Happy Hot and Humid Monday everyone. Stay safe.
| | JSC TODAY CATEGORIES - Headlines
- NASA TV Covers Russian Spacewalk Today
- Did You Miss the All Hands? Catch the Replays
- Now Showing - Tech Opportunity Video on RoboGlove - Organizations/Social
- State of the Center with Dr. Ellen Ochoa
- NSBE Visions for Human Spaceflight Brown Bag
- August INCOSE Meeting - Settlement Design Comp.
- Weight Watchers at Work Open House Today
- One More Week to Order EFT-1 Shirts and Hats
- Save the Date: Book Signing with Public Access - Jobs and Training
- Human Systems Academy Lecture
- Job Opportunities
- Bone and Mineral Scientist/Researcher |  |
| Headlines - NASA TV Covers Russian Spacewalk Today
Two Russian cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station will venture outside the orbiting outpost today, Aug. 18, for a six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk—the 181st in support of space station assembly and maintenance. NASA TV coverage will begin at 8:30 a.m. CDT. Expedition 40 Flight Engineers Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev of the Russian Federal Space Agency will exit the Pirs docking compartment airlock about 9 a.m. to deploy a small Peruvian science satellite and install and retrieve science experiments on the exterior of Russian station modules. This will be the second spacewalk for both cosmonauts. Skvortsov will be designated as extravehicular (EV) crew member 1 and will wear the Orlan suit bearing red stripes. Artemyev will be designated as extravehicular EV-2 and will wear a suit with blue stripes. First-time users will need to install the EZTV Monitor and Player client applications: - For those WITH admin rights (Elevated Privileges), you'll be prompted to download and install the clients when you first visit the IPTV website
- For those WITHOUT admin rights (Elevated Privileges), you can download the EZTV client applications from the ACES Software Refresh Portal (SRP)
If you are having problems viewing the video using these systems, contact the Information Resources Directorate Customer Support Center at x46367 or visit the FAQ site. Event Date: Monday, August 18, 2014 Event Start Time:8:30 AM Event End Time:3:30 PM
Event Location: NASA TV
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JSC External Relations, Office of Communications and Public Affairs x35111 http://www.nasa.gov/station
[top] - Did You Miss the All Hands? Catch the Replays
If you missed the Aug. 13 All Hands with JSC Director Ellen Ochoa, you still have opportunities to watch it on Tuesday, Aug. 19, and Thursday, Aug. 21, at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. those days. JSC team members can view the all-hands meeting on JSC cable TV channel 2 (analog), channel 51-2 (digital high definition) or Omni 45. JSC, Ellington Field, Sonny Carter Training Facility and White Sands Test Facility employees with wired computer network connections can view the event using the JSC EZTV IP Network TV System on channel 402 (standard definition). Please note: EZTV currently requires using Internet Explorer on a Windows PC connected to the JSC computer network with a wired connection. Mobile devices, Wi-Fi connections and newer MAC computers are currently not supported by EZTV. If you are having problems viewing the video using these systems, contact the Information Resources Directorate Customer Support Center at x46367. JSC External Relations, Office of Communications and Public Affairs x35111
[top] - Now Showing - Tech Opportunity Video on RoboGlove
A new NASA video is available for your viewing pleasure. The RoboGlove Technology Opportunity Video has been uploaded to the NASA Reel YouTube channel. Here is the link to the video. Please share it with your friends and family. This is just one example of the great technology at work here at JSC! Organizations/Social - State of the Center with Dr. Ellen Ochoa
Date: Aug. 26 Time: 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. (Lunch) Location: Gilruth Center Alamo Ballroom Speaker: Dr. Ellen Ochoa Please come out and support the JSC National Management Association (NMA) and hear our own JSC Director Dr. Ellen Ochoa as we kick off 2015-2016. Cost for members: FREE Cost for non-members: $20 Menu Selections: - Pan-seared rosemary chicken breast with herb jus, wild rice and whole green beans with sautéed onions. Includes side salad.
- Seared salmon salad over mixed greens with grape tomato bruschetta, spiced candied walnuts, goat cheese fritter and balsamic vinaigrette.
- Roasted eggplant stack with sautéed spinach, yellow squash, roasted red pepper and onion, mozzarella cheese and red pepper coulis.
Desserts: Assorted mini cheese cakes Event Date: Tuesday, August 26, 2014 Event Start Time:11:30 AM Event End Time:1:00 PM
Event Location: Gilruth - Alamo Ballroom
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Leslie N. Smith x46752
[top] - NSBE Visions for Human Spaceflight Brown Bag
The National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) Houston Space Professionals invites members of the JSC community, with a special invitation to all Employee Resource Groups, to join us for our August Visions for Human Space Flight Brown Bag tomorrow, Aug. 19, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Building 1, Conference Room 360. This series is essentially an open discussion/review of NSBE's Unlimited Horizons white paper, with each month devoted to review of a different section of the paper. Last month's brown bag reviewed the introduction and asteroid mission and acquisition-strategy rationales. This month we will cover pages 11 through 26, rationales for the lunar surface, Phobos, Deimos and Mars surface missions. NSBE is introducing this brown-bag series as a JSC 2.0 effort to stimulate independent and innovative discussion on topics of importance to the future of the agency and center. You are encouraged to download a copy of the paper. - August INCOSE Meeting - Settlement Design Comp.
The Texas Gulf Coast Chapter of INCOSE presents Anita Gale in a discussion on the annual International Space Settlement Design Competition. The competition challenges teams to start with broadly defined desires of stakeholders, translate them to requirements and generate a conceptual design solution. This year's scenario was for a settlement on the highlands of the lunar far side. Several corporate CEOs will also provide an overview of the interesting and creative approaches offered by the teams at this year's competition and their perspectives on the competition. Gale is the co-founder of the competition and a veteran of the Space Shuttle Program with more than 40 years of experience in the aerospace business. Join us on Thursday, Aug. 21, at Jacobs Technology (2224 Bay Area Blvd. at Space Center). Refreshments will be served, so please RSVP via email. Networking/social starts at 5:30 p.m., and the presentation will begin around 6 p.m. Event Date: Thursday, August 21, 2014 Event Start Time:5:30 PM Event End Time:8:00 PM
Event Location: Jacobs Technology 2224 Bay Area Blvd
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Ben Edwards 828-371-0018
[top] - Weight Watchers at Work Open House Today
If you want to learn more about Weight Watchers at Work, TODAY is the day! JSC Weight Watchers at Work will have an Open House meeting from noon to 1 p.m. (time change). This meeting will provide information and registration for the next session, which begins later this month. In addition, meet our new leader Tracy McRee, hear about local success stories and see a demo of the Weight Watchers ActiveLink. Weekly meetings will be Mondays during lunchtime. We have our meetings in Building 12, a central location that is close to the café. We need 15 active participants to continue having at-work meetings here on-site, so if you've been thinking about joining, now is a great time. Event Date: Monday, August 18, 2014 Event Start Time:12:00 PM Event End Time:1:00 PM
Event Location: Bldg 12, Rooms 148/150
Add to Calendar
Julie Kliesing x31540
[top] - One More Week to Order EFT-1 Shirts and Hats
Starport is offering an Orion Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) T-shirt and cap to all NASA and contractor employees for a special price of just $11 for the hat and $7 for shirts sizes youth medium to adult XL or $8 for shirts sizes 2X to 4X. Order online and select TX-JSC-Starport as your delivery option to pick up your shirts at Starport. Distribution dates and locations to be announced at a later date. Or, have the them shipped to your home for an additional fee. The deadline to order is Aug. 24. Wear your shirt any Friday through Jan. 31 to receive a 10 percent discount on store merchandise (standard exclusions apply). Order yours today to "Get on board" and show your support for Orion's EFT-1, the "First step to deep space." - Save the Date: Book Signing with Public Access
Astronaut Jerry Ross has written a children's version of his autobiography designed for ages 7 through 12 titled "Becoming a Spacewalker: My Journey to the Stars." As the story unfolds and readers begin to make personal connections with Ross, his approach to problem solving and working through setbacks provides a powerful example for children. Books must be purchased at ShopNASA/Starport for autographs. Preorder your copies of "Becoming a Spacewalker, My Journey to the Stars" and "Spacewalker, My Journey in Space and Faith as NASA's Record Setting Frequent Flyer" today in the Buildings 3 or 11 Starport Gift Shops or order online. Books Signings: Nov. 18 and 19 - Buildings 3 and 11 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Nov. 18 - Gilruth Center from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Open to the public. Jobs and Training - Human Systems Academy Lecture
Join tomorrow's Human Systems Academy lecture on Space, Medicine, Terrestrial Applications for Wellness, Human Performance and Longevity. We will be discussing the role of genetics, environment, nutrition, fitness and psychological well-being in medicine, as well as explain how space medicine pre-flight screening, in-flight countermeasures and post-flight longitudinal occupational surveillance programs contribute to astronaut and cosmonaut health. Learn how to apply these preventive and occupational space medicine principles, programs and technologies to terrestrial health, human performance and longevity. - Job Opportunities
Where do I find job opportunities? To help you navigate to JSC vacancies, use the filter drop-down menu and select "JSC HR." The "Jobs" link will direct you to the USAJOBS website for the complete announcement and the ability to apply online. Lateral reassignment and rotation opportunities are posted in the Workforce Transition Tool. To access: HR Portal > Employees > Workforce Transition > Workforce Transition Tool. These opportunities do not possess known promotion potential; therefore, employees can only see positions at or below their current grade level. If you have questions about any JSC job vacancies or reassignment opportunities, please call your HR representative. - Bone and Mineral Scientist/Researcher
The incumbent serves as a bone researcher and provides advanced science support with the Bone and Mineral Laboratory (BML) in the Biomedical Sciences Branch (SK3) of the Biomedical Research & Environmental Sciences Division (SK). The work involves science support to the BML, management of funded investigations in the Bone Research Portfolio of the Human Health Countermeasures (HHC) element of the Human Research Program (HRP) and supports the HRP Bone Discipline Lead. The work involves recommendations and directing of investigations, which elaborate how changes in bone mineral density (BMD measured by DXA technology) relate to the mechanical strength of the whole bone and to the fracture risk in the human. This position is a GS 13/14. For additional information, see Job Tools, opportunity #72BON-0724-1459, or contact Honglu Wu at x36470. | |
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| JSC Today is compiled periodically as a service to JSC employees on an as-submitted basis. Any JSC organization or employee may submit articles. Disclaimer: Accuracy and content of these notes are the responsibility of the submitters. |
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NASA and Human Spaceflight News
Monday – August 18, 2014
HEADLINES AND LEADS
ISS crew members to take spacewalk Monday, launch Russo-Peruvian nanosatellite
ITAR-TASS
Oleg Artemyev and Aleksandr Skvortsov, flight engineers of the International Space Station (ISS) crew, will take a spacewalk on Monday and launch a Russo-Peruvian nanosatellite, the Chasqui-1, an official at the Flight Control Center (FCC) outside Moscow told Itar-Tass.
