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From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: January 26, 2015 at 12:46:39 PM CST
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: NASA and Human Spaceflight News - Monday – Jan. 26, 2015
Happy Monday everyone. Just a heads up to all that Ann Patterson has decided to retire too effective Feb. 3rd. she will have an AMF party around Feb. 20th …AMF flyer to follow. Congratulations to her tooNASA and Human Spaceflight NewsMonday – Jan. 26, 2015HEADLINES AND LEADSElon Musk's SpaceX drops lawsuit against Air ForceAssociated PressA spacecraft company run by billionaire Elon Musk has dropped a lawsuit alleging the U.S. Air Force improperly awarded a contract to launch military satellites to a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin.Elon Musk's SpaceX settles lawsuit against Air ForceChristian Davenport – The Washington PostSpaceX, Elon Musk's startup space company, announced late Friday that it would drop its lawsuit against the Air Force protesting the award of a lucrative contract to launch military satellites.SpaceX, Air Force Settle Lawsuit over ULA BlockbuyMike Gruss – Space NewsSpaceX will drop its lawsuit against the U.S. Air Force in exchange for the service making more national security launch missions available for competition, the two parties announced Jan. 23.The Air Force would also move faster on its efforts to certify SpaceX to launch military satellites as part of the agreement.NASA Advisory Council Remains Skeptical of Asteroid Redirect MissionJeff Foust – Space NewsAs NASA continues to weigh two options for the robotic portion of its Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), the agency's advisers say they are still unconvinced about the general ARM concept and its relevance to the long-term goal of sending humans to Mars.NASA Not Ready To Update Mars Mission ArchitectureJeff Foust – Space NewsDespite a desire by industry and policymakers for more details about NASA's long-term plans to send humans to Mars, agency officials say they have no immediate plans to revise a Mars mission architecture last updated in 2009.WISE luncheon celebrates three honoreesHouston ChronicleOn Jan. 23 at the River Oaks Country Club, the annual Women in Science with Excellence (WISE) luncheon celebrated the value of women in technical disciplines and the achievements of three outstanding women from the Houston community, inspiring women to pursue their dreams and celebrating the ones who have achieved extraordinary things.Apollo 15 command module pilot Alfred M. Worden: 'NASA took a step backwards'Deutsche Welle (DEU)He's one of a handful of men to have orbited the moon. Today, Alfred M. Worden says NASA's on the wrong track. He also tells DW why he likes the moon's dark side and what he wanted most - but didn't get - upon returning.Bob Cabana to be honored for KSC workJames Dean – Florida TodayBob Cabana has earned plenty of accolades for his contributions as a U.S. Marine Corps colonel and four-time space shuttle pilot and commander for NASA.ANALYSIS: Space Station maintaining orbit – for nowDan Thisdell - FlightglobalThe International Space Station has been the focal point of human spaceflight activity for so long now that the outpost can seem like a permanent, if remote, feature of our planet. While not as significant as, say, Hawaii or New Zealand, the ISS is better known than any number of smaller rocks and islands and, at a little more than 400km (250 miles) altitude, closer than most of them – depending on where one starts from.Giving back in Brevard: Astronaut dinner, BSO auction on tapSara Paulson – Florida TodaySome of the local happenings across the Space Coast's philanthropic community:Asteroid swings very near Earth: Are you up for a midnight viewing?Amy Hubbard – Los Angeles TimesAn asteroid five football fields wide will make a near-Earth flyby on Monday, and you may be able to see it at the witching hour with a pair of strong binoculars.NASA Spacecraft Almost to Pluto: Smile for the Camera!Marcia Dunn – APIt's showtime for Pluto.NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has traveled 3 billion miles and is nearing the end of its nine-year journey to Pluto. Sunday, it begins photographing the mysterious, unexplored, icy world once deemed a planet.Mars Rover Opportunity Marks 11-Year Anniversary with Stunning PhotoMike Wall - Space.comNASA's Opportunity rover celebrated 11 years on Mars Saturday (Jan. 24), and the robot's handlers are marking the occasion with a gorgeous panoramic photo that Opportunity took of its Red Planet home.The leap second, deep space and how we keep timeEliza Mills - MarketplaceYou may have heard on the news or the internet about a very, very small leap that's coming. It's the leap second. Yeah, not year. Second.NASA Marching Towards Milestone Test Firing of Space Launch System BoosterKen Kremer – Universe TodayThe first solid rocket booster qualification motor for NASA's mammoth new Space Launch System (SLS) rocket is aimed and ready to fire in a major ground test after NASA and ATK finished its installation at a test stand in Utah, and confirms that the pace of SLS development is gaining momentum.COMPLETE STORIESElon Musk's SpaceX drops lawsuit against Air ForceAssociated PressA spacecraft company run by billionaire Elon Musk has dropped a lawsuit alleging the U.S. Air Force improperly awarded a contract to launch military satellites to a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin.Musk's SpaceX filed the lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in April after Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. landed the lucrative deal through United Launch Services. Musk contended the Air Force set up a bidding process that gave United Launch an unfair advantage.In a joint statement late Friday, Space X and the Air Force said they reached an agreement that "improves the competitive landscape and achieves mission assurance for national security space launches."Court records show former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft mediated the settlement talks.Elon Musk's SpaceX settles lawsuit against Air ForceChristian Davenport – The Washington PostSpaceX, Elon Musk's startup space company, announced late Friday that it would drop its lawsuit against the Air Force protesting the award of a lucrative contract to launch military satellites.In a joint statement, the Air Force and SpaceX said that the California-based company agreed to drop the suit because the Air Force "has expanded the number of competitive opportunities for launch services."SpaceX filed the suit in the Court of Federal Claims last spring, arguing that the contract, which was awarded to the United Launch Alliance, should have been competitively bid.The announcement comes after months of acrimony between the parties. Musk, the billionaire founder of Tesla and PayPal, had accused the Air Force of improperly awarding a sole-source contract and said it was taking too long to certify his company for the launches.SpaceX had hoped that it would be certified by the end of last year. But earlier this month, the Air Force said that was not likely to happen until the middle of this year.In an interview with Bloomberg Business Week, Musk accused military procurement officials of holding up the certification to curry favor with the ULA, the joint venture of defense contracting giants Lockheed Martin and Boeing."Essentially we're asking them to award a contract to a company where they are probably not going to get a job, against a company where their friends are," he said. "So they've got to go against their friends, and their future retirement program. This is a difficult thing to expect."Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James called his remarks "rather unfortunate." And she said the service was working diligently to get SpaceX certified for the launches. She also appointed retired Gen. Larry D. Welch, a former chief of staff, to lead an independent review of the certification process, which would explore whether there are "ways that we can streamline, speed it up, do things a little bit differently."In the joint statement, the parties said that "under the agreement, the Air Force will work collaboratively with SpaceX to complete the certification process in an efficient and expedient manner."The multibillion-dollar contract is for 36 rockets to launch defense payloads, including satellites. By 2030, the Pentagon expects to spend almost $70 billion on the program.SpaceX, once considered a small but feisty startup, has recently scored some major victories in an industry long dominated by traditional players. It was the first commercial company to resupply the International Space Station. And it also won a major contract from NASA last year to ferry astronauts to the space station.It also has attracted attention for pushing the envelopes of space travel. And next week it plans once again to try to land a rocket booster on a floating barge. If successful that could be a significant step toward developing reusable rockets, which could vastly decrease the costs of space flight.SpaceX, Air Force Settle Lawsuit over ULA BlockbuyMike Gruss – Space NewsSpaceX will drop its lawsuit against the U.S. Air Force in exchange for the service making more national security launch missions available for competition, the two parties announced Jan. 23.The Air Force would also move faster on its efforts to certify SpaceX to launch military satellites as part of the agreement.The move comes less than two weeks after the sides entered mediation over an $11 billion sole-source contract the Air Force gave United Launch Alliance of Denver.SpaceX filed a lawsuit last April asking the U.S. Court of Federal Claims to void a large portion of the deal, under which the Air Force ordered 36 rocket cores from ULA.those cores from ULA on a sole-source basis while putting another 14 missions up for bid, thereby giving so-called new entrants such as SpaceX a crack at the market.But in March 2014, the Air Force deferred roughly half of the launches to be put out for competition. Many of those missions were to loft GPS satellites, which SpaceX had offered to launch for as little as $80 million each in an unsolicited bid.SpaceX filed suit shortly thereafter."This is not SpaceX protesting and saying that these launches should be awarded to us," Elon Musk, SpaceX's founder, said here in April when the suit was filed. "We're just protesting and saying that these launches should be competed."New entrants like SpaceX must earn certification to launch national security missions. The Air Force announced earlier in January that SpaceX is expected to earn certification no later than the middle of 2015, some six months later than originally thought.While the Air Force said engineering analysis remained, Musk said service officials had slowed the certification effort in the hopes of later landing jobs at Lockheed Martin or Boeing, the parent companies in the ULA joint venture.Despite the public bickering between Musk and the Air Force, SpaceX and the service worked a deal behind closed doors and under a court-imposed gag order.In a Jan. 13 order, Susan Braden, the judge overseeing the case, said SpaceX and the Air Force would begin mediation this month, a path she had first suggested last July.With a former U.S. attorney general, John Ashcroft, serving as mediator, SpaceX and the Air Force were able to reach agreement."Under the agreement, the Air Force will work collaboratively with SpaceX to complete the certification process in an efficient and expedient manner," the statement from the two parties said. "The Air Force also has expanded the number of competitive opportunities for launch services under the EELV program while honoring existing contractual obligations."The statement did not make clear how many competitive launch opportunities would be available or when. The Air Force has committed to seven launch awards by late 2017, but has said that number could grow to at least eight.Each additional launch contract the Air Force puts out for competition gives SpaceX or ULA another opportunity to win about $100 million or more in business.As a result of the agreement, the Air Force would not break its current contract with ULA, the statement said. Defense Department officials had estimated that changing the contract could lead to $370 million in costs.ULA Chief Executive Tory Bruno commented via Twitter on the outcome.The agreement also appears to aid future new entrants going through the certification process. As part of the agreement, the Air Force said it would hold future competitions "consistent with the emergence of multiple certified providers."That likely means the service would follow a certification process closer to NASA's where bidders can win launch contracts as long as they are certified before the launch date, but not necessarily before the contract award.Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Virginia is widely expected to become the next company to seek certification.Here's the joint statement SpaceX posted on its website Friday (Jan. 23) evening:The Air Force and SpaceX have reached agreement on a path forward for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program that improves the competitive landscape and achieves mission assurance for national security space launches. Under the agreement, the Air Force will work collaboratively with SpaceX to complete the certification process in an efficient and expedient manner. This collaborative effort will inform the SECAF directed review of the new entrant certification process. The Air Force also has expanded the number of competitive opportunities for launch services under the EELV program while honoring existing contractual obligations. Going forward, the Air Force will conduct competitions consistent with the emergence of multiple certified providers. Per the settlement, SpaceX will dismiss its claims relating to the EELV block buy contract pending in the United States Court of Federal Claims.NASA Advisory Council Remains Skeptical of Asteroid Redirect MissionJeff Foust – Space NewsAs NASA continues to weigh two options for the robotic portion of its Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), the agency's advisers say they are still unconvinced about the general ARM concept and its relevance to the long-term goal of sending humans to Mars.At a recent meeting of the NASA Advisory Council at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, agency officials said they had not yet made a selection between two approaches for moving a small asteroid, or a boulder off a larger asteroid, into lunar orbit.NASA had planned to make a decision in December on the two choices, known simply as Option A and Option B. In Option A, a spacecraft would shift the orbit of a small asteroid, up to ten meters across, into a distant retrograde orbit around the moon. In Option B, a spacecraft would grab a boulder a few meters across from the surface of a larger asteroid and move that into lunar orbit. In both options, a crewed Orion spacecraft would then visit the asteroid.However, on Dec. 17, NASA Associate Administrator Robert Lightfoot announced that the agency needed more time to evaluate the options. Those additional studies, he said at the time, would take two to three weeks.Michele Gates, ARM program director at NASA Headquarters, told a meeting of the NASA Advisory Council's human exploration and operations committee Jan. 13 that NASA would make a decision between the two options in the near future. "We're expecting a decision in mid-January on the robotic mission capture option," she said.NASA Administrator Charles Bolden made similar comment to the full council Jan. 14. "We hope to be able to announce something soon," he said. NASA had yet to announce a choice between the two options as of Jan. 23.Council members, though, were less concerned about the two options than about the relevance of ARM in general. As at their previous meeting in July 2014, members of the council raised concerns about the cost and utility of ARM versus alternatives, such as a mission to a near Earth asteroid in its "native" orbit.Members also noted comments by NASA officials that suggest ARM could still be considered a success even if the robotic mission does not redirect an asteroid. On Jan. 7, Lindley Johnson, head of NASA's Near Earth Object Observations Program, said at a meeting of the Small Bodies Assessment Group that returning an asteroid to cislunar space was a "tradable" objective for ARM."What we're hearing, and it's a logical position to take, is that if the mission doesn't redirect an asteroid, it can still be a success," said Steve Squyres, a Cornell University planetary scientist who is chairman of the council, during a discussion about ARM Jan. 14.However, he and other council members wondered if ARM was the best way to develop and test technologies needed for later human missions to Mars. "If you're going to spend $1.25 billion plus launch vehicle costs to do something," he said, referring to the estimated cost of the robotic portion of ARM, "and you get the most important things by not going after the rock, don't go after the rock."Bolden showed some frustration with the council's pessimism about ARM. "Give me a break," he said after Sqyures' comments, adding that he was "miffed" by the criticism of the mission. He argued that ARM gives NASA the ability to show it can move an asteroid while testing solar electric propulsion, which the agency considers a key technology