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From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: September 4, 2014 12:46:16 PM CDT
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: NASA and Human Spaceflight News - Thursday – September 4, 2014
Great to so many of you today. Take,,,,after tomorrows email send out…..Stacey Nakamura will be taking over the daily NASA News duties for me for the next 2 weeks or so….I am off to Peru for a short vacation..NASA and Human Spaceflight NewsThursday – September 4, 2014HEADLINES AND LEADSWhy Did Apollo Astronauts Keep Wiping Out on the Moon?Ian O'Neill - Discovery.comWhen watching NASA's historic video footage of the Apollo astronauts on the moon, it becomes clear that the alien lunar gravity was a little troublesome. The moonwalkers would often trip, stumble and wipe out as they explored the dusty landscape.House Subcommittee to Hold Hearing on ASTEROIDS Act on September 10Marcia S. Smith - Spacepolicyonline.comThe Space Subcommittee of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee will hold a hearing next week on the ASTEROIDS Act, which was introduced in July by Rep. Bill Posey (R- FL) and Derek Kilmer (D-WA).Flagship Mars Curiosity Rover Doing Too Little with Too Much, Senior Scientists SayDan Leone – Space NewsWhile the $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory has been approved for a two-year mission extension that will cost NASA roughly $115 million, senior scientists warned that the flagship rover is at risk of underachieving, and that its status as crown jewel of the agency's planetary science division appears to have gone to the mission team's head.Editorial | ESA Makes History with RosettaSpaceNews EditorThe European Space Agency, and in particular the ESA member states that chose to participate in the Rosetta comet-chaser mission, received a large and well-deserved dose of satisfaction Aug. 6 when the spacecraft finally arrived within striking distance of its destination.Cash Infusion Reaffirms Putin's Commitment to New Launch ComplexMatthew Bodner – SpaceNewsAmid a stalling economy and political tensions abroad, Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged 50 billion rubles ($1.3 billion) to finish construction of the Vostochny Cosmodrome in anticipation of a 2015 first flight from the complex.Technical Problem Delays Space Station Satellite DeploymentsJeff Foust – SpaceNewsA technical problem with a cubesat dispenser on the international space station has halted the deployment of the latest batch of small satellites on the station until as late as early next year.U.S. aims to fund alternative to Russian rocket engine in 2016Andrea Shalal - ReutersThe U.S. government hopes to add funding to its 2016 budget for alternatives to Russian-made rocket engines to launch sensitive satellites, a key Pentagon official said Wednesday.Sarah Brightman to start training for space station journey in JanuaryItar TassSarah Brightman will pay a total of $52 million for her next year's flight on board of the Russian-made Soyuz spacecraft to the ISSBritish famed soprano singer Sarah Brightman would begin pre-flight trainings for her journey to the International Space Station (ISS) as a space tourist early next year, instead of this autumn, Yuri Lonchakov, the head of the Russia's Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre, said on Wednesday.COMPLETE STORIESWhy Did Apollo Astronauts Keep Wiping Out on the Moon?Ian O'Neill - Discovery.comWhen watching NASA's historic video footage of the Apollo astronauts on the moon, it becomes clear that the alien lunar gravity was a little troublesome. The moonwalkers would often trip, stumble and wipe out as they explored the dusty landscape.Now, in a new study published in the journal PLOS ONE today (Sept. 3), researchers suggest that it wasn't just the NASA astronauts' unfamiliarity with the strange lunar environment that knocked them off their feet — it may have been their brains lacking a gravitational reference for which way was "up," possibly causing a loss in perception."The perception of the relative orientation of oneself and the world is important not only to balance, but also for many other aspects of perception including recognizing faces and objects and predicting how objects are going to behave when dropped or thrown," said Laurence Harris of York University, Toronto. "Misinterpreting which way is up can lead to perceptual errors and threaten balance if a person uses an incorrect reference point to stabilize themselves."Through a series of European Space Agency centrifuge experiments funded by the Canadian Space Agency, Harris and co-investigator Michael Jenkin (also