Space Flight: Increasingly, Gifted Individuals are Opting for the Private Sector Over NASA
Susan Du – Houston Press
Amy Hoffman doesn't realize she's tapping her boots underneath the table at Boondoggles, where she's having a last lunch with Clear Lake friends before skipping town. The boots are baby-blue Cavenders, ankle high and definitely out of season because it's the first week of July and her friends are sweating in T-shirts, cargo shorts and sandals. Hoffman is deep in conversation about her imminent move from her native Texas, the scramble to stake an apartment in a market riddled with scams and listings that don't even include refrigerators.
NASA Nears Multibillion-Dollar Decision on Commercial Space Taxis
Alan Boyle – NBC News
Private space companies are chomping at the bit for a new race to the stars. Now all they need is the money.
Astronaut Reid Wiseman Can Answer Your Question From Space!
Mary Bubala - WJZ -TV
He's a sensation on social media with more than 210,000 followers on Twitter alone. Baltimore County native and International Space Station astronaut Reid Wiseman has been sharing amazing pictures of the earth with his followers–and now he could answer your questions from space!
NASA to study astronauts' CV health
Shirley Pulawski - Healio
NASA is conducting a 5-year study to determine how oxidative stress and inflammation triggered by space flight affect the CV health of astronauts.
Tiny Israeli 'Martian' camera powers NASA repair robot\
As in the movies, a vision system that can move in any direction will peer around, under, and into space equipment
David Shamah – Times Of Israel
NASA has adopted Israeli "Martian"-style technology for a robot to inspect equipment in deep space. The Visual Inspection Poseable Invertebrate Robot, or VIPIR, is an articulating borescope tool designed to deliver near and midrange inspection capabilities in space to enable repairs of equipment using robots on unmanned spaceships — and a tiny camera from Israeli medical device company Medigus will be giving VIPIR its power of vision, allowing technicians on Earth to get a close-up look at equipment.
Retired Gulf Breeze pilot almost explored space
Rob Johnson - Pensacola (FL) News Journal
Retired Air Force test pilot Dave Kessler, a Gulf Breeze resident, yearned to be an astronaut and land on the moon, but the closest he got to that goal was helping select others for space adventures.
David Kessler watched the Apollo 11 lunar landing 45 years ago this summer as an Air Force test pilot who dreamed of becoming an astronaut.
ANALYSIS: Meteor shower-tracking ISS camera to focus on threats in orbit
Dan Thisdell – Flight Global
The International Space Station is to be fitted with a camera dedicated to tracking meteor showers, in a bid to better understand these spectacular events.
CCtCap: NASA won't abandon Commercial Crew loser
As NASA closes in on the next major milestone of its Commercial Crew Program (CCP), the Agency has noted its desire to continue the "sharing of knowledge" with any partner that loses out on continued NASA funding. The first NASA crew to ride on a US commercial vehicle is expected to occur in December, 2017 – a date that continues to be challenged by funding uncertainties.
Dentons creates 'space law' group
Catherine Ho – The Washington Post
International law firm Dentons has created a practice group focused on representing companies that manufacture, operate and invest in satellites, as it eyes potential in the fast-growing commercial space industry.
COMPLETE STORIES
ISS crew members to take spacewalk Monday, launch Russo-Peruvian nanosatellite
ITAR-TASS
Oleg Artemyev and Aleksandr Skvortsov, flight engineers of the International Space Station (ISS) crew, will take a spacewalk on Monday and launch a Russo-Peruvian nanosatellite, the Chasqui-1, an official at the Flight Control Center (FCC) outside Moscow told Itar-Tass.
The FCC official specified, "According to preliminary data, the opening of an egress hatch is scheduled for 17:59, Moscow time, and closing is slated for 00:15 on August 19. The calculated duration of the spacewalk is six hours and 16 minutes".
This time the ISS crew members' extravehicular activities will be of scientific directedness, the FCC official said. Artemyev and Skvortsov will assemble scientific instrumentation of equipment for the Expose-R experiment, take a swab from a porthole under the Test experiment, remove panels of the Endurance experiment and the third container of Biorisk one, and photograph the shield vacuum insulation on the surface of the orbital station. The cosmonauts will carry out a number of other technical operations as well.
Artemyev is to launch the Russo-Peruvian nanosatellite Chasqui-1. The cosmonaut told a pre-flight news conference that the process of launching the satellite by hand had been thoroughly tried out on the ground. "The operation is simple enough: when we egress into the open space, Aleksandr will hand the satellite over to me and I shall let it float," Artemyev related.
"Chasqui" means " messenger" in the language of Peruvian Indians. The spacecraft, developed by the students of the (Russian) city of Kursk and Peru over a period of three years, is 10 by 10 cm in dimension and weighs one kilogramme. Various information has been threaded into the satellite's memory. It includes children's drawings which, as a message to extraterrestrial civilisations, will be broadcast into the open space.
The launch of the satellite will be tracked from the ground. A special antenna will be receiving telemetric data fed into the memory of the Chasqui-1. The satellite will be monitored daily in four sessions a day for six months.
The rest of the ISS crew Russian cosmonaut Maksim Surayev, NASA astronauts Steve Swanson, Gregory Wiseman, and European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst will be ensuring the safety of their crew mates from board the station.
Space Flight: Increasingly, Gifted Individuals are Opting for the Private Sector Over NASA
Susan Du – Houston Press
Amy Hoffman doesn't realize she's tapping her boots underneath the table at Boondoggles, where she's having a last lunch with Clear Lake friends before skipping town. The boots are baby-blue Cavenders, ankle high and definitely out of season because it's the first week of July and her friends are sweating in T-shirts, cargo shorts and sandals. Hoffman is deep in conversation about her imminent move from her native Texas, the scramble to stake an apartment in a market riddled with scams and listings that don't even include refrigerators.
Hoffman (not her real name) grew up in Austin and spent the past three years working in Houston, where Boondoggles, with its spacious seating and encyclopedic beer selection, became a regular hangout for her engineering clique. She always ran into coworkers there after hours -- astronauts, too, on occasion. Hoffman recounts over pizza chips how those sightings invariably cause her to geek out intensely, yet internally. She's always tempted to corner an astronaut and say hi, but she gets how creepy that would be. A friend who has dropped by to see her off tells her she's going to be missed.