for future exploration. "Why not do it?""We're trying to do a lot of different things and satisfy a lot of people who want us to do a lot of different things, and we thought we found a way that would get a lot of these previously disconnected things put together," Bolden said of ARM.Bolden, though, didn't appear to be convincing to members of the council. Another member of the council, retired aerospace executive Thomas Young, argued against trying to justify ARM by saying the mission is on the path to Mars. "Proving that we can redirect an asteroid has nothing to do with going to Mars," he said.NASA Not Ready To Update Mars Mission ArchitectureJeff Foust – Space NewsDespite a desire by industry and policymakers for more details about NASA's long-term plans to send humans to Mars, agency officials say they have no immediate plans to revise a Mars mission architecture last updated in 2009.In presentations to a NASA Advisory Council committee Jan. 13 and the full council Jan. 14, NASA associate administrator for human exploration and operations William Gerstenmaier said the agency still had more to learn, including studies ongoing with academia, before it would be ready to update those earlier plans.NASA last published a human Mars exploration plan, called a design reference architecture, in July 2009. The 100-page document, the fifth version of that study, outlines how the agency could carry out a human mission to the surface and Mars and back, including the launch vehicles and spacecraft required as well as other critical technologies needed for the mission."If you asked me how we would go to Mars today, I'd pull out design reference architecture number five," he told the council Jan. 14.However, the document is dated in some respects. Developed during the Constellation program, the architecture makes use of Ares 1 and Ares 5 launch vehicles that were canceled in 2010 with the rest of the program.Gerstenmaier told the council that the Mars architecture could be updated with new technologies and techniques. He cited as one example the development of solar electric propulsion for more efficient transportation of cargo to Mars, a technology NASA is working on for its Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM).Another element of ARM that could affect Mars mission architectures is the use of a distant retrograde orbit around the moon, which has lower propulsion requirements to reach than alternative locations in the Earth-moon vicinity. "This distant retrograde orbit has excellent staging potential for Mars-class missions," he said. "This orbit still needs more work, but it has lots of potential."Gerstenmaier said that discoveries about Mars itself could also alter mission planning. Since the 2009 publication of the latest architecture, a better understanding of the amount and distribution of water below the martian surface makes it more likely that it could be used by future human missions. "It's tremendously important to us," he said.Despite these advances, though, he said it was still premature to update the 2009 architecture. "I don't think I'm quite ready for that yet," he told the council's human exploration and operations committee. "We're still really learning."Some of that learning is taking place outside of NASA. He cited as one example a study published last year by a group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that examined Mars One, a private effort to establish a permanent human settlement on Mars as soon as 2025. The MIT study found that the Mars One habitat could reach unsafe conditions within months of landing, as crops grown there produce high levels of oxygen."That's a very intriguing report," Gerstenmaier said of the MIT study. "What it describes to us is how difficult sustaining humans on another world is really going to be."He said NASA is also advising a student design project at Purdue University looking at the use of "cycler" spacecraft, which would travel between the Earth and Mars, a concept developed by, among others, Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin. "Their primary focus is to look at Buzz's concepts, and to validate Buzz's concepts, and we kind of tagged along," he said, asking the student team to look at particular aspects of the cycler design.Those and other studies will be incorporated into a broader ongoing effort within NASA called the Evolvable Mars Campaign to develop a strategy to support human Mars missions by the mid-2030s. That will help identify what Gerstenmaier called "big paybacks" in terms of technologies and designs that would have the most significant effect on future mission architectures.More details about that strategy will be published this summer, he said. "It's more of a plan for a plan," he said of that effort. "It's not a design reference mission per se."WISE luncheon celebrates three honoreesHouston ChronicleOn Jan. 23 at the River Oaks Country Club, the annual Women in Science with Excellence (WISE) luncheon celebrated the value of women in technical disciplines and the achievements of three outstanding women from the Houston community, inspiring women to pursue their dreams and celebrating the ones who have achieved extraordinary things.-Bonnie J. Dunbar is a former NASA astronaut, retired since September 2005.After graduating from the University of Washington in 1971, Dunbar worked for Boeing Computer Services as a systems analyst. From 1973 to 1975, she conducted research for her master's thesis in the field of mechanisms and kinetics of ionic diffusion in sodium beta-alumina. Dunbar completed her doctorate at the University of Houston.Dunbar is a private pilot with over 200 hours in single engine land aircraft. She has logged more than 700 hours flying time in T-38 jets as a back-seater, and has over 100 hours as co-pilot in a Cessna Citation jet. She became a NASA astronaut in August 1981. Her technical assignments have included assisting in the verification of Shuttle flight software at the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory (SAIL), serving as a member of the Flight Crew Equipment Control Board, participation as a member of the Astronaut Office Science Support Group, supporting operational development of the remote manipulator system (RMS).Dunbar currently leads the new University of Houston's STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) Center at the Cullen College of Engineering.-Lynn Elsenhans is the former chairperson and chief executive officer of Sunoco and Sunoco Logistics, where she served from August 2008 until May 2012.Elsenhans is retired from Royal Dutch Shell, where she served in various capacities for 28 years, from 1980 until 2008. As executive vice president of global manufacturing at Shell, Elsenhans had responsibility for Shell's refining business and chemical manufacturing worldwide.A veteran oil industry executive with domestic and international experience in manufacturing, marketing and planning, Elsenhans graduated from Rice University with a Bachelor of Arts in mathematical science in 1978 and earned a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School in 1980.Elsenhans is a member of the board of directors of Glaxo-SmithKline and Baker Hughes, a member of the board of trustees at Rice University, and a member of the Council of Overseers at the Jones School of Business at Rice University. She also serves on the boards of the United Way of Greater Houston, the Houston chapter of First Tee and the Texas Medical Center.Mary Estes, Ph.D, holds the Cullen Endowed Chair of Molecular and Human Virology and is a professor in the department of molecular virology and microbiology (MVM) and in medicine-gastroenterology at Baylor College of Medicine.Sher received a Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology from the University of North Carolina and did postdoctoral training in virology and epidemiology and Baylor College of Medicine before joining the faculty. Her current research efforts involve studies of gastroenteritis viruses (noroviruses and rotaviruses). She has developed virus-like particle vaccines for gastroenteritis viruses (rotaviruses and noroviruses) and the norovirus vaccine is currently being tested in humans.Estes' laboratory has collaborated with many investigators over the years and she first cloned the Norwalk virus genome.Estes is the founding director of the Digestive Diseases Center, which supports collaborative research across multiple institutions in the Texas Medical Center. She has served on local, state, national and global committees devoted to research and vaccine development including the NIH's Virology Study Section, the Research Advisory Committee.Apollo 15 command module pilot Alfred M. Worden: 'NASA took a step backwards'Deutsche Welle (DEU)He's one of a handful