from York University) were able to simulate gravitational fields of different magnitudes. Subjects being accelerated by the centrifuge were then asked which direction they thought "up" was. Through this perceptual test, Harris and Jenkin discovered that "the threshold level of gravity needed to just influence a person's orientation judgment was about 15 percent of the level found on Earth," according to a university press release.Interestingly, 15 percent Earth gravity (or 0.15 G) is very close to the gravity experienced by the Apollo astronauts on the lunar surface — 0.1654 G or 16.5 percent of Earth's gravity.Although this is likely only one of the many reasons why astronauts on the moon often spent time eating moon dirt — other reasons possibly include lack of maneuverability in bulky spacesuits and restricted visibility while navigating the rocky terrain — understanding how the human brain responds to different gravitational fields is essential if we are to become a multiplanetary species."If the brain does not sense enough gravity to determine which way is up, astronauts may get disoriented, which can lead to errors like flipping switches the wrong way or moving the wrong way in an emergency," said Jenkin. "Therefore, it's crucial to understand how the direction of up is established and to establish the relative contribution of gravity to this direction before journeying to environments with gravity levels different to that of Earth."Fortunately for future Mars explorers, say the researchers, their balance should be just fine. The Martian gravity of 38 percent that of Earth's is more than sufficient to aid future Mars colonists' perception of orientation.House Subcommittee to Hold Hearing on ASTEROIDS Act on September 10Marcia S. Smith - Spacepolicyonline.comThe Space Subcommittee of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee will hold a hearing next week on the ASTEROIDS Act, which was introduced in July by Rep. Bill Posey (R- FL) and Derek Kilmer (D-WA).The goal of the legislation is to establish and protect property rights for commercial exploration and exploitation of asteroids. Two U.S. companies promoting such activities are Planetary Resources, headquartered in Kilmer's Redmond, WA district, and Deep Space Industries of Houston, TX. Posey's district includes Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and NASA's Kennedy Space Center.Five witnesses have been announced for the hearing, four of whom are scientists and one is a space lawyer. The scientists are:
- Jim Green, Director of NASA's Planetary Science Division;
- Phil Christensen, an Arizona State University (ASU) professor who co-chairs the National Research Council's (NRC's) Committee on Astrobiology and Planetary Science (CAPS) and was a member of the NRC's Decadal Survey for planetary science;
- Jim Bell, another ASU Professor who is President of the grass-roots space advocacy group The Planetary Society; and
- Mark Sykes, CEO and Director of the Tucson, AZ-based non-profit solar system exploration advocacy group Planetary Science Institute.
The fifth witness is Joanne Gabrynowicz, an internationally recognized space lawyer who for many years before her retirement headed the National Center for Remote Sensing, Air and Space Law at the University of Mississippi and was editor of the Journal of Space Law. She is currently a member of the NASA Advisory Council's Planetary Protection Subcommittee that advises the agency on matters concerning the prevention of forward or back contamination of solar system bodies.The concept of mining asteroids involves many scientific, technical and economic considerations, but property rights is a particularly thorny issue. Under the 1967 U.N. Outer Space Treaty, there is no national sovereignty in space so no country can "own" an asteroid. Pursuant to the treaty, governments are responsible for the actions of their non-governmental entities, such as a company, sparking debate over whether a company can own an asteroid or any part of it. Without ownership rights to minerals mined from asteroids, it is unlikely that companies would pursue asteroid mining even if such an activity could prove to be otherwise feasible.The ASTEROIDS Act would apply only to U.S. companies and seeks to ensure that materials mined from an asteroid by a U.S. company are the property of that company. It would not confer ownership of the asteroid itself.The hearing is at 10:00 am ET on September 10, 2014 in 2318 Rayburn House Office Building.Flagship Mars Curiosity Rover Doing Too Little with Too Much, Senior Scientists SayDan Leone – Space NewsWhile the $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory has been