow State University later in June on NASA's initiative. Our task is to bring our positions closer to each other, since our joint projects, including lunar ones, won't work otherwise," said Mikhail Panasyuk, who heads MSU Nuclear Physics Institute.

 

NASA earlier said it had to freeze cooperation with Russian space researchers following Washington's sanctions against Russia over Ukraine, prompting Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin to suggest Americans would now have to "get their astronauts to the ISS [International Space Station] using a trampoline."

 

Later, Rogozin announced Moscow was not planning to use the International Space Station after 2020 and would instead re-focus its funding on more promising new space projects. In response, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden vowed the US and Russia would continue to cooperate on space missions and keep each other informed.

 

KSC hosts public meeting on new master plan

James Dean – Florida Today

 

About 100 people are at Eastern Florida State College's Titusville campus gymnasium to learn about Kennedy Space Center's new 20-year master plan and offer comments on its potential environmental impacts.

 

The "scoping" meeting is the first of two, with a second planned Thursday evening at New Smyrna Beach High School.

 

KSC's new master plan runs through 2032 and envisions greater non-NASA use of the spaceport by commercial space companies and other government agencies.

 

The plan maps out potential new infrastructure to support those operations including up to three new vertical launch pads, two seaports, a second runway and a rail link to Port Canaveral.

 

Scoping comments may be submitted by July 7. The environmental impact statement process is expected to run through October 2015.

 

Indiana company sends x-ray machine into space

Jenna Esarey - Special to The Louisville (KY) Courier-Journal

 

A southern Indiana company is sending an x-ray machine that could be instrumental in finding a treatment for osteoporosis to the International Space Station.

 

Techshot Inc., in Greenville, developed the Bone Densitometer, which will become the first x-ray system launched into space when it travels to the space station this summer.

The machine, about the size of a microwave oven, will be used to study bone loss in mice.

 

Since the effects of a long-term spaceflight can mimic the effects of aging, research conducted with the Bone Densitometer has great potential for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.

 

Osteoporosis does not just affect postmenopausal women. It affects "men over 50 as well," said Eugene Boland, Ph. D., chief scientist at Techshot. "This isn't your grandmother's disease."

 

Boland said one of the initial challenges was overcoming NASA's concerns about allowing a radiation-emitting device inside the spacecraft. "We scared NASA to death," he said. "We spent a lot of time looking at radiation safety. We were able to tell them that the astronauts would be exposed to the same amount of radiation you would get eating a banana. Bananas are slightly radioactive."

 

NASA gave Techshot the $3.6 million contract to develop the device in the fall of 2012. Astronauts are known to suffer between one and two percent loss of their total bone mass for every consecutive month spent in space.

 

By studying mice in space, researchers hope to develop technology that can be put to use on earth as well, potentially helping millions who suffer from osteoporosis.

 

The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), also funded the project, giving Techshot $225,000 to begin work on the Bone Densitometer.

 

In 2005 Congress designated the U.S. research facilities aboard the ISS a National Laboratory. In 2011 CASIS was selected by NASA to manage and broker research in the ISS, focusing on projects capable of improving life on Earth.

 

The Bone Densitometer will be delivered to the ISS via a commercial SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft on August 20. It will stay aboard indefinitely.

 

Techshot, a technology development company, was founded in 1988 by John Vellinger, COO. It serves the defense, medical device, consumer productions, and aerospace industries. Customers include NASA, the U.S. Department of Defense and Proctor & Gamble.

 

The company has 25 employees, most all of them engineers. Devices created by Techshot have flown aboard parabolic-flight aircraft, sub-orbital rockets and space shuttles. "NASA was our first customer," said Vellinger. "They were our only customer for the first 13 years."

 

The company has ongoing contracts with NASA to develop other equipment, including a microscope and centrifuge.

 

Vellinger said their location in rural southern Indiana is not a negative when working with NASA in Texas, or other large companies. "We kind of think of ourselves as a think tank," he said. "We can kind of get away from the hustle and bustle."

 

NASA to beam video from space station with a laser beam

Space agency works to find better way to communicate with future deep space missions

Sharon Gaudin – ComputerWorld

 

In an effort to fundamentally change the way it will communicate with future deep space missions, NASA will use a laser beam to send a video from the International Space Station to Earth on Thursday.