of men to have orbited the moon. Today, Alfred M. Worden says NASA's on the wrong track. He also tells DW why he likes the moon's dark side and what he wanted most - but didn't get - upon returning.DW: What comes to mind when you see the moon at night?Alfred M. Worden: Well, it's been more than 43 years since I was there. And I think if you go anywhere, 43 years later those memories are pretty dim in your mind, and it's pretty hard to recapture that. But I will tell you - if the moon is right, and particularly if I have some young people with me, I use it as a training tool to get them excited about astronomy. So I do use the moon, but don't just look at the moon and philosophize about what I did.You witnessed magic moments of manned space flight - the Apollo era. How was it?Every single person who worked on the program had one goal in mind: Get the guys on the moon and bring them back safely. There was no bureaucracy. If we had a problem, we sat around a table, we discussed it, and we decided then what to do. We listened to everybody. And then we gave an opinion. And we got through a lot of technical issues very quickly and came to the right conclusions, because everybody came together at the work level.Nobody was trying to improve their position or ensure that their position did not go away. We did not have any managers that were jockeying for position to go higher. Everybody tried to do what was right to go to moon.Today that's completely the opposite. NASA has gotten very bureaucratic, just like every other government agency. It's called: I am gonna do whatever it takes to keep my job.What went wrong?We took a step backwards back in the late 70s when they decided to build the space shuttle. That was, in my opinion, a mistake. The shuttle was a very complicated machine. It did some pretty unusual, clearly spectacular things, like launch vertically and land horizontally. But from a technical standpoint, we launched a 280,000 pound machine to carry 25,000 pounds up to space. To go to the International Space Station.If we had maintained the Saturn V as a launch vehicle, we would have put eight times as much into Earth's orbit. What's interesting to me is: We are going back to the Saturn V system for the future programs. The Orion space ship is almost a carbon copy of the Apollo spacecraft.I've been disappointed with the program over the last 30 years. I'm having a hard time with the International Space Station - to decide whether that's a mistake …. I think from a political standpoint, the ISS has been a good thing. It brought a lot of countries together. But I question what we got out of it for 100 billion dollars (89 billion euros). That's a lot of money to spend.On the other hand - if the Space Station were used for what I believe it ought be used for, it would be an investment in the future. That's the real value of a space station: You can take all kinds of fuel in many little pieces and put it in a big tank up there. And when you get ready to go to Mars - take that big tank and load it under your space craft and off you go! Instead of trying to get it all off the earth at one time. I think there's a lot of potential out there. But I'm just not sure we're playing it the right way.Should we go back to the moon?I see no value in going back to the moon. What will we go back for? To explore it some more? Do we need to explore it some more? I don't think so. The moon is a very, very baby step on the way out.What were the biggest challenges on your trip?On the technical side, I guess the first challenge was removing the Lunar Module from the Saturn V rocket. That was a very delicate maneuver. If that had not gone right, that would have absolutely destroyed the rest of the flight. So it had to be done quickly.The next one was doing the navigation on the way out. Also very delicate. We had a sextant, just like ancient mariners used. Getting a little sextant lined up to the stars, getting the angles, getting the computer to calculate all that. And then finding out that we had the same information, we had the same solutions, let's say, that Houston had. That was kind of nice.You have to be very precise with that, got to keep the space craft very quiet, not moving. You see, a spacecraft going to moon - you can make move it just by moving around. It's very easy.Cruising around the moon, alone in a capsule, far away from Earth - sounds scary?I loved it! The backside [of the moon] is where I did not have to talk to Houston. I thought that was the best part of flight. I purely enjoyed never having to talk to Houston. So I was pretty much by myself. Isolated one would say .... Nobody bothered me and I loved that. I could do what I had to do. Didn't have to worry about keeping somebody informed on what I was doing. That was the best part of flight, I loved it.What were you looking forward to when you came back? Taking a shower?Hmm (laughs)..... A glass of vodka was my thing! When I got out of the spacecraft, I wanted a guy to be standing there with a glass of vodka on the rocks. He had beer instead. So I had a beer.Bob Cabana to be honored for KSC workJames Dean – Florida TodayBob Cabana has earned plenty of accolades for his contributions as a U.S. Marine Corps colonel and four-time space shuttle pilot and commander for NASA.A new honor recognizes his work as Kennedy Space Center's 10th center director.At a ceremony in Houston in April, he'll be awarded the 2015 National Space Trophy by the Rotary National Award for Space Achievement Foundation, the foundation announced last week.His nominators included Ellen Ochoa and Mike Coats, former astronauts who are the current and past directors of Johnson Space Center, and former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin.They said Cabana has exhibited "exceptional leadership and executive guidance in leading the evolution of the NASA Kennedy Space Center as the world's premier multi-user spaceport in support of NASA's exploration goals."Cabana joined KSC in late 2008, as the shuttle program was entering its final few years of flight.The center is now preparing overhauling a launch pad, Vehicle Assembly Building high bay and other infrastructure to launch the new Space Launch System rocket.Intended to launch astronauts to deep space in the Orion capsule, the SLS rocket is targeting a first test launch in 2018.Meanwhile, KSC has turned over several facilities it no longer needs to commercial or government partners, including the lease of launch pad 39A to SpaceX.Cabana in 2013 won the National Space Club's Debus Award, and in 2008 was inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame.Big booster ready for testNASA recently test-fired a space shuttle main engine in Mississippi, part of its development of the Space Launch System exploration rocket, which will use four of the engines.Now a stretched-out version of a shuttle solid rocket booster is positioned on a stand in Utah for a "static-fire" test in March.Measuring 154 feet long, the five-segment booster is the largest solid rocket motor ever built for flight, according to manufacturer ATK.That's one segment more than a shuttle booster, which was about five feet shorter.Labeled Qualification Motor-1, or QM-1, the booster will produce 3.6 million pounds of thrust at its peak during the March 11 test."Testing before flight is critical to ensure reliability and safety when launching crew into space," said Charlie Precourt, vice president and general manager of ATK's Space Launch division.A pair of the more powerful boosters will frame the SLS rocket's core stage for at least the first two flights, which are targeted for 2018 without a crew and perhaps 2022 with a crew.Combined with four shuttle main engines powering the rocket's core stage, the initial version of the rocket will produce 8.4 million pounds of thrust at liftoff.NASA is studying booster options for subsequent missions.Showtime for LSPKennedy Space Center's Launch Services Program this week is set to launch the first of two NASA science missions early this year that are worth about $2 billion combined.NASA's Soil Moisture Active Passive mission is scheduled to launch at 9:20 EST Thursday from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, on a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket.The $916.5 million mission will improve climate models with precise global maps of surface soil moisture.In March, the program will oversee the launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station of the Magnetospheric Multiscale mission, or MMS, by ULA's Atlas V rocket. The $1.1 billion mission will study how magnetic fields around Earth connect and disconnect.Launch adds STEAM at McNairA Kennedy Space Center crowd cheering last Tuesday's launch of a Navy communications satellite by an Atlas V