approved for a two-year mission extension that will cost NASA roughly $115 million, senior scientists warned that the flagship rover is at risk of underachieving, and that its status as crown jewel of the agency's planetary science division appears to have gone to the mission team's head.The Mars Science Laboratory's Curiosity rover landed on the red planet in August 2012. Equipped with a drill to gather surface samples and spectroscopy equipment to analyze the samples, the rover has collected and analyzed five surface specimens so far and, according to the extended mission proposal just approved by NASA, would analyze another eight over the next two years.That is "a poor science return for such a large investment in a flagship mission," a 15-person senior review panel chaired by Clive Neal, a geologist at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, wrote in a report published Sept. 3.The report also chided John Grotzinger, the lead Curiosity project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, for neglecting to show up in person during a Mars-focused senior review panel meeting in May."This left the panel with the impression that the [Curiosity] team felt they were too big to fail," the senior review panel wrote.So while NASA endorsed the senior review panel's recommendation to extend the rover's mission through September 2016, the agency has also directed the Curiosity team at JPL to "develop a new task plan and get back to us," William Knopf, a NASA program executive, said during a Sept. 3 meeting of the NASA Advisory Council's planetary science subcommittee at agency headquarters here.Knopf would not say exactly how long the JPL team has to turn in a new task plan.Senior review panels are convened periodically to decide whether it is worth NASA's while to continue funding missions that have accomplished their primary science objectives. Curiosity got the nod even though the senior review team was not sure whether the flagship rover had completed its primary science mission at all."It was unclear from both the proposal and presentation that the Prime Mission science goals [of Curiosity] had been met," the panel wrote in a report summarizing its nearly five-month-long senior review of ongoing planetary science missions. "In fact, it was unclear what exactly these were."NASA accepted the senior review panel's recommendation to extend all seven missions that were up for review this year. Only two missions, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and Europe's Mars Express orbiter, will see notable operational changes as a result of the senior review. Besides Curiosity, the missions that won extensions, and the approximate cost of those extensions, are:
- The Cassini Saturn orbiter, which arrived at the gas giant in 2004 on a four-year primary mission. The flagship outer planets mission will continue for three years at a cost of roughly $175 million. The mission will end around September 2017, when the orbiter is set to plunge into Saturn's atmosphere.
- The Moon-mapping Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which launched on a one-year primary mission in 2009. The senior review panel wanted to turn off three of the orbiter's seven instruments, but NASA agreed to shut off only the Mini-RF instrument: a synthetic aperture radar. The two-year extension will cost about $40 million.
- The Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity, which landed in 2004 on a 92-day mission. Opportunity, which outlasted its twin, Spirit, will need about $30 million to rove for another two years.
- The Analyzer of Space Plasma and Energetic Atoms-3, a partially NASA-funded instrument aboard the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter, which arrived at Mars in 2004 on a primary mission of just under two years. Two more years will cost NASA about $6 million, but the agency is pulling support for the team that calibrates the orbiter's High Resolution Stereo Camera. NASA accepted the senior review panel's advice that calibration efforts would be substantially cheaper if done automatically.
- Mars Odyssey, an orbiter that arrived at Mars in 2001 on a 32-month primary mission. Although the senior review team said the orbiter has actually become more useful to the agency's heliophysics and human spaceflight divisions, owing to radiation measurements it makes, NASA agreed to a two-year extension costing roughly $25 million. Odyssey is also a telecommunications relay for Opportunity.
- The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which arrived at Mars in 2006 on a two-year primary mission. The orbiter will get roughly $60 million for two more years of operations.