As a NASA engineering co-op student at Johnson Space Center, Hoffman trained in various divisions of the federal space agency to sign on eventually as a civil servant. She graduated from college this year after receiving a generous offer from NASA, doubly prestigious considering the substantial reductions in force hitting Johnson Space Center in recent months. She did have every intention of joining that force -- had actually accepted the offer, in fact -- when she received an invitation to visit a friend at his new job with rising commercial launch company SpaceX.
Hoffman took him up on the offer, flying out to Los Angeles in the spring for a private tour. Driving up to the SpaceX headquarters, she was struck by how unassuming it was, how small compared to NASA, how plain on the outside and rather like a warehouse.
As she walked through the complex, she was also surprised to find open work areas where NASA would have had endless hallways, offices and desks. Hoffman described SpaceX as resembling a giant workshop, a hive of activity in which employees stood working on nitty-gritty mechanical and electrical engineering. Everything in the shop was bound for space or was related to space. No one sat around talking to friends in the morning, "another level from what you see at NASA," she said. "They're very purpose-driven. It looked like every project was getting the attention it deserved."
Seeing SpaceX in production forced Hoffman to acknowledge NASA might not be the best fit for her. The tour reminded her of the many mentors who had gone into the commercial sector of the space industry in search of better pay and more say in the direction their employers take. She thought back to the attrition she saw firsthand at Johnson Space Center and how understaffed divisions struggled to maintain operations.
From 1993 to July of this year, the number of NASA civil servants declined by more than 8,000. In contrast, SpaceX has been on the rise since it was founded in 2002, now numbering upwards of 3,000 employees and rivaling private industry newcomer Sierra Nevada Corporation. Publicly held aerospace manufacturer Boeing claims more than 56,000 in its defense, space and security group. Although NASA remains to date the only American agency to have sent humans to space, those three companies are competing for crew contracts from NASA. SpaceX and Virginia-based Orbital Sciences have previously launched cargo.
Most impressive of all, Hoffman saw SpaceX engineers working on their own projects -- not a novel concept. But it brought her back to her days as a NASA co-op when she had to drop her arduously designed blueprints off at the shop and wait for contractors to slap her baby together. Often shop workers had long lists of orders to fill, leaving her to twiddle her thumbs or work on less urgent projects when she'd rather be at the mill herself.
At NASA, getting orders back from the shop didn't mean she was guaranteed to see her projects fly. Due to funding constraints, NASA projects are constantly shelved or canceled altogether. Hoffman felt this most acutely as a student because the co-op program allowed her only a limited amount of time at various branches. In order to complete a project, she had to abide by a strict timeline.
In Hoffman's three years at NASA, she worked on only one or two projects that would ever see space, which she considers a very poor rate. Most of her efforts were spent on potential prototypes or preliminary research for future projects, leaving her to ask, "Well, I guess I kinda sorta contributed?"
A Johnson Space Center spokeswoman declined to comment on how project cancellation affects workforce morale. NASA headquarters spokeswoman Sonja Alexander said NASA civil servants tend to stay with the agency until retirement, and talent retention is no issue.
"Space exploration is a tri-sector enterprise between government, academia and the commercial sector," she wrote in a statement. "No one sector can do it alone. We encourage flow of people, money and projects between these sectors. Collaboration has been the NASA business model since the agency was created."
SpaceX inspired Hoffman to reimagine a career with opportunities to work on her engineering projects even if the technicians were busy and not have it considered diverting work from contract labor. If she chose to work long hours at a commercial company, she wouldn't be "punished for being an overachiever." If she spent months on a project, she could be assured it would get launched into space.
For Hoffman, having her projects go unfinished at NASA may have been the personal foul that tipped her toward private industry, but she also suspected her own engineering frustrations were only the surface byproduct of more institutionalized problems. NASA's financial insecurity, its lack of administrative direction and its bureaucracy had worn on her confidence in its future.
Because she joined the space industry aiming to realize a personal goal of one day vacationing in space, Hoffman is looking to forward-thinking companies with the same idea of revolutionizing commercial spaceflight. Las Vegas startup Bigelow Aerospace is a company with serious plans to develop "crewed space complexes," essentially orbiting space hotels. Hoffman believes space tourism will eventually become reality after commercial launch companies take over missions from NASA.
So with the academic pedigree and skill set to keep her in indefinite demand, Hoffman gritted her teeth and stepped away from an agency traditionally viewed as the dream destination for the nation's most promising young engineers to take a job with a private company.
She's not alone in her decision. Increasingly, civil servants are leaving for the money in oil and gas. Subcontractors are breaking away to seek job prospects at more entrepreneurial, less bureaucratic companies. And career services reps at top universities are encouraging their engineering students to weigh a complex host of questions while searching for jobs in the space industry -- including whether they should expect to actually practice what they've learned in school.
Former NASA flight controller Jehon Leonce, 29, let oil and gas entice him away with a project manager offer he couldn't refuse. He summarized NASA's struggle to inspire young engineers as "an uphill battle" considering the federal agency's track record of major cancellations, such as the retirement of the space shuttle program in 2011. He said NASA's current focus on Orion, a craft designed to explore deep space, is well intentioned but still risky. Orion was itself scavenged out of the moon exploration program Constellation, which was canceled in 2010.
"There's not much of a short-term vision," Leonce said. "[Private companies] launch missions, and people are attracted to that. With NASA, until the new vehicle they're working on comes online, honestly speaking, it's kind of boring.
As the government encourages commercial space companies to take on responsibilities that were once strictly NASA's, young people entering the workforce are finding that their employment options have broadened.
"Students have certainly in the last few years gotten more interested in companies like SpaceX. SpaceX certainly has some dynamic leadership, so that catches students' attention," said Michael Powell of the University of Texas at Austin's Cockrell School of Engineering. Cockrell is known in the academic world for its consistent co-op program with NASA, the federal agency's main recruiting tool. According to Powell, the school provides three to five co-ops a class, and most have traditionally signed on with NASA as full-time hires. Still others are drawn to commercial companies, start-ups especially, for more responsibility earlier in their careers. "Even students who wind up accepting a job with a private company could still technically live the dream of working with NASA on a NASA project [as contractors]," he said.
Organizations that are speculative and researched-based will consistently attract risk-taking students, Powell added. Commercial companies appeal to those looking for more tangible results. Nicole Van Den Heuvel of Rice University's career development center believes the surge of talent toward private industry is generally telling of how the younger generation thinks.
"It's leaner. There are more opportunities for quicker growth in companies that are more entrepreneurial," Van Den Heuvel said. "[NASA] is a government entity, a fantastic organization, but with that comes a lot of bureaucracy and layers."
Going back to 2009, Van Den Heuvel said, only a handful of Rice engineering students have accepted full-time positions with NASA. That is due in part to the fact that Rice doesn't have a culture of co-op programs, having decided it's too difficult for students to graduate in four years when they're taking time away from school to work for entire semesters. Engineering students who enroll with the specific intention of finding astronautics jobs are determined to do so out of love for the idea of space, Van Den Heuvel said. They're going to find work regardless, typically at commercial companies where they can have more control over their own projects.
NASA projects undergo extensive development from start to finish before they can be delivered to the International Space Station. There are endless design iterations and tests, the building of software and hardware and certification.
Cancellation somewhere along that ladder is common enough that it has earned the moniker "the valiant death," according to University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering's Dr. Bonnie Dunbar, a former NASA contractor turned civil servant and astronaut.
A weight-compressing project particularly dear to Hoffman abruptly ran out of funding in the middle of her co-op program. Another to which she contributed for a short time, the Multi-Mission Space Exploration Vehicle, is a rover astronauts could eventually drive on asteroid missions, provided its budget holds out. Work on MMSEV has repeatedly stalled and resumed throughout the past decade in conjunction with fiscal cycles, Hoffman said.
Dunbar explained the valiant death as not an engineering problem but a funding one. If work on a project stops after a single mishap, she said, that should be a wake-up call to Congress that NASA needs more dollars.
At SpaceX, funding comes from a mix of commercial and government clients, including a $1.6 billion NASA cargo delivery contract and another $440 million in seed money from the agency to develop life-support systems for crew missions. As a private commercial company, "When we sign that contract, that's when we get paid," SpaceX spokesman John Taylor said.