rocket included teachers and administrators from Ronald McNair Magnet Middle School in Rockledge.Earlier that day, more than 30 representatives from the Navy and Lockheed Martin, which built the Mobile User Objective System satellite, visited McNair to work with 280 seventh- and eighth-graders.The aerospace professionals discussed their careers and presented the students with a tricky design challenge.Given limited supplies, the students had to build a rocket that could support the weight of a book, and do so within an imaginary budget.A piece of paper, for example, was assigned a value of $10 million, and a centimeter of tape $100,000."They had to build this structure and they also had to meet cost," said Veronica Raley, STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) coordinating teacher at the school. "That really taught them that you don't just go build something, you have to think about cost and efficiency."The guests were impressed, and plan to return before the launch of the fourth MUOS satellite from Cape Canaveral, tentatively planned in August. Lockheed also donated $500 to the school.New SpinoffsNASA has released its annual publication of how the space-related technologies it developed are being applied around the world.Some examples from "Spinoff 2015": shock absorbers used during space shuttle launches bracing buildings during earthquakes; a coliform bacteria test helping to monitor water quality in rural communities; and cabin pressure monitors alerting pilots to low oxygen levels.Find more spinoffs at http://spinoff.nasa.gov.Happy Anniversary, OppyOnce expected to work for three months, NASA's Opportunity rover last week celebrated its 11th anniversary on Mars.The rover launched from Cape Canaveral on July 7, 2003, and landed on Mars on Jan. 24, 2004. It has driven 25.9 miles.NASA marked the anniversary with a picture from the top of "Cape Tribulation" on the rim of 14-mile-wide Endeavour Crater. The image shows a U.S. flag printed on one of Opportunity's tools, a memorial to victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.In other recent news from Mars, NASA reported that its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has found the United Kingdom's Beagle 2 Mars Lander, which was considered lost after its touchdown on Dec. 25, 2003.The images showed the small lander had partially deployed its solar arrays."Every Christmas Day since 2003 I have wondered what happened to Beagle 2," said Mark Sims of the University of Leicester, U.K. "The images show that we came so close to achieving the goal of science on Mars."ANALYSIS: Space Station maintaining orbit – for nowDan Thisdell - FlightglobalThe International Space Station has been the focal point of human spaceflight activity for so long now that the outpost can seem like a permanent, if remote, feature of our planet. While not as significant as, say, Hawaii or New Zealand, the ISS is better known than any number of smaller rocks and islands and, at a little more than 400km (250 miles) altitude, closer than most of them – depending on where one starts from.The ISS certainly feels like a permanent fixture from a budgetary perspective. One estimate of the total programme cost over the 30 years from its beginnings through 2015 stands at $150 billion. That's some $5 billion per year spread unevenly between partners NASA, Roscosmos and the European, Canadian and Japanese space agencies – or a bit less than the gross domestic product of the Isle of Man.Whether that is a lot or a little depends on one's view of the importance of human spaceflight (not to mention of a lightly populated island in the Irish Sea), and it is important to note that the heavy costs of actually building the station are largely in the past. Nevertheless, as the station approaches the 15th anniversary of its first crew arrival, it is not surprising that the money to keep the ISS flying should be as widely discussed as its ongoing contribution to scientific knowledge or its status as an icon of international co-operation. In short, while the engineers reckon the station could function safely through to 2028, the politicians have not said for sure that they will keep paying for it through to 2020, the end-point of the current ISS operating agreement.A year ago, the White House gave NASA the word that it would support the extension of the US commitment to the ISS through to at least 2024. But that extension costs nothing yet, and is dependent on the other ISS partners joining in.As things stand, 2020 remains an unfunded statement of intent. When the heads of the ISS partner agencies met in Paris in November 2014, they "reaffirmed their support for continued ISS operations" with inspiring declarations about how the station "benefits all of humanity" by "enhancing international co-operation and understanding" and driving innovations ranging "from biomedical breakthroughs to new materials and technologies". But while they "noted the US commitment to extend ISS utilisation to at least 2024 [and] the ongoing work by other governments for a similar extension", they neither came to the meeting nor left with any firm funding formula.The challenge was well summed up a month earlier by NASA administrator Charles Bolden on the sidelines of the Royal Aeronautical Society's 2014 space conference in London. All the partners, he says, are looking for ways to convince their governments to continue ISS funding. And, he stresses, the programme still needs the commitment of all its members through 2020, then to 2024.And, added Bolden at the time, a key date to watch was 2 December 2014, when government ministers from the European Space Agency's member states were to meet in Luxembourg to negotiate budgets. During the event, that ministerial meeting provided somewhat equivocal support for the ISS. The meeting's resolution described the agreed "binding financial commitment" as "an essential step in fulfilling [member states'] pledge to work towards ensuring Europe's continued participation in ISS co-operation up to the end of 2020". With financial pain palpable in Europe and several member states preparing for general elections in 2015, while others – notably Italy – are only a crisis away from an election, it can be expected but not firmly assumed that all of ESA's governments will keep writing cheques. There was no mention of 2024.Complicating the situation is Russia, and in particular the deteriorating – or at least unstable – state of relations between the Bear and the West. As 2014 drew to a close, Russian state news agency TASS reported that while 2020 had been agreed and 2024 was under discussion, deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin had declared that, to Moscow, there was no "commercial" reason for sticking with the ISS past 2020. Meanwhile, reports TASS, two new Russian modules being built for the ISS – and set for launch in 2017 and 2018-2019 – would not be attached to the ISS until Roscosmos decides on its post-2020 plans. If that sounds like a classic catch-22, TASS quotes Roscosmos chief Oleg Ostapenko saying that the two modules could be used as part of a new Russian space station.Meanwhile, the diplomatic stand-off over events on the ground in Ukraine is understood to be delaying any decision about Russian participation in the ISS.2020 VISIONIf Russia does decide to have its own space station – and start building it later this decade – the prospects for the ISS to continue beyond 2020 would have to seem dim. An engineering lifespan to 2028 notwithstanding, NASA's 2024 concept is probably the limit for ISS operations, given its longer-term planning around a human mission to Mars in about 2035. As one of Bolden's deputies, William Gerstenmaier, put it in response to the Obama administration's January 2014 nod to run the station through 2024: "I really see the space station as the first step in exploration. It is gaining us operational experience in a distant location, well beyond the Earth."Those are the kinds of experience, technology and hardware that we need to go to Mars, so all that feeds forward."That vision was fleshed out later in the year to another RAeS audience by NASA chief scientist Ellen Stofan, who described ISS operations as the first phase in an international and "stepwise plan" for reaching Mars. That plan sees the ISS as a platform that supports research into issues like the medical implications of microgravity living without exposing astronauts to the hazards of deep space.A second phase should begin in the early 2020s, and at that point, says Stofan, it is assumed that a winding-down of ISS spending will free up cash for more ambitious missions to the space between the Earth and Moon. These would test our ability to live and work in deep space while still having what she calls the "safety