Editorial | ESA Makes History with RosettaSpaceNews EditorThe European Space Agency, and in particular the ESA member states that chose to participate in the Rosetta comet-chaser mission, received a large and well-deserved dose of satisfaction Aug. 6 when the spacecraft finally arrived within striking distance of its destination.After a journey of more than 10 years following a combined investment of $1.75 billion, Rosetta is now within 100 kilometers of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and has sent back stunning images that are already changing the way scientists think about these mysterious objects. It has been widely assumed that comets are giant, dirty slush balls, but based on initial assessments of Rosetta's data Comet 67P appears to more rocky than icy.Over the coming weeks and months Rosetta will continue to track the comet as it approaches the sun, in the process kicking out increased amounts of water vapor and dust. Rosetta is the first probe to rendezvous and fall in step with a comet — previous missions to comets have been flybys.Gradually, the spacecraft will close to within a distance of 10 kilometers before deploying a lander that will anchor itself to the surface of the comet — another first.The resulting scientific discoveries — indeed the imagery alone — promise to be breathtaking, assuming success, of course. Already, however, top space officials with the participating nations — notably Germany, France and Italy — are rightly touting Rosetta's arrival as validation of their substantial investments in the mission. Germany's space minister also praised ESA's smart use of social media to engage young people as the mission progresses.Notably, these same countries face tough negotiations later this year that will shape the future of ESA's launcher program and participation in the international space station.But for the moment, why not bask in Rosetta's glow? Though tricky maneuvers lay ahead, Rosetta is already a showcase of ESA's technical prowess — it's worth noting that this mission was designed in the 1990s — and a reminder that investment in flagship-class science missions is money well spent.Cash Infusion Reaffirms Putin's Commitment to New Launch ComplexMatthew Bodner – SpaceNewsAmid a stalling economy and political tensions abroad, Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged 50 billion rubles ($1.3 billion) to finish construction of the Vostochny Cosmodrome in anticipation of a 2015 first flight from the complex.In order to hasten completion of Vostochny, Putin has stripped oversight of the project from Russia's space agency, Roscosmos, and tapped Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin to personally walk it to the finish line.Putin has on several occasions expressed great interest in the realization of Russia's new cosmodrome, located in the Amur region of Russia's remote and underdeveloped far east. On Sept. 2, he stopped at the site while touring the region, and reaffirmed the government's commitment to revitalizing the Russian space program, which has been beset by shoestring budgets and protracted brain drain since the early 1990s."We are investing heavily from the [federal] budget into this project," Putin was quoted as saying in remarks published on the Kremlin website. "Over 100 billion rubles have been allocated since 2011, and another 50 billion should be allocated in 2015."This commitment reflects a recent trend of reinvestment in Russia's position as a pre-eminent spacefaring power. Earlier this year, Roscosmos quietly released a 1.8-trillion-ruble budget hike to finance the modernization of decaying space infrastructure, a development that was overshadowed by Rogozin's announcement the same day that Russia might pull out of the international space station program in 2020.In mid-August, Roscosmos submitted a new budget proposal for government approval, although the specifics have not yet been made available."I would like to stress yet again that this is a major national project that will make it possible to launch spacecraft into outer space, to its farther reaches this time, and not depend on any launch sites outside the Russian Federation, although we will continue this line of work as well," Putin said of the project.Currently, most Russian space missions, including all flights to the international space station and all Proton missions, are launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Russia and Kazakstan have frequently been at odds over the years about the terms for using Baikonur.Putin expressed disappointment in Vostochny's continued construction delays, which he estimated have put the completion of the Soyuz 2 launchpad anywhere from 30 to 55 days behind schedule."In 2015, Vostochny should be ready to launch automatic spacecraft using medium class Soyuz-2 booster rockets, and by 2018, it should take on the implementation of piloted flights," Putin said, noting