NASA announced late Wednesday that it will beam enhanced-definition video via laser from the space station to the Table Mountain Observatory in Wrightwood, Calif. From there, the video will be transmitted to the mission team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

This is the first planned official transmission of this mission, which has been dubbed Optical Payload for Lasercomm Science or OPALS.

The transmission, according to NASA, is scheduled to take place between 11:20 p.m. and 11:23 p.m. ET -- while the space station is visible passing over the Los Angeles area in the twilight sky.

In April, the SpaceX cargo spacecraft carried equipment needed for the laser communications test to the space station.

Optical laser communications are one of the emerging technologies NASA is testing. The new laser communications initiative is a key part of the agency's Space Technology Mission Directorate, which is focused on developing technology for future space missions, as well as for life on Earth.

With lasercom, data is transmitted via laser beams, achieving data rates 10 to 1,000 times higher than current space communications, which rely on current radio frequency transmissions, NASA noted.

"Optical communications have the potential to be a game-changer," said mission manager Matt Abrahamson, in an April statement. "It's like upgrading from dial-up to DSL. Our ability to generate data has greatly outpaced our ability to downlink it. Imagine trying to download a movie at home over dial-up. It's essentially the same problem in space, whether we're talking about low-Earth orbit or deep space."

Abrahamson noted that many of the latest deep space missions send data back and forth at 200 to 400 kilobits per second. The new laser technology is expected to transmit data at 50 megabits per second.

Since one megabit is equal to 1,024 kilobits, that means the new communications should be up to 256 times faster.

NASA has been focused on improving its in-space communications.

Last October, the space agency launched a lunar probe that tested what could eventually become an outer space Internet.

NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) observatory ran what the space agency called a limited test of a high-data-rate laser communication system. It was the agency's first laser communications test.

Similar systems could be used to speed up future satellite communications and deep space communications with robots and human exploration crews.

The video being transmitted on Thursday, entitled "Hello, World," will later be available on YouTube.

The Russian Ancestors of SpaceX's New Dragon

If the new design of Elon Musk's spacecraft looks familiar, there is a reason.

Anatoly Zak – Popular Mechanics

 

Last week, SpaceX head Elon Musk unveiled with great fanfare the latest incarnation of its Dragon spacecraft, designed to carry up to seven astronauts into Earth orbit. The most radical feature of the new and improved Dragon V2: its rocket-powered landing system. SpaceX engineers hope to use four pairs of SuperDraco liquid-propellant engines for a helicopter-like landing. Astronauts could make a pinpoint touchdown on dry land, avoiding dangerous ocean landings and eliminating the need for a naval rescue armada.

"That is how the 21st-century spaceship should land," Musk said during the unveiling.

Dragon V2 is a bold step forward: Until now, all capsule-like manned vehicles—from the pioneering Mercury spacecraft to today's Russian Soyuz to NASA's next-generation Orion—relied on parachutes to soften the touchdown. Parachutes are light and simple compared to dangerous and heavy propulsion systems. However, there have been previous attempts to build such a spacecraft. And, curiously, both attempts came from Russia, whose current monopoly on human access to orbit Musk has vowed to break.

In 1985, Soviet designers drafted a top-secret project of a manned spacecraft called Zarya (Dawn), capable of carrying up to eight people to the Mir space station. The capsule-like vehicle resembled the enlarged descent module of the Soyuz spacecraft. But instead of landing under a parachute, it featured powerful liquid-propellant engines. A total of 24 nozzles surrounding the bell-shaped capsule would fire during the descent. And instead of ablative thermal protection burning away layer by layer during the reentry into Earth's atmosphere, Zarya would be covered with reusable tiles that would allow the spacecraft to make between 30 and 50 missions into space.

Behind the project was Konstantin Feoktistov, a legendary Soviet cosmonaut and a leading designer of the Vostok spacecraft that carried the first man into space, in 1961, as well as the Soyuz. However, even Feoktistov's influence and reputation were not enough to convince skeptics of the reliability of the risky, rocket-propelled landing system. As the Soviet space program faced a collapsing budget at the end of the 1980s, the project was shelved.

Zarya's legacy was reborn in the 21st century when Russian designers launched the development of the new-generation spacecraft, PTK NP, intended to replace Soyuz. This time, Russians switched to more reliable solid-propellant engines for the landing system. Unlike the small, soft-landing engines on Soyuz, which fire a moment before touchdown to complement the main parachute, the propulsion system of the PTK NP spacecraft would play the main role during the landing. After heated debates in the Russian space industry, developers added a trio of parachutes to the design to ensure safe landing even if the main propulsion system fails.