According to a study by consulting firm Dittmar Associates, the average American taxpayer thinks NASA receives nearly a quarter of the federal budget. In reality, the agency gets less than 0.5 percent. During the 1960s, when funding for NASA was about 4.4 percent of federal spending, it delivered the moon landing and kickstarted the international computer industry, raking in ten times the cost of space programs in returns. Yet in the post-space-race new millennium, NASA's budget has become increasingly difficult to defend in Washington. Its public-relations message of hope, discovery and pushing the boundaries of human potential into the final frontier isn't hitting home for politicians.
In 2011, the space shuttle program officially ended under President Barack Obama owing to costs and safety concerns. Instead, Obama urged Congress to task commercial launch companies like SpaceX, Boeing and Sierra Nevada with transporting crew and cargo to the International Space Station. The transition hasn't been without bumps.
In March 2013, former Texas congressman Steve Stockman, whose district included Johnson Space Center, said, "NASA employees became demoralized, and employee retention became a serious problem" after the space shuttle program was canceled. Contractor companies reliant on NASA appropriations continued to experience waves of layoffs this summer, and Houston's United Space Alliance faces probable dissolution with the completion of its final contract in September. It's unlikely that Stockman's dogged skepticism (as an outspoken "birther") of the President's citizenship helped his case.
Contrary to the common misconception that the space industry isn't big enough for both NASA and the commercial sector, NASA has always encouraged competition by funding the development of a number of commercial launch companies. It licenses technology to those competing for its contracts and assumes the high risk of undertaking space research so commercial companies can then apply that research to profitable use. GPS, global communications, meteorological devices and even the Mylar balloons gracing grocery checkouts all emerged from NASA technology.
Better to buttress a robust space industry with competition than to monopolize a nonexistent one, according to Dunbar.
Problems arise when commercial companies entice not only young talent but also public interest and congressional support away from NASA. Partially to blame: the public's science and engineering illiteracy.
Members of Congress are reluctant to fund new satellites when they don't understand the expenditure is necessary so people can continue checking weather forecasts on their smartphones. Policy makers are less likely to heed the National Research Council's 2014 year-in-production report recommending budget increases for NASA when quick searches of private companies' mounting accomplishments cast doubt on the federal agency's continued relevancy.
A common recommendation aimed at NASA's floundering public image is that it should disseminate a clearer message about its mission. That's not so easy when NASA is precluded from advertising, though Dunbar said education is a different matter. She believes fostering space appreciation among the general public should be a grassroots effort. At the very least, she wants a budget for putting posters in classrooms to get children on the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) track.
Alternatively, when money is available for undertaking grand projects, poor management of funds can undermine success. Dunbar said problems occur when engineering teams are moving fast, projects are understaffed and under-resourced, and areas that require the most focus aren't getting it. Senior software engineer Adam Nieves (not his real name) calls that phenomenon "faster, better, cheaper," a mentality he said was coined under 1990s NASA administrator Dan Goldin. Nieves believes taking shortcuts in engineering to build cheaper products faster has become more entrenched in the face of pressure from SpaceX and other commercial companies where it's common practice.
But NASA, Nieves argues, should know better than to deliver subpar product for use on the space station before thorough testing, citing Johnson Space Center's charter to support manned missions -- that is, to sustain actual human lives in space.
"[Faster, better, cheaper] in itself is okay, but if you're just going to be hacking stuff together, don't expect to fly it when you're done," Nieves said. "We're not focused, but we have some money so we're going to do some freaking prototyping. I always thought, well, if more of this stuff blows up, this shit's going to stop...Nothing's changed."
Nieves points to NASA's Active Response Gravity Offload System as a prime example of management mistakes that had real potential for harm. A machine used to simulate microgravity environments, ARGOS accidentally dropped a test subject about 18 inches in January 2013, though the subsequent investigation found that the drop could have occurred from four or five feet above the ground. In March of this year, the Houston Rockets' beloved center Dwight Howard was filmed swinging from ARGOS during a visit to Johnson Space Center, his dominant left arm extended in a Superman pose.
Senior engineers like Nieves believe it's only a matter of time before corner-cutting in engineering results in a serious accident, yet younger engineers liken that attitude to "red tape." Leonce and others believe that NASA's endless bureaucracy can constrain innovation and exploration. Historically, the agency has been committed to strapping proud Americans with freshly signed wills into rockets and launching them into space via a bomb detonated at one end. He thinks that spirit is sacred.
"You can take safety overboard," Leonce said. "I've sat in many meetings where we're just arguing over the simplest things. It just becomes borderline ridiculous. I don't think we could have ever gotten to the moon if the culture that now exists at NASA existed in the '60s."
Leonce said he understands the older generation's anxieties considering they've worked through the deadly Challenger and Columbia disasters. Yet private launch companies will be more attractive for engineers fresh out of school, he said, because that culture of risk aversion is "a death in itself."
Now a project manager in oil and gas, Leonce said he left his glamorous role at NASA as a flight controller in the front room -- the "Houston" in "Houston, we have a problem" -- because he was stagnating in a position with no potential for promotion. At LEAM Drilling Systems, he applies his NASA-cultivated quick thinking to a leadership role. Still, Leonce said he considers energy to be a pit stop in his plans to return to the space industry, and when that happens, he would likely look to a commercial company.
Looking back, Hoffman still considers NASA to be the symbol of her childhood dreams. Private industry offers her more opportunities to do the work she went to school for, but the old job was undeniably more glamorous. She spent her days around astronauts, celebrity figures who were present when history was being made. NASA's human capital was unparalleled, Hoffman said, and she believes, "They really do have the best interests of space travel at heart."
Yet she couldn't overlook NASA's financial culture, the projects getting canceled, the workforce attrition, the dwindling opportunities to be selected for the astronaut corps. She compared the trajectories of NASA and commercial startups, and looked to those with more experience in the industry to establish that the traffic of talent was moving from federal to private.
"Being able to see it, see my project get canceled and see a lot of the older engineers who had many projects canceled, that really informed my decision. That is something that is actually happening and is frustrating engineers," Hoffman said. "I was worried that I was going to get five years into my career [at NASA] and find...that I was unhappy."
Charles Hill, a materials engineering contractor who later became a NASA civil servant, said he can empathize with students' disillusionment when their designs don't result in deliverable goods, though that's a fact of life at NASA. Throughout his career, he mentored university students, co-ops and interns in the structural engineering division and loved it, he said, because of the interest and ambition with which young engineers took to the work he considered routine. With priorities of his own and responsibilities to the space station, Hill occasionally assigned his co-ops side projects to which he couldn't devote much personal time. Sometimes their work is patented, and sometimes funding runs out before designs even leave the blueprinting stage.
"It takes years and years, really, for new, innovative concepts to really be developed," Hill said. "Anything that is new, there's an element of risk there that we don't want to invest tons of money to develop something that we're not sure of yet, that sort of thing."
Hill said he advocates for patenting his co-ops' research through an administrative board, but board members don't always invite him to present the merits of new technology in person. Rather, they make decisions based on reports and pictures he submits. Hill said he understands how the failure to secure an innovation patent could frustrate students.
Contractors keep the rights to their innovations, but civil servants' designs would belong to NASA, according to NASA patent lawyer Kurt Hammerle. Even if civil servants left for commercial companies, they couldn't take their own technology with them for completion without licensing it first. Hoffman, however, never received patents on her stalled NASA projects, so as far as she knows, her innovations are in limbo.
Hoffman declined NASA's job offer after working there as a student, and Dunbar said the young engineer may have acted too soon considering that NASA staffs the brightest minds in spaceflight to contribute scientific research in a way commercial companies do not. Going to space is worth waiting for despite the odds, she added. And part of the reason Hoffman didn't want her real name used for this story is that she says she might want to return to NASA some day.
"I do find that young people don't always take the long view. Companies also go through risk. Each individual has to make decisions with the best available data," Dunbar said. "In this case, knowing that Congress is starting to wake up, the American public is starting to wake up, the fact that you have three other nations announcing publicly that they're going to the moon, I'm optimistic there's some new energy out there."
Hoffman said she had only followed in the footsteps of her peers, many of whom were leaving for the same reasons. Retired NASA contractor and software engineer Del Murphy said the young don't always prioritize safety as much as they should. He said bureaucracy is good when following strict procedures through a system of checks and counterbalances minimizes human casualties. However, it's a lose-lose situation when too much bureaucracy in fact contributes to tragedy, as the Rogers Commission found in its investigation following the Challenger disaster. Dunbar explained that space shuttle Challenger broke up 73 seconds after launch because of a materials malfunction related to human error. The people who knew about the problems weren't heard out, she said.