valve" of being able to return home in a few days, rather than the eight or nine months it would take to return from Mars.The idea is to start with a mission, probably robotic and maybe as soon as 2023, to bring an asteroid from far beyond the Moon and "park" it at a Lagrange point between the Earth and Moon, where the two bodies' gravities balance. An asteroid could sit at such a point in a stable orbit, and hence be accessible for study by astronauts – who in addition to doing research on a space rock, would be testing operational techniques and technologies that would, in principle, open the way to a further phase of "Mars-ready" development.That so-called "Mars roadmap" may be led by NASA, but it is not a NASA invention; the various space station partners are all aboard, and all stress that nothing significant can be achieved by any one of them acting alone – even by NASA, which has the biggest budget. However, to assume that the Mars plan will continue to clear technical, budgetary and political hurdles may be a big assumption.As ever, politics cannot be disconnected from human spaceflight. Whatever may come in Moscow or European capitals, when a new US administration takes office early in 2017, it may – as the Obama administration did – revisit the long-term NASA plan. Coming to office just after the onset of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, it was no surprise that President Obama cut the legs off of George W Bush's Constellation programme, with its centrepiece of a return to the Moon by 2020. Constellation was axed in part because it was deemed unaffordable, and it was replaced by the longer-term vision of studying an asteroid and eventually visiting Mars. Significantly, that Obama space plan satisfied the American public's desire to feel like the nation was blazing trails in the cosmos without actually committing too much in the way of heavy near-term spending. NASA's budget has been held steady at about $17 billion yearly.One survivor from Constellation is the Space Launch System rocket programme which, if completed, will be the most powerful launcher ever and could fly as early as 2018. SLS, once jokingly referred to as the Senate Launch System for persisting more to satisfy lawmakers' needs for a glory project than for any obvious operational purpose, stands today as, literally, the motor behind NASA's ambitions for a manned Mars mission in about 2035.Also escaping the Obama chop was the Lockheed Martin-built Orion capsule, which starred in an apparently flawless December 2014 maiden test flight. With a service module being developed by Airbus Defence & Space, based on its Automated Transfer Vehicle robotic ISS resupply ship, Orion promises – with the SLS behind it – to take four astronauts to deep space from the early 2020s.Alternatively, the SLS-Orion combination could carry six astronauts to low Earth orbit – to, say, the ISS. By the time Orion is ready to carry crew, however, that role will be filled by two other US spacecraft. By then, both the Boeing CST-100 and the SpaceX Dragon capsules – commissioned by NASA under its so-called Commercial Crew programme – will have come online to restore the human launch capability lost with the retirement of the Space Shuttle fleet in 2011.Neither CST-100 nor Dragon – nor the Dream Chaser mini-shuttle being developed by Sierra Nevada, which was not selected for the final phase of Commercial Crew – are capable of the deep space missions planned for Orion. NASA, therefore, can look forward to a virtual embarrassment of riches when it comes to crew launch capability, which will surely be a big improvement on the past several years, during which it has had to buy rides on Russian Soyuz rockets to get its astronauts to the space station.But it is also possible that, less than a decade from now, NASA may find itself with a stable full of spacecraft and nowhere to send them. Even if the Mars plan keeps moving forward, there is not much time to achieve the technically ambitious asteroid redirect mission by the time the ISS era ends in 2024. If the asteroid plan falls foul of money or politics, or if ISS co-operation ends in 2020, or both, quite a few astronauts could find themselves all dressed up with no place to go.Giving back in Brevard: Astronaut dinner, BSO auction on tapSara Paulson – Florida TodaySome of the local happenings across the Space Coast's philanthropic community:Astronauts dinner to aid museumThe U.S. Space Walk of Fame's Annual Dinner with Astronauts is set for Thursday at the Suntree Country Club.The event will include a 5:30 p.m. social in the Cabana Room and dinner at 7 p.m. and features a live auction with auctioneer Sheriff Wayne Ivey.Astronauts pegged to appear at the event include Wendy Lawrence, Barbara Morgan, Fred Haise, Bob Crippen, Mike McCulley, Greg Johnson and Jon McBride.A sample of live auction items include an Alabama signed football by Bear Bryant, signed George Foreman boxing gloves, dinner with astronauts Bob Crippen and Mike McCulley, an Atlantis tour with astronaut Jon McBride, Scotch tasting with astronaut Bob Springer and signed space items.Cost is $150 per person. Sponsorship are available starting at $250 per person. All proceeds benefit the Space Walk of Fame Museum.RSVP to Karan Conklin at 321-264-0434.Event benefits BSOEnjoy an evening of fine wines, dinner, and silent and live auction items to benefit the Brevard Symphony Orchestra.The BSO will host Symphony for the Palate No. 9 at 6 p.m. Jan. 31 at Suntree Country Club, 1 Country Club Drive, Melbourne. Valet parking is available. Cost is $250 per person, with sponsorships starting at $500. Contact the BSO Office for information and reservations at 321-242-2024.JPMF awards RN scholarshipJess Parrish Medical Foundation awarded the 2014 Karla Foster, RN, Memorial Scholarship of $3,000 to Nicole Jordan.The scholarship was established by Doug Foster in memory of his wife, Karla, who was killed in 2006 by a hit and run driver. Karla had been a nurse at Parrish Medical Center for more than 22 years."I'm sincerely grateful to Jess Parrish Medical Foundation for awarding me with this scholarship, which will help me pay for tuition and achieve my goal of becoming a Registered Nurse," Jordan, who is pursuing her bachelor's degree at Adventist University of Health Sciences, said in a statement. "Nursing is not a burden, but a passion and a calling. I am so honored to receive this scholarship and to carry on the legacy of Karla Foster through my commitment to compassionate and holistic nursing care."Learn more about the foundation at at 321-269-4066 or visit parrishmedRace helps abused, neglected kidsFriends of Children of Brevard is hosting the third annual Super Hero 5K on Jan. 31 at the Church at Viera.All proceeds benefit abused, abandoned and neglected children of Brevard County and support the Guardian ad Litem Program.The race starts at 8 a.m. at the church, 9005 North Wickham Road, Viera, and a free kids run starts at 9:15 a.m.Late registration ends at 7:45 a.m. Jan. 31. Registration is $30. Visit friendsofchildrenofbrevard.org/superhero/ for more information.Golf tourney helps hungry childrenThe Children's Hunger Project is planning an inaugural Golf Tournament in May."18 Holes for 18 Kids" will be held May 9 at Duran Golf Club in Viera with an 8 a.m. shotgun start on the Championship Course.The goal is to raise money to expand the number of kids that can be helped during the 2015-16 school year. Eighteen elementary school-age kids will be added to the weekend food program for each hole that's sponsored."The funds will enable us to expand our recent growth to the Titusville area and to provide a package of weekend food for kids in the middle and southern part of the county that are currently on a waiting list at their school," Executive Director Bob Barnes said in a statement.If full sponsorship can be achieved, The Children's Hunger Project will add 324 additional Brevard County kids to the weekend food program. Learn more at thechildrenshungerproject.org.For those interested in sponsorship opportunities and/or to participate as a donor or player, email golf@thechildrenshungerproject.org.Asteroid swings very near Earth: Are you up for a midnight viewing?Amy Hubbard – Los Angeles TimesAn asteroid five football fields wide will make a near-Earth flyby on Monday, and you may be able to see it at the witching hour with a pair of strong binoculars.Late Monday -- particularly at midnight -- will be prime time for trying to catch a glimpse of asteroid 2004 BL86, said the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Paul Chodas. This celestial body won't be so close again for at least 200 more years.Scientists in Pasadena will be tracking the asteroid with radar. They expect to ascertain its exact size and