Similarities between Dragon V2 and PTK NP do not end with the landing tactic. During his demo tour of the Dragon's cockpit, Elon Musk showcased the main control console of the spacecraft, which can swing up and down. Russian engineers first demonstrated this distinct feature last August on the updated prototype of the PTK NP.

Interestingly, Russians had to resort to using a movable console only because its operational position was blocking the access to the ship's entrance hatch. By contrast, Russian space insiders tell me, there is no apparent reason for this feature in Dragon. They also called the Dragon V2 prototype rudimentary, with most of its interior systems still absent. Representatives of the notoriously secretive SpaceX were not available for comments.

Not surprisingly, obvious similarities between the Dragon V2 and its Russian predecessor, combined with all the media hype, irked largely uncelebrated Russian engineers who've spent half a decade on the development of the PTK NP spacecraft.

"Got tired already of Musk and his Dragon mockup! Here is, closer to reality and a year earlier," Russian cosmonaut Mark Serov said, referring to a full-scale prototype of the PTK NP spacecraft that was first displayed at the Moscow Air and Space Show in August 2011.

Clarkson University alumnus to lead first deep space flight since Apollo era

Katie Anderson – Watertown Daily Times

NASA

NASA Atlantis flight director Michael J. Sarafin works the graveyard shift in 2010 during the shuttle's final flight.

Since the Apollo era, deep space exploration has been put on hold because of changes in national priorities and funding.

This fall, Clarkson alumnus Michael L. Sarafin will have a major role in NASA's return to deep space.

Mr. Sarafin will be flight director at the Mission Control Center in Houston and responsible for Orion's Exploration Flight Test-1 from start to finish.

 

"It's the first flight of a brand new program," he said.

 

The Orion program began in 2005, after national policy allowed NASA again to pursue exploration of deep space, according to Mr. Sarafin.

 

He joined the program two years ago.

 

Orion is the name of a spacecraft that's been in a final assembly and testing phase at Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, Fla., for about a year. Once complete in November, the spacecraft will go to the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Space Launch Complex 37 for more tests within a month of the actual launch.

 

Mr. Sarafin said that while there's no set date for the launch, it probably will happen in late November or early December. He said the 4½-hour unmanned test flight will include two orbits around Earth, one at a low orbit about 200 miles up and one 3,600 miles above Earth, which is 10 times higher than a space station.

 

"This mission is really to test the design of Orion to make sure it's safe for humans to travel deep into space," Mr. Sarafin said.

 

He said the design is much different from the design in the Apollo era.

 

"The technology is up to date and the heat shield is a brand new design," he said. "Also, it's a larger capsule that can fly four astronauts into space instead of three."

 

NASA also will test its high-energy return to Earth at 20,000 miles per hour.

 

Mr. Sarafin said that if the flight is successful, they will do another unmanned test flight that will last about two weeks.

 

Then, if successful, they will be ready to send humans into space in Orion.

 

"Based on funding, we probably won't be sending humans until 2021," he said.

 

Mr. Sarafin said if this fall's test flight is successful, it will be a highlight of his career.

 

He's from Herkimer, and graduated from Clarkson in 1994 with a bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering.

 

"I was in the first class to graduate in their aeronautical program because it was a new program," he said. "The engineering program established the foundation for everything I needed to learn for my career."

The test flight mission's cost is $375 million, and according to Mr. Sarafin, that's on top of what the program receives annually.

 

He said that although there are several things that could go wrong, it's his and his team's job to be prepared and to ensure a smoothly executed mission.

 

"It's an important mission," he said. "I'm looking forward to seeing Orion fly."

 

SpaceX President Says Life at Risk Without Space Travel

Jonathan D. Salant - Bloomberg

Failure to invest in the next frontier of human space travel would be both a "big disappointment" and a danger to mankind, said Gwynne Shotwell, president of Space Exploration Technologies Corp.

"It's really risk management for humans," said Shotwell, who spoke today before the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based policy group once led by Chuck Hagel, who's now the U.S. defense secretary. "I'm pretty sure there will be a catastrophic event, and it would be nice to have humans living in more than one spot."