Murphy said poor engineering standards and administrators' lack of accountability are at the root of NASA's internal wrangling over innovation and risk aversion. He said NASA is more interested in covering up failure than in learning from it. After NASA's first fatal disaster, the 1967 Apollo I fire that trapped three astronauts in a capsule with an inward-opening hatch, the fear of failure became an institutionalized melancholy.
"A healthy environment is an open forum where people discuss back and forth about problems and get it down," Murphy said. "I can't tell you the searing that went through all our minds when those shuttles blew up."
NASA's engineering blunders don't always result in harm to human beings. Valkyrie, a $3 million "superhuman robot" unveiled with great pomp, quietly placed last at the 2013 DARPA Robotics Challenge. Yet its predecessor, Robonaut, a virtually controlled device with an innovative electronic communications system, contributed technologies that were transferred for use in Houston's medical industry. UH Cullen College of Engineering Professor Jose Luis Contreras-Vidal collaborated with NASA to produce thought-controlled exoskeleton robots to help recovering stroke victims walk again. His patients are outfitted with brain-scanning helmets and robotic splints for their legs, which he expects will re-create natural mobility with continued use.
When Dunbar hears the phrase "tech transfer," her main concern is that NASA must continue to receive the resources for creating that tech in the first place.
"NASA has to be funded for new technologies and to continue to be provided for as the engine of exploration," she cautioned. "We're starting to fall behind other companies. Once that dries up, there are no new companies. There's no leadership in academia."
SpaceX announced Aug. 4 that it will establish its new spaceport in Brownsville, Texas. State officials have encourged CEO Elon Musk in those plans from the beginning, finally offering his company $2.3 million in incentives to build the world's first commercial launch complex.
"Texas has been on the forefront of our nation's space exploration efforts for decades, so it is fitting that SpaceX has chosen our state as they expand the frontiers of commercial space flight," Gov. Rick Perry said in a news release. "In addition to growing the aerospace industry in Texas, SpaceX's facility will provide myriad opportunities for STEM education in South Texas and inspire a new generation of Texas engineers and innovators."
Other companies, such as Raytheon and XCOR, relocated their space headquarters from California to Texas in 2013, and Lockheed Martin moved 650 jobs from Georgia to Fort Worth. As Texas aggregates aerospace companies, Hoffman hopes to return eventually to her home state.
Lifelong NASA employees like Nieves and Murphy said they feel NASA's institutionalized problems are no longer their fight. They don't think the space shuttle program will reopen, and in ten years when funding for the International Space Station runs out, that will be the end of another era.
Hoffman is worried about that, too. She doesn't believe Congress will renew space station funding, and the end of NASA's space shuttle program meant American astronauts had to buy exorbitant seats on Russian rockets to go to space. If she stayed at NASA, she would face rapidly decreasing chances of becoming an astronaut herself -- a private dream that did play a role in her decision to leave. SpaceX, Boeing and Sierra Nevada are gunning for manned flight, and one stipulation in NASA's competition for crew contracts is that commercial companies send their own people first. Statistically, there's a much better chance Hoffman would realize her dream of flying to space by leaving NASA.
"There are so many people who want to go to space, but chances are slim that'll work with the traditional model," she said. "If people are willing to spend thousands of dollars on a cruise, they'll be willing to spend the same for a trip to space for a couple days. If [commercial companies] can deliver that, they can eventually bring the price down so that it's just a common occurrence, like taking a plane across the country. It would be amazing."
There are everyday clues tugging her toward private industry as well. Hoffman makes light of how ordinary people -- waiters at restaurants, the guy sitting next to her at the bar -- will tell her they thought NASA had already shut down. But the misconception, which Dunbar said she hears also, points to NASA's constant struggle to keep space exploration relevant to the public.
Hoffman stressed it wasn't easy to turn down NASA. "When you're working for NASA, you're just kind of taught that this is something to be very proud of, that this is more than a job," she said. Individual commercial companies aren't as well known outside the scientific community, and it took some time to deflect the shock and confusion among her family and friends when they heard she wasn't staying in Houston. She does believe she'll be happy in private industry, if only for the chance to dirty her hands in the shop.
But she's still going to miss home, wearing cowboy boots and going country dancing. She planned to commemorate her final night in Houston after lunch at Boondoggles, the astronaut bar named -- according to Merriam-Webster -- for "an expensive and wasteful project usually paid for with public money."
NASA Nears Multibillion-Dollar Decision on Commercial Space Taxis
Alan Boyle – NBC News
Private space companies are chomping at the bit for a new race to the stars. Now all they need is the money.
NASA is preparing to make a decision in the coming weeks that will dole out billions of dollars toward the goal of sending American astronauts into orbit on U.S.-built spaceships for the first time since the shuttle fleet was retired in 2011. Chris Ferguson, who was the commander for the final U.S. shuttle flight, can hardly wait.
"The average American thinks the space program is over," the former NASA astronaut told NBC News. "It's not."
Today, Ferguson is director of crew and mission operations for the commercial crew program at the Boeing Co., one of the competitors in the NASA-funded space race. Two other companies are in the running: SpaceX, which is already sending cargo to the International Space Station in its robotic Dragon capsules; and Sierra Nevada Corp., which is working on a shuttle-like space plane called the Dream Chaser.
There's lots at stake: NASA is expected to spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $800 million on commercial spaceship development efforts over the next year, and the accumulated payout will amount to billions of dollars by the time the spaceships enter service around 2017.
Whoever wins the space race will have their corporate logo on the "space taxis" that carry astronauts to and from the space station. There are other potential applications as well, ranging from space tourism and zero-G research to totally new business ventures in low Earth orbit.
How will NASA choose?
In the shorter term, NASA has to decide who will advance to the next phase of its public-private spaceship development effort, known as the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability program, or CCtCap. The three companies already are receiving a total of more than $1 billion during the current phase, called CCiCap (for Commercial Crew Integrated Capability).
NASA says all of its partners are "making great progress" in the current phase of the spaceship development effort, but the space agency is keeping mum for the time being about the next phase. Word is that NASA will announce the CCtCap winner (or winners) by the end of this month. The competition follows the model set by NASA's earlier $800 million effort to promote the development of robotic cargo craft capable of resupplying the space station. Two commercial launch systems were born as a result: SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule, and Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Antares rocket and Cygnus capsule. Today the two companies are sharing $3 billion in delivery contracts from NASA.
Overall, how does the competition stack up? Here's a quick look at each of the players:
SpaceX delivers the Dragon
California-based SpaceX is working to adapt its robotic Dragon capsule to carry people, which means adding equipment ranging from upholstered seats and control panels to a launch abort system. "From a SpaceX standpoint, we expect to be ready to transport crew in 2016 — about a year sooner than NASA needs it," Musk said in May.
Like the other entrants in the space race, the Dragon V2 would carry seven astronauts plus cargo. SpaceX is in the midst of testing technologies that would allow robotic as well as crewed Dragons to make controlled retro-rocket touchdowns on land rather than relying on splashdowns. Musk estimated that Dragon rides would cost NASA roughly $20 million per seat — well below the $70 million that the Russians are charging. SpaceX is designing the Dragon to be capable of a trip to Mars, and Musk has made clear that he'll push onward even if NASA doesn't provide CCtCap funding. "If we don't win the next NASA contract, we'll do our best to continue the development and still make it happen," he said.
Sierra Nevada readies Dream Chaser
Sierra Nevada Corp.'s mini-shuttle, the Dream Chaser, is patterned after a 20-year-old NASA design, but updated with 21st-century electronics and composites. More than 30 aerospace companies are part of Sierra Nevada's "Dream Team." The company has cooperative agreements with the European Space Agency, the German Aerospace Center and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency.
An atmospheric test version of the Dream Chaser had its first glide flight last October. Another autonomous flight is planned for later this year, with the first piloted Enterprise-style test coming "shortly thereafter," Sierra Nevada's Sirangelo said. The first autonomous orbital test is due in November 2016, with the first crewed flight into orbit planned in 2017.
Sierra Nevada received the smallest share in the current round of NASA funding.
Boeing banks on CST-100
Ferguson said he and his teammates at Boeing are "extraordinarily optimistic" that they'll win NASA's support for the continued development of the CST-100 space taxi. The hardware for three test capsules is ready for assembly in one of the shuttle fleet's former hangars at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
In the past, Boeing has said it couldn't proceed with the CST-100 without CCtCap funding, but Ferguson hedged a bit. "If we do not emerge victorious from this, we're going to have to step back and look at the business case," he told NBC News. Ferguson said NASA's latest solicitation for space cargo services was "a new card in the deck" — which suggests an autonomous version of the CST-100 might be offered as a option.
