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From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: June 6, 2014 10:25:59 AM CDT
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: NASA and Human Spaceflight News - Friday – June 6, 2014
Happy Flex Friday everyone! Hope you have a wonderful and safe weekend!My apologies for not being able to be at our monthly Retirees luncheon yesterday—I had other commitments but hope to see you all again next month. Speaking of next month,,,the monthly retiree luncheon will fall on July 3rd, so I am suggesting we move our July Monthly NASA retirees luncheon to Thursday July 10th same time same place.Sorry I missed seeing new retiree Michelle Brekke yesterday at our luncheon and also,, I missed seeing Lambert Austin and his wife Faith, Earlene and Wayne Miner; Flo Cox who we have not seen in awhile!.Especially sorry I missed a special visitor and great friend to our luncheon- Pandora Vickery- who is visiting briefly from Singapore. As well as so many of you regulars—too many to name. thank you all for your participation!Now if we can only get Stacey Nakamura to join us one of these days. He is my steady backup on sending out the daily news notices.I have heard a report that Skip Larsen had suffered a stroke in the past few months back or so, let's all keep him in our prayers for a steady and good recovery.Please notify me immediately when you notice you are not receiving your NASA News emails and I will get you back on. Bill Gates continues to play around with my Distribution lists from time to time.:)NASA and Human Spaceflight NewsFriday – June 6, 2014HEADLINES AND LEADSRussia and U.S. Boost Space Station Cooperation, Despite Earthly DisputesMatthew Bodner – The Moscow TimesEven as the U.S.-Russian bilateral relationship tears at the seams, NASA and the Federal Space Agency, or Roscosmos, are pooling their resources and launching new joint projects aboard the International Space Station, or ISS, in a drive to make the most of the crucial project while it lasts, Russian and U.S. space officials close to the agencies said.Apollo moon rocks hint at other planet that hit young earthIrene Klotz – ReutersLunar rocks brought back by the Apollo astronauts more than 40 years ago contain evidence of a Mars-sized planet that scientists believe crashed into Earth and created the moon, new research shows.Scientists studying moon's 'DNA' trace its ancestry to titanic collisionUsing moon rocks gathered by Apollo astronauts, German scientists found geochemical evidence the moon was formed by a collision 4.5 billion years ago between Earth and an object called Theia.Pete Spotts – The Christian Science MonitorWhen a theorized object dubbed Theia crossed paths with the early Earth 4.5 billion years ago, the encounter was brutal. Debris from the titanic collision is widely held to have formed the moon.Lunar rock chemistry supports big-smash theorySmall differences in oxygen-isotope ratios help reveal how the Moon was formed.Alexandra Witze – NatureA minor chemical difference between Earth and Moon rocks could have big implications for theories about how the Moon was born. Moon rocks contain a tiny bit more of the rare isotope oxygen-17 than do the rocks on Earth, say geochemists who measured oxygen using very precise methods.Commercial space advocates concerned about NASA spending billLedyard King – Florida TodayAdvocates of aerospace firms delivering cargo to the International Space Station and vying to transport crews are concerned that language in a Senate spending bill that a key committee passed Thursday could make it more difficult and expensive to carry out those missions.Would you be willing to pay more than 25 cents a year to understand the cosmos?B.R. Oppenheimer – Los Angeles Times (Op-Ed)Studying the universe — perhaps even modern science as a whole — is as American as apple pie and baseball.NRC Casts Major Doubts on NASA's Mars AmbitionsDamon Poeter – PC MagazineForget Mars, puny humans. That's not precisely the message of a newly released National Research Council (NRC) appraisal of NASA's goal of sending astronauts to the Red Planet by the 2030s. But the 286-page report submitted to the U.S. Congress Wednesday was broadly skeptical of the space agency's ability to do so using its current program planning and budget.NASA's 1st Orion Spaceship Gets World's Largest Heat ShieldMiriam Kramer – Space.comThe largest heat shield ever built for a spacecraft has just met its ride — NASA's new Orion deep-space capsule — ahead of the craft's debut test flight later this year.First-time NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman is loving space, and his photos of Earth are a sensationLee Roop – Huntsville (AL) TimesNASA astronaut Reid Wiseman got to space for the first time May 28, and he's been making the most of it since. Wiseman's Twitter photos from the International Space Station have created a sensation in the world of space buffs and media, both for their quality and Wiseman's enthusiasm about the world beneath him.ESA Chief Says Ties with Roscosmos Remain StrongPeter B. de Selding – Space NewsThe European Space Agency has seen no signs that its relations with Russia will be curtailed as a result of the confrontation between Russia and the West concerning Russia's actions in Ukraine, ESA Director-General Jean-Jacques Dordain said June 4.The retro rocket lookSpacesuits: A new generation of outfits for astronauts is being developed. Although technically advanced, they look as though they came from the pastThe EconomistAROUND 230,000 votes were cast in a recent online competition held by NASA to choose one of three designs for the American space agency's new Z-2 spacesuit. It was not the technology that people were invited to vote for, but the style of the outer layer. The winner (pictured right) features vivid-blue electroluminescent wire and patches, exposed bearings and natty collapsing pleats to improve an astronaut's mobility.Kepler Returns! Exoplanet Mission Makes New DiscoveriesIrene Klotz – Discovery NewsA year after being sidelined by a positioning system failure, NASA's planet-hunting Kepler space telescope is back at work on a new and expanded mission called K2.How Innovation Will Get U.S. to Mars 2020 (Op-Ed)Rod Pyle – Space.comRod Pyle is a space author and documentary producer. He led leadership training at NASA's Johnson Space Center for its top executives and has written extensively about space exploration and organizational principles. Pyle's latest book is "Innovation the NASA Way: Harnessing the Power of Your Organization for Breakthrough Success " (McGraw-Hill, 2014). He contributed this article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.Following the magnificent success of the complex sky crane system that delivered Curiosity to Mars in August 2012, and the rover's successes since then, NASA is working briskly on plans for another Curiosity-class Mars rover to visit the red planet, it is hoped, during the 2020 launch opportunity.Testing begins on a new instrument to be added to NASA's flying observatoryBritt Rawcliffe -Spaceflight InsiderNASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) is getting outfitted with a new instrument which is set to provide astronomers and scientists with observations only possible from the sky. The high-resolution, mid-infrared spectrograph, called the Echelon-Cross-Echelle Spectrograph (EXES), began testing on the nights of April 7 and 9, according to Matthew Richter, leader of the team that is developing the instrument at the University of California, Davis, Physics Department.Civilian Drone Use in U.S. Seen Hitting BarriersAlan Levin – BloombergThe U.S. aviation system is unprepared for the proliferation of civilian drone flights and how they would function amid piloted planes, according to a panel of scientific advisers to the government.Spaceport hopesHouston ChronicleWith America's manned space program adrift after the end of the shuttle era and dependent on Russian craft at more than $70 million a seat for access to the International Space Station, the future status of Houston as Space City USA is increasingly in doubt.COMPLETE STORIESRussia and U.S. Boost Space Station Cooperation, Despite Earthly DisputesMatthew Bodner – The Moscow TimesEven as the U.S.-Russian bilateral relationship tears at the seams, NASA and the Federal Space Agency, or Roscosmos, are pooling their resources and launching new joint projects aboard the International Space Station, or ISS, in a drive to make the most of the crucial project while it lasts, Russian and U.S. space officials close to the agencies said."We have had a strong partnership and we are working to make sure we get full use out of the space station for quite a while," Sean Fuller, NASA's director of human spaceflight in Russia told the Moscow Times on Thursday.Having been a seemingly unshakable cornerstone of U.S.