SpaceX, as billionaire Elon Musk's company is known, has been fighting for a piece of the $67.6 billion Pentagon satellite-launch market. It became the first to dock a private, unmanned supply ship at the International Space Station, and is developing a craft to transport astronauts there and beyond.

Shotwell spoke as the National Research Council issued a report recommending that the U.S., with the help of international partners, set a goal of going to Mars. Space travel is so expensive and risky that it can be justified only by the end game of sending humans to other planets, the council wrote.

"For the foreseeable future, the only feasible destinations for human exploration are the moon, asteroids, Mars, and the moons of Mars," Jonathan Lunine, co-chairman of the committee behind the report, said in a statement. "Among this small set of plausible goals, the most distant and difficult is putting human boots on the surface of Mars, thus that is the horizon goal for human space exploration."

NASA Budget

Lunine is also director of the Center for Radiophysics and Space Research at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

It would take decades and hundreds of billions of dollars to reach Mars, and such a feat would require boosting the budget of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, according to the report, mandated by Congress.

Successive presidents would have to commit to that goal rather than making "frequent and dramatic changes in program goals and mission plans in response to changes in national policies," the council said.

"Any human exploration program will only succeed if it is appropriately funded and receives a sustained commitment on the part of those who govern our nation," Mitch Daniels, committee co-chairman and president of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, said in a statement. "That commitment cannot change direction election after election."

Daniels, a Republican, is former governor of Indiana.

Mars Travel

Among SpaceX's goals are transporting astronauts to Mars.

"Since we demonstrated our technical chops with our launch success, now we're talking about Mars," Shotwell said today. She said "it seems like a big disappointment" not to explore beyond Earth.

SpaceX sued the Air Force in April to try to void the service's contract with United Launch Alliance LLC, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT) and Boeing Co. (BA) that has a lock on the military's satellite launches.

Musk has criticized the venture's use of Russian engines to power one of its rockets, saying it may jeopardize national security. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin has said the U.S. would no longer be able to buy engines from his country to launch the satellites.

Shotwell said today that SpaceX is open to an out-of-court settlement of the Air Force lawsuit.

SpaceX currently ferries cargo to the space station under a $1.6 billion NASA contract. It has development funding from NASA for a manned craft, and competing vehicles are being developed by Boeing, Sierra Nevada Corp., and Blue Origin LLC, founded by Jeff Bezos, chairman and chief executive officer of Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN)

Robotic Search for Life on Mars Brings Out Human Experiences

Douglas Messier - Space.com

While robots have done the lion's share of planetary exploration to date, there are plenty of human stories to share about this ambitious enterprise.

 

A panel of experts stressed this point during last month's Spacefest VI conference here, during a wide-ranging discussion that focused on the search

for life on Mars.

 

For example, panel moderator Andy Chaikin, a prominent space historian and journalist, recalled the emotional impact of watching the first photo come in at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), five lines at a time, from the agency's Viking 2 Mars lander in July 1976.

 

"It really was one of these amazing human moments," recalled Chaikin, who worked on the Viking program while in college. "I remember the feeling of time just stopping and standing still, and watching these five lines at a time like ants going down the screen and stop. And you go, holy mackerel. And then there's another five lines. And oh my god, there are pebbles. Another five lines, and there's part of a rock. And you get all the way to the right-hand side and the footpad."

 

Chaikin also recalled how one of the scientists, Tim Munch, was in JPL's TV studio providing commentary to a global audience as they watched the first picture come in live.

 

"Tim was about six foot four and kind of came across like Jimmy Stewart, like an absent-minded Jimmy Stewart," Chaikin said. "And he was just completely riveted to the screen. And Steve Saunders said, 'Say something, Tim. He says, 'I'm being told to say something. Well, there are rocks.'"

 

The panelists — who, in addition to Chaikin, included planetary scientist and artist William K. Hartmann, space artist Mike Carroll, space journalist Leonard David and Rod Pyle of the History Channel — also discussed how a processing error resulted in the first picture of the Martian horizon having a blue sky. Once the error was corrected, the sky turned salmon pink. It was left to the late astronomer Carl Sagan to explain to the press that salmon is a perfectly acceptable color for a planetary sky.

 

Ironically, while the sky on Mars is pink, the sunsets are actually blue, due to particles suspended in the sky — the reverse of what it is like on Earth.