What's the big picture?
SpaceX might seem to be the front-runner in the race, by virtue of the fact that it's been successfully flying its Falcon 9 rocket and the autonomous version of its Dragon craft for the past two years. But critics point to the fact that SpaceX often falls behind on launch and development schedules. "They need to prove their ability to meet a certain schedule," Boeing's Ferguson said.
There's also a wild card in the spaceflight deck: Blue Origin, the space venture bankrolled by Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com's founder. Although Blue Origin's orbital spaceship development program isn't getting financial support from NASA, it is getting free advice — and the company still hopes to get in on space station contracts at a later stage. So who will come out on top?
"May the best company win," Ferguson told NBC News. "I'm convinced it's Boeing, but in any case we have to get this country back in the business of taking people into space. We want American jobs launching American rockets up to the space station. It's time to bring the business back home."
Astronaut Reid Wiseman Can Answer Your Question From Space!
Mary Bubala - WJZ -TV
He's a sensation on social media with more than 210,000 followers on Twitter alone. Baltimore County native and International Space Station astronaut Reid Wiseman has been sharing amazing pictures of the earth with his followers–and now he could answer your questions from space!
Recently, Mary Bubala got the interview of a lifetime, speaking with Wiseman in outer space.
It was a rare and amazing chance to connect with astronaut Reid Wiseman, who grew up in Baltimore County. He's on the International Space Station and our conversation was out of this world. Wiseman spoke to us from more than 200 miles above Earth on the International Space Station.
"You just take one look out at Earth; you don't need to pinch yourself," he said. "It's so phenomenal. It's so overwhelming to look down at our planet from up here."
Wiseman often looks down on his hometown. Recently, he Tweeted, "We just flew directly over Baltimore and the T-storms looked rough" and "Hey, I can see my house from up here."
The astronaut grew up in Cockeysville and graduated from Dulaney High School. He Tweeted "My parents were waving in Maryland at sunrise so I took a picture of them" to his parents, Bill and Judy Wiseman.
Wiseman says he was trying to capture another special photo.
"I want to see Baltimore at night. It's probably my next goal to capture those city lights," he said.
Sure enough, he delivered and Tweeted a photo of Baltimore City.
Wiseman is set to go down in history as the first real social media maverick in outer space. His photos of Earth are capturing the attention of the entire world, showing us views we'd never otherwise see. He even posted the first ever Vine video from space.
"You absolutely cannot pick up a camera and take a bad picture from up here," he said. "Everything is so incredibly unique. I've had a blast doing it and I'm so glad it's well-received."
Several things have surprised him about life with zero gravity.
"Everything surprises you when you are up here," he said. "Floating around, getting your brain to start working in three dimensions and looking not at a floor or a ceiling and two walls but every surface is usable up here."
NASA to study astronauts' CV health
Shirley Pulawski - Healio
NASA is conducting a 5-year study to determine how oxidative stress and inflammation triggered by space flight affect the CV health of astronauts.
Steven Platts, PhD, NASA Johnson Space Center investigator, told Cardiology Today that biomedical research is being conducted on the International Space Station regularly, but this is the first study that will not only follow the long-term effects of space travel on CV health effects, but also collect preflight and in-flight data from 12 volunteer astronauts.
Platts said NASA monitors potential risks to astronauts, identifies gaps in knowledge and seeks to find countermeasures to avoid or mitigate those risks. The current study, Cardio Ox, will attempt to identify CVD risks.
"For astronauts we have two CV risks," he told Cardiology Today. "One is orthostatic intolerance after space flight; it is well-known, and we've been studying it for decades. The other is the risk of arrhythmias during or following space flight."
The presence of long-term CVD risk following space travel is currently unknown; Platts said NASA researchers are looking for answers.
Astronauts face numerous oxidative stress challenges and conditions that can cause inflammation. They are also exposed to much higher levels of radiation than normal conditions on Earth — although not as high as residents living near nuclear disaster sites such as Chernobyl might encounter. Platts said many of the studies analyzing the effects of radiation on CVD have been conducted at very high-exposure sites, making the current research novel. In fact, he said, these data could be useful in planning for human visits to Mars.
In addition, Platts said astronauts are under intense amounts of physical and emotional stress during space flight and while working aboard the space station. During extravehicular activity, astronauts are exposed to increased levels of oxygen.
"Are we increasing their lifetime risk of CAD incidence?" he asked. "Given our environment … we're hoping that if we see something, it will lead to either more research or better information to give our ground-based counterparts."
To determine risks and identify changes to astronauts' CV health, the researchers plan to test blood and urine samples for biomarkers that indicate stress, such as cytokines, cortisol, fibrinogen and neopterin. They will also look for CV biomarkers, such as myeloperoxidase, PGF2a and glutathione peroxidase. Samples will be collected before launch, 15 and 60 days after launch, 15 days before returning and shortly after returning. Companion ultrasound tests will be conducted both on the space station and over 5 years following space flight to compare the thickness of the astronauts' carotid artery walls.
"We're assessing structure and function as well, using ultrasound," Platts said. "We're also doing a functional study of the brachial artery using flow-mediated dilation," which he said would only be conducted pre- and post-flight for practical reasons. These results will be compared to the biomarkers as well.
Though the results of Cardio Ox may have implications for practicing cardiologists, Platts said the study population is small, and the average astronaut is a male in his 40s who is generally more fit than the average person.
"If these very healthy people who have been screened like crazy can still have these issues, then how does that relate to the rest of the population? It's always a challenge to interpret those data."
Platts said the amount of time each volunteer will spend in space over the next 5 years is unknown; therefore, many variables cannot be controlled.
"With space flight, we have a hard time controlling for some things," he said. "We have to let them do their jobs, so we do the best science we can under those circumstances."
Tiny Israeli 'Martian' camera powers NASA repair robot\
As in the movies, a vision system that can move in any direction will peer around, under, and into space equipment
David Shamah – Times Of Israel
NASA has adopted Israeli "Martian"-style technology for a robot to inspect equipment in deep space. The Visual Inspection Poseable Invertebrate Robot, or VIPIR, is an articulating borescope tool designed to deliver near and midrange inspection capabilities in space to enable repairs of equipment using robots on unmanned spaceships — and a tiny camera from Israeli medical device company Medigus will be giving VIPIR its power of vision, allowing technicians on Earth to get a close-up look at equipment.
It's like "War of the Worlds," where Martians send machines down to Earth with roving "eyes," cameras attached to the end of a flexible tube, nearly a meter (3 feet) long, to report back to the Martians on what is going on Earth. In the films (1953 and 2005) and in the original 1898 Wells book, the aliens use machines with cameras to peer around, under, and into any and everything, seeking out humans to destroy.
The tiny camera NASA will be using for its other-worldly robot project, called the micro ScoutCam 1.2, comes from the world of medicine, not Mars, and it's already in space. It's made by Medigus, an Israeli company that specializes in developing minimally invasive endosurgical tools and imaging solutions. For example, Medigus makes a system that enables doctors to examine, diagnose, and treat GERD (Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease) — via the mouth, allowing patients to be treated without the need for surgery. The Medigus MUSE system for GERD includes a surgical stapler, ultrasonic sights for accurate positioning, and a miniaturized video camera, all in a single instrument.
MUSE is a clear precursor to the camera technology being used in VIPIR. The MUSE camera also sits on the end of a flexible tube, and can be controlled by doctors via a console instrument. The MUSE camera, at 3 millimeters diameter, is a marvel of technology, but the camera being used in VIPIR, at 1.2 millimeters, is the smallest in the world. The camera can deliver back to Earth a ~100-degree field-of-view image with a 224 x 224 pixel (0.05 megapixel) resolution. While the number of pixels may sound small compared to today's commercially available digital cameras — it's ideal for the close-range inspection jobs VIPIR will be doing, NASA said. With the Medigus camera, mission controllers can zoom in to resolve worksite details as tiny as 0.02 inch – thinner than a credit card. The tube itself can rotate up to 90 degrees in four opposing directions.
VIPIR and its attached Medigus camera are to be used on the International Space Station orbiting Earth. It was sent last week with the European Automated Transfer Vehicle-5, which docked with the space station. VIPIR will allow mission controllers to try out various remote-repair technologies they have been developed over the past several years by NASA's Robotic Refueling Mission (RRM), and Dextre, the Canadian Space Agency.
"NASA is steadily maturing a set of robotic technologies that could help prolong the lives of satellites in orbit, thereby providing new capabilities for the Agency," said Benjamin Reed, deputy project manager of NASA's Satellite Servicing Capabilities Office. "Medigus' micro ScoutCam 1.2 met the requirements for VIPIR's borescope camera, and will demonstrate inspection capabilities once Robotic Refueling Mission operations begin."