-Russian cooperation for nearly 20 years, the space partnership has recently been forcefully politicized by its political masters, after the political crisis in Ukraine and Russia's annexation of Crimea sparked the iciest standoff Russia and the West have seen since the Cold War. The crisis has so far seen NASA ordered by the U.S. government to cut off all non-ISS related ties with Roscosmos, a Russian attempt to ransom U.S. GPS stations on Russian territory for the right to build its own Glonass monitoring stations in the U.S. and a restriction of aerospace trade between the two nations.But, perhaps most concerning for NASA and Roscosmos, who have consistently sworn that their relationship has remained sound throughout the political struggle in Eastern Europe, was a bombastic statement by Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin in mid-May — that Russia was not interested in accepting a NASA proposal to extend the life of ISS beyond 2020.Although head leadership of both NASA and Roscosmos have remained silent on the issue of ISS extension, both agencies are now looking to make the most out of the time they have left together, regardless of how long that may be. Hot on the heels of a meeting with program directors representing the 15 nations involved in ISS, Fuller said "each of the partners is working within their government" on the issue of extension beyond 2020. From an engineering standpoint, much of the legwork has already been done, and ISS could continue on well into the 2020s, he added.ISS is an unprecedented human achievement: a permanently manned outpost in space that has facilitated peaceful cooperation between the high-tech and scientific bases of 15 nations, as well as the largest international cooperative project ever undertaken by nations during peacetime.As Russia pivots east, courting China in a number of spheres — ranging from gas deals to future space partnership agreements — Fuller said that NASA is intensifying its cooperation with Roscosmos aboard the ISS, along with the other 13 partners — which include the European, Canadian and Japanese space agencies — "to make sure we get full use out of [ISS] for quite a while.""In April, after the announcement of sanctions by NASA, we discussed the organization of joint experiments with our U.S. partners as part of a joint working group on space biology and medicine," Izvestia quoted Oleg Orlov, the deputy director of the Russian Academy of Science's Institute of Biomedical Problems, as saying Tuesday."In the process of informal dialogue, the Americans have recently sought to demonstrate … that the announced sanctions are just a courtesy to Washington bureaucrats," Orlov added.First of all, NASA and Roscosmos have spent the last few months finalizing an ambitious medical research agenda to be carried out through the so-called "one year mission" slated to launch in March 2015. Astronaut Scott Kelly and cosmonaut Mikhail Korniyenko — both flight-hardened veterans of earlier ISS expeditions — will spend one year aboard the space station serving as guinea pigs for a U.S.-Russian medical research team. On Thursday, Interfax cited a source in the Russian space program saying that NASA and Roscosmos are also in the process of selecting a crew for a second year-long mission following the return of Kelly and Korniyenko in 2016.One of the major concerns facing the medical community with regard to deep space missions is how the crew's bodies will react to landing on another planet, such as Mars, Fuller said. Currently, when astronauts and cosmonauts return from ISS to Earth, they are met on the ground by teams of medical personnel who not only must assist their egress from the capsule, but help them learn to walk again after spending months in a zero-gravity environment.The intrepid team of explorers who one day set foot on Mars will not have the luxury of a welcome party, and space agencies eying the rust-colored locale must develop techniques to combat the muscle decay and related health issues faced by astronauts and cosmonauts now, before beginning to work on a mission to Mars.The teams are also sharing resources for research on bringing animals to space, Orlov said. "We have long had the idea of creating such a laboratory on ISS, but ultimately failed to implement it … the U.S. in this regard is more advanced," he said, adding that there are now discussions of launching a joint research program using U.S. modules and equipment."I kind of equate it to crowdsourcing," Fuller said — there is a limit to the resources that can be flown up to the space station, and "the different laboratories provided by the different partners have different capabilities."Yury Karash, a space policy analyst with the Russian Academy of Cosmonautics, took a more restrained view of these developments. "At best, this is an intensification of cooperation rather than an expansion, since it is not as if the U.S. and Russia are jointly designing new modules for the space station," but rather doing more with what they already have, he told The Moscow Times on Thursday.Apollo moon rocks hint at other planet that hit young earthIrene Klotz – ReutersLunar rocks brought back by the Apollo astronauts more than 40 years ago contain evidence of a Mars-sized planet that scientists believe crashed into Earth and created the moon, new research shows.German scientists using a new technique said they detected a slight chemical difference between Earth rocks and moon rocks. Scientists said more study would be needed to confirm this long-elusive piece of evidence that material from another body besides Earth contributed to the moon's formation some 4.5 billion years ago.Scientists believe the moon formed from a cloud of debris launched into space after a Mars-sized body called Theia crashed into young Earth.Different planets in the solar system have slightly different chemical makeups. Therefore, scientists believed moon rocks might hold telltale chemical fingerprints of whatever body smashed into Earth.Until now, evidence was elusive."We have developed a technique that guarantees perfect separation," of oxygen isotopes from other trace gases, Daniel Herwartz, with the University of Cologne in Germany, wrote in an email to Reuters."The differences are small and difficult to detect, but they are there," added Herwartz, lead author of a paper on the discovery published in this week's issue of the journal Science.The results indicate that composition of the moon is about 50 percent Thea and 50 percent Earth, the scientists said, although more work is needed to confirm that estimate.The team analyzed rocks brought back to Earth by NASA astronauts during the Apollo 11, Apollo 12 and Apollo 16 missions to the moon, which took place in 1969 and 1972."This work is the first to claim to see such a difference in the isotopes of oxygen," said Robin Canup, a planetary scientist with the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, who was not involved in the research."The reported difference between the Earth and moon is extremely small, small enough that I think there will be debate as to whether the difference is real or an artifact of how one interprets the data," she added.Meanwhile, other teams of scientists have been looking at titanium, silicon, chromium, tungsten and other chemical elements, but so far the lunar samples show no detectable differences from Earth samples.Scientists studying moon's 'DNA' trace its ancestry to titanic collisionUsing moon rocks gathered by Apollo astronauts, German scientists found geochemical evidence the moon was formed by a collision 4.5 billion years ago between Earth and an object called Theia.Pete Spotts – The Christian Science MonitorWhen a theorized object dubbed Theia crossed paths with the early Earth 4.5 billion years ago, the encounter was brutal. Debris from the titanic collision is widely held to have formed the moon.Despite years of effort, however, scientists have been hard-pressed to find the geophysical equivalent of Theia's DNA mixed in with Earth's in lunar rocks. That should have been a natural outcome as debris from both objects coalesced into a new one.Now a team of German scientists has reported the first geochemical evidence for Earth's encounter with Theia (in Greek mythology, the mother of Selene, the goddess of the moon) in samples of moon rocks gather by Apollo astronauts. The discovery fills an important gap in the chain of evidence for the moon's origin."We can now be reasonably sure that the giant collision took place," Daniel Herwartz, a geochemist at the University of Cologne in Germany and the lead author of a formal report of the team's analysis of the moon-rock samples, said in a statement. The report is set to appear in Friday's issue of the journal Science.The report also opens a wider window on Theia's geochemistry and holds clues as to how much of today's moon is composed of Theia's leftovers, the team explains.Of the more than 150 moons orbiting planets or dwarf planets in the solar system, Earth's moon is an odd one. Virtually all the others formed either from discs of dust and gas surrounding the planets that host them, or from asteroids flitting through the solar system that were captured by the planets' gravity.On the other hand an origin in a collision better fits some of the moon's characteristics, researchers say. For instance, it is relatively poor, compared with other moons, in evaporated elements or compounds that evaporate at moderate rates, such as water. Its core also is unusually small for an object its size.Combined with the relative rotation rates of the Earth and