 

The talk turned to the possibility of human exploration of the Red Planet as well. An audience member asked what type of person would want to live in a Martian habitat, which would likely have to be buried underground to protect its occupants from dangerous radiation.

 

"I think the answer is, they're going to have to be heavily sedated," Carroll joked, drawing a huge laugh from the crowd. "No, it does take a special kind of person to be an explorer. Those who go to Mars will not be going there for quality-of-life issues, obviously. Initially, it will be for the joy of discovery, for the science, and it's going to be a major sacrifice."

 

The panelists also shared some funny stories they had heard from Soviet scientists about their nation's planetary exploration program, which enjoyed its greatest success at Venus. The effort was not without its problems, however.

 

After the Venera 13 spacecraft landed on Venus on March 1, 1982, the lens cap on its camera popped off as planned, providing scientists on Earth with images of the broiling landscape. Then the automated soil probe arm automatically deployed — and took a big chunk out of the lens cap, which was lying directly in its path on the ground.

 

"So, 66 million miles to sample its own lens cap," Carroll said. "We know what those lens caps are made out of now."

 

Senate joins House as 'disappointed' at White House commitment to NASA's Space Launch System

Lee Roop – Huntsville (AL) Times

Senate appropriators are "disappointed" in the White House commitment to NASA's Space Launch System, and they are taking steps to strengthen the administration's resolve.

A NASA budget passed by an Appropriations Committee subcommittee Tuesday takes NASA to task for budgets that repeatedly "fall far short of requirements by providing unreliable and unsubstantiated cost estimates."

Similar criticism came from the House of Representatives last month when it also expressed disappointment that NASA wasn't asking for enough money, in appropriators' view, to get the job done.

"The committee remains disappointed that the funding requested by NASA for SLS and the Orion (crew vehicle) once again bears little relation to either funding levels provided in previous years or NASA's own cost estimates and policies," appropriators said in the language accompanying their appropriations bill. "NASA has yet to provide independent cost and schedule assessments for SLS and Orion, which the committee has requested since the programs began. To preserve the current schedule and maintain proper funding for planned work and reserve levels, the committee must rectify NASA's planned budget shortfall for SLS and Orion."

The committee voted $1.7 billion for SLS development, which is more than the $1.6 billion the House voted and more than the $1.38 billion the White House requested.

Senate appropriators said in their official report accompanying the budget that they are concerned "insufficient funding for SLS will lead to cost escalation and unnecessary schedule delays that will have to be addressed in future budget years."

The Senate language combined with the House concern reflects an ongoing behind-the-scenes battle over SLS in Washington. Normally, federal agencies welcome additional appropriations, but NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in Huntsville earlier this year that the White House request of $1.38 billion was enough to keep the program on track.

Critics of the big new rocket inside and outside White House the administration say it is so expensive that it threatens other NASA programs and will be too expensive to fly. Supporters say a new rocket is fundamental to America's human space program and underfunding it now will make it harder to complete later.

Alabama is where SLS is being developed - but not built - at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, and Alabama lawmakers are in the middle of the current funding fight. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Huntsville) is vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Huntsville) is on the House NASA authorization committee. Both have questioned Bolden repeatedly about NASA's commitment to SLS.

Russia Set to Launch Rocket to Secure Future of Space Industry

Henry Meyer – Bloomberg News

Russia is poised to launch its first new rocket capable of carrying heavy payloads since the Soviet era, and a success may unlock the future of the country's space industry.

 

The launch of the Angara rocket will take place in the last week of June at the Plesetsk space center in northern Russia, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said today in e-mailed comments.

 

Russia, which put the first man into space with Yuri Gagarin's flight 53 years ago, has relied on the Proton rocket, its largest booster, which entered into operation in 1965. It's planning to use the Angara at Plesetsk and a new cosmodrome in the country's Far East.

 

The national space program has 2.1 trillion rubles ($60 billion) of spending planned for 2013-2020, including the completion of the Vostochny cosmodrome near the border with China. Russia currently uses the Soviet-era Baikonur base in Kazakhstan for manned missions.

 

"Angara is destined to be the main workhorse of the Russian space program," Yuri Karash, a member of the Tsiolkovsky Russian Academy of Cosmonautics, said by phone from St. Petersburg. "It will be a critical test of Russia's ability to design and build new space hardware."