"Our partnership with NASA is a powerful testament to the technological versatility of micro ScoutCam 1.2," said Chris Rowland, CEO of Medigus. "We are honored that our micro ScoutCam technology has been selected to help NASA successfully execute the next phase of their Robotic Refueling Mission."
Retired Gulf Breeze pilot almost explored space
Rob Johnson - Pensacola (FL) News Journal
Retired Air Force test pilot Dave Kessler, a Gulf Breeze resident, yearned to be an astronaut and land on the moon, but the closest he got to that goal was helping select others for space adventures.
David Kessler watched the Apollo 11 lunar landing 45 years ago this summer as an Air Force test pilot who dreamed of becoming an astronaut.
He got oh-so-close in the 1960s: drawing an assignment to calibrate navigation equipment during the pre-launch preparations of space shuttles from a vantage point within a mile of the rockets.
"We were about the only people allowed to be up there," he said. "Not many see it from that angle."
In another assignment, Kessler helped the National Aeronautics and Space Administration sift through Air Force astronaut candidates. A veteran of two tours in the Vietnam War, where he flew C-130 cargo planes, Kessler was on track to be accepted to a job in space exploration.
Kessler's training to be a test pilot in 1969 at Edwards Air Force Base included four months of astronaut instruction.
"Our Aerospace Research Test Pilot School class had just started when Apollo 11 was launched," Kessler recalled. "To meet the July start date, I was pulled out of Vietnam two months early in my last tour there to join 15 other pilots selected from the 33,000 in the Air Force."
"We got to train in a two-story-high space capsule and docking ship, and also flew in the zero-gravity KC-135 aircraft simulating weightlessness, along with the gravity felt on the moon," he said.
Along the way, Kessler met perhaps the greatest American fighter jockey and test pilot not to be selected as an astronaut: Chuck Yeager.
"I don't even think he had a college degree, but he was brilliant," Kessler said.
Most of those being selected as astronauts had at least a master's degree, as Kessler has, if not a doctorate.
What's more, he was invited to a symposium attended by the Apollo 11 crew members in their first public appearance after the lunar landing.
"The giant ballroom was standing room only, with over 1,000 people in attendance." he said. "Neil Armstrong said, 'It's a pleasure to talk before a group of people who understands what I'm talking about.' "
Kessler not only understood, the yearning for space adventure was part of his DNA by then.
"It's the height of what we accomplished for decades. I had almost joined the Air Force to do that back in 1959," Kessler said. "We knew it was coming after the Russians put up Sputnik."
In the current aviation era, in which drones are increasingly becoming the weapons of choice and unmanned vehicles are being sent farther into space than astronauts have ever gone, Kessler recalled an anecdote that Armstrong shared with the test pilots soon after his return from the moon.
"As the module neared the moon's surface, the computer had them programmed to land in an area with giant boulders and a 300-yard crater," Kessler said. "They shoved the power to it and landed safely on the other side of the crater. Armstrong told us, 'For those who clamor for unmanned flight, this proves that man is indispensable.' "
Kessler possessed what was known among top pilots who aspired to be astronauts as "the right stuff."
He recalled shattering the treadmill endurance record on a test given to pilots: reaching 44 minutes on an incline that gradually reached 23 degrees. The average time for pilots and astronauts is 16 to 20 minutes, he said.
In addition, Kessler is recognized by the elite International Society of Experimental Test Pilots for achieving a first in aviation history: Successfully firing a 105 mm Howitzer cannon in flight, the largest gun to have been fired from an aircraft as of the early 1970s.
But astronaut selection slowed down after Vietnam, Kessler said. The number of space flight slots was reduced as budget shortfalls in the wake of Vietnam spending caused cutbacks elsewhere in military-related expenditures.
Kessler's gradual realization that even though he had been at the top of his test pilot class, he wouldn't get picked as an astronaut came gradually in the early to mid-1970s.
"You have interviews, and then they don't call you for more, and you sort of know."
After a stint at the Pentagon and reaching the rank of lieutenant colonel, Kessler retired in 1981 following a tour at Eglin Air Force Base. Since then, his activities have included three terms on the Santa Rosa County Commission.
Now, at age 78, he remains a space exploration enthusiast to whom the July 20 anniversary of the first lunar landing is special.
Although the space program is "kind of in limbo right now," he said, "hopefully we'll pick it up and do some future work. I think working with the space station, developing new technologies, especially having to do with medicines, is the right way to go. I think that's the future."
Still, the personal disappointment of not becoming an astronaut lingers.
Decades after the Apollo program, watching the space shuttle, Kessler said he occasionally thought, "That could be me. But then when the Challenger blew up, I thought, 'That could be me, too.' "
The career of David Kessler
1958: Bachelor of Arts in physics from Gettysburg College.
1959: Joined U.S. Air Force.
1960s: Two tours in Vietnam flying C-130 transport planes in 345 missions.
1970: Graduated from Air Force Aerospace Research Pilot School in advanced test pilot and astronaut training.
1981: Retired from Air Force as lieutenant colonel.
1980s and 1990s: Served three terms as a Santa Rosa County Commissioner and was chairman 1987-88 and 1991-92.
'Test Pilot' by Gill Robb Wilson
An excerpt from one of David Kessler's favorite poems
Hotter than thrust when the boost is hit,
somebody's faith must burn;
And faster than mach when the rocket's lit,
somebody's mind must turn;
Somebody's got to get the proof for what
the designers plan;
And test the dreams that prophets dream
on behalf of their fellow man.
ANALYSIS: Meteor shower-tracking ISS camera to focus on threats in orbit
Dan Thisdell – Flight Global
The International Space Station is to be fitted with a camera dedicated to tracking meteor showers, in a bid to better understand these spectacular events.
The camera will also hopefully expand collected data on orbiting debris – both man-made and natural – so as to help position spacecraft to avoid collisions.
The device is packed with the cargo to be launched by Antares rocket from NASA's Wallops facility on or about 15 October, in the third of Orbital Sciences' Cygnus resupply craft.
The camera will be mounted in the station's window observational research facility – a reinforced viewport that allows high-resolution photography from inside the station. Unlike ground-based observation – which can only be carried out at night and in clear weather – the ISS offers 560min of viewing time daily, while the station is in the Earth's shadow during its 16 daily orbits.
Meteor project principal investigator Michael Fortenberry, of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, says the ISS crew have only to adjust the focus and change hard drives as they gather video data. Built-in software will separate out clips likely to include meteors for investigation on the ground.
The camera is set to observe all 12 known major meteor showers, along with minor showers. De-orbiting spacecraft will also be observed and, adds Fortenberry, there is a chance of finding new minor showers, or showers from unexpected sources like comet Ison.
Ison is thought to have been destroyed during a very near pass of the Sun last year.
Better data should mean better forecasting, which could help ground controllers manoeuvre spacecraft clear of potential harm.
By collecting data – including on light spectra – about what is hitting the planet, and correlating with other sensors, the project team also hopes to better understand the parent bodies of meteors that pose a threat to Earth.
Knowledge of meteors' parent bodies is sketchy, but improving. The European Space Agency's Rosetta mission made the first ever rendezvous with a comet on 6 August, and will now escort 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko for 18 months on its journey towards the Sun, collecting a treasure trove of data – including some to be gathered by a lander due for release in November.
Meanwhile, according to a paper published in the journal Nature on 14 August, one near-Earth object (NEO) – asteroid (29075) 1950 DA – "is a loose blob of particles that clot together, much as Moon dust collects on astronauts' spacesuits".
Because it is spinning quickly, 1950 DA's own gravity cannot be enough to hold it together. As a result, the cohesion is owing to van der Waals force – the weak net attraction between molecules.
The same may be true of other so-called "rubble pile" asteroids – if they are spinning fast enough. Planetary scientist Ben Rozitis of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville – co-author of the study – says this means humanity would need to take great care in any intervention designed to prevent a collision with Earth.
Specifically, he says, flying out and blowing up an asteroid would be a bad idea. Scientists do not yet fully understand the forces holding these lumps together, so the result would be unpredictable – possibly turning one threat into many.
Asteroid 1950 DA is not an immediate threat to Earth, although it will make a close pass or possible strike in the year 2880. However, after last year'smeteor airburst over Chelyabinskin Russia, humanity is keenly aware of the danger from NEOs.
The Chelyabinsk rock came literally out of the blue – ironically while scientists were watching the close pass of another, known object.