moon, these traits point to an early collision, researchers say.Modeling experiments that recreate the collision have suggested that between 70 and 90 percent of the moon should be made up of Theia's material. But measurements of meteorites from the moon, as well as of moon rocks, have shown a remarkably Earth-like composition.Until now.Researchers have noted that the geochemical make-up of objects in the solar system is quite diverse, reflecting the material available to them in the regions where they formed. Since Theia was an interloper, key signatures in its geochemistry should be different than Earth's.Previous teams have tried to uncover Theia's geochemical signatures. But the results yielded no significant difference between these signatures in Earth rocks and moon rocks, so the teams reported no difference, Dr. Herwartz writes in an e-mail.For their work, Herwartz and colleagues looked for a difference in the ratio of two oxygen isotopes, oxygen-17 and oxygen-16, between moon rocks and Earth rocks. In doing so, they applied a new approach to making their measurements. They purified their samples more extensively than predecessors had to improve their odds of detecting even small differences in the oxygen ratios. And they processed the samples for 90 minutes, longer than others had, to build up a signature that otherwise might still have been too faint to be meaningful.The researchers first analyzed lunar meteorites. But weathering after the lunar rocks fell to Earth made it tough to spot any differences between the relative abundance of oxygen-17 in Earth and moon rocks.Samples from carefully curated moon rocks that NASA provided from Apollo missions 11, 12, and 16, however, did yield a different isotope signature, with higher oxygen-17 to oxygen-16 ratios than Earth rocks. For every million oxygen-16 isotopes, the moon rocks had 12 more oxygen-17 isotopes than did Earth rocks."The differences are small and difficult to detect, but they are there," Herwartz said.If the results hold up to further scrutiny, they would imply that Theia's material accounts for only about 40 percent of the material making up the moon, with Earth having donated the rest, the team estimates. And they suggest that Theia may have a composition similar to a class of meteors known as enstatite chondrites.Of all the meteorites that land on Earth, these are the most rare. Their low oxygen content suggests they may have formed near the center of the disc of dust and gas that surrounded the young sun. Some researchers suggest that enstatite chondrites formed inside Mercury's orbit.Lunar rock chemistry supports big-smash theorySmall differences in oxygen-isotope ratios help reveal how the Moon was formed.Alexandra Witze – NatureA minor chemical difference between Earth and Moon rocks could have big implications for theories about how the Moon was born. Moon rocks contain a tiny bit more of the rare isotope oxygen-17 than do the rocks on Earth, say geochemists who measured oxygen using very precise methods."It changes the nature of the debate," says Robin Canup, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, who was not involved in the study. "If the difference between Earth and the Moon is a small amount as opposed to zero, we need to know that."Most researchers think that the Moon formed in the very early days of the Solar System, 4.5 billion years ago, when a large protoplanet smashed into the embryonic Earth. Debris from the collision mingled together and then settled into orbit around Earth, where it coalesced into the Moon. If that were the case, however, scientists would expect to see more of the remains of the original impactor in the Moon. The chemistry of Moon rocks would be different from that of Earth rocks."The big question was always, why do we not see this difference, why are Earth and the Moon so similar?" says Daniel Herwartz, an isotope geochemist at the University of Cologne in Germany and a member of the study team. The giant impact "is a nice theory that explains a lot of things, but there was this problem".Finding a differenceHerwartz and his colleagues decided to examine oxygen isotopes because planets and moons have a distinct oxygen fingerprint that records the exact environmental conditions in which they were born. The paper is published today in Science1. Earlier studies2, 3 found that the proportions of the different oxygen isotopes in Earth and the Moon — as averaged over their entire bulk — were essentially identical.For the new study, the researchers used an extremely precise laser-based method to measure oxygen isotopes in a range of Earth rocks, meteorites and three lunar samples gathered by the Apollo astronauts. They found 12 parts per million more oxygen-17 in the Moon rocks as opposed to the Earth rocks. "It's a tiny difference, that's why it hasn't been seen before," says Herwartz.He suggests that the body that triggered the Moon-forming impact, which some scientists call Theia, may have been chemically similar to a class of meteorites called enstatite chondrites. Those are similar enough to Earth, at least in terms of oxygen, that Theia wouldn't have left a major imprint in the Moon's chemistry, Herwartz says.Collision debatesSome scientists are not impressed. According to Robert Clayton, a professor emeritus at the University of Chicago in Illinois who pioneered the use of oxygen isotopes in cosmochemistry, the authors may have done little more than find a more precise method of measurement. "I don't see anything new in this paper — they've just repackaged the error bars," says Clayton. The observed difference is simply not large enough to say anything significant about the Moon's formation, he says.Lydia Hallis, an isotope researcher at Glasgow University, UK, notes that oxygen-17 can vary among Moon rocks, and so three Apollo samples may not necessarily represent the Moon as a whole. She adds that researchers might want to look more closely at the isotopes of other elements. If oxygen isotopes are more different than previously thought, perhaps elements such as titanium and silicon, which in past analyses seemed to be identical in Earth and the Moon, also could have minute but noteworthy differences.Canup, though, says that the oxygen findings are likely to shake up the field. Planetary modellers have been trying to develop collision scenarios in which the Moon and Earth ended up chemically similar, but not identical, after the Moon-forming impact. "That's the kind of debate I'm very happy to see," she says.Commercial space advocates concerned about NASA spending billLedyard King – Florida TodayAdvocates of aerospace firms delivering cargo to the International Space Station and vying to transport crews are concerned that language in a Senate spending bill that a key committee passed Thursday could make it more difficult and expensive to carry out those missions.The provision, sponsored by Republican Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, would require firms in the commercial crew and commercial cargo programs to submit "certified cost and pricing data" similar to what's required in traditional contracts NASA uses for other services.Shelby's proposal is included in a spending bill the Senate Appropriations Committee passed 30-0 Thursday to fund several federal agencies, including NASA, in the 2015 fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.The bill would provide NASA $17.9 billion, and include money to continue development of its major priorities, including the James Webb space telescope that will replace the Hubble, and the space launch system deep-space rocket and vehicle designed to carry astronauts to Mars by the 2030s.The bill now heads to the full Senate and will eventually be reconciled with a similar version the House passed last week.The Senate spending plan also includes $805 million for commercial crew, NASA's program to replace the now-mothballed space shuttle with a small fleet of private rockets that could transport astronauts to the space station from American soil as early as 2017. Private rockets already are delivering cargo to the orbiting lab.In an effort to keep costs down and speed development, the agency has opted to use Space Act agreements instead of traditional contracts for both crew and cargo programs.Under the agreements, NASA pays companies to achieve certain milestones but leaves details largely to the contractor. It costs less, but the firms get to keep the intellectual property rights of their products, and there's a risk a problem could go undetected until later in the development process.Advocates of the arrangement say it means companies can more nimbly — and cheaply — meet contract targets. But skeptics like Shelby say there's little oversight and the government has little control over costs."I believe we must ensure that the taxpayers are getting the best value for their dollars," he said at an Appropriations subcommittee meeting earlier this week.But the head of an industry trade group called Shelby's provision "a step in the wrong direction" at a time when the U.S. is trying to end its dependence on Russia — at $70 million a ride — to ferry U.S. astronauts to the space station."The language would effectively change an efficient and lean commercial