that the 6,000 workers at the site are not sufficient to meet these target dates. As such, he proposed that the workforce be increased up to 15,000.Later, in remarks carried by the Interfax news agency, Rogozin announced that Putin had stripped Roscosmos Director General Oleg Ostapenko of his managerial responsibilities for the Vostochny construction project and given it directly to the deputy prime minister — who is tasked with managing the space and defense industries.Ostapenko took the helm at Roscosmos in 2013 after Vladimir Popovkin was sacked in part for construction delays at Vostochny.Even prior to being assigned his new responsibility, Rogozin had taken a keen interest in the Vostochny project. In February he famously declared that he had installed cameras throughout the complex to monitor the workforce and root out "slackers" from his office in Moscow.The Vostochny construction project is currently in "phase two," which originally focused exclusively on building the Soyuz 2 launch facilities. Infrastructure to support Russia's new Angara family of rockets — the first of which recently completed a suborbital test flight — is currently slated for phase three, scheduled to begin in 2016.Ostapenko said Sept. 2 that Roscosmos wants to move the Angara complex to phase two, and begin construction this year. Roscosmos expects Vostochny to be ready to launch modular Angara vehicles by 2020. A third stage in the construction of the spaceport, located at 51.5 degrees north latitude, will be dedicated to building a next-generation heavy-lift vehicle for launches starting in 2030, Roscosmos said in a statement.Staff writer Peter B. de Selding contributed to this story from Paris.Technical Problem Delays Space Station Satellite DeploymentsJeff Foust – SpaceNewsA technical problem with a cubesat dispenser on the international space station has halted the deployment of the latest batch of small satellites on the station until as late as early next year.In a Sept. 3 statement, Houston-based NanoRacks said it was continuing to study a problem with a "non-performing" cubesat deployer on the station. The problem was first noted in an Aug. 22 ISS status report from NASA, which stated that multiple attempts to deploy cubesats during the previous day were unsuccessful for "unspecified reasons." The problem occurred after 10 of 32 satellites delivered to the station in July had been released.Abby Dickes, a NanoRacks spokeswoman, said that the problem with the deployer was electrical, and not mechanical, in nature, but declined to go into greater detail. The company said that while it will continue to make efforts to deploy the current satellites, it will also send a new command box to the station on a future resupply mission that should allow cubesat deployments to resume in early 2015.Cubesat launch has become the biggest market for NanoRacks, which started by offering internal lab space on the station. Deployers loaded with satellites arrive at the station on cargo spacecraft and are transferred to the airlock in the Japanese Kibo module. That module's robotic arm grapples the deployer and moves it into position for deployment.Beyond NanoRacks, the company most affected by the deployment problem is San Francisco-based Planet Labs, which has used the ISS to launch most of its satellites. Twenty-eight of the 32 satellites delivered to the station in July with the latest flight of Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Cygnus cargo tug belong to Planet Labs, and 18 of them have not yet been released, a Planet Labs official confirmed."Our constellation plans have taken into account launch delays from the very beginning, so the delay is unfortunate, but not detrimental," Mike Safyan, director of launch and regulatory issues for Planet Labs, said in a Sept. 3 email. The company plans to deliver another group of satellites, named Flock-1d, to the ISS on the next Cygnus mission, slated for launch in mid-OctoberU.S. aims to fund alternative to Russian rocket engine in 2016Andrea Shalal - ReutersThe U.S. government hopes to add funding to its 2016 budget for alternatives to Russian-made rocket engines to launch sensitive satellites, a key Pentagon official said Wednesday.Defense Undersecretary Frank Kendall, the Pentagon's chief weapons buyer, said Russia's aggression in Ukraine had clearly increased concerns about America's dependence on Russia-built RD-180 rocket engines that power the heavy-lift Atlas 5 rockets used to carry U.S. military and spy satellites into space."The situation has changed with events in Ukraine. Now that level of risk looks more significant," Kendall told the ComDef 2014 conference. "There is close to a consensus ... that we need to find a way to remove the dependency. We're looking at the best course of action to do that."U.S. President Barack Obama accused Russia on Wednesday of a "brazen assault" on Ukraine, and urged NATO on Wednesday to