The scientists were observing asteroid 2012DA14, which weighs 130,000t and passes closer than many satellites orbit, at some 45,000km/h.
Finding NEOs is thus a priority and, thankfully, both NASA and ESA are dramatically ramping up search resources, while many scientists are working on plans for diverting NEOs from Earth-collision courses.
Detlef Koschny, who heads the NEO search at ESA, says three techniques could realistically be employed to deflect an asteroid off an Earth-collision course. One would be a kinetic impact, to "nudge" an asteroid to a new path. A second would be to send a spacecraft alongside, to act as a "gravity tractor" – the navigational ability being demonstrated by the Rosetta comet-tracking mission is exactly what would be needed. A third would be to fix an ion engine to the rock and thrust it off course.
Meanwhile, the most urgent known threat is to spacecraft – but not from the meteors that are to be the focus of the ISS's new camera gear.
Since the space age opened with Sputnik 1 in 1957, some 4,600 launches have orbited 6,000 satellites – fewer than 800 of which are still active, according to ESA.
Many of the rest – including Sputnik – have fallen to Earth and burnt up in the atmosphere. These artificial meteors can be a pretty sight from the ground, but what is not so pretty is the junk still in orbit: 3,000 or so dead satellites, 1,800 rocket bodies, 1,000 other items discarded by space missions and thousands of fragments of debris from collisions between them.
At orbital speeds any one of these could damage or destroy a satellite, and even moderately-sized pieces endanger the ISS, which makes one or two avoidance manoeuvres a year.
ESA, NASA and the US State Department have all warned that unless the problem of orbiting debris is tackled, valuable orbits could become unusable and, at an extreme, human spaceflight become too risky to undertake.
CCtCap: NASA won't abandon Commercial Crew loser
As NASA closes in on the next major milestone of its Commercial Crew Program (CCP), the Agency has noted its desire to continue the "sharing of knowledge" with any partner that loses out on continued NASA funding. The first NASA crew to ride on a US commercial vehicle is expected to occur in December, 2017 – a date that continues to be challenged by funding uncertainties.
Commercial Crew:
The transition toward commercial transportation of NASA astronauts is a flagship program for the Agency.
The last NASA crew to ride into space on an American vehicle were the astronauts of STS-135, as Atlantis closed out the 30 year career of the Space Shuttle Program (SSP).
A painful void between the end of Shuttle and the availability of the next American crew vehicle was always going to be unavoidable. However, due to continued changes to NASA's direction – including the aborted Constellation Program (CxP) – the gap has grown.
With NASA's limited funding spread over an array of programs, the requirement of sending hundreds of millions of NASA dollars to Roscosmos – to purchase seats on the Russian Soyuz, the only means of launching NASA astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) – is less than ideal.
Along with NASA's expensive goals of returning to Beyond Earth Orbit (BEO) exploration with the Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion, the limited amount of money available for returning American independence to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) is not conducive to a speedy solution to the Agency's "catch 22″ scenario for domestic ISS transportation.
However, despite the Commercial Crew Program being one of the leaner budget lines, especially when compared to SLS and Orion, it has become a shining light of the Agency's fostering of commercial space.
Three major commercial companies are currently receiving funding and technological assistance from NASA, in tandem with their own investment, helping to give birth to three brand new crew spacecraft.
Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC), SpaceX and Boeing are the three companies that won through to the next stage of NASA's commercial crew program, following their Commercial Crew integrated Capability (CCiCap) initiative awards back in August, 2012.
All three companies have fostered the growth of their crew vehicles, with SpaceX recently revealing the crew version of their already-flying Dragon, known as the Dragon V2. Boeing are making progress with its CST-100 capsule, while SNC bring a spaceplane to the table with the Dream Chaser spacecraft.
"There has been considerable progress recently," noted Ms. Kathy Lueders, Program Manager for the Commercial Crew Program (CCP) to the latest Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) meeting.
"The Certification Products Contract (CPC) was closed out at the end of May. (It was) concluded that there has been a huge benefit in articulating exactly what NASA is requesting from the partners and how the Agency will be evaluating the progress that the partners make. They are finishing up phase 2 of the Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) Space Act Agreement (SAA)."
The CCiCAP phase has seen all three companies hit major milestones, mainly within the pre-determined time scale, as they position themselves for test flights in 2016.
"Boeing has completed its Critical Design Review (CDR) and the phase 2 Safety Review Board. SpaceX has completed its integrated crew vehicle CDR, and its operations CDR is coming up.
SpaceX also has a pad abort test and an in-flight abort test that are on the calendar over the next six months. SNC has finished wind tunnel testing and conducted some main propulsion system and reaction control system tests.
"SNC has also baselined a new propulsion system design (a pure liquid system design rather than a hybrid) in conjunction with their purchase of ORBITEC."
Next up is the announcement of the transition to the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contracts, to be announced later this month, or early in September, depending on political direction.
Although the source selection process is obviously an internal debate, with its results embargoed until the time of the NASA announcement, it is hoped that two of the commercial crew providers will move forward with additional funding.
At the ASAP meeting, Ms. Lueders expressed "NASA's desire to continue the partnerships even after the announcement, including with companies not selected."
That continued association may be in the form of unfunded Space Act Agreements (SAA), not unlike that which Blue Origin is currently working under, as it develops a crew capsule outside of the trio working with CCiCAP funding.
Such an arrangement allows for close cooperation with NASA, albeit without the funding boost.
"People are recognizing the value of competition and have an appreciation for shared knowledge," added Ms. Lueders. "NASA has learned from the companies and the companies have learned from NASA. It would be a big plus to continue the relationships."
As to which companies are likely to win through to the CCtCap phase, that is a tightly kept secret. However, over recent months, sources have noted NASA's strong affection toward the multi-capable Dream Chaser, while SpaceX has a growing track record with its Falcon 9 and cargo-Dragon combinations via its Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) missions.
Boeing's CST-100 is deep into converting Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF-3) into their Kennedy Space Center (KSC) operations base, while Dream Chaser is also set to take up residency at the famous spaceport. The multi-user aspirations of KSC is classed as a key ambition for NASA.
Both CST-100 and Dream Chaser have confirmed they will launch with ULA's Atlas V, although they are both capable of being launched by the Falcon 9.
SpaceX and SNC have provided additional roles for their spacecraft past the NASA crew launch requirements, likely meaning both spacecraft will fly regardless of their NASA funding outlooks.
Interestingly, the first NASA crew mission on a commercial vehicle – known as USCV-1 (US Crew Vehicle -1) – was recently omitted from the latest long-term ISS all-vehicle manifest presentation (L2), after previously being shown to have slipped to December, 2017.
It is likely NASA is waiting to re-evaluate the manifest plan once the "under pressure" funding and schedule outlook for the CCtCap winners has been solidified.
Those considerations include the key decision of taking one, two or all three commercial suitors forward, along with how much funding they will be provided with. Sources intimate it is likely two of the three will be provided with CCtCap funding.
It is hoped the remaining company – should NASA cut one of the competitors – will still push forward with their plans to launch their spacecraft. As per the comments at the ASAP meeting, the Agency also hopes this will be the scenario.
Dentons creates 'space law' group
Catherine Ho – The Washington Post
International law firm Dentons has created a practice group focused on representing companies that manufacture, operate and invest in satellites, as it eyes potential in the fast-growing commercial space industry.
The new group is led by attorneys Del Smith, Liz Evans and Deepak Reddy, who recently joined Dentons from Jones Day. Smith is in Washington and Evans and Reddy are in New York. The group includes 15 attorneys spread across 10 of the firm's offices around the world, whose legal expertise spans mergers and acquisitions, finance, restructuring, regulatory, insurance, intellectual property, antitrust and litigation.
Smith said the idea is to a build a one-stop legal shop for companies looking to build, launch and operate satellites — media organizations that use satellites for news gathering, or hospitals that use satellites to provide telehealth services, for example — and handle all facets of legal work from start to finish. That includes securing the financing of the project, getting regulatory approval and negotiating contracts with government agencies to operate the satellite.
"If you can find all those services in one place, it's tremendously cheaper than trying to find them in little bits and pieces," Smith said.
The commercial space industry is one that is ripe for expansion, with private companies such as Elon Musk's SpaceX and Dulles-based Orbital Sciences winning lucrative contracts from NASA to transport supplies to astronauts on the international space station.
Global spending on space hardware and services reached $314 billion 2013, a 4 percent increase from 2012, according to an annual report by the Space Foundation, a nonprofit space advocacy group. Spending by the U.S. government declined, while spending in the private sector grew.
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