program into a traditional government procurement with all of the associated overhead and cost," said Alex Saltman, executive director of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation."In addition, if this language were to become law before NASA awards the latest commercial crew contracts, NASA would likely have to restart the procurement with these new rules, pushing back the program up to a year and sending hundreds of millions of more taxpayer dollars to Russia for Soyuz rides," Saltman added. "If the language were to go into effect after the awards, NASA could be tied up in contract renegotiations and challenges for months if not years."Commercial space advocates say it would cost only about $20 million for each astronaut's seat.NASA officials declined to comment, saying they were still reviewing the Senate language. There was no immediate comment from SpaceX. The California firm has a contract with NASA to deliver cargo to the space station and is among the competitors for the contract to transport astronauts as well.Another commercial space advocate, the Space Access Society, said Shelby was sponsoring the language merely to protect the "massively wasteful" space launch system. Much of the work to develop SLS is being conducted at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., which Shelby represents.Asked about the criticism of his motives after Thursday's hearing, Shelby said simply: "That's not true. We're looking for transparency."Would you be willing to pay more than 25 cents a year to understand the cosmos?B.R. Oppenheimer – Los Angeles Times (Op-Ed)Studying the universe — perhaps even modern science as a whole — is as American as apple pie and baseball.Although America was not the first country to launch a satellite into orbit, it has, for more than half a century, pioneered the exploration of the universe from the advantageous perspective that sensors, robots and telescopes offer once they are off-world. Looking through a telescope in space — as opposed to one on the ground — is, to an astrophysicist, as revelatory as a child's first sense that shapes and faces are physical, can be touched and explored, and that vision is a meaningful way to understand where one is.Far from the water-laden, turbulent atmosphere that protects Earth's cozy climate, a telescope can study otherwise invisible aspects of the cosmos: black holes, the evolving structure of the universe, the birthing of stars and our closest, smallest neighbors, some comparable in size to Jupiter, yet roaming the universe alone. We even have evidence that planets similar to Earth may be quite common in orbits around stars other than the sun. These discoveries made by astrophysical experiments in space have completely transformed our view of where we are and how this planet came to be.Twenty years ago, when I started graduate school at Caltech, if I said I wanted to find planets around other stars, people in the field would laugh and say, "Go watch 'Star Trek.'" Now the study of "exoplanets" is a rich field of research that addresses fundamental questions surrounding our own origins. Much of that knowledge comes from telescopes in space.This priceless knowledge is a result of the dedicated effort of thousands of people over several decades. It could not have been achieved without the resources and forward-thinking mentality that NASA enables. Today, however, our country's political climate has put this groundbreaking work in jeopardy.I recently chaired an independent review committee for NASA's astrophysics division to conduct a senior review, the highest-level peer review that division conducts. Our group of 10 experts was tasked with examining the existing telescopes and other types of sensors currently in operation, some in orbit around Earth, others trailing at huge distances and orbiting the sun.There are 10 current missions, representing an investment of billions of dollars over three decades, including smaller contributions by the European and Japanese space agencies. All of these spacecraft have unique capabilities to render facets of the universe visible for scientific scrutiny, capabilities that probably will never be replicated.Our committee's charge involved ranking the scientific value of these missions, and helping the senior administration at NASA allocate available funds to ensure the highest-quality science for the next four years. For three weeks, we professors, researchers and other professionals, none of whom was directly involved in any of the projects, deliberated pro bono to develop a plan that would keep the field healthy within the specified budget guidelines.When we heard what the guidelines were, we were horrified. We estimated that NASA was operating many of these missions at a level that was below 2% of the initial construction and launch expenses. Standard management practice suggests that 10% of the initial construction cost is a reasonable annual budget for operating a facility. We had to work with a total of $75 million. That is what the government spends roughly every 10 minutes. It is less than a third of the L.A. Dodgers' payroll in 2014, and represents a contribution of a little less than 25 cents per American each year.In the next few years, this mission operating budget is projected to fall to less than 40% of this year's value. As a result, several fully operational spacecraft will be turned off — and lost in space.Because our panel sought to maintain as much scientific breadth as possible, other projects have been reduced in funding almost to the point of simply collecting the data but not analyzing it. If the current budget guidelines are put into law, teams of scientists, engineers and software experts will be laid off. The collective talent of these groups will be permanently lost.Is this extreme austerity, an artifact of the current political climate, really the right way forward? The United States is in a better position than ever to advance human understanding of the universe in ways unimaginable to Ben Franklin as he established American science many years ago. Are we, as a nation, to be remembered by future generations for building these remarkable eyes on the universe, simply to let them drift away into darkness or vaporize in the atmosphere, when they can still see things no one has ever imagined? Are we not obliged to continue this bold exploration, with vigor, for the benefit of all of humanity?B.R. Oppenheimer is curator in charge, professor and chairman of the astrophysics department at the American Museum of Natural History.NRC Casts Major Doubts on NASA's Mars AmbitionsDamon Poeter – PC MagazineForget Mars, puny humans. That's not precisely the message of a newly released National Research Council (NRC) appraisal of NASA's goal of sending astronauts to the Red Planet by the 2030s. But the 286-page report submitted to the U.S. Congress Wednesday was broadly skeptical of the space agency's ability to do so using its current program planning and budget.The NRC report actually supports the objective of sending humans to Mars, a goal NASA Administrator Charles Bolden emphatically confirmed was one of the space agency's highest priorities in several public statements made in April.But the NRC's Committee on Human Spaceflight, which spent 18 months investigating the viability of a NASA-led manned mission to Mars and other space exploration proposals, said current planning and budgeting for that endeavor was unlikely to succeed. Most scathingly, the report said that sticking to NASA's proposed blueprint for landing humans on Mars was to "invite failure, disillusionment, and the loss of the longstanding international perception that human spaceflight is something the United States does best," The Washington Post reported."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," committee co-chair and former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels told the Post.One way the U.S. should consider changing how it does the business of space exploration is to foster more international cooperation on major space missions, including with China, the committee recommended.The NRC committee questioned the usefulness of sending humans on risky, long-haul space flights to destinations like Mars, citing safety concerns in particular, but concluded that "the aspirational nature of the endeavor may make it worth the effort."Instead of aiming for Mars, the NRC committee suggested NASA focus on more attainable goals like returning astronauts to the Moon and, perhaps, capturing a near-Earth asteroid using a robotic spacecraft. Such missions could also serve as stepping stones to an eventual Mars trip, which should remain a "horizon goal" for the space agency, the committee urged.And therein lies the rub of the NRC report, the culmination of a $3.2 million, Congress-mandated study of NASA's long-term plans. Many of the Committee on Human Spaceflight's recommendations for alternative, more affordable space missions actually align nicely with proposals NASA itself has already made. The report is outwardly critical of NASA's long-term objectives, but viewed in a different light, it's sort of just saying that the space agency needs more money, stat—one can easily imagine NASA planners nodding vigorously at that kind of "tough love" amongst themselves.John Logsdon of George Washington University's Space Policy Institute told the Post that the NRC committee and NASA really aren't all that far apart in their long-term thinking after all."