help strengthen Ukraine's military, which has been fighting pro-Russian separatists for five months.Tensions between Moscow and Washington have raised concerns that deliveries of the RD-180 rocket engines could be interrupted, although two engines arrived in the United States last month and three more are slated for delivery this fall for use by the United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Boeing Co and Lockheed Martin Corp in its Atlas 5 rockets.Kendall said the Pentagon had asked industry last month to provide information about alternate launch systems and engines. He said U.S. officials were weighing several options, including a joint government-industry development of a U.S. rocket engine."We're going to work our way through that," Kendall said, noting that while no decisions had been made, the administration hoped to include funding for the initiative in the 2016 Pentagon budget proposal that military officials are now drafting.U.S. officials and industry executives say it could take years and billions of dollars to design and build a U.S.-built alternative engine.ULA says it has enough RD-180 engines on hand to last for two years. It has an $11 billion contract with the U.S. Air Force for 36 launches, but privately held Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, has sued in federal claims court to be allowed to compete for more of that work.SpaceX is working through the certification it needs from the Air Force to compete for such orders with its Falcon 9 rocket, and plans to debut its own heavy-lift rocket next year.Kendall said it would take "a few years" until Washington could get a new capability, but it could also shift to using more Delta 4 rockets, which do not use the RD-180 motors.Dynetics, an Alabama-based firm, has been working with GenCorp unit Aerojet Rocketdyne on ways to reduce the risk of building a U.S. engine under a NASA contract awarded in 2012.Sarah Brightman to start training for space station journey in JanuaryItar TassSarah Brightman will pay a total of $52 million for her next year's flight on board of the Russian-made Soyuz spacecraft to the ISSBritish famed soprano singer Sarah Brightman would begin pre-flight trainings for her journey to the International Space Station (ISS) as a space tourist early next year, instead of this autumn, Yuri Lonchakov, the head of the Russia's Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre, said on Wednesday."She will begin trainings in the Star City in January of 2015 and therefore we are all waiting for her," Lonchakov said adding that he believed "her training will be a success."Less than three months ago Lonchakov said that the famous singer had already passed a number of medical examination and tests and was ready to begin preparations for the trip to the ISS at the Star City space training facility in the Moscow Region in September or October.Lonchakov's earlier statement that Brightman could start her trainings this autumn was also confirmed in June by the president of the US-based company in charge of organizing her trip.Tom Shelley, the president of US-based Space Adventures Ltd. company, said at a National Space Club Florida Committee meeting in June that Brightman, 54, planned to make the trip to the ISS in September of 2015 and this fall she intended to start the pre-flight trainings at the space training center outside Moscow."She is absolutely 100% committed. She's putting together her mission plan now," Shelley said adding that Brightman wants to be the first professional singer ever to sing in space.Shelley also said that Brightman would pay a total of $52 million for her next year's flight on board of the Russian-made Soyuz spacecraft to the ISS, where she plans to spend 10 days as a space tourist.Brightman, who starred in Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Phantom of the Opera" and is the world's best-selling soprano singer with over 30 million of CDs sold, first announced her intentions to travel to the ISS as a space tourist in August 2012.Last year the Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos) announced that it reached a relevant agreement with Space Adventures to proceed with the superstar's plans of traveling into space.If the British singer reaches the ISS next year, she will become the eighth space tourist in the world.The pioneer space tourist is US entrepreneur Dennis Tito, who made the flight to the ISS in 2001 for $20 million and spent eight days at the station. The most recent space tourist at the station is Cirque du Soleil co-founder Guy Laliberte, who spent 11 days at the ISS in 2009 for $40 million.The only female space tourist so far reaching the ISS is Anousheh Ansari, an Iranian-American engineer and co-founder and chairwoman of Prodea Systems. Her 12-day stay at the space station in 2006 cost her $20 million.ENDMore at www.spacetoday.net
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