make out boulders and other surface features."The images should be spectacular," said Chodas, manager of the NASA Near Earth Objects program office at JPL.He emphasized that the asteroid would not pose a danger to Earth -- at least not for a few hundred years."We know its trajectory well. ... It's worth keeping an eye on in future centuries when it could come even closer."How difficult will it be to spot the asteroid? A bit, but it's doable."An experienced amateur astronomer can find it for sure," Chodas said, "because it's moving in the sky."The asteroid will be traveling about 35,000 miles per hour and at its closest will be 745,000 miles from our planet, or about three times as far away as the moon.California sky watchers who really want to spot the asteroid should rely on a star chart and travel to a nice, dark spot, away from city lights.Chodas said JPL stargazers head for Mount Wilson or take Angeles Crest Highway into Angeles National Forest."I would recommend getting up over the first ridge," Chodas said, "you have to block out the lights of L.A."L.A. Times Science staffers say awesome Southern California stargazing spots include Joshua Tree and Anza-Borrego parks.The asteroid "will be not too far from Jupiter, which is very bright in the sky," Chodas said, and will rise at sunset, reaching its highest point around midnight."It's just a point of light," Chodas said, "so it doesn't look much different from other stars -- but the point is it doesn't belong. This star that shouldn't be there, that's the asteroid."With a telescope, he added, observers might be able to detect the asteroid moving.NASA Spacecraft Almost to Pluto: Smile for the Camera!Marcia Dunn – APIt's showtime for Pluto.NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has traveled 3 billion miles and is nearing the end of its nine-year journey to Pluto. Sunday, it begins photographing the mysterious, unexplored, icy world once deemed a planet.The first pictures will reveal little more than bright dots — New Horizons is still more than 100 million miles from Pluto. But the images, taken against star fields, will help scientists gauge the remaining distance and keep the baby grand piano-sized robot on track for a July flyby.It is humanity's first trip to Pluto, and scientists are eager to start exploring."New Horizons has been a mission of delayed gratification in many respects, and it's finally happening now," said project scientist Hal Weaver of Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory."It's going to be a sprint for the next seven months, basically, to the finish line," he said Friday. "We can't wait to turn Pluto into a real world, instead of just a little pixelated blob."Launched from Cape Canaveral in January 2006 on a $700 million mission, New Horizons awoke from its last hibernation period early last month. Flight controllers have spent the past several weeks getting the spacecraft ready for the final but most important leg of its journey."We have been working on this project, some people, for over a quarter of their careers, to make this mission happen," said project manager Glen Fountain of the Applied Physics Lab, "and now we're about to hit the mother lode."The spacecraft's long-range reconnaissance imager will take hundreds of pictures of Pluto over the coming months. It snapped pictures last summer, before going into hibernation, but these new ones should be considerably brighter. It will be a few days before the new images are beamed back to Earth; scientists expect to release them publicly in early February.By May, New Horizons' photos should equal and then surpass the ones taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, with pictures of the plutoid and its moons improving with each passing day.The real payoff will come when New Horizons flies by Pluto on July 14 at a distance of 7,700 miles and speed of nearly 31,000 mph. It will whip past Charon, Pluto's largest moon, from 18,000 miles out.Scientists have no idea, really, what Pluto looks like way out in the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune's orbit, home to little icy objects galore.Pluto is the biggest object in the Kuiper Belt. Together with mega-moon, Charon, roughly half Pluto's size, the two orbs could fit inside the United States with room to spare. Five moons have been found so far around Pluto. More could be lurking out there, awaiting discovery by New Horizons.The Applied Physics Lab in Laurel, Maryland, designed and built New Horizons, and is now managing the mission for NASA.Pluto was still officially a planet, No. 9 in the solar system lineup, when New Horizons departed Earth. It was the only planet in our solar system yet to be explored. But seven months later, the International Astronomical Union stripped Pluto of its planethood, classifying it instead as a dwarf planet. Later came the term, plutoid.Some scientists are hoping Pluto's upcoming close-up — and expected cosmic buzz — may prompt the group to reverse its decision. The nature of science, after all, is fluid, as even the astronomical union maintains.Streator, Illinois, — hometown of Pluto's discoverer, the late astronomer Clyde Tombaugh — already has declared 2015 the "Year of Pluto." Tombaugh spotted Pluto in 1930.New Horizons may, indeed, "turn the tide in some people's opinions into the other camp," Weaver said. "But that's not really so important."More important, he said, is finding out "what does Pluto really look like."Mars Rover Opportunity Marks 11-Year Anniversary with Stunning PhotoMike Wall - Space.comNASA's Opportunity rover celebrated 11 years on Mars Saturday (Jan. 24), and the robot's handlers are marking the occasion with a gorgeous panoramic photo that Opportunity took of its Red Planet home.Opportunity landed on Mars on the night of Jan. 24, 2004, a few weeks after its twin, Spirit, made its Red Planet debut. The rovers were tasked with three-month missions to search for signs of past water activity on the Red Planet. Both Spirit and Opportunity found plenty of such evidence, and then kept rolling long after their warranties expired.Spirit stopped communicating with Earth in 2010 and was declared dead a year later, but Opportunity is still going strong. The robot has been exploring the rim of the 14-mile-wide (22 kilometers) Endeavour Crater since August 2011, and it crested a rise on the rim known as Cape Tribulation earlier this month. [Latest Mars Rover Photos from Opportunity & Spirit]Opportunity took a number of photos with its panoramic camera while at the summit of Cape Tribulation. Mission team members combined some of these images into a mosaic, which NASA released Thursday (Jan. 22) to mark the 11-year anniversary.Opportunity held its robotic arm so that a small American flag printed on the rover would be visible in the photos, NASA officials said."The flag is printed on the aluminum cable guard of the rover's rock abrasion tool, which is used for grinding away weathered rock surfaces to expose fresh interior material for examination," agency officials wrote in a description of the image. "The flag is intended as a memorial to victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center in New York.""The aluminum used for the cable guard was recovered from the site of the twin towers in the weeks following the attacks," they added. "Workers at Honeybee Robotics in lower Manhattan, less than a mile from the World Trade Center, were making the rock abrasion tool for Opportunity and NASA's twin Mars Exploration Rover, Spirit, in September 2001."Opportunity isn't celebrating the anniversary atop Cape Tribulation. The rover left the location on Jan. 17 to head for a spot mission scientists dubbed Marathon Valley, because Opportunity will have traveled the equivalent of a marathon — 26.2 miles, or 42.2 km — on Mars by the time it gets there.Opportunity's odometer currently reads 25.86 miles (41.62 km). The rover has driven farther on the surface of another world than any other vehicle. Opportunity broke the off-world driving record last year; it had been held by the former Soviet Union's remote-controlled Lunokhod 2 rover, which racked up 24.2 miles (39 km) on the moon in 1973.While Opportunity is still a highly capable machine, the golf-cart-size rover is showing some signs of age. Its robotic arm is a bit arthritic, for example, and Opportunity recently began having issues with its flash memory — the kind that can store data even when the power is off. Mission team members are testing out some potential software fixes for the memory problem.The leap second, deep space and how we keep timeEliza Mills - MarketplaceYou may have heard on the news or the internet about a very, very small leap that's coming. It's the leap second. Yeah, not year. Second.On June 30th, all clocks around the world