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,'" Logsdon was quoted as saying by the newspaper.But actually going to Mars is "a dream," he argued. "It's been a dream forever. And will remain a dream unless something changes."Still, it was also clear there are some areas of disagreement between the committee and NASA leadership.The committee only offered lukewarm support for the asteroid-capture mission which NASA has been championing for some time. But the NRC report was very bullish on sending humans back to the Moon, even though President Barack Obama and NASA leaders have been adamant about not wanting to return there just to reprise the original Apollo missions.Of course, getting to Mars may involve going back to the Moon anyway. One plan for launching longer-distance manned missions involves building a habitable base and spaceport for interplanetary missions either on the lunar surface or, possibly using a captured asteroid, in the Moon's orbit.NASA's 1st Orion Spaceship Gets World's Largest Heat ShieldMiriam Kramer – Space.comThe largest heat shield ever built for a spacecraft has just met its ride — NASA's new Orion deep-space capsule — ahead of the craft's debut test flight later this year.Engineers with NASA and contractor Lockheed Martin worked together to install the 16.5-foot (5 meters) heat shield for the upcoming test launch in December. Called Exploration Flight Test-1, the mission aims to launch an Orion capsule 3,600 miles (5,794 kilometers) into space, then have the craft return to Earth, re-enter the atmosphere and splash down in the Pacific Ocean.The heat shield is designed to protect the spacecraft and future astronaut crews from the 4,000 degree Fahrenheit (2,200 degree Celsius) heat produced when the Orion space capsule is re-entering Earth's atmosphere. The spacecraft's heat shield is covered with a material called Avcoat. The coating burns away as it heats up, but it keeps the crew module cool."It is extremely exciting to see the heat shield in place, ready to do its job," Mark Geyer, Orion Program manager at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, said in a statement. "The heat shield is such a critical piece, not just for this mission, but for our plans to send humans into deep space."NASA officials have discussed using Orion to bring astronauts to an asteroid towed into orbit around the moon sometime in the 2020s. The spacecraft could also propel humans to Mars in the future.The EFT-1 mission is expected to last about four hours, and it will test many of Orion's critical systems, NASA officials said. The spaceship will make two orbits of Earth and then return to the planet, splashing down in the ocean..
Engineers install the heat shield for NASA's Orion spacecraft. Image uploaded June 5, 2014.
Credit: NASA/Daniel CasperThe space agency has been readying Orion for the EFT-1 flight throughout the year. The spacecraft's completed service module was stress tested for the last time in February, showing engineers that it can withstand the riggers of its upcoming spaceflight, NASA officials have said.In the next months, the crew and service modules will be transported to Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where they are expected to launch atop a Delta IV rocket for EFT-1 in December.First-time NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman is loving space, and his photos of Earth are a sensationLee Roop – Huntsville (AL) TimesNASA astronaut Reid Wiseman got to space for the first time May 28, and he's been making the most of it since. Wiseman's Twitter photos from the International Space Station have created a sensation in the world of space buffs and media, both for their quality and Wiseman's enthusiasm about the world beneath him."I wanna visit!" Wiseman tweets of his picture of clouds breaking to reveal a pair of Pacific atolls. "A nice day to hit the beach in Santos, Brazil," he says in another. "My parents were waving in Maryland at sunrise, so I took a picture of them," he says in a third. In the gallery above, all captions are Wiseman's tweets.Wiseman is a former Navy aviator who flew combat missions in some of America's recent conflicts, and he's aboard the station until November as a flight engineer working on science experiments and other serious business. But if he keeps going the way he's going, Reid Wiseman may be remembered as a great example of what astronauts often say: What changes you most about spaceflight isn't space, it's seeing our world from space.ESA Chief Says Ties with Roscosmos Remain StrongPeter B. de Selding – Space NewsThe European Space Agency has seen no signs that its relations with Russia will be curtailed as a result of the confrontation between Russia and the West concerning Russia's actions in Ukraine, ESA Director-General Jean-Jacques Dordain said June 4.Dordain met May 28 with the head of Russia's Roscosmos space agency, Oleg Ostapenko, at Russia's Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to witness the launch of ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst of Germany. Gerst was part of a three-member crew including NASA and Russian astronauts riding a Russian Soyuz capsule to the international space station.In a brief interview here during the Global Space Applications Conference organized by the International Astronautical Federation, Dordain said he returned from Baikonur with no concerns that Europe's multiple space ventures with Russia might suffer given the Ukrainian situation.The 20-nation ESA, in addition to relying on Russia's Soyuz for manned flights — as does the United States — is developing its principal space exploration endeavor, the two-mission ExoMars program, in collaboration with Russia.Russian Proton rockets are scheduled to carry the two ExoMars missions to Mars orbit in 2016 and 2018. ESA is talking with Russia about a possible launch of a European science satellite to Jupiter.In July, ESA is scheduled to launch the fifth and last 20,000-kilogram Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) to the station as part of a barter arrangement with NASA. The ATV vehicles are able to dock only on the Russian end of the space station.Russia and ESA are also using Russia's Soyuz rocket to launch commercial and government payloads from Europe's Guiana Space Center on South America's northeast coast, a program that has developed to the point where ESA governments use Soyuz more than they use the heavy-lift Ariane 5 rocket whose development they financed.The retro rocket lookSpacesuits: A new generation of outfits for astronauts is being developed. Although technically advanced, they look as though they came from the pastThe EconomistAROUND 230,000 votes were cast in a recent online competition held by NASA to choose one of three designs for the American space agency's new Z-2 spacesuit. It was not the technology that people were invited to vote for, but the style of the outer layer. The winner (pictured right) features vivid-blue electroluminescent wire and patches, exposed bearings and natty collapsing pleats to improve an astronaut's mobility.Other new spacesuits are in development, including the one pictured above being modelled by its inventor, Dava Newman, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Instead of being pressurised to protect the body from the vacuum of space, it uses complex ribbing to hug the contours of the occupant's body.One thing these new spacesuits share is that they look like they could have come from early illustrations in science fiction—or even a vintage episode of "Doctor Who". The spacesuits worn by science-fiction characters from decades past tended to be shorn of much of the complex paraphernalia that is actually required to keep someone alive in space, like the bulky equipment-laden suits the Apollo astronauts wore on the Moon in 1969. With new materials and technological advances, spacesuits can now be made lighter and less cumbersome.A modern take from Orbital OutfittersMuch of the impetus for new designs comes from the emergence of a private space industry. SpaceX, a California-based rocket company run by Elon Musk, has advertised for its own spacesuit designer as it moves from supplying the International Space Station to manned space flight. In May Orbital Outfitters, an American firm, unveiled its design for the pilot and fare-paying passengers on Lynx, a reusable spaceplane being developed by XCOR Aerospace, another Californian company.Greetings, earthlings—the 1950s lookMany of the features of existing spacesuits date back to the Apollo missions—and some to the g-force suits used by U2 high-altitude spy planes in the 1950s. The suit that Sandra Bullock wore in the film "Gravity" was certified in 1980 for use by the crews of the Space Shuttle. Back then, few at NASA would have imagined that its working life might run to around 40 years.Whatever a spacesuit looks like it has one basic function: to keep its wearer alive. There are three types of suit. First, there are pressurised flight suits