 

Russia has suffered a series of space accidents in recent years that cost billions of rubles, including the crash of a Proton-M rocket carrying three Glonass navigation satellites soon after take-off from Kazakhstan in July last year.

 

Civilian, Military

 

Angara rockets have a modular design with a variety of configurations, allowing them to lift payloads from 2 metric tons to 24.5 tons. The light-class Angara will start in mid-year and a heavy-class version at the end of this year, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said in February.

 

The rocket will be used for civilian and military purposes, including carrying people into space, Karash said.

 

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said during a visit to Plesetsk in February that Angara would play a vital role in the country's defense and space ambitions.

 

"It will help us maintain our defense capability and the security of our country and carry out space exploration for peaceful purposes and implement programs of international cooperation," Medvedev said.

 

Russia, whose Soyuz rockets currently provide the only way for NASA to send astronauts to the International Space Station, has refused an American request to extend the operation of the space station to 2024 from 2020. It plans to reallocate funding from the station to other programs, Rogozin said last month.

 

Russia's standoff with the U.S. over Ukraine has strained the countries' cooperation on space, which had mostly been spared from geopolitical disputes since the fall of the Soviet Union.

 

Tensions Threaten U.S.-Russia Space Deals

Congress has set aside funding to lower reliance on Russian space gear.

Tom Risen – U.S. News and World Report

Partnership on space travel is a keystone of U.S. relations with Russia, but Congress and American aerospace companies are making contingency plans to reduce reliance on space gear from the former Cold War rival​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ as tensions over violence in Ukraine escalate.

 

Russian soldiers occupied the Crimea region of south Ukraine in March, and pro-Russia forces continue to clash with the national guard in the eastern part of the country. Ties between Russia and the West have since deteriorated, with the latest example being the group of major industrialized nations, now known as the G7, meeting on Wednesday without Russia for the first time since 1997.

 

The U.S. also has leveled sanctions against senior Russian officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who since has discussed limiting Russia's partnership with America on the International Space Station and ​curbing sales of Russian-made space engines. Since the retirement of the U.S. space shuttle program, America pays Russia to fly astronauts to the station with Russian-made Soyuz rockets.

 

"We are very concerned about continuing to develop high-tech projects with such an unreliable partner as the United States, which politicizes everything," Rogozin said in news conference, according to Reuters.

 

That feeling seems mutual among some in Congress, as the House recently passed a National Defense Authorization Act with $220 million set aside to help develop U.S. alternatives to space technology currently supplied by the Russians, including the RD-180 engine that powers ​the American-built Atlas V rocket.

 

Rep. C.A. "Dutch" Ruppersberger, D-Md., was among the supporters of the act because reducing reliance on Russian engines "is good for national security," says Heather Molino, a spokeswoman for Ruppersberger, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

 

America's space flight supply chain could face shortages if Russia cannot be relied upon to ship its engines, says Gwynne Shotwell, president of the aerospace company SpaceX, which uses the Falcon 9 rocket built with American parts.

"Atlas has 38 missions to fly and they have 15 RD-180s in the country," Shotwell says of the ​Atlas V space program run by the United Launch Alliance, which is a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co.

 

The ULA said in a press release that it hopes tensions with Russia are resolved, but it maintains a two-year inventory of engines to power the Atlas and enable a smooth transition to its other rocket, the Delta, which uses U.S.-produced engines.

 

Russia may continue delivery of RD-180 engines if they are not used "in the interests of the Pentagon," Rogozin posted on Twitter May 13.

 

Tensions with Russia also are impacting long-term strategies for the U.S. government and the contractors supporting them, says Celeste Ford, CEO of Stellar Solutions Inc., an aerospace engineering consulting firm.

 

"The near-term projects are continuing and being worked to resolution on a case-by-case basis," Ford says. "For example, the State Department recently issued shipping licenses for two commercial satellites scheduled to launch on a Russian rocket. The Canadian government, however, has pulled a Canadian satellite from a Russian launch."

 

Private companies could more effectively supply governments with space gear and services, but obtaining federal contracts in the U.S. space sector can be difficult for some new entrants as opposed to large, established companies​, Ford says.

 

"Government has difficulty handling something that deviates from the way things have been in the past," she says. "Our challenges revolve around being consolidated or bundled into large contracts under large companies who tend to maintain the status quo, rather than innovate.

 

"The end result is competition based on cost rather than value, which is lowering the quality of the workforce supporting the government."

 

END