will add one second to their time. Why? The short version is that it brings clocks into sync with the movement of the earth.For centuries we've measured time based on how the earth revolves around the sun. But the way our planet moves is weird. Earth wobbles, and sometimes solar time gets strays from the much more precise, human-made measurement: atomic time.The solution? Every few years add or subtract a second on atomic clocks to bring everything back into alignment. The Paris Observatory, home to the International Earth Rotation and References Systems Service, determines when a leap second will be added -- when atomic time is .6 seconds or more off from solar time on earth. Since 1972, there have been 25 leap seconds.To most people, a leap second is a pretty small thing. But for machines and computers, it can cause big problems... when all of a sudden there's an extra second in a minute, a computing clock's entire world can be thrown out of whack. In 1998, the leap second caused cell phone outages. In 2012, it lead to crashes on websites that ran on Linux and Java -- Mozilla, Reddit, Foursquare, Yelp, LinkedIn, and StumbleUpon all reported leap second-related issues.Some critics worry about problems with navigation, or energy. But it turns out that if you prepare for a leap second, it's fairly manageable. Google planned for the 2012 second with a workaround that it called a "leapsmear," introducing the leap by the millisecond so that it wasn't even noticable. Apple seems to have fared similarly well.And for NASA, a company for which time, down to the second, and even the nanosecond, is crucial, the leap second is no big deal. At NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratories in California, researchers spend a lot of time thinking about, well, time. Robert Tjoelker, co-investigator on NASA's Deep Space Atomic Clock Mission, says that their master clock system is "carefully designed to accommodate the leap second."Their enormous master clock in California, one of three around the world, even has a box to mark the leap second. Once the leap second is initiated, the clock will add time, nanosecond by nanosecond, so there's no change in the timing system's continuity."Atomic clocks on the GPS satellites have to be very reliable, and have to be very accurate, because you're building a navigation system that is used everywhere on the earth," Tjoelker says, "similarly, in space, we could not track our spacecraft if we didn't accommodate the leap second."In unexplored areas of deep space, like the places the deep space atomic clock will eventually go, these second, and teeny, tiny fractions of seconds, make a big difference."There are no signposts when you travel in deep space, and so the only mechanism, really, for navigation, is sending signals back and forth between the spacecraft."NASA wants to launch atomic clocks into deep space to improve their navigation systems and communications between earth and space. The deep space atomic clock that they're building at JPL is advanced enough to speed up communications times by double, because instead of sending signals back and forth, it will send them directly from the spacecraft to earth.And even that clock, one of the most sensitive, accurate clocks in the universe, will account for the leap second.There's still some pushback about the leap second, but Tjoelker says that as long as changes to universal time are transparent and widely known, there shouldn't be any problems. It's not necessarily the leap second throwing computer systems off, it's preparedness.Tjoelker says that for his team at JPL, whether or not the leap second is abolished doesn't matter too much, as long as everyone is aware. "This was an arbitrary definition based upon international agreements, it is just a construct of time, just as time zones are, daylight savings time... the actual offset of time is relative and the main goal of time synchronization is that everybody's clocks are ticking together."NASA Marching Towards Milestone Test Firing of Space Launch System BoosterKen Kremer – Universe TodayThe first solid rocket booster qualification motor for NASA's mammoth new Space Launch System (SLS) rocket is aimed and ready to fire in a major ground test after NASA and ATK finished its installation at a test stand in Utah, and confirms that the pace of SLS development is gaining momentum.The booster known as qualification motor, QM-1, is the largest solid rocket motor ever built and will be ignited on March 11 for a full duration static fire test by prime contractor ATK at the firms test facility in Promontory, Utah.The two minute test firing of the full scale booster marks another major milestone in NASA's ongoing program to assemble and launch the new SLS, which is the most powerful rocket ever built in human history.The QM-1 booster is being conditioned to 90 degrees and the static fire test will qualify the booster design for high temperature launch conditions. It sits horizontally in the test stand and measures 154 feet in length and 12 feet in diameter and weighs 801 tons.The five-segment booster will produce 3.6 million pounds of maximum thrust.The first stage of the SLS will be powered by a pair of the five-segment boosters and four RS-25 engines that will generate a combined 8.4 million pounds of liftoff thrust and is designed to propel the Orion crew capsule to deep space destinations, including the Moon, asteroids and the Red Planet."With RS-25 engine testing underway, and this qualification booster firing coming up, we are taking big steps toward building this rocket and fulfilling NASA's mission of Mars and beyond," said SLS Program Manager Todd May."This is the most advanced propulsion system ever built and will power this rocket to places we've never reached in the history of human spaceflight."NASA's goal is to launch humans to Mars by the 2030s.The RS-25 engine fires up for a 500-second test Jan. 9, 2015 at NASA's Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. Credit: NASAThe boosters and RS-25 engines were originally developed for NASA's space shuttle program and are being modified and enhanced for NASA's new SLS rocket.The original shuttle-era boosters were made of four segments."Testing before flight is critical to ensure reliability and safety when launching crew into space," said Charlie Precourt, vice president and general manager of ATK's Space Launch division."The QM-1 static test is an important step in further qualifying this new five-segment solid rocket motor for the subsequent planned missions to send astronauts to deep space."The static fire test will collect data on 103 design objectives as measured through more than 534 instrumentation channels on the booster as it is firing. It is being preheated to 90 degrees Fahrenheit to measure the boosters performance at high temperatures and confirm it meets all necessary structural and ballistic requirements to launch astronauts.The test will evaluate motor performance, acoustics, motor vibrations, nozzle modifications, insulation upgrades and avionics command and control performance. The full-scale motor test will further improve the safety, technology and knowledge of solid rocket motors, according to ATK.The first SLS hot fire test of an RS-25 was successfully completed on Jan. 9 with a 500 second long firing on the A-1 test stand at NASA's Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, as I reported – here.The SLS core stage is being built at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans.On Sept. 12, 2014, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden officially unveiled the world's largest welder at Michoud, that will be used to construct the core stage, as I reported earlier during my on-site visit – here.The maiden test flight of the SLS is targeted for no later than November 2018 and will be configured in its initial 70-metric-ton (77-ton) version with a liftoff thrust of 8.4 million pounds. It will boost an unmanned Orion on an approximately three week long test flight beyond the Moon and back.NASA plans to gradually upgrade the SLS to achieve an unprecedented lift capability of 130 metric tons (143 tons), enabling the more distant missions even farther into our solar system.The first SLS test flight with the uncrewed Orion is called Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1) and will launch from Launch Complex 39-B at the Kennedy Space Center.Orion's inaugural mission dubbed Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT) was successfully launched on a flawless flight on Dec. 5, 2014 atop a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket Space Launch Complex 37 (SLC-37) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.ENDMore at www.spacetoday.net
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