that astronauts (and future space-tourists) have to wear. Then there are suits for extravehicular activities (EVAs), such as spacewalks. These use additional equipment, like portable life-support systems. For the designer, these suits have the advantage that they can be heavy because they will be used in a weightless environment.Finally there are the type of suits not seen since the days of Apollo. These will be needed to explore and work on planetary bodies where there is gravity (on Mars, gravity is one-third that of Earth) and even an atmosphere. This makes weight an issue. The suits also need to protect an astronaut from radiation and be capable of being serviced and repaired during the mission, which could last for several years.NASA says the Z-2 suit will be tested in a vacuum chamber later this year before the final specification is defined. One of the most visual changes is the idea of a "suitport". This involves attaching and sealing the rear of the spacesuit to the outside of the spacecraft. The astronaut then opens a hatch to climb into the spacesuit from the rear, seals himself in and detaches for a spacewalk. To return, he backs up to the hatch, reseals the suit to the outside and exits from the rear. This avoids the need for a complex airlock.NASA's new Z-2Another innovation is a back plate that resembles a plug-in computer circuit-board. This allows components to be slotted in and out, making it easier to repair and upgrade.Perhaps the biggest and most expensive change is a new portable life-support system to replace the current one that dates back to Apollo. The new system does away with canisters of lithium hydroxide used to absorb CO2 passively. These canisters have to be replaced when they are saturated. The new "rapid-cycle amine swing-bed" system uses two beds of absorbent material. It is also situated on the back of the space suit. While one bed absorbs CO2 and water vapour exhaled by the astronaut, the other is regenerated by exposing it to the vacuum of space, which causes it to vent the absorbed gases. The beds then switch roles. The new life-support system will allow much longer EVAs.Stepping out in a Russian-made Orlan spacesuitIn Russia, Zvezda has been designing space suits since 1959, when the Soviet Union started preparing for its first manned space flight. Next year it will update the chunky beige Orlan suit, which cosmonauts wear for EVAs at the International Space Station. The Orlan suit, a version of which is used by the Chinese, harks from the 1970s. As President Putin has vowed to launch a manned mission to the Moon, Zvezda could get the chance to give the Orlan a more comprehensive makeover.With competition growing in the space business, more innovative spacesuit designs are likely to emerge. The newcomers, like Orbital Outfitters, have bold ambitions to make suits with a flexibility of movement that NASA is only dreaming of. The American space agency says it places a premium on the "flight pedigree" of its own designs even though they may appear to be more conservative. SpaceX says that its spacesuit-design programme is at a too early stage for it to comment. And Dr Newman's BioSuit, as snazzy as it is, still needs more development before it can fly. Nevertheless, it might be a good time to become a spacesuit designer.Kepler Returns! Exoplanet Mission Makes New DiscoveriesIrene Klotz – Discovery NewsA year after being sidelined by a positioning system failure, NASA's planet-hunting Kepler space telescope is back at work on a new and expanded mission called K2.Astronomers confirm an additional 715 planets outside our solar system, and find water vapor in the atmosphere of a nearby planet! Join Trace as he discusses these findings, and what they mean for the future of space exploration.The telescope was launched in 2009 to find Earth-sized planets suitably positioned from their parent stars to support liquid water on their surfaces, a condition believed to be necessary for life. Analysis for a true Earth analog -- one that circles a sun-like star -- is still under way, but scientists already have added 974 confirmations and 3,846 candidates to the list of nearly 1,800 planets discovered beyond the solar system.The telescope works by capturing slight changes in the amount of light coming from about 150,000 target stars, some of which were caused by orbiting planets passing by, or transiting, relative to Kepler's line of sight.After four years of observations, the telescope lost the second of four gyroscope-like wheels, which are used to maintain the observatory's laser-like focus on its target stars. At least three wheels are needed to steady the spacecraft -- or so engineers thought.Telescope manufacturer Ball Aerospace came up with a plan to use two wheels and a combination of pressure from sunlight and tiny thruster burns to maintain orientation."After the loss of the second reaction wheel there were many doubters that we could do anything to repurpose the spacecraft," Kepler project scientist Steve Howell, said at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Boston this week.Any lingering doubts ended last week when Kepler completed a 5.5-week engineering test to check out its new pointing system."We drift about one pixel about every six hours and then we thruster fire and return to the same position. It's a very, very good pointing," astronomer Thomas Barclay, with NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., said at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Boston this week.In its first nine days of science observations, the K2 campaign already has turned up three more candidate planets, all around the size of Jupiter, circling relatively bright stars, Barclay said.To balance the telescope with pressure from sunlight, Kepler must be nearly parallel to its orbital path around the sun, which is slightly offset from the orbital plane of Earth. The so-called ecliptic plane -- the band of sky containing the constellations of the zodiac -– is Kepler's new hunting ground.Rather than continuously stare at a single patch of the sky for years, K2 science is limited to 80-day increments. That means it will no longer be able to search for Earth-sized worlds circling sun-like stars (which would transit only once a year), but it does open the search for planets around different kinds of stars."K2 can do some really high impact research ... stuff Kepler couldn't," Barclay said.Scientists are particularly interested in finding planets that bridge the gap between rocky worlds, like Earth and the inner planets of the solar system, and the gas giants, like Neptune, Jupiter and the outer planets. They also hope to find young stars with planets still incubating in protoplanetary disks and detect transits of planets still in the formation stages."It's a very exciting field for us," Howell said.NASA has approved a two-year K2 mission. The telescope is believed to have enough fuel for another year of operations beyond that.How Innovation Will Get U.S. to Mars 2020 (Op-Ed)Rod Pyle – Space.comRod Pyle is a space author and documentary producer. He led leadership training at NASA's Johnson Space Center for its top executives and has written extensively about space exploration and organizational principles. Pyle's latest book is "Innovation the NASA Way: Harnessing the Power of Your Organization for Breakthrough Success " (McGraw-Hill, 2014). He contributed this article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.Following the magnificent success of the complex sky crane system that delivered Curiosity to Mars in August 2012, and the rover's successes since then, NASA is working briskly on plans for another Curiosity-class Mars rover to visit the red planet, it is hoped, during the 2020 launch opportunity.Functionally, the 2020 rover is a virtual clone of Curiosity . It will even utilize the backup nuclear power source from Curiosity (one of the few left in the U.S. inventory). This results in over a billion dollars in estimated cost savings by reducing development costs. Yet, despite this reliance on current technology, engineers will need to innovate many new designs for this mission to be successful.First, there is the mission itself. Once the 2004 Mars Exploration Rovers (MERs) Spirit and Opportunity confirmed the evidence of a wet Mars in the distant past (tantalizing promises came from both from orbit and by Pathfinder in 1997), Curiosity's purpose was confirmed as an astrobiology mission. By this, NASA was not saying that it would search for life the way Viking did in the 1970s; rather, it would seek formerly habitable environments on and just under the Martian surface. The instruments carried onboard would be specifically accommodate that mission goal. From the ChemCam laser-firing spectrometer, to the SAM and Chemin onboard laboratories, to the Powder Acquisition Drill System, or PADS, drill, the entire rover was optimized for that task while still being capable of other research activities.With voluminous results flowing in from Curiosity's nearly two Earth-years on Mars, the lessons learned can be applied to the 2020 rover and its mission design. This new machine will serve two primary duties. First, it will continue to refine data on once-habitable environments and test for biosignatures — chemical signs of past life. Second, it will identify rocks and soils that look promising — and for selected sites it is planned to take core samples, then store these samples for possible later pickup by a sample-return mission, as yet to be determined (and not yet funded).Moving on to technological demands, it is this enhanced sample-gathering and caching capability that will be begging for innovation. The new rover will carry an updated drill and core-sampling mechanism, an evolved instrument package to identify and then analyze sample targets, and a caching mechanism in which up to 31 samples will be stored for eventual return to Earth by a subsequent lander, once (and if) approved.Perhaps not since the Viking program of the 1970s has optimism run so high for a Mars mission. For Viking, anticipation centered on basic on-board tests of soil samples in an attempt to find Earth-like microorganisms. For the 2020 rover, the optimism is fueled by possible detection of past (and possibly present) life forms. The return of cached samples is a much larger challenge, involving a landing, cache retrieval, liftoff and rendezvous with a spacecraft equipped to return the samples to Earth. Never has such an involved, multi-step mission been attempted, and though sample-caching is part of the 2020 mission, a return trip is not. As the JPL team members like to say, "Mars is hard."Perhaps even more challenging is finding the money to go there, and in the case of the sample-return, to come back.So what else is there to innovate for this new mission and its successor? Curiosity has simple, shallow-surface sample-gathering machinery, but robotic deep-drilling and especially core-extraction technologies are still in their infancy. Drilling a few inches of rock into powder and transporting a few grams of that up into a collection drum is one thing; extracting a core sample is much more challenging. Remember, whether mudstone or harder targets, these are rocks the rovers will be sampling. This will require incremental, but careful, innovations that can be designed, tested, tested again and deployed to work in a harsh and remote environment.Likewise the on-board analytical instrumentation will be a challenge. The Viking landers shrank a rudimentary life-science laboratory down to the size of a dishwasher. Fast-forward to Curiosity and you have machines that can test samples to a molecular level, even revealing atmospheric analysis and the isotopic numbers of gasses given off by the baking of rock samples. To search for true biosignatures in rock and soil samples will require even more finesse and technological acumen.The 2020 rover will rely heavily on Curiosity's successful platform in terms of overall design and function. The differences will be mostly in the above-mentioned areas — instrumentation and sampling improvements. But a subsequent landing mission — to return with Martian soil samples — would require a new overall design and another major overhaul of the landing system. Pathfinder and the MER rovers used airbags to bounce to a landing, scrubbing off energy as they did so. Curiosity used (and the 2020 rover will use) guided entry and the sky-crane system, the amazing rocket pack and rappelling device that worked so well in 2012. This change was dictated by the mass of the lander and a continuing desire for improved precision in the landings. A sample-return mission, which would by design be intended to seek out the cache of samples left by the 2020 rover, will likely be heavier still, and a new landing system will be required. That system may be derivative of Curiosity's, but this is currently under study. Much of the engineering team from Curiosity was moved to the 2020 mission, and some were sent off to study new and alternative landing technologies. This might entail a collapsible landing stage, which is crushed during touchdown, absorbing much of the energy. Or it might utilize something involving larger rockets in different a configuration. Or it could be a not-yet-conceived system as outrageous as the sky crane seemed when the world first laid eyes upon it back in the early 2000s.New and innovative guidance techniques are also under development, based on experience from Curiosity. That spacecraft was guided to its narrow landing corridor by inertial guidance coupled with ranging radar. Put simply, it knew its exact location relative to Mars when it encountered the atmosphere, and then calculated the navigational adjustments to reach the assigned spot at Gale Crater. Velocity and atmospheric measurements from the outer hull refined this glide path. It was a remarkable bit of computation.The Mars 2020 mission will reduce the size of the landing zone — or "landing ellipse," in the parlance — down to about 4 miles by 7 miles, smaller than even Curiosity's by half. Two promising technologies are being studied. The first, called range trigger, releases the parachute only after measuring the distance to the surface and factoring in other variables such as wind speed and air density (previous landers did this by measuring velocity). The second, terrain relative navigation, combines measurements of the bearing of known landmarks with other onboard measurements to further refine landing accuracy. These and other technologies will help to guide the 2020 rover to its prime landing site, and subsequent sample-return missions, if any, to the sample cache the 2020 rover prepares.At the end of this pathway lies, of course, the goal of human exploration of Mars. Unless some other target becomes so enticing as to replace it, Mars remains the Holy Grail of human spaceflight. Components of Curiosity's mission, specifically the radiation detection instrument, are critical tools for continuing to develop a realistic mission plan for reaching the red planet. The 2020 rover will return even more data critical to human survival en-route to, and on, Mars. It may also test in-situ resource utilization strategies, depending on the final instrument and experiment selections. Of course, a sample return would provide a bounty of information about how the surface environment can be utilized and made safe for human explorers.But this is all far in the future. Robotic exploration must precede any crewed missions. And with ever-tightening budgets and competing priorities, the Mars exploration program must remain clever, nimble and innovative to stay on course. Whatever the new designs may entail, you can be sure that the designers, researchers and engineers at JPL will come up with new, and very likely, startling methods to cope with the challenges of continued exploration of the red planet. The spirit of innovation, both in incremental and disruptive terms, is alive and well as we prepare to head off, once again, to rove Mars.Testing begins on a new instrument to be added to NASA's flying observatoryBritt Rawcliffe -Spaceflight InsiderNASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) is getting outfitted with a new instrument which is set to provide astronomers and scientists with observations only possible from the sky. The high-resolution, mid-infrared spectrograph, called the Echelon-Cross-Echelle Spectrograph (EXES), began testing on the nights of April 7 and 9, according to Matthew Richter, leader of the team that is developing the instrument at the University of California, Davis, Physics Department.Separating wavelengths of light to a precision of one part in 100,000, EXES' 130 mirrors will be splitting light from SOFIA's telescope into a rainbow of infrared light. The core is made up an echelon grating, which is a 3-foot (1 meter) bar of aluminum, providing a unique angle to space observations made within earth's atmosphere."The combination of EXES's high spectral resolution and SOFIA's access to infrared radiation from space provides an unprecedented ability to study celestial objects at wavelengths unavailable from ground-based telescopes," said Pamela Marcum, a program scientist at the SOFIA Science Center and Program Office in Moffett Field, California. "EXES on SOFIA will provide data that cannot be obtained by any other astronomical facility on the ground or in space, including all past, present or those observatories now under development."The heavily modified Boeing 747 is a joint venture between NASA and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and has the perfect advantage over both land and space based telescopes such as the Hubble and Spitzer. SOFIA's international reach allows it to observe different parts of the night sky while being able to rotate our instruments and equipment. Flying between 39,000 and 45,000 feet (12-14 kilometers), the airborne telescope has the advantage, being above 99% of the water vapor in the atmosphere that distorts telescope imagery, NASA reported.Even though the EXES instrument has only flown aboard the aircraft twice thus far, its observations seem to provide a glimpse into the lasting value of having the spectrograph on board.According to NASA, on its maiden flight aboard SOFIA on April 7, EXES observed emissions from Jupiter's atmosphere in two molecular hydrogen lines. On its second flight, the spectrograph observed a massive young star within the constellation Cygnus, still embedded din its natal cocoon. Dubbed AFGL 2591, the star was easily seen by EXES due to an infrared background glow which was caused by the star warming the surrounding dust.The SOFIA Science Center stated that: Many objects in space emit almost all their energy at infrared wavelengths. Often, they are invisible when observed in ordinary visible light. In other cases, clouds of gas and dust in space block the light emitted by more distant objects, but allow infrared energy to reach our telescopes. In both cases, the only way to learn about other objects is to study the infrared light they emit.Presently in development are the seven first light instruments, five US-made and two German. The instruments — cameras, spectrometers, and photometer — operate in the near-, mid- and far-infrared wavelengths, some better suited to studying a particular phenomena, while others are general purpose but capable of acquiring data simultaneously with another instrument.SOFIA was poised to be cancelled under the White House's FY 2015 Budget Proposal. Many of NASA's planetary and science initiatives have seen their budgets cut in the past half decade."Of the observations obtained during the instrument's first flights, only one can be done from the ground, albeit with some difficulty, and the others are impossible from even the best ground-based telescope sites because the water in Earth's atmosphere is opaque at these wavelengths," Richter said. "While space observatories are above Earth's atmosphere, the massive optical equipment required to separate the light as finely as EXES does – EXES weighs almost 1,000 pounds – would be a challenge to launch into space. In these observations, the spectral features we are studying are narrow, and finely dividing the infrared spectrum to detect them is exactly what EXES was designed to do."Civilian Drone Use in U.S. Seen Hitting BarriersAlan Levin – BloombergThe U.S. aviation system is unprepared for the proliferation of civilian drone flights and how they would function amid piloted planes, according to a panel of scientific advisers to the government.There are "serious unanswered questions" about the safety and reliability of unmanned aircraft, the National Academy of Sciences team said in a report today. It raises doubts about whether the Federal Aviation Administration can meet a congressional deadline to begin integrating drones into the airways by 2015.Drones, ranging from small quad-copters sold in hobby shops to remote-controlled crop-dusters, are on the verge of creating revolutionary changes in aviation, according to the study. While the robotic machines offer great potential, "maintaining or improving the safety and efficiency of the nation's civil aviation system, will be no easy matter," the panel said."It won't be, poof, magic happens, and all of a sudden in 2015 everybody can fly any autonomous aircraft anywhere in the system," John-Paul Clarke, co-chairman of the panel, said in an interview.The FAA only allows government, academic and manufacturer-test flights of drones under a special approval process. That hasn't stopped a proliferation of flights, including by surf photographers, Hollywood directors and real-estate agents that is testing the agency's ability to police the skies.Research NeededA proposed regulation allowing small unmanned aircraft weighing less than 55 pounds (25 kilograms) to be flown commercially is due from the FAA by the end of this year.The National Academy of Sciences study, requested by NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, called on the FAA and other agencies to begin a research program to study the new technologies and develop techniques for overseeing them.Much of that research is already in the process of beginning, Melanie Hinton, a spokeswoman for the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, an Arlington, Virginia-based trade group, said in an e-mail."We fully agree with the report's recommendation that all stakeholders work together to perform this necessary research, and look forward to continuing our work as a part of it,"Hinton said.Gradual IntroductionThe group has forecast the unmanned aircraft industry will create 100,000 new jobs and $82 billion in economic impact in the decade after the FAA allows drones to fly among traditional aircraft.The conclusions today by the 17-member panel of academics and industry officials sound a cautionary note as the U.S. develops a new framework for how to regulate the new industry."Early adapters sometimes get caught up in the excitement of the moment, producing a form of intellectual hyperinflation that greatly exaggerates the promise of things to come and greatly underestimates costs in terms of money, time, and -- in many cases -- unintended consequences," the scientists wrote.In order to prevent that from occurring, there must be a gradual adoption of the new technology, Clarke, who is an aerospace engineering professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, said."It has to be a phased approach where the regulatory agency and the operators need to work together to introduce a little, prove a little and introduce a little more," he said.Shooting MoviesFAA Administrator Michael Huerta told a Senate hearing on Jan. 15 that his agency is taking a "measured" approach to integrating drones into the aviation system. Technical capabilities of the devices don't meet the agency's requirements, Huerta said.The FAA is for the first time considering requests for commercial use of unmanned aircraft. Seven movie and TV production companies petitioned the agency for permission to use drones for photography, the agency announced June 2.Increased use of drones faces "many substantial barriers," according to today's report. They include technology that isn't yet mature, a regulatory system unprepared to oversee drones and political questions about privacy and other social issues.For example, adding large numbers of radio-controlled drones may overwhelm the bandwidth limitations of the airwaves, the panel said in the report.Precipitous ImpactsDrones using increasingly complex software and connected to ground-based computers raise new questions about hacking and cybersecurity, the panel said.Unmanned technology will eventually become more autonomous, with on-board computers instead of humans choosing flight paths and sensing obstructions, according to the report. The current aviation system doesn't have the ability to determine if such technology is reliable and safe, it concluded.It also isn't clear how the sometimes fragile aviation system, which is prone to delays when threatened by bad weather or too much traffic, will function with drones.Unmanned aircraft will add complexity to the airways, which may "in certain circumstances, cause the performance of the entire system to degrade precipitously," the panel said.Ensuring the safety and efficiency of the system demands new research programs to give the FAA the data it needs to regulate the industry, according to the report.The key goal in the research is to ensure drones "will enhance rather than diminish the safety and reliability" of the U.S. flight system, it said.The FAA last year approved six drone test sites and on May 27 said it would establish a center of excellence to study the issue.Spaceport hopesHouston ChronicleWith America's manned space program adrift after the end of the shuttle era and dependent on Russian craft at more than $70 million a seat for access to the International Space Station, the future status of Houston as Space City USA is increasingly in doubt.With flight assignments for astronauts far fewer and U.S. deep space missions unlikely for years, the spotlight has shifted from the Johnson Space Center to private rocket developers.A bit of good news from the Federal Aviation Administration last week offers the possibility that rockets could be propelling commercial payloads and perhaps people into orbit in a few years from a new spaceport to be built near Brownsville on the Texas coast. California-based SpaceX, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, currently launches supplies in its unmanned Dragon craft to the ISS under a contract with NASA and is building a version of the vehicle capable of transporting a crew of up to seven to and from orbit.In the latest development, the FAA issued an environmental impact study approving the construction of a spaceport on an eight-acre site at Boca Chica Beach. It found that the planned facility with up to a dozen launches a year would not cause environmental damage and "is consistent with existing national environmental policies and objectives."While SpaceX has not officially selected the Texas site, there are apparently no other finalists, and Musk had previously indicated that all that stands between Texas and a gateway to orbit was federal approval.According to the FAA report, SpaceX identified South Texas as the only viable location for its future spaceport.The commercial exploitation of space is expected to be a landmark economic development of the mid-21st century. With our rich history as a center of manned spaceflight development, it would only be fitting